and whereas one privilege of the gentlemen of France was to be exempt
from taylles payable to the crown, they were made tayllable as any
other villains."[344]

[Footnote 344: Wotton to the Queen; cypher: _French
MSS. Mary_, bundle xi.]

From Dinant the French advanced to Namur. When Namur should have
fallen, Brussels was the next aim; and there was nothing, as it
seemed, which could stop them. The imperial army under the Prince of
Savoy could but hover, far outnumbered, on their skirts. The
reinforcements from Spain had not arrived, and a battle lost was the
loss of Belgium.

In the critical temper of England, a decisive superiority obtained by
France would be doubly dangerous; and Charles, seeing Philibert
perplexed into uncertain movements which {p.145} threatened
misfortune, disregarding the remonstrances of his physicians, his
ministers, and his generals, started from his sick bed, flew to the
head of his troops, and brought them to Namur, in the path of the
advancing French. Men said that he was rushing upon destruction. The
headstrong humour which had already worked him so heavy injury was
again dragging him into ruin.[345] But fortune had been disarmed by
the greatness with which Charles had borne up against calamity, or
else his supposed rashness was the highest military wisdom. Before
Henry came up he had seized a position at an angle of the Meuse, where
he could defend Namur, and could not be himself attacked, except at a
disadvantage. The French approached only to retire, and, feeling
themselves unable to force the imperial lines, fell back towards the
Boullonnois. Charles followed cautiously. An attack on Renty brought
on an action in which the French claimed the victory; but the emperor
held his ground, and the town could not be taken; and Henry's army,
from which such splendid results had been promised, fell back on the
frontier and dispersed. The voices which had exclaimed against the
emperor's rashness were now as loud in his praise, and the disasters
which he was accused of provoking, it was now found that he only had
averted.[346] Neither the {p.146} French nor the Imperialists, in
their long desperate struggle, can claim either approval or sympathy;
the sufferings which they inflicted upon mankind were not the less
real, the selfishness of their rivalry none the less reprehensible,
because the disunion of the Catholic powers permitted the Reformation
to establ