dvantage by forcing an action which might
lose for him all that he had gained. In the pause, the conviction came
slowly over both, that there was no need for further bloodshed, and
that the {p.313} long, weary, profitless war might at last have an
end. A mighty revolution had passed over Europe since Francis first
led an army over the Alps. The world had passed into a new era; and
the question of strength had to be tried, not any more between
Spaniard and Frenchman, but between Protestant and Catholic. Already
the disciples of Calvin threatened the Church of France; Holland was
vexing the superstition of Philip, and the Protestants in Scotland
were breaking from the hand of Mary of Guise: more and more the
Catholic princes felt the want of a general council, that the
questions of the day might be taken hold of firmly, and the
Inquisition be set to work on some resolute principle of concert.

On September 21, the emperor passed away in his retirement at St.
Just. With him perished the traditions and passions of which he was
the last representative, and a new page was turning in the history of
mankind. Essential ground of quarrel between Henry and Philip there
was none; the outward accidental ground--the claims on Milan and
Naples, Savoy and Navarre--had been rendered easy of settlement by the
conquest of Calais, and by the marriage which was consummated a few
weeks after Guise's victory, between the Dauphin and the Queen of
Scots.

Satisfied with the triumph of a policy which had annexed the crown of
Scotland to France, and with having driven the English by main
strength from their last foothold on French soil, Henry could now be
content to evacuate Savoy and Piedmont, if Philip, on his side, would
repeat the desertion of Crepy, and having brought England into the
war, would leave her to endure her own losses, or avenge them by her
single strength. With this secret meaning on the part of France, an
overture for a peace was commenced in the autumn of 1558, through the
mediation of the Duchess of Lorraine. An armistice was agreed upon,
and the first conference was held at the abbey of Cercamp, where
Arundel, Wotton, and Thirlby attended as the representatives of
England.

How far Philip would consent to an arrangement so perfidious towards
the country of which he was the nominal sovereign, depended, first, on
the life of the queen. The titular King of England could by no fiction
or pretext relieve himself of the duties