y in favor of the match
between Elizabeth and the duke of Anjou, and, as a minister, spared no
pains to promote it.

Similar language was held on this subject both by Leicester and
Burleigh; but the former was perhaps no more in earnest on the subject
than his mistress; and finally all parties, except the French
protestants, who looked to the conclusion of these nuptials as their
best security, seem to have been not ill pleased when, the marriage
treaty being at length laid aside, a strict league of amity between the
two countries was agreed upon in its stead.

Splendid embassies were reciprocally sent to receive the ratifications
of this treaty; and Burleigh writes to a friend, between jest and
earnest, that an unexpected delay of the French ambassador was cursed by
all the husbands whose ladies had been detained at great expense and
inconvenience in London, to contribute to the splendor of the court on
his reception. On the 9th of June 1572 the duke de Montmorenci and his
suite at length arrived. His entertainment was magnificent; all seemed
peace and harmony between the rival nations; and Elizabeth even
instructed her ambassadors to give favorable ear to a hint which the
queen-mother had dropped of a matrimonial treaty between the queen of
England and her youngest son, the duke d'Alencon, who had then scarcely
attained the age of seventeen.

Lulled by these flattering appearances of tranquillity, her majesty set
out on her summer progress, and she was enjoying the festivities
prepared by Leicester for her reception at his splendid castle of
Kennelworth, when news arrived of the execrable massacre of Paris;--an
atrocity not to be paralleled in history! Troops of affrighted Hugonots,
who had escaped through a thousand perils with life, and life alone,
from the hands of their pitiless assassins, arrived on the English
coast, imploring the commiseration of their brother protestants, and
relating in accents of despair their tale of horrors. After such a
stroke, no one knew what to expect; the German protestants flew to
arms; even the subjects of Elizabeth trembled for their countrymen
travelling on the continent and for themselves in their island-home. The
pope applauded openly the savage deed; the court of Spain showed itself
united hand and heart with that of France,--to the astonishment of
Elizabeth, who had been taught to believe them at enmity;--and it seemed
as if the signal had been given of a general crusade ag