Free Heretic Queen by Susan Ronald Page B

Church,” by the end of his papacy Gregory XIII (1572–85) would be hailed by Catholics as a “Vice-God … greater and more excellent than a man.” 7 For now, all that mattered to Catherine de’ Medici was that the new pope give his dispensation to allow Henry of Navarre to marry Marguerite, his cousin in the third degree. With assurances from Catherine to Gregory XIII that the union was part of a master plan she had devised to keep Charles IX from going to war against Spain, the Pope assented to the marriage. It was the first important international action of his papacy.
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    Meanwhile, Louis of Nassau prepared to expand the Sea Beggars’ bridgehead beyond Brielle. In the late spring, he approached Walsingham to ensure that Elizabeth would do no more than “allow Walloon refugees in England to buy provisions and to come over to him” in the Netherlands. No money was required. Walsingham had reported separately that Charles IX would be providing Nassau with all that he could wish. 8 Burghley replied that “we have suffered as many of the strangers (Netherlanders) to depart from hence as would, but that is but a simple help.” 9 Burghley was alluding to Elizabeth’s adventurers who were itching to become involved in the fray.
    Then, on June 9, shortly after arriving in Paris to assist with her son’s wedding plans, Jeanne, already ravaged by illness, died aged only forty-four. Though there was talk of poison, the autopsy result seemed to indicate that she had been suffering from tuberculosis and most likely breast cancer. Prince Henry was now King Henry of Navarre. Despite losing his mother, great protector, and mentor, Henry agreed to proceed with the wedding as planned by treaty in August.
    In early July, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, armed with a passport personally endorsed by Elizabeth, crossed the Channel with a large company of English volunteers to help liberate the Netherlands. If confronted, Elizabeth would, as was her custom with all her adventurers, disavow any knowledge of his actions. Notwithstanding, Gilbert’s “instructions” were quite clear—occupy Flushing and Sluys, the two remaining significant coastal towns. Above all, Gilbert was to prevent Admiral Coligny from possessing them. So much for the Treaty of Blois. Elizabeth was finally up for a fight. What had provoked Elizabeth into action was the clear eye with which she viewed Catherine’s machinations across Europe. What the desired reaction to Alba’s tyranny against the Calvinists had failed to provoke, Catherine’s insatiable ambition did.
    The beauty of the Gilbert plan was that to ambitious French eyes, Elizabeth was simply carrying out the terms of the Blois Treaty. Smith reported back to London that everyone at court was pleased. “Matters in Flanders begin to wax hot,” Smith wrote later that month, “and the beginning of next month … the brood hereabouts will be fledged.” 10
    Leicester had been told that Nassau’s forces numbered around five thousand foot soldiers, most of them from Gascony, and twelve hundred horsemen. William of Orange, who had over four thousand horse, would be invading from the east. Meanwhile, Charles prevaricated. The official story was that he would not loose Coligny on the Low Countries until the Turks had been attacked in the eastern Mediterranean. Yet both Anjou and Catherine were dead set against France appearing to take part directly in the invasion. Meanwhile, Anjou in the wings, ever more attached to the fanatical Catholic creed and the Guise faction, seethed at Coligny’s increasingly unbreakable influence on his brother the king. Catherine, too, allowed her mother’s jealousy at being usurped by Coligny to rise. She saw the growing danger in the aging admiral’s hold over her son.
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    Walsingham saw through all these factors and Charles’s ruse.