Chapter XXXV: Letter I

I had to undertake a second journey to Blois, on behalf of your Imperial Majesty’s sister the Queen of France (Elizabeth), and this has prevented my writing again as soon as usual, for I was hoping from day to day that my business would be settled one way or the other, and I should be free to depart. In this I was disappointed, and being unable to leave unfinished this business, which is of material importance to the Queen, I came at last to the conclusion that I must contrive to despatch a letter from here; and this I am now doing. When I was admitted to the King on the business to which I alluded, I took the opportunity of delivering to him your Imperial Majesty’s despatches; the few words with which I introduced the subject were to the effect, that your Imperial Majesty had heard on good authority that he was a party to his brother’s[114] (Alençon’s) expedition into the Netherlands, and that your Imperial Majesty did not believe the statement; but that, if it was true, such interference seriously affected the interests of your Majesty and the Electors of the Empire and could not be tolerated, as he would learn at greater length from your Imperial Majesty’s own letter. To this the King answered that he had no connection with his brother’s proceedings, as might be shown from the fact that the mischief done in the Netherlands was small in comparison to what it would have been if his brother had had his support in his late campaign. His brother, he added, was not in the habit of asking or taking his advice; besides, he was now causing more noise than harm; nay, if there was any ground of complaint it affected rather himself and his subjects, who had for months been harassed and plundered by his brother’s soldiers,[115] while the farmers of the Netherlands were left unscathed; he would see what your Majesty wrote, and would send a reply.

I refrained from answering at greater length, and in sharper language, out of regard to the Queen’s interest, which does not allow of my lightly incurring the displeasure of the French court. The King’s reply will reach your Majesty at the same time as this letter.

March 25, 1582.[116]