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The Prince of Bearne heretic, son of heretics, great chieftain of heretics was supposed capable of becoming orthodox whenever the Pope would accept his conversion. Against this possibility Philip struggled with all his strength. Since Pope Sixtus V., who had a weakness for Henry, there had been several popes. Urban VII., his immediate successor, had reigned but thirteen days.
At that very epoch Philip was occupied in reminding the pope that the two had always agreed as to the justice of the claims of the Infanta Isabella to the English crown, and calling on his Holiness to sustain those pretensions, now that she had been obliged, in consequence of the treaty with the Prince of Bearne, to renounce her right to reign over France.
And the Archduke Ernest, although he invited Mayenne to confer with him at Brussels, under the impression that he could still keep him and the Duke of Guise from coming to an arrangement with Bearne, hardly felt more confidence in the man than did Feria or Ybarra.
Especially he denied the necessity or the legality of an assembly of all the prelates of France, such as Henry desired to afford him the requisite "instruction" as to the respective merits of the Roman and the reformed Church. Certainly, he urged, the Prince of Bearne could hardly require instruction as to the tenets of either, seeing that at different times he had faithfully professed both.
The Duke of Nemours confessed that there were occasions when they never would have been able to sustain a determined onslaught, and they were daily expecting to see the Prince of Bearne battering triumphantly at their gates.
Feria wrote a despatch to the king, denouncing Mayenne as false, pernicious to the cause of Spain and of catholicism, thoroughly self- seeking and vile, and as now most traitorous to the cause of the confederacy, engaged in surrendering its strong places to the enemy, and preparing to go over to the Prince of Bearne.
He is a good Catholic and very firm in his purpose, but is so much opposed by his own party, that if I had not so stimulated him by hopes of his own grandeur, he would have grown desperate such small means has he of maintaining his party and, it is to be feared, he would have made arrangements with Bearne, who offers him carte-blanche."
He is a good Catholic and very firm in his purpose, but is so much opposed by his own party, that if I had not so stimulated him by hopes of his own grandeur, he would have grown desperate such small means has he of maintaining his party and, it is to be feared, he would have made arrangements with Bearne, who offers him carte-blanche."
All now depended on the pope, whom the League would always obey. If the pope would accept the reconciliation of the Prince of Bearne it was well. He, hoped that his conversion would be sincere. The least obstruction might prove fatal to both parties. Let the Leaguers now show that the serenity of their faces was but the mirror of their minds.
"If your Majesty will give men and money enough, he will undertake so to deal with Bearne that he shall not think himself safe in his own house."
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