It was not Burghley nor Walsingham, but Elizabeth, who controlled the situation; and however strongly the ministers might express their private feelings to each other, they had to do as she told them. Her trickery met with its usual success. In due course, Henry of Anjou found that he could not accede to the demand for conformity, and in spite of his mother’s entreaties withdrew his suit; yet the business was so successfully managed that the French court, instead of being offended, very soon began to hint that the French king had yet another brother, the Duke of Alençon, whose hand and heart were not yet disposed of. So the play began again.
Meantime the complete revelation of the Ridolfi conspiracy brought conclusive proofs of the real hostility of Spain to Elizabeth. In the following spring (1572) the Netherlands were set ablaze once more by La Marck’s capture of Brille, and Alva found his hands full; a timely occurrence, since the crushing defeat of the Turks at Lepanto by Don John in October had greatly strengthened the hands of Philip. In the summer of 1572 Walsingham was more than ever convinced that a French marriage, and support on the most liberal scale to Orange, composed the policy which it was imperative for England to adopt. Everything was pointing to a Huguenot ascendency in France; Marguerite of Valois was on the point of marrying young Henry of Navarre, head of the Bourbons, and next in succession to the throne after the reigning king’s brothers. To play fast and loose with the Alençon marriage would alienate France; to play fast and loose with Orange would be to throw him into the arms of France alienated from England. That Philip, seeing England thus isolated, would cheerfully forgive and forget all that he had suffered, for the sake of an unstable union with her, was almost unthinkable. Yet the months went by, and the Ambassador could get no guidance even from the sympathetic Burghley, who was as much in the dark as ever as to Elizabeth’s real intentions.
But there was a factor in the situation of which on one had taken full account; not Walsingham, nor Burghley, nor Elizabeth; not the Huguenots; not Philip nor Alva. This was Catherine de Medici’s overwhelming lust of personal power, and the passion of jealousy accompanying it. She saw her ascendency over her son Charles IX. slipping away and passing into the hands of Coligny and his associates. For victory and vengeance, she prepared to commit, perhaps, the most appalling crime in the annals of Christian Europe. Paris was crowded with Huguenots gathered to celebrate the pact of amity, to be sealed by the wedding of the Béarnais and the sister of the king. Stealthily and swiftly the plans were laid, the plot organised, the preparations completed. The wedding took place on August 18: three days later, an unsuccessful attempt was made to murder Coligny. It may be that if the assassin had killed the Admiral, the huge tragedy which followed would have been averted; as it was, hours before the sun of St. Bartholomew’s day (August 24) had risen, the floodgates had been opened, and the streets of Paris were running red with rivers of Huguenot blood. During the following days, like scenes were being enacted through the provinces.