| 2 |
Mendoza had been operated upon for cataract some years before, but had become
worse as time went on. For many months before this letter he had been ill with
worry and anxiety, owing to his invidious position as representative of the Catholic King
to Henry III., who was in arms against the League. In his private letters to Idiaquez
his complaints were constant. He was, he said, in hourly danger of assassination,
insulted by the King and his Huguenot courtiers, without money for pressing needs,
and so blind that he can only just see objects dimly as through a dark glass. |
| 3 |
Mendoza had followed the King for some time, staying at Blois, St. Dié, and other
places, but in January, 1589, he conceived the idea that Henry III. intended to have
him assassinated. He therefore left St. Dié to be near the King's person at Blois, and
to ask that a fitting lodging should be appointed for him there. The King appointed
for the purpose the Castle of Arnault, two leagues off, which Mendoza says is far
away and isolated ; and he refused to go thither, begging for a lodging at Blois, about
which some difficulty was raised, which confirmed Mendoza's suspicions that evil was
intended to him. He then feigned a necessity to go to Havre, to see about the galleass,
but he was formally forbidden to leavé Court by Henry III. He then went (21st
January) to a village near Blois called the Chaussée de St. Victor. "I am," he said
to the King, "here serving you as best I can, but wherever I am there is sure to be a
storm and I am running under close reefed sails fore and aft" ; to which Philip
appends a note, asking what he means. Shortly afterwards he fled to Paris, and
Henry III. said that in future he must regard him as an enemy. Mendoza was as
haughty as the King, and refused to make any advances towards a reconciliation,
although he was urged to do so by Philip and Idiaquez. In June Mendoza's favourite
old servant, Hans Oberholtzer, with despatches, was captured by the French King's
forces whilst on his way to Spain, as it was asserted that Mendoza had forfeited his
privileges as an ambassador. The servant was captured only two posts from Paris by
count de la Rochefoucauld, and was claimed by Bearn as a prisoner of war. Mendoza
wrote to Henry threatening him with the vengeance of his master ; whom he urged to
imprison Longlée and Forget, the French envoys in Spain. But Henry was as determined
as Mendoza and the latter had, with a bad grace, to give an apologetic explanation of
his conduct before Oberholtzer was released ; although then the French King said it was
only to please Philip and not his ambassador. Mendoza's position in June had become
really so impossible as Spanish representative near Henry III. that Philip suggested that
another envoy should be sent for that purpose, whilst Mendoza remained in Paris. But
Mendoza was fractious and angry, and said that the moment such an envoy entered
France he would retire, come what might. It was therefore arranged in July that the
duke of Medina Celi should go to the King, ostensibly to condole for the recent death
of his mother, and Mendoza might then retire without loss of dignity. But on the
2nd August Henry was assassinated, and Mendoza was obliged to stay on, writing all
the autumn violent, angry letters to Idiaquez, chafing at the delay. Then came the
siege of Paris, and he could not get away. During the siege the old soldier's spirit
came back. Blind and ill as he was, he was the mainstay of the defence of the
beleaguered capital, exhorting the soldiers, visiting the outposts, feeding the famished,
and giving advice to the defenders. |