- CSP foreign
Calendar of state papers, foreign series, of the reign of Elizabeth, ed. J. Stevenson et al., London 1965–7
- TNA
The National Archives
It seemed in 1561 as if France were the chief battleground on which the fate of the Reformation would be decided. Violence had already broken out between the champions of Catholic orthodoxy and the Calvinists, while the French crown, undermined by both sides, was unsure how to prevent the kingdom from being torn apart.Footnote 1 Several possible conclusions to this bewildering situation could be foreseen. The Protestants might be routed, and traditional Catholicism consolidated under the auspices of the conservatives. The Calvinists might emerge victorious, adding a bulwark to the cause of the Reformed Churches. Or the French crown could seek a moderating solution, which would reconcile (even if temporarily) the warring parties. Each of these scenarios would have enormous repercussions for Protestantism in England and, indeed, Europe. The Colloquy of Poissy is the point of focus for the analysis offered here. At this watershed in French history, the fates of the various confessional groupings were highly uncertain. Protestants in England were acutely aware of the importance of the events in France, and were corresponding with French Protestants in order to understand how the various contenders were placed. Yet English attitudes have not yet been subjected to sustained analysis. Nor has the place of English Protestantism in French thought been much studied. This article will shed light on these lacunae. In the process, it will show that the English strategy towards France reveals much about English self-consciousness as a member of an international Protestant community.
Since its inception, the Colloquy of Poissy has been the subject of intense dispute. The controversy centres upon the character and motives of one of its chief organisers – the cardinal of Lorraine. At the time of the conference, the cardinal was viewed with intense distrust by the Huguenots. Many felt that he was not honouring his avowed aim of directing the French Church towards pure worship, but was determined to weaken and divide the Reformed movement.Footnote 2 However, recent work has attempted to rehabilitate the cardinal and those who cooperated with him between 1561 and 1563. It has been suggested that he was sincere in his attempt to find a middle way that would win the assent of moderate Catholics and Protestants, and was prepared to risk his reputation to bring this about.Footnote 3 He made concrete offers (to introduce communion in both kinds and to celebrate the mass in the vernacular) which would have pushed French religion in a new direction. The cardinal's efforts have often been dismissed as futile, because they only served to frustrate both the Calvinists and the Catholic traditionalists. Recently, however, it has been argued that many in France fell somewhere between the confessional polarities of Protestantism and Catholicism.Footnote 4 These apparently anomalous groups may have provided a significant support-base for the cardinal's moderate programme. The line of interpretation advanced here accepts the recent arguments about the sincerity of the moderates at Poissy, whilst making no further claims about the viability of the colloquy.Footnote 5 The present investigation is not concerned to establish how close the Colloquy of Poissy came to success, but wishes to treat Poissy as a test case for Protestant attitudes towards negotiation and compromise. In particular, it aims to see what English observers made of the colloquy, how they assessed the prospects for further reformation in France, and what part they thought English religion should play in its promotion.
The background to Anglo-French relations and the emergence of Catherine de'Medici
The Elizabethan regime had every reason to regard the French situation with the utmost seriousness. By 1561 its survival had already been jeopardised by French intervention in the British Isles. It had long been the intention of Henri ii to shore up French influence in Britain as a means of balancing his kingdom's losses against Spain in Italy, and this policy harmonised with his protection of the Guise family at court.Footnote 6 Mary Queen of Scots, who was Mary of Guise's daughter, had a strong claim to the English throne which would be pressed through French military intervention. To cement this strategy, Henri ii had married his son, François, to Mary. Had everything gone according to plan, the monarchies of France, Scotland and England would have been linked in dynastic alliance. Although these aims had not been achieved by the time of Henri's death in 1559, the Guise family, increasingly dominant at court, remained wedded to the late king's quest for power in Britain.Footnote 7 When the Protestant nobles in Scotland rebelled against the regent in 1559, the Guises saw a chance to reinforce the French military presence in Scotland, with the ultimate aim of installing Mary Stuart on the English throne.Footnote 8 At Cecil's desperate urging, Elizabeth responded by invading Scotland. Helped by the death of the regent and waning French commitment, the English proved successful, temporarily offsetting the French threat, and laying the foundations for a longstanding alliance with the Scottish Protestants.Footnote 9 From this point on, the queen and her advisers were extremely wary of French intentions in regard to England.
Taking into account the foregoing phase of Anglo-French relations, it might appear inconceivable that the Elizabethan regime would react to the Colloquy of Poissy with anything other than intense suspicion. Mary Stuart's uncle, the cardinal of Lorraine, was, after all, an important influence at the colloquy. But there is more to the situation than first meets the eye. The death of François ii in December 1560 had opened up a fresh set of political perspectives in France: the fortunes of the Guises had waned, and the regent, Catherine de'Medici, had taken command of the monarchy.Footnote 10 The queen mother was suspicious of the Guises and the leaders of the Huguenot faction, for they had both held the French monarchy to ransom in their religious interests. The Colloquy of Poissy was Catherine's attempt to find a religious compromise, which would unite moderate Catholics and Protestants, and marginalise the zealots who had fractured loyalty to the French crown.Footnote 11 This policy was in stark contrast to the unwavering hostility shown by Henri ii and the Guise family towards the Protestants. The Elizabethan regime needed to consider how it would respond to Catherine's assumption of control in France.
Devising a strategy was by no means straightforward. Elizabeth and her advisers had difficulty in determining the extent to which they could trust Catherine and the extent to which she was genuinely independent of the Guises.Footnote 12 Their uncertainty is indicated in the reports of the English ambassador in Germany, Christopher Mundt. Mundt was resolutely hostile to the Guises; he had observed their efforts to recruit troops in Germany for the war effort in Scotland during 1560, and believed that it was their intention to efface Protestantism not just from England, but from Europe as a whole.Footnote 13 Even after their reverses at the hands of Catherine, the Guises retained a great deal of influence in France and were suspected of plotting to undermine Elizabeth by upholding Mary Stuart's claim to the English throne.Footnote 14 Nevertheless, Catherine's distrust of the Guises was grasped by diplomatic observers. In May 1561 Mundt passed on to Elizabeth the advice of the German princes, who encouraged her to cultivate relations with Catherine de'Medici. They hinted that Catherine might find an alliance with Elizabeth preferable to a reliance on Spanish aid.Footnote 15 In August 1561 it was reported to Elizabeth that the queen mother was seeking, with difficulty, to break free from the influence of the Guises.Footnote 16 There were some grounds, therefore, for the English to cooperate with the regent. By strengthening her the power of the Guise family could be held in check.Footnote 17
The Elizabethan regime could not afford to ignore the Colloquy of Poissy. It is true that the cardinal of Lorraine's influence at the conference was disquieting to Protestants, but he was not the only force in French politics at this time. Catherine de'Medici and Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre, were also heavily involved in proceedings, and they were not only antipathetic to the Guises, but were seen to be open-minded on religious reform. In his diplomatic mission to France in early 1560, the earl of Bedford was instructed to make a special appeal to Navarre, as a potential ally in the promotion of the Gospel. Bedford's conversations with Antoine indicate that the regime set some store by Navarre as a promoter of Protestant interests with the regent.Footnote 18 All this diplomatic evidence suggests that the English authorities had realised that there was a new potential for reformation in France by 1561. But they were not sure what part, if any, the Colloquy of Poissy would play in its promotion. As a way of gaining access to English attitudes, it may be helpful first to consider the possible outcomes of the French religious conflict in 1561. By setting out the options which confronted English observers, some remarks can be made about the spectrum of Protestant opinion.
The prospects for reform at Poissy
It seemed evident enough that the promotion of the Reformation in France would work to England's advantage. Writing to Cecil in August 1561, Archbishop Parker succinctly articulated the reasons:
yf we al were as careful to helpe the reedifyeng of so grete a churche as fraunce is to christ agayn beside the commedyte which shulde redouwne to that realme, it cowd not but torne to owr own quyet at home: to have more frends in coniunction of religion, which is of more force to bynd amytye durable in menys harts than al externe worldly policyes whatsoever.Footnote 19
It was far from clear, however, how this reformation was to be achieved. Was a fully-fledged Reformed settlement to be imposed immediately by the French crown? Was it to be won through military conflict? Or was a moderate settlement to be used as a half-way house towards further Reformation? The first option had the most to recommend it to English Protestants, but it was also the least likely. Parker himself was eager for Calvin and Peter Martyr to be involved directly in the negotiations at Poissy; he evidently hoped that the Reformed position would emerge triumphant. But the supremacy of the Calvinists among the Protestant delegation at Poissy was not without its dangers. The queen was enormously suspicious of Calvin and the willingness of his followers to engage in political subversion for the sake of religion. Calvin's Church was inextricably linked with Knox's disastrous tract against female rule in 1558. What is more, Calvin and Beza were among those who had expressed disapproval of the queen's use of the crucifix in her chapel.Footnote 20 There were those within the English establishment who, whilst respecting Calvin's doctrinal guidance, did not regard all the features of the Genevan liturgy and discipline as normative in England. This may explain the reaction of the English ambassador, Nicholas Throckmorton, to John Jewel's Apology in January 1562. Jewel was the leading defender of the English Church in the early 1560s. He entered into a long controversy with several Catholic authors concerning the legitimacy of Protestant worship in England.Footnote 21 Throckmorton approved of Jewel's book, but wished that it had answered the Calvinists as well as it had the papists.Footnote 22 Like the queen herself, he did not feel that English interests were precisely aligned with Geneva's.
It was difficult for contemporaries to estimate the potential for moderate reform at Poissy, because the moderates never revealed a precise and detailed reforming agenda. This vagueness was characteristic of the moderates' strategy: any agreement with the Reformed party and the traditionalists would need to be negotiated, and this required a degree of open-mindedness about the shape of a potential settlement. The cardinal of Lorraine proposed to make significant changes to the celebration of the mass. It was rumoured that he was prepared to use the Augsburg Confession as a platform for negotiation. It was also possible that the moderate party would make an appeal to Gallican ideology in order to defend the distancing of the French Church from Rome. Based on the long-running competition between the French crown and the pope over jurisdictional privileges, Gallicanism could provide legalistic authorisation for Poissy's autonomous search for a French religious settlement. It could not entirely unite confessional groups, however, because it had no specific doctrinal connotations.Footnote 23 It is true that the Gallican drive for religious unity sometimes dovetailed with proposals to remove corrupt ceremonies from the Church, but Gallicans were divided in their attitudes towards papal authority and the need for reform in the Catholic Church.Footnote 24
The form of the moderate programme became clearer over time and, as it crystallised, so English support was undermined. This involved a process of self-examination, which forced English observers to confront and reshape their conflicting attitudes towards unity within the Protestant community. Did the English feel the need to seek an alliance with all those communities which had departed from the Roman Church, even if their worship diverged in some ways from the Reformed model? Or were English Protestants convinced that the Reformed Churches of Europe needed to form an exclusive partnership in order to prevent the movement from being split by compromise?Footnote 25 These were the questions raised by the Colloquy of Poissy. At the outset of the conference, various tendencies within the English Protestant community can be detected. At its end, English Protestants seemed much more clearly orientated towards a distrust of a moderating strategy.
The chief disadvantage of the moderate solution, as far as the English were concerned, was that it was viewed with suspicion by Calvin and Beza, whose support was cultivated by English Protestants.Footnote 26 Furthermore, one of its chief promoters was, as we have seen, the cardinal of Lorraine. English observers were perplexed by the cardinal's motives. In June 1561 Throckmorton wrote to Robert Jones (his secretary) about the plans to call the French clergy together to seek a compromise with the Protestants. He admitted that, as a foreigner, he was hard-placed to judge the reliability of those involved in the negotiations: ‘I, a stranger and looker on, do fynd more dyfycultie taccord the persons then the matter yn controversy.’ He found the motives of Lorraine particularly inscrutable: ‘how say you that the cardynall off loreyne dothe approve the confession off augsburg, trow you we shall not have a new world?’Footnote 27 Jones's reply indicates an ingrained distrust of Lorraine, which was probably shared by others. The Protestants had to be careful ‘that the wolf enter not into the shepcote in vestimento ovium the better to deceyve them’. Nevertheless, Jones also recognised that if Lorraine's advice prevailed in France ‘there cannot … be any stay in the reformation of Religion there’.Footnote 28
The advantage of the moderate solution was that it could be used as the first step towards a more thorough reformation of the French Church. The success of the moderates at Poissy would also harmonise with another English diplomatic strategy of the early 1560s: a loose alliance with the Lutheran princes. Queen Elizabeth sought to cultivate good relations with the German princes in order to win a united front of opposition to the final sessions of the Council of Trent.Footnote 29 The regime's antipathy to the new gathering at Trent was based on the presumption that it would consolidate the condemnation of Protestantism embarked upon in the 1540s. In March 1561 Elizabeth and her councillors rejected the request of the papal nuncio to enter England in order to deliver the summons to the general council.Footnote 30 By supporting Catherine de'Medici and the search for compromise at Poissy, Elizabeth and her advisers could further their objective of weakening support for Trent. In his diplomatic mission of 1560 Bedford had been instructed to encourage the regent and Antoine de Navarre to eschew the Council of Trent, and there were signs that this option was being considered.Footnote 31 During 1560 and 1561 the regent opposed the convocation of a general council which would perpetuate the work of the early sessions of Trent and which would effectively deny admittance to Protestants. Catherine wished to see a free assembly, which would seek to solve the religious schism, rather than underscore confessional battle-lines. The Colloquy of Poissy was a part of the regent's strategy. She hoped that it would provide an immediate response to the religious strife in France. It could also be used to pressure the pope into convening a council which would make allowances for the participation of Protestants.Footnote 32 If Catherine could bring about an agreement at Poissy, then there was a strong possibility that France would oppose the activities of the Council of Trent, and insist on the summoning of a new and free general council.Footnote 33 England might then gain an ally in its rejection of Trent.
The anti-Tridentine alliance with the German princes had already broached the question of inter-confessional cooperation, and this had repercussions for the regime's attitudes towards the Colloquy of Poissy. In her diplomatic correspondence with Germany, Elizabeth had tried to hide the confessional differences which separated her Church from that of the Lutherans. In July 1559 she had written to the princes of northern Germany and the independent Hansa ports, assuring them of her intention of using the Augsburg Confession in her own Church.Footnote 34 The Elizabethan regime was also in communication with Danish Lutherans, such as Johannes Spithovius, who may have had a more important role in the genesis of the 1559 Settlement than has previously been acknowledged.Footnote 35 As late as May 1561 the queen assured the princes of the empire that she wished to uphold the Gospel according to the interpretation of the Augsburg Confession.Footnote 36 It has been argued that the Elizabethan modifications to the 1552 Prayer Book regarding clerical dress and the eucharist were intended to ‘throw the Lutherans a few theological scraps’.Footnote 37 The regime even went so far as to remove Convocation's condemnation of the gnesio-Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity from the first draft of the Thirty-Nine Articles in 1563. It has been convincingly argued that ‘the only possible explanation of this elimination of an article which had received convocational endorsement is the influence of the current diplomatic relations with the Lutheran princes in which Cecil played a central role’.Footnote 38
The regime's overtures towards the Lutheran princes were noticed by the leaders of the Reformed Churches, who, in the early 1560s, were not entirely sure where the queen's loyalties lay. Shrugging off an invitation to counsel Elizabeth on the use of the crucifix in the English Church, Peter Martyr Vermigli wrote tetchily to Thomas Sampson in March 1560:
if, as it is reported, it be the determination of your countrymen to embrace the Confession of Augsburg, and court an alliance with the [German] protestants, you may judge for yourself in what esteem my letters, and the letters of those like me, will be held.Footnote 39
Contrary to Vermigli's fears, English diplomatic overtures did not reflect a desire to move the Elizabethan Settlement in a Lutheran direction.Footnote 40 But they showed that the Elizabethan regime was prepared, unlike many of the Reformed Churches, to do what it could to paper over doctrinal differences in order to cement Protestant unity. Analogous attitudes were espoused by some English Protestants in other contexts.Footnote 41 Edmund Grindal, for example, perceived the need for greater tolerance among the various Protestant groups. In late 1561 the authorities at Frankfurt threatened to expel the community of Dutch Protestants living there in exile, because they were not prepared to subscribe to the Augsburg Confession. At the prompting of the Dutch Church in London, Grindal sent a letter to the magistrates at Frankfurt, through Godfrey van Winghen, imploring them to take pity on the Dutch exiles.Footnote 42 His argument is worth quoting in full:
The presence of Christ the Lord in his holy Supper, and that a true and saving presence, we all confess; the dispute is only respecting the mode [modo]. We in our churches, although amongst you we professed, and even here also profess, the same doctrine with those Flemings, yet have never persecuted as a heretic or an impious man one who held Luther's opinion, if he conducted himself peaceably. I wish it had been stated in the terms agreed at the Colloquy of Marburg, that each side should cultivate peace, until the Lord should reveal otherwise to each.Footnote 43
Grindal had witnessed these kind of disputes over the eucharist at first hand during his exile in South Germany, and rather than stoking his indignation, they made him wish for peace between the Protestant confessions.Footnote 44 It is worth recalling that such sentiments existed at a time of increasingly rancorous confessional division. It is also useful to bear in mind the breadth of the English Protestant community's connections at this point. Geneva was not its only source of guidance.Footnote 45 When the controversy over the use of the crucifix in the English Church broke out early in Elizabeth's reign, Sir Anthony Cooke wrote to the Dutch scholar Georg Cassander for his advice.Footnote 46 Cassander, who will reappear later in this discussion, differed from the theologians of the leading Reformed Churches, who were hostile to the display of the crucifix for the reason that it was idolatrous and that no scriptural support could be found for the custom.Footnote 47 Cassander, on the other hand, aimed to reconstruct the usage which had prevailed in the early Church, and so defended the practice with certain caveats.Footnote 48 The letter from Cassander is only one example from a wider range of scholarly connections cultivated by English Protestants – contacts which exposed them to different forms of doctrinal guidance. English Protestants were thus well aware of the pluralism within the Protestant community, and some would have been less intent than others on stifling this breadth of opinion.
There were aspects, then, of godly opinion and Elizabethan diplomacy in the early 1560s which seemed to favour the creation of a united Protestant front against common Catholic aggressors in Europe. The moderate strategy at Poissy promised to accord with this tactic by releasing France from the stranglehold of the Catholic zealots, and moving the kingdom towards a reformation of sorts. The courting of the Lutheran princes by Catherine de'Medici and the cardinal of Lorraine, as well as their reluctance to send a French delegation to the third period of the Council of Trent, appeared to spell a reversal of the politics of 1559, when France and Spain had united in a Catholic crusade against England.Footnote 49 If Catherine continued to negotiate with the Protestants, any alliance between France and Spain would be jeopardised.
It would be misleading to suppose, however, that English Protestants were wholly comfortable about the religious compromise sought at Poissy. English views may not have been fully formulated at the opening of the conference, but as events unfolded English observers became increasingly antipathetic to the programme advanced by the cardinal of Lorraine and other moderates at Poissy. There are two main reasons for this. The first stems from Realpolitik: Elizabeth came to regard religious stalemate in France as the safest outcome for England. With conservatives and Huguenots locked in battle, there would be little chance of France pursuing a policy of aggression towards England. The second relates to the problems associated with a search for confessional compromise. Confessional identities were already remarkably inflexible by 1561. Those who tried to broker an agreement between Catholics and Reformed Protestants ran the risk of being condemned as traitors by both sides. This was the fate of the cardinal of Lorraine at the time of Poissy, for he was loathed by Calvinists and conservative Catholics alike. As the dialogue between the Reformed party and the traditionalists broke down, the Protestant leaders at Poissy sought to poison English Protestant minds against those who had cooperated with Lorraine in advocating a way out of the deadlock. The promotion of the English Prayer Book as a potential via media around the time of Poissy made English Protestants increasingly uncomfortable. Arguably, it forced them to identify more exclusively with the Reformed Churches, and to downplay their adherence to a broad Protestant alliance. Events moved extremely quickly in France during this period, and the patchiness of news reports often left English observers in a state of uncertainty about what had recently occurred across the Channel.Footnote 50 Nevertheless, English disillusionment with Poissy can be charted by following communication between English observers and a scholar involved in seeking a moderate solution to the religious divisions in France: François Baudouin.
François Baudouin's religious outlook
Baudouin – a teacher of civil law – has long been notorious for his alleged apostasy from the Calvinist Church.Footnote 51 At one time Calvin's secretary, he eventually became estranged from his master, deploring his inability to compromise and his cruelty towards heretics.Footnote 52 The story of his alienation from the Calvinist community is a long and complicated one, which has been well told elsewhere.Footnote 53 Laying the diatribes of Calvin and his followers to one side, recent scholarship has revealed the complexity of Baudouin's attitudes about religious concord and the richness of his scholarship, notably in his project for a universal history.Footnote 54 No sustained attention has been given, however, to Bauduoin's links with England. As we will see, he was in communication with prominent members of the Elizabethan regime. First, however, the relevant features of his scholarship need to be surveyed. These will help us to understand why Baudouin was interested in the English Church, and why ambassadors, bishops and councillors were willing to give ear to his advice.
The work which made Baudouin's name among scholars of religion was his Constantinus magnus, first published in 1556.Footnote 55 This work was a comprehensive history of the reign of the Emperor Constantine, covering not only Constantine's conversion to Christianity and his policies towards the Church (to which the first half of the book was devoted), but his statecraft in general, extending to matters as diverse as taxation, agriculture, schooling and the coinage. The novelty of Baudouin's history lay in his source-base, which included not only the standard ecclesiastical histories of Constantine's reign, but contemporary legal records. In this sense it can be seen as a classic example of the historicising tendency in legal scholarship, the so-called mos gallicus.Footnote 56 But at the same time, Baudouin was engaged in more than simply antiquarianism, for he believed that his history could act as a salve to heal the wounds of contemporary religious divisions. This was part of Constantine's providential purpose, for ‘in Constantine God wished to provide an example that would instruct posterity as well as princes and magistrates of their duty’. His reign demonstrated that princes ‘need not be deterred by any danger, who undertake either the care of restoring the Church or preserving religion’.Footnote 57 Constantine's religious policies were all germane to the evangelical cause. He wished the whole Church to take its doctrine from the sources of holy Scripture, and ensured that the Scriptures were publicly expounded in churches. All churches were to have copies of the sacred texts so that they would act as a source of judgement in religious controversies. As far as Constantine was concerned, Scripture was to become nothing less than the law-code of the Church:
if there was any one constitution that was absolutely necessary in the Church, this was it: namely that sacred letters should be regarded as the law codes [tabulas] given by God, and that from these oracles religious controversies should be decided, and from them the true judgement should be distinguished from the false, and according to this rule the whole of the doctrine of the Church should be tested.Footnote 58
Baudouin argued that a fundamental principle of civic justice also applied to the Church, i.e. that it should be ruled by the laws and not by the will of the magistrate. This judgement sat well with the Protestant insistence that doctrinal disputes should be resolved primarily with reference to the Scriptures (and with the secondary aid of the Fathers of the early Church).Footnote 59 Baudouin also addressed the practical implications of the principle of scriptural primacy, which were tested in Constantine's management of the disputes over the Arian heresy and the Donatist schism. According to Baudouin, Constantine recognised that cases of a purely religious nature should be resolved only by the Church (and more particularly the bishops). Thus it was appropriate that the Arian heresy had been condemned by the Council of Nicaea.Footnote 60 When the Church's judgement was flouted, however, it was necessary for the magistrate to intervene, and Baudouin admitted that the emperor could assist the Church in the suppression of heresy.Footnote 61 But the emperor's ecclesiastical functions were not limited to those duties which the Church delegated to him. Sometimes he might use his supreme temporal authority to discipline the leaders of the Church. Baudouin pointed out, for example, that Constantine had warned the clergy of Nicomedia that if their actions led to public disturbances, they would be punished. Baudouin also cited a law from the time of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius which ordered that bishops who were guilty of disturbing the peace should be stripped of their episcopal authority and banished.Footnote 62
Many of the claims made in Constantinus magnus would be developed in Baudouin's conciliatory assertions of the 1560s. His contention that the Church under Constantine should act as an example for all subsequent generations would later form a cornerstone of his moderate programme.Footnote 63 Also important was his plea that heretics should not be subjected to capital punishment: persuasion was a better strategy than force to bring them back into the Church.Footnote 64 These attitudes were confirmed by Baudouin's friendship with Georg Cassander, which began in 1557.Footnote 65 Cassander asserted that the reconstruction of the liturgy of the primitive Church through accurate scholarship would guide the present-day Church in its reform of abuses.Footnote 66 Cassander was convinced that the corrupt rites and government of the traditional Church had alienated the Protestants, and he believed that if this corruption could be purged, some could be persuaded to return. Baudouin, who was already convinced that historical scholarship had the potential to resolve religious disputes, eagerly embraced Cassander's programme and a mutually affirming correspondence ensued between the two.Footnote 67
Baudouin's designs soon took a practical bent. As early as April 1558 he expressed his interest in making contact with Antoine, king of Navarre, identified as a patron of the better religious factions in France.Footnote 68 Baudouin evidently managed to make his intentions known to Navarre, since Navarre invited him early in 1561 to advise the queen's council about the reform of the Church and the means of bringing about religious harmony in France. He rapidly became an influential figure in the circle around the cardinal of Lorraine, and counselled him about reaching agreement with the Protestant delegates at the Colloquy of Poissy between July and September 1561. Baudouin's scholarship on the persecution of the heretics under the Christian emperors was incorporated into one of Lorraine's speeches at Poissy.Footnote 69 As a legal scholar rather than a theologian, Baudouin did not offer any concrete doctrinal advice to the promoters of Poissy, but instead sought the intervention of his friend Cassander, who, after much delay, produced an anonymous tract De officio pii ac publicae tranquillitatis vere amantis viri. Baudouin circulated this tract in France in mid-1561, hoping that it would inspire men to seek a moderate solution to the religious conflict.Footnote 70 He soon came to understand the enormous difficulties which confronted the supporters of compromise at Poissy. By providing a description of doctrine flexible enough to win assent from both Catholics and Protestants, they would court the accusation that they were betraying both communities.Footnote 71 By skimming over contentious theological matters they appeared to be hiding unsound views. But if, on the other hand, they clung fast to too many articles, their intransigence would act as a further obstacle to an agreement.
The subterfuge which was arguably a necessary part of Baudouin's strategy in the 1560s has made his aims very difficult to interpret.Footnote 72 Some scholars have argued that Baudouin intended to use the Augsburg Confession as a platform for negotiation in France.Footnote 73 This view has been vigorously refuted by Mario Turchetti. The Augsburg Confession aimed to provide legal support for the religious plurality of the Holy Roman Empire, where various states had accepted different confessions and different modes of worship. It was an act of toleration: a recognition that religious unity could not be brought about in Germany. Turchetti argues that it was, therefore, completely inappropriate to the situation in France, where Calvinists, Catholics and moderates all wished to unify the kingdom behind one form of religious observance.Footnote 74 They were, in his helpful formulation, all proponents of concord. If toleration was periodically advocated, as it was by the Calvinists and by unusual figures such as the Chancellor, Michel de L'Hôpital, it was only as a stop-gap solution, not as a satisfactory end-point of religious dialogue. The Confession of Augsburg never entered into the schemes of Baudouin or Cassander, and its introduction at the last minute at Poissy was entirely due to Lorraine's influence.Footnote 75 The disastrous result of this intervention only confirmed why the Augsburg Confession had never initially been on the agenda: it was unacceptable both to the traditionalist bishops and the Calvinists.
Turchetti's work provides a useful reminder of how invidious the label ‘moderate’ could be. The insult ‘moyenneur’ was levelled at Baudouin by Calvin and his followers, as an indication of their duplicity.Footnote 76 Nevertheless, Baudouin and Cassander did not themselves abjure the term ‘moderate’ as a description of their activities. The quality of ‘moderatio’ is mentioned frequently in the two men's correspondence, and it is always presented as a laudable attribute, allowing its holder to distinguish true religion from the excesses of traditionalists and radicals.Footnote 77 Using a bodily metaphor, Cassander describes those who are so eager to rid the Church of its corrupted parts by saying that they amputate vital tissue along with the infected matter, doing much harm to the Church in the process. These men seek to act as guardians of the Church, but become its persecutors and enemies. Cassander is surely referring to the Huguenot party here, or at least its most violent adherents.Footnote 78 Equally dangerous, on the other hand, are those who cling to superstitious ceremonies. In a reference to Georg Witzel, Cassander writes that people are everywhere diverging from the royal road (via regia): some veering to the left, and others to the right. He considered it necessary, therefore, to seek out the direct path.Footnote 79 No clearer metaphor could be provided for the middle way sought by Baudouin and Cassander.Footnote 80 For these reasons, the label ‘moderate’ will continue to be applied to these men in this discussion.
As far as the Augsburg Confession is concerned, it is true that Baudouin did not advocate its use in the negotiations at Poissy. But he was certainly not averse to helping his patron, Antoine de Navarre, make use of the Confession as a diplomatic tool. There is evidence that, instructed by Navarre, Baudouin sought to entice the German princes with the prospect of an agreeable solution to the French crisis.Footnote 81 In August 1561 he wrote to Pier Paolo Vergerio, servant of Christoph, duke of Württemberg, telling him that the leaders of the French nation were inclined to adopt the Augsburg Confession, but that they were reluctant to drag their subjects with them if they proved unwilling.Footnote 82 Baudouin stressed that papistry could not be abolished in one fell swoop in France, and that moderation had to be urged at every opportunity, lest the contending parties proceed to armed struggle. But if moderation were to prevail, gains could be made. Baudouin wished the duke to instruct his most learned divines to draw up a formula for the saying of the mass and prayers in the vernacular and the removal of adoration and impious orations from the mass and baptism, ensuring that all that which had existed in the primitive Church be retained. Baudouin's strategy was to convince the Lutheran princes that Catherine de'Medici, the cardinal of Lorraine and Antoine de Navarre wished to implement the Augsburg Confession in France, but that they could not openly admit this at Poissy, owing to the intolerance of the nobility and the people.Footnote 83 If the Lutherans supported Baudouin's moderate proposals, whilst not broaching contentious issues such as the eucharist, they would eventually get what they wanted. This tactic may have been duplicitous, but it was no more duplicitous than England's own diplomacy towards Germany in the early 1560s. It also, arguably, had the same broader aim – the development of a united Protestant front against the resurgence of traditional Catholicism.
Baudouin and England
It has not hitherto been fully appreciated that Baudouin's involvement in the turmoil of French politics in 1561 led him to foster connections with England. The English religious settlement struck him as a viable platform for moderate religious reform in France. If Baudouin could demonstrate a broad international support-base for the moderate programme at Poissy, it might convince French waverers of its suitability. We learn of some of Baudouin's English contacts in a letter which he addressed to William Cecil in 1559. Justifying his unsolicited greeting to a busy statesman, Baudouin claimed that he had been urged to contact Cecil by his friend, the English ambassador, Henry Killigrew. Later in the letter he mentioned another English friend; Anthony Cooke (Cecil's father-in-law). Baudouin's letter was almost certainly prompted by Killigrew's diplomatic mission to the Elector Palatine Ottheinrich, in the early months of Elizabeth's reign.Footnote 84 Killigrew visited the elector's court at Heidelberg and must have encountered Baudouin there. But the contact may well have had a longer history. Indeed, it is probable that there was a connection between Baudouin's friendships with Killigrew and Cooke. In exile from Marian England, Cooke settled in Strasbourg in 1555 and it is likely that his friendship with Baudouin dates from this period (Baudouin taught at the University of Strasbourg from February 1555 until May 1556).Footnote 85 It is possible that Baudouin also encountered Killigrew there too for he also was an exile in Strasbourg in 1555–6. Killigrew had been part of Anthony Cooke's circle since the reign of Edward vi (and would go on to marry one of his daughters), so it may be that it was through Cooke that Baudouin had been introduced to Killigrew.Footnote 86 This conjecture would also explain the linkage of the two names in Baudouin's letter. However this may be, by 1559 Baudouin had succeeded in bringing himself to Cecil's attention.
It is difficult to know what Cecil made of Baudouin, but there is evidence that Baudouin had at least one firm supporter at the centre of Elizabethan politics: Edmund Grindal. In 1561 Grindal wrote to Cecil concerning the Colloquy of Poissy. It was imperative that reliable spokesmen for the Reformed Churches be present there. Grindal agreed with Cecil that, as far as England was concerned, ‘no man alive is moore fytte then Peter Martyr for suche a conference’. Significantly, Grindal also put forward Baudouin's candidature:
but for assistence herin D. Francise Baldwine who is the reader att Heydelberge in Almagne wer verie fytte. He is a Frenshe man borne, and iff he be zealouse, havinge this lybertye, he will goo uncalled.Footnote 87
It is probable that Grindal had also heard of Baudouin (and possibly even encountered him) through the Strasbourg connection. The two may have overlapped at Strasbourg, where Grindal spent part of his time in exile, although his precise whereabouts from 1555 to 1556 are difficult to trace.Footnote 88 Whatever the truth of the matter, Grindal must have held Baudouin in some regard, for he was prepared to recommend him as a defender of the Reformed Churches. Baudouin himself did whatever he could to cultivate his connections with the English authorities. He talked to Christopher Mundt during his embassy to the Palatinate in the spring of 1561 and would have several conversations with Nicholas Throckmorton whilst they were at the French court in the early 1560s.Footnote 89
Unfortunately, we do not know whether any of Baudouin's English contacts were fully aware of his intentions to promote the moderate programme at the outset of the Colloquy of Poissy. Even if they had been aware of his rift with Calvin (and there is no evidence of this in mid-1561), they would have had no reason to doubt his firm adherence to Reformed doctrines. Baudouin's true agenda did not remain concealed for long, however. It had come to the attention of the Elizabethan establishment by October 1561 at the latest. At this time, Nicholas des Gallars, a member of Calvin's inner circle and leader of the French Stranger Church in London, wrote to Throckmorton in Paris. Des Gallars was part of the Reformed delegation at Poissy. He thanked Throckmorton for his warning to be wary of a certain ‘personnage’. Des Gallars had noticed that the person in question had gone to pay his respects to the cardinal of Lorraine. He remarked acidly:
Nous craignons beaucoup plus les moyenneurs qui sont tiedes en divers façons que les enemyes overts qui se monstrent ou frouds [sic] ou chauldes. Mais nous esperons que dieu descouvrira le tout et que ceulx que veulent servir a dieux maistres se trouveront destitues de lune et de laultre.Footnote 90
[We fear the moyenneurs, who are lukewarm in various respects, far more than the open enemies who show themselves either cold or hot. But we hope that God will reveal all of this and that those who wish to serve two masters will find themselves bereft of both.]
There is a good case for arguing that the subject of this comment is none other than Baudouin. Later in the same letter, des Gallars refers to ‘ledict Baldewyn’, as though he had already been mentioned. Further compelling evidence comes from Beza's Ecclesiastical history, where Baudouin is accused of duplicity in exactly the same terms as in des Gallars's letter to Throckmorton.Footnote 91 Given that des Gallars was in close contact with Beza at the time of the colloquy, it is likely that their criticisms were directed at the same target.
Throckmorton's discovery of Baudouin's collaboration with the cardinal of Lorraine was compounded by the publication of his quarrel with Calvin. The argument centred on Cassander's De officio pii viri, which Calvin assumed had been written by Baudouin; Baudouin in turn had to defend his own reputation and the arguments of Cassander, who still wished to remain anonymous. In December 1561 Cecil learned of this dispute through Thomas Windebank, who was supplying him with books from Europe. Windebank sent Cecil Calvin's Adversus versipellem quendam and Baudouin's reply De famosis libellis (the beginnings of the public polemic between the two).Footnote 92 These books would have brought to Cecil's attention the nature of Calvin and Baudouin's differences, especially relating to the persecution of heretics. It is notable, however, that awareness of the distrust with which Baudouin was held in Calvinist circles did not cause English diplomats and churchmen to shun him openly.
English agents in Europe may not have trusted Baudouin completely, but they evidently did not think it prudent to spurn his company (at the very least, he acted as a useful informant). Their reserve towards him and his moderate programme is significant, because it reveals the conflicted feelings about the place of the English Church within the Reformed community. These tensions started to surface as the English Church came to play a contested role in the religious debates in France. At first glance, the growing awareness of English religion might have appeared an answer to English prayers. In May 1561 Throckmorton had urged Cecil to have both the English Prayer Book and a doctrinal statement translated into French and Latin, so that the French might model their own Church upon it:
these men be desyerus to se the on and other that they may make a formulare for the churche here: and lyke wyse they be desyerus to have the booke off all the reformyd churches yn encontre and offer, that they may chuse what shall be beste for them.Footnote 93
Similarly, Archbishop Parker had expressed his regret that Jewel's Apology had not had a greater impact at Poissy: ‘I wolde god the apologye had ben scatered in fraunce before thys conference had begonne.’Footnote 94 It is probable that Parker and Throckmorton had the support of the Reformed leadership in mind. It was not, however, Beza and Martyr who emerged as the champions of the English Prayer Book and Church polity in France. Instead, it was the moderates and the traditionalists who cited English religion in their debates. An examination of their ideological strategies will help us to understand why the English became disenchanted with the moderate cause and why they came to identify exclusively with aims of the Reformed party.
English alienation from the French moderates
François Baudouin was an important promoter of the English religious settlement in France. The Augsburg Confession did not supply the template for his moderate programme of the 1560s. But the English Prayer Book of 1559 may have provided a more convincing example of a via media acceptable to him. In a very interesting piece of evidence, seldom mentioned by scholars, the moderates at the French court aimed to convince the English that their own religious settlement could serve as a valuable inspiration to France. In January 1562 Paul de Foix and Baudouin visited Nicholas Throckmorton in Paris. Taking into account his suspicions about Baudouin's conduct in October 1561, it is interesting that Throckmorton reported this meeting without any apparent prejudice towards the two moderates. De Foix, a highly learned scholar and future ambassador to England, was one of the advocates of leniency towards the heretics in France, for which he was imprisoned and expelled from the Paris parlement in 1560. Like Baudouin, he favoured a compromise between Protestants and Catholics which would lead to the restoration of religious unity in France.Footnote 95 Relating his conversation with de Foix to the queen, Throckmorton said that:
he [de Foix] likid so well … the forme of Religion used in your realme, as he mindeth to exhibyte the booke thereof (which he hath brought with hym translatid into frenche) to the Quene Mother, the king of Navarre, and the Chauncelour, wishing that this realme might be reducid by ordre and authoritie to use the same formuler of religion.
Baudouin was also full of enthusiasm for the English Church, and Throckmorton informed the queen that Baudouin ‘hathe wrytten some thinge in forme of an Appologie of the sayd ordre of Religion in Englande: which rough hewen as it is, and as he sayth unpolyshyd (for the suddayn wryting of it) hathe desyrid me to sende it to Mr Secretarie’.Footnote 96 Unfortunately, it has not been possible to locate this work in the major extant manuscript collections, but the foregoing analysis of Constantinus magnus may indicate some of the points of correspondence between Baudouin's vision of the Church polity and the situation in England. Baudouin's Constantine had grasped the crucial importance of preserving unity in the Church, without venturing his own opinions in doctrinal disputes. This seemed to offer a parallel to the Elizabethan Church, where the queen (in the name of uniformity) acted to halt subversion of the settlement, whilst refraining from articulating her own religious views. One can only speculate about Baudouin's views on the English liturgy. He perhaps approved its retention of traditional elements (where these could be reconciled with the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers), and its relatively loose definition of the eucharist, which could accommodate several Protestant definitions. Baudouin took care to advertise his enthusiasm for the English Church. Writing in August 1562, John Jewel told Peter Martyr that ‘Master Baldwin writes me word that he is very much pleased with our moderation in the late change of religion, and that he will use his endeavours (for he thinks he has some influence), that a like moderation may prevail in the kingdom of France.’Footnote 97 Jewel also reported that Baudouin had reproved Peter Martyr and Calvin for being too inflexible in their dealings with the French. Jewel thought that this accusation was unjust with regard to Calvin, and that it probably arose from his earlier quarrel with Baudouin. Jewel devotes no time in this letter to a discussion of ‘moderation’, but there is every reason to believe that he shared Calvin's abhorrence of the concept.
The problem which confronted the English was that it was not only the moderates who were calling upon the English Church in religious negotiations. The traditionalists were doing so as well. This fact highlights some of the uncertainties about the reformers' self-image at this time. Throckmorton bemoaned Jewel's failure to answer the criticisms of the Calvinists, who were ‘grevyd with retaynyng to many ceremonies yn the churche of England’.Footnote 98 But Throckmorton also acknowledged that the defence of English distinctiveness could go too far: England's commitment to the Reformed community needed to be affirmed. Throckmorton responded to Cecil's exhortation to promote the Reformed cause in France, by complaining that
all that I can do dothe not so moche furder that cause as the crosse and candylstykks yn the Queen majesties chappell dothe hyndar yt. For off late the cardynalls and bysshopps have leyed those observancis forthe yn the churche off Englend as speciall argyments ageynst the forme that M. Peter Martyr and hys felowes have exhybett to be usyd yn thys realme.Footnote 99
What was more, there were worrying signs that the moderates were furthering the goals of the Catholic establishment. Even though Throckmorton had been prepared to indulge Paul de Foix's overtures, he was highly suspicious of his overarching motives. Soon after the meeting in early January he revealed to Cecil his misgivings about de Foix's embassy to England. Throckmorton warned Cecil that he should not think that because de Foix
is muche dedicate to learninge and of a noble house that he wyll not otherwise exercise his wytt to the advantage of this soverayne and disadvantage of others. I doo beleave and do assuerydlye knowe that emongst other his instructions, one of the chifest is to devyde englande and scotlande a sonder by all the conninge meanes he canne possiblye devise. And this poynt is speciallye and often pressyd by the conestable and the cardinal of Tournon.Footnote 100
In the eyes of the ambassador, the unification of France which the moderates sought to achieve served the needs of the traditionalists more than it did the Huguenots. It was also, in the case of de Foix, linked inextricably to a policy of undermining English interests in order to strengthen the French cause in Scotland through Mary Stuart. The conservative French bishops were trying to divide the Protestant movement, and were using the English religious settlement as an example of the disunity that existed within it. To Throckmorton, their aims were now merging with those of the moderates. The promotion of English religion in France was thus falling prey to unintended abuse from various quarters. The enthusiasm of the French moderates for the English Prayer Book now seemed to besmirch English Protestantism's reputation. Yet, at the same time, Throckmorton felt that the Calvinists' dislike of English ceremonies needed to be answered.
These tensions help to explain the vacillating response of the Elizabethan regime to the Colloquy of Poissy. In spite of the occasional bursts of enthusiasm (notably the attempts to circulate Jewel's Apology and the English Prayer Book in France), the English did little to intervene in the negotiations at Poissy. Throckmorton's suggestion that learned men be dispatched to defend the English settlement in France was ignored.Footnote 101 Although Cecil was anxious to be updated on the colloquy's proceedings, there is no evidence that he sought to influence its outcome in any particular way.Footnote 102 The queen's attitude (if it can be taken at face value) was insouciant. According to John Somer's report, she was indifferent to the negotiations at Poissy:
I beganne to tell her of the proceedings at Poissy in maters of religion. No (quoth she) I care not for that, let them agree (for me) as they will: I have nothing do how they speed. Tell me (quoth she) who gouvernith, and in what credit is the house of Guyse? And how do the house of Bourbon and thei agree together? Thereunto I answerd as much as I knew, at good length. Yea faith (quoth she) I never saw such a reconciliacion, as was made betweene the prince of Condé and the duke of Guise. Was there so much a do to utter those few words; and those of no greater mater? But thereby, quoth she, the french humour maye well be deciphrid.Footnote 103
Like Throckmorton, the queen was highly suspicious of French attempts to align themselves with the English religious settlement. Her cynical comments suggest that she saw Poissy as a means for the factions at the French court to reunite, thereby posing a renewed threat to England. All the amicable posturing towards England was designed to conceal the real strategy of the major players in French politics. The emergence of a religious compromise was not important per se, whereas the cease-fire between the Guises and the Bourbons was. Elizabeth's insinuation was that the enmity between the court factions had to be maintained, if possible. Her appraisal of the English Realpolitik to be adopted in France was shared by Throckmorton. Speaking of the balance of power between the papists and the Protestants, he admitted that ‘it shall be ower saffetie that nether parte overthrow iche other’.Footnote 104
Even though the moderates promised to bring France over to English religion in 1561, the Elizabethan regime would not give them support. England had a vested interest in keeping France weak, and this harmonised with its confessional allegiances, for as long as the Huguenots were uncompromising and assertive the French crown would be crippled.Footnote 105 In any case, the moment for moderation quickly passed in France, as the kingdom descended into internecine strife.Footnote 106 From 1562 English strategic concerns ruled out any alignment with the French moderates, and made an operative alliance with the Calvinists increasingly attractive. Even here, however, the traditional enmity between France and England in the arena of international affairs strained the working relationship with the Huguenots. As is well known, the tension between a principled foreign policy, governed by confessional solidarity, and one dictated by international rivalry bedevilled European diplomacy during the Reformation.Footnote 107 England was not immune from these conflicting considerations. The military and financial aid given to the Huguenots in 1562 to help them defend Newhaven (Le Havre) against Catholic forces was predicated not only on a desire to succour England's coreligionists, but to regain Calais. This last aim caused much friction with the French Protestants and eventually foiled England's strategic objectives, for after the Huguenot leaders – Condé and Coligny – had negotiated a peace settlement with Catherine de'Medici, they jointly expelled the English troops from France.Footnote 108 After the Newhaven expedition, the Elizabethan regime reverted to its former passivity with regard to France. Pleasingly, there was a restoration of religious deadlock with the murder of the duke of Guise in 1563, and this once again neutralised France as a military threat.Footnote 109 Now the strategic aim to neutralise the French monarchy and the commitment to aid the Huguenots were more clearly distinguished by the leaders of the regime. Strategy trumped confessional allegiance, and both considerations militated against any collaboration with the French moderates.
English views on moderation
Reasons of state had not, however, been the sole cause of England's alienation from the moderate cause in France. The case of François Baudouin had forced English Protestants to question how a compromise solution could be reconciled with support for the Reformed Churches. Baudouin had incurred the hatred of Calvin and his followers, who alleged that he jeopardised the unity of the Reformed movement. As Turchetti has shown, the term moyenneur became a slur on the lips of the Calvinists.Footnote 110 It was certainly not an entirely welcome label in England, either. Jewel, the great public advocate of the Elizabethan regime, had noted Baudouin's approval of the moderation of the English religious settlement. Moderation could be interpreted as a commendable attribute, insofar as it pertained to a measured tone in doctrinal debate. The avoidance of heatedness in religious polemic accorded with the neo-Stoic injunction to eradicate the harmful passions.Footnote 111 It was also a prudent rhetorical strategy, especially when negotiating from a position of weakness. Throckmorton encouraged Cecil in 1562 to commission a defence of English religion ‘exchewinge all piquant and offensive words and phrases to bothe partyes, by cause at this tyme humors be so stirryd in all men that they be to prompte to be irritate with small things’.Footnote 112 On the other hand, violent invective was felt to be a legitimate adjunct to a commitment to the true faith, and was widely deployed in religious polemic during this period.Footnote 113 Moderation could thus be seen as a mixed blessing, even in a rhetorical sense. But if moderation is defined as a tendency to seek a mean between two discordant doctrinal positions, no real support for the concept could be expected from the English Protestant establishment. Jewel's engagement with various Catholic adversaries in the 1560s, for example, was not conducted with a view to mutual correction, but was understood as a public competition between two increasingly systematised confessions, only one of which could possibly honour the truth.Footnote 114 Viewed from this perspective, the idea of religious moderation was intrinsically pernicious. It was not possible or appropriate to seek a mean between truth and falsehood.
The abhorrence of a compromise solution in France was nowhere more apparent than in a letter written by John Jewel to Peter Martyr. Jewel had learned through Vermigli that the French rulers desired an alteration of religion, ‘not so much from an enthusiasm or love for godliness, but because they see that the follies of the papists are too ridiculous and because they do not consider that the people can otherwise be held to their duty’.Footnote 115 This was all well and good, Jewel explained, so long as it led to the restoration of the Gospel. But it would be disastrous if the negotiations concluded in a compromise solution which fell short of a truly Reformed settlement: ‘As to what you write about a certain interim and a mish-mash of religion being sought, may God prevent it!’Footnote 116 Jewel recognised that formerly (was he thinking of the reign of Henry viii?) various things had been tolerated by monarchs because of the times. ‘But now that the full light of the gospel has burst forth, the vestiges of error and its rubbish must, as far as possible, be completely removed.’Footnote 117 As a pragmatic strategy designed to accustom the people gradually to true religion, compromise had served its historical purpose. But now that the benefits of Reformed religion could be so clearly grasped, it was no longer needed. Military confrontation was a better aid to the evangelical cause than compromise. The English Protestants were not sorry to see a religious war erupt in France: the urgency of the Reformation required it. Writing to Heinrich Bullinger in August 1562, Jewel lamented that Elizabeth had not sooner come to the aid of the Huguenots in France along with the German princes. Their consolidated military presence would have prevented further bloodshed.Footnote 118 There is evidence that Protestants were aware of the religious struggles in France and used their sermons to publicise their support for the Huguenots. Edmund Grindal wrote to Cecil in October 1562, informing him of his intention to preach an admonitory sermon at Paul's Cross on the death of Antoine of Navarre, likening his desertion of the Huguenot cause to the treachery of Julian the Apostate.Footnote 119 In April 1563 a sermon was preached by Robert Horne, bishop of Winchester, in which the bishop prayed for the French Protestants.Footnote 120 The authors of these public pronouncements seem to have believed that the interests of the Huguenots would be better served in providential conflict with the forces of error, rather than through peaceable negotiation.
English Protestant views towards religious compromise conformed to prevailing European trends.Footnote 121 Compromise, by definition, was an outcome which fell short of the exacting standards of the parties whose reconciliation it sought to bring about. It was always liable to attract suspicion, and its chief advocates in France in the 1560s, including Baudouin and the cardinal of Lorraine, were regarded as traitors by both religious conservatives and the Reformed. After the failure of Poissy, it seemed inevitable that the religious struggle would result either in the supremacy of one confession, or an edict of toleration.Footnote 122 Toleration, as Turchetti argues, was tantamount to an admission that both aggression and doctrinal negotiation were futile, and that reconciliation was impossible. The English Protestants hoped that the Huguenots would win a crushing military victory over the papists, but when this failed to emerge, they called for toleration of Protestant worship in France.Footnote 123 These were the strategic poles between which they oscillated. Judging from the extant sources, no English author of the 1560s defended a religious via media in France as a path towards a more thorough Reformation in the future. This conclusion reinforces recent work which has sought to banish the myth of an innate English moderation in religious matters.Footnote 124 When Jewel spoke of the need for the French Church to make a clean break with the past, his mind immediately turned to the vestiges of popery which remained in the English Church, and he affirmed his desire to abolish the use of the surplice.Footnote 125 His dissatisfaction, which was shared by others, explains why English Protestants were reluctant to treat their own religious settlement as a pattern to prescribe to the rest of Europe. The manipulation of the English Settlement by untrustworthy parties in France only served to confirm these misgivings. This study has reinforced the view that English Protestants in the 1560s did not see themselves as divided from their brethren in the rest of Europe, and did not think of their own Church as superior to other Reformed models. The events at Poissy were an unsetttling reminder that their apparent distance from the Calvinists could be used as a weapon to divide the Reformed cause.
