Note 276 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
The work of extermination was to cover more ground than Henry's capital or country, if we may take the word of the English commissioners, who, in a letter dated January, 1559, advised the queen, their mistress, that "there was an appoinctment made betwene the late pope, the French king, and the king of Spaine, for the joigning of their forces together for the suppression of religion, ... th'end whereof was to constraine the rest of christiendome, being Protestants, to receive the pope's authorité and his religione." (Forbes, State Papers, vol. I. p. 296.) Without direct evidence of such a secret understanding, intimations of it, derived from other sources, may be found in more than one passage of this history.