Note 879 — Chapter XVII

"The foolish cardinal," wrote Sir Thomas Smith, English ambassador at the French court during Walsingham's temporary absence (March 3, 1571/2), "went away as wise as he came; he neither brake the marriage with Navarre, nor got no dismes of the Church of France, nor perswaded the King to enter into the League with the Turk, nor to accept the Tridentine, or to break off Treaty with us; and the foolishest part of all, at his going away, he refused a diamond which the King offered him of 600 crowns, yet he was here highly feasted. He and his train cost the King above 300 crowns a day, as they said." Digges, 193. Gabutius adds that after the death of Pius V.—probably after the massacre—Charles IX. sent the ring to the cardinal with this inscription upon the bezel: "Non minus hæc solida est pietas, ne pietas possit mea sanguine solvi." Vita Pii Quinti, ubi supra, § 246, p. 676. The inscription had doubtless been cut since the first proffer of the ring. It appears to me most probable that the ring was offered by Charles to the cardinal with the idea that its acceptance would bind him to support the king in his suit for a dispensation for the marriage of Henry and Margaret, and that the prudent churchman declined it for the same reason. Subsequently, with the same view, Charles sent it to his ambassador at Rome, M. de Ferralz, instructing him to give it to the Cardinal of Alessandria. But Ferralz, on consultation with the Cardinal of Ferrara and others in the French interest, came to the conclusion that the gift would be useless, and so retained it, at the same time notifying his master. The reason may have been either that Alessandria had too little influence, since his uncle's death, to effect what was desired, or that the matter was of less consequence when once Charles had resolved to go on with the marriage without waiting further for the dispensation. So I understand Charles's words to Ferralz (Aug. 24, 1572): "J'ai aussi sceu par vostre dicte mémoire, que par l'avis de mon cousin le cardinal de Ferrare, vous avez retenu le diamant que je vous avois envoyé pour le donner de ma part au cardinal Alexandrin, puisque mon dict cousin et mes autres ministres trouvent que le don seroit inutile et perdu." Mackintosh, iii., App. C., p. 348.