Note 1063 — Chapter XI

Dépêches de M. Fourquevaux, I, 174, February 4, 1567. Philip II took these military preparations of the French with remarkable equanimity—even Charles IX’s positive refusal to allow the Spanish army to traverse France (March 24, 1567). He seemed to be sincerely anxious to avoid friction with France (see his letter to Granvella, February 17, 1567, in Poulet, II, 255, 256). The danger in the Low Countries was too great to allow any outside controversy. The clandestine operation of Protestant preachers in Spain itself and the smuggling of heretical books into the land, concealed in casks of wine, disquieted him more than France did at this season. (For information on this head see Poulet, II, 126, 142, 199; Nég. Tosc., III, 506; Weiss, Spanish Protestants in the Sixteenth Century.)