Note 1646 — Chapter XVII

C. S. P. Ven., No. 584, April 19, 1574. Both Henry of Navarre and his fellow-prisoner seemed to have believed in these days that if Charles IX should die their own expectation of living would be slender, and their only hope be in corrupting the guard. But they were without money. This is the purport of a cipher dispatch, dated May 22, from Paris and sent to Burghley to be deciphered by him personally. This he actually did, for the draft is in his handwriting (ibid., For., No. 1,422, 1574; cf. No. 1,431). His reply—to Walsingham—was sent three days later (by a slip of the pen he has, however, written “March” instead of May).