n to the ducal dominions had experienced severe persecution on that
account. "I desire," he says in this letter, "to make a request of you, a
request of no ordinary character, but as earnest as you could possibly
receive from me--that, just as for the love of me you have treated your
subjects in this matter with unusual rigor, so you would be pleased, for
my sake, and by reason of my prayer and special recommendation, to receive
them into your benign grace, and reinstate them in the possessions which
have for this cause been confiscated." He added that he desired not only
to exhibit to his Protestant subjects his intention to execute his edict,
but to extend to their allies from abroad the same love and
protection.[846]

[Sidenote: Disgust of the Guises and of Alva.]

These and other marks of honorable distinction shown to the acknowledged
head of the Huguenots, must have been excessively distasteful both to the
Guises and to the Spaniard. The former now retired from court, and left
Charles completely in the hands of the Montmorencies and the admiral.[847]
Earlier in the year, the Duke of Alva had met with a signal rebuff at the
hands of the French, when, in return for the aid furnished to Charles by
his Catholic Majesty during the late wars, he requested him to supply him
with German reiters, to allow him to levy in France troops to serve
against the Prince of Orange, and to detain the fleet which was said to be
preparing for the prince at La Rochelle. The first two demands were
peremptorily refused, while the ships, it was replied, were intended
merely to make reprisals upon the Spaniards, who had taken some Protestant
vessels, drowned a part of their crew in the ocean, and delivered others
into the power of the Inquisition, and could not be interfered with.[848]
The Spanish ambassador had borne with the offensiveness of this answer;
but the favor with which the Huguenots were now received, and the openness
with which the Flemish war was discussed, rendered his further stay
impossible. It is true that the interviews of Louis of Nassau with the
king were held with great secrecy, and that Charles even had the
effrontery to deny that he had met the brother of Orange at all.[849] It
was impossible to deny that Philip's subjects were despoiled by vessels
which issued with impunity from La Rochelle. But, although the ambassador
declared that these grievances must be redressed, or war would ensue, he
was bluntly informed by