Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/175

I572-] THE MASS A CRE OF ST BAR THOL OME Vf. 15* 'If the Admiral and his friends were guilty/ said Sir Thomas Smith, f why were they not apprehended and tried ? So is the journeyer slain by the robber, so is the hen by the fox, so the hind by the lion, and Abel by Cain. Grant that they were guilty that they dreamt treason in their sleep what did the innocent men, women, and children at Lyons? "What did the sucking children and their mothers at .Rouen, at Caen, at Itochelle ? Will God sleep ? ' There were some who, even at that wild moment, believed Charles to have been innocent. La Mothe told Leicester privately that the King detested the massacre, and would soon revenge it ; l and Sir Thomas Smith said, ' he was sorry for the King, whom he esteemed the most worthy, the most faithful prince in the world ; the most sincere monarch living.' 2 But Charles, at all events, was powerless. His weak intentions were drowned in wretchedness and despera- tion, and in him there were no grounds for England's future confidence ; while Catherine had to feel also that she had not been more successful in renewing the good- will or disarming the suspicions of Spain. Philip him- self had been inclined at first to see in what had hap- pened an earnest of better things, a guarantee for the future of Christendom, an opening for a possible recon- ciliation of Catholic Europe, cemented by a marriage between Anjou and the Queen of Scots, and a league 1 Leicester to Walsingham, Sep- I 2 Sir T. Smith to Walsingham, tember n : DIGGES. I September 26.