Three Letters written by the King of Navarre, first Prince of the blood and chief Peer of France to the States of the Clergy, Nobility and third estate of France. More: A Letter from the said King to the Governors and Commonalty of the Town of Paris. All faithfully translated out of the French.  
AT LONDON, Imprinted for Edward Aggas. 1586.   

❧ To my Masters the Clergy.  
MY Masters, unto you do I complain both in body & commune, and yet cannot believe that you all are led by one self spirit in whatsoever is contrived against me. You cannot be ignorant what moderation I have evermore used in your behalfs, even in the rigours of arms, neither are you to seek of those just necessities whereinto I have sometimes been reduced, & I assure myself that even in your consciences you are able to lay the fault where it ought. Thus much I can say, that I never infringed the peace of any jollity, but may truly affirm that I have attributed my just sorrows & discontentments, and that in divers sorts, unto the wealth and quiet of this Estate. Those men, my Masters, if you mark them well, whom with your abilities you do assist to my destruction, have not taken the like course: of particular ambition they have made zeal to the Church, & of their private dislikes a public war: neither have they moreover made any conscience to kindle the fire throughout the four quarters of this Realm, so to enjoy the pleasure of putting the King to trouble, and having by an universal calamity found means to revenge such disgraces as they imagine themselves to have received at his hands. The Lord open your eyes and grant you grace to enter into the bottom of their intents. I fear not (as knoweth God) the mischief that may befall me, either of your coin or their weapons: both the one and the other have often enough been employed in vain: I lament for the poor innocent people, who, almost alone, do bear these follies: I moan even a great number of you that do contribute to the ambition of these perturbers, you of your poverty, they hardly of their abundance: and principally I be wail the fault that you all do commit, some upon one affection, others of an other, who one day shall be to answer to this Realm and your Country for so many miseries and hazards whereinto (even to your costs) you do plunge it: you, who by your vocations ought to be the pillars of public tranquillity, shall answer before God for so much innocent blood spilled: for such disorders, and vices of that war that you nourish, which bringeth in the howlings, cries and languishing, of so many poor families whom your abundance ought either to nourish or relieve, which you make instruments of their misery, cause of their hunger and scourges of the Commonwealth. You may allege zeal of the Church, and I am content to believe that some of you are driven thereby. What shall the posterity then say, that you have neglected my proffers? that you have wished rather to bring all into confusion then to frame yourselves to a Counsel, which in my express declaration I required at the kings hands? That you had rather proceed even to blood then quietly to confer upon the sense of the Scriptures? That you have preferred the means to subvert the Estate, before the way to convert the souls which you think to be strayed, yea even my person being therein touched, whom truly you ought rather to instruct then to destroy? Those persons that do abuze your zeal do well enough know that it is unpossible for them to perform their promise, I say, by force of arms to root that Religion wherein I do live. They seek not the reunion but destruction of the Realm: and call to mind that heretofore in vain under the same pretence they caused you to sell your Temporalties: remember also that your coin was consumed and your devotion to furnish them, quenched, before you could find even any small success in your deliberations. They proceed further: some of the Clergy, (I will not believe that many of them have consented to such a confederatie) have solicited the Pope against me, and at his hands have obtained a certain declaration whereby I am exhibited for a pray, and declared unable the succession of this Realm. Think not my Masters that these Thunderbolts do any whit astonish me, for it is God that disposeth both of Kings and Kingdoms, and your predecessors, who were both better Christians and better Frenchmen than the fautors of this Bull, have sufficiently taught us that Popes have not to deal with this Estate. Only it grieveth me that contrary to all good manner there should be to be found any so inconsiderate persons as at Room to procure the consulting upon and deciding of the succession of a living King and that in the flower of his age: For whereto may that be good, except to raise us up in this Estate either many dispersers or one usurper. I am sorry that we should let foreign Nations know that our Nation heretofore so devout to our Princes, should bring forth in this age such Monsters, as for either their pleasures or ambition do put forth the Commonwealth for a pray, & willingly invite all their neighbours to the spoil of this Estate. For, as for my interest GOD hath preserved me that my hope penetrate not beyond the life of my Prince. God in his just wrath confounded all such as shall build their greatness upon his Tomb, even those that are so provident as to anticipate his death by their counsels. But leaving these speeches I will account better of you then your actions do will me, and I had rather judge you by myself then by your dealings. They have procured me much mischief, I will not impute it generally to all: I will think it a conspiraty but of some who are otherwise urged thereto, and that peradventure at the instigation of the jesuits, the seeds of Spain and enemies to the wealth of this Estate, and God grant them to be as ready to abstain from the mischief to come, as I am now willing to forgive them. The rest that I have to say unto you is that God hath caused me to be borne a Christian Prince, I desire the establishment, increase, and peace of Christian Religion: we all believe in one God: we all confess one jesus Christ: we all receive one Gospel, if upon the interpretation of the self same texts we fall into controversy, I suppose the short ways that I have propounded might bring us to agreement: I believe that the War that you so sharply do prosecute is unworthy all Christians, yea unworthy to be among Christians, especially those that pretend themselves Doctors of the Gospel. If War do so much delight you: If you conceive gre●●●r felicity in a battle then in a disputation: in a ●●oudie conspiraty, then in a Counsel, I wash my hands, that blood that may be thereby shed be upon your heads. I know the curses of those that shall suffer cannot light upon me: for my patience, my obedience and my reasons are well enough known. I will expect the blessing of God upon my so just defence, whom I beseech to grant unto you the spirit of peace and union, to the peace of this Estate and union of his Church Amen.  
From Montauban this first of january. 1586. Your most affectionate and very good friend. Henry.   

To the Lords of the Nobility.  
MY Masters, such is your birth that near enough you approach unto the affairs of Estate whereby to attribute the right or wrong where it appertaineth, and therefore we shall need no long speech to open your eyes. You have even in full peace perceived the original of the broils of the League contrary to the quiet of this Realm: you know my patience, notwithstanding they took me for their contrary and made me the subject and pretence of their weapons. You have seen the Leaguers pronounced Rebels by the King, and for such prosecuted in all Courts of Parliaments: yourselves have you seen commanded, armed and fight against them by the King's express will under the authority of the Princes of his blood with the Peers and principal Officers of his Crown. I doubt not therefore but unto you it seemeth strange to behold, as in a moment, this alteration: to see yourselves armed against the blood of France: commanded by strangers whom you fought against as perturbers, and which is worse, against those who three days before were for the service of the King and Realm sent for, and commanded as you, ranged under the same ancients and of like will as yourselves: But withal you can judge that the first precepts proceeded of the King's proper motion, and those that have followed, of the violence of the perturbers. For what have these of the League since done, even between both, whereby to lose the quality of Rebels guilty of Treazon, perturbers of the peace, which by so many decrees have to them been attributed? either what offence have those of the Religion committed, by living under the benefit of the Edicts, whom his Majesty indifferently summoned to his service, who also equally opposed themselves against the common flame, that now they should at the appetite of the said perturbers be expelled the Realm and on every side pursued to the death? If it be for matter of Religion, was there not express Edicts therefore? Were not the same newly reiterated? Can that which is permitted by the laws of the Realm be accounted an offence? May it be prosecuted with any pain? If it be (as in troth it is) for contrarying the purposes of the League, are not yourselves accessaries to that offence? be not you subject to the same pain? do you then seek your own overthrow? For what offence are they burdened with except that they are and will be no other but Frenchmen? Now I come to myself, whether you will judge of me by myself, or by comparison with those of the League: well I know that you can not lay the fault upon me: yea, I know that even in your consciences you do attribute it to my enemies: They meddle with talk of my Religion, you that know the pre-eminence of the blood of France, that can well say that you own no duty but to the same, shall it be said that I must give account to the stranger? Is it not enough for me to satisfy the King and all France? Hath any one complained that I have violently entreated him for his Religion? What more could I do either with reason or Christianlike, them to crave a good Counsel? They are also offended with the government of the estate, and have endeavoured to provide for the succession thereof: They have procured the Pope to decide the same at Room: you therefore that hold the chief room in this Realm, if necessity had so required, could you be so careless as to suffer strangers to prevent you in that office? Have you no regard to your posterity? Can you oversleep this duty? For in all these broils what have appeared but Lorraine? But in troth either to reform or transform the estate according to their desires they needed not your help: to pass over the Estate into a foreign hand was a work fit for strangers only to enterprise: to expel France out of France, the process could not be determined in France, she was to much suspected in such a cause and therefore it must be decided in Italy. They have directly opposed themselves against me: I have offered the combat: I have stooped beneath myself: I have not disdained to fight with them: I have done it (God is my witness) for the preserving of the people from destruction, and the sparing of your blood: Of yours, I say, which is principally shed in these miseries. If they had any thing to say against me, had not this been most honourable for them? If in heart they sought the wealth and benefit of this Estate, did not I set them in a fair way? There have been such found as have hazarded their lives for the safeguard of their Country, what judgement then may you give of those who for saving themselves out of danger can be content to see the overthrow of a whole estate?  
You profess yourselves to be men of honour, what wrong then do they to their honours who will not accept of so good a way? or what injury do you to your own in accompanying them against me? You that would make a conscience in assisting a favourite against one of your neighbours. Think not my Masters that I fear them, I know what strength may do against me: sooner shall they be weary of assaulting me then I of defending myself: many a year have I borne their brunt when they were much stronger and myself far weaker than now. You have experience and judgement, the passed may resolve you of that that is to come. Truly I bewail your blood shed and spilled in vain which ought to be spared for the preservation of France: I do lament that that should be employed against me which ye should keep for me being that which God hath made me in this Realm, for the joining under the authority and good success of the King, France to France, where now it serveth to drive it out of France: I do also moan it that it shall neither be paid or mourned for almost of any: for the King, being forced in his will doth not hold himself served of those that force him, on the other side those that do force him will never con you thank for this service, as knowing that it is the King's name and not theirs that you do serve. My masters, GOD grant you well to consider hereof. The French Princes are chief of the Nobility I love you all, I feel myself waste and weaken in your blood, a stranger can have no feeling thereof. The stranger beareth no interest in this loss. I might complain of some, I had rather bewail them, and am ready to embrace you all: My greatest grief is that those whom in mind I do distinguish, whom also I know to have been circumvented, I cannot make any difference of in the hazard of arms: But God knoweth my heart: Their blood be upon the authors of these miseries. For my part, my Masters, I do and incessantly will beseech him that it may please him to open the way whereby his name may be served & honoured, the King obeyed, the State quieted, and all orders and degrees of this Realm reduced to their pristinate dignity, prosperity and eminentie Amen.  
From Montauban this first of januarie. 1586. Your most affectionate and very good friend. Henry.   

To my Masters of the third Estate.  
MY Masters, I need not many words to open unto you the equity of my cause. Call to mind that when these broils began we lived in peace and daily went forward better and better. Remember also that notwithstanding the same tended directly against me, yet for eight months space I stirred not, my patience passed all bounds: neither forget that I saw those armies that had been meetest for me, joined to my enemies and coming against me before I was resolved to defend myself. And I swear unto you my Masters, that the horror of a civil war and the sensible apprehension of the misery and calamities that it bringeth forth even benumbed me and took away my senses to my own damage, had I not perceived that my over long patience redounded to the danger and destruction of this Realm by giving the perturbers leisure violently to have fulfilled their pleasures. In case Religion was the matter, I submitted myself to a Counsel: if complaints concerning the estate, to an assembly of the Estates: yea, I wished to draw upon my own person the whole peril of France for saving it out of misery, voluntarily yielding myself equal with those whom nature hath made my inferiors, whereas they of their own interest have made a common calamity, and of their private quarrels a public confusion. I might complain that my just offers were not accepted: But to you I do complain, and yet for you, not for myself: I lament these extremities whereby the extreme injury to me done hath brought me to that pass that I may not defend myself without the detriment of the innocent people. I bewail my own condition, that for the warranting of my life you must feel harm and pain, you, for whose relief and wealth I was ready to shed my blood, if my enemies had not coveted rather to redeem themselves from the combat, whereto I challenged them, by a parricide against this Estate and by an universal combustion. But herein I take comfort, that yourselves can consider the nature of evils to be such as cannot be healed but by some evils, the cause whereof you are not to attribute to the Surgeon whose purpose is to heal, but rather to him that made the wound, and so consequently in this wound all the griefs ensuing: That in a short space God will grant me the grace after so many labours to fee this Estate purged of those that do molest it, also to see you enjoy so certain and assured quiet as in small time may cause us to forget all passed travails. judge by the effects, I beseech you, of the intents of men to make you rejoice in these troubles. These men would put you in hope that they reform the abuses of the Treasury, that they would diminish taxes and subsidies, that they would reduce all things to the time of 〈…〉 already (if they might have been believed) would have been surnamed fathers of the people. What is come of it? Their war having strangely devoured on every side, have been determined by a peace wherein they have had respect only to their particular profit, without any mention of you: and which is worse, their peace is as suddenly converted to a war against those that remained quiet, whereby the King is forced to double the Impostes, the people exhibited in prey to the man of war, and France (without the help of God) bond to be murdered of herself. For what other is that Edict that is wrested out, but a necessity laid upon the King to destroy his people, and with his own hand to make away himself? At the least if they meant not to relieve the people, why were they not content to abuze them? or what had they done that they must be overthrown? They cover these mischiefs with zeal to the Church: The heat of this zeal ought to have appeared in charity, & charity in the union of both Religions. What charity, which endevourd only to root out? What heat of zeal, which hath fired all the Country, and hath set a whole estate in combustion? In the mean time under pretence that the Clergy hath paid some portion aforehand for the encouraging the Soldier to begin the wars, ye see them on the way. The people must cover it with some two hundred thousand Crowns or thereabout, which shall bind them hereafter to millions: and to be brief, some of the Clergy to the great grief of the King, yea and of their own members have for their own particular passions concluded upon the bargain and advanced the earnest penny, then must the poor people fulfil and furnish the rest whatsoever it cost him that cannot do withal, who only must bear the loss and can hope for no fruit, bear the whole burden, and endure all the calamity that may come thereof. My Masters, this do I repeat unto you: I am a Christian Prince borne: I have sought out and propounded the most Christian means to make up this Estate & reunite the Church. I am a Frenchman borne, I bear part of your calamities, I have sought all means to exempt you from civil miseries, I will never spare my life to abridge you of them: I know that for the most part you are subject to this violence, I confess your wills to be thralled, I will not impute to you your actions, you are Frenchmen, I had rather impute unto you your wills: I desire of you all, who according to your vocations are more subject to bear the mischief, then to do it, only your vows, wishes and prayers. Pray unto God, my Masters, that by his judgements he will distinguish those that seek the felicity or mishap of this estate, all public prosperity or calamity. For my part I take him to witness that I desire only the wealth of this Realm & of you all: I take him for my judge whether ambition or particular passion hath urged or any whit stirred up my weapons.  
From Montauban this first of january. 1586. Your most affectionate and very good friend Henry.   

❧ To my Masters of Paris.  
MY Masters, gladly do I write unto you as accounting you the mirror or abstract of this Realm, and yet not to inform you of the equity of my cause which I know is sufficiently known unto you: but contrariwise to take you to witness: even you who through the multitude of your good eyes are able to behold and penetrate deepest into all that have passed in this Estate. Ye wots what judgement the King hath given of the authors of these miseries, what in your ears he hath declared and pronounced them to be: He required your assistance against them as against public enemies, and that at such time as his will was perfect and free, before violence had won any thing at his hands. Whatsoever alteration hath since fallen out I know you will impute, not to his will, but unto force. And in deed I am not ignorant that soon after being required to furnish the expenses of this war you could well answer that these troubles were never begun by your advice, and that they that had begun them were to bear the charges, and not you: which was such an answer as you never make in matter concerning the service of the King or wealth of the Realm. For in such respect never were subjects more liberal than you? But undoubtedly when you perceive that your money goeth not to the reparations, as aforetime you have been persuaded, but to the destruction of the Realm: when you clearly see that they request not your jewels to supply the ransom of King Frances or his children, or of a King john, but rather to extinguish the blood and posterity of France, and to reduce your King to bondage and prison. I know very well that the King hath liked of you therefore, and all good Frenchmen are therein bound unto you, and especially myself in respect of the degree wherein God hath ordained me in this Realm and for being (sith it hath so pleased him) of the household children. judge what need you had of this war: you know that this Estate daily waxed capable more and more of peace. If any thing were to be altered in matter of Religion, there needed no more (without any innovation) but the summons of a good Counsel: If in the government of the Estate, the King would not have refused the overture of an assembly of the Estates. And for preventing these mischiefs, you know that by express declaration I have submitted myself even by a combat to determine whatsoever these perturbers could particularly pretend against me. Those therefore that refuse such good means are authors of the war, and of an unnecessary and therefore an unjust war. I who have desired the same and voluntarily thereto submitted myself do find myself discharged of whatsoever calamities may ensue, for from lawful means they have taken pleasure to drive me into extreme extremities, whereby the arms that I have taken in hand are natural and necessary and so most just. To be brief, compare my obedience with their rebellion, my patience with their rash hastiness, my modest dealings with their immodest passions, and with all this, way with yourselves what they are in this Realm and what I am, so will you conclude that they do me so extreme injury that there is no Gentleman in this Realm but would enforce himself, and to whom it were not lawful to have revenge. I speak this in truth and do conceive the consequences hereof, I see the innocent must bear it, but still have in your minds that my enemies are those that have been declared enemies to the King & the Realm, that they have troubled the quiet peace, called in strangers, procured the rooting out of the household servants, borrowed the enemies and employed their means, not to my destruction only, but to the confusion of the whole Estate. Then will you, my Masters, impute to their offences all such inconveniences as a just defence may bring in: you will con them small thanks for the ensuing calamities, like as you confess them authors and causers of the first: for myself I shall be sorry for my own mishap that I shall not be able to put away the universal mischief without some mischiefs. At the least I shall rejoice in my own integrity who would have redeemed them even with my life, which evermore I shall account well bestowed in the preservation of this Estate and of you all. Now, my Masters, to conclude, I will say unto you, that of you I do and still will attend whatsoever may and aught to be looked for of true Frenchmen, and of the rule and example of the French nation, and of me likewise expect whatsoever may or aught of a French and Christian Prince be expected concerning the union of the Church, the King my Sovereign's service, the wealth of the Realm, the relief of the people, and the contentation of all good men. I beseech God, my Masters, to take pity and compassion of this Realm, and to grant unto us all god counsel to his glory and our benefit.  
From Montauban this first of january. 1586. Your most affectionate and very good friend. Henry.