from the Netherlands; that he would tolerate in those provinces the
exercise of the Reformed religion; that he would recognize their union
with the rest of the German Empire, and their consequent claim to the
benefits of the Passau treaty; that he would restore the Prince of Orange
"and all his accomplices" to their former possessions, dignities, and
condition; and that he would cause to be observed, throughout every realm
incorporated with the Empire, all the edicts and ordinances which had
been constructed to secure religious freedom in Germany. In brief,
Philip was willing, in case the crown of Charlemagne should be promised
him, to undo the work of his life, to reinstate the arch-rebel whom he
had hunted and proscribed, and to bow before that Reformation whose
disciples he had so long burned, and butchered. So much extent and no
more had that religious, conviction by which he had for years had the
effrontery to excuse the enormities practised in the Netherlands. God
would never forgive him so long as one heretic remained unburned in the
provinces; yet give him the Imperial sceptre, and every heretic, without
forswearing his heresy, should be purged with hyssop and become whiter
than snow.

Charles IX., too, although it was not possible for him to recal to life
the countless victims of the Parisian wedding, was yet ready to explain
those murders to the satisfaction of every unprejudiced mind. This had
become strictly necessary. Although the accession of either his Most
Christian or Most Catholic Majesty to the throne of the Caesars was a
most improbable event, yet the humbler elective, throne actually vacant
was indirectly in the gift of the same powers. It was possible that the
crown of Poland might be secured for the Duke of Anjou. That key unlocks
the complicated policy of this and the succeeding year. The Polish
election is the clue to the labyrinthian intrigues and royal
tergiversations during the period of the interregnum. Sigismund