The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise had retired from the Privy Council in December, in order that they might take no part in deliberations in which they knew the majority would be against them. Such a silent protest added largely to their popularity, and they were already looked upon as the heads of an anti-Huguenot league. They placed orthodoxy before loyalty, and were ready to oppose the crown whenever it showed any toleration to heretics. Nearly twelve months before this date the duke had told the queen-mother in answer to her question, that the Catholics would not obey the king if he changed his religion. Still there are good reasons to believe that all would have gone on quietly but for the defection of the weak-minded Anthony of Navarre, whose ruling passion was to change his nominal sovereignty of Navarre for a real crown and real subjects. The Guises played upon this weakness; Philip II. gave him a choice of several thrones; and the pope’s legate “very cleverly” offered to divorce him from his excellent wife Joan of Albret, so that he might marry the widowed Mary Stuart. But there was one condition: he must apostatize. By such a man as Anthony, who had no principle, that little obstacle was soon surmounted; and in February, 1562, he sold himself to the enemy. Davila’s language leaves no doubt as to the motives of his conversion.[270] Anthony’s secession brought a great increase of power to the side of the Triumvirate by placing at their disposal the troops that obeyed him as lieutenant-general of France. The insolence of the Guises increased with success. Their pride and contempt for all who did not belong to their family or dependents almost bordered on insanity. They could brook no opposition, and that the Huguenots should think for themselves was a crime to be expiated only by death. They aimed at political supremacy, and Coligny, now the acknowledged Huguenot chief, though Condé was the nominal head, stood in the way of their ambition. The Triumvirate, therefore, decided upon carrying matters to extremity, and willingly accepted the aid proffered them by the King of Spain. Philip II., the self-constituted champion of Romanism, the “démon du midi,”[271] was trying to crush the Reform in Flanders by a persecution unparalleled for its merciless severity in the history of the world. He saw clearly that if France were reformed, or even if the Reformers were tolerated, success would be impossible; and he had therefore instructed his embassador, Chantonnay, as early as the 16th October, 1561, to tell the regent that if religious matters were not arranged--by which he meant, unless the late proscriptions were renewed--he would send troops to the aid of the Catholics. Catherine was not the woman to submit to such an unsolicited intervention, even at the hands of her royal son-in-law, and she answered the ambassador haughtily, that “she did not know what his Spanish Majesty meant, but