It was thus a temporal lordship, of which, in ordinary circumstances, the Lord or Prince would be the civil and criminal judge. In many such bishoprics the Vidame was appointed by the Bishop, and was removable by him; but in some, the office of Vidame was hereditary; the designation of the office was virtually a title of nobility, and thus the Vidames of Chartres were Protestants.
The English were familiar with the title of the Vidame of Chartres. He is often mentioned in the diary of King Edward VI. He died on 16th December , and was succeeded by the subject of this memoir. Archbishop Parker, having occasion to address him in Latin, styled him clarissimus heros.
In he again came to England as a resident ambassador from the French Protestants. We now come to Paris in the black autumn of The great Coligny has been wounded by a ruffian in a street, and Charles IX. Two quotations will give information regarding the Vidame. He produced testimonies and tokens for his opinion from the rumours that were spread abroad. For it was heard by many, when upon the marriage day the Protestants went out of the church that they might not engage in worship, the Papists said by way of mirth, that within a few days they should hear mass.
Also it was openly spoke in discourse by the chief of the city, that at that marriage should be poured out more blood than wine β that one of the Protestant nobles was advised by the President of the Senate that he should with all his family betake himself for some days into the country; also that John Montluc, Bishop of Valence, before going ambassador into Poland, counselled Rochefoucauld that he should not suffer himself to be intoxicated and turned about by the smoke and unwonted favour of the court, that he should not be too secure to run himself into danger, and that he should timeously withdraw himself, together with other nobles, from the court.
Bartholomew [] is so remarkable as to appear plainly to the attentive and judicious observer a providential event. However, although they retired to this quarter, expressly out of just diffidence of Charles and his perfidious Court, and from a dread of their treachery and cruelty, yet as soon as ever the confused noise of the massacre in the city arose, they seemed from that moment utterly infatuated and quite unable to guess at its cause.
