The international arena was widening. Pirates and plunderers who used to hug the coasts of Europe now infested the seas all the way to the Caribbean, selling their spoils in English ports. On one occasion, several Spanish war vessels drove a pirate ship under the cliffs of Dover and were about to sink her when the shore batteries opened up on them. Francis Drake fought to reclaim his share of the loot he had lost in Mexico by seizing every Spanish ship in sight. There were protests from Madrid, of course, but there was no war.

The great number of Catholics finding refuge in the Low Countries vexed Elizabeth. They printed books and pamphlets there on an underground press and smuggled them to London in what became known as “book running.” Press operators wore disguises and moved around often to avoid capture. Elizabeth’s complaints about Philip harboring these refugees were comic in light of the fact that she was doing the same for thousands of Protestants on her side of the Channel.

The Inquisition, meanwhile, was coming down hard on English seamen forced to take refuge in Spanish ports. Their ships were immediately swarmed by soldiers and the crews turned over to the Holy Office, where the best outcome would be years spent in a sordid dungeon. Philip brushed off Elizabeth’s complaints, insisting that the Holy Office did not fall under his authority. Hardly anyone in England believed him.

In protest, the queen dispatched a special ambassador to Madrid, who was promptly sent back to England. Spain’s ambassador to England, Don Gerau de Spies, meanwhile, was not so fortunate. He became embroiled in a sinister affair known as the Ridolfi plot.

A Florentine banker living in London, Roberto Ridolfi di Pagnozzo was a spy, or whisperer, for the pope, who schemed to invade England with a large army from the Low Countries and assassinate Elizabeth. Mary Queen of Scots would be freed from her house arrest and would marry Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, the highest-ranked nobleman in England. Then Mary would become queen and return England to Catholicism.

It was a complex and well-hidden plot, and it took the queen’s chief adviser and spy, Cecil, months to crack, studying ciphers and coercing information out of suspects in the Tower’s torture rooms.

For his conspiratorial role, Don Gerau de Spies was hauled before the Privy Council and given three days to pack his belongings and get out of the country. He stalled for time, but his hopes for an assassination were dashed. When he finally left under a cloud of threats, he had no good news to take back to Spain. Ridolfi, who was on the Continent when the plot was exposed, never returned to England.

Elizabeth again rebuffed a petition from her bishops and Parliament to put an end to that “bosom viper” Mary, but many of the plotters were executed, among them the Duke of Norfolk. The House of Peers found him guilty on January 16, 1572, but it was not until June 6 that he was beheaded. The interval was spent trying to persuade Elizabeth to sign the death warrant and keep it signed, for she had signed and then rescinded it several times. It was hard for her to kill a man who had been the foremost peer in the land. Meanwhile, Spain and England were drifting even farther apart.

Ties grew stronger between England and France. With one son, Anjou, rejected, Catherine de’ Medici groomed another, Francois, now the Duke of Alençon, to marry the queen. The French envoy told Elizabeth that Francois was a man among men who knew no equal – not mentioning that others found him physically repulsive. Elizabeth’s unsurpassed beauty, she was told, would assure his love and absolute faithfulness. Again, Elizabeth protested that she was too old to marry.

While these discussions continued, the queen and Catherine de’ Medici signed the Treaty of Blois, in which France and England swore alliance and opposition to Spain. In Paris, preparations to wrest control of the Low Countries from Spain were begun. Unfortunately, other issues were popping up in Paris at the same time.

Catherine de’ Medici became entangled in her own schemes. The French civil war had ended. The Huguenots had laid down their arms, and their most prominent nobleman, Henri of Navarre, was to wed Margaret, sister of the king - a union intended to weave all of France together. Catholics opposed the match, but Catherine insisted, and Charles IX, her puppet, blessed the union. Paris was crowded with Huguenots who came to take part in the week-long celebration - among them their military leader, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny.

What Catherine had not taken into account was the lingering hatred of the Huguenots throughout Catholic France. It seemed that the Low Countries soon would fall to France now that the civil war was ended, but the Catholics didn’t want the Huguenots to get too much credit for it. Animosity toward them was rife in Paris, where fanaticism and bigotry were now being fueled by the presence of so many interlopers. The animosity was made worse by the economic strain of poor harvests and tax increases.

Catherine, perhaps oblivious to the mood of the people, now felt some resentment of her own. Her oldest son, the king, seemed favorably disposed to Admiral Coligny and thought the Huguenot leader both impressive and wise. For Catherine, this was intolerable, but Charles was of age now, and she was no longer regent. Her power over Charles could only be exercised privately. It was a shock; until then, Charles had done her bidding.

Catherine decided Coligny must go. She took up the matter with the powerful Guises, who were eager to help. She evidently hoped that in playing the Catholic Guises against the Huguenots, another civil war - this one brief and contained - might result in the leaders of both sides killing each other off. She miscalculated terribly. What began as a limited effort to put down a handful of political rivals was about to spin out of control in one of the bloodiest chapters in European history.

On August 22, 1572, an assassination attempt was made on Admiral Coligny. He survived, but a musket ball smashed his left elbow and removed a finger. The news interrupted a tennis match between Charles IX and the Duke of Guise. Slamming his racket down in rage, Charles set off to visit the admiral, vowing a full investigation. A guard was placed around Coligny’s house.

An inquiry could only deepen the trouble. The assassin had fired from a house belonging to the Guise family and fled the scene on a horse from the Guise stables. It is widely believed that the plot was orchestrated by Catherine de’ Medici, whom the Guises may have betrayed under questioning.

There was already such unease and anxiety in the streets of Paris that violence seemed imminent. Some Huguenot leaders suggested leaving the city - even if it meant being branded cowards; others argued desertion would doom their admiral to death. They stayed. The mood grew darker still, nervousness replaced by fear. The Huguenots still had a large army camped just outside of Paris. Would they not seek reprisals for such a blatant assault on their leadership?

On August 23, the eve of the Feast of St. Bartholomew, Catherine de’ Medici, accompanied by a number of advisors, including her son Henri, the Duke of Anjou – Elizabeth’s recent reluctant suitor - met with Charles IX. It didn’t take them long to persuade the weak-willed king to do their bidding. Catherine admitted that she had ordered the assassination attempt on Coligny and said she had done so to save her son, the king. She told Charles that the Huguenots planned to seize him as a hostage so they might rule France. Indeed, she said, they might be coming for him at any moment. The king broke down. All right, he said, as he stormed out of the room. “Kill the Admiral! Kill them all, every Huguenot in the country!”

A list was made of Huguenot leaders, with Admiral Coligny’s name at the top. The gates to the city were closed. The slaughter started at dawn. It was calculated and brutal, and for the first few hours, everything went according to plan. Coligny was dragged out of bed and killed, his body tossed from a window. There were no trials, no rustling of warrants. Known Huguenots, together with their wives, children, and servants, were murdered before any semblance of resistance could be organized. Many victims were still in their nightclothes. Bodies were hauled into the streets and mutilated by the mob, with body parts taken as trophies. By mid-morning, the civil authorities - who had done most of the killing - lost control and the mob took over. Gone was efficiency and controlled ferocity. All was chaos. Not even babies and household pets were spared.

The killings continued throughout that day and night and all the next day and night, with no break or intermission. The streets of Paris were literally awash with blood. And because death alone was not enough to satiate the frenzied mob, the bodies were flayed and hacked to pieces.

Catherine exacted a ghastly toll. Casualties in Paris were estimated between 2,000 and 10,000. But that was not the end of the killing. When word of the massacre got out, spontaneous slaughters took place elsewhere – in Bordeaux, Lyon, Meaux, Orleans, Rouen, Toulon, and many other towns and cities. All of France joined in the butchery. At least 50,000 were killed, with some estimates running twice that high.

In England, the news of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was followed immediately by a stream of terrified Huguenots who had been lucky enough to escape. The refugees poured across the Channel aboard every vessel they could press into service. The English wondered if this was a prelude to the long-anticipated invasion of their country. There was no panic, as on other occasions when invasions were rumored, but there were forebodings of what everyone feared: a great, irresistible Catholic uprising that would sweep the civilized world. The mayhem that had spread across France could easily jump the Channel. Swords were sharpened, gunpowder was hauled up from storage. The fleet was ordered out.

The situation was made even more horrible and menacing to the English by the actions and attitude of the Vatican, where Pope Gregory ordered bonfires lit and a medal struck to commemorate the obliteration of heretics. In Spain, Philip II, on hearing the news of the massacre, laughed - reportedly for one of the few times in his life. No need to worry about an Anglo-French alliance any longer. For the French, it was clear that you were either Catholic or you were dead.

Appalled, but only briefly, Catherine de’ Medici put out a story that more or less matched what she had told the king. This wasn’t a massacre at all – at least, it wasn’t an authorized one. Rather, it was an essential response to an imminent Huguenot uprising, vital to protect the king’s life. The excesses? Well, who could take responsibility for those? France had simply exploded in anger.

The French ambassador to England desperately wanted to make that case to Elizabeth. But the queen, widely known as the world’s most accessible monarch, was suddenly unavailable. Three weeks later, a date was set for his audience with Elizabeth.

They met at Whitehall on September 8, the austere audience chamber draped in black. The courtiers and the queen were dressed in mourning clothes. The ambassador’s explanation was heard without comment, received in icy silence, and a well-rehearsed rebuke was made with great dignity. The queen said the proper things properly, but nothing more. When the ambassador attempted to bring up the subject of Francois, Elizabeth cut him short. This was no time to talk about marriage.