I.
Christina was at Brussels on the memorable day when the Emperor set foot once more on his native soil. She heard the shouts of joy which rent the air, and joined with the Queens in the welcome which greeted him on the threshold of his palace. Early in January she had left Heidelberg and travelled safely down the Rhine and through the friendly states of her Cleves cousins to Brussels. Here she occupied the suite of rooms where she had lived before her second marriage, and to a large extent resumed her former habits. She spent much of her time with her aunts and the Duchess of Aerschot, and renewed her old friendship with Countess d'Aremberg and other ladies of the Court. The deepest sympathy was felt for her by all classes, and when Charles addressed the States-General on the 13th of February, and alluded to the treachery of the French in carrying off the young Duke of Lorraine and driving his mother out of the realm, his words provoked an outburst of tumultuous indignation.[481]
Jan., 1553] CHRISTINA'S SUITORS
Through her brother-in-law Vaudemont she still maintained close relations with Lorraine, while the Cardinal kept her informed of all that concerned her son, and the boy's own letters satisfied her that he was well and happy at the French Court. But although Charles shared all the advantages enjoyed by the King's children, and soon became a general favourite in the royal family, it was bitter for the Duchess to feel that her only son was growing up, in a foreign land, among the hereditary foes of her race. The restoration of peace between Charles and Henry was the only means by which she could hope to recover her lost child, and this became the goal of all her efforts during the six years that she spent in exile.
The Widow of Milan had been courted by Kings and Princes, and hardly was Christina settled at Brussels before she was assailed by fresh offers of marriage. Henry, King of Navarre, whose accomplished wife had died soon after her daughter's marriage, asked the Emperor for his niece's hand, but his proposals met with small favour. Far more serious was the courtship of Albert of Brandenburg, who felt this to be a favourable moment for renewing his old suit. "No one," as Thomas Hoby wrote, "had done the Emperor worthier or more faithful service" in the siege of Metz, and was better entitled to reward. His claims were strongly supported by the Palatine, who invited the Marquis to Heidelberg to confer with the other German Princes on the best means of recovering Metz. Albert himself not only aspired to the Duchess's hand, but to the Duke of Alva's post of Commander-in-Chief, and boasted that once Christina was his bride he would easily recover her father's kingdoms.
"It is supposed," wrote Morosyne from Brussels on the 20th of February, "that the Marquis will marry the Duchess of Lorraine and have Alva's place. The Palsgrave would fain it were so, in order that, if the Marquis married his wife's sister, he might help him to recover Denmark; for besides that a slender title is apt to set such a one to work, he should, by being married to the Emperor's niece, and afterwards coming, when his uncle died, to the duchy of Prussia, be able easily to trouble Denmark. The Marquis doth much desire it, for that the Duke of Holstein has been and is a great suitor to the Duchess, who was once so nigh marrying the Marquis Albert's sister that the contracts were drawn up and put into writing, but broke it off upon sight of the Duchess of Lorraine. The Palsgrave would rather any did marry with her than the Duke of Holstein, for that his brother, King Christian, keeps his wife's father in prison. And the Emperor, it is held certain, will help it, in order that he may by this means trouble Denmark, which he has never had leisure to trouble himself."[482]
June, 1553] PHILIP HOBY'S AUDIENCE
Whatever her relatives may have thought of the Marquis's suit, Christina herself never considered it seriously, and told the Palatine plainly that such a marriage was out of the question. The Marquis vented his anger on the Emperor, and left Heidelberg in high displeasure, without taking leave of the Palatine or anyone else. Hot words passed between him and Maurice, and these two Princes, who had once been the closest friends, were henceforth bitter enemies. Albert returned to his life of raids and plunder, and when, soon afterwards, he was placed under the ban of the Empire, Maurice led an army against him. A fiercely-contested battle was fought on the 9th of July at Sievershausen, in which Albert was completely routed and Maurice lost his life. The Marquis was deprived of fortune and patrimony, his ancestral home of Plassenburg was burnt to the ground, and after leading a roving life for some years, and wandering from one Court to another, he died in the house of his brother-in-law, the Margrave of Baden, on the 8th of January, 1557. So in exile and poverty this brave and brilliant adventurer ended his career, before he had completed his thirty-fifth year.[483]
While the Palatine was holding vain conferences at Heidelberg, and the Marquis and Duke Adolf were still quarrelling for the Duchess's hand, she herself was endeavouring to open negotiations with the French King through Bassompierre and Vaudemont. But nothing would induce Henry to give up Metz, and in April war was renewed with fresh vigour. The young Prince of Piedmont, who succeeded the unpopular Alva in command of the imperial army, won a series of victories, and razed the forts of Thérouenne and Hesdin to the ground. But the Emperor was too ill to take part in the campaign or even to give audiences. Sir Philip Hoby, who now succeeded Morosyne, actually believed him to be dead, until De Courrières came to dine with his English friends, and assured them, on his honour as a gentleman, that he had seen the Emperor alive that morning.[484] Upon this Sir Philip's brother Thomas, who had just arrived from Paris, where he had been spending the winter in translating Castiglione's "Cortegiano," was sent to see his old Augsburg friend, the Bishop of Arras, and beg for an audience. At length, on the 8th of June, the Englishmen were admitted into the privy chamber, and found the Emperor sitting up, with his feet on a stool, "very pale, weak, and lean, but nothing so ill as they had believed." His eye was lively, his speech sensible, and his manner very friendly and agreeable. But, although he expressed an earnest wish for peace, he declared that the French demands made this quite impossible.[485]
Sept., 1553] ACCESSION OF MARY
A month later an unexpected event produced a change in the Emperor's fortunes. King Edward VI. died, and, after a vain attempt on Northumberland's part to set Lady Jane Grey on the throne, Catherine of Aragon's daughter Mary succeeded peaceably to the throne. Her accession was hailed with joy at the Imperial Court, and on the Feast of St. Bartholomew the Regent celebrated the event by giving a banquet, to which the English Ambassadors were invited. "It was such a dinner," writes Hoby, "as we had seldom seen in all our lives, and greater good cheer or entertainment than Her Grace gave us could not be devised." Mary was in high spirits that evening. She toasted the Ambassadors, conversed with them after dinner for more than an hour, and told Morosyne laughingly that his French could not be worse than her Italian. Sir Philip sat next to the Duchess of Lorraine, and reminded her of the memorable morning, fifteen years before, when he brought the German Court painter to take her portrait.[486] Since then much had happened. King Henry himself, the great painter Holbein, René of Orange, and Francis of Lorraine, were all gone, and she had lost home and state and had seen her only son snatched from her arms. Yet she was still beautiful and fascinating, and counted almost as many suitors as of old. Adolf of Holstein wooed her with a constancy which no coldness could repel, and if the wild Marquis had been forced to renounce all hope of winning her hand, another hero, the young Prince of Piedmont, was ready to lay his laurels at her feet. But Christina remained the same, calm and unmoved, and was an interested and amused spectator of the matrimonial plans which now formed the all-absorbing topic in the family conclave.
Charles quickly realized the importance of securing the new Queen's hand for his son. As soon as he heard of Edward's death, he sent orders to his Ambassador at Lisbon to delay drawing up the marriage contract which had been agreed upon between Philip and Eleanor's daughter, Maria of Portugal, and wrote to his son, setting forth the superior advantages of the English alliance. Philip replied dutifully that, as his cousin the Queen was twelve years older than himself, his father would be a more suitable husband, but added that he was ready to obey the Emperor's will in all respects.[487]
On the 20th of September Charles wrote from Valenciennes, where he was directing military operations from his litter, to the English Queen. After explaining that he was too old and infirm to think of marriage, and had solemnly vowed after the Empress's death never to take a second wife, he offered her the dearest thing he had in life—his own son. He then proceeded to point out the great advantages of the proposed union, while at the same time he advised Mary to observe the utmost caution, being "well aware of the hatred with which the English, more than any other nation, regard foreigners." Mary's own mind was soon made up. In spite of protests from her subjects and remonstrances from the French King, she was determined to marry her cousin. On the 30th of October she sent for the Imperial Envoy, Renard, and, kneeling down before the Blessed Sacrament in her chapel, she said the Veni Creator, and took a solemn vow to wed the Prince of Spain.[488]
Jan., 1554] CARDINAL POLE AT BRUSSELS
The most friendly letters were now exchanged between the two Courts. The holy chrism for Mary's coronation was sent from Brussels, with venison and wild-boar for her table. Charles gave his future daughter magnificent tapestries and jewels, and Mary of Hungary sent the Queen a yet more precious gift, Titian's portrait of Philip, telling her that, if she stands at some distance from the canvas, it will give her a good idea of the Prince, only that he is older and more bearded than he was when the artist painted it three years ago. The Regent took care to add that she could only lend the Queen the picture on condition that it should be returned "when the living man joined her." In reply, Mary begged her good aunt to pay her a visit; but the Regent excused herself, owing to the Emperor's ill-health, and promised to come and see her later on, it might be in the Prince's company. The same cordial invitation was extended to the Duchess of Lorraine, who sent her new maître d'hôtel, Baron De Silliers, to London in April, 1554, to congratulate the Queen on her marriage. Mary made Christina a present of a fine diamond, which De Courrières was desired to give her, and when, on the 20th of July, Philip landed at Southampton, and the wedding was celebrated in Winchester Cathedral, the happy spouse sent costly jewels to the Emperor and the two Queens, and a beautiful emerald to her dear cousin the Duchess.
In January Cardinal Pole, the Papal Legate, came to the monastery of Diligam, near Brussels, with proposals of peace from the Pope, on his way to congratulate Queen Mary on her accession, and help to restore Catholic rites in the kingdom. Pole was known to be averse to the Spanish marriage, and Charles had put every obstacle in the way of his journey to England. On his arrival he gave him a very cold reception, and the Cardinal complained to the Pope that the Emperor and Arras could not have used greater violence, unless they had taken a stick to drive him back.[489] The Regent and the Duchess of Lorraine, however, were much more friendly when he dined with them the next day, after attending Mass in the royal chapel. Mary told him that no one wished for peace more earnestly than herself, seeing how terribly her poor people of the Netherlands had suffered from the war, and Christina spoke to him of her son with tears in her eyes. When the Cardinal went on to Fontainebleau, he saw the young Duke, and was able to give him his mother's messages. But he found Henry II. still less amenable than Charles, and returned to Brussels convinced that his mission was a failure as far as the hope of peace was concerned.
Before the end of April the French King invaded Hainault, at the head of a large army, and took the strong citadel of Marienburg. Namur was only saved by the promptitude of Charles, who once more took the field, although he could no longer mount a horse, and showed all his old courage in this his last campaign.
After an indecisive battle at Renty, the French retired with heavy loss, spreading famine and desolation in their track. One act of vandalism for which Henry was condemned, even by his own captains, was the destruction of Mary of Hungary's beautiful palace of Binche, with its famous gardens and treasures of art. The Queen received the news with equanimity, saying that she was proud of being the object of the French King's vindictiveness, and glad the world should know that she was the Emperor's devoted servant.
"As for the damage which has been done," she wrote to Arras, "I do not care a straw. I am not the woman to grieve over the loss of things transitory, which we are meant to enjoy as long as we have them, and do without when they are gone. That, upon my word, is all the regret I feel."[490]
In the autumn Christina made another fruitless attempt to open negotiations through Vaudemont, who after the death of his first wife, Margaret of Egmont, was induced by the Cardinal of Lorraine to marry the Duke of Nemours's daughter. This Prince came to Brussels in November to inform the Emperor and the Duchess of his marriage, and, as might be expected, met with a very cold reception at Court. But, in spite of his French alliance, he remained scrupulously loyal to Christina and her son, and complained to his sister Anne that at Brussels he was reproached for his French sympathies, while in Paris he was looked on with suspicion as an Imperialist. So hard was it to be an honest man in those troublous times.[491]
Sept., 1554] A GAY COURT