II.
May, 1514] MARRIAGE-MAKING
While her nieces were still children Margaret was busy with plans for their marriage. Her views for them were ambitious and frankly expressed. "All your granddaughters," she wrote to her father, "should marry Kings." The old Emperor himself was an inveterate matchmaker, and the House of Austria had been proverbially fortunate in its alliances. Tu felix Austria nube had passed into a common saying. By his marriage with Mary of Burgundy, Maximilian entered on the vast inheritance of Charles the Bold, and his grandson was heir to the throne of Spain by right of his mother Juana. In 1509 proposals for two of the Archduchesses came from Portugal, and Margaret urged her father to accept these offers, remarking shrewdly that King Emanuel was a wealthy monarch, and that there were few marriageable Princes in Europe. If both Madame Leonore and Madame Marie were betrothed to the two Portuguese Princes, there would still be two of her nieces to contract other alliances. But Maximilian's thoughts were too much occupied with his war against Venice to consider these proposals seriously, and the matter was allowed to drop.[7] Meanwhile Madame Isabeau's hand was in great request. In March, 1510, Maximilian received offers of marriage for his second granddaughter from the King of Navarre's son, Henri d'Albret, but this project was nipped in the bud by the jealousy of Isabella's other grandfather, Ferdinand of Aragon, and Francis I.'s sister, Margaret, Duchess of Alençon, became Queen of Navarre in her stead. A new and strange husband for the nine-year-old Princess was now proposed by the Regent herself. This was none other than Charles of Egmont, Duke of Guelders, the turbulent neighbour who had been a thorn in Margaret's side ever since she became Governess of the Netherlands. It is difficult to believe that Margaret ever really intended to give her beloved niece to the man whom she openly denounced as "a brigand and a felon," but it was necessary to cajole Guelders for the moment, and conferences were held in which every detail of the marriage treaty was discussed, and the dowry and fortune of the bride and the portions of her sons and daughters were all minutely arranged. But when the deputies of Guelders asked that Madame Isabeau should be given up to the Duke at once to be educated at his Court, the Regent met their demands with a flat refusal. The negotiations were broken off, and war began again.[8] Another matrimonial project, which had been discussed ever since King Philip's lifetime, was the union of the Archduchess Eleanor with the young Duke Antoine of Lorraine. Maximilian seems to have been really eager for this marriage, which he regarded as a means of detaching a neighbouring Prince from the French alliance, but was so dilatory in the matter that Margaret wrote him a sharp letter, asking him if he ever meant to marry his granddaughters. Upon this the affronted Emperor rebuked her for these undutiful remarks, and asked peevishly "if she held him for a Frenchman who changed his mind every day."[9] But in spite of these protestations he took no further steps in the matter, and in 1515 Duke Antoine married Renée de Bourbon, a Princess of the blood royal of France.
The marriage of Louis XII. to Henry VIII.'s handsome sister Mary was a more serious blow. Six years before the English Princess had been wedded by proxy to the Archduke Charles, and Margaret, whose heart was set on this alliance, vainly pressed her father to conclude the treaty. Meanwhile, in January, 1514, Anne of Brittany died, and the widowed King sent offers of marriage, first to Margaret herself, and then to her niece Eleanor.[10] A few months later news reached Brussels that Louis had made a treaty with Henry, and was about to wed the Princess Mary. So the Archduke lost his promised bride, and his sister was once more cheated of a husband. The Lady Regent was deeply hurt, but found some consolation for her wounded feelings in the double marriage that was arranged in the course of the same year between the Archduke Ferdinand and Anna, daughter of Ladislaus, King of Hungary, and between this monarch's son Louis and the Archduchess Mary. In May, 1514, the little Princess was sent to be educated with her future sister-in-law at Vienna, where the wedding was celebrated a year afterwards.[11]
At the same time marriage proposals for another of his granddaughters reached Maximilian from a new and unexpected quarter. The young King of Denmark, Christian II., on succeeding to the throne, declined the French marriage which had been arranged for him by his father, and conceived the ambitious design of allying himself with the Imperial Family. In March, 1514, two Danish Ambassadors, the Bishop of Schleswig and the Court-Marshal Magnus Giœ, were introduced into Maximilian's presence by Christian's uncle, the Elector of Saxony, and asked for the Archduchess Eleanor's hand on behalf of their royal master. The prospect of an alliance with Denmark met with the Emperor's approval, and could not fail to be popular in the Low Countries as a means of opening the Baltic to the merchants of Bruges and Amsterdam. Accordingly the envoys met with a friendly reception, and were told that, although the elder Archduchess was already promised to the Duke of Lorraine, the Emperor would gladly give King Christian the hand of her sister Isabella. The contract was signed at Linz on the 29th of April, 1514, and the dowry of the Princess was fixed at 250,000 florins, an enormous sum for those times. Only three-fifths of his sister's fortune, however, was to be paid by Charles, and the remainder by her grandfather, the King of Aragon.[12]
ISABELLA OF AUSTRIA, QUEEN OF DENMARK
By Bernard van Orley (Cardon Collection)
To face p. [12]
June, 1514] A ROYAL WEDDING
From Linz the Ambassadors travelled by slow stages to Brussels, where they were received with great honour. But Margaret was scarcely prepared for the proposal which they made, that the wedding might take place on the following day, when King Christian was to be crowned at Copenhagen. It was, however, impossible to refuse such a request, and on Trinity Sunday, the 11th of June, the marriage was solemnized with due splendour. At ten o'clock a brilliant assembly met in the great hall of the palace, which had been hung for the occasion with the famous tapestries of the Golden Fleece, and Magnus Giœ, who represented the King, appeared, supported by the Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg and the Marquis of Brandenburg. Presently a flourish of trumpets announced the bride's coming, and Charles led in his sister, a tall, slender maiden of thirteen, robed in white, with a crown of pearls and rubies on her fair locks. "Madame Isabeau," as Margaret wrote with motherly pride to her father, "was certainly good to see."[13] They took their places under a baldacchino near the altar, followed by the Regent, who led her niece Eleanor by the hand. The Archbishop of Cambray, clad in rich vestments of purple and gold, performed the nuptial rites, and the Danish Ambassador placed a costly ring, bearing three gold crowns set round with large sapphires and the motto Ave Maria gratia plena, on the finger of the bride, who plighted her faith in the following words:
"Je, Isabelle d'Autriche et de Bourgogne, donne ma foi à très hautt et très puissant Prince et Seigneur, Christierne roy de Danemarck, et à toy Magnus Giœ, son vrai et léal procureur, et je le prens par toy en époux et mari légitime."[14]
Then the Mass of the Holy Ghost was chanted, the Spanish Ambassador being seated at the Archduke's side, and the others according to their rank, all but the English Envoy, who refused to be present owing to a dispute as to precedence. Afterwards the guests were entertained by the Regent at a banquet, followed by a tournament and a state ball, which was kept up far into the night. Finally all the chief personages present escorted the bride with lighted torches to her chamber, and Magnus Giœ, in full armour, lay down on the nuptial bed at her side in the presence of this august company. Then, rising to his feet, he made a deep obeisance to the young Queen and retired. During the next three days a succession of jousts and banquets took place, and on the Feast of Corpus Christi a public reception was held in the palace, at which the bride appeared wearing the ring of the three kingdoms and a jewelled necklace sent her by King Christian. Unfortunately, the Archduke danced so vigorously on the night of the wedding that this unwonted exertion brought on a sharp attack of fever.
"Monseigneur," wrote his aunt to the Emperor, "fulfilled all his duties to perfection, and showed himself so good a brother that he overtaxed his strength, and fell ill the day after the wedding. Not," she hastened to add, "that his sickness is in any way serious, but that the slightest ailment in a Prince of his condition is apt to make one anxious."[15]
Aug., 1515] EVIL OMENS
On the 4th of July the Danish Ambassadors took their leave, but Isabella remained in her home for another year. She and Eleanor shared in the fêtes which celebrated the Archduke's coming of age, and were present at his Joyeuse Entrêe into Brussels. But in the midst of these festivities the Danish fleet, with the Archbishop of Drondtheim on board, arrived at Veeren in Zeeland, and on the 16th of July, 1515, the poor young Queen took leave of her family with bitter tears, and sailed for Copenhagen. On the day of Isabella's christening, fourteen years before, the ceremony had been marred by a terrific thunderstorm, and now the same ill-luck attended her wedding journey. A violent tempest scattered the Danish fleet off the shores of Jutland, and the vessel which bore the Queen narrowly escaped shipwreck. When at length she had landed safely at Helsingfors, she wrote a touching little letter to the Regent:
"Madame, my Aunt and good Mother,
"I must tell you that we landed here last Saturday, after having been in great peril and distress at sea for the last ten days. But God kept me from harm, for which I am very thankful. Next Thursday we start for Copenhagen, which is a day's journey from here. I have been rather ill, and feel weak still, but hope soon to be well. Madame, if I could choose for myself I should be with you now; for to be parted from you is the most grievous thing in the world to me, and the more so as I do not know when there is any hope of seeing you again. So I can only beg you, my dearest aunt and mother, to keep me in your heart, and tell me if there is anything that you wish me to do, and you shall always be obeyed, God helping me. That He may give you a long and happy life is the prayer of your humble and dutiful niece
Isabeau.[16]
"August 7, 1515."
Two days later Isabella continued her journey to Hvidore, the royal country-house near Copenhagen. There she was received by King Christian, who rode at her side, a splendid figure in gold brocade and shining armour, when on the following day she made her state entry into the capital in torrents of rain. On the 12th of August the wedding was celebrated in the great hall of the ancient castle, which had been rebuilt by King Christian's father, and was followed by the coronation of the young Queen. But Isabella was so much exhausted by the fatigue which she had undergone, that before the conclusion of the ceremony she fell fainting into the arms of her ladies. Her illness threw a gloom over the wedding festivities, and seemed a forecast of the misfortunes that were to darken the course of her married life and turn her story into a grim tragedy.