History of the Rise of the Huguenots, Vol. 2

by Henry Martyn Baird

Proposed marriage of Henry of Navarre and the king's sister.

Besides the Flemish project, an important domestic affair engaged the attention of the king and his counsellors at the time of Coligny's visit. This was the proposed marriage of young Henry, the Prince of Béarn, and after his mother's death heir of the crown of Navarre, to Margaret of Valois, the youngest sister of Charles the Ninth. Margaret, who had lately entered upon her twentieth year, was a year and a half older than the prince.[854] In a court and a state of society where the birth of a daughter was the signal for the initiation of an unlimited number of matrimonial projects, it is not surprising that this match, among many others, was talked of in the very infancy of the parties, perhaps with little expectation that anything would ever come of it. The prince was a sprightly boy, and, it is said, so delighted his namesake, Henry the Second, that the monarch playfully asked him whether he would like to be his son-in-law—a question which the boy found no difficulty in answering in the affirmative. In fact, the matter went so far that, when the young Bearnese was little over three years of age, Antoine of Bourbon wrote to his sister, the Duchess of Nevers, with undisguised delight, of "the favor the king has been pleased to show me by the agreement between us for the marriage of Madam Margaret, his daughter, with my eldest son—a thing which I accept as so particular a token of his good grace, that I am now at rest and satisfied with what I could most ardently desire in this world."[855] But the boy's mother had not been inclined to accept the king's offer to take and educate him with his own children.[856] She was not very familiar with the disorders of the royal court; but she had seen enough to convince her that the quiet plains at the foot of the Pyrenees could furnish a safer school of manners and morals. More than once the idea of the connection between the crowns of France and Navarre was revived, and in 1562 Catharine bethought herself of it as a means of detaching the unfortunate Antoine from the triumvirs, whose cause he had espoused with such strange infatuation.[857] But other plans soon diverted the ambitious mind of the Italian queen. Moreover, the civil wars between Protestants and Roman Catholics made the marriage of the daughter of the "Very Christian King" to the son of the most obstinate Huguenot in France appear to be out of the range of propriety or likelihood. Meantime, Margaret's union with Sebastian of Portugal was seriously discussed.[858] The tiresome negotiations ended in January, 1571, with a haughty refusal of her hand, dictated, as we have seen, by Philip himself. A few weeks later, as Margaret informs us in her Mémoires—which may generally be credited, except where the fair author's love affairs are concerned—the Prince of Navarre began again to be mentioned as an available candidate for her hand. She expressly states that it was from the Montmorencies that the first suggestion came[859]—that is, from François de Montmorency, the constable's oldest son. This nobleman, while he had inherited a great part of his father's influence, as the head of one of the most honorable feudal families in France, having its seat in the very neighborhood of the capital, had ranged himself with the party opposed to that with which Anne had been identified, and, although in outward profession a Roman Catholic, was in full sympathy with the liberal political views of his cousin, Admiral Coligny. This fact effectually disposes of the story that the marriage was proposed, however much it may subsequently have been entertained, as a trap to ensnare the Huguenots, thus thrown off their guard.

Marshal Biron, another statesman of the same type, was the messenger to carry the royal proposals to La Rochelle. He pictured to the Queen of Navarre in glowing colors the advantages that would flow from this alliance, the strength it would impart to the friends of mutual toleration, the consternation and dismay it would carry into the camp of the enemy. At the same time he declared that Charles the Ninth felt confident that, although he had not as yet obtained from the Pope the dispensation which the relationship subsisting between the parties, as well as their religious differences, rendered necessary, Pius the Fifth would ultimately place no obstacle in the way. Jeanne d'Albret gratefully acknowledged the honor offered by the king to her son, but, before accepting it, professed herself compelled to consult her spiritual advisers respecting the question whether such a marriage might in good conscience be entered into by a member of the reformed church.[860] As for Margaret herself, she gives us in her Mémoires little light as to the state of her own feelings at this time. If we may imagine her so indifferent, she demurely expressed her acquiescence in whatever her mother might decide, but begged her to remember that "she was very Catholic," and that "she would be very sorry to marry any one who was not of her religion."[861] A few months later, however, when the prospects of the marriage became less bright, because of the difficulties arising from religion, it would seem that, with a perversity not altogether unexampled, Margaret became more anxious to have it consummated. At least, Francis Walsingham writes to Lord Burleigh: "The gentlewoman, being most desirous thereof, falleth to reading of the Bible, and to the use of the prayers used by them of the religion."[862]

The Anjou match abandoned.

Meanwhile, the project of a marriage between Elizabeth and Anjou had, as we have seen, been virtually abandoned. The matter of religion was the ostensible stumbling-block; it can scarcely have been the real difficulty on either side. As to Anjou, the sincerity of his religious convictions is certainly not above suspicion. But he was the head of a party in his brother's kingdom, a party that professed unalterable devotion to the "Holy See" and the old faith. If the eternal rewards of his fidelity to the papacy were at all problematical, there was no doubt whatever in his mind of the advantage of so powerful support as that which the ecclesiastics of France could give him. He was resolved not to throw away this advantage by openly agreeing to renounce all exercise of his own religion in England, and this, too, without the certainty that the concession would secure to him the hand of the queen. And, unfortunately, it was impossible for him to gain this certainty. Elizabeth was already pretty well understood. Her fancies and freaks it was beyond the power of the most astute of her ministers to predict or to comprehend. If the barrier of religion were demolished, there was no possibility of telling what more formidable works might be unmasked. And so Henry, rather more sensible upon this point than even Catharine and Charles, who would have had him shrink from no concessions, made a virtue of necessity, definitely withdrew from competition for the hand of a woman for whose personal appearance it was impossible for him to entertain any admiration; whose moral character, he had often been told and he more than half suspected, was bad;[863] and told his friends, and probably believed, that he had had a narrow escape. The queen, on the other hand, was perhaps not conscious of insincerity of purpose. She must marry, if not from inclination, for protection's sake—the protection of her subjects and herself—so all the world told her; and a marriage that would secure to England the support of France against Spain was the best. But that she sought excuses for not taking the Duke of Anjou is evident, even though she strove to make it appear to others, as well as to herself, that the refusal came at last from him.[864] And she had her advisers—subjects who in secret aspired to her hand, or others—who, in an underhand way, stimulated her aversion to Henry. It is not unlikely that the Earl of Leicester, despite his ardent protestations of zealous support of the match, was the most insidious of its opponents. "While 'the poor Huguenots' were telling Walsingham in tears that an affront from England would bring back the Guises, and end in a massacre of themselves, Leicester was working privately upon the queen, who was but too willing to listen to him, feeding her through the ladies of the bedchamber with stories that Anjou was infected with a loathsome disease, and assisting his Penelope to unravel at night the web which she had woven under Cecil's direction in the day."[865]

The praise of Alençon.

So the negotiation of a marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou, after being virtually dead for about a half-year, breathed its last in January, 1572. But the full accord between the two kingdoms was too important to the interests of both, and the opportunity of obtaining a crown for one of her sons too precious in the eye of Catharine. Accordingly the discussion of the terms of the treaty of amity was pressed with still greater zeal, while the French envoy to England was instructed to offer Alençon to Elizabeth in place of his brother. And now were the wits of the statesmen on both sides of the channel exercised to find good reasons why the match would be no incongruous one. Unfortunately, Alençon, as already stated, was short even for his age; but this was no insuperable obstacle. "Nay," said Catharine de' Medici to Sir Thomas Smith, when she was sounding him respecting his mistress's disposition, "he is not so little; he is so high as you, or very near." "For that matter, madam," replied Smith, "I for my part make small account, if the queen's majestie can fancie him. For Pipinus Brevis, who married Bertha, the King of Almain's daughter, was so little to her, that he is standing in Aquisgrave, or Moguerre, a church in Almain, she taking him by the hand, and his head not reaching to her girdle; and yet he had by her Charlemain, the great Emperor and King of France, which is reported to be almost a giant's stature."[866] It was not so easy to dispose of the disparity in years,[867] and perhaps still less of Alençon's disfigurement by small-pox; for that unlucky prince added this to the long catalogue of his misfortunes. The course of the treaty for mutual defence was, happily, somewhat smoother than that of the matchmaking. On the eighteenth of April the treaty was formally concluded,[868] and shortly after, Marshal Montmorency and M. de Foix were despatched to administer the oath to Queen Elizabeth. This solemn ceremony was performed on Sunday, the fifteenth of June. The deputies were received with every mark of distinction, and the marshal was publicly presented by the queen with the insignia of the Order of the Garter.[869] The commission of the French envoys instructed them to press upon Elizabeth the Alençon marriage as a powerful means of cementing the alliance; and it empowered them to expend money to the extent of ten or twelve thousand crowns in buying the consent of those lords who had hitherto opposed the union. The Earl of Leicester, whose straightforwardness may have been suspected, was to be tempted by the special offer of some French heiress in marriage, the name of Mademoiselle de Bourbon being suggested.[870] But the marriage was not destined to be accomplished, although the negotiations were kept up until the very time of the massacre, and Elizabeth sent to Catharine de' Medici her hearty acknowledgment of the honor she had done her in offering her all her sons successively.[871] At the very moment when the fearful blow fell which was to render any such marriage impossible, Catharine was planning and proposing an interview between Elizabeth on the one side, and herself and Alençon on the other. That the dignity of neither party might be compromised, it was suggested that the meeting might take place some calm day on the water between Dover and Boulogne.[872] Elizabeth had reconsidered her partial refusal, and encouraged the project; the nobles, the ladies of the court, the council, all favored it; and in a letter written four days after the streets of Paris flowed with blood, but before the appalling intelligence had reached him, the French ambassador wrote to Catharine: "All who are well affected cry to us, 'Let my Lord the Duke come!'"[873]

Pope Pius the Fifth alarmed.

The Cardinal of Alessandria sent to Paris.

The king's assurances.