MADELEINE DE VALOIS.
James had found in Madeleine an accomplished princess. Her health was frail, but her heart was virtuous and her soul was no stranger to the piety of her aunt. How great a gain for the Reformation if there should be seated on the throne of Scotland a queen who was a lover of the Word of God! James embarked with his young wife on a fleet of seventeen sail. On reaching Leith, the amiable queen, who was of noble bearing though of unhealthy aspect, set foot on land, knelt down on the shore, and taking up a handful of the sand of Scotland, kissed it with deep feeling, and implored God’s blessing on her beloved husband and on her new country. Madeleine was received at Edinburgh with great enthusiasm by the people and the nobles; but the churchmen, better informed than they were at first, were disquieted, and were afraid that this princess would diffuse around her the evangelical opinions of the sister of Francis I. This happiness was not in store for Scotland. The flower transplanted into that rough climate withered and fell. On July 2 [1537] the queen breathed her last. All who had known her, except the priests, deeply regretted her. Buchanan, struck with such glory and such mourning, composed an epitaph on her in Latin verse, to the following effect:—‘I was wife of a king, daughter of a king, niece of a king, and, according to my wish and my hope, I was to become mother of a king. But cruel death, unwilling that I should stand on the highest pinnacle of honor that a mortal creature can attain to, has laid me in this tomb before that bright day dawned.’[202]
SECOND MARRIAGE OF JAMES V.
The prelates began to bestir themselves immediately to negotiate another French marriage, but one which should be at the same time what the first had not been,—a Romish marriage. They did not intend to be taken in a second time. The ardent David Beatoun, the primate’s nephew, who had accompanied the king to Paris, returned to France immediately after the death of the young queen, in order to seek for James V. a new alliance agreeable to the priests. David, who was very well liked at the court of St. Germain, was made bishop of Mirepoix, by Francis I., and through his intervention was afterwards created cardinal. His whole life was to be consecrated to a conflict with the Gospel in Scotland. Now for this end he needed a fanatical queen, and it was not difficult to find one.
There was at that time at the court of France a family which was beginning to be known for its zeal for the papacy. Claude de Lorraine, Duke of Guise, who had married Antoinette de Bourbon, had distinguished himself on several occasions, and particularly at the battle of Marignano. Surrounded by six sons and four daughters, he founded a powerful house, which at a later period was near taking the throne from the Valois and the Bourbons. Hence, the last word of Francis I. to his son was this, ‘Beware of the Guises!’ It appears that James, during his visit to France, had seen and observed the eldest of the duke’s children, Mary, a young woman of three-and-twenty, widow of Louis of Orléans.[203] To her Beatoun addressed himself. The alliance was promptly concluded. The Scottish clergy triumphed; but the evangelical Christians saw with sorrow ‘this egg taken from the bloody nest of the Guises’[204] brought into their native land.
The young queen, having arrived at St. Andrews on June 16, 1538, strove to gain the affection of the king and of her mother-in-law. She failed to win the favor of the people; but the priests were enamored of her, and feeling themselves thenceforth sure of the victory, they began to set the authority of the pope higher than ever in their discourses.[205]
The pope then, through cardinal Pole, proposed an alliance between the emperor and the kings of France and Scotland for the invasion of England; and at the same time he withdrew from Henry VIII. and his successors the title of Defender of the Faith, and transferred it to the crown of Scotland.
James V., the slave at once of his wife and his bishops, seemed to be positively chained to the chariot of the Roman pontiff.