“I pray you, repeat unto me none of these matters,” interrupted Francis impatiently. “I know well enow her education, her form, her fashion, her beauty and virtue, and what father and mother she cometh of; expedient and necessary it shall be for me and for my realm that I marry her, and I assure you for the same cause, I have as great a mind to her as ever I had to any woman.”
Nevertheless, the alliance with England was not to be in this wise. The army, consisting of 30,000 men, which Francis had sent into Italy under Lautrec, had suffered a humiliating defeat before Naples, and the loss of a second army at Landriano obliged him to conclude with Charles the disastrous treaty of Cambrai, by which he was forced to pay 2,000,000 of gold crowns in lieu of Burgundy. Four marriages were to ensue. The King of France was to fulfil his promise to the Emperor’s sister; the Dauphin was to marry the Infanta of Portugal; the son of the Duke of Lorraine was affianced to the Princess Madeleine, daughter of the King of France, whose second son, the Duke of Orleans, was betrothed to Mary.
The marriage contract between Mary and the Duke of Orleans, signed and sealed by Francis I., and illustrated with their portraits, was dated 18th August 1527, and is still preserved in the Record Office.[62] This interesting document is beautifully illuminated on vellum, with a gold background and a border composed of Tudor roses, fleurs de lys and cupids. Francis I., representing the god Hymen, in a dress of the period, holds a hand of the bride and of the bridegroom. The arms of England and France are on either side of him. The Princess Mary, a youthful figure in a white dress covered with flowers, and wearing a blue coif with a gold border, stands on the left of Francis; the Duke of Orleans, a young boy in doublet and trunk hose, is on his right.
The peace, thus momentarily secured at the cost of immense sacrifices on the part of France, afforded a brief space in which to prepare for a fresh outbreak of hostilities. Francis and Henry were henceforth allies, and the course of affairs in England tended to cement their bond, and to widen the breach between them and the house of Austria. Henry sent Francis the Garter, and received the order of St. Michael in exchange.[63]
FOOTNOTES:
[43] Harl. MS. 6807, f. 3, Brit. Mus.
[44] Sanuto Diaries, vol. xxxix., p. 356.
[45] Reading Abbey, 18th August 1525, Record Office.
[46] Sampson to Cardinal Wolsey. Cotton MS. Titus B. i., 314, Brit. Mus.