Oct., 1546] MARRIAGE PROPOSALS
But these hopes were doomed to disappointment. Christina was determined never to marry again. Like her aunt, Mary of Hungary, having once tasted perfect happiness, she was unwilling to repeat the experiment. Her beauty was in its prime, her charms attracted lovers of every age and rank. During the next ten or twelve years she was courted by several of the most illustrious personages and bravest captains of the age. She smiled on all her suitors in turn, and gave them freely of her friendship, but remained true to her resolve to live for her children alone, and took for her device a solitary tower with doves fluttering round its barred windows, and the motto Accipio nullas sordida turris aves (A ruined tower, I give shelter to no birds), as a symbol of perpetual widowhood.[390]
Aumale consoled himself by winning fresh laurels in the next war, and before long married another bride of high degree; but Brantôme, who was intimate with the Guises, tells us that he never forgave Madame de Lorraine for rejecting his suit, and remained her bitter enemy to the end of his life.[391] The King took Christina's refusal more lightly. He never treated women's fancies seriously, and when he found that Aumale's suit was not acceptable, he sought the Duchess's help in a scheme that lay nearer his heart. This was the marriage of his own daughter Margaret with Philip of Spain, whose young wife had died, in June, 1545, a few days after giving birth to the Infant Don Carlos. The old scheme of marrying this Princess to the Emperor's only son was now revived at the French Court, and Christina, who had always appreciated Madame Marguerite's excellent qualities, entered readily into the King's wishes. But, as she soon discovered, her aunt, Queen Eleanor, was greatly opposed to the idea, and still ardently wished to see Philip married to her own daughter, the Infanta Maria of Portugal.[392]
From Bar Francis returned to spend All Hallows at Joinville, where he enjoyed fresh revels, and delighted the Duke of Longueville by telling him to make haste and grow tall, that he might enter his service.
"Now he goes," wrote the boy's tutor, Jean de la Brousse, "to keep Christmas at Compiègne, and will spend the winter in Paris, watching how matters go with the Emperor and the Protestants, whose armies have been three months face to face, and yet do not know how to kill each other."[393]
In the same letter the writer describes how, on his journey to Plessis, to bring the Princess of Navarre to Court, he met the Queen of Scotland's sister, Madame Renée, with a number of old monks and nuns, on her way from Fontévrault to Joinville. On the 16th of December Madame Renée took possession of the Convent of St. Pierre at Reims, of which she was Abbess, and the Duchess of Lorraine and the Princess of Orange were among the guests present at this ceremony, at the entry of her brother the Archbishop into his episcopal city on the following day.
Jan., 1547] DEATH OF HENRY VIII.
Meanwhile the news of Christina's supposed marriage travelled far and wide. It reached Venice, where the fate of the Duchess who had once reigned over Milan always excited interest, and was reported to King Henry of England by one of his Italian agents. His curiosity was aroused, and when the French Ambassador, Odet de Selve, came to Windsor, he asked him if his master had concluded the marriage which he had in hand. "What marriage?" asked De Selve innocently. "That of Madame de Lorraine," replied Henry testily. "With whom?" asked the Ambassador. But Henry would say no more, and relapsed into sullen silence.[394] He had come back from Boulogne seriously ill, and grew heavier and more unwieldy every day. A week afterwards he had a severe attack of fever, and on his return to London sent Norfolk and Surrey to the Tower.
Mary of Hungary was so much alarmed at this fresh outbreak of violence that she sent to Chapuys, who was living in retirement at Louvain, for advice. The veteran diplomatist, who for sixteen years had toiled to avoid a rupture between the two monarchs, wrote back, on the 29th of January, 1547, advising the Queen to take no action. "Physicians say," he added, "that the best and quickest cure for certain maladies is to leave the evil untouched and avoid further irritation." When the old statesman wrote these words, the King, whose varying moods he knew so well, had already ceased from troubling. He died at Whitehall on the 28th of January, 1547.