BOOK III
II
ISABEL OF THE PEACE
(ELIZABETH DE VALOIS)

When Mary Tudor lay dying at Saint James’s, and all England was in the throes of coming change, Feria archly hinted to Elizabeth that she might secure her succession and consolidate her throne by marrying her Spanish brother-in-law when her sister should die. Elizabeth loved such hints and smiled, though she did not commit herself; and for the next few weeks the main endeavour of Philip and his agents was to perpetuate his hold over England by means of the marriage of the new Queen. They all failed at first to gauge her character. Feria was certain that if she decided to marry a foreigner, ‘her eyes would at once turn to your Majesty’; and, at length, after his usual tedious deliberation and endless prayers, Philip once more donned the garb of matrimonial martyrdom and bade Feria offer his hand to the daughter of Anne Boleyn. The conditions he laid down were ridiculous, for even he quite misunderstood the strength of Elizabeth and the new national spirit of her people. She must amongst many other things become a Catholic, and obtain secret absolution from the Pope. ‘In this way it will be evident that I am serving the Lord in marrying her, and that she has been converted by my act.’ Elizabeth keenly enjoyed the compliment conveyed by the offer; but she neither wished nor dared to accept it, and she played with the subject with delightful skill until the latest possible moment. While the question was pending, Philip kept open the peace negotiations with France, in order that, if he had his way in England, pressure might be exerted to obtain the restitution of Calais; but as soon as it became clear that he was being used by this cunning young woman as a cat’s paw, he gave her clearly to understand that he intended to make peace himself, Calais or no Calais; and the treaty of Cateau Cambresis was signed on the 2nd April 1559, leaving the erstwhile English fortress in the hands of France.

Throughout the negotiations that followed Elizabeth’s accession, Philip’s advisers urged upon him incessantly the vital need for him to retain his hold over England by conquest and force if other means failed. The new Queen, they said, was not yet firmly established; the country was unsettled, and now was the time to act if ever. Philip was well aware that the friendship of England was of greater importance to him than ever, but he hated war, and the growth of protestantism in Europe, especially now that Elizabeth was Queen of England, had suggested to him a combination that exactly suited his diplomatic methods. When the peace negotiations had first been broached in the summer of 1558, Henry II. of France had suggested that a close league of the great Catholic powers might be formed to withstand the growth of heresy throughout Europe. Such combinations had been attempted several times before, but had never been sincerely carried out; national traditions had always been too strong. It had been further proposed at the ephemeral truce of Vaucelles in 1556, that the friendship of France and Spain might be cemented by the marriage of Philip’s only son Carlos to Henry’s eldest daughter Elizabeth of France.

The idea slumbered and the truce was broken; but at the beginning of the peace negotiations of Cateau Cambresis the marriage was again brought forward, and in principle accepted by Philip. When it became evident after Mary Tudor’s death that England under the new Queen might stand aside, or even permanently oppose Spain on religious grounds, Philip decided that an entire change of policy that should isolate Elizabeth would suit him better than war. So a close union with France was adopted; Philip’s name was substituted for that of his son in the treaty, and the widower of thirty-two became the betrothed husband of the most beautiful and gifted princess in Europe, the dainty eldest daughter of Henry II. and Catharine de Medici. It was a clever stroke of policy; for it not only bound France to Philip against heresy everywhere, as it was intended to do, but it enabled him to counteract from the inside any attempt on the part of his allies to depose Elizabeth of England in favour of Mary Queen of Scots, the next Catholic heir and the betrothed wife of the Dauphin of France. So far as France was concerned, the substitution of Philip for his son as a husband of the princess was an advantage. Don Carlos, though of the same age as the bride (14), was a deformed, stunted epileptic, who probably for years to come, if ever, would not possess any political power; whereas Philip, in the prime of manhood, was by far the most powerful sovereign in the world at the time, and could, if he chose, at once render any aid that France might need in suppressing the reformers.

Elizabeth of Valois, or Isabel of the Peace, as the Spaniards called her, was the flower of an evil flock. Tall, graceful, and well formed, even in her precocious youth, she had been destined from her birth for splendid marriage. ‘My daughter, Elizabeth, is such that she must not be married to a duchy. She must have a kingdom, and a great one,’ said her proud father once, when his younger daughter Claude was married to the Duke of Lorraine; and the Spanish ambassador, describing her magnificent christening feast at Fontainebleau, in July 1546, says that: ‘Isabel was chosen for her name, because of the hope they have at a future time of a marriage between her and the Infant (i.e. Don Carlos), and Isabel is a name beloved in Spain.’[[166]] We may doubt the correctness of this; for the Princess’s sponsor was Henry VIII. of England, and probably he chose the name after his own mother, Elizabeth of York.

Isabel grew up by the side of her sister-in-law, the young Queen of Scots; and although the latter was four years the senior of her companion, they were close rivals in the learning then becoming fashionable for young ladies of rank. The curious Latin and French didactic letters written by Mary Stuart, aged ten or eleven, to her little sister-in-law, although prim and priggish according to our present ideas, throw a flood of light upon the severe and systematic training for their future position that the young princesses underwent. After making all allowances for inevitable flattery on the part of such a courtier as Brantome, it is evident that Isabel was a beauty of the very first rank. ‘Her visage was lovely and her eyes and hair black, which contrasted with her complexion, and made her so attractive, that I have heard say in Spain that the gentlemen did not dare to look at her, for fear of falling in love with her, and to their own peril making the King jealous. The churchmen also avoided looking at her for fear of temptation; as they did not possess sufficient strength to dominate the flesh on regarding her.’ In 1552 she was betrothed to Edward VI. of England, and this danger to Spain, averted by Edward’s death, made Philip and his father all the more eager to keep a firm hold upon England as soon as Mary’s accession made an alliance possible.

It was this young beauty of fourteen whose portrait by Janet was sent to Philip in the early days of 1559. He was always an admirer of women, and had been twice an affectionate husband; but his first wife he had married when he was but a boy, and she died within a year; and his second wife, Mary Tudor, was, as we have seen, married to him for political reasons alone. Doña Isabel de Osorio, who had been his acknowledged mistress for years, and had borne him children, had retired into a convent, and was, of course, now out of the question. The sight of this radiant young French beauty seems to have stirred Philip’s heart to as much eagerness as he was capable of feeling.[[167]] But though the bride was an attractive one, and her own family exhausted eulogy in her praise, as well they might, for no princess of her time excelled her, the marriage was regarded on both sides as a political event of the first importance, though, as we shall see, it became really more important even than was anticipated. It was vital for Philip that he should have some control over French policy now that friendship with England was denied him; whilst to have his own clever daughter by the side of Philip was to the King of France a guarantee that no step inimical to him would be taken in Spain without his knowledge, and that he could depend upon the help, or at least the neutrality, of Spain if he had to deal with the French and Scotch reformers, who seemed to threaten the basis of authority. Thenceforward the Catholic sheep were to stand apart from the Protestant goats throughout the world.

So, when the saturnine Duke of Alba, with his train of gallant gentlemen, rode into Paris on the 19th June 1559 to wed Isabel, as proxy for Philip, the court and capital, all swept and garnished in its gayest garb, were impressed with the knowledge that these brilliant nuptials were intended to mark a new departure in the politics of Christendom. Led by the princes of the blood royal of France, the Spaniards and Flemings who represented Philip rode through the crowded and jubilant city to the Louvre, heralded by triumphal music, and were received at the door by Henry II. and his court. Alba dismounted and knelt at the King’s feet, but was raised and embraced by Henry, and, arm in arm, Philip’s proxy and his erstwhile enemy entered the great hall where the Queen Catharine and her daughter sat in gorgeous state, surrounded by their ladies. As Alba knelt and kissed the hem of the girl’s robe, it was noticed that the colour fled from her cheek, and she rose from her chair and remained standing whilst the Duke read to her Philip’s message, and handed to her the splendid casket of jewels he had sent her. One of the gifts was a portrait of the bridegroom in a superb diamond locket, which Isabel pressed to her lips.

On the next day, 20th June, the same great hall of the Louvre was crowded with the princes and nobles of France, whilst the solemn betrothal ceremony was performed that gave to Isabel the title of Queen of Spain: and on Thursday, 21st June, the capital was alive from early dawn for the marriage itself. Frenchmen and Spaniards alike could speak of nothing but the dignity and beauty of the bride. Even Alba, dour as he was, broke into exclamations at the perfections of the new Queen, and grew almost romantic in her praises in his letters to Philip. Isabel, indeed, had been well schooled by her mother, whom she feared and admired more than any other person in the world. Catharine de Medici was still, to some extent, in the shade, for the Duchess of Valentinois was the real Queen; but she was profoundly wise, and had moulded her favourite daughter well for the character she was destined to play. Isabel herself was fully conscious of the great position she was called to fill, and was proud of the triumph that was hers.

She bore herself throughout the trying ceremonies with a composure and grace which she knew were fitting for the Queen of Spain; and as she glided, holding her handsome father’s hand, along the gorgeous raised and covered gangway leading from the bishop’s palace to the great door of Notre Dame, she presented a vision of beauty adorned with such stately magnificence as can rarely have been surpassed, even at the marriage of her friend and sister-in-law, Mary Stuart, in the same place shortly before. The texture of Isabel’s robe was literally interwoven with pearls. Round her neck was suspended Philip’s portrait, and the great pear-shaped pearl which was the greatest treasure in the crown jewels of Spain. Her mantle was of blue velvet, enriched with a border of bullion embroidery a foot wide. The train of this gorgeous robe was borne by her sister Claude, Duchess of Lorraine, and Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and, as she foolishly called herself, Queen of England. Isabel wore an imperial crown which, we are told, cast a halo of light around her as she walked, so refulgent were the jewels of which it was composed.[[168]] Alba, in cloth of gold and with the royal insignia, personated his absent master, and in his name was married to the Princess by Cardinal de Bourbon. Splendour truly seems to have excelled itself in that sumptuous court on this occasion; the long-standing enemies, France and Spain, each trying to outdazzle the other in its lavish magnificence.