Queens of old Spain

by Martin A. S. Hume

But scowling faces there were not a few, for this was the triumph of the house of Lorraine, and the debonair Duke of Guise and his brothers took no pains to hide their elation, whilst the princes of the blood of the house of Bourbon, the Montmorencis and the reformers were full of foreboding, for they knew now that their enemies could look across the Pyrenees, almost certain of aid from the most powerful potentate on earth. Queen Catharine, too, clerical though she was, smiled with a bitter heart, for she had no love for the house of Guise. For days the festivities went on: masque and banquet, ball and tournament following each other with wearisome brilliancy, for another daughter of France, Margaret, was wedded at the same time to the Duke of Savoy, and the double nuptials called for double display.

At length the last and greatest of the gallant shows was held under the shadow of the Bastille, hard by the gate of St. Antoine, on the 30th June. In gorgeous tribunes under broidered silken canopies sat the Queen of France and Spain, Catharine and her dearest daughter; and the Duchesses of Lorraine and Savoy, with the fairest court in Christendom, gathered around the great parallelogram of the lists to witness the tournament. The glittering courtiers, gay as they looked, who stood behind the ladies in the seats, knew that the wedding feast really celebrated a political event of the first consequence. It foreboded the suppression of Protestantism in Scotland by France, a war with England, and the crushing of reform in France itself and in Flanders; for there was to be no more paralysing rivalry between Philip and his new father-in-law, and it made the Catholic Guises the masters of France.

But none could tell that the stroke that was to set all these events into immediate motion was to fall so soon. Henry II., shallow and vain of his unquestioned preeminence in the gallant sport, rode into the lists upon a big bay war horse, decked, like its rider, with the black and white devices and interlaced crescents of Diane de Poitiers, Duchess of Valentinois. The King of France was determined in the presence of the Spanish grandees to show that he, at least, was no carpet knight, like their King Philip, and he rode course after course victoriously with princes and nobles, until the light began to wane. Catharine, desirous of ending the dangerous sport, sent a message from her tribune to pray her husband to tilt no more for that day. Henry laughed to scorn such timid counsel. He would run once more against the Franco-Scot Montgomerie, Sieur de L’Orge, who tried his best to avoid the encounter without success. At the first shock Montgomerie’s lance carried away the King’s visor, but the shaft broke with the force of the impact and a great jagged splinter pierced the eye and brain of Henry of Valois, who, within three days, was dead.

The whole political position was changed in a day. The new King Francis and his wife, Mary Stuart, were little more than children; and the young Queen’s uncles the Guises would rule France unless Catharine the Queen Dowager could beat them on their own ground. For her, indeed, the hour had now come, or was coming. For years she had been patient whilst the King’s mistress held sway; but if she could combine the enemies of the Guises now she might be mistress of France. The alliance with Spain was no longer to be used if she could help it as a means for crushing Protestantism; for to Protestantism she must partly look to crush the Guises; but if by diplomacy and the efforts of her daughter Isabel she could win Spanish support to her side on personal grounds, then she might triumph over her foes. It needed, as we shall see, consummate skill and chicanery, and, in the end, it did not succeed; for Philip would naturally in the long run tend towards the Guises, the enemies of reform, and he was easily led by a woman.

And thus the mission of Isabel of Valois in marrying Philip was changed in a moment by Montgomerie’s unlucky lance thrust from a national and religious to a personal and political object. But Philip was a difficult man to be used for the ends of others; what he had needed was French neutrality whilst he tackled heresy, and he had no desire to forward the interests of an ambitious Italian woman whom he hated; though at first there was just one element that made him inclined to smile upon Catharine, doubtfully orthodox though she was. The Queen of Scots and France was Catholic heiress of England; and the Guises were already preparing to employ French national forces to oust Elizabeth in favour of their niece. This Philip could never have permitted: better for him a Protestant England than a French England: so again national interests overrode religious affinities, and before the ink of the treaty of Cateau Cambresis was well dry the spirit that inspired the agreement was as dead as the king who had conceived it.

Philip was still at Ghent when the news of Henry’s death reached him, yearning to get back again to his beloved Spain, and full of anxiety that even there the detested heresy was raising its head in his absence. His Netherlands dominions would clearly have to be taught submission; Elizabeth of England was positively insolent in her disregard of him, and if Spain failed in orthodoxy then indeed would he and his cause be lost. His most pressing need therefore, for the moment, was to keep the alliance with France intact for the purpose he had in view, whilst restraining the activity of the Guises in England on behalf of their niece, Mary Stuart. All went well in this respect at first. The Montmorencis and the princes of Bourbon were divested of political power, the ultra-Catholic party was paramount, and even the Queen-Mother, Catharine, was working in apparent harmony with the Guises. But to keep his hand firmly upon the machine of government in France, it was desirable for Philip to have at his side at the earliest possible day his young French wife. Whilst Isabel was yet in mourning seclusion with her mother, Philip continued to press for her early coming, and in July the French ambassador, the Guisan Bishop of Limoges, told the impatient bridegroom that the Princess now only awaited the instructions of her future husband to commence the journey towards the Spanish frontier.

As usual, the smallest detail was discussed and settled by Philip with his Council at Ghent; the choice of the Queen’s confessor, the exact etiquette to be followed on her reception in Spanish territory and afterwards, the number of her French household, the amount of baggage she and her suite might bring, and even the exact manner in which she was to greet the Spaniards who went to receive her. On the 3rd August Philip wrote from Ghent to the Cardinal Archbishop of Burgos to make ready with his brother, the Duke of Infantado, to proceed to the frontier for the new Queen’s reception soon after the King himself should arrive in Spain. But Isabel’s departure from her own land could not be arranged hurriedly. There was a prodigious trousseau to be prepared, so enormous, indeed, as to strike with dismay the Spanish officers who had to arrange for its conveyance over the Pyrenees and the rough bridle paths of Spain; Catharine, too, was loath to let her daughter go before she had indoctrinated her with her new task in Spain, and she insisted upon her attending the coronation of her brother, Francis II., at Rheims in mid September.

Philip, always impatient for the coming of his bride, arrived in Spain by sea on the 8th September 1559; and signalised his arrival by the great auto de fe at Valladolid, that was to indicate to Europe that heresy was to be burnt out of the dominions of the Catholic king. Full of far-reaching religious plans, for which it was necessary that he should be sure of France, the presence of his French wife by his side was more than ever necessary, and in October he sent a special envoy, Count Buendia, to France to demand that the bride should start at once: ‘first, because of the great desire of his Majesty to see and keep the Catholic Queen in his realm as soon as possible, he begs most earnestly his good brother the Christian King and Queen Catharine, to arrange so that, in any case, the Queen should start at once, and arrive at Bayonne by the end of November.’[^[169]] Another letter from the King to the same effect was written to Isabel herself, and she in reply promised through the French ambassador in Spain to delay her departure no longer.

But week followed week, and yet the bride came not. Splendid presents and loving messages from Philip went to her frequently, and kind replies were returned from Isabel and her mother. But intrigue was already rife in the French court, and Catharine was trying to gain promises from Philip to support her against those who, she said, were bent upon disturbing her son’s realm. So every excuse was seized upon to keep Isabel in France, until Philip had promised what was required. The French found him anything but compliant, and at length, in the depth of winter (17th December), Isabel, with her mother and brother, and a great train of courtiers, left Blois on her long journey south. The household of the new Queen appointed by her mother was extremely numerous, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Philip’s agents, who broadly hinted that they would not be allowed to remain in Spain. Three of the Bourbon princes of the blood, Anthony, Duke of Vendome, husband of Jeanne d’Albret, titular Queen of Navarre, his brother, Cardinal de Bourbon, and the Prince of Roche sur Yon, were to accompany her to the frontier, a good excuse for sending them away from Paris, and two Bourbon princesses, the Countess d’Harcourt (Madame de Rieux), and her niece, Anne of Bourbon, were to go with her into Spain.

All these great personages and scores of others needed long lists of servitors and trains of baggage, and the journey over the snowy winter paths was long and tedious. The greatest difficulty was foreseen, however, in the transport over the Pyrenees of the vast mass of impedimenta taken by Isabel and her ladies. Much of it was sent by sea, and was only received in Spain after long delay and continued annoyance to the ladies, who had to appear in the ceremonies without their fine clothes. The girl lost heart as the time grew near to bid farewell to her mother. She loved France dearly, with an ardour she never lost to the last day of her life, and the French people returned her devotion. Along the roads to Chatellerault crowds stood in tears, invoking blessings upon the angel who was to be sacrificed on the altar of peace. France and Spain had been at war for generations: Philip’s cold, haughty demeanour, which had earned him the dislike of Flemings, was equally distasteful to Frenchmen, and stories current of the gloomy rigidity of his monastic court struck the heart of the bright young beauty with fear and dread.