Queens of old Spain

by Martin A. S. Hume

The next morning brought Isabel a similar poem of regretful adieu from her mother, and some really poetical lines from Mary Stuart, in which the following occur:—

‘Les pleurs font mal au cœur joyeux et sain,

Mais au dolent, ils servent quasi de pain:

Car si le mal par les pleurs n’est allegé

A tout moins il en est soulagé.’

Through snow-clad France the long cavalcade slowly made its way. Endless questions of etiquette, prompted by pride and jealousy on both sides, occupied French and Spanish officials the while. Philip, as usual, saw to the smallest point himself. The proud Mendoza Cardinal objected to give precedence to the King of Navarre, as he was not a real king, and the Doge of Venice had always given place to Cardinal Mendoza. ‘The Prince of Roche sur Yon may be called “lordship,” because he is of royal blood, but he must have only the privileges of an ambassador whilst in Spain.’ The Countess of Ureña, who was to be Isabel’s mistress of the robes, a proud dame in Philip’s entire confidence, was to keep close to the Queen, and decide all points of feminine etiquette; whilst Lopez de Guzman, Isabel’s Spanish chief steward, was to arrange everything according to Spanish etiquette in her table service. Cardinal Mendoza was instructed to alight and salute the Queen humbly when he first approached her, and his brother the Duke was to kiss her hand, notwithstanding any reluctance she might show. Each morning the Cardinal was to visit her, whereupon she was to receive him standing, and order an arm-chair to be brought for him, and he was to be seated whilst he stayed with her. The Duke of Infantado, chief of the Mendozas, was only to be received by the Queen standing the first time he visited her, and for him was to be brought a red velvet stool upon which to sit; but the Duke was warned that this privilege was only to last during the journey, and was to cease when Isabel joined her husband.[^[171]] And so on, down to the smaller courtiers in gradation, the honours to be given and received are all set down in minute detail, that of itself was sufficient to strike awe in a young girl of fifteen, who had passed her life in the gay poetical court of her father.

It was a cruel irony that sent Anthony de Bourbon, the shadowy King Consort of Navarre, to deliver the French Consort of the real King of Navarre to her husband on the frontier of the little mountain kingdom, and he probably only accepted the mission in the hope that the long-pending negotiations with Spain, for giving him some adequate compensation, such as the title of King of Sardinia, might be advantageously pushed on such an occasion. Philip fooled poor vain Anthony as long as it suited him, but without the remotest intention of giving any satisfaction to the house of Navarre. When, therefore, in deep snowdrifts the Queen’s cavalcade reached the little frontier town of St. Jean Pied de Port on the last day in the year 1559, and France was all behind them, Anthony and the other Bourbon princes were on the alert to resent any slight that might be offered to them by the Spaniards. The exchange of the Queen to the custody of her husband’s envoys was to be made at a point between St. Jean and the Spanish hamlet of Roncesvalles, but the inclement weather and heavy snow made it impossible to reach the elevated spot agreed upon; and for three days Isabel and her French suite tarried weatherbound at St. Jean. For the first time she donned there the Spanish dress, and received some of her Spanish household; and on the 3rd January 1560 she started on horseback towards the frontier, for she refused to enter her new realm in a litter, and thus, with her veritable army of attendants and baggage-train, she tramped through the savage pass and into the valley of Valcarlos into Spain.

The cold was intense, and through the elevated mountain paths the snowstorm drove furiously, yet she pushed bravely on until she could gain the shelter of the monastery church of Our Lady of Roncesvalles in Spanish territory. It was a great concession for the French to make, and Anthony de Bourbon would not have crossed the frontier first but for the insistence of Isabel, and the impossibility of carrying out the ceremonious programme of handing over the Queen in a Pyrenean pass in a mid-winter snowstorm. Further than Roncesvalles he was determined he would not go, though only five miles further, at the village of Espinal, the Cardinal and the Duke with the Spanish train were lodged. At the gate of the Augustinian monastery, where the King of Navarre helped the almost frozen Queen to alight, there stood beside the prior and dignitaries a group of Spanish nobles who had ridden over from Espinal unofficially to greet their new Queen; and after the religious ceremony and prayers in the beautifully decorated church, these nobles and their followers almost came to open fight with the Frenchmen. As Isabel left the church to enter the apartments in the monastery assigned to her, the Spaniards, jealous that in their own country Frenchmen alone should attend the Queen, flocked in unbidden after her, and had to be forcibly ejected by those in attendance upon her.[^[172]]

Distrust and suspicion prevailed on all hands. It had been arranged, after much courtly wrangling, that the transfer of the custody of the Queen should take place at a point exactly midway between Roncesvalles and Espinal, but King Anthony made the weather an excuse—probably a perfectly good one—for urging the Spaniards to come the whole way to Roncesvalles, rather than expose the Queen and themselves to a long ceremony in an open field three feet deep in snow. But Infantado was shocked at the idea that he and his brother the Cardinal should be asked to go a step further than the Frenchmen, and refused. Anthony remonstrated, but in vain; and in the lone monastery in the Pyrenean valley Isabel passed two more days waiting for either the pride or the snow to melt. At length she lost patience. She was as tenacious of French honour as any one, but she well knew that the success of her mission depended upon her winning the affections of the Spaniards, and on the 5th January she sent for Navarre and told him that she intended herself to ride to the spot agreed upon for the exchange. The French nobles were indignant, and at first inclined to shirk the journey, but Isabel, young as she was, could be imperious and insisted; and in torrents of sleet the great cavalcade, with the ceremonial finery already bedraggled, had prepared to start, when the welcome message came from Espinal that the Duke and the Cardinal had relented, and were now on their way to Roncesvalles to obey, as they said, the summons of their Queen.

The utmost confusion then ensued, for the whole of the baggage, with hangings, furniture and dresses had been packed, and much of it had already started forward, especially the best frocks and furbelows of Isabel’s crowd of ladies, who saw their beds and finery no more for many a long day. The light was failing in the stormy winter day when Cardinal Mendoza and his brother Infantado, preceded by sixty Spanish nobles in brave attire, marched side by side up the great torch-lit hall, at the end of which Cardinal de Bourbon stood upon a canopied dais, surrounded by French ecclesiastics and nobles. Under the cloth of state, blazoned with the lilies of France, the powers of the envoys were exchanged and read; and then, with much stately salutation and stilted verbiage, the Spanish nobles were led to the chamber where, upon a raised throne, Isabel awaited them with King Anthony and the two Bourbon ladies. But the place, a solitary mountain monastery, was unfit for courtly ceremonies; and the Spaniards were so eager to do homage to their new Queen that soon all seemliness was lost, and a jostling crowd filled the presence chamber, each Spaniard trying to get the best place and hustling rudely aside the French, and even the French ladies in attendance, until the latter had to retire.