But, no matter how weak or vicious Carlos might be, the struggle to obtain his hand in marriage was waged as keenly as ever by Isabel and her mother on the one hand, and by the Austrian interest on the other, with the Princess Joan, the lad’s aunt, as a permanent candidate, to be used by Philip when he needed a diversion. Hardly had the grave anxiety about Carlos subsided when Isabel herself fell grievously ill, and was like to die. At the time that the physicians had abandoned hope of saving her (August 1562), Philip sent the Duke of Alba with a long message to the French ambassador, of which the latter wrote a copy to Catharine. He prefaces his letter by saying that the Queen was truly a bond of peace since she ‘possède le roi son mari, et est aujourd’hui en toute privauté et autorité avec lui.’ The message was to the effect that it had always been the rule when Spanish queens were ill, even slightly, to urge them to make their last dispositions in good time. On account, however, of the great love and extreme affection which he (Philip) bore to his wife, he had not allowed her in her present serious illness to be spoken to on the subject, so as not to distress or alarm her. For, as he said, he had in very truth good reason to love her dearly, and to take great care of her; and if this loss should befall him, he would have reason to say that it was the greatest and most important he had ever suffered in his life, and that which most nearly touched his heart, seeing the shining virtues and noble qualities with which his wife was endowed. He makes a great point of honouring and pleasing her, and preventing her from being troubled in any way; but since the physicians said that she had reached such an extremity that her life could no longer be expected to last,[[187]] he would regret that his love for her, and his sorrow for her loss, should stand in the way of the duty she owed to her position and reputation to make a will.’ He assured the French ambassador that his friendship for his wife’s brother and mother would not be diminished by her death, and he proposed that she should leave two-thirds of her possessions to her mother, and the remainder be employed in pious uses and in rewarding her very numerous servants.[[188]] This letter is of great interest in showing how truly Philip loved and respected his young wife, and every testimony shows that their affection continued to increase as the time went on, though all around them, both in public and private life, was full of bitterness and anxiety. Don Carlos grew more and more outrageous in his disregard of all decency and respect; and more than one miscarriage of Isabel seemed to threaten the King with the misfortune of a childless marriage.
But what was a source of greater trouble perhaps than anything to Isabel at this period, was the terrible infliction that was scourging her own country. The first war of religion in France had ended with the death of Guise and Anthony of Navarre, and the hollow edict of Amboise had been issued by Catharine, giving toleration to the Huguenots in certain towns. This was a heavy blow to Philip and his cause, and he tried to parry it in his characteristic fashion by the aid of the Guisan party. Jeanne d’Albret and her son (afterwards Henry IV.) had retired to mourn the death of Anthony in their castle of Pau. Henry was heir to the crown of France after Catharine’s sons, and his mother was a strict Calvinist, so the Catholic party planned, with Philip’s aid, to kidnap Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, and her hopeful son, to prevent the danger of a Huguenot ever being king of France. All was arranged for the coup de main when the principal conspirator, Captain Dimanche, fell ill in a poor hostelry in Madrid. Isabel had always been accustomed to keep herself well-informed of all cases of trouble amongst her own countrymen in Spain, and hearing from her servants that a Frenchman was alone and suffering, had him brought from his squalid lodging to the house of one of her servants, to be well cared for by one of her own doctors. Dimanche, in the course of his illness, divulged his conspiracy to his host, who, though a Catholic, was shocked at the wickedness of the plan, and told it to a higher officer, and afterwards to Isabel, who, he knew, was deeply attached to Jeanne d’Albret. The Queen listened to the story with horror, and cried, with tears in her eyes, ‘God forbid that such a crime should be committed.’ As fast as a confidential courier could gallop went the news from Isabel to her mother; how the Catholic party and Spain were plotting to ruin the house of Navarre, and overthrow the equilibrium in France; and Jeanne d’Albret and her son, also warned by Isabel, escaped from Pau into central France.
Philip probably never knew that it was his wife who had upset so promising a plan; but that her intervention was not from any love of Protestantism is clearly seen by her subsequent action. Her Catholicism, indeed, was more Spanish than French in its character; and that her politic mother should call to her councils at all those whose orthodoxy was doubtful, appeared to her nothing short of abominable, though for a short time after the first Huguenot war, Catharine had managed to bring about an appearance of harmony between the two great French factions. But Condé, the chief of the Bourbons, after Anthony’s death, was rough and imperious, and personally disliked by Catharine: Cardinal Lorraine returned to France from the Council of Trent early in 1564, thirsting to revenge the murder of his brother Guise, and soon Catholic intrigue was busy in the French Court.
Isabel wrote to her mother an extraordinary letter at this time (the summer of 1564), evidently inspired by Philip, and forming a part of the Lorraine intrigues to win Catherine to the ultra-catholic party. ‘If,’ wrote Isabel, ‘you will cause Frenchmen to live as good catholics, there is nothing you can ask of my husband that he will not give you. He begs you will not compromise with the evil people, but punish them very severely. If you are afraid because of their great number ... you may call upon us, and we will give you everything we possess, and troops as well, to support religion. If you do not punish these men yourself, you must not be offended if the King, my husband, listens to the demands of those who crave his help to defend the faith, and gives them what they ask. He is, indeed, obliged to do so, for it touches him more than any one. If France becomes Lutheran, Flanders and Spain will not be far behind.’[[189]] And so, for page after page of her long letter, Isabel urges her mother to crush the Huguenots for once and for all. Catharine loved intrigue and crooked ways; and, although it was no part of her plan to have only one party in France, she feared the Guises less now that the Duke was dead, and it doubtless seemed to her a good opportunity for drawing closer to Spain, in order to effect the marriage of her daughter Margaret with Don Carlos, and gain some advantage by marriage or otherwise for her darling son Henry (Duke of Orleans).
The effect of Cardinal Lorraine’s action was soon seen in the long progress through the east and south of France undertaken by Charles IX. and his mother. Catharine had been trying, ever since the death of Francis II., to arrange an interview with Philip, and bring her personal influence to bear upon him, though he had shown no eagerness to discuss the matter; but now that the Court of France, with Lorraine pulling the wires, was to visit the south, there seemed a chance of effecting at last what the treaty of Cateau Cambresis had failed to do. The Court left Paris in the spring of 1564, and at Nancy, the scheme of Lorraine for a Catholic league to suppress heresy was first broached to Charles IX. He was a mere lad, and was apparently alarmed at the idea; but in the meanwhile, active negotiations were going on to induce Philip and his wife to meet Catharine when she approached the frontier with her son. The French ambassador in Spain was a strong Guisan partisan, and worked hard to bring about the interview, as did Isabel herself, who was sincerely attached to her kinsfolk, and yearned to embrace her mother again. Philip was anxious to forward the formation of a Catholic League, but he distrusted Catharine, and after much negotiation, he consented to Isabel’s going as far as Bayonne to greet her mother; the political negotiation, however, being entirely left to the Duke of Alba.
Philip was not enthusiastic, for he knew that Catharine was surrounded by ‘politicians,’ and he was determined that if nothing came of the interview, it should not be said that he had been deceived. He would not, he said, go to any expense on the occasion, and no gold or silver was to be worn on the dresses on either side: and the Queen was to be kept to the most rigid etiquette in her communications with her mother and brother. She left Madrid with a great train of courtiers in April 1565, bearing with her powers from her husband to ratify the arrangements that Alba might make. What these arrangements were may be seen by the memorandum given by Philip to Alba for his guidance.[[190]] The object aimed at was a league, in which each party should be pledged to employ all his force and means to sustain Catholic orthodoxy, to allow no toleration whatever to any other religion, in public or private, and to expel all persons but catholics from the realms, within five months, on pain of death, and forfeiture for them and their abettors, to publish and enforce the decisions of the Council of Trent, to purge all the offices, commands, and services, of every suspicion of heresy, and to deprive of their dignities, titles, and authority, every person not firmly attached to the faith.
With this fateful mission Isabel travelled slowly towards the north, through Burgos, in the spring of 1565. She had in her train more than sixty Spanish nobles with their gaudily garbed followers; and, though Philip’s orders with regard to bullion ornaments had been obeyed, there was no lack of costly show. On the 14th May, in a heat so suffocating that many of the soldiers died, Catharine and her son with the French Court rode at early morning out of Saint Jean de Luz, to reach the little river Bidasoa which divides France from Spain. For two hours the royal party rested under a green arbour on the banks, whilst the Spanish baggage was being ferried across; and just as the burning sun was beginning to decline, a burst of trumpets heralded the approach of the Queen of Spain. From the ancient castle of Irun the royal procession could be seen winding down the hill to the shore, Isabel being borne in a litter. Catharine at once entered her waiting boat, and swift oars brought her to the Spanish side just as her daughter’s litter reached the edge. Both Queens were beside themselves with joy. Isabel bent low enough to kiss her mother’s knee, but was raised and tenderly embraced, again and again, and then, overcome by their emotions, both Catharine and Isabel burst into tears of joyful excitement, which continued unabated until the boat had landed them on the French bank, where Charles IX. awaited them amidst saluting volleys of musketry.[[191]]
The pompous rejoicings, the tourneys, comedies, balls, and banquets, which followed at St. Jean de Luz and Bayonne; the splendour with which each Court tried to dazzle the other, and the grave political conferences between Alba and the French ministers and Catharine, cannot be dwelt upon here; but the picture drawn of Isabel herself in the midst of this memorable interview by Brantôme, who was present, is too interesting to omit. ‘When she entered Bayonne she rode upon a pony very superbly and richly harnessed with a cloth completely covered with pearls embroidered, which had belonged to the Empress, and was used by her when she entered towns in state; it was said to be worth one hundred thousand crowns and more. She was quite bewitching on horseback, and was worth gazing upon; for she was so lovely and sweet that every one was enchanted. We were all ordered to go and meet her and accompany her on her entrance ... and she was most gracious to us when we paid our respects to her, and thanked us charmingly. To me, especially, she was kind and cordial; for I had only taken leave of her in Spain four months before, and I was greatly touched that she should thus favour me over my fellows.... She was also familiar to the ladies and maids at the Court, exactly the same as before her marriage, and took notice of those who were absent or had got married; and about those who had come to Court since she left she made many inquiries.’
In the discussions with the political ministers it was soon evident to Catharine, as she had probably foreseen from the first, that to throw herself entirely into the hands of the extreme Catholic party as Philip desired, would be disastrous to her, and probably also to her son’s throne. But it did not suit her to quarrel with her powerful son-in-law, or to send her daughter back empty-handed to Madrid, after the much heralded interview; so, although an arrangement was signed which ostensibly bound France and Spain together for a religious end, Catharine took care to leave a sufficient number of knotty points open to give her a loophole to escape. When she returned to Paris she soon began to raise difficulties about the ratification, and wrote to her ambassador in Madrid (Fourquevault), ‘Je lui dis que en faisant ces mariages, et donnant quelque état à mon fils d’Orleans, qu’il nous falloit tous joindre ensemble: c’est à savoir le Pape, l’Empereur, et ces deux rois, les Allemands et autres que l’on avisera: et que le roi mon fils n’etait pas sans moyens pour aider de sa part, à ce qui serait avisé quand les dits mariages seroient faits, et la dite ligue conclüe.’ It will be seen that she makes here so many conditions as to render the league quite impossible. Not only is her daughter Margaret to marry Carlos, and her son Henry a daughter of the Emperor with an independent State, but all the other Catholic powers are to join the league before France is to be bound to anything.
Indeed, it is clear that the power of the Huguenot and ‘politician’ nobles in France, and the old jealousy between France and Spain, together with the persecution by the Inquisition of French residents and visitors in Spain, and the massacre in the following year of the French expedition to Florida by Philip’s orders, made a sincere co-operation between the two countries in such a league impracticable;[[192]] and though appearances were saved at Bayonne, Philip, when he joyfully met his wife after her nineteen days’ absence from him, must have known that again his dream of a Catholic league had failed. ‘Je ne fis qu’arriver hier (writes the French ambassador to Catharine on Isabel’s return) de baiser la main de la reine, la quelle j’ai trouvée si joieuse et contente de la bonne venue du roy son mari, et de la démonstration de la bonne affection et amitié qu’il lui fait.’ Though the personal affection between the husband and wife was without a cloud, it was certain that the political results of the marriage were insignificant. Isabel fought hard for some satisfaction to the outrage to France in Florida, but without result; Coligny, to her and Philip’s indignation, was growing powerful in the French government; and the second war of religion was seen to be inevitable, whilst the issue was already joined between Philip and his Dutch subjects; pledged, as they were, to stand together to resist him to the death.