Mary Tudor, Queen of France

by Mary Croom Brown

Two treaties were signed at Tournay, one between Henry and the Emperor against France and for the marriage of Mary and Charles, and the other between Margaret, in the name of Maximilian, and Henry, allowing the latter to return into England after leaving a sufficient garrison in Tournay, on condition of contributing 200,000 crowns of gold for the Emperor's expenses in supporting 4000 horse and 6000 foot, in Artois and Hainault. In her hands Margaret held a promise, "en parole de roi," written by Wolsey's hand, and signed by the King, never to make nor conclude peace or truce with the common enemy, the French, without the knowledge of his "bonne sœur and cousine," on condition that she did the like."[ [193]

CHAPTER IV
THE DUCHESS REPUDIATES HER SUITOR AND
THE PRINCESS BREAKS HER CONTRACT

HENRY had arranged with Margaret that the marriage of Mary and the Prince should take place at Calais in six months' time, on May 15, and for that purpose he began making arrangements on his usual splendid scale on his return from Flanders. What Mary had been doing during the months of her brother's absence can only be conjectured. Probably she had been busy like Queen Katharine, sewing banners and ensigns for the army to be sent against the Scots. She did not accompany her sister-in-law when she moved further North, just before Flodden. There is hardly a mention of her in any of the few letters of the year. Once she wrote to Margaret of Savoy thanking the duchess for some patterns of Flemish gowns, and once she received a formal letter from the Prince. On Twelfth Night (1514) at Richmond there was the usual disguising and play, and a lady called Beauty, and one called Venus, clad in surcoat and mantle of yellow sarcenet, with hearts and wings of silver, delighted the Court. The piece was, as usual, allegorical, and possibly the ladies represented the Duchess of Savoy and the Lady Mary. There is no mention of the Princess by name, but, following her custom and that of her brother, they were both probably among the mummers.

MARGARET, COUNTESS OF RICHMOND

PAINTER UNKNOWN. NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Mary had now reached her full height, and was short for a Tudor, though the English head-dress added about three inches to her stature, and plump like her mother. Gerard de Pleine, writing to his mistress at Malines, describes her as one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen or hoped to see. "She has the most gracious and elegant carriage in conversation, dancing, or anything else that it is possible to have, and is not a bit melancholy, but lively. I am convinced that if you had once seen her you would not cease till you had her near you. I assure you she has been well brought up, and she must always have heard Monsieur well spoken of, for by her words and manner, and also from those who surround her, it seems to me she loves him wonderfully. She has a picture of him, very badly done, but there is no day in the world but they tell me she wishes to see him ten times a day, and if you want to please her, you must talk of the prince. I should have thought she had been tall and well developed, but she will be only of medium height, and seems to me much better suited both in age and person for Monsieur than I had heard tell before I saw her, and better than any princess that I know of in Christendom. She is quite young, and in two years she will hardly be as ripe as Likerke or Fontaine. I can only say again that in good-nature, beauty and age, the like does not exist in Christendom."[ [194] For five years she had been Princess of Castile in England, and now was approaching the hour when she was to become a reigning princess, with the probability of far greater honours. This year was to be the critical one in her life, and in January occurred the event which first altered its course. Anne of Brittany, wife of Louis XII., died, "underly lamented," sneered a spy, and was laid beside her former husband at St Denis. The English Court swarmed with French prisoners, and their friends and retainers. French manners had always prevailed in the Court of Henry VII., and the French tongue had been the usual one of the King; he preferred foreign household servants, and his son, fierce as he was against the French, kept a French cook. Henry VIII.'s Court had always been gay, and in the reaction from the frigid etiquette prescribed by the Countess of Richmond, manners had become as free as in the time of his grandfather, Edward IV. Bessie Blount, afterwards mother of Henry's son, the little Duke of Richmond, young Mistress Carew, wife of Sir Nicholas Carew, Mistress Jane Popincourt, added to the gay flutterings, and Louis de Longueville was amongst the most careless, as he played with the King for his ransom, and won the greater part. His intrigue with Jane Popincourt was fairly notorious, and she was, as has been related, one of the circle of the Princess of Castile, having been brought up with her. Mary said, many years afterwards, that she regarded her as one of her own relatives, but her reputation was such that Louis XII. refused on hearsay to have her at his Court, and said he would rather she were burnt for her wickedness. There seem to have been changes in Mary's entourage about this time, but her ladies and the Queen's, including the five Elizabeths,[ [195] up to now had been of the old school, and some had served her mother, while Mother Guildford, as Lady Joan Guildford was familiarly called, her Governess, was the very epitome of the Richmond school of propriety and etiquette. She had but lately retired on pension from the service of the Princess, whom no doubt she had done her best to guide through the dangerous ways of the Court of a young and lusty King. With such surroundings one can hardly expect the little Princess to have been that paragon of womanly virtues described by Mrs Green. She had laughed and danced and sung her life through, sometimes ill and under her physician's care, and, as has already been said, save in the French language, and music and dancing, she does not seem to have received any education, but her manners were perfect, thanks to her grandmother and Mother Guildford. The grandmother of Lady Jane Grey, that marvel of youthful scholarship and virtue, was just now a charming little butterfly, "sy mennuet et sy douset"[ [196] that she took all men's hearts by storm in public or private. The learning of the Renaissance had not touched her, indeed, never did, and she was ignorant of the intellectual refinements of continental courts. If she had not all the sterner virtues, nor a reasoned imagination, she had the kindest heart in the world and the most faithful, with a high courage to fight a losing game. Like Margaret of Savoy, she would have melted her most precious pearls to make a potion for her dying husband, and probably, as no doubt did Margaret, killed him by the heroic self-sacrifice. She was pious in the colourless sense of the word, and had been brought up to observe strictly all fasts and feasts of the Church, and, like most women, was influenced by her confessor. She believed in astrology and witchcraft, and had the normal mental outlook of her century. No doubt, latterly, she had been influenced by her sister-in-law, Katharine, who, however much she may have adapted herself to English customs and relaxed her prejudices in her love for her husband, never quite forgot the tradition of the dignified etiquette of her Spanish girlhood.

After her brother's return Mary was ill for some time, and in the doctor's hands[ [197] for ten weeks. Whatever the cause, she probably had enough resemblance to her sister Margaret of Scotland to find great consolation, if not an impetus towards health, in the new gowns of her trousseau, and all its attendant magnificence. It was a marvellous affair. Seven hundred and ninety three pounds and nine pence (Tudor value) were paid at one fell swoop for pieces of cloth of gold for her gowns and furniture, and later comes another thousand pounds worth and more of silks, velvets of divers colours, green and white, silver, damask, and more cloth of gold.[ [198] It dazzles the eyes to read. Florentine looms were busy, and the Italian merchants in England were doing a thriving trade. All these were to be made up in the Flemish fashion, and the Lady Margaret was asked to give her advice about the cutting of them and the style of the garments.[ [199]