"Sir, very humbly I recommend me unto your grace. I have received the letters which it has pleased you to write to me with your own hand, and heard what my cousin the Duke de Longueville has told me from you, in which I take great joy, felicity, and pleasure, for which and for the honour which it has pleased you to do to me I hold myself ever indebted and obliged to you, and thank you as cordially as I can. And because by my cousin you will hear how all things have taken their end and conclusion, and the very singular desire that I have to see you, I forbear to write to you a longer letter. For the rest, Sir, praying our Creator to give you health and long life,—By the hand of your humble companion,
Mary."[ [289]
On September 14, in the church of the Celestines at Paris, after Mass, Louis went through the marriage ceremony with Mary's proctor, the Earl of Worcester. The Dauphin, Longueville, John Stuart, Duke of Albany, Robertet, the treasurer, were there, with many others, and the next day, in Les Tournelles, in the faubourg St Antoine, the King appeared before the Bishop of Paris and bound himself to the payment of a million gold ducats to Henry VIII., and in default to be excommunicated.[ [290] That was the last of the formalities; all had now been complied with, and Louis was eager to see the wife he had heard so much about. So he wrote to Wolsey again urging that she should be sent over as soon as possible, for to have her across the sea was all his desire, and thanking Wolsey for all the trouble that had been taken with "l'appareil et les choses," which he understood were exquisitely beautiful.[ [291] He enclosed a letter to Mary, who replied: "Monseigneur, Bien humblement a votre bonne grace, je me recommende. Monseigneur j'ai par Monseigneur l'evêque de Lincoln reçu les très affectueuses lettres qu'il vous a plu naguères m'écrire, qui m'ont été a très grant joye et confort, vous assurant, Monseigneur, qu'il n'y a rien que tant je désire que de vous voir. Et le Roi, Monseigneur et frère, fait tout extrème diligence pour mon allée delà la mer, qui au plaisir de Dieu sera brière. Vous suppléant, Monseigneur, me vouloir cependant pour ma très singulière consolation souvent faire savoir de vos nouvelles, ensemble vos bons et agréables plaisirs pour vous y obéir et complaire, aidant notre Créateur qui vous donne, Monseigneur, bonne vie et longuement bien prosperer. De la main de vre bien humble compaigne.
Marie."[ [292]
What kind of a man was Mary to be consigned to? A recent French writer gives the following description of his character drawn from contemporary sources:—"D'esprit médiocre, pas eloquent ni savant, mais plein de bons sens, c'était comme le grandgouzier de Rabelais, un type de 'bon raillard,' aimant à boire et à rire, orné des vertues bourgeoises et pratiques, dont il ne lui manquait pas une, même la fidélité à sa femme, et pour le reste, plein de bonté, de loyauté, d'amabilité, de rondeur; point de rancune, la gaîté cordiale, les goûts charitables, les sentiments serieusement chrétiens, sans ostentation, ni tendance au merveilleux: homme tout cœur qui ne pensait qu'à son peuple."[ [293] He knew and admired Italian art and writers, and welcomed them at his Court, but with no frenzied admiration. He was, above all things, reasonable, normal, and commonplace. To his first wife Jeanne he had been forcibly married by her father, Louis XI. She is said to have been a crippled angel, and the first thing Louis did on his accession was to obtain a divorce from her from Alexander VI., "l'argent entra en ligne," and all was easy with the Borgia; and then to marry Anne of Brittany, the widow of his cousin and predecessor, Charles VIII. She was a not unusual mixture of piety and arrogance, and a thousand times more Duchess of Brittany than she was Queen of France to the day of her death. Like Katharine of England, time and again, in spite of prayers, promises, and pilgrimages, her hopes of a male heir were dashed, and she only left two daughters to survive her, the elder of whom, Claude, after having been grudgingly betrothed to Francis d'Angoulême, who was in open antagonism to Anne, was married to him a few months after her mother's death. Renée, the younger, the child of many prayers, called for St René, to whom her father had vowed his child, was the princess who had so often been en concurrence with Mary in Flanders. Since his wife's death and his own continued illness Louis had allowed the Dauphin, as Francis d'Angoulême was now called, to meddle in affairs of state, for, after all, vain-glorious and incapable of viewing things from any but an absolutely personal vantage as he was, the young man was more than likely to become King of France, and must serve his apprenticeship, and now nothing was done without his advice. He was furious with Longueville for his part in bringing about the English marriage, "il en sceut bien mauvais gré,"[ [294] but made up his mind to carry the thing off well, "et voullust bien montrer qu'il n'estoit pas mal content de ce marriage," and threw himself heartily into the preparations for Mary's reception, confident that his position was saved by the senile condition of the King's bodily powers, and frankly interested in his favourite occupation of organizing gorgeous spectacles. The Court Mary was about to enter was no harmonious one, for Louise de Savoie and her son were centres of disaffection, and Claude de France and her father were eclipsed by the magnificence of the hôtel d'Angoulême, the treasurer of France, Robertet, pandering to the Dauphin's boyish extravagance in clothes and advancing money to pay his colossal tailor bills. Mary would find herself the centre of all kinds of intrigue, from which the kindly nature of her husband could hardly protect her, though, as Worcester wrote, "he hath a marvellous mind to content and please the Queen."[ [295] He awaited her coming in great good humour with seven coffers of jewels and other treasures beside him, and "au logic du roy il ne feust plus question de deuil."[ [296] Worcester wrote that "there is nothing that can displease him, and he hath provided jewels and goodly gear for her. There was in his chamber the Archbishop of Paris, Robertet, and the General and I, where he showed me the goodliest and richest sight of jewels that ever I saw. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it."[ [297] All things were for her, said the King, "but merrily laughing, 'my wife shall not have all at once, but at divers times, for he would have many and at divers times kisses and thanks for them.' I assure you he thinketh every hour a day till he seeth her. He is never well but when he heareth speak of her. I make no doubt she will have a good life with him by the grace of God."
And on the other side of the channel poor Mary would willingly have made every hour a day before her departure. Two or three days before she left London "all the merchants of every nation went to Court. The Queen desired to see them all and gave her hand to each of them. She wore a gown in the French fashion of woven gold, very costly; she is very beautiful and has not her match in England, is a young woman sixteen years old, tall, fair, and of light complexion with a colour, and most affable and graceful. On her neck was a jewelled diamond as large and as broad as a full-sized finger, with a pear-shaped pearl beneath it, the size of a pigeon's egg, which jewel had been sent her as a present by the King of France.... And the jewellers of the Row, whom the King desired to value it, estimated its worth at 60,000 crowns. It was marvellous that the existence of this diamond and pearl should never have been known; it was believed that they belonged to the late King of France, or to the Duke of Brittany, the father of the late Queen." "On bidding farewell to the merchants she made them many offers, speaking a few words in French and delighting everybody. The whole Court now speaks French and English, as in the time of the late King."[ [298]
Mary's ladies had been chosen from among her companions by Wolsey, and on August 7, when the marriage treaty was signed, the ladies had been arranged for also. The paper was evidently taken to France for the King's signature, for it is in the British Museum signed "Loys," and dated, in a contemporary English hand, August 8, 1514.[ [299] Their names are: Mademoiselle Grey, sister of the Marquis [of Dorset], Mademoiselle Mary Fenes, daughter of Lord Dacres [of Hurst Monceaux], Mademoiselle Elizabeth, sister of Lord Grey [de Wilton?], Mademoiselle Boleyne [Anne, not Mary, in spite of Dr Brewer], Mistress Anne Jerningham, femme de chambre, Jean Barnes, chamberière. These were the ladies "contracted for." But later on more were added without reference to Louis' pleasure: old Lady Guildford, Elizabeth Ferrers, Anne Devereux, M. Wotton, Anne Denys, and evidently others. Dr Denton, her old friend, went as her almoner, and John Palsgrave as her secretary. "Mother" Guildford came from her retirement to go with her former charge as lady of honour, for she spoke French well, and would be able, as Henry told Mary, to advise the jeune mariée in the perplexing situations which might arise. At the suit of Longueville[ [300] Louis suggested that Jane Popincourt should be among his wife's ladies, for he understood that "the Queen loveth and trusteth her above all the gentlewomen about her," but on Worcester telling him of her evil life he said that "if the King made her to be brent, it should be a good deed," and Longueville's scheme fell through. Louis said there should be never man nor woman about his wife but such as should be at her contentation, but later on he judged their fitness by another standard. As the Duke of Suffolk could not go with her, the Duke of Norfolk was to present Mary to her husband, and with him were many nobles and ladies; notably the Marquis of Dorset and his four brethren, Lord de la Warr, Lord Mounteagle, the Bishop of Durham, with many bannerets and esquires. The Duchess of Norfolk and the Countess of Oxford were with the Duke, and the Marchioness of Dorset and Lady Mounteagle accompanied their husbands. The company was chosen by Wolsey, and several of Suffolk's friends were included. Thomas Wriothesley, Garter King at Arms, with Richmond Herald, went to see that all things were in order, and fifty officers of the King's household were transferred to his sister's.
On September 19 all these "gros princes et dames et gros personages" set out for Dover, accompanied by what remained of the Court to the water's edge. "There would be about a thousand palfreys, and a hundred women's carriages," wrote Lorenzo Pasqualigo, merchant of Venice in London, to his brother. "There were so many gowns of woven gold, and with gold grounds, housings for the horses and palfreys of the same material, and chains and jewels, that they were worth a vast amount of treasure; and some of the noblemen in this company, to do themselves honour, had spent as much as 200,000 crowns each. Many of the merchants proposed going to Dover to see this fine sight."[ [301] The Court rode in leisurely fashion to the coast at Dover. Mary was expected in France, where no business save rejoicings for the wedding was attended to, on the 29th, and John Heron[ [302] had pressed the ships for her crossing by that date, and the fleet had scoured the channel to east and west, but it was not till October 2 that she set sail for Boulogne. Henry had meant to have gone ten miles out to sea with her in the "Harry Grace à Dieu,[ [303] but the weather was too threatening, so he bade his sister good-bye at the water-edge, his last words being a renewal of his promise about her second marriage, and hers a passionate reminder. The fleet set sail, and had not gone far before the fulfilment of her first marriage became for the moment problematic, for they "had not sailed a quarter of their voyage in the sea but that the wind rose and severed the ships, driving some of them to Calais, some into Flanders, and her ship and three others with great difficulty were brought to Boulogne, not without great jeopardy at the entering of the haven, for the master ran the ship hard on shore. But the boats were ready and received the lady out of the ship, and Sir Christopher Garnish ['strong, sturdy stallion, so sterne and so stowsty'] strode into the water, and took her in his arms and bare her to land, where the Duke of Vendôme, and a cardinal with many other great estates, received her with great honour."[ [304] At least one ship of the fleet was lost, "The Great Elizabeth," at Sandgate, close to Calais, and Sir Weston Browne, the captain, and not a hundred men escaped out of a company of five hundred.
The useful Marigny[ [305] at once sent notice to Louis at Abbeville of the Queen's arrival, and thither, after a short interval of rest, long enough to squeeze the sea water from her clothes, went Mary, accompanied all the way by Longueville, who "made her good cheer," Lautrec, the Bishop of Bayeux, and a large company, and joined on the way by the Duke d'Angoulême, whom the English annoyed by calling "M. le duc," instead of "Monsieur" tout court. On the 8th the company was within a few miles of Abbeville, and at St Nicholas d'Essarts[ [306] the princes left Mary to rest and change and put herself in order, while they rode on to Abbeville to announce her coming to the King. Louis was curious to see her, but etiquette forbade his going to meet her, so he sent back the Dauphin to meet her a mile or so out of the town, with MM. d'Alençon, de Longueville, de Lautrec, de la Tremouille, saying that he intended to happen along the road hawking with his falcons, and would accidentally meet the Queen at such and such a place, and Mary was to know nothing of his intention. At the place appointed, a wide plain a little over a mile away, the Dauphin met Mary riding a white palfrey, and wearing a dress of cloth of gold on crimson, her shaggy hat of crimson silk cocked over her left eye, and detained her there talking till some horsemen came in sight. They were the King, the Cardinals of Auch and Bayeux, M. de Vendôme, the Duke of Albany, Count Galeazzo di San Severino, the master of horse, and others. Louis wore a short riding dress of the same stuff as the Queen's, a sure sign that the meeting had really been pre-arranged, for at this time it was the fashion when Kings and Queens appeared together in public that their garments should always be made of the same material. He rode as jauntily as he could a beautiful Spanish horse, whose barb was of cloth of gold and black satin in chequers. As he came up he gallantly kissed his hand to Mary and expressed his surprise at this chance meeting, and Mary doffed her hat when told who this was, and kissed her hand to the King, who then brought his horse close up to her palfrey and "threw his arm round her neck and kissed her as kindly as if he had been five and twenty." After a few words with her he greeted the princes and gentlemen of her company, and then, saying that he would continue his hunting, he departed and returned home by another way.[ [307] He looked exceedingly ill, and Mary seems to have found him worse than she had imagined. After Louis had gone the procession was formed. It led off with fifty of Mary's esquires dressed in silks of several sorts, all wearing the inevitable gold collar or chain. Next came the Duke of Norfolk, with the ambassadors and noblemen two and two, all wearing enormous gold chains (some cost as much as £600), some doubling and trebling them round their necks, others wearing them "prisoner fashion," and all having velvet bonnets of different colours. Garter King at Arms and Richmond Herald in their tabards followed, with eight trumpeters in crimson damask, and macers with gilt maces surmounted by a royal crown; then two grooms in short doublets of cloth of gold and black velvet, with velvet caps, each leading a palfrey, and after these, two other palfreys ridden by pages. Then came the Queen on her white palfrey, with the Dauphin always at her side, and at her stirrup her running footmen, followed immediately by her litter of cloth of gold, embroidered with gold lilies in wrought gold. On the back and front of it were the French lilies and the parti-coloured roses of York and Lancaster, while on the sides above and below were dolphins and more red and white roses. This was borne by two large horses trapped to match the litter and ridden by two pages in livery. Next followed the ladies: first a party riding, gay in silks and gold brocades, and then four in a carriage covered with gold brocade patterned in large flowers, and drawn by six horses trapped to match. Then more ladies on palfreys, and another carriage, and after that more palfreys, all decked and trapped in gold brocade and murrey velvet, with running footmen, and then ten palfreys more in the same stuffs with pale blue and white fringe. Last of all came 200 English archers marching two and two in three divisions; the first were in doublets of green satin and surcoats and belts of black velvet, with shaggy red and white hats; the second wore black doublets and shaggy white hats; the third black with grey hats. But this was not all. About half a mile out of the town the chief men of Abbeville met the Queen with 150 men, archers, musketeers, and arbalestmen, all in red and yellow, and with them the captain of the town and thirty men in his own livery. These fell in at the head of the procession, which had swelled to considerable dimensions before it reached the suburbs. At Nôtre Dame de la Chapelle without the walls there seems to have been a short halt to allow Mary to make final preparations for her entry, and here she was met by the clergy. It was now about four o'clock, and a sharp shower fell, drenching them all, especially the ladies, and, indeed, "of water from heaven there was no lack until the evening, which caused some regret." The procession again formed up. "First went a good number of archers, musketeers and arbalestmen of the town, all in their livery of red and yellow; next the Prévôt de l'Hôtel with his archers; then the 400 archers of the Guard (on foot) with their captains, followed by the Grand Seneschal of Normandy, with the gentlemen about eighty in number, including the princes and grandees, who might amount to as many as twenty-five, in gallant trim of various sorts and many in gold brocade." The Queen came next, riding under a canopy of white satin embroidered above and around with roses, and supported by two porcupines which the clergy had prepared for her, and which was borne by the officers of the town. Her dress was now "of gold brocade with a white gown," made in English fashion with tight sleeves, "very costly both in jewels and goldsmith work." She held in her hand a sceptre of white wood, and all round her under the canopy were her running footmen, while the Scots Guards made a second circle just outside the canopy. The Dauphin rode just beyond the edge of her canopy, and they laughed and talked together, for "une si belle personne tout or et diamants plut fort au duc de Valois."[ [308] The reality of all this magnificence far exceeded the description, wrote the Venetian ambassador, "to the great glory of the Queen." Abbeville welcomed her with enthusiasm, and trumpets, clarions, bells and artillery all vied in making the noise without which jubilation is impossible. The people were delighted with her, and admired her fair beauty and gentle manners, for they were not all so critical as the Venetian ambassador, who at once spotted what he called the weak point in her face, its light eyebrows and eyelashes. Under clangour of bells and blare of trumpets, and amid the press of her new subjects, Mary, still a little pale from her recent fatigues and stormy crossing, rode through the Porte Marcade down the wet chaussée, all hung with tapestries now damp with rain, meeting Mysteries and Moralities at every corner, till she came to the Church of St Wolfran, Abbeville's patron saint, where she dismounted to give thanks. On the Place where was Mary's lodging her most trying ordeal was before her, for there awaited her Madame Claude, who had been "slightly indisposed and unable to go out of the town to meet her." Mary was of those who thinketh little evil, and her kind heart was moved at the sight of that white, plain face, with its sweet expression, and she met her then, as later, "with the utmost courtesy and honour and very lovingly."[ [309] The Venetians, who delighted in spectacles, give no account of Mary's formal presentation to her husband, and for that reason I inclined to the belief that Gaguin's[ [310] account is apocryphal, and that Mary was allowed to sup in peace and rest before the ball given by the Duke and Duchess of Brittany (as François and Claude were called by the English) in the evening. Neither do their letters mention the homage to St Wolfran, but to give thanks at the parish church was usual on such occasions and not likely to have been omitted. What a day for a girl of nineteen to have passed through! No wonder she looked a little pale and weary, but her spirits never flagged nor her amazing energy, and she showed her usual zest in dancing and listening to songs and music. Her people said she cared for nothing in the world so much as dancing and singing, and that night she danced and smiled her way into the hearts of the whole Court, "for she conducts herself with so much grace and has such good manners." The enthusiastic Venetian exclaimed, "She is a paradise!" and envied the King. The ball must have been a sumptuous affair. English and French noblemen vied with one another in magnificence, and their ladies, too, were glittering with jewels and brocades, but in this trial by glory San Severino was easily the handsomest in his gown of cloth of gold lined with superb sables. The stuff for it, ordered specially from Florence, had only arrived the day before, to the despair of the tailors, who had had to work all night to have it ready for Sunday's doings.
While one end of the town was dancing and singing, in the poorer quarter across the river men were fighting flames for their lives and homes. Fire had seized the wooden hovels, and no help was to be expected from the King's men, for the tocsin was not allowed to disturb the King's amusements. Thickly curtained windows shut out the sight of the flames from the court, while the Italians in the house of the Venetian ambassador watched their progress with vehement prayers for deliverance.[ [311] The high wind fanned them, and many of the houses were burnt down before the sounds of royal merriment ceased; but God was merciful to the Italians, and the flames were got under before they leapt the river. Thus by shipwreck and by fire was Mary's new life ushered in.