CHAPTER VI
QUEEN OF FRANCE

MARY'S lodging is said to have been "at the corner of the street leading from the Castle of Ponthieu to the rue St Giles," and this, according to "Le Roi des Ribauds," was connected by a temporary gallery with the Hotel Gruthuse,[ [312] the King's house, from which it was distanced a short stone's throw. But the gardens adjoined, and it was by this way,[ [313] the morning being fine, that the marriage procession passed about eight o'clock on Monday, October 9, for the wedding was to take place an hour later. First walked twenty-six knights two and two, then followed trumpeters and all sorts of musicians and macers. Mary came next, escorted by the Duke of Norfolk and the Marquis of Dorset. She wore a gown of stiff gold brocade trimmed and lined with ermine, her headgear was in the English fashion, and her jewels were of very great price, but she was still pale and showed traces of fatigue, and, according to the usual tradition, did not look her best as a bride, for millinery turns its back on emotions. She was surrounded by her other noblemen, all cap in hand, and more sumptuously dressed than for the entry, for they all wore gowns of some kind of cloth of gold lined with most beautiful sables, or other kind of fine fur, and their gold chains were wearisome to look at, so burdensome did they appear in their massiveness. After the noblemen followed the Queen's gentlewomen and maidens in gold brocade, one after the other, walking between two gentlemen cap in hand. Slowly this streak of moving gold passed from the garden gate to the door of the hall where the ceremony was to take place, by a way lined by the gentlemen of the Scots Guards with their maces in their hands, and by the archers of the Guard. The crush at the door was very great, and within the dim hall, lighted by windows representing the deeds of St Wolfran, was Louis, dressed, like his wife, in cloth of gold and ermine and seated on a chair near the altar. When Mary appeared "the King doffed his bonnet and the Queen curtseyed to the ground," then he kissed her, and she was seated by his side on the chair waiting for her under a canopy held by the princes of France. The treasurer, Robertet, now handed the King a necklace in which was set "a great pointed diamond with a ruby almost two inches long without foil,"[ [314] and Louis put it round Mary's neck. Mass then began, and the Dauphin served the King, while Madame, "with a marvellous sorrow," served Mary, as she had been wont to do her mother:[ [315] the candles were held by princes of France. The Cardinal of Bayeux married them and then sung Mass, and when he gave the wafer, one half to the King and the other to the Queen, Louis, after he had kissed and received his, turned and kissed his wife. Then Mary again curtseyed to the ground, and departed to her own rooms to dine with the French princesses, when she was waited on by French officers and the Duke of Albany. The English ambassadors dined with the Duke of Brittany and the rest of the company in the large chamber of the King's palace where open house was kept for all comers during three days. After dinner they all danced in the hall till evening, and the glitter of the company can hardly be imagined—jewels, cloths of gold and silver, brocades, and brilliant silks; beautiful women and fine men, French and English, it was impossible to say which were the most richly clad, only an Englishman was always known by his heavy gold chain. In the evening Louis had Mary dressed in French fashion and they gave a ball, and there was more dancing, good cheer, and banqueting when Mary was served for the last time by Englishmen, who, clad in cloth of gold, knelt the whole time. Some thought the French fashion did not become her so well as the English, others thought she had never looked better in her life; but whichever may be correct, Louis at any rate could not bear her to leave his side. She must have chattered away to him a kind of mixture of her own desires and vague remembrances of her brother's wishes, for she asked him to undertake a new Italian expedition, and told him she longed above all things to go to Venice, and Louis promised that they would go together.[ [316] The evening passed, "and at the eighth hour before midnight, the Queen was taken away from the entertainment by Madame to go and sleep with the King," and "the next morning, the 10th, the King seemed very jovial and gay and in love by his countenance."

But alas! it was not for long. "Ces amoureuses nopces"[ [317] were too much for him, "antique and debile" as he was, and the same day the gout gripped him again. Perhaps it was this that made him take such a profound dislike to old Lady Guildford and insist on her returning home. Louis was determined to abide by the original contract, and said his wife's foreign train was too large. Lady Guildford distrusted Louis as profoundly as he disliked her and had an aversion not inexplicable to leaving her pupil in the hands of such a feeble old man. She went so far, however, as to refuse to leave them alone and when Louis would have been "merry" she was always there with her forbidding look. Still she was Mary's one stay in the circumstances of her marriage, and it was hard, much probably as the Queen resented her assumed airs of authority, to part from her. But go she had to, though Mary wept and said she had never expected such treatment, said she would write to her brother, and told her to wait at Boulogne till the answer arrived, for she would reinstate her. Norfolk refused to meddle with the arrangement out of pique, for the suite was of Wolsey's choosing, not his. Here is Mary's indignant and peremptory letter:—

"My good Brother, as heartily as I can I recommend me unto your Grace, marvelling much that I never heard from you since our departing, so often as I have sent and written unto you. And now am I left post alone in effect, for on the morn after marriage my chamberlain and all other men servants were discharged, and in like wise my mother Guildford with other my women and maidens, except such as never had experience nor knowledge how to advertise or give me counsel in any time of need, which is to be feared more shortly than your grace thought at the time of my departing, as my mother Guildford can more plainly shew your grace than I can write, to whom I beseech you to give credence. And if it may be by any mean possible I humbly require you to cause my said mother Guildford to repair hither once again. For else if any chance hap other than weal I shall not know where nor by whom to ask any good counsel to your pleasure nor yet to mine own profit. I marvel much that my lord of Norfolk would at all times so lightly grant everything at their requests here. I am well assured that when ye know the truth of everything as my mother Guildford can shew you, ye would full little have thought I should have been thus intreated; that would God my lord of York had come with me in the room of Norfolk; for then I am sure I should have been left much more at my heartsease than I am now. And thus I bid your grace farewell with [mutilated] as ever had Prince: and more heartsease than I have now.

[I beseech] give credence to my mother Guildford.

By your loving sister,
MARY, Queen of France."[ [318]

Not content with this, on the same date, the day before Lady Guildford and the rejected suite returned to England, she wrote to Wolsey: "I recommend me unto you as heartily as I can, and as showeth [be not] intreated as the King and you thought I should have been, for the morn after the marriage all my servants, both men and women, were discharged. Insomuch that my mother Guildford was also discharged, whom as you know the King and you willed me in anywise to be counselled. But for anything I might do in no wise might I have any grant for her abode here, which I assure you, my lord, is much to my discomfort, besides many other discomforts, that ye would full little have thought. I have not yet seen in France any lady or gentlewoman so necessary for me as she is, nor yet so meet to do the King my brother service as she is. And for my part, my lord, as you love the King, my brother, and me, find the means that she may in all haste come hither again, for I had as lief lose the winning I shall have in France to lose her counsel when I shall lack it, which is not like long to be required as I am sure the noblemen and gentlemen can shew you more than becometh me to write in this matter. I pray you my lord give credence to my mother Guildford in everything concerning this matter. And albeit my lord of Norfolk hath neither dealt with me nor yet with her at this time, yet I pray you to be a good lord unto her. And would to God my [...] had been so good to have had you with me hither when I had my lord of Norfolk. And thus fare ye well, my lord. My lord, I pray you give credence to my [mother Guild]ford in my sorrows she have delyre.[?]

From your own while I live,
Mary, Queen of France."[ [319]

Poor Mary, she was already paying dear, she thought, for her jewels, and was little consoled that day by her husband's new gifts of rubies and diamonds and pearls. But Louis had a story of his own to tell, for Henry and Wolsey both wrote on the subject, the bishop as follows:[ [320]—"Since the King, my sovereign lord and master, your good brother had ordered on account of the true, perfect, and entire confidence which he had in Mistress Guildford that she should be with the Queen, his sister, your wife, on account of the good manners and experience which he knew her to have, and also because she speaks the language well: in order also that the said Queen, his sister, might be better advised, and taught by her how she ought to conduct herself towards you under all circumstances, considering, moreover, that the Queen, his said good sister, is a young lady and that she should be abroad, not understanding the language perfectly, and having no acquaintance with any of the ladies there, to whom she might disclose such feelings as women are given to, and that she had no one of her acquaintance to whom she could familiarly tell and disclose her mind, that she might find herself desolate as it were, and might thereby entertain regret and displeasure, which peradventure might cause her to have some sickness and her bodily health to be impaired, which God forbid, and should such an accident happen, I believe, Sir, that you would be most grieved and displeased. And whereas, Sir, I have known and understood that the said Mistress Guildford is at Boulogne on her return here, and that she was entirely discharged, doubting lest the King, my master, should he know it, might think it somewhat strange, I have ventured to write to the said lady to tarry awhile in the said town of Boulogne until I had written to you my poor and simple opinion on this subject, which Sir, I now do. And, by your leave, Sir, it seems to me that you should retain her for some time in the service of the Queen, your wife, and not discharge her so suddenly, seeing and considering that the King, your said good brother, has taken her from a solitary place which she had never intended to quit, to place her in the service of the Queen, his good sister. And I have no doubt, Sir, that when you know her well you will find her a wise, honourable, and confidential lady, very desirous and earnest to follow out in all things possible to her, your wish or pleasure in all that you may order or command, whatever report has been or may be made to the contrary." Gerard Danet[ [321] had been sent on with letters to Wolsey, while the good lady planted herself at Boulogne to await the development of events which she expected would make for her restoration, and on his way to Canterbury had fallen in with Suffolk. The Duke wrote at once to Wolsey of the affair in which he saw the hands of the Howards, "fader and son," and asked Wolsey to see that something was done, for if Mary was not well treated they would be blamed. But Louis would have none of her. First he remarked dryly to the English agent[ [322] that "his wife and he be in good and perfect love as ever two creatures can be, and both of age to rule themself, and not to have servants that should look to rule him or her. If his wife have need of counsel or to be ruled he is able to do it, but he was sure it was never the Queen's mind or desire to have her again, for as soon as she came aland, and also when he was married, she began to take upon her not only to rule the Queen but also that she should not come to him but that she should be with her, nor that no lady nor lord should speak with her but she should hear it, and began to set a murmur and a banding among the ladies of the court." "And then he swore that there was never man that better loved his wife than he did, but or he would have such a woman about her he had liefer be without her." He was sure that when Henry knew all, he would be satisfied. "For in nowise he would not have her about his wife, also he said that he is a sickly body and not at all times that [he would] be merry with his wife to have any strange wo[man there] but one that he is well acquainted with [and before whom he] durst be merry, and that he is sure [the Queen his] wife is content withal for he hath set [about her neither] lady or gentle-woman to be with her for her [mistress but her] servants and to obey her commandments." But poor Lady Guildford's unkindest cut was to come from her young mistress, for three weeks after those impassioned letters Mary calmly assured the Earl of Worcester that "she loved my Lady Guildford well, but she is content that she come not, for she is in that case that she may well be without her, for she may do what she will,"[ [323] and Worcester adds rather doubtfully, "I pray God that so it may continue to his pleasure."