The traditional picture of Mary during these days shows her at his bedside, amusing him by singing and playing, and the last letter of Louis XII., written a few days before his death to Henry VIII., is in praise of his wife, "who has hitherto conducted herself, and still does every day towards me in such a manner that I cannot but be delighted with her, and love and honour her more and more each day."[ [354] Tradition also says that she was kept in ignorance of her husband's hopeless condition, and that on the night of his death she had gone off to bed as usual, believing that this was only a rather worse attack.[ [355] But the young Queen had eyes in her head and could use them, and that she was expecting the event and that Suffolk had gone home prepared for it is seen by Wolsey's letter of the last days of December, or the early days of January, wherein he offers his consolation in the danger, and perhaps death, of the King, for "in likelihood or this time he is departed to the mercy of God," and though she was not there at midnight when the long struggle ended, her representatives were.

Thus, on New Year's Day, 1515, the Dauphin's lucky day, Francis I. began to reign at Paris, while the same day Brussels saw her Prince also take up the reins of government.

CHAPTER VIII
THE WHITE QUEEN AND THE DUKE. THE SECRET MARRIAGE

TRADITION says that Mary fainted on being told of the death of her husband, and in spite of the covert sneers of his countrymen, the thing is not impossible, for her situation, difficult as it had been, became now a hundred times more so, and for the moment she might easily fall under its weight. For the moment there were ceremonies to be gone through, and the King had to be carried away from the palace to the melancholy sound of the tinkling "campanes" and cries of "le bon roi Louis, père du peuple, est mort," to lie in state in the church of Notre Dame, and afterwards through the mud to St Denis for burial, while his widow had to flit from Les Tournelles to the Clugny Palace by the river, where la Reine Blanche, as the widow of the French King was always called, was expected to mourn for six weeks. There, clad in white, the Queen was supposed to keep her bed for that time, with curtained windows and by candle light, secluded from the world and surrounded by her women. Francis showed himself very sympathetic, and Mary kept the same state there as though she had been Queen, while every evening he visited her and comforted her according to his views. The Venetian ambassador says that Mary at once said that the Dauphin could call himself King, for she was not going to have a child, but, as was the custom, he had to wait three weeks before etiquette allowed him to assume the title.

News was at once sent by Mary to England, and she awaited letters which would tell her that her brother was going to keep the promise he had given at the water-side at Dover. For there had been, she herself confessed it, at some time or other stolen meetings between her and Suffolk, and sweet words, and with the short memory of youth she had already cast the disagreeable past behind her and was looking into the future. The first letter which reached her was the one from Wolsey[ [356] already quoted, written before the news of Louis's death had reached England. He offered his consolation and advice "how your Grace shall demean [yourself] being in this heaviness and among strangers far from [your] most loving brother, and other your assumed friends and servants. Touching your consolation, I most heartily beseech your Grace with thanksgiving to God to take wisely and patiently such visitation of Almighty God, against whose ordinance no earthly creature may be, and not by extremity of sorrow to hurt your noble person." He assured her that Henry will not forsake her, and begs her for the old service the writer has done her to do nothing without the advice of his Grace, however she should be persuaded to the contrary, and to let nothing pass her mouth, "whereby any person in these parts may have [you] at any advantage. And if any motions of marriage or other fortune to be made unto you in no wise give hearing to them. And thus doing, ye shall not fail to have the King fast and loving to you, to attain to your desire [and come] home again into England with as much honour as [Queen ever] had. And for my part to the effusion of my [blood and spen]ding of my goods I shall never forsake nor leav[e you.]" Henry sent her his surgeon, Master John,[ [357] with letters of comfort, telling her to make ready to return to England, but for all that her letter to him shows she was in very low spirits, with fits of hysterical crying and toothache.[ [358]

As was to be expected, the party opposed to Suffolk and Wolsey in the Council, led by Norfolk, used all means to prevent the marriage, and attacked Mary herself through her confessor, Father Langley,[ [359] who came to her one day to ask her to be shriven. But she said no, she had no mind for confession, and would say nothing of what was in her mind. "And then the said friar shewed her that he had the same day said mass, and he sware by the Lord he had that day consecrated and that under benedicite he would shew her divers things that were of truth, and of which he had perfect knowledge, desiring her to give him hearing and to keep the same to herself." Then he went on to tell her of the bruit in England that she was to be married to Suffolk, and advised her to beware of him, for he and Wolsey meddled with the devil, and by his puissance they kept their master subject to them, especially Suffolk, who had caused the disease in Sir William Compton's leg. This Father Langley knew for a fact, she need have no doubt of its truth, and the only thing to be done to save her soul was to hinder Suffolk's "voyage." [There seems to have been a second friar in the plot, but the letter is burnt and mutilated, and it is impossible to get the exact sense.] It was a tactless, useless move on Norfolk's part, for Mary, being a woman in love, gave the friar "small comfort," and from the interview merely gathered what fed her desire, that the people in England were openly speaking of her coming marriage with Suffolk. In his daily visits, Francis had hinted at other marriages, and suggested as husbands the Duke of Savoy[ [360] and the Duke of Lorraine, or else that she should not marry, but remain in France and hold her Court at Blois, of which country he offered her the revenues, and then made suit unto her, "not according with mine honor," as she wrote. He played his best card, however, when he told her that Suffolk's coming to fetch her home was only a blind, for under secret promise of marriage she was to be decoyed back into England and then married to the Prince of Castile.[ [361] There can be little doubt that the King played with the helpless creature, and renewed his love-making in the newly darkened mourning room to her "extreme pain and annoyance." No wonder she had fits of "the mother," and wept piteously and exclaimed passionately that rather than go to England, to be married again to any strange prince, she would live and die in a convent, and thus she wrote to her brother. "I would be very glad to hear that your Grace were in good health and p[eace], the which should be a great comfort to me, and that it would please your Grace to send more oft time to me than you do, for as now I am all out of comfort saving that all my trust is in your Grace and so shall be during my life. Sir, I pray your Grace will send hither as soon as you may possibly hither to me. Sir, I beseech your Grace that you will keep all the promises that you promised me when I took my leave of you by the w[ater s]ide. Sir, your Grace knoweth well, that I did marry for your p[leasure a]t this time, and now I trust that you will suffer me to [marry as] me l[iketh fo]r to do ... for I assure your Grace that [my mi]nd is not there where they would have me, and I trust [your Grace] will not do so to me that has always been so glad to fulfil your mind as I have been. Wherefore, I beseech your Grace for to be good lord and brother to me, for, sir, an if your Grace will have gran[ted] me married in any place sav[ing] whereas my mind is, I will be there whereas your Grace nor no other shall have any joy of me, for I promise your Grace you shall hear that I will be in some religious house, the which I think your Grace would be very sorry of, and all your realm. Also, sir, I know well that the King that is [my s]on will send unto your Grace by his uncle the Duke of [Savoy] for to marry me here.... [I sha]ll never be merry at my heart (for an ever that I d[o marr]y while I live), I trow your Grace knoweth as well as I do, and did before I came hither, and so I trust your Grace will be contented, unless I would never marry while I live, but be there where never man nor woman shall have joy of me. Wherefore I beseech your Grace to be good lord to him and to me both, for I know well that he hath [...] to your Grace of him and me both. Wherefore an your Grace be good lord to us both, I will not care for all the world else, but beseech your Grace to be good lord and brother to me, as you have been here aforetime f[or in you] is all the trust that I have in this world after God. No m[ore from m]e at this [time]. God send your Grace [long life an]d your heart's de[sires].

By your humble and loving sister, Mary, Queen of France.[ [362]

To the King my brother, this
to be delivered in haste."

All her fears seemed at first for nothing. Henry was quite willing she should marry his favourite, and had she but kept her mental poise she would have carried her love to a triumphant open marriage. But six weeks in a darkened room, with Francis, "who looked like the devil," her visitor every evening, her mouth closed by command of her brother and her adviser Wolsey, her nerves racked by whispers of false dealing at home and by the senseless suspicions that attack all lovers, had wrought her to no state of cool reasonableness by the time Suffolk and his fellow-ambassadors arrived.