PAINTER UNKNOWN. NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
There is absolutely no doubt that Henry meant to keep his famous "water-side" promise, and immediately on receiving official notice, on January 14, of the death of the French King, sent the Duke of Suffolk, Sir Richard Wingfield, and Dr Nicholas West, to condole with Francis and to congratulate him. Their credentials also were for the arranging of the return of the Queen and her dowry. At Suffolk's last interview with Henry at Eltham,[ [363] before he set out, the King disclosed to him his mind about his sister, but made him promise on oath that he would be nothing to her save the ambassador of the King of England till he had brought her safe out of France. Henry knew his sister's impulsive nature and trusted his friend absolutely. Suffolk gave the oath, and said he would rather be torn by wild horses than break it. They clasped hands upon it, and the Duke set out for his undoing by a woman's tears.
Mary had in the meantime replied[ [364] to Wolsey's letter much in the same tone as she wrote to her brother, "and whereas you advise me that I should make no promise [of marriage] my lord, I trust the King my brother and you will not reckon in me such childhood." It passed her knowledge how Wolsey and Henry could for one moment imagine she would have anything to do with a foreign marriage, and when Francis continued to assure her that he knew from the state of affairs in Flanders that Suffolk's coming was only a blind to entice her home, "for if she went to England she should go to Flanders" as wife of the Prince, she wept bitterly; and on the King pressing his own suit as a means of escape from such fortune she wiped her tears and said, "Sir, I beseech you that you will let me alone and speak no more to me of the matter, and if you will promise me by your faith and truth and as you are a true prince that you will keep it counsel and help me, I will tell you all my whole mind."[ [365] For she feared, remembering that Francis and Suffolk had had words about her, that ill might fortune to the Duke. Francis, possibly seeing in this one way of getting within her guard, gave her his faith in her hand that he would keep what she told him secret and help her to the best of his power. So the tangled creature cast herself on his mercy and told him all her mind and all that had passed between her and Suffolk down to some secret "ware"[ [366] word they had used, and no doubt grew happier in the telling. She ended by saying that she feared her brother's displeasure, and implored Francis to write to him to get his consent. This the King promised to do on the understanding that his hunting of her should never be disclosed to Henry, for it would not tally well with the filial attitude he had assumed in his letters. He felt he had done a good evening's work, for he was not one to play a losing game, and he now had Suffolk in his hands for as the price of his marriage he could exact the Duke's help in gaining Tournay from Henry, while after all Mary as the richest marriage in Europe would hardly have been allowed to remain quietly at Blois.
On Saturday, the 27th January,[ [367] Suffolk arrived at Senlis, and there, hearing that Francis was at Rheims, "where he was sacred on S. Paul's day," he sent a message asking for an audience. Francis sent word that he was glad of their coming, and he would either come to them on Candelmas Eve or else they might come to him straightway. For convenience' sake, on the advice of the Admiral Bonnivet, the embassy decided to wait till Thursday, and on that day their old friend Longueville appeared at their lodging to take them out of the town, about a mile, to meet the King and to make his entry with him. "He received them heartily, asking for the health of the King and the Queen's grace, and conversed with them as lovingly and familiarly as ever he did, expressing his pleasure for the renewal of the peace between the two countries, and also touching the Queen's grace your sister's affairs." That afternoon, at 2 o'clock, Suffolk had his state audience for condolence and congratulation and renewal of the amity. He also thanked Francis in the King's name, "for the singular comfort he had given the Queen in this her heaviness, reciting how lovingly he had written to your Grace by his last letters, that he would neither do her wrong nor suffer her to take wrong of any other person, but be to her as a loving son should be to his mother, praying him of continuance. Whereunto he answered that he might do no less with his honour, seeing that she was your sister, a noble princess and married to his predecessor. And h[ow] lovingly he had behaved him to her, he said, he trusted that she should make report herself to [you], and that that he did, he did with good heart, and n[ot grudingly] and much the rather for your Grace's sake."[ [368] They then asked for licence to condole with Mary, and he answered he was well content. Thus far all was ceremony. Later in the afternoon the real encounter took place and Suffolk had to cry touché. Francis sent for him to his bedroom, and without preface said, "My lord of Suffolk, so it is that there is a bruit in this my realm, that you are come to marry the Queen, your master's sister."[ [369] Suffolk stood his ground and remembered his promise. "I trust your grace," he replied, "would not reckon so great folly in me to come into a strange realm to marry the Queen of the realm without your knowledge and without authority from my master, and that I have not, nor was it ever intended on my master's part nor on mine." But Francis answered, "Not so," and "for then," goes on Suffolk's letter, "[as], I would not be plain with him, he would be plain with me, and showed me that the Queen had broken her mind unto him, and that he had promised her his faith and truth, and of the truth of a King, that he would help her and d[o what was possi]ble in him to help her to obtain [her heart's desi]re. 'And because' [, went on Francis], 'that you shall not th[ink that I do] bear you in this hand and that [she has not spo]ke her mind, I will s[hew you some wor]ds that you had to her, and so showed me a ware word, the which none alive could tell them but she; and when that then I was abashed and he saw that, and said, 'because for you shall say that you have found a kind prince and a loving, and because you shall not think m[e other], here I give you in your hand my faith and truth by the word of a King, that I shall never fail unto you but to help and advance this matter betwixt her and you with as good a will as [I] would for mine[self].' And when he had done this I could do none less than thank his Grace for the great goodness that his Grace intended to show unto the Queen and me, and by it I showed his Grace that I was like to be undone if this matter came to the knowledge of the King my master. And then he said, 'Let me alone for that; I and the Queen shall so instance your master that I trust he would be content, and because I would gladly put your heart at rest I will when I come to Paris speak with the Queen, and she and I both will write letters to the King your master, with our own hands in the best manner that can be devised.'"[ [370] Suffolk was overjoyed, "bounden to God," but cautious. The man he most feared as an obstacle was "contented to be the doer of the act himself and to instance the King my master in the same."[ [371] This would also improve Henry's position towards the anti-Suffolk party in the Council, for if he allowed the marriage at the express desire of the French King, "his Grace shall be marvellously discharged against his Council as all the other noblemen of his realm."[ [372] Still Suffolk's experience had been that Francis was not without guile and he would not act, he said, till he had heard from Wolsey, whom he prayed "with all the haste possible send me your best [counsel what yo]u shall think best that I shall [do in this mat]ter; and if you shall think good [to advertise hi]s Grace of this letter I pray you [to give mi]ne assurances to his Highness that I had [rather an I dared, have written] unto him myself."[ [373] This was written ten leagues from Paris on February 3rd. The following day, Sunday, the embassy reached Paris, and the impatient Queen could not wait till Monday, but sent for Suffolk at once. Then all her emotion burst forth, and she poured out to his willing ears all the worries and distresses of her mind, and told him imperiously that she wanted none other husband but he, "if I would be ordered by her, she would never have none but me." She said that unless he married her before they went to England she would neither marry him nor go to England, and she wept. He asked her what she meant by that, "and," Suffolk's letter goes on, "she said the best in France had said unto her that and she went to England she should go to Flanders. To the which she said she had rather to be torn in pieces than ever she should come there, and with that wept. Sir, I never saw woman so weep. And when I saw [that] I showed unto her Grace that there was none such thing [upon] my faith with the best words I could, but in none ways I could make her to believe it. And when I saw that, I showed her Grace that and her Grace would be content to write unto your Grace and to obtain your good will I would be content, or else I durst not because I had made unto your Grace such a promise." Her lover's caution angered Mary, for having thrown herself with abandon into the situation, she resented his thinking of a mere promise to a third person where she was concerned, so she reasoned and threatened: "if the King my brother is content and the French King both, the tone by his letters and the tother by his words that I should have you, I will have the time after my desire, or else I may well think that the words of [them] in these parts and of them in England [be] true, and that is that you are come to tyes me home [to the in]tent that I may be married into Fland[ers] which I never will, to die for it, and so [I posse]ssed the French King and you came; and th[at of] you will not be content to follow [my] end look never after this d[ay to have] the proffer again." Here was a cruel dilemma; to lose either his master's favour or his mistress's love! Had Francis not spoken Suffolk might possibly have held out, for there was his promise, but now things seemed in train to a happy issue and rather "than to lose all" he promised to marry her before they went to England. Mary was not content with that, and said if he did not marry her within four days he would never have her, and to this also he consented. Were Sir Richard Wingfield and Dean West to know of their decision? No, decided Mary, for they would only give "mo counsel to the contrary," and Suffolk knew this to be true as the least devoir of sensible men, so they were left in the dark.[ [374] The next day Wingfield and West came to visit her, "and according to our instructions made overtures to her at length of your grace's mind and pleasure as well touching that she shall not consent to any motion of marriage in these parts, as also she shall not determine her mind to make her abode there, but to apply herself to follow your mind and pleasure in that behalf." She thanked them, "like a wise, substantial, and Christian princess," for the King for sending my Lord of Suffolk to comfort her in her heaviness and to obtain her dower. "She said she were an unkind sister if she should not follow your mind and pleasure in every behalf, for there was never princess so much beholden to her sovereign and brother as she is to your Grace, and therefore, as touching consent to any marriage in these parts, she trusteth that your Grace knoweth her mind therein, and albeit she has been sore pressed in that matter by the King [that now is] as other, yet she never consented, nor never would do [but rather] suffer the extremity of death. And as touching her [stay] here, she never was nor is minded there to, for she [counts] every day a hundred till she may see your Grace." The ambassadors added that the report was that "la Royne Blanche" was to be married to the Duke of Lorraine. The next day Wingfield and West supped with Mary's ladies,[ [375] and no doubt gossipped about possibilities, while Suffolk supped with the Queen, and she amplified her former confidences. They decided to tell Wolsey openly of the difficulties of her position, but to say nothing of the secret marriage, and by the same post to write to the King.
To Henry Suffolk wrote, and after telling how he had delivered the letters to Mary, who was not a little glad and bounden to God, who had given her so loving a brother, both father and brother to her, and how she prayed that she might live no longer than that she might do that thing that should be to his contentation [this is the Duke's paraphrase, no doubt], he goes on, "So when I had been there awhile I was in hand with her Grace, and asked her how the French King did with her Grace and how she found him. And she said at the beginning he was in hand with her of many matters, but after he heard say that I was come, he said unto her Grace that he would trouble her no more with no such matter, but be glad to do for her as he would do for his own mother, and prayed [her that] she would not be a known of none thing that he had spoken to her, neither to your Grace nor me, for because your Grace should take no unkindness there in. [And further] he said that wheresoever her mind was [for to mar]ry he would be glad to help her there[to with all] his heart, and so since he never me[ddled other]wise, but as he would be to her as [to his m]other. And so, Sir, I perceive that he had [regard to] your Grace, for I think he [would not] to do anything that should discontent [your Grace or your] Grace should think any unkindness, in w[hich I assure] your Grace that I think that you will find him [either] a fast prince or else I will say that he is the most [untrue] man that lies. And not he only but all the [noble]men of France, for I cannot devise to have [any] speak better than they do, nor to your honour." Then he tells Henry sporting news of the jousts for the coronation of Francis and how they are to run and that the King himself is to be one of the aides of the Duke of Alençon.[ [376] To Wolsey he tells out bluntly what has already been described of the clearing interview between Mary and Francis, after which they understood each other, and beseeches his good offices as all his trust is in him, and an answer with all possible haste. In a postscript he again begs to hear from him with all possible haste, and desires him to ask from the King a loan of £2000, "and Sir Oliver shall bring to your hands plate sufficient there. For, my lord, all my money is gone and the Queen and I both must make friends, and they will not be gotten without money. And also I am fain to buy new array, for the King will have us at his coronation, and as far as I know to bring him in at his entry, the which shall not be a little charge. My lord, I beseech you that this may be done in all haste possible and delivered to Sir Oliver."[ [377] The next day Mary, who knew her brother, drew up the following: "Be it known to all persons that I, Mary Queen of France, sister unto the King of England Henry the VIIIth, freely give unto the said King my brother such plate and vessel of clean gold as the late King Loys of France the XIIth of that name gave unto me the said Mary his wife; and also by these presents I do freely give unto my said brother, King of England, the choice of such special jewels as my said late husband King of France gave me; to the performation whereof I bind me by this my bill whereto with mine own hand and signed with my name and to the same have set my seal the ixth day of February, the year of our lord fifteen hundred and fourteen. By your loving sister Mary Queen of France."[ [378]
Mary had dismissed her French dame de compagnie, the Comtesse of Nevers, and the French servants left with her by Francis when he went to Rheims, and on the news of the arrival of Suffolk had recalled her English ladies and servants. Francis is said to have been much annoyed, and possibly his sister, the Duchess d'Alençon, told Suffolk how impolitic a move this was, for on the return of the ambassadors from paying their respects to Queen Claude and to her, they communed with Mary of her household, and she showed herself conformable to the advice of Suffolk and the rest.[ [379] At this interview things were put on a good business footing, and the ambassadors were to write for copies of the inventories of her wardrobe from Master Windsor, of her jewels from Master Wyatt, one from the master of the horse for the stable and another of the costs and charges of her traduction. But nothing could be done till the King came to Paris. Francis made his entry on the 13th, so that the English had scant time for their preparations; but Lent was fast approaching (it began on the 21st) and haste was necessary if the jousts and tourney were to be carried through in time. Mary was present at the King's entrance, which Mercurin de Gattinare described to Margaret of Austria as "belle et gorgiaise," and saw the Duke in the procession with twenty horsemen in grey damask, talking to the Duchess de Longueville, who rode in a habit of cloth of gold.
On Monday, the 12th, the day before the state entry, Suffolk was sent for by the French King to watch him and five others running at the tilt against the Duke of Lorraine and five with him, "for a banket, and I insure your Grace there was good running."[ [380] Francis won, and after the "banket" Suffolk had an interview with him, when the King showed himself very heartily England's friend, and especially good towards Suffolk and Wolsey: "as for the French King, I cannot wish him in better mind towards the King's Grace than I hear him speak it ... and as for you and me I trow that next the King our master we had never such a friend which you shall perceive hereafter."[ [381] A few days before Suffolk had received cheering letters from Wolsey in England, wherein he was advertised what pain Wolsey took "daily for my cause and how good lord you are to me, for the which and all the goodness that I find in you I heartily thank you as he that shall never fail you during my life." He felt his affairs were going on as well as possible in France, for the King was ready to write to Henry in whatever form he thought best. Suffolk's only uneasiness was the ominous silence of all his friends at home, or else he imagined it was ominous, and he reproached them in his letter to the King. "I beseech your Grace that I might hear from your Grace some time, for it should be to my great comfort. Sir, I beseech your Grace that I may be most humbly recommended unto the [Queen's] Grace and to all mine old fellows, both men and women, and tell them that I think it no little unkindness in them all that I never heard from none of them since I departed from you, but I think the fault has been in the weather (?) and not in them. Sir, I beseech your Grace that I be not forgotten amongst you ar ..., for though my body be here my heart is with you and you wot where."[ [382] He had great hopes of returning very soon, for Francis said that once La Guiche, the French agent to England, returned, a couple of days would easily settle all English affairs.[ [383] The evening of the day after his entry Francis went to see Mary, and it was arranged between them that he should write to her brother at once, while the same post would take a letter from her explaining her request for the help of Francis. Suffolk had had the presence of mind at Compiègne not to betray Henry, and the French King therefore did not realize that his news would come a day after the fair, for he evidently thought at the beginning of the affair that he was to be the deus ex machina. So he wrote that he had been to visit the queen his belle-mère, as he used to do, to know if he could show her any attention. On his asking her whether she contemplated a second marriage, she confessed the great esteem she had for the Duke of Suffolk, "que davant t[out] autre ele desyreroyt avecque bonne voulonte et lamye [...] maryage dele et de luy se fy," and prayed him not only to give his own consent thereto, but to write to Henry in Suffolk's favour which he now does.[ [384] Mary's letter also ignores her confession before Suffolk's arrival—"Pleaseth it your Grace, the French King on Tuesday night last [past] came to visit me, and [had] with me many divers [discours]ing, among the which he demanded me whether I had [ever] made any promise of marriage in any place, assuring me upon his honour, upon the word of a prince, that in case I would be plain [with] him in that affair that he would do for me therein to the best of his power, whether it were in his realm or out of the same. Whereunto I answered that I would disclose unto him the [secr]et of my heart in hu[mility] as unto the prince of the world after your Grace in which I had m[ost trust], and so decla[red unto him] the good mind [which] for divers consi[derations I] bear to my lord of Suffolk, asking him not only [to grant] me his favour and consent thereunto, but [also] that he would of his [own] hand write unto your Grace and to pray you to bear your like favour unto me, and to be content with the same. The which he granted me to do, and so hath done, according as shall appear unto your Grace by his said [letters]. And, Sir, I most humbly beseech you to take this answer (?) which I have [made u]nto the French King in good part, the which I [did] only to be discharg[ed of th]e extreme pain and annoyance I was in [by reason] of such suit as [the French Ki]ng made unt[o me not accord]ing with mine honour, [the whi]ch he hath clearly left [off]. Also, Sir, I feared greatly [lest in] case that I had kept the matter from his knowledge that he might have not well entreated my said lord of Suffolk, and the rather [for] to have returned to his [former] malfantasy and suits. Wherefore, Sir, [sin]ce it hath pleased the said King to desire and pray you of your favour and consent, I most humbly and heartily beseech you that it may like your Grace to bear your favour and consent to the same and to advertise the said King by your writing of your own hand your pleasure, [and] in that he hath a[cted after] mine opinion [in his] letter of request, it shall be to your great honour ... to content w[ith all] your Council and [with] all the other no[bles of the] realm, and agree thereto for your Grace and for all the world. And therefore I eftsoon require you for all the love that it liked your Grace to bear to me, that you do not refuse but grant me your favour and consent in form (?) before rehearsed, the which if you shall deny me I am well assured to [lead] as desolate a life as ever had creature, the which I know well shall be mine end. Always praying your Grace to have compassion on me, my most loving sovereign lord and brother, whereunto I have entreated you, beseeching God always to preserve your royal estate." The postscript is: "I most humbly beseech your Grace to consider in case you make difficulty to condescend to the promise [as I] wish, the French King will take courage to renew his suits unto me, assuring you that I had rather to be out of the world than it should so happen, and how he shall entreat my lord of Suffolk God knoweth, with many other inconvenience which might ensue of the same, the which I pray our Lord that [I] may never have life to see.
By your loving sister and true servant,
Mary, Queen of France."[ [385]