Mary Tudor, Queen of France

by Mary Croom Brown

Suffolk and Wolsey were busy for months over the marriage question, but one of the first things the Duke found time to do was to retrieve his daughter Anne from the care of Lady Margaret of Savoy.[ [458] He wrote to her on May 30, 1515, thanking her for her care of the child, whom he had intended to have left permanently in her charge, but as the French Queen desired her presence, he was sending Sir Edward Guildford to bring her home.

So far as the jewels and plate were concerned,[ [459] Sir Wm. Sidney had no success in his mission to Francis. Neither jewels nor plate were forthcoming, so Sir Richard Wingfield,[ [460] who knew all the intricacies of the affair, was commissioned to go to the French King. Sir Richard was very unwilling to undertake the journey to Lyons, where was Francis; "nevertheless, if my voyage shall proceed, I trust it is not the King's highness mind that I should jeopard my life with him, for if I had one hundred lives I lever jeopard them with my prince than one with any other prince." Henry desired no jeoparding of his life, and his instructions were to thank the French King for his consolation of the King's sister; and then, other matters relating to the continuation of the amity having been presented, he was to show to Francis the right of the Queen-dowager of France to the jewels and plate of gold of her late husband, and so on through the whole argument again, dwelling on the fact that the Mirror of Naples is but a small thing, and her own by right, and using all wisdom, policy, and sober persuasions that he can to this effect. It was all to no purpose; gold plate and jewels Mary never saw again, and her income from her dowry was uncertain, and caused anxiety and weariness all her life. During this year and the next, while the matter was still fresh in the mind of Henry, he did not cease to urge the restitution of the jewels, always as a matter of right.

Mary and her husband had been forgiven and were in favour again, and at Court became quite naturally the centre of all those French influences and ideas which have always had such a vivid attraction to Englishmen. Wolsey's policy, however, was giving way to pressure, and was swinging back to the traditional one of enmity to France, so that the Suffolks watched events with some anxiety. They were in communication with the Duke of Albany,[ [461] the head of the French party in Scotland: Mary to ask his protection for her sister, Queen Margaret, and her nephews, while Albany[ [462] wrote in October to Suffolk to ask for his good offices with Henry for him. If Suffolk could only have kept out of the French circle it would have been safer for him, but he was nervous about the fulfilment of his marriage contract as it regarded the King, and desired to continue on friendly terms with Francis and Louise, so that his very fear of Henry's anger drove him into constant danger of incurring it. Thus, in 1515,[ [463] when Bapaume, the French Ambassador, had been rudely received by Henry, who was annoyed by Francis' brilliant successes in Italy and by his help to the Scots, what must Suffolk do but go and smooth matters over. He was as civil as Henry had been the reverse, and rejoiced at the fitness of the French, and said no one was more obliged to their King than he was, and that, after Henry, he would serve him all his life. He reassured Bapaume, whose fears had been excited by the christening by the French Queen of the new galley, "The Virgin Mary," and said the ship had only been built to please Katharine and his wife. A copy of the ambassador's letter to Louise de Savoie, containing a circumstantial account of this interview with the Duke, and of one more cordial still with Wolsey, came into the hands of the Council, and was communicated to Henry (no doubt by Wolsey, for some reason unknown to us), for in January 1516 Suffolk's matters with the King were not in good order. The political evil was further tangled by the financial one, and by the beginning of the year his liabilities to Henry amounted to £12,000, and they were in the hands of Henry's bankers and debtors, the Italian merchants, the Frescobaldi, and the Cavalcanti, to whom the King very often deputed the task of collecting his debts. There was no prospect of money from France.[ [464] Francis had taken no notice of an invitation sent by Suffolk to be godfather at the christening of the child which Katharine was expecting, and the union between the English and the Prince of Castile was affirmed by the looseness of that between Henry and Francis. Thus Suffolk, for the moment, had lost his master's favour, and his wife her income. Mary sent "certain jewels and other things" to Henry, to the amount of £1000, and that tided them over the first payment, but Suffolk begged Henry to have pity on them both.[ [465]

Mary, however, at this moment had other things to think of, for on Tuesday, March 11, 1516, "between 10 and 11 o'clock in the night, was born at Bath Place (Wolsey's house) the son of Mary Queen of France and Charles Duke of Suffolk, whose christening was deferred unto the Thursday next following," so he was probably a weakly infant. Typical state was held at the christening, for, save the little Princess Mary, who had been born a month before to Katharine, he was the heir to the throne, and Queen Mary was not one to forget that.[ [466] "From the nursery to the hall door was well gravelled, and above all well rushed of a meetly thickness, and railed round about from the nursery to the hall door, whereat was a goodly porch of timber work substantially builded, which porch was hanged without with cloth of arras, and within hanged with cloth of gold. And also the hall richly hanged with arras." Red and white roses were everywhere on cushions and hangings. The font had lukewarm water, and was in the charge of two esquires with aprons, and two more were there to see that the fire in the recess where the young lord was to be unarrayed did not smoke. Torches lined the way from the nursery to the hall, and there were twenty-four in the hall itself. Down the burning alleyway came the basin, the taper, the salt and the chrysom, all borne by members of the household; then Lady Anne Grey, with the young lord in her arms, supported by Lord Dacres, chamberlain to the French Queen, at the head, and Lord Edward Grey at the foot. The train was borne by Sir Humphrey Bannister, chamberlain to the Duke of Suffolk, and four torches were borne about the young lord by four esquires. The King, the Cardinal, and the old Lady Katharine, Countess of Devon, Mary's aunt, were sponsors at the font, while the Bishop of Durham was godfather at the bishoping [confirmation]. The Bishop of Rochester christened the child, and the King gave the name. Gifts were presented by the sponsors, the Lady Katharine's being two plain pots of silver and gilt, the King's a salt of gold and a cup of gold. Then the company went back to the nursery, where Mary was awaiting them, and presented the young lord to his mother. The baby's behaviour all through seems to have equalled that of his little cousin the Princess Mary, who, according to her father's boast, never cried. Henry's presence at the christening was probably due to his genuine affection for his sister, for he had by no means restored Suffolk to favour, and ordered him into the country till it was his pleasure to see him. The truth was, no doubt, that Wolsey, who was now "marvellous great"[ [467] with Sir William Compton of the Norfolk party, was deep in the negotiations for the league between England and Flanders, to which Suffolk was naturally opposed, and his presence in opposition at Court was simply not to be tolerated. Suffolk spent nearly a whole year in exile from the Court, though in September, when Henry made a progress through Suffolk and came to the Duke's own house at Donyngton, he allowed Suffolk to come to him. Mary, who felt the exile more than her husband, wrote to her brother thanking him for his condescension.

My most dearest right entirely beloved lord and brother,[ [468]—In my most humble wise I recommend me unto your Grace, showing unto your Grace that I do p[erceive] by my lord and husband that you are pleased and contented that he shall resort unto your presence, at such time as your Grace shall be at his manor of Donyngton, whereby I see well that he is marvellously rejoiced and much comforted that it hath liked your Grace so to be pleased, for the which your special goodness to him, showed in that behalf, and for sundry and many other your kindness, as well to me as to him, showed and given in divers causes, I most humbly thank your Grace, assuring you that for the same I account myself as much bounden unto your Grace as ever sister was to brother, and according thereunto I shall to the best of my power during my life endeavour myself as far as in me shall be possible, to do the thing that shall stand with your pleasure. And if it had been time convenient and your Grace had been therewith pleased I would most gladly have accompanied my said lord in this journey. But I trust that both I and my said lord shall see you, according as your Grace wrote in your last letters unto my said lord, which is the thing that I desire more to obtain than all the honour of the world. And thus I beseech our Lord to send unto you, my most dearest and entirely beloved brother and lord, long and prosperous life with the full accomplishment of all your honourable desires, most humbly praying your Grace that I may be humbly recommended unto my most dearest and best beloved sister, the Queen's Grace, and to the Queen of Scots, my well beloved sister, trusting that [I?] be ascertained from your Grace of the prosperous estate and health of my dearly beloved n[iece] the princess, to whom I pray God send long life.

"From Letheringham in Suffolk, the 9th day of September, by the hand of your loving sister,

Marie, Queen of France."

Suffolk's banishment was not revoked, and on November 1 the league against France between Flanders, Spain, England, and the Swiss was concluded, of which, as Giustinian the Venetian said,[ [469] the Cardinal of York was the beginning, middle and end. Wolsey had not forgotten Mary, and had tried to get a clause about her dowry inserted into the treaty, "that in case any prince should refuse to pay debts owing to England, as if France were to decline paying the dowry of the Lady Mary, the confederates should be bound to assist him."[ [470] But the Flemish Council thought this unreasonable.

The new year, 1517, brought new demands for the King's payments, and the Earl of Shrewsbury had been dunning the Duke for certain smaller sums. In February Suffolk went to London to go into the state of his own and his wife's debts to the King with Wolsey (the Venetian Ambassador met him at the Cardinal's, very busy over them),[ [471] and he afterwards wrote to Henry:—

"Sir,[ [472]—In the most humble wise I commend me to your Grace. And, Sir, so was it at the last time I was with your Grace I went through with my lord Cardinal for such debts as the Queen your sister and I are in to your Grace, for the which it was thought by your Grace's Council learned that your sister and I both must confer divers things before your judges according unto the law. And, Sir, I beseech you that she may come up to the intent that she may do all such acts, according as be devised or shall be devised most for your Grace's surety, to the intent that whatsoever shall happen of me that your Grace may be in surety, and that it shall not be said but it is her deed and free will the which your Grace shall well perceive that it is done with good mind and heart. And, Sir, the coming up of her to see your Grace shall rejoice her more than the value of that if it should be given to her. Sir, it is so that I have heard by my lord Morley and others that your Grace intends to have some pastime this May and that your Grace's pleasure is that I shall give mine attendance on your Grace, the which I shall be as glad to do as any poor servant or subject that your Grace has living. Howbeit, Sir, I am somewhat unprovided of such things as belong to that business, wherefore if it may stand with your Grace's pleasure I would bring up the Queen, your sister, against Easter to both plays, and then remain till she and I may know your Grace's further pleasure, to the which she and I shall obey with humble heart, according to her duty and mine. As knows God, who preserve your Grace in long life with as much health and honour as your noble heart can desire, which is both her and my daily prayer.