[33] In this and some other letters, passages referring to arrangements connected with the dower have been curtailed or altogether omitted. It is sufficient to state that Elizabeth’s dower had been fixed at 60,000 francs per annum, and that Busbecq’s object was to see that it was properly secured.
[34] Pierre de Gondi, see note, page 39.
[35] John Evelyn made the same expedition by water from Lyons to Avignon, some seventy years later. A full account of his voyage is given in his Diary (p. 69, Chandos edition). Like Busbecq he stopped at Valence. ‘We then came to Valence, a capital Citty carrying the title of a Dutchey, but the Bishop is now sole lord temporal of it and the country about it. The towne having an University famous for the study of the civil law, is much frequented; but the Churches are none of the fairest, having been greatly defaced in the time of the warrs.’
[36] Jean de Montluc, Bishop of Valence, was one of the most successful diplomatists of his day; he had been ambassador at Constantinople in 1537, on which occasion he received the pot of balsam, which he afterwards lost in Ireland (see vol. i. p. [387]). Henry III. owed his Polish Crown to his exertions and diplomatic skill. He was father of that bold and unscrupulous adventurer, Balagny.
His career is thus sketched by a contemporary:—
‘Il avoit esté de sa premiere profession jacobin, et la feue royne de Navarre Margueritte, qui aymoit les gens sçavans et spirituels, le cognoissant tel, le deffrocqua et le mena avec elle à la Court, le fit cognoistre, le poussa, luy ayda, le fit employer en plusieurs ambassades; car je pense qu’il n’y a guieres pays en l’Europe où il n’ayt esté ambassadeur et en negotiation, ou grande ou petite, jusques en Constantinople, qui fut son premier advancement, et à Venize, en Polongne, Angleterre, Escosse et autres lieux. On le tenoit Lutherien au commencement, et puis Calviniste, contre sa profession episcopalle; mais il s’y comporta modestement par bonne mine et beau semblant; la reyne de Navarre le deffrocqua pour l’amour de cela.’—Brantôme, iii. 52.
[37] Monsieur de Vulcob, French Ambassador at the Court of Maximilian. See Charrière, Négotiations de la France dans le Levant, iii. 596, note.
[38] Jean de Morvilliers was born at Blois in 1506. He was ambassador at Venice from 1546 to 1550, and was rewarded for his services by receiving the Bishopric of Orleans in 1552. After he became bishop, the Chapter of his cathedral, by a statute passed in November 1552, ordered him to shave off his beard. He refused to comply, and the quarrel raged fiercely for four years, till finally in 1556 it was appeased by a letter from the King to the Chapter, in which he declared that he required to send Morvilliers to various countries in which a beard was necessary, and therefore ordered the Chapter to receive him beard and all. He did not, however, take possession of his cathedral till 1559. Francis II. appointed him a Privy Councillor, and in 1561 he took part in the Conference of Poissy, and in the following year attended the Council of Trent, as one of the French representatives. He was afterwards ambassador to the Duke of Savoy, and in 1564 was one of the negotiators of the Treaty of Troyes, between Charles IX. and Queen Elizabeth. In the same year he gave up his Bishopric in favour of his nephew. On the disgrace of the Chancellor l’Hôpital, in 1568, he became Keeper of the Seals, but in 1571 had to resign them to Birague. In de Thou’s opinion (iii. 209), he was honest and prudent, but cautious to the verge of timidity, and therefore always pursued a policy of expediency. He was the head of the party who were in favour of peace but thought no religious reform was required, and who therefore, in order to remain on good terms with the extreme Catholic party headed by the Guises, did not hesitate to evade or violate the pledges given to the Protestants. See Thuanus, iii. 35. De Thou’s estimate of his character is borne out by a State-paper preserved by d’Aubigné (Histoire, vol. ii. bk. i. ch. ii.), written by Morvilliers at the request of Charles IX. in 1572, in opposition to Coligny’s project of war with Spain.
[39] Elizabeth’s marriage portion had never been paid, and Busbecq was afraid that this fact might be adduced as a reason for not paying her dower now she was a widow; and also, in case of the failure of Maximilian’s issue male, a claim might be set up on behalf of her daughter, that Elizabeth’s renunciation of her rights of succession was invalid for the same reason. That Busbecq’s fears were not ill-founded is shown by the fact that Louis XIV. argued that his wife’s renunciation of her rights to the Crown of Spain was invalid, as her marriage portion had never been paid.
[40] The Comte de Retz was the son of a Florentine banker at Lyons, named Gondi, Seigneur du Péron. His wife entered the service of Catherine de Medici, and took charge of her children in their infancy. She endeared herself to the Queen, who being Regent during the minority of Charles IX. advanced her children to the highest posts: the Comte de Retz became first Gentleman of the Chamber to the King, and a Marshal of France; he acquired enormous wealth. His brother, Pierre de Gondi, was made Bishop of Paris, and afterwards Cardinal; he had other preferments worth 30,000 or 40,000 livres per annum, and property worth 200,000 crowns; while a third brother was Master of the Wardrobe to the King.