[19] See the dowager’s own narrative in the Chronique de Calais.
[20] Mary openly renounced her contract with Prince Charles of Castile on July 30, 1514, at Wanstead, in the presence of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, Brandon, and the Bishops of Lincoln, Winchester and Durham.
[21] Louis’s queen, Anne of Brittany, had died, “utterly lamented,” on January 9, 1514.
[22] Louis himself told the English ambassadors that “he was a sickly body, and not fond of having curious eyes about him.” Peter Martyr says he suffered from elephantiasis and bore signs of premature senility. See Fleming’s Chronicles; the Calendar of State Papers; and Peter Martyr’s Epistles, 541.
[23] Mary, however, with the kindness of heart which characterized her, saw that they eventually obtained some recognition of their services. According to documents in the French archives, her goldsmith, one William Verner, of Fleet Street, London, was ordered to prepare certain jewelry, to the value of six hundred gold crowns, to be disbursed as gifts to the impecunious gentlewomen dismissed in France. Amongst these valuable presents were a polished ruby and an emerald set in a gold cross, value two hundred écus de soleil; a diamond and sapphire set in a necklace, value three hundred crowns; and a table diamond worth one hundred crowns. The gems were to be worn at court, in order that all might see that the ladies had not been defrauded of their just dues.
[24] This Lady Boleyn is frequently described as the Lady Anne Boleyn who became Queen of England and died on the scaffold; but this is a popular error. Anne Boleyn was at this time in attendance on Queen Claude of France, and the Lady Anne Boleyn, her aunt, has been identified as the Lady Boleyn who was in attendance upon Mary at the time of her marriage with the French king. She was the wife of Sir William Boleyn and daughter of the Earl of Pembroke.
[25] British Museum, Caligula, D. vi. 192.
[26] On October 13, 1514, Louis presented his queen with the already mentioned ruby valued at 10,000 marks.
Mary was endowed by Letters Patent (Abbeville, October 8, 1514) with the town and castlery of Caynone and its appurtenances, the castles of Saintonge, de Pezenas, etc. (R.O. Rymer xiii. 459.)
[27] This beautiful specimen of a Gothic palace of the fourteenth century was the town residence of the abbots of Cluny, and was lent to the queen dowager by the abbot of that day. The noble old building is still standing, and converted into a museum of mediæval art.