It was one continuous pageant in every village and town through which the royal cortège passed, between Abbeville and St. Denis. Even in villages and hamlets, children dressed as angels, with golden wings, met the fair queen, to present to her pretty gifts of fruit and flowers. It took the king and queen and their escort six days to reach St. Denis, spending the nights either in episcopal palaces or in the splendid abbeys which lined the way. Although the French greeted the queen heartily, it was noticed that they “became overcast and sour” as they looked on the magnificent but defiant figure of the Duke of Suffolk, as he rode, in his silver armour, on the right side of the queen’s litter, whilst on the left cantered that stalwart nobleman, Thomas Grey, first Marquis of Dorset, who was destined by a curious and unexpected event to become the grandfather of Her Majesty’s ill-fated grandchildren, the Ladies Jane, Katherine and Mary Grey. At last, early in the morning of Sunday, November 5, the English princess passed up the splendid nave of St. Denis, escorted by all that was highest and mightiest in French chivalry. The Duc de Longueville, the Duc d’Alençon, the Duke of Albany, Regent of Scotland, the Duke of Bourbon, and the Count de Vendôme, preceded her, bearing between them the regalia. Mary followed, escorted by the Duke of Valois, and clothed in a mantle of cloth of gold. She wore such a prodigious quantity of jewels that a number of them had to be removed in the sacristy before she was able to proceed with the innumerable ceremonies of the day. The new queen was anointed by the Cardinal de Pré, who also presented her with the sceptre and “verge of justice.” When, after more ceremony than prayer, the cardinal had placed the crown of France upon her brow, Prince Francis of Valois led Her Majesty to a throne raised high above the choir, whence in solitary state she glanced down upon the throng of prelates, priests and noblemen and noblewomen who crowded the chancel and the altar-steps, and overflowed into the nave and transepts. There she sat alone, for weak and sickly King Louis could do no more than witness the coronation, contenting himself by obtaining a view of it from a small closet window above the high altar.
The following day, at noon, Queen Mary passed on to Paris, whither King Louis had preceded her earlier in the morning. On this occasion she did not occupy a litter, but rode by herself in a species of carriage designated “a chaise or chair,” embellished with cloth of gold, and drawn by two milk-white horses with silver reins and harness. Her Majesty, all in white and gold, did not wear the crown of France, but merely a diadem of pearls, from beneath which streamed her luxuriant tresses. Pressing round the queen’s chariot, rode the pick of the nobility of France, followed by the Scotch Guard and a detachment of German mercenaries. Pageants and allegories greeted the royal progress at every turn. When close to Paris, the queen’s train was met by three thousand Parisian students, law officers and representatives of the city council, who chanted in chorus a quaint song, still extant, in which Mary is likened to the Queen of Sheba and Louis XII to King Solomon. Over the portcullis of the Porte St. Denis was erected a ship, containing “mountebanks” representing Henry VIII in the character of Honour, and Princess Mary as Ceres, whilst an actor, wearing King Louis’s own gorgeous robes, offered “Ceres” a bunch of grapes, and was popularly held to personate Bacchus!
In the midst of what we should now consider a circus-like cavalcade, the queen, escorted by a thousand horsemen bearing flaring torches, passed round the quays of Paris, brilliantly illuminated for the occasion, to her resting-place at the Conciergerie, where, we are informed, she was so dead tired that, after the official reception by King Louis and subsequent banquet, she fell asleep and had to be carried to her nuptial chamber. Here, so it is stated, King Louis did not receive her, since he was fast asleep already in his own bedchamber at the Louvre, whither he had retired many hours earlier. He was awake pretty early the next day, for at nine o’clock he breakfasted with the queen, having previously presented her with a bouquet of gems, the flowers being made of coloured stones and the leaves of emeralds. The king never left his bride the whole of that day, and it was observed that whenever he gazed upon her, he would put his hand to his heart and heave a deep sigh. Nothing can be imagined more ludicrous, and at the same time more pathetic, than the ardour of this poor, hopelessly love-sick monarch for his beautiful wife, who, thorough Tudor as she was, never missed an opportunity of fleecing him of jewels and trinkets, to such an extent as at last to excite the indignation of the court.
The coronation festivities closed with jousts in which “my lorde à Sofehoke,” as the Marquis of Dorset calls him in a letter,[25] got “a little hurt in the hand.” In this same epistle the marquis adds that King Louis considered that Suffolk and his English company “dyd shame aule (all) Franse.” They did such execution indeed that, as the chroniclers complacently remark, “at every course many dead were carried off without notice taken.” The exasperation of the French against Suffolk grew so great—or was it due, as tradition suggests, to Francis of Valois’s personal jealousy of the British duke?—that they commissioned, contrary to all etiquette of tourney, an abnormally powerful German trooper to kill him by treachery in the lists. Suffolk, however, saw through the mean trick, and refusing to treat such a ruffian according to chivalric rules, gripped him by the scruff of the neck, and punched his head with much heartiness, to the ill-concealed satisfaction of the spectators.
It does not require much imagination to divine what were the thoughts of the lusty young queen, as she watched the prowess of her triumphant lover in the tilt-yard, and mentally contrasted his manly beauty with the wreck that was her husband, who lay on a couch at her side, “grunting and groaning.” He, poor man, was ever graciously courteous, and expressed his delight whenever, in her enthusiasm, the lovely queen, regardless of etiquette, rose to her feet and leant over to applaud the British champions as they rode by her canopy of state. “Ma mie,” cried old Louis, “your eyes brighten like stars when the English succeed. I shall be jealous.” “Fie!” returned the queen with an arch smile, “surely there is no chance for the French today, since, fortunately for my countrymen, your majesty is too unwell to join in the fray?”
When the queen rose to return to the palace, the whole crowd burst into a storm of cheering, crying: “Vive la Reine anglaise!” Mary’s beauty was not the beauty of regularity of feature so often found in France, but of that rarer sort, peculiar to northerly regions, the beauty of the glorious colouring of the blended Tudor and Lancaster roses; so that when the queen pressed forward to the gorgeously decorated balustrade and kissed her hands to the people, the enthusiasm of ses bons Parisiens passed all bounds; and Mary Tudor’s tact and grace won all hearts, when she insisted that the king should lean upon her arm to descend the stairway. Louise of Savoy, jealously noting all these things, said to herself: “Elle ira loin, celle-là”; and forthwith endeavoured to set her son, Francis of Valois, against the young queen, whereby she only fanned his rising passion for her. If Queen Mary Tudor had managed in a few hours to captivate the Parisians, she failed to make a favourable impression upon the court of France. Her free and easy manner, her good nature, her pleasant smiles, and, above all, her astounding love of jewelry, were well calculated to stimulate jealousy and hatred. The game against her now began in earnest. Its object was to abstract the king from her influence. But Mary was a Tudor, and went ahead steadfastly, regardless of intrigues, quips and frowns; and by a sheer display of good nature and the firm obstinacy peculiar to her race, succeeded in defeating her enemies, and having all things her own way. Possibly, in her heart of hearts, she rejoiced to think that she had an opportunity of amassing great wealth by very easy means, and was buoyed up by her secret passion for the Duke of Suffolk, and the knowledge that, with a little patience, she would be able to claim him from her brother as a pledge of her good behaviour whilst occupying the difficult position of Queen of France.
Mary, notwithstanding her overwhelming passion for Suffolk, was by far the most amiable and respectable member of the Tudor family; she behaved with the utmost propriety while Queen of France, and her kindness to her infirm husband filled him with a hopeless but chivalrous passion, of which he gave practical expression by a boundless generosity[26] that excited the jealousy of the rest of the French royal family and imperilled the safety of his greedy queen.
King Louis XII died on New Year’s Day 1515, less than four months after his marriage, and his widow immediately retired to the Hôtel de Cluny[27] to spend the first weeks of her widowhood in the rigorous seclusion imposed by the etiquette of the French court. She was obliged, according to custom, to dress herself entirely in white, and to remain the whole day long in a bed of state, draped with black velvet. The room was darkened, and only lighted with tapers of unbleached wax, whilst all the queen’s meals were served on silver platters covered with black silk cloths and serviettes.
In the meantime, Louise of Savoy, mother of the new king, Francis I, a most intriguing princess, began to agitate for the return of the youthful dowager to England. She had made up her mind that Mary should not wed the Archduke Charles of Austria-Spain, who again came forward as a suitor, nor yet encourage the attentions of her own son, who had practically deserted his consort, Claude, daughter of the late king by his second wife, Anne of Brittany. The court astrologers had persuaded Francis that before many weeks were over, good Queen Claude, of greengage fame,[28] stout, short, and very plain, would die, and that, as he was soon to become a widower, he might just as well begin his courtship at once. The duchess-mother, well versed in the laxity of the age in which she lived, was terribly afraid Francis might attempt to set aside his wife, in order to marry the English widow, in which event Claude’s rich heritage, the duchy of Brittany, would pass from the French Crown. She therefore resolved to get rid of Mary Tudor, a resolution strengthened by her well-founded conviction that even in the early days of her mourning, Francis I had intruded into the widow’s presence. At her first secret interview with the new king, Mary told him plainly that her heart already belonged to Suffolk, and that she “was resolved to marry none other.” She even reminded Francis of his own neglected consort, and he, instead of resenting this rebuff, promised to exert his influence to obtain Henry VIII’s consent to Mary’s union with her lover.