Historic Girlhoods, Part One

by Rupert Sargent Holland

"One more joust," said Henry, "and this one, madame, in honor of yourself."

"But, sire," she persisted, "you cannot excel the deeds you have already done to-day, and now you should join the ladies."

Henry, however, with a smile, shook his head. "This one shall end the day," he said, and rode to his end of the course.

Mary Seton leaned forward to speak to her young mistress. "The Count of Montgomery, being Captain of the Scottish Guard, dared not refuse, with you here to see," she whispered. "See how he reins up his charger. He is young, and not anxious to break his lance on the King's coat-of-mail."

Montgomery took his place, lowered his visor, and set his lance. At the opposite end the King did the same. Then at a signal each touched his spurs to his horse, and rode furiously fast to the onset. There was a crash, the shock of steel, and a cry from the audience. The Count had driven his lance at the King's helmet, and it had broken short. The blow sent the King reeling and he was whirled about so fast that he had difficulty to keep his seat. The Count rode on, but the King, only too evidently dazed, swayed in his saddle, and then fell forward on his charger's neck. A dozen men sprang forward, and catching the King, helped him to the ground. A glance showed what had happened. Montgomery's lance had broken and a splinter of the steel had been driven through an eyehole of the helmet into the King's head just over his right eye. The men took off his armor and carried him as gently as they could into the palace.

Thus suddenly the celebrations of the Princess Elizabeth's wedding came to an end. The young and reluctant Count of Montgomery had given the King his death wound, and a few days later the spirited monarch died. The triumphal arches and banners were torn down, and the bells of Paris tolled slowly where they had rung joyful peals so short a time before.

So the Dauphin Francis and Mary Stuart became King and Queen of France. He was sixteen and she seventeen. They were too young to reign and Francis was much too delicate. Moreover there were two or three grown-up people who had no intention of letting the boy and girl have their own way. Behind the throne stood the boy's mother, Queen Catherine de' Medici, and the unscrupulous and ambitious uncles of the girl, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine. They headed the Catholic party in the kingdom and they were pursuing the hapless Huguenots with torch and sword. Careless of the young King's wishes they plunged France into terrible civil wars wherein massacres were a matter of almost daily occurrence.

Francis and Mary were crowned in the old Cathedral of Rheims, where Joan of Arc had once seen her Dauphin crowned, and over the royal pair hung the banners of France, Scotland, and England. Then they traveled south to the château of Blois, and Francis amused himself with hunting while the Queen and her four Maries either rode out after the gentlemen to watch the sport or stayed at home to listen to the poems and songs of troubadours or walked on the banks of the small winding river Loire. She was more beautiful than ever, and very fond of her husband Francis, and their little court, made up largely of boys and girls nearly their own age, enjoyed itself thoroughly while the dark figures of Catherine and Mary's uncles were free to plunge the kingdom into blood.

The house of Valois had spent all its strength, and the four sons of the gallant Henry II, three of whom were to be kings in turn, were fated to be weak and sickly. Francis drooped and pined, and a year had barely passed before his reign was ended, and Mary, patient nurse at his side, was made a widow. Charles, the second brother, came to the throne, only to find it a place of weariness and regret, and to shudder at the horrors of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, planned by his mother. Perhaps it was as well for Mary that her reign in France had ended. The land had fallen into evil days, wherein there was little happiness for any one.

The Queen of Scots, still only a girl, went back to her northern home, and the people of that mountainous land were glad to welcome her to the old historic Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh. But even when she was leaving France her cousin Elizabeth the English Queen showed her enmity. Mary had asked to be allowed to pass through England on her way to Scotland, but this Elizabeth refused, and Mary was obliged to make the long sea-voyage.