Heretic Queen (27 page)

 

FIFTEEN

Massacre in Paris

And with this weight I'll counterpoise a crown,
Or with seditions weary all the world.

—
The Massacre at Paris,
act 1, scene 2

by Christopher Marlowe (1592)

While negotiations were under way for a marital alliance with England, Catherine de' Medici was also aiming to catch a Protestant bridegroom for her daughter Marguerite. The man in her sights was Henry of Navarre, First Prince of the Blood of France.
1
If only she could manage a Protestant League with Elizabeth in the north, covertly fund William of Orange's invasion of the Low Countries from Germany in the northeast, and seal a wedding to the southwest with Navarre, Catherine would, at a stroke, neutralize the Huguenot and ultra-Catholic Guise factions in France and secure her borders against the pope and Philip.

The plan had already been partially implemented. Catherine had succeeded in winning Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian II, for her son Charles IX to protect her eastern flank. With Charles increasingly unpredictable in his behavior, Catherine was determined to take control of her own and France's destiny. Seemingly, she chose to side with the Protestants in the religious wars rumbling through Europe without openly breaking with either Spain or Rome.

Yet to win over Henry, Prince of Navarre—the tall and handsome but as yet uninspiring leader of the Huguenots—Catherine needed to persuade his mother, Jeanne, queen of Navarre, that she was sincere in her support and that the Huguenot population of France would be protected. Coaxing Jeanne out of her fortress stronghold at La Rochelle (which had its own government and laws) needed to be done subtly, with just a soupçon of menace, particularly as Jeanne had been unwell. France remained a Catholic country and, in matters of religion, loyal to Rome. Naturally, Pius V opposed any marriage linking Navarre and France and would require little persuasion to declare the queen of Navarre's son Henry illegitimate, since he was the child of Jeanne's second marriage “of questionable validity.”
2

Like so many menaces made in the French court, it was whispered to Jeanne with a velvet voice. The attraction to such a political marriage from Navarre's viewpoint was obvious. The more the ailing Jeanne thought about it, the more appealing it seemed. So Jeanne traveled to meet privately with Catherine de' Medici under a safe conduct signed by Catherine, Charles,
and
the Duke of Anjou to lay down her terms. Jeanne, who had been in long and amicable correspondence with Elizabeth, was taking no chances. While Walsingham and Smith were negotiating on behalf of Elizabeth, Jeanne was in talks with Catherine.

In mid-March, Jeanne invited Walsingham and Smith to a private dinner, where she discussed her concerns quite openly with the two English commissioners. After dinner, they adjourned to another room where twelve men “of religion” greeted them—men who were Jeanne's closest advisers. Many were Calvinist ministers whose hearts palpitated at the thought of a frocked priest performing the wedding ceremony, as it could “not but breed general offense to the Godly.” Jeanne agreed. She feared she would “incur God's high displeasure” if the ceremony was a Catholic one. Walsingham calmly gave advice on how matters could be resolved for the good of all by use of a proxy bridegroom within the cathedral precinct of Notre Dame. When the proposed marriage seemed lost to all others, Walsingham wrote to Burghley “that hardly any cause will make them break; so many necessary causes there are why the same should proceed.”
3
Once again, Walsingham was right. The marriage treaty was signed on April 11, 1572, only eight days before the Treaty of Blois united England and France.

*   *   *

That April proved
momentous in other ways, too. Pius V became grievously ill. The pope, who had begun life as a shepherd before becoming a Dominican priest, then promoted through the ranks to cardinal, was not expected to survive. His pontificate had revised the catechism, breviary, and missal; reinstituted the Inquisition against “northern heretics”; set up a permanent Congregation of the Index, which would oversee and update the list of banned books; and issued numerous decrees against blasphemy, sodomy, adultery, and clerical marriage.
4

April 1572 was also the month when the Dutch Sea Beggars who had been expelled from England's shores in February retook Brielle, one of two deepwater ports in the Netherlands, from the Spanish. Two months earlier Elizabeth and Alba had begun to discuss a resumption of trade between the Low Countries and England, interrupted since Elizabeth had sequestered Alba's pay ships in November 1568. The precondition to any agreement was for the queen to exile the Sea Beggars from her shores.
5
She readily complied, knowing it was a cunning deceit that would cost Spain dearly. It was also the “green light” for Louis of Nassau to press home his desire with Charles IX to invade the Netherlands.

*   *   *

Still, Elizabeth was
not the only queen capable of cunning deceits that spring and summer. Catherine de' Medici, having secured the marriages of two of her children, proceeded to insinuate her younger and ambitious son Henry, Duke of Anjou, into a crown of his own. Anjou and his elder brother Charles loathed one another, with Anjou constantly taunting the king. Alençon and Marguerite also detested Anjou for his malicious nature (he was a remorseless teaser), but both were powerless to rebel against him, as he was Catherine's favorite child. On hearing from one of her favorite dwarves that Sigismund-Augustus II, king of Poland and Lithuania, lay dying, and without issue, Catherine sprang into action, bribing, cajoling, and bullying everyone who would make the decision on the king's elected successor. For her, only Anjou was fit to wear Poland's crown.
6

By mid-May, Rome had elected Cardinal Ugo Boncompagni as Pope Gregory XIII. Where previously the pope was believed to be infallible and worshipped as the “sundial of the Church,” by the end of his papacy Gregory XIII (1572–85) would be hailed by Catholics as a “Vice-God … greater and more excellent than a man.”
7
For now, all that mattered to Catherine de' Medici was that the new pope give his dispensation to allow Henry of Navarre to marry Marguerite, his cousin in the third degree. With assurances from Catherine to Gregory XIII that the union was part of a master plan she had devised to keep Charles IX from going to war against Spain, the Pope assented to the marriage. It was the first important international action of his papacy.

*   *   *

Meanwhile, Louis of Nassau
prepared to expand the Sea Beggars' bridgehead beyond Brielle. In the late spring, he approached Walsingham to ensure that Elizabeth would do no more than “allow Walloon refugees in England to buy provisions and to come over to him” in the Netherlands. No money was required. Walsingham had reported separately that Charles IX would be providing Nassau with all that he could wish.
8
Burghley replied that “we have suffered as many of the strangers (Netherlanders) to depart from hence as would, but that is but a simple help.”
9
Burghley was alluding to Elizabeth's adventurers who were itching to become involved in the fray.

Then, on June 9, shortly after arriving in Paris to assist with her son's wedding plans, Jeanne, already ravaged by illness, died aged only forty-four. Though there was talk of poison, the autopsy result seemed to indicate that she had been suffering from tuberculosis and most likely breast cancer. Prince Henry was now King Henry of Navarre. Despite losing his mother, great protector, and mentor, Henry agreed to proceed with the wedding as planned by treaty in August.

In early July, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, armed with a passport personally endorsed by Elizabeth, crossed the Channel with a large company of English volunteers to help liberate the Netherlands. If confronted, Elizabeth would, as was her custom with all her adventurers, disavow any knowledge of his actions. Notwithstanding, Gilbert's “instructions” were quite clear—occupy Flushing and Sluys, the two remaining significant coastal towns. Above all, Gilbert was to prevent Admiral Coligny from possessing them. So much for the Treaty of Blois. Elizabeth was finally up for a fight. What had provoked Elizabeth into action was the clear eye with which she viewed Catherine's machinations across Europe. What the desired reaction to Alba's tyranny against the Calvinists had failed to provoke, Catherine's insatiable ambition did.

The beauty of the Gilbert plan was that to ambitious French eyes, Elizabeth was simply carrying out the terms of the Blois Treaty. Smith reported back to London that everyone at court was pleased. “Matters in Flanders begin to wax hot,” Smith wrote later that month, “and the beginning of next month … the brood hereabouts will be fledged.”
10

Leicester had been told that Nassau's forces numbered around five thousand foot soldiers, most of them from Gascony, and twelve hundred horsemen. William of Orange, who had over four thousand horse, would be invading from the east. Meanwhile, Charles prevaricated. The official story was that he would not loose Coligny on the Low Countries until the Turks had been attacked in the eastern Mediterranean. Yet both Anjou and Catherine were dead set against France appearing to take part directly in the invasion. Meanwhile, Anjou in the wings, ever more attached to the fanatical Catholic creed and the Guise faction, seethed at Coligny's increasingly unbreakable influence on his brother the king. Catherine, too, allowed her mother's jealousy at being usurped by Coligny to rise. She saw the growing danger in the aging admiral's hold over her son.

*   *   *

Walsingham saw through
all these factors and Charles's ruse. “The King is so far forward in this matter,” Walsingham wrote to Burghley in early July 1572, “that no disguising will serve.”
11
Within the week, Orange had crossed the Rhine with seven thousand horse and fifty ensigns of foot. Even the Ottoman Turks wanted to ally themselves to Charles IX. After their devastating defeat at Lepanto in October 1571, they offered to take to sea in force, and give France phenomenal sums of money to wage war on Spain.

While Walsingham pinned his hopes on Charles IX prevailing, Catherine de' Medici watched, apparently helplessly, as the Huguenot forces poured across the border into the Netherlands. On July 17, the Seigneur de Genlis invaded, under the orders of Coligny, who remained at Charles's side. The French were ambushed just outside Mons by the Spanish, who had been alerted well in advance. Within ten days it was all over. The Huguenots were slaughtered, with only a few hundred barely escaping alive. Had Catherine betrayed them and sent word to Alba as proof of her good faith? Or was it Anjou? Either is possible, since they both loathed Coligny and feared the mesmerizing hold he seemed to have over Charles.

Coligny, in a race against time, urged Charles to strike openly in the Netherlands with a new French force. Catherine, who had been away from Paris to meet her daughter Claude near Châlon, railed against Charles's stupidity on her return on August 4. Anjou, meanwhile, sought the advice of the Duke of Guise. Incandescent with rage, Catherine threatened to retire from her son's court, taking Anjou with her. After all she had done for Charles, she let him know in no uncertain terms that he had spat upon her work to make France strong again. He had invaded Spanish territory. It was an overt act of war against Spain, by far the mightiest empire of their day. Though too little, too late, Charles penned and sent a hasty letter congratulating Philip on his success. The thought of losing his mother's knowledge and influence made Charles fear for his very life and crown. The thought of losing his precious Coligny did not bear contemplating.

A series of emergency council meetings was held on Saturday and Sunday, August 9–10, 1572. Charles humbly kissed his mother's hand, begging her forgiveness in his greatest hour of need. At first Catherine refused, leaving Charles desolate. He sought solace and advice from his council members. They were united in their criticism of Coligny, recalling “the disloyalty, the audacity, prowess, menaces and violence of the Huguenots … magnified and exaggerated by such an infamy of mingled truths and artifices that from being the friends of the king, His Majesty was led to regard them as his enemies.”
12
Charles would have to accept this version of the truth or lose his mother's guiding hand.

Once the charade led by Catherine was successful, and Charles meekly reined in, she resolved with Anjou on a plan to deliver France from “all future apprehension” by Coligny. They agreed the admiral must die. Charles, of course, would need to be kept out of the loop, since he was too malleable. The moment to strike would be at the wedding of Marguerite to Henry of Navarre.

As the wedding approached, Catherine whispered more poison in her son's ear. Henry of Navarre was a Protestant. The capital would become overrun with Huguenots and a potential killing field if they were allowed to go about armed. Charles of course concurred, and a royal proclamation forbidding arms and the molestation of any foreigner or Navarre follower was issued. Protestants throughout Europe, including Elizabeth, took this as an act of great kindness and reconciliation in keeping with the marriage treaty and the Treaty of Blois signed only four months earlier.

On the morning of Friday, August 22, 1572, a week after the wedding of Henry to Marguerite, Coligny wended his way back to his lodgings in rue de Béthisy after watching the king play tennis at the Louvre Palace. Just as an assassin took aim and fired from a third-floor window, Coligny stooped down to adjust his shoe. The first shot blew off most of Coligny's right-hand index finger. The next lodged in his left arm, and the third missed altogether. Coligny was rushed to his lodgings while the king was advised. Charles, seemingly outraged, sent his personal physician to attend the admiral and vowed to find his would-be assassin.