Mary Rose (8 page)

Having freed himself from the hostility of the Empire and Spain, Louis was anxious to bring the English conflict to an end, and was kept well informed of developments in London. In early April it was being reported in Paris that he had two aims in mind; the first was to seal peace with England by marrying the King’s sister and the second was to match his younger daughter, Renee, with Ferdinand, Maximilian’s ten-year-old grandson.
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This appears to be the first mention of his sister in this context. The idea obviously appealed to Henry, who had become increasingly exasperated by the Emperor’s efforts to put off Mary’s union with Charles, and at the end of May Louis wrote to Henry as though the deal was done. On the 31st he thanked the King for agreeing to the match, expressing the pious hope that the union would be ‘of great benefit to Christendom’.
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Leo X, anticipating success, had sent Henry his sword and cap of maintenance, which the latter received in a ceremony at St Paul’s on 21 May. Just before the treaty was signed, Leo sent word to Wolsey that he would like to be included, since the idea of marriage had been his in the first place. Presumably he had planted the suggestion in Louis’ mind, from whence it was communicated to Henry via Longueville. On 7 August what was clearly a long period of detailed bargaining was brought to an end, when the treaty of peace and friendship was signed, committing Mary to a marriage with Louis, and Louis to the payment of a million gold crowns at the rate of 50,000 a year. Her dowry was to be 200,000 crowns, which the King presumably intended to take from the 250,000 crowns which had been deposited at Bruges for just such a purpose. Tournai was to be retained by England, and Scotland was included in the treaty. Mary was to be delivered to Louis at Abbeville at her brother’s expense.
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The treaty, which was not popular in England because of its implications for trade with the Low Countries, was proclaimed in London without any sign of celebration.

Margaret was mortified, and so was Charles, in spite of his share in the responsibility for what had happened. He taxed his councillors with having deprived him of a desirable bride, and their response was equally mortifying. They pointed out that the King of France was not only his elder, but was the most powerful king in Christendom; and since he was a widower, was entitled to pick the most eligible woman to be his queen. His response, according to a Venetian report, was to observe chillingly that they had plucked him because he was young, ‘but bear in mind for the future I shall pluck you’.
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He was to be as good as his word. Henry, on the other hand, was delighted. He had secured peace with honour in the retention of Tournai, which had been one of his principal war aims, and in communicating the tidings formally to the Pope, expressed the hope that England and France together would be able to protect the interests of the Holy See in Italy. Mary, who by this time was nineteen, does not appear to have been consulted, or if she was, expressed no recorded opinion. The news can hardly have come as a surprise to her once she had repudiated her contract to the Archduke. She was in no position to bargain with her brother, and in any case the prospect of being Queen of France was irresistibly attractive. As Marino Sanuto later noted, ‘The queen does not mind that the king is a gouty old man … and she herself a young and beautiful damsel … so great is her satisfaction at being Queen of France …’
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She may already have realised that her tour of duty was not likely to be protracted. Meanwhile Louis was not disposed to wait; he issued his proxy to the Duke of Langueville on 8 August, and a week after the treaty was signed, on 13 August, the wedding took place
per
verba de praesenti
at Greenwich. Henry and Catherine led the English delegation, which consisted of all the dignitaries of the realm as well as Mary and her ladies. The French were represented by Longueville, and by two of Louis’ ministers who had been sent over especially for the negotiations, John de Silva the President of Normandy and the soldier Thomas Boyer. Papal envoys were also present, but the Spanish and Imperial ambassadors absented themselves, as a gesture of disapproval.
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Archbishop Warham presided, assisted by Wolsey as Bishop of Lincoln, and a number of other prelates, and he opened the proceedings with a Latin address on the sacredness of marriage – very similar to that which he had used at Mary’s previous proxy union in 1508. On this occasion de Silva replied in the same language, but confined himself to intimating his master’s intentions. Longueville’s authorisation was then read by the Bishop of Durham, and the proxy marriage followed, the Duke holding Mary by the right hand and speaking Louis’ vows in French. Mary duly responded, the ring was placed on her finger, and the ritual kiss given. It must have been uncomfortably reminiscent of her wedding to Charles, but nobody commented to that effect. What followed, however, was different, because once the ceremony was over Mary changed out of her bridal gear into a discreet nightdress and lay down on a bed which had been provided in an adjacent room. Longueville then bared one leg and lay down beside her for long enough to enable his leg to encounter her body, whereupon Warham, who together with others had witnessed this odd encounter, pronounced the marriage consummated.
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What the lady may have thought of this play-acting is not recorded! When she was dressed again the whole company proceeded to High Mass, Longueville walking with Henry and Mary accompanied by Catherine. After mass, a banquet followed, with music and dancing which went on for about two hours, during which both the bride and her brother demonstrated their exceptional talents, to universal applause. Mary was showered with congratulations and wedding presents from all over Europe, the most splendid of which came from her husband. Two coffers of plate and jewels arrived under the conduct of the Sieur de Marigny. One of these jewels was a diamond ‘as large as a man’s finger’, with a pendant pearl ‘the size of a pigeons egg’, which was known as the Mirror of Naples and was valued at 60,000 crowns. Louis was nothing if not generous.
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Part of Marigny’s brief was also to familiarise the new queen with the customs of the French court, and he brought with him an artist, one Jean Perreal, whose job it was to paint a portrait of Mary and to advise on the planning of her wardrobe. The news from France was that Louis longed for her coming, and that may well have been true, but his letters to her at this time are stilted and conventional, probably dictated to a secretary. In reply she was diplomatic and correct, but no warmer in tone. It was a political marriage in every sense of the term.

The one person who was unfeignedly pleased was Henry VIII, because it put him one step ahead of his former ally, Ferdinand. Having been betrayed three times by the King of Spain, Henry was thirsting for revenge, and this marriage gave him the opportunity. It was even rumoured at the end of August that he was planning to leave his present wife, on the grounds that she was his brother’s widow and consequently that he could have no children by her.
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Nothing came of these rumours at this time, but relations between the royal couple were certainly chilled by his hostility to her father. Ferdinand was under no illusions as to what the Anglo-French entente might mean for him. Only Margaret of Savoy, preoccupied with her own concerns, thought that he might favour it as being a blow against the Emperor, with whom his relations were hostile. It was certainly unpopular in Flanders, and Sir Edward Poynings, writing to Wolsey from the Low Countries on 7 September, expressed concern about the security of Tournai because it depended for its supplies upon the goodwill of the local people.
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Nothing, however, was permitted to disrupt the preparations for Mary’s departure. Oaths for maintaining the treaty of peace were exchanged on 14 September, and on the 23rd an embassy was instructed to escort the Queen as far as Abbeville, where she was scheduled to meet the King about the end of the month. The Duke of Norfolk headed this mission, and he was accompanied by several of the Lords of the Council, including the Marquis of Dorset and the Earl of Worcester. The only slight shadow cast on these proceedings was the prudent English insistence that if Mary outlived her husband and returned to England, then the cost of her journey to Abbeville was to be refunded and her personal possessions returned.
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On the French side her jointure was generous, equal in income to that received by Anne of Brittany, amounting to some 300,000 crowns, and a second proxy ceremony was held. This took place in the church of the Celestine Order in Paris on 14 September, when the Queen was represented by the Earl of Worcester, only the gesture of consummation being omitted! The following day Louis bound himself to the payment of the million crowns provided in the treaty, under penalty of excommunication for default.
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Bearing in mind the promises which had been made and broken in the past, Henry and Wolsey now felt that they had every cause for satisfaction.

Mary’s own preparations had been equally thorough. In addition to being a guest at many entertainments and celebrations in her honour, she had put together a personal wardrobe which cost her brother about £43,000, much of it in the French fashion, thanks perhaps to Perreal’s advice. Liveries for her servants, the trappings of her chapel, and the possession of Great and Privy Seals all proclaimed her royal status.
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On 22 September Louis left Paris to journey to Abbeville for their meeting, and on the 28th a tournament was held in her honour, but still she did not come. This was partly due to the foul weather, which all the glitter of her cavalcade could not alter. She left London on the 29th, accompanied by the King and Queen and, according to Lorenzo Pasqualigo, four earls, 400 knights and barons, and all their ladies travelling in great wagons. In spite of the weather the Queen of France looked quite ravishing; her equal ‘was not to be found in England’ in the words of the enthusiastic Venetian.
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Meanwhile the storms made assembling the fleet which was to accompany her exceptionally hazardous, and one ship, the
Great Elizabeth
, a 900-ton hulk which the King had recently purchased from Lubeck, was wrecked near Sandgate with heavy loss of life. Nevertheless a fleet of fourteen ‘great ships’ was assembled at Dover to escort her crossing, and on 2 October a lull in the gales persuaded the King that it was safe for them to set off. They bade farewell to Catherine at the Castle, and Henry walked with his sister down to the waterside. It was at this point, as she later reminded him, that the King had promised to let her chose her second husband for herself if, as they both suspected, Louis might not last very long.
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Meanwhile, having embarked, the journey proved exceptionally hazardous because they were caught in mid-Channel by a fresh storm which scattered the convoy, dispersing its ships along the coast from Calais to Ostend. Only four, including the one in which the bride was travelling, succeeded in making it to the official destination, which was Boulogne. However, having gained the harbour, the Master was unable to dock her, and instead ran her aground, leaving his seasick passenger to be conveyed ashore in a rowing boat. Eventually Mary was carried through the breakers by Sir Christopher Garnish, a knight of her household, and arrived drenched and wretched at the dock where a royal reception awaited her.
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It is to be hoped that the Duke of Vendome and the Cardinal d’Amboise were sufficiently sympathetic to her wretched plight. The ceremonies were at all events cut short so that she was able to change into dry clothes. Gradually, over the next few days, the scattered ships arrived, and her wardrobe could be reassembled. It transpired that only a minimum of plate and property had been lost in the wreck of the
Elizabeth
, and the main damage inflicted by the storm was psychological. For a day or two it wrecked Mary’s self-confidence, and was later recalled by the superstitious as being an ill omen for the marriage, which lasted barely three months. On Thursday 5 October she reached Montreuil, 24 miles from Boulogne, where she was able to spend a couple of days recuperating at the hospitable home of Madame de Moncaverel. On the 7th she was able to set out, with dignity restored, on the 25-mile journey to Abbeville, where her destiny in the shape of Louis XII awaited her with what patience he could muster.
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At each stop along the way she was greeted with pageants and eulogies, which must have caused her to forget the miseries of the crossing. At Montreuil she was escorted into the town by a delegation of dignitaries, led by Francis of Angoulême in his capacity as Governor of Picardy, and welcomed with a flattering song, praising the peace between England and France. As their procession entered it was entertained with a number of pageants at intervals along their route, some classical and some biblical, but all symbolic of Mary’s forthcoming marriage – Perseus and Andromeda, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the Virgin and the Annunciation.
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Like her brother, Mary loved these manifestations of loyalty. She had seen many similar on the streets of London, and never seemed to tire of them. In this context, their therapeutic effect was remarkable. After this, the journey from Montreuil to Abbeville was taken with becoming dignity, until in the early afternoon she was met by Francis of Angoulême, who had ridden ahead to warn Louis of her coming. He hinted darkly at a surprise that might be awaiting her, and late in the afternoon it turned up in the form of Louis himself, theoretically out with his hawks, who had chanced upon her party, greatly to his own surprise! He should not have seen her until the official reception, but his curiosity got the better of him, and this ‘coincidental’ encounter was his way of circumventing the strict etiquette of such matters. Nobody was deceived, least of all Mary, but honour was satisfied.
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Louis had taken the trouble to find out what his bride was wearing, so that he could appear in a matching outfit. He duly appeared, riding a magnificent hunter, caparisoned in gold and black, and Mary, pretending to be taken aback by her royal visitor, doffed her hat and prepared to dismount from her palfrey, but he would permit no act of homage, so she blew him a kiss from the saddle. Unfamiliar with this English custom, he nevertheless returned her gesture then threw his arms around her neck ‘and kissed her as kindly as if he had been five and twenty’. If she was surprised by this reaction, Mary was too well bred to show it, and they chatted together for a few minutes, after which he returned to Abbeville by a different route. Nothing must detract from the honour of her solo entry.
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