Mary Rose (9 page)

The Duke of Norfolk had organised this as a ceremonial procession, led by fifty esquires. There then followed the lords, barons and ambassadors, splendidly clad and riding two by two, and the heralds and trumpeters, led by Garter King of Arms and Richmond Herald. Two liveried grooms leading spare palfreys came ahead of the princess, who rode alone, and was followed by about thirty female attendants, some mounted and some conveyed in gaily decorated wagons.
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The remaining wagons, carrying her Wardrobe equipment followed behind, and the handsome royal litter, empty on this occasion, wherein she sometimes chose to travel. Bringing up the rear were two hundred archers, on foot in three companies. Before this entourage reached the town a delegation from Abbeville joined them, consisting of the mayor, chief justice, magistrates and clergy, escorted by liveried soldiers, which preceded them in their march and brought the total number in the procession to between two and three thousand. Unfortunately before they reached their destination a sharp shower of rain necessitated a change of apparel for some of the dignitaries, including Mary, who rode into the town in a dress of stiff gold brocade and under the protection of a canopy borne by four of Abbeville’s officials.
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Whether they volunteered for this duty or not is not on record! The citizens greeted them with amazement. Never before had they been treated to such an ostentatious display of wealth as the English exhibited on this occasion. One commentator explained that he could only express himself in superlatives ‘for the reality exceeds my description, to the great glory of this Queen’.
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On the outskirts of the town, at the church of Notre Dame de la Chappelle, she transferred from her palfrey to the litter, as more becoming to her dignity, and entered Abbeville through its great gate at about five o’clock in the afternoon, not long before dark at that time of the year. She was greeted by a salvo of artillery and the efforts of a hundred musicians. Un-dampened by the returning rain, the decorated streets were interspersed with several pageants, elaborately prepared in her honour, and showing the familiar mixture of classical and biblical themes.

In the centre of the town the procession dispersed, the local men returning to their homes and the English to the lodgings which had been prepared for them. Mary heard mass at the church of St Vulfran, and paid her homage to its patron saint, before being escorted to her first official meeting with the King. This took place at the Hotel de la Gruthose, and was dignified with all the ceremony of a state reception. It was not, however, prolonged, and the Duke of Norfolk having carried out the formal presentation, Mary was taken by Claude, the King’s daughter and the wife of Francis of Angoulême, to her apartment in the Rue St Giles, which was actually an annexe to the King’s quarters.
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Claude, who was only a few years younger than her stepmother, seems to have been immediately attracted to this dazzling English beauty, who had so many of the qualities which she herself lacked. She was a good-natured soul, and jealousy never entered her mind. That evening a state banquet was given by Louis, and a grand ball followed hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême. In spite of what must have been a very long and tiring day, Mary delighted the company with her charm and poise. The omens for the marriage, it was generally decided, were very good. However, that night a fire consumed a substantial part of the lower town, and although this was not permitted to interfere with the King’s amusements, some who were not of the court, decided that maybe the omens were not so good after all. Fortunately the loss of life was small, but many houses were burned and families lost their scanty possessions.
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The following morning, which was 9 October and the feast of St Denis, Anne and her entourage were early astir. The wedding ceremony was set for nine o’clock in the great hall of the Hotel de la Gruthose, just across the garden from her lodgings. The procession would be short, but if possible it had to be more magnificent than that of the previous day. This meant that, having broken their fast, the English lords and ladies had to spend a great deal of time on their apparel and appearance. Mary’s gown was of gold brocade, cut in the French fashion and trimmed with ermine. She was overloaded with jewels, partly out of deference to French taste, partly to display her brother’s wealth, and accompanied by a dozen ladies of her personal staff, all splendidly dressed but taking great care not to outshine their mistress. Twenty-six knights headed her brief entrée, followed by heralds and musicians, although the latter had little time in which to display their talents. Mary walked between the Duke of Norfolk and the Marquis of Dorset, who were to give her away in the name of Henry VIII, and she was followed by a miscellany of the ladies who had accompanied her to France for just this purpose. ‘If the pomp of the Most Christian Queen was great yesterday at her entry … it was yet greater at her wedding,’ as one impressed spectator reported.
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Louis, meanwhile, and his guests were waiting for her in the hall. The King, dressed in gold and ermine to match his bride, was actually outshone by some of his nobles, who had stopped at nothing to be more splendid than the English. One courtier’s gown was alleged to have cost 2,000 crowns (more then £400), because a Frenchman’s wealth was measured by the costliness of his attire, just as the Englishman’s was measured by the weight of the gold chain which he wore round his neck. Some of the latter were claimed to be so heavy that they encumbered their wearer’s movements.
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As the English entered the great hall, the King doffed his bonnet, and the Queen dropped him a deep courtesy, whereupon Louis kissed her and seated her beside him on the dais under a canopy borne by four of the greatest peers of France. Somehow the King managed to find among her jewellery the room to clasp another necklace around her neck, which consisted of a diamond and a ruby valued, as the Earl of Worcester later claimed, at 10,000 marks, almost as much as the Mirror of Naples. Whether all these jewels were given to the Queen
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, or whether they were personal gifts was later to be a matter of great controversy, but for the time being the spectators were duly impressed by his generosity.
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The wedding then proceeded, performed by the Bishop of Bayeux, who also sung the nuptial mass, and the royal couple then communicated, sharing the wafer between them. Once the marriage was performed, after another kiss and another courtesy, Mary was escorted back to her own quarters to prepare for the state banquet which was to follow.

For this purpose the King and Queen were again separated, he presiding over his lords in his Privy Chamber, while she sat at the head of the ‘ladies table’ in her own apartments, an arrangement which must have taken her aback because such was not the custom in England, where the lords and ladies dined together. That same evening there was another ball at the Hotel de la Gruthose, with the whole court supping, dancing and ‘making good cheer’. However, at eight o’clock the proceedings were terminated by the ceremonial bedding of the royal couple. This was something which Louis by all accounts had been looking forward to immensely – so much so that he had difficulty in keeping his hands off her, even during the formalities of the day. The bed was duly blessed, and the bride was led to her fate by the ever-solicitous Claude. What she thought of the prospect, no one asked or wanted to know.
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The following day by custom she remained in seclusion, while Louis ‘seemed very jovial and gay’. One reporter reckoned from his face that he was ‘very much in love’, and he claimed to have ‘crossed the river’ three times in the course of the night. All this is reminiscent of Prince Arthur’s boast in similar circumstances, except that Louis was not an adolescent.

One of the dignitaries who had so far been conspicuous by his absence from these events had been Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. He had been kept back, because Henry had a special mission in mind for him, and probably did not want him too closely associated with his sister, with whom his name may already have been linked. Instead he was sent across in mid-October, ostensibly to represent the King at Mary’s coronation, which was scheduled for 1 November, and to help organise the ensuing tournament, but really to propose a meeting between Louis and Henry at some time in the following spring to co-ordinate a strategy against Ferdinand.
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This might take the form of a joint campaign for the recovery of Navarre, which the King of Spain had seized in 1512, or, far more ambitious, a bid by the King of England for the Castilian succession in the right of his wife. The possibility of such a claim had been raised about eight years earlier, when Henry VII had been contemplating the newly widowed Juana as a possible wife. It could be argued that Juana’s subsequent incapacity (if that was taken seriously) had devolved her claim upon Catherine, and that Henry had a duty to pursue it.
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The King was so anxious for revenge upon his former ally that the incongruity of such an action at a time when relations with his wife were strained does not seem to have occurred to him. The idea was probably impracticable, and if Louis poured cold water on it, as he was very likely to do, Suffolk was to ask for his suggestions for an appropriate form of joint action. The French King pretended to be impressed by his brother’s zeal, and played Suffolk along, but in truth he was interested only in a campaign for the recovery of Milan. Henry’s assistance in such a action would be welcome, but was not what Suffolk had in mind, and since that campaign was due to start in March, he did not make much progress in arranging a meeting either. April was suggested, somewhere between Calais and Boulogne, but nothing firm was agreed. Ferdinand’s ambassador in England was gratified by these tidings when they reached him, but did not deceive himself into thinking that they made much difference to the bad relations between Henry and his master.
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He compared himself with a bull ‘at whom everyone throws darts’, and the King of England to a colt in need of a bridle. Ferdinand, however, was in no position to apply such restraint, and Louis, who could have done so, was now unlikely to try.

Suffolk had his first audience with the King at Beauvais on about 25 or 26 October. Louis had travelled there with Mary, who was with him at the time of Brandon’s reception, but his gout was troubling him, and he received the Duke lying down, the Queen sitting beside him.
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Fortunately the King was well enough to travel the following day, and they set off again for Paris, a distance of some 50 miles. Suffolk, as an accredited ambassador, followed as a member of the court, although whether he got any opportunity for further conversation with Louis is not recorded. In each town they passed through, the Queen exercised her ancient prerogative of freeing the prisoners, which must have caused headaches for the local magistrates, although it made her popular with the people. They also passed the travelling time talking about the King’s forthcoming Italian expedition, on which his wife became keen when he promised to take her to Venice. It was not very often that royal ladies got an opportunity to accompany their menfolk on campaign.
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By the time they reached St Denis, just outside Paris on the 31st, Louis appeared to have forgotten all about his gout, and was reported to be in fine fettle. The first two days at St Denis being All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, were passed quietly in religious observances, and the King proceeded to Paris. Mary, by custom, was not permitted to enter the City before being crowned, and that ceremony was duly performed in the abbey church on 5 November, witnessed not only by the whole travelling court, but also by the King and numerous lords and ladies who had ridden out from Paris for the occasion, including the Duke of Suffolk and his companions who had travelled with Louis in order to discuss the setting up of the tournament which was to follow the coronation.
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The actual crowning was a relatively simple event, performed by the Bishop of Bayeux, who invested her with the ring, sceptre and rod of justice. She was then conducted to a throne set in the sanctuary, where she heard high mass and received the sacrament. All this while Francis held the heavy crown over her head, lest its weight should prove too much for her. Once the ceremony was over the whole company joined the King for dinner, after which Louis left again for Paris to make quite sure that everything was in place for the Queen’s entry, which was to take place on the following day.
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Below the surface, however, the relationship was not quite as harmonious as it appeared. On the morning of 10 October, the day after their wedding, Louis had dismissed many of his wife’s English attendants, including her Chief Gentlewoman, Lady Jane Guildford. The reason for this was partly political – a French queen should be attended by French servants – but also partly personal. He felt that Lady Guildford was interfering in his relations with his wife, and this may have been justified insofar as she was Mary’s chief confidante, and had been engaged as a kind of chaperone. Mary was mortified, and on 12 October wrote to her brother, lamenting that she had been left ‘all alone’, and commending Lady Guildford to explain the circumstances. On the same day she wrote to Wolsey, begging him to find some means whereby her Chief Gentlewoman could be reinstated.
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Both these letters demonstrate the skill which she had acquired in this medium, and do not lay any of the blame for what had happened upon Louis. They both made soothing responses, but neither of them did anything directly to remedy the situation, although Wolsey did suggest to Suffolk that he might raise the issue with the King. Henry clearly felt that Louis knew his own business in such matters. Nor was Mary’s plea entirely justified, because although the men and several of the ladies in her household had been sent packing, a core of English gentlewomen remained in her service, including Mary Boleyn and her sister Anne, who seems to have joined her from Margaret of Savoy’s court at some time between her wedding and coronation.
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