by John Guy
Already Mary loved dancing and knew many of the simpler courtly steps. When she and the dauphin took to the floor, the entire audience stood still to watch them. It was Mary’s first serious test as a princess. She had to step forward in her stiff starched dress with its ornate strapwork and jeweled embroidery and in her tight flat shoes to perform a complex routine that she had learned by rote over the past few weeks, counting out the steps in time to the music and then practicing with the dauphin under the critical eye of Lady Fleming. Such dancing was a vital precursor to a betrothal, as it displayed to the court that the “lovers” were in good health and sound in all their limbs. At the end of the dance, the performers of whatever age were expected gently to kiss.
Since Mary had come to France for her betrothal, Henry was delighted by the dauphin’s easy attachment to her. Francis was nearly five at Christmas 1548, while Mary was six. Henry persuaded himself that “from the very first day they met, my son and she got on as well together as if they had known each other for a long time.”
This was largely wishful thinking. Although the dauphin was plucky and intelligent, he was physically weak. Even at this early age he must have looked incongruous beside Mary, because whereas she was unusually tall for her age, he was abnormally short. And while Mary was high-spirited and fluent in both speech and gesture, Francis was a clumsy stutterer. If he and Mary appeared to make a successful couple, it was because Diane de Poitiers had been at work. For several months she had been prompting Lady Humières to school the dauphin in the principles of elementary courtship. Lady Humières took the hint, and in reporting the news of her charge’s initial success back to her, Diane urged, “If you want to please the king, go on teaching him these pretty little ways.”
Mary picked up these signals and joined in on the act. She learned intuitively that it was important to handle Francis in a way that pleased the king, her new “father,” and that the best way to relate to the dauphin was to seek to be his friend, while at the same time exploiting the conventions of courtly love to pretend to be his “beloved.”
This worked like a charm. Both the constable and the Venetian ambassador remarked on her elegant and demure behavior. Encouraged by Lady Humières, the dauphin, in turn, took up hunting and martial sports. He was given a specially made suit of children’s armor by Mary’s uncle Francis, and in his carefully copied out letter of thanks depicted himself as the “gentle knight” of medieval chivalry who sought “to win the heart of the beautiful and honest lady who is your niece.”
Shortly after Christmas, Antoinette of Bourbon briefed Mary’s mother on the king’s announcement that all the royal children would be educated together. This was a clear break with tradition, but Henry wished the children to “become used to each other’s company.”
In part, he really meant this. He wanted Mary and Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, to be brought up as sisters and the dauphin to meet Mary in a relaxed but supervised environment. The hidden agenda was that Mary’s Scottish retinue, or at least those who were male, were becoming a nuisance. The Scots were not popular despite their high profile at the court, where they formed the royal bodyguard, the Garde Écossaise. By the standards of French court etiquette, they were seen as rude and uncouth. Now Henry wanted those officers who had entered Mary’s service in Scotland to be sent home.
Language was a key factor. As yet, Mary spoke Scots and almost no French. This had to change quickly. The question of cost also arose, since Mary’s mother had not provided salaries for her daughter’s staff, and Henry was unwilling to fund individual households for all the royal children where one would better achieve his aims. Under the new arrangement, everyone would speak French and follow the correct protocol. Mary’s household would merge with the dauphin’s. His sisters and their attendants would be placed in the same establishment, sharing a luxurious suite of apartments with Mary and her gentlewomen, and everyone would be subject to Humières and his wife.
Mary’s male attendants, with very few exceptions, were shunted aside, and even on the female side there were changes. At first the four Maries accompanied Mary everywhere, but when she had settled down and seemed more relaxed in her new surroundings, they were sent to a Dominican convent school at Poissy, about four miles from St.-Germain, to learn French, obliging Mary to speak only French in their absence. Even Sinclair, her old nurse, found herself under threat. She was reinstated after Mary’s mother intervened in her favor, but her appeal against eating with Frenchwomen failed. Sinclair was tired of being patronized for her Scottish ways by the servants of the other royal children. Despite her pleas, she was forced to live and work alongside the staff whom Henry introduced to the roster of the household to attend to the needs of his own daughters.
Lady Fleming, in almost complete contrast, was secure. A fluent French speaker who had married a Scot, she was said to be “everything that could be desired.” Once more there was a hidden agenda. On the surface, it looked as if Mary could not dispense with her governess, whom it was not considered proper for a young queen to share with the other children. Accordingly, Fleming was left in control of Mary’s female staff, despite the scope this created for disputes over expenditures with Humières and, later, d’Urfé. But the truth was that the beautiful and voluptuous Fleming had become Henry II’s latest lover. The king even wrote to Mary’s mother to solicit favors for her. “I believe that you appreciate the care, trouble and great attention that my kinswoman the Lady Fleming shows from day to day about the person of our little daughter the Queen of Scots,” he noted disingenuously. “I must continually remember her children and her family.”
One night the jealous Diane de Poitiers surprised the king as he left her rival’s embraces. She made a scene and accused Henry of dishonoring the Queen of Scots by carrying on an affair within her own household. By creeping in and out of Mary’s apartments on his way to a rendezvous, Henry had brought the young queen’s reputation into question.
Henry ignored Diane’s protests, but as ever she had the last word. In 1551, Lady Fleming became pregnant. She gave birth to a son, Henry of Angouleme, which was considered to be a fatal mistake. It brought the king’s affair out in the open, exciting ribald gossip. Diane acted promptly to protect the royal family’s good name, and the disgraced Fleming was immediately sent back to Scotland, leaving her daughter, the chief of the four Maries, behind.
So much was new and intoxicating, but Mary still missed her mother badly. In April 1550, after a separation of almost two years, she was overjoyed to hear that her mother was planning to visit her. Mary’s joy was tinged with sorrow, because her grandfather, Claude Duke of Guise, had recently died at Joinville, aged fifty-four. Mary’s first official letter was a formal diplomatic recommendation for the Sieur de Brézé, whom Henry II now wished to send to Scotland with this sad news.
Mary was judged to be too young to attend her grandfather’s funeral, and so was represented by a proxy. Her mother was also unable to attend, which caused her to weep. “I have lost the best father that any child lost,” she told her brother Francis, who succeeded his father as duke.
Mary of Guise decided to expedite her visit, and in selecting her wardrobe, she consulted Diane de Poitiers—always the arbiter of fashion rather than Catherine de Medici—about the protocol of mourning at St.-Germain. Henry II took charge of her travel arrangements, obtaining a diplomatic passport from the English Privy Council, since unlike her daughter, Mary’s mother was prone to seasickness. She dreaded the prospect of a long sea crossing from Scotland and much preferred to take the slower route by land through England and from there sail the short distance across the channel from the port of Dover.
Mary wrote animatedly to Antoinette of Bourbon about her mother’s plans. She simply had to write, she said, so that her grandmother could hear the “joyous news that I’ve just received from the queen my mother.” In her haste to finish the letter, Mary lost her main verb in a cluster of subordinate clauses, but the sense is clear. Her mother’s arrival �
�will be to me the greatest happiness that I can desire in this world . . . I pray you, madam, that to increase my joy, you may find it convenient to visit me soon, and in the meantime to arm yourself with all the patience you are able to muster in such a case.” Mary had become fluent in French in under two years. Her style is breathless, but grammatically unblemished.
Her mother’s visit also had a political purpose. Henry II was planning a gala celebration of the final expulsion of the English armies from their forts and garrisons in Scotland and their fortifications at Boulogne. Henry’s whole court and extended family were to be present, and no expense was spared. Mary of Guise and her daughter, the Scottish queen, would be at the heart of the festivities.
Mary’s mother did not travel alone. She brought in her train almost the entire Scottish court, notably the pro-English lords who had dealt with Henry VIII and Somerset over the years. Her aims were clearly defined. She sought to promote her own claim to the sole regency of Scotland now that the other candidates, both pro-French and pro-English, had accepted the treaty of Haddington, and to bind the nobility to the “auld alliance.” Both goals were greatly assisted by Henry II’s lavish hospitality and his generous distribution of fresh pensions.
The main event took place at Rouen, the capital of Normandy, in October. The highlight, in imitation of a Roman imperial victory, was a royal entry into the city in front of cheering and enthusiastic crowds through specially constructed triumphal arches. This ritual was preceded by pageants in which soldiers and actors dressed as classical heroes or victorious generals marched past the king and court, with Mary happily reunited with her mother, watching it all from a blue and gold viewing pavilion on the west bank of the Seine.
The procession was led by a chariot laden with trophies, followed by tableaux staged on floats drawn by “unicorns”—in fact they were white horses wearing headdresses—illustrating the martial victories of the Valois dynasty. Banners and models of forts captured in Scotland or near Boulogne were vaunted aloft on poles. In one of these pageants, Henry II became Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who led his army across the Alps to defeat the Romans with the aid of elephants, which duly made their appearance before the crowds. Many people thought they were real animals from the royal menagerie in Paris, but they were actually made of wood and papier-mache, mounted on wheels and pushed along by men concealed inside.
Next came “prisoners” captured at Boulogne, who were led through the streets in chains. Altogether the most richly ornate float was reserved for a tableau depicting Henry II and his children. The king was shown as a Roman emperor surrounded by his heirs, while Calliope, a daughter of Zeus and a muse of the heroic age, held the “imperial” crown of France above his head.
There followed fifty or so actors of both sexes made up as Brazilian natives, who paraded naked through the streets and then staged a “war” between two indigenous tribes. The scene, set up as a tableau vivant before the viewing platform, was peppered with native huts, tents, palm trees and wild animals. The tribes hunted, cooked on open fires and traded with a French garrison. Then a great battle erupted, complete with bows and arrows, ending with the burning to the ground of the huts of the defeated tribe. This was pure mass entertainment, upstaging the earlier tableaux, and the crowds roared with appreciation.
In a final spectacle, a mock sea battle was staged on the Seine between rival “French” and “Portuguese” fleets in which real ships were packed with barrels of gunpowder. The sailors fired genuine cannons, most likely without shot. However, the inevitable happened and one of the barrels exploded, causing one ship to sink and its crew to lose their lives. Next day, the event was repeated with a substitute ship, but the same thing happened and more sailors were killed.
The fête was a dazzling visual manifesto. A central role was accorded to Scotland, which is why the Queen of Scots and her mother sat in glory. Henry II saw himself as the “protector” of Scotland; his victories had liberated Scotland and Boulogne. The fête’s unifying theme was the dauphin. He and not Henry II was the figure around whom the mise en scène was choreographed, because he was portrayed as the husband of the already crowned Queen of Scots. He was the future king of Scotland and France, and by virtue of Mary’s claim to the English throne as the great-granddaughter of Henry VII, the founder of the Tudor dynasty, could be the rightful king of England too. He was therefore heir to a triple monarchy. Through Mary’s marriage to the dauphin, the Valois monarchy could realize its full potential, creating a Franco-British empire that would subsume the British Isles and then cross the Atlantic to Brazil, where French merchants were already making inroads and starting to challenge Portugal’s commercial power.
Even Henry II’s choice of Normandy as the venue of his fête was significant. It was the closest province to England with the greatest historical connections to the British Isles. It also happened to be the region in which the Guise family was fast accumulating land and building retinues. Considered in this light, the Franco-British project was simply the most audacious of their schemes. Claude Duke of Guise had begun to create a role for his family at the heart of the Valois state, and now that he was dead, his sons were the mainstay of the plan.
Mary was the cornerstone of the project. Henry II’s logic was dynastic. Henry VIII’s will had determined the order of succession to the English throne. If Edward VI, Henry VIII’s only surviving son, died without heirs, then the king’s will specified that the crown was to descend on the female side. Edward was to be succeeded by his elder sister, Mary Tudor, and if she also died without children, by his younger sister, Elizabeth Tudor.
But to the Catholics, Mary Queen of Scots was Mary Tudor’s rightful successor. To them, Elizabeth was illegitimate. She was the daughter of Anne Boleyn, whom Henry VIII had married while his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was still alive. The pope and the Catholic Church did not recognize Anne Boleyn as Henry’s lawful wife, nicknaming her “the concubine.” Henry had himself repudiated her, divorcing and then executing her in 1536, when Elizabeth was declared to be illegitimate by act of Parliament in a clause that had never been repealed. This left the way wide open for the claim of Mary Queen of Scots, even though Henry VIII had tried expressly to block it.
Henry always held that through his will he could establish the order of succession and eliminate the Stuart claim, and this he believed he had done. He had specified if all his children died without heirs, then the children of his younger sister, Mary Duchess of Suffolk, should inherit the throne. Henry was so angry with Scotland for the repudiation of the treaty of Greenwich, he vetoed the Stuart line. It was a calculated snub.
But Henry’s settlement, although approved by Parliament in the Third Act of Succession of 1544, was still based on a significant assumption. If a claim to the throne could pass by the female line, then the lineage of Margaret Tudor, Henry’s elder sister, also came into play. No one who followed the rules of dynastic succession could ignore Margaret’s first marriage to James IV of Scotland. Their son was James V, the father of Mary Queen of Scots, who was Margaret’s granddaughter and Henry VII’s great-granddaughter.
Mary’s claim to the English throne was no more than a speck on the horizon while Edward VI or Mary Tudor was still alive, because their legitimacy was never in question. But compared to Elizabeth Tudor’s claim, Mary’s was at least as strong if not stronger. Only the Third Act of Succession was unqualified in its defense of Elizabeth’s claim, but Henry VIII had broken with the pope a decade before it was passed, and the legislation of a schismatic Parliament was not recognized by Catholics, who still comprised the vast majority of the English population.
Following the triumph of the fête and the consolidation of the Guise family’s ambitions, Mary’s mother lingered in France for just over a year, returning with her daughter to Paris and St.-Germain, Joinville and Blois, and then taking her Scottish entourage on a tour of the country. Her tour was tantamount to a royal progress; her Scottish nobles must have been exhausted, but mo
re importantly they were impressed. They were certainly a lot richer, because Henry II had never been more generous, disbursing 5 million livres tournois on his Franco-British project between 1548 and 1551, five times more than Francis I spent on Scottish affairs during his entire reign.
The tour was interrupted by melodrama and ended tragically. In April 1551, a plot was uncovered at Amboise to murder the young Queen of Scots. One of the ex-Castilians, captured by the French after the bombardment of St. Andrews Castle, was determined to seek revenge. He changed his name and joined the Garde Écossaise. He obtained access to the royal apartments, where he planned to assassinate Mary by suborning her cook to poison her favorite dessert: frittered pears. But somebody talked and the plot was discovered. The chief conspirator escaped, fleeing to Ireland and from there to Scotland, where he was captured and sent back to France for trial and execution. Mary was either unaware of or untroubled by what looks like a narrow escape, but her mother was so worried she fell sick and took to her bed.
Her grief intensified in September, when the Duke of Longueville, her surviving son by her first marriage, fell victim to a mystery illness and died in her arms at Amiens. He was not quite sixteen. Once again, Mary was represented by a proxy at the funeral. Soon afterward, Mary of Guise returned to England on her way back to Scotland. All four of her sons were dead and she was heartbroken. She considered staying permanently in France, retiring to a convent or living with her family at Joinville. But she had committed herself to rule Scotland on behalf of her remaining child, and to secure the country militarily and dynastically to Henry II and the French alliance. It was her duty to return there and therefore to leave her sole living child behind. She kissed Mary for what would be the last time, and said goodbye. They would never meet again.