The True Life of Mary Stuart: Queen of Scots

by John Guy

  In the new year of 1559 the Guise campaign intensified. Letters and official documents were sent out to the rulers of Europe styling Francis and Mary as the “king and queen dauphins of Scotland, England and Ireland.” At the wedding of Princess Claude, Henry II’s second daughter, to the Duke of Lorraine, Mary’s heraldic arms were quartered with those of England on the coat armor of her servants.

  By the summer, ushers clearing a path for Mary on her way to chapel cried out, “Make way for the queen of England!” Her heraldic arms were further embellished. Above the dynastic symbols of England, Scotland and France was placed a closed or imperial crown to represent Mary’s Franco-British empire. Beneath (in French) was the legend:

  The arms of Marie, queen-dauphine of France,

  The noblest lady in earth. For till* advance

  Of Scotland queen. And of England also,

  Of Ireland also. God hath provided so.

  A young and fiery Protestant called Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, whom Elizabeth had appointed as her special ambassador to France, translated the verse into English, then sent it to Cecil with a drawing of the heraldic arms. Cecil filed it away in his already fast-growing archive on Mary, where it became one of the documents he most often referred to over the next thirty years when preparing memos for Elizabeth about her.

  Meanwhile, the Cardinal of Lorraine strenuously lobbied the pope to rule against Elizabeth and in favor of Mary. He was incensed to discover that he was opposed by Philip II’s agents. France and Spain were still at war, which made Philip keen to make terms with Elizabeth, to whom he also made a speedy proposal of marriage. Philip wanted to preserve the dynastic alliance of England, Spain and the Netherlands first envisaged by his father, Charles V. It was a guarantee that his territories in Europe and the New World would never be successfully challenged by France.

  As a loyal Catholic, Philip saw the logic of Mary’s dynastic claim. Spain had never forgotten the insult it had received when Henry VIII had divorced Philip’s great-aunt Catherine of Aragon. Philip had no wish to alienate the young Queen of Scots, who as the leading Catholic claimant might be useful to him in the future. But when Mary Tudor unexpectedly died, his instinctive reaction was to try and many Elizabeth, who was shrewd enough to entertain his overtures until he had committed himself to support her against Mary.

  Just when it had seemed that the English throne might be within Mary’s reach, it was snatched away. Pope Paul IV refused to declare in her favor, making it impossible to justify the claim that Elizabeth was illegitimate. The pope simply could not afford to offend Philip, whose forces held the balance of power in Italy. Philip’s support was also essential to the success of the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation assembly that the pope had reconvened to rejuvenate the ideals of Catholicism and take a firm stand against the Protestants.

  If this were not enough, a volte-face had taken place in France itself. Henry II, taking stock of the likely consequences of the Guise dynastic project, decided to draw back. He began to realize the magnitude of what it involved, and had started to resent the ambitions of Mary’s uncles. When their archrival Constable Montmorency was finally released from his prison in Brussels, royal policy began to change. The constable had worked on a peace plan with Spain while in captivity. He and his chief ally, Diane de Poitiers, were now vigorously countering a dynastic policy that they both knew could lead to an endless war. Mary’s claims and personal prestige would have to be sacrificed for the greater good of France.

  Montmorency was reunited with Henry II on October 10, 1558, at Amiens, where he proceeded to lay all the problems since the resumption of the war at the door of the Guises. The king listened, and signed a truce with Philip. The threat of the war spreading to Scotland, England and northern Italy was just too great. France was almost bankrupt. Spain, too, was exhausted and anxious for peace. Elizabeth also wanted peace, which would enable her to move forward and enact a Protestant religious settlement without the fear of a French invasion.

  When negotiations opened among the three countries at Cercamp, a consensus quickly emerged. The talks were suspended on December 1, once the news of Mary Tudor’s death was confirmed. They were then resumed on the neutral territory of Cateau-Cambrésis, where on April 2 and 3, 1559, two treaties were signed: one between France and England and the other between Spain and France.

  The treaties involved dynastic and territorial clauses. Philip II, whose offer of marriage Elizabeth politely declined, would marry Princess Elizabeth, Henry II’s eldest daughter, and Henry’s sister Marguerite would marry Philip’s ally Duke Emmanuel-Philibert. The French abandoned their claims to Savoy and northern Italy, but were rewarded with the return of St.-Quentin and its hinterland. France was to retain Calais for eight years, after which the town was to be returned to England or an indemnity paid in lieu. Lastly, Henry II undertook to “pacify” Scotland.

  Such terms struck at the heart of Guise power. Montmorency and Diane had staged a spectacular comeback. They and their clients again dominated the Conseil des Affaires, the nerve center of power-brokering at Henry II’s court. When a suit by the Duke of Guise to obtain the office of Grand Master of the King’s Household permanently as a reward for his victory at Calais the previous year was rebuffed, he read the signals and left for Joinville to lick his wounds.

  While the duke sulked and his brother plotted, a disappointed and bewildered Mary tried her best to appear regal and composed. Although Scotland was not strictly a party to the diplomacy, a subordinate treaty had been made with England at the Berwickshire village of Upsettlington. On May 28, 1559, in a chapel beside the Louvre, Mary and Francis ratified this treaty, closely observed by Henry II and Catherine de Medici.

  Since Francis had a stutter, Mary did the talking. She said that “as the queen of England was her cousin and good sister, she and the king her husband were glad of the peace.” They would do everything in their power to preserve it. She spoke confidently and with apparent conviction; her words were taken as an olive branch. No claims were made to the English succession. Mary had been forced into a U-turn. The dynastic ambitions of the Guises, previously the main aim of Henry II’s foreign policy, now stood in the way of French interests.

  At the reception at the palace of the Tournelles that followed the ratification of the treaty of Upsettlington, the Guises were nowhere to be seen. Mary was attended not by her uncles but by the constable. He took the opportunity to reassure the English ambassadors that he had always been a friend of England, and was now more so than ever. Elizabeth, he continued, was “a virtuous and worthy queen.” This was the new official line in French foreign policy, and Mary had to stick with it whether she liked it or not. When she wrote to Montmorency afterward, she referred to his “good and happy enterprise.”

  As Mary gained in experience, she began to see how fickle her allies could be, and how she could quickly become the victim of a change in the balance between the factions. To her uncles in 1559, the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis was a sellout, but if Henry II had approved it, Mary had to take it or leave it. Directly after the ratification ceremony at the Louvre, the king disappeared to the houses of the constable and Diane de Poitiers for a week’s holiday, more than satisfied that his policy was once again in safe hands.

  When Mary came under pressure, the first thing to suffer was her health. Exactly this happened in the spring of 1559, when she found herself caught between the policy of her uncles and Henry II and the constable.

  In March, a report reached Cecil, now firmly entrenched in his position as Elizabeth’s chief minister, that Mary was seriously ill. Four days before the ratification ceremony, Throckmorton, one of the English representatives and Cecil’s intimate friend and confidant, said Mary looked “very pale and green, and withal short breathed and it is whispered here among them that she cannot long live.”

  On June 18, she was seen to be “evil at ease” in church, and “they were fain to bring her wine from the altar” to prevent her from fainting. Three da
ys later, she collapsed. A week after that, she was “suffering from a certain incurable malady.”

  Whether this illness was caused by stress or was perhaps Mary’s first attack of acute intermittent porphyria, a worse calamity lay in store. At the end of June, another three-day tournament was held at the palace of the Tournelles. At five o’clock on the 30th, the forty-year-old king returned to the lists. He had insisted on a rematch with the captain of the Garde Écossaise, Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgommery, whom he had beaten in their first joust, but who had gained points for striking the king with his lance.

  Diane and Catherine did their best to dissuade Henry. But he refused to listen. Montgommery was ordered to rearm. At the first blow, his lance hit the king’s chest, then slid up the length of his body armor to his helmet, where it shattered, allowing fragments to slip under the visor. A large fragment hit the king’s forehead, lacerating the flesh, and another pierced his left eye. Henry was carried indoors, and the finest surgeons were summoned. They hoped at first to save him, but the brain had been touched. One moment he was coherent and talking normally, the next he was paralyzed or seized by convulsions.

  Mary and the dauphin watched day and night with the rest of the royal family at the foot of Henry’s bed. He died on July 10 of a massive stroke. The constable stood guard over the corpse while Mary’s exultant uncles brought her and Francis from the Tournelles to the Louvre in a carriage. The Guise brothers were suddenly back in power.

  Francis was proclaimed king of France, after which the court went into mourning. Then everyone dispersed. The new king was taken by Mary’s relatives to Meudon, the Guise château near Paris. Mary went straight to the royal apartments at St.-Germain. She was just five months short of her seventeenth birthday. She was also now queen of France.

  7

  Betrayed Queen

  THE DAUPHIN was crowned Francis II at Rheims, the holiest city of France and the traditional setting for the anointing of kings. The celebrations got off to an inauspicious start. When Francis and his escorts arrived at the gates of the city in readiness for his official welcome on Friday, September 15, 1559, a sudden downpour soaked everyone to the skin. Then the coronation, due to take place at a High Mass on Sunday, had to be postponed for a day. The Duke of Savoy, one of the highest-ranking spectators, caught a fever and everything was put off. Francis II was, in consequence, the only French king to be crowned on a day that was neither a Sunday nor an important feast day. Moreover, the medal struck in advance at Paris, which was to be handed out as a souvenir to those who attended, now bore an incorrect date.

  The ceremony was to be held in the vast Gothic cathedral, famous for its magnificent stained glass. On Sunday evening, Mary attended a vigil with her husband, hearing the choir sing vespers and joining in the prayers before retiring to bed in the archbishop’s palace. During the service, Francis went to the high altar to lay a gift of a solid-gold statue of his namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, at the foot of the cross. The Archbishop of Rheims preached a sermon, to which Mary must have paid attention, because the archbishop was none other than her uncle Charles, the Cardinal of Lorraine. It would be his great privilege to anoint and crown the new king next day.

  On Monday morning, Francis, dressed in a gown of white damask over a shirt and tunic of white silk in preparation for his anointing, processed in state from the archbishop’s palace to the cathedral. As he entered the main door, trumpets sounded and an anthem was sung. He walked up the nave toward the choir, which was decorated with the richest tapestries from the palace of the Louvre. When he reached the high altar, he took his seat opposite the archbishop’s throne.

  Mary’s uncle then conducted the service. Francis was anointed with special chrism from the holy ampulla kept at the ancient abbey of St.-Rémi. There were antiphons and responses, more anthems, then a High Mass followed by a litany. Between the anointing and the coronation, Francis withdrew briefly to a pavilion of crimson and purple velvet set up in the choir, where he changed into his coronation robes. He emerged resplendent, his blue velvet gown lined with crimson taffeta and trimmed with ermine and gold fleurs-de-lis.

  Mary’s uncle presented the fifteen-year-old king with the scepter, the rod of justice and a ring, which he placed on the fourth finger of his right hand. He then raised the heavy gold crown above his head. There followed more prayers and benedictions, after which Francis was led up some stairs to his throne, on an elevated platform at the entrance to the chancel. He was meant to be wearing his crown, but as it was so heavy, it took at least four nobles to hold it in place and keep it from falling off while the puny Francis took his seat.

  When at last the king was enthroned, the archbishop bowed and shouted, “Vivat rex! May the king live forever!” The entire congregation joined in, most of them doubtless relieved that their long ordeal of sitting still—the ceremony had so far lasted more than five hours—was nearly over. They shouted “Vive le roi!” while the organist and other musicians played their instruments at full volume and more or less at random.

  When order was restored, the choir sang the Te Deum in a plainsong setting, and as its gentle and evocative strains drew to a close, the keeper of the royal aviaries released some seven hundred goldfinches and other songbirds from their cages hidden in the choir. They chirruped and sang as they flew up toward the roof or perched on the ledges of the triforium, a symbol of peace, tranquillity and the dawn of a new age.

  Mary watched everything as a mere spectator. Although the queens of France were also anointed and crowned, the ceremony was held at a time and place different from the king’s coronation. Catherine de Medici had been crowned two years after Henry II at the abbey of St.-Denis, on the outskirts of Paris, the usual place for the crowning of a queen. According to the ancient Salic law, women were barred from the throne of France. The queen was a dependent of the king, not his partner. She was a consort, who was excluded from the succession or from exercising the powers of government. Although she might be appointed regent if her husband was sick or abroad, she had no shared rights of sovereignty.

  Mary sat with the other female members of the royal family in a special closet to the side of the high altar. Catherine de Medici took precedence after her, followed by Mary’s childhood friend Princess Elizabeth, now fourteen and recently married by proxy to Philip II of Spain.

  Catherine wore a long black silk dress. The court was still in mourning for the dead king, and black was the color of mourning in her native Italy. She had embraced it right after her husband died, flouting the convention that white was the norm at the French court and continuing to dress in black until her own death in 1589, earning a reputation as something of a somber and brooding presence.

  Elizabeth and her younger sisters, Claude and Marguerite, followed their mother’s example. Mary alone insisted on wearing a white gown. Since the royal closet was clearly visible to many in the crowd, she must have stuck out like a dove among crows. Her choice of color sparked controversy. Mary wore white to be different. She was asserting her flair for the theatrical, a prospect made all the more attractive by the fact that she knew the color suited her better. And the people loved her for it, nicknaming her “the white queen” as a result.

  If Mary’s dress caused several in the congregation to mutter, the official banquet did not quite go according to plan either. It was served in the great hall of the archbishop’s palace, where an ancient ritual was observed. The nobles and leading guests ate at their usual tables, while the king ate alone at a special table in the middle of the room to symbolize his almost sacred status.

  Francis, however, was tired and bored. He kept yawning and wanted to retire to his chamber before the end of the meal. When he decided to leave, the reception broke up early and in some confusion. Overall, it was perhaps the most awkward and least convincing coronation day in French history.

  Change was afoot at court even before the ceremony. A palace revolution began the day after Henry II’s death. The Cardinal of Lorraine evic
ted Constable Montmorency from his suite of apartments and the Duke of Guise usurped his seat at dinner. The brothers took control of the Conseil des Affaires and put their own clients and retainers in many important offices, even replacing the royal chaplains and almoners.

  But Catherine was not to be underestimated. Already she perceived Mary to be a threat, and so refused to accept the usual title of Dowager Queen. Instead, she insisted on being called Queen Mother for the rest of her life. The subtle nature of this change was that it helped her keep her place as an active rather than a retired politician. Catherine knew that she had to be cautious in her dealings with the Guise family. Her son regarded both the duke and the cardinal as his principal advisers and as national heroes. She knew she had to be willing to work with them for the time being while she waited patiently for her opportunity to remove them.

  Not just the constable and his sons were frozen out, but almost his entire family. Since many of his relations were Huguenots or at least supporters of the Protestants, this action acquired a religious edge. He was replaced as Grand Master of the King’s Household by the Duke of Guise, who finally achieved his ambition to hold this office.

  Diane de Poitiers, the constable’s ally, was scarcely treated better. The magnificent jewels Henry II had showered on her were reassigned to Mary, a not unreasonable decision, since they belonged to the crown and Mary was now queen. But the demand that Diane surrender Chenonceaux, her most prized château, to Catherine in exchange for Chaumont—a pleasant enough building but in a much less desirable location—rankled, and after a brief stay at the lesser property she threw it back at Catherine and withdrew to the château of Anet, one of Henry II’s gifts that she was grudgingly allowed to keep. There she lived as a mistress without a king, until she died seven years later, all her former influence evaporated.