FIFTEEN
He is my life … without him I wish neither to live nor to be
1576–84
The Peace of Monsieur caused a tumult among French Catholics, who began immediately to form leagues throughout the country. Humiliated and betrayed by the treaty’s terms, they no longer felt able to look to their King to protect them and their religion. The Protestants had proved what they could achieve with their effective organisation, so now the Catholic leagues employed their enemies’ tactics. As the word was spread, principally by Jesuits taking the message around the kingdom, nobles and peasants alike joined the cause. Catherine, fearing the potential power of this organisation, had not forgotten those bygone days of the Triumvirate of Montmorency, Guise and Saint-André, nor the threat that they had posed to the monarchy then. The King, enraged by ‘these sinister associations’, sent word to his provincial officials to consider them illegal and treat any adherents to them as traitors to the Crown. Evidently he had been too young to remember the Triumvirs and their struggle against his mother, as he remarked with bitterness, ‘Formerly, a Constable or a Prince of the Blood could not have formed a party in France. Now the very valets invent them.’1
The meeting of the Estates-General that had been stipulated in the treaty was to take place in December 1576, and as the League continued to spread through all classes it soon became obvious that they intended to hijack the assembly for their own purposes, filling it with delegates faithful to the new party. Despite their protestations of loyalty to the King, they intended to make their fealty conditional upon his agreeing to abide by the Estates’ decisions. Seeing that the whole assembly was to be dominated by Catholic zealots elected through rigged ballots, the Huguenots and Politiques declared that they already regarded the coming meeting to be invalid.
The natural leader of the Leaguers was Henri, Duke of Guise, a Catholic paladin, military hero and descendant of Charlemagne. Who better to lead the fight to save Catholicism in France than this noble scion of François, Duke of Guise? The sybaritic King had proved himself wanting as a true defender of the faith, so the people turned to this young, attractive and charismatic soldier instead. Propaganda pamphlets were circulated claiming that the Valois were a corrupt and decayed dynasty, and that the Guises, virile descendants of the first Holy Roman Emperor, were more fit to occupy the French throne. It was suggested that the Duke of Guise should take control of the country, imprison the King and punish Alençon for throwing in his lot with the rebels. For the moment Guise tacitly supported the League but carefully remained aloof from becoming their acknowledged leader, though he watched their strength grow with interest. If the right circumstances prevailed he would answer the clamour and head their cause.
The only positive result to come out of the propagandists’ threat that the Guises should replace the Valois was that it brought about the reconciliation, essential to the monarchy’s survival, between Henri and Alençon. Henri loathed the pretentious harking back to Charlemagne that the Guises so frequently vaunted; this time it presented a real danger since it evoked feelings in the people about the role of a strong monarch that he himself could not fulfil. When the two brothers met in November 1576 at Ollainville (a country manor the King had bought for himself and the Queen), their rediscovered fraternal affection had most observers convinced that it was genuine, as ‘they kissed and embraced each other’. As a particular sign of trust and affection the King insisted that his brother sleep with him in his bed on the first night of their meeting. In the morning His Majesty ‘made sure that his brother had all he needed to get dressed’. Aside from sharing a common cause against the Guises, there was also a tempting overture from Catholics in the Low Countries that hinted at a throne for Alençon. The brothers agreed to put aside their differences and, without ceremony or scruple, Alençon dumped the Politique–Huguenot alliance. Later both Catherine and Henri claimed that the whole purpose of signing the treaty had not been to win over the Huguenots but to win back Monsieur, though this has more than a whiff of ex post facto rationalisation to it. On 2 November Catherine wrote that she had just had the pleasure of seeing her sons happily put aside their differences and she hoped that henceforth there would be nothing to distract them from their sole desire ‘to preserve the Crown’ and, in Alençon’s case, to gain a new one in the Netherlands.
By the time the Estates gathered in early December, Henri, realising that he could not suppress the League, cunningly decided to place himself at the head of it. When the League was first created in Picardy the King had angrily declared that no need existed for such an association because, as the Most Christian King of France, who could be a better Catholic than he? In his address to the Estates, he held his listeners rapt with his superb oratory. Plus Catholique que les Catholiques, Henri agreed with the delegates that there should be religious unity in France, though this would, of course, lead to a fresh outbreak of war. He refused, however, to accede to the Estates’ demand that whatever the outcome of their votes the King must be bound to accept them since this would completely vitiate his royal authority.
When it came to raising money to implement the decisions by the Estates which would effectively lead to war, the enthusiasm of the delegates cooled noticeably. To change the tone, the Queen Mother decided that her genius for entertaining might lighten the atmosphere and dazzle the niggardly deputies. Famous Italian comedians, the I Gelosi, arrived at Blois (having been captured and then ransomed by the Huguenots) and gave a performance on 24 February. In honour of the Italians’ first appearance – whose ransom he had paid – the King gave a masked ball the same night, at which he appeared dressed as a woman. The self-proclaimed chief of the Catholic League wore his frizzed and refrizzed hair dressed and powdered, and his gown was cut with a low décolleté. The Most Christian King’s ensemble was a breathtaking confection of brocade, lace and diamonds finished off with ten ropes of enormous pearls round his neck.
Though Catherine hoped that war might be avoided, she kept reminding Henri that he must ensure that he kept himself ready for battle should it become necessary. No money was forthcoming as the delegates sat on their hands. Meanwhile fighting broke out again in the south. In a last-ditch attempt to avoid war, Henri invited Navarre, Condé and Damville to discuss the situation with the Estates at Blois, but they refused to attend. Catherine lamented at Henri’s willingness to resume hostilities and tearfully told her daughter-in-law, Queen Louise, that she no longer had any influence over her son, saying, ‘He disapproves of everything I do, it is obvious I am not free to act as I wish.’2 She regarded Damville as pre-eminent among her son’s foes: ‘It is him that I fear the most for he has a greater understanding, more experience and constancy. … It is my opinion that we must spare nothing to win him over. For it is he who will either save us or be our downfall.’3 Catherine also felt justifiable misgivings about Henri’s ability to prosecute a war. To help her son she knew she must reduce his enemies by subtle means. First she approached Damville’s wife, Antoinette de la Marck, a zealous Catholic, and managed to get to Damville himself, whom she dexterously bribed by offering him the Marquisate of Saluzzo in order to detach him from his alliance with the Huguenots and bring the Languedoc back under royal authority. He took up the offer and the removal of this formidable adversary from the Protestants greatly diminished their strength.
A short war – the Sixth War of Religion – followed, in which Alençon, nominally in command but actually under the guidance of the Duke of Nevers, distinguished himself by capturing the Protestant stronghold of La Charité-sur-Loire on 2 May 1577. In a rush of bloodlust Alençon demanded a massacre of the Huguenot inhabitants, which the Duke of Guise managed to prevent. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of Issoire in the Auvergne, Guise was not present when the town surrendered on 12 June to the royalist army. There Alençon presided over the murder of 3000 citizens, thus earning himself the enduring hatred of the Protestants. Now his name was as stained with Protestant blood as those of his brothers Charles and Henri. Catherine and the King had the secret satisfaction of knowing that Alençon’s pointless outrage meant there could be no return for him to his former Huguenot allies. That door now closed to him for ever; he was bound to his family by his crime.
To glorify the taking of La Charité-sur-Loire a huge banquet was given by Henri for his brother at Pléssis-les-Tours. In truth the King, furiously jealous of Alençon’s military success, now mimicked Charles IX’s hostility towards his own martial ‘triumphs’ at Jarnac and Moncontour. The theme of the celebration was that all should wear green, Catherine’s favourite colour (coincidentally also the colour often associated at the time with insanity), and that the men were to dress as women and vice versa. On 9 June Catherine gave a superb ball at her Château of Chenonceau, with the banquet held outside on the terrace of her gardens in the glow of flaming torches. The King, or the ‘Prince of Sodom’ as he was frequently called behind his back, sparkled with diamonds, emeralds and pearls. His hair tinted with violet powder and wearing a dress of superb brocade, he made a definite contrast to his wife, who came simply dressed, unadorned but for her natural beauty.
The royal family, including Margot, sat at a table of their own and dinner was served by one hundred of the court’s most brilliant beauties, described by Brantôme as ‘half-naked with their hair loose like young brides’. Catherine had long mastered the trick of setting aside the normally draconian rules for her ladies when the occasion demanded. She would also have appeared not to notice as the evening ended in a dissolute free-for-all when many of the party drifted off into the woods together. The cost of the two ‘magnificences’ had been no less than 260,000 livres.4 For Catherine it had been worth every écu as she celebrated the new entente between her sons, though had she truly wished to observe them more closely she would have seen that the brotherly spirit was nothing but a chimera. Shortly after the capture of Issoire the King recalled Alençon and gave command of the army to Nevers instead. The English began to give help to the Huguenots and Navarre remained in control of many Protestant strongholds. This and his chronic lack of money made Henri decide that the time had come to treat with the enemy.
On 17 September 1577 the Peace of Bergerac was signed, ending the Sixth War of Religion. Commonly known as the ‘Paix du Roi’, this treaty went some way to removing the most odious elements of the ‘Paix de Monsieur’, although as usual neither the Protestants nor the Catholics were satisfied. The King could not continue paying for the war and the Huguenots, though badly mauled, were by no means completely defeated. Trouble could still be expected, particularly in the south. A huge potential source of strife had been removed by a vital clause in the treaty banning ‘all leagues and confraternities’.5 One thing was certain, however: the idle and easily enervated King would need to deploy the indefatigable Queen Mother to keep his fragile eponymous peace.
In order to regain Henri’s belief in her, Catherine set off to tour the troublesome south and south-west of France, largely Huguenot country. This indomitable fifty-nine-year-old woman left Paris in the late summer of 1578 with a miniature Court (including a number of her flying squadron) to administer the peace and pour balm upon the boiling tempers, warring factions and dissatisfied people. Margot also travelled with the party, making the journey to join her husband who had demanded that his wife be returned to him. Henri, anxious to be rid of the troublemaker, hoped that his sister might even be of some use to him by Navarre’s side. Margot remembered how in the weeks before her departure the King ‘came to see me every morning, and declared his love for me and explained how useful this would be for me to live a happy life.’
The problems France faced were varied: most arose from the chaos of the religious wars, though there were a host of others, such as harsh taxation, social strife and individual local disputes between feuding contingents. Much of Catherine’s time would be spent at considerable personal risk in what was effectively enemy territory run by the Huguenots, to whom she privately gave the sobriquet ‘birds of prey’ or ‘les oiseaux nuisantes’ (nighthawks). Catherine endured not only open hostility at some of her stops but all the attendant discomforts and dangers of a long journey in rough terrain. She was bobbish and undeterred by plague, bandits and hazardous roads often little more than rough tracks. She remained undiscouraged when the gates to comfortable lodgings, châteaux and manor houses were frequently and unceremoniously closed to her as she arrived in a new area. Sometimes this forced her to create a makeshift home under canvas, where she hung her most cherished item, a portrait of the King.6 No exertion was too great in the name of her chers yeux Henri.
The King, for his part, wrote at the outset of the journey to the Duchess d’Uzès, who accompanied Catherine, begging her, ‘Above all bring back our good mother in good health, for our happiness depends upon this.’ The Queen Mother’s temper remained resolutely breezy in the face of the hardship and hostility she often encountered, though when the weather was clement she particularly relished the memories it evoked of her childhood in Italy. She enjoyed the ‘flowering beans, hard almonds and fat cherries’ that grew early in the south and complained little about the terrible pain of her gout and rheumatism, especially in the freezing cold of winter.7 When she could she forsook her litter or vast coach and walked or rode on a mule. The sight of her astride her mule would, she wrote, ‘make the King laugh’.
The only thing Catherine found hard to bear was her long separation from Henri. She wrote to the Duchess d’Uzès, who had by then returned to Court, ‘I have never been so long without him since he was born. When he was in Poland it was only for eight months.’ Her mission’s aim to regain her place in the King’s affections made the sacrifice worthwhile, as she confided to her friend: ‘I hope to do far more for the service of the King and the kingdom here than I would do by staying with him and giving him … unpalatable advice.’8 Henri wrote to one of his ambassadors during her journey, ‘The Queen, my lady and mother, is at present in Provence, where I hope that she will restore peace and unity among my subjects … By this means will she implant in the hearts of all my subjects a memory and eternal recognition of her benefaction which will oblige them for ever to join me in praying God for her prosperity and health.’9
Catherine’s sprightly disposition and pleasure in the adventures of her journey rarely left her. As she passed from place to place to deal with each particular difficulty – usually the implementation of the treaty and the locals’ enmity either for each other or the Crown – she painstakingly dealt with their grievances. It is a tribute to her magnificent personality, her singular charm, enthusiasm and imagination that, with a few rare exceptions, she managed not only to find solutions (which she appreciated would often be all too temporary) to the deep-seated divisions France faced, but also gained the respect and grudging affection of her former opponents for her absolute commitment to maintaining the peace.
Before leaving Margot with Navarre at Nérac, Catherine told her son-in-law to turn to his wife and use her to intercede for him with the King if there were political troubles. The two adversaries had proved a match for one another. When state business required it, Navarre had become quite as gifted as Catherine herself in his use of feints, devices and legerdemain. After nearly four months of exhausting work, the Convention of Nérac was signed and Catherine moved on. On 18 May 1579 the Queen Mother wrote to the Duchess d’Uzès that she had received word about Margot and Navarre: ‘My daughter is with her husband. Yesterday I had news of them. They make the best couple one could hope for. I pray God that this happiness will continue and to keep you alive until you are 147 years old and that we can dine together at the Tuileries, with hats or bonnets.’10 Despite this jaunty tone she knew her next stop would be a perilous one.
As she had once walked without a care for her personal safety within the range of the enemy’s guns overlooking the ramparts of Rouen during the First War of Religion nearly two decades earlier, she now showed the same courage at the Huguenot stronghold of Montpellier. Entering the city on 29 May 1579, she drove with cool composure between two rows of hostile Protestant arquebusiers, her carriage even touching their muzzles where the men stood menacingly, pressing close. Her pluck and dauntlessness bought her the respect of the townspeople. By the time she had completed her work there and started on the next part of her journey, she left them courteous and almost dutiful. As she wrote to the Duchess d’Uzès, ‘I have seen all the Huguenots of Languedoc; God, who always backs me, has given me so much favour that I have got the better of them … there are plenty of “night-hawks” here who would readily steal your horses … the rest are good company who dance the Volta well.’11
Catherine still had to face the troubled areas of Provence and the Dauphiné. She wrote, ‘I am so worried about the quarrels in Provence that my mind can only conjure up anger. … I do not know if the people of Dauphiné will be any better … as always I put my trust in God.’12 Dealing firmly with the vicious fighting between the parties that was more social than religious in origin, she wrote, ‘I have finished my work and, in my humble opinion, I have made many people liars and accomplished what was considered impossible. … In ten days I shall see the dearest thing I have in this world.’ At last the time drew near when she would be reunited with the King at Lyons; this one thought alone had kept her spirits unflagging. For his part, having agreed to meet his mother there, Henri, who had little inclination to bestir himself, felt that he could not refuse to make the journey after her extraordinary efforts. He wrote to a friend, ‘We must resign ourselves to going to Lyons for the good woman wishes it, and she writes me too urgently to refuse. … Adieu, I am in bed with fatigue, having just come from a game of tennis.’
Henri’s ‘fatigue’ in fact turned out to be a near fatal ear infection, similar to the one that had killed his brother Francis II. Catherine was at least spared news of his critical condition until the worst had passed and he was recovering. Horrified when she heard of his perilous illness, she wrote to the Duchess d’Uzès,
He is my life, and without him I wish neither to live nor to be. I believe God has had pity on me, since I have had so much sorrow through the loss of my husband and my children He will not crush me by taking him also. When I think of the danger in which he has been, I do not know where I am, and I bless the good God for restoring him to me, and I pray that it may be for longer than my own life, and that as long as I live I may see no harm comes to him. Believe me it is hard to be far from one whom one loves as I love him, and to know him ill is to die by slow degrees.13
Catherine’s longing for her cherished son was at last rewarded when they met on 9 October 1579 at Orléans. The pair then proceeded to Paris where she received a warm and enthusiastic reception as she was hailed for her untiring work to preserve the unity of France. The Venetian ambassador, Gerolamo Lippomanno, though he doubted the ultimate success of Catherine’s mission, lauded her as ‘an indefatigable princess born to tame and govern a people as unruly as the French. They now recognize her merits, her concern for unity and are sorry not to have appreciated her sooner.’ Perhaps for some it gave a sense of security to see the familiar face of the Queen Mother again, for the King and his brother – far from being on harmonious terms during her absence – were once again engaged in a perilous internecine struggle. Thus, rather than coming home to bathe in a rare moment of national gratitude and to enjoy the tranquillity she deserved, Catherine returned to unravel her sons’ hateful antics and their attendant hazards.
Even before Catherine’s long journey of pacification in southern France, Alençon and Henri had fallen back into their old enmity, as ever fuelled by their respective clients and supporters. Henri had accused his brother of plotting and intriguing, particularly with a view to taking a force into the Spanish Netherlands that, once again, risked sparking a war with Philip. This culminated in a farcical scene in which the King – acting on a tip-off that he would catch Alençon plotting – had made a surprise visit to his brother during the early hours of the morning and ordered that his room be searched. As the trunks and cupboards were opened and their contents spilled out, the King himself rummaged manically through the bedclothes. To his intense satisfaction he saw Alençon attempt to hide a piece of paper. Seized and brandished without further examination as damning evidence, it was soon discovered that the paper contained nothing more incriminating than declarations of love from Madame de Sauve. The King, his brother and mother were all in their nightclothes as dawn broke upon this ludicrous and undignified scene. Catherine tried to comfort Alençon but, wisely fearing for his safety, a few days later he fled once more, this time using a silken cord hung from Margot’s window.
The same old pattern reasserted itself as Catherine set out to bring Alençon back to Court with assurances from Henri regarding his safety. Though Alençon promised his mother that he would not jeopardise peace within France, she visited him again to try to win him back. However, word soon spread that he had raised a number of fighting men to take to the Netherlands. Although he had undertaken not to engage in any fighting against the Spanish there, in July 1578 he led his ‘liberating army’ – actually little more than a mob of unsoldierly brigands – to Mons having declared that his nature ‘abhors tyranny’ and that he ‘desires only to succour the afflicted’. After a few months his unpaid rabble decided to go home, and pillaged and attacked the very people and lands they were supposed to be protecting. Bussy d’Amboise, Margot’s former lover and Alençon’s friend, showed a particular lack of restraint during this ignominious return to France and the duke, as was his wont, reproached him for the failure of their great mission. Catherine and Henry made appropriately apologetic noises to Philip of Spain, blaming Alençon’s ‘youthfulness’.14
Prompted by the petty though murderous quarrels between Alençon’s men and Henri’s mignons, and his disastrous foray into the southern Netherlands, Catherine now attempted to find a wife for her troublesome youngest son. Apart from possibly one miscarriage in the spring of 1576, which might have damaged any further chances of becoming pregnant, Queen Louise had not shown any sign of producing the longed-for heir. She had become thin and suffered from bouts of melancholy stemming from her inability to give her adored husband a child. It was, therefore, not only to distract Alençon from making mischief that Catherine started to scout for a suitable bride but also to ensure the very continuation of the Valois dynasty itself.
Various nubile princesses were suggested, including Henri of Navarre’s own sister, Catherine de Bourbon. It was, however, the now far from fecund but richly endowed Queen Elizabeth of England who in May 1578 indicated that she would welcome the reopening of the Alençon marriage talks. With Catherine’s encouragement and Henri’s permission these recommenced in the late summer of that year. As for the continuation of the Valois line, Henri and Louise put their faith in God. They made pilgrimages to Chartres and wore nightshirts that had been specially blessed by the Holy Virgin to overcome infertility, but to no avail. Medical treatments, special baths and embrocations were prescribed for the Queen – reminiscent of the extraordinary lengths Catherine herself had gone to for nearly a decade until she had finally produced an heir.
In 1572, during the first marriage discussions concerning Alençon and Elizabeth of England, Catherine had been effusively optimistic about the number of children the couple might have. At the time, talking to the Queen Mother the English envoy, Sir Thomas Smith, had touched upon England’s usual raw nerve, saying that if only Elizabeth could produce one child then ‘the troublesome titles of the Scotch Queen … that make such gaping for her [Elizabeth’s] death, would be clean choked up’.15 Catherine had replied, ‘But why stop at one child? Why not five or six?’16 Now, seven years later, a single baby would be a near-miracle. At the age of forty-five any marriage Elizabeth entered into would be for political reasons, not for producing an heir. Alençon’s enterprise in the Netherlands had caught her off guard; she did not want French troops, even ones unauthorised by the King, on Dutch soil, as they might ‘wax straight [become] a greater enemy’. English interests favoured peace and trade so Elizabeth decided to distract Alençon with these marriage talks. The English Queen had also been depressed, since her favourite, the Earl of Leicester, had secretly married. Realising that this probably represented her last chance to find a husband, there was at times a hint of wistfulness in the usually cynical quality of Elizabeth’s ‘wooing matters’.
Alençon looked for political backing and a crown. Catherine persuaded him he could have both if he married the Queen of England. Elizabeth was rich and powerful, and the Queen Mother knew that if he succeeded in making her his bride he would stop the dangerous and inept attempts to find a state of his own in the Low Countries. After many obstacles had been cleared during the marriage talks it was decided that the duke should actually meet Elizabeth. Catherine, who at the time was still on her journey of pacification in the south, even talked of travelling to England herself, to push matters along. She wrote to the Duchess d’Uzès, ‘Although our age is more suited to rest than to travel, I must go to England.’17 Alençon eventually arrived in England on 17 August 1579, though his mother did not make the journey with him and so Elizabeth and Catherine never met.
His visit was meant to be incognito and therefore unofficial, but Elizabeth – who seemed quite charmed by the duke, whom she called ‘her frog’ – spent a blissful fortnight engaged in a delightful flirtation. After all she had heard from previous reports, the Queen found Alençon ‘not so deformed as he was [described]’. The ostentatious showing off by Elizabeth suggested she found her mystery suitor quite irresistible, while the rest of the Court duly pretended not to have the first idea who he was. When he returned to France ‘the parting was very tender on both sides’.18 After Philip II’s marriage to Mary Tudor, most English people were aghast at the idea of another foreign consort and a French Catholic prince proved a singularly unwelcome thought. One preacher denounced Alençon and his corrupt siblings, speaking of the ‘marvellous licentious and dissolute youth passed by this brotherhood’, adding that ‘if but a fourth part of that misrule bruited should be true’ the Queen must be very disturbed to consider marriage with ‘this odd fellow, by birth a Frenchman, by profession a papist, an atheist by conversation, an instrument in France of uncleanness, a fly worker in England for Rome in this present affair, a sorcerer by common voice and fame … who is not fit to look in at her great Chamber door’.19Evidently word had got out about the sons of Catherine de Medici.
Now returned from her long voyage in the Midi, Catherine found the peace she had fought for hard to implement. Adding to her ill-health over Christmas, during which she suffered from severe rheumatism, remaining in bed during the celebrations, she also worried about Henri’s health. The King appeared exhausted, thin and generally weak. In April 1580 a surprise attack by Huguenots of Montauban started a six-month conflagration later dubbed the ‘Lovers’ War’ since the Seventh War of Religion was wrongly blamed on sexual scandals at Navarre’s Court. Margot was having a love affair with the Protestant Vicomte de Turenne, one of her husband’s most senior commanders, while Navarre himself had engaged in a passionate liaison with a noted beauty known as ‘La Belle Fosseuse’ (at whose child’s birth Margot later assisted). The goings-on in provincial Nérac had evoked bitter and contemptuous remarks from Henri, as well as causing general hilarity among the French courtiers; when his humour was high the King poked fun at the cloddish ways of the simple and distant Court. Henri knew how to turn the knife when he mocked his sister; his elegant put-downs were reported back to both Margot and her husband, though the idea that Navarre’s response had been to go to war is preposterous. The Protestant offensive is far more likely to have been a reply to various Catholic attacks and to general discontent with the Convention of Nérac.
Navarre apologised to Margot, writing of his ‘regret extrême [extreme regret] that instead of bringing you contentment … I have brought the opposite that you should see me reduced to such an unhappy situation’.20 Catherine wrote to Navarre about the agreement that, not long before, they had so painstakingly reached together and asked him to adhere to this and remain loyal to the King. ‘My son, I cannot believe that it is possible that you would wish to ruin this kingdom … and your own, if a war starts.’21 She appealed to him as a Prince of the Blood, writing, ‘I cannot believe that coming from such a noble race you should wish to be the leader and general of brigands, thieves and criminals of this kingdom.’22 If he did not lay down his arms he would surely be ‘abandoned by God’ she wrote, adding, ‘You will find yourself alone accompanied by brigands and by men who deserve to hang for their crimes … I beg you to believe me and put things back in order, in order for this poor kingdom to remain at peace. … Please believe me, and see the difference between the advice of a mother, who loves you, and that of people who loving neither themselves nor their master, want only to pillage, ruin and lose everything.’23 Margot tried to warn Navarre’s council of the dangers that lay before them if they were to start a war. Catherine also wrote to her daughter and urged the young Queen to make her husband aware of his wrongs and to do her best to avert disaster. Had the war been caused by her daughter’s loose behaviour, Catherine would hardly have been asking her to intervene with her husband to avert it. Despite their efforts the Catholic and Protestant leaders seemed powerless to prevent the short and pointless war that was brought to a close by the Peace of Fleix on 26 November 1580. The treaty, with its many ‘legal rights granted to the Huguenots’ that were practically unenforceable, could largely be seen as a ratification of the Paix du Roi of 1577 and also the Nérac Convention signed by Catherine and Navarre.24 Civil war had become a lethal habit in France.
Other, natural, catastrophes also hammered the realm in 1580. In April the already devastated country was hit by an earthquake at Calais, which could be felt as far away as Paris. A few days later terrible storms caused serious flooding in the capital. Three epidemics ravaged France that same year. The first, which also reached Italy and England, struck in February, and the second – described as a disease similar to cholera – afflicted Paris in June. Catherine, Henri, the Duke of Guise and many other important figures at Court fell ill, but all survived. The symptoms were described by the historian de Thou: first the malady ‘struck the base of the spine with shivering followed by a heaviness of the head and weakness in the limbs, this was accompanied by strong chest pain. If the patient had not recovered by the third or fourth day, fever would set in and in almost all cases prove fatal.’25 The French called the illness ‘la coqueluche’. Just as this epidemic waned, the plague paid its almost annual summer visit to the capital in July. In 1580 the disease spread with unusual force and rapidity, and anyone who had the means abandoned the city. Catherine travelled to Saint-Maur and the King went to Ollainville as the epidemic claimed the lives of hundreds of people every day. In Paris, deserted but for the poorest inhabitants, the unguarded houses of the rich were looted by those who were left behind and even the Louvre itself was robbed. The estimated total number of dead from these natural disasters varies from 30,000 to 140,000 victims throughout France, far more than died by violent means in that period.
In 1580 King Henry of Portugal died. His predecessor, King Sebastian, once Margot’s reluctant suitor, had died in 1578 at the battle of Alcazarquivir fighting the Moors and the throne had been briefly occupied by an elderly uncle, Cardinal Henry, who diedwithout naming a successor. Catherine immediately pressed her own rather flimsy credentials as heir to the throne through her mother’s line, as the descendant of Alfonso III (who had died in 1279) and his wife Queen Matilda of Boulogne. Nevertheless Henri III formally advanced his mother’s claim. An ostentatious Requiem Mass was held at Notre-Dame for the late King, from which Henri absented himself, thus making Catherine the chief mourner.
Philip II, whose mother was the cardinal-king’s sister, not only had a very much stronger claim to the throne but every intention of joining Portugal with Spain even if it meant resorting to force. He found to his exasperation that his former mother-in-law seemed quite prepared to take an equally bellicose stand to prevent him from succeeding. Catherine wrote, ‘It would be no small thing if these things were to succeed and I was to have the joy of bringing this kingdom to the French by myself and on the basis of my claim (which is not a small one).’26 It is easy to imagine how personally satisfying joining the Portuguese throne with that of France would have been to Catherine who, long ago, had endured the French nobility’s cruel and snobbish sneers at her mercantile origins.
In the autumn of 1580, just as the Peace of Fleix was being signed, Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, led a force of Spanish troops to besiege Cambrai. Upon hearing the news from the Netherlands, Alençon, in the Midi overseeing the tiresome and difficult terms of the treaty, could hardly wait for an excuse to get away and nobly announced that he must immediately go to the aid of the people he had pledged to protect. He had, after all, officially been named ‘Defender of the liberty of the Netherlands against the tyranny of the Spaniards and their allies’ (an utterly meaningless title that gave him only obligations but no accompanying powers). He now fancied himself as the protector of the Low Countries and set about raising a force to come to their aid. Catherine was in a state of ‘marvellous perplexity’ that the shaky peace of France should be jeopardised by her son for yet another madcap venture against the powerful Spaniards. She wrote to Alençon reminding him of his position and where his obligations lay: ‘Although you have the honour of being the King’s brother, you are nevertheless his subject; you owe him complete obedience and must give preference over any other consideration to the good of the kingdom which is the proper legacy of your predecessors whose heir presumptive you are.’27
Marriage talks with Elizabeth had taken a predictably sluggish turn and ended abruptly with the Queen arguing about the age difference between herself and the duke, his Catholicism and the danger to which he might expose her kingdom by his entanglement in the Low Countries. She suggested that a less confined alliance with France would be more desirable. The marriage commissioners from France went back home and Alençon sent troops to relieve the beleaguered city of Cambrai. Catherine caught up with him in early May 1581 in an attempt to stop her son from committing himself to so risky an enterprise. He did not heed her and set off to join his men. In July she met her wayward son again, this time realising that he would not be stopped. She therefore begged Henri to send his brother covert aid. The King, enraged at the prospect of provoking an attack on France by Spain, nonetheless agreed to lend his secret support.
Elizabeth sent a message to Henri that it would be in both French and English interests to form ‘a confederation … whereby both the King of Spain might be stayed from his overgreatness and Monsieur helped’.28 But Henri was not about to fall into a trap where a vague promise from the Queen of England left him to face the wrath of Spain and ‘fearing that [Her] Majesty might slip the collar’ he pursued the talks no further. Undeterred, Elizabeth continued her attempts to form some sort of loose coalition with France. Alençon also decided to appeal for help from Elizabeth in person and arrived in England in November 1581. It was now all but certain that there would be no marriage between them; nevertheless the Queen behaved very graciously towards her ‘frog’. He was given every promise of her love (and some £15,000) in private, but she would not make any firm public announcement that they were to be married. Alençon, who had arrived believing there to be no chance of marriage and had come for money, now found himself believing that the Queen might yet become his bride. The duke proved no match for this seasoned stateswoman, however, who even at her age could use her feminine guile to confuse and bewilder. She tortured him with her private promises and public evasions.
To arouse the greedy and ambitious duke, who had by now become impatient for an announcement, Elizabeth, ever mistress of the art of surprising even her closest courtiers, performed a dazzling coup de théâtre. On 22 November, while walking and chatting to Alençon in a gallery at Whitehall, the Queen was asked by the French ambassador for a definite answer about the marriage. Her reply silenced everyone: ‘You may write to the king that the Duke of Alençon shall be my husband.’ Having uttered those words, she drew Alençon to her and kissed him full on the lips, also giving him a ring from one of her fingers. She then made the same announcement to the ladies and gentlemen of her Court. The duke could hardly believe his luck and he was right not to. As her courtiers and advisers wept and groaned, Elizabeth administered the sting. She made it a condition that in order not to upset her subjects further, she could not aid him with either money or men in his venture in the Netherlands and France must guarantee to come to England’s aid if she were attacked by Spain. Catherine, who had been elated at the joyous turn of events in London, now ‘sat with sour countenance and manner of speaking’ as she received these impossible terms from a woman just as wily as she herself.29
As a pay-off, the duke received the promise of a loan of £60,000 for his campaign and it is said that Elizabeth danced around her room with delight that she had found a way out of the French marriage without losing face, and that the ‘frog’, whom she now seemed most anxious to be rid of, was shortly to leave. Thinking that he had been bought off too cheaply and muttering at ‘the lightness of women and inconstancy of islanders’, Alençon decided to play the Queen at her own game and, to her horror, declared that he loved her too much to leave her and would accept her marriage terms.30 This stopped the skip in Elizabeth’s step and she turned upon him in panic, asking if he meant to ‘threaten a poor old woman in her country’. Overwrought with the ups and downs of the past weeks, the duke broke down weeping but cleverly refused to leave England until the ever-increasing inducements offered to him by the Queen produced a change of heart. At the beginning of February 1582, to their mutual relief and despite a surprisingly touching farewell at Canterbury, the couple parted. Alençon set sail for Flushing and on 19 February made his official entry into Antwerp. Accompanied by William of Orange and escorted by the bourgeois militia, he was installed as Duke of Brabant. Making the Palace of Saint-Michel his new home, the Valois runt at last became a sovereign prince in his own right.
By the summer of 1582, matters in Portugal had escalated. Philip had invaded the country in 1580 and Catherine had despatched two expeditions to try to throw the Spanish out of ‘her kingdom’. In June 1582 the first – much of it financed by the Queen Mother personally as Henri wished to keep a diplomatic distance – had been disastrously defeated. It had been led by Filippo Strozzi, Catherine’s cousin, who was killed in the attack. The captive French soldiers had been treated as pirates and brutally executed on the orders of the Spanish commander, the pitiless hero of Lepanto, the Marquis de Santa Cruz. The Spaniard’s butchery made even Henri cry out for vengeance and Catherine received some backing from him to finance a second force, bolstered by a number of ships loaned by Elizabeth of England that left a month later. This campaign also ended in tragedy and, although the leader of the expedition was allowed to treat with Santa Cruz who agreed to send the French survivors home, the Spaniard made sure the men were despatched to sea in leaky old ships without proper supplies, many of them dying before they reached France. Thus ended Catherine’s dream of uniting the Portuguese Crown with that of France.
In 1582 Margot of Navarre returned to the French Court, where she came to enjoy the pleasures of sophisticated life and to get away from both the boredom of Nérac and Navarre’s obsession with his mistress, La Fosseuse. At Court she continued to support Alençon whenever she could and to annoy the King at every opportunity. One of her most enjoyable pastimes was publicly to snub his two particular favourites, Jean Louis de la Valette, now raised to the dukedom of Épernon, and Anne, Baron d’Arques (whom Henri had, in his obsessive love for this mignon, made his brother-in-law by marrying him to his wife’s sister Marguerite de Vaudémont in September 1581, also awarding him the dukedom of Joyeuse). These men of minor provincial aristocratic families had been raised to the highest positions in the country, but Margot knew how to remind them of their inferior social origins. The Queen of Navarre had also infuriated Henri with her personal conduct, engaging in a highly public affair with Alençon’s grand écuyer, a young gallant named Harlay de Champvallon.
Finally, in early August 1583 while he was staying at the Château de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne during one of his frequent periods of religious retreat, the King heard rumours that his sister had borne an illegitimate child. Henri demanded that Margot leave Paris immediately and join her husband. After she had set off with two ladies in attendance, he decided to have her carriage stopped by a company of archers. When they caught up with the party they obliged the ladies to disembark while they rummaged about the vehicle looking for a baby or even a man hidden inside. Although they found nothing, Margot and her two ladies were also subjected to inspection and then taken as prisoners to a nearby abbey where the King himself questioned them.
Margot felt outraged that her brother dared subject her to a moral inquisition – in her memoirs she later accused Henri and Charles of incest – and screamed in fury, ‘He complains of how I spend my time? Does he not remember that it was he who first put my foot into the stirrup!’ When the King could not get the two ladies to incriminate their mistress he reluctantly allowed the three women to proceed with their journey. Champvallon had by now realised that his liaison with Margot endangered his life and escaped Paris, thus ending the affair.
By now Navarre was aware of the furore caused by the King’s actions against his wife and found it gave him a perfect excuse to make further trouble. Assuming a bellicose and outraged posture, he demanded evidence of Margot’s wrongdoing and furthermore stated that he could not take her back as his wife unless the King made a public declaration fully stating her innocence. Henri found himself in a difficult position. Not wishing to anger his brother-in-law and trouble the peace of the land, he sent his mother, who had only heard of the problem long after the event, to extract her son from the imbroglio. Eventually Navarre received some sort of satisfaction and the couple were reunited on 13 April 1584 at Porte-Sainte-Marie. Bellièvre carried instructions for Margot from her mother on how to protect her reputation and endear herself to her husband, citing her own experiences: ‘When I was young I had the King of France as my father-in-law who did what pleased him. It was my duty to obey him and to frequent those whom he found agreeable. After he died and his son, to whom I had the honour of being married, took his place, I had to offer him the same obedience.’31 The Queen Mother continued that neither ‘one nor the other would have forced me to do something that was against my honour and my reputation’.
Catherine went on to say that she had been forced as a widow to deal with people ‘de mauvais vie’ (who led wicked lives) whom she would have preferred to send away, but had been obliged to keep them by her as she needed them to help her sons rule and not offend them. Most important of all, she wrote, her own good reputation enabled her to deal with anyone she needed to without being stained by them ‘being who I am, known by all, having lived the way I have done all my life’. But Margot was a different creature from her mother. Catherine had loved only one man, Henry II, and she loved him still with a single-minded devotion. By contrast, Margot had never truly loved Navarre. Though they were occasionally friends and had protected each other in the past when the situation demanded, his flagrant womanising and her own compensatory and ever-growing indiscretions were destined to keep them from real intimacy. She possessed a more impulsive nature than the guarded and composed front presented by her mother and yet, despite a temperament that made her ill-suited to successful political intriguing, she wished to be at the very centre of important matters and events. Catherine fell ill due to the strains of the latest crisis, but she remained unable to blame Henri for his ill-considered actions towards Margot. She wrote to Bellièvre, who had been instrumental in sorting out the problem, ‘You know his nature, which is so frank and honest that he is unable to hide his displeasure.’32
After his glorious acclamation as Duke of Brabant, Alençon was finding life in Antwerp difficult. He complained constantly that his brother did not give him enough money to fight off the Spaniards. When Henri did send funds, Alençon soon found out, it was never enough. His men suffered from malnutrition, lack of pay and had even resorted to begging from the inhabitants. Their numbers dwindled as they began deserting or dying. By late 1582 he wrote, ‘Everything is falling apart in ruin and the worst part of it is that I was given hopes which have led me too far to back down now. … Thus, I say, that it would be better to promise me only a little money and keep your word than to promise so much and not send anything at all.’33 On 17 January 1583, to the hideous embarrassment of his mother and brother and the horror of the other European Courts, Alençon and his men rose up and attempted to take Antwerp in what was later called the ‘French fury’. In this blackguardly episode, bearing all the hallmarks of Alençon’s ignoble nature, the citizens proved more than a match for this spent and sickly rabble and they massacred the duke’s men. They also killed many of his nobles, some of them from the greatest families in France. Uprisings in Bruges and Gand were also attempted, but these were put down without difficulty.
The ‘French fury’ had put Alençon in peril and he was branded a common criminal; furthermore his situation presented no small problem for Catherine and Henri. He tried to negotiate his way out of trouble but as ever his terms were too high for a man who had little or no support from his brother. Flying in the face of the King, Joyeuse and Épernon, Catherine did send him what aid and money she could – raised using her own assets – but Henri’s mignons did all they could to stop help from being sent by the King, thus preventing Alençon from achieving anything in the Low Countries.
After further failed attempts fighting the Spaniards, causing yet more trouble and expense to the King, who feared Spanish reprisals, Alençon was eventually reunited with his mother at Chaulnes in mid-July 1583. His experiences over the past eighteen months had desperately undermined his health and he was described by those who saw him on his journey as appearing ‘weak and debilitated … and barely able to walk’. On 22 July 1583 Catherine wrote to the King about his brother, ‘I have begged him to pull out of his enterprises that are ruining France and to stay close by me and to keep the place which is his and to live in peace with our neighbours.’34
Henri asked his brother to attend a large meeting of ‘notables’ which he had called for 15 September, but Alençon refused. Catherine believed ‘his head has been filled by malicious people who have told him if he goes he will find that he is to be the subject of many restrictions against himself’.35 The main issue for the Queen Mother was that her youngest son should retain Cambrai. He returned there in early September to negotiate with the Spanish and the Dutch. By November he crossed back again into France and decided to stay at Château-Thierry where he hoped to regain his strength, tended by Catherine. She had been appalled to hear a new rumour that he intended to sell Cambrai to the Spaniards. Writing of the shame and infamy this would bring to the country, she said, ‘I am dying of misery and worry when I think of it.’36 Catherine might have been deeply upset by the scandal of Cambrai, but she also seems to have been unaware of the gravity of Alençon’s illness. He had started to cough blood and did not make the recovery he had hoped for. Assuming that both her son and his political machinations were now stabilising, Catherine left, but Alençon soon made trouble again, inflamed by his entourage who liked nothing better than to tell him how ill-used he had been by his brother.
After a short visit to Château-Thierry by Catherine on 31 December 1583 to try to solve some of Alençon’s problems – he was still negotiating over Cambrai – Catherine found her son so unwilling to listen to her advice that she returned to Paris. Here she fell ill, the strain of family troubles taking their toll. At last, on 12 February 1584, Alençon came to visit his mother. Although she was in bed with a fever he begged her to take him to see his brother to thank him for confirming various promises that he had recently made regarding his apanage. Despite her high temperature, Catherine happily sacrificed her own health to watch her two surviving sons embrace each other. She wrote to Bellièvre that she had not experienced such happiness since the death of her husband and that she had wept with joy.
The two brothers celebrated Carnival together, during which Alençon is said to have debauched himself ‘in erotic excess that showed up his vicious temperament’.37 The sick young man then returned to Château-Thierry, where during March he fell desperately ill once again. Catherine hurried to his bedside to find him vomiting quantities of blood and suffering from a high fever. The symptoms of consumption should have been all too familiar to the Queen Mother but, believing her doctors who assured her that provided her son led a quiet life he would live to enjoy an old age, she took any minor abatement of the disease as a good sign. Finally, after a further visit, during which she convinced herself that he was recovering, the Queen Mother decided to rest at Saint-Maur. When she arrived she was greeted with the news that Alençon had died on 10 June 1584 shortly after they had parted.
Despite the constant trouble her youngest son had caused her, the discord with the King and his generally odious nature, her agony at his death was evident from a brief note she wrote to Bellièvre on 11 June: ‘I am so wretched to live long enough to see so many people die before me, although I realise that God’s will must be obeyed, that He owns everything, and that he lends us only for as long as He likes the children whom He gives us.’ Her despair would have been yet more unbearable had she foreseen the effect that the heir presumptive’s death would have upon Catholics in France. For unless Henri and Louise produced a Valois heir, which by then seemed extremely unlikely, the next ruler of France would be the Bourbon heretic, Henri, King of Navarre.