TWO
J’ai reçu la fille toute nue
1515–34
Henry, Duke of Orléans, Catherine de Medici’s future husband, was born a fortnight before his intended bride. The second son of ‘Le Roi Chevalier’, King Francis I, Henry suffered a childhood at least as traumatic as that of his wife-to-be. He lost his mother, the pious and sweet-tempered Queen Claude, who suffered from chronic ill health, at the age of five.fn1 Not long afterwards he and his elder brother became the innocent victims of their father’s worst political and military disaster, his catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Habsburg Empire at the battle of Pavia in 1525. To understand Henry as a man, as a king and a husband, it is necessary briefly to examine this early drama of Francis’s reign.
When Francis of Valois-Angoulême, twenty years old and ambitious, became King in 1515 he immediately directed his energies towards conquests in Italy. Showing both courage and resourcefulness, he claimed and won Milan from the Sforza family who were backed by the Empire.fn2 Francis had ingeniously brought his army, guns and horses across a dangerous and little-used alpine pass into Italy, thereby entirely wrong-footing his enemy. Initial skirmishes and manoeuvres resulted in the decisive battle over Milan at Marignano, on 13–14 September 1515. After his dazzling victory Francis installed himself as Duke of Milan. He had only been King of France for nine months but Marignano, even though he could not know it, was to be the high point of his entire military career. As his predecessors had already discovered, French conquests in Italy were hard to preserve and proved a constant drain in blood and treasure. Francis’s success at Marignano also triggered an enduring hostility between himself and the Habsburg King Charles I of Spain. The French King’s quests for Italian territory and his enmity against the Habsburg Emperor were the two themes that were to characterise, and to an extent bedevil, his entire reign.
After Marignano, Francis became for a while the cynosure of European monarchs; success, it seemed, was his constant companion. In 1515 he allied himself with the Medici Pope Leo X for his support in Italy and unwittingly set in motion the course of events that would bring Catherine to France as his daughter-in-law almost twenty years later. In 1519 King Charles of Spain was unanimously elected Holy Roman Emperor, becoming Charles V. Francis had also put himself forward as a candidate and felt bitter at the humiliating outcome.
In 1521 Francis overreached himself and the city of Milan fell to the Emperor’s troops the same year. By 1523 France stood virtually alone, England having joined forces with the Empire in a general league against the French. Treason, a failed rebellion against Francis from within his own kingdom, and invasion in both the north and the south of France forced him to act decisively. His army pursued the Imperial invaders southwards into Italy and after a harsh winter in the open laying siege to the city of Pavia where the Imperial troops had holed up, the two sides finally met in battle on 24 February 1525.
Numerically the armies were evenly matched and at first the fighting proved inconclusive. For reasons that are still not clear, Francis, probably believing the Imperialists to be in flight, charged out into the open at the head of his elite bodyguard and cavalry in pursuit of the enemy. It proved a critical error. By pushing forward into exposed terrain he found himself not only between his own guns and the enemy but also at the mercy of over 1000 hidden Imperial arquebusiers, well placed to pick off the distinctive French knights with relative ease. Gradually Francis and his men – who had cut a fantastic swathe through the enemy – found themselves stranded from the rest of their troops and encircled by Imperial soldiers. When his horse was killed beneath him, Francis showed immense personal valour as he continued the now hopeless fight on his feet. Burdened by his heavy armour he managed to hack men down with his sword, as the elite of the French nobility, though inspired by their King’s courage, were being decimated around him. Eventually Francis and his surviving nobles were taken prisoner. Not since Agincourt had France lost so many gallant and high-born warriors on the field of battle. Pavia was an unmitigated disaster for her and her King.
Orders came to bring Francis to Spain where he would eventually meet his adversary Charles V. He believed strongly in the chivalric code and hoped that by appealing directly to his captor as one regal knight to another he might soften the extreme terms that the Emperor now demanded. The most important item, the Duchy of Burgundy, stood at the head of the list. The duchy had been seized by the French in 1477 at the death of the last duke, Charles the Bold, without leaving a male heir. Although Charles V claimed descent from the Burgundian duke on the female side, his political sense, not his dynastic pride, spurred his claim to Burgundy. The incorporation into the Empire of this rich and fertile duchy that stretched down his western borders with France creating a strategic foothold, would pose an alarming threat to the French. Francis received a royal reception in Barcelona on 19 June, and the crowds roared with excitement as he came out of the cathedral after celebrating mass. People clamoured around the King, begging him to use monarchical healing powers to touch the sick wherever he went. It is hardly surprising that a Venetian observer commented, ‘He bears his prison admirably,’ adding, ‘he is well nigh adored in this country.’1 After much fêting and excitement Francis arrived in Madrid in the late summer of 1525.
Before too long, however, the reality of his situation began to tell. Used to an active outdoor existence, the company of women and all the other essentials that made his life agreeable, Francis proved to be a terrible prisoner after all. He became too depressed to eat, which in turn caused him to fall dangerously ill from an abscess in the nose. Even the Emperor, who had so far avoided meeting the royal hostage, hurried to Francis’s sickbed and looked anxiously at his most valuable asset, whose life seemed to be dwindling away. He granted permission for the King’s sister Marguerite to come from France to minister to him. After several weeks of serious illness the abscess burst and the King rallied. A Frenchman at Francis’s bedside reported back to Paris on 1 October 1525 that ‘he has improved steadily … Nature has performed all its functions, as much by evacuation above and below as by sleeping, drinking and eating, so that he is now out of danger.’2 With Francis recovering, peace terms could be worked out.
On 14 January 1526, in the Treaty of Madrid, Francis renounced his claim to Milan and various other territories that the Empire had hitherto regarded as its own. To seal their accord the King betrothed himself to marry Charles’s widowed sister, Queen Eleanor of Portugal, who had been waiting at the gloomy Spanish Court for her brother to find her a new husband. Physically, Eleanor had too many of the unfortunate Habsburg traits to be considered anything other than tolerable-looking. Francis – with a few casual gallantries – had charmed the dull, devout and kind-hearted Queen, who had by now completely fallen for him and could hardly believe her good luck when the treaty was agreed.
As for Burgundy, Charles would allow no discussion over the duchy. Francis finally consented to relinquish the territory to the Empire, but declared that he must supervise the handover himself. Charles knew that the transfer would be difficult. Realising that the French King’s presence would help to smooth the process, he therefore decreed, with justifiably enormous misgivings, that Francis could return home provided he offered sufficient security in his stead. The King’s mother and official regent during his captivity, Louise of Savoy, decided that her two eldest grandsons should take their father’s place.
Thus, out of political necessity, Henry, Duke of Orléans and his elder brother the Dauphin François were doomed to be held hostage in Spain until their father redeemed them by fulfilling the obligations of the treaty. Henry VIII’s ambassador John Taylor had been ordered to accompany the party on the long voyage to the rendezvous. Before their departure he saw the two boys and reported to Cardinal Wolsey, ‘After dinner I was brought to see the Dauphin, and his brother Harry; both did embrace me, and took me by the hand, and asked me of the welfare of the King’s highness. … The King’s godson [Henry] is the quicker spirit and the bolder, as seemeth by his behaviour.’3 The two brothers were aged eight and six when they exchanged their beautiful châteaux of Blois and Amboise for a series of increasingly forbidding fortresses in Spain.
Accompanied by their grandmother, Louise of Savoy, the two ‘goodly children’ made the journey southwards in appalling weather to the border between France and Spain. The exchange, for which a strict convention had been agreed, was scheduled to take place at seven o’clock in the morning on 17 March 1526. A ten-mile area had been sealed off around the Bidassoa river which marked the frontier. In the middle of the river floated a large raft, where the royal prisoners must be delivered. At the appointed hour two boats left, each from its respective side. The vessels measured the same size and contained the same number of men, all similarly armed. Outside the sealed-off sector the two boys had embraced members of their family and their household before leaving.
One of the noblewomen in their entourage, who were all deeply affected by the departure of the little boys, seemed to show particular concern and tenderness for Henry. Later to become the central figure in his life, it transpired that the kind lady of the court was the twenty-five-year-old Diane de Poitiers. Obviously moved by the children’s plight, she kissed the little boy on his forehead, bidding him farewell.
As the two boats arrived at the raft and the prisoners awaited the exchange, Charles de Lannoy, the Emperor’s viceroy at Naples, declared to Francis, ‘Sire, your highness is now free; let him execute what he has promised!’ ‘All shall be done,’ replied the King who turned to his forlorn sons, tearfully embracing them and briefly making the sign of the cross over their heads. Henry and his brother kissed their father’s hand, and he climbed into his boat with a promise that he would soon be sending for them. He then set off for the French side of the river. As he arrived on French soil Francis cried, ‘I am King! I am King once again!’
At first Henry and his brother the Dauphin were held in ‘honourable captivity’ at Vitoria in Castile. Waiting for their release, they stayed with Queen Eleanor, who expected to become their stepmother shortly. A good-hearted woman, she took a kindly interest in their welfare. The boys also enjoyed the attentive care of a large French household including their governor, tutor, maître d’hôtel and seventy attendants and servants.4 Yet it quickly became clear that their father had no intention of honouring the Treaty of Madrid and the boys soon felt the effect of his broken pledges. Before signing the treaty, the King had taken the precaution of telling his emissaries from France that the promises he signed as a captive must be regarded as void since they had been extracted under duress.
To modern readers it may appear ruthless that Francis could send his sons away into what he must have known would be a long captivity while he defied the Emperor, but in fact he had very little option. In order to liberate his kingdom from the aftermath of Pavia he had to be able to act as a free man. His mother Louise, suffering from failing health, lacked the authority to deal with matters effectively as regent, surrounding herself with notoriously corrupt advisers only interested in extracting what they could for themselves. Throughout her adult life Louise’s abiding passion was her son. She called Francis ‘my lord, my King, my son, my Caesar’ and had struggled to keep his kingdom intact for him during his imprisonment, braving the people’s hostility at his military failures and the unwelcome attentions of foreign predators.
Now Charles V found himself facing serious difficulties too. Thwarted by Francis’s breach of their agreement, his careful plans had been shattered. Not only was the Treaty of Madrid in tatters, but the impecunious Emperor lacked the money to pay his armies; his German territories were torn with religious strife while the Turks attacked Hungary. No wonder a report from an English envoy at the time described him as being ‘full of dumps’.5
Immediately after his release, Francis tried to stir up support for himself and trouble for the Emperor by creating the League of Cognac on 22 May 1526. Ostensibly the league had been formed ‘to ensure the security of Christendom and the establishment of a true and lasting peace’, though in reality it was composed of states that feared Imperial domination. It included France, Venice, Florence, the Papacy and the Sforza of Milan. Henry VIII of England also took a place as the league’s ‘protector’. As a direct response to Francis’s actions, the children’s ‘honourable captivity’ now changed abruptly for a cruder confinement. Charged with responsibility for the princes, the Constable of Castile, Don Iñigo Hernandez de Velasco, received orders to move them deeper into Spain.fn3 They were first moved to a castle near Valladolid. Then, in February 1527, a supposed plot to free the boys and bring them back to France prompted their transfer still further south.
Charles ordered the return of some of the children’s attendants to France and took his hostages to a castle near Palencia about one hundred miles north of Madrid. By October – with Rome now sacked, Italy engulfed by war and Catherine herself a prisoner at the Murate – Charles gave permission for a brief visit by English emissaries to Henry and his brother. They spoke to the princes’ tutor, Benedetto Taglicarno, and reported that he ‘could not enough praise the Duke of Orléans of wit, capacity and great will to learn, and of a prudence and gravity passing his age, besides treatable gentleness and nobleness of mind, whereof daily he avoweth to see great sparks’.6
In 1529 the Spanish captured and executed a French spy found near Palencia, not far from the princes’ castle. Fearing another escape attempt, the Emperor ordered that the boys be moved once again. Their new home, the grim mountain fortress of Pedraza, lay between Madrid and Segovia. Their French suite and attendants had been taken from them some months before their move. Put to work as galley slaves, the unfortunate servants were, according to one account, shipwrecked, captured by pirates and finally sold as white slaves in Tunis where, ironically enough, ten of the forty-one were later liberated by Charles V when he captured the city in 1535. The boys had been left with a sole companion, a French dwarf, to entertain them. Their gaolers, coarse Spanish soldiers, kept them under close watch and cared little for their charges.
Reports from a French agent near Pedraza described his two sightings of the boys in July 1529. On the first occasion he saw them led by a Spanish prince to Mass heavily escorted by eighty foot soldiers. He next sighted them surrounded by fifty mounted men on their way out to play. The spy reported that whenever Henry came out he rode a donkey held by two men because of his constant attempts to flee; he also noted that the prince insolently cursed the Spaniards at every opportunity.
Meanwhile the international situation began to look promising for the princes’ eventual return home. While Francis and the Emperor busied themselves absurdly challenging each other to duels, still locked in their mutual antagonism, both sides, exhausted by war, nonetheless urgently needed to conclude a settlement. To break the impasse, Francis’s mother Louise and Charles’s aunt Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, were authorised to carry out talks on behalf of the two rulers, neatly providing the men with a face-saving solution at the same time. ‘La Paix des Dames’ (the Peace of the Ladies), properly called the Treaty of Cambrai where it was concluded and signed by Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria in August 1529, would eventually set the princes free. Its most significant article involved part of Burgundy being yielded to Charles in exchange for the princes; instead they would be released for a ransom of 2 million écus. Charles’s sister Eleanor, who had been languishing in despair believing that matters would not be resolved, was still to marry Francis and when 1.2 million écus, the first part of the ransom, had been paid to the Emperor, the children and the Queen would be allowed to travel to France.
The regent Louise asked for permission to send her usher, M. Bodin, to visit the boys at Pedraza to give them the good tidings of their imminent homecoming. Under heavy guard the man travelled to Castile where, after many delaying tactics by the Spanish, he arrived in September 1529. Bodin’s moving account of the meeting describes the hardship and the solitude Henry and his brother the Dauphin François had had to endure. After being kept waiting at Pedraza, the usher finally received authorisation to enter the fortress itself where he saw the princes in their small dark cell with walls ten feet thick and iron bars to prevent escape. A small shaft of light came from a window too high to reach and the only furnishings were straw mattresses. When Bodin set eyes upon the two pathetic and shabby boys, he wept. After bowing to them he explained he had come on behalf of the King and to say that they would soon be returning home. The Dauphin turned to his gaoler saying that he had not understood a word the man had said and wanted him to ‘use the language of the country’. The Marquis of Berlanga, entrusted with the princes’ security and well-being at Pedraza, retired leaving Bodin with the boys, who then repeated his message in Spanish. Astonished, the usher asked if the Dauphin had forgotten his native tongue. The prince retorted that since his suite had been removed from him he no longer spoke French. At that moment Henry interjected, saying, ‘Brother, this is the usher Bodin.’ The Dauphin acknowledged that he knew the man and had been feigning his ignorance for the benefit of Berlanga.
The two boys then fired excited questions at their visitor, asking about everything at home, their family, the King and their friends. Allowed to withdraw to an adjoining room, the princes rushed to the window for fresh air. Bodin also noticed two small dogs. One of the guards remarked, ‘That is the only pleasure which the princes have’; another added, ‘You see how the sons of the King your master are treated, with no company but that of the soldiers … and neither exercise nor education.’ Presumably even the entertaining dwarf had been sent away by this time. The Spaniards, fearful that Bodin might use some sophisticated French sorcery to remove the boys, refused to allow him to measure them (he wished to report their growth to the King), nor was he permitted to give them new clothes in case they possessed magic powers. Bodin shed further tears when he bade farewell to the princes and returned home to report their miserable plight.7
After many difficulties and postponements, at last the time arrived for Henry and the Dauphin to be exchanged for the gold. One of the principal impediments to the transfer had been Francis’s problem in raising the money for his sons’ freedom. Extravagant promises to contribute to the ransom had been made by the King’s richer subjects, though in the event they only grudgingly produced the money after much prodding. Francis’s blunders had been expensive for the kingdom. When the correct amount of écus had finally been collected, inspected and weighed, it was discovered that unscrupulous officials had clipped some of the coinage, so further appeals for funds had to be made. Eventually the gold was ready and once again a strict protocol agreed, noting all the details of how the exchange should take place.
The King charged the Grand Master of France and renowned soldier, Anne (pronounced Annay) Baron de Montmorency, with the safety of the gold and its exchange for the prisoners. The Constable of Castile brought his charges to the Bidassoa river accompanied by the Emperor’s sister, Eleanor, who had been languishing in a convent waiting in despair for her marriage to Francis.fn4 The exchange, which had originally been fixed for March 1530, was now to begin on 1 July, almost a year after the peace treaty had been signed at Cambrai.
The day before the transfer the Constable of Castile accused Montmorency and the French of a slight to his honour over some trifle. Without a full apology from the French government, he declared that the arrangements for the exchange would be halted. For months Montmorency had been painstakingly fulfilling even the most petty obligations laid down in the agreement; now some self-important Spanish windbag threatened to prolong the business indefinitely. Exasperated, Montmorency offered to give satisfaction in person. Fortunately the Grand Master’s reputation as a fierce soldier had the Spaniard offering to set aside his grievance with sudden grace. All was set for the following day.
Just before the prisoners left his care, the Constable of Castile presented Henry and his brother with a pair of horses each, asking them to forgive any wrongs that he might have done them. The Dauphin appeared good-natured, but Henry merely turned his back on his despised erstwhile gaoler and farted. Queen Eleanor and the two boys arrived in France by torchlight on the night of 1 July to be reunited with their father and his Court two days later. Henry, now eleven years old, and the twelve-year-old Dauphin had been prisoners for almost four and a half years.
At first sight the boys looked well and they had grown considerably, though soon it became obvious that both children had been deeply affected by their ordeal. Quiet and reserved, their insistence on points of etiquette, their clothes and other details made them seem more Spanish than French. Henry, who had once been described as a lively intelligent boy, had changed into a withdrawn and quiet youth. Their incarceration and all its attendant deprivations had marked both children for life. After the celebrations and receptions were over, Francis soon became impatient with his gloomy sons. He declared, ‘The mark of a Frenchman was to be always gay and lively,’ adding that he had no time for ‘dreamy, sullen, sleepy children’. To add to this, the King now tactlessly showed a marked preference for the princes’ younger brother, Charles, Duke of Angoulême. Younger than Henry, Charles greatly resembled his father in looks and his outgoing manner.
Henry vented the frustration and anger he felt in a mania for sport, finding relief in hunting, tilting, wrestling and other rough exercise. He also became an accomplished tennis player and surrounded himself with a tight-knit band of friends, most of them noble youths who were his ‘enfants d’honneur’. He became particularly attached to Jacques d’Albon de Saint-André, son of his governor. Although Saint-André was eighteen when Henry returned from Spain, he took a great shine to this clever and amusing companion; the boy idolized his flamboyant and worldly friend, remaining loyal to him for the rest of his life. At the same time he quickly developed an affection for François of Guise, the eldest son of the great soldier Claude, first duke of Guise, who bore the courtesy title of Comte d’Aumale. They were the same age and both admired military achievements, thriving on stories of valour and warfare.
Henry also found his mentor during this period, as his devotion to Anne de Montmorency grew. The Grand Master had charge of the royal children’s household, and Henry’s failure to find intimacy with his father encouraged a growing dependence on Montmorency. The soldier and courtier embodied all that Henry aspired to be; a great warrior, as well as a chivalrous and learned man. He appreciated Montmorency’s solid conservative values, and sought the older man’s advice and guidance whenever he could. Henry’s loathing of the Emperor was understandable and obvious; Charles V was now his sworn enemy and would remain so for the rest of his life. Just like his future wife Catherine – who, coincidentally, emerged from captivity at the same time – Henry never forgot a wrong, nor a loyal friend.
After a happy reunion with his siblings at Amboise, Henry and his brothers and sisters attended and assisted at Queen Eleanor’s coronation at Saint-Denis in March 1531. Already bored by his wife, Francis made not the slightest effort to hide his feelings. Making her official entry into Paris, Eleanor passed by where he stood at a prominent window. Immediately in front of him stood his mistress, Anne d’Heilly, Duchess d’Étampes, with whom he was shamelessly engaged in some kind of sexual activity. An observer wrote that Francis was ‘devising with her for two long hours in the sight and face of all the people’. To say that they ‘marvelled’ at the Most Christian King’s behaviour is hard to dispute. To make matters worse the King’s sister Marguerite commented to the Duke of Norfolk that the new Queen was ‘very hot in bed and desireth too much to be embraced’. The King found poor Eleanor ‘so unpleasant to his appetite that he had neither lain with her nor yet meddled with her’.
In the autumn of the same year, Francis and the royal family embarked upon a grand progress through France. The King wished to make this a gigantic national celebration to thank his loyal subjects for their sacrifices to help free the royal children. The magnificent official entries under ornate triumphal arches into important cities throughout the kingdom made a deep impression on Henry, and while the dignitaries listened to speeches and attended banquets, the people danced in the streets and drank wine flowing from the water fountains. Later, during Henry’s reign, royal entries (les entrées joyeuses) reached new heights for splendour, expense and creative genius. Both Francis and Henry understood the importance of making dazzling royal visits to the provinces.
Since his return to France, Henry had increasingly become the object of his father’s matrimonial plans. After the marriage talks with Henry VIII over his daughter Mary Tudor had collapsed, Francis turned to Pope Clement VII to discuss a proposed match with Catherine de Medici. Francis believed this to be a sure route back to conquests in Italy, an opinion Clement did nothing to discourage. It was decided that the marriage, set for the summer of 1533, should take place at Nice, in what promised to be one of the grandest celebrations of the century. The Pope had decided to accompany his niece, and Francis, ever anxious to show the French monarchy at its most brilliant, could be counted upon to make the occasion unforgettable.
The marriage contract stated that Clement should ‘at his own discretion, furnish his illustrious relative with clothing, ornaments, and jewels’. The Pontiff, determined that Catherine’s trousseau should befit her new status, enlisted the help of Isabella d’Este, one of the most brilliant women of the Italian Renaissance, renowned for her beauty, good taste and setting the latest fashions. From Mantua she sent ‘three pounds of gold, two pounds of silver and two pounds of silk’ for embroidering the glittering gowns being made up by the most talented seamstresses in Florence. The bed hangings and black-and-crimson silk sheets were of the finest quality and Catherine’s lingerie was as exquisite as her gowns. Such quantities of lace, gold and silver cloth, brocade and damask were ordered that Alessandro, Duke of Florence, levied a tax of 35,000 écus on the Florentine people ostensibly for the reinforcement of the city’s defences but actually to pay for Catherine’s bridal bottom drawer.
The jewellery that Catherine brought with her to France was considered without parallel: comprising ropes of pearls, rings, golden belts – one encrusted with rubies – and many other fabulous gems, it added significantly to the collection of French Crown jewels. The most famous of this collection were the vast pear-shaped pearls, said to be worth ‘a kingdom’.fn5 Catherine later gave the pearls to Mary, Queen of Scots, who would eventually return with them to Scotland as a widow. After Mary’s beheading they were appropriated by Queen Elizabeth I who wore them ‘without a blush’.
Clement also presented his niece with parures of emeralds, rubies with a gigantic pendant pearl, and two enormous diamonds. By far the most valuable and significant objet that Catherine brought with her was the casket of rock crystal created by the master of precious stone cutting, Valerio Belli Vincentino. The casket’s twenty-four panels depict religious scenes from the life of Christ with figures of the four Evangelists at each corner, and is set in silver-gilt. (It can be seen today at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.) Clement, unable to fund Catherine’s cash dowry, borrowed from her uncle by marriage, the banker Filippo Strozzi. He pawned papal jewels as security to the banker against a loan for the first sum of 50,000 écus due at the time of the marriage. The agreement stated that the balance be paid in two instalments six months apart, but before long Strozzi came to regret what must have looked like a sound investment at the time.
The traditional portraits had been exchanged between the two parties. They seem to have been relatively faithful to their subjects, though portrait painting, particularly in this context, was a medium notorious for flattery. Commissioned by Duke Alessandro de Medici, Giorgio Vasari painted Catherine’s life-size portrait for Francis and found his subject’s personality, if not her looks, quite beguiling. When Vasari left the room to take a short break during a sitting, Catherine is said to have picked up the brushes and remodelled her features to resemble those of a Moorish woman. Vasari rather breathlessly recalled the incident, saying, ‘I am so devoted to her on account of her special qualities and of the affection she bears not only me but my whole nation, that I adore her, if I may say so, as one adores the saints in heaven.’
On the afternoon of 1 September 1533, after a lavish farewell banquet given by Catherine for the noble ladies of Florence, the bride-to-be set off on her journey to the coast. Accompanied part of the way by Alessandro de Medici, she travelled with a huge retinue consisting not only of various noble relations but seventy gentlemen sent by Francis. Their schedule allowed for various overnight stops en route to La Spezia; from there she and her entourage would make the short sea crossing to Villefranche and await the Pontiff. From Villefranche the two parties would complete the journey together.
Plans for the wedding to take place at Nice had been thwarted by its ruler, the Duke of Savoy – a vassal of the Emperor – and Marseilles was substituted. Shortly after Catherine’s departure from Florence an emissary of the King of France arrived bringing her jewellery as a welcoming gift; among these were a superb diamond and a sapphire. Finding Catherine had already left on her journey towards the coast, the Frenchman galloped after the party and presented the delighted girl with the jewels.
On 6 September Catherine arrived at La Spezia where her uncle, the Duke of Albany, awaited his niece with eighteen galleys, three sailing ships and six brigantines, for what proved to be a calm crossing to Villefranche where Catherine remained as the Duke returned to fetch the Pope. Exactly a month later Clement embarked with his glittering suite, including thirteen cardinals, a large number of bishops and other senior members of the curia and nobility. Albany now supplemented the naval escort with at least forty further vessels, some Spanish, some Genoese. Forming a line, the vessels fired cannon salvoes to honour His Holiness as he departed. The flotilla then set off to collect Catherine. A galley named La Duchessina carrying the Host (as was the custom) led the fleet and the Pope sailed in a vessel covered with gold brocade, like an emperor of antiquity.
Catherine came aboard on 9 October and the party set sail for Marseilles where extravagant preparations for their arrival had been under way. Montmorency had already been in the city for some time making ready for the reception of the royal family, the Pope and his niece. He had blown up a whole quartier in order to make way for a temporary palace of wood fitting for the city’s exalted visitors. The flotilla hove into view on Saturday, 11 October and immediately small craft loaded with musicians and cheering people came out to welcome the visitors and surrounded the Medici armada.
The ships dropped anchor to a deafening greeting: the sound of 300 cannon firing off their welcoming salvoes to the accompaniment of ‘hautbois, clarion and trumpets’, as well as pealing church bells throughout the city. Montmorency went to collect the Pope and his niece in a frigate decorated in precious damask and they were brought ashore. The excited crowds were giddy with anticipation. Meanwhile Clement and Catherine spent the night just outside Marseilles preparing for the Pope’s solemn entry into the city.
The next morning, a Sunday, Clement, accompanied by Catherine informally as her own official entry was yet to come, made his state procession into the town. He sat enthroned upon the sedia gestatoria, behind the Holy Sacrament carried on a sumptuously caparisoned grey horse. Behind His Holiness came the cardinals riding in pairs, followed by Catherine and the gorgeously dressed ladies and gentlemen of her suite. Among the cardinals was her beloved Ippolito, recently returned from Hungary. His spell abroad had blunted none of his dramatic sartorial inclinations, and he drew admiring looks as he rode accompanied by an escort of Magyars and pages dressed as Turks, their costumes of green velvet embroidered with gold. They wore turbans and were armed with scimitars and bows. At last the party arrived at their specially constructed residence opposite the King’s own lodgings at the palace of the Comtes de Provence on the Place-Neuve.
By closing off the Place-Neuve a vast chamber had been built between the two buildings to serve as both a magnificent reception room and audience chamber for the coming feasts, ceremonies and interviews. Above this ran an enormous passage so that meetings could be held between the King and the Pope, each crossing to visit the other when the need arose, without having to be observed by outsiders. Montmorency had ensured that the two parties were housed in splendour, bringing the finest tapestries, furniture and works of art from the Louvre and other royal palaces.
On Monday, 13 October Francis, his family and the Court made their entry into Marseilles accompanied by 200 soldiers, 300 archers and his velvet-clad Swiss bodyguard. As soon as the King and his entourage arrived at the Place-Neuve, he went to pay homage to Clement and then the two set about finalising their agreement – which had to be done before the marriage could take place. A handwritten note thought to have been made by Francis survives. According to the main points the papacy and the French were to reconquer Milan, which would then be ruled by Henry. Parma and Piacenza would be rendered to Francis by the Pope and Urbino retaken. Power politics having been taken care of, the time had come for the bride-elect to make her state entry into the city.
On 23 October 1533 Catherine officially entered Marseilles, riding a roan horse decked out in gold brocade. She was preceded by six horses, five caparisoned in scarlet and gold, and one grey charger in silver cloth led by her cousin Ippolito’s pages. Wearing an outfit of gold and silver silk, Catherine’s appearance did not disappoint the crowd. A fine horsewoman and brilliantly dressed, she made a striking impression. Among her train rode twelve ‘demoiselles’ with a royal and papal guard. A coach draped in black velvet with two pages on horseback also followed. Making up part of her entourage were three women, Marie the Moor and Agnes and Margaret the Turks, all captured ‘in expeditions against Barbary, the people marvelled at the spectacle’. In the audience chamber at the Pontiff’s temporary palace, Francis stood nearby with Henry and his younger brother Charles as Catherine made a deep curtsy to Clement and knelt to kiss the Pontiff’s feet. This humble gesture pleased the French King who lifted the young girl to her feet, kissed her and bade both his sons do likewise.
Catherine then received a warm greeting from Queen Eleanor, after which a great banquet was held. The Pope and Francis sat at a high table alone together. After the dinner a concert and other entertainments had been arranged. The two Courts spent the days preceding the wedding enjoying themselves. In the warm weather it became the fashion to take boats borrowed from fishermen and draped in brocade and other luxuries out on to the sea and spend the days picnicking in hidden bays on sandy beaches. According to some chroniclers the Mediterranean air relaxed the manners and morals of a number of courtiers when out of royal view.
It would seem that Catherine did not appear disappointed by her fiancé’s appearance even if the taciturn and awkward prince could not be described as particularly forthcoming. But pushed on by his father to make a good impression, the boy danced and jousted and participated in the celebrations during the days that followed. Henry was tall for his age and muscular; he had almond-shaped brown eyes, a straight nose, dark-brown hair and a clear complexion – although Pierre de Brantôme, the famous Court chronicler, called him ‘a little swarthy’ – and altogether the groom was not ill-looking.fn6 Catherine still had the advantage of youth, which to some extent would have masked her lack of beauty. She understood that wearing superb and luxurious clothes helped the overall impression she created, as did her lively intelligence, wit and fine manners. One historian described an unnamed portrait of Catherine at around this time: ‘The face is at least agreeable, with features, which, though strongly marked, are not irregular.’
On 27 October the signing of the marriage contract took place and the Cardinal de Bourbon blessed the couple who were then taken into a hall erected for the celebrations. Clement led Henry in by the hand and Montmorency, who represented the King, brought in Catherine. Here the groom kissed the bride before the assembled company. Their embrace gave the signal for a fanfare of trumpets and the start of a great ball. Afterwards Henry and Catherine went to their separate lodgings. The religious ceremony was scheduled for the next day.
Next morning, Francis collected the bride from her chamber. The King looked more like the bridegroom than the prospective father-in-law, wearing white satin embroidered with the fleur-de-lys and a cloak of gold cloth covered with pearls and precious stones. Catherine wore ducal robes of golden brocade with a violet corsage of velvet encrusted with gems and edged with ermine. Her hair had been neatly dressed with precious stones and upon her head sat a ducal crown of gold given her by Francis. The nuptial Mass took place in the chapel of the Pope’s palace; the bride and groom exchanged rings and vows. Catherine was now a royal duchess of France.
That night Clement gave a wedding banquet during which the new Duchess of Orléans sat between her husband and his brother the Dauphin. After the banquet came a masked ball. Though they wore thin disguises, Francis took part energetically, as did Ippolito, clearly not in the least heartbroken at the marriage of his little cousin. At around midnight, after the bridal couple had left, the masque descended into a raucous orgy. A Marseillaise courtesan had been brought to the proceedings and as the night wore on her clothes slipped off. Finally she dipped her breasts into goblets of wine placed on the long tables, and offered them to the eager gentlemen surrounding her. Not to be outdone, some of the ladies of the Court followed suit and one observer wrote that ‘their honour was wounded’.
Meanwhile, with all decorum, Catherine, led by Queen Eleanor and followed by a select group of women, made her way to the nuptial bedchamber. Soon afterwards Henry entered the room. The richly decorated bed alone was said to have cost 60,000 écus. The newlyweds – each fourteen years old – were attended with great ceremony at their ‘coucher’. Both the King and the Pope wanted to be sure that the marriage was consummated that night and Francis is supposed to have remained in the couple’s room until he announced himself satisfied that ‘each had shown valour in the joust’. Clement waited until the morning to bless the ducal couple and beamed with contentment to find Henry and Catherine still in bed.
Before the two Courts started on their long journeys home the ritual exchange of gifts took place. Among the endless items given and received was a superb Brussels tapestry depicting the Last Supper presented to Clement by Francis. In addition to the crystal casket, the Pope gave the King a gold-mounted unicorn’s horn (probably a narwhal’s tusk) reputed to ward off poison.8 Adding to his exotic menagerie, Ippolito accepted a rather daunting lion from the French King, which the infidel pirate Barbarossa had given to Francis only a few months earlier. In fact, Ippolito would have done better to ask for a unicorn’s horn for himself, since he died soon afterwards, poisoned by his cousin and lifelong rival Alessandro de Medici. Alessandro was himself murdered in 1537 by his cousin Lorenzino and the dukedom of Florence passed – with the Emperor’s backing – to a distant relative named Cosimo de Medici, son of the famous condottieri, Giovanni de Medici, known as ‘Giovanni delle bande nere’. Catherine desspised Cosimo, considering him a nonentity and a creature of the Emperor’s; it is also worth noting that none of this ‘Italian’ behaviour was to enhance Catherine’s reputation later on.
On 7 November Clement created four new French cardinals. One of their number was Montmorency’s nephew Ôdet de Châtillon, later to prove a source of great embarrassment after he joined the Protestant reformers. Francis reciprocated by investing four of the Pope’s entourage with the Order of Saint-Michel. The King and members of his suite took their leave of Clement on 13 November, but the Pope’s journey had been delayed by rough seas. Catherine, Queen Eleanor and the ladies remained behind until the weather cleared for the Pontiff’s departure a week later; he arrived back in Rome in mid-December. Just before embarking, Clement is said to have whispered this advice to his niece: ‘A spirited girl will always conceive children.’ That was her duty now: to bear children would seal the Franco–Papal alliance beyond doubt.
By mid-winter Catherine and the royal women joined the King and his Court in Burgundy, where Francis immediately announced details of the agreement he had made with Clement. First he proclaimed the Duchy of Urbino to be the rightful territory of his son Henry through his marriage to Catherine, and by July 1534 he was building an army ready to reconquer Urbino, Milan and other Italian territories with his new papal ally. Meanwhile Catherine spent little time with her husband and more with his sisters Marguerite and Madeleine, whose household she shared. Travelling back through France to Paris with her father-in-law’s huge itinerant Court, Catherine, amiable and eager to please, made great efforts to be liked. Gradually she became part of her new family and won over some of the more snobbish courtiers, though there were those among them who muttered that they would rather have their knees broken than bend them to the Italian merchant’s daughter. Then disaster struck.
On 25 September 1534, less than a year after Catherine’s marriage, Pope Clement VII died in Rome, his territorial promises to Francis unfulfilled and Catherine’s dowry only partly paid. Francis was apoplectic and the French people soon decried the union as amésalliance. The child who thought she had found a family, peace and security was left to reap the bitter harvest of her uncle’s untimely death. The new Pope, Alexander Farnese who took the title Paul III, was neutral but firmly refused to honour either Clement’s dowry obligations or the alliance with Francis. Catherine was now of no value to the King politically, and he declared ‘J’ai reçu la fille toute nue’ (The girl has come to me stark naked). In contrast to her triumphant arrival in France, Catherine now faced a thousand pinpricks of humiliation as her prestige vanished along with Clement’s now worthless promises.
fn1 King Francis I and Queen Claude had seven children: Louise (1515–17), Charlotte (1516–24), François (1518–36), Henry (1519–59), Madeleine (1520–37), Charles (1522–45), Marguerite (1523–74).
fn2 Charles’s interest in Milan was based on the fact that the duchy was a fief of the Empire. Francis’s claim was based on his descent from the Visconti family who preceded the Sforza dynasty as rulers of Milan.
fn3 Don Iñigo Hernandez de Velasco died in October 1528. Upon his death his son Don Pedro became both the new Constable of Castile and the princes’ gaoler.
fn4 Eleanor and Francis had already been married by proxy, although a proper wedding ceremony with both parties present was considered desirable.
fn5 In fact the pearls, though of a rare shape and size, were bought from a Lyons merchant for 900 écus.
fn6 Brantôme would have been relying on hearsay as he was not born until 1540.