CHAPTER 8
EVER SINCE CHARLES V HAD BROKEN OFF HIS BETROTHAL TO MARY, Wolsey had been in negotiations to revive an alliance with France. In March 1526, Francis had reentered his kingdom, having been in imperial captivity since the Battle of Pavia the previous year. By the terms of the Treaty of Madrid, which had secured Francis his freedom from imperial custody, he had handed over his two sons as hostages for the payment of his ransom and was contracted to marry Eleanor, the widowed queen of Portugal.
But Francis had no intention of keeping to these terms. As soon as possible, he told the English ambassadors, “I shall take off my mask.”1 Now seeking revenge, he joined a league formed at Cognac that comprised the pope, Venice, Milan, and Florence and looked to force the victorious imperial armies out of Italy. Wolsey, always hoping to enhance England’s status by acting as the “peacemaker of Europe,” sought an Anglo-French entente to compel Charles to moderate his settlement with Francis and prevent further war. Mary was once again to be used as a gambit for an alliance. As she was quickly learning, marriage was for political, not personal, ends. Mutual and sacred vows were made and unmade as the balance of power between England, France, and Spain dictated. As Nicholas von Schomberg, archbishop of Capua, wrote to the emperor, “in time of war the English make use of the princess as an owl, with which to lure birds.”2
IN JULY, JOHN CLERK, bishop of Bath and Wells, was sent to France with instructions to renew marriage negotiations for a match between Mary and Francis’s second son, Henry, duke of Orléans. Mary was, Clerk declared, “the pearl of the world” and “the jewel that his highness [Henry VIII] esteemed more than anything in earth.”3 As the negotiations proceeded, Henry intervened with a proposal that he give up his ancient claim to France and join the League of Cognac, provided that Francis pay him a pension, cede Boulogne, and marry Mary himself.4 Francis, recently widowed, was only two years younger than Henry and a notorious womanizer. Yet for English interests the alliance made good sense. If Francis predeceased Henry and left children by Mary, the English and French succession would remain separate, as Francis already had two sons. If Henry died first, Francis could claim England through his wife. But his reign was likely to be short, given his age, and then the two kingdoms would become separate once more. At first Francis was skeptical of Henry’s plan, but after the pope declared the match a sancta conjunctio—a holy union—Francis responded favorably to the proposal, seeing it as a valuable alliance against imperial designs.
The French king now proceeded to praise Mary’s abilities, concluding that given “her education, her form and fashion, her beauty and virtue, and what father and mother she cometh of; expedient and necessary it shall be for me and for my realm that I marry her.” He reassured the English ambassador, “I have as great a mind to her as ever I had to any woman.”5 Francis wrote to Mary, addressing her as “high and powerful princess” and assuring her of his loyalty as her good brother, cousin, and ally.6 In February 1527, a legation left France for England to conclude the terms of an alliance.
ON APRIL 23, as the court celebrated the Feast of Saint George at Greenwich, Mary received the French visitors. She spoke to them in Latin, French, and Italian and entertained them on the virginals.7 The principal French ambassador, the marquess of Turenne, declared that he was impressed by her accomplishments but observed that she was “so thin, spare and small as to make it impossible for her to be married for the next three years.”8 Francis’s mother, Louise of Savoy, the queen regent, proposed that the marriage should take place at Calais in August, and after the solemnization, the king, her son, might “abide himself for an hour or less with the Princess,” after which King Henry might carry her back again to England “unto such time as she should be thought [more] able.”9 Henry, however, refused to agree to either arrangement.
On April 30, “perpetual peace” was concluded between France and England: a pledge was made to declare war on Charles V if he refused to come to terms, and a French marriage between Mary and the French king, or his second son, the duke of Orléans, was agreed upon.10 Mary was now betrothed to the House of Valois.
For two weeks, the Anglo-French festivities continued. These culminated on May 5 in a great court feast and a masque. A painted curtain was drawn back to reveal a stage, and Mary and seven ladies of the court emerged from a gold cave to the sound of trumpets. The princess was “dressed in cloth of gold, her hair gathered in a net, with a richly jewelled garland, surmounted by a velvet cap, the hanging sleeves of their surcoats being so long that they well nigh touched the ground.” She looked radiant, wrote one observer; “her beauty in this array produced such an effect on everybody that all other marvellous sights previously witnessed were forgotten.” She wore on her person “so many precious stones that their splendour and radiance dazzled the sight, in so wise as to make one believe that she was decked with all the gems of the eighth sphere.”
Having descended from the cave, Mary and her ladies danced a ballet with eight lords. After the masque, festivities continued, with Mary dancing with her father at the heart of the revelry. Mary presented herself to Henry, who “took off her cap, and the net being displaced, a profusion of silver tresses as beautiful as ever seen on human head fell over her shoulders.”11 The evening entertainment culminated with the French ambassador dancing with Mary “and the King with Mistress Boleyn.”12