The Protestant queen of Navarre the mother of the Bourbons

Preface

IT is often said that French history would not be the sad tragedy it is had the women who wore the crown been wiser and nobler ; and the women who ruled the court, and whose influence is every-where to be traced in the national policy, been loftier and purer in heart and character.

To this stricture, true in the main, Jeanne d'Albret forms a shining exception. The life of this brave, noble Frenchwoman belongs not merely to her own country, but to the world.

Contemporary with Queen Elizabeth, it is a curious fact that the two greatest women of Europe, at the most eventful crisis of its history, occupied Protestant thrones.

The French queen had the nobler soul, and, could the two have changed places, would have acted in many a trying emergency a higher part than the great Englishwoman.

One closed in glory and honor the reign of the Tudors ; the other founded a new dynasty, and

6 Preface.

gave to France the first and greatest of her Bourbon kings.

The life of Jeanne d'Albret from her birth to her death has all the interest and fascination of a romance ; and the history of the fifteenth century would be incomplete without that slight, heroic figure in the foreground, stronger in its simplicity and integrity than the crowned sovereigns, the mailed warriors, the mighty statesmen who surround it.

Neither her lofty gifts, her noble character, her beauty and grace, renowned at every court in Europe, could save her from the crudest wrongs and griefs which ever fell to the lot of woman.

V. F. T.

Jfihtsiraiiang,

PAGE

Escape of Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre... 2

"This is Mine," he said, taking the Infant in

his Arms 95

The Cardinal of Lorraine Greeting the King of

Navarre 162

Jeanne d'Albret by the Bedside of Coligny..,. 277

THE

PROTESTANT QUEEN OF NAYARRE.

Chapter I

THERE was great joy in the palace of Fontainebleau on that long ago winter morning, January 8th, 1528, for Marguerite d'Angouleme, the beautiful and idolized sister of Francis, had borne a daughter to her husband Henry II., king of Navarre.

The child, whose birth was hailed with such pride and delight, had entered on the world's stage at a critical period. Her part there, as we shall see, was to be one of the grandest and noblest ever appointed a woman ; one of the hardest and saddest too.

It is worth while to pause here a moment and think what was going on in the world on that far away winter morning, when the cry of the newborn girl was first heard in the stately palace of her uncle, the king.

Ten years before, a monk, with a tall, commanding figure, and a keen, powerful face, had gone up through the soft Prussian landscape in the pleasant October weather, and quietly nailed io The Protestant Queen of Navarre,

some propositions to the door of the old parish church in Wittemburg.

Each stroke of that monk's hammer in the still, soft air of the October morning had rung through the land, through the whole world ! The strokes were ringing still, louder and louder, shaking crowns and miters ; shaking the souls of men too ; shaking the habits, beliefs, superstitions of ages, until the world seemed rocking to its foundations. Only Martin Luther's hammer on the old parish church door, you remember !

At the time of the birth of the princess, all Europe was in a state of unrest and agitation. Charles V., whose age just measured the century's, was now emperor of Germany, king of Spain, sovereign of Naples, of the Low Countries, the Indies, making him at this era the most powerful figure on the world's stage. Three such vast empires, such power and grandeur, must, it seemed, satisfy any human ambition ; but the greed of Charles V. was insatiable.

Outside of his military talents, one finds very little to admire in the great monarch of the first half of the sixteenth century. He was at heart "an Austrian tyrant, a Spanish bigot." His cold, scheming, selfish nature seems to have been unequal to a thrill of generous enthusiasm, and throughout his whole career his treatment of his enemies — that sure test of a noble nature — proved the essential hardness and coldness of the soul of Charles V.

He regarded the dictates of humanity only when his own interests required him to do this, and the conquered he was sure to set his iron heel upon. His most ungenerous treatment of his brother-sovereign, Francis I., when the chances of war made the French king a prisoner in Madrid, his later conduct toward Philip of Hesse, the Elector of Saxony, and toward the insurgents of Ghent, prove the real character of the man whom his courtiers flattered by calling him "the modern Cesar." The emperor's arrogance and usurpations had at last armed all the powers of civilized Europe against him. Italy was at this time the principal theater of the contest. Its fair plains and beautiful cities were devastated, and given up to sack and slaughter. The flags of France and England, forgetting their ancient enmity, waved side by side on the battle field. Even the pope, Clement VII., whose orthodoxy was never allowed to stand in the way of his interests, sent his forces and consecrated banners to join the foes of the emperor.

It is curious to remember, too, what they were doing just across the channel, in this very year when the Princess Marguerite first saw the light. They had been having serious times at Oxford. The tracts and Testaments that Tyndal had published at Antwerp had found their way secretly into the great college of Christ Church, which Wolsey, the magnificent minister of Henry VIII., had founded. The students had read these, and held private prayer-meetings, and become inoculated with the German heresy.

The authorities had gone mercilessly to work to weed out the new religion root and branch. There had been fearful scenes in the old college. Some of the students had been arrested, imprisoned, and tortured ; others had made their escape by flight. It makes one's heart ache now to read of those cold, gray English dawns, and of the poor, hunted, shivering youths creeping in disguise off to London, or making their way across the country to the Channel, while the secret police of Wolsey were on their track, scouring the land far and wide, ready to pounce, like wolves, on their prey.

In that year, too, there were dark whispers at the English court. All the world knew by this time that Henry VIII. did not love the pale, proud Spanish woman who still reigned as his queen, and who never forgot in her bitterest griefs, that she was the daughter of a long line of Spanish kings, the child of Ferdinand and Isabella, and that her ancestors sat on thrones when the Tudors were a wild race of chieftains among the mountains and forests of Wales.

In this very year, 1528, it was common talk at court that the king was in the frequent habit of stealing away from his palaces of Eltham and Greenwich, and riding straight for Hever Castle. Here Sir Thomas Boleyn, the father of Queen Catharine's most beautiful maid of honor, resided.

When the bugle blew on the hill-top near the castle, and the echoes in the woods caught up the clear, sweet sounds, the people knew that the king was at hand. Anne Boleyn's heart must have throbbed high when she heard the blast of that bugle on the hill-top. She knew for whose sake the king had. ridden his panting horse all these miles.

One fancies her coming in her loveliness and grace through the antique gallery to the oaken chamber, where, they tell us, she always granted Henry audience. What a fascinating creature she must have been ! To all her native gifts were added that indescribable charm and polish gained in her long residence at the French court. She had gone there in her childhood, in the train of sweet Mary Tudor, when the youngest and favorite sister of Henry went to her brief bridal with the French king.

Mary was a widow within eighty days after her marriage, and the bride of her old lover, Charles Brandon, a little later; but for some unexplained reason Anne Boleyn did not return to England with her mistress, but remained at the French court for awhile maid of honor to the king's sister, Marguerite d'Angouleme. Yet it would have been better for poor Anne Boleyn if the bugle had never sounded on the hills before Hever Castle — better a thousand times for her if she had never come in her grace and loveliness through the antique gallery to the oaken chamber to grant the king audience.

Marguerite d'Angouleme, at the time of her daughter's birth, was about thirty-five years of age. It seems difficult to write of this historic Frenchwoman without exhausting the whole vocabulary of praise, for it seemed as though nature had lavished every possible gift and grace on her favorite.

Her beauty was conspicuous amid the beauty of her brother's court. She was tall, like the king, whom she strongly resembled. She had a face full of sweetness and animation, deep violet eyes, and soft, golden hair.

But Marguerite's mental gifts were more remarkable than her personal beauty ; her society and correspondence were sought by the most learned men of Europe.

She possessed wonderful intellectual energy, though her mind was not of the masculine type of her distinguished mother, Louise of Savoy. Literature and art were the delight of Marguerite's life. Her conversation was witty and brilliant : her noble intellect and generous heart fascinated all who approached her ; her poems and letters charm the reader by their grace and imagination.

But Marguerite's heart and character formed, after all, her chief attraction. Her purity, her heroic capacity for self-devotion, her noble loyalty to truth and goodness, all combine to make an ideal portrait, and Marguerite d'Angouleme, as she stands in history, seems almost exempt from the imperfections of humanity.

Yet her position was in many respects peculiarlytrying ; it would inevitably bring to light whatever faults and foibles there were in her character.

Her brother, the magnificent Francis I., probably loved his only sister better than any thing else on earth, and delighted to make her the star of his court, and the source and almoner of his bounty, to his people.

Marguerite returned this tenderness with all the strength and ardor of her nature. Her affection for her brother was the deepest love of her life. It had its roots far back in her infancy, for Marguerite was only two years his senior, and from babyhood had been his inseparable companion.

Her son was two years old when Louise of Savoy was left a widow, and the care of her children devolved wholly on the mother not yet past her girlhood. She was at first utterly crushed by the loss of a husband more than double her age, but to whom she had been devotedly attached.

At the birth of Francis, Louise of Savoy was but eighteen years of age, and in case of the failure of the direct heirs, the crown and throne of France would descend to her son.

When the boy was born there seemed very little prospect of his ever attaining the sovereignty, but this remote possibility aroused the energies and ambitions latent in the soul of Louise of Savoy. Nobody appears to have suspected the real qualities of her character until the death of her husband brought them to light.

The young widow arose from the blow which at first had overwhelmed her to devote herself to her two beautiful children. All her tenderness, her hopes, her ambitions, centered here. She avowed her intention never to marry again, and she kept her word amid powerful inducements to break it. The sudden death of the king, Charles VIII., without heirs, before Francis had reached his fourth year, made the boy first prince of the blood, and from that time his accession became the one hope and ambition of his mother's life. On that shining goal her eyes were steadily fixed through all the trials and reverses which beset her, and these might readily have crushed a less indomitable nature.

For as the years went on, Louise of Savoy developed a most remarkable character. The gentle, devoted young wife became the haughty, ambitious, unscrupulous woman. She proved herself equal to her position, which, in many respects, might well have tried the energies and resources of a strong man. Louise of Savoy had a vigorous masculine intellect. Her sagacity, her keen penetration, her signal talents for government, her iron will and lofty courage, make her one of the most remarkable women of history.

There was, unfortunately, a darker side to the portrait. The beautiful, gifted, and fascinating woman proved herself, when the test came, fatally lacking in moral qualities. She was. passionate, selfish, vindictive, pitiless, and remorseless; she the Mother of the Bourbons. \*j

could tread down, like some inexorable fate, whatever stood in the way of her desires and ambitions. But her devotion to her children was absolute ; their beauty and precocity were the delight and surprise of all who beheld them.

When Louis XII. ascended the throne of France he assigned the castle of Amboise to Louise of Savoy, as a permanent residence for herself and her children.

Here the young mother could carry out in freedom her own plans in the education of her idolized children ; she could mold that daughter whose childish loveliness and dawning intellect gave early promise of the beautiful womanhood into which they were to ripen ; she could train that gallant boy whose young temples his mother saw in her proud visions encircled with the crown of France.

The home at Amboise, with the admirable management of its mistress, was probably the most delightful in the France of that age. The children's tutors were assigned by the king, while a gallant company of the sons of the principal nobles of the realm were sent to Amboise to be the companions and pages, and share the education, of the prince.

The old castle stands now in gray, gloomy repose under the sunny skies of France. Within those great stone ribs does there brood a tender memory of the gay, brave young life which once went on there.

Do the thick walls still hold some echoes of the merry laughter of the noisy games, of the clattering of hoofs, when the gay young cavaliers rode in from the hunt ? Are they haunted still by the pomp and grace of that old feudal life — a life whose lease was to run yet for nearly three centuries, until the descendants of Marguerite had succeeded the grandchildren of her brother on the throne of France, and the House of Bourbon had long worn the crown of the Valois ?

Marguerite was the small queen of that young band of cavaliers. She was born to be the star of courts all her life. In her childhood at Amboise she knew that her smile stimulated the young cavaliers to their bravest efforts in game or pastime, and her fair hands always placed the wreath on the brow of the victor.

But the singular devotion of the brother and sister was, perhaps, the most marked characteristic of their childhood. During all their lives no other love — neither husband's, wife's, nor child's — was allowed to rival this supreme one. Its roots struck deep in their infancy ; it perished only with their lives.

Marguerite had, no doubt, a powerful molding influence on her brother. What was best in him he owed more or less to that loyal heart and elevated character.

That high tone of chivalry which was hereafter to distinguish the first of the line of Valois, the generous magnanimity which often dazzled the eyes of Europe, had, no doubt, its inspiration largely in the society and example of his " Pearl of Pearls," as Francis I. fondly called his sister.

Louis XII., on ascending the throne, divorced himself from the wife he had been forced into marrying, and wedded Anne of Bretagne, widow of the late king. She was a young and beautiful woman, with many noble qualities of heart and mind. But she too was proud and ambitious, and her interests were directly opposed to those of Louise of Savoy. A bitter animosity existed between the two women, which their circumstances and positions only tended to inflame.

The passionate desire of the new queen's heart was to bear a prince to the throne, which would have cut off the claims of Louise's son to the crown.

But Anne's son died in his infancy, and despite the bitter and long-continued opposition of her mother, Claude, the eldest daughter of Louis XII., was at last betrothed to the heir of the throne.

When Marguerite reached her seventeenth year, she was married to the Duke d'Alencon ; this was arranged by the king, who, though greatly governed by his queen, seems always to have had a strong regard for the children of Louise of Savoy. It was a terrible sacrifice of the beautiful, high-souled girl. There had been serious talk, at one time, of betrothing her to the prince, afterward Henry VIII., of England. When he came to man's estate he deeply regretted that his father

20 The Protestant Qtteen of Navarre,

had not favored the union. But Catharine of Arragon had brought with her a large dowry. When little more than a child the Spanish girl came to wed Henry's brother, and when he died, the avarice which was in the Tudor blood, made her hard old father-in-law resolved to retain her portion by marrying her to her brother-in-law, now prince of Wales.

So Marguerite d'Angouleme lost the crown of England, and we all know what grief came of that Spanish marriage.

Charles d'Alencon had nothing but his high birth and his handsome person to recommend him to the beautiful girl whose hand he had won, whose senior he was by many years, and whose nature his own — bigoted, morose, and jealous — was totally incapable of comprehending.

Nobody, however, appears to have made the slightest opposition to the union. Rank and fortune almost invariably settled the marriages of those days, and this one was celebrated with great pomp, the king himself leading Marguerite to and from the altar.

The sudden death of Anne of Bretagne threw court and kingdom into the deepest gloom, for the queen was widely beloved ; but the succession seemed now assured to Francis. His mother, in her pride and exultation, furgot her usual discreet tact, and appeared at court, actually taking upon herself much of the state and authority of the dead queen, thereby deeply offending the widowed king.

It is said that to these assumptions on the part of Louise was largely owing the sudden betrothal of Louis XII. to Mary Tudor, the young sister of the king of England.

This union at once clouded the prospects of Francis, and his mother retired from the palace in anger and dismay, while the young English girl came across the channel with her train of maidens, among whom was fair Anne Boleyn, to her short-lived bridal with the French monarch.

Eighty days after her marriage she was a widow, and Louise of Savoy had reached the dazzling goal of her hopes and ambitions, for her son was king of France !

To tell of the opening years of his reign, of all the pomp and splendor which filled it, of palaces enriched with all the beauty and glory of art, of a court adorned by the presence of the most gifted men of Europe, where intellect and genius received the most flattering recognition, and were rewarded munificently, does not fall within the province of this book.

Madame, as the king's stately mother, now in the prime of her years and beauty, was called, could at last exercise to the full her great talents for government, and her influence was felt in every corner of France, for, through the son, who adored her, she largely ruled the realm.

But Marguerite reigned the queen of her brother's court as she had reigned long ago in the smaller one of Amboise. Francis was never weary of displaying his homage and devotion to his sister. The courtiers hung upon her smiles, and exhausted language in her praise. Wherever she moved she breathed the incense of flattery. Despite her illstarred marriage, despite the gallantries of the gay, corrupt court, amid which she moved, the young sister of the king passed untouched by scandal through the terrible ordeal of those first years of her brother's reign.

All their tastes were in common, and Marguerite shared with the utmost enthusiasm all her brother's plans for beautifying palaces and grounds, for founding colleges, for adding fresh glory and renown to the kingdom and the line of Valois.

But dark days were in store for the three whose exclusive and absorbing devotion had earned them throughout Europe the name of " The Trinity of France."

Francis had proved his valor and won his first victory at Marignano. Nine years later he met the darkest day of his life at Pavia, when he lost the battle through the failure of his brother-in-law, d'Alengon, to support him.

The king was in the power of his enemy, Charles V. The dreadful tidings of the defeat and capture of Francis plunged his realm into despair. The misery of his mother and sister it would be useless to attempt to describe. Neither can the story of that long, dreary imprisonment at Madrid be told here. The emperor used his power most ungenerously, and demanded a ransom for his royal prisoner which it was impossible for France to pay without dismembering the realm.

The king, languishing of disappointment and hope deferred in his foreign prison, was brought to the borders of the grave.

His brother-in-law went home to die of shame and remorse; and Marguerite, after attending her husband through his last illness with the utmost devotion, was left a widow in the flower of her days. She afterward made that journey into Spain which-is, perhaps, the most signal proof of a sister's devotion in the annals of all history. In that long, perilous journey Marguerite risked life and liberty, but she would joyfully have resigned both for her brother's sake.

The meeting of the king and his sister in the dark, lonely prison at Madrid, where Francis was apparently drawing his last breath ; his subsequent revival ; the interviews of the beautiful widow with the cold, crafty, greedy emperor; the impression which her loveliness, dignity, and sagacity made on him ; the keenness with which she penetrated his motives, and outwitted his councils, composed of the shrewdest statesmen of Europe ; the reluctance with which he permitted her departure ; her bare escape from arrest on her long, rapid retreat from Spain, have all the charm and interest of a romance.

No doubt Marguerite's efforts at this time largely contributed to the subsequent release of her brother. France, during the forced absence of the king, was under the admirable government of his mother. She had been appointed regent before her son's departure. Her powers were absolute ; and she sought to raise heaven and earth to accomplish the release of her son.

But soon after Marguerite rejoined her mother, who, with many forebodings, had at last granted permission for her daughter's famous journey into Spain, another royal prisoner made his escape from captivity and joined the court.

This was Henry d'Albret, king of Navarre. He was at this time only twenty- two years of age. He had been taken captive, fighting valiantly on the French king's side, on that ill-fated day of Pavia. He had been since that time confined in the castle there, and had in vain offered the emperor a large ransom for his liberty. It was of the highest importance to Charles V. to hold Henry d'Albret his prisoner.

The little mountain kingdom of Navarre, lying on the frontier of France and Spain, had maintained its independence for nearly seven centuries. The sovereigns of the two great nations found it important always to secure the good-will of a monarch who, it was scarcely an exaggeration to say, wore the keys of the Pyrenees at his girdle.

The crown of Navarre at last fell by the death of male heirs to the young princess, Catharine. Ferdinand and Isabella at that time would gladly have wedded the heir of Spain to the queen of

Navarre. But her mother was the sister of Louis XII., and her French sympathies proved stronger than her ambitions for the splendid alliance offered her daughter. Catharine married John d'Albret, a French nobleman, whose large dominions layadjacent to her own.

In the year 15 12 war broke out between France and Spain, and Ferdinand requested a passage for his troops through Navarre. But the sovereigns of the little mountain kingdom had already thrown in their lot with France. On discovering this, the wily, avaricious Ferdinand at once proceeded to invade Spanish Navarre. He took its towns and forts unprepared for war, compelled its sovereigns to flee into France, and overrun the whole kingdom on his side the Pyrenees. At the time the fairest portion of his heritage was thus shamefully wrested from him, Henry of Navarre must have reached his ninth year.

All the efforts of the French king to dislodge the Spaniards from the territory of his ally was unavailing. What the selfish Ferdinand had seized, that he held with the strong hand of greed and power. He prevailed on the pope to recognize his usurpation, and on his death-bed the hard old monarch declared that he felt as easy in keeping Navarre as he did his own kingdom of Arragon.

When Henry succeeded to the crown of his brave mother, who died about four years after she had seen all her Spanish dominions ruthlessly torn from her grasp, he was left only in possession of that portion of Navarre which lay on the French side of the Pyrenees. It was natural that the passionate desire of his young life should be the restoration of his ancient heritage, and that, like his parents, he should cast in his lot with France. He had received his education at Amboise, being one of that favored circle who shared the studies and sports of the prince, and the standard of Navarre had been joined with the lilies of France on that black day at Pavia. Both monarchs were now at the mercy of Charles V. Henry d'Albret, finding that all offers of ransom were declined, perceived that the emperor intended to force his prisoner into ceding the kingdom of Navarre as the sole price of his liberty.

The courageous young monarch, whom nature seemed to have endowed with every grace of body and mind, now resolved to risk his life, and make one last effort for his freedom before he renounced his kingdom. It seemed a hopeless undertaking. The king was confined in the highest tower of the strong old castle of Pavia, and closely guarded. But the perils of the enterprise only enhanced Henry's determination to accomplish it.

With admirable skill he set about laying the plans for a flight so beset with perils that it must have daunted any courage less ardent than his own.

As a king, though he was so closely guarded, Henry was held in honorable captivity, and his officers and servants were allowed admission to his apartments. By liberal bribes he induced two of the guards, posted in the antechamber, to relax their strict scrutiny of his attendants: he then managed to have a ladder of ropes secretly conveyed to him, resolving to make his escape by this frail descent from a window in his chamber situated at a fearful height in the principal tower of the fortress.

At midnight, December 20, 1525, the king disguised himself in the garments of his page, Francis de Rochefort, who placed himself in his master's bed, and in the darkness the king of Navarre made the terrible descent, and landed safely at the base of the tower, followed by the Baron d'Arras and a servant.

The court-yard was thronged with soldiers, but the page's disguise was so perfect that the monarch was not recognized under it, and he passed through them in safety.

Just outside the city walls fleet horses stood in waiting. The king vaulted on one, and rode for life and liberty to Piedmont. The flight was not discovered until the following noon, for, though the captain entered at his usual hour to satisfy himself of his royal captive's presence, he found the curtains drawn closely around the king's couch, and a page entreated that his master, who had been seriously ill through the night, need not be disturbed.

The officer, wholly deceived, complied. The * See Frontispiece.

long slumbers of the king began, however, to awaken some suspicion, when the officer at last entered the apartment and insisted on drawing his majesty's curtains. A glance at the faithful page told the whole story, and they left Rochefort a prisoner in the royal couch.

There was hot racing for Henry of Navarre. He had many hours the start of his pursuers, and there was no finer horseman at the French court than the handsome chivalric young monarch. On that long, perilous flight he hardly drew rein until he was safe beyond the boundaries of his own and his father's enemy. Even then he would not pause for rest or refreshment, but pushed on to the French coast, where the regent and her daughter received the allies of the king with distinguished honors.