Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe (13 page)

Finally, once the body had been laid in its magnificent Italianate mausoleum in the castle chapel, the Lorraine herald called for silence in the crowd and shouted ‘Claude de Lorraine, Duke of Guise and peer of France is dead! Pray for his soul.’ This was a signal for onlookers to shed tears. The herald then turned towards the new Duke of Guise:

‘Long live the duke! Long live milord the Duke François!’ A final ritual remained. Morainville, the master of the household, summoned the staff and, taking his staff of office in both hands, raised it above his head and snapped it in two, throwing the broken ends into the throng: ‘the Duke of Guise is dead, his household is broken-up, everyone for themselves!’ But this scene was not the climax of the drama. While the heralds entered crying ‘Largesse, largesse, largesse of the very illustrious Prince François de Lorraine, Duke of Guise’, the new duke walked among his father’s servants, handing each of them a silver tankard, each of which was carved with hydras’ heads. ‘As tall as a man’s belt’, the tankards were so heavy they had to be carried with both hands.

* * * *

This regal ostentation set tongues wagging. Rumour had it that Francis I would not have permitted such a claim to royalty and that as he lay dying he warned his son about the royal pretensions of the Guise:

The former king guessed it quite right: 
That those of the House of Guise 
Would leave his sons in a terrible plight, 
And his subjects without a chemise.

In fact, this epigram saw the light of day thirteen years after it was supposed to have been uttered, and in very different circumstances. 43 
That said, in the sixteenth-century rumours were not idle gossip but the arteries of the body politic. Francis did have his suspicions. He was reported to have dismissed claims that he did not treat the Guise as well as his favourites by reference to past injustice: ‘I do not do as well for the princes of Lorraine as I should, for, when I think of how Louis XI wrested from them the duchy of Anjou and the county of Provence and other parts of their true inheritance, my conscience is clear.’44

What did the Guise think about these mutterings? They knew they had enemies. In April 1551, a plot to poison Mary, Queen of Scots, was uncovered. And they were convinced that Claude had been poisoned too. In the sixteenth century, almost every time an important person died suddenly the occult arts were suspected. But in this case the family went to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate their suspicions. The funeral oration for Claude alluded to his death at the hand of an ‘Antichrist’ and ‘a minister of Satan...versed in the occult arts’. And the family had it printed. In 1738, when the crypt was being repaired, his lead coffin was discovered to have the following inscription: ‘Here lies the high and mighty prince Claude de Lorraine, son of René of Sicily...who died by poisoning on 12 April 1550.’ In the seventeenth century, historians with a confessional axe to grind pointed an accusing finger at treacherous heretics. But the Guise had their own theory: this was the work of the Habsburgs, their bitterest enemy, who were not only in illegal possession of Naples and Sicily, but as lords of the Sundgau in southern Alsace, of the Breisgau on the Rhine, and of Franche-Comté to the south, made for powerful and threatening neighbours. It comes as no surprise that in the following decade Claude’s sons would dedicate themselves to war and the downfall of the House of Habsburg.

By the time of Francis I’s death in 1547, dreams of Italy, once the ideal of every young French knight, were fading as the struggle with the Habsburg’s moved to new theatres. Kings of England had never renounced their claim to the throne of France and Henry VIII’s reign began with a good deal of fanfare about reviving the glorious days of Henry V. He tried, largely unsuccessfully, to profit from the Habsburg-Valois conflict, supporting now one side and now the other. Until 1525 there were serious attempts to assert his claim to the French throne. After the victory of his imperial allies at Pavia, he was disappointed not to have secured at the very least the return of the Duchy of Normandy. The opening up of the New World, the expansion of international commerce and rivalry between England and France encouraged a naval arms race, the prize for the winner being control of the Channel and the North Sea. At first, the English looked to have the upper hand, despite the capsizing of the great ship, the Mary Rose, in the Solent in 1545 with the loss of 500 men. The year before, in support of Charles V, the English had invaded northern France and seized the strategic port of Boulogne, to add to Calais, the last continental possession of the English crown. The death of Henry VIII did not end the policy and the ‘Protector’ of the new king Edward VI, the Duke of Somerset, continued to pursue aggressively the idea of Anglo-Scottish union. Further humiliation for France followed in 1547 when an English army, supported by a large fleet, invaded Scotland and crushed the Franco-Scottish forces at Pinkie.

Francis’s successor, Henry II, had a vindictive streak. According to the Gascon captain Monluc, ‘he never forgot a fault or injury and could not easily conquer his resentments’. 1 This was probably because, as a child, he had had to suffer regular humiliation at the hands of his father.

Aged only 6 he had been sent to Spain as a hostage in exchange for Francis; but when his father reneged on his agreement with Charles V, Henry was forced to spend three years as a prisoner in close and sometimes harsh confinement. His experience marked him for life with a loathing for the Spanish. ‘As for the emperor the king hates him and declares openly his hatred. He wishes him every evil that it is possible to desire for one’s mortal enemy. This virulence is so deep that death alone or the total ruin of his enemy can cure it.’2 On his return to France he had to endure his father’s indifference and, until his early death in 1545, the favouritism displayed to his younger brother, Charles. During the last years of Francis’s increasingly paranoid reign, Henry gathered around him counsellors, headed by his father’s disgraced favourite, Anne de Montmorency, critical of what they regarded as Francis’s pusillanimity. This shadow cabinet began to prepare for power.

Henry was not yet ready to confront Spain when he ascended the throne. His energies were therefore directed at pursuing those he blamed for the fall of Boulogne, several of whom were banished; another died in prison and one, Jacques de Coucy, was beheaded and quartered. Within months the young king was reconnoitring Boulogne in person, the sight of whose strong defences reduced him to tears.

Considerable sums were invested in a new navy: five new men-of-war, built in the ‘English’ design, were added to the Atlantic fleet in the first three years of the reign. The battle of Pinkie was dramatic reminder of the fragility of the Auld Alliance and warning that the idea of an Anglo-Scottish union, in the shape of a marriage between Mary Stuart and Edward VI, was more than just English rhetoric. Fortunately for the French, few Scots found English declarations of love and amity convincing; they saw the English occupation as one of conquest. In October 1547, Marie de Guise, Queen Regnant of Scotland since James V’s premature death, made a formal appeal to the French king for support, and he responded by assembling a fleet of 130 ships to transport 5,500 foot and 1,000 horse. On 7 July 1548, a month after the arrival of reinforcements, the Treaty of Haddington was ratified by the Three Estates of Scotland, in which French responsibility for Scottish security was sealed by dynastic union: Mary Stuart was to be betrothed to the dauphin, François; and the regent of Scotland, the Earl of Arran, who became Duke of Châtellerault, was naturalized a French subject and promised the hand of a French princess. The English now found themselves fighting on two fronts. In order to defend Boulogne against French attack, they were forced to evacuate their strongholds in Scotland. Internal instability further weakened English resolve and in March she conceded terms favourable to France: ceding Boulogne in return for 400,000 crowns and recognizing the status quo in Scotland.

In the treaty negotiations, Henry assumed control of Scottish diplomacy and all matters pertaining to Scotland were dealt with by French commissioners. Henry II was now the ‘Protector’ of Scotland. No distinction was made between his protection of the kingdom and its young queen; writing to inform the Estates of Scotland that the ‘young Queen, my daughter’, had arrived safely in France and was with ‘her husband’, Henry declared that ‘in consequence, her Kingdom, her affairs and subjects are with ours the same thing, never separated’. 3 Henry’s intervention in Scotland was not foreseen as a short-term commitment; rather it was the beginning of a grand project, a first step in the building of a Franco-British empire, in which the kingdoms of France and Scotland would be joined in dynastic union. As regent, Marie de Guise energetically set about establishing French power in Scotland. But the French imperial imagination went further. The Tudor dynasty in England was weak and unstable. Edward VI was a sickly 13-year-old in 1550—his potential heirs all women. Mary Tudor’s claim was impeccable but she, a 34-year-old spinster, was not in rude health either. Mary Stuart was next in line to the throne: the Roman Catholic Church had never recognized Anne Boleyn as queen and in 1536 her daughter, Elizabeth, had been declared illegitimate by Parliament. The concept of a Franco-British empire, which at some future date might include the kingdom of England, was immensely attractive to Henry II, who had been schooled in classical ideas of imperial grandeur and who felt threatened by Spain’s claim to world empire.

Elsewhere, French diplomacy remained cautious, its purpose to build alliances against the Habsburgs rather than to confront them openly. Its chief architect was Montmorency. Born in 1493, he possessed all the experience and gravitas that the young king lacked; he had not only been chief counsellor to Henry since he was dauphin, but filled the role that Henry’s own father had failed in. An Italian ambassador described the king as trembling at the constable’s approach ‘as children do when they see their schoolmaster’. 4 Montmorency was made immensely rich through service to the Crown. His principal weakness was that, although he was descended from an ancient baronial house, he was not a prince and therefore lacked the pedigree of his rivals.

Although they did not direct foreign policy, the Guise, with their impeccable ancestral credentials, were the principal means by which the Franco-British empire was to be forged. The themes of empire and conquest that dominated the new reign are best understood in an examination of the magnificent festival organized at Rouen in 1550 in honour of the king. All newly crowned French kings had the right to be feted during a royal entry into each of the principal towns of the kingdom, where ceremonial displays were performed, depicting such themes as loyalty, submission, and civic liberty. The Rouen entry was of a different order from royal entries before or since in its size and sophistication; it was the most spectacular event of the sixteenth century, ‘a vainglorious display of [Henry’s] accomplishments and a confident expression of things yet to come’. 5

The choice of Rouen was significant in itself, a choice not predicated solely on its historic ties to the British Isles. With a population approaching 20 million France was by far the most populous state in Europe, and for the previous half-century its demographic growth had been matched by an unprecedented urban, economic, and cultural renaissance. Rouen, whose population had doubled to 75,000 during this time, was a symbol of this transformation. It was surpassed in importance only by London and Antwerp as a Channel seaport. It had a dynamic economy based on the expanding Atlantic shipping trade; a major entrepôt it was home to significant communities of English, Scottish, Spanish, and Portuguese merchants. Its geographic position, linking it to Paris via the river Seine, and its international maritime trade were crucial to fulfilling the dream of a Franco-British empire. Rouen merchants provided the capital for the trading and fishing fleets which operated out of other Norman ports, such as the new deep-water port at Le Havre, construction of which had begun in 1517. Normandy’s ports sheltered the newly built navy which would protect Franco-British imperial communications. Dieppe, a significant town in its own right, larger than York, was the principal link with Scotland. It was home to a sizeable Scottish community—John Knox was among friends when he preached there in 1558.

Perhaps the most striking feature among all the cavalcades and processions was the celebration of France’s contacts with the Americas. 
A New World-themed village was set up in a meadow beside the Seine surrounded by a make-believe tropical forest, where parrots were tethered to fake palm trees. Naked bands of Tupinamba Indians, brought from Brazil by Norman mariners who traded there, fought a mock combat in front of the king. The humanity of these ‘primitive savages’ was widely debated and provided the Renaissance with one of its greatest achievements in Montaigne’s essay in their defence, ‘On the Cannibals’. The civilizing of these primitives was only one aspect of the benefits of an empire joined by the seas. A magnificent theatrical naval combat in which Neptune emerged from the river Seine represented the victory of Norman vessels over its two greatest sea-going rivals, the English and the Portuguese. The recovery of Boulogne was celebrated in a military parade of thousands of soldiers, as life-sized elephants made of papier-mâché ambled along in front of ‘captives’, representing English prisoners of war. Soldiers in Roman costume carrying banners signifying the Scottish strongholds recovered by French arms were followed by a chariot on which a winged Fortune held an imperial crown over a laurelled figure clad in armour representing Henry.

The Guise had leading parts in the production. Marie de Guise’s younger brother, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, was heavily involved in the organization, which meant leaning on local magistrates suspicious of her right to enjoy her own royal entry. As significant landowners in the region, the Guise already had some leverage in the town, the origins of a clientèle that expanded along with their ambitions for the British Isles. Several days before the festival began, Marie preceded the king to Rouen, not by horse or carriage, but on a fleet of galleys. The lavishness of Henry’s entry exposed the Scots and English in attendance to the grandeur of France and, by inference, to the benefits of dynastic alliance. Mary, Queen of Scots, had a prominent part in the procession—her position alongside her future husband, the dauphin, tangible confirmation of the union of the two crowns. 
Henry II proudly boasted in a letter to the Sultan that: