Sex with the Queen (8 page)

friends, but announced that French subjects could not hold of-ficial positions at the Spanish court. Her ladies erupted in a flurry of complaints and reproaches, and some indeed went back to France. Those who remained were accused of alienating the queen from her new country; they kept her surrounded by French language and customs so she did not learn Spanish words and ways; furthermore, they prevented her from becoming close to her Spanish ladies.

The duque de Alba, majordomo of the queen’s household, looked at her French ladies as vile interlopers and hoped to in-sult them so irrevocably that they would all leave voluntarily. He assigned one lady in delicate health, Mademoiselle de Montpen-sier, a French princess of the Blood Royal, a cheerless chamber without a fireplace so she suffered dreadfully from the cold.

There were stories that he tried to prevent her from riding in the queen’s coach, that he even grabbed the train of her gown and dragged her from the carriage as she fought him off with punches and kicks. On another journey he pulled the cushions from un-der her in the royal litter to make her ride intolerably uncom-fortable. The government of France was furious.

Such disputes convinced many courts that, in the interest of international relations, no foreign bride should be permitted to bring with her a single lady. No childhood friends, no fa-miliar faces, no one to speak her own language in a familiar ac-cent. In 1893 Crown Princess Marie of Romania was not allowed to bring ladies from her native England. Neither was she permitted to make Romanian friends. The curmudgeonly King Carol was afraid that she might ally herself to one politi-cal faction or another at court, and therefore forbade her any society at all.

Living in a kind of prison in her rooms, Marie described her life as “cramped, lonely, and incredibly dull.”33 Rarely permitted to attend state functions, balls, operas, or parties, Marie found herself bored to death, surrounded by hawkeyed servants who spied at keyholes, fished papers out of her trash bin, and reported her every word and action to the king. When Marie complained, old King Carol informed her that mem-3 0

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bers of a royal family should have no expectation of personal happiness.

F a m i l y R e u n i o n s

If the princess bride felt lonely and unhappy at her new court, she was in no position to visit her family back home. Travel was strenuous and often dangerous. Carriages, without benefit of springs, jolted mercilessly over rutted roads. When it rained, wheels stuck in morasses of mud; when it didn’t, dust coated pas-sengers from head to toe. Many roads were too atrocious to per-mit the use of carriages, and travelers, even the old and ailing, were forced to mount mules. Roadside inns were so riddled with filth and insects that well-heeled travelers carted their own beds, sheets, and armchairs with them.

Even sea travel had its difficulties. Sailboats were pitched about by storms which strained the rigging and sometimes snapped the masts. Even the noblest travelers heaved up their meals into the deep blue sea. Periodically the lack of wind was a problem—ships were becalmed for weeks on end while passengers cooled their heels. Pirates cruised the ocean blue ready to swoop down upon unsuspecting vessels. In 1149 Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of France, was captured by Byzantine pirates on her re-turn from the Crusades and held prisoner until warships came to her rescue. In 1784 Aimée de Rivery, a cousin of Josephine, the future empress of France, was captured by North African pirates and sold into the Sultan’s harem in Istanbul from which she never emerged.

Pirates aside, even legitimate navies posed a threat. The shift-ing balance of European power often meant war or threats of war, and royalty would make valuable hostages. In 1795 French warships hoped to capture Princess Caroline of Brunswick on her way to marry George, Prince of Wales. When the British squadron sent to defend her became stuck in the ice, Caroline had to backtrack and wait for warmer weather. Her weeks of boredom were punctuated by the booming of cannon fire in the distance.

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Not only was travel difficult and dangerous, but those willing to endure the hardships of the road or sea usually found that the demands of royal protocol were more aggravating than the trip was worth. For several years after her 1559 marriage to King Philip II of Spain, Elizabeth de Valois longed to visit her mother, the French queen regent Catherine de Medici, and her younger brother, King Charles IX, who were, after all, just across the border.

After much wrangling among diplomats, ministers, and both royal families, it was decided that the reunion of mother and daughter would be held in June 1565. The first debate centered on the location. The French did not want to demean themselves by crossing the Spanish border, using the excuse that out of re-spect the daughter should travel farther to visit her mother. Sim-ilarly, the Spanish believed that their nation’s prestige was far greater than that of France, so the French court should cross the border into Spain. The town of Bayonne, just over the Spanish border, was finally agreed upon.

On both sides, the selection of courtiers for the voyage was hotly contested; men unsheathed their swords to win this great honor; women unsheathed their claws. In both Spain and France, there was much slashing and shredding. Ladies pleaded the honorable positions they held in the royal household, while men trumpeted the battlefield feats of their ancestors. Tears were shed, sobs erupted, and finally a list was assembled that de-lighted some and outraged others.

The next question was one of wardrobe. Each court wanted to outdo the other in its magnificence. But Philip told the queen’s ladies that Elizabeth “deprecated foolish and extravagant expen-diture on the occasion, and that she considered the robes, which the ladies of the household ordinarily wore, were costly and magnificent enough, and ought to be worn full nine months longer.” He prevented his courtiers from ordering new gold and silver embroidered equipment for their horses, and “hoped that in France they would act on the same principle, in order that a meeting, which was planned for pleasure, and not for ostenta-tious display, might not give occasion for grievous expenses.”34

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The French court, however, saw this as the perfect opportu-nity to outshine their Spanish rivals and ordered opulent car-riages and lavish clothing. The queen mother emptied the national treasury and then went headlong into debt to impress the Spanish with the magnificence of France. When her minis-ters reproached her, she replied that “the reason wherefore she sanctioned so great an outlay of money, for the reputation of the kingdom must be maintained, at least in outward matters, the more especially as the national funds were failing.”35

Hearing of this, Philip sadly agreed that his court must not be outdazzled by the French, and he allowed the Spanish entourage the same expenditures. When Philip heard of the large number of courtiers accompanying King Charles, he reluctantly tripled the number in Elizabeth’s retinue. In addition to new wardrobes and carriages, both sides would bring with them their own furni-ture, drapes, tapestries, tables, beds, bedsheets, and silverware, on pack mules and in carts, crossing plains and mountains in biting rain and broiling sun. These items, too, must impress with their magnificence.

On April 9 Elizabeth set out for Bayonne. But the Spanish queen could not take a speedy, direct route. Cities and towns along the way clamored for her visit. Townspeople organized pa-rades; artisans crafted triumphal arches for her carriage to pass through. Mayors and city councilmen gave lengthy speeches praising their queen and arranged long banquets in her honor.

Churches insisted that she pray at their altars, worship their saints, and march in their processions. Poorhouses and orphan-ages begged her to stop by with alms. By the time the exhausted Elizabeth reached Bayonne, the journey had taken her almost nine weeks and her mother had been stewing for a fortnight in a heat wave.

Notified of the imminent arrival of the Spaniards, on June 14 King Charles and Queen Catherine waited in the royal pavilion for two hours. Six soldiers assigned to stand guard out-side died of sunstroke. It is likely that Elizabeth’s vicious major-domo, the duque de Alba, who hated Catherine, indulged in a little revenge by making the queen of France sweat beneath her l i f e b e h i n d p a l a c e w a l l s 3 3

gold embroidered velvets. When the Spanish entourage ap-proached, thirty-five of the noblest ladies rode sidesaddle on mules, to the hearty guffaws of French courtiers who thought the sight ridiculous. During the heartwarming reunion of mother and daughter, hundreds of courtiers were roaming the nearby villages seeking food and shelter. Catherine was forced to step in to prevent famine and pestilence; she unceremoniously ejected the villagers from their houses, which she assigned to courtiers.

In between the jousts, pageants, feasts, masked balls, artificial combats, fetes, and galas, the several political conversations be-tween mother and daughter proved fruitless; Catherine exerted pressure on Elizabeth to influence Philip on issues that would benefit France, and not necessarily Spain. The duque de Alba, furious at Catherine’s misguided political efforts, informed her that her daughter must return forthwith to Spain, as her hus-band could no longer live with her absence.

Catherine’s parting instructions to Elizabeth were oddly impossible—that she was to “follow the humor of the king her husband in all matters, and above all, never to forget or to slight the interests of her brother’s crown.”36

The expense, the wrangling, and the wasted months and futile political negotiations of this visit served as an example to future generations of royals. Family reunions would be few and far be-tween, if ever. In 1699 Elizabeth Charlotte, duchesse d’Orléans, hoped to visit her pregnant daughter who had married the ruler of the duchy of Lorraine. Because no one in either party was a king—her husband, Monsieur, was a duke, as was her daughter’s husband—she hoped the visit would not be prevented by the frac-tious demands of protocol.

But the duc de Lorraine insisted on sitting in an armchair in the presence of the duc d’Orléans, an honor he was accorded by the Holy Roman Emperor. The duc d’Orléans, however, citing French etiquette, replied that the duc de Lorraine would only be given a stool to sit upon. When the duc de Lorraine flat-out re-fused to sit on a stool, the duc d’Orléans generously suggested that he be given a high-backed chair with no arms. But the duc de Lorraine stubbornly insisted on having a chair
with
arms.