The Rival Queens (2 page)

M
ARGUERITE DE
V
ALOIS WAS BORN
on May 14, 1553, at the royal palace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, about ten miles northwest of Paris. She was her parents’ sixth surviving child and the youngest of their three daughters. Her father was Henri II, stern ruler of turbulent, profligate, sublime Renaissance France; her mother, his meek, plain, afterthought of a wife, Catherine de’ Medici. Although the king was a fond parent who made a point of spending time with his children, at Margot’s birth Henri was distracted by war with his perennial nemesis, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, whose vast realm, which included Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and large portions of Italy, dwarfed and surrounded Henri II’s, and so his youngest daughter’s entry into the world was muted. Her mother, an inveterate and enthusiastic letter writer, did not even bother to mention the event in her correspondence.

For the first years of her life, the infant princess lived with her two older sisters, Elizabeth, eight years her senior, and gentle Claude, six at the time of Marguerite’s birth, as well as her exotic ten-year-old future sister-in-law, Mary Stuart, who had recently arrived from Scotland, and all their various nurses and governesses
at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Her brothers—the dauphin, Francis (engaged to Mary); followed by Charles and then Henri (also known as the duke of Anjou)—were schooled elsewhere, although they, like the rest of the royal court, visited frequently. The last of the royal offspring, François, duke of Alençon, Marguerite’s younger brother, also spent his infancy and early childhood with the girls at Saint-Germain.
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Life at Saint-Germain-en-Laye was very pleasant for Marguerite and her siblings. The magnificent royal palace was one of her father’s preferred residences—he had been raised there himself as a child—and upon his ascension to the throne, Henri II had undertaken substantial renovations, including the addition of two new wings. There were wonderful gardens, a forest for hunting, and even a tennis court. Some two hundred servants, not counting the kitchen staff, were attached to the royal nursery.

From an early age, Marguerite demonstrated a quick intelligence, a light heart, and a spirited temperament. Her jet-black hair was not in fashion—the royal court prized blond curls above all others—but alone among Catherine de’ Medici’s children, who were known generally for their frail constitutions and unattractive physiques, this youngest princess, with her creamy complexion, joyful good health, and delicate features, stood out.

She certainly seems to have been one of her father’s favorites. Her only written recollection from this happy childhood period was about him. “
I was then about four
or five years of age,” Marguerite recounted, “when the King, placing me on his knee, entered familiarly into chat with me.” Teasing her, her father asked her which of the two young sons of the nobility playing boisterously in the room with her—one of them, significantly, was the future duke of Guise; the other was the marquis de Beaupréau—she liked best. His small
daughter firmly named the marquis. Her father was amused. “
The King said, ‘Why so?
He is not the handsomest.’ ‘Because he is the best behaved; while the Prince [the duke of Guise] is always making mischief, and will be master over everybody,’ ” little Marguerite explained solemnly.

But of her mother there is no fond memory from childhood, no similar episode of affectionate teasing or warm physical contact or even scolding. The queen of France is as absent from Margot’s life as though she did not exist. Which, given the reality of Catherine de’ Medici’s circumstances at court during the years prior to and immediately following her youngest daughter’s birth, was not far from the truth.

I
T IS AN ASTONISHING
irony that the woman whose will would dominate the fortunes and government of the mighty realm of France for more than a quarter century began her residence in the kingdom as an insecure foreigner and social pariah.

Catherine de’ Medici arrived on the shores of France in 1533, unloved and disdained, at the age of fourteen.
Her mother, a French countess
descended from royalty, had died at the heartbreakingly youthful age of seventeen, struck down, it was uncharitably rumored, by the syphilis given to her by her husband, a scion of the powerful Medici family of Florence, who six days later chivalrously followed his wife to the grave with the same ailment.
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Luckily for the orphaned Catherine, barely three weeks old, the Medici family held positions of authority elsewhere in Italy. Responsibility for her care and upbringing fell to her uncle the pope, who seems not to have entirely relished his role as adoptive parent. “
She comes bearing the calamities
of the Greeks!” he is reputed to have moaned when he first saw her.

Poor Catherine’s Job-like existence persisted through childhood, where her fortunes rose and fell with those of her father’s family.
When the Medici were in power and controlled both the Vatican and their hometown of Florence, Catherine lived with relatives in opulent splendor at their sumptuous Florentine palace. But when the family subsequently fell from favor with a breathtaking rapidity, as occurred when Catherine was eight, she was forced into one dreary convent after another. As opposition to Medici rule grew stronger, violence surged around her, the city was besieged, and the defenseless Catherine became an easy target for enemy wrath. She lived in fear of her life; Florentine citizens openly debated whether she should be driven into a bordello, debauched by the army, or merely shackled naked to the city walls. At the height of the crisis, to protect herself, she cut off all her hair and assumed a nun’s habit. She was eleven years old.

Thrown back on her own resources and keenly aware, even at this early age, that her survival depended upon the goodwill of others, Catherine strove to accumulate allies, hiding her anger and unhappiness behind a mask of excessive docility. She concentrated first on the unsophisticated women who were her only defense against the malice of the outside world and succeeded in ingratiating herself with the members of the convent. One of the nuns charged with caring for Catherine wrote that she was “
so gentle and pleasant
that the sisters did all they could to ease her sorrows and difficulties.” Catherine was similarly described during these years of girlhood by an Italian courtier as “
very obedient
.” But underneath her servility ran a deep current of resentment. An envoy sent to the cloister to check up on her observed, “
I have never seen anyone
of her age so quick to feel the good and the ill that are done her.”

By the time she was twelve, however, Italian politics being what they were, the Medici were back on top, and she was recalled to Rome by yet another cousin who had succeeded to the papacy, Clement VII, who recognized her value as a means of cementing a military or diplomatic alliance through an advantageous marriage. As her parents’ only heir, Catherine had family connections and a claim to Florence that could be exploited by her future husband to
yield considerable territory in Italy. It was Clement who arranged for her espousal to Henri, second son of the exuberant if somewhat overweening French king François I.

And now, at last, it seemed that Catherine’s luck had finally turned. This marriage, to a member of the French royal family, was considered a significant achievement for a girl of her lineage. For although her mother descended from majesty, her father’s ancestors hailed from the plebian merchant class. Two centuries earlier the Medici had been mere shopkeepers and moneylenders. Despite the family’s current undeniable wealth and political power, they were still considered parvenus by most of the crowned heads of Europe. Prince Henri was only a second son and his father’s least favorite child—there would have been no chance at all of Catherine’s marrying the heir to the throne—but still Clement had to throw in all sorts of extra incentives to accomplish this impressive feat. Catherine was dowered (clandestinely, of course, as the pope did not wish to cause unnecessary distress to those of his countrymen who might object to being arbitrarily handed over to the French in this manner) with half a dozen cities in Italy, including the important town of Pisa. Clement further privately agreed to tangibly aid François I in his enduring quest to reconquer affluent Milan, and threw in the duchy of Urbino as a special honeymoon present to the bride and groom. This in addition to a munificent dowry of one hundred thousand gold
écus
and so many jewels and strands of pearls that Catherine would have had trouble standing up straight if she put them all on at once.

Eventually, despite some sharp bargaining on both sides—“
This man is the scourge of God
,” one of the French cardinals complained when Clement tried to wriggle out of the expense of the dowry—negotiations for Catherine’s marriage to the French prince were brought to a successful conclusion, and the wedding, a five-day extravaganza, took place in Marseille at the end of October 1533. The brilliance of Catherine’s trousseau and retinue, calculated to distract from the disparity in rank between bride and groom, fooled
no one, not even the bride, who on her first meeting with her future father-in-law fell to her knees and humbly kissed his feet in recognition of her unworthiness of the honor conferred upon her by an alliance with his family. The marriage contract was signed on October 27; the nuptial Mass, solemnly conducted by Clement, who made a point of attending the wedding, was held on the morning of October 28; and the customary wedding banquet, a raucous masked affair that ended in the small hours of the morning with many ladies uncovering their breasts, if not their faces, followed that evening. The bride and groom missed the more uproarious aspects of the entertainment, having been shunted off to bed at the earliest opportunity. As this match was effectively a declaration of war by the French king against the emperor’s holdings in Italy, it was imperative that the marriage be consummated at once to preclude the possibility of a later annulment. To ensure that the two fourteen-year-olds did their duty, François I remained in the bedroom to observe their efforts, so, as a final indignity, Catherine was forced to lose her virginity in front of her father-in-law.

Less than a year later, Clement was dead, the papal alliance with France was repudiated, the promised Italian cities never materialized, and the majority of Catherine’s dowry went unpaid. All that was left was an ungainly fifteen-year-old girl who spoke poor French with a heavy Italian accent and whose remaining relatives were of dubious value. François I was not pleased. “
The girl has come to my court
buff naked,” the French king snorted.

A
ND YET, AS ROILED
as Catherine’s youth had been, she turned out to be the
less
damaged partner in her marriage. Catherine’s childhood experience was positively nurturing compared with what her new young husband, Henri, Marguerite’s future father, had endured.

Henri was only two weeks older than his Florentine wife. He had been born at his father’s favorite hunting lodge at Amboise at the end of March 1519. Until he was five years old, he had lived a carefree and cosseted existence. He and his brother, the dauphin, only
two years older, were close companions; his gentle mother adored and indulged her children; and his father was one of the most important kings in Europe. Henri’s personality reflected the warmth and stability of his upbringing. He was outgoing, happy, and charming.

Then, two catastrophes followed in quick succession. His tender, loving mother died, and his father was captured in battle and became a prisoner of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. To extricate himself from the unpleasantness of a cramped prison cell in Madrid, François I signed a treaty that contained a number of territorial concessions highly unfavorable to France, then pledged his two young sons as surety that the terms of the peace would be honored. Henri and his brother, the dauphin, ages six and eight respectively and both just over the measles, were immediately summoned to take their father’s place in the Spanish jail as hostages to his good intentions. A rendezvous was arranged, the children were ferried across a river, and the affectionate parent was allowed to go free. “
I am a king again!
” François reportedly exulted as soon as he set foot on French soil and galloped off to spend time with a new mistress.

Unfortunately for the boys, their father never had any intention of abiding by the terms of the treaty, a state of affairs that the emperor was not long in discerning. To induce the French king to honor his commitments, his children were subjected to a series of ever-increasing deprivations and deteriorating prison conditions. Eventually, Henri and his brother were transferred to an austere, isolated stone fortress, where they lived in two small cells with high, barred windows. There was no heat in the winter and no cooling breeze in the summer. They were denied fresh air and exercise; their food was poor; they were often ill. Except for their Spanish guard, they were completely alone.