Henri II: His Court and Times (15 page)
Read Henri II: His Court and Times Online
Authors: H Noel Williams
It was finally arranged that Catherine's uncle, the Duke of
Albany, who acted as trustee of his niece's French estates and
had come to Rome to render an account of his stewardship,
should return to France, lay his Holiness's views before the
King, and bring back François's reply.
In the meanwhile, Clement, with the twofold purpose of
stimulating the desire of the King of France to bring matters
to a conclusion and of hoodwinking Charles's Ambassadors,
Muscetolla and the Cardinal de Loaysa, continued to discuss
with them the question of Catherine's marriage with Francesco
Sforza, assuring them that, though he must await the reply
with which Albany would be entrusted, he was quite of
opinion that the King of France would renounce the affair, in
which eventuality he would most readily give his kinswoman
to the Duke of Milan.
Whatever his Ambassadors may have thought of these
assurances, the Emperor himself would appear to have
entertained no doubt as to Clement's preference for the French
match. "The Cardinal de Gramont," writes he to Ferdinand
of Austria, "who is returning from Rome, has spread the news
on his way, and particularly in France, that the marriage
between the Pope's kinswoman and the Duc d'Orléans is
arranged, although the Holy Father has denied it absolutely in
the conversation which he has had with my Ambassadors in
Rome."
19
Albany reappeared in Rome in November. The prospect of
a match between Catherine and Sforza had greatly alarmed
François, who recognised that such an alliance would unite
the interests of the Pope to those of Charles V and effectually
extinguish his chances of recovering the Milanese. He had
accordingly instructed Albany to propose to Clement an interview at Nice, at which the conditions of the marriage might
be settled personally, and to intimate that he would raise no
difficulty in the way of Catherine's renunciation of her pretensions to Urbino in favour of the Pope, provided that the
latter would give his kinswoman a sufficient dowry.
Clement agreed to this proposal, but, with characteristic
cunning, at the moment when he had already decided to
accept the French alliance, he charged the Imperial
Ambassadors to beg their master to request the Duke of
Milan not to conclude any other marriage, as he was most
anxious to give Catherine to him, providing certain guarantees
in regard to the defence of the duchy — which he knew very
well were impossible — were forthcoming. And then, raising
his hands to Heaven, he exclaimed: May God make the
Emperor ruler of the whole world! I swear by God and
before God that, if, to assure his universal sovereignty, it were
necessary for me to renounce the Papal dignity, I would
renounce it."
20
Although the illness and death of Louise of Savoy
21
caused the projected alliance between Clement and François to be
postponed, the negotiations continued, and early in July 1531
the draft of a marriage-contract, which had been drawn up at
the Château of Anet, where the King and Court were visiting Diane de
Poitiers,
22
was brought to Rome. The Pope, however, raised several objections,
the fact being that he dared not commit himself definitely to the
French alliance until he had made everything safe on the side of
the Emperor; and at the end of August he told the Milanese Ambassador that he
could not bring himself to accept either his master's or the
King of France's proposal, from fear of troubling the peace
of Italy.
In April 1532, the Pope sent Catherine back to Florence,
where her half-brother, the detestable Alessandro, had lately
been established at the head of a government, republican in
form, but in reality of the most despotic kind. The reason
given for the "
duchessina's
" departure was the fear that
the heat of a Roman summer might be prejudicial to her
precious health, but the true motive was probably a very
different one. If we are to believe Soriano, she had lately
shown unmistakable signs of a desire to embark upon a romance
with her cousin, the engaging Ippolito, who, on his side,
seemed only too ready to meet her half-way.
When Clement had determined to assign the government of
Florence to Alessandro, notwithstanding his illegitimate birth,
his vicious character, and the seniority of his cousin, he had
resolved to force the latter into the Church, and, despite a
strenuous resistance on the part of Ippolito, a cardinal's hat
was eventually thrust upon him. This, however, did not
prevent him from aspiring to the hand of his cousin. "It is
said," writes the Venetian Ambassador, "that the cardinal
intends to resign his hat and to espouse the Pope's niece,
for whom he has the most lively inclination, and by whom
he is tenderly beloved. She reposes all her confidence in
him, and has recourse to none else for all her needs and all
her private affairs."
23
It was perhaps with the object of demonstrating his peculiar
unfitness for the exalted position which he had been compelled
to accept, and of obtaining his release from his ecclesiastical
fetters, that during the Carnival of 1531 the youthful cardinal
attempted to assassinate, with his own sacred hand, his
kinsman Jacopo Salviati,
24
whom he suspected of having
thwarted his designs upon the Papal treasury. But the Holy
Father, though, of course, terribly shocked at such reprehensible conduct on the part of a member of the Sacred College,
failed to see in it a sufficient reason for releasing him from
his vows.
The intimacy between his Eminence and Catherine was
viewed by Clement with considerable uneasiness, and, alarmed
lest it might end in the girl being seriously compromised
and the fruits of so much patient scheming destroyed, he
invoked the malaria and packed her off to Florence, while,
shortly afterwards, Ippolito was despatched as Legate to the
Imperial Army operating against the Turks in Hungary.
The Emperor had for some time been desirous of a personal
interview with Clement, in order to persuade him of the urgent
necessity for that General Council which the Pontiff so much
dreaded, and to confer with him on other important matters;
and in the autumn of 1532 a meeting between them was
arranged at Bologna, where, in February 1530, the Pope had
placed upon Charles's head the iron crown of Lombardy and
the crown of the Empire. The Emperor would, of course,
have been willing to visit Clement in Rome, but the latter
prudently preferred to make the arduous journey to Bologna
rather than give his Imperial Majesty the opportunity of
traversing the Papal States, where he might learn many
things of which it was eminently desirable that he should
continue in ignorance.
On November 18 his Holiness quitted Rome, travelling by
way of Perugia, since recent events had rendered it inadvisable
for him to shed the light of his countenance upon Florence;
and, after a journey which "by reason of the contynuall rayne
and fowl way, with other unfortunate accidentes, as the loss of
certyn his mules, and the breking of the legge of oon Turkie
horse, that he had specall good, and above all for the evell
lodgings that he had with his companye, was wonder paynful,"
25
reached Bologna on December 7. The Emperor arrived on
Thursday, the 12th, but deferred his official entry until the
following day, apparently "bycause that apon the said
Thursday was the full moon, which to some was thought
for that purpose an unhappy tyme."
The result of his meeting with Charles V afforded Clement
abundant compensation for the hardships which he had suffered
on his journey to Bologna, for not only did he succeed in
staving off the convocation of the General Council, but
completely outmanoeuvred the Emperor in the matter of
Catherine's marriage.
"After the negotiations on the subject of the marriage had
been resumed," writes Guicciardini, who was perfectly informed
in regard to all Clement's affairs, the Pope answered
the Emperor, relative to the demand of his niece's hand for
the Duke of Milan, that the propositions of the King of
France were much anterior to his, and that he had listened
to them with the approbation of the Emperor, who had
not testified any disapproval. It would be, then, to offer
too serious an affront to the King to give Catherine to
one of his rivals, at the very moment of the opening of the
negotiations. He did not believe, besides, that the King
regarded the affair seriously, on account of the difference of
rank and condition, and he considered that the sole object of
his Majesty was to gain time. He could not then, so long as
the King had not broken off the negotiations, wound him in a
manner so sensible."
Charles, who found it difficult to conceive that François
seriously intended to marry his son to a descendant of
Florentine burghers, and believed that the exposure of
his bad faith would be certain to create a serious breach
between him and Clement, thereupon urged the Pope to
request the French Ambassadors to the Vatican, the Cardinals
de Gramont and de Tournon, who had come to the conference
to watch the proceedings on behalf of their master,
to demand full powers for the conclusion of the marriage-contract.
The cardinals, of course, lost not a moment in complying
with the delighted Clement's request, and, to the Emperor's
profound astonishment and mortification, the required
credentials were despatched to Bologna with the briefest
possible delay. For once, Charles had altogether over-reached himself.
(1)
Armand Baschet,
la Diplomatic vénitienne: les Princes de l'Europe au
XVI
e
siècle.
(2)
Brantôme.
(3)
Only son of Piero de' Medici, the eldest of the three sons of Lorenzo the
Magnificent. His uncle, Leo X, anxious for the aggrandizement of his family,
had invested him with the duchy of Urbino, after unjustly dispossessing Francesco
Maria della Rovere, its legitimate lord. However, the latter recovered his
dominions soon after Lorenzo's death.
(4)
Daughter of Jehan III, Seigneur de la Tour, Comte de Boulogne and
d'Auvergne, who claimed descent from Godefroi de Bouillon. Her elder sister,
Anne de la Tour d'Auvergne, had married, in 1505, John Stuart,
Duke of Albany.
(5)
But some writers believe
that he was the son of Clement himself, a theory to which his
Holiness's marked predilection for him, notwithstanding his
detestable character, certainly lends colour.
(6)
According to Segni, the mortality
during the autumn of 1527 was between three and four hundred a day.
(7)
Trollope, "The Girlhood
of Catherine de Medici."
(8)
M. Henri Bouchot,
Catherine de
Médicis
.
(9)
Catherine proved not
ungrateful for the protection afforded her, since, after the
surrender of Florence, it was mainly through her intercession
that Aldobrandini was punished by exile instead of death.
(10)
Soriano, cited by
Armand Baschet,
la Diplomatie Venétienne
.
(11)
Afterwards the first
Duke of Bedford.
(12)
Hercule d'Este, Comte
de Vaudémont, younger brother of Antoine, Duke of
Lorraine, and of Claude, Duc de Guise. He died during the siege of Naples
in 1528.
(13)
According to Soriano,
the overtures of James V were rejected because, as his Holiness
pointed out, couriers to Scotland would cost more than the
young lady's dowry.
(14)
Henry Fitzroy, born 1519.
His mother was Elizabeth Blount, one of Catherine of Aragon's
ladies-in-waiting. He married, in 1533, Mary, daughter of Thomas
Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, and died three years later, not
without suspicions of poisoning.
(15)
State Papers of Henry VIII (Foreign Series), vol. vi.
(16)
Cited by F. Decrue,
Anne de Montmorency à la Cour de François I
er
.
Francisque's description of Catherine as "handsome and plump"
is in singular contrast with that of Soriano, already cited;
but he probably considered it his duty to view her through
rose-coloured spectacles.
(17)
He was not, however, "aged enough to be her [Catherine's] grandfather,"
as Trollope asserts, since he was only thirty-seven.
(18)
Soriano, cited by Trollope.
(19)
Letter of July 29,
1531, in A. von Reumont,
Die Jugend Caterina's de' Medici.
(20)
Despatch of the
Cardinal de Loaysa to the Emperor, November 30, 1531,
in Reumont.
(21)
Louise of Savoy died
on September 22, 1531. After her death, the immense sum of
1,500,000 gold crowns was found in her coffers, largely the
fruit of her peculations.
(22)
It is indeed a
singular instance of the irony of Fate that such a document
should have been drawn up under the roof of Catherine's future
rival in her husband's affections.
(23)
Soriano, in Reumont.
(24)
Jacopo Salviati had married Lucrezia de' Medici, second daughter of
Lorenzo the Magnificent.
(25)
Bonner to Cromwell, December 24, 1532. State Papers of Henry VIII
(Foreign Series), vol. vii. The future Bishop of London, who was at this time
English Ambassador at Rome and had accompanied Clement to Bologna,
adds that the unhappy Pope was "diverse tymes compelled by reason of the fowleness
and daunger of the way to goo on foote the space of a myle or two, and besides
that pleasure and pastyme, for lak of a fedder bed, compelled to lie in the strawe."
Dowry of Catherine de' Medici — Her trousseau — Her pearls — A
marvellous casket — The Florentines compelled to defray the greater part of the
expense incurred by the Pope — François I's pensions to his son and future
daughter-in- law — Efforts of Charles V to prevent the Pope's journey to Nice —
Catherine's departure from Florence — She receives the presents of François I
and the Duc d'Orléans — Objection of the Duke of Savoy to the marriage and the interview
taking place at Nice necessitates the rendezvous being changed to Marseilles — Clement sails from Leghorn — Preparations at Marseilles — Arrival and reception
of the Pope — His ceremonial entry into Marseilles — He is visited in secret by
François I — Entry of Catherine — The marriage — Personal appearance of the
bride and bridegroom — Presents given by the Pope and François to one another
— Result of the conference between the two sovereigns — The death of Clement
in the following year destroys the hopes which François has based on this
alliance