Henri II: His Court and Times (42 page)

This alliance, from which was born the future Henri IV,
made Antoine heir to the crown of Navarre and materially
increased the importance of the Bourbons; but they had little
ambition and less capacity, and their rivals, the Guises, who
possessed both, had already negotiated a marriage which was
to counterbalance that of the Duc de Vendôme. This was
between the Duc d'Aumale and Anne d'Este, daughter of
Hercule II, Duke of Ferrara, and cousin german to the King
by her mother Renée, daughter of Louis XII and sister-in-law
of François I. The King provided the dowry of the bride,
and the marriage was celebrated with great splendour at Saint-Germain on October 4, 1548, after the return of François de
Guise from the south.

The chief public events of the year 1549 were the coronation
of Catherine at Saint-Denis and the State entries of the King
and Queen. Catherine was crowned on June 10, and her
entry took place on the 18th. The King made his entry on
the 16th, preceded by the regular and secular clergy of Paris,
the University, the
Corps de Ville
, the civic dignitaries, the
Parlement
, and representatives of all the trades of the city,
butchers, tailors, carpenters, and so forth, and followed by
the whole Court. Prominent in the procession were "3,500
printers, dressed in black and equipped as men of war, with
corselets, morions, etc." Why the printers had elected to
appear in such numbers and in martial array, the chronicler
does not tell us. Perhaps, however, it was intended as a gentle
hint that they would be prepared to resist any undue interference with the liberty of their trade.

The King himself presented a most gorgeous spectacle. He wore "a suit of
white armour, over which was a tunic of cloth of silver. The scabbard of his
sword was of silver enriched with rubies and diamonds. His hat was of white
satin covered with silver lace, with a white plume, sown with a great number of
pearls, of which, apart from their excellence and beauty, the value was inestimable; and he rode
a beautiful and mettlesome white charger caparisoned in cloth
of silver." A canopy of light blue velvet, sown with golden
fleurs-de-lis
, fringed with gold and embroidered with his arms
and monogram, was held over his head by the four sheriffs
of Paris.
¹⁰

In the times of the last Valois pleasure and cruelty existed
side by side, and the fétés which celebrated Henri II's entry
into the capital were, so to speak, illuminated by the flames
which consumed the martyrs of the Reformed faith.

On the King's accession, it had seemed for a moment that
an era of something approaching religious toleration was to
be inaugurated, or, at least, that the new Court would decline
to countenance the barbarous persecutions which had
disgraced the old. Animated by the desire to condemn the
work of his father's Ministers, Henri II caused proceedings to
be instituted against the President d'Oppède, of the
Parlement
of Aix, Paulin de la Garde, and a number of other persons
concerned in the massacre of the Vaudois of Cabrières and
Mérindol. But, after one of the less important culprits had been condemned to
death and executed, the affair was proceeded with in a very half-hearted manner, and eventually
allowed to drop.

The desire to secure the friendship of Paul III, the importance of which the Guises continued to insist on, notwithstanding the events of 1548, rendered it necessary to conciliate
the Papacy; and, after abandoning in favour of the Pope the
right of collation to benefices in Brittany and Provence, and
forbidding the
Parlements
to interfere with the apostolic
jurisdiction in these provinces, the King proceeded to a
rigorous enforcement of the decrees against heresy, and a
special chamber in the
Parlement
of Paris, called the
"
Chambre ardente
," was established to deal with the unhappy
Huguenots.

It would be unfair, however, to judge Henri II too harshly
in this matter. Although his religious views were narrow and
bigoted, he was at heart a kindly man, who disliked the idea of
inflicting suffering; and it is very improbable that he would
have taken any such measures on his own initiative. But he
was easily influenced, and, on the present occasion, the
fanaticism of the Constable and the policy of the Guises
both urged him in the same direction; while Diane was even
more hostile to the Protestants, who had very little respect for
kings' mistresses, and did not hesitate to express the opinion
which they entertained of her. This, as the following
incident will show, had tended to exasperate the King no less
than his inamorata, and to render him pitiless.

"That same year," writes Théodore de Bèze, "the King
having made his very triumphal entry into his town of Paris,
a poor tailor, surprised by the provost, was brought before
him, as though in derision and to make sport. Some think
that the King, having heard it said that there were several
prisoners of the Religion, was desirous of seeing and hearing
one of them; and, learning of this, the cardinal [de Guise],
who knew that some of them were learned in the Scriptures,
from fear that the King, if he saw them, might be somewhat
touched with compassion, selected this poor tailor, who was
of no appearance, and who, he imagined, would lose the
power of speech at sight of the King and of the many persons
of quality who surrounded him. But he was very deceived.

For this poor man, fortified by strength from above, spoke
so well and so boldly of the Religion, that every one was
astonished at it. But the Sénéchale wished also to amuse
herself by questioning him, which this faithful servant of God
was unable to endure. ' Madame,' said he, 'rest satisfied
with having corrupted France, and do not mingle your filth
with a thing so sacred as the Truth of God.' This speech so
greatly exasperated him who loved nothing in the world so
much as this lady, that he wished to see the tailor burned
alive in the Rue Saint-Antoine, at the termination of a general
procession. Three others were burned on the same day, the
4th of July, and several more shortly afterwards; but never
since that time did the King wish to assist at this spectacle, by
which he was so horrified, that he said on several occasions
since that it seemed to him that on the following night he saw
this person, and that even in the daytime the fear came over
him that he was following him; in consequence of which he
swore that he would never again witness a burning, so dearly
had he paid for this pleasure."
¹¹

Unhappily, the King did not swear to burn no more, and
the "
Chambre ardente
" exercised the powers entrusted to it
so remorselessly, that when, towards the end of 1549, an
edict remitted to the ecclesiastical judges the decision in trials
for "simple heresy," it was regarded by the Protestants almost
as an abatement of the severity with which they were being
treated.

Policy and religious intolerance were not the only motives
of the persecutions. As a sentence of death was always followed by the confiscation of property, it was to the interests of
the avaricious courtiers to stimulate the zeal of the authorities
all over the country and to bring as many well-to-do offenders
to trial as possible. According to the
Mémoires de Vieilleville
,
it was the practice of the King's favourites to obtain from his
Majesty a promise of all the confiscated estates of Protestants
in certain districts, in return for which they undertook to
discover and extirpate heresy therein. Unscrupulous lawyers
were then entrusted with the prosecutions, and agents
employed to keep a vigilant eye on suspected persons, and,
where evidence was wanting, to manufacture it. Carloix
relates how one day Saint-André's brother-in-law, Apchon,
and several other courtiers brought his master a patent from
the King, with his name at the head, conferring upon them a
share in the confiscations in certain of the south-western
provinces, and informed him that they were sending one Boys,
a rascally lawyer of Périgueux, to the districts in question to
superintend operations; and that this Boys had undertaken
that each of them should receive twenty thousand crowns in
less than four months. Vieilleville, we are told, indignantly
refused to enrich himself by such atrocious means, declaring
that "it would be to incur the pains of hell for next to
nothing," and, drawing his dagger, ran the point of it through
his name and left the room. Few, however, seem to have
been of his opinion.

(1)
Histoire de notre temps.

(2)
Paradin.

(3)
Letter of October 6, 1548,
in Decrue,
Anne, duc de Montmorency.

(4)
By the Porte des Augustins, and not by a breach which his cannon had made
in the walls, as De Thou, Mézeray, and several later historians state.

(5)
According to De Thou, the citizens were compelled to disinter the body with
their nails.

(6)
Mémoires de Vieilleville
.

(7)
Decrue,
Anne, duc de Montmorency.

(8)
The arguments for the H and D are admirably summarized by Miss Hay
in her monograph on Diane, "Madame Dame Dianne de Poytiers." The most
conclusive is that Henri II signed his letters to Diane with the same cypher.

(9)
La magnificence de la
superbe et triumphante entrée de la noble et antique
cite' de Lyon faicte au trèschrestien roy de France, Henri deuxiesme de ce
nom et au Royne Catherine son espouse, le XXIII Septembre, 1548 (Lyon, 1549);
M. Henri Bouchot,
Catherine de Médicis
; Brantôme.

(10)
L'Ordre qui a esté tenu à la nouvelle et joyeuse entrée que le Roy Henry
deuzième de ce nom, a faicte en sa cité de Paris, le seizième jour de juin,
1549
(Paris, 1549).

(11)
Théodore de Bèze,
Histoire ecclesiastique des
Églises réformées au royaume de
France
. According to De Thou, Henri II witnessed the horrible spectacle from
one of the windows of the Hôtel de Rochepot, belonging to the Constable's
second son; and the tailor, observing the King, "proceeded to regard him so
fixedly that nothing was able to divert his glance."

Strained relations between France and England — Affairs of Scotland — Project
of the Guises to marry their niece Mary Stuart to the Dauphin — Invasion of
Scotland by the Protector Somerset and Battle of Pinkie — The Scotch nobility
offer the hand of the little Queen to the Dauphin — French troops are despatched
to the assistance of the Scots — Convention of Haddington — Mary Stuart is
brought to France — Henri II's instructions to Humières,
gouverneur
of the
Children of France, concerning her — His letter to the Queen-Dowager of Scotland
— Progress of hostilities in Scotland — The War of Boulogne — Peace is concluded between England and France, and a marriage arranged between
Edward VI and Madame Élisabeth, eldest daughter of Henri II

M
EANWHILE
, important questions of foreign policy
had been again engaging the attention of Henri II
and his Ministers.

By the terms of the treaty of 1546, Boulogne had been
left in the possession of England for eight years, at the expiration of which it was to be restored to France on payment of
800,000 crowns; but the frontier line of the tract of country
surrendered with it had been left undetermined at the peace,
and the question was still being debated when François I died.
Soon after the accession of Henri II, the English and French
commissioners employed on the survey arrived at a settlement;
but Henri II, who had not forgiven England the repulse he
had suffered at Boulogne in 1544, and cherished the hope of
one day avenging this mortification, declined to ratify the
arrangement, and persisted in prolonging an uncertainty which
might at any time become the occasion of a fresh quarrel.
The Protector Somerset retaliated by running out a long embankment
towards the sea. "It is but a jetty to amend the
haven, and save both your ships and ours," said the English,
when the French protested against it as a breach of a clause
in the treaty which provided that, while Boulogne remained
in English occupation, no fresh fortifications were to be
erected. But it was obviously intended to carry cannon and
command the approaches to the harbour, and the relations
between the two governments became very strained indeed.

The ill-feeling was intensified by the affairs of Scotland. In
1543, the Scotch Assembly had promised the hand of their
infant Queen to the young prince who had now become
Edward VI; but French influence had prevented the fulfilment
of this engagement, and Cardinal Beaton and the
Catholic party drew the country into another war with England.
The engagement had, however, never been legally cancelled,
and no sooner had Edward VI ascended the English
throne than, in accordance with the dying wishes of the late
King, the Duke of Somerset demanded that it should be
executed.

Meanwhile, Henri II had become King, and the brothers of
the Queen-Dowager of Scotland, the Guises, had risen to
power in France. The latter were quick to perceive how
greatly a marriage between their niece and the Dauphin would
add to their own influence and importance; and they urged
the King to this step as the only means of preventing the
marriage of Mary and Edward and the union of the two
crowns. The project of the Guises accorded too closely with
the traditional policy of France towards England and Scotland
to meet with any opposition from the King, and even the
Constable, much as he might fear the increase of his rivals'
influence, felt obliged to express his approval.

Had Somerset been content to exercise patience and to confine
himself to supporting the English party in Scotland, it is
certain that a very few years would have seen the extinction of
French influence in the northern kingdom, and with it all
opposition to the marriage of the little Queen to Edward VI.
But such methods of reaching the goal were but ill suited to
his haughty and ambitious temper, and, finding the Scots still
deaf to persuasion, he resolved to employ force, and on
September 4, 1547 he crossed the border, at the head of an
army of 18,000 men. Forgetting their differences for the
moment, all parties in Scotland united to oppose the invader,
for even those who, like the Earl of Huntly, "disliked not the
match, hated the manner of the wooing"; but at Pinkie
Cleugh, on September 10, the two armies met, and the Scots
were utterly routed, with frightful slaughter. This defeat,
instead of obliging the Scots to sue for peace, decided them to
throw themselves without reserve into the arms of France;
and the nobility, on the entreaty of the Queen-Dowager,
offered the hand of Mary to the Dauphin, and consented that
the little Queen should be brought up at the French Court
until she had reached a marriageable age. Henri II immediately
accepted the offer, and promised to make Scotland's
quarrel his own; and in the spring of 1548 preparations were
begun in the French ports for the transport of an army
thither.