Henri II: His Court and Times (43 page)

It is probable that Somerset, whom want of supplies had
compelled to withdraw across the border, might have purchased
the non-interference of France by the cession of Boulogne,
which Henri II ardently desired to recover. But his pride
shrank from such a sacrifice, and, in the hope of breaking
down the resistance of the Scots before help could reach them
from France, he determined on another invasion. In April,
accordingly, an English army under Lord Grey and Sir Thomas
Palmer invaded Scotland, took and garrisoned Haddington
and laid waste the country round Edinburgh, after which it
retired to Berwick.

In June, the French expedition sailed from Brest. It consisted of sixty transports and twenty-two galleys, with 6,000
men on board. The command of the troops was entrusted to
André de Montalembert, Sieur d'Essé, who had distinguished
himself in the defence of Landrecies in 1544 — a defence which
had gained him the post of gentleman of the Chamber,
although, according to Brantôme, he was "more fitted to give
a camisado to the enemy than the shirt to the King." With
him were Catherine de' Medici's cousin, Piero Strozzi, and
Andelot, nephew of the Constable. Villegaignon, who was
afterwards so unfortunately associated with Coligny's colonial
enterprise, commanded the fleet.

The French landed at Leith on June 16, and having been
joined by the Regent with 8,000 Scots, laid siege to Haddington,
in which Grey and Palmer had left a garrison of 2,500
men. On July 7, amid the ruins of an abbey which the
English had destroyed, was held "a Parliament of all the
Estates," known as the Convention of Haddington, when it
was agreed that the crowns of France and Scotland were to be
formally and for ever united, though Scotland was to retain
her ancient laws and liberties, and that the little Queen should
be brought up at the French Court with the children of
Henri II until her marriage.

This decision, as Froude and other historians have shown,
was not arrived at with the unanimity which the formal
records of the convention might lead us to suppose, for there
were some who believed that a union with France constituted
as grave a menace to Scottish independence as a union with
England. Moreover, Somerset had made a belated attempt to
repair his error, by promising to abstain from interference in
the affairs of Scotland until Edward VI was of age, if the
Scots, on their part, would enter into no engagements with
the French, at the same time suggesting that the question of
their Queen's marriage should be deferred for ten years, when
she should be free to make her own choice; and, though his
proposals were scouted by the great majority, a few were
inclined to regard them as reasonable.

These symptoms of dissent showed that, when the exasperation
caused by recent events had abated, it was far from
improbable that the Estates might repent of their present
decision, as they had repented of that of 1543 in favour of
Edward, and determined Marie de Guise to remove her
daughter forthwith beyond the reach of the English. Instructions
were therefore sent to Villegaignon, who lay with
his galleys in the harbour of Leith, to proceed to Dumbarton,
whither the young Queen had been sent for security after the
disaster of Pinkie, take her and her suite on board, and proceed
straight to France. That resourceful sailor at once weighed
anchor, and, by steering a southward course, deluded the
English ships which were waiting at the mouth of the Forth
into the belief that he was making for the coast of France.
But, when night fell, he put about, and, rounding the Orkneys,
reached the Clyde.

Accompanied by Artus de Brézé, Henri II's Ambassador to
the Scottish Court, whose letters to the Queen-Mother contain
some interesting details of the voyage,
⁰¹
and a numerous suite
— which included her half-brother, Lord James Stuart (the
future Regent Murray), Janet Stuart, Lady Fleming, a natural
daughter of James IV, of whom more anon, the four Maries
of the Houses of Fleming, Beaton, Seton, and Livingston, and
Lords Erskine and Livingston — the little Queen embarked in
Villegaignon's galley, and the admiral at once put to sea again.
Soon after leaving the Clyde, an English squadron was sighted;
but, favoured by the wind, the French galleys easily outstripped
the enemy's ships, and on August 20 Mary disembarked at
the little port of Roscoff,
⁰²
on the coast of Finisterre, now a favourite resort of the English tourist in Brittany.
From Roscoff, the little Queen was conducted by easy
stages to Nantes, and thence by barge up the Loire to Orléans,
where the land journey was resumed. At Tours, she was met
by her grandmother, the Duchesse de Guise (Antoinette de
Bourbon), who describes her, in a letter to her daughter, the
Queen-Dowager of Scotland, as "very pretty indeed, and as
intelligent a child as one could wish to see," and expresses the
opinion that "when she developed she would be a handsome
girl."
⁰³
The duchess accompanied her the rest of the way to
Saint-Germain, which was reached about the middle of
October.

At the moment of the little Queen's arrival at Saint-Germain
the Court was at Moulins, but Henri II had not failed to send
very precise instructions concerning his future daughter-in-law
to Humières, the
gouverneur
of the Children of
France. Apartments were to be made ready for her in the Château above his
own and those of Catherine de' Medici; but, as these arrangements
could not be completed in time, she was to be lodged for
the present in the neighbouring Château of Carrières, whither the
royal children, "who could derive nothing but benefit from a
change of air," were to precede her. Advantage was to be
taken of the children's absence from Saint-Germain to
"cleanse" the Château, the base-court, and the village. Orders
were to be given that no person was to be permitted to come
to the said Saint-Germain, and especially to the Château
whether mason, labourer, or other, from any place suspected
of having in it an infectious disease," and Humières was to see
that the same was done at Poissy and the surrounding villages,
"so that when I shall come there, I may be in no danger."
The persons of the Queen's entourage were to be lodged in
the vicinity, but Henri II had determined to send them back
to Scotland, and had already despatched an officer of his
Household to discharge them.

The King also decided Mary's precedence at the Court.
"In answer to your question as to the rank which I wish my
daughter the Queen of Scotland to occupy," he writes, "I
inform you that it is my intention that she should take precedence
of my daughters. For the marriage between her and
my son is decided and settled; and, apart from that, she is a
crowned Queen. And as such it is my wish that she should
be honoured and served."
⁰⁴

Diane de Poitiers, on behalf of the King, also wrote to
Humières. "I have communicated to the King the contents of
your letter, and your advice about everything," she writes to
him, on October 3, from Tarrare. "The said Lord wishes
that Madame Ysabal
⁰⁵
and
the Queen of Scotland should be lodged together; wherefore you
will select the best chamber for them both and their suite; for
it is the said Lord's wish that they get to know one
another."
⁰⁶

Soon after the marriage of Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne
d'Albret, Henri II left Moulins and set out for Saint-Germain,
accompanied only by a few of his Household, in order "to see
Messeigneurs his children and to enjoy their company alone."
He arrived on November 9, and was quite charmed with the
little Queen, whom he pronounced "the most perfect child
that he had ever seen."

The Balcarres MSS. in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh
contain a number of letters written by Henri II to Marie de
Guise, Queen-Dowager of Scotland, which were published by
the Maitland Club in 1834. The most of the letters refer to
purely political matters; but there is one which is of more
general interest, since it describes an incident which took
place at the marriage-fêtes of François de Guise and Anne d'Este, the first Court function at which the little Queen
assisted.

"I should certainly wish you to know, Madame, my good
sister," writes the King, "that I had invited to the nuptials of
my cousin the Duc Daumalle [d'Aumale], your brother, all
the Ambassadors of the princes, who are with me [
i.e
., at my
Court], not omitting him of England, in whose presence I
made my son the Dauphin dance with my daughter the Queen
of Scotland. And, as he was conversing with the Emperor's
Ambassador, my cousin the Cardinal de Guise approached
him, to whom I remarked that it was a pretty sight to see
them. And my said cousin responded that it was a fine
marriage, to which the said Ambassador merely replied that
it gave him great pleasure to watch them. Yet I will wager
my life that he did not find much therein, and as little in the
caresses which he saw me bestow upon them. Such, Madame
my good sister, are the tidings of our little household. I
wished to tell you them, so that you may experience, yonder,
something of the pleasure which I enjoy constantly, and
which increases from day to day, when I see my daughter and
yours improving continually, which is the greatest satisfaction
that I can have."

Hostilities continued in Scotland, while there was some
skirmishing in the Boulonnais, and Villegaignon's galleys and
English privateers roamed about the Channel and inflicted
considerable damage on the shipping of both nations. Singularly enough, there
had been no declaration of war by either side, which explains why the English
Ambassador still remained at the French Court. In Scotland, little impression
was made upon the stubborn garrison of Haddington, and a
night-assault attempted by the French at the beginning of
October ended in the assailants being repulsed with heavy
loss; but by the spring of 1549 all the other fortresses in the
hands of the English had fallen.

In the summer, encouraged by the rebellion in England,
Henri II determined to invade the Boulonnais in person. At
the end of July, a considerable army began assembling between
Ardres and Montreuil under the orders of the Constable, and
on August 17 the King joined it.

Besides Boulogne itself, the English had several detached
works in the vicinity. Froude distinguishes five: one at
Bullenberg (Mont-Lambert), on a hill at the back of the
town; another at Ambleteuse, where there was a tidal
harbour; a third, called Newhaven, at the mouth of the Boulogne
river; a fourth, Blackness (Blaconet), a little inland; and the
fifth, and most important, on the high ground between Bou-logne and Ambleteuse, called the Almain camp. But, according
to Decrue, Froude is in error in supposing that Ambleteuse
and Newhaven were separate forts, as they were one and
the same.

However that may be, the Almain camp, or Fort Slack, as
French historians call it, was the key of the position, and it
was against it that Henri II and the Constable first directed
their efforts. On the 23rd, the trenches were opened, and at
dawn on the morrow five-and-twenty pieces of cannon opened
fire on the fort, which was garrisoned by some 500 men. The
English, perceiving the hopelessness of resistance, sent two
officers to the Constable, to ask that the garrison might be
allowed to march out with their arms and baggage. Montmorency
replied that they must appeal to the clemency of the
King, and, to gain time, conducted them, Protestants though
they were, to hear Mass. At that same moment, the French
surprised the fort and cut the unsuspecting garrison to pieces
— an act of treachery and barbarity which the Constable's
biographer wisely does not attempt to palliate.
⁰⁷

The fort of Ambleteuse, where the English had established
their depot, and Blaconet speedily surrendered, and the communications
of Boulogne with the Calais coast were thus
completely cut off. Then the King and the Constable turned
southwards to threaten Boulogne itself. On their approach,
Sir Henry Palmer, who commanded on Mont-Lambert, deeming
his position untenable, evacuated the fort, after first setting
it on fire; but the French succeeded in extinguishing the
flames, and established themselves in the place. It was supposed
that Henri II, who had been heard to say that he would
recover Boulogne or lose his realm for it, would at once
proceed to invest the town in form, or perhaps endeavour to
carry it by an immediate assault, and thus avenge his repulse
of five years before. But the King recognised that the strength
of the garrison and the formidable batteries which had been
erected by Henry VIII would render an assault an extremely
hazardous undertaking, and might enable the English to prolong
their defence into the winter. A terrific storm which
burst over the camp and left not a single tent or pavilion
standing, followed by two days and nights of incessant rain,
decided him to abandon the siege and content himself with
a blockade. Having, therefore, garrisoned the captured posts
and stationed a number of galleys in the port of Ambleteuse
to intercept any supplies coming from England, he disbanded
his army and set out with the Constable for Saint-Germain,
confident that, by the spring, Boulogne, hemmed in as it now
was on all sides, would be reduced to such straits that it must
fall an easy prey.

Soon after Henri II's departure, the English Government
recalled their Ambassadors, and "for their late manifold
injuries and also for that, contrary to faith, honour, and godliness, the French King had taken away the young Scottish
Queen, the King's Majesty's espouse, . . . did intimate and
declare him and all his subjects to be enemies of the King's
Majesty of England." But, notwithstanding this belated
declaration of war, no attempt was made to succour Boulogne
until the following January, when some 5,000 men under Lord
Huntingdon were despatched thither. These reinforcements,
however, were only intended to secure honourable terms of
surrender, for Somerset had now fallen, and his successor, the
Earl of Warwick, recognised that it was impossible to secure
any improvement in the state of affairs in England while the
constant drain on the resources of the nation caused by the
war with France continued. In point of fact, Lord Clinton,
the English commander in Boulogne, had already had two
conferences with Gaspard de Coligny, who had been entrusted
with the command of the blockading force; and on February
20 a truce of fifteen days was concluded, and the English
and French plenipotentiaries met between Boulogne and
Outreau. The negotiations were facilitated by the intrigues
of a Florentine merchant named Antonio Guidotti, a secret
agent of the French Court, whom the Constable had sent to
London, and who had suggested that the long quarrel between
England and France might be fittingly terminated by an alliance between Edward VI and Madame Elisabeth. On March
24, 1550, peace was signed, and England agreed to restore
Boulogne within six weeks, in return for a sum of 400,000
crowns, half to be paid upon the spot and half in the following
August. Scotland was included in the peace.