Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe (18 page)

As soon as the Pope was engaged in hostilities—he excommunicated both Charles V and Philip II for good measure—the Guise pressed the king to honour his commitments. Montmorency, on the other hand, was reluctant to commit himself to further his rivals’ Italian ambitions and the royal council remained deadlocked for months. Finally, on 23 September 1556, the king agreed to send an army, emphasizing that in doing so he was aiding the Pope and not violating his truce with Philip II. Having lost the argument, Montmorency was said to have remarked that ‘we shall all ride across the Alps but come back on foot’. The Duke of Ferrara was made commander-in-chief and Guise received the grandiose title of ‘Lieutenant of His Holiness and of the Most Christian King, Captain-General in the army of the Holy League’. His standard sported the papal keys surmounted by the fleur de lys. His orders stated that once he had reconquered Naples he would be made viceroy. The army itself was not large—11,000 foot and 1,800 horse—but it was battle-hardened. The choice of officers was an
affaire de famille
. As well as his brothers, Aumale and Elbeuf, the army consisted of a host of friends, followers and volunteers eager to share in the glory. The captain of the French infantry, Jacques de Savoie, Duke of Nemours, one of Guise’s closest companions, had come to escape the wrath of the King of Navarre, who had sworn to kill him and all his friends for making his niece pregnant. Guise promised to marry Nemours to his sister-in-law, Lucrecia d’Este.

The campaign was wholly misconceived, largely because the duke had been totally unprepared by his brother for the viperous labyrinth of Italian politics. Charles could do little to influence events from Paris and displayed a wholly unrealistic grasp of military logic. François received his baton as field commander of the allied army from his father-in-law on 16 February 1557. Ercole, wearing a helmet inlaid with jewels valued at a million crowns, staged a magnificent welcome.

But this was just for show; he had no interest in his son-in-law’s southern adventure and his logistical help was derisory. The duke’s magnificent entry into Rome also masked tensions between the allies.

There were vast differences between the Pope and his nephews—who dominated policy-making at the Vatican—French diplomats, and the duke on how to proceed. The spring invasion of Naples was a lamentable failure. Guise knew his best strategy was to force a quick ‘day of splendour’ with his veterans, but his experienced Spanish adversary, the Duke of Alva, had no intention of fighting on his enemy’s terms, opting for a war of attrition. The French were at a serious manpower disadvantage and sickness soon began to take its toll. The duke himself was often ill from fevers contracted in the malaria-infested countryside around Rome. Lack of money was another problem. The campaign cost a staggering 1.8 million livres during the months of March, April, and May 1557. The failure of the Duke of Ferrara to provide the necessary funds led to some sharp exchanges between son and father-in-law. Ercole complained that he would not be treated as a banker. Relations with the splenetic and unpredictable Paul IV were even worse. In his final interview with the Pope the duke lost his habitual sang-froid, venting his frustration on the Pope’s beloved nephews. As early as May, it was clear that retreat was necessary and the duke delayed only for fear of leaving the Pope at Alva’s mercy. Revealing his ignorance of field operations, the Cardinal of Lorraine maintained his optimism in the face of reality and was alone among the king’s ministers in wanting to continue the campaign.

Guise’s poor progress was music to Montmorency’s ears at court.

Charles wrote to his brother in mid-January that he had to spend every hour with the king in order to balance the constable’s hostility to the project. Anne d’Este’s complexion went sallow from stress, a consequence of everyone at court telling her that her husband was ‘lost’.42 One summer’s day Guise fortunes changed forever. Ironically, it was Montmorency who was the author both of his own downfall and his rival’s rehabilitation. Over Christmas 1556, he had suddenly changed his mind and counselled the king to resume the war with Spain, either because he considered it inevitable or because, with the campaign in Italy yet to run into problems, he feared that Guise would steal the glory. Hostilities recommenced in January when Coligny, himself eager to enhance his reputation, launched an abortive surprise attack on Douai. Montmorency’s previous performance in the field did not augur well for the summer campaign and the gloom was worsened when England declared war on 7 June. The campaign was incompetently handled from the start and it ended disastrously on 10 August near Saint-Quentin. So one-sided was the encounter, it is hard to characterize the rout followed by a massacre as a battle at all.

Saint-Quentin was a worse defeat than Pavia; for whereas Pavia had been a glorious chapter in the annals of chivalry, the poor knights who survived Saint-Quentin would recover their reputations from the ignominy and shame they had incurred with great difficulty. The French army lost all but one of its fifty-seven standards, at least 2,500 dead, and 7,000 prisoners, which included a roll-call of great aristocrats.

Montmorency’s army was also an
affaire de famille
: several of his closest kinsmen were killed; others were captured along with the constable himself. Worse was to follow a few days later with the fall of Saint-Quentin and the capture of Coligny.

The effect of the defeat on morale was crushing. Utterly dependent on his ‘father’ for counsel and emotional support, the king was lost as to what to do next. In Paris and at court panic set in and was mixed with recriminations towards Montmorency. As architect of the Neapolitan folly, the Cardinal of Lorraine was not spared either.

François’s failure was all but forgotten. ‘For my part’, wrote a Parisian banker, ‘I wished that Monsieur de Guise had been over here! And God willing all would have been well conducted.’43 On 23 August the duke was at Spoleto when a courier arrived summoning him home to defend the kingdom from invasion. Delayed by illness, he arrived at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 6 October accompanied by 400 gentlemen.

Those courtiers who watched their saviour arrive would have found the motto displayed on his banner,
Chacun à son tour
(‘To each his turn’) particularly apt. The wheel of fortune had spun once again; his turn had come.

The Venetian ambassador watched as Guise arrived at court and threw himself at the king’s feet. ‘It may be credited that his Majesty felt very great joy at his arrival, and principally from now having a companion for his business and his toils, he alone having hitherto despatched the numberless affairs of recent urgency, rarely employing the Cardinal of Lorraine in military matters.’1 On 20 October 1557 François, Duke of Guise, was made lieutenant-general of the kingdom, conferring on him vice-regal powers. Cardinal Charles had already been entrusted with the royal signet and taken responsibility of civil and financial matters. A week later they were joined by their brothers, the Duke of Aumale, the Marquis of Elbeuf, and the Grand Prior.

Henry believed that an attack on Calais, the plan for which had been in long gestation, was the surest way to restore French honour. Guise was initially sceptical. In English hands since 1347, Calais was protected by a formidable system of outlying forts which had been modernized during the reign of Henry VIII. Moreover, the campaigning season was late and the Calais pale was dreadfully inhospitable terrain; its marshy and windswept flatlands presented a formidable challenge to supplying an army during the worst months of the year in a country that had recently suffered one of the great military disasters of the sixteenth century. Despite his misgivings, Guise had been presented with the opportunity of posing as the saviour of the country and he seized it with alacrity. The campaign exemplifies how the Guise brothers worked together as a team, or as ‘two heads in one hood’ as a contemporary put it. 2 Charles and François left nothing to chance. The final months of the year were dedicated to meticulous planning. An old-fashioned captain in the army, Blaise de Monluc, was astonished that a soldier like François should spend so much time on paper work: ‘The devil take all these writings for me, it seems he has a mind to save his secretaries labour.’ The logistical problems of supplying an army of 30–36,000 men throughout the winter in country suffering from war fatigue cannot be underestimated. Cardinal Charles busied himself with feeding Mars, using expedients to screw cash from taxpayers and reluctant lenders. ‘I do not cease day and night’, he replied to his brother’s urgent demands, ‘to torment myself to advance your money and to pick all the purses I can find to help you.’ Squeezing them until their pips squeaked did nothing for his popularity among the common people.

Calais’s dozen or so outlying forts amounted to a formidable obstacle. Above the town’s main gate was the inscription ‘Then shall the Frenchmen Calais win; when iron and lead like cork shall swim’. Its main weakness was its old-fashioned castle, which had been overlooked by Henry VIII’s engineers. The English were caught off guard by an attack outside the campaigning season. The suddenness of the attack on 1 January allowed the French to capture a number of outlying forts and bring the town within cannon range. The French were thoroughly prepared for the terrain, to the point of having made pitch-covered mats to serve as artillery platforms on the marshes. They were helped by the cold weather which froze the shallower marshes, enabling their guns and equipment to cross the treacherous ground easily.

After two days of bombardment from across the river Hames a breach was made in the castle walls. The river was fordable at low tide and the duke advanced, waist-deep in the water, at the head of several companies, while diversionary attacks elsewhere drew off the defenders.

His troops took the castle with ease and put the garrison to the sword.

He retired to camp, leaving his brothers, Aumale and Elbeuf, to hold the castle against two bloody English counter-attacks. On 8 January Lord Wentworth sued for terms. He and several English lords were held for ransom (though they were eventually released) and the rest of the garrison and all those inhabitants who wished to leave were given safe passage to the Flemish border. Guise captured a significant quantity of military supplies and commercial goods, which he shared among his captains. The constable’s nephew, François d’Andelot, the colonel-general of the infantry, who had done much to rehabilitate his family’s reputation, was given a share of wool valued at 25–30,000 crowns.

* * * *

The fall of Calais shocked Europe in its daring and its challenge to the traditional ways of war. Guise retained his habitual modesty when writing to his mother: ‘Since all things come from God...it must be recognized...that this enterprise was ordained by Him alone, and that it was not a thing...in the power of men. I also wish to attribute the glory to Him and not myself.’3 This did not mean that he was awaiting his reward in heaven. Good service demanded recognition and that the king fulfil his promise to marry the dauphin, Francis, to Mary Stuart. The king had reiterated his promise as recently as December, but there were powerful objectors. From his captivity Montmorency desperately tried to stop it, sending a Spanish agent to propose the dauphin’s marriage to the sister of Philip II as part of a more general peace. Henry listened and postponed the betrothal.

Calais changed everything. The marriage festivities were arranged with the same meticulous attention to detail as the war. Mary knew her husband intimately; she had been raised with the dauphin. Cardinal Charles was already calling him ‘l’Amoureux’ when he was just 5 years old. On Tuesday 19 April 1558 Charles joined the betrothed’s hands together in the new wing of the Louvre. The contrast between the two was stark. Aged 15, Mary was distinctively a Guise; she was tall at around 5 feet 11 inches and had blond hair. She was vivacious and had received the same humanist education as her future husband.

She owned a copy of Erasmus’s
In Praise of Folly
and his
Colloquies
.

Two years before her marriage she had given an oration as part of her studies, defending women’s rights to study. A year younger than his bride, Francis profited little from his education, showing an interest only in hunting. He idolized his new uncle, watching him in tourneys with an admiration reserved today for sporting idols. In 1551 he wrote that he was practising so that he too could ‘fight one to one and hope to win the favour of a beautiful and honest lady like your niece’.4 The trouble with the dauphin was that as he reached adolescence his physical and mental capacities halted abruptly. He was weedy, intellectually limited, and debilitated by frequent attacks of illness.

The wedding that took place the Sunday following the betrothal was one of the most magnificent public occasions seen in sixteenth-century Paris. 5 Everything possible was done to increase the visibility of the occasion for onlookers. A gallery or temporary covered walk-way, twelve feet high, connected the starting point of the wedding procession, the nearby palace of the Bishop of Paris, to a stage built in the main square in front of the cathedral, surmounted by a canopy of azure-blue silk embossed with gold fleur de lys. It continued along the nave to the chancel, where the couple would hear Mass after the ceremony had been completed in the open air. Dignitaries were seated around the stage, but the sides of the gallery were open so that everyone could watch the procession. Festivities began at 10 am when the Swiss guard arrived, leading a troop of musicians dressed in the yellow and red livery of the House of Guise. They entertained the crowd for half an hour before Duke François arrived to be welcomed by the Bishop of Paris. The duke was master of ceremonies and onlookers noticed that he carried the staff of the Grand Master of the King’s Household in the constable’s absence. While the wedding was performed on the stage, the duke busied himself clearing interlopers off the stage, so that the people who were crammed into the surrounding streets and hanging out of neighbouring windows could see. But the people were not just there for the spectacle. Once the ceremony was finished two heralds, crying ‘largesse’, threw handfuls of gold and silver coins into the throng. The wedding party turned its back on the scrimmage that followed, as people dived for the coins, pushing and elbowing their neighbours, to enter the cathedral and hear the wedding Mass. During the offertory the heralds threw another shower of coins in the cathedral.