The Rival Queens (27 page)

The Catholic faction did more than just protest against its defeat; it adapted. Their leaders could not help but notice how well organized the Huguenots were—how much better organized, in fact, than the Catholics themselves. It was the Protestants’ ability to call up men and resources quickly that made them so dangerous. To neutralize this advantage, the Catholics, under Guise management, decided to put into place a similarly structured political organization that would link their coreligionists town by town and so present a united front against the enemy. “
A league was formed
in the provinces and great cities, which was joined by numbers of Catholics,” Marguerite explained. “M. de Guise was named as the head of all.” This was the beginning of what would evolve into the Catholic League, a confederation of orthodox believers operating within France as a quasi-independent regime outside the law, not unlike a shadow government.

As it turned out, the Guises and their allies needn’t have bothered to get so upset about the Crown’s concessions to the Huguenots. Once the threat was over and the German horsemen paid off by the royal treasury, with funds accumulated through yet another highly unpopular tax on the royal subjects, it rapidly became apparent that neither the king nor his mother had any intention of keeping their side of the bargain and enforcing the edict. Catherine went out of her way to point this out to the majority of the Catholic aristocracy (who had remained out of the Politique movement). The duke of Nevers recorded in his diary that the queen mother had informed him to his face that she “
had made the peace
in order to get back Monsieur, and not to reestablish the Huguenots, as everybody now realizes.”

Unfortunately, this cavalier attitude toward official commitments extended to promises made to Marguerite as well. Her dowry went unpaid, and even after François returned to the court in November the king did not allow his sister to join her husband in Navarre, although Henry asked repeatedly for his wife and even sent an ambassador, Monsieur de Duras, to fetch her. “
After some time, M. de Duras arrived
at Court, sent by the King my husband to hasten my departure,” Marguerite recalled. “Hereupon, I pressed the King greatly to think well of it, and give me his leave. He, to color his refusal, told me he could not part with me at present, as I was the chief ornament of his Court; that he must keep me a little longer, after which he would accompany me himself on my way as far as Poitiers… These excuses were purposely framed in order to gain time until everything was prepared for declaring war against the Huguenots, and, in consequence, against the King my husband, as he fully designed to do,” she concluded.

As difficult as it is to believe from his treatment of her when they were together, the king of Navarre was sincere in his desire to have his wife returned to him. Allied with François, she had proved herself a significant political asset. Marguerite may not have had her dowry, but she brought legitimacy and powerful allies to the marriage. If she turned against him, or encouraged the new duke of Anjou to support Catholic policies over those of the Huguenots, Henry’s position in the kingdom could be severely weakened. He was stronger with his wife, the king of Navarre realized belatedly, than without her.

The problem for Henry was that his brother-in-law the king realized this as well and was intent upon breaking the three-way alliance between his younger siblings and the king of Navarre. When the duke of Anjou returned to court, Margot remembered, “
The King received him very graciously
, and showed, by his reception of him, how much he was pleased with his return. Bussy, who returned with my brother, met likewise with a gracious reception.” (Henri III must indeed have felt the need to placate his younger brother and sister to have swallowed his anger at the redoubtable Bussy.)
“The King,” Marguerite continued, “turned his thoughts
entirely upon the destruction of the Huguenots. To effect this, he strove to engage my brother against them, and thereby make them his enemies; and that I might be considered as another enemy, he used every means to prevent me from going to the King my husband.
Accordingly, he showed every mark of attention to both of us, and manifested an inclination to gratify all of our wishes.”

One of these wishes had to do with the revival of the old plan for a military campaign in the Netherlands, originally sponsored by Coligny. The Dutch Protestants, brutally repressed by their Spanish overlord, Philip II, were extremely impressed by François’s successful rebellion and the religious freedom promised by the Peace of Monsieur. It was decided that the French king’s younger brother was just the sort of man they needed to help them throw off the yoke of oppression imposed by tyrannical Spain. Accordingly, one of their leading barons, William of Nassau, prince of Orange, made overtures to François, promising him a million florins and the rule of Holland if he would lead an army into the Netherlands to fight against Philip II.

To conciliate his brother, Henri III pretended to consider this offer but in reality he had other plans for François. Marguerite was correct: the king was plotting to renew hostilities against the Protestants. Henri used the occasion of the meeting of the main representative body, the Estates-General, in November 1576 to formally rescind the edict to which he had so recently agreed and declare war on the Huguenots. To induce the duke of Anjou to join in repudiating the treaty that he himself had negotiated, François was finally appointed as commander of an army—but only if he agreed to lead it against his former allies, the Huguenots. “
The King called my brother
to his closet, where were present the Queen my mother and some of the King’s counselors,” Marguerite reported. “He represented the great consequence [threat] the Catholic league was to his State and authority… that the Catholics had very just reason to be dissatisfied with the peace, and that it behooved him [François], rather to join the Catholics than the Huguenots, and this from conscience as well as interest.”

Henri III’s bribe proved efficacious. Six months after leading an insurgency against the king in the name of the Huguenots, François, perhaps not the brightest of Catherine’s children, committed himself
to leading another army, this time against the Huguenots in the name of the king.

François’s defection put Marguerite in the extremely awkward position of having her favorite brother, to whom she was still intensely loyal, commanding a military operation whose aim was to annihilate her husband and his subjects, whom, as queen of Navarre, she was honor-bound to protect. No matter which side won in this conflict, she would lose, which was just what Henri III had intended. She wasted no time confronting him. “
I went directly to the closet
of the Queen my mother, where I found the King. I expressed my resentment at being deceived by him, and at being cajoled by his promise to accompany me from Paris to Poitiers, which, as it now appeared, was mere pretence,” she fumed. “I represented that I did not marry by my own choice, but entirely agreeable to the advice of King Charles, the Queen my mother, and himself; that, since they had given him to me for a husband, they ought not to hinder me from partaking of his fortunes; that I was resolved to go to him, and that if I had not their leave, I would get away how I could, even at the hazard of my life.” (This after having been so recently confined under house arrest. Marguerite was nothing if not brave.)

“Sister… what the Queen my mother and I are doing is for your own good,” Henri lectured her fatuously in reply. “I am determined to carry on a war of extermination until this wretched religion of the Huguenots, which is of so mischievous a nature, is no more. Consider, my sister, if you, who are a Catholic, were once in their hands, you would become a hostage for me, and prevent my design! And who knows but they might seek their revenge upon me by taking away your life? No, you shall not go amongst them; and if you leave us in the manner you have now mentioned,” he concluded ominously, “rely upon it that you will make the Queen your mother and me your bitterest enemies, and that we shall use every means to make you feel the effects of our resentment; and moreover, you will make your husband’s situation worse instead of better.”

Infuriated by Henri’s feigned solicitude for her welfare and
undaunted by his threats, Marguerite retired from this interview and sought the counsel of her friends and especially her brother François. Fleeing the court for Navarre against the king’s express command was considered too risky to undertake, but Margot refused to stay and play the role of helpless pawn in which she had been cast by her mother and older brother. Her friends agreed. “
I found them all of the opinion
that it would be exceedingly improper for me to remain in a Court now at open variance with the King my husband,” the queen of Navarre affirmed. But if she could not escape to Henry, then where to go?

Various options were floated for a neutral locality. It was suggested, for example, that Marguerite might go on a pilgrimage somewhere. Or perhaps visit friends or family who lived outside of France—there were her cousins in Savoy. While she was weighing these alternatives, the princess of Roche-sur-Yon, who had been ailing, piped up that she was intending to journey to a town in Belgium known for its healing waters and would be only too thrilled to have Margot come along.
^*
At the mention of this locale, a new member of François’s household, a gentleman by the name of Mondoucet, who was also among those present, was gripped by sudden inspiration. Mondoucet had very recently returned from a posting in Flanders, where he had had an opportunity to acquaint himself with the political situation in the Netherlands. He had seen firsthand the discontent with Spanish rule and had made a number of important contacts. “
He stated that he was
commissioned by several nobles, and the municipalities of several towns, to declare how much they were inclined in their hearts towards France, and how ready they were to come under a French government,” recalled Marguerite. “My brother readily lent an ear to Mondoucet’s proposition, and promised to engage in it… Mondoucet was to return to Flanders under a pretence of accompanying the Princesse de Roche-sur-Yon in her journey to Spa… and he suggested to my
brother that I might be of great use to him in Flanders, if, under the color of any complaint, I should be recommended to drink the Spa waters and go with the Princesse.”

Here at last was a proposal that appealed to Marguerite—appealed greatly. To be François’s covert agent in the Netherlands, to be useful, to win him allies and pave the way for French sovereignty—that was an endeavor worthy of a queen. François also leaped at the opportunity. “
My brother acquiesced
in this opinion, and came up to me, saying: ‘Oh, Queen! You need be no longer at a loss for a place to go to. I have observed that you have frequently an erysipelas [a skin infection, also known as cellulitis] on your arm, and you must accompany the Princess to Spa. You must say your physicians had ordered those waters for the complaint; but when they did so, it was not the season to take them. That season is now approaching, and you hope to have the King’s leave to go there.’ My brother did not deliver all he wished to say at that time,” Margot confided, “because the Cardinal de Bourbon was present, whom he knew to be a friend to the Guises and to Spain. However, I saw through his real design, and that he wished me to promote his views in Flanders.”

The very next day Marguerite went to Catherine and, holding out her arm, showed her mother her rash and informed her that her doctors had recommended that she take the cure at Spa as the best means of healing the inflammation. As it happened, the princess of Roche-sur-Yon was also intending to go—might Margot be allowed to accompany her? Strangely, Catherine agreed instantly to this plan and without further inquiry promised to use her influence with Henri to obtain the necessary permission. “
She was as good as her word
,” reported Marguerite, “and the King discoursed with me on the subject without exhibiting the smallest resentment,” an accommodation that Margot put down to Henri’s exultancy at having bested his sister by keeping her away from Navarre. “Indeed, he was well pleased by now that he had prevented me from going to the King my husband, for whom he had conceived the greatest animosity,” she commented.

The speed with which her request was granted in fact hinted at other, less altruistic motives than concern for her skin, but in the excitement of packing—this would be the queen of Navarre’s first trip outside France—and her triumph at what she believed to be the successful dissembling of her true objectives, Margot failed to notice. She saw only that Henri went out of his way to be helpful, ensuring that the proper authorities were informed of her impending visit. He even “
ordered a courier
to be immediately dispatched to Don John of Austria—who commanded for the King of Spain in Flanders—to obtain from him the necessary passports for a free passage in the countries under his command, as I should be obliged to cross a part of Flanders to reach Spa, which is in the bishopric of Liège,” relayed Marguerite happily, not perhaps fully appreciating the dubious worth to an aspiring French agent provocateur of having Don John, the brutal governor of the Spanish forces in the Netherlands and one of the most feared men in Europe, forewarned of her impending arrival.

T
HE COURT SPLIT UP AT
the end of May 1577. François went off with the royal army to besiege the Huguenot town of Issoire, in southern France; Catherine and the king traveled to Poitiers in preparation for a future attack on Henry of Navarre in Gascony; and Marguerite embarked for Flanders, in the company of the princess of Roche-sur-Yon and a large party of some twenty-five or thirty companions, including a dozen or so ladies-in-waiting, one cardinal, a bishop, a count, her chief steward, and other members of her household deemed necessary to the queen of Navarre’s comfort and well-being, to take up her new role as secret agent.

In keeping with her cover story of elegant female sovereign en route to a fashionable watering hole, she journeyed in high style. “
I travelled in a litter
raised with pillars,” Marguerite remembered fondly. “The lining of it was Spanish velvet, of a crimson color, embroidered in various devices with gold and different colored silk thread. The windows were of glass, painted in devices. The lining and windows had, in the whole, forty devices, all different and alluding to the sun and its effects. Each device had its motto, either
in the Spanish or Italian language. My litter was followed by two others; in the one was the Princesse de Roche-sur-Yon, and in the other Madame de Tournon, my lady of the bedchamber. After them followed ten maids of honor, on horseback, with their governess; and last of all, six coaches and chariots, with the rest of the ladies and all our female attendants.” Margot acknowledged that this procession “
excited great curiosity
as it passed through the several towns in the course of my journey.”

Her first stop outside France was Cambrai, at that time an ecclesiastical state under Spanish dominion. Cambrai boasted a large fortress, extremely useful for military purposes, commanded by an officer by the name of Monsieur d’Ainsi, “
a polite and well-accomplished man
, having the carriage and behavior of one of our most perfect courtiers, very different from the rude incivility which appears to be the characteristic of a Fleming,” Marguerite observed. (Like many first-time travelers, the queen of Navarre brought her native prejudices with her on this trip.) The spy saw at once that procuring the allegiance of Monsieur d’Ainsi and his stronghold for François would provide her brother with a secure foothold from which to conquer the rest of Flanders. That evening, a grand ball was given in her honor, and it naturally fell to Monsieur d’Ainsi, as the highest authority in the town after the bishop (who, luckily, retired early that evening), to escort the guest of honor to the dance floor. “
I employed all the talents
God had given me to make M. d’Ainsi a friend to France, and attach him to my brother’s interest,” Marguerite reported. Monsieur d’Ainsi was unused to being the object of the attentions of beautiful highborn women. “Through God’s assistance I succeeded with him,” Margot advised modestly.
^*

Next stop on the goodwill ambassador’s tour was Valenciennes, about twenty-five miles to the northeast. By the time she left
Cambrai, Monsieur d’Ainsi was so smitten that he obtained leave to accompany Marguerite all the way to Namur, deep in Spanish-held Belgium, where Don John had arranged to meet the visiting French dignitaries. This afforded plenty of time for plotting. Monsieur d’Ainsi “
took every opportunity of discoursing
with me… and declaring that he heartily despised being under the command of his Bishop, who, though his sovereign, was not his superior by birth, being born a private gentleman like himself, and, in every other respect, greatly his inferior,” the queen of Navarre confided. The Flemings, it seemed, were not without their own native prejudices.

At Valenciennes they were met by the governor of the city, the comte de Lalain, a dignitary of much higher rank and authority than provincial Monsieur d’Ainsi, as witnessed by the impressive train of three hundred noblemen who accompanied him to his rendezvous with Marguerite and her entourage. Like the queen of Navarre’s first conquest, the comte de Lalain detested Spanish rule, but he was more circumspect than Monsieur d’Ainsi, as befit his higher rank. “
Although he had hitherto
abstained from entering into a league with the Prince of Orange and the Huguenots, being himself a steady Catholic, yet he had not admitted of an interview with Don John, neither would he suffer him, nor any one in the interest of Spain, to enter upon his territories,” said Marguerite. Another plum ripe for picking! “With this disposition of mind, the Comte de Lalain thought he could not give me sufficient demonstrations of the joy he felt by my presence,” observed the undercover agent.

This time, however, Marguerite prudently elected not to approach her target, a married man, directly but instead appealed to him through the good offices of his wife. “
On our arrival at Mons
[outside Valenciennes, about halfway to Namur], I was lodged in his house, and found there the Countess his wife, and a Court consisting of eighty to a hundred ladies of the city and country… The Flemish ladies are naturally lively, affable, and engaging. The Comtesse de Lalain is remarkably so, and is, moreover, a woman of great sense and elevation of mind… We became immediately intimate,
and commenced a firm friendship at our first meeting,” Marguerite declared. So pleasant did she find her hostess’s company that what the queen of Navarre had intended to be only an overnight stay lengthened into a week’s visit. By the end of this period, “
the Countess and I were on so familiar
a footing that she stayed in my bedchamber till a late hour, and would not have left me then had she not imposed upon herself a task very rarely performed by persons of her rank, which, however, placed the goodness of her disposition in the most amiable light. In fact, she gave suck to her infant son; and one day at table, sitting next me… she, dressed out in the richest manner and blazing with diamonds, gave the breast to her child without rising from her seat, the infant being brought to the table as superbly habited as its nurse, the mother,” Marguerite marveled. “She performed this maternal duty with so much good humor, and with a gracefulness peculiar to herself, that this charitable office—which would have appeared disgusting and been considered as an affront if done by some others of equal rank—gave pleasure to all who sat at table, and, accordingly, they signified their approbation by their applause.” It seems that even a queen’s perspective could be broadened by travel.

But of course the main order of business was not an introduction to quaint local customs but the substitution of François’s rule for that of Don John’s and Spain’s. Luckily, Marguerite’s hostess made the broaching of this sensitive subject very easy by openly deprecating the Spanish. “
We entertain the utmost dislike
for the Spanish government, and wish for nothing so much as to throw off the yoke of their tyranny,” the countess complained. “But as the country is divided betwixt different religions, we are at a loss how to effect it. If we could unite, we should soon drive out the Spaniards; but this division amongst ourselves renders us weak. Would to God the King your brother would come to a resolution of reconquering this country,
to which he has an ancient claim!
We should all receive him with open arms.”

Margot made haste to disabuse the countess of the notion that
Henri III might ever be induced to take up arms in Flanders’s defense. “
I told her that the King of France
my brother was averse to engaging in foreign war, and more so as the Huguenots in his kingdom were too strong to admit of his sending any large force out of it,” she stressed. Then she made her pitch. “My brother Alençon has sufficient means, and might be induced to undertake it,” Margot continued, as though, in her natural desire to aid her new friend, the idea had just occurred to her. “He has the command of the King’s army against the Huguenots, and has lately taken a well-fortified town, called Issoire, and some other places that were in their possession.” Then, warming to her task: “You could not invite to your assistance a prince who has it so much in his power to give it; being not only a neighbor, but having a kingdom like France at his devotion, whence he may expect to derive the necessary aid and succor. The Count your husband may be assured that if he does my brother this good office he will not find him ungrateful, but may set what price he pleases upon his meritorious service,” she added helpfully. Marguerite was getting the hang of the espionage business.

The upshot of this confidential talk was the appearance in Marguerite’s rooms the next morning of the count himself. “
He explained to me
the means whereby my brother might establish himself in Flanders,” said Margot, “having possession of Hainault, which extended as far as Brussels… we agreed upon an interview betwixt my brother and M. de Montigny, the brother of the Count, which was to take place at La Fère [in northern France, where Marguerite owned a château] upon my return, when this business should be arranged.”
^*
Cambrai, Valenciennes, and Hainaut all to go to
François, and she had been in Flanders barely more than a week! In her exhilaration at having succeeded so thoroughly at her assignment, upon her departure Margot presented her hosts with diamond jewelry of “
considerable value
,” which no doubt added convincingly to their impression of French generosity.

Flushed with triumph, armed with the knowledge that she had immeasurably aided François’s ambitions, the queen of Navarre left Mons for Namur. The comte de Lalain and his men accompanied her part of the way but turned around as soon as Don John and his entourage appeared on the horizon, leaving the covert French operative in the company of only the faithful Monsieur d’Ainsi to face the Spanish governor.

D
ON
J
OHN WAS THE
king of Spain’s illegitimate half brother. He had recently replaced the unpopular duke of Alva, whose repressive government had been disturbingly effective, as Philip II’s ranking commander in the Netherlands. Don John was thirty years old and highly experienced in the art of warfare, having spent the previous dozen or so years in the Spanish navy, the most successful fighting force in Europe. He was universally admired—and feared—for having destroyed the seemingly invincible Turkish fleet at Lepanto six years earlier.

He was also well informed about the political situation in France. In fact, Don John had passed through the kingdom on his way to his Netherlands assignment just the year before, where he had caught a glimpse of Marguerite at a court ball. More to the point, perhaps, he had also had an opportunity to engage in secret negotiations with the duke of Guise at his château in Joinville. There, a daring Catholic plot had been devised between the two men for the overthrow of Elizabeth I. As soon as he dealt with the annoying problem of Protestant unrest in the Netherlands, Don John volunteered to lead an armed raid across the Channel to rescue Mary Stuart from her English prison. As a reward for his bravery and initiative, the duke of Guise promised that the hero of Lepanto could then wed Mary
and rule England with her in her cousin’s place. In return, Don John would aid the Guises and the Catholic League in France. The duke of Guise had explained all about the enmity between Henri III and his brother François and the political alliance between François, Marguerite, and Henry of Navarre that had resulted in the odious Peace of Monsieur. Accordingly, when Henri III wrote to Don John to advise him that his sister would be coming to Belgium, the Spanish governor was already fully aware of Marguerite’s political sympathies and knew to keep a close eye on her activities, surmising that she might be intriguing for her brother François.

Being far more adept at espionage than his royal guest, Don John of course hid his suspicions from Marguerite. Just as she played the part of fashionable queen on a sightseeing holiday to Spa, so he took on the corresponding role of charming, infatuated host. He met her outside Namur and “alighted from his horse to salute me in my litter, which was opened for the purpose,” Margot remembered. “
After an exchange of compliments
, he mounted his horse, but continued in discourse with me until we reached the city.” Darkness having already descended, Don John had thoughtfully ordered all the lamps in the city to be lit in honor of the queen and her entourage. “
Namur appeared with particular advantage
, for the streets were well lighted, every house being illuminated, so that the blaze exceeded that of daylight,” Marguerite admitted.

Nor could she complain about her accommodations. Don John had gone out of his way to impress her, and Marguerite was suitably dazzled. “
The house in which I was lodged
had been newly furnished for the purpose of receiving me,” she remembered. “It consisted of a magnificent large
salon,
with a private apartment, consisting of lodging rooms and closets, furnished in the most costly manner, with furniture of every kind, and hung with the richest tapestry of velvet and satin, divided into compartments by columns of silver embroidery, with knobs of gold, all wrought in the most superb manner.” When one of her party questioned the furnishings, observing that they “
seemed more proper for a great king
than a
young unmarried prince like Don John,” he was informed that they were a gift from an exalted Turkish lord whose sons had been captured at Lepanto. “
Don John having sent
the… sons back without ransom, the father, in return, made him a present of a large quantity of gold, silver, and silk stuffs, which he caused to be wrought into tapestry at Milan, where there are curious workmen in this way; and he had the Queen’s bedchamber hung with tapestry representing the battle in which he had so gloriously defeated the Turks.”