Doomed Queens (30 page)

CAUTIONARY MORAL

You can’t reason with insanity.

1572

ike most princesses of small, powerless countries, Jeanne of Navarre was born to be wed. Navarre was a border kingdom trapped between the mighty Catholic powers of France and Spain, and it served as refuge for French Calvinists, or Huguenots. Jeanne’s father wasted no time in shipping the girl off at thirteen to marry William, Duke of Cleves. However, unlike other princesses, Jeanne did not suffer in silence. She wrote, “I, Jehanne de Navarre, continuing my protests already made, in which I persist, say and declare and protest again by these present that the marriage proposed between me and the Duke of Cleves is against my will, that I have never consented to it…. I do not know to whom to appeal except to God.”

Apparently Jeanne’s prayers were effective: Four years later her marriage was annulled. The vindicated princess did not forget God’s help, even when she was next wed to Antoine de Bourbon, a prince of France. Initially this was a happier match. It produced five children, the first of whom was an heir, Henri. The couple lived peacefully until her father’s death in 1555, which made them corulers of Navarre.

Jeanne III. A poisoned peacemaker?

Now queen, Jeanne found a new way to express her gratitude to God—she converted to Calvinism and declared it the official religion of Navarre. Antoine accepted his wife’s faith, but he was swayed back to Catholicism when the Spanish king dangled Sardinia as a bribe for religious compliance. The couple separated but continued to antagonize each other. In 1562, Antoine was killed in the French Religious Wars which, not surprisingly, sprang up between Catholics and Huguenots.

With her husband out of the way, Queen Jeanne gained a new political and religious adversary. Catherine de’ Medici ruled Catholic France as regent for her son Charles IX, who was mentally unstable; the rest of her sons weren’t so hot either. Catherine was well aware that if her sons died without issue, Jeanne’s little son Henri would inherit the throne of France, thus bringing the horrors of Calvinism home. Catherine even consulted her favorite necromancer, Nostradamus, who predicted that Henri would become king. Superstitious Catherine decided to fight fate and was willing to plot, murder, or poison to do so. At the start of the war, she was accused of giving a perfumed apple to one of Jeanne’s allies; his dog dropped dead after tasting it. She also attempted to have Jeanne assassinated.

Since poison and murder did not work, Catherine fell back on diplomacy: She proposed Jeanne marry Henri to her daughter. Jeanne was dubious: “A peace made of snow this winter…would melt in next summer’s heat.” Nonetheless, she reluctantly agreed after the French queen promised to practice religious tolerance to end the war.

Jeanne died in Paris under suspicious circumstances two months before Henri’s marriage in 1572. Though an autopsy concluded the forty-four-year-old queen had tuberculosis, rumors flew that Catherine had given her a pair of poisoned gloves, perhaps to wear to her son’s wedding.

CAUTIONARY MORAL

If it seems too good to be true,
it probably is.

1587

ary Stuart, better known as Mary, Queen of Scots, was born with two strikes against her, both of which would doom her to an early grave.

The first strike was her cousin Elizabeth, who ruled over England after many years of blood-filled religious strife. Elizabeth was Protestant. Mary was a devout Catholic—and this was the second strike. Mary’s religion made the Scottish queen a seductive alternative for those who yearned for a Catholic monarch. Elizabeth was understandably skittish around her cousin and kept her at arm’s length.

Mary’s life was as colorful as it was tragic. The only daughter of King James V of Scotland, she was born in 1542 on a December day sacred to the Virgin Mary. Some took this as a good omen, but her father did not. He died a week after her birth, leaving Mary to rule Scotland from her crib. She was crowned queen before her first birthday.

The little queen’s reign was tumultuous from the start. Mary’s neighbor to the south, the much-married Henry VIII of England, planned to wed his son, Edward, to Mary to join their two nations. He used military force to press his suit. When the king’s army came too close to the Scottish border for comfort, Mary was sent to France at the age of five. It was here that she became a sixteenth-century case study of Women Who Love Too Much.

Mary was famed for her beauty, intelligence, and kindness. Henri II, the king of France, considered her the most charming child he had ever seen and betrothed her to his son, the four-year-old dauphin François, thus consolidating Scotland and France as a power. The two royal children were raised together in France and grew fond of each other. They were wed in 1558, when Mary was fifteen.

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

No more tears now; I will think upon revenge.

Mary Stuart