The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King (16 page)

_____________________

1
. The eldest, a daughter, Louise, had died young.

2
. Known in history as Marguerite, queen of Navarre.

3
. The stag was the traditional device of the Valois, but individuals in the family chose their own symbols as well.

4
. It is still there.

5
. The arquebus was an early rifle.

6
. Brantôme,
Vie des dames illustres françaises et étrangères
. Volume 5 of
Oeuvres complètes
.

7
. Claude’s duchy of Brittany, coveted by French kings for more than two hundred years, was not officially joined to France until 1532, when Queen Claude bequeathed Brittany to her eldest son, the dauphin, to be administered by her husband, François, during the boy’s minority (until the age of fourteen).

8
. A military term for the surrounding or the hemming in of a town or fort by a hostile force.

9
. His full name was Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc, Maréchal de France.

10
. The heavy cavalry consisted of larger, powerful warhorses known as destriers. Both horse and rider wore full armor.

11
. Robert III de La Marck, seigneur de Fleurange (1491–1537), wrote the chronicle of his life while in Spanish captivity. It is an excellent source.

CHAPTER SIX

Imprisonment

A
s the prisoner-king of France was led on a mule through the battlefield, his eyes filled with tears when he recognized so many of his friends lying dead—Bonnivet, Bussy d’Amboise, François de Lorraine, the seventy-year-old veteran La Trémoille, the comte de Toulouse-Lautrec, René de Brosse, and René Batard de Savoie. In heavy rain, François I was escorted to the sinister fortress of Pizzighettone, near Cremona. There he remained in a tower for eighty days in isolation and discomfort. From there he wrote his first letter following the defeat to his mother: “Madame, all is lost save honor and my life.” The king’s words moved his mother so much that Marguerite replied to her brother: “Your letter has had such an effect on Madame, and on all those who love you, that it has been to us a Holy Ghost after the sorrow of the Passion.… Madame has felt her strength so greatly redoubled, that all day and evening not a minute is lost for your affairs, so that you need not have any pain or care about your realm and your children.”

The king’s fellow prisoners and friends, Montmorency and Philippe
Chabot de Brion,
¹
tried their best to distract him, but they were soon exchanged for imperial prisoners of equal importance. The
dead
French officers were also traded by the victorious imperialists, their corpses exchanged for gold. While François waited to hear the emperor’s terms for a peace, and tried to forget the horror of the battle, he diverted himself with a little dog, two goldfinches, and a magpie. He wrote nostalgic poetry, and some melancholy verses to his mistress, Françoise de Foix. His routine was described by one of the officers on guard: “the king heard Mass daily and wore only black in mourning for his dead.” Surprisingly, François was allowed to keep his dagger, with which he toyed constantly. The same guard described his hands as extraordinarily beautiful—strange for a large man who fought with a heavy two-handed sword.

François I felt sure that were he able to speak with Charles V they could quickly come to terms for a binding treaty, but that if this task was left to the courtiers, his incarceration would surely be long. More than anything, Charles V wanted Burgundy, which he believed should have been his by inheritance from his Burgundian ancestor, Marie the Rich, daughter of the last duke, Charles the Bold. Time after time, the king’s negotiators explained to the emperor that he had no right to Burgundy under feudal law, because the inheritance he claimed came through the female line. Of course, the same could be said of the French claim to Milan.

The viceroy of Naples, Charles de Lannoy, was uncomfortable having to guard the French king in Italy where so many of the population had until recently owed their allegiance to him. François’ cousin, Henri d’Albret of Navarre, had already escaped. Lannoy decided that the king must be moved to Spain. François welcomed this decision as he felt certain a treaty would only be made if he and Charles could meet. In May 1525, François was taken from Pizzighettone to Genoa, where he boarded a Spanish galleon. Escorted by a number of other ships, the king of France left ostensibly for Naples. The Spanish were taking no chances in case the great sea captain Andrea Doria, who was on the side of France, might rescue him; but no attempt was
made.
²
In June, the king disembarked on the Costa Brava, where the convoy took to horse and headed for Barcelona.

The prisoner-king, a famously brave and handsome cavalier, made a triumphant entry into the capital of Catalonia and was treated as if on a state visit. At the cathedral he heard Mass seated on a throne, appearing more like visiting royalty. After two days of festivities during which François attended a bullfight, the king and his jailers continued on their journey, stopping at Tarragon and at Valencia, the ancient capital of the Moors. All the while, messengers passed back and forth between king and emperor, who continued to haggle over Burgundy. It may appear strange that the captured king of France was treated more like a conquering hero in Spain than a prisoner. Despite all the brutality of war, nostalgia for the Age of Chivalry still lingered among the mighty warriors of the day. As long as the king of France was in a position to grant the emperor’s dearest wish—namely, to cede him Burgundy—François I could be received as a guest by the nobility of Spain.

Louise de Savoie sent a mission of bishops to Spain to negotiate, but they, too, found only deaf ears. She offered the emperor a fortune in return for the safe delivery of her son, but he did not want money. Charles V persisted in his claim to Burgundy, that beautiful part of France which had been the Holy Roman Emperor’s reason for going to war.

Still en route to Madrid, the convoy stopped at Guadalajara, where the defeated king was welcomed even more like a conquering hero by the reigning duke.
³
Here François was greeted by triumphal arches, flower-strewn roads, music, and guards of honor firing salutes. The duke showed his guest—as he viewed the king—his palace studded with precious stones, and invited him to attend a banquet laid for hundreds of guests in his honor. On parting, the duke offered François extraordinary gifts for a man about to go to prison: exquisitely saddled horses, falcons, hunting dogs, golden bibelots. All that the prisoner-king had to give his host was a short sword, declaring that in France a man of such generosity could only be called a prince.

By mid-August, François had reached Madrid, where his triumphal
progress ended rudely and abruptly. He was taken to the royal palace of Alcazar (now demolished), where he was housed in a cell no larger than five paces square. His window was heavily barred and an armed guard was stationed at his door. There could be no longer any doubt: the king of France was a prisoner.

Deprived of the physical exercise he had enjoyed every day of his life, François fell ill and developed an abscess in his nose. He would not eat and the Spanish doctors feared he might die as he was unable to speak, hear, or see. A dead hostage was of no use to the emperor, so Charles V came to Madrid, promising to release the king and treat him well. In his desperation, François had written begging his mother to come to him or he would surely die. Much as she loved her son, as regent, Louise de Savoie put her country first. If she came to Spain and was kidnapped by the emperor, what would become of France? Instead, she requested a safe-conduct for her daughter. The widowed Marguerite, with her tact, intelligence, beauty, and charm, would surely be able to negotiate for her brother and persuade the emperor to terms other than ceding Burgundy.

Marguerite de Valois, duchesse d’Alençon, was two years older than the king. She was tall, attractive, and devoted to her brother. She was also highly intelligent, charming, an intellectual, and had proven her worth to François during a number of delicate diplomatic exchanges. On her arrival at Madrid, Marguerite was cordially received by the members of the imperial court, but she soon realized that neither the emperor nor his courtiers were willing to meet any of her requests. Marguerite persisted, but despite her winning ways, the men of the court would avoid her on instructions from Charles V. Brantôme wrote of her discussions with the emperor:

Meanwhile, the regent Louise de Savoie bribed everyone she could. Henry VIII received a fortune in gold to remain at peace with France. His cardinal, Thomas Wolsey, was also paid a large sum not to agitate for war. French claims and rights to Milan, together with the hand of one of the French princesses, were offered to the reigning Sforza duke there.

Even Pope Clement VII benefited from French largesse—France’s enemies were being neutralized. Louise de Savoie looked beyond Europe for support. Then, on instructions from the king, she did the unthinkable. As regent of France, she sent an emissary to the Ottoman emperor, Suleiman the Magnificent. The Turk was an enemy of Christianity, and that also made him an enemy of the emperor. The first French courier was misunderstood and murdered, so the regent chose another, a Croatian, whose family was long established in France, with the exotic name of Frangipani.
⁵
He hid the royal message inside the heel of his boot, together with a golden signet ring to be given as a sign of François I’s friendship. This initiative had little actual success because the Sultan did not offer money for the king’s ransom—but it opened the door for a future alliance against the emperor. Even today, it seems
an extraordinary initiative on behalf of The Most Christian King of France to take as an ally the infidel Sultan Suleiman to fight against the Holy Roman Emperor. From this time dates the remarkable relationship that France has enjoyed with the East.

Charles V remained immovable in his demands, and Louise’s emissaries were in no position to sway him. The terms of the final treaty were so harsh that all of France united behind its defeated king, and countless citizens offered to share his imprisonment. (Conscious of the advantages to his family resulting indirectly from the treaty, Louis de Brézé was one of the first to offer.) According to the treaty, France was obliged to cede to the emperor the duchy of Burgundy, as well as Flanders and Artois. The king was to renounce his hereditary claims to the duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples. Henry VIII was to be given all the former lands of the Plantagenets—Guyenne, Périgord, Aquitaine, Poitou, Anjou, and Normandy. Charles de Bourbon was to add Provence to his vast holdings in central France, a separate kingdom in all but name. As an added slight, the emperor gave the duchy of Milan to the traitorous Constable.

By the same treaty, the confiscated Bourbon lands in France were all returned to Charles de Bourbon, and the instigators of the plot against François I—including Jehan de Saint-Vallier—were pardoned and released from prison, their titles and properties restored. François wrote a letter in 1526 making it clear that, not only was Saint-Vallier’s confiscated property returned to him, but he received more than he had held before. The king’s decree stated: “Item: that the counties of
Valentinois
⁶
and Diois, belonging to Jehan de Poitiers through his rightful inheritance from Aymar de Poitiers his predecessor, should be returned to him along with their rights and privileges, and the fruits which have grown since these were confiscated, until the present day.”

With France decimated through this treaty, there would be little left for the king to rule, and the country would certainly no longer be a formidable continental power. The Italian dream had dissolved. The emperor even demanded that France’s mercenary army and ships be used to escort him to Rome so that the pope could finally place the crown of Charlemagne on his head.

To general surprise, Charles V did not invade France. His armies were spread throughout his empire and difficult to reassemble. His resources were greatly overstretched in Germany, with Lutheran preachers urging a break from the Catholic Church, and by peasant revolts in many areas due to poor harvests. Despite the enormous riches coming from Spain’s territories in the New World—unlimited amounts, it seemed, of Inca gold, precious stones, and metals—not enough survived the exigencies of storms and pirates, and the Spanish coffers were empty. The mercenaries in the army had not been paid for some time and were deserting. The Holy Roman Empire was such a mixture of nationalities and cultures that the various populations had no common goal around which to unite.

The French nation, on the other hand, was uniting in solidarity against the terrible humiliation of its loss and anger at the crippling terms of the Treaty of Madrid. France was the motherland and she was worth defending. A national spirit rose up.

Because Charles V’s forces were spread so wide and thin, he did not dare invade France without the participation of the English—and this was a risk Henry VIII was not prepared to undertake. The English king reasoned that if the emperor added part of France to his empire, Charles V would be so powerful that Henry might even find himself threatened. Instead, Henry VIII sent his ambassador, John Taylor, to visit the royal children at Amboise on the Loire, bringing them each a riding mare and two mastiffs. Taylor reported to Cardinal Wolsey that the two young
princes were most attractive, with charming manners, that they each shook him by the hand, asked politely about the English king’s welfare, and thanked him with a mixture of dignity and delight at the gifts. “Verily, they be goodly children, Your Majesty’s godson [Henri d’Orléans] is a quicker spirit and the bolder, as seemeth by his behaviour.”