The Wild Queen (15 page)

 

Just before midnight Diane de Poitiers appeared at my elbow.

“Are you ready, Marie? The king expects you and your husband to withdraw now, before midnight strikes. You will be escorted separately to your bridal chamber and undressed. The archbishop will bless the marital bed, and everyone will leave—all but the king, who may or may not remain to witness the consummation. Do you remember the instructions I have given you?”

I nodded. I had managed for this one day to push out of my mind every thought of what was about to happen. But I could no longer avoid it. My throat was dry, raw from a day of talking and laughing. I was also suddenly nervous.

“The dauphin has been given corresponding instructions. You will sleep on the right side of the bed. Beneath the pillow is the vial of blood I promised you. Remember to use it.”

“Oui, je comprends,”
I said.

There was no time to worry. Several of my older ladies in waiting were advancing toward me, and I knew that what was to follow was my first official duty as the future queen of France. If only I could now withdraw with my Four Maries, who had been hovering near me all day, always just at the edge of the celebrations. How nice it would be if the five of us could go off together and sip cups of the warm and soothing posset of eggs and milk that Sinclair used to make for me and gossip about the events of the day

That would not happen. I caught the eye of La Flamin, who smiled and made the good-luck signal we had once worked out—left hand briefly touching right eyebrow. I returned the signal and left the ball in the company of my senior ladies.

In the crowded dressing room the ladies competently removed my jewels, my green silk gown, my slippers, and my underthings, and then replaced them with a delicately embroidered shift trimmed with the finest lace. They led me from the dressing room to the bridal chamber, in the center of which stood a massive bed piled high with feather mattresses and draped in rich silk brocade. An animated crowd was gathering in the chamber, the king among them, as well as both of my Guise uncles.
Are they going to stay too?
I wondered.

I climbed the three steps and lay down between smooth white sheets. My husband climbed into the bed from the opposite side. I slid my hand beneath a mound of pillows, felt for the promised glass vial, and found it. I tried to smile encouragingly at François. He looked utterly miserable—exhausted and ill and doubtless more frightened than I.

The archbishop quieted the crowd, stepped to the foot of the bed, and blessed us. Pages drew the curtains around the bed. We heard people leaving, laughing boisterously and talking loudly—they had been drinking most of the day and all of the night. The chamber fell silent. Not a sound. I listened carefully, but I did not hear the great door close.

“Is your father, the king, still here?” I whispered.

“I do not know,” the dauphin replied.

“Then we had better do as the duchess instructed,” I said. “He may be there listening.”

We began our little performance. François bounced up and down on the bed beside me, making grunting noises and pausing long enough to whisper in my ear, “Remember to cry out joyfully, Marie.”

I did so, feeling ridiculous. François joined in. The effort amused us both so much that it was all we could do to keep from laughing out loud. I found the glass vial, uncorked it, and poured a few drops of sheep's blood on the snow-white sheets. In the morning the sheets would be inspected for proof that the bride had come to the bed a virgin and that the marriage had been consummated.

We thought we heard the great door creak quietly and the latch click in place.

“Now we can sleep,” said my husband. “I am very tired. Are you?”

I answered that I was. François curled up close to me, like a child, and flung his arm affectionately around my neck. “I love you,
ma plus chère
Marie,” he said, sighing.

“And I love you,
mon cher
François,” I replied, and I stroked his thin hair until he fell asleep.

Far away in Scotland there were no doubt fireworks, bonfires, processions, dancing in the streets in honor of the wedding of Mary, queen of Scots. The great cannon at Edinburgh Castle would even be fired. I lay awake for a while longer, thinking of my mother, how she would have loved this day, how proud she would have been.

When at last I slept, I believed the world was nearly perfect and that my place in it was secure.

S
ERVANTS AWAKENED US
early the next morning. King Henri expected us to be present at the first of a series of tournaments at his favorite Parisian palace, Hotel des Tournelles. I was drowsy and would have liked to linger there for a while longer, but my new husband fairly leaped from the bed where we had spent our first night together.

“I am to joust with the other men,” he announced. “And I shall carry your colors, my dearest Marie.” His menservants rushed to help him dress, while my ladies and I gathered ourselves at a more leisurely pace.

This was the first of three days of jousting, during which I received an unexpected and not entirely welcome visit from my brother James, whose dark presence had been the only blemish on my wedding day I had seen almost nothing of him since he had traveled with me ten years earlier on the king's galley from Scotland to France. I was a five-year-old child on that long voyage, and he was sixteen, a young man on his way to Paris to study. He had been destined then for a career in the church, and during this visit he informed me that he had been named prior of St. Andrews in Scotland.

“To be truthful, sister, I have little calling as a churchman. This was our father's plan for me, but I have not done well.” It appeared that he did not intend to explain his peculiar behavior among the adoring crowds on my wedding day, and I chose not to mention it.

“What is it you wish to do, James?” I asked.

“Why, to live the life of a gentleman,” he replied, as though that should have been obvious. “And to do my duty as a proud Scot. Therefore, I am asking you, as queen of the country in which you no longer live, to grant me the earldom of Moray.”

Unsure how to respond, I decided to put him off until I could ask my mother's advice. “I will consider your request, dear brother,” I said. “You will receive my answer once you have returned to Scotland.”

As soon as he had been escorted out the door, I wrote to my mother and sent off my coded letter by special courier. Her advice was to refuse him, since granting the earldom would cause trouble with other lords in the north of Scotland, particularly George Gordon, Lord Huntly, and so I did refuse, hoping to hear no more from him. It was obvious from his manner that my brother could barely tolerate me. I had done nothing to offend him, but I could guess at the cause: jealousy. No doubt he wished to be more than an earl; he thought he deserved to be the next king of Scotland.

The wedding festivities were still in progress but were now marred by a grievous accident. One of François's good friends was severely wounded and lost an eye in a joust. Even this unfortunate event did not diminish the pleasure enjoyed by the court, though neither François nor I could brush it off so easily. I prayed that it was not an ill omen.

***

After the wedding, the court returned to Fontainebleau, moved to Saint-Germain for the summer, stopped in Compiègne for autumn hunting, and moved on to Blois in the Loire Valley as the weather turned cool. The dauphin and I now had adjoining apartments, and he often came to talk late in the evening and stayed to sleep in my bed. I played the lute and sang for my husband, but we did not dance together unless some court event required it. I discovered that he was a keen chess player. We had chessboards set up in several different halls, and we sometimes paused on our way from one hall to another to ponder the next move.

François liked to think over his moves. I made mine quickly “Recklessly,” he said. “You must not make your decisions so hastily.”

“But I usually win,” I reminded him.

In the complicated world of royalty, there were always a number of moves in play on the chessboard that was Europe. Developments in one country always affected the situation in another. Seven months after my marriage to François, we learned of the death of Queen Mary of England. She died childless, and on November 17, 1558, Mary's half sister, Elizabeth Tudor, became queen. I sat down to write my congratulations to Elizabeth on the occasion of her accession to the throne of England, addressing her as “my dear sister,” the custom among royalty, though we were not truly sisters but first cousins once removed. Elizabeth's father, the hated Henry VIII, was the brother of my father's mother.

I was quite unprepared for what the crowning of Elizabeth would mean to me.

“You have a legitimate claim to the throne of England!” my uncles pointed out to me, barely able to conceal their delight.

“Elizabeth is illegitimate,” Uncle Charles added, unable to stop himself from gloating. “Henry's marriage to her mother—his second wife, Anne Boleyn—was not recognized by the pope. Henry himself dissolved his marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, mother of the late Queen Mary. What's more, Elizabeth is Protestant and will surely lead the country away from the true church.
Ma chère
Marie, you are quite clearly the legitimate ruler of England!”

I knew that Henry had not been allowed to divorce his first wife to marry the second, but until now I had not realized what this could mean to me. The idea was thrilling: I could very possibly be queen of not only Scotland but England and Ireland as well, and, in due time, France. So sure were my uncles and my father-in-law of my right to the English throne that King Henri ordered my coat of arms changed to include the English crown. The heraldic arms of England were now to be quartered with the arms of Scotland and France.

“A direct challenge to the English queen,” my uncles announced triumphantly.

They ordered the coat of arms of England to be boldly displayed with the arms of France and Scotland on every plate, every chest, every piece of furniture that belonged to my husband. This new coat of arms was also stitched on the livery worn by my servants. When I was on my way to Mass or anywhere else, the ushers who walked ahead of me were instructed to cry, “Make way for the queen of England!”

Then my uncle the cardinal journeyed to Rome to meet with Pope Paul IV and to present the case that I, Marie Stuart, was the true and rightful heir to the throne of England.

He returned with a report that disappointed us all. The pope had refused to declare Elizabeth Tudor illegitimate, putting an end to the dream that I would become queen of England, Ireland, and Scotland. The pope was afraid to go against the wishes of powerful King Philip II of Spain, who wished to stay on good terms with Elizabeth. It was rumored that he had proposed marriage to her when her half sister, Mary, his wife, was scarcely in her tomb. Elizabeth had refused him. It was only after her refusal that Philip had proposed to marry our own dear Princesse Élisabeth.

Then King Henri too began to believe that it was a mistake to challenge Elizabeth of England. He even seemed to lose some of his great affection for my heroic uncle François, who had won Calais back from the English. When Le Balafré asked to be made grand master of the king's household as a reward for his brave leadership, the king refused! My uncle's pride was hurt. Then the French signed a treaty with England, heaping praise on Queen Elizabeth. I had to make a speech saying how much the treaty pleased me.

That was a lie. It did not please me, but no one cared in the least what I thought.

Meanwhile, word got back to Elizabeth that I believed I had a better claim to the throne of England than she did. And that angered her.

No one
was pleased.

I
T WAS A TIME
for royal weddings. In January of 1559, Princesse Claude, not yet twelve years old, married sixteen-year-old Charles, duke of Lorraine. For a time it appeared that Élisabeth would marry Carlos, the son of King Philip II of Spain, but those plans were abandoned. Instead, my dear sister-friend found herself pledged to be married by proxy to Carlos's father, as had originally been proposed. She was frightened half to death of the life that lay ahead of her.

I was with Élisabeth throughout the preparations for her wedding. I tried hard to distract her, assuring her that her husband would be considerate of her, though I had no idea if this was true. Élisabeth was fourteen; Philip was thirty-two. “He is old,” I reasoned. “He will surely make few demands on you.”

I remembered the talk that Madame de Poitiers had given me before my marriage, and I hoped she would do the same for Élisabeth. And what of poor little Claude, who had not yet become a woman at the time of her marriage? The duke of Lorraine was a few years older but presumably inexperienced. What could one say to that poor child?

I felt myself fortunate that my dear little François was still a boy, not yet a man; we were the best of friends, closer even than brother and sister, but not yet husband and wife.

The royal family gathered in Paris for the wedding of Princesse Élisabeth to King Philip II on the twenty-first of June at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, with the duke of Alba standing as proxy for the Spanish king. Élisabeth's gown was a rich yellow satin adorned with pearls and yellow gems, and though she did not share my desire to be unconventional, the princess appeared to delight in being the center of attention.

“My mother says I do not have to leave France until late in the autumn,” she told me, “and the journey to Spain will be a long one. There will be another wedding ceremony in Guadalajara, in Spain, and my husband, Philip, will be present.” She colored a little, turning a pretty pink when she spoke of “my husband,” which she did often. She asked again, “You will come to visit me, will you not, Marie? Promise you will not forget me!”