Mary Queen of Scots by Retha Warnicke Read Free Book Online Page B

château of St Carriéres in St Denis during the refurbishing of the palace at St Germain-en-Laye, its usual headquarters some 12 miles from Paris. Away on a progress, Henry sent instructions to its director, Jean de Humières, sieur de Mouchy, and his wife, Frances de Contay, to prepare for Mary’s arrival. As his heir’s betrothed, Henry raised her in rank above his daughters and granted her the privileges held by his consort, Catherine de’ Medici, to grant pardons and release prisoners. 4
    After meeting Mary, probably on 9 November at St Germain, Henry judged her the prettiest and most graceful princess he had ever seen, an opinion reflecting the views of the whole court, according to de Brézé. Catherine echoed her husband’s praise and later remarked that the little queen needed only to smile to turn all French heads. 5 Lord Erskine also confided to Mary of Guise that the royal family greatly honored her child.
    De Humières taught the four-year-old Francis how to welcome Mary, and he apparently rose to the occasion admirably. His greeting impressed Henry’s long-time mistress, Diane de Poitiers, duchess of Valentinois and widow of Louis de Brézé, count of Maulévrier. She counseled the tutor that if he wanted to please Henry he should continue coaching Francis to perform those small courtesies. De Humières followed her advice so well that Anne de Montmorency, constable of France, could report to Mary of Guise in March 1549 that Francis paid her six-year-old daughter little attentions, proving they were born for each other.
    Mary was immediately introduced to the court’s protocol. The children assembled daily in the nursery’s great hall to pay homage to the dauphin and his betrothed as their social superiors. Imitating their elders’ dinnertime etiquette, Mary and Francis dined at the same table while their young attendants sat elsewhere according to their rank. In 1553 her French governess, Frances d’Estamville, madame de Parois, assured her mother that Mary behaved very well toward Francis.
    Whenever possible, parents arranged for betrothed children to be brought up together so that they could become acquainted and emotionally attached to each other. Representing the perfect examples of this practice, Francis and Mary impressed observers, as they approached adolescence, with their caring relationship. In January 1555 when she was 12 and Francis was 11, Giovanni Capello, the Venetian ambassador, characterized their intimacy as love after witnessing them caressing each other and whispering together in a corner of the room. 6
    Capello almost certainly was referring to an emotional rather than a physical attachment. Modern studies indicate that the onset of puberty was later in the sixteenth century than in the twenty-first century. Although the church permitted twelve-year-old girls and fourteen-year-old boys to marry, when children did wed at this young age, parents and guardians usually delayed their sexual intimacy until the bride, at least, was about sixteen.
    As soon as the Treaty of Haddington was ratified, the children’s supervisors began teaching them the significance of their future marriage, which would unify their realms as well as join them together personally. Early modern Europeans customarily placed a romantic gloss on these matches to obscure their economic and political underpinnings. In 1548, for example, Francis, the future second duke of Guise, wrote to his sister, Mary, that for their family’s honor their father Claude traveled south toward Italy to greet Anne d’Este, the elder daughter of Hercule II, duke of Ferrara, and praised her to him so that he fell in love with his future bride at a distance. Michel de Montaigne later remarked: “Men do not marry for themselves, whatever they may say. They marry as much or more for their posterity and house. The custom and profit of marriage concerns our race much more than ourselves.” 7
    At a time when family honor was a high