Read Online Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe by Stuart Carroll - Free Book Online
Authors: Stuart Carroll
Tags: History, France, Europe, Renaissance, Scotland, England/Great Britain, Italy, Royalty, 16th Century, 17th Century, Faith & Religion
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governor of a frontier province, likewise played an important part in the regent’s defence of France and in finding the cash for the king’s enormous ransom. On Francis’s return in 1526 Claude was rewarded with the position of Grand Veneur , one of the great household offices charged with the supervision of the king’s hunt. The aristocratic social calendar was organized around hunting and the post gave him close access to the king; it also gave him control of a budget and staff, and he would make many new friends among aspirants to lucrative posts, both at court and in the extensive forests reserved for the king’s sport. In 1527, Claude’s position in the front rank of the aristocracy was confirmed by the elevation of the county of Guise to a duchy; he thus became a peer of the realm, which gave him important rights of precedence in public life and royal ceremonial. Seniority among peers was determined by the date of their creation—only the dukes of Vendôme (1514) and Nemours (1524) preceded Guise in the hierarchy. 8
Until his death in 1547, the principal objective of Francis’s foreign policy was the recovery of Milan. To understand this in modern terms as a geo-political contest between France and Spain is anachronistic.
The outlook of Charles and Francis was aristocratic, their rivalry highly personal and so bitterly contested because honour, the quality that constituted the very essence of a gentleman’s being, was at stake.
Francis’s challenge to his foe of single combat was deadly serious; as the English ambassador put it, ‘He would give his daughter to be strumpet to a bordel to be sure of the encounter.’9 His desire to re-establish his honour and reputation was most evident in the field of arts and letters, where he projected himself as the supreme patron and connoisseur in Europe. Guise was not in the front-rank of policy-makers. From 1528 to 1541 the government was virtually run by Anne de Montmorency, another of the king’s childhood companions who had briefly shared his captivity after Pavia. Montmorency collected an unprecedented array of offices. On his return to France he was made Grand Master of the king’s household, which gave him effective control of court appointments, expenditure, and security and in 1538 he was named constable after successfully resisting Charles V’s invasion of Provence. Guise was kept well away from Italy and relegated to the more humdrum defence of the eastern frontier. He did however make a name for himself in Paris. In 1536, while the main royal army was in the south, he, his wife, and children arrived in the city and promised to defend it when the imperialists invaded Picardy and besieged Péronne, only sixty miles away. In a daring escapade with a small force, he lifted the siege and became the toast of Parisian society.
This period was the high point of his influence. In 1538 his daughter, Marie, the widow of the Duke of Longueville, married James V of Scotland. Marie was a renowned beauty and endowed with wit and abundant charm—qualities which enabled her to shine at court after leaving the convent where she had lived with her grandmother. In order to scupper the strengthening of the Auld Alliance, Henry VIII offered his own suit when negotiations were already well advanced. It has been suggested that he was rebuffed because of his faith or because Marie was too intelligent to consider becoming his next female victim. All the evidence is to the contrary. The Guise were flattered to entertain the thought of one of their number becoming Queen of England but, in an early indication of Francis I’s alarm at the prospect of over-mighty subjects, he insisted that the Scottish alliance go ahead. Guise hopes were still alive in September when an English agent and painter arrived at Joinville to cast an eye over Marie’s younger sister, Louise, before setting off for Nancy to have a look at the daughter of the Duke of Lorraine. 10
In 1542, Claude finally
Until his death in 1547, the principal objective of Francis’s foreign policy was the recovery of Milan. To understand this in modern terms as a geo-political contest between France and Spain is anachronistic.
The outlook of Charles and Francis was aristocratic, their rivalry highly personal and so bitterly contested because honour, the quality that constituted the very essence of a gentleman’s being, was at stake.
Francis’s challenge to his foe of single combat was deadly serious; as the English ambassador put it, ‘He would give his daughter to be strumpet to a bordel to be sure of the encounter.’9 His desire to re-establish his honour and reputation was most evident in the field of arts and letters, where he projected himself as the supreme patron and connoisseur in Europe. Guise was not in the front-rank of policy-makers. From 1528 to 1541 the government was virtually run by Anne de Montmorency, another of the king’s childhood companions who had briefly shared his captivity after Pavia. Montmorency collected an unprecedented array of offices. On his return to France he was made Grand Master of the king’s household, which gave him effective control of court appointments, expenditure, and security and in 1538 he was named constable after successfully resisting Charles V’s invasion of Provence. Guise was kept well away from Italy and relegated to the more humdrum defence of the eastern frontier. He did however make a name for himself in Paris. In 1536, while the main royal army was in the south, he, his wife, and children arrived in the city and promised to defend it when the imperialists invaded Picardy and besieged Péronne, only sixty miles away. In a daring escapade with a small force, he lifted the siege and became the toast of Parisian society.
This period was the high point of his influence. In 1538 his daughter, Marie, the widow of the Duke of Longueville, married James V of Scotland. Marie was a renowned beauty and endowed with wit and abundant charm—qualities which enabled her to shine at court after leaving the convent where she had lived with her grandmother. In order to scupper the strengthening of the Auld Alliance, Henry VIII offered his own suit when negotiations were already well advanced. It has been suggested that he was rebuffed because of his faith or because Marie was too intelligent to consider becoming his next female victim. All the evidence is to the contrary. The Guise were flattered to entertain the thought of one of their number becoming Queen of England but, in an early indication of Francis I’s alarm at the prospect of over-mighty subjects, he insisted that the Scottish alliance go ahead. Guise hopes were still alive in September when an English agent and painter arrived at Joinville to cast an eye over Marie’s younger sister, Louise, before setting off for Nancy to have a look at the daughter of the Duke of Lorraine. 10
In 1542, Claude finally
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