Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564
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years on her brow. Her only physical charms were grace, and a
complexion kept fresh by washing with cold water at all seasons. She
was not a courtesan; apparently she was faithful to her husband, Louis
de Breze, till his death; and though, like Henry, she indulged in
two or three asides during her royal liaison, these were venial
incidents, mere grace notes in her song of love. She was not romantic;
rather she was too practical, making hay while her sun shone; France
condemned not her morals but her money. She was not like Francis'
mignons - pretty heads but empty, prancing on gay feet till
motherhood surprised them. Diane had good education, good sense,
good manners, good wit; here was a mistress who charmed with her mind.
She came of high lineage, and was brought up at the art-loving court
of the Bourbons at Moulins. Her father, Jean de Poitiers, Comte de
Saint-Vallier, shared the Duke of Bourbon's treason after trying to
prevent it; he was captured and sentenced to death (1523); Diane's
husband, in favor with Francis, secured her father's pardon. *06051
Louis de Breze was grandson of Charles VII by Agnes Sorel; he had
ability or influence, for he became Grant' Seneschal and Governor of
Normandy. He was fifty-six when Diane, sixteen, became his wife
(1515). When he died (1531) she raised to his memory at Rouen a
magnificent tomb with an inscription vowing eternal fidelity. She
never married again, and wore, thereafter, only black and white.
She met Henry when, a lad of seven, he was being handed over at
Bayonne as a hostage for his father. The bewildered boy wept; Diane,
then twenty-seven, mothered and comforted him, whose own mother Claude
was two years dead; and perhaps the memory of those pitying embraces
revived in him when he met her again eleven years later. Though then
four years a husband, he was still mentally immature, as well as
abnormally melancholy and diffident; he wanted a mother more than a
wife; and here again Diane appeared, quiet, tender, comforting. He
came to her first as a son, and their relations for some time were
apparently chaste. Her affection and counsel gave him confidence;
under her tutelage he ceased to be a misanthrope, and prepared to be a
king. Popular opinion credited them with having one child, Diane de
France, whom she brought up with her two daughters by Breze; she
also adopted the daughter borne to Henry in 1538 by a Piedmontese
maiden who paid for her royal moment by a lifetime as a nun. Another
illegitimate child resulted from Henry's later affair with Mary
Fleming, governess of Mary Stuart. Despite these experiments, his
devotion was increasingly to Diane de Poitiers. He wrote to her
poems of real excellence; he showered her with jewelry and estates. He
did not entirely neglect Catherine; usually he dined and spent the
evenings with her; and she, grateful for the parings of his love,
accepted in silent sorrow the fact that another woman was the real
dauphiness of France. She must have felt it as an added wound that
Diane occasionally prodded Henry into sleeping with his
wife. `062268 His accession to the throne did not lower Diane's state.
He wrote to her the most abject letters, entreating her to let him
be her servant for life. His infatuation made her almost as rich as
the Queen. He guaranteed to Diane a fixed percentage of all receipts
from the sale of appointments to office, and nearly all appointments
were in her power. He gave her the crown jewels that the Duchesse
d'Etampes had worn; when the Duchess protested, Diane threatened to
accuse her of Protestantism, and was bought off only by a gift of
property. Henry allowed her to keep for her use 400,000 thalers that
Francis had bequeathed for the secret support of the Protestant
princes in Germany. `062269 So dowered, Diane rebuilt, on a design
by Philibert Delorme, the old Breze mansion of Anet into an
extensive chateau that became not only a second home for the King
but also a museum of art, and a handsome rendezvous for poets,
artists, diplomats, dukes, generals, cardinals, mistresses, and
philosophers. Here in effect sat the Privy Council of the state, and
Diane was prime ministress, passionless and intelligent. Everywhere-
at Anet, Chenonceaux, Amboise, the Louvre- dishes, coats of arms,
works of art, choir stalls, bore the bold symbol of the royal romance,
two Ds placed back to back, with a dash between them forming the
letter H. There is something touching and beautiful about this
unique friendship, built on love and money, but enduring till death.
In the struggle of the Church against heresy, Diane put all her
influence behind orthodoxy and suppression. She had abundant reasons
for piety: her daughter was married to a son of Francis, Duke of
Guise; and Francis, with his brother Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine,
both favorites at Anet, were the leaders of the Catholic party in
France. As for Henry, his childhood piety had been intensified by
his years in Spain; his love letters confused God and Diane as
rivals for his heart. The Church was helpful; it gave him 3,000,000
golden crowns for canceling his father's decree restricting the
power of ecclesiastical courts. `062270
Nevertheless Protestantism was growing in France. Calvin and
others were sending in missionaries whose success was alarming.
Several towns- Caen, Poitiers, La Rochelle, and many in Provence- were
predominantly Huguenot by 1559; a priest reckoned the French
Protestants in that year at nearly a quarter of the
population. `062271 Says a Catholic historian: "The source of the
apostasy from Rome- ecclesiastical corruption- had not been removed,
nay, had only been strengthened, by the... Concordat" between Leo X
and Francis I. `062272 In the middle and lower classes Protestantism
was in part a protest against a Catholic government that curbed
municipal autonomy, taxed unbearably, and wasted revenues and lives in
war. The nobility, shorn of its former political power by the kings,
looked with envy at Lutheran princes victorious over Charles V;
perhaps a similar feudalism could be restored in France by using
widespread popular resentment against abuses in Church and state.
Prominent nobles like Gaspard de Coligny, his younger brother Francois
d'Andelot, Prince Louis de Conde, and his brother Antoine de
Bourbon, took active part in organizing the Protestant revolt.
For its theology Gallic Protestantism adopted Calvin's Institutes;
its author and language were French, and its logic appealed to the
French mind. After 1550 Luther was almost forgotten in France; the
very name Huguenot came from Zurich through Geneva to Provence. In May
1559, the Protestants felt strong enough to send deputies to their
first general synod, held secretly in Paris. By 1561 there were
2,000 "Reformed" or Calvinistic churches in France. `062273
Henry II set himself to crush out the heresy. By his instructions
the Parlement of Paris organized a special commission (1549) to
prosecute dissent; those condemned were sent to the stake, and the new
court came to be called le chambre ardente, "the burning room." By
the Edict of Chateaubriand (1551) the printing, sale, or possession of
heretical literature was made a major crime, and persistence in
Protestant ideas was to be punished with death. Informers were to
receive a third of the goods of the condemned. They were to report
to the Parlement any judge who treated heretics leniently, and no
man could be a magistrate unless his orthodoxy was beyond doubt. In
three years the chambre ardente sent sixty Protestants to a
flaming death. Henry proposed to Pope Paul IV that the Inquisition
should be established in France on the new Roman model, but the
Parlement objected to allowing its authority to be superseded. One
of its members, Anne du Bourg, boldly suggested that all pursuit of
heresy should cease until the Council of Trent should complete its
definitions of orthodox dogma. Henry had him arrested, and vowed to
see him burned, but fate cheated the King of this spectacle.
For meanwhile he had been lured into renewing the war against the
Emperor. He could never forgive the long imprisonment of his father,
his brother, and himself; he hated Charles with the same intensity
with which he loved Diane. When the Lutheran princes made their
decisive stand against the Emperor for Christ and feudalism, they
sought alliance with Henry, and invited him to seize Lorraine. So he
agreed in the Treaty of Chambord (1552). In a rapid and
well-directed campaign he took with little trouble Toul, Nancy,
Metz, and Verdun. Charles, readier to yield victory to Protestantism
in Germany than to the Valois in France, signed a humble peace with
the princes at Passau, and hurried to besiege the French in Metz.
Francis, Duke of Guise, made his reputation there by the skill and
pertinacity of his defense. From October 19 to December 26, 1552,
the siege continued; then Charles, pale, haggard, white-bearded,
crippled, withdrew his disheartened troops. "I see very well," he
said, "that fortune resembles a woman; she prefers a young king to
an old emperor." `062274 "Before three years are up," he added, "I
shall turn Cordelier"- i.e., a Franciscan friar. `062275
In 1555-56 he resigned his power in the Netherlands and Spain to his
son, signed the Truce of Vaucelles with France, and left for Spain
(September 17, 1556). He thought he was bequeathing to Philip a
realm at peace, but Henry felt that the situation called for another
sally into Italy. Philip had no reputation as a general; he was
unexpectedly plunged into war with Pope Paul IV; to Henry the
opportunity seemed golden. He sent Guise to take Milan and Naples, and
himself prepared to meet Philip on the ancient battlefields of
northeastern France. Philip rose to the occasion. He borrowed a
million ducats from Anton Fugger, and charmed Queen Mary of England
into the war. At Saint-Queutin (August 10, 1557) Duke Emmanuel
Philibert of Savoy led Philip's combined armies to an overwhelming
victory, took Coligny and Montmorency prisoners, and prepared to march
upon Paris. The city was in panic; defense seemed impossible. Henry
recalled Guise and his troops from Italy; the Duke crossed France, and
by remarkable celerity of movement surprised and captured Calais
(1558), which England had held since 1348. Philip, hating war and
anxious to return to Spain, was readily persuaded to sign the Treaty
of Cateau-Cambresis (April 2, 1559): Henry agreed to stay north of the
Alps, and Philip consented to let him keep Lorraine and- over Mary's
tears- Calais. Suddenly the two kings became friends; Henry gave his
daughter Elizabeth in marriage to Philip, and his sister Marguerite of
Berry was pledged to Emmanuel Philibert, who now recovered Savoy;
and a stately festival of jousts, banquets, and weddings was arranged.
So, while cautious Philip remained in Flanders, French, Flemish, and
Spanish notables gathered around the royal palace of Les Tournelles in
Paris; lists were fenced off in the Rue St.-Antoine, with gaily
decorated stands and balconies; and all went merry as a wedding
bell. On June 22 the Duke of Alva, as proxy for Philip, received
Elizabeth as new Queen of Spain. Henry, now forty, insisted on
entering the tournament. In such jousts victory was adjudged to the
rider who, without being unhorsed, broke three lances against the
armor of his foe. Henry accomplished this upon the Dukes of Guise
and Savoy, who knew their proper roles in the play. But a third
opponent, Montgomery, after breaking a lance against the King,
awkwardly allowed the sharp-pointed stump of the weapon to pass
under Henry's visor; it pierced the King's eye and reached the
brain. For nine days he lay unconscious. On July 9 the marriage of
Philibert and Marguerite was celebrated. On July 10 the King died.
Diane de Poitiers retired to Anet, and survived seven years. Catherine
de Medicis, who had hungered for his love, wore mourning all the
rest of her life.
CHAPTER XXIII: Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey: 1509-29
I. A PROMISING KING: 1509-11
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NO one, beholding the youth who mounted the throne of England in
1509, would have foreseen that he was to be both the hero and the
villain of the most dramatic reign in English history. Still a lad
of eighteen, his fine complexion and regular features made him
almost girlishly attractive; but his athletic figure and prowess
soon canceled any appearance of femininity. Foreign ambassadors vied
with native eulogists in praising his auburn hair, his golden beard,
his "extremely fine calf." "He is extremely fond of tennis,"
reported Giustiniani to the Venetian Senate; "it is the prettiest
thing in the world to see him play, his fair skin glowing through a
shirt of finest texture." `06231 In archery and wrestling he equaled
the best in his kingdom; at the hunt he never seemed to tire; two days
a week he gave to jousts- and there only the Duke of Suffolk could
match him. But he was also an accomplished musician, "sang and
played all kinds of instruments with rare talent" (wrote the papal
nuncio), and composed two Masses, which are still preserved. He
loved dancing and masquerades, pageantry and fine dress. He liked to
drape himself in ermine or purple robes, and the law gave him alone
the right to wear purple, or gold brocade. He ate with gusto, and
sometimes prolonged state dinners to seven hours, but in the first
twenty years of his reign his vanity curbed his appetite. Everybody
liked him, and marveled at his genial ease of manners and access,
his humor, tolerance, and clemency. His accession was hailed as the
dawn of a golden age.
The intellectual classes rejoiced too, for in those halcyon days
Henry aspired to be a scholar as well as an athlete, a musician, and a
king. Originally destined for an ecclesiastical career, he became
something of a theologian, and could quote Scripture to any purpose.
He had good taste in art, collected with discrimination, and wisely
chose Holbein to immortalize his paunch. He took an active part in
works of engineering, shipbuilding, fortification, and artillery.
Sir Thomas More said of him that he "has more learning than any
English monarch ever possessed before him"- `06232 no high praise.
"What may we not expect," More continued, "from a king who has been
nourished by philosophy and the nine Muses?" `06233 Mountjoy wrote
ecstatically to Erasmus, then in Rome:
-
What may you not promise yourself from a prince with whose
extraordinary talent and almost divine character you are well
acquainted? But when you know what a hero he now shows himself, how
wisely he behaves, what a lover he is of justice and goodness, what
affection he bears to the learned, I venture to swear that you will
need no wings to make you fly to behold this new and auspicious
star. Oh, my Erasmus, if you could see how all the world here is
rejoicing in the possession of so great a prince, how his life is
all their desire, you would not contain your tears for joy. The
heavens laugh, the earth exults. `06234
-
Erasmus came, and for a moment shared the delirium. "Heretofore," he
wrote, "the heart of learning was among such as professed religion.
Now, while these for the most part give themselves up to the belly,
luxury, and money, *06052 the love of learning is gone from them to
secular princes, the court, and the nobility.... The King admits not
only such men as More to his court, but he invites them- forces
them- to watch all that he does, to share his duties and his
pleasures. He prefers the companionship of men like More to that of
silly youths or girls or the rich." `06235 More was one of the
King's Council, Linacre was the King's physician, Colet was the King's
preacher at St. Paul's.
In the year of Henry's accession Colet, inheriting his father's
fortune, used much of it to establish St. Paul's School. Some 150 boys
were chosen to study, there, classical literature and Christian
theology and ethics. Colet violated tradition by staffing the school
with lay teachers; it was the first nonclerical school in Europe.
The "Trojans," who at Oxford inveighed against the teaching of the
classics on the ground that it led to religious doubt, opposed Colet's
program, but the King overruled them and gave Colet full
encouragement. Though Colet was himself orthodox and a model of piety,
his enemies charged him with heresy. Archbishop Warham silenced
them, and Henry concurred. When Colet saw Henry bent on war with
France, he publicly condemned the policy, and declared, like
Erasmus, that an unjust peace was to be preferred to the justest
war. Even with the King sitting in the congregation Colet denounced
war as flying in the face of the precepts of Christ. Henry privately
begged him not to disrupt the morale of the army, but when the King
was urged to depose Colet he answered: "Let everyone have his own
doctor... this man is the doctor for me." `06236 Colet continued to
take Christianity seriously. To Erasmus he wrote (1517) in the
spirit of Thomas a Kempis:
-
Ah, Erasmus, of books of knowledge there is no end; but there is
nothing better for this short term of ours than that we should live
a pure and holy life, and daily do our best to be cleansed and
enlightened... by the ardent love and imitation of Jesus. Wherefore it
is my most earnest wish that, leaving all indirect courses, we may
proceed by a short method to the Truth. Farewell. `06237
-
In 1518 he prepared his own simple tomb, with only Johannes
Coletus inscribed on it. A year later he was buried in it, and many
felt that a saint had passed away.
II. WOLSEY
-
Henry, who was to become the incarnation of Machiavelli's
Prince, was as yet an innocent novice in international politics.
He recognized his need for guidance, and sampled the men around him.
More was brilliant, but only thirty-one, and inclined to sanctity.
Thomas Wolsey was a mere three years older, and was a priest, but
his whole turn was for statesmanship, and religion was for him a
part of politics. Born at Ipswich, "of low extraction and despicable
blood" (so the proud Guicciardini described him), `06238 Thomas had
covered the baccalaureate course at Oxford by the age of fifteen; at
twenty-three he was bursar of Magdalen College, and showed his quality
by applying adequate funds, beyond his authority, for the completion
of that hall's most majestic tower. He knew how to get along.
Displaying a flair for management and negotiation, he rose through a
succession of chaplainships to serve Henry VII in that capacity and in
diplomacy. Henry VIII, on accession, made him almoner- director of
charities. Soon the priest was a member of the Privy Council, and
shocked Archbishop Warham by advocating a military alliance with Spain
against France. Louis XII was invading Italy, and might again make the
papacy a dependency of France; in any case France must not become
too strong. Henry yielded in this matter to Wolsey and his own
father-in-law, Ferdinand of Spain; he himself was at this time
inclined to peace. "I content myself with my own," he told
Giustiniani; "I wish to command only my own subjects; but on the other
hand I do not choose that anyone shall have it in his power to command
me"; `06239 this almost sums up Henry's political career. He had
inherited the claim of the English kings to the crown of France, but
he knew that this was an empty pretense. The war petered out quickly
in the Battle of the Spurs (1513). Wolsey arranged the peace, and
persuaded Louis XII to marry Henry's sister Mary. Leo X, pleased
with being rescued, made Wolsey Archbishop of York (1514) and Cardinal
(1515); Henry, triumphant, made him Chancellor (1515). The King prided
himself on having protected the papacy; and when a later pope
refused him a marriage easement he deemed it gross ingratitude.
The first five years of Wolsey's chancellorship were among the
most successful in the record of English diplomacy. His aim was to
organize the peace of Europe by using England as a makeweight to
preserve a balance of power between the Holy Roman Empire and
France; presumably it also entered into his purview that he would thus
become the arbiter of Europe, and that peace on the Continent would
favor England's vital trade with the Netherlands. As a first step,
he negotiated an alliance between France and England (1518), and
betrothed Henry's two-year-old daughter Mary (later queen) to the
seven-month-old son of Francis I. Wolsey's taste for lavish
entertainment revealed itself when French emissaries came to London to
sign the agreements; he feted them in his Westminster palace with a
dinner "the like of which," reported Giustiniani, "was never given
by Cleopatra or Caligula, the whole banqueting hall being decorated
with huge vases of gold and silver." `062310 But the worldly
Cardinal could be forgiven; he was playing for high stakes, and he
won. He insisted that the alliance should be open to Emperor
Maximilian I, King Charles I of Spain, and Pope Leo X; they were
invited to join; they accepted; and Erasmus, More, and Colet
thrilled with the hope that an era of peace had dawned for all Western
Christendom. Even Wolsey's enemies congratulated him. He took the
opportunity to bribe `062311 English agents in Rome to secure his
appointment as papal legate a latere in Britain; the phrase meant
"on the side," confidential, and was the highest designation of a
papal emissary. Wolsey was now supreme head of the English Church,
and- with strategic obeisances to Henry- ruler of England.
The peace was clouded a year later by the rivalry of Francis I and
Charles I for the Imperial throne; even Henry thought of flinging
his beret into the ring, but he had no Fugger. The winner, as now
Charles V, briefly visited England (May 1520), paid his respects to
his aunt Catherine of Aragon, Henry's Queen, and offered to marry
Princess Mary (already betrothed to the Dauphin) if England would
promise to support Charles in any future conflict with France; so
unnatural is peace. Wolsey refused, but accepted a pension of 7,000
ducats from the Emperor, and drew from him a pledge to help him in
becoming pope.
The brilliant Cardinal achieved his most spectacular triumph in
the meeting of the French and English sovereigns on the Field of the
Cloth of Gold (June 1520). Here, in an open space between Guines and
Ardres near Calais, medieval art and chivalry displayed themselves
in sunset magnificence. Four thousand English noblemen, chosen and
placed by the Cardinal and dressed in the silks, flounces, and lace of
late medieval costume, accompanied Henry as the young red-bearded King
rode on a white palfrey to meet Francis I; and not last or least
came Wolsey himself, clad in crimson satin robes rivaling the splendor
of the Kings. An impromptu palace had been built to receive their
Majesties, their ladies, and their staffs; a pavilion covered with
gold-threaded cloth and hung with costly tapestries shaded the
conference and the feasts; a fountain ran wine; and space was
cleared for a royal tournament. The political and marital alliance
of the two nations was confirmed. The happy monarchs jousted, even
wrestled; and Francis risked the peace of Europe by throwing the
English King. With characteristic French grace he repaired his faux
pas by going, early one morning, unarmed and with a few unarmed
attendants, to visit Henry in the English camp. It was a gesture of
friendly trust which Henry understood. The monarchs exchanged precious
gifts and solemn vows.
In truth neither could trust the other, for it is a lesson of