and mother very shortly after she was born. Her father was Lorenzo de'
Medici, and her mother Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne before her
marriage. Her father had been the head of his family in Florence and
the real ruler there, although the Florentines were so jealous of what
they considered their independence that he had never dared proclaim
himself lord of the city and used the title of Duke of Urbino. Even so
after Lorenzo's death the Medici had been driven from Florence and had
had to fight desperately to retake it. At that time the leaders of the
republic in the city had shut Catherine, who was only nine years old,
in a convent, and had discussed the best way in which to be rid of her,
as the Duke had so thoughtfully reminded her. When the Medici finally
took possession of the city again Alessandro was the head of the family
and became Tyrant of Florence, calling himself Duke of the City of
Penna. He released Catherine from the convent and adopted her into his
own family, giving her the title of Princess of Florence. Catherine,
although she was only fourteen, had seen enough of the men of her
family to distrust them almost as much as she did the people of the
city. On all sides she had found treachery and deceit and greed for
power, and if she was overwise for her years in such matters, it was
because she had been brought up to see little else.
One man alone she trusted, her uncle Filippo Strozzi, who had married
her father's sister, and who was now the most popular man in Florence.
The Duke would have liked to be rid of this man by any means he could,
but he did not dare deal with him in an underhand way, and so decided
to send him to accompany Catherine to Leghorn, hoping that he might be
induced later to go with his niece to France and keep away from
Florence. Catherine had judged rightly when she said the Duke had laid
his plans for her marriage more for his own protection than for her
welfare.
Early in October, 1533, the Duke Alessandro, Filippo Strozzi, and
Catherine left Florence for Leghorn. In order to dazzle the French
court the Duke had arranged a remarkable suite to accompany the young
Princess. The entire procession consisted of more than a thousand
persons, and when the rear-guard were still leaving the gate of
Florence those in the lead had already passed the first village outside
the city.
Although Duke Alessandro was head of the house of Medici in Florence
the Pope, Clement VII, was head of that house in Italy, and he had
decided that he also would go to Leghorn and take a hand in the wedding
plans of the Lady Catherine. Like all the powerful princes of that day
both Pope Clement and Duke Alessandro wished to dazzle the rest of the
world with their magnificence, and Catherine must have been surprised
at the sights she saw in Leghorn. The Pope had arrived by sea, and his
private galley was hung with crimson satin trimmed with golden fringe,
and covered with an awning of cloth of gold. This same barge had been
fitted with a suite of rooms for Catherine herself, and here were
gathered priceless works of art and scores of curious treasures which
had been sent to the Pope from distant countries. The oarsmen and the
sailors were all magnificently dressed, and three more barges were
filled with the officers and servants of His Holiness. Near the Papal
galleys were moored the barges of the envoys of the French King, headed
by the Duke of Albany, and so the harbor was filled with splendid
vessels, while on shore Duke Alessandro did his best to amaze the
simple people of Leghorn with the wealth and magnificence of the Lords
of Florence.
There followed many meetings between the Pope and the Duke and the
French envoys. It was settled that Catherine's marriage dowry should
amount to a hundred thousand ducats, a very large sum of money for even
such a rich house as that of the Medici to pay. Then the question arose
as to which of the French princes she was to marry, whether the Dauphin
or Henry, Duke of Orleans. The Pope and the Duke urged that she be
married to the Dauphin, but the French King would not consent, and
finally the two Medici princes realized that they had better take the
younger son while they could get him, and agreed that Catherine should
marry Henry. But by this time they were so much afraid that the French
King Francis I would try to break his agreement with them that they
insisted on an immediate wedding for Catherine and journeyed on to the
city of Marseilles in order that it might take place at once.
If the Pope and the Duke were fond of gorgeous display, Francis I was
even more so. Although he had given many splendid entertainments
before, he outdid himself on this occasion. The wedding feasts for
Henry and Catherine lasted thirty-four days, and during all that time
the Pope and the King witnessed tournaments and sham sea-battles,
listened to music and to the poems of the troubadours, and met at the
banquet-table to eat and drink and make merry half the night. So
Catherine, just fifteen years old, was married to Henry, who was three
weeks older.
Catherine's opinion of the treachery and deceit of the people of her
time was quite correct. She had told Bianca only what was the truth,
for in mediæval Italy every one in high place was a conspirator and the
men of her own family were the worst. The Pope and the Duke had wanted
to marry Catherine to the Dauphin so that she might some day be Queen
of France. They found they could not do this, and must take the second
son. History does not tell what plots were hatched on that golden barge
off Leghorn, but history does state that only a very short time after
the wedding the Dauphin died, and that it was generally believed that
he had been poisoned. He had been taking part in some athletic games at
Tournon on a hot day in August, and when he stopped, being very warm,
he asked for a glass of water. It was given to him iced, and a short
time later he died. The man who gave him the glass had been one of
those who were with Duke Alessandro at Leghorn. Thus, whether by their
own devices or by chance, the heads of the house of Medici saw their
little Lady Catherine the wife of the heir to the French throne.
Catherine was shrewd, and she studied the people about her in France
with the same skill that she had shown in Florence. She saw that she
must win the affection of the king if she were to escape suspicion of
taking part in the many plots that were made against him. So she stayed
close beside him whenever she could, and was always ready to do
whatever he might suggest, until very shortly Francis found himself
exceedingly fond of this quiet, willing little daughter-in-law who
seemed to admire him so much. She studied Henry and found him vain and
pleasure-loving above everything else, and so she let him go his own
way, interfering with nothing that he wished to do, but waiting until
she might have the chance to win some power over him. And she studied
the courtiers, men and women, so that she might be able to play them
like pawns at chess, one against another, when the day should come on
which she should be Queen of France.
As she waited she saw cunning and deceit win one victory after another
in Italy and France. She heard how the brooding Lorenzino de' Medici,
even as she had predicted to Bianca, had become Duke Alessandro's
closest friend and greatest flatterer in order to find the chance to
strike and kill him, and she heard how the people of Florence had
proclaimed Lorenzino a patriot for ridding them of the Duke, and how
her uncle Filippo Strozzi, one of the noblest men of the time, had
vowed that he admired the assassin so much that each of his sons should
marry one of Lorenzino's daughters.
Catherine became a most powerful woman, but powerful through fear. She
had learned the lesson of her childhood well. She was a Medici, and
therefore overweeningly ambitious, and she was as scheming, as clever,
and as cruel as any of her famous family. Her husband, Henry, became
King of France, and was killed in a tournament. Her three sons became
kings of France in turn, and during all their reigns she was the power
behind the throne. During all her life the court of France was a cobweb
of intrigue, in which no one was safe, and a man or woman became
powerful only to be secretly put out of the way lest he or she should
grow too strong. She was beyond doubt one of the ablest women in French
history and she might have done much to make France great and
respected, but instead she almost ruined it by her selfish ambitions.
History lays at Catherine's door the killing of innocent Huguenots in
all parts of France, known as the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Eve.
With all her gifts she could not rise above the teachings of her
girlhood in Italy, and so she stands out as a queen of treachery and
bloodshed, thoroughly typical of her age in its darker sides.
V
Lady Jane Grey
The Girl of Tudor England: 1537-1554
A little lady sat reading a small, vellum-bound book in the window-seat
of one of the rooms of his Majesty's palace of Westminster. She was
short and slender, and for a girl of fourteen very graceful. Her face
was fair and now warm-flushed by the sun, her hair was a soft red-brown
and her eyes that light shade of hazel, almost red, which so often goes
with hair of reddish color. Her dress was of green velvet, with great
gold-embroidered sleeves. At her waist was a girdle of gold. Her gown
was cut to a point at the neck and about her throat was a little chain
and a small heart-shaped locket. On her head was a coif of fine white
lace bound with tiny bands of green and gold. The window behind her was
open, and now and then the breeze blew wisps of hair about her forehead
and sometimes threatened to turn the leaves of her book.
Presently a boy, a few years older than the girl, dressed in dark red
doublet and hose, with a flat cap of the same color on his head, pushed
aside the arras at the door and came into the room. He was very pale,
and his big eyes, under high black arching eyebrows, looked very tired
and moody. He had crossed to the window-seat before the girl knew he
was in the room.
She rose quickly and made a low courtesy. The boy rested one knee upon
the window-seat. "I'm glad you've come to court, Lady Jane. I wish you
might stay some time."
"Your Majesty is very good to say so."
The boy bit his lip. "All day and half the night people are saying to
me, 'Your Majesty is very good' to do this or that, usually something
they've made me do. Can't we forget, cousin, for just a little time,
that I'm Edward the Sixth, King of England and Ireland and so on, and
just pretend I'm simple Edward Tudor and you Jane Grey?"
"An your Majesty wishes it," she said, smiling at the dark-eyed boy.
"I do." The boy sat down on the window-seat. "Oh, Jane, it's a stupid
life I lead. Always my masters with lessons, my bearded counselors with
scrolls and ink-horns. When I'm tired one man gives me physic, when I'm
well again another sets me tasks. My head splits with sermons, and acts
of state, and such like matters. I think they grudge me the hours I
have to sleep. And among them all I've only one true friend, Barnaby
Fitzpatrick, and him they let me see but now and then."
"I know," said the Lady Jane. "It seems there are so many things we
must learn. At home my master, Messer Aylmer, is forever setting me
this or that to study."
[Illustration: LADY JANE GREY AND ROGER ASCHAM]
The boy leaned forward and whispered, "I wish I were a boy of the
streets, with a penny in my pocket and naught to do but plan the
spending of it."
"Oh, my lord--Edward, I mean," said the girl, much amazed.
The arras was pulled back again, and two youths entered. One was tall
and fair, the other of much shorter stature, with merry black eyes.
Both were dressed in the height of the court fashion, with plumed hats,
short swords, and jeweled collars.
"Here's Barnaby," said the king, "and Lord Guildford Dudley. Oh,
Barnaby, I'm free for an hour or so. What shall I do with it?"
The shorter of the two boys, drawing his heels together, made a low bow
to the girl who had resumed her place on the window-seat. "My Lady Jane
Grey," said he. "Welcome to our palace of Westminster. Is it not a
cheerful place? But for the four of us here gathered I doubt if there
be a soul within its walls under five and fifty years of age."
"My Lady Jane," said tall Guildford Dudley, making his bow in turn, "is
kind to come here to relieve our dulness."
Now Edward clapped his hands impatiently. "Think, Barnaby, think. What
shall we do?"
Barnaby looked out through the mullioned window. "Down there in the
garden are bows and arrows. Suppose we be Robin Hood and his men and
shoot at wands?"
"Good!" cried Edward. "They told me not to go out-of-doors while the
sun was hot, nor walk in the garden without one of my
gentlemen-at-arms. Now will I do both. Come, Jane, you shall judge
among us for our skill. There's a little staircase just beyond the
arras that leads into the garden."
He sprang up, his pale face flushed with the spirit of adventure, and
throwing his arm over Barnaby's shoulder ran with him to the stairs.
Guildford Dudley smiled. "What say you, Lady Jane? Will you leave your
book? 'Tis the royal order, you know."
"Very gladly, my lord. I was desiring something better to do." They
followed the others to the staircase, and a moment later found
themselves in the sunny garden.
From a flower bed Barnaby produced a rounded stick, some three feet
long, and stuck it in the ground at thirty paces from a seat under a
plane-tree. "Jane shall sit here and be our judge," said he, "while we
three shoot at yonder wand."
The three boys chose their bows, which were quite as long as they were
tall, and carefully fitted arrows to the cords. Then, standing under
the tree, Edward took aim and loosed his bowstring. The arrow went very
wild, clipping leaves from a yew some distance to the right.
Barnaby shot next and came nearer the wand. "My eye needs training,"
said he. "'Tis not near true yet."
Lord Guildford aimed carefully, and sent his shaft just over the wand's
top. "Best of the three!" cried Barnaby, and the Lady Jane clapped her
hands and smiled at the tall, fair-haired boy.
The second round was not very different. Edward, his arm shaking as he
tried to hold the taut bow straight, shot his arrow into the ground.
Barnaby missed the wand by an inch or two to the right, and Guildford
grazed it, shooting very close.
Edward's third try was little better than his other two. His shaft went
high and wide. He dropped his bow and threw himself on the ground at
Jane's feet. "I can't do it," he complained. "'Tis idle trying. They
never let me train my hand at sports."
But the other boys were adepts. Barnaby sent his third arrow right to
the base of the wand so that the stick bent back, and then Guildford,
taking the greatest care, let fly a shaft that hit the stick fairly and
split it in two. "Well shot!" cried Barnaby. Guildford turned about, a
smile on his pleasant face. "How was that, Lady Jane?"
"Splendid!" answered the girl. "If I had a prize I'd give it to you,"
and she made room for him to sit beside her on the bench.
Edward, his chin resting in his hand, was looking towards a gate at the
rear of the garden. "I wish," he said slowly, "that we could go out
into that lane and see what is happening there, just as other children
do."
"Why not?" exclaimed Barnaby. "Who's to say no? Let's have a peep
outside. Nobody'll be the wiser."
Edward got to his feet doubtfully, but when he saw the other three
quite in earnest he laughed, and ran ahead of them to the gate. He
swung it wide open and the four trooped out into the lane.
The walls of the palace grounds ran for some distance, but as soon as
the children had turned a corner they came into a street of shops and
small dwelling-houses where there were many people. They walked slowly,
pointing things out to one another and looking curiously at the new
sights about them. Finally Lady Jane spied a pedler standing in the
road, with a basket at his waist hung by a rope about his neck. He was
calling out in a loud voice to attract attention to his wares. "Let's
see what he has," she exclaimed, running over towards him.
A number of people, attracted by the pedler's words, had already
gathered near him, but the girl and the three boys stopped directly in
front of him. He was a jolly-looking fellow, with a very red face, and
a broad-brimmed hat, wound with an orange scarf, stuck far back on his
head. "Come buy, come buy!" he called in a singsong voice. "Here are
little mirrors for the ladies, fresh from the court of Paris, wherein
each may see how beautiful she is and how well her kerchief suits her.
And here be ribbands will set the lads' hearts aflutter, and pieces of
lace made after the fashion of Mechlin. Come buy, come buy! Come, my
good dame, your man will be glad to see you look so fine when he comes
home." But the woman he looked at laughed and shook her head. "He keeps
his eyes for the food that's awaiting him," said she.
"What ho!" cried the pedler, thrusting his hand into the pile of small
articles that lay heaped in his basket. "Talking of food, here be
knives, each in a leather jacket of finest Spanish make, will carve you
a venison haunch or a foeman's gizzard, just as your fancy sits. Here,
my fine gentlemen," said he, extending a couple of the knives towards
Edward, Barnaby, and Guildford, "you should have such to cut your way
into court."
"I've a knife here," said Barnaby, touching the scabbard of his short
sword, "worth twenty of those bodkins."
"Hark to him!" cried the pedler. "Bodkins indeed! Why, 'twas only
yestereve his Majesty ordered a dozen of them to arm his Yeomen of the
Guard!" He looked at Lady Jane, noting the richness of her dress. "What
will my lady have? She has taste, I warrant. A sweet dye for the hair,
a ring, a love philtre, a girdle set with gems?" As he spoke he held up
one thing after another, tempting the four to draw near him.
Lady Jane looked into the basket and spied in a corner a bracelet hung
with curiously cut bangles. "I like that," said she, pointing it out to
the others.
"Ah!" cried the pedler. "The lady has good taste! 'Tis a sweet
bracelet, captured from the Moors when the great city of Granada fell.
Each of these bangles has a prayer writ upon it, and 'tis said that
worn upon the left arm, just above the wrist, 'twill bring good luck
beyond all wishing for."
"Take it as my gift, Lady Jane," said Edward, stretching out his hand
for it.
"And the price," continued the pedler, "is most monstrous low, too low
in fact by half, and yet 'tis the price. A mere matter of five
florins."
Edward put his hand to his belt. He had no purse with him. "'Tis a fair
price," said he. "I'll have the money sent you," and again he held out
his hand.
"Sent me? Oh, no, fine sir. This hour I may be here, the next in
Cheapside. Who buys of me pays in hand." He looked at the other two
boys smilingly. "Such a small sum, only five florins."
But as it chanced they also had no purses with them. "Never mind,
Edward," said Barnaby. "Lady Jane can have a finer one another day."
"No," said Edward, frowning, "she shall have it now." He looked at the
pedler. "Give me the bracelet and in twenty minutes a man shall fetch
you the money. Be at the palace gate. I'll send it to you."
The pedler shook his head. "An old bird must be wary, young sir. I
might wait and wait and winter come and go, but no five florins. That
is my rule to all, be ye whoever ye may."
Edward, however, had the Tudor hate of all opposition. "Give me the
bracelet!" he exclaimed, stamping his foot on the paving. "And trust my
word for pay, or I'll see you soundly thrashed and driven out of
London!"
"Oh ho!" cried the pedler. "Sits the wind so? 'Twill need a bigger man
than you to do one or t'other."
"Bigger than I!" cried the boy, his face like a sudden thunder-storm.
"Why, you rascal you, I'm----" But before he could speak the word
Barnaby had twitched his sleeve, and whispered, "Ssh--look about you."
Edward turned around. A few paces behind him a tall man, clad all in
black, with long black moustaches and eyes that blazed with anger, had
come to a stand. Now he turned to a man with a halberd who stood at his
heel. "Drive that rogue away, and scatter the crowd!" he ordered. In a
trice pedler and bystanders were on the wing.
The man in black stepped up to the four children. "So your Majesty
would roam the streets at will?" said he. "And did your Majesty deign
to consider what would happen to this country had one of these scamps
taken you at your word and fallen foul of you?"
"I wanted a little holiday, good my lord," pleaded the boy. "'Twas only
for an hour."
"And one such hour might have changed the history of England," said the
other, who was John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, the most powerful
man in the land and guardian of the King. He looked at the others. "And
what a shame to draw the Lady Jane Grey into the streets! I should have
thought you at least had known better, Guildford."
The fair-haired youth flinched before his father's frown. "'Twas only
for a glimpse outside the gardens, your Grace," said he.
"Enough!" commanded the Duke sternly. "We will return to Westminster
now. I would ask your Majesty to be so good as to walk with me."
Whereupon he offered his arm to the boy king, and led the little
procession back to the gate of the garden by as short a way as he
could. But even so word had got about that the boy who was bargaining
with the pedler was none other than King Edward, and that the
long-bearded man was the Duke of Northumberland. Therefore every one
stared from the safe vantage of windows and doors, but was careful to
keep out of the way, for the Duke was known to be a man of sudden and
bitter wrath.
The garden-gate closed behind the five of them, and the hour of freedom
was ended. Edward, looking more like a prisoner than a monarch, was led
off to the small room called his cabinet to sign papers and listen to
long reports. One of her mother's maids came in search of the Lady
Jane, and carried her away to the apartments of the Duchess of Suffolk,
where the girl was lectured by her mother the Duchess, and then set to
studying a book of sermons.
It was not a happy time for royal children. The boy king, Edward VI,
was kept penned in his palace of Westminster and ruled with a rod of
iron by the stern Duke; his two half-sisters, the Princess Mary and the
Princess Elizabeth, were both kept well guarded in the country and
rarely allowed to see their friends; and his cousin, the Lady Jane
Grey, who was next in line of succession to the throne, was hardly
freer than these other royal children. They were all really only pawns
in a great game of chess that was being played by the great noblemen of
England, and no one seemed to care in the least whether they were happy
or not.
The Lady Jane did not stay long at Westminster Palace. A few days after
her outing with the three boys her father and mother took her back with
them to their country home. Such a trip was made slowly and with much
ceremony. The Duchess, her daughter, and their ladies-in-waiting rode
in great lumbering coaches, or chariots, while the Duke and his
gentlemen, who often numbered as many as a hundred, rode as a guard of
honor. If the weather was fine the journey was pleasant, the cavalcade
stopping at noon to picnic under the trees by the road, and arriving at
night at some quaint inn, to be welcomed by a cheery host and hostess,
leaping wood-fires, glistening pewter, and the fragrance of a great
variety of roasted meats. But when the weather was bad and the wheels
of the chariots sunk so deep in the mire that the horses could hardly
pull them out again, and the snow fell or the wind whistled about the
mounted cavaliers, then travel through "merry England" was not so happy
an affair, and men and women were glad enough to reach their homes.
The Lady Jane had been trained to absolute obedience by a mother who
seemed made of iron. She was forced to study in her own room on days
when the rest of the household were out-of-doors hunting or hawking,
and was set tasks translating from the Latin or Greek instead of
playing in the garden. Once the famous scholar Roger Ascham came to the
Duke of Suffolk's home at Bradgate Hall. He met the Duke and his wife
with all their friends riding through the park on the way to the hunt.
He asked where he would find the Lady Jane, and was told she was in her
closet reading. He went into the house and found her seated at a window
studying one of the works of the Greek writer Plato. Much surprised
Ascham asked her why she gave up the sport of hunting for the sake of
study.