WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION
Woman, it has been said, always needs a background. She has one in early
sixteenth century Germany a splendid background of material prosperity.
The great free cities were at the zenith of their power. Organized labor
had triumphed. The guilds and the merchant corporations had done their
work well. From the sturdy, self-respecting German handworker, modestly
offering his own wares for sale, had been evolved the governing
patrician. Prince, pope, emperor, even foreign potentates, bowed before
the German patrician, for he held the purse strings of the world. Not a
sovereign in all Europe dared enter into a campaign without permission
of the Fuggers, the great merchant-bankers of Augsburg.
In their magnificent free cities the patricians of Germany lived in far
more than royal splendor. The chronicler, Wimpheling, writes: "It was
not an uncommon thing to eat from gold and silver plates at merchants'
tables as I, myself, did in company with eleven other guests at
Cologne."
AEneas Sylvius exclaims to Martin Mayer, Chancellor of Mainz: "How is it
that even in your inns you always serve drinks in silver vessels? What
shall I say of the knights and of the bits of their horses which are of
pure gold, of their rings, girdles, and helmets blazing in gold, of the
spears and sheaths studded thickly with diamonds? What riches are
displayed in your altar decorations! How beautiful are the reliquaries
set in pearls and gold! How magnificent your priests' vestments! What
riches in your sacristies!"
Dress received much attention. Women revelled in embroideries of gold
and silver, plaited skirts with expensive galloon borders, mantles of
ermine, sable and marten; crowns of gold and precious stones; pearl
embroidered smocks and the daintiest, finest linen ever woven. Even the
burghers' wives and daughters braided gold and silver into their back
hair and curls and wore gems of rare value.
At frequent intervals, sumptuary laws designed to lessen feminine
extravagance were passed, but, like all such laws since the days of
Eve's figleaf, they failed. The women invariably got the better of the
city fathers. In Mainz one of the most beautiful young dames of the
town, acting as the representative of a large number of society women,
appealed, personally, to Prince Albert, Archbishop of Brandenburg,
against a decree of the Council concerning feminine attire. That
handsome, Lothario-priest, Prince Albert, was not the man to resist the
pleading of a pretty woman. Dismissing his fair petitioner with a kiss
and the gift of a beautiful jewelled bracelet, he at once ordered the
repeal of the hateful law.
But the great sociological preacher, Geiler von Kaisersberg, was no
debonair voluptuary. The fairest woman's face could never persuade him
to look leniently upon feminine vanity. He shouts:
"The authorities ought to forbid the abominably short skirts that are
worn! Look at the belts which encircle their waists, sometimes they are
of silk, sometimes of gold, sometimes so costly that the jeweller
charges from forty to fifty florins for making them. They drag long
trains through the dirt without thinking of the nakedness of Christ
among his poor. Some have so many dresses that, during the week, they
have two dresses for each day, morning and afternoon. They have many
others for dancing, and they would rather see them eaten by moths than
give their cost to the poor. We see women letting their hair hang down
their backs in cues like men, and wearing cock's feathers in the
astoundingly ugly bonnets on their heads. What a shame and a sin! Do you
not see there is no one without donkey ears on her head? It is a shame
that women wear hats with ears. Some paint themselves many times a day
and have false teeth and hair. O Woman! are you not fearful, with the
hair of strangers on your heads? It may be the hair of some dead woman
to the injury of your souls!"
The Renaissance was a period of transition a liberation of mental force
which, from Italy, spread itself, invigoratingly, over the rest of
Europe. The modern world was rolling into light. With a gun in his
hands, the peasant soldier was the equal, physically at least, of his
former master. The art of printing and the invention of cheap paper had
given wings to thought and knowledge. Trade had penetrated strange
lands. Every returning sailor and adventurer brought back tales more
fascinating than fairy lore of mysterious golden islands newly
discovered in the west. Wonder and imagination were awakened. Money was
plentiful. In the German cities a leisure class existed. Conditions were
ripe for culture, and Humanism came.
The "New Learning," as Humanism was generally called, rapidly
overwhelmed the old, barren scholasticism and ecclesiasticism. Every
monastery and university became a battleground where Humanism fought
Scholasticism to the death.
Under the quickening influence of the "New Learning," free Latin schools
for boys were established over all Germany. The poorest boy might attend
any or all of the schools. Thus arose the specifically German
educational system of "wandering students," with its good and evil
influences.
At first little was done, educationally, for the girls. There were a
very few small, poorly equipped public schools where daughters of
artisans and laborers received religious teaching and slight rudimentary
instruction in reading, spelling, and writing. Girls belonging to noble
and patrician families were usually taught in convents. Music, dancing,
embroidery, deportment, and, above all, the supervision of a large
household were the studies upon which wealthy parents insisted for their
daughters. But the brighter girls soon became curious about the "New
Learning" of which their fathers and brothers spoke so frequently.
Sastrow, in his biography, writes:
"One of my five younger sisters, Catherine, was an excellent, amiable,
lovely, pious maiden. When my brother, Johannes, came home from
Wittenberg, where he was a student, she bade him tell her how one could
say in Latin, 'This is, truly, a beautiful maiden.' He replied,
'Profecto formosa puella.' She asked farther how one could say, 'Rather
so.' He replied, 'Sic satis.' Some time after, three students, sons of
gentlemen, came from Wittenberg to see our town. They had been
recommended to the hospitality of the burgomaster, Herr Nicholas
Smiterlow, who was desirous to entertain them well and have good society
for them. As he had three grown-up daughters, my sister Catherine was
invited among other guests. The students exchanged all kinds of jokes
with the maidens, and as young fellows are wont to do also said things
to one another in Latin that it would not have been seemly to say before
maidens in German. At last one said to the other, 'Profecto formosa
puella,' whereupon, my sister answered, 'Sic satis,' Then the students
were much afraid, fancying she had also understood their former amatory
talk."
Enthusiasm for the "New Learning" quickly spread among German women of
the higher class. Among the princesses, Matilda of the Palatinate was
especially famed for her love of learning. She was a generous patron of
the fine arts, and, a rarer trait among humanistic scholars, she was
also an admirer of the literature of her fatherland. She made a
collection of ninety-four works on the old court poetry, and delighted
in the national folk songs orally preserved. Matilda encouraged the
poets of her court to write poetry after the ancient methods. She
ordered many valuable works translated into German. Through her
influence the university of Tubingen, in Wurtemberg was established.
The "New Learning" stole into the convents and made many proselytes
among the nuns. Aleydis Raiskop, of Goch, to whom Butzbach dedicated a
book, was renowned for her classical scholarship. She composed seven
homilies on Saint Paul and translated a work on the mass from Latin into
German. In the same convent with Aleydis lived an artist nun, Gertrude
von Buchel, to whom Butzbach also dedicated a book, Celebrated Painters.
Richmondis von der Horst, abbess of the convent of Seebach, corresponded
in Latin with Trithemius who highly praises her various writings. Of the
nun Ursula Canton, one of her admirers exclaims: "Her equal in knowledge
of theological matters, of the fine arts and in eloquence and belles
lettres, has not been seen for centuries."
Among German Humanists, Charitas Pirkheimer, of Nuernberg, stands
preeminent. Through her brother, Willibald Pirkheimer, the friend and
generous patron of Albrecht Durer, Erasmus, and a host of lesser
Humanists, Charitas corresponded with many renowned men. Christopher
Scheurl, "The Cicero of Nuernberg," said that in all his life he had
known only two women, the pious Cassandra of Venice and Charitas of
Nuernberg, who, "for their gifts of mind and fortune, their knowledge and
high station, their beauty and their prudence could be compared with
Cornelia, the mother of Laelius and Hortensius." In a letter to
Charitas, Scheurl praises her for "preferring the book to the wool and
the pen to the spindle."
These literary preferences, however, did not spoil Charitas Pirkheimer
for practical life. As abbess of Saint Clare's she showed great
administrative ability. Her annual reports of receipts and expenditures
are models of clearness and accuracy. To manage, without serious
friction, a large nunnery composed wholly of aristocrats (only the
daughters of Nuernberg patricians and nobles were eligible as members)
was no easy task. But Charitas seems to have made herself beloved and
respected by every sister. She kept her nuns busy with such good result
that Saint Clare tapestries became famous throughout Europe, and orders
from private and civic patrons poured in faster than they could be
filled.
No more splendid fight was ever made by any woman for conscience' sake
than that of Charitas Pirkheimer to preserve the integrity of her
convent after the storm of the Reformation broke over Germany. And in
the fight she conquered. The Lutherans succeeded in closing the houses
of every other conventual order, both male and female, in Nuernberg; but
Saint Clare's, through the valor of its abbess, remained intact until
the last nun died late in the century. But it was a long, a bitter, and,
often, a humiliating fight that Mother Charitas waged. Persecution was
continued for years. The abbess and her nuns were denied the sacraments
and confession. Three Lutheran preachers in turn, one of them a coarse,
vile man, were installed at Saint Clare's. Spies were placed in the
convent to see that the nuns "did not put cotton into their ears to shut
out the preaching." The convent school was broken up and all revenues
ceased. Poverty sorely pinched the women of the convent. Insulting
rhymes and obscene pictures were flung over the walls of the garden. The
maids sent out to buy bread were hooted and even roughly handled by
brutal men and fanatical women. A letter which Charitas wrote to Jerome
Emser, thanking him for his Defence of the Faith, was printed with
scurrilous marginal notes. The day had not yet dawned when a woman
could, "with seemliness," said Willibald Pirkheimer, "enter the field of
public disputation." Pirkheimer told his sister, in somewhat brutal
language, that she had "better have held her woman's tongue."
Just when the future looked most dark for Saint Clare's, Philip
Melanchthon sweetest, calmest, sanest spirit of the Reformation came to
Nuernberg. He visited his old friend, Charitas Pirkheimer, in her
convent. "Would to God," Charitas writes afterward, "that every one were
as discreet as Master Philip. We might then hope to be rid of many
things that are vexatious." Melanchthon quietly put a stop to the
persecutions of the convent. From the date of his visit Saint Clare's
remained comparatively undisturbed.
It is easy to understand how the "Evangelist of Art," Albrecht Durer,
and Charitas Pirkheimer could be, as they were, the closest of friends.
But Conrad Celtes, the Heine of the Renaissance, and the stately, pious
abbess of Saint Clare's would seem, at first sight, to have little in
common. Nevertheless, a warm and long-continued friendship existed
between these two.
The ethical note of the Renaissance was first struck in Germany. Even
Conrad Celtes (the one Humanist in the Italian the Lorenzo de' Medici
sense of the term that Germany has ever produced) could not quite deaden
the Teutonic conscience. Celtes's writings are full of questionings that
are almost startlingly modern. "Is there, really, a God?" "Will the soul
live after death?" "What is the nature of the force that produces
lightning?" Then, in the very next line perhaps, the poet lapses again
into sensuality. "There is nothing sweeter under the sun than a pretty
maid in a man's arms to banish care." "This," says Bezold, "was Celtes's
heart-confession, and he lived up to it." Bezold adds: "In spite of his
voluminous correspondence with them, Celtes did not appreciate good
women. He really knew only alehouse wenches." In the light of Celtes's
letters to Charitas Pirkheimer, it is hard to accept this harsh judgment
unreservedly.
The Renaissance and the Reformation in Germany are so closely allied
that it is difficult to separate one energy from the other. Mental and
spiritual forces are not easily anchored to dates. For convenience,
however, we may say that the German Renaissance lasted from 1450 to 1519
as a distinct movement, while the Reformation largely an outgrowth of
the Renaissance fell between the years 1519 and 1560. With the beginning
of the Reformation the brotherhood of humanistic scholarship was
disrupted. To German women the national unrest brought heartache and
soul bewilderment.
Charitas Pirkheimer was not the only woman to "forget her sex and mix in
an unseemly manner in disputes about which only men are properly
qualified to express an opinion." Argula von Grumbach, friend of
Spalatin and wife of an officer at the Bavarian court, also brought much
sorrow upon herself by writing a spirited letter, which was printed by
her friends and rejoiced in by her enemies.
Seehofer, a young Lutheran master at the university of Ingolstadt, was
accused of proselyting the students. He presented to his classes
seventeen propositions which he had deduced from the writings of
Melanchthon. The rector of the university, by imprisonment and by
threats of the Inquisition, compelled the too zealous young Lutheran to
recant. At this point, Argula an emotional, warmhearted, and talented
woman took a hand in the affair. She wrote the rector an impertinent
letter, in which she spoke of Seehofer as a "mere child of eighteen,"
and, with refreshing confidence in her own powers of oratory, offered to
come to Ingolstadt to defend, publicly, both the young master and his
theses. The university authorities ignored this offer, but the Catholic
cartoonists of the time made the most of it. From every quarter of
Germany Argula was assailed in mocking rhymes, to which she replied in
counter rhymes. The verses on both sides are rather bad, though the
plucky little baroness holds her own fairly well. For her
"indiscreetness" Argula was banished from court; and her husband, "for
not controlling his wife properly," was dismissed from his lucrative
position at the palace.
The real strength of Protestant women, however, lay not with its
excitable Argulas, but with firm, steady, sensible women like Catharine
von Bora, who became Luther's wife. It seems almost unjust that a girl
possessed of sufficient spirit and courage to propose to the man she
loved should, for posterity, be forever submerged under the appended
title, "his wife." Catharine von Bora's individuality was marked. Her
wise management, as wife and mother, seems phenomenal when we remember
how suddenly she was transplanted from conventual to secular life, but
no healthy young tree ever better stood removal from shade to sunlight.
Catharine von Bora was descended from a noble but impoverished family.
At the age of ten she was placed in the convent of Nimtsch, near Grimma.
At sixteen she became a nun. In 1523, under the influence of Luther's
preaching, she, with eight of her sister nuns, left the convent secretly
by night and fled to Wittenberg. For her apostasy, Catharine's family
cast her off. Luther found her a comfortable home and did his best to
provide her with a husband. But Catharine, who, says Erasmus, was "a
wonderfully pretty girl," would not accept either of the two suitors
Luther recommended. Amsdorf, Luther's envoy, argued with her upon her
stubbornness. Whereupon, Catharine replied, calmly, "I will not marry
Glatz, but I will marry either you or Luther, if you want me." She meant
that she would marry Martin Luther, for she well knew that Amsdorf's
affections were already placed elsewhere. Luther, though somewhat
surprised at the turn things had taken, accepted Catharine's proposal
and the nuptials were duly celebrated amid the remonstrances of the
Reformer's friends and the derisive howls of his enemies.
"Antichrist only can be born from this unholy union of priest and nun,"
was the scandalized cry of the Catholics. To which Erasmus made
sarcastic reply: "Then there must have been a good many Antichrists born
before now."
An indisputable testimony to Catharine's kindly nature is the affection
which old John Luther and his wife felt for their son's wife. Catharine
bore good, as evil fortune, with dignity. Her head was never in the
least turned by the popularity of her husband. When princes visited the
humble home at Wittenberg, she received them with simple, well-bred
courtesy. When beggars came she welcomed them with equal cordiality. She
had much to contend against. They were poor and her husband was over
generous, not only in hospitality, but in constantly giving away
household effects which his family could ill afford to spare. Martin
Luther, too, was a man of storms. A woman less firm and tactful than his
beloved "Kathie" could hardly have lived peaceably with him.
In the evil days that fell after Luther's death, his widow did not lose
her courage. She struggled nobly to support herself and children. She
followed the usual heart-breaking course of poor widows in trying to
make a living. She sewed; she kept boarders; she turned her hand,
patiently, to any honest labor that offered itself. War, flight from
pestilence, and then sudden death so runs the record of the last bitter
years of Catharine von Bora's active, helpful, noble life.
While a handful of earnest women were studying, thinking, praying,
fashionable women in Germany were doing just what fashionable women
always have done everywhere in all ages, just what they were doing long
ago in Athens when Aristophanes made clever sketches of them, they were
eating and drinking sumptuously; riding, visiting, backbiting, getting
their daughters married, and trying to outdo each other in giving costly
entertainments. It was this mode of life that necessitated the pretty
dresses, "as many as two a day" against which Geiler of Kaisersberg
railed.
Every little German principality had its court, and in nearly all these
courts corruption reigned. The Italian or the Frenchman may be
gracefully, even captivatingly wicked. But in a German sensuality is
invariably coarse, pronounced, and revolting. There is something
fiercely Titanic in a German's embrace of evil. The student, who,
leaving the doings of kings and queens, untangles thread by thread the
biography of lesser men and women connected with these old German
courts, has before him entertainment for a lifetime. In each of these
small court circles he will find stories of sin, passion, and remorse,
beside which the tales of a D'Annunzio, a Balzac, or a Zola seem mere
inchoate records of childish bravado.
The enormous effect of vice upon the women of the Renaissance and
Reformation periods cannot be ignored in any true picture of the time.
Man's lust was an accepted factor of everyday life. Very early, as we
have noted in a preceding chapter, houses of prostitution were
established and regulated by law. The woman superintendent put in charge
of such a house was required to swear formally that she would "serve the
best interests of the city" loyally; _i. e._, she must increase the
revenues. She swore to "induce to come in as many girls as possible."
The inmates of a house of prostitution continued to wear a distinctive
dress whenever they appeared on the streets. This uniform served a
double purpose. It was a convenience to the men, and it prevented the
girls from escaping easily. When a distinguished visitor came to town,
he was, even during the Reformation period, sometimes taken, soon after
his arrival, to one of these houses by the chief magistrate, and the
prettiest girls sometimes richly dressed, sometimes naked were brought
before him for choice. Even in some private houses a similar form of
hospitality was shown to male visitors, the prettiest maids of the house
being detailed to "attend" such visitors.
The lot of a German workingwoman in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries was very hard. Her hours of work were from sunrise to sunset.
If she lived in the country, she did all the ordinary housework for a
large family; she planted and harvested, she attended to the cattle, she
sheared the sheep, gathered the flax, spun and wove the linen and wool,
bleached or dyed the finished cloth, and with her needle fashioned it
into garments for her husband, her children, and herself. In the
country, grand ladies often had workrooms where as many as three hundred
girls were employed. A city workingwoman was shut out by the guilds from
any remunerative labor. She could seldom earn more than her board, no
matter how hard she might work. Women's wages, except for sin, were
pitifully meagre. That the majority of German workingwomen did remain
chaste in spite of the ever present temptations toward vice speaks
volumes in praise of the German feminine character.
In both city and country, spinning was looked upon as woman's natural
occupation. "She was pious and spun" is a common epitaph upon sixteenth
century tombstones in Germany. "Let men fight and women spin," preached
Berthold von Regensberg. Almost as soon as a girl baby could walk she
was taught to spin. Little Gertrude Sastrow, at the age of five, asked
one day what the princes at the Diet did. Her brother replied: "They
determine what shall be done in the empire." "Then," her brother
relates, "the little maiden at her distaff gave a deep sigh and said
dolefully, 'Oh, good God, if they would only decree that little girls
should not spin!"
Luther bitterly resented the accusation that his teachings were
responsible for the Peasant's War. He declared, truly enough, that the
peasants, long ground between the upper and nether millstones of an
oppressive nobility and a greedy merchant monopoly, had again and again
revolted long before he was born. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that
Protestantism, as representing individualism, had much to do with the
social upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Both the
Renaissance and the Reformation, or rather, the underlying force which
produced both, made tremendously for Democracy.
The peasant woman's lot was doubly hard. The horrible outrages committed
upon her during war make one's blood run cold even now, after centuries
have passed. In time of peace, too often, she was considered little
better than a beast of burden. Men of the peasant class gathered hazy
notions of the world and its doings at the alehouses. But the cat or dog
upon the hearth was not more dumb, intellectually, than the average
peasant woman. One searches the records of history in vain to find,
during the Renaissance and Reformation periods, a single peasant woman
anywhere in Germany who rose notably above her class.
The influence of Marguerite of Austria, aunt, guardian, and closest
adviser of Charles V. upon the destiny of Germany was incalculably
great. That Charles, instead of his rival, Francis I. of France, was
chosen emperor was mainly due to Marguerite's persistent efforts in
behalf of her nephew, whom she idolized. Marguerite kept the Fuggers
constantly on Charles's side a stroke of wisdom that carried the
election. The life story of Marguerite of Austria, daughter of
Maximilian and granddaughter of Charles the Bold, is almost unknown to
English readers. It is worth telling at some length for it illustrates
an important phase in the history of German womanhood the way in which
royal girls were disposed of in marriage.
Storms in the life of Marguerite began long before the Reformation. At
the age of two years she lost her mother, beautiful Mary of Burgundy,
daughter of Charles the Bold. The young queen's last words were spoken
to her "Daisy." "Farewell, farewell, my sweetest little daughter," she
murmured. "Thou art too soon left motherless." At the age of four,
Marguerite, for political reasons, was married to the Dauphin of France,
afterward known as Charles VIII., who was ten years her senior. The
marriage was solemnized with great pomp at Amboise. After the ceremony
the tired, bewildered baby was returned to her good governess, Madame
Secrete.
Marguerite, up to her twelfth year, was educated wholly with a view to
her future position as Queen of France. But the pride of Charles the
Bold ran in the little maid's veins. She never forgot that she was the
"daughter of Caesar." Caesar himself "Our Max," "Beggar Max," "Spendthrift
Max," "Mayor of Augsburg," "Hunter Max," as he was variously called by
his people, but always with a "God bless him!" added could, and a
hundred times a day did, easily throw off the imperial dignity; but
stately little Marguerite never laid hers aside, even in her childish
games with the French royal children. She is described as possessing
"set will, affectionate nature, and unusual zeal for study."
At the age of twelve, a crushing blow fell upon this proud little
daughter of Caesar. To gain a province, her husband divorced her and
married Anne of Brittany. The latter maid was kidnapped during a journey
through France and held prisoner in a castle until she agreed to the
marriage, which was then speedily effected. Marguerite haughtily refused
to resign the title, "Queen of France," which she had borne for eight
years. For seventeen months there were, therefore, two Queens of France
Anne at Paris, and Marguerite holding her court at Amboise. Even the
annals of royalty have never shown a more complicated situation. Anne of
Brittany was, legally, for she had been married by proxy to Maximilian
Marguerite's stepmother. Now, by her enforced marriage to Charles, Anne
found herself the rival of her nominal stepdaughter.
Maximilian, doubly furious against France, demanded that Marguerite's
dowry be returned and that she be sent back to him with regal honors. It
was a hard journey for a high-spirited girl. Every town along the route
held fetes and was brightly illuminated as she passed through it. These
municipal displays, either from stupidity or malice, were mostly in
execrable taste. On every hand, blazoned in fire, Marguerite saw her own
name sometimes even her own portrait coupled with that of the king who
had cast her off. But she exhibited few outward signs of inward shame.
Once at Cambrai, when the crowd shouted "Noel, Noel;" she called in a
clear, far-reaching tone "Say not 'Noel,' but cry, 'Long live
Burgundy!'" Once, at dinner in a French town through which she passed,
lament was made that the vintage had been blighted; and she said: "Small
wonder that the grapes wither in a country where oaths are broken!"
But Marguerite or, rather, her wealth was not long without suitors. Don
Juan of Austria, son of Ferdinand and Isabella, offered himself and was
accepted by Maximilian. There was a brief delay in the negotiations and
Don Juan, exasperated thereby, impudently reminded the emperor that a
divorced princess ought to come cheaper than either a widow or a maid.
At about the same time Marguerite's brother, Philip the Handsome, was
betrothed to Don Juan's sister, Juana. The two girls travelled together
from Brussels as far as Liege, where Philip was to be married. There was
a great contrast between the two Marguerite calm, stately, fair, was
ruled always by reason; and Juana dark, intense, was governed by
emotion. Upon this journey, however, youth and common interests must
have made the two girls companionable to each other. No prophetic sign
warned either of sorrows which the future held in store. The following
letter, lately printed in _Secret Memoirs of the House of Austria_,
gives the story of Juana's tragedy. Another letter, to which we shall
refer later, proves that Marguerite's love passion, though free from
crime, unlike Juana's, was no less deep and real than that of her
hot-blooded southern sister. The letter was written by one of Philip's
generals. An extract from it says: "The good King Philip was suspected
by his Queen of an amour, and that without reason, as was afterward
discovered, but she took it so much and so grievously to heart that she
at last resolved to kill her lord and husband in revenge for it. As
women are so easily moved and impelled, according to the old adage 'they
have long robes but short counsels,' she got so utterly beside herself
as to poison her good husband, although it was to her own loss. Shortly
after, she found out that she had been wrong, and that she had allowed
her quick temper to get the better of her. Then she began to rue what
she had done, and found no rest, tormented as she was by the furies of
remorse; and as she had her husband no more and could not get him back,
she began to love him twice as well as before, and grieved and fretted
so violently that at last she went out of her mind altogether and became
quite childish."
For months Juana kept Philip's embalmed body in her room, frequently
embracing it in an agony of grief. When, at last, it was buried she
could not rest until it was exhumed. Then she travelled with it at night
by the light of torches all through Spain. Curiously enough, a
soothsayer had once told Philip that he would make longer journeys
through his kingdom after his death than he had ever taken while living.
Philip the Handsome had one strong trait in his otherwise weak nature.
He was devotedly attached to his sister Marguerite. He loved her better
than anything else on earth except himself. She loved him, and his
children after him for his sake, with no thought of self. When
Marguerite left the Netherlands for Spain where her marriage with Don
Juan was to take place, Philip went with her to the seacoast. The ship
in which Marguerite and her suite sailed was threatened with
destruction. Marguerite calmly dressed herself in her richest robes and
jewels in order that her body, if washed ashore, might be easily
identified. Then under one of her splendid bracelets she slipped a band
of oiled silk containing an epitaph written by herself:
"Cy gise Margot, la gente damoysella,
Qui eust deux maris, et si morut pucelle."
This has been roughly translated thus:
"Beneath this tomb the highborn Margaret's laid,
Who had two husbands and yet died a maid."
In this epitaph we get one of the few hints of the fact that Marguerite
had inherited her father's whimsical sense of humor. Her letters and her
papers generally seem written under the shadow of court etiquette. Her
acts, however, and many of her recorded conversations, show a quick
appreciation of ludicrous or grotesque situations.
But the young poetess's epitaph was premature. The ship made the coast
of England in safety. The princess was invited to visit Henry VII. of
England; which invitation she accepted with the result that she was,
says the old historian, "much caressyed by the whole Court." Whether
Marguerite at this time met Charles Brandon (afterward the Duke of
Suffolk) who was destined secretly to play an important part in her love
affairs, is unknown, but it is probable that she did. Shortly after, her
marriage a magnificent ceremony took place at Madrid.
Once more a crown glittered before the ambitious girl's eyes, and again
it was dashed from her. Six months after their marriage, Don Juan
suddenly died. Marguerite returned to Germany. Again she married, this
time Philibert of Savoy, who seems to have loved her deeply; he, too,
soon died. Twice a widow and once divorced, Marguerite at the age of
twenty-five returned to her father's court, declaring that no political
exigencies should again force her into matrimony. About this time, she
adopted her strange, sad motto: _Spoliat mors munera nostra_ (Death ever
destroys what is granted to us). A pathetic little poem it loses much in
translation written by Marguerite at this time is still preserved:
"Must I thus ever languish on?
Must I, alas, thus die alone?
Shall none my tears and anguish know?
From childhood, I have suffered so!
Too long it lasts this weary woe."
As Thackeray said long afterward of the work of another poet-princess:
"These plaintive lines are more touching than better poetry."
Still another sorrow was in store for Marguerite. Her beloved brother,
Philip the Handsome, died. The manner of his death we know. It was his
dying request that his sister Marguerite, then regent of the
Netherlands, should have the guardianship of his five children, Charles,
Leonora, Isabel, Marie, and Catalina. The maternal instinct never beat
more strongly in any woman's heart than in that of the royal Marguerite.
Faithfully, wisely, lovingly, she fulfilled her brother's trust.
Another crown was offered Marguerite: Henry VII. of England sought her
in marriage. Her father wished her to accept this suitor, but Marguerite
persistently refused. Much correspondence passed between Maximilian and
his daughter at this time. From it we learn little of Marguerite's inner
life, but the glimpses of Maximilian are charming. Had he not been sure
that his daughter would appreciate his humorous allusions and his
nonsensical fancies, he would never have written as he did. In regard to
his plan for settling the difficulties between Church and State by the
startling expedient of making himself Pope, he writes:
"VERY DEAR AND MOST BELOVED DAUGHTER:
"We send the Bishop of Greece to-morrow to Rome, to the Pope, to find
some means of agreeing with him to take us for a coadjutor, so that
after his death we may be sure of having his papacy, and of becoming a
priest, and you will be obliged after my death to worship me, of which I
shall be extremely proud. I have also begun to sound the cardinals, with
whom two or three thousand ducats will do me great service, considering
the partiality which they already exhibit.
"P. S. The Pope has intermittent fever. Cannot live long."
No better business woman ever lived than royal Marguerite. Her first act
as regent was the abrogation of several of her father's unwise,
self-cheating treaties. She encouraged trade, secured financial
stability in her realm, always kept on good terms with the Fuggers, the
money kings of the world, and increased the revenue from all sources. A
marriage was planned between her nephew, Charles, and Mary Tudor, the
youngest daughter of Henry VII.
When Henry VIII., in the war between France and England, led an army to
the battle of Guinegatte, Marguerite invited him to visit her at Lille.
Did Marguerite know when she sent her letter of invitation that with
Henry was one whom she had met at the English court and had never
forgotten? The following letter, written her from Henry's camp by her
confidential messenger, would indicate that she did know. "The Grand
Equerry, the second king," mentioned in the letter was Charles Brandon,
then Viscount Lisle and later ennobled by Henry for Marguerite's sake,
gossip said Lord Suffolk. The messenger, Philippe de Brigilles, writes:
"MADAME:
"The Grand Equerry, my Lord Lisle, has been to me to beg of me that I
would convey to you his most humble respects and the hearty desire which
he had to do you service. I think you know sufficiently well that he is
the second king and it is only proper that you should write him a
gracious letter, for he it is who does and undoes all. This knoweth God,
who give you, Madame, what ever you most desire. From the camp before
Therouanne, this Wednesday last.
"Your most humble and most obedient slave,
"PHILIPPE DE BRIGILLES."
Marguerite was now thirty-three. A portrait of her at Hampton Court
shows that she was a fine-looking, if not, strictly speaking, a
beautiful woman. The face is oval, the hair, showing from underneath the
rather picturesque widow's headdress of the sixteenth century, is brown,
the eyes are dark and expressive, the nose Grecian, the lips somewhat
full. The hands, resting upon a balcony, are beautiful, with long,
tapering fingers.
Brandon is described as "a large man, tall and elegantly proportioned,
with dark brown eyes and hair: he was handsome in his countenance,
courtly in his manners, and extremely prepossessing in his address."
For the next few months, the soul of Marguerite of Austria was
struggling in deep waters. The facts, as clearly as they can be made out
through the misty perspective of centuries, seem to be these: Marguerite
loved Charles Brandon, then Viscount Lisle and afterward the Duke of
Suffolk. He asked her hand in marriage, wooing her passionately. The
young and powerful king, Henry VIII., favored Suffolk's suit, even to
the point of making several personal appeals to Marguerite, whose pride
and her fear of causing a political catastrophe made her hesitate to
accept Suffolk. Gossiping rumors concerning the love affair were spread
broadcast, and Maximilian, hearing them, became enraged. Marguerite drew
back. Henry VIII. pretended to the emperor that he knew nothing about
the matter except by hearsay. Brandon accepted the situation and later
consoled himself by marrying the youngest sister of the king, the bride
first selected for Charles, Mary Tudor.
To give reality and color to the above bare outline of a story that once
throbbed with life, a few descriptions and quotations may be permitted.
Henry VIII., with his suite, including Brandon, visited Marguerite at
Lille. She in return "accompanied by her young nephew Charles and divers
other nobles," visited Henry in his camp at Tournay. Henry met them
outside the gates and "brought them in with greate triumphe." The
chronicler adds: "The noys went that the Lord Lysle made request of
marriage to the Ladye Margurite, Duchess of Savoy, and daughter to the
Emperor Maximilian. But whether he proffered marriage or not, she
favored him highly."
An evening banquet following, a day of tournaments is thus described:
"This night the King made a sumptuous banket of a. c. dishes to the
Prince of Castell and the Lady Margarete, and to all other Lords and
ladies and after the banket the ladies daunsed; and then came in the
king and a XI in a maske, all richly appareled with bonnettes of gold,
and when they had passed the time at their pleasure, the garments of the
maske were cast off amongst the ladies, take who could take."
That handsome Charles Brandon and stately Marguerite of Austria "took"
each other is proved by the following extracts, made from two letters
signed "M" among the Cottonian manuscripts now in the British Museum.
The epistles are evidently translations from French originals. They are
addressed to "Sir Richard Wingfield, Ambassadour," and are labelled on
the outside, in Sir Richard Wingfield's handwriting: _Secrete Matters of
the Duke of Suffolk_. The letters were delivered to Wingfield by
Marotin, a confidential servant, whom it is known Marguerite dismissed
for having "evile kept" her secrets. As Marotin was at once taken into
Maximilian's service it is probable that he was the emperor's informant
concerning the Suffolk love affair. For nearly a year afterward,
intercourse between the emperor and his daughter was confined to the
coldest formalities.
In the case of a few words, liberties have here been taken with Sir
Richard Wingfield's spelling in order to make the letter intelligible to
modern readers:
"The Archduchess Marguerite to Sir Richard Wingfield.
"My Ladye began this wryting before the koming of Marrotin, who came to
Lavoyne on Sundaye last."
"MY LORDE AMBASSADOURE:
"Sythe that I see that I may not have tydynges from the Emperor so soon,
it seemeth me that I shulde do welle no longer to tarry to depeche this
gentleman. And for that my lettres addressyed to the King and the Duke
of that I dare not aventure me to wryte on to them so at lengthe of thys
bisyness I fear me to be evile kept, I me determine to wrythe to you at
lengthe that you may the better advertise them of myne intent."
She then explains that her intent is to put a stop to the whole matter.
Fear of endangering the prospects of her idolized nephew, Charles,
should she make a mesalliance, was probably Marguerite's main reason for
disobeying the dictates of her heart. Marguerite was a politician,
clear-headed, keen, cool, calculating; but she was also a very human
woman. She wished Sir Richard to think well of her she desired the king
to know that she did not blame him in the matter. Above all, she wished
Suffolk to understand that while she rejected him she still remained
true to him. She told Wingfield how "at severall occaysions" the king
pleaded for his friend and favorite courtier:
"He sayde that I was yet too young for to abide thus, and that the
ladyes of hys contree dyd remarye at fifty and three score yeeres." But
Marguerite was firm. She says: "Whereupon I answered hym that I hadde
never hadde wylle so to do and that I was too muche unhappy in
hosbondes, but he wolde nott beleve me."
Throughout the letters, Suffolk (Brandon) is referred to by Marguerite
as the "Personnage." Again the king told her that his friend was most
unhappy, fearing she would marry someone else.
"Wyche I promised to hym," says Marguerite, "I schulde not do." But the
"Personnage," who appears to have been present at this interview, was
not satisfied. Marguerite says: "He mayde me promyse in his hands that
how soever I shulde be pressed by my father, or otherwyse, I should not
make alyance of maryage with Prynce off the worlde."
The king was sometimes discreetly absent when the two met.
"At the head of a koppboorde," a few days later, Suffolk made Marguerite
renew her promise to him. Marguerite refers also to certain "gracyewse
letters" that passed between herself and her English suitor. The report
had got abroad in the court that Suffolk had in his possession a diamond
ring known to belong to the archduchess. She confesses the truth of the
rumor:
"One night at Tournaye, being at the bankett, after the bankett, he put
hymself upon hys knees before me, and hym playing, he drew from my
finger the rynge, and put it on hys finger, and sythe shewed it me. And
I took to Lawe, and to hym sayde that he was a theefe, and that I thowte
not the King hadde wyth hym ledde theeves out of hys contree." Somehow,
one feels glad of that half-hour "after the bankett" in Marguerite's
hard life.
Brandon behaved well in the matter when he found that Marguerite had
fully made up her mind to end their friendship. His daughter by his
first wife and an adopted daughter were both under Marguerite's care at
her court, and Suffolk offered to remove them if the archduchess wished
him to do so. Another young English girl also was under Marguerite's
charge, Anne Bullen, better known to history as Anne Boleyn. Suffolk,
about this time, adopted for his shield the singular motto: "Who can
hold that will away?"
The affair with the Duke of Suffolk being over, Marguerite plunged into
politics, straining every nerve to secure the imperial succession for
Charles against the new claimant who had arisen, Francis I. of France.
When her help was no longer needed by the young emperor, Marguerite
retired to her favorite spot, Malines. There she held a quiet court,
devoting herself to study. When remonstrated with upon the score of
health for confining herself too closely to books, she replied: "When
the mind has congenial employment, the body will always take care of
itself." At the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and also at Cambrai, where
the "Ladies' Peace" treaty was arranged by herself and Louise of Savoy,
Marguerite again met her old lover, the Duke of Suffolk. If history
holds any records of that meeting, they are still hidden in her secret
archives.
The Renaissance and the Reformation both touched Marguerite of Austria
closely. Toward the Renaissance she was kindly and even gratefully
inclined. For Protestantism, however, she had only scorn and hatred. Her
natural benevolence kept her from the cruel persecutions which darkened
the reign of another Marguerite--Marguerite of Parma--in the
Netherlands. But Marguerite of Austria, nevertheless, was openly
committed to "the extermination of the Lutherans." That her niece Isabel
died in the new and hated faith was a source of great sorrow to her.
Isabel, with her last breath, committed her children to her aunt
Marguerite's care; and Marguerite, whose life had been largely spent in
rearing other women's children, took these little orphans also to her
heart.
When the Reformation came, even the gay, profligate courts of the German
principalities were sobered. At first, in certain cases, the sudden
seriousness caused by Luther's ringing call took the form of attempted
evasion of the consequences of sin. Philip of Hesse, a big, handsome
prince into whose material nature a bit of the new leaven had fallen,
asked "Pope Luther" to let him marry a second wife while his first was
living. He did not propose to put the first away; he would provide for
both. In extenuation of this suggested bigamy he pleaded truly enough
that Christine, his spouse, was addicted to over-indulgence in strong
drink, and, also, was personally repulsive. He wished to marry Katharine
von Saal, one of the court ladies. It was a crucial moment for
Protestantism. Philip's powerful aid would perhaps save the new faith.
Long ago, Luther had twice given it as his opinion that the Scriptures
sanctioned plural marriages. The dispensation was granted. The second
marriage took place, Christine agreeing placidly. Katharine von Saal
made Philip a good wife, and the three Christine being left in
undisturbed enjoyment of her daily dram lived, it seems, harmoniously
enough.
A very different story is that of another court. Joachim, Elector of
Brandenburg, bitterly opposed the new faith, but his wife became a
convert. The latter partook of the sacrament in both kinds, and then
fearing vengeance from her angry lord and master fled from his court to
a refuge near Lotha. Her husband refused to take her back, but he
allowed her children to visit her. Carlyle, in his Frederick the Great,
tells the story.
The vexed question, Which has done more to advance the world, the
Renaissance or the Reformation? will probably never be satisfactorily
settled. At the best, 'tis rather a shallow question, born of provincial
intelligence. Without the Renaissance there could have been no
Reformation. Without the Reformation, the Renaissance, contenting itself
with past culture, would never have become the active force it is in the
world to-day. To both, the twentieth century woman owes much.