The First Governess of the Netherlands, Margaret of Austria Part 8

Subjects and va.s.sals of the Church were bidden to help the republic, and Julius openly quarrelled with the Duke of Ferrara, who wished to remain faithful to the League of Cambray. He urged Henry VIII. to declare war against France, and King Ferdinand secretly did the same.

As the Pope observed, the object of the League of Cambray ceased to exist.

At this crisis Louis XII. lost his faithful friend and able Minister, Cardinal d'Amboise. He was succeeded by Florimond Robertet, who had none of his predecessor's great qualities. The Cardinal died at Lyons on the 26th of May 1510. Andre de Burgo was then Austrian amba.s.sador at the French Court, and writing to inform Margaret of the Cardinal's death, he says, 'I a.s.sure you your House has suffered a great loss.'

Encouraged by the death of Georges d'Amboise, the Pope continued to make preparations, and declared that G.o.d had chosen him to be the Liberator of Italy. In spite of his age and infirmities he was present at the siege of Mirandola, in January 1511, and entered the town by a breach.

In 1512 he concluded a treaty with King Ferdinand and the Venetian republic, which the allies called the 'Holy League.' The apparent object of this League was to defend the unity of the Church, and restore the ecclesiastical state; but the real object was directed against France.

Julius II.'s designs were helped by the Swiss, who entered Italy more than sixteen thousand strong, determined to re-establish Maximilian Sforza in the duchy of Milan; but the Pope and his allies received a check when a new general appeared at the head of the French army.

Louis XII. had made his nephew, Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, Governor of Lombardy. This young general of twenty-three soon distinguished himself by winning three victories in three months. By a well-planned march he brought help to the town of Milan, which was left without means of defence; and forced the Swiss to recross the mountains. He then obliged the Army of the League to raise the siege of Bologna. After reconquering Brescia, which was occupied by the Venetians, he marched on Ravenna, garrisoned by papal and Spanish soldiers. But his troops had hardly begun the attack when the Army of the League arrived with reinforcements. A battle took place on Easter Sunday, April 11th, 1512, outside the walls of Ravenna. Gaston de Foix, in the moment of victory, was surrounded, thrown from his horse and killed, as he was charging the retreating Spaniards. His death was disastrous to the French cause in Italy.

When Julius II. heard of Gaston's victories it is reported that he tore his beard with rage. One of Margaret's correspondents writes: 'Madame, there is news from Rome... that after the Pope heard that the Venetians had taken Brescia, he expressed the greatest joy imaginable, and ordered the bells of Rome to be rung, fireworks, and many other rejoicings; but since he heard that his people and the Spaniards had retired from Bologna, he was much displeased, and caused a strong and furious letter to be written to the Viceroy of Naples, captain of the said Spaniards, ordering them to return to Bologna at once, and on no account to leave; and, moreover, when he heard that the French had retaken Brescia and slaughtered the Venetians, they say he tore his beard with rage.'

During this struggle the emperor remained pa.s.sive. Although he agreed to Louis' proposed reforms, he evaded his promise to send German bishops to the Council the French king had convoked at Lyons. The truth was that Margaret had forbidden the bishops to attend. Louis naturally complained, and threatened the princess with his Government's displeasure. Margaret replied to his threats by reproaching him with his conduct in reference to the Duke of Gueldres.

He protested that he had neither furnished the duke with men or money, but she would not accept his excuses, and soon after successfully formed a league between her father and the Kings of Spain and England, which league she said represented the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Julius II. died on the 21st of February 1513. He had been one of the chief promoters of Italian independence, and through his warlike policy had considerably enlarged the papal states.

On the 11th of March 1513 Cardinal John de Medicis, then in his thirty-sixth year, was unanimously elected Pope by the twenty-four Cardinals a.s.sembled in conclave. The new Pope (Leo X.), who was of a peaceful and diplomatic nature, refused to ratify a treaty concluded at Malines on the 5th of April in the same year between Margaret, acting for her father, and Henry VIII.'s amba.s.sadors; a treaty which would have forced him to send the papal troops to invade Provence or Dauphiny. He arranged a truce with Louis XII., who, after Gaston de Foix's death, had lost most of his Italian possessions. The Sforzas were reinstated in Milan, the Medicis in Florence, and Genoa became once more a free republic; the king's army was beaten by the Swiss at Novara, and by the English at Guinegate. A treaty signed at Blois, on the 28th of March, was ratified at Venice on the 11th of April. The Venetian republic agreed to help Louis to regain Milan and Genoa, and the king promised to a.s.sist the Venetians to recover their territories on the mainland, which were occupied by Maximilian's troops. The political balance of Europe now depended entirely on the goodwill of Henry VIII. On the 25th of May 1513 Jean le Veau wrote to Margaret that 'the time had come to be firm, and that she ought to imitate the English, who always showed their enmity against France.'

A treaty was concluded through Margaret's intervention in 1513 between the emperor and Henry VIII., which aimed at humbling France, but only resulted in the battle of Guinegate, where Maximilian served as a volunteer in the English army, and received a hundred crowns a day as pay. It was on this occasion that Margaret ordered the town of Therouenne on the borders of France and Belgium to be completely destroyed. Whilst he was with the English army Maximilian sent a messenger to Margaret asking her to join him at Tournay. In reply she says: 'Monseigneur, I have received the message that you have been pleased to send me by Marnix, my secretary, about my going to Tournay.

As for me, Monseigneur, if you think that my going there is necessary, and can be of service to you, I am ready in this and in all else that it may please you to command me; but otherwise, it is not fitting for a widow to be trotting about and visiting armies for pleasure....' But a little later, after the reduction of Tournay, Margaret met her father and Henry VIII. at Lille.

In June of the same year King Ferdinand wrote to his amba.s.sador in Flanders 'to tell Madame Margaret that before and after he concluded the truce with France in his own name as well as in the name of the emperor, the King of England, and Prince Charles, he wrote to his amba.s.sador, Don Pedro de Urea, and ordered him to explain all his reasons to the emperor.... Having concluded the truce from pure necessity, he is forced to observe it this year.' King Ferdinand tells his amba.s.sador to beg Madame Margaret to use her influence with the emperor, and to show him that the policy he has. .h.i.therto adopted can have only one result, viz. 'that of making the King of France master of the world; whilst if the emperor follows his (Ferdinand's) advice, nothing will be lost.'

He writes that 'Madame Margaret is willing to deliver Don Juan Manuel up to him as prisoner. She is to be told that Don Juan has not only behaved badly to King Ferdinand, but also speaks so ill of her that for this alone he deserves punishment.'[41]

[41] _Calendar of Spanish State Papers_, vol. ii.

And when, a little later, Margaret has asked Maximilian's permission to arrest Don Juan Manuel, because he had spoken against King Ferdinand, Maximilian answers that 'if Don Juan has committed a crime which is punishable according to law, he may be arrested; if not, it will be sufficient to banish him from the Court.'

But although Margaret as Governess of the Netherlands took part in the greatest events of her century, yet her private life in her home at Malines was of the simplest and most domestic kind. We get a very good idea of the way she spent her days from her interesting correspondence and from her father's letters which have, fortunately, been preserved.

These letters are in French, but Maximilian's spelling is chiefly euphonical, and the meaning often obscure. In spite of the quaint style, these letters form an interesting history of Europe at the dawn of the Renaissance. Beginning with the drama which opens at the League of Cambray, in which England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain all play their parts, and ending with the disaster of Pavia, the humbling of France, and the triumph of the House of Austria, there is not a negotiation, war, or treaty, whose secret cause and real origin is not disclosed. Although the correspondence comprises a comparatively short period, and does not go much beyond the first quarter of the sixteenth century, still the age was one of thrilling interest and brilliant personality. Amongst the ill.u.s.trious personages who pa.s.s in review before us are Louis XII., Anne of Brittany, Francis I., Louise of Savoy, Margaret of Angouleme, the Cardinal of Amboise, and the Chevalier Bayard, Ferdinand of Aragon, Gonzalva of Cordova, and Ximenes, Henry VII., Henry VIII., and Cardinal Wolsey, Charles V., and Luther.

Margaret's correspondents included most of the sovereigns of Europe and their various amba.s.sadors. Besides the personages already mentioned, we come across the names of Raulin, Carondelet, Alberto Pio, the Cardinal of Gurk, Caulier, and Laurent de Gorrevod, to whose conferences and intrigues we are introduced, and sometimes to the snares they laid for their best friends. Amongst them we find Andre de Burgo, Maximilian's 'faithful councillor' and amba.s.sador in France, whose despatches to Malines are masterpieces of finesse and diplomacy.

The pages in which he describes the events of which Julius II. is the hero are full of interest. In a witty and delightful manner he records the ambitions, cabals, and various factions which hastened the end of this warrior pontiff who was 'always dying but never buried.' He frequently announces that the Holy Father is the victim of a violent fever, and that the doctors hardly hope to save him--it is whispered that he will be 'in paradise before a year and a half is out.' The Cardinals prepare to 'choose a good and holy Pope,' but before they can do so, the dying Pope recovers, or at least he is 'so much better that he thinks himself cured and has lost his fever.'

Then there is Andre de Burgo's successor, Chancellor Perrenot, the father of Cardinal de Granvelle. Also the Granvelles' enemy, Mercurin de Gattinare, a skilled diplomatist and picturesque writer. More than once we read of his reminding Margaret of the respect she owes him, and he tells her, not without pride, that she does not deserve to have a servant like himself, and when she gave him some unmerited rebuke, he replied: 'These words should be addressed to a stranger and an unknown man, not to me, whom you have known and tried.'

In Margaret's time Malines was a flouris.h.i.+ng commercial city, whose manufactures were exported to all parts of Europe. Commerce, industries, and navigation had made great progress under her wise rule. Her palace was the centre of life in the old city and the meeting-place of many ill.u.s.trious families and learned men who came from all parts of the Netherlands to visit her Court. Jean Second, Erasmus, Cornelius Agrippa, Jean Lemaire, Mabuse, c.o.xcie, and Van Orley were amongst her frequent guests.

One of her chief ladies was the Countess of Hochstrate, who had charge of her maids of honour and the women of her household. Her husband, Count Hochstrate, was the princess's chevalier d'honneur, and commanded her bodyguard of twenty-seven n.o.blemen, whose duty it was to attend her wherever she went. He also was in charge of the stewards, cooks, pastrycooks, bakers, cupbearers, carvers and the other servants, besides the keeper of Prince Charles's lions and rare birds, so that his post was no sinecure.

Margaret took great pride in keeping up an establishment worthy of her rank. She lived in great luxury, and her table was always furnished with the choicest wines, and every kind of fish, fowl, and game in its season. In spite of her habitual melancholy, she took part in the usual amus.e.m.e.nts of her time. We read of her attending many feasts, dances, and jousts; and it was seldom she did not have music during her meals, either fife, tambourin, or violin players, or sometimes the choristers of Notre-Dame de Sablon, or Monsieur de Ravestein's singers, who played and sang songs before her. Another day we read of her watching the performance of 'two large and powerful bears' brought by some strolling Hungarian players; or sitting in the vast hall, silent and dreamy, listening to old airs of German minstrelsy.

Maximilian occasionally visited his daughter, and then Malines was _en fete_. Sometimes he invited his young granddaughters to spend a few days with him at Brussels, 'to see the park and enjoy themselves.'[42]

[42] Le Glay, _Correspondance de l'Empereur Maximilian I._

But Margaret's favourite occupation was superintending the education of her nephew Charles. She had a wonderful apt.i.tude for teaching, and was not satisfied that he should excel in manly sports, which was usually all that was required of princes, but she insisted on his studying history, languages, and science. She also found time for more domestic employments. From the letters we find that she spun flax, and amongst the objects mentioned in her inventory are a spindle, distaff, and winding reels. She was accustomed to work with her needle, and once she surprised her father by sending him 'good linen s.h.i.+rts,'

which she had made herself, and Maximilian, delighted with this present, hastened to thank her: 'I have received by this bearer some beautiful s.h.i.+rts and "huves" which you have helped to make with your own hand, with which I am delighted.... Our skin will be comforted with meeting the fineness and softness of such beautiful linen, such as the angels in Paradise use for their clothing.' Margaret also sent her father receipts for various dishes which pleased her, and we find her recommending him to eat some preserves during the heat of summer which she has tried herself and found excellent. 'I have a good apothecary,' she says, 'called Countess de Horne, who takes care to supply me every year with the best preserves in the world, which she makes with her own hands, and as I find them good, it seems to me that you will also, even in this great heat.'

Margaret took much interest in her maids of honour, and when necessary did not spare them either advice or punishment. She warned them especially to avoid gossiping or foolish conversation. During the long winter evenings she played chess, or when summer came with long fine days, she rode with them through the forests of Scheplaken, Groenendael, and Boisfort, followed by her greyhounds. If one of her maids married, Margaret took care to prepare the trousseau. Sometimes she put aside a certain sum for this purpose from her privy purse, and often begged a post from Maximilian for the girl's future husband.

Thus she dowered and provided for many maidens whose names are mentioned in the Archives of Lille.

As a rule, Margaret and her father treated each other with the greatest confidence. Maximilian took a fatherly interest in whatever concerned his daughter's happiness. He would like to have seen her married to Henry VII., for then, as he said, she would not have been 'a person lost and forgotten.' Sometimes he made her small presents, 'a carbuncle which his father the Emperor Frederick had valued,' or a haunch of venison off which she could 'feast at some dinner or supper.' On another occasion he sent her the plan of a triumphal arch before 'having it erected, so that it might remain for ever as a monument to their perpetual glory.'

One day, in a fit of rare generosity (for he was very impecunious), he made her a present of 100,000 crowns. Margaret will be ungrateful, he says, 'if she is not well pleased with him.' He tells her his most secret thoughts... that he intends soliciting the papal tiara, for the Pope 'cannot live long.' He wishes to be nominated coadjutor of the Sovereign Pontiff, so as 'to be a.s.sured of having the Papacy and becoming a priest and afterwards made holy.' With this intention he begins to 'win over the cardinals' with two or three thousand ducats, and he sends 'a messenger to the King of Aragon, begging him to help him to get what he wants.'

But this confidence between the emperor and his daughter was often broken. Maximilian sometimes complains that she treats him badly and 'takes him for a Frenchman!' She was not always his 'good daughter;'

she sometimes speaks too plainly and asks him when he intends sending an answer to the English amba.s.sadors, who have been kept waiting for eight months, and reminds him ironically 'that it is time to move in this business.' On another occasion she writes these words in a letter which he calls 'rude and ungracious': 'I know that it is not my business to interfere in your said affairs, as I am an inexperienced woman in such matters, nevertheless the great duty I have towards you emboldens me to... beg of you... to take care whilst there is yet time.'

But in spite of these small recriminations each tried to help the other, as we see from the numerous requests they constantly made to each other in favour of various persons in whom they were interested.

In spite of the Netherlands' general prosperity, both Margaret and her father suffered greatly from lack of funds, as is shown in nearly every page of the correspondence. Maximilian hardly writes a letter without mentioning that he has need of 'a sum of money.' One day he humbly begs for 10,000 florins, another time for 70,000 or 80,000, which he must have. He knows, he says, that the States complain that he only thinks of 'knavery and taking their money for nothing,' but all the same he begs Margaret to do all in her power to find him the sum he requires. His lamentations, resources, and importunity in begging are most pitiable. 'We must,' he says, 'in order to raise money quickly, p.a.w.n two gold chains set with many valuable and precious stones, one (chain) being larger than the other.' Sometimes Margaret was as hardly pressed for funds as her father, and several of her letters have this sad ending, 'The treasurer does not know where to turn for money; he has no "deniers" (old Roman coins) left.' The Swiss and German infantry were unpaid, and Maximilian for this reason kept out of the way, and fled to the Tyrolese mountains on the pretext of hunting. His daughter wrote to him severely: 'I hoped that you would have come here, but from what I see, you are going further and further away, which displeases me, for it was very necessary that you should come here.' At another time she tells him that she will be forced to become 'bankrupt' if she cannot quickly raise '24,000 florins from the King of England.' She has appealed to the States in vain; for some 'cannot agree,' whilst others 'have settled nothing yet ... for they are obstinate and disagreeable.'

Even the amba.s.sadors were hampered by lack of means. Andre de Burgo could not go to Lyons, where he was afraid to stay for want of money.

'It is a pity,' he says, 'for so good and loyal a servant of your house to have so often to beg and ask for the wherewithal to live, as G.o.d's poor do... he is ashamed not to be able to pay his creditors, and shall be reduced to sell half his plate to some Jew.'

Even Mercurin de Gattinare had to give up an important journey, and states he will have to go 'bankrupt' if he cannot sell a gold chain.

For Anne of Brittany's accouchement the other amba.s.sadors had ordered coloured clothes; he alone has to appear in black garments, and is much distressed. 'I have only black,' he writes in Italian, 'and have no means of buying colours.'

Besides these oft-recurring complaints, the correspondence is full of the hatred which Margaret and her father still felt for France.

Maximilian never liked the French, and his letters abound in maledictions against them. He tries to stir up his daughter's aversion, and congratulates her 'on the goodwill and diligence she has shown in resisting them. We have,' he says, 'more experience of the French than you have... and we would rather you were deceived by their fair speeches than ourselves, so that you would take more care in future.' He knows their 'treachery and falseness,' for they only act by abuse, dissimulation, and deceit, as they have done for the last hundred years past, and will still be doing a hundred years hence.

Maximilian himself served as a private soldier in the King of England's army on the Continent, and advised Henry VIII. to land at Crotoy, where he proposed meeting him 'on condition that his said brother gave him the money he had promised, and that he sent the second portion with the first.' Margaret certainly shared her father's aversion for all things French, although she disguised it in writing to Louis XII. She secretly rejoices at every French defeat, and when she hears of the victory of Guinegate, 'she is more happy than she can say.' She also reminds Maximilian of old wrongs to rouse up his wrath, and ironically recalls 'the good faith and loyalty of the French.'

Several times she points out how easy it would be to conquer their hereditary enemy: 'There is no boundary between our country and France, and you know the deep inveterate hatred the French bear us.'

These words express all Margaret's hatred and ambition, and show one of the reasons why she took such a special care of Prince Charles's education. In him she hoped to see realised all her dreams of the future greatness of Austria and Burgundy. With infinite trouble she directed his masters and mistresses, was herself present at their lessons, and often interceded with Maximilian on their behalf. Thus she recommends Anne de Beaumont 'for the first vacant post over the ladies of the household... or a good annual pension, as a reward for her past services, which ought to be noticed'; she also praises Louis Vacca 'for great and worthy service which he has daily rendered as tutor for eight years, teaching Monseigneur with such great care and diligence, as a good and loyal servitor should.'

We read of the child's rapid progress in his lessons, and also of a fever he caught after attending his sister Isabel's wedding, at which 'he behaved as a good brother, accompanying his sister in the dances so perfectly, and perhaps rather more than was good for him.' A few days later 'he began to get better,' and it is hoped that he 'will soon be restored to health,' as he has such a good appet.i.te 'that now it is difficult to satisfy him.' He is learning to shoot, but it is dangerous for the pa.s.sers-by, as he shot a man by mistake, 'when Monseigneur, my nephew, went to play at Wure. On Whit-Monday he fired off his gun, and had the misfortune to kill a workman of this town, a drunkard and ill-conditioned man... which has caused my said Lord and me much sorrow and regret, but there is no help for it.'

When the boy went hunting near Malines Maximilian wrote joyfully: 'We are well pleased that our son Charles takes so much pleasure in hunting,' but at the same time he recommends, 'when the weather is mild, to send him to Anvers and Louvain to take the air, and to pa.s.s the time, to ride on horseback for his health and strength.'

Maximilian then goes on to describe his own sport. He has taken 'at least four large stags in the morning, and after dinner five herons.

Ducks and kites we catch daily without number; even to-day we got four herons besides, and thirteen ducks or river birds in twelve flights in one half league. Every day we get three kites, for here there is any amount, and all in the most beautiful country....'

These few quotations will show that the letters are more or less memoirs of Margaret's life for about twenty-five years, and give us a good idea of the part she played in the stirring events of her time.

CHAPTER VIII

A LOVE AFFAIR

After the reduction of Tournay and Therouenne in the autumn of 1513, Henry VIII. and Maximilian met Margaret at Lille. She was accompanied by the Archduke Charles and a large retinue. This was Henry's first meeting with his wife's nephew; it was also Margaret's first introduction to the man whose engaging manners and brilliant personality nearly made her give up the resolution to which she had adhered for so many years, and marry again.