The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King (4 page)

6
. The husband of her mother’s sister.

7
. In the sixteenth century, Urbino was quite a sizable duchy. It is now incorporated in that part of Italy known as The Marches.

8
. Barbarossa, or Redbeard, whose real name was Khayr ad-Din, was admiral of the Turkish fleet under the Sultan Suleiman I. He twice defeated the famous Admiral Andrea Doria, and ravaged the coasts of Greece, Spain, and Italy.

9
. Officially Clement VII’s nephew, Alessandro was actually his son, installed as ruler of Florence by his father.

10
. Catherine de’ Medici gave the pearls to Mary, Queen of Scots, when she became her daughter-in-law. Mary took the pearls with her back to Scotland; after her execution, they were kept by Queen Elizabeth I. They were later set into Charles II’s state crown and subsequent state crowns. Today, four of them form part of Queen Elizabeth II’s crown. Two are known to have been replaced.

11
. At the turn of the sixteenth century, it was the custom to rattle or scatter nuts in the next room or even under the marriage bed to stifle the sounds made by the newlyweds.

12
. The Medici coat of arms depicts six balls. Some sources claim these represent medicinal pills, referring to the family’s alleged origin as apothecaries. Other sources point out that the balls are often painted red and claim they represent the oranges the early Medici grew in huge pots in their extensive greenhouses. (The color orange is not used in heraldry and there is no proof of this theory.) The symbol of the royal house of France is the
fleur-de-lys
, or golden lily. It actually represents a yellow iris said to have been chosen by the medieval French King Clovis. Only under Louis VII in the twelfth century did the symbol become “fleur de Louis” then “fleur de Luce” and finally “
fleur-de-lys
” or lily of France. Florence has been called the city of the Red Lily because it was once ruled by the kings of France and the city arms carry a
red fleur-de-lys
. Certainly, the Medici were merchants and as such most probably also moneylenders, so the Medici balls, often shown as golden, could have represented gold ducats. On some buildings in Florence, the top center ball, and sometimes even the background of the whole escutcheon, can be seen covered in gold
fleur-de-lys
on a blue background. These coats of arms would date from 1465.

CHAPTER TWO

The King and the Mistress

F
rançois I was the son of Charles, comte d’Angoulême, a rather pathetic Prince of the Blood,
¹
who preferred books and women to statecraft, and Louise de Savoie. Louise went into labor on a hot September 12, 1494, and chose to give birth outdoors. Her bed was placed under a large elm tree in the garden of the
château fort
that loomed defensively over the prosperous little Gascon town of Cognac. A low wall was constructed around the bed to ensure a modicum of privacy. François was a large, lusty baby who hurried into the world and required the services of two wet nurses. With this abundant source of milk, he grew into a giant. His mother declared him her “Caesar”—a title somewhat premature as her husband’s claim to the throne of France was remote to say the least.

Louise de Savoie was the daughter of Marguerite de Bourbon and the comte de Bresse, who, in 1496, became duc de Savoie. More important, she was the niece of Pierre and Anne, duc and duchesse de Bourbon. A princess of France, Anne de Beaujeu, as she was known,
was the eldest daughter of one king, Louis XI, and the sister of another, Charles VIII. Known as “
Madame la Grande
,” she had twice been regent of France and was a most formidable character, admired for her authority, stern wisdom, and culture. Taking the reins of government into her own hands at the age of twenty-two, Anne had succeeded in destroying the feudal system and centralizing the power of the throne. Anne’s father, Louis XI, called her the most sensible woman in France. But in giving his daughter her immense properties, Louis XI had stipulated that should she fail to produce a male heir, her properties should revert to the crown, and not to the collateral branch of her husband’s family, the Bourbon-Montpensier. Louis XI realized that such a huge, combined estate could well threaten the authority of the crown.

When her brother Charles VIII married Anne de Bretagne in
1491, Anne de Beaujeu retired to Burgundy, which was seen as a state in its own right. Years later, the young Louise de Savoie was sent to Burgundy to live at Anne’s two great houses, Chantelles and Moulins. It was the custom for young girls of noble birth to be brought up in the household of an important and learned lady, and it was in Anne’s household that Louise joined a privileged group, all scions of noble houses, to be educated in the principles and traditions of life at a royal court.

When Louise was not quite eleven and a half,
²
Anne arranged her marriage to the twenty-nine-year-old Charles d’Orléans, comte d’Angoulême and a Prince of the Blood. Louise was somewhat younger than the brides of most family marriages arranged by Anne de Beaujeu, but she never liked Louise and wished to have her out of the house. Time was to prove her instinct right.

When Louise arrived at her husband’s crumbling castle in Cognac, the child bride found two mistresses already in residence. It seems her husband was an avid reader of Boccaccio and shared the libidinous traits of this author’s heroes. Intelligent and resourceful, Louise appointed one of his mistresses as her lady-in-waiting and the other as her maid. At fifteen, Louise gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Marguerite, said by poets to have been born of a pearl and known in history as the remarkable “Marguerite of the Marguerites,” the “Pearl among Pearls,” and future queen of Navarre.
³
François, her “Caesar,” was born two years later, in September 1494. In that same summer, the mistresses of her energetic husband each presented him with a daughter. For the next seven, happily bucolic years, the family lived together, until the sudden death of Charles. Louise, a beauty of eighteen, comforted the mistresses, and her husband’s young chamberlain comforted the widowed châtelaine. As Louise’s father had by then become the ruler of Savoy, she became entitled to use his name.

A series of unexpected events followed, bringing Louise de Savoie’s little Caesar closer to the throne. The king of France, Charles VIII, died suddenly at the age of twenty-eight from a blow received
when he passed under a low stone doorway.
⁴
The king’s heir was his brother-in-law and cousin, Louis d’Orléans, who, at age fourteen, had been forced to marry Charles VIII’s crippled sister Jeanne. Unlike the attractive Anne de Beaujeu, this daughter of Louis XI was said to have the soul of a saint and the body of a monster.
⁵
The new king claimed that his marriage had never been consummated, and immediately after his coronation, Louis XII had this union annulled.
⁶
He married instead the pious widow of Charles VIII, Anne de Bretagne, sovereign duchess of Brittany. Anne de Beaujeu approved her brother-in-law’s marriage on condition he cancel her father’s contract by which her territories would revert to the crown in lieu of a male heir. Little did the new king realize that with this one stroke of the pen he was creating an independent and immensely powerful Bourbon state.

As Louis XII was often away with his armies and his wife was the proud ruler of Brittany, he appointed his terrifying sister-in-law Anne de Beaujeu to act as regent during his absences. As long as Louis XII had no heirs, François d’Angoulême, Louise’s little Caesar, was the heir presumptive. When François was six, the king created the duchy of Valois for him. Louise’s ambition for her son was growing apace. However, Anne de Bretagne, again queen of France, was charming, and, worse for Louise, she had proven her fertility by giving birth to three sons and a daughter. Although childhood illnesses had killed them all, Anne de Bretagne was young and would surely bear more children.

L
IKE their mother, Marguerite and François d’Angoulême had a magical upbringing within the circle of Anne de Beaujeu. Marguerite was the best student among the children and grew to become one of the sixteenth century’s most learned women. Both children studied well, as their mother took their education very seriously. In keeping with
her motto “
Libris et liberis
”—“Through books and children,” Louise de Savoie commissioned books especially for her children, and taught them Italian. They also learned Spanish and had access to the famous library of their grandfather, Jean d’Angoulême. The New World was opening up through exploration, and François was fascinated by the discoveries being reported from the new continents. With the advent of Humanism, the children learned about the heroes of antiquity and made them their own. They were both intelligent and full of
joie de vivre
. François was plainly adored by his mother and sister—a devotion that would last all his life.

While François d’Angoulême was learning to ride fearlessly and hunt with his young companions, the queen, Anne de Bretagne, was praying for an heir. With each of Anne’s pregnancies, Louise de Savoie dreaded the loss of her “Caesar’s” inheritance. But Louise seems to have cast her ambitious spell over this royal union as well: although they had daughters, the sons of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne were all stillborn. The queen was so desperate that she wanted to exile the gloating Louise back to Savoy.

In 1509 Louise’s daughter Marguerite married the First Prince of the Blood, the duc d’Alençon.
⁷
Louis XII felt the time had come for François d’Angoulême to be installed with his mother in the château of Amboise, traditional seat of French dauphins, to await their destiny.
⁸
The king also persuaded Louise to replace her chamberlain with a more suitable mentor and a tutor of his choosing for his heir, and forbade her, for the time being, to remarry. He also decided that his daughter, Claude, would be François’ wife.

In 1504, while Louis XII was seriously ill, his queen, Anne de Bretagne—desperate to thwart Louise de Savoie in some way—had tried to take her daughter Claude to Nantes to implement the Treaty of Blois and marry her to Charles of Habsburg, heir to Austria, the Netherlands, and Spain,
⁹
instead of François d’Angoulême. Her
dowry would have been Brittany. But Marshal Gié, Louis’ custodian of his heir, put an end to this plan, which would have jeopardized the unity of France. The Estates-General joined the protest, imploring the king to wed his daughter to a true Frenchman: François, duc d’Angoulême.

Exhausted from bearing and losing so many children, Anne de Bretagne’s health began to fail. She loathed Louise and felt sure it was her evil eye that had caused her sons to die. Anne de Bretagne went to her grave on January 9, 1514 in the knowledge that the son of her enemy, Louise de Savoie, would inherit not only France but also her beloved Brittany. Just four months after her death, the gentle, frail, fourteen-year-old Claude de France, daughter of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne, married François, the eighteen-year-old giant who would surely now become king of France.
¹⁰
Louis XII chose to ignore the clause in his own marriage contract, which clearly stated that Anne de Bretagne’s
second
child, a daughter called Renée, would inherit Brittany. Instead, the elder child, Claude, was installed as duchesse de Bretagne et de Berry.

Diane de Poitiers accompanied her father to Saint-Germain-en-Laye outside Paris to assist at the royal wedding in her capacity as Claude’s
demoiselle d’honneur
. Both girls were almost fifteen. It was a most sinister occasion as all the guests, including the bride and groom, wore black out of respect for the late queen, and no wedding celebration was held.

Other than being the daughter of a king and possessing the sweetest character, Claude was not blessed with many advantages. Her face was considered quite pleasant despite a severe squint. She was very short and had a bad limp. With repeated childbirth she grew “strangely corpulent” and this obesity put her life in danger with each confinement. However, Claude was extremely cultivated, kind, and devout. Quite reasonably, Louise felt that since her son was married to the king’s daughter, and the queen was dead, his claim to the throne was guaranteed.

Once again the redoubtable Louise de Savoie was to be thwarted.
Less than a year after Anne de Bretagne’s death, despite his age (fifty-two) and the fact that he grieved for his wife (whom he had genuinely loved) Louis XII agreed to wed the young sister of Henry VIII of England, the enchanting, vivacious, eighteen-year-old Mary Tudor.

As yet, Henry VIII had no heirs, and he reasoned that France was a throne worth gambling his sister for. Since she was in love with Charles Brandon, the handsome Duke of Suffolk, Mary Tudor opposed the match. But Henry VIII could not resist the chance that his sister might produce an heir to France, especially as its king had one foot in the grave. The dashing young François d’Anglouême could not resist Mary either, until his mother pointed out that should Mary conceive his son, it would be
this
boy who would inherit the throne of France and not him. Thus chastened, François (assisted by Anne de Beaujeu,
his mother, and his sister) kept Mary Tudor under close surveillance and well away from any potential indiscretions.