Heretic Queen by Susan Ronald

Author:Susan Ronald
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

FIFTEEN

Massacre in Paris

And with this weight I’ll counterpoise a crown,

Or with seditions weary all the world.

—The Massacre at Paris, act 1, scene 2

by Christopher Marlowe (1592)

While negotiations were under way for a marital alliance with England, Catherine de’ Medici was also aiming to catch a Protestant bridegroom for her daughter Marguerite. The man in her sights was Henry of Navarre, First Prince of the Blood of France.1 If only she could manage a Protestant League with Elizabeth in the north, covertly fund William of Orange’s invasion of the Low Countries from Germany in the northeast, and seal a wedding to the southwest with Navarre, Catherine would, at a stroke, neutralize the Huguenot and ultra-Catholic Guise factions in France and secure her borders against the pope and Philip.

The plan had already been partially implemented. Catherine had succeeded in winning Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian II, for her son Charles IX to protect her eastern flank. With Charles increasingly unpredictable in his behavior, Catherine was determined to take control of her own and France’s destiny. Seemingly, she chose to side with the Protestants in the religious wars rumbling through Europe without openly breaking with either Spain or Rome.

Yet to win over Henry, Prince of Navarre—the tall and handsome but as yet uninspiring leader of the Huguenots—Catherine needed to persuade his mother, Jeanne, queen of Navarre, that she was sincere in her support and that the Huguenot population of France would be protected. Coaxing Jeanne out of her fortress stronghold at La Rochelle (which had its own government and laws) needed to be done subtly, with just a soupçon of menace, particularly as Jeanne had been unwell. France remained a Catholic country and, in matters of religion, loyal to Rome. Naturally, Pius V opposed any marriage linking Navarre and France and would require little persuasion to declare the queen of Navarre’s son Henry illegitimate, since he was the child of Jeanne’s second marriage “of questionable validity.”2

Like so many menaces made in the French court, it was whispered to Jeanne with a velvet voice. The attraction to such a political marriage from Navarre’s viewpoint was obvious. The more the ailing Jeanne thought about it, the more appealing it seemed. So Jeanne traveled to meet privately with Catherine de’ Medici under a safe conduct signed by Catherine, Charles, and the Duke of Anjou to lay down her terms. Jeanne, who had been in long and amicable correspondence with Elizabeth, was taking no chances. While Walsingham and Smith were negotiating on behalf of Elizabeth, Jeanne was in talks with Catherine.

In mid-March, Jeanne invited Walsingham and Smith to a private dinner, where she discussed her concerns quite openly with the two English commissioners. After dinner, they adjourned to another room where twelve men “of religion” greeted them—men who were Jeanne’s closest advisers. Many were Calvinist ministers whose hearts palpitated at the thought of a frocked priest performing the wedding ceremony, as it could “not but breed general offense to the Godly.” Jeanne agreed. She feared she would “incur God’s high displeasure” if the ceremony was a Catholic one.

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