He did not want this marriage, but his mother thought it would be good; therefore it must be so. Sometimes he wondered whether she wanted the throne for his brother Henry. Everything Henry did was right. Henry was the only one who was not afraid of her; she adored Henry; she wanted everything for him. Perhaps she wanted Charles out of the way, settled in England, so that his brother Henry could take the throne of France! Charles did not know, but he was full of misgivings.
He had wanted to protest against this English marriage. The Queen of England did not seem to want it, nor did her Ambassador, who had such long conversations with him and his mother. As Charles rode in that grand procession, he could still hear his mother’s voice, suave and persuasive; he could still see the cold face of the English Ambassador.
‘Your first objection is the age of my son. But if the Queen Elizabeth will put up with it, I will put up with the age of the Queen,’ said his mother; and Charles had quickly said what he had been told to say: ‘I should be very pleased if your mistress would be as pleased with my age as I am with hers.’ The English Ambassador said his Queen would never consent to live in France. ‘A Lieutenant-General could govern her kingdom,’ said Charles’s mother. ‘The English would not obey a Lieutenant, and Lieutenants grow insolent, says my Queen.’ ‘Ah,’ sighed Charles’s mother, ‘my good sister Elizabeth already calls herself the Queen of France, but she is so only in name. Through this marriage she could be the Queen of France indeed.’ The Ambassador had terrified Charles by turning and speaking to him, with that accent of the English when they spoke French, as though to speak French was somehow comic and shamefuclass="underline" ‘If you were but three or four years older, if you had but seen the Queen, and if you were really in love with her, I should not be astonished at this haste.’ Under his mother’s eyes, Charles had replied: ‘But in good sooth I love her.’ And at that the English Ambassador had smiled, and, with that bluntness on which the English prided themselves, replied: ‘At your age, Sire, none knoweth what love is.’ Charles grew hot at the thought of it.
He had been glad to get away from the conference; he was glad to think of the coming meeting with his sister. It was five years since he had seen her. Then she had been sad – sad to leave her native France for a country and a husband she had never seen.
What a tragic thing was this marrying of royal people, though not so bad for a prince as for a princess, for princesses lost their country, their nationality, when they married foreign husbands. His sister Elisabeth was a Spaniard now.
He hoped nothing would come of the negotiations with England. Who knew, there might be negotiations with Scotland one day; then he could truthfully say: ‘I love the Queen of Scotland.’
On they went, staying at various castles on the way, where banquets, balls and masques were given in their honour.
Margot was enjoying all this; the only drawback was the absence of Henry of Guise; she could, however, give herself up wholeheartedly to teasing Henry of Navarre. She criticised the way he rode his horse.
‘Like a peasant,’ she told him.
‘I’ll ride faster than you.’
‘We must race one day.’
‘Now,’ he suggested.
‘I do not choose to do so now.’
‘Come, you have said it. Let us put it to the test.’
‘And break from the procession! You have the manners of a peasant. Do they teach you nothing of etiquette in Nérac?’
‘I learn what is good for me,’ said Henry of Navarre, his eyes glinting.
When they rested at the next castle and went hunting in the forest, Henry reminded her of her challenge.
Margot prevaricated, gauging the strength of the boy. He had no gallantry. Henry of Guise would not thus challenge a princess.
‘I do not wish to ride against you. I dislike you.’
Henry was angry; he retorted, like the blunt Béarnais he was: ‘You will have to learn to like me, for one day I shall be your husband.’
‘Do not dare to say such things to me.’
‘I shall dare to say what is truth.’
Margot could smile slyly; she knew that one of the objects of this journey down to the Spanish frontier was to renew negotiations for her marriage to Don Carlos, and her brother Henry’s to the old widowed sister of King Philip. But Henry of Navarre did not know this, nor did his stern old mother. Margot was not half Medici for nothing; she was an adept at the art of eavesdropping, particularly when she herself was under discussion.
She betrayed nothing of this. Let him think that one day he would be her husband. It amused her. Let him tremble to contemplate the trouble in store for him with the Princess Margot as his wife!
‘So you think you will be my husband, then?’
‘It is arranged.’
‘That remains to be seen. It could not be for years.’
‘But the marriages of princes and princesses are arranged when they are young.’
‘You should feel honoured, Monsieur of Navarre, to have a marriage arranged for you with a Princess of France, for even if it does not come to pass, it has been arranged, and that is an honour you should recognise.’
‘Honour?’ he said, the hot blood staining his brown face red. ‘If you are a Princess, I am a Prince.’
‘My father was a great King. He was the great King Henry the Second of France.’
‘My father was the King of Navarre.’
Margot began to chant: ‘ “Caillette qui tourne sa jaquette.” ’
At which Henry of Navarre turned to her and would have struck her, had she not galloped off and joined the group about her brother Charles. Then she turned and put out her tongue at Henry of Navarre.
Catherine stepped into the boat which was to carry her across the river, on the other side of which she would meet her daughter. Everywhere about her was the glitter of pageantry, proclaiming to all the importance of this occasion. Leafy arches had been erected, under which the procession passed on its way to the river. The heat was great, and Catherine felt it intensely on account of her heavy figure. She was excited; her face was pale, and her eyes seemed larger and more prominent than usual. This was not so much a meeting with a daughter – now nineteen – whom she had not seen since she was fourteen, as a meeting with the Queen of Spain, the consort of the man Catherine feared more than any on Earth. Her daughter? She did not exactly love her – she loved no one but her son Henry – but she was proud of her, proud of the exalted position she occupied as the wife of the mightiest monarch in the world. Her other daughter, Claude, whom she had visited on her way through France, meant little to her. Claude, a docile, charming girl, was only the wife of the Duke of Lorraine; it was a very different matter, coming face to face with the Queen of Spain.
On the other side of the river were assembled the Queen of Spain and those who accompanied her to the border. Philip had not deigned to come; he had more weighty matters to occupy him; but representing him had come the great Duke of Alva.
The fiery heat of the midsummer sun was unbearable, and several of Catherine’s soldiers died of suffocation in their armour before the arrival of the Queen of Spain.
Catherine greeted her daughter warmly; Elisabeth was aloof, solemn, correct; in five years they had made a Spanish lady of the little French girl. Yet Catherine noticed, even in that first ceremonial greeting, that Elisabeth had not entirely forgotten the fear she had once had of her mother.
In great pomp they crossed the river, and the next day they rode into the town of Bayonne with greater magnificence than any in that town had ever seen before. Elisabeth rode between her brother Henry and the Cardinal of Bourbon, with a hundred gentlemen about them. The chief citizens of the town of Bayonne, richly dressed in scarlet, held a canopy over the Queen of Spain as they escorted her to the Cathedral, whence, after listening to music and prayer, she went to the Royal Palace, where little King Charles was lodged. Catherine noticed that the men of Spain who were in attendance were mounted on miserable mules and wore no state dress; she knew by this that Philip of Spain intended to snub her; he was implying by this lack of respect that he did not care for what his Ambassador had told him of Catherine’s recent manoeuvres with the Huguenot Party.