THE FRENCH MARRIAGE

The negotiations for this incongruous marriage, which united, for the first time since the Norman Conquest, a British princess to a French king, proceeded very slowly, for Henry knew well that his sister would reluctantly sacrifice her youth to so ugly and sickly a bridegroom: thus, according to the late Major Martin Hume, the first intimation of the proposal Mary received was not until after a tournament held at Westminster on May 14, 1514.

This tournament, in the open space between the ancient Palace and the Abbey, was magnificent in the extreme. Never before had there been seen in England so many silken banners, canopies, and tents of cloth of silver and gold. Queen Katherine of Aragon watched the tilting from a pavilion of crimson damask, embroidered with golden pomegranates, the emblems of her native country. Beside her sat Princess Mary, a pink-and-white beauty, with hair of amazing length shimmering down her back, and held in position by a band of jewels that encircled her graceful head. Behind the princess many great ladies occupied the roomy chairs of state—the Countess of Westmorland and her lovely Nevill daughters, the Lady Paulet, the Lady of Exeter, the Lady de Mowbray, the Duchess of Norfolk, the Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, sister of the Duke of Norfolk and mother of the future Queen Anne, the “old Lady” of Oxford, and the Princess Margaret Plantagenet, that fated Countess of Salisbury who in after years was hacked to death by order of her most affectionate nephew, King Henry VIII, now in the full bloom of early manhood. There was a great nodding of glittering hoods and rustling of silken gowns, and whispering and tittering amongst this bevy of high and mighty dames, unto whom many a gallant knight and lordly sire conveyed his homage and the latest gossip of the day. Over the multi-coloured crowd fell the golden haze of a lovely October afternoon. Farther away from the throng of lords and ladies, the hearty citizens of London pressed against the barriers, whilst rich burghers, and British and foreign merchants, with their wives and daughters, filled the special seats allotted to them, that commanded a finer view of the towers of Westminster than did the richer canopies of the court folk. Itinerant vendors of sweetmeats, apples, nuts and cakes, hawked their wares up and down the free spaces, whilst ballad-mongers sang—or rather shouted—their ditties, just as their descendants do, whenever there is a show of sport or pastime in our own day. Men and maidens cheered lustily as knight after knight, armed cap-À-pie, pranced his steed before the delighted spectators, even as we parade our horses before the race at Epsom, Sandown or Ascot.

The expressed hope was, of course, that the English knights should vanquish the French noble prisoners who had been set at liberty shortly before the tilt, so that they might join in the sport. The champions among them were the Duc de Longueville and the Sire de Clermont. The trumpets sounded, a hush fell upon the noisy gathering, all eyes were turned in one direction, as two stalwart champions entered the lists. They were garbed as hermits, the one in a black satin cloak with a hood, the other in a white one. With all the punctilious observance demanded by established rule and etiquette, these hermits, who rode mighty chargers caparisoned in silver mail, advanced towards the royal pavilion and made obeisance. On a sudden, off fell their cloaks and hoods, to reveal the two handsomest men in Europe, to boot, Henry, King of England, and Charles, Duke of Suffolk, clad from head to foot in silver armour, damascened in gold by Venetian armourers. Long white plumes flowed from the crests of their gilded helmets. Behind the British champions rode two other fine fellows, bearing standards on which figured in golden letters the motto: “Who can hold that will away?” On reading this motto, the fair bent, the one to the other, to discuss its meaning. Did it refer to the young King of Castile and Flanders; or to the fact that Charles Brandon, as it was whispered about, was venturing to raise his eyes so high as to meet those of the Emperor Maximilian’s daughter, Margaret of Austria? It was said, too, that the Lady Mary, the king’s sister, liked not the motto; for even then she had conceived a wild though secret passion for the splendid son of a Suffolk squire.

The English (God and St. George be praised!) won the day; the Duc de Longueville was defeated “right honourably,” and so, too, was the Sire de Clermont. The silken kerchief, the gilded cup and the wreath of laurel were for Charles Brandon; and the princess, the Beauty Queen of the day, presented them to him as he knelt before her. Katherine of Aragon bestowed the second prize, a cup of gold, on her husband, who had vanquished Clermont.

Immediately after the jousts, Mary Tudor learnt, to her exasperation, that her hand was destined, not for the Spanish prince, the future Emperor Charles V, nor for the Suffolk gentleman, but for the decrepit and doomed King of France. She was too much of a Tudor to accept her fate with meekness, and King Henry soon found he had set himself a difficult task to conciliate his sister, and obtain her consent to what was even then considered a monstrous match. She swore she would not marry his French majesty, unless her brother gave her his solemn promise that she should marry whom she listed when she became a widow. The king answered that, by God! she might do as she listed, if only she pleased him this time. He urged that King Louis was prematurely aged, and not likely, so he had been told, to live many months. Besides, he was passing rich, and the princess would have more diamonds, pearls and rubies than she had hairs on her head. Henry even appealed to her patriotism. England needed peace; the prolonged wars between France and England had exhausted both, and it was deemed advisable that the French should be made to understand, by this happy event, that the enmity which had existed so long had ceased at last. It was to be a thorough entente cordiale on both sides. None the less, when they got to know of it, both the English and the French cracked many an indelicate jest over this unnatural alliance. The bride, it will be remembered, was still in her teens, and beautiful: the bridegroom-elect was fifty-three and looked twenty years older, the most disfiguring of his complication of loathsome diseases being, as we have seen, elephantiasis, which had swollen his face and head so enormously that when, on her arrival in France, Mary first beheld her future consort, she drew back, with an unconcealed cry of horror. For some days Mary seemed obdurate, despite Henry’s promise that, on the death of the French king, she might marry whom she listed. But at last she allowed her brother’s persuasive arguments to prevail, so that, dazzled by the prospect of becoming the richest and grandest princess in Europe, she finally, but reluctantly, consented to marry King Louis.

The “treaty of marriage” between Louis XII and Mary Tudor was signed at London by the representatives of both parties on August 7 (1514); and the marriage by proxy, according to the custom of the time, took place in the Grey Friars’ Church at Greenwich, before Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Bishops of Winchester and Durham, and others, on August 13. The recently liberated Duc de Longueville represented the French king, whereas the Duke of Orleans gave the bride the ring; afterwards the primate pronounced a brief panegyric of the young queen’s virtues, and those of her august spouse, whom he described as the best and greatest prince in Europe.

The bride left England’s shores on October 2, after a tearful leave-taking of her brother and sister-in-law, King Henry and Queen Katherine. The chronicles of those far-off times, ever delighting in giving the minutest details, inform us that she was “terrible sea-sick” before she arrived at Boulogne, where a pious pageant had been prepared to greet her. Above the drawbridge of the port, suspended in mid-air, was a ship, painted with garlands of the roses of England mingled with the fleur-de-lys of France, and bearing the inscription, Un Dieu, Un Roy, Une Foy, Une Loy: “One God, One King, One Faith, One Law.” In this ship stood a young girl—“dressed like the Virgin Mary,” as the chronicler tells us—together with two winged children, supposed to be angels. The young lady represented Notre Dame de Boulogne, the patroness of the city, and bore the civic gift, destined for the princess, consisting of a silver swan, whose neck opened, to disclose a golden heart weighing sixty Écus. So violently raged the storm, that the heavy vessel, instead of riding gracefully into the harbour, stuck on a sandbank, and the future Queen of France, dripping with sea-water, had to be carried ashore by Sir Christopher Gervase. On reaching land, she was met by the Heir Presumptive of her new dominions, FranÇois, Duc de Valois, the Dukes of AlenÇon and Bourbon, and the Counts de VendÔme, de Saint-Pol, and de Guise, supported by the Abbots of Notre Dame and of St. Wulmer, accompanied by their monks wearing copes, and bearing, enclosed in gold and silver shrines, all the relics from their respective churches. In the presence of this goodly company, the ship containing the aforesaid representative of Our Lady of Boulogne was lowered to the ground, and the young lady addressed the princess “en rhÉtoricque,” otherwise French verse, welcoming her to Boulogne, and presenting her with the city’s gift. Mary then proceeded to the Church of Notre Dame, and after praying there awhile, she was, so says our chronicler, “agreeably occupied in admiring all the rich and royal offerings that formed the principal attraction of the Church.” And gorgeous and wonderful indeed must it have been, before the vandal greed of King Henry’s troops had sacked the shrine. The Treasury contained nearly a hundred gold and silver reliquaries, eighteen great silver images, most of them containing relics, “eleven hearts and a great number of arms and legs, both in gold and silver” (votive offerings), twenty dresses and twelve mantles of very precious stuffs, “for the use of the holy Image.” The altar of the Blessed Virgin was especially magnificent. Seven lamps, four in silver and the rest of gold, burnt incessantly before the Madonna, who held in one hand a golden heart, whilst the other supported a figure of the Infant Jesus, who clasped in His chubby hand a bouquet of “golden flowers,” amongst which was “a carbuncle of a prodigious bigness”; the pillars and columns round this altar were sheathed in “blades of silver”: “in short,” says the chronicler, “everything which was in this chapel could challenge comparison with the richest and most renowned objects that antiquity ever had.” Such was the splendour that enchanted and bewildered our Princess Mary, who after offering to Our Lady of Boulogne a gift consisting of “a great arm of silver, enamelled with the arms of France and England, and weighing eight marcs,” proceeded on her way to Abbeville, near which city she was met, in the forest of Ardres, by King Louis, mounted on a charger and attended by a glittering train of lords and attendants.

To the young and beautiful Mary, who had only just recovered from a violent sea-sickness, this first meeting with her future lord and master must indeed have been painful. As she afterwards admitted, she had never before seen a human being so horribly ugly. It is not therefore to be wondered at that she should have uttered the exclamation of horror above mentioned. King Louis, for his part, was in the best of humours; never merrier. He was very plainly dressed, and was evidently bent on correcting, by his munificence and good temper, whatever unfavourable impression might be created by his unfortunate appearance. Before arriving at the place of meeting, Princess Mary had changed her travelling gown for a weighty robe covered with goldsmith’s work “like unto a suit of armour.” So awkward and stiff was this costume, that when the princess, in accordance with etiquette, attempted to descend from her litter to bend the knee before her royal spouse, she found she was unable to do so, and was in great distress until the deformed king gallantly begged her not to attempt so complicated a manoeuvre, and won a grateful smile from his embarrassed bride.

The marriage took place on Monday, October 9 (1514), at Abbeville, in the fine old Church of St. Wolfran, and is one of the most gorgeous functions recorded of those pageant-loving times. Something mysterious must have happened at Abbeville, for, according to the Bishop of Asti, the marriage was consummated by proxy—a weird ceremony in which the Marquis de Rothelin (representing King Louis), fully dressed in a red suit, except for one stocking, hopped into the bride’s bed and touched her with his naked leg; and the “marriage was then declared consummated.” Possibly, considering the rickety state of his health, this was all the married life, in its more intimate form, that, fortunately, Mary Tudor ever knew so long as Louis XII lived. As an earnest of his affection, however, the sickly king presented his spouse with a collection of jewels a few days after the marriage, amongst these being “a ruby almost two inches long and valued at ten thousand marks.”

In the meantime, there had been some unpleasantness between the French monarch and the Earl of Worcester, the English ambassador, about the presence in France of one of the queen’s maids, Mistress Joan Popincourt. The question of her fitness to accompany the princess was first raised before Mary left our shores, to reach its culminating point whilst the new queen was resting at Boulogne, at which time King Louis (then at Abbeville) had an interview with Worcester on the subject. The trouble is said to have originated in the fact that Mistress Popincourt had behaved herself with considerable impropriety,—at least that was the accusation the English envoy laid before his majesty of France; but if we read between the lines of the letters and documents connected with this side-plot, we learn that it was Mistress Popincourt who had first attempted to negotiate the marriage of her mistress with King Louis by means of the Duc de Longueville, whilst that nobleman was still imprisoned in the Tower of London. As the negotiations had succeeded, even through another medium, she considered herself entitled to some recompense for her share in the affair, and probably attempted to blackmail the king; at any rate, for one reason or another, he was so furious with her, that on the occasion in question, he told Worcester never to “name her any more unto me.” “I would she were burnt,” he added; “if King Henry make her to be burnt, he shall do but well and a good deed!” Mary, however, held the recalcitrant Popincourt in the highest esteem. None the less, King Louis decided that she should be there and then sent back to England, but whether with a goodly recompense to soothe her disappointment is not recorded. Maybe she, who had done so much to further the royal match, found herself better off than the other unfortunate attendants on Princess Mary, who, being dismissed after her arrival at Abbeville, were stranded, penniless. Some of these misguided ladies had, says Hall, “been at much expense to wait on her [Princess Mary] to France, and now returned destitute, which many took to heart, insomuch some died by the way returning, and some fell mad.”[23]

Evidently King Louis was determined not to have too many Englishwomen in attendance upon his wife, or, as he put it, “to spy upon his actions,” for fresh difficulties arose, even after the Popincourt incident was closed, and he and the princess had been united in matrimony. According to arrangement, certain of the queen’s ladies were to return to England forthwith, but King Louis and his English monitor, the Duke of Norfolk, settled the matter by ordering that all Mary’s train of young English gentlewomen and maidens, with the exception of the Lady Anne Boleyn[24] and of three others, were to return home. This was bad enough, but Mary was still more distressed to find that her confidential attendant and nurse, Mother Guildford, was very unceremoniously packed off with the rest. “Moder” or “Mowder” Guildford, as the queen was pleased to call her, was the wife of Sir William Guildford, controller of the royal household, who eventually stood godfather to that unfortunate Guildford Dudley who became the husband of Lady Jane Grey. If we may believe King Louis, he had certainly some justification for wishing Lady Guildford out of his sight, since she exasperated him to such an extent that he told Worcester that “rather than have such a woman about my wife, I would liever be without a wife.... Also, “he continued, “I am a sickly body, and not at all times that I would be merry with my wife like I to have any strange woman with her, but one that I am well acquainted with, afore whom I durst be merry.” The king went on to pathetically relate the story of his own and his wife’s sufferings under Lady Guildford’s iron rule. “For as soon as she came on land,” says he, “and also when I was married, Lady Guildford began to take upon her not only to rule the queen, but also that she should not come to me, but she should remain with her, nor that no lady or lord should speak with the queen but she [Lady Guildford] hear it. Withal she began to set a murmur and banding among the ladies of the French court.” The “Moder” Guildford episode induced Mary to write several letters home, one to Henry VIII and another to Wolsey, complaining of the treatment she had received with respect to the dismissal of her attendants. In these she speaks in no measured terms of the Duke of Norfolk, who, as we have seen, had the matter in hand: “I would to God,” she exclaims in the letter to Henry VIII, “that my Lord of York [Wolsey] had come with me instead of Norfolk, for then I am sure I should not have been left as I am now!” In fact, she cast the whole blame of the incident on the shoulders of the Duke of Norfolk, whom she ever afterwards disliked for his share in it. Nevertheless, “Mowder” Guildford was sent back to England, to the great distress and grief of her royal mistress, who was preparing to have a violent scene on the subject with her rickety husband, when the latter came into her chamber, accompanied by two attendants bearing a tray so heaped with rubies, diamonds and pearls, that the cloud of anger instantly passed from the queen’s brow, and her sunny smiles beamed afresh, when she heard the politic and courteous monarch say, “I have deprived you of one treasure, let me now present you with another.” And then he placed a collar of immense pearls round her neck, and taking a heap of jewels in his big hands, dropped them into her lap. “I will have no Guildfords, Popincourts, or other jades to mar my cheer or to stand betwixt me and my wife,” he continued laughingly; “but I intend to be paid for my jewels, and each kiss my wife gives me shall cost me a gem.” On this the covetous Mary kissed him several times, to the number of eight, which he counted, and punctually repaid by giving her eight enamelled buttons surrounded by large pearls. By this amorous playfulness, the astute Louis succeeded in making his queen so contented with her lot, that she presently told Worcester that “finding she was now able to do as she liked in all things,” she thought she was better without Lady Guildford, and would decline to have her back again in France. Mary not only forgave King Louis his share in the business, but personally nursed him through an attack of gout, which beset him at Abbeville, and delayed the royal departure from that town until October 31, when the quaint cavalcade resumed its journey towards St. Denis.

It was one continuous pageant in every village and town through which the royal cortÈge passed, between Abbeville and St. Denis. Even in villages and hamlets, children dressed as angels, with golden wings, met the fair queen, to present to her pretty gifts of fruit and flowers. It took the king and queen and their escort six days to reach St. Denis, spending the nights either in episcopal palaces or in the splendid abbeys which lined the way. Although the French greeted the queen heartily, it was noticed that they “became overcast and sour” as they looked on the magnificent but defiant figure of the Duke of Suffolk, as he rode, in his silver armour, on the right side of the queen’s litter, whilst on the left cantered that stalwart nobleman, Thomas Grey, first Marquis of Dorset, who was destined by a curious and unexpected event to become the grandfather of Her Majesty’s ill-fated grandchildren, the Ladies Jane, Katherine and Mary Grey. At last, early in the morning of Sunday, November 5, the English princess passed up the splendid nave of St. Denis, escorted by all that was highest and mightiest in French chivalry. The Duc de Longueville, the Duc d’AlenÇon, the Duke of Albany, Regent of Scotland, the Duke of Bourbon, and the Count de VendÔme, preceded her, bearing between them the regalia. Mary followed, escorted by the Duke of Valois, and clothed in a mantle of cloth of gold. She wore such a prodigious quantity of jewels that a number of them had to be removed in the sacristy before she was able to proceed with the innumerable ceremonies of the day. The new queen was anointed by the Cardinal de PrÉ, who also presented her with the sceptre and “verge of justice.” When, after more ceremony than prayer, the cardinal had placed the crown of France upon her brow, Prince Francis of Valois led Her Majesty to a throne raised high above the choir, whence in solitary state she glanced down upon the throng of prelates, priests and noblemen and noblewomen who crowded the chancel and the altar-steps, and overflowed into the nave and transepts. There she sat alone, for weak and sickly King Louis could do no more than witness the coronation, contenting himself by obtaining a view of it from a small closet window above the high altar.

The following day, at noon, Queen Mary passed on to Paris, whither King Louis had preceded her earlier in the morning. On this occasion she did not occupy a litter, but rode by herself in a species of carriage designated “a chaise or chair,” embellished with cloth of gold, and drawn by two milk-white horses with silver reins and harness. Her Majesty, all in white and gold, did not wear the crown of France, but merely a diadem of pearls, from beneath which streamed her luxuriant tresses. Pressing round the queen’s chariot, rode the pick of the nobility of France, followed by the Scotch Guard and a detachment of German mercenaries. Pageants and allegories greeted the royal progress at every turn. When close to Paris, the queen’s train was met by three thousand Parisian students, law officers and representatives of the city council, who chanted in chorus a quaint song, still extant, in which Mary is likened to the Queen of Sheba and Louis XII to King Solomon. Over the portcullis of the Porte St. Denis was erected a ship, containing “mountebanks” representing Henry VIII in the character of Honour, and Princess Mary as Ceres, whilst an actor, wearing King Louis’s own gorgeous robes, offered “Ceres” a bunch of grapes, and was popularly held to personate Bacchus!

In the midst of what we should now consider a circus-like cavalcade, the queen, escorted by a thousand horsemen bearing flaring torches, passed round the quays of Paris, brilliantly illuminated for the occasion, to her resting-place at the Conciergerie, where, we are informed, she was so dead tired that, after the official reception by King Louis and subsequent banquet, she fell asleep and had to be carried to her nuptial chamber. Here, so it is stated, King Louis did not receive her, since he was fast asleep already in his own bedchamber at the Louvre, whither he had retired many hours earlier. He was awake pretty early the next day, for at nine o’clock he breakfasted with the queen, having previously presented her with a bouquet of gems, the flowers being made of coloured stones and the leaves of emeralds. The king never left his bride the whole of that day, and it was observed that whenever he gazed upon her, he would put his hand to his heart and heave a deep sigh. Nothing can be imagined more ludicrous, and at the same time more pathetic, than the ardour of this poor, hopelessly love-sick monarch for his beautiful wife, who, thorough Tudor as she was, never missed an opportunity of fleecing him of jewels and trinkets, to such an extent as at last to excite the indignation of the court.

The coronation festivities closed with jousts in which “my lorde À Sofehoke,” as the Marquis of Dorset calls him in a letter,[25] got “a little hurt in the hand.” In this same epistle the marquis adds that King Louis considered that Suffolk and his English company “dyd shame aule (all) Franse.” They did such execution indeed that, as the chroniclers complacently remark, “at every course many dead were carried off without notice taken.” The exasperation of the French against Suffolk grew so great—or was it due, as tradition suggests, to Francis of Valois’s personal jealousy of the British duke?—that they commissioned, contrary to all etiquette of tourney, an abnormally powerful German trooper to kill him by treachery in the lists. Suffolk, however, saw through the mean trick, and refusing to treat such a ruffian according to chivalric rules, gripped him by the scruff of the neck, and punched his head with much heartiness, to the ill-concealed satisfaction of the spectators.

It does not require much imagination to divine what were the thoughts of the lusty young queen, as she watched the prowess of her triumphant lover in the tilt-yard, and mentally contrasted his manly beauty with the wreck that was her husband, who lay on a couch at her side, “grunting and groaning.” He, poor man, was ever graciously courteous, and expressed his delight whenever, in her enthusiasm, the lovely queen, regardless of etiquette, rose to her feet and leant over to applaud the British champions as they rode by her canopy of state. “Ma mie,” cried old Louis, “your eyes brighten like stars when the English succeed. I shall be jealous.” “Fie!” returned the queen with an arch smile, “surely there is no chance for the French today, since, fortunately for my countrymen, your majesty is too unwell to join in the fray?”

When the queen rose to return to the palace, the whole crowd burst into a storm of cheering, crying: “Vive la Reine anglaise!” Mary’s beauty was not the beauty of regularity of feature so often found in France, but of that rarer sort, peculiar to northerly regions, the beauty of the glorious colouring of the blended Tudor and Lancaster roses; so that when the queen pressed forward to the gorgeously decorated balustrade and kissed her hands to the people, the enthusiasm of ses bons Parisiens passed all bounds; and Mary Tudor’s tact and grace won all hearts, when she insisted that the king should lean upon her arm to descend the stairway. Louise of Savoy, jealously noting all these things, said to herself: “Elle ira loin, celle-lÀ”; and forthwith endeavoured to set her son, Francis of Valois, against the young queen, whereby she only fanned his rising passion for her. If Queen Mary Tudor had managed in a few hours to captivate the Parisians, she failed to make a favourable impression upon the court of France. Her free and easy manner, her good nature, her pleasant smiles, and, above all, her astounding love of jewelry, were well calculated to stimulate jealousy and hatred. The game against her now began in earnest. Its object was to abstract the king from her influence. But Mary was a Tudor, and went ahead steadfastly, regardless of intrigues, quips and frowns; and by a sheer display of good nature and the firm obstinacy peculiar to her race, succeeded in defeating her enemies, and having all things her own way. Possibly, in her heart of hearts, she rejoiced to think that she had an opportunity of amassing great wealth by very easy means, and was buoyed up by her secret passion for the Duke of Suffolk, and the knowledge that, with a little patience, she would be able to claim him from her brother as a pledge of her good behaviour whilst occupying the difficult position of Queen of France.

Mary, notwithstanding her overwhelming passion for Suffolk, was by far the most amiable and respectable member of the Tudor family; she behaved with the utmost propriety while Queen of France, and her kindness to her infirm husband filled him with a hopeless but chivalrous passion, of which he gave practical expression by a boundless generosity[26] that excited the jealousy of the rest of the French royal family and imperilled the safety of his greedy queen.

King Louis XII died on New Year’s Day 1515, less than four months after his marriage, and his widow immediately retired to the HÔtel de Cluny[27] to spend the first weeks of her widowhood in the rigorous seclusion imposed by the etiquette of the French court. She was obliged, according to custom, to dress herself entirely in white, and to remain the whole day long in a bed of state, draped with black velvet. The room was darkened, and only lighted with tapers of unbleached wax, whilst all the queen’s meals were served on silver platters covered with black silk cloths and serviettes.

In the meantime, Louise of Savoy, mother of the new king, Francis I, a most intriguing princess, began to agitate for the return of the youthful dowager to England. She had made up her mind that Mary should not wed the Archduke Charles of Austria-Spain, who again came forward as a suitor, nor yet encourage the attentions of her own son, who had practically deserted his consort, Claude, daughter of the late king by his second wife, Anne of Brittany. The court astrologers had persuaded Francis that before many weeks were over, good Queen Claude, of greengage fame,[28] stout, short, and very plain, would die, and that, as he was soon to become a widower, he might just as well begin his courtship at once. The duchess-mother, well versed in the laxity of the age in which she lived, was terribly afraid Francis might attempt to set aside his wife, in order to marry the English widow, in which event Claude’s rich heritage, the duchy of Brittany, would pass from the French Crown. She therefore resolved to get rid of Mary Tudor, a resolution strengthened by her well-founded conviction that even in the early days of her mourning, Francis I had intruded into the widow’s presence. At her first secret interview with the new king, Mary told him plainly that her heart already belonged to Suffolk, and that she “was resolved to marry none other.” She even reminded Francis of his own neglected consort, and he, instead of resenting this rebuff, promised to exert his influence to obtain Henry VIII’s consent to Mary’s union with her lover.