Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan and Lorraine, 1522-1590

BOOK I
ISABELLA OF AUSTRIA, QUEEN OF DENMARK, THE MOTHER OF CHRISTINA
1507-1514

I.

The 19th of July, 1507, was a memorable day in the history of Malines. A solemn requiem Mass was sung that morning in the ancient church of S. Rombaut for the soul of Philip, King of Castille and Archduke of Austria, and, by right of his mother, Duke of Burgundy and Count of Flanders and Brabant. The news of this young monarch's sudden death at Burgos had spread consternation throughout the Netherlands, where the handsome, free-handed Prince was very popular with the subjects who enjoyed peace and prosperity under his rule. "Never," wrote a contemporary chronicler, "was there such lamentation made for any King, Duke, or Count, as for our good King Philip. There was no church or monastery in the whole land where solemn Masses were not said for the repose of his soul, and the mourning was greatest in the city of Antwerp, where all the people assembled for the yearly Fair wept over this noble young Prince who had died at the age of twenty-eight."[1] The King's corpse was laid in the dark vaults of Miraflores, where his widow, the unhappy Queen Juana, kept watch by her husband's grave night and day; while, in obedience to his last wishes, his heart was brought to the Netherlands and buried in his mother's tomb at Bruges. Now the States-General and nobles were summoned by Margaret of Austria, the newly-proclaimed Governess of the Netherlands, to attend her brother's funeral at Malines.

From the gates of the Keyserhof, through the narrow streets of the old Flemish city, the long procession wound its way: Knights of the Golden Fleece, nobles, deputies, Bishops and clergy, merchants, artisans, and beggars, all clad in deep mourning. Twelve heralds, followed by a crowd of gentlemen with lighted torches, bore the armour and banners of the dead King to the portals of S. Rombaut. There an immense catafalque, draped with cloth of gold and blazing with wax lights, had been erected in the centre of the nave. Three golden crowns, symbols of the three realms over which Philip held sway, hung from the vault, and the glittering array of gold and silver images on the high-altar stood out against the sable draperies on the walls. A funeral oration was pronounced by the late King's confessor, the Bishop of Arras chanted the requiem Mass, and when the last blessing had been given, Golden Fleece threw his staff on the floor, crying: "The King is dead!"[2] At the sound of these thrice-repeated words the heralds lowered their banners to the ground, and there was a moment of profound silence, only broken by the sound of weeping. Then Golden Fleece cried in a ringing voice: "Charles, Archduke of Austria!" and all eyes were turned to the fair, slender boy, who, robed in a long black mantle, knelt alone before the altar. "My lord lives! long may he live!" cried the King-at-Arms; and a great shout went up on all sides: "Long live Charles, Archduke of Austria and Prince of Castille!" A sword blessed by the Bishop of Arras was placed in the boy's hands, and the heralds of Burgundy, Flanders, Holland, and Friesland, raising their fallen pennons, each in turn proclaimed the titles of the youthful Prince, who was to be known to the world as Charles V.

No one wept more bitterly for King Philip than his only sister, Margaret, the widowed Duchess of Savoy, as she knelt in her oratory close to the great church. Although only twenty-seven, she had known many sorrows. After being wedded to the Dauphin at two years old, and educated at the French Court till she reached the age of thirteen, she was rejected by Charles VIII. in favour of Anne of Brittany, and sent back to her father, the Emperor Maximilian. Three years afterwards she went to Spain as the bride of Don Juan, the heir to the crowns of Castille and Aragon, only to lose her husband and infant son within a few months of each other. In 1501 she became the wife of Duke Philibert of Savoy, with whom she spent the three happiest years of her life. But in September, 1504, the young Duke died of pleurisy, the result of a chill which he caught out hunting, and his heart-broken widow returned once more to her father's Court.

On the death of Philip in the following year, Maximilian prevailed upon his daughter to undertake the government of the Netherlands, and in April, 1507, Margaret was proclaimed Regent, and took up her abode at Malines. She was a singularly able and gifted woman, and her personal charms and rich dowry soon attracted new suitors. Before she became Regent she had received proposals of marriage from Henry VII. of England, which Maximilian urged her to accept, saying that she might divide the year between England and the Netherlands. Louis XII., who in his boyhood had played with the Archduchess at Amboise, would also gladly have made her his second wife, but, as he remarked: "Madame Marguerite's father has arranged marriages for her three times over, and each time she has fared badly." Margaret herself was quite decided on the subject, and declared that she would never marry again. Henceforth she devoted herself exclusively to the administration of the Netherlands and the guardianship of her brother's young family. Of the six children which Juana of Castille had borne him, two remained in Spain, the younger boy Ferdinand and the infant Katherine, who did not see the light until months after her father's death. But the elder boy, Charles, and his three sisters, grew up under their aunt's eye in the picturesque old palace at Malines, which is still known as the Keyserhof, or Cour de l'Empereur. The eldest girl, Eleanor, afterwards Queen of Portugal and France, was two years older than her brother; the second, Isabella, the future Queen of Denmark, born on the 15th of August, 1501, was nearly six; and Mary, the Queen of Hungary, who was to play so great a part in the history of the Netherlands, had only just completed her first year. Margaret, whose own child hardly survived its birth, lavished all a mother's affection on her youthful nephew and nieces. If the boy was naturally the chief object of her care, the little girls held a place very near to her heart. This was especially the case with "Madame Isabeau," her godchild, who was born when Margaret was living at Malines before her second marriage. A gentle and charming child, Isabella won the hearts of all, and became fondly attached to the brother who was so nearly her own age.

Margaret's letters to the Emperor abound in allusions to these children, whose welfare was a matter of deep interest to their grandfather. In the midst of the most anxious affairs of State, when he was presiding over turbulent Diets or warring beyond the Alps, Maximilian was always eager for news of "our very dear and well-beloved children." The arrangements of their household, the choice of their tutors and companions, their childish maladies and amusements, were all fully reported to him. One unlucky day, when the royal children had just recovered from measles, Madame Isabeau caught the smallpox, and gave it to Madame Marie. Then Madame Leonore complained of her head, and since Margaret had been told that the malady was very contagious, and especially dangerous in winter, she felt it advisable to keep her nephew at Brussels out of reach of infection. But this precaution proved fruitless, for presently the boy sickened and became dangerously ill. Great was the alarm which his condition excited, and it was only at the end of three weeks that Margaret was able to inform the Emperor, who was in Italy fighting against the Venetians, that his grandson was out of danger.[3]

The education of Charles and his sisters was the subject of their guardian's most anxious consideration. A lady of Navarre, Dame Anne de Beaumont, took charge of the little girls from their infancy, and watched over them with a tenderness which earned their lifelong gratitude. The old King of Aragon rewarded this lady with the Order of S. Iago, while Margaret begged that she might be allowed to spend her old age in one of the Archduke's houses at Ghent, seeing that she had served "Mesdames mes nièces" so long and so well, and had been but poorly paid for her trouble. Among their teachers was Louis Vives, the learned friend of Erasmus, who afterwards became tutor to their cousin, the Princess Mary of England, and took Sir Thomas More's daughters as his models. Vives taught his pupils Greek and Latin, and made them study the Gospels, and St. Paul's Epistles, as well as some parts of the Old Testament. French romances, then so much in vogue, were banished from their schoolroom, and the only tales which they were allowed to read were those of Joseph and his brethren, of the Roman matron Lucretia, and the well-known story of Griselda. Madame Leonore was fond of reading at a very early age, but Madame Isabeau was more occupied with her dolls, and is represented holding one in her arms in the triptych of Charles and his sisters at Vienna. All the children were very fond of music, in which they were daily instructed by the Archduchess's organist, and there is a charming portrait of Eleanor playing on the clavichord in Monsieur Cardon's collection at Brussels. When, in 1508, the Spanish Legate, Cardinal Carvajal, visited Malines, Charles and his sisters were confirmed by him in the palace chapel, and the Archduke addressed a letter of thanks to Pope Julius II. in his childish round hand.

Margaret was careful to provide her young charges with suitable companions. A niece of Madame de Beaumont and a Spanish girl of noble birth were brought up with the Archduchesses, while the sons of the Marquis of Brandenburg and Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg were among Charles's playmates. Another youth whom the Emperor sent to be educated at Malines in 1509 was his godson, Maximilian Sforza, the eldest son of the unfortunate Duke Lodovico and Beatrice d'Este. While his younger brother, Francesco, afterwards the husband of Christina of Denmark, remained at Innsbruck with his cousin, the Empress Bianca, Maximilian grew up with Charles, and throughout his life never ceased to regard Margaret as a second mother. The young Duke of Milan's name often figures in the Archduchess's correspondence with her father. One day Maximilian tells her to borrow 3,000 livres from the Fuggers, and give them to the Duke, who has not enough to buy his own clothes, let alone those of his servants.[4] At another time we find Margaret appealing to her father to settle the disputes of precedence which have arisen between the Dukes of Milan and Saxe-Lauenburg, upon which Maximilian replied that they were too young to think of such matters, and that for the present they had better take the place of honour on alternate days.

It was a free and joyous life which these young Princes and Princesses led at the Court of Malines. If they were kept strictly to their lessons, they also had plenty of amusements. They played games, shot with bows and arrows, and looked on at stag-hunts from the balcony of the Swan, an old hostelry in the market-place. Charles had a little chariot, drawn by two ponies, in which he often drove his sisters through the town and out into the open country. Above all they enjoyed the visits which they paid to the Castle of Vueren, near Brussels, where Charles often went by his grandfather's orders to enjoy fresh air and take hunting expeditions. The old Emperor was delighted to hear of his grandson's taste for sport, and wrote from Augsburg that, if the Archduke had not been fond of hunting, people would have suspected him of being a bastard.[5]

When, in 1512, Maximilian came to Brussels, and Charles was sent to meet him, he begged Margaret to bring the three Princesses, without delay, to "amuse themselves in the park at Vueren," and sent the haunch of a stag which he had killed that day as a present to his "dear little daughters." At the children's urgent entreaty, the Emperor himself rode out to join them at supper, and invited them to a banquet in the palace at Brussels on Midsummer Day. When the English Ambassador, Sir Edward Poynings, came to pay the Emperor his respects, he found His Majesty in riding-boots, standing at the palace gates, with the Lady Regent, the Lord Prince and his sisters, looking on at a great bonfire in the square. The Ambassador and his colleague, Spinelli, were both invited to return to the palace for supper, and had a long conversation with the Lady Margaret, in whom they found the same perfect friend as ever, "while the Prince and his sisters danced gaily with the other young folk till between nine and ten o'clock."[6]

But this merry party was soon to break up. Before the end of the year Maximilian Sforza crossed the Brenner, and entered Milan amidst the acclamations of his father's old subjects, and eighteen months later two of the young Archduchesses were wedded to foreign Kings.

II.

While her nieces were still children Margaret was busy with plans for their marriage. Her views for them were ambitious and frankly expressed. "All your granddaughters," she wrote to her father, "should marry Kings." The old Emperor himself was an inveterate matchmaker, and the House of Austria had been proverbially fortunate in its alliances. Tu felix Austria nube had passed into a common saying. By his marriage with Mary of Burgundy, Maximilian entered on the vast inheritance of Charles the Bold, and his grandson was heir to the throne of Spain by right of his mother Juana. In 1509 proposals for two of the Archduchesses came from Portugal, and Margaret urged her father to accept these offers, remarking shrewdly that King Emanuel was a wealthy monarch, and that there were few marriageable Princes in Europe. If both Madame Leonore and Madame Marie were betrothed to the two Portuguese Princes, there would still be two of her nieces to contract other alliances. But Maximilian's thoughts were too much occupied with his war against Venice to consider these proposals seriously, and the matter was allowed to drop.[7] Meanwhile Madame Isabeau's hand was in great request. In March, 1510, Maximilian received offers of marriage for his second granddaughter from the King of Navarre's son, Henri d'Albret, but this project was nipped in the bud by the jealousy of Isabella's other grandfather, Ferdinand of Aragon, and Francis I.'s sister, Margaret, Duchess of Alençon, became Queen of Navarre in her stead. A new and strange husband for the nine-year-old Princess was now proposed by the Regent herself. This was none other than Charles of Egmont, Duke of Guelders, the turbulent neighbour who had been a thorn in Margaret's side ever since she became Governess of the Netherlands. It is difficult to believe that Margaret ever really intended to give her beloved niece to the man whom she openly denounced as "a brigand and a felon," but it was necessary to cajole Guelders for the moment, and conferences were held in which every detail of the marriage treaty was discussed, and the dowry and fortune of the bride and the portions of her sons and daughters were all minutely arranged. But when the deputies of Guelders asked that Madame Isabeau should be given up to the Duke at once to be educated at his Court, the Regent met their demands with a flat refusal. The negotiations were broken off, and war began again.[8] Another matrimonial project, which had been discussed ever since King Philip's lifetime, was the union of the Archduchess Eleanor with the young Duke Antoine of Lorraine. Maximilian seems to have been really eager for this marriage, which he regarded as a means of detaching a neighbouring Prince from the French alliance, but was so dilatory in the matter that Margaret wrote him a sharp letter, asking him if he ever meant to marry his granddaughters. Upon this the affronted Emperor rebuked her for these undutiful remarks, and asked peevishly "if she held him for a Frenchman who changed his mind every day."[9] But in spite of these protestations he took no further steps in the matter, and in 1515 Duke Antoine married Renée de Bourbon, a Princess of the blood royal of France.

The marriage of Louis XII. to Henry VIII.'s handsome sister Mary was a more serious blow. Six years before the English Princess had been wedded by proxy to the Archduke Charles, and Margaret, whose heart was set on this alliance, vainly pressed her father to conclude the treaty. Meanwhile, in January, 1514, Anne of Brittany died, and the widowed King sent offers of marriage, first to Margaret herself, and then to her niece Eleanor.[10] A few months later news reached Brussels that Louis had made a treaty with Henry, and was about to wed the Princess Mary. So the Archduke lost his promised bride, and his sister was once more cheated of a husband. The Lady Regent was deeply hurt, but found some consolation for her wounded feelings in the double marriage that was arranged in the course of the same year between the Archduke Ferdinand and Anna, daughter of Ladislaus, King of Hungary, and between this monarch's son Louis and the Archduchess Mary. In May, 1514, the little Princess was sent to be educated with her future sister-in-law at Vienna, where the wedding was celebrated a year afterwards.[11]

At the same time marriage proposals for another of his granddaughters reached Maximilian from a new and unexpected quarter. The young King of Denmark, Christian II., on succeeding to the throne, declined the French marriage which had been arranged for him by his father, and conceived the ambitious design of allying himself with the Imperial Family. In March, 1514, two Danish Ambassadors, the Bishop of Schleswig and the Court-Marshal Magnus Giœ, were introduced into Maximilian's presence by Christian's uncle, the Elector of Saxony, and asked for the Archduchess Eleanor's hand on behalf of their royal master. The prospect of an alliance with Denmark met with the Emperor's approval, and could not fail to be popular in the Low Countries as a means of opening the Baltic to the merchants of Bruges and Amsterdam. Accordingly the envoys met with a friendly reception, and were told that, although the elder Archduchess was already promised to the Duke of Lorraine, the Emperor would gladly give King Christian the hand of her sister Isabella. The contract was signed at Linz on the 29th of April, 1514, and the dowry of the Princess was fixed at 250,000 florins, an enormous sum for those times. Only three-fifths of his sister's fortune, however, was to be paid by Charles, and the remainder by her grandfather, the King of Aragon.[12]

From Linz the Ambassadors travelled by slow stages to Brussels, where they were received with great honour. But Margaret was scarcely prepared for the proposal which they made, that the wedding might take place on the following day, when King Christian was to be crowned at Copenhagen. It was, however, impossible to refuse such a request, and on Trinity Sunday, the 11th of June, the marriage was solemnized with due splendour. At ten o'clock a brilliant assembly met in the great hall of the palace, which had been hung for the occasion with the famous tapestries of the Golden Fleece, and Magnus Giœ, who represented the King, appeared, supported by the Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg and the Marquis of Brandenburg. Presently a flourish of trumpets announced the bride's coming, and Charles led in his sister, a tall, slender maiden of thirteen, robed in white, with a crown of pearls and rubies on her fair locks. "Madame Isabeau," as Margaret wrote with motherly pride to her father, "was certainly good to see."[13] They took their places under a baldacchino near the altar, followed by the Regent, who led her niece Eleanor by the hand. The Archbishop of Cambray, clad in rich vestments of purple and gold, performed the nuptial rites, and the Danish Ambassador placed a costly ring, bearing three gold crowns set round with large sapphires and the motto Ave Maria gratia plena, on the finger of the bride, who plighted her faith in the following words:

"Je, Isabelle d'Autriche et de Bourgogne, donne ma foi à très hautt et très puissant Prince et Seigneur, Christierne roy de Danemarck, et à toy Magnus Giœ, son vrai et léal procureur, et je le prens par toy en époux et mari légitime."[14]

Then the Mass of the Holy Ghost was chanted, the Spanish Ambassador being seated at the Archduke's side, and the others according to their rank, all but the English Envoy, who refused to be present owing to a dispute as to precedence. Afterwards the guests were entertained by the Regent at a banquet, followed by a tournament and a state ball, which was kept up far into the night. Finally all the chief personages present escorted the bride with lighted torches to her chamber, and Magnus Giœ, in full armour, lay down on the nuptial bed at her side in the presence of this august company. Then, rising to his feet, he made a deep obeisance to the young Queen and retired. During the next three days a succession of jousts and banquets took place, and on the Feast of Corpus Christi a public reception was held in the palace, at which the bride appeared wearing the ring of the three kingdoms and a jewelled necklace sent her by King Christian. Unfortunately, the Archduke danced so vigorously on the night of the wedding that this unwonted exertion brought on a sharp attack of fever.

"Monseigneur," wrote his aunt to the Emperor, "fulfilled all his duties to perfection, and showed himself so good a brother that he overtaxed his strength, and fell ill the day after the wedding. Not," she hastened to add, "that his sickness is in any way serious, but that the slightest ailment in a Prince of his condition is apt to make one anxious."[15]

On the 4th of July the Danish Ambassadors took their leave, but Isabella remained in her home for another year. She and Eleanor shared in the fêtes which celebrated the Archduke's coming of age, and were present at his Joyeuse Entrêe into Brussels. But in the midst of these festivities the Danish fleet, with the Archbishop of Drondtheim on board, arrived at Veeren in Zeeland, and on the 16th of July, 1515, the poor young Queen took leave of her family with bitter tears, and sailed for Copenhagen. On the day of Isabella's christening, fourteen years before, the ceremony had been marred by a terrific thunderstorm, and now the same ill-luck attended her wedding journey. A violent tempest scattered the Danish fleet off the shores of Jutland, and the vessel which bore the Queen narrowly escaped shipwreck. When at length she had landed safely at Helsingfors, she wrote a touching little letter to the Regent:

Two days later Isabella continued her journey to Hvidore, the royal country-house near Copenhagen. There she was received by King Christian, who rode at her side, a splendid figure in gold brocade and shining armour, when on the following day she made her state entry into the capital in torrents of rain. On the 12th of August the wedding was celebrated in the great hall of the ancient castle, which had been rebuilt by King Christian's father, and was followed by the coronation of the young Queen. But Isabella was so much exhausted by the fatigue which she had undergone, that before the conclusion of the ceremony she fell fainting into the arms of her ladies. Her illness threw a gloom over the wedding festivities, and seemed a forecast of the misfortunes that were to darken the course of her married life and turn her story into a grim tragedy.