Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/405

Mary of France this to Wolsey, who countermanded the return of her chief attendant, Lady Guilford. But the act was her husband's doing, and she was obliged to be content. On 5 Nov. she was crowned as queen at St. Denis, and on the following day she entered Paris, where jousts were held in her honour during the greater part of the month. But her queenly state was brief. On 1 Jan. 1515 her husband died. Anticipating the event, Wolsey had written to urge upon her the necessity of extreme discretion if she were left a widow in a foreign land, and especially to listen to no new offers of marriage. To this, if not even to a worse danger, she was exposed by the pressing attentions of young Francis I, which she was only able to repel by confessing to him her attachment to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk [q. v.], now sent in embassy to congratulate the new king on his accession. The attachment had existed before her marriage with Louis, whom she had agreed to accept, in spite of his age and infirmity, on being promised that if she survived him she should have her own choice next time. Nor was her brother Henry unwilling, for his part, to redeem the pledge, but several of his council thought the match with Suffolk unbecoming, while in France rumour gave her to the Duke of Savoy or to the Duke of Lorraine. One Friar Langley, too, at Paris, warned her to beware of Suffolk, for he had traffickings with the devil. Another friar backed up these admonitions, and made her despair of the fulfilment of the king's promise, so she induced Suffolk, in violation of a pledge he had given to Henry, to marry her at once in France.

The king was intensely displeased, and was only made placable in the end by a bond given by her and the duke to pay him, for is expenses in connection with her first marriage and return from France, 24,000l., in half-yearly instalments of 1,000l. each, and to resign to him a sum of two hundred thousand crowns, which Francis was induced to allow her as the moiety of her dower, with all the plate and jewellery given her by Louis XII. There was some difficulty, however, in getting back the jewels from Francis, who did not admit her claim to them, but was willing to give her half, or half their value, amounting to fifty thousand crowns, as a free gift, though, he said, they were not nearly sufficient to pay her late husband's debts. There was great discussion on this subject with the English ambassadors, which only caused Francis to regret having given her already a jewel of special value, called the Mirror of Naples, and the parting gift which he had promised her on her leaving for England was but four rings of little value. She left Paris, however, with Suffolk, on 16 April, and they were married openly at Greenwich on 13 May, in presence of the king and court, but with no public rejoicings, as the match was generally unpopular.

For some time Mary and her husband retired into the country. She came up with him to London, however, early in 1516, and was delivered of a son at Bath Place on 11 March, but in May they both withdrew again into Norfolk, and spent the following winter on the duke's estates, avoiding unpleasant remarks at court. In March 1517 she and Suffolk met the queen (Catherine of Aragon), while on pilgrimage, and conducted her to Walsingham. In the summer following she came up to London, and was present at the betrothal of the Princess Mary to the dauphin at Greenwich on 7 July; immediately after which she withdrew to Bishop's Hatfield (as it was then called), now the well-known seat of the Marquis of Salisbury, where on the 16th she gave birth to a daughter, Frances, who became the mother of Lady Jane (trey [q. v.] In the spring of 1518 she and her husband visited the court at Woodstock, where she was seized with a severe ague. She was attended by the king's physicians, and Henry showed her much kindness. On 5 Oct. following she was present at Greenwich at the espousal of the Princess Mary to the dauphin, and after the banquet given by Wolsey to the French ambassadors on the occasion she and the king led the dance in disguise. On 7 March 1519 she took part in a similar disguising, also at Greenwich, when the king gave an entertainment to the gentlemen left as hostages for the French king's payments. In March 1520, having been apparently summoned up to London with the duke to make preparations for crossing the sea to the great interview with Francis I, she was again taken very ill at Croydon with a disease in her side, and had several physicians attending her. Nevertheless, in May she was present at the Emperor Charles V's reception in England; immediately after which she did cross the Channel, and took a prominent part in the maskings at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Three large chambers were set apart for her use in the gorgeous temporary palace built for the occasion, next to the three chambers allotted to Queen Catherine (Chronicle of Calais, p. 80, Camden Soc.) In 1525 her only son, Henry, was created Earl of Lincoln. That same year, by the treaty of the Moor, France at last conceded the demands of England touching her dower, the arrears of which were paid up, and next year Henry so far