Dark Eminence Catherine De Medici And Her Children by Marguerite Vance (good e books to read .TXT) 📗

neither man was unseated, and the applause was redoubled. Next Henry challenged the Duke of Guise who, wily diplomat that he was, permitted the King to carry off the honors. The clamor grew; the hot afternoon throbbed with it as the air thickened with dust, and in the heart of Elizabeth the premonition of impending disaster mounted.

Henry now sent for a young Scottish guardsman, a Captain Montgomery, noted for his skill in the jousts, and commanded him to run against him. Catherine, uneasy at the King's determination to continue the tournament which by all odds he had already won, sent him a note begging him to stop. "Have done, my lord," she wrote. "The honors already are yours and the day is over. Have done, I pray you."

But Henry was in no mood to stop now. "By my faith as a true knight," he cried, "I have scarcely loosed my limbs! Bring me another lance to break before we depart!"

Montgomery demurred for he knew his own skill; he

realized the King must be tiring in his heavy armor, and he dreaded the results to the King s dignity and to his own life should he unhorse him. However, he had no choice but to accept the challenge.

A hush, almost as though the spectators were holding their collective breath, hung over the field as the two knights took their positions, then came thundering toward each other on either side of the low barrier. Faster, faster, their long lances at the ready, they came; then with a clash that ripped the scorching air like the sound of a giant knife cutting steel, lance and armor met.

Both lances were broken but, to the horror of those watching, the King swayed in the saddle, slumped forward over the head of his mount and would have fallen but for attendants who ran to his aid. He was carried to his pavilion where it was found that a fragment of Montgomery's lance somehow had entered the visor of the King s helmet, striking the eye and penetrating deep into the brain.

Weeping, Montgomery knelt beside him, begging that his right hand be severed. But the King, in agony, absolved him of any blame, saying he had acted with knightly valor and in obedience to a command. Henry then was moved to the palace of Les Tournelles on the outskirts of Paris, a comparatively small palace which he loved, and there the Court surgeons did all they could to save the life of their sovereign. Not even Catherine might enter the sickroom just yet, its door guarded by a grim-faced old soldier who had served his king well across the years, Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France and Grand Master of the Household.

The days of suffering for the wounded monarch dragged into a week, then a few more days, and on the 30th of June, 1559, Henry of Valois, Henry II of France, died and the unwieldy crown of France passed from his steady head to the wavering one of his son, Francis.

Chapter 5 LONG JOURNEY

AMONG the great families of sixteenth-century France the Guises stood out as warriors and astute politicians. Their roots were deep in the soil of Lorraine, the name Guise an adoption by the younger generation. There were seven brothers, clever adventurers all, whose cleverness had carried them into the councils of the Crown itself. Francis I, dying, had begged Henry, his son, to be wary of the Guises, warning that they would "strip him and his children of their doublets and his people of their shirts/'

Henry II, however, had found them wonderfully helpful in many ways, especially the eldest, Francis, Duke of Guise, and his next younger brother, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine. Without quite realizing how it had come about so quickly, Henry saw the Dauphin, Francis, married to Mary Stuart, a daughter and granddaughter of Guises; and his little daugh-

ter, Claude, married to the Duke of Lorraine, another Guise.

Now with Henry in his tomb at Saint-Denis, Catherine brooded on the influence the mighty Guises would have on the weak young King, how far they would dare go in wresting the control of his capricious will from her, his mother, who had always ruled him—and all her children.

As for the King himself, this frightened, sickly boy of sixteen with a perpetual earache could only lie weeping on his bed longing for someone, anyone to relieve him of the terrible responsibility so suddenly thrust upon him. He had had an unhappy childhood, too weak physically to indulge in the sports he loved so pathetically, unable to cope with lessons which left him and his tutors embarrassed and dismayed. Perhaps, he had thought, if some day I am King I shall do as I please, hunt and fence and forget the books and the dreary lessons they contain.

Now he was King and the full impact of his wretchedness made him retreat even further into the shell of incompetence in which he lived out his days. For one thing, his beloved old friend, Anne de Montmorency, had been dismissed. Francis had signed the order himself, not actually realizing the enormity of the act. The Guises, on the strength of his marriage to their niece, Mary Stuart, never failed to name themselves his "uncles." They were, they assured him repeatedly, his closest kin, his most reliable friends and counselors—of course, aside from Her Most Gracious Majesty, his mother. They were always careful to add that.

However, as Grand Master of the royal household, Montmorency held the keys to all castles in the domain, therefore

he also would have custody of the King should an emergency arise. This the Guises could not permit. The order of dismissal was written in simple terms—it might have been written by the King himself—and was put into his hands to read before the Council.

Not