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

And civil war did come, a senseless, lunatic war in which the greatest victims were the poor farmers who did not know why their lands were being trampled by galloping armies, their cottages burned, and famine the reward of their labors. Antoine, King of Navarre, died of a bullet wound at Rouen with both Catholic priests and Huguenot ministers at his bedside!

The months crept by and still the war continued. Early in 1563 on a February evening while reconnoitering along the banks of the Loire, the Duke of Guise was shot, murdered, it was suspected, by either agents of the Queen Regent or by that devout Huguenot, Gaspard of Coligny, Admiral of France.

A ROYAL PROGRESS AND A SNUB

How could anyone be certain of anything in this life, Catherine wondered, knowing full well that no one could ever be certain of her. The Duke of Guise, so long her feared enemy, was dead at last and there were those who dared say she was responsible for that death.

Then there was Antoine, the conniving weakling who posed a certain threat to her regency. Now Antoine too was dead, so her worries should have lessened materially. But not at all. There was the Prince of Conde, his brother, a man of strong convictions to whom Catherine always had been attracted, but a statesman whom she also feared for the very qualities of shrewd thinking she most admired in him.

Doubtless Conde would lay claim to the regency and this must not happen, for if he did and she defied him, it would mean a dangerous break with the Bourbon House. Catherine

puzzled over the situation for days and then, like a fish swimming toward her through sunny waters, came the answer. The regency should be discontinued! She would declare Charles of legal age to rule though he was only thirteen. He would not dare go counter to her wishes in anything, and as Queen Mother she would in some measure be more apt to bend him to her will than as Regent. The half-mad young King always resented force and as Regent she spoke with the authority of the law; on the other hand, her "advice," more inflexible than any legal mandate, was always obeyed without question. Keep Charles docile, tractable, and the governing of the kingdom was hers until she could place it happily in the hands of her favorite son, Henry of Anjou, a year younger than Charles.

She was very busy, this incredible woman. For one thing, she reminded herself, she must get in touch with that tiresome Jeanne of Navarre who had left the Council of Poissy so abruptly. (Antoine had been an unpardonable boor thrashing young Henry as he had, but Jeanne should have overlooked it. Children survive these things.) She, Catherine, must speak to her about a marriage between Henry and Marguerite. A Navarre-Valois union would be excellent unless—and here another plan suddenly slid into the spectrum of her thinking—unless she could prevail upon Elizabeth to suggest to Philip a match between Don Carlos and Marguerite.

In Spain, Elizabeth had spent five happy years. Physically she was still frail in an exquisite flowerlike way. Scarcely had

she arrived in Madrid when she developed smallpox and came very close to dying. Philip was never far from her bedside, fearless for his own health, absorbed only in the comfort and well-being of the young Queen.

His first marriage, to his cousin, Mary of Portugal, when he was seventeen, had been a very happy one. However, Mary had died when their little son, Don Carlos, was only four days old. Looking at the lumpish infant with its vacant expression and continuous whine, Philip probably guessed the taint the child had inherited from both its maternal and paternal grandparents whose families were equally blighted with insanity. Once sure that his suspicions were correct, Philip lost interest in his son. He turned him over to nurses and tutors and gave most of his attention to an English alliance, his loveless marriage with Mary Tudor, eleven years his senior.

Their wretchedly unhappy marriage ended with Mary's death late in 1558. Now with the lovely Elizabeth his consort, Philip was enjoying some of the happiest years of his life. Courtiers noted that much of his brusqueness had moderated, that his arrogance was less pronounced. He laughed oftener, generously overlooked blunders by inexperienced pages and nervous petitioners. Truly Elizabeth had been well named Princess of Peace.

Fortunately the smallpox left her with only one small blemish on the side of her nose and no one rejoiced more sincerely that she was not disfigured than Don Carlos.

This unhappy youth, smarting still under what he felt was his father's betrayal in marrying Elizabeth whom he had be-

lieved to be his betrothed, fell deeply in love with his young stepmother. Elizabeth, fully aware of the ugly breach between the father and son, simply destroyed the passionate notes Don Carlos wrote her and avoided him as much as possible. But it was not always possible, and again and again only her gentleness and her calm, quiet appeal to his better nature saved her from the madman's advances.

Now to add to her difficulty with Don Carlos, her mother was writing peremptory, trenchant letters insisting that Elizabeth take up with Philip the matter of Don Carlos's marriage with her sister Marguerite. Catherine had put aside all thought of the Navarre marriage from the moment the Haps-burg one occurred to her, and now she wanted the matter settled—at once. "Therefore, my daughter/' she wrote, "do you approach your liege lord, Philip, my son, and put before him this most agreeable matter with all expediency."

Elizabeth opened each of these letters with increasing dread and a growing sense of shock. This was the mother who had warned her about Don Carlos before she came to Spain, the mother in whom she had confided her aversion to and pity for him. How