Free An Accidental Tragedy by Roderick Graham

he died in 1536 after playing tennis in very hot weather and then drinking iced water, the water having been brought to him by his Italian secretary, Sebastian de Montecuculli. Since all Italians were thought to be expert with poisons, it seemed obvious to those that opposed her that Catherine was clearing a path to the throne of France for herself and her husband. Montecuculli, who was probably quite innocent, was tortured and, on the orders of François I, torn apart by horses.
    Henri was now the married Dauphin in need of heirs, but Catherine had produced no children, and since Henri himself had fathered a bastard girl in 1537, the fault was laid entirely at the Dauphine’s door, with calls being made for a papal annulment of the marriage. Diane, now Henri’s mistress, adopted his illegitimate daughter as Diane de France. Then, to everyone’s relief, in 1545, Catherine became pregnant with François, Mary’sfuture husband. The Diane and Montmorency faction was still antagonistic towards Catherine, but she was supported by François I and was at the king’s side during the illness which killed him in 1547. Catherine was now Queen of France and Henri was king with Diane as his maîtresse en titre , newly created Duchesse de Valentinois.
    When Henri made an official entry – an entrée joyeuse – into Lyon in 1548, he was accompanied by Diane at his side. These splendid entries, according to the historian Sir Roy Strong, were ‘an essential part of the liturgy of secular apotheosis’. The pageant included twelve ‘Roman gladiators’ fighting with two-handed swords, garlanded oxen ridden by naked girls – Henri was especially fond of this display – and a young woman dressed as the goddess Diana, leading a lion on a silver chain. Catherine made her entry the next day; Henri asked that it be late in the day so that ‘her ugliness might pass unnoticed’. Diane was now associated with the goddess Diana, and her importance to Henri was marked symbolically in subtle ways – the royal monogram, for example which consisted of the letters ‘H’ and ‘C’ interlaced, but with the ends of the ‘C’ drawn to a point to represent the crescent moon, which was the symbol of Diana. Henri also adopted a monogram of two letter ‘Ds’ interlaced with his ‘H’.
    Diane has attracted legends as magnets attract iron filings. The poet Brantôme said of her, ‘everyone around her breathed the air of eternal spring’. He also said that when he visited her in her seventieth year she looked no more than thirty; since she died at sixty-four, Brantôme’s statements should be garnished with plentiful salt. Queen Catherine was unfairly eclipsed by Diane, but in spite of this she loved her flagrantly unfaithful husband, and carried out her queenly duties knowing that the bulk of the population thought of her as an Italian witch. It was into this uneasy ménage à trois that the six-year-old Scots queen was thrust.
    Henri was determined that Mary should become a French woman as quickly as possible, and he began by sending her Maries away to a convent some four miles distant at Poissy where they would be taught French by the Prior François de Vieuxpont.From then on, Mary and her Maries spoke French in public, though in private they would occasionally speak in Scots to each other through fits of girlish giggles. Scots became a private nursery language. Meanwhile, Mary had the company of the royal children and, on Henri’s precise instruction, relayed to d’Humières by Diane, she shared a bedroom with Elisabeth, nicknamed Isabel, the king’s three-year-old daughter, who would become Mary’s closest companion in France.
    Henri himself arrived at St Germain-en-Laye on 9 November 1548, when he ‘found her [Mary] the prettiest and most graceful princess he ever saw, as have the queen and all the court’, and Catherine said, ‘the little Scottish queen has but to smile to turn all French heads’. De Brézé wrote to Marie, her