Free The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King by HRH Princess Michael of Kent

territory won by François’ dazzling victory at Marignano vanished through the greed of his mother.
    Shortly before his coronation, the king had appointed his mother’s protégé, Charles de Bourbon, as Constable of France, an office notheld for some fifteen years, and thus made him the second most powerful man in the kingdom. (It was common rumor at the time, though it has never been proven, that Louise de Savoie and Charles de Bourbon were lovers.) The Constable de Bourbon acquitted himself superbly at Marignano, and in gratitude, in September following the battle, François appointed the half-Italian Charles lieutenant general in the duchy of Milan. That privilege, together with his vast estates joined to those of his wife, Suzanne de Beaujeu, made the duc de Bourbon a sovereign in all but name. In fact, he was the last great feudal magnate in the style of the old dukes of Burgundy or Brittany, and from his seat of Chantelles, he virtually ruled central France. His holdings were just smaller than today’s Belgium.
    In 1517, the king, as godfather, with the queen and his mother, Louise de Savoie, attended the almost royal christening of the long-awaited son of Charles and Suzanne de Bourbon. Louis and Diane de Brézé were present at this sumptuous event at Moulins, together with Jehan de Poitiers, Diane’s father, whose rank depended on his liege lord, Charles de Bourbon.
    It was on this occasion that François I finally appreciated the incredible wealth and power of the Constable de Bourbon. All along the route Bourbon had stationed formations from his own army, dressed in bright costumes, while others staged mock battles on the road. Upon arrival at the château, the royal party was met by the duke, attended by five hundred gentlemen, all dressed in velvet, each wearing a heavy three-strand gold chain. In fact, Charles de Bourbon so loved gold that he would have nothing made of any other metal, whether his plate, his mirrors, cups, or candlesticks. From his own estates he could raise an army of 34,000—and this man was the commander-in-chief of the king’s forces. Such wealth and power could rival that of the king of France himself, and perhaps even threaten the security of his realm.
    François realized that neither Blois nor Amboise could equal the duke’s two great châteaux, Moulins and Chantelles, nor the ducal possessions—his library, paintings, furniture and furnishings, and
objets d’art
—all emblazoned with the arms of their owner. At last the king understood why Anne de Beaujeu’s husband had so strongly opposed the marriage of his daughter and Charles de Bourbon. With their combinedmight and wealth, the peace of the realm would depend on the goodwill of a vassal. Charles de Bourbon, a proud man, easily offended, who kept his own counsel and with unknown ambitions, was someone the king would have to watch carefully.
    The magnificent celebrations for the Bourbons’ baby, the comte de Clermont, imprudently lavish in the eyes of some, lasted eight days. Tragically, the baby died five months later. The Constable and Suzanne de Beaujeu had been married for twelve years and failed to have another child.
     
     
     
     
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    1 . A Prince of the Blood (Royal) is a prince of the ruling house and not just a member of a princely family.
    2 . According to Erasmus, some girls were women at ten and mothers at eleven. Anne de Beaujeu was fifteen years older than her first cousin, Louise de Savoie (their mothers were sisters).
    3 .
Marguerita
is the Latin word for pearl.
    4 . At the king’s autopsy it was pronounced that the blow to his head would not have killed him, and it was noted that he had eaten an orange shortly before the accident, which was thought to have been sent from Italy. Whispers of poison circulated.
    5 . Her father, Louis XI, considered Jeanne so ugly that she had to hide behind a screen whenever he entered the room. She founded a religious order and was canonized by Pope