I’ll bet I know some things about Mary, Queen of Scots, you don’t know. Did you know she was six feet tall? The Cluny Museum in Paris has one of her jackets in a glass case. She was a large woman. A foot taller than most of the women about her. When she married she became the granddaughter-in-law of Francis the First (François Premier) and he was famous for being six feet tall, so that gives you some idea. She was famous for her beauty, but she probably felt like some kind of freak.
Her mother was Mary of Guise, from a noble family in Blois. They were all tall evidently. So much for the better diet of the wealthy.
It was probably an indication of rank to be tall. When Francis the First met Henry the Eighth on the Field of Gold in Normandy it must have been quite a sight. Two behemoths surrounded by hordes of little footmen and courtiers. When Mary was chosen to marry Francis II, it was probably in part because she was so tall. In hopes that she would propagate tall kings. When you saw a king, you knew one in those days.
Mary was, in fact, French, although half Scottish by birth. Her mother was the Queen of Scotland, having been married to James the First of that country for some reason. When you were beautiful and tall it must have been hard to resist marrying the ruler of a country. Particularly when you were a woman. The royal couple’s only child was also called Mary, and she saw almost nothing of Scotland in her youth. She had already been Queen of France before she returned ill-fatedly to take the throne of Scotland. In France a woman couldn’t inherit a throne but in Scotland she could, so off she went. To wind up finally in the grip of that other woman who had inherited a throne, Elizabeth the First of England.
Mary’s first husband was Francis II. He was the oldest son of Henry the Second who was killed in a jousting accident. (Does that sound suspicious to you? It did to people then, too.) His son, Francis II, became king. Young, spindly, dominated by his mother Catherine de Medici. Was he syphilitic? Could easily have been in those days. He was promptly married to the eighteen-year-old Mary, heiress to the throne of Scotland, in a very splendid ceremony culminating with a fabulous party at the Château of Chenonceaux.
The Dowager Queen Catherine had a group of ladies-in-waiting called the Flying Squad, who were selected for their youth and beauty and willingness to sleep around and bring back news to the queen that they collected from their titled lovers. These ladies were lying upon the banks of the streams that line the approach to Chenonceaux, playing harps and singing as the royal wedding party advanced down an avenue lined with high trees forming a canopy overhead. The approach to Chenonceaux today is very evocative of this procession and the Mermaids of Chenonceaux, but the trees cannot be the same trees. Can they? These things interest me. If they are, they would have been little saplings then. No, they can’t be.
The Château of Chenonceaux is one of the great beauties of France. Henry II gave it to his mistress Diane de Poitiers, and she, in turn, made it into a wonderland. Beautiful parterre gardens on every hand and she had even had a bridge built from the château across the Cher River so the king could hunt on the other side of the river whenever it took his fancy. That’s thoughtfulness. And money.
Soon after Henry II was killed, Catherine de Medici immediately took Chenonceaux away from Diane de Poitiers. She probably thought she’d never be able to avenge herself on Diane in her lifetime. It must have been a real pleasure. Diane was a fabled beauty, and the Queen was never anything but plain. She avenged herself for all the plain women of the world.
And that is how it came to be that Mary, Queen of France and then Queen of Scots, came to have her wedding party at Chenonceaux. I tell you all this because Chenonceaux is only about seven miles from Cornichons, and I have been there a number of times. Catherine de Medici built a large ballroom on the bridge that crosses the river. When you stand in one of its windows with the Cher River flowing rapidly under your feet you have the feeling that you are flying. I’m sure Catherine did, too.
The rest of the story you probably know. Francis II, Mary’s husband, soon died, and she decided to return and take the throne of Scotland. Her husband, the beautiful and younger Lord Darnley, who also had a vague claim to the throne, was blown up while in bed with his lover. Soon after, Mary was captured by English forces invading Scotland and taken prisoner to England, where she was under house arrest for many years. She could never stop plotting to try to capture the throne of England. How could she help herself? She was next in line. And being queen of England was so much better than being under house arrest.
Elizabeth finally had her beheaded, although she didn’t really want to. It must have been a hard decision. Mary was the most like herself of all the people on earth. When the executioner lifted her head by her beautiful red hair, it came away. It was a wig. The gray-haired head rolled away. And her little dog came running out from under her skirts. The judges who observed the execution must have thought about that for a long time. I would hope. In those days you probably were an observer of many things that would put any one of us sissified moderns into trauma for the rest of our lives. Can you imagine telling your therapist you saw that little dog run out? And he says, “You saw what?”
Mary’s son inherited the throne from Elizabeth and became James I of England, James VI of Scotland. So, the Scottish really don’t have much of a claim to wanting to be independent. They were never conquered. They were joined together under James. He liked pretty men, too, like the two queens themselves. But that was all kept under wraps.
When I saw the son et lumière at Chenonceaux, the most beautiful moment was when the light in the window of Catherine de Medici’s study lit up, and a precise French voice quoted what she said when she heard that Mary had been executed: “What world do we live in when a queen of France can be killed in this way?”