By Dr. John Doran.
Originally published in The National Magazine (National Magazine Company) #1 (Nov 1856).
When Stanislaus Leckzinski was consoling himself for the loss of his throne in Poland, by inventing pleasant little dishes in Lorraine, he one day, after perusing a letter which he had just received, took off his apron, entered the room of his daughter, and exclaimed joyfully, "My child, you are queen of France!" Marie Leckzinski listened to the announcement with pleasure; and in a note which she soon after despatched to her dear friend the "grande maréchale," she registered the sentiment that "it was mercy in kings to render justice, and that it was justice in queens to excrcise mercy." The sentiment was better than the spelling by which it was expressed; and the sentiment was a plagiarism. It belonged to Bathilde.
Who, then, was Bathilde?
She was the English housekeeper of a French noble, and consort of Clovis II., king of France.
Bathilde, when a child, was picking up shells on the southern coast of England. She was descried by a French pirate, who, knowing her market value, landed, seized her, and with his prize set sail for St. Valery. As he carried her ashore, he tried to comfort the weeping captive by telling her that she should serve none but a noble. The girl looked up smilingly through her tears, and remarked:
"I have had a dream. The ever-fasting St. Gildas has told me that I shall live in a house where nobles shall serve me."
"Why, little Saxon," said the free-trader, "you would then be a queen--"
"Whose justice it is to execute mercy, while it is the mercy of kings to render justice."
The mayor of the palace of Clovis II., an official whose name is written in such various ways that it is easier to give him none than pause to make a choice, heard the words of the little maiden, and purchased her of her owner, for a couple of handfuls of gold and a front-tooth of St. Apollonia.
The pirate sold the tooth at Bonn for as much gold as he had already received. It was purchased by a wicked lord of Kreuzberg, who presented it to the church there, and became easy in his mind for ever after.
To this day it is resorted to by Rhinelanders suffering from anguish of any sort in the jaws. It cures all who do not go away unrelieved.
Clovis II. saw the youthful Bathilde grow up in the house of his great officer. He admired the prudence with which so young a manager presided over the servile household; and the self-denial with which the beautiful Saxon slave would sometimes wait on her companions in bondage. He thought of her when she was absent till he grew perplexed. To relieve him from his perplexity he summoned a council, announced to the members his determination to marry the beautiful girl from England, and finally asked their advice.
That they agreed readily to all he proposed is clear, from the fact that Clovis espoused her within a week. The first act of the young English queen of the Franks was to manumit all Christian slaves in France, and to enact that none but infidels should ever again be in bonds to another within her and her husband's land.
"Within my land," suggested Clovis; " and, moreover, queens are incapable of enacting."
What the laughing Saxon answered is not known. That she did not yield, yet may have compromised, is most certain. From that day forth, down to the last of the Valois (and possibly old Marolles may carry down the fashion even later), it was the established custom for each married king in France to commence business with the royal council by assuring them that he had previously "thought it over" with the queen. "Il s'était avisé avec la reine."
Nothing could possibly be more gallant, nor, generally speaking, more untrue.
If Clovis II. had a fault to find with his Saxon consort, it was, perhaps, that she was too regardless of expense in founding monasteries and endowing churches; too prodigal of attendance at religious revivals in old convents; and a little too much addicted to follow the advice of Bishop Eligius rather than his own.
If these were faults, Bathilde would not be cured of them. She continued to lavish her revenue upon pious purposes, and erected almost as many magnificent abbeys and cathedrals in France, as under Stephen there were subsequently erected castles in England. The name of this English queen in France was connected with the grandest ecclesiastical edifices in the country. She impoverished her husband, but she served the Church. There is very logical proof, for those who will receive it, to show that she was right. The English Bathilde had three sons. They all reigned in succession; and they are the only three brothers who ascended the French throne without a change of dynasty immediately following.
Capet, Valois, and Bourbon,—each of these lines came to an end with three brothers, kings in their turn.
When Bathilde became a widow she exhibited a little inconsistency by wearing superb dresses, decorated with costly gems. Like Queen Charlotte, when the regency was established, and George III. was politically dead, she broke out into a flutter of enjoyment. It did not last long. St. Eligius, then defunct, appeared to her in a vision, and placed before her mind's eye so startling a picture, representing how frivolous widows in this world were condemned, undraped, to ride ungovernable steeds with red-hot saddles on their backs in the next, that Bathilde sold all her finery, raised a magnificent monument with the proceeds to the memory of the defunct prelate, and retired for ever into a convent, where the discipline was strict, and the table execrable.
Bathilde died towards the end of the seventh century; was canonised, and permitted to share the honours of the 30th of January, with two other ladies, St. Martina and St. Aldegonda. The somewhat noble name by which we call her was, probably, not her own; for, according to old French authors, the true appellation of the first English queen of France was—BUTTER!
After all, the name is not ignoble. The Butters have been landowners in Scotland from the days of Kenneth McAlpine.
It is unnecessary to do more than record the fact that the English princess Ogine shared the throne of the French king, Charles the Simple. This marriage, however, led to the first Anglo-French alliance which ever existed. Louis d'Outre-Mer was the son of Ogine; and her brother Athelstan, king of England, sent a fleet to aid his nephew against his powerful enemies.
The most remarkable of our English princesses who have worn a crown-matrimonial in France was, without doubt, "Madame Marie," as our neighbours called our Mary Tudor, who married a French king and loved an English noble.
This sister of Henry VIII. was sought by four lovers; Albert of Austria, Charles of Spain, Louis XII., and Charles Brandon, who won his dukedom of Suffolk on the field of Flodden. Of these, she married the French king and the English subject. When her imperious brother "sold" her to Louis XII.,—that Louis who wins our sympathy, as the Duke of Orleans, in Quentin Durward, and who was already twice a widower,—Mary appealed to that mercy which in sovereigns is justice; but she appealed in vain. She was placed on board the least lively-looking tub of the royal fleet at Dover; and prayers were piled up to St. Wulphran to carry her safely into his own harbour of Boulogne.
Never was bridal party so tempest-tost as this. The authorities at Boulogne fired away half their ammunition, with the double purpose of signalling and greeting. No power of helm, nor skill of pilot, could persuade any one of the royal tubs to roll into the port where crowds of the French aristocracy were in waiting to welcome the English bride. The whole fleet, bride's own especial tub-yacht and the tubs of convoy, rolled obstinately ashore, three leagues to the east of the harbour they could not make. As long as land was made, the marriage-party cared little how it was effected. In a brief time they were all afoot on the sandy beach. The spot was wild, and the travellers, knights, and ladies looked in woful plight, in draggled silks and well-drenched plumes, dull, dismal, and disgusted;—all save one, a certain Anne Boleyn, who was in attendance on Madame Marie, and whose spirits not even the rough ocean could daunt.
Then came the fishing population, crying Noel! and Dieu Gard! and then some tents were pitched and pennons displayed; and the dreary locality began to wear an air of gayety, when in rode the Duke de Longueville and a brilliant train from Boulogne, inquiring for the bride, who was weeping or sleeping within a hut fresh hung with tapestry, and surrounded by a score of tents and chilly knights in damp and rusted armour.
All the accounts of the upholstery of the scene and its cost may be found in the French state-paper office. With respect to the actors, the gallant knights of Picardy, when they saw the fair and youthful "Madame Marie"—she was but sixteen—protested that her royal brother was well justified in calling her the "Pearl of England." The dresses of the bride excited as great admiration on the part of the French ladies, who uanimously allowed that the 1,000,000 crowns promised by the king of France to his cousin of England could not be considered an exorbitant price for such a "pearl"—even supposing that his majesty ever paid the money.
Louis was awaiting his bride with impatience at Abbeville. Hearing at length that the princess was fairly on her way, the infirm king climbed into his saddle, and trotted with as much vigour as his debility would bear, to meet her. They met a mile or two from the abbatial city. Louis rode close up to her side, and swore an unsavoury oath that she was even more beautiful than report had made or artist limned her. The ill-assorted pair were received at the gates of the city with a world of medieval pomp, and a dreadful amount of ponderous compliment. The cathedral had never seen such splendour as on the occasion of the dazzling marriage-ceremony, which had not long been concluded when all the young bride's English attendants were dismissed by order of the royal husband. Exception was made of Anne Boleyn and two other ladies, who witnessed with more delight than the bride the never-ending festival which celebrated the event. That event took place on the 9th of October 1514. Three months later Louis was in his tomb at St. Denis; and within another quarter of a year the happy young queen-dowager of France was publicly married at Greenwich to the man of her heart, Brandon duke of Suffolk.
Of the two daughters who survived this union, one, Frances, married Grey marquis of Dorset, and subsequently Duke of Suffolk. Lady Jane Grey was one of three daughters, issue of this marriage, and heiress, as her foolish partisans thought, to the crown, by right of her grandmother and her Protestantism.
Finally, the English queen-dowager of France and Duchess of Suffolk was at the head of a happy household in the ducal mansion in the Borough. The dust of the last English princess who sat on the French throne lies beneath the altar in the old abbey-church of Bury St. Edmund's,—fitting place of rest for queen and duchess.