For a Queen's Love: The Stories of the Royal Wives of Philip II

by Jean Plaidy

  At Alcala Philip found Carlos in a very low state. He did not recognize his father, and this many thought to be fortunate for it was generally believed that excitement at this time would surely kill the Prince.

  Dr. Olivares, the greatest physician in the world, whom Philip had brought with him from Valladolid, examined Carlos, and his verdict was that Carlos would die if nothing was done to save him; there was, he believed, a faint hope that the operation of trepanning might do this. If the King gave his permission for the operation, Dr. Olivares would see that it was carried out with all speed.

  With Isabella and Ruy beside him, and his courtiers and statesmen about him, Philip waited for the news; and as he looked at the faces of those gathered about him, he fancied that only in Isabella’s did he see any expression of real grief.

  Why should she care for the fate of this lame epileptic who was a source of anxiety to all those who came into contact with him? Why, of all these people, should Isabella be the only one who sincerely prayed for the recovery of Carlos?

  Philip could not shut out of his mind the memory of a distorted face, of eyes which stared madly into his while a harsh voice cried: “She is mine … mine!”

  How could he be jealous of a poor, half-mad creature like Carlos?

  At length Olivares presented himself to the King, and one look at the doctor’s face was enough to tell everyone present that the operation had been successful.

  But although Carlos had not died during the operation its results were far from satisfactory. The Prince’s head swelled to twice its usual size so that his eyes were completely buried in his flesh and he could not see. A rash broke out on his skin and he suffered agony.

  He was in constant delirium, calling perpetually for Isabella; but when she went to him he did not know her. He shouted threats against someone, but as he mentioned no name, those about him could only guess at whom the threats were directed.

  Philip prayed for guidance. Isabella knew that he was thinking what a blessing it would be if Carlos died, and she knew that he was fighting against such thoughts. To Philip, duty was all-important, and she was aware that if he believed it was his duty to go into the sickroom, put a cushion over Carlos’s face, and suffocate him, he would not hesitate to do so.

  Was he wondering even now whether he might hint to the doctors that the moment had come to rid Spain of Carlos?

  Her fear of this strange man who was her husband was growing. She would never be able to forget the fanatical light which had shone in his eyes when he had talked to her of the work of the Inquisition. She was dreading the day—for she knew that as Queen of Spain she could not escape it—when she would have to attend an auto-da-fé. She recalled with horror the executions her mother had forced her to witness at Amboise. She was a good Catholic, but cruelty horrified her. She could not look on calmly while men and women were tortured, no matter what they believed. Now it seemed to her that she had escaped her mother’s tyranny for that of another. The last months had made a woman of a frivolous girl, and as that woman was a tender-hearted one, she could not love a man who thought it righteous and godly to torture men and women, even though he had been to her the kindest of husbands. She was becoming complicated, whereas she had been simple; she wanted to escape, but she knew not how.

  Philip decided that it was his duty to do everything in his power to save his son’s life.

  He explained to Isabella that in the Monastery of Jesu Maria were buried the bones of the Blessed Diego, a Franciscan lay brother, who had led a life of sanctity and was said to work miracles.

  “It is years since he died,” said Philip, “but his memory has never faded. If he saves the life of my son he shall be canonized.”

  “Let us pray to him,” said Isabella.

  “We will do more. I will have his bones dug up, and they shall be brought to Carlos and laid upon him.”

  Philip’s indecision was past. He had found the solution to his tormenting problem. If Carlos was saved through the intercession of the Blessed Diego, he would know that he, Philip, and Spain were not yet to be relieved of their burden.

  Carlos was tossing on his bed. Don Andrea Basilo and Dr. Olivares, the King’s most worthy physicians, stood by his bedside.

  Carlos was moaning in agony. The terrible swelling of his face made him unrecognizable.

  Philip arrived in the sick-room, and with him were two monks from the Monastery of Jesu Maria. They carried a box in which were the bones of the Blessed Diego.

  Philip said: “We will place them about the body of my son. Then we will kneel and pray to the saint to intercede for us. He is noted for his sympathy for the sick. Doubtless his intercession will succeed.”

  So the bones of the long-dead monk were placed about Carlos, and some pieces of the cerecloth, in which the body had been wrapped, were scraped off the bones and laid on Carlos’s face.

  Carlos screamed. “What is this, then? You have come to kill me, I smell death. I smell decay. Is death here then?”

  “We have brought the bones of the Blessed Diego,” said Olivares.

  “You have brought death. I smell it. It fills the room. You have brought death to me. It is my father who has done this because he longs for my death.”

  Dr. Olivares bent over the bed. “We are striving to save your life,” he said. “Pray with us. We have here the bones of the Blessed Diego, and to him we are directing our prayers. The King and the Queen are praying for you now. They pray for a miracle.”

  “The Queen …” said Carlos in a whisper.

  “Pray, your Highness. Pray to the Blessed Diego.”

  Carlos was delirious. He dreamed that he saw a monk rise from his tomb, his body wrapped in cerecloth.

  “You will recover, Carlos,” said the Holy Man.

  In Carlos’s delirium, the cerecloth fell away from the body of the monk; and now it was clothed in a dress of the becoming French style, and the dress covered not the old bones, but the beautiful young body of Isabella.

  “I am praying for you,” she said. “Carlos, I wish you to be well.”

  When at last the delirium faded the swelling in his head began to subside. People in the palace and in the town and in all the country were saying: “Here is another miracle of the Blessed Diego.”

  Carlos had recovered physically, but his mental sickness had taken a more violent turn. Yet he could not be kept at Alcala indefinitely; he was old enough now to take his place at court, and this the people would expect of him. So he came to Madrid where he had for company Don Juan, Alexander Farnese, and his two cousins, the sons of Maximilian and Maria of Austria, who were to be brought up at the Spanish court.

  These lively, intelligent young people might have been excellent company for a normal boy; but poor Carlos was far from normal. He was sullen for days on end; he refused to eat for long periods, so that all feared he would starve to death; then he would decide to eat, and make himself ill because he would not do so in moderation. He would rise from his bed in the middle of the night and demand boiled capon; he would lash his attendants with a whip which he kept handy for the purpose, until the food was brought to him. All his attendants longed to be removed from his service, with the exception of his half-brother, Garcia Osorio, who seemed able to soothe him better than anyone else. This boy, perhaps out of gratitude to Philip, had made the Prince his special charge, and would show the utmost tact in dealing with him. Carlos was relying more and more on his half-brother; he tolerated him because, although he was handsome and of lively intelligence, he was illegitimate, and that pleased Carlos, as it gave him a sense of superiority. Young Garcia was of great value in the household, since he could manage Carlos better than anyone except the Queen; and the King had ordered that the Queen should see her stepson but rarely.

  It was a matter of continual grievance to Carlos that Isabella was kept from him.

  Sometimes he would get together a band of young men—the most dissolute he could find—and they would roam the streets of Madrid, insulti
ng women, pulling off their cloaks, forcing them against walls, and mishandling them. Rape was rarely committed, for Carlos forbade this; this fact set in circulation rumors that he was impotent, which in its turn enraged Carlos. But he did nothing to prove it was not, which supported the belief.

  The whole world now knew that the heir of Spain was at least unbalanced. Yet many sought his hand. Catherine de Medici still wanted him for Margot, and sent urgent letters to the Queen of Spain. There was talk of his marrying his Aunt Juana, and Philip himself was not against this. It was said that Carlos and Juana would have made a strange pair—she with her melancholy madness, he with his wild insanity. Philip’s sister Maria and her husband Maximilian were very eager to secure him for their daughter Anne. They wrote to him and professed great affection for him.

  Carlos liked to imagine himself as a husband—either of Margot or Anne. A favorite game of his was to imagine himself procuring horses and riding to France, where Catherine de Medici would receive him and marry him to her daughter Margot, or riding to Austria where he would be fêted by his Uncle Max and Aunt Maria, and married to his cousin Anne.

  But there was one who remained for him the most desirable in the world, the mere mention of whose name could soften his ugliest moods and bring him back to comparative sanity. That was Isabella—his father’s wife.

  Although Isabella continued to wear her beautiful dresses and give them away with the utmost extravagance, she could no longer delight in these things. At times she felt homesick for France; but at others she felt she no longer had a part in what was happening in her old home. Margot’s letters were gay and inconsequential; they were all about Margot’s own adventures and the people who admired her, what she wore, what journeys she made, and how Henry of Guise grew more handsome than ever. But when Isabella thought of her native land nowadays, it was of terrible conflicts between Catholics and Huguenots. There had been such quarrels in the days of her youth, but it was only now, when she was living close to the mighty shadow of the Inquisition, that they seemed to have such horrible significance. The people she had known and loved were involved in wars against each other. There were the Guises against the Prince of Condé and Coligny. There was Jeanne of Navarre, whom she had known so well and with whose little son she had played, in terrible strife with her husband, Antoine, that kinsman with whom she had parted so piteously when she had been brought to Spain. And all these conflicts had their roots in religion. It was incongruous. Christians were supposed to love each other; yet these Christians were fighting … killing each other.

  She was at length obliged to attend an auto-da-fé. She did not know how she would endure that ordeal. The memory of the hot square would live in her mind forever; she would never, she feared, forget the grim Inquisitors, the pomp of the royal gallery, the victims in their yellow garments dragging their tortured bodies to the stakes.

  I am a Catholic, she told herself. I know the Catholic Faith to be the only true Faith, but I cannot bear to see these people suffer so. And when I see them I care not that they are heretics. I only want to save them. I find myself caring for nothing … not for God, not for religion if God and religion demand of us such action.

  She felt a hatred toward the land of her adoption because it was the home of torture. She shrank with revulsion from the man who sat beside her in the royal gallery, his eyes intent, the fervor lighting his face. She wanted to cry out in protest when the people shouted with glee and the agonized screams of men and women filled the air while the flames licked their already mutilated bodies.

  She wanted to live in a world of kindness and fun—not torture and misery.

  One day Madame Clermont, one of the French ladies who had accompanied her into Spain, came to her and intimated that she had something important to say.

  When they were alone, Madame Clermont could scarcely speak, she was so excited.

  “Your Majesty, I have discovered a Frenchman in distress.”

  “What is this?” asked Isabella indulgently, for poor Clermont was of a romantic nature and was constantly bewailing the lack of those adventures which had seemed to come about so naturally in France.

  “He had an accident in the street close to one of the inns there … which was fortunate for him. It might have been on the mountain roads, and then Monsieur Dimanche would have said good-bye to this life.”

  “You are incoherent, Clermont. Who is this Dimanche, and what is this all about?”

  “It is very mysterious, dear Majesty; and that is what makes it so exciting. No one seems to know who he is or what his mission; and he, poor man, is too far gone in delirium to speak much sense. But he is handsome—very handsome—and he is a Frenchman. Spanish innkeepers are a grasping breed. Do you know, Highness, they do not wish to keep him in their miserable inn, for fear he should be unable to pay his bill? They do not like foreigners, they say. And that is a slight to your Majesty! They have put him in a barn close by; and he, poor man, is very sick indeed.”

  “What is he doing here, I wonder?” said Isabella.

  “That we shall doubtless discover later; but knowing how interested your Majesty is in our own countrymen, and women, I guessed you would not care to know that one of them was lodged in a barn, and a sick man at that!”

  “Indeed I do not,” said Isabella. “It is most inhospitable.”

  “One of the palace serving-women has a comfortable lodging not far from the inn—nor from the palace. If it should be your Majesty’s wish that this man be taken there, she is willing to have him, and to care for him until he has recovered.”

  “Let it be done,” said Isabella. “I will send one of my own doctors to him. I should not like a Frenchman to return to France with tales of the ill-treatment he received in Spain.”

  So the mysterious Frenchman was removed from the barn to the lodging of the serving-woman; and it was some days before Isabella knew what an important problem he was to bring into her life.

  For the next day or so Isabella thought no more of the Frenchman. It was her custom to interest herself in her fellow countrymen, and if any visited Spain to do all in her power to see that their stay was enjoyable. It was not the first time she had helped people in distress. She herself would pay the servant in whose house Dimanche was lodged; she would reward her doctor for his services to the man. It appeared to her at that time that there the affair of Dimanche ended.

  It was Clermont who brought the news to her—excitable Clermont who looked for drama and romance in everyday life. Drama had certainly been found among the papers of Monsieur Dimanche and, Clermont assured the Queen, in the few words he had let slip in his semi-conscious state.

  Clermont begged to be alone with the Queen and, when she was absolutely sure that they would not be overheard, divulged what she had discovered.

  “Dearest Highness, I do not know how to tell you. Dimanche is in the service of Spain.”

  “A Frenchman … in the service of Spain!”

  “What I have found out, Highness, is horrible. And I do not know what to do. I remember them so well … as you do … the Queen and her little son. That brightest of boys …”

  “Clermont, Clermont, what do you mean? Of whom are you speaking?”

  “The Queen of Navarre and her son young Henry. There is a conspiracy—and this Dimanche is one of those who will carry it out—to ride to Pau in Navarre, where the Queen is at this time with her son, to kidnap them and bring them here to Spain … to … the Inquisition.”

  Isabella could not speak. The memories were too vivid. She was back in that hideous square; she was watching the shambling figures in their yellow robes. Their faces had been indistinct; perhaps she had not had the courage to look at their faces; perhaps she did not want those to haunt her all the days of her life. But now there would be faces … the faces of the Queen of Navarre—dear Aunt Jeanne—and little Henry, the rough young Béarnais of whom, in spite of his crudeness, they had all been so fond.

  A plot had been discovered through this accide
nt to one of the conspirators, a plot to take honest, noble Jeanne and torture her and burn her alive—and perhaps her little son with her. And Fate had brought this to the knowledge of the Queen of Spain.

  “Highness,” cried Clermont, “what shall we do? What can we do?”

  Isabella did not speak. She could only hear the chanting voices, taking the terrible Oath; she saw the man beside her—the man she had married—his eyes aflame, his sword in his hand, swearing to serve the Inquisition, to torture and murder—yes, murder—Jeanne of Navarre because she was a heretic.

  At length her voice sounded in her ears, firm and ringing, so that she did not recognize it. “It must not be.”

  “No!” cried Clermont excitedly. “No, your Highness. It must not be. But what can we do?”

  What could she do—she the little Queen, the petted darling? Could she go to Philip and beg him not to do this thing? It would be useless, for she would not be pleading with the indulgent husband; it was that man with the eyes of flame and the sword in his hand who had decided the fate of Jeanne of Navarre.

  It would be so easy to weep, to shudder, to try to forget. She had been her mother’s creature, now she was Philip’s.

  But she would not be. She was herself—Isabella, kinswoman of the noble Jeanne; for noble she was, heretic though she might be.

  So she said again: “It must not be.” And then: “It shall not be.”

  She was going to fight this evil. She was going to pit her wits against Philip, against the Inquisition. She did not care what happened to her. She was going to do everything in her power to save Jeanne.

  How?

  It was not impossible. The chief conspirator was for the time being a victim of his accident. It would, she gathered, be some days before he could set about his diabolical work.