DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0147
THE KING’S LOVE AIT AIRS
111
amid a good deal of personal irritation. Margaret of
Angouleme, the wife that might have been, and Anne
Boleyn, the wife that was to be, retired with the rest into
private life.
If this had been the end, the consequences would not have
been of importance. But before King Francis reached home,
he had already had the news that Henry had met Charles V
at Wael, near Gravelines. There were no silken tents
and no ladies, but a great deal of business was done. The
results were not long in appearing. Charles, who did not
waste time, at once declared war against France on the
vexed questions of Milan and Navarre. It was not a fortu-
nate campaign for Francis. He lost both possessions with
disastrous rapidity (1521—2), and the calamity was aggra-
vated by his fears that Henry would descend upon Calais.
Amid all these doings Queen Claude was forgotten. She
counted for little, and nothing was asked of her except to
efface herself. She gave her fickle husband three sons and
two daughters, but the chief event in her blameless life was
her death, in 1524, during his absence in Italy. Her funeral
was as magnificent as if she had been the most courted and
dominant of sovereigns; and the neglected little Queen was
borne in state through Paris, its streets and squares hung
with crape and a wax taper before each house. Six bare-
headed “children of honour,” dressed in black velvet, rode
the horses that drew her hearse. Margaret and Louise
followed her on mares with black trappings; twenty-four
“criers” in mourning cried her name; and before her, in
scarlet robes, went the whole Court and the Parlement,
heralded by the First Usher in his hat of gold. These
111
amid a good deal of personal irritation. Margaret of
Angouleme, the wife that might have been, and Anne
Boleyn, the wife that was to be, retired with the rest into
private life.
If this had been the end, the consequences would not have
been of importance. But before King Francis reached home,
he had already had the news that Henry had met Charles V
at Wael, near Gravelines. There were no silken tents
and no ladies, but a great deal of business was done. The
results were not long in appearing. Charles, who did not
waste time, at once declared war against France on the
vexed questions of Milan and Navarre. It was not a fortu-
nate campaign for Francis. He lost both possessions with
disastrous rapidity (1521—2), and the calamity was aggra-
vated by his fears that Henry would descend upon Calais.
Amid all these doings Queen Claude was forgotten. She
counted for little, and nothing was asked of her except to
efface herself. She gave her fickle husband three sons and
two daughters, but the chief event in her blameless life was
her death, in 1524, during his absence in Italy. Her funeral
was as magnificent as if she had been the most courted and
dominant of sovereigns; and the neglected little Queen was
borne in state through Paris, its streets and squares hung
with crape and a wax taper before each house. Six bare-
headed “children of honour,” dressed in black velvet, rode
the horses that drew her hearse. Margaret and Louise
followed her on mares with black trappings; twenty-four
“criers” in mourning cried her name; and before her, in
scarlet robes, went the whole Court and the Parlement,
heralded by the First Usher in his hat of gold. These