The ladies are making their own maneuvers. We learn that Anne has taken the occasion to demand possession of Queen Catherine's jewels to compliment the new gowns she will be wearing on the trip. It is a sign of her confidence that she is not a concubine but the de facto queen. Catherine has tried to resist the devastating defeat but she is entirely out-gunned in the end.
Madame d'Alençon has a bit more success with her brother, Francis. He has ordered her to lead the ladies of his party to greet the English king's consort and her party. To most Catholic noble women Boleyn is spoken of as a whore. The force of their rejection comes not because she has captured the heart of a king. That kind of thing happened all the time without much notice. It was that she was succeeding in having one of their number set aside — a very dangerous precedent indeed.
Madame d'Alençon has fallen sick as an adept ambassador should in such a circumstance. It is her greeting and Anne will receive it as such. Instead Mme de Marguerite de Vendôme, a woman herself of some ill-repute, will welcome Anne.
...this king and suite, who will leave on Friday next, St. Francis' Day, and in order to avoid Rochester and other places, where the plague is raging and people are dying, will go straight from Grinuych (Greenwich) to Gravesend in his barge, and pass that night and the next day at the house of a gentleman of the neighbourhood. He will then embark on a ship of 150 tons called "La Mignone," which is very well fitted up and in good order, (plus que mignone'), and sail to a small island at the mouth of the Thames, where he will spend three days at the house of a gentleman of his chamber, named Chennet* From thence he will go by land to Canterbury, and then to Dover, there to embark in the said " Mignone," so as to reach Calais on the 15th instant.
However cold and indifferent the King's suite may seem to be about this journey to France, certain it is that the Lady who knows full well the wisdom of making hay while the sun shines, has not been idle in the mean time, procuring with the King's money a number of costly dresses, and various other things. Although all the Royal jewels were from the very beginning placed at her disposal, the King sent word the other day to the duke of Norfolk to try through a third person to get those belonging to the Queen, who, I am told, answered the gentleman bearer of the message, that on no account would she dare send her rings and jewels to the King, her husband, knowing, as she knew, that he had forbidden it on a previous occasion; and moreover that it would much distress her conscience were she to deliver up her jewels for so bad a purpose as that of decorating a woman who was a scandal to the whole of Christendom, and a cause of infamy to the King himself who dragged her after him to such an assembly. If, however, the King sent expressly for them, she was ready to obey him in this as well in other things. Such was the Queen's dignified answer, and yet though somewhat touched at the message received the King failed not to send a gentleman of his chamber to the Queen's chancellor and to one of her chamberlains with an order for the delivery of the said jewels, and with a letter of credence to herself from the King, stating his astonishment at her refusal when her sister the queen of France and several other [princesses] had done the same on similar occasions. Upon which the Queen, after graciously making her excuses for the refusal, sent him all the jewels she possessed, at which the King, as I have heard, was exceedingly pleased and happy.
...this king is anything but pleased at the announcement that his brother of France intends bringing with him as a counterpart for the Lady [Anne] his own sister, Madame d'Alençon, and that now it was rumoured that the latter being unwell and unable to attend, Mme de Vendosme would take her place, at which these people are by no means pleased, saying that whereas the latter lady has been at other times good company, she may now bring in her train disreputable people, as she did in old times, which would be a shame and an insult to the ladies of this country. In which rumour Your Majesty will easily discover the wilful blindness (laueuglemenf) and poor judgment of people who do not see the beam in their own eyes whilst they quickly find out the mote in those of others.
Source: Calendar Letters, Despatches, And State Papers, Relating to the Negotiations Between England and Spain, Vol. IV.—Part II. 253-4, 257.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
A History of the Tudor Parlor. October 8, 2022. "The parlour appears in the sixteenth century to have been a room the particular use of which was in a state of transition."
- Exploring Medieval and Tudor Stuffing. November 14, 2021. “The recipe gives an excellent description of how the hole to the cavity was closed.”
- Feast of St. Michael, September 29: Beginning of the English Year. September 29, 2019. "Those who have read my “Thousand Years of English Terms” may recall that the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels (a.k.a. “Michaelmas”), on September 29, marked the beginning to the English legal and business year."
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the English Renaissance Page: Letters for many letters from this fascinating time.
A History of the Tudor Parlor. October 8, 2022. "The parlour appears in the sixteenth century to have been a room the particular use of which was in a state of transition."
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