A Queen Twice Over: Mary Tudor the Elder Marries Francis I of France
- Thread starter FalconHonour
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When does the show return btw? Looking forward to them being back in Scotland
It is currently out in the States on Starz. I am waiting for the DVD, which I expect will probably be out round about Christmas...
Whenever the American strikes are over for the second half of Series 7.
Epilogue: Whitsun 1544
Fontainebleau, Whitsun 1544
Margot steps back into her father’s favourite palace and takes a deep breath. As the air hits her lungs, the memories crash over her. Unbidden, tears prick her eyes.
At the same time, however, her shoulders sink several inches in pleasure as she realises that nothing whatsoever has changed. Even the smell, that indescribable mix of beeswax, pungent spices and home is the same.
For a long moment, she has to fight the lump in her throat.
“Mamai?” Catarina, clever perceptive Catarina, senses her distress, and puts a gentle hand on her sleeve. Margot forces a smile for her young daughter’s sake. The journey from Lisbon and the ensuing separation from her siblings has been hard enough on the rising nine-year-old without watching her mother fall apart as soon as they get here.
“I’m all right, darling. Really,” she manages. Catarina doesn’t look convinced, but before Margot can say more, François is bustling along the corridor towards them, a round-shouldered eleven-year-old boy half-trotting in his wake.
“Margot! Margot! Oh, Margot, how good it is to see you!”
He pulls her into a bear hug, fierce enough to lift her off her feet.
“It’s been far too long, my darling sister,” he cries, and she laughs and pats his wiry shoulders until he puts her down again.
“I’m Queen of Portugal now, mon frere. I can’t come running every time you want to see me the way I did when we were children.”
“Of course not. But Lisabelle’s wedding has to be an exception, doesn’t it? After all, it’s not every day our baby sister gets married.”
“Which is exactly what I told Joao,” Margot arches an eyebrow, “But you know full well he only really agreed to let me come because it meant I could bring Catarina to meet her fiancé.”
She gestures behind her as she speaks and Catarina, primed for this moment since almost before she could walk, curtsies promptly.
The second daughter of Portugal is a slender wisp of a girl with rich black curls that almost drown her narrow, pointed face and piercing grey eyes. She is a solemn little thing, as unlike her lusty, laughing groom as it is possible to be. For a moment, François isn’t quite sure what to make of her, so he simply looks at her. Then, recovering himself, he offers Catarina a quick smile and waves Anne forward.
“Margot, Catarina, may I present my beloved eldest son, the Dauphin and Count of Montfort, Anne?”
“Enchante, Tante Marguerite,” Anne bows and kisses Margot’s hand, a roguish glint twinkling in his sapphire eyes, the eyes he has inherited from his mother.
“Margot, Anne,” Margot chuckles, reaching out to ruffle her nephew’s hair, “The family call me Margot, so I must be Tante Margot to you, and to your younger siblings.”
“Understood,” the boy nods quickly, almost carelessly and then looks beseechingly at his father, “Charles and the others are practising their riding in the tiltyard, Papa. May I go and join them?”
“Hold,” François warns indulgently, “Not so fast. You may have charmed your aunt, but it’s time you showed your future bride what a gentleman you can be. Escort Infanta Catarina to join your mother and sisters in the rose garden before you go riding.”
Displeasure clouds Anne’s sunny brow for the briefest of moments before his good manners reassert themselves, “Oui, Papa.”
He trots over to Catarina and whispers a word or two to her. Catarina hesitates and looks to Margot, who nods encouragingly. Thus bolstered, the little girl lets her older cousin pull her away.
Their parents watch them out of sight and then Margot tucks her arm through her younger brother’s.
“So, tell me,” she whispers confidingly, “Is Louise here or not? You’ve been very reticent on the matter in your letters.”
François sucks in his cheeks, “She is. As are Lord Lennox and their little boy. They wouldn’t be if it were up to me, but Lisabelle begged so hard to have her favourite sister at her wedding… I couldn’t say no. I even let her have Princess Isobel as one of her bridal attendants."
“Well, indeed. Can anyone say no to Lisabelle?” Margot laughs, before sobering. She shakes her head resignedly, “It’s been two years, François. You’re going to have to accept Louise’s choice eventually, you know.”
“Maman never remarried after Papa’s death. And I can’t imagine ever remarrying if I lost Renee,” François’s jaw juts mulishly, and Margot sighs. Why is her younger brother quite such a hopeless romantic at times? It really can be wearying.
“Maman wasn’t widowed at nineteen. And you’ve been lucky. Renee’s put her life on the line in childbirth five times already. But if you did ever lose her, she’d want you to give the children a mother. I know she would.”
With that, Margot decides they have talked of quite enough gloomy subjects for what is supposed to be a celebration and changes the subject before François can find a way to rebut her last statement.
“If Louise and Lord Lennox are here, please tell me King Alexander and Queen Eleanor aren’t? I really don’t want to have to deal with a family feud at our baby sister’s wedding.”
“King Alexander isn’t, nor is Queen Eleanor. It's the only reason I let Lisabelle choose Princess Isobel as one of her bridal attendants. I wouldn't have stirred the pot up that much if King Alexander were here. However, Lord and Lady Glamis both are, as is young Lord Ormonde. We had to have Georges’ family represented somehow, and Lady Lorraine can’t come, not after she miscarried again last month.”
“Poor thing,” Margot murmurs. She’s been lucky enough never to lose any of her own children before they were born, but she saw how Anna struggled with not being able to give Luis a child until Joao Nicolau was born. She wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone, least of all a girl ten years her junior.
Now it is François who makes a visible effort to cheer their conversation, “Come on, it’s high time you came and saw the bride. Just wait until you see her. She is the spitting image of Maman, I tell you. Apart from her eyes. She’s got Papa’s eyes, just in case you’d forgotten!”
“She is my sister too, you know!” Margot elbows François playfully and lets him pull her down the passageway to Lisabelle’s rooms, bonhomie restored.
The early summer sunshine streams through the windows of Fontainebleau’s chapel. The golden rays light upon Lisabelle’s coppery head and set it ablaze, making it look as though the sixteen-year-old is wearing a halo of fire as she approaches the altar, where Georges de Bourbon, the twenty-two-year-old Count of St Pol, awaits her. The young man glows in a doublet of soft grey brocade, patterns picked out in the gold of St Pol.
Lisabelle, meanwhile, wears a gown of peacock-blue silk patterned with white roses and fleur-de-lys. It is in fact, the very same gown her mother wore to greet her brother at the Field of Cloth of Gold over two decades ago, reworked and reshaped to reflect the current fashions and Lisabelle’s paternal heritage.
François is proud as punch as he walks his youngest sibling down the aisle, and, as she watches on, Margot realises that her brother was right. Wearing that gown, Lisabelle truly is the spitting image of the mother from her earliest memories.
Fighting back the tears, she tears her eyes from Lisabelle so they don’t spill over and lets her eyes wander over the rest of her siblings – or at least, those that are present.
Renee is in the front row, her four eldest children, Anne, Charles, Marie and Renee, clustered around her. At only eight months old, the youngest, little Louise-Marguerite, has been deemed too young for this great occasion and left behind in the nursery.
Margot’s own Catarina is tucked into the merry group, nestled safe between her two female cousins. Marie, the elder of the two, has a protective arm around the shy infanta’s waist.
Margot tries to catch Catarina’s eye, but the eight-year-old has her eyes fixed on the happy couple, no doubt imagining what it will be like when it is her turn to stand before the altar. In the end, Margot has to settle for locking eyes with Marie and sending her niece a quick smile of thanks.
Charly sits to Anne’s left, his new bride, Catherine of Navarre, tucked in close beside him. The young couple have only just returned from their own honeymoon, and, every now and then, they exchange soft glances that remind Margot of Maman and Papa, in those golden years before Henri and Edouard died and everything fell apart.
She sends up a quick prayer that Charly and Catherine will stay as happy as they clearly are, and then glances across the aisle to her younger sister.
Louise sits on the end of the aisle, Lord Lennox at her side. Louise’s shoulders are up defensively, and her fifteen-month-old son squirms furiously on her lap.
Margot clucks at the sight, pity and disapproval warring within her. Little James is far too young to be here. He’s bound to misbehave. All bored toddlers misbehave. Louise ought to have left him in the nursery with Louise-Marguerite, if only for Lisabelle’s sake. If she is honest with herself, however, Margot can understand why her younger sister brought her son to the ceremony. She’s trying to force François into acknowledging the existence of her second marriage, and so she should. Margot loves their eldest brother dearly, but even she can see his tendency to ignore what he doesn’t like is often more harmful than helpful. Just look at how he treats their half-siblings. Thank Goodness Maman bequeathed Magdalena her dowry as a nun. Even François couldn’t refuse to let her take the veil in those circumstances.
Louise senses Margot’s eyes on her and turns her head. Their gazes lock for a moment and Margot’s heart aches. Louise’s once bright eyes are dull, lit only by a smouldering ember of defiance. Still, the younger woman leans into Lord Lennox’s shoulder comfortably enough, so Margot tries not to worry as the moment is broken.
François, herself, Louise, Charly and Lisabelle. The only one missing, out of the surviving siblings, is Jean, and even he is doing well enough for himself, now that he has found his feet in Brazil. The autonomy of the position of Viceroy and being out from under their brother’s shadow, the shadow of his treason, has done him the world of good. He has married Françoise’s eldest daughter, Ana de Sousa, and he seems to relish being the older, protective husband. Admittedly, there are rumours that Jean also keeps a native mistress, with whom he has sired at least two bastards, but that’s hardly surprising, given Ana’s young age. Still, Margot hasn’t told François that particular news. Between their awful experiences with Madame de Valentinois and François’s own joyous union with Renee, her eldest brother can be quite a prude at times. There’s not a hope in hell that he’d understand their brother’s actions.
Still, compared to the lost little boy who broke down in Margot’s arms all those years ago, or to the cocksure teenager who betrayed François for the sake of his surrogate mother, there is no doubt that Jean has turned his life around. Margot is unbelievably proud of him.
The anthem dies away and François places Lisabelle’s hand in Georges’.
The Archbishop of Metz stands to begin the ceremony.
“Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we are gathered here today…”
All of a sudden, over His Eminence’s left shoulder, Margot catches sight of an inexplicable blur. One which, as she watches, seems to coalesce into two figures – a man and a woman. The man is rather taller than the woman, and darker. The figures are both smiling, and the woman leans her head on the man’s shoulder affectionately, just for a moment, before they fade out of sight.
The vision, if one can call it that, only lasts a moment, maybe two at the most, but it is enough to fill Margot with a great sense of peace. All at once she knows, simply knows, that, wherever they are in Heaven, her parents have found each other and made their peace. They have made their peace and they couldn’t be prouder of Margot and her surviving siblings.
They couldn’t be prouder of the legacy they created together.
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The end was Amazing!!! 🤩 Sad it’s ending but I’m gonna interduce my younger sister To alternate history and this will be the first one I show her. 😢 😊
Thank you both, that's very kind! And don't worry, there are still various family trees to come (I'm currently drawing up Francis and Marie's)
First of all, thank you so much for writing this story…it’s what made me learn about this site.
Did Anne die? And did something happen to the rest of the St Pols?
I’m guessing that Anne was with her daughter who just miscarried maybe? Though I do find it odd that she wouldn’t be here in her moment of triumph. As for the rest of the St. Pols, I have no clue
Ending with a beginning, very poetic.
Hope Margot writes down her vision cos that's a lovely thing for ITTL writers, poets, play-writes, and TV producers to include in their productions.
I know you are going to do the family trees, but is there an a possibility of an epilogue with 'ultimate fates' of our main players please?
Hope Margot writes down her vision cos that's a lovely thing for ITTL writers, poets, play-writes, and TV producers to include in their productions.
I know you are going to do the family trees, but is there an a possibility of an epilogue with 'ultimate fates' of our main players please?
No, no, but they're not talking about them, because they're in France, so they're taking their presence as read. I expect at least one of George's sisters was among Lisabelle's bridal attendants. They're only talking about the ones who'd be coming from abroad. I probably should have made that clearer. Sorry.
See above.
Thank you! I thought so too. And I make no promises, but I'll see what I can do re. an epilogue.
Thank you! I sort of had to give them something, after everything!
