Last post {for now} from E-burgh.
Going all Renaissance Royalty on y'all again.
Or: Holyrood Abbey & Madeleine de Valois.
Going all Renaissance Royalty on y'all again.
Or: Holyrood Abbey & Madeleine de Valois.
As promised, more photos of
the gorgeous ruins of Holyrood Abbey.
It is literally built right next to the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
Like they share a wall.
But Holyrood Abbey is much older than the palace.
It was founded by King David I in 1128.
According to legend, he was hunting in
a forest nearby when he was thrown from his horse,
which had been startled by a hart
{that is a deer, mes américains}.
But the hart had a crucifix between its antlers, a 'Holy Rood.'
{Rood is the old word for crucifix}.
So in gratitude for having escaped the ordeal
without harm, Dave founded Holyrood Abbey.
In the late fifteenth century, James IV began building
the adjacent palace.
The Abbey was the site of coronations,
royal weddings, and royal burials.
My girl Margaret Tudor married James IV here in 1503.
She was also crowned Queen of Scotland here the following year.
Her daughter-in-law Marie de Guise was also crowned here, in 1540.
But there was another queen between
Margaret Tudor and Marie de Guise
{and I mentioned her at the Linlithgow fountain}.
Her remains lay in this vault.
She was Madeleine de Valois, The Forty Days' Queen. [1]
The eldest surviving daughter of my man François I of France. [2]
Her mother was Queen Claude de France.
This is a bizarre posthumous composite portrait of
Claude and her daughters that I just love. [3]
Madeleine was born in August of 1520.
And the most precious baby portrait by Jean Clouet survives.
{It was later mislabelled as "Charlotte,"
one of her sisters, in the 17th C.} [4]
She was a delicate, sickly child,
but the apple of her father's eye. [5]
Meanwhile in Scotland, James V was looking for a bride.
He was entitled to marry a French princess,
according to the Treaty of Rouen. [6]
He wanted Madeleine, but François repeatedly refused,
claiming that she couldn't survive in the Scottish climate. [7]
But when she finally met James on one of his visits to
France, when she was sixteen, it was love at first sight.
And she convinced her father to let them marry. [8]
The wedding was held on New Years' Day 1537,
on a public platform in front of Notre-Dame in Paris. [9]
You think Wills and Kate's wedding was a big deal?
James and Madeleine's was bigger.
There was scaffolding built for spectators,
the streets were hung with tapestries and cloth of gold,
and gold and silver coins were thrown into the audience.
The couple spent the winter in France.
In May, they sailed to Scotland. [10]
of her husband's country to show her love for him.
They settled at Holyroodhouse, but Madeleine
became sicker almost immediately. By this time she
had contracted tuberculosis.
Despite her illness, preparations went ahead for her formal entry
into Edinburgh and coronation. There were plans for processions,
pageants, and fountains flowing with wine in the streets.
In June, Madeleine wrote to France, asking her father to send pearls
and a rosary to go with her royal robe in preparation.
Less than a month later, on 7 July,
she died at Holyroodhouse, in her husband's arms.
Her funeral took place on this day, 10 July, 1537 at the Abbey.
The quire was decorated with heraldic arms, hung with black velvet,
and hundreds of candles and torches were lit.
A choir of over 200 chaplains sang.
She was buried in a magnificent tomb (since destroyed)
in this lost part of Holyrood Abbey.
James was later buried beside her.
Although he remarried another French princess, Marie de Guise,
less than a year later, they were married by proxy.
And the diamond ring he gave her cost a fraction of Madeleine's.
James also kept Madeleine's things.
In an inventory of Edinburgh Castle five years after her death,
her gowns of black velvet, crimson satin, violet damask,
and cloth of gold remained, as did gold cups given to her
by her father as wedding presents.
And a memory is all that is left for you now.
And the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings.
You're only sixteen/ oh you poor little thing.
"Never had two so [loyal] lovers, without dissimulance/
As James the Fifth and Magdalene of France."
~ Sir David Lindsay, Deploration of the Death of Queen Magdalene
1537
xx
[1] Atelier Corneille de Lyon, Madeleine de Valois, c. 1536-7. Versailles, Musée du Château.
[2] Jean Clouet, François I, 1530-5. Paris, Louvre.
[3] French School, Claude de France with her daughters, from Catherine de Medici’s Book of Hours, ca. 1530. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale.
[4] Jean Clouet, Madeleine de France, c. 1522. Private Collection, London.
[5] Jean Clouet, Madeleine de France, c. 1522. Chantilly, Musée Condé.
[6] British School, James V, c. 1540. The Royal Collection.
[7] Atelier Corneille de Lyon, Madeleine de Valois, c. 1536-7. Blois, Musée de Beaux-Arts.
[8] Corneille de Lyon, James V, c. 1536-7. Private Collection.
[9] Clouet School, Madeleine de Valois, c. 1536-7. Private Collection.
[10] Corneille de Lyon, Madeleine de Valois, c. 1536-7. Stolen in 1996 by the art thief Stéphane Breitwieser, and most likely destroyed after his arrest.
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