Exemplray Renaissance Rulers

Exemplary Renaissance Rulers

Bianca Maria Visconti, Duchess of Milan, 1423 – 1468

Bianca was a very capable administrator of Milan in the absence of her husband, Francesco Sforza. He used to say he had more confidence in her than in his army. She was known for her “piety, compassion, charity and beauty of person,” but when she told her resident teacher, Filelfo, that “we have princes to educate, not merely scholars,” she meant also education in government and war.

Isabella, Queen of Castile, 1451 -- 1504

Isabella was the daughter of King John II of Castile, an intelligent and cultured man, who nevertheless allowed himself to be dominated by Alvaro de Luna. When he married, as his second wife, Isabella of Portugal, in 1450, things quickly changed. Isabella was more than independent, refusing to take advice, much less instructions, from Luna on even the slightest matter. In effect, she drove him from the court. The Isabella of whom we write, therefore came from very substantial parents. Her marriage with Ferdinand brought nearly all Spain under one government for the first time, under one of the most effective joint administrations in history. Because they were too closely related, Pope Paul II refused to issue the

1 papal bull needed to authorize the wedding, so Ferdinand and the Archbishop of Barcelona simply forged one. Although well-educated in literature and philosophy, Isabella preferred to associate with officials of the Church. Her support of the Church was so strong as to lead, unfortunately, to the reestablishment of the Inquisition and the expulsion of Islamic and Jewish persons from Spain, but she also donated generously to hospitals, convents and churches. In private she lived and dressed simply, but in public appeared in extravagance, which she considered a political necessity. She was involved in all important government affairs. When one of her former suitors, Alfonso, king of Portugal, invaded, Isabella personally oversaw the preparation of her troops. After the victory, she walked barefooted to church to offer thanksgiving. We remember Isabella today for her support of Columbus. When he first made his proposal to Isabella, in 1486, she referred it to a committee which rejected it. Twice Columbus tried again, was rejected and then began thinking of approaching France. At this point a baptized Jew, and finance minister to Ferdinand, scolded Isabella for being so shortsighted and offered to raise the money himself. Isabella was moved by his faith and pledged her crown jewels to defray the cost of the expedition. Finally, with a letter of introduction to the Khan of China, Columbus was ready to go. To the end, Isabella never quite appreciated the significance of Columbus’ discovery. Disappointed that he did not find more gold, she nevertheless gave him the title, “Admiral of the Ocean Sea.” Isabella died in 1504 after burying her mother and nearly all of her ten children. A contemporary, Peter Martyr, reflected, The world has lost its noblest ornament.... I know none of her sex, in ancient or modern times, who in my judgment is at all worthy to be named with this incomparable woman.

2 Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, 1480 -- 1530

The last Duke of Burgundy had no sons but hoped the marriage of his daughter Mary to Maximilian I, who had been reared in Burgundy, would protect his lands against France. Maximilian transferred the regency to his son and after the son’s premature death the regency fell to his sister, Margaret. Margaret proved to be a powerful influence in European politics, indeed it was much to her credit that her nephew, Charles V, and not François I, of France, became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Margaret began life by losing her mother at age two and at age four was married to the Dauphin of France, later Charles VIII, who was 14. Thus, her early education was designed to prepare her to be the Queen of France. At age 12, Margaret’s world changed again, for her husband divorced her to marry Anne of Brittany, for purposes of real estate. The proud 12 year-old, who had the Emperor Maximilian’s blood in her veins, refused to resign her title as Queen of France, so for nearly 2 years there were two queens of France! Maximilian, never a friend of France, was now furious and demanded that Margaret’s dowry be returned. The daughter of an emperor does not long remain single, however, and soon Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain offered their son, Don Juan, having also betrothed their daughter to Margaret’s brother, Philip. When Margaret sailed to Spain, the weather was bad and she feared for her life. Thus she dressed regally, in order that she should be properly dressed should her body wash ashore, and under her bracelet had the following lines engraved, Beneath this tomb the high-born Margaret’s laid, Who had two husbands and yet died a maid.

A great wedding ceremony took place in Madrid and once again Margaret looked forward to being a queen, now of Spain. But fate was just beginning to play its hand with Margaret. Six months after the wedding, Don Juan suddenly died. She returned to Germany and married Philibert of Savoy, but he soon died. Now twice a widow and once divorced, yet only 25, Margaret declared she would never again marry for political purposes. We can appreciate her frame of mind in the

3 motto she now took, “Death always destroys what is given to us,” and the poem she wrote at this time. Must I thus ever languish on? Must I, alas, thus die alone? Shall none my tears and anguish know? From childhood, I have suffered so! Too long it lasts -- this weary woe.

To her list of woes was now added the death of her beloved brother, Philip, who left her the Netherlands and his five children to rear. Now Henry VII of England wanted to marry her, she refused despite the pleas of her father. As regent of the Netherlands, Margaret now began an extensive political correspondence with her father, Maximilian I. In one interesting letter he confided in her his plan to buy the next papal election for himself, discovering that he could buy each cardinal’s vote for about two thousand ducats. He would become a priest and thus become both pope and emperor. In a nice father to daughter line he adds, then “after my death you will be obliged to worship me, of which I shall be extremely proud.” One more love came into Margaret’s life, but again there was no happy end to the story. On a trip to England she had once met a Charles Brandon, who became Lord Suffolk. They now came very close to marriage, with Henry VIII strongly in support. Her father was very much opposed, however, and in the end Margaret decided to end the relationship. It is possible that she was never interested in going so far as marriage, for in one of her letters to Henry VIII she explains, “Whereupon I answered hym that I hadde never hadde wylle so to do and that I was too muche unhappy in hosbondes, but he wolde nott believe me.” Margaret began to be more involved in continental politics, fighting for the succession of Charles V as emperor and personally formulating the Peace of Cambrai. She appeared ruthless only in the defense of the Church and was openly committed to “the extermination of the Lutherans.” When her niece Isabel died a Protestant, Margaret grieved, but nevertheless accepted her orphans to rear as her own children.

4 Margaret deserved a better life and certainly a worthy husband. She was a very cultured person, who supported the arts wherever she lived. The following sketch, written by her court historian, Jean Lemaire de Belges, gives us an opportunity to see what an exceptional person she really was. Besides feminine work of sewing and embroidery, she is excellently skilled in vocal and instrumental music, in painting and in rhetoric, in the French as well as the Spanish language; moreover, she likes erudite, wise men. She supports good minds, expert in many fields of knowledge; and frequently she reads noble books, of which she has a great number in her rich and ample library, concerning all manner of things worth knowing. Yet not content merely to read, she has taken pen in hand and described elegantly in prose as well as French verse her misfortunes and her admirable life.

Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, 1528 -- 1572

Jeanne, the mother of Henry IV, was a direct descendant of Saint Louis. She reared her son under severe discipline and taught him to be sincere, fair and compassionate. She herself exhibited a strong character at a very young age. François I desired that she should marry the Duke of Cleves, but the 12 year-old Jeanne refused. Her mother, ever loyal to her brother, François, ordered her governess to beat Jeanne until she consented. After several beatings, Jeanne still refused and issued a signed document indicating that she would not recognize the marriage even if she were forced to go through with it. The wedding was arranged, Jeanne had to be carried into the church and immediately after the service fled to her parents. Events brought out her strong character again when Pope Paul IV gave her territory, Navarre, to Philip II of Spain. She fought back by becoming one of the great champions of Protestantism, while her weak husband preferred to follow the commands of the Church and applied for an annulment and prepared to deprive his wife of her possessions. He died before this could be done and Jeanne became absolute monarch, declaring Calvinism the official religion of Navarre.

5 Now she became nearly as despotic as her Catholic enemies, fervent in her religion to the point of intolerance, confiscating church property and destroying altars. Catholic clergymen were replaced with Huguenot ministers. She said, “she would not go to Mass if they killed her; she would sooner throw her son and her kingdom into the sea than yield.” Pope Pius IV excommunicated her. She became so powerful a symbol as a leader of the Huguenot movement in France that Catherine de Medicis proposed the marriage of her daughter to Jeanne’s son, Henry. Jeanne suspected an ambush and went in advance to Paris to survey the girl and the situation. Arriving in Paris, she was scandalized by the debauchery at court. She wrote to her son, Henry, Your betrothed is beautiful, very circumspect and graceful, but brought up in the worst company that ever existed (for I do not see a single one who is not infected by it).... I would not for anything have you come here to live; this is why I desire you to marry and withdraw yourself and your wife from this corruption which (as bad as I supposed it to be) I find still worse than I thought. Here, it is not the men who invite the women, but the women who invite the men.

Jeanne suspected Catherine to be capable of any evil and her suspicions were justified when she suddenly died, causing the Huguenots to believe she had been poisoned. A few hours before her agony, Jeanne dictated the provisions of her will. She recommended her son to remain faithful to the religion in which she had reared him, never to permit himself to be lured by voluptuousness and corruption, and to banish atheists, flatterers, and libertines.... She begged him to take his sister, Catherine, under his protection and to be, after God, her father. “I forbid my son ever to use severity towards his sister; I wish, to the contrary, that he treat her with gentleness and kindness; and that -- above all -- he have her brought up in Béarn, and that she shall never leave there until she is old enough to be married to a prince of her own rank and religion, whose morals shall be such that the spouses may live happily together in a good and holy marriage,”

She was remembered by one, as, A princess with nothing of a woman but sex -- with a soul full of everything manly, a mind fit to cope with affairs of moment, and a heart invincible in adversity.