Navarre

“ Now this young lord, who was fifteen years of age, was so handsome and so fully endowed with every excellent grace that he seemed to have been made solely to be loved and admired, as he was indeed by all who saw him, and above all by a lady who dwelt in the town of Pampeluna (2) in Navarre. She was married to a very rich man, with whom she lived in all virtue, inasmuch that, although her husband was nearly fifty years old and she was only three and twenty, she dressed so plainly that she had more the appearance of a widow than of a married woman. ”

“ Henry had inherited his father's fears lest the King of Navarre should marry his only daughter to the heir of Spain. It seemed so natural a match, and one that would set so old a feud at rest, that the King of France did not feel himself secure till Jeanne of Navarre was given to a husband of his choice. France, not Spain, must acquire Navarre; it was too dangerous an outpost to yield to the enemy. ”

“ The States of Navarre had previously taken the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand as their King, and on the 15th of June 1515, Navarre was incorporated into the kingdom of Castile by the solemn act of the Cortès. The dominions of John d'Albret and Catherine were now reduced to the little territory of Bearn, but they still retained the title of sovereigns of Navarre." Six years later, in 1521, the French invaded Navarre and overran the whole kingdom. "Pampeluna alone, animated by the courage of Ignatius Loyola, made a short resistance. To this siege, the world owes the Order of the Jesuits. ”

“ Taking the Count by the arm, he conducted him through the submissive crowd, into a retired walk in Marcel’s garden, which was feebly enlightened by the moon. The King of Navarre told him they were now equal, as he had returned him the obligation he owed him—life for life; he must instantly decide, whether he would be his friend or victim. ”

“ Accordingly, the King of Navarre, followed by eight hundred gentlemen of his party, as well as by his cousin the Prince of Condé, and the admiral, made his solemn entry into the city, which so few of his adherents were to leave alive. Although still clad in mourning for the loss of the heroic Queen of Navarre, they bore no unfavorable comparison with the gay courtiers, who, with Anjou and Alençon at their head, came out to escort them into Paris with every mark of respect. ”

“ On her brother’s death, in 1483, she became Queen of Navarre, Duchess of Nemours and Countess of Foix and Bigorre, and in the following year espoused John, eldest son of Alan, Sire d’Albret. Catherine at this time was fourteen years old, and her husband, who by the marriage became King of Navarre, was only one year her senior. Their title to the crown was disputed by a dozen pretenders, for several years they exercised but a precarious authority, and eventually, in July 1512, Ferdinand the Catholic despatched the Duke of Alva to besiege Pamplona. ”

“ Foreign writers characterize the conquest of Navarre as a bold, unblushing usurpation, rendered more odious by the mask of religious hypocrisy. The national writers, on the other hand, have employed their pens industriously to vindicate it; some endeavoring to rake a good claim for Castile out of its ancient union with Navarre, almost as ancient, indeed, as the Moorish conquest. Others resort to considerations of expediency, relying on the mutual benefits of the connection to both kingdoms; arguments which prove little else than the weakness of the cause. ”

“ Meanwhile her bastard brother, finding that the daughter left in his charge had grown to be a tall maiden of perfect beauty, resolved to place her in some distant household where she would not be known, and by the mother’s advice she was given to Catherine, Queen of Navarre. (4) The maiden thus came to the age of twelve or thirteen years, and was so beautiful and virtuous that the Queen of Navarre had great friendship for her, and much desired to marry her to one of wealth and station. Being poor, however, she found no husband, though she had lovers enough and to spare. ”

“ It seemed natural to redeem it at Margaret's expense. In order to reassure the German princes, he offered his niece of Navarre in marriage to the Duke of Cleves, a Protestant at heart, and avowedly an enemy of the Emperor. "Flanders I can get at any time," said Francis, refusing to accept the Netherlands in lieu of Milan; and probably he thought it well to have a friend so near at hand. But the alliance, though good for France, would be disastrous to Navarre. It could do nothing for the poor confiscated little kingdom. It would secure neither France nor Spain. ”

“ The little kingdom of Navarre, embosomed within the Pyrenees, had often attracted the avarice of neighboring and more powerful states. But, since their selfish schemes operated as a mutual check upon each other, Navarre still continued to maintain her independence, when all the smaller states in the Peninsula had been absorbed in the gradually increasing dominion of Castile and Aragon. ”

“ France, in its great struggle, has now called upon its eighteen-year-old boys; but before sending them to the front, it is doing everything to make them fit for that hard life. And Navarre has been chosen as one of the men who develop those boyish bodies through careful and graduated physical exercises, something at which he had become an expert at Rheims and for which, with his patience, his love of the young, his passion for corporeal beauty, he is eminently fit. ”

“ Whilst the Queen of Navarre lay on her death-bed, a circumstance happened of so whimsical a nature that, though not of consequence to merit a place in the history, it may very well deserve to be related by me to you. Madame de Nevers, whose oddities you well know, attended the Cardinal de Bourbon, Madame de Guise, the Princesse de Conde, her sisters, and myself to the late Queen of Navarre’s apartments, whither we all went to pay those last duties which her rank and our nearness of blood demanded of us. ”

“ IN REMOTE NAVARRE NAVARRE is held to be one of the chief bulwarks of Clericalism in Spain, and so remote and isolated are its villages, so primitive its life and agriculture, so few its means of communication, that it might seem that no breath of modern times could have penetrated to this province. Lying on the frontier of France, it is defended from the inroads of civilization by its mountains and wide wastes of desert land. ”

“ It is to be presumed that the Queen of Navarre designedly changed the date of her story, and that the incidents referred to really occurred in Spain prior to Alfonso’s departure for Italy. There is no mention of Mary in her husband’s will, a remarkable document which is still extant. A letter written to her by Pope Calixtus II. shows that late in life the King was desirous of repudiating her to marry an Italian mistress named Lucretia Alania. ”

“ To make matters worse, Antoine of Navarre inclined more than ever toward the faith of Rome in the hope of conciliating Philip II of Spain. [367]
To a man less vain and gullible than Antoine of Bourbon such a proposition, upon its very face, as the restoration of Navarre, would have appeared to have been preposterous. Aside from the blow to its prestige which any loss of territory entails upon a nation, it is only necessary to look at the position of Spanish Navarre to perceive that Spain could better afford to lose a war abroad than to part with this key to the passes of the western Pyrenees. ”

“ The ancient kingdom of Navarre, which had once extended from the frontier of France to the banks of the Ebro, and of which Pampeluna had been the capital, shorn of its dimensions by Ferdinand the Catholic at the commencement of the sixteenth century, and incorporated with the Spanish monarchy, now consisted only of a portion of Lower Navarre, and the principality of Béarn, thus leaving to Henry little of sovereignty save the title. ”

“ Bad example, seduction, even force, each contributed its quota to the army of Cabrera. From the commencement, the war was of a very different nature in Navarre and in Arragon. Both chiefs and soldiers were of different origin, and fought for different ends. To Navarre repaired those men of worth and respectability who conscientiously upheld the rights of Don Carlos; the battalions were composed of peasants and artisans. In Arragon and Valencia, a few desperate and dissolute ruffians, such as Cabrera, Llangostera, Quilez, Pellicer, assembled under their orders the refuse of the jails. ”

“ Navarre (304) , one of the 49 provinces of Spain, comprising by far the greater portion of the old kingdom of Navarre, which lasted up to 1512, the other part of which now forms French Basses-Pyrénées; the Spanish province lies on the SW. border of France, is very varied in surface and climate; in the N. the people are chiefly Basques, and are much more energetic than the southern Spaniards; maize, wheat, and red wine are the chief products. ”

“ This lady became a widow when very young and beautiful, and on account of her being sensible and virtuous she was elected as lady of honour to the late Queen of Navarre. It was she who gave that fine advice to that lady and great princess, which is recorded in the hundred stories of the said Queen—the story of herself and a gentleman who had slipped into her bed during the night by a trap-door at the bedside, and who wished to enjoy her, but only obtained by it some fine scratches upon his handsome face. ”

“ A French army advanced against Alva, who recrossed the mountains without fighting and shut himself up in Pamplona. But, after two fierce assaults, the French in turn withdrew on the approach of Spanish reinforcements. The whole of Upper Navarre and the district of Ultrapuertos north of the mountains remained in Ferdinand's hands. In 1513 the Navarrese Cortes swore allegiance to him, and the French King abandoned his allies by concluding a truce. Navarre was incorporated with Castile (1515) ”

“ I do not consider it as a miracle, as the Queen of Navarre does in one of the Tales of her Heptameron (which is a marvellous pretty book of the kind) , nor for a thing of extreme difficulty to pass over whole nights, where a man has all the convenience and liberty he can desire, with a long-coveted mistress, and yet be just to his faith first given to satisfy himself with kisses and innocent embraces only, without pressing any further.”—Cotton’s “Montaigne’s Essays”, London, 1743, vol ii. ”

“ The conquest of Navarre, however necessary to the tranquillity of Spain, can be characterised in no other terms than as an act of unblushing rapacity; yet attempts have been made to justify it, and by writers who would not willingly be considered the advocates of a criminal abuse of power. ”

“ TRIBUNALS Navarre. After the conquest of Navarre, in 1512, a tribunal was established in Pampeluna, where it did not long remain. Then, for a short period it was transferred to Estella. In 1515 we find it in Tudela, where Ferdinand orders the Archdeacon of Almazan to visit it as it is in much need of reform and, soon afterwards, he asks for a delegation of episcopal power, as Tudela was only a deanery. It was quartered in the convent of San Francisco, to relieve which, in 1518, the Suprema ordered appropriate buildings to be obtained. ”

“ She died in August 1561, and was the mother of Francis I., Duke of Montpensier, sometimes called the Dauphin of Auvergne, who fought at Jarnac, Moncontour, Arques, and Ivry, against Henry of Navarre.—L., B. J. and Ed.
They, being by no means enamoured of melancholy, begged that she would tell them what it was.
“You know such a one,” she replied, “as worthy a gentleman as lives, and as bold. You are aware how many ill turns he has done me, and that, just when I loved him most, he fell in love with others, and so caused me more grief than I have ever suffered to be seen. ”

“ But here were the roots of the kingdom of Navarre, of Sobrarbe and Aragon. In the earliest times their most pressing foe was not the Arab or Berber so much as the Carolingian. It was at their hands that Charlemagne (q.v.) , while returning from his expedition to Saragossa, suffered that disaster to his rearguard at Roncesvalles which is more famous in poetry than important in history. With the aid of the Spanish Moslem Beni-Casi the Basques drove off the counts and wardens of the marches of the Carolingians. On the eastern extremity of the Pyrenees the Franks found no native free population. ”

“ The lack of prudence in Francis had proved serious not only to himself, but to his troops, ten thousand of whom fell, among them many distinguished [pg 185] nobles who preferred death to dishonor. Numbers of high rank were taken prisoners, among them the king of Navarre. In two weeks not a Frenchman remained in Italy. ”

“ "I asked her whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at her girdle. She told me she didn't, because none of them had had any hearts at all." ”

“ TALE LXVI. The Duke of Vendôme and the Princess of Navarre, whilst resting together one afternoon, were surprised by an old serving-woman, who took them for a prothonotary and a damsel between whom she suspected some affection ”

“ At this time there also arrived in Paris a merchant of Bayonne, called Bernard du Ha, who, both on account of the nature of his commerce and because the Lieutenant for Criminal Affairs (2) was a countryman of his, was wont to address himself to that officer for counsel and assistance in the transaction of his business. The Queen of Navarre’s secretary used also frequently to visit the Lieutenant as one who was a good servant to his master and mistress. ”