Political rivals?
After the fall of Montmorency Anne’s position as unofficial adviser became so unshakeable, as we have seen, that ambassadors describe her as all-powerful. Diane’s power was in no way comparable to Anne’s while they resided at court together, and this fact alone means that it makes no sense to seek the origins of court factionalism in a rivalry between the two women.
As the mistress of the dauphin, Diane did not have the credit to challenge Anne, the most important female political figure at court, even had she been inclined to do so.David Potter and Francis Nawrocki explain that during the period of Anne’s maximum influence, factionalism was relatively weak in the sense that central political figures did not rise and fall in rapid succession, as they had earlier, and that policy was reasonably coherent. Potter writes:
Although the political division remained evident during the final years of the reign of Franpois I, compared to the 1530s, the court was quite stable from 1540 to 1547. This stability was partly the result of the influence of the Duchess of Etampes on the choice of royal favorites and political strategies.[560]
But even during these years of political stability, factional conflict continued, and, in these disputes between factions, Anne and Diane found themselves by virtue of their relationships to the king and the dauphin in an adversarial position. However, nothing suggests that they were rivals for personal supremacy and certainly not personal rivals motivated by jealousy of each other.
To make the case, it will be useful to examine the factions more closely. The first decade of Franpois I’s reign, which began in 1515, was relatively intrigue free, but divisions began to appear after 1526, one long-term rivalry forming between “two of the king’s favourites: Anne de Montmorency and Admiral Philippe Chabot de Brion.”[561] This rivalry was embedded within, or entwined with, a more general one centered around, on the one hand, Montmorency and Charles V’s proxy, Queen Eleanor, representing a group favorable to Charles V, and, on the other, Chabot, Marguerite of Navarre, and, eventually, Anne, representing a group who mistrusted the emperor.
Although the king held Charles V in enmity throughout much of his reign, he fluctuated on how to handle the emperor, and, for this reason, membership in the factions was very fluid, shifting as individuals calculated which side was likely to be more useful them at any given time.[562] [563] But if the membership and immediate goals of the factions were mobile, the division itself endured. Montmorency would be banished from court in about 1542 and Chabot would die in 1543, but the factions continued, centered in a new form around the king, Marguerite of Navarre, Anne, and the youngest prince, Charles Duke of Orleans, on the one hand, and, on other, the second dauphin, Henri, and his men.The factions are a frequent topic of ambassadorial correspondence. In June 1533, the Duke of Norfolk reports back to Henry VIII that Montmorency, then the king’s Grand Maιtre, supported all the “emperor’s affairs” and, in addition, was readier than any man in France to “serve and please the Queen [Eleanor].” Norfolk further notes that
in the Queen’s chamber there are two bands, of those who take the King’s or the Queen’s part, and they keep different sides of the chamber. The Dolphyn [Prince Franςois] and his mistress were upon the Queen’s side; with which the King was much displeased, and rebuked the Dolphyn very sore for being so much in the Queen’s company, considering that he knew she did not behave as she ought to his father,...'l9
Factionalism begins to center more clearly around Montmorency and Chabot as the king’s principal long-term grievance—the king wanted the emperor to restore the duchy of Milan to him—failed to find resolution. Montmorency’s conviction that peaceful negotiation with the emperor was the only possibility for achieving a positive result prevailed for some years. Indeed, Montmorency’s approach appeared to have vanquished Chabot’s in 1541, when the latter fell from grace and was arrested for financial malfeasance.
Knecht writes that an enquiry allegedly turned upmalpractices by his subordinates, and, in 1540, his own conduct came under scrutiny. Accused of corruption, he was tried by a special commission under [Chancellor] Poyet's chairmanship. In February 1541 Chabot was stripped of his offices, heavily fined, banished from court and imprisoned at Vincennes....
But Anne, who had reached a stage of major influence by then, intervened with Francois I on the admiral's behalf, turning the tables by convincing the king that Montmorency's policy regarding the emperor was ineffective. By March 1541 Chabot was reinstated. And yet, the Montmorency-Chabot fight persisted, perceived by ambassador Anthony Paget as a zero-sum game, as he explains to Henry VIII in a letter detailing his discussion of October 1542 with Chabot. Paget avers that because of his affection for the Admiral he was worried for him:
It is not unknowen (quod I) unto all the woorld, that this Courte is divided, for there is the Quene of Navarre, Mons' dOrleauns, Madame dEstampes, and you, and on thother syde the Quene, the Dolphin, the Constable [Montmorency], and all moost all the Cardinalles against youe; and as you be now before and they behinde, so they having nowe thadvauntage, which they have looked for a great while, if they gett before you ones, you shall not be able to overtake them again.[564]
Chabot acknowledged Paget's concern replying that he was aware of the troubles but adding that they went with the territory:
as for those that woold me and my freendes il, quod he, I trust we shall beware wel ynough of them. No man can serve in my place without many and great ennemyes, and yet men must serve, (quod he) and abyde the aventure; wherof, if a man meane well, thende can not but be good, whatsoever fortune in the meane season.[565]
Anne, then, was involved in this primary quarrel, but she was not a faction leader; and there is no sign of Diane. However, the dauphin, who appears to become very attached to Montmorency around 1536 because of their joint military successes, starts to be mentioned in reports on factionalism in the early 1540s, and Diane begins to be referenced along with him.[566] In September 1541 William Howard reports to Henry VIII that the dauphin “has no great affection to the Admiral [Chabot], because of his familiarity with Madame de Estampes, ‘which the Dolphyn favoureth in no wise.’”[567] Dandino too mentions the bad blood between Anne and the dauphin, looping in Diane and Montmorency when he remarks that same year that “the dauphin dares not offend Diane, his lady, who is related to the connetable,” and that “Anne helps as much as she can, and with skill behaves wisely, but everyone knows that the connetable hates her and that she hates the connetable her enemy, as much because of the facts of the matter as because he has the king’s heart.”[568]
An anecdote, related by Adrien Thierry in his biography of Diane, details a dispute involving Anne and Diane that played out in 1544.[569] According to Ferrarese ambassador Giulio Alvarotto Franpois I sent Diane from the royal court.
Although initially the ambassador did not know why, a few days later he claims to have learned from a reliable source that the dauphin, who was away fighting on the front in Boulogne, had written to the king passing along a request that Claude d’Annebaut, admiral following Chabot’s death, be removed from his position. The king and Anne, according to Alvarotto, believed that Diane had been behind the request, hoping to have Montmorency sent to replace Annebaut. Alvarotto concludes the letter by observing that “the king and Anne were saying terrible things about [Diane]. Also, the king chased her from court, either on his own, or at the demand of Madame d’Etampes, great friend of [Annebaut].” When the dauphin returned, he demanded that Diane be allowed to return, and he departed the court for Diane’s chateau Anet when the king refused.[570]The Peace ofCrepy, which ended hostilities with the emperor on 18 September 1544, also intensified the bad blood between the king and the dauphin and therefore between Anne and the dauphin, and, presumably, Diane.[571] The treaty, which contained a marriage agreement between the king’s younger son Charles and a niece of the emperor, brought hope of regaining Milan. Prince Charles was to choose between Charles V’s daughter Mary with the Netherlands and Franche- Comte as a dowry and the emperor’s niece Anna, who would bring Milan. Henri, thinking ahead to his own reign, opposed the treaty because it would make his brother too powerful and lead therefore to instability.[572] At Fontainebleau in December Henri signed a protestation against the ratification of the treaty.[573] Anne and Marguerite of Navarre favored the treaty.[574]