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wrote again a few days later pressing them to send the quails “which the Queen greatly desireth. Her Grace is great with child. 38 The procurement of quails for the pregnant queen became a matter of some urgency and is discussed in several subsequent letters. The quails were finally supplied and enjoyed and the gift helped Lady Lisle’s daughter, Anne, secure a position as one of Queen Jane’s ladies-in-waiting.
    Unfortunately, anecdotes of queens happily enjoying their pregnancies are few whereas the historical record is filled with accounts of queens desperately attempting to become pregnant. Of the many queens who have left historical traces of their own pregnancy wishes, Catherine de Médicis’ fertility crisis was perhaps the most publicly enacted. Catherine de Médicis of Italy became a queen of France—first a consort and then a ruling queen mother—as a result of a politically volatile arranged marriage. Born into the powerful Médicis family of Florence and orphaned at infancy, Catherine was left under the protection of a series of Renaissance popes and cardinals. When Catherine was 12 years old, she was betrothed to the Duke of Orléans, who would later become King Henri II of France. The wedding took place when both Catherine and Henri were only 14, but not too young to be expected to take their procreative responsibilities seriously. According to Antonio Sacco’s dispatch to the Italian government, on their wedding night Catherine’s eager father-in-law, François I, observed the young couple in their matrimonial bed; he “wished to watch them jousting” and then emerged from the chamber to announce proudly that “each of them jousted valiantly.” 39 This anecdote does not confirm consummation, though it is an indication of the carefully scrutinized and public nature of royal marriages.
    In spite of this ostensibly auspicious beginning, the couple was childless for the first decade of their marriage. When Henri was in his late teens, he began an affair with Diane de Poitiers, a widow 19 years his senior, and coincidentally, Catherine’s distant cousin. Their relationship lasted until Henri’s death and rendered Diane a significant political and personal influence throughout Henri’s reign. The liaison was conducted openly and signaled proudly by their official imagery: as Sheila Ffolliott explains, “The borders between what was his/ hers/theirs were deliberately blurred. He wore ‘her’ colors. The polyvalence of symbols used by both permitted each to display a crescent in his/her device... Iconographically speaking, wherever Henri went, Diane was sure to go.” 40 Given the intensity of Henri and Diane’s affair, Catherine’s childless state may not have been entirely surprising; however, the court grew increasingly worried when the Dauphin Francois died in August 1536, leaving Henri heir to the throne.
    The pressure for Catherine to bear a child now became greater than ever. Initially, there was consensus that any infertility was Catherine’s fault. Indeed, Henri performed a deliberate and public show of his own virility: upon his return from a military campaign in Italy, he claimed to have fathered a child with one Filippa Ducci, the daughter of one of his groomsmen. Henri proudly legitimized this daughter, placing her under the tutelage of his mistress and symbolically naming the child Diane of France. The child’s mother was given a pension and spent the rest of her life in a convent. 41
    As anxiety about the lack of an heir increased, rumors emerged that Catherine could be replaced. Lorenzo Contarini, the Venetian ambassador to the French court in 1551, recounted a story that is in turn reported without question by most of Catherine’s biographers. According to Contarini, François and Henri were both contemplating the divorce, so Catherine proactively appealed for the king’s sympathy by offering to step aside. François was said to be so impressed by Catherine’s submissive offer