Louise of Savoy’s spies soon informed her that Mary and Suffolk were in constant communication with each other, and she was even informed that the duke had been seen leaving her apartment at questionable hours. Seizing a favourable opportunity when she knew the lovers to be together, the duchess threw open the door of the queen’s closet and, it seems, discovered Her Majesty and her lover in so compromising a situation, that “she ordered the startled couple into the chapel and then and there had them married by a priest who chanced to be saying Mass.” When Francis heard the wedding was well over, he did all in his power to propitiate his “dearly beloved brother Henry VIII.” He was not very successful, however, and Mary and her husband had to spend some weeks of terrible suspense, during which an astounding correspondence was kept up between them, Henry VIII, and Wolsey,[32] one of Mary’s staunchest friends, who consistently took her part. Most of Suffolk’s letters are undated, and written in an almost illegible hand. Their tone is honest enough, but he takes good care not to allude to the fact that he had two wives living. In one missive, of a particularly confidential sort, he expresses fear that this royal marriage may ruin him; and adds: “My Lord, as the reverence of God, help that I may be married as I go out of France openly for many things of which I will advertise you.” The queen’s handwriting in her numerous letters to her brother and to the cardinal varies much, apparently according to the state of her nerves. In some of them her hand has evidently trembled, so as to render her calligraphy almost illegible, and this is notably the case in a document which settled her business to her own satisfaction and most certainly to that of her greedy brother. As we have seen, King Louis had been very lavish with gifts of gold and silver plate, and above all jewelry, including even the celebrated “Star of Naples” (_Stella di Napoli_),[33] a diamond of abnormal size and brilliance, which Charles VIII had filched from Ferrante of Naples, when he paid his unwelcome visit to Italy in 1498. These glittering baubles, valued in those days at the enormous sum of £200,000, equal to over £1,000,000 of present currency, together with her rich dower, Mary freely handed over to Henry VIII, on condition that he recognized her marriage with her worthless, though handsome, husband and forgave them both. The deed of gift[34] whereby the queen yields up all her treasures to Henry VIII, is preserved in the _Cottonían Collection_ in the King’s Library of the British Museum. When Francis I learnt that she had parted with the “Star of Naples” he waxed exceeding wroth and attempted to repossess himself of it. If Duchess Louise, who at this time ruled her son, had not been in such a hurry to get rid of the queen dowager, this affair of the Neapolitan diamond might have cost Mary dear. Out of France, however, it was necessary that she should go,