VI: 1641-1653
The marriage of the Princess Royal with the son of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, on May 12, 1641, took place at an ominous time. Ten days later Strafford was executed. There can be little or no doubt, that the eagerness of the King and Queen for the accomplishment of this union was due to the desire to secure the goodwill of the Stadholder, and through him of the States, in the troublous times which they saw before them. It fulfilled two objects. It gave satisfaction to the Puritan party in England as being a Protestant alliance, and it was accompanied by secret assurances on the part of Frederick Henry of friendly support to the King in his coming conflict with his subjects. These assurances, we may well believe, were very guarded and strictly personal, for no one knew better than the Stadholder the limitations of his actual power. The following passage from a letter in the hand of Sommelsdijk, written March 5 in the name of the envoys to Frederick Henry, puts the matter very clearly:
'We have found so much frankness and affection on the part of the King and Queen for the furtherance of the marriage, that we have no fear in recommending your Highness to hasten the departure of Monseigneur the Prince your son, as much as possible, so as to put everything in security; for their Majesties have resolved to push forward without allowing themselves to be stopped by any machinations to the contrary from whatever part they come, and whatever they write to you, upon the good faith and confidence of Mr. de Heenvliet, remains secret without anything of it escaping either here or there, for fear lest the cognizance of it should come to the knowledge of the Parliament.'[46]
William returned to Holland at the end of May alone, leaving his child-bride for awhile in her parents' home. But the Grand Remonstrance, the impeachment of the five members, and other events now followed in rapid succession, and soon it was seen that the issues which divided King and Parliament admitted of no accommodation by peaceful means. Heenvliet, who was still in England, became the trusted confidant of the distracted King and Queen, and his letters to Frederick Henry at this time show how anxious Charles was to avoid a civil war, if by any concessions that did not utterly despoil him—'le dèpouiller tout-à-fait'—he could come to terms with the Parliament. In private interviews Henrietta Maria was urgent with Heenvliet to use his good offices, and many times expressed the hope that should matters come to an extremity 'the Prince would not allow the King to perish'. In reply the Stadholder impressed upon their Majesties not to have recourse to arms, for victory was uncertain. A reconciliation on whatever terms could not but be to the profit and advantage of the King. Unfortunately such advice was already too late to be of any avail (February, 1642).
At the beginning of March Henrietta Maria accompanied the Princess Royal to Holland. Her real object was to collect funds and to secure, if possible, the active assistance of the Prince of Orange. She was received with much distinction and magnificence, but her thoughts were not upon the shows of state. Letter upon letter passed from her to the Stadholder in his camp, begging him to help her in procuring supplies of money, arms, men, and munitions of war for her husband's service. She tried to borrow upon her jewels, but the Jews would give her nothing without the guarantee of the Prince. Lords Jermyn and Digby hurried backwards and forwards upon her confidential missions, and she had many interviews with Heenvliet, with whom she had become so intimate during his sojourn in London. What a picture of the feverish state of anxiety to which her troubles had brought the once gay and buoyant Henrietta Maria, is contained in a report of one of her conversations with him sent by Heenvliet to the Prince of Orange.
'I confess that this interview has troubled me not a little. The Queen did not speak to me on the subject without trembling, and she kept asking me so piteously, if there were not any hope that by any means your Highness could be persuaded to assist her, that I am still troubled at it.'
Frederick Henry did his very best to give all the help he could, both in his private and official capacity. He allowed the English officers serving in his army to return home and join the King's forces, where their services were of great value. He gave the guarantee she required for a loan upon the Crown jewels, he advanced a considerable sum of money out of his private purse, and he connived at arms and ammunition being secretly bought and sent to England from Dutch ports; but he was unable to promise any assistance from the States, nor indeed could he venture even to suggest it. The bulk of the Dutch people in the opening stages of the Civil War took the side of the Parliament, more especially the Hollanders. The Prince's influence could still command the support of a majority in the States-General, but he, like all the Stadholders of his House, had constantly to struggle with the opposition of the aristocratic burgher-regents of the towns of Holland, who controlled the States of that dominant province. Maurice had crushed by force in 1618 the attempt of Oldenbarneveldt to claim for each province of the Union independent sovereign rights, but the spirit of Oldenbarneveldt survived, and the Hollanders, conscious of the power of the purse that they possessed, were ready to thwart the plans and policy of the Stadholders, though these were supported by the other provinces, and indeed did thwart them by raising difficulties in the way of obtaining supplies. Frederick Henry, during the first decade of his Stadholderate, exercised a larger personal authority in the direction of the affairs of the Republic than any of his predecessors or successors. But during the last years of his life, prematurely worn out by constant campaigning, he had continually to confront the bitter opposition of the town corporations of Holland to that vigorous prosecution of the war that he desired. The Prince of Orange then was not his own master, and could not in face of the strong leanings of a large part of the population, in Holland particularly, towards the Parliamentary cause in the Civil War give effect to his own inclination to lend the King active support in his efforts to suppress rebellion by armed force.
Matters came to a crisis when, at the end of August, a special envoy from the Parliament, Walter Strickland, appeared at the Hague with instructions to protest against the dispatch of warlike stores to the King from Dutch ports, and the permitting of officers in the Dutch service to join his army. The Queen was highly indignant. The English resident ambassador, Boswell, at her bidding immediately presented himself before the States-General to protest and demand that Strickland should not be received or acknowledged. To the Prince she wrote, September 6, 1642, begging him to prevent such an affront being offered to the King, 'for assuredly', to quote her actual words, 'it would be so great, that he could never have any friendship with these States after this; and, God be thanked, he is not yet in such a state as to be despised.' But although the majority of the States-General were ready to refuse Strickland any audience, they were forced by the insistance of the States of Holland to make a compromise. They would not admit him to the assembly of the States-General, but they agreed to send two deputies to confer with him. The result was, again by the pressure of Holland, that the States-General declared for strict neutrality, and forbade the export to either side in the Civil War of arms or munitions of war. Despite this prohibition, by the connivance of the Stadholder, friends of the royal cause contrived to dispatch ammunition and other stores to Dunkirk, and from thence to ship it to England. Strickland, having heard of this, ventured to make a written complaint to the States-General of the Prince's conduct. Frederick Henry thereupon declared that such an aspersion was an insult to his person and demanded satisfaction. The States-General, May 7, 1643, declared thereupon the accusation of Strickland to be false, and broke off all relations with him.
Henrietta Maria had returned to England the previous February, never ceasing to the end her tireless efforts on her husband's behalf. Before leaving she had broached the project of a second alliance between the families, that of the Prince of Wales with the eldest daughter of the Stadholder. It was not a mere ephemeral project, for the following year a certain Dr. Goff, who had been chaplain to one of the English regiments in the Dutch service, was sent over by the Queen, with a letter in which she says 'from me you will only know that the King my lord has given me full and authentic powers to negotiate and to conclude the marriage of my son the Prince of Wales with Mademoiselle d'Orange.' With these powers Dr. Goff was entrusted. In his instructions were contained the onerous conditions, which must be the price paid for the honour of such a match. The States were to break with France unless the latter would consent to give armed assistance to the King, or in default of this to make peace with Spain, one of the conditions of such a peace being a promise of help to Charles. It is needless to say that the proposal was not acceptable, for the simple reason that Frederick Henry had no power to comply with the conditions, even if he had wished. The negotiations, however, went on all through 1645, although the desperate state of the King's affairs after the battle of Naseby rendered any successful issue impossible. Louise of Nassau became shortly afterwards the wife of the Great Elector.