The first part of this document contained a long and elaborated defence of Charles I’s action in summarily expelling the Queen’s attendants from the country, by which, the commissioners maintained, neither the letter nor the spirit of the marriage-treaty had been violated, since “the said persons had been sent back as offenders, who had by their ill-conduct disturbed, in the first place, the affairs of the kingdom, and, secondly, the domestic government of the house of his Majesty and of the Queen his dearly-loved consort, whereon depended the happiness of their lives.”
The Bishop of Mende and his priests (to whom the ambassador, M. de Blainville, had also lent his hand) had endeavoured, by their intrigues, to create factions and dissensions amongst the subjects of his Majesty, exciting fear and mistrust in the Protestants, encouraging the Roman Catholics, and even instigating the disaffected in Parliament against everything connected with the service of the King and the public tranquillity of the kingdom.
The Queen’s house they had converted into a rendezvous of Jesuits and fugitives, and a place of security for the persons, property, and papers of such as had violated our laws.
By subtle means they discovered what was passing in private between the King and Queen, and laboured to create in the gentle mind of the Queen a repugnance to all his Majesty desired or ordered, even to what he did for the honour of his dignity, and avowedly fomented discords between their Majesties, as a thing essential to the welfare of their Church.
They had endeavoured by all means to inspire her with a contempt for our nation and a dislike of our usages, and had made her neglect the English language, as if she neither had, nor wished to have, any common interest among us, who desire nothing more than to promote the happiness of her Majesty.
They introduced, by means of the priests, strange orders and regulations, unheard of in times past, and disapproved by others of their profession.
They had subjected the person of the Queen to the rules of a, as it were, monastic obedience, in order to oblige her to do many base and servile acts, which were not only unworthy of the majesty of a queen, but also very dangerous to her health.[86] Witness what had befallen a person of distinction amongst her attendants, who had died therefrom, and declared at her death that they were the cause of it.
It is perhaps needful to explain that this poor lady died from the severities of the discipline inflicted upon herself, and not upon her royal mistress. The commissioners are not too luminous on this point.
Finally, as the crown of all these delinquencies, came the supposed pilgrimage to Tyburn, already referred to, which, said the commissioners, had exhausted the sorely-tried patience of the King and decided him to rid the country of her Majesty’s French attendants.
The latter part of the document dealt with the non-fulfilment of the engagements respecting the English Roman Catholics, which was defended on the ground of expediency, while it was contended that the article promising liberty of worship had been agreed to by the English commissioners, and accepted by the French, “simply as a matter of form to satisfy the Roman Catholic party of France and the Pope.”