The day which followed Charles I’s ratification of the arrangement intended to secure his domestic peace was Lord Mayor’s Day, and it will doubtless be very gratifying to any member of the Corporation of London who may chance to peruse these pages to learn the respect in which that civic festival was held three centuries ago:—
“Monday, the 9th, which is the day of the election of the Mayor, I came in the morning to Somerset [House] to meet the Queen, who had come there to see him pass along the Thames, in the midst of a magnificent procession of boats, on his way to Voestminster [Westminster] to take the oath. Then the Queen dined, and afterwards placed herself in her coach and placed me at the same door with her.[90] The Duke of Bocquinguem, by her command, likewise placed himself in her coach and we went into the street of Schipsay [Cheapside] to see the pageant pass, which is the grandest which takes place at the reception of any official in the world. While waiting for it to pass, the Queen played primero with the duke, the Earl of Dorset and me. Then the duke took me to dine at the house of the new Mayor, who that day gave a dinner to more than eight hundred persons. Afterwards, the duke and the Earls of Montgomery and Holland, having brought me back to my house, I went to walk in the Morsfils.”[91]
Notwithstanding that the Queen had done Buckingham the honour to invite him to witness the Lord Mayor’s procession with her the previous day, her Majesty and the duke had not entirely made up their differences; for on the following day we learn that Carlisle came to see Bassompierre “in order to conclude the reconciliation” which the Ambassador succeeded in negotiating.
“On the 11th Bassompierre went with Holland and M. Harber, who had been Ambassador in France”[92] to dine with Lord Wimbledon at the manor from which he took his title, which the marshal thought a very fine house. Wimbledon’s sister-in-law, the Countess of Exeter, had come to assist in doing the honours to the distinguished guests, who were “magnificently entertained.”
Bassompierre’s belief that the Queen was satisfied with the arrangements that had been made in regard to her Household received a rude shock a day or two later, when a more stormy scene took place at Whitehall than had yet occurred.
“Thursday, the 12th.—I went to see the Stuart Earl of Pembroch[93] and the Secretary Convé, and, not finding them, repaired to the Queen’s apartments, to which the King came. They fell out with one another, and I afterwards with the Queen on this matter.”
Bassompierre, out of all patience at seeing Henrietta continue to play the vixen after her grievances had been redressed, told her his mind plainly, without caring for her rank:—
“I told her that I should next day take leave of the King and return to France, leaving the business unfinished, and should inform the King [Louis XIII] and the Queen her mother that it was all her fault. When I returned home, Père Sancy, to whom the Queen had written about our falling out, came to accommodate it, with such impertinences that I got very angry with him.”
This last sentence constitutes a full justification of Charles’s persistent demands, when Bassompierre first arrived in England, that Sancy should be sent back to France. It is evident that, although the Ambassador had doubtless kept his promise that this meddlesome ecclesiastic should not approach the Court nor even leave his house, the latter had all along been in correspondence with the Queen, had contributed to keep her mind in a most mischievous state of agitation, and now, just when everything seemed to have been settled satisfactorily, was pushing her to fresh demands, so unreasonable that even Bassompierre could not attempt to justify them. There can be no doubt that Sancy was acting under the instructions of the Queen-Mother and Bérulle, and had come to England with the express purpose of establishing secret relations with Henrietta; but it is not a little surprising to find the English Court so early and so well apprised of his mission as it appears to have been.