Henrietta Maria

by Henrietta Haynes

Such words no woman of spirit, much less a Princess of one of the greatest houses of Europe, could tamely suffer; but the young Queen, though in a white heat of passion, seems to have kept her temper admirably. Calmly and contemptuously she wondered that the Duke undertook such a commission as he was fulfilling. As for her position, only one thing could make her unworthy of it, and that she was too well-born to think of doing. Nor was she to be frightened by his threat with regard to her servants. They would be retained, she felt sure, not for love of her, but on account of the pledge given to her brother the King of France. As for asking pardon, she could not do so for a fault she had never committed. Her conduct had been open and public, and all around her had praised rather than blamed her. No, she added, she would not ask pardon, unless at the express command of the King. Buckingham, whose loquacity for once found nothing to reply, returned to the King, who, it appears, must, on reflection, have appreciated in some degree the sorry part he had played, for no apology was exacted, and the matter was quietly allowed to drop. As for the poor young Queen, she was so overcome by chagrin and misery that she kept her bed, where she was visited by Blainville, who thought to cheer her by lending her some letters which he had recently received from Father Bérulle.

The Ambassador felt that it was time to be gone. He had borne annoyances, such as the interception of his letters, and insults, such as the continued persecution of the Catholics, but this treatment offered to the sister of his royal master was the last straw. The English, on their side, were only too glad to get rid of him, for they considered that he meddled unduly in private matters between the King and Queen. It is even said that he was forbidden the Court. But still, he was not to depart without a final brush with the enemy, for on Sunday, February 26th, a number of English Catholics who, following their usual but quite illegal practice, had come to hear Mass at the French Ambassador's chapel in Durham House in the Strand, were unpleasantly surprised as they came out after the service to find waiting for them at the door the officers of the King. A free fight followed, which was only stopped by the appearance and authority of the Bishop of Durham. Blainville, who in his irritated condition was not likely to reflect that Charles, after all, was within his legal rights, was roused to fury at what he considered a violation of the majesty of France. "I wish," he said vindictively, "I wish that my servants had killed the King's officer."

Thus angrily he departed from the country to bear to France the tidings of his ill-success.

After this matters went from bad to worse. Henrietta tried to please her husband, but she always found herself in the wrong, as when, for instance, she attempted to conciliate him by appointing to the offices created by a grant to her of houses and lands a preponderance of English Protestants. She found that her submission was entirely thrown away, because, injudiciously indeed, she had appointed to the office of Controller, which was only honorary, the Bishop of Mende. She was curtly informed that the post was required for the Earl of Carlisle, who was particularly odious to her on account of the indecent zeal which had prompted him within a few months of signing her marriage contract to urge the persecution of the Catholics. Goaded by such treatment, she claimed, with some warmth, the right to appoint her servants, and thus another cause of dispute arose between her and her husband, whose unkindness even extended to keeping her so short of money that she was reduced to borrowing from her own servants.[46]

So the summer of 1626 wore on amid misunderstandings and recriminations until, in the month of June,[47] an event occurred which probably precipitated the inevitable crisis.

One afternoon the Queen and her principal attendants, among whom the courtly figure of her Grand Almoner was conspicuous, were walking in that which even then was known as Hyde Park. In their walk they turned aside, and, to the astonishment of those of the public who observed their movements, were seen directing their steps towards Tyburn, the place of public execution, which was near the present site of the Marble Arch. Arrived at this ill-omened spot, the royal lady and her suite fell upon their knees as upon holy ground, and so, indeed, in their eyes it was, for was not this spot, wet with the blood of malefactors, watered also by the blood of those whom a tyrannical and heretical Government had slain for the crime of confessing the true faith? The airing of the Court had become a pilgrimage to the unsightly shrine of the English martyrs.

It was an act of amazing imprudence such as would only have suggested itself to a man who, like the Bishop of Mende, never summoned discretion to his council but to eject it ignominiously. It is impossible to say how far the deed was of premeditation, but it is not unlikely that it was arranged by the Grand Almoner to give a demonstration to Protestants and to pro-Spanish Catholics of the devotion of a French Princess. It was even reported that the stern ecclesiastic had required the pilgrims—Henrietta included—to walk barefoot; but this, no doubt, was a sectarian exaggeration. Apart from such extravagances, that which had been done was in the eyes of the King—and not without justice—unpardonable. Not only had his wife, the Queen of England, been placed in an undignified position by those who had permitted her to appear among the memorials of misery and crime, but a direct and most bitter insult had been offered to him, to his father, and to the great Queen on whose throne he sat. The Catholics who laid down their lives at Tyburn with a courage which forced the reluctant admiration even of their enemies, were indeed, from one point of view, martyrs of the purest type. From another, and that Charles', they were traitors executed for the crime of treason in the highest degree. "Neither Queen Elizabeth nor I ever put a man to death for religion," James had said on one occasion. This doctrine was one which, in its nice distinctions, a foreigner and a Catholic could hardly be expected to grasp, yet the hard fact remained that these victims of Tyburn, however innocent, suffered under the laws of the land and under the authority of the Crown.

Charles was wounded in his most sensitive feelings, and it speaks something for his forbearance that, as far as is known, he recognized the innocence of his girl-wife, and reserved his wrath for her advisers, particularly for the Bishop of Mende. "This action," he is reputed to have said, "can have no greater invective made against it than the bare relation. Were there nothing more than this I would presently remove these French from about my wife."

Their removal was indeed, as Charles had perceived eight months earlier, the only solution of the difficulty, and to it events were now rapidly tending. It was necessary to cajole the French Court. Buckingham, even before the departure of Blainville, had made fresh overtures to Henrietta, which the astute Ambassador had advised her to reject. After the failure of this ruse the adroit Walter Montagu was dispatched to Paris to speak fair words to Mary de' Medici, and so well did he succeed that cordial letters were interchanged between the Duke and the Queen-Mother, even while, at the same time, the young diplomatist was able to carry out the more secret task which had been confided to him, which was nothing less than to discover whether the state of French domestic politics was such as to make it safe for the King of England to offer to the King of France so grave an insult as the expulsion of his sister's household. Montagu's report was encouraging. Owing to the great favour with which both Queen Anne and Madame de Chevreuse regarded him, he was able to pick up a good deal of information which would have escaped an ordinary envoy; he was thus, no doubt, able to trace in the ramifications of Chalais' plot, which at this time was agitating the French Court, and in which both the above-named ladies, as well as Henrietta's younger brother Gaston, were implicated, not only the general hatred of Richelieu, but even a positive desire on the part of some to see the Cardinal humiliated by such an affront to his policy as would be involved in the violation of the Queen of England's marriage treaty. And with such discontent at home, what vengeance could be taken? "The cards here," wrote Montagu in great glee, "are all mixed up, and Monsieur [Gaston of Orleans] is on the point of leaving the Court."

Charles' decision was taken, and when his mind was made up it was not easy to turn him from his purpose. He knew, also, that he had the feeling of the Court and the people with him. English insularity could not brook the permanent presence of a large body of foreigners in so prominent a position, and English Protestantism took alarm at a royal establishment avowedly Catholic, which was considered "a rendezvous for Jesuits and fugitives,"[48] and whose ecclesiastical head was believed to hold special powers from the Pope, and to be "a most dangerous instrument to work his ends here."[49] At the Court feeling ran equally high. Buckingham's intentions and hopes have been sufficiently indicated, and there were others who, in a measure, shared them. Carlisle, whose anti-Catholic bitterness had been conspicuous throughout, and who had cynically remarked that the religious concessions made at the time of the marriage were only a blind to satisfy the Pope, and that the King of France had never expected them to be kept, was statesman enough to appreciate the real objections to the position in which he had helped to place Charles. There were endless broils at Court between the two nations, particularly among the ladies. Altogether Charles, taking into consideration the satisfactory disturbances across the Channel, was well justified, from the point of view of expediency, in choosing this moment to carry out that which had become—even setting aside the desires and influence of Buckingham—the wish of his heart. He was a man of monopolies, and he believed—and believed with justice—that the French stood between him and his bride.