A very girl Henrietta remained for several years after her marriage. Politics did not greatly interest her, and her trust in her husband was such that she turned aside from serious matters to employ herself in bright trifles, for, to the joye de vivre, which came to her from her father, she added a delight in all that was pretty, which recalls her descent from Florence and the Medici. She had, also, a taste for the grotesque which was common in her day, and she long kept at her Court a pugnacious dwarf, by name Geoffrey Hudson, who, later on, during the exile, caused her considerable embarrassment by killing a gentleman in a duel. There is ample evidence of her interest in dainty possessions and amusements. Now she is writing to Madame S. Georges for velvet petticoats from her Paris tailor, or "a dozen pairs of sweet chamois gloves and ... one of doe skin." Now she is receiving "rare and outlandish flowers," or asking her mother to send her fruit trees and plants for her gardens, whose "faire flowers" she so cherished as to merit the dedication by Parkinson the herbalist of his Paradisus Terrestris. Or, again, she is setting out with her lords and ladies to celebrate in good old English fashion the festival of May Day, and to witness all those pretty rights of country festivity over which the withering wind of the Civil War had not yet passed.
"Marke How each field turnsa street: each street a Parke Made green and trimm'd with trees: see how Devotion gives each house a Bough Or Branch: each Porch, each doore, ere this An Arke a Tabernacle is Made up of white thorn neatly enterwove As if here were those cooler shades of love."[85]
Nor was the Queen merely an idle spectator. No sooner did the first snowy May bush catch her eye than, with all the zest of a village maiden, she leaped from her fine coach, and breaking off a bough placed it merrily in her hat.
In all the revels of the Court Henrietta's was the moving spirit, but her sweetness of temper prevented her energy from degenerating into domineering. She was never really popular with the people at large, on account of her race and her religion, and there were murmurs now and then at Court about her undue preference for the Scotch. But that in her own circle she was tenderly loved there can be no doubt. Innocent,[86] yet so sprightly that she sometimes gave scandal without suspecting it; gay, yet with moments of sadness which only solitude could relieve; open and talkative, yet faithful to conceal secrets, "for a queen should be as a confessor, hearing all yet telling nothing"; sympathetic with sorrow, yet chaffing unmercifully the malades imaginaires of a luxurious Court; delicate in consideration for the feelings of the meanest of her servants, yet gifted with a caustic tongue used at times rather unsparingly. Such was Henrietta Maria, Queen of England.
But it is time to turn from the merely social and decorative aspect of Henrietta's married life to consider the interests and intrigues which, behind the brilliant show, were working and struggling.
One of the first questions which came up for settlement on the conclusion of peace between England and France in 1629 was that of the Queen's household, and the ambassador sent to London to arrange this matter turned out to be one of those fascinating but factious persons whom ill-fortune threw so often in Henrietta's path. To make things worse he found already in England another Frenchman more fascinating and more factious than himself, with whom he formed a close friendship. The Chevalier de Jars,[87] whose exile was the result of Anne of Austria's affection and of Richelieu's dislike, added to all his other charms a skill in the game of tennis, which commended him to the King of England, himself a proficient in the game.
Charles de l'Aubépine, Marquis of Chateauneuf, arrived in London in 1629. He was a finished gentleman, and he was able quickly to win the confidence of the Queen whose heart always turned kindly to those of her own nation. But the ambassador was not slow in discovering that instead of having to defend an ill-used and discontented wife, as perhaps he had expected, he must adapt his diplomacy to the requirements of a happy married couple. "I am not only the happiest princess, but the happiest woman in the world,"[88] said Henrietta to him triumphantly, while Charles was careful to show his affection for his beautiful wife by kissing her a hundred times in the course of an hour as Chateauneuf looked on. "You have not seen that in Piedmont," said the King, turning to his foreign guest, "nor," he added, sinking his voice to a discreet whisper, "in France either."
Such news was gratifying to Mary de' Medici's maternal affection, and Chateauneuf dwelt in his dispatches upon the kindness of the King, on the pretty gifts of jewellery which he gave to his wife, and on the general happiness of the royal marriage. But the real objects of his mission, despite the personal favour with which he was regarded, were not advanced, for Henrietta had now no wish to receive a French establishment such as she had wept for so bitterly three years earlier.[89] She was now an English queen, and she was well content with the attendance which her husband provided for her. She confessed, however, that she should like to have a lady of the bedchamber to whom she could talk in her own language and who could come to church with her, "for the Countess of Buckingham and Madame Savage are often away, and the rest of my ladies are Protestants," she said.
She took a favourable opportunity of expressing her views to her brother's ambassador with the frankness she was accustomed to show towards those she liked. She invited him to stay with her at Nonsuch "as a private person serving the Queen," and one evening there, after supper, when Charles had ridden away to hunt, she requested her guest to walk with her in the park, to enjoy the coolness of the July evening. A long conversation followed. Chateauneuf spoke to the Queen of the great affection which her mother had for her, the daughter whom she had kept longest at her side, and whose marriage was her own work. Henrietta assented, and confessed that the jealousy she had once felt of her sister Christine was unfounded, but she quickly went on to speak of the happiness of her married life and of the religious freedom which she enjoyed. "I do not want another governess," she declared at last. "I am no longer a child to allow myself to be ruled."[90]
There were indeed many difficulties to be smoothed if Mary de' Medici was to realize her hope of bringing her young daughter again into tutelage. Both Charles and Henrietta saw what the aim of the French Government was, and they quietly defeated it. The ecclesiastical question, which will be discussed elsewhere, was, indeed, settled by a compromise favourable to Catholic interests, but no gouvernante arrived to oust the Countess of Buckingham, who held the position formerly occupied by Madame S. Georges; and the doctor, "a Frenchman and a Catholic," who came to supplant the excellent Mayerne, a learned French Protestant who served Henrietta faithfully for many years, found his position at the English Court so intolerable that he begged to be recalled.