It was, therefore, a grave disappointment, when, on their arrival in England, they found that the Queen had no intention of changing her confessor, of whose long-headed Scotch prudence she had a just appreciation. The poor Capuchins, with a certain Father Leonard at their head, were subjected to considerable annoyances from the Chateauneuf clique and the Fathers of the Oratory,[117] who were more men of the world than they, did not scruple to show a refined contempt for them. So uncomfortable were they that but for the support of Fontenay-Mareuil they would almost have returned to France.
But they were cheered by the courtesy of the Queen. Henrietta, in spite of her refusal to submit to their direction, received them with all kindness, and settled them in her own establishment at Somerset House, where, to their great satisfaction, they were permitted to wear the religious habit. They were indeed simple men, so simple that she showed her wisdom in seeking a confessor elsewhere than among them; but they were zealous and disinterested, and, if at times they attempted to impose upon the ungodly Protestant by a profession of greater austerity than that actually practised, there was no sham in their labours among the sick and poor of plague-stricken London, or in their devotion to their religious duties.[118] They, on their side, became much attached to Henrietta, and it is to the pen of one of them, Father Cyprien de Gamache, who in his old age wrote his memoirs of the English mission, that we owe many curious particulars of the Queen's life.[119]
With the Capuchins came a more distinguished person, who shared with them for a while the dislike of Chateauneuf's friends.
Jacques de Nowell du Perron, a nephew of the famous Cardinal of that name, who had had much to do with the conversion of the Queen's father, came to London as the successor of the Bishop of Mende, but no two men could have been less alike, and perhaps du Perron was selected because Richelieu had learned by experience that "surtout point de zèle" was a sound maxim in dealing with heretics. Certainly the second Grand Almoner of Henrietta Maria was as much liked as the first had been detested. A man of the softest manners, "neutral in every question whatsoever,"[120] as a stronger spirit said of him with a touch of contempt, he knew not only how to keep the favour of the French authorities who had sent him to England, but how to win that of Charles, whom he charmed by his flow of interesting talk, and of the Protestant public, who so respected the regularity of his life and the moderation of his conduct, that even on the eve of the Civil War he was regarded "as among the hated the least so."[121] There were moments when his task of serving many masters was difficult, as when his courtier's soul was vexed because, by obeying Henrietta's commands to officiate at a service of welcome to her mother,[122] he offended his patrons in Paris; but in the main his conduct met with its due reward. It was no small tribute to his tact and prudence that he so far obliterated from the mind of Charles the memory of the Bishop of Mende that he permitted him, in 1637, to accept the Bishopric of Angoulême without forfeiting his position as Grand Almoner of the Queen. He went off to France to be consecrated, and returned to England with all the dignity of episcopal rank.
It fell to the lot of this courtly ecclesiastic to officiate at one of the most picturesque ceremonies of Henrietta's London life. Among the unkept stipulations of the marriage contract was a provision for the building of a chapel for the Queen's use. Henrietta, at her first coming, had been obliged to content herself with a small and mean room in which her chaplains, as best they might, celebrated divine service. It was not until 1632[123] that she had so won her husband's heart as to wring from him by prayers and caresses, and sometimes even by tears, permission to build a church for her Capuchins, which should be at once a memorial of her religious zeal and a thank-offering for her married happiness, which now had been crowned by the birth of her little son.
On September the 14th the foundation-stone was laid. The site of the new building, which was the tennis courtyard of Somerset House, was fitted up as a temporary church with tapestries for walls and stuffs of great price for roof. A large and brilliant company, numbering at least two thousand persons, was present, while at the beautifully decked altar stood M. du Perron to sing a Mass, which was accompanied by rare voices and choice instrumental music, and at which the attendant ceremonies were so magnificent that a Frenchman who happened to be present confessed[124] that nothing more splendid could be seen at Notre-Dame de Paris, even when a King of France honoured that cathedral with his presence. The Mass ended, Henrietta stepped forward, handed by her brother's ambassador, M. de Fontenay-Mareuil, to whom the establishment of the Capuchins was so largely due. A trowel delicately fringed with velvet was offered to her, together with mortar served in a silver-gilt bowl. Thrice she threw the mortar on to the stone of foundation, which was then lowered into its place, bearing on a plate an inscription telling how she, the Queen of England and the daughter of France, had founded this temple for the honour of Catholicism and for the use of her servants the Capuchin Fathers.
This was one of Henrietta's brightest days, in which she tasted the joy her disappointed life knew so seldom, of seeing a happy result of her works and prayers. It began by a devout confession and reception of the Eucharist. It ended with cannon and fireworks and every sign of public rejoicing. So cordial seemed the attitude of the London populace that the rosiest hopes for the future were entertained, specially by the French,[125] who would have welcomed the conversion of England by a French Queen as a delicate triumph, not only over the heretic, but over the Spaniard.[126] These sanguine persons did not go about in the streets and taverns of the city to hear, under the official rejoicings, the curses, "not loud but deep," of the Puritan citizens.
The Queen's workmen, whom she encouraged by kind words and good pay, must have worked with energy, for by the middle of December in the same year the church was ready for use. It was modelled on that begun for the Spanish Infanta at St. James's, though, perhaps in view of possible developments, it was of a larger size than the original. The opening ceremonies were comparable in splendour to those of the foundation. Many Protestants were attracted thither by curiosity to admire its beautiful furnishings, among which perhaps was already to be seen the splendid specimen of the art of Rubens, which is known to have adorned the high altar in later days. Even the King came in to see the great attraction, a construction about forty feet high, which the ingenuity of a young Roman architect who happened to be in London had fashioned into a representation of Paradise, wherein, guarded by sculptured angels and prophets, and blazing with innumerable lights, reposed the Sacred Host. Taking into account these splendours, it is not perhaps surprising that those who on this happy day turned their eyes toward the kneeling figure of the royal foundress saw stealing down her cheeks the happy tears of an emotion she could not restrain. She had indeed cause for self-congratulation, for already the hopes which had cheered her in her dark days were beginning to be realized.
Henrietta never laid aside the devout habits which Bérulle had taught her, and which—no doubt with much anxiety in his mind—he again inculcated in 1627 in a pious letter which he wrote and to which the Queen-Mother put her name.[127] She was indeed sometimes inclined to lie in bed in the morning so late that Mass could not be said till midday, but her excellent husband, who desired her to be as precise in her religious duties as he was in his own, was not slow to chide gently this laxity, so that her regularity of attendance became the admiration of all. At each festival she received the Sacrament of Penance, and communicated with such devotion that her fervour astonished not only her fellow-worshippers, but her spiritual advisers. In matters of fasting she was very strict, only asking for a dispensation when there was real need, in spite of the specious advice of her heretic physician Mayerne, who urged her to take meat on Fridays and Saturdays, "an indulgence," as a Frenchman justly remarked, "which would be of little account in France, but in England, and in the person of the Queen, appearances must be kept up."[128]
To all these virtues she added a zeal for her faith which, if still checked by the girlish levity which easily turned from religious as from political matters, was sufficiently urgent both to champion her faith in Protestant circles and to plead for her oppressed co-religionists, so that with the growth of her influence over her husband grew their peace and prosperity. It is true that for a year or two after the expulsion of the French the persecution continued, and was, particularly in Scotland, at one time very fierce,[129] so that it was noted with malicious satisfaction that the Queen fell into her premature travail on the very day that her husband had signed a decree against the Catholics of his northern kingdom; but it so quickly and thoroughly abated that in 1633 a Roman correspondent in London was able to declare that never before had Catholics been less molested.[130] Not only were priests permitted to live undisturbed in the capital, but English Catholics were allowed to attend the chapels of the Queen and the ambassadors, a privilege which Richelieu had vainly endeavoured to win for them at the time of the royal marriage, and which the King had angrily refused to the Queen's entreaties only a year or two before. "I permit you your religion," he had said to her on that occasion, "with your Capuchins and others. I permit ambassadors and their retinue, but the rest of my subjects I will have them live that I profess and my father before me." The Catholics were so encouraged by the lenity now shown that in the course of this same year, on the occasion of Charles' coronation in Scotland, they presented to him a petition pleading for toleration and urging him to follow the example of his father-in-law, Henry the Great, who, by granting religious liberty, had won for himself the title of Pater Patriæ et Pacis Restitutor.[131]