Henrietta Maria

by Henrietta Haynes

It was a brilliant match for the little Princess, the youngest child of Henry IV, King of France, and of his wife Mary de' Medici of the great Florentine House: she owed it in part to the far-reaching policy of the father she had never known, and in part to the exertions of her mother and of a new favourite of that lady, M. de Richelieu. As she was only fifteen years old[1] she was, perhaps, too young to enter into the political aspect of the matter, but she was fully alive to the social and ceremonial advantages to which it would entitle her: a few years before she had gazed with envy at the honours prepared for her elder sister, Christine, the bride of Savoy: now she could afford to think of them almost with contempt, for, to her, the bride of proud England, far more splendid homage was about to be offered. Nor, though the bridegroom was absent and both betrothal and wedding would have to be by proxy, was he unknown. Henrietta had seen him when he was in Paris on the return journey of his romantic expedition to Spain, and she knew that he was a tall and proper man, handsome in face and royal in bearing, with a certain melancholy persuasiveness of address which not even a slight stammer could spoil. "I do not think he need have gone quite so far as Spain for a bride," she had said then, with the freedom of her tender years; even now, nearly a year later, she felt such an interest in her prospective bridegroom, that by the help of an old servant she borrowed his portrait from one of the English envoys who was accustomed to wear it round his neck, and, having carried it off to her private apartments, she gazed at it for the space of an hour, blushing the while at her own audacity.

Of Henrietta's childhood there is little to record; as one of her biographers sadly remarks, her troubles began before she could know them, for she was not a year old when her noble-hearted father perished by the knife of Ravaillac. Her early years were passed under the care of her mother, who, though she was solicitous for the child's health and education, and reared her with the state due to a daughter of France,[2] is said to have cared much less for her than for her elder sister Christine: a sister still older, the beautiful and high-minded Elizabeth, left her native country to become the unhappy wife of Philip IV of Spain, while Henrietta was still too young a child to retain much personal memory of her; but touching letters remain written from the desolate grandeur of Madrid to show how fondly Elizabeth's heart clung to the pretty child she had left in Paris, for whose portrait she begs, and to whom she sends little gifts such as some toys for the toilet of her dolls, "so that when you play you may remember me."[3] The two sisters never met again, and the Spanish princess who came to France in Elizabeth's stead was a poor exchange for her, even if Henrietta, who was possessed of a sparkling and somewhat biting wit, had not been fond of exercising it upon her brother's demure wife, with whom her mother was never on good terms.

That Henrietta's childhood was, in the main, healthy and happy, cannot be doubted. In person she resembled her father more than did either of her sisters, and she had inherited also his gay disposition. Her days were passed in one beautiful chàteau or another, either the Louvre or the Luxembourg, or S. Germain-en-Laye, with its beautiful forest and its terrace overlooking the Seine. Her governess was the kind and faithful Madame de Montglas, who had tended not only her, but her brothers and sisters from their earliest years; and if she failed in some degree to win her mother's heart, with others she was more fortunate. Christine left her when her years numbered but ten, but so strong was the tie of the common childhood of the sisters, that they corresponded warmly to the end of their lives. Her relations with her brothers were very affectionate, and the King, in particular, cherished her as his favourite sister, probably on account of her ready wit, a quality which, like many people who are dull themselves, he greatly admired. Finally, her charms invited a suitor while she was still almost a child, in the person of the Count of Soissons, a scion of the royal house, who may well have been as much enamoured of the dark, sparkling eyes which were the little Princess's chief beauty, as of her position as a daughter of France.

There is, however, one sentence in an old biography of Henrietta which shows her youth in another and a sadder aspect. Young as she was at the time of her marriage, it appears that already she had had to learn the difficult art of adjusting her conduct to the requirements of Court factions and family dissensions.[4] Her childhood was cast in the stormy times which followed the removal of the strong hand of Henry IV. Her mother, whose lead she followed in the main, was a foolish woman under the domination of unworthy favourites, until by good fortune she fell in with Richelieu. It would be impossible to give here even an outline of the history of the events which in 1617 drove Mary de Medici in disgrace from her son's Court. It must suffice to point out that until her return in triumph in 1621 her little daughter had some difficulty in reconciling the respective claims of her mother and her brother, and in preserving the favour of both.

It was not long after this return that negotiations for a matrimonial alliance with England were opened, and thereupon Henrietta became for the first time a person of political importance. Her mother learned to appreciate her wit and beauty, and Richelieu, whose reign was just beginning, looked upon her with interest as a co-operator in his schemes for the humiliation of the House of Austria and of the French Protestants, objects which he thought would be considerably furthered by the union of Henrietta with the heir of England.

In due time two envoys-extraordinary arrived from England to carry out the negotiations for the marriage. They were both very fine gentlemen, but the elder, the Earl of Carlisle, who was a Scotchman and an able diplomatist, on whom most of the real work of the mission fell, was in social matters quite outshone by his junior, the Lord Kensington, shortly to become Earl of Holland,[5] who was the handsomest man of his time and accounted so fascinating that he was the despair of jealous husbands. He was a great connoisseur in female beauty, and was smiled upon by Madame de Chevreuse, the most brilliant woman of the French Court; but he was kind enough to approve of Henrietta, and he sent home to the bridegroom-elect such glowing accounts of her beauty as roused that rather cold person to a fever of expectation. She was, he wrote, "the sweetest creature in France. Her growth is very little short of her age, and her wisdom infinitely beyond it. I heard her discourse with her mother and the ladies about her with extraordinary discretion and quickness. She dances (the which I am a witness of) as well as ever I saw any creature. They say she sings very sweetly. I am sure she looks so."[6] To the Duke of Buckingham, who at this time entirely governed Charles' mind, he wrote an equally enthusiastic account, praising the Princess as a "lovely sweet young creature," who, if she was not tall in stature, was "perfect in shape."[7]

Marriage negotiations between royal persons are always lengthy, and in this case there was the additional difficulty of the difference of religion between the contracting parties, which necessitated a dispensation from the Pope. But James of England eagerly desired the alliance, seeing in it a means of winning back the Palatinate for his daughter's husband, a hope which was encouraged by the diplomacy of Richelieu, who probably also worked upon the mind of Mary de' Medici, so that, in spite of her bigoted attachment to the Roman Catholic Church, the whole weight of her now powerful influence was thrown on the side of the marriage. Father Bérulle, the founder of the French Oratory, who was a great friend of hers, was sent to Rome to procure a dispensation from Urban VIII. Arrangements were made to secure Henrietta's religion and morals in the heretic country to which she was going, and it was provided that she should have the bringing up of her children until they reached the age of twelve years. Finally, secret articles[8] were inserted in the marriage treaty, in which James of England and his son promised that toleration should be granted to the English Catholics. Everything seemed settled, and all was rejoicing both in England and France, except for two malcontents: the Spanish Ambassador in Paris stood sullenly aloof, "who, without question, doth not well like that England and France should bee joyned together with such a firme alliance,"[9] and the Count of Soissons was so angry and disappointed at the loss of his bride that he refused to treat Lord Kensington with common courtesy, savagely declaring that the negotiations went so near his heart that were the Englishman not the ambassador of so great a King, he would cut his throat.

Henrietta herself was well pleased, and her cheerful countenance reflected her content. She exchanged a number of quaint and rather formal love-letters with her future husband, who sometimes employed as his intermediary a young protégé of Buckingham, by name Walter Montagu, who was destined to a singular career and to a lifelong friendship with the Princess, whom he now saw for the first time. In March, 1625, he left Paris and returned to England carrying the good news that all was forward, and that the lady should be delivered in thirty days. He was able to supplement Holland's description of the charms of the Princess, for, like that nobleman, he was something of a connoisseur in such matters. "I have made the Prince in love with every hair on Madame's head,"[10] he wrote cheerfully to Carlisle. So eager was the bridegroom that he would not allow the match to be stayed for the final settlement of the details of the dispensation.

But just as everything was ready an event of another character occurred to retard matters again. On March 27th, 1625, King James died, and the question arose as to whether the wedding could be celebrated during the period of mourning. However, as Henrietta could hardly be expected to feel acutely the death of an unknown father-in-law which made her a queen, and as Charles' impatience for his bride overcame any scruples with regard to decorum, it was settled that the great event should take place in the ensuing May. The decision that the bridegroom should not be present in person at the ceremony was probably a disappointment to Henrietta. It had been suggested that he should come over to France, but the proposal had not met with approval on either side of the Channel, the English thinking it beneath their King's dignity to seek his bride in a foreign land, and the French fearing, with good reason, the expense of such a guest. The selection of a proxy caused some difficulty. Charles wished that his great friend, the Duke of Buckingham, should impersonate him on this interesting occasion, but that nobleman, for private reasons which will be explained below, was not agreeable to the French Court. The choice finally fell upon the Duke of Chevreuse,[11] who was at once a high-born Frenchman and a relative of the King of England, being a prince of the House of Lorraine, and thus connected with Charles' great-grandmother, Mary of Guise. In spite of his high rank he was a person of sufficient obscurity, and chiefly remarkable as the husband of his brilliant wife.