The English Catholics had enjoyed for many years an unprecedented peace and liberty, which now, owing to the kindness of the King and the Court for the fascinating Con, had reached such a pitch that England appeared to foreigners almost like a Catholic country. The recusancy fines, which were still exacted in a modified form, kept up a certain feeling of irritation, but on the whole the Catholics were loyal. They felt much gratitude towards the Queen, on whom their prosperity depended, and when the Scotch rebellion broke out they would have liked to bear arms in the King's service. Con, who believed that Charles would willingly have employed them, assured him that few of his subjects would fight for him as loyally as those of the ancient faith. The King possibly believed him, but true to his cautious nature he preferred to ask for a present of money, which the envoy, who, notwithstanding his short sojourn in England, had a minute acquaintance with the persons and circumstances of the English Catholics, set himself to procure. As a first step he called together representatives both of the clergy and of the laity, and laid before them the royal request.
He had undertaken no easy task. Some of the Catholics, to whom sad experience had taught prudence, were alarmed at the idea of helping the King to rule without the need of calling Parliament. Others, going to the opposite extreme, offered their contributions separately, hoping thus to gain the royal favour. Worst of all, the ill-feeling between the secular and regular clergy made any cooperation between the two bodies a matter of great difficulty. From meetings lasting many hours, at which he had attempted to weld together these discordant elements, and from still more fatiguing private audiences, Con, ill and suffering as he then was, came away weary and dispirited, complaining bitterly of the "obstinate prudence" of the Jesuits and of the self-seeking of all. "This kingdom," he wrote on one of these occasions to Cardinal Barberini, "has no men who are moved by the common good, but each one thinks only of his private interest."[213]
At first the Queen's name appears little, but she watched the negotiations carefully, and in their latter stages she sent Montagu and Father Philip to attend the meetings on her behalf, and to bring her news of an undertaking in whose success she was deeply interested, and in which, for constitutional reasons, she was now actively to intervene.
The fears of the more timid Catholics were not idle, but showed a truer political insight than either Charles or Henrietta possessed. It was necessary to reassure them without allowing the King's name to appear. The best expedient which could be devised was to make the contribution appear as a gift, which at the Queen's instigation was offered to her by her co-religionists. Henrietta had at her side the ingenious Montagu and the fantastic Sir Kenelm Digby, who was always pleased to adventure himself in any new enterprise. These two gentlemen now issued a joint appeal to the Catholics of England, asking, in the Queen's name, for liberal contributions, and to this appeal she herself prefixed a dignified letter urging her co-religionists to contribute liberally to the King's expenses in the northern expedition, "for we believed that it became us who have been so often interested in the solicitation of their benefits, to show ourselves now in the persuasion of their gratitudes."[214] These letters, together with one from the ecclesiastical authorities, were circulated throughout the land; for each shire of England and Wales one or more collectors was appointed from among the Catholic gentry.[215]
The Queen had already asked the Catholics to fast every Saturday "for the King's happy progression in his designs, and for his safe return," and special services were held in her chapel for the same intention. This was very well, but it was a different matter when money was asked for from those who for years had borne more than their share of taxation. In spite of the zeal of the promoters of the scheme, the money came in but slowly. The difficulties of collection were great, and though individuals, such as the Dowager Countess of Rutland, who cheerfully gave £500, were generous, the general response was not hearty. The Queen, whose sanguine disposition often caused her to be disappointed, was distressed at the smallness of the sum which she would be able to offer to the King, and her fertile brain devised another expedient by which she hoped to increase the £30,000[216] she had received from the Catholics to £50,000; £10,000 she laid aside out of her own revenue, and the remainder she hoped to raise among the ladies of England, "as well widows as wives." Her own friends, the great ladies of the Court, offered each her £100 with due empressement, but outside that circle the project was not a success, and Henrietta and her advisers were left to lament once more the lack of loyalty in those whose pleasure they considered it should have been to contribute to their sovereign's need.
In April Charles set out for Scotland. He left his wife almost regent in his absence, for he had ordered the Council to defer to her advice. Henrietta was thus in a position of greater importance and authority than ever before, and she had the satisfaction of feeling that her influence over her husband was steadily increasing. The difficult circumstances, now beginning to entangle her as in a net, were developing that love of intrigue which had already shown itself in happier times. She had, moreover, no mean instructors in the art of diplomatic chicanery in two women who at this time were together at her side exercising a considerable influence over her. Madame de Chevreuse and Lady Carlisle, since the arrival of the former in England, had joined hands in a friendship which had its origin, perhaps, in a common hatred of Richelieu, but which might be easily accounted for by similarity of character and aims. Madame de Chevreuse could, indeed, boast a wider experience, for she had taken all Europe for her stage, while Lady Carlisle was content to play her part in the comparative obscurity of the British Isles; but a restless love of power and domination, which expressed itself in a determined effort to influence by womanly charms those who by force of intellect or by accident of birth were making the history of the time, was common to both, as also was a real talent for intrigue, which enabled these society ladies so far to conquer the disadvantages of their sex as to become of considerable importance in affairs. Of such teachers Henrietta was a willing learner and in some sense an apt pupil. She, too, learned to plot and to scheme, to play off enemy against enemy, and to attempt to win over a chivalrous foe by honeyed words. But she never became in any real sense a diplomatist. Her brain, quick to seize a point of detail and sometimes sagacious in weighing the claims of alternate courses of action, had not sufficient grasp to take in the broad outlines of a complicated situation, nor the judicial faculty which can calmly appraise even values which are personal. It is the misfortune of the great that they breathe an atmosphere of fictitious importance which induces a mental malady, whose taint infects all but the strongest intellects and the largest hearts. From the worst forms of this disease, as it appears, for instance, in Louis XIV, who at the end of his life believed himself to be almost superhuman, Henrietta escaped, by the strong sense of humour which was her father's best legacy to her. However obsequious her attendance and however regal her robes, she knew at heart that she was but a woman of flesh and blood as the rest; but the more subtle workings of the poison of flattery she could not escape, and the great weakness of her diplomacy—a weakness which that of her husband shared to the full—was her inability to appreciate that things precious to her were not necessarily so to other people, and that her friends and her foes were likely to be influenced by self-interest not largely coloured by a romantic sympathy with her misfortunes.
Henrietta's regency came to an end before she had much opportunity for action, for by July her husband was back in London. This is not the place to tell the story of the disastrous Scotch expedition; it suffices to say that Charles returned nominally a conqueror,[217] but in reality defeated, and with the bitter knowledge that he could only overcome his rebellious subjects in Scotland by asking the help of his discontented people in England.
Nevertheless, there was an interval of a few months before the next act of the tragedy was played, and during it were celebrated some of the last of those splendid festivities for which the Court of the Queen of England was renowned. A particularly splendid masque, which was played at Whitehall on January 21st, 16-39/40, deserves mention on account of the tragic discrepancy between the spirit of triumphant rejoicing and secure prosperity breathed by it, and on the one hand the discontent which, outside the brilliantly lighted rooms, was surging through the winter darkness of the city, and on the other the anxiety which was gnawing at the heart of some of those who appeared among the gayest and most careless of the revellers. The masque was got up by the Queen, whose fondness for such amusements did not decrease with age, and who found in the hard work which such a task involved a welcome diversion from her anxieties. It bore the name of Salmacida Spolia,[218] and was written by Sir William D'Avenant, the reputed son of Shakespeare, who had succeeded Ben Jonson as laureate, and who was specially devoted to Henrietta's service. The scenery and decorations, so important to the success of a masque, were supplied by Inigo Jones, who had before now co-operated with D'Avenant, while for the musical part of the entertainment Lewis Richard, Master of His Majesty's Musick, was responsible. Henrietta had considerable difficulty with her troupe,[219] which included not only the King but a number of ladies and gentlemen of the Court, and great annoyance was caused by Lady Carnarvon, who showed symptoms of the invading Puritan spirit in refusing to take part in the masque unless she were assured that the representation would not take place on a Sunday. However, all difficulties were smoothed over by the Queen, who was usually compliant in small matters, and the play was a notable success, though the Earl of Northumberland, who was not acting, wrote to his sister that "a company of worse faces was never assembled than the Queen had got together."[220] The royal pair alone might have given the lie to the Earl's ungallant words. King Charles, whose splendid looks have entered, through the genius of Van Dyck, into the heritage of the nation, played his part with the external dignity in which he was never lacking; while his wife displayed her still abundant charms to great advantage in an "Amazonian habit of carnation, embroidered with silver, with a plumed Helme and a Bandricke with an antique Sword hanging by her side, all as rich as might be." Her attendant ladies were similarly dressed, and it is perhaps not surprising that the strangeness of these habits was even more admired than their beauty.
The theme was designed, in reference to recent public events, to flatter the King, who played the part of Philogenes triumphing over Discord, which, "a malicious Fury, appears in a storme, and by the Invocation of malignant spirits proper to her evill use, having already put most of the world into discord, endeavours to disturb these parts, envying the blessings and Tranquillity we have long enjoyed."