CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU
FROM A PORTRAIT BY PHILLIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE
As time went on, and the troubles developed, these suspicions became more widespread and vivid, until just before the opening of the Long Parliament there were imaginative people who believed that an army of thirty thousand Frenchmen was ready to land in England in favour of the Scotch, while the more sober-minded contented themselves with the old story of help secretly given to the rebels. Montreuil saw in all this only machinations of the Spaniards industriously sowing false reports, that thereby they might render their enemy odious in the eyes of the English Court.[237]
Henrietta's own relations with Richelieu had not improved,[238] though she still continued to talk of a journey to France, as, after the birth of Prince Henry, her health continued very delicate. The residence of the Queen-Mother in England annoyed the Cardinal as much as had that of Madame de Chevreuse, and Mary de' Medici's conduct was not such as to propitiate him. Once, for instance, she allowed a priest connected with the Spanish Embassy to preach before her, and he improved the occasion by comparing her sufferings to those of Christ, and by eulogizing Cardinal Bérulle, whose praise was not likely to be agreeable to Richelieu. Moreover, at this time Charles was more than usually inclined to the Spanish alliance. He had thoughts of a Spanish marriage both for his son and his daughter, and rumours were abroad that if France was supplying money to the rebels, Spain was doing the same by the Court. It was remarked that when the news came of the taking of Arras by the armies of France, the King could not bring himself to receive it warmly, though his wife, who was always a good Frenchwoman, in spite of Richelieu, expressed lively joy.
She had little in England to cheer her. Not only were her husband's affairs becoming a nightmare to her, but the looks of hatred which she encountered as she went abroad in her capital, and the vile calumnies which her enemies were not ashamed to publish and to scatter broadcast among her people were the beginning of a martyrdom such as only a woman can know. Added to all this was the growing conviction that her power was insufficient to protect those who had no other protection. It must have wrung her heart (though she knew it to be necessary) to see her mother, who had come to England to be at peace, deprived of half her allowance, and later reduced to such poverty as forced her to lessen her establishment and to sell her jewels. She feared increasingly that she would be obliged to send Rosetti away, and she felt bitterly the scant respect shown to him when, in the cold of the small hours of a November morning, he was roused to witness the searching of his house for proofs of his diplomatic status. It did not make it easier to her that the leading spirit in this matter, as in a general search of the houses of Catholics which took place about this time, was Sir Henry Vane, who owed to her favour his promotion to the position of Secretary of State. She was learning some early lessons in the world's ingratitude. She knew that even her personal servants, such as the Capuchin Fathers, were threatened, and that the English Catholics, who had long looked to her "as the eyes of a handmaiden look to her mistress," were finding her help of no avail. Most poignant of all was the knowledge that the strong arm which had upheld her for so long was failing, and that her husband, with all his love, was obliged to leave her naked to her enemies. She was yet unpractised in suffering, and it is no wonder that, despite her high spirit, her misery was apparent to all.
Parliament had hardly met before Windbank was called up before the House of Commons, and questioned as to the number of priests and Jesuits in London. That assembly further brought pressure to bear upon the King, which resulted in a proclamation banishing Catholics to a certain distance from London. It was even suggested that new and stricter laws should be made against the recusants, and thorough-going people recommended that all Catholics found in a chapel, either that of the Queen or anybody else, should be immediately seized and hanged. The hatred of the country, and particularly of the city of London, for anything savouring of Popery was further shown by the presentation of the Root and Branch petition, which asked for nothing less than the abolition of Episcopacy in the National Church. But these vexations, distressing as they were, sank into insignificance before the new blow which threatened the royal power. On November 11th Strafford was impeached by Pym of high treason and committed to the Tower, whence he was only to come out to his death. It was a poor consolation to the Queen that her old enemy, Laud, the persecutor of the Catholics, was also thrown into prison, for she had learned to see in him, if not a friend, at least a political ally.
No blow could have been more crushing than that which at this critical moment deprived the King and Queen of the services and counsels of their best friend; but Henrietta was to find herself attacked in more personal matters, matters which a few months earlier would have seemed to her of more consequence than any misfortune which could happen to the Viceroy of Ireland. Experience, however, was teaching her to measure men and things by another standard than that of personal feeling, though to the end the lesson would be imperfectly learned. Indeed, in the very next trial she failed again.
The contribution of the Catholics in 1639 was a matter of common knowledge. Parliament, which was already exasperated by the Queen's intervention on behalf of a priest named Goodman who had been condemned to die, and who was particularly odious to the Puritans as the brother of the Romanizing Bishop of Gloucester, determined to strike at those through whom it knew that it could wound Henrietta. No one at this time was nearer to the Queen than Walter Montagu, who was her confidant and helper in the correspondence which she was carrying on with the Court of Rome on the subject of communications between herself and the Pope. Closely associated with him was Sir Kenelm Digby, whose departure for Rome was rendered impossible owing to the rancour of the Puritans. Sir John Winter was the Queen's own private secretary. These three gentlemen were called to the bar of the House of Commons to answer for their share in the contribution of 1639, and it was significantly remarked that the two latter were the sons of "Powder Plotters," who had lost their lives for complicity in that famous treason.
On Montagu and Digby fell the brunt of the attack;[239] the former appeared rather frightened and said little, but Sir Kenelm, who was gifted with an amazing flow of speech on every occasion, answered copiously and apparently candidly. The scene, though in one respect it was tragical enough, was not without humour. The eloquent knight began by eulogizing his audience, with some irony, perhaps, as "the gravest and wisest assembly in the whole world, whose Majesty is so great that it might well disorder his thoughts and impede his expressions"; nothing of this awe appears, however, in his speech. He assured the House that the contribution had a very simple origin, namely, the wish of the Catholics to follow the example of other loyal subjects who were helping the King in his necessity, that Con was the chief agent in the matter, on account of his unrivalled acquaintance among the English Catholics, persons of whom it was a mistake to suppose that he, Sir Kenelm, had any particular knowledge, and that the chief motive appealed to was that of gratitude for the partial suspension of the penal laws. As to the amount collected, he had no precise information. Sir Basil Brook was the treasurer, and £10,000 had been paid in at one time and £2000 at another.
Sir Kenelm had played his part well. He had said a very little in a great many words, and he had kept the real originator of the scheme, the King himself (who must have been a little nervous of the possible revelations of the garrulous knight), well hidden. Indeed, the principal point upon which the Commons fixed was the status of Con, as to whom they may well have been curious, since their imagination had endowed him with alarming powers, and with three wives all living at the same time. Montagu was closely cross-questioned on the matter, but all that he would say was that he believed Con to be a private envoy to the Queen, in spite of the fact that he was sometimes called a nuncio. Digby airily asserted that he had no accurate knowledge of the question under discussion, as he had taken pains to remain ignorant of these dangerous matters. He added, almost as an afterthought, that once at Whitehall he had heard Rosetti say that he renounced any jurisdiction of which he might be possessed.
The Queen was in great anxiety. Not only had her name been brought forward in this affair, but she was being attacked in other ways. It was suggested that her beautiful chapel at Somerset House should be closed, and that she should only be permitted the little chapel at Whitehall, which was more like a private oratory. Wild stories were abroad as to a great design among the Roman Catholics of the three kingdoms to subvert the Protestant religion by force, and the terror was so great that some fanatical spirits proposed that Catholics should be forced to wear a distinctive badge whenever they left their houses. This absurd proposition was rejected by the good sense of the many, but even so it was an ominous token of hatred.