Nevertheless, in spite of opposition, Charles went off to Scotland, and there, to the deep disgust of his Anglican friends, who had to learn that he was a very different man from his father, he was persuaded to take the Covenant, a step which they believed would not only alienate his best friends, but prejudice his chances with Providence.[388] Even the Queen was annoyed, unless, as her opponents hinted, she feigned her chagrin. But annoyance soon gave place to anxiety. First came the news of the defeat of Dunbar, then of the "crowning mercy" of Worcester; at last, after weeks of suspense, Henrietta was able to welcome her son once more, safe indeed, but worn out by almost incredible adventures and escapes, and cured for life by his sojourn among them of any liking for the Presbyterians. It was no wonder that the lad was depressed and irritable and unwilling to talk to his mother or any one else, though she had still considerable influence over him, so that it was complained that the King's secret council were his mother, "Lord Jermyn, and Watt. Montagu, for that of greatest business he consults with them only, without the knowledge of Marquis of Ormonde or Sir Ed. Hyde."[389] She was able to persuade him (the more easily, no doubt, from his Scotch experiences) to refrain from attending the Huguenot worship at Charenton, which she thought might compromise him with his relatives of France.
And, indeed, under the pressure of her many misfortunes, Henrietta was becoming more of a bigot than she had ever been before.[390] In 1647 Father Philip died.[391] The loss of this worthy old man, who was well aware of the caution necessary to a Catholic queen living among heretics, exposed her to the influence of other and less judicious counsellors, specially after the death of her Grand Almoner,[392] which deprived her of another moderating influence. When in 1650 the Anglican service, which had been held at the Louvre since the first days of the exile, was suppressed, Protestant gossip pointed out Walter Montagu as the author of this deed; but that gentleman would reply nothing, even to so weighty an interrogator as Sir Edward Hyde, except that the Queen of France was at liberty to give what orders she pleased in her own house. Henrietta may have regretted this sudden outburst of zeal on the part of her sister-in-law, but she found no answer to make when that lady came to visit her and told her, with the solemnity of a Spaniard and a dévote, that she thought the recent troubles of her son the King of France must have been due to his mother's weak toleration of heretical worship at the Louvre. History does not record whether she changed her mind when this act of reparation was not followed by an abatement of the rebellion; but henceforth the Anglican service was held nowhere but in the chapel of Sir Richard Browne, the father-in-law of John Evelyn, whose house was protected by his position as resident of the King of England. There John Cosin, the exiled Dean of Durham, who still kept up his impartial warfare against Rome on the one side and Geneva on the other, struck heavy blows in the cause of the Church of England, not, it was reported, without success. Religious feeling ran as high as ever it had years before in London,[393] and the good Dean's controversial acerbity was not sweetened when his only son went over to the enemy, by the instrumentality, it was said, of Walter Montagu. Nor did the alert Abbé's victories end there. Thomas Hobbes was still living among his learned friends in the French capital. His religion, or lack of it, made him suspect to Catholics and Protestants alike, and the Anglicans were considerably chagrined when they heard that this dangerous person, on the recommendation of Montagu, had been removed from the English Court, where the young King had shown an unfortunate liking for his company. They would fain have had the credit themselves of this judicious act, though perhaps in later days, when they saw the "father of atheists" a welcome guest at Whitehall, some of them may have been glad to be able to say that they had had nothing to do with the odious persecution which he had suffered from the bigots in Paris.
Three years after the suppression of the Anglican service at the Louvre, other events occurred which did not tend to Henrietta's popularity with some of her son's best friends. Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of Charles I, is now chiefly remembered as an actor in that most pathetic of all farewell scenes, when he and his sister Elizabeth took leave of their dying father. The little girl never recovered the shock of her father's death, and died without seeing again the mother who longed for her. Henry was too young to suffer thus, and at one time a rumour was about which reached the ears of Sir Edward Nicholas that Cromwell intended to make the child king; but in 1653 the authorities in England, touched by compassion for his youth, or perhaps finding him more trouble than he was worth, sent him over to his sister in Holland, whence, much against that lady's will, he was fetched to Paris to his mother's side. Henrietta was charmed with the little fellow, whom she had not seen since he was quite a child. Though small and thin he was "beautiful as a little angel" and, while resembling his aunt Christine in face, possessed the fascinating manners of his father's family and was remarkably forward in book-learning. The boy was made much of, not only by his mother, but by the whole French Court. "You know they always like anything new,"[394] wrote the Queen of England to her sister, and she goes on to relate with some amusement the innumerable visits she received on account of this petit chevalier. She was, no doubt, glad that he had made so good an impression upon his French relatives, for she had schemes for his advancement which depended largely on their favour.
The only one of her children whom Henrietta had been able to bring up in her own faith was the dearest of all, the youngest little daughter, whom she was wont to call her child of benediction. It is probable that during her husband's lifetime she felt a scruple in trying to turn his children from the religion which their father professed, particularly as he showed a generous confidence in her in the matter; but now that he was gone she felt her obligation to be over, and she gave much time and attention to influencing the minds of her two elder sons, of whom she had good hopes. She even, unmindful of the lessons of the past, entered anew into negotiations with the Pope and, by means of the Duchess of Aiguillon, a niece of Richelieu, held out, in the name of her son, hopes of untold benefits to the Catholics of the British Isles if the Holy Father would only assist the young and importunate monarch, who would certainly repay his paternal kindness with interest.[395] But, nevertheless, the Queen knew well enough the grave difficulties in the way of Charles' profession of the Catholic faith, and she turned with relief to the little Henry in whose youth she saw an easy prey. She had other arguments than those of religion to bring forward. All sensible people, she told the boy, were now agreed that the King, his brother, would not regain his throne. He knew the extreme poverty to which the revolution had reduced his family; how as a Protestant did he propose to live in a manner suitable to his rank as a Prince of England? Whereas, if he would become a Catholic and take orders, his aunt, the Queen of France, would make everything easy by procuring for him a cardinal's hat, and by bestowing upon him such rich benefices as would afford him a fitting provision.
Henry was a boy, little more than a child, but the circumstances of his life had been such as early to teach him the necessity of self-interest. His father's last counsels, given at a supreme moment, may have weighed with him, for his well-known answer, "I will be torn to pieces ere they make me a king while my brothers live," prove him to have been, at that time, an unusually precocious child. Be this as it may, he showed an unexpected reluctance to follow his mother's advice and an unaccountable dislike of the Abbé Montagu, whom she appointed to be his governor. Perhaps he remembered his father's distrust of that fascinating person; certainly he knew that by following his teaching he would offend irrevocably the brother on whom, in case of a restoration to their native land, his future must depend. Henrietta herself was not blind to this aspect of the case, and she tried to propitiate her eldest son, to whom she had given a promise that she would not tamper with his brother's religion. "Henry has too many acquaintances among the idle little boys of Paris," she wrote to Charles, who was away from the city, "so I am sending him to Pontoise with the Abbé Montagu, where he will have more quiet to mind his book."
To Pontoise accordingly Henry went, where Montagu attempted in vain to win his confidence. After a while the boy was allowed to return to Paris, but he showed himself so obstinately indocile that at night-time he and his page (a lad who had been in the service of the Earl of Manchester, and who doubtless enjoyed thwarting the renegade Abbé), "like Penelope's web ... unspun" (as well as they two little young things, some few years above thirty between them) whatever had passed in public.[396] The poor little Prince owned, indeed, that he was called upon to deal with matters above his years. His relatives at the French Court assured him that his first duty was to his mother now that his father was dead. His Anglican friends told him that a sovereign came before a mother, and that his obedience was due to his eldest brother. That brother, moreover, took this view strongly and wrote to him, saying in brief and pithy terms that, should he become a Catholic, he would never see him again. It is not surprising that between all these conflicting opinions Henry's young head was a little confused. He was further perplexed when to other arguments in his mother's favour was added the curious one that his conversion would make amends to her for the breach of her marriage contract, by which she should have had control of her children up to the age of twelve.
Henrietta was, indeed, steeling her heart to greater sternness than she had ever used to any of her children, to whom she had always shown herself an indulgent mother. It may be that, as men said, she was under the influence of Montagu, who, however, was not wont to be very severe, and who did his best to win over his pupil by kindness and by pointing out to him the worldly advantages which a change of faith would bring—a lesson which the luxuries of Pontoise, contrasting as they did with the poverty in which many of Henry's Anglican friends were obliged to live, illustrated in a practical manner. It may be that the Queen thought that a boy of her son's age could not resist severity, and that she was determined to hold out until she conquered the child for what she believed to be his good in this world and the next; but she was to be defeated. While reports were being industriously circulated through the city that Henry was on the point of coming to a better mind, while in some churches thanksgivings were even being offered for his conversion, his continued obstinacy was in reality wearing out his mother's patience. She sent for her son, and after receiving him with her usual affection she said that she required him to hear the Abbé Montagu once again, and that then he must give her his final answer. Montagu pleaded for an hour, expending upon this lad of fourteen all those powers of persuasion and eloquence which enabled him to excel as a popular preacher. But Henry's mind was made up, he was determined to cast in his lot with his brother and England rather than with his mother and France. He communicated his decision to the Queen, and at the fatal words she turned away, saying that she wished to see his face no more. She left the room without any sign of relenting, and her son discovered a little later that her anger even cast his horses out of her stable. He was sobered by the depth of her displeasure, but he reserved his chief wrath for Montagu, to whom he attributed a harshness very far indeed from his mother's natural character. Turning on his late tutor, he upbraided him angrily: "Such as it is I may thank you for it, sir; and 'tis but reason what my mother sayes to me I say to you: I pray be sure I see you no more."[397] Then, turning on his heel, he showed his independence by marching on to the English chapel at Sir Richard Browne's house (for it was a Sunday morning), where he was received with such rejoicings as befitted so signal a triumph over the rival religion. He could not, of course, return to the Palais Royal, and he asked the hospitality of Lord Hatton, who, both as Royalist and Anglican, was delighted to welcome his "little great guest." His satisfaction was the greater because of the piquant circumstance that he was himself a relative by marriage of the discomfited Abbé. Henry, who was considered to have "most heroically runne through this great worke beyond his yeres,"[398] made further proof of his unflinching Protestantism by receiving a distinguished minister of Charenton, to whom he gravely discoursed of his father's religious views. But he did not remain long in Paris. Lord Ormonde arrived with letters and messages from the King of England and bore the lad off to Cologne, where his eldest brother was at that time keeping his Court.
* * * * *
The years of the exile wore on not too cheerfully. Little by little Henrietta lost the influence she had had over her eldest son, who came to distrust Jermyn, perhaps because he saw the favourite rich and prosperous, while others of his faithful servants were almost in need. Probably the Queen was annoyed at the ill success of Charles in her own country, for it is remarkable that the young man who possessed the French temperament, and who was, in many respects, like his grandfather Henry IV, was never popular in Paris, while James was greatly liked and admired. It is true that the latter was a singularly gallant youth, and that he spoke the French language much better than his brother, which accomplishment was in itself enough to win Parisian hearts. "There is nothing, in my opinion, that disfigures a person so much as not being able to speak," said that true Frenchwoman Mademoiselle de Montpensier. As for Princess Henrietta, she was looked upon quite as a French girl, and she was admired, not only for her beauty, but for her exquisite dancing, a talent which she inherited from her mother. It was on account of this beloved child that the widowed Queen of England, in the last years of the exile, came out again a little into the world and held receptions at the Palais Royal, which proved so fascinating as to be serious rivals to those of the grave Spanish Queen of France. At them she was always pleased to welcome Englishmen, for she loved the land of her happy married life in spite of the treatment she had received there. "The English were led away by fanatics," she was wont to say; "the real genius of the nation is very different." So jealous was she of the good name of her son's subjects in critical Paris that once when an English gentleman came to her Court in a smart dress, tied up with red and yellow ribbons, she begged the friend who had introduced him to advise him "to mend his fancy," lest he should be ridiculed by the French.
But ere this another blow had fallen upon Henrietta, and this time she was wounded, indeed, in the house of her friends. As early as 1652 France recognized the Government of the Commonwealth, but in 1657 the Queen learned that her nephew, acting under the advice of Cardinal Mazarin, who was impelled by his usual dread of Spain, had even made a treaty with Cromwell, "ce scélérat," as she was accustomed to call him. By the terms of this treaty her three sons were banished from France, and she herself was only permitted to remain with her young daughter because public opinion would not have tolerated the expulsion of a daughter of Henry IV. The Princes went off to Bruges, where Charles fixed his Court, and to mark their displeasure they took service under the Spaniard. Henrietta had to bear the insults as best she could. She had nowhere to go; for when a year earlier she had thought of a journey to Spain, it had been intimated to her that his Catholic Majesty would prefer her to remain on the French side of the Pyrenees.