Such were the addresses of Charles to Henrietta. Buckingham, to whom this account was written by Lord Kensington, must have smiled at the repetition of the same love passages that had, it was said, fascinated the heart of the Infanta.
In a subsequent letter to Charles himself, Kensington again exalted the services of the queen-mother in promoting this match, and extolled the charms of the Princess. “There is no preparation, I find, towards this business, but by her--the queen-mother; and all persuasions of amity made light that look not towards this errand; and, sir, if your intentions proceed this way, as, by many reasons of state and wisdom, there is cause now rather to press it than slacken it, you will find a lady of as much loveliness and sweetness to deserve your affection as any creature under heaven can do.” The “impressions he had of her,” he adds, “were but ordinary, but the amazement extraordinary, to find her, as I protest to God I did, 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, which I am a witness of, as well as ever I saw any creature. They say she sings most sweetly; I am sure she looks so.” In conclusion, Kensington mentions to His Highness that, in his letter to “my Lord of Buckingham,” he had written a more large discourse upon this interesting theme.[[192]]
Thus far had the treaty proceeded, when it was delayed by the death of King James. The marriage articles had, nevertheless, been subscribed by that Monarch on the 11th of May, and by the King of France on the 13th of August, in the previous year; and, on the 13th of March, 1625, the Earls of Carlisle and Kensington signed these articles on the part of Charles I. Private arrangements received also their signature relative to the toleration of Catholics within the British dominions.
The dispensation for the nuptials having arrived from Rome in the beginning of May, there remained no obstacle to the ceremonial of marriage. This, notwithstanding the claim preferred by the Archbishop of Paris to that honour, was performed by Cardinal Richelieu. The marriage was celebrated according to the usual rites of the Church of Rome. After the ceremony, the whole procession, including the royal personages, entered the church of Notre Dame, the Duke de Chevreuse and the Princess Henrietta Maria taking precedence of the King and Queen. Then mass was said, the English ambassadors retiring to the Bishop’s house during the recital.[[193]]
A banquet followed, and the event was commemorated by the release of criminals, "as an earnest of the King’s love and respect for his sister."[[194]] The previous arrangements for these ceremonials had been delayed by much contention with regard to precedency.[[195]] But that which gave the greatest uneasiness to the English nation was the difficulty, and, as it seemed to many, the risk attendant upon the mode of faith professed by the young Queen.
At his accession, Charles had manifested very decisively his disfavour of Catholics; he declared his intention to reform the Court, “as of unnecessary charges, so of recusant Papists.” He gave an order in his own hand-writing that no recusant Papist, of any rank whatsoever, should be presented with mourning for the late King; and he showed his zeal generally for the observance of the Church, by putting the High Sheriff of Nottingham out of his commission, for accompanying the judges on the circuit, who were attending the sermon, only to the church door, and there leaving them.[[196]] Hopes were entertained that Henrietta Maria might be converted, and several prayer-books in French were sent her by Sir George Goring for that end; but the news that a bishop and twenty-eight priests were to be included in her retinue, quickly dispelled that pleasing anticipation.[[197]]
The part which Buckingham took in the promotion of this alliance lessened, therefore, greatly the popularity which his abandonment of the Spanish marriage was beginning to ensure to him; and the announcement of the King’s intention to despatch the Favourite, in order to bring off his royal bride, was, for many reasons, highly displeasing to the country.
The chief ground of objection to the proposed journey was the expense. And here the nation separated the wishes and intentions of Charles from those of his minister. The King had, they observed, shown a disposition to economy; nay, more, he had displayed an honourable determination to pay his late father’s debts by disparking most of his remote parks and chases, which were then more numerous and extensive than any royal domains in Europe.[[198]] The lavish tendencies of Buckingham, therefore, and the heavy charges on the exchequer which had been incurred by the two ambassadors already at the French court, were not ascribed to the extravagance of the Monarch, but to the vanity and profuseness of his Minister.
The preparations, therefore, made by Buckingham for this, his last foreign mission,--for, when he again visited the continent, it was with different intentions, and under another aspect,--were viewed with vexation, by the majority of those who were not bound to silence by interest, for the great and fruitless cost of the Spanish journey was fresh in remembrance.
The Duke had, however, begun his arrangements before King James’s death: and the day[[199]] had been fixed for his departure. He did not forget that he was to appear at the most festive and splendid of all the courts of Christendom.[[200]]