Having thus offended the pride of the Parisian courtiers by his overweening prodigality, Buckingham set forth to commit an act of imprudence still more obvious and far more indefensible. He did not quit Paris, however, without having both given and received an offence from even the courtly Richelieu, who, having addressed to him a letter, directed to “Le Duc de Buckingham,” instead of to “Monseigneur le Duc de Buckingham,” received one in reply inscribed to “Monsieur le Cardinal de Richelieu.”[[220]] Thus quitting Paris as he had done Madrid, in bad odour with those who had eagerly welcomed him to their kingdom, Buckingham attended his young and royal charge towards the coast.
Orders had been sent by the French King that his sister should be everywhere welcomed with honours as signal as if he were himself present; and to show her still more respect, Anne of Austria accompanied the young Queen as far as Amiens.
It was here that, whilst walking in the garden of the house where she was lodged, a memorable interview between Anne and Buckingham took place. She was, indeed, surrounded by her usual suite of attendants, when the enamoured and imprudent Duke sought and found her. Putangue, the equerry of the Queen of France, perceiving, as Buckingham approached, that he was anxious to speak to his royal mistress alone, fell back for a short time, thinking that delicacy forbade him to listen to what was uttered by the Duke. Having by chance, according to Anne’s subsequent statement, turned into a winding alley, the unguarded Queen and her lover found themselves alone. In a few moments a cry was heard by the listening attendants in the garden; the equerry hastened to his mistress, who blamed him exceedingly for having quitted her. Anne afterwards explained this occurrence, which naturally excited much discussion, by relating that, alarmed at finding herself alone with her avowed admirer, she was still more agitated by the expressions of passionate attachment which Buckingham addressed to her. She knew that she could not listen to the importunity of an ardent passion without participating morally in its guilt. She acted therefore, as she thought, and as her apologist, Madame de Motteville, conceived, honestly and sagaciously in preferring the preservation of her own self-respect to the fear of being unjustly blamed. Thus reflecting, she had no apprehension that her exclamation of surprise and terror would bear a bad construction even to her consort, who evidently regarded her with distrust.
Having proffered some reason for his return, the Duke even left the future Queen Consort of his royal master at Boulogne, and hastened to the queen-mother, Marie de Medicis, at Amiens. He even went so far as to pretend that he was commissioned to enter into some new negotiation; whether he succeeded in blinding her or not is not stated; but, after conversing with her for some time, he presented himself to Anne of Austria; that princess had been apprized of Buckingham’s journey, by her confidante, the Duchess de Chevreuse, who accompanied the Queen of England. Anne received him, after the fashion of her adopted country, in bed, and without her customary state; nor did she express the slightest surprise at his appearance; but her astonishment was considerable when she saw the Duke fall on his knees by her bedside, and kiss the coverlids with expressions so agitated, so emphatic, that she could no longer, as she afterwards confessed, “avoid perceiving the earnestness of his passion.” She avowed to Madame de Motteville that she was overcome with surprise, not unmingled with resentment, for she comprehended, perhaps too late for her own reputation, that a real insult was conveyed under this proffered idolatry. She remembered that she was the Queen of France, and a long and angry silence marked her displeasure. At this critical moment, the Countess de Lannoi, at that time her principal lady of the chamber, and who, in that capacity, was placed at the head of the bed, came forward to the queen’s aid. The countess was a grave, respected, and aged personage, whose very look might well strike terror into the presumptuous suitor. She addressed herself to the Duke reprovingly, telling him that such conduct was inconsistent with the customs permitted in the French Court, and bidding him arise. She spoke, however, to one who was of late little habituated to control, and she could make no impression. Buckingham replied that he was not a Frenchman, and therefore under no obligation to observe the laws of France. He spoke calmly, and then again addressing the queen, he broke out into expressions of the utmost tenderness. Anne replied in terms expressive of her anger at his boldness; but whilst her language was reproachful, her manner appears to have been destitute of the indignation natural to the occasion. She commanded him, however, to rise from his knees, and quit the room; and he then complied.
The next day, notwithstanding this audacity, Buckingham was permitted to see the Queen again, but in the presence of the assembled Court. It is probable that Anne wished what occurred not to transpire, and that this audience might be one of policy. But the precaution, if such it was, did not avail to save Anne from the most injurious suspicions. Buckingham, after taking leave, proceeded to England, bearing in his mind a resolution to return to France at the earliest occasion. Anne and the queen-mother, after some little delay, repaired to Fontainebleau to rejoin the King. Soon afterwards, Louis was informed of all that had occurred. The circumstances were even aggravated to the disadvantage of the unhappy young queen. Several of her attendants were discharged. Putangue, her equerry, was banished; her physician and others shared the same fate. One of Anne’s Spanish ladies, Donna Estefania, had the courage to express her disgust at this severity. “I think,” she said, addressing Le Père Sequirent, the King’s confessor, “that so much malignity visited upon this lady is not a good sign; it does not look well.”[[221]]
Buckingham, meantime, journeyed towards England, his heart full of the hope of returning at some future day to behold the object of his mad passion. Yet he had every motive of tenderness and consideration towards his duchess, whose fondest hopes were constantly, during absence, fixed upon her faithless husband. Balthazar Gerbier, who, from his situation in the Duke’s household, had ample opportunities of witnessing her devotion to the Duke, terms her, when writing to Buckingham, during his sojourn in Spain, “your incomparable Penelope, who constantly, in this sea of trouble, has demonstrated the greatness of her constancy, comforting herself with the hope of seeing her sun return above this horizon, beautiful and shining as it set.”[[222]] Her anxiety during his former embassy had been such as to injure her health, or, as she touchingly expressed it, “merely melancholy was the cause of her sickness.” Nor was that sorrow unmingled with doubt of her husband’s constancy. Buckingham, with his natural candour and fearlessness, perhaps, too, wanting the moral sense of shame for such transgressions, appears, from a passage in one of the Duchess’s letters, to have confessed to her some of his infidelities during his Spanish journey, and to have expressed great contrition for them. Fears had, at that time, been entertained of his wife’s health; and consumption was the disease apprehended. The Duke was on that occasion stung to the heart by the dread of losing his “poor Kate,” as she termed herself. Reflecting on his reckless gallantries with shame, he appears to have considered the illness of his wife as a judgment upon him, and intimated to her that should she die, he should think it too hard a blow, even for one so sinful as himself.[[223]] The reply made to him by his gentle wife ought to have ensured everlasting gratitude and constancy, were it in the nature of man to be bound by such ties to woman. “And where you say,” writes this devoted woman, “it is too great a punishment for a greater offender than you hope you are, dear heart, how severe God had been pleased to have dealt with me, it had been for my sins, and not yours, for truly you are so good a man that, but for one sin, you are not so great an offender, only your loving women so well. But I hope God has forgiven you, and I am sure you will not commit the like again, and God has laid a great affliction on me by this grievous absence; and I trust God will send me life, and Moll too, that you shall enjoy us both; for I am sure,” she adds, "God will bless us both, for your sake; and I cannot express the infinite affection I bear you; but, for God’s sake, believe me, that there was never woman loved man as I do you."
The Duchess had at that time testified her delight at her husband’s quitting that “wicked Madrid,” as she called it. She little thought how detrimental to her married happiness a residence of twelve days only in the no less vitiated air of Paris was to prove.
On quitting Amiens, Buckingham returned to Boulogne, where he met his Duchess, who had been sent by Charles to kiss the young queen’s hand, and to desire that she would take her own time of coming over, “with most conveniency to her own person.”[[224]] On the twenty-second of June (N.S.) Henrietta embarked, and twenty-four hours afterwards arrived at Dover.
Charles had long been anxiously expecting the Queen. On the last day of May he had posted down to Canterbury, there to wait for her, attended by a large company of lords and ladies, “who tarried there to their great charge.”[[225]] The King was obliged to console them, and to prolong their attendance with messages daily from Dover, by which step, a contemporary writes, “he persuaded them to patience.” The young Queen was detained, as it was alleged, by her mother’s illness; “but,” adds the correspondent just quoted, “if all be true that is reported, they can make no great haste, being to march with a little army of 4000 at least, whereof the Duc de Chevreuse and his followers make up three hundred, and sixty that belong to his kitchen.”
On the fourth of June, the Earl of Northampton, who had gone into France, it was said, in a “mad mood,” had arrived at Dover at nine o’clock in the evening. They found the King “on the leads” (of the Castle, probably), having spent two very cold hours there, anxiously awaiting their arrival. It appears that Charles then wished to cross to Boulogne; but it was objected to, as being a precedent that would lower the kings of England, and dangers might accrue upon his placing himself in a foreign state.[[226]]