The English people preferred having a daughter of the Protestant hero, Henry the Great, for their queen, to the grand-daughter of the cruel Philip II. of Spain. Unfortunately, Henriette had been brought up in the most ignorant bigotry by her mother. We have read a letter, very much worn with often unfolding, of advice and instruction from this queen to her daughter, regarding her conduct in England, in which she mentions the belief of the English in the same terms as if they were Jews. Such imputation the creed of the Anglican Church no more deserved than her own. Unfortunately, her young daughter was utterly ignorant of all history but that from prejudiced sources, as she afterward deeply regretted to her friend Madame de Motteville.
The marriage articles were very tedious, and much disputed; a clause was left by the council of James I., giving his son's consort power in the education of her children until their thirteenth year; a clause regretted by Charles, and which his determination to break afterward, occasioned the only real unhappiness in his married life. When all was ready for the betrothal, James I. died, March, 1624-5.
Some anxiety was shown lest the young king, Charles I., should not ratify his father's treaty; but the wooing ambassadors, the Earls of Carlisle and Holland, had described the young princess in such favourable terms that Charles was eager to complete the agreement. In one of Holland's letters to Charles she is thus mentioned: "In truth, she is the sweetest creature in France, and the loveliest thing in nature. I heard her the other day discourse with her mother and her ladies with wondrous discretion. She dances—the which I am witness of—as well as I ever saw. They say she sings most sweetly; I am sure she looks as if she did!" In the course of a few days the Earl of Holland heard this wonderful voice. "I had been told much of it," he wrote; "but I find it true that neither her singing-master, nor any man or woman in Europe, singeth as she doth; her voice is beyond all imagination!" The musical and vocal powers of the queen-mother of France, Marie de Medicis, were likewise of the finest order; and her youngest daughter had inherited from her, gifts lavishly bestowed by nature on the children of Italy.
Pope Urban VIII. was exceedingly adverse to the English marriage: he had been Henrietta's god-father when he was cardinal legate in France. He was unwilling to grant a dispensation for his god-child wedding out of their Church; putting his objection on his duty to guard her happiness, rather than the usual polemic wranglings. No one can deny that his historical acumen was right in what he said—"If the Stuart king relaxed the bloody penal laws against the Roman Catholics, the English would not suffer him to live long. If they were continued, what happiness could the French princess have in her wedlock?" These were the words of wisdom, and ought to have been heeded. But the unwise prejudice against placing a princess on the English throne of lower rank than the royalties of France or Spain, unduly influenced James I., or rather his English council, since he did not act thus in his own case.
Charles I. and Louis XIII. resolved to proceed with the betrothal without Urban's dispensation, which, of course, caused it to be sent very quickly. Henriette and Charles I. were betrothed, May 8, 1625, by proxy. She was dressed in a magnificent robe woven with gold and silver, and flowered with French lilies in gems and diamonds. The marriage took place three days afterward. The palace of the Archbishop of Paris (but lately destroyed) stood just behind Notre Dame; a gallery-bridge connected it with that cathedral, hung with violet satin, figured with gold fleur-de-lis; the marriage procession passed over it from the palace to Notre Dame. The bride was led by her young brother Gaston, and was given away by the king, Louis XIII.
The Duke de Chevreuse, a near kinsman of Charles I., was his proxy; he was attired in black velvet; but over this plain attire wore a scarf flowered with diamond roses; the queen-mother shone like a pillar of precious stones; her long train was borne by two princesses of the blood, Condè and Conti. The marriage took place in the porch of Notre Dame; the English ambassadors, and even the proxy of England, out of respect to the religious feelings of Charles I., withdrew from Notre Dame during the concluding mass.
The Duke of Buckingham, ambassador-extraordinary from England, arrived at the conclusion of the ceremony. He was angry because he was too late—and certainly behaved in a most extraordinary manner while in France. Subsequently, he was on ill terms with the young Queen of England.
The Duke of Buckingham caused many delays by his flighty conduct. At last the cortége of the bride approached Boulogne. Charles I. came to Dover Castle to meet and welcome his queen. Her passage was dangerous. The king had that Sunday retired to Canterbury, thinking the bride could not embark in the storm. However, she landed at Dover, June 23, 1625, at seven in the evening. At ten, next day, the king arrived while she was at breakfast; he wished to wait, for she had been very ill with sea-sickness. Yet the bride rose hastily from table, hasted down a pair of stairs to meet the king, then offered to kneel and kiss his hand; but he wrapped her up in his arms with many kisses. "Sir, I have come to your majesty's country to be commanded by you," were the set words the poor bride had prepared for her first speech to Charles, but her voice failed, and ended with a gush of tears. Charles kindly led her apart, kissed off her tears, and said he should do so while they fell. His tenderness soon soothed the weeping girl, and she entered into familiar discourse with the royal lover. Charles seemed pleased that she was taller than he had heard; and, finding she reached the height of his shoulder, he glanced downward at her feet. Her quickness caught his meaning, and she said to him, in French, "I stand on my own feet; I have no help from art; thus tall am I, neither higher nor lower."
The young queen then presented all her French attendants to Charles, beginning with her cousin, the beautiful Madame de St. George, formerly her governess, now her first lady of the bed-chamber. To her the king very early took an antipathy.
The same eventful day, the bride, the king, and court set out for Canterbury, where the marriage was to be celebrated. On a beautiful extent of greensward, called Barham downs, a banquet was prepared; and in the pavilions the bride-queen was introduced to the ladies of her English household, and the noblemen and gentlemen appointed to her service. That evening, Charles and Henrietta were married in the noble hall of St. Augustine, Canterbury.