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HENRIETTA MARIA
FROM THE PAINTING BY VAN DYCK AT WINDSOR

HENRIETTA
MARIA

BY
HENRIETTA HAYNES

WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
LONDON: METHUEN & CO. LTD.
1912

PREFACE

A bibliography of the sources from which this book has been written would extend to many pages: much information has been derived from the collections of MSS. preserved in Paris in the Bibliothèque Nationale, in the Archives Nationales, and in the Bibliothèque Mazarine; from the valuable series of Roman Transcripts in the Public Record Office, London; from the curious and interesting documents in the archives of the See of Westminster, and from the newspapers and pamphlets which form a branch of the literature of the Civil War.

I have to express my thanks to His Eminence Cardinal Bourne, who kindly permitted me to consult the archives of the See of Westminster and to print three of the documents in the Appendix; to Mr. Edward Armstrong, Provost of Queen's College, Oxford, and to the Rev. H. Thurston, S.J., who have given me much help and advice; to the nuns of the Convent of the Visitation, Harrow-on-the-Hill, who lent me the rare Vie de la Ven. Mère Louise Eugénie de la Fontaine; and, finally, to my friend, Miss H. M. Morris, who with unwearied kindness read through nearly the entire MS. of the book, and helped me much by her criticisms and suggestions.

ERRATA

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

The woman to whose life and environment the following pages are dedicated was called upon to play her part in one of the most difficult and perplexing periods of our history: she lived just on the edge of the modern world, when the Middle Ages, with their splendid simplicity of all-embracing ideals, had passed away, and when even the ideals of nationality and religious freedom which the Renaissance and the Reformation had brought were becoming modified by the stirring of a new spirit of liberty. The two countries which Henrietta Maria knew were throughout her lifetime making their future destiny: the France which cherished her youth and sheltered her age was becoming the greedy France of Louis XIV, with its splendid Court, its attempts at territorial growth, its downtrodden, suffering people; the England of her happy married life was growing in political self-consciousness and in a stern and repellent godliness which was to mould the character of the nation, and to educate it to become in the next century the builder-up of the greatest empire which the world has ever seen.

Henrietta's life touches both England and France: by race, by education she was a Frenchwoman; by marriage she was an Englishwoman, and it is on English history that she has left the impress of her vivid personality; but the France which she never forgot coloured her thoughts throughout, and taught her in all probability those maxims of statecraft which she attempted to apply when the troubles of her life came upon her.

She was the daughter of Henry IV, the great restorer of the French monarchy, the champion of an unified France, embracing in wide toleration Catholic and Protestant alike: her youth witnessed the beginning of Richelieu's continuance of her father's work; under the auspices of the great Cardinal she was married, and though later her regard for him turned to hatred, yet the impress which his genius had left upon her mind was not thereby destroyed.

But her marriage transported her to a very different scene. England, under the iron heel of the Tudor despotism, had been worn out by no wasting civil wars; even the Reformation had brought little disturbance, for Henry VIII, by his amazing force of character, had been able to carry through a religious revolution almost without the people being aware of it; but the long peace was teaching men to forget the horrors of war and division. By the time the crown of the great Elizabeth passed to her Scotch cousin, Englishmen had ceased to look to the monarchy as the centre of unity. There was no need of a Henry of Navarre to bind up the wounds of the country. The old factious nobility had for the most part been slain in the War of the Roses, and the peaceful generations which followed had allowed of the growth of a powerful upper and middle class, which, originally fostered by the Crown as a counterpoise to the decayed feudal nobility, was now aspiring to a large share in the ruling of the people.

Henrietta wished to see her husband great and powerful, and she could not appreciate that the day of despotism which in France was beginning, in England was ending. Charles had not in him the stuff of greatness, but it is doubtful if even a Henry IV or a Richelieu could have put back the hands of the clock and realized her ambition. The despotism which was building up on the other side of the Channel in this country was tottering to its fall by the development of the intellect and character of the people. Henrietta clung to the ideals of the past instead of stretching out to meet the ideals of the future, and so her work failed even as did that of Strafford, in spite of his greatness.

And this national development was connected with perhaps the most important aspect of the matter. The Civil War was, more fundamentally than anything else, a war of religion, another act in the great drama which had been played in France half a century earlier, and which was still being played in Germany. Henry VIII and Elizabeth seemed to have saved England from the common fate of Europe; but it was not so: they only delayed the strife and gave it a turn unknown elsewhere, adding to the disadvantages of the champion of tradition this last, that he was a renegade in the eyes of the party to which by the logic of history he belonged. To many of their enemies, perhaps to most of them in certain moods, Charles and Henrietta were not so much the hinderers of political freedom as the supporters of an alien and blasphemous system of religion. It was the peculiar fortune of England that it gained liberty by the lever of religion. But for the fear of Popery it is far from improbable that the nation would not have arisen to strike down thus violently the despotism of the Tudors. Rather, the monarchy might have been gradually transformed, and with a very different and more tardy result, by the character of the people. But Puritan England could not leave irresponsible power in the hands of a sovereign whose very Protestantism was not unimpeachable, and thus the victories which were won by sectarian enthusiasm resulted not in the advancement of a barren fanaticism, but in the sure laying of the foundations of the liberty of the people. In France, where, among many differences from England, there was this great one, that the people and the monarch were substantially agreed on religious matters, there was discontent, even rebellion, but there was no revolution, and the people was left for another century and a half to bear the accumulating load of its misery, until the burden became unbearable and was cast off with a shock from which Europe still trembles.

Henrietta Maria's life was a failure. She failed to commend either her person, her religion, or her political ideals, and she brought her husband a degree of unpopularity which without her he might have escaped. Her circumstances were hard. She could not help being a Catholic, nor the fact that under her womanly softness lay the absolutism which was in the Bourbon blood. Like Charles, she was called upon to weather a storm which she had not raised, and she had not inherited with her father's temperament and charm his unrivalled political sagacity. Moreover, she had to win her private happiness by humouring a despotic and difficult-tempered man, and she could hardly be expected to recognize that that man, in marrying her, had made, on public grounds, the greatest mistake of his life. James I, whose ideas were always too large for his circumstances, had dreamed of securing England's place in the comity of nations by marrying his son to the daughter of one of the great Catholic houses. The result was not increased honour abroad, but hatred at home, such hatred as Henrietta in her early life was unable even to suspect. Accustomed in her own land to see Catholic and Protestant dwelling at least outwardly in peace together, knowing that the Catholic faith was professed at most of the Courts and among most of the peoples of Europe, she could not appreciate the insularity of the English mind which saw in every Catholic a political assassin wearing the colours of the Pope and the King of Spain; nor was she aware of the historical facts, which if they did not justify, at least explained this point of view. And as she failed to understand England, so she failed to understand Europe. The outstanding fact of continental politics was the long duel which was going on between France and the House of Austria. France was eventually to be the victor, but it was to be a hard struggle, and few were sharp-sighted enough to see in the splendid Spain of Philip IV the signs of a decadence which had already set in. But Henrietta's blindness was more than a dimness of sight, which she shared with Cromwell and others of the great ones of her age. It hid from her that which it was essential to her to know, namely, that this struggle underlay the whole policy of her native land. Thus she failed to understand the real causes of the enmity with which Richelieu came to regard her and her husband, and thus in later days she was unable to grasp the attitude of Mazarin, or to appreciate why it was impossible that he should give her the fullness of succour for which she asked.

Had she been a Protestant and a woman of profound sagacity, she might have saved her husband. As it was, by her reckless defiance of forces whose strength she was unable to appreciate, she hurried him to his doom. She lived at a great moment, and she had no greatness to meet it. Herein alone is her condemnation. She has received more than her fair share of blame, for she has been made the scapegoat of Charles' faults. The tragedy of her fate rivals that of Mary Stuart or of Marie Antoinette, but she missed the historical felicity of a violent death, so that she has failed to touch the popular imagination. Had she done so, the most charming queen who ever sat upon the English throne, the daughter of the man whom France still adores, would have been saved from a verdict at the tribunal of posterity which, if not altogether unjust, is totally inadequate.

HENRIETTA MARIA

CHAPTER I
THE DAUGHTER OF FRANCE

In this more than kingly state Love himself shall on me wait. Fill to me, Love, nay, fill it up; And mingled cast into the cup Wit and mirth and noble fires, Vigorous health and gay desires. Abraham Cowley

On a May morning in the year of grace 1625, a young girl, watching in the Chàteau of the Louvre in the city of Paris, was awaiting the greatest event which had yet come to disturb the tenor of her life; for, before the sun had set, she, Henrietta Maria of France, would be the betrothed wife of Charles, King of England.

It was a brilliant match for the little Princess, the youngest child of Henry IV, King of France, and of his wife Mary de' Medici of the great Florentine House: she owed it in part to the far-reaching policy of the father she had never known, and in part to the exertions of her mother and of a new favourite of that lady, M. de Richelieu. As she was only fifteen years old[1] she was, perhaps, too young to enter into the political aspect of the matter, but she was fully alive to the social and ceremonial advantages to which it would entitle her: a few years before she had gazed with envy at the honours prepared for her elder sister, Christine, the bride of Savoy: now she could afford to think of them almost with contempt, for, to her, the bride of proud England, far more splendid homage was about to be offered. Nor, though the bridegroom was absent and both betrothal and wedding would have to be by proxy, was he unknown. Henrietta had seen him when he was in Paris on the return journey of his romantic expedition to Spain, and she knew that he was a tall and proper man, handsome in face and royal in bearing, with a certain melancholy persuasiveness of address which not even a slight stammer could spoil. "I do not think he need have gone quite so far as Spain for a bride," she had said then, with the freedom of her tender years; even now, nearly a year later, she felt such an interest in her prospective bridegroom, that by the help of an old servant she borrowed his portrait from one of the English envoys who was accustomed to wear it round his neck, and, having carried it off to her private apartments, she gazed at it for the space of an hour, blushing the while at her own audacity.

Of Henrietta's childhood there is little to record; as one of her biographers sadly remarks, her troubles began before she could know them, for she was not a year old when her noble-hearted father perished by the knife of Ravaillac. Her early years were passed under the care of her mother, who, though she was solicitous for the child's health and education, and reared her with the state due to a daughter of France,[2] is said to have cared much less for her than for her elder sister Christine: a sister still older, the beautiful and high-minded Elizabeth, left her native country to become the unhappy wife of Philip IV of Spain, while Henrietta was still too young a child to retain much personal memory of her; but touching letters remain written from the desolate grandeur of Madrid to show how fondly Elizabeth's heart clung to the pretty child she had left in Paris, for whose portrait she begs, and to whom she sends little gifts such as some toys for the toilet of her dolls, "so that when you play you may remember me."[3] The two sisters never met again, and the Spanish princess who came to France in Elizabeth's stead was a poor exchange for her, even if Henrietta, who was possessed of a sparkling and somewhat biting wit, had not been fond of exercising it upon her brother's demure wife, with whom her mother was never on good terms.

That Henrietta's childhood was, in the main, healthy and happy, cannot be doubted. In person she resembled her father more than did either of her sisters, and she had inherited also his gay disposition. Her days were passed in one beautiful chàteau or another, either the Louvre or the Luxembourg, or S. Germain-en-Laye, with its beautiful forest and its terrace overlooking the Seine. Her governess was the kind and faithful Madame de Montglas, who had tended not only her, but her brothers and sisters from their earliest years; and if she failed in some degree to win her mother's heart, with others she was more fortunate. Christine left her when her years numbered but ten, but so strong was the tie of the common childhood of the sisters, that they corresponded warmly to the end of their lives. Her relations with her brothers were very affectionate, and the King, in particular, cherished her as his favourite sister, probably on account of her ready wit, a quality which, like many people who are dull themselves, he greatly admired. Finally, her charms invited a suitor while she was still almost a child, in the person of the Count of Soissons, a scion of the royal house, who may well have been as much enamoured of the dark, sparkling eyes which were the little Princess's chief beauty, as of her position as a daughter of France.

There is, however, one sentence in an old biography of Henrietta which shows her youth in another and a sadder aspect. Young as she was at the time of her marriage, it appears that already she had had to learn the difficult art of adjusting her conduct to the requirements of Court factions and family dissensions.[4] Her childhood was cast in the stormy times which followed the removal of the strong hand of Henry IV. Her mother, whose lead she followed in the main, was a foolish woman under the domination of unworthy favourites, until by good fortune she fell in with Richelieu. It would be impossible to give here even an outline of the history of the events which in 1617 drove Mary de Medici in disgrace from her son's Court. It must suffice to point out that until her return in triumph in 1621 her little daughter had some difficulty in reconciling the respective claims of her mother and her brother, and in preserving the favour of both.

It was not long after this return that negotiations for a matrimonial alliance with England were opened, and thereupon Henrietta became for the first time a person of political importance. Her mother learned to appreciate her wit and beauty, and Richelieu, whose reign was just beginning, looked upon her with interest as a co-operator in his schemes for the humiliation of the House of Austria and of the French Protestants, objects which he thought would be considerably furthered by the union of Henrietta with the heir of England.

In due time two envoys-extraordinary arrived from England to carry out the negotiations for the marriage. They were both very fine gentlemen, but the elder, the Earl of Carlisle, who was a Scotchman and an able diplomatist, on whom most of the real work of the mission fell, was in social matters quite outshone by his junior, the Lord Kensington, shortly to become Earl of Holland,[5] who was the handsomest man of his time and accounted so fascinating that he was the despair of jealous husbands. He was a great connoisseur in female beauty, and was smiled upon by Madame de Chevreuse, the most brilliant woman of the French Court; but he was kind enough to approve of Henrietta, and he sent home to the bridegroom-elect such glowing accounts of her beauty as roused that rather cold person to a fever of expectation. She was, he wrote, "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 (the which I am a witness of) as well as ever I saw any creature. They say she sings very sweetly. I am sure she looks so."[6] To the Duke of Buckingham, who at this time entirely governed Charles' mind, he wrote an equally enthusiastic account, praising the Princess as a "lovely sweet young creature," who, if she was not tall in stature, was "perfect in shape."[7]

Marriage negotiations between royal persons are always lengthy, and in this case there was the additional difficulty of the difference of religion between the contracting parties, which necessitated a dispensation from the Pope. But James of England eagerly desired the alliance, seeing in it a means of winning back the Palatinate for his daughter's husband, a hope which was encouraged by the diplomacy of Richelieu, who probably also worked upon the mind of Mary de' Medici, so that, in spite of her bigoted attachment to the Roman Catholic Church, the whole weight of her now powerful influence was thrown on the side of the marriage. Father Bérulle, the founder of the French Oratory, who was a great friend of hers, was sent to Rome to procure a dispensation from Urban VIII. Arrangements were made to secure Henrietta's religion and morals in the heretic country to which she was going, and it was provided that she should have the bringing up of her children until they reached the age of twelve years. Finally, secret articles[8] were inserted in the marriage treaty, in which James of England and his son promised that toleration should be granted to the English Catholics. Everything seemed settled, and all was rejoicing both in England and France, except for two malcontents: the Spanish Ambassador in Paris stood sullenly aloof, "who, without question, doth not well like that England and France should bee joyned together with such a firme alliance,"[9] and the Count of Soissons was so angry and disappointed at the loss of his bride that he refused to treat Lord Kensington with common courtesy, savagely declaring that the negotiations went so near his heart that were the Englishman not the ambassador of so great a King, he would cut his throat.

Henrietta herself was well pleased, and her cheerful countenance reflected her content. She exchanged a number of quaint and rather formal love-letters with her future husband, who sometimes employed as his intermediary a young protégé of Buckingham, by name Walter Montagu, who was destined to a singular career and to a lifelong friendship with the Princess, whom he now saw for the first time. In March, 1625, he left Paris and returned to England carrying the good news that all was forward, and that the lady should be delivered in thirty days. He was able to supplement Holland's description of the charms of the Princess, for, like that nobleman, he was something of a connoisseur in such matters. "I have made the Prince in love with every hair on Madame's head,"[10] he wrote cheerfully to Carlisle. So eager was the bridegroom that he would not allow the match to be stayed for the final settlement of the details of the dispensation.

But just as everything was ready an event of another character occurred to retard matters again. On March 27th, 1625, King James died, and the question arose as to whether the wedding could be celebrated during the period of mourning. However, as Henrietta could hardly be expected to feel acutely the death of an unknown father-in-law which made her a queen, and as Charles' impatience for his bride overcame any scruples with regard to decorum, it was settled that the great event should take place in the ensuing May. The decision that the bridegroom should not be present in person at the ceremony was probably a disappointment to Henrietta. It had been suggested that he should come over to France, but the proposal had not met with approval on either side of the Channel, the English thinking it beneath their King's dignity to seek his bride in a foreign land, and the French fearing, with good reason, the expense of such a guest. The selection of a proxy caused some difficulty. Charles wished that his great friend, the Duke of Buckingham, should impersonate him on this interesting occasion, but that nobleman, for private reasons which will be explained below, was not agreeable to the French Court. The choice finally fell upon the Duke of Chevreuse,[11] who was at once a high-born Frenchman and a relative of the King of England, being a prince of the House of Lorraine, and thus connected with Charles' great-grandmother, Mary of Guise. In spite of his high rank he was a person of sufficient obscurity, and chiefly remarkable as the husband of his brilliant wife.

The betrothal was solemnized on May 8th, which happened to be the Feast of the Ascension. The ceremony took place in the Louvre in the King's own room, which was elaborately fitted up for the occasion, and where, in the late afternoon, he appeared as (we are told) "a beautiful sun which shines above all others."[12] Lesser lights were present in the persons of his wife, his only brother Gaston, Duke of Orleans, and a crowd of noblemen, all of whom waited impatiently for the bride-elect, who at last appeared, attended by her mother and by Madame de Chevreuse. Henrietta entered the room with a dignity worthy of the occasion and of the great race from which she was sprung. Her magnificent dress, which perhaps a little eclipsed her girlish beauty, consisted of a robe of cloth of gold and silver thickly sprinkled with golden fleurs-de-lis and enriched by diamonds and other precious stones. This wonderful garment was further adorned by a long train carried by the little Mademoiselle de Bourbon, the Madame de Longueville of later days, who at this time was so young that she could only nominally fulfil her office, while the long, heavy folds were really supported by Madame de Montglas' daughter, Madame S. Georges, who was to accompany the young Queen to England.

Henrietta's entry was followed by that of the two English Ambassadors and the proxy bridegroom. Then, after the signing and countersigning of the articles of marriage, the betrothal ceremony was solemnized according to the rites of the Church by Cardinal de Rochefoucault, Grand Almoner of the King of France. In the evening a ball was held in the Louvre, while outside the firing of cannon and the letting off of fireworks testified to the public rejoicing.

It was not until three days later, on May 11th, that the actual wedding took place. [13] The church chosen for the religious ceremony was the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, which was adorned with hangings of silk and tapestry and of cloth of gold, to hide as far as possible the lines of the Gothic architecture which was condemned by the taste of the day. Every detail of the ceremony[14] was arranged when an unfortunate difficulty arose which caused much ill-feeling and considerable trouble.

Jean François de Gondi, a member of one of those Italian families which had found fortune in France in the wake of a foreign Queen, now occupied the See of Paris. He was the first of the long line of bishops of the capital to receive the honours of archiepiscopal rank, and, as his character, which has been sketched for us by his candid nephew, Cardinal de Retz, was at once feeble and vainglorious, it is probable that his head was a little turned. His anger, therefore, may be imagined when he discovered that he was not to officiate at a wedding which took place at his own cathedral, but was to be set aside for the Cardinal de Rochefoucault. Mingled with personal pique was the bitter feeling of the infringement of the rights of the episcopate. He summoned all the prelates who were then in Paris to a meeting, and they joined with him in presenting a petition on the subject to the King. But Louis and the Cardinal (who had provided himself with a brief from the Pope which, however, was not produced) stood firm; and the upshot of the affair was that the Archbishop, though he was forced to give way and was much blamed by his clergy for doing so, was nevertheless so angry that he went off to the country, refusing to have anything to do with the wedding, and leaving the nuptial mass to be said by his senior suffragan, the Bishop of Chartres.

But this was not the worst. The absence of the Archbishop might have been supported with philosophy, but the strike extended not only to the Chapter, but even to such indispensable people as the singing-men, who, at the last moment, had to be hurriedly replaced by singers from the King's cabinet and chapel.

The English alliance was very popular in Paris. It was remembered that if the bridegroom was King of England and a heretic, he was also a Scotchman born and the grandson of the much-loved Mary of Scotland, who, it was said, was doubtless praying in heaven for his conversion. Another side of the general satisfaction was expressed by poetic references to the union of the sister of Mars with Neptune, the King of the Waves, which, it was hoped, would bring about a happy state of things when

"toute la Terre
Soit aux François et Anglois."[15]

It is not surprising, therefore, that the early hours of the great day saw the parvis of Notre-Dame crowded with spectators waiting patiently under the rain of an inclement May morning. The concourse was so great that the neighbouring streets had to be secured by barriers and patrolled by the Swiss Guard to make free passage for the coaches of the nobility which were perpetually arriving at the doors of the cathedral to deposit their loads of gaily dressed ladies.

Meanwhile, what of the bride for whom all this was prepared? She had spent the previous day at her mother's favourite convent, that of the Carmelite nuns whom Bérulle had "fetched out of Spain" to place in a house of the Faubourg S. Jacques. There her mother's friend, Mother Magdeleine of S. Joseph, gave her a great deal of advice, seasoned with much piety and some judgment. Thence she returned to pass the night at the Louvre, and to spend a quiet morning, until at about two o'clock on the afternoon of her wedding-day she set out for the Archbishop's palace, which that dignitary, in spite of his chagrin, had placed at the disposal of the wedding-party. There in the fine old house overlooking the Seine, which two hundred years later was to fall a victim to the fury of the Parisian mob,[16] Henrietta spent several hours in putting on the same magnificent dress which she had worn at her betrothal, so that five o'clock had already struck when her brother the King came to fetch her that he might conduct her to the cathedral.

The procession was drawn up. First came an officer known as the captain of the gate, behind whom walked a hundred men of the King's Swiss Guard, drums beating and banners flying. They were followed by the band, which was so effective that while the hautbois ravished the ears of those who heard them, the drums would have stirred the most faint-hearted to courage. As to the trumpets, they made the hearts of the listeners leap for joy within their bodies.

At last, after heralds, marshals, peers, and dukes, after the proxy bridegroom and the Ambassadors from England, came the central figure of the procession, the bride herself, supported by her two brothers, one of whom was also her King.

The sickly, depressed Louis XIII, notwithstanding his magnificent dress of cramoisi velvet, so thickly covered with cloth of gold that the foundation hardly appeared, afforded a sad contrast to the splendid vitality of his little sister, whose dark curls were adorned by a crown of gold set with diamonds, and bearing in front an enormous pearl of inestimable value. The train of her royal mantle, which was of velvet and cloth of gold, embroidered with fleurs-de-lis, was carried by the Princesses of Condé and Conti and by the Countess of Soissons, the mother of the rejected lover, who had asked and obtained leave to absent himself from the ceremony. So heavy was it that to give the bride greater comfort an officer walked under it and supported it with his head and hands. Gaston of Orleans, who was at his sister's left hand, was not allowed to rival his sovereign in apparel, for a rule had been made that the King, the Duke of Chevreuse, and the Earls of Carlisle and Holland should be the only gentlemen to appear in cloth of gold. He had to content himself with silk. The rear was brought up by the two Queens, the elder plainly dressed in black, relieved by splendid jewels; the younger magnificent in cloth of gold and silver. A crowd of highly born ladies followed, among whom may be mentioned Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the rich heiress whom Gaston of Orleans was to wed reluctantly a year later, and Madame de Chevreuse, who, no doubt, cast admiring glances at the handsome face and figure of her lover, the Earl of Holland.

The wedding ceremony was not to take place in the church but, in accordance with the old ritual of matrimony, on a platform erected outside the west door,[17] which was connected with the archiepiscopal palace by a long wooden gallery upholstered in beautiful tapestry. On this platform, under a canopy of cloth of gold, Cardinal de Rochefoucault was waiting to receive the bride, while from the stands which had been put up round the parvis, and from the windows of the tall neighbouring houses, eager heads were thrust forward to catch a glimpse of the procession as it wound along in the sunshine which had succeeded the rainy morning. Henrietta, the Duke of Chevreuse, and the royal party ascended the platform. The short marriage ceremony was gone through, and immediately on its conclusion an English gentleman who was present, by name George Goring,[18] set off to carry to the King of England, as quickly as relays of the swiftest horses would allow, the tidings of his own marriage.

The new Queen only lingered at the church door to receive the kneeling homage of the English Ambassadors. Then, accompanied by her mother, her brothers, and the rest of the wedding-party, she entered the great church.[19] There awaited her not only the nobility of France, but also such dignitaries as the provost of the merchants, the aldermen of the city of Paris, and the rector of the university, while "Messieurs du Parlement" had, with some difficulty, made good their claim to be present in a body. All eyes were turned upon the bride as she moved along another richly decorated gallery, which conducted her to a dais in the chancel from which she was to hear the nuptial Mass. It was past seven o'clock before the offertory was reached, an almost unprecedented hour at which to say Mass, and many may have envied the heretic Ambassadors who were able to retire for a brief rest, owing to their unwillingness to be present at a popish service. The only consideration shown for Henrietta was that she was not required to communicate, as it was thought that to fast until that late hour and to undergo at the same time so much fatigue and excitement might prove injurious to her health.

But even when the Mass was over there was no rest to be had. That evening saw the Archbishop's palace turned into a scene of royal festivity. In the hall the banquet was spread. At the middle of the table sat the King, with his mother on his right hand and his sister, the queen of a day, on his left. The Duke of Chevreuse and the English Ambassadors were privileged to sit down with the royal party, which was waited on by "our lords the princes, dukes, peers, and marshals of France," who did not disdain to bring in the meats for the feast. Outside in the May darkness all Paris was en fête. Bonfires and fireworks were to be seen in every street, so that it seemed that never had there been such rejoicings as at the marriage of Princess Henrietta.

It might have been expected that the newly married Queen would have set off at once for her adopted country, but, on the contrary, there were considerable delays caused, it was believed, by the Pope's agents, who were annoyed that the marriage had taken place before the details of the dispensation had been settled.[20] When these difficulties had been overcome the King fell ill, and it seems probable that the departure would have been postponed even longer than was the case had not an event occurred to hasten it, namely, the arrival in Paris of an unexpected and most unwelcome guest, George, Duke of Buckingham.

This extraordinary person, whose career reads like a fairy story, was at this time at the height of his fame. His handsome face and a certain careless magnificence of manner, which might almost have passed for magnanimity, were greatly admired, and if he showed at times the insolence of the parvenu, much was condoned, at least outwardly, in the man who was the acknowledged favourite of the King of England, and who was able to appear in almost regal splendour, decked out, it was even said, by the jewels of England. He was already well known in Paris, and in the few days he had spent there in 1624, between Madrid and London, he had made an ineffaceable impression upon at least one heart.

Few royal stories are sadder than that of Anne of Austria, the queen of Louis XIII. Married as a mere child to an apathetic boy, she neither knew how to win his love nor how to adapt herself to the requirements of her position. Neglected by her husband, bullied by her mother-in-law, and later by Richelieu, she may almost be forgiven for her treasonable correspondence with the enemies of France. Still less can she be blamed that her heart clung too fondly to the relatives she had left in Madrid. To the end of her days she remained a Spaniard, dévote and fanatical beyond the liking of the lively Parisians; a Spaniard also in her unconquerable coquetry. The ladies of her mother's Court, shut up in almost monastical seclusion, were accustomed to amuse themselves during the long hours which intervened between the various religious exercises by dwelling on and recounting in every detail their conquests of the men whom they seldom saw except in the silence of a church or among the crowds of a Court ceremony. Anne, coming from such a life, was unable to understand at once the greater liberty and the greater decorum of French manners. She was beautiful, and she was gifted with a pair of soft, white, exquisitely modelled hands, so that she was able to command the flattery which she loved. Many a gallant worshipped at a distance, but none dared to pay her attentions which seriously compromised her until the English favourite crossed her path.

The true story of the loves of these two is not fully known. It died with them and with those in whom they confided; but it is probable that during Buckingham's first visit to Paris something was suspected, and that this was the real reason of the refusal to receive him as the proxy of the King of England. When it was known that he had arrived, uninvited, the wrath of his unwilling hosts was so great that it was only through the intervention of Madame de Chevreuse, the devoted friend of Queen Anne, and the representations of the English Ambassadors that he obtained a reception befitting his rank.

The Duke urged strongly the immediate departure of the bride; and though it was felt that such a desire for haste was indelicate, yet the French royal family, with one exception, was so anxious to see the last of him, that they were fain to comply. Henrietta, probably, was not consulted. She was a pawn in the political game, and she was still too young to assert herself.

Perhaps she was in no hurry to be gone. She clung to her home and her country, and the waiting time was made very pleasant by festivities in which, for the first time, she tasted the pleasures of her queenly rank. All were splendid; but probably the most magnificent was an entertainment offered by Richelieu to the three queens during the indisposition of the King. It took place at the Luxembourg, that monument of the Italian renaissance within Paris, which was built for Mary de' Medici in her widowhood to remind her of her own Florentine palace, whose beautiful gardens, unchanged since her day, remain to witness to the taste of gardeners before Le Nôtre.[21] On this occasion the spacious rooms were magnificently decorated. The most skilful musicians which Paris could furnish had been procured, and the ears of the guests were delighted by choice music, both vocal and instrumental, while the courtly host employed all the grace and charm which he had ever at command to fascinate the three royal ladies, and particularly the young Queen of England, who was inclined to look upon him with favour as in some sort the author of her marriage. Finally, at the close of the entertainment all went out into the gardens to witness a display of fireworks, "the most superb and the most beautiful invention which had been seen for a long time."[22] The Cardinal, who had given the fête to mark his satisfaction at the issue of his diplomacy, had cause to congratulate himself upon its success. As Queen Henrietta said good-bye to him with grateful cordiality, he bent his keen glance upon her and saw in her another subservient tool of his ambition, as she saw in him her protector and her friend. Neither the statesman nor the Queen could read the secrets of the future, nor know that each would come to regard the other as an enemy.

At last, when May had passed into June, the day came which witnessed the Queen of England's departure from Paris. The King, who was still far from well, determined, nevertheless, to see his sister on her way as far as Compiègne, and apart from his royal presence she had goodly attendance. It included the Queen-Mother and her second son Gaston, both of whom intended to accompany the bride to the coast; the Queen Consort, who, against the advice of her best friends, could not tear herself from the fascinating company of Buckingham; the Duke of Chevreuse, and M. de Ville-aux-Clercs, who were commissioned by the King of France to deliver over his sister to her royal husband. Finally, Madame de Chevreuse, who had asked and obtained permission to accompany the bride to her new home for a reason similar to that which actuated her friend Queen Anne—namely, the love which she bore to the Earl of Holland.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Henrietta left the Louvre to set out on her journey to England. Her brother, who, perhaps to dazzle the more homely English, had spared no expense on her trousseau and equipment, had provided for her personal use a magnificent litter upholstered within and without in red cramoisi velvet, which was relieved by the gold embroidery of the cushions and curtains. It was drawn by two fine mules, gorgeous in their red velvet cloths, and with white aigrettes nodding merrily on their heads. They were led by a muleteer who was handsomely dressed, and who rode another richly caparisoned mule. The trappings of the rest of the party were also splendid in proportion to their rank. A brave escort saw on her way the daughter of Henry IV. Archers and guards turned out to do her honour, and by her side rode that great civic dignitary, "M. le prevost des Marchands." To the sound of martial music went the gay cavalcade, through the narrow streets of old Paris up to the Porte S. Denys, and so beyond the wall, which still guarded the city, into the suburbs. Working men and women, leaving their toil, lined the road, many of whom looking on the fair child who was leaving them, and having no expectation of seeing her again, could not restrain their weeping.

FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PICTURE BY FRANCIS POURBUS

Half-way to S. Denys the party halted. The provost of the merchants delivered a weary discourse, "full of matter," and then bidding Henrietta farewell he turned back to Paris with his escort. The rest pushed on. There was no time to wait at S. Denys, where the dust of Henrietta's father lay, and whither her own dead body was to be carried nearly half a century later. The summer evening was drawing in, and it was thought wiser to go on to Stains, where a night's rest awaited the bride, who may well have been fatigued by the toils of this exciting day.

The first considerable town through which the royal party passed was Amiens. This great city, "the metropolis and key of all Picardy," was determined, notwithstanding its depressed financial position, to give the three Queens, no one of whom had ever before been within its walls, a splendid reception. This resolve was all the more loyal as the consideration of the King had only indicated a few simple tokens of respect, such as a reception by the aldermen, as obligatory on the occasion. It was late in the afternoon before the royal ladies and their train approached the city, for they were much delayed by the concourse of people who came out to see them. Not far from the city gates they were met by the Governor, the Duke of Chaulnes, who brought with him three hundred horsemen whose steeds, we are told, were of the same race as those sung by the poets—whose eyes and nostrils emitted flames and fire. Of the cavaliers each might have been taken for chief and leader, so splendid were they all. Accompanied by this dashing cavalcade the cortège swept on, to be met on its way by a troop of archers bearing an ensign with the device of a cupid, by the youth of the city drawn up in companies, and finally by six thousand of the mature citizens, whose martial discipline was the admiration of all. By a wise precaution no salvos were fired until the royal party was safely passed, for experience had shown that, though only two or three horses might be frightened, yet they were sufficient to cause unseemly disturbance.

After the formal greeting had been given to the guests at the gate of the city by the mayor and aldermen, a ceremony took place specially designed in compliment to the bride of the island King. Fifty young girls, all pretty and some very beautiful, dressed up to represent the demi-goddesses of the sea, came to hail Henrietta as Thetis, queen of the waves, sitting upon the throne of her litter which had brought her from the banks of the Seine, and to whom, in token of humble submission, they presented the keys of the city. So great was the crush to see this sight that the gentleman to whom we owe the story of the details of the day[23] was unable to get near enough to hear the speeches of the marine goddesses. The crowds in the streets were great, and as there were neither archers nor Swiss, as at Paris, to range the people against the houses and to keep a clear passage, the confusion was considerable; but it was not allowed to interfere with the programme drawn up by the loyal people of Amiens. Henrietta saw not only triumphal arches and columns in abundance, but also curious allegorical ceremonies in the taste of the times. She beheld Jason, who, after fighting with fire-breathing bulls, bore off triumphant the golden fleece, and in whom she was to recognize an impersonation of her husband, Charles of England. She listened to the hymeneal god, who, attended by nymphs, stepped forward and, to the accompaniment of sweet music, sang a wedding-song specially composed for the occasion. The last three verses, notwithstanding their extravagance of compliment, are so fresh and charming as to be worthy of the pretty bride to whom they were addressed.

"Mais que fais je par ces carmes Vous arrestant en ces lieux C'est que je suis pris aux charmes Que vous avez dans les yeux.

"Allez, j'ay peur que vous-mesme Nous emportiez votre coeur; Vous portez un diademe Soubs un front toujours vainquer.

"Ne demeurez, ie vieux suyvre Mon coeur ne sera rétif, C'est glorieusement vivre Que d'estre en vos mains captif."[24]

Henrietta looked and smiled and listened. She was new to such honours, and it was pleasant to be for the moment a greater person than her stern mother or her stately sister-in-law. But the rejoicings were long-drawn-out, and she must have been very weary before they culminated in a joyous Te Deum sung in the cathedral, which, like Notre-Dame in Paris, had been disfigured as much as possible with pictures and hangings. Nor even then were her toils over. Long and dreary speeches awaited her, to which she had to listen with some show of interest, before at last she could lie down to rest.

Henrietta's innocent dreams were perhaps of Jason and the goddesses of the sea; but there were those about her whose pillows were haunted by visions of a very different character.

Had all France been searched through it would have been difficult to find a more undesirable friend and adviser for a young married woman than Marie de Rohan, once Duchess of Luynes, and now by her second marriage Duchess of Chevreuse. Beautiful, unscrupulous, and gifted with a remarkable talent for diplomacy, which enabled her to give effect to her audacious schemes, she had little difficulty in recommending herself to Henrietta, into whose young mind she dropped seeds of distrust and of a love of crooked ways which were to bear fruit in the future. It was not her fault if other seeds failed to ripen there, and if the purity of the little bride's mind was proof against the evil example of certain events which occurred during the few days of the halt at Amiens.

The city had no house large enough to accommodate the three Queens. The Queen-Mother, as befitted her age and dignity, was lodged in the episcopal palace, while Henrietta and her sister-in-law had to find apartments elsewhere. The bride's domicile is not known, but to Queen Anne and her attendants was allotted a fine house with gardens sloping down to the River Somme. In these gardens took place a famous scene destined to influence several lives, and among them that of Henrietta Maria.

Already at a ball given by the Duchess of Chaulnes the animation and brilliant looks of the Queen of France had been remarked, and ill-natured people were not lacking who saw in the English duke, who had danced on that evening with infinite grace, the magician able to rouse her from the listlessness which usually spoiled her undoubted beauty. Such public meetings were safe enough, but Buckingham was constantly at the Queen's lodgings. One evening, in company with Madame de Chevreuse and the Earl of Holland, he was paying his respects when Anne, who, remembering the soft, scented nights of her native land, loved to wander abroad after dusk, invited him to enjoy with her the cool beauty of the June twilight. Their companions, who were carrying on their own flirtation under the cloak of another's, followed, but, perhaps intentionally, they lagged behind, so that the royal lady found herself alone with her bold admirer in a dark, winding walk. Suddenly the silence of the evening was broken by a shrill cry. The Queen's equerry, who was in attendance at a discreet distance, rushed up to find his mistress in a state of trembling agitation, and the duke so red and confused that he was glad to make his escape as quickly as possible. There were, of course, explanations and excuses. The matter came to the ears of the Queen-Mother, who, worn out by her exertions, was lying seriously ill; she helped to hush up the scandal, and both Anne and Buckingham seemed, for the moment, to escape easily; but it was felt that they must part at once, and the duke, with a tact which he sometimes displayed, began to talk of the King of England's impatience to see his bride, and to hint that it was not necessary to wait for the Queen-Mother's recovery.

Henrietta, the sport of others less innocent than herself, knelt to receive her mother's last blessing. That lady, touched by some real maternal feeling, bade her a tender farewell, pressing into her hand a letter which the girl found, when she came to read it, to be full of the most admirable sentiments of piety and virtue and of excellent advice as to her conduct in the married state. She probably knew Mary de' Medici too well to attribute this composition to her, and perhaps no one attempted to disguise the fact that its author was the pious Father Bérulle who was going with her to England in the capacity of confessor.[25]

Through Abbeville, with its soaring cathedral, through picturesque Montreuil, Henrietta came to Boulogne, whence she was to cross to England, as the plague was reigning at Calais. Though it was June, the weather was wild and stormy, and a further delay was inevitable. Buckingham, forgetful of all propriety, careless of the trust confided to him by his friend and King, took advantage of this delay to steal back, on a frivolous pretext, to Amiens, and to Anne. His audacity little availed him. After one brief agitated interview he had to tear himself from his idol, whom he never saw again.

During the waiting time at Boulogne, Henrietta made acquaintance with some of her new subjects who had crossed the Channel to meet her, and who were greatly disappointed when they found her without her mother and sister-in-law, for, as one of them wrote, they had looked forward to seeing beauty not only in the future tense, but in the present and the preterperfect as well.[26] Buckingham, who up till now had been too occupied with Anne to pay much attention to the bride, and who was too much of a man of the world to care for the "future tense" of beauty, now, it seems, bethought him of winning the favour of the Queen of England. Certainly he secured a flattering reception for his mother, the Countess of Buckingham, who improved the occasion of her visit to France by reconciling herself to the Church of Rome. In later days Henrietta did not like the lady, but at this first introduction she received her "with strange courtesy and favour."[27] Nor was she alone in her kindness. Gaston of Orleans, who, in his mother's enforced detention at Amiens, had adhered to his plan of escorting his sister to the coast, paid the English lady the unusual compliment of visiting her, and the haughty and high-born Madame de Chevreuse actually waived her right of precedence in favour of the Buckinghams, whose family was of yesterday. It need hardly be said that such courtesy was greatly relished by the English visitors, who found no drawback to the happy intercourse with their new friends except in the Countess' ignorance of the French tongue. But even this difficulty was got over by the presence at Boulogne of Sir Tobie Matthew, who, though the son of a Protestant archbishop, was a Catholic and a citizen of the world whose linguistic talents, which were much admired in continental circles, were joined to a refined culture which rendered him a fitting intermediary between these distinguished persons. Fortunately all his time was not taken up by such duties, and he employed his leisure very profitably in writing a long letter to a lady acquaintance, which contains the fullest account we possess of Henrietta in her early youth before the cares of married life had come upon her.

Sir Tobie's ready and subtle pen drew such a sketch of the young Queen as, interpreted by the future, shows him to have been a keen analyst of character. Henrietta had grown a good deal during the past year; and though she was still small, "she sits," he wrote, "upon the very skirts of womanhood." Her mind and character were as yet undeveloped; but in the mingled gentleness and wit of her conversation, in the sweet courtesy shown to her inferiors, in the faithful affection which clung to the mother she had left, finally, in the courage and enterprise which, to the despair of her attendants, tempted her to a sea-trip in an open boat with her brother Gaston, we recognize the woman of later days, as in the girl of fifteen we see the beautiful queen of Van Dyck's portraits. "Upon my faith," wrote the worthy knight, giving utterance to a prophecy which unfortunately was not completely fulfilled, "she is a most sweet, lively nature, and hath a countenance which opens a window into her heart, where a man may see all nobleness and goodness; and I dare venture my head (upon the little skill I have in physiognomy) that she will be extraordinarily beloved by our nation and deserve to be so, and that the actions of her life which are to be her owne will be excellent."[28]

At length, after nearly three weeks of waiting, during which Henrietta's health and spirits flagged a little, the twenty-second day of June dawned calm and fair, and it was decided that the voyage should be made. Heretofore the Queen of England had been her brother's guest, but now, on the eve of embarking, she was delivered over to the care of the Duke of Buckingham, and the deed of consignation was signed by that nobleman and by the two French Ambassadors, to witness that the responsibility of the latter was ended. After the little ceremony the Queen was escorted to the quay by her brother. She went on board the beautiful ship, The Prince, which her husband had sent for her. The preparations for departure were quickly made. The moment came when she clung in a last embrace to Gaston. Then the sails were unfurled, and The Prince rode proudly out of Boulogne harbour. As Henrietta stood gazing upon the rapidly receding cliffs of France, did any foreboding of the future come over her, any presage of coming grief such as weighed upon the heart of her husband's grandmother, Mary of Scotland, on a similar occasion? Did any shadow of that day nearly twenty years later, when, a fugitive pursued by unrelenting foes, she would see again her native land, darken her spirit? We cannot tell. We only know that she had a moment's serrement de coeur, such as any girl might feel on leaving home, and that she was a little afraid of sea-sickness.

No inconvenience, however, arose. Charles' care had caused his bride's cabin to be so beautified that she might have imagined herself in her own Louvre rather than on the sea; and to complete the illusion a choice concert of delicate instruments and sweet voices was in readiness to amuse her. Moreover, no precaution was omitted which might ensure the safety of so precious a freight. The Prince and the vessels which formed her escort carried the most experienced pilots that could be obtained, whose work was so well done (though unfortunately it was never paid for) that in four-and-twenty hours the Channel was crossed. Dover harbour was safely made, and amidst a throng of interested spectators Henrietta Maria touched the soil of her new kingdom. It was noticed that immediately on her arrival the wind rose again with its former violence, and that the sea was again troubled as if for her alone they had stilled their raging. It was now evening, and as the Queen, in spite of the pleasures of the little voyage which seemed to have restored her health and spirits, confessed to great fatigue, she was allowed to retire at once and to postpone until the next day the meeting with her husband. M. de Chevreuse and M. de Ville-aux-Clercs wrote a formal letter to their master, informing him of his sister's happy arrival, while the King of England awaited, with as much patience as he could command, the morrow which was to give to his arms the bride who had tarried so long.

[ [1]She was born on November 25th, 1609 (November 15th, O.S.).

[ [2] The elaborate ceremonies of her baptism are described in a pamphlet entitled Discours sur le baptême de Monsieur frère du Roy et de la petite Madame. 1614.

[ [3]Bib. Nat., Paris. MS. Français, 3818.

[ [4]After this marriage (of Christine) Her Majesty durst not follow her mother, to the displeasure of her brother, lest she might hinder her own, until June 21st, 1620, when the Queen-Mother and her son were reconciled.

The Life and Death of that matchless mirror of Magnanimity and Heroick Vertue, Henrietta Maria de Bourbon (1669), p. 5.

[ [5]He was created Earl of Holland September 15th, 1624.

[ [6]Cabala (1691), Pt. II, p. 287.

[ [7]Ibid., p. 290. The following descriptions of Henrietta shortly after her marriage show the impression she made upon Englishmen: "We have now a most Noble new Queen of England who in true beuty is beyond the Long-Wood Infanta; for she was of a fading Flaxen-Hair, Big-Lipp'd and somewhat heavy Ey'd, but this Daughter of France, this youngest Branch of Bourbon ... is of a more lovely and lasting Complexion, a dark Brown, she hath Eyes that sparkle like stars and on her Physiognomy she may be said to be a mirrour of perfection."—J. Howell: Epistolæ Ho-Eliamæ (1645), sec. IV, p. 30. " ... I went to Whitehall purposlie to see the queene, which I did fullie all the time shee sate at dinner and perceived her to bee a most absolute delicate ladie, after I had exactly surveied all the features of her face, much enlivened by her radiant and sparkling black eye. Besides her deportment amongst her women was so sweete and humble, and her speech and lookes to her other servants soe milde and gracious, as I could not abstaine from divers deep-fetched sighes that she wanted the knowledge of the true religion."—D'Ewes' Diary: printed in Bibliotheca Typographica Britannica (1790), Vol. VI, p. 33.

[ [8]These articles were signed at Cambridge in December, 1624; see MS. Français, 3692: also the Mémoirs du Comte de Brienne (M. de Ville-aux-Clercs) (Petitot), 1824, p. 389, who was in England at the time negotiating the matter.

[ [9]Continuation of Weekly News, No. 43, 1624.

[ [10]Egerton MS., 2596, f. 49.

[ [11]The procuration of the King of England authorizing the Duke of Chevreuse to marry the Princess Henrietta in his name is dated April 11th, 1625.

[ [12] L'Ordre des cérémonies observés au mariage du roy de la Grande Britagne et de Madame soeur du roy. Paris, 1625.

[ [13]Many of the details of the marriage, departure from Paris, etc., are taken from the official account, MS. Français, 23,600.

[ [14] The ceremonies followed the precedent of those used at the marriage of Henrietta's father, Henry of Navarre, with Margaret of Valois.

[ [15]Part of the song with which Henrietta was greeted at Amiens on her wedding journey. See pp. 20, 21.

[ [16]Destroyed in February, 1831.

[ [17]Cf. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: Prologue.

A good Wif was ther of byside Bath * * * * * Sche was a worthy womman al hire lyfe Housbondes atte chirche dore hadde sche fyfe.

[ [18]George Goring, Baron Goring, 1628, Earl of Norwich, 1644; d. 1663.

[ [19]At some point in the ceremony Henrietta Maria renounced all her rights to the throne and dominions of France, as had been stipulated in the marriage treaty.

[ [20]The dispensation is dated December, 1625.

[ [21]They are smaller, part of them having been built over.

[ [22]MS. Français, 23,600.

[ [23] L'Entrée superbe magnifique faite à la Royne de la grande Bretagne dans la Ville d'Amiens, le Samedy septisme de Juin, 1625. Sur les fideles relations d'un seigneur de qualité. A. Paris, MDCXXV.

[ [24]Ibid.

[ [25]On the question of the authorship of this letter see Avenal: Lettres de Richelieu, VIII., p. 27. There seems no doubt that it was written by Bérulle. Among the Bérulle papers (Archives Nationales, M. 232) is an authenticated copy, whose note of authentication states that "ce discours à este composé par nostre très révérend père" (i.e. Bérulle), as the copyist was informed in 1660. Bérulle in 1627 wrote another letter for Mary de' Medici to send to her daughter. See chap. IV.

[ [26]Sir Tobie Matthew. Tanner MS., LXXII.

[ [27]Ibid.

[ [28]Tanner MS., LXXII, 40.

CHAPTER II
THE BRIDE OF ENGLAND

Parents lawes must beare no weight When they happinesse prevent. And our sea is not so streight, But it room hath for content. William Habington

Long years after the events occurred, when many happy years had softened the memory of their bitterness, Henrietta Maria confessed to her friend Madame de Motteville that her early married life had not been free from disappointment and vexation. Charles Stuart was not an easy man to live with, as all those who had much to do with him found out. He was moral, conscientious, in many respects admirable; but he was oppressed by a sense of his own importance, he was entirely without humour, and he was convinced that he was always, on all occasions, in the right. He did not, as many royal husbands, break his marriage vow, but he treated his girl-wife with a harshness which fell little short of unkindness, and that though she was ever anxious to do her duty and he was always sincerely a lover.

It is probable that the difficulties began almost immediately. Charles, on his arrival at Dover, did, indeed, greet his beautiful bride with delight, and when she would have knelt at his feet he prevented her by clasping her in his arms instead. But the French visitors soon showed that they were dissatisfied with the Queen's reception. They were ignorant of the more homely character of the English people and Court; and, contrasting the poverty of the festivities and welcome offered by the King of England to his queen with the splendour which the King of France had freely displayed to do honour to his sister, they concluded a lack of respect and affection on the part of Charles which had no foundation in fact. Some of the difficulty was indeed wholly due to national misunderstanding, as, for instance, the ill-feeling caused by the gloomy splendours of Dover Castle, where the young Queen spent her first night in England, and, later, by an antique bed, dating from the reign of Elizabeth, in which she was invited to repose in London. How could the English know that these relics of a glorious past were in the eyes of these visitors, accustomed to the new-fashioned luxuries of the French Court, nothing but relics of barbarism? "None of us, however old, could remember ever having seen such a bed," wrote Tillières,[29] in deep indignation. Nor was the public welcome to London more successful, though the marriage was fairly popular, and there was much kindly feeling towards the bride. The plague was raging in the city, so that, for prudence'sake, festivities had to be curtailed; while, to make matters worse, the entry into the capital took place on one of those drenching summer days which are not of infrequent occurrence in these islands. To the French visitors used to Paris, which, if one of the dirtiest of cities, was, then as now, one of the most beautiful and magnificent, London, at the best, would have looked rather shabby,[30] in these circumstances it appeared ugly and squalid. The English were little more pleased with their guests. "A poor lot, hardly worth looking at," was the comment of one Englishman on the brilliant train of French ladies who accompanied the Queen; and if he made an exception in favour of Madame de Chevreuse, who could hardly have been called plain, it was only to find fault with her for painting her face. It was perhaps not to be expected that this remarkable lady should find favour in Puritan eyes, for during her stay in England, where she remained over the birth of her daughter, the Mademoiselle de Chevreuse of later French history, she exhibited more than her usual eccentricity, indulging in such freaks as swimming across the Thames, an exploit which was celebrated in half-mocking verse by a Court poet.[31] But such petty national jealousies were annoyances of a trivial character. The more serious disagreements which arose between the royal pair may be traced, almost entirely, to two sources: the influence over the Queen of her French attendants, and the influence over the King of the Duke of Buckingham.

Among the articles of the marriage treaty was a stipulation that the Queen's household should be composed of those who were of her own faith and nation. This body consisted of more than a hundred persons, civil and religious, chosen by Mary de' Medici and Richelieu, ranging from such great nobles and ladies as Madame S. Georges, the principal lady-in-waiting, and the Count de Tillières, the lord chamberlain, to the humble servants of the royal kitchen and laundry. Certainly the presence of so many of her own countrymen about the person of the young Queen tended to prevent that assimilation of English ideas and habits which was so desirable. It is not surprising that Charles disliked his wife's French servants as standing between him and his bride, particularly when it is remembered that they looked upon themselves as the servants of the King of France, who provided many of them with pensions.

The object of his special dislike was Madame S. Georges, who, as the daughter of Madame de Montglas, had great influence with Henrietta, and who, though she had had long experience in Courts,[32] was foolish enough to show herself aggrieved at not being permitted to ride in the same coach with the King of England and his bride. Madame de Tillières, who ranked next to her, was more discreet in her conduct, probably owing to her husband's intimate knowledge of England, where he had resided a while as ambassador.

But if the secular part of the Queen's household was objectionable, still more so was the ecclesiastical establishment, of which the leading spirits were her confessor, Father Bérulle, who had brought over with him twelve fathers of the French Oratory,[33] whose long habit, worn on all occasions, startled the eyes of sober Londoners, and her Grand Almoner, Daniel de la Motte du Plessis Houdancourt, who had under him four sub-almoners, one of whom was said to have openly defended at Court the doctrine of tyrannicide which Ravaillac put into practice. Bérulle, who lived to wear the Cardinal's purple, left behind him when he died a few years later the reputation almost of a saint.[34] He was also a very intellectual man, being one of the early admirers of the genius of Descartes; but he was not suited either in mind or character for the position which the partiality of Mary de' Medici had called him to fill; a man of stern and narrow piety, neither a Fénelon nor even a Bossuet, he knew not how to deal sympathetically with those whose religion and manners differed from his own; and the scorn which, as a Catholic ecclesiastic, he felt for "the ministers," at whom, in his letters, he loses no opportunity of sneering, as an abstemious Frenchman he felt no less for the gluttonous English. He recognized Charles' affection for his bride; but when the artistic King thought to please her by giving her a beautiful picture of the Nativity, all that the priest found to say on seeing it was that it was older than the religion of its donor. His very virtues were unfortunate. Though practised in Courts, he was too sincere to be a successful diplomat, and he showed a singular lack of enlightened self-interest, both in the just reproaches with which he overwhelmed Buckingham on the subject of the Catholics, and also in the friendship which he extended to Bishop Williams, whose sun was setting before that of the younger favourite. Nor was he altogether successful in his dealings with the Queen. He did indeed win Henrietta's respect, and to his teaching may be attributed, in some degree, the lifelong conduct which distinguishes her so honourably from others of her rank and day. But a Catholic Puritan himself—it is significant that the French Oratory a few years later was believed to be infected with Jansenism—and looking upon all Courts, specially Protestant ones, as chosen haunts of the devil, he was wont to rebuke his royal penitent for such natural sentiments as pleasure in her pretty dresses and jewels, and, forgetting that she was not a Carmelite nun in the Faubourg S. Jacques, he attempted to force upon her a strictness of manners and observance suited neither to her nature nor to her position. Charles' complaints of the cold and unloving conduct of the wife with whom, even by the testimony of his enemies, he was deeply in love; Buckingham's gibes at a queen who lived "en petite Mademoiselle," had their foundation in facts, facts for which Bérulle was largely responsible.

CARDINAL PIERRE DE BéRULLE
FROM AN ENGRAVING

The Bishop of Mende was a very different person from the austere Oratorian. A member of one of the noblest houses in France, high-spirited, cultured, and fascinating, he owed a position to which his twenty and odd years would not have entitled him to the fact that he was a relative and intimate friend of Richelieu. He knew how to win the affection of the Queen, who on one occasion warmly recommended him to the Pope,[35] and who, when he left her to pay a visit of a few weeks to his native land, wrote requesting his return, as she could not get on without him; but the King frankly detested him, and years later, when the Bishop was in his grave, remembered angrily the arrogance with which the latter was wont to enter his wife's private apartments at any hour that pleased him. That the charges of indiscretion brought against him by the English were not unfounded may be gathered not only from the amazing audacity of his proposal to place the crown on the Queen's head in Westminster Abbey—a proposal which led to her never being crowned at all[36]—but also from the reluctant admission of his friend Tillières that he was too young for his post, and from an admonitory letter addressed to him by his masters in Paris, urging him to moderate his zeal and to bridle his fiery tongue.

But there were reasons other than personal, of which Charles and his subjects were certainly in some degree aware, for disliking and distrusting Henrietta's household.

One of the causes of the extraordinary success of Richelieu's policy is no doubt to be sought in the accuracy and range of the information at his command, which was furnished by persons in every country, who, though a prettier name might be given to them, were, to speak plainly, his spies. Some of them were French subjects abroad, others were subjects and often even servants of the King in whose land they lived, who were persuaded by the powerful argument of a pension to engage in this traffic in news.[37] By this means the Cardinal found out most things that it was to his interest to know, and often, while he was professing goodwill and affection to some hapless wight who was in his power, he was, at the same time, collecting information to be used against him.

Richelieu's content at the English alliance has already been referred to. He was, at this time, at the height of his influence over the Queen-Mother, and he was rapidly building up the power which was to make him the strongest and most irresponsible minister that France has ever seen. Judging perhaps from the precedent of Queen Anne of Austria, he believed that Henrietta would be the instrument of France and consequently of himself in England. He was determined that she should have those about her in whom he could feel confidence; in other words, that the choice and highly born body of men and women who served the person of the Queen of England should be also the servants of an alien power. They played their part well. Even Bérulle, who was too good an ecclesiastic not to know the duties of the married state, summed up, in a letter to a private friend, the objects of his mission to England as being "to initiate the spirit of the Queen of England into the dispositions necessary," not only "for her soul," but also "for this country,"[38] i.e. France. The Bishop of Mende, by the testimony of Tillières, detailed everything that occurred to Richelieu, and abundance of letters written by his hand remain to prove the truth of this statement. As for Tillières himself, his attitude both to England and France may be gathered from his own Memoirs, and from the reputation he earned in this island, where he was considered very "jesuited."

Such being the state of things, it would not perhaps be difficult, without seeking for further cause, to account for the irritation of a young and high-spirited King; but there is another factor to be taken into consideration.

If we are to believe the testimony of those who on the Queen's behalf watched the course of events, the real author of the King's harshness to his wife and of his dislike to her servants was his favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, whose power over his royal master was so unbounded that he had but to indicate a line of action for Charles to follow it. This, indeed, was the deliberate opinion of Henrietta, who years later told Madame de Motteville that the Duke had announced to her his intention of sowing dissension between her and her husband, and though it is probable, from letters of Charles which are still extant, that the French underrated his independent dislike of them, and consequently exaggerated the guilt of the favourite, yet the substantial truth of the accusation can hardly be doubted. Buckingham was acute enough to perceive the naturally uxorious bent of the King's mind, and also the rare gifts and graces of the young Queen; and as soon as he discovered that it was impossible to make a slave of the wife as he had of the husband, he began to regard her as an enemy. He may well have trembled for an influence which was threatened on another side by the rising indignation of the people, whose voice did not scruple to point him out as a public enemy, and even to accuse him of the death of the late King.

But there was another reason, equally in keeping with his haughty character, which the gossips of the time freely alleged for his persistent persecution of the Queen of England. Over in Paris the Queen of France, with Madame de Chevreuse whispering temptation in her ear, was waiting for the man to whom she owed the brightest hours of her shadowed life. Unless, in this case, history lies in no ordinary manner, Henrietta's married happiness was put in jeopardy as much by the soft glances of Anne of Austria, as by the austerity of Bérulle or by the audacity of the Bishop of Mende. Was it not for the sake of this fair charmer that Buckingham, wishing to discredit her enemies, Mary de' Medici and Richelieu, tried to nullify the political effects of the match they had made? Was it not that he might return to France and to her that he stirred up strife between two great Kings? Was it not, finally, to revenge the smarts of his hindered love for her that he first persecuted and then expelled those who in the Court of England were living under the protection of that Court which refused to receive him as ambassador? To all these questions contemporaries have replied, and their answer comes with no uncertain sound.

Buckingham hated all the French, but his chief enemy was the Bishop of Mende. This young ecclesiastic possessed a stingingly sarcastic tongue, which the favourite, who, like most vain people, detested ridicule, both hated and feared. The former had, besides, a malicious habit of insisting with the most courtly grace upon long conversations in the French tongue, by which means the Englishman, who was not a perfect linguist, appeared, to his infinite chagrin, to disadvantage by the side of his nimble-tongued adversary. Nor did the Bishop confine himself to words. Secure in the favour of Richelieu he dared to oppose the Duke when that nobleman induced the King to appoint his wife, his sister,[39] and his niece dames du lit to the Queen. Henrietta, though she pointed out that already she had three ladies in place of the two who had served her mother-in-law, yet weary of opposition, would have given in, and perhaps the French Ambassadors, who were still in England and to whom the matter was referred, might also have been won over by the soft speeches of Buckingham. But the watchful Bishop was not thus to be tricked. He represented so strongly the danger of placing "Huguenot" ladies near the person of the young Queen, and spoke so earnestly of the scandal which such a proceeding would occasion among the Catholics both of England and the Continent, that the favourite's ambitious intrigues were defeated. He was unused to such checks, and Tillières was probably right in seeing in this incident the cause of his hatred to the man who had thus foiled him.

Nevertheless, there was a moment when the Bishop of Mende hoped to win over the Duke to France and to Henrietta. In August, 1625, the first Parliament of Charles I met. It was in no amiable mood, for it was known that the King had lent ships to be used against the Protestants of Rochelle, and the concessions to the Catholics, though nominally secret, were more than suspected. Charles found himself embarrassed by a request to put in force the recusancy laws, while at the same time he was angered by an open attack upon his favourite. Now, in the opinion of the Bishop, was the moment to offer to Buckingham the French alliance, and in a long cipher dispatch to Richelieu he detailed his hopes. Spain had turned against the Duke, the English detested him. What course was open to him but to fling himself into the arms of the most Christian King? But Buckingham had other and opposite views. He believed that his best chance of political salvation lay in counselling his master to grant the petition of Parliament. Without abiding principle, careless which religious or political party he favoured so that it furthered his own ends, he thought only of his personal safety. He had not overrated his hold on Charles' heart. The King of England, to save his unworthy favourite, bowed to the storm. He put in force the recusancy laws, thus breaking the solemn promise which he had made only a few months before to a brother-sovereign, and inflicting an almost unbearable insult upon his young wife.

It was little she could do. Earnestly as she strove to do her duty, Charles was never satisfied with her, and he not only resented unduly the small errors of taste and tact inevitable in a girl of her age, left without proper guidance in a land of which she did not even know the language, but he exposed her to the almost incredible rudeness of Buckingham, to whom he commented on her conduct[40] and who chided her like a child, and once even dared to tell her that if she did not behave better her husband would see order to her. It is not surprising that her temper sometimes failed her. Once, even in the opinion of Tillières, she spoke unbecomingly about Madame S. Georges' exclusion from the royal coach; and another time, in a fit of girlish anger, she marked her displeasure at the reading of Anglican prayers in the house where she was staying by attempting to drown the voice of the minister in loud and ostentatious talk with her ladies outside the room in which he was officiating. Thus her spirit sometimes rose, but in the main she was quite submissive, answering sadly and meekly the reproaches of her husband.

But this last insult was no private matter, and, urged by Bérulle and the Bishop, Henrietta pleaded for her co-religionists. Her prayers were unavailing, and only served to anger Charles further. "You are rather the ambassador of your brother the King of France than Queen of England,"[41] he said coldly, in reply to her entreaties. Even the diplomatic representations of Tillières only procured a slight delay in the publication of the Proclamation putting in force the laws against the recusants.

The wrath of the French on both sides of the Channel knew no bounds. Not only was the breach of promise an insult to the Crown of France, which was thus set at naught to "pleasure the views of Parliament," but political interests were also at stake.[42] In the opinion of Tillières and the Bishop, what was needed was a vigorous ambassador to teach Charles his duty, and to cajole or threaten him into keeping his share of the marriage contract, "for," wrote the Grand Almoner, with his usual candour, to Ville-aux-clercs, "you know so well the humour of our English that it would be superfluous to tell you that one can expect nothing from them unless one acts with force and vigour." Such attributes were never wanting to Richelieu's government. Ville-aux-clercs, whom the exiles would gladly have welcomed, "if we were worthy that God should work for us the miracle of enabling you to be in two places at once,"[43] could not indeed be spared, but a substitute was found in the person of "M. le Marquis de Blainville," who before he left Paris had a long conversation with Bérulle; for that ecclesiastic, whose position had been of a temporary nature, had now returned to his native land, leaving to fill his office one of his trusted Oratorians, Father Sancy, a priest who, during a previous embassy to Constantinople, had acquired a profound knowledge of the world which it was supposed would enable him to advise judiciously the Queen of England.

She, meanwhile, worn by chagrin and unkindness, was losing the bloom and the high spirits she had brought with her from her native land. The England, which had been represented to her as a paradise, was a poor exchange for the home she had lost; and when she looked across the Channel for help, all that came to her was the advice, in conformity with the intrigues of the Bishop of Mende, to make friends with Buckingham, whose overbearing rudeness was hateful to her, and on whom it is probable she never looked with favour, except perhaps at the very beginning of her married life, when she thought he might help her to revisit, in the midst of her miseries, her home and her mother. Now she showed herself restive, and Richelieu, who was much set on the conciliation of the Duke, discussed her conduct in a note which contains some of the earliest evidence as to Henrietta's personal character. The Queen of England, he said, was a little firm in her opinions, and those about her thought that her mother, whose displeasure she feared, should write a letter to her, pointing out her duty in this matter. The trouble might have been spared, for Buckingham at the time seems to have been as little anxious as herself for a friendly understanding.

Blainville arrived in the late autumn of 1625. He was received with the courtesy due to his position as Ambassador-Extraordinary—a title which he had been given at the instance of Richelieu to overawe the King of England—but from the first he had little hope of accomplishing the objects of his mission. The Queen, stung by the harshness of her husband, who sometimes did not speak to her for days, goaded by the insolence of Buckingham, and surrounded by those who taught her to despise the language, the manners, and the religion of her adopted country, seemed to be at the beginning of the unhappy married life which so many princesses have had to endure. She was, moreover, more melancholy than usual, owing to the recent departure of Bérulle, which she regretted so deeply that her attendants were able to count more than twenty sighs as she sat at the table on the day he left her. The members of her ecclesiastical household were correspondingly depressed, for the loss of the distinguished Oratorian exposed them to even worse treatment than they had experienced before. The Bishop of Mende himself, on whose young shoulders the burden of responsibility had descended, could not keep up his spirits. He retired to his room, where he sat alone brooding upon the hard fate which had brought him to a barbarous and heretical isle, and whence he refused to move except to perform his religious duties and to wait upon the Queen.

The King of England was hardly in a happier mood. That he had legitimate cause of complaint cannot be denied, and a letter which about this time he wrote to Buckingham proves that he had almost made up his mind to the only real cure for his troubles. The extraordinarily violent tone of this epistle suggests that his dislike to his wife's foreign attendants required by this time no fostering from the Duke. It even seems as if the favourite were less hostile to them than his master.[44]

With such a state of feeling prevailing at Court, Blainville's position was not a comfortable one; but he remained there until an incident occurred which is believed to have occasioned his withdrawal and which deserves a detailed description, as it illustrates admirably the petty persecution to which the high-spirited Henrietta, the daughter of a hundred kings, was subjected.[45]

The second Parliament of the reign, whose short existence was to be ended by the impeachment of Buckingham, met in the early spring of 1626. Henrietta, who was anxious to see the opening procession, had made arrangements to witness it from a gallery situated in the Palace at Whitehall, and she was annoyed when on the very day of the ceremony her husband told her that he wished her to go to the house of the Countess of Buckingham, whence a particularly fine view of the proceedings could be obtained. Still, she was always compliant in trifles, and at this time she desired to conciliate Charles by prompt obedience in such commands as her sensitive conscience could approve. She therefore signified her assent without, however, considering the matter of grave consequence.

It happened that just before the hour of the procession, when Henrietta was about to set out for the Countess' apartments, a heavy shower of rain came on. The young Queen, looking out on the unsheltered court which she would have to cross to reach her goal, shrank back, fearing for her elaborately dressed hair, which she did not wish to have done again for the evening festivities. She told her husband, who was with her, that she thought the weather too bad to go, and asked him to conduct her to the gallery which had been her first choice. To her great surprise he was much displeased, and it was only after a somewhat bitter altercation that he complied with her request, leading her to her place and taking leave of her with cold politeness.

Henrietta was sitting quietly, overcoming her vexation, when, to her surprise, the Duke of Buckingham, from whose bold eye and arrogant bearing she instinctively shrank, appeared. Rude he always was in his dealings with her, but on this occasion he surpassed himself, telling her roughly that the King was exceedingly displeased with her, and that it was surprising that for a little rain she should have refused to obey the commands of her husband. The proud young French Princess could not brook such language from one of her own subjects. Haughtily she made answer that in the Court of France she had been accustomed to see the Queen her mother and the Queen her sister use their own judgment in such trifles. Nevertheless (and in this her real sweetness and desire to please appeared), she mastered herself sufficiently to plead a woman's dread of bad weather, and to request Blainville, who was at her side, to lead her again to her husband.

Charles was found to be in a less implacable mood than Buckingham had represented, and Henrietta went off to the Countess' apartments, hoping that the storm had blown over. She was soon undeceived. The Duke sought her again at his mother's house, and with unpardonable insolence again assured her that her husband was very angry with her, and that he did not wish her to remain in her present quarters. It was too much. Henrietta's wrath blazed forth. "I have sufficiently shown my obedience," she cried; "but unhappy me! obedience in England seems to be a crime." Buckingham, who was bent on making himself disagreeable all round, disregarding the Queen's protest, now turned to Blainville and remarked in a meaning way that he believed there were those who from motives of superstition had hindered her presence at a ceremony of the Knights of the Bath, and that he was surprised that her friends should be so injudicious. The French Ambassador, who knew well what was in the Duke's mind, and who had no wish to disclaim responsibility, replied with spirit that he would rather advise the Queen of England to absent herself from fifty ceremonies than counsel her to take part in one which was of doubtful permission for a Catholic. On receiving this answer the unwelcome visitor withdrew.

Henrietta had a brave spirit, but the conduct of Buckingham had cut her to the quick, since it humiliated her in sight of the Court. That night, in the privacy of her own apartments, she appealed to her husband, whose cold looks and manners informed her that she was not forgiven. She was, she said, the most unhappy creature in the world, seeing him thus keep up his anger against her for so long. She would die rather than give him just cause for offence, and anyhow, whatever his feelings, could he not treat her in public with more respect, as otherwise it would be thought that he did not care for her. Pleadingly the young wife looked at her husband, for even at the worst she had some faith in the goodness and kindness of his natural character apart from the influence of Buckingham.

But Charles, with a heavy pomposity, which in happier circumstances would certainly have made Henrietta laugh, replied that he had grave cause of offence. The Queen had said that it was raining, and that if she went out in the rain she would soil her dress and disarrange her hair. "I did not know that such remarks were faults in England," was her sarcastic answer.

The King left his wife's apartments unappeased, and not all her entreaties, nor those of Madame de Tillières, whom he regarded with less disfavour than any other Frenchwoman, could induce him to return. He only sent a most unwelcome emissary, in the person of the Duke of Buckingham, who reiterated his assurances of the King's wrath, and informed Henrietta that if within two days she did not ask pardon her husband would treat her as a person unworthy to be his wife, and would drive away all the French, Madame S. Georges included, he thoughtfully added, knowing well that that lady held the first place in his auditor's affections.

Such words no woman of spirit, much less a Princess of one of the greatest houses of Europe, could tamely suffer; but the young Queen, though in a white heat of passion, seems to have kept her temper admirably. Calmly and contemptuously she wondered that the Duke undertook such a commission as he was fulfilling. As for her position, only one thing could make her unworthy of it, and that she was too well-born to think of doing. Nor was she to be frightened by his threat with regard to her servants. They would be retained, she felt sure, not for love of her, but on account of the pledge given to her brother the King of France. As for asking pardon, she could not do so for a fault she had never committed. Her conduct had been open and public, and all around her had praised rather than blamed her. No, she added, she would not ask pardon, unless at the express command of the King. Buckingham, whose loquacity for once found nothing to reply, returned to the King, who, it appears, must, on reflection, have appreciated in some degree the sorry part he had played, for no apology was exacted, and the matter was quietly allowed to drop. As for the poor young Queen, she was so overcome by chagrin and misery that she kept her bed, where she was visited by Blainville, who thought to cheer her by lending her some letters which he had recently received from Father Bérulle.

The Ambassador felt that it was time to be gone. He had borne annoyances, such as the interception of his letters, and insults, such as the continued persecution of the Catholics, but this treatment offered to the sister of his royal master was the last straw. The English, on their side, were only too glad to get rid of him, for they considered that he meddled unduly in private matters between the King and Queen. It is even said that he was forbidden the Court. But still, he was not to depart without a final brush with the enemy, for on Sunday, February 26th, a number of English Catholics who, following their usual but quite illegal practice, had come to hear Mass at the French Ambassador's chapel in Durham House in the Strand, were unpleasantly surprised as they came out after the service to find waiting for them at the door the officers of the King. A free fight followed, which was only stopped by the appearance and authority of the Bishop of Durham. Blainville, who in his irritated condition was not likely to reflect that Charles, after all, was within his legal rights, was roused to fury at what he considered a violation of the majesty of France. "I wish," he said vindictively, "I wish that my servants had killed the King's officer."

Thus angrily he departed from the country to bear to France the tidings of his ill-success.

After this matters went from bad to worse. Henrietta tried to please her husband, but she always found herself in the wrong, as when, for instance, she attempted to conciliate him by appointing to the offices created by a grant to her of houses and lands a preponderance of English Protestants. She found that her submission was entirely thrown away, because, injudiciously indeed, she had appointed to the office of Controller, which was only honorary, the Bishop of Mende. She was curtly informed that the post was required for the Earl of Carlisle, who was particularly odious to her on account of the indecent zeal which had prompted him within a few months of signing her marriage contract to urge the persecution of the Catholics. Goaded by such treatment, she claimed, with some warmth, the right to appoint her servants, and thus another cause of dispute arose between her and her husband, whose unkindness even extended to keeping her so short of money that she was reduced to borrowing from her own servants.[46]

So the summer of 1626 wore on amid misunderstandings and recriminations until, in the month of June,[47] an event occurred which probably precipitated the inevitable crisis.

One afternoon the Queen and her principal attendants, among whom the courtly figure of her Grand Almoner was conspicuous, were walking in that which even then was known as Hyde Park. In their walk they turned aside, and, to the astonishment of those of the public who observed their movements, were seen directing their steps towards Tyburn, the place of public execution, which was near the present site of the Marble Arch. Arrived at this ill-omened spot, the royal lady and her suite fell upon their knees as upon holy ground, and so, indeed, in their eyes it was, for was not this spot, wet with the blood of malefactors, watered also by the blood of those whom a tyrannical and heretical Government had slain for the crime of confessing the true faith? The airing of the Court had become a pilgrimage to the unsightly shrine of the English martyrs.

It was an act of amazing imprudence such as would only have suggested itself to a man who, like the Bishop of Mende, never summoned discretion to his council but to eject it ignominiously. It is impossible to say how far the deed was of premeditation, but it is not unlikely that it was arranged by the Grand Almoner to give a demonstration to Protestants and to pro-Spanish Catholics of the devotion of a French Princess. It was even reported that the stern ecclesiastic had required the pilgrims—Henrietta included—to walk barefoot; but this, no doubt, was a sectarian exaggeration. Apart from such extravagances, that which had been done was in the eyes of the King—and not without justice—unpardonable. Not only had his wife, the Queen of England, been placed in an undignified position by those who had permitted her to appear among the memorials of misery and crime, but a direct and most bitter insult had been offered to him, to his father, and to the great Queen on whose throne he sat. The Catholics who laid down their lives at Tyburn with a courage which forced the reluctant admiration even of their enemies, were indeed, from one point of view, martyrs of the purest type. From another, and that Charles', they were traitors executed for the crime of treason in the highest degree. "Neither Queen Elizabeth nor I ever put a man to death for religion," James had said on one occasion. This doctrine was one which, in its nice distinctions, a foreigner and a Catholic could hardly be expected to grasp, yet the hard fact remained that these victims of Tyburn, however innocent, suffered under the laws of the land and under the authority of the Crown.

Charles was wounded in his most sensitive feelings, and it speaks something for his forbearance that, as far as is known, he recognized the innocence of his girl-wife, and reserved his wrath for her advisers, particularly for the Bishop of Mende. "This action," he is reputed to have said, "can have no greater invective made against it than the bare relation. Were there nothing more than this I would presently remove these French from about my wife."

Their removal was indeed, as Charles had perceived eight months earlier, the only solution of the difficulty, and to it events were now rapidly tending. It was necessary to cajole the French Court. Buckingham, even before the departure of Blainville, had made fresh overtures to Henrietta, which the astute Ambassador had advised her to reject. After the failure of this ruse the adroit Walter Montagu was dispatched to Paris to speak fair words to Mary de' Medici, and so well did he succeed that cordial letters were interchanged between the Duke and the Queen-Mother, even while, at the same time, the young diplomatist was able to carry out the more secret task which had been confided to him, which was nothing less than to discover whether the state of French domestic politics was such as to make it safe for the King of England to offer to the King of France so grave an insult as the expulsion of his sister's household. Montagu's report was encouraging. Owing to the great favour with which both Queen Anne and Madame de Chevreuse regarded him, he was able to pick up a good deal of information which would have escaped an ordinary envoy; he was thus, no doubt, able to trace in the ramifications of Chalais' plot, which at this time was agitating the French Court, and in which both the above-named ladies, as well as Henrietta's younger brother Gaston, were implicated, not only the general hatred of Richelieu, but even a positive desire on the part of some to see the Cardinal humiliated by such an affront to his policy as would be involved in the violation of the Queen of England's marriage treaty. And with such discontent at home, what vengeance could be taken? "The cards here," wrote Montagu in great glee, "are all mixed up, and Monsieur [Gaston of Orleans] is on the point of leaving the Court."

Charles' decision was taken, and when his mind was made up it was not easy to turn him from his purpose. He knew, also, that he had the feeling of the Court and the people with him. English insularity could not brook the permanent presence of a large body of foreigners in so prominent a position, and English Protestantism took alarm at a royal establishment avowedly Catholic, which was considered "a rendezvous for Jesuits and fugitives,"[48] and whose ecclesiastical head was believed to hold special powers from the Pope, and to be "a most dangerous instrument to work his ends here."[49] At the Court feeling ran equally high. Buckingham's intentions and hopes have been sufficiently indicated, and there were others who, in a measure, shared them. Carlisle, whose anti-Catholic bitterness had been conspicuous throughout, and who had cynically remarked that the religious concessions made at the time of the marriage were only a blind to satisfy the Pope, and that the King of France had never expected them to be kept, was statesman enough to appreciate the real objections to the position in which he had helped to place Charles. There were endless broils at Court between the two nations, particularly among the ladies. Altogether Charles, taking into consideration the satisfactory disturbances across the Channel, was well justified, from the point of view of expediency, in choosing this moment to carry out that which had become—even setting aside the desires and influence of Buckingham—the wish of his heart. He was a man of monopolies, and he believed—and believed with justice—that the French stood between him and his bride.

He laid his plans with skill. Carleton, a diplomatist of great experience, was sent over to Paris, not only to assist in the stirring up of strife there, but also to complain of the conduct of the Queen's servants, and, if possible, to obtain Louis' consent to their dismission. In case of refusal he was to intimate, with such tact as he could, that they would be dismissed all the same. The vigilant Bishop of Mende, who probably knew a good deal of what was going on, himself proposed to hasten to the French Court, where his influence with Richelieu rendered him so effective, to represent matters in their true light. He was told, to his great wrath, that the King of England would not allow him to cross the sea, and he was exclaiming that such threats were the very way to confirm him in his purpose, and that he would start the next day, when the Duke of Buckingham sought him, and the two enemies had their last passage-of-arms.

"Do not run the risk of this journey," said the Duke with elaborate friendliness. "I am sorry for the bad impression that you have made on the King. I myself have tried to remove it without effect." "I thank you for your kindness," replied the Bishop satirically. "It is indeed unfortunate that your credit, which stands so high with the King in all other matters, fails in this. But I am not surprised, as I have noticed that it always falls short in anything which concerns the Queen of England and her household."

In the end Tillières went to France, though Buckingham, stung by the Bishop's biting words, really asked the King to grant him leave of absence. But the Grand Almoner now thought that his place was at his mistress' side, and he knew that it would be difficult to detain the Count, however much Buckingham and the rest might desire to do so, as there was an unanswerable pretext for his journey in the approaching wedding of Gaston of Orleans, who was to expiate his share in Chalais' plot by marrying Mademoiselle de Montpensier.

The danger, indeed, drew on apace. A few days after Tillières' departure Charles announced his intention to his Council, and any lingering hesitation he may have felt was swept away by the encouragement given by Buckingham and Carlisle, both of whom spoke in favour of the project. "The French," said the latter, "are too busy with their own affairs to make war on such a pretext."

The die was now cast, and it was necessary to inform the Queen. The Council had been held in the Palace of Whitehall, and the King, with Buckingham at his heels, had only to go to another part of the house to find his wife, who was sitting in her own room with two of her ladies. The King rather rudely desired her to come to his apartments, but she, not altogether ignorant of the state of affairs, replied coldly that she begged him to say his pleasure in the place in which they found themselves. "Then send your women out of the room," said the King. Henrietta complied with his request, and her heart sank as she saw her husband carefully lock the door behind them.

Then, without further preface, he curtly announced to his young wife the sentence of banishment. He could endure her French people and their meddling no longer, he said. He was going to send them all back to France, and she would have in their place those who would teach her to behave as the Queen of England.

Henrietta first of all looked incredulously at her husband, for she had never believed, protected as she was by her marriage treaty and by the Crown of France, that, however dissatisfied he might be, he would push matters to an extremity. Then, as she saw no relenting on his cold, handsome face, she burst into tears and wept unrestrainedly. It was long before she found voice to plead that if Madame S. Georges, whom she knew he disliked, was too obnoxious, yet that she might keep Madame de Tillières, against whom no complaints had been brought. But Charles was inflexible. All were to go. More piteous sobbing followed, until the poor girl—she was only sixteen—appreciated that her misery was making no impression upon her husband. Then she stayed her weeping to make a final request. Might she not see her friends once more, to bid them good-bye, for it had been intimated to her that sentence would take effect without a moment's unnecessary delay.

No, was the curt reply. She must see her friends no more.[50]

At this final outrage to her wounded feelings Henrietta's spirit—the spirit of the Bourbons—rose in revolt. Forgetful of her husband, forgetful of her queenly dignity, remembering only that those whom she loved were leaving her for ever, she rushed to the window, that thence she might obtain a farewell glimpse of her banished compatriots. Such was her eagerness that she broke the intercepting panes of glass. But even this poor comfort was denied her. The King pursued her and dragged her back with such ungentle force that her dress was torn, and her hands with which she clung to the bars of the windows were galled and grazed.

Elsewhere dismay and consternation reigned. Conway, the Secretary of State, announced their doom to the assembled French ladies, informing them that the King wished to have his wife to himself, and that he found it impossible to do so while she had so many of her own countrywomen about her. They were begged to retire to Somerset House, whence they would be sent to France. Madame S. Georges, acting as spokeswoman for the rest, said that they were the servants of the King of France, they could not leave their royal mistress without the orders of the Bishop of Mende, who was their superior. That gentleman arriving, in obedience to a hasty summons, did indeed at first assert with his usual hauteur that neither he nor any of the household would depart without the commands of their own sovereign. But he was soon made to understand, by arguments which not even his spirit could resist, that no choice was left to him. That evening saw the French at Somerset House and Henrietta desolate at Whitehall. It was probably during the few days that had to elapse before her friends were deported to France that the Queen wrote the following note to the Bishop, which vividly reflects her loneliness and sorrow:—

"M. de Mandes,

"I hide myself as much as I can in order to write to you. I am treated as a prisoner, so that I cannot speak to any one, nor have I time to write my miseries nor to complain. Only, in the name of God, have pity on a poor prisoner in despair, and do something to relieve my sorrow. I am the most afflicted creature in the world. Speak to the Queen my mother about my miseries, and tell her my troubles. I say good-bye to you and to all my poor officers, and I charge my friend S. Georges, the Countess, and all my women and girls, that they do not forget me, and I will never forget them, and bring some remedy to my sorrow, or I die.... Adieu, cruel adieu, which will kill me if God does not have pity on me.

"[Ask] Father Sancy to pray for me still, and tell Mamie that I shall love her always."[51]

Such a letter was not calculated to soothe the excitable Bishop of Mende, whose spirit had already been roused to fury by hearing the cries and protestations of the poor young mistress whom he was not permitted to see. But it was little he could do. His captivity at Somerset House was broken in upon by the King of England himself, who, with the unfortunate desire for explanation which was always his, was anxious to point out with his own mouth to those whom it most concerned the reasons of his action. According to the Bishop, who occupied his leisure in writing angry letters to the King of France and the Queen-Mother, Charles acknowledged that he had no personal fault to find with his wife's servants, but said that it was necessary, to content his people and for the good of his affairs, that they should be expelled. This admission, which, if it ever existed outside the mind of the Bishop, was intended as a courteous softening of unpleasant truths, did not prevent the King from adding a command (which was obeyed) that all the French were to be gone within four-and-twenty hours.[52] It was perhaps some solace to them that before their departure a considerable sum of money and costly jewels were distributed among them.

It remained to bring Henrietta, who was still weeping angrily in her apartments, to a state of calm more befitting the Queen of England. Charles was not cruel, and when the first flush of anger was over he could feel for his wife's grief. At first he had determined that all the French, whether lay or ecclesiastic, should go. "The Queen has been left neither confessor nor doctor, and I believe that her life and her religion are in very grave peril,"[53] wrote the Bishop. But Charles, though he was not to be moved by such innuendoes, relented in some degree. In the end one of Henrietta's ladies, Madame de Vantelet, was permitted to remain with her, and two of the priests of the Oratory were granted like indulgence; one of whom was the pious and sagacious Scotchman, Father Robert Philip, who continued the Queen's confessor until his death, years later, in the days of the exile.[54]

The French were gone, and on the whole, in spite of the Bishop's protest, quietly; but Charles and Buckingham knew well that they had to face the wrath of France for this the audacious violation of the Queen's marriage treaty. Henrietta naturally looked to her own family to right her wrongs, and she wrote piteous letters to her brother asking for his help, which show the sad condition to which sorrow and unkindness had reduced the bright Princess who had left France little more than a year earlier. "I have no hope but in you. Have pity on me.... No creature in the world can be more miserable than I."[55] Mary de' Medici could not turn a deaf ear to such appeals nor to the complaints of the exiles who were pursued into France by aspersions on their characters not calculated to soothe their feelings, such as a charge of taking bribes, which charge their royal mistress, with characteristic justice and generosity, was at pains, even in the midst of her misery, to confute.[56] The Queen-Mother's remonstrances to her son-in-law were, indeed, quite unavailing, but they were dignified and expressed a surprise at his conduct which probably she did not feel, since, as the English took care to point out, it was not long since similar measure had been meted out to the Spanish attendants of Queen Anne. With her daughter she felt the warmest sympathy. "If your grief could be assuaged by that which I feel at the news of the expulsion of your servants and of the ill-treatment to which you are subjected, it would soon be diminished,"[57] she wrote, and she added, perhaps sincerely, that never had she felt such grief since the assassination of her husband, Henrietta's father. As for her son, his indignation was such that he would leave nothing undone that might procure for his sister redress and contentment. It is probable that Richelieu, with the Bishop of Mende at his elbow, shared these sentiments. Nevertheless, Carlisle was right. France had too much on her hands to pick a quarrel with England, even though her daughter had been insulted and her authority set at naught. All that could be done was to send another embassy, and this, it seems, was only decided upon at the instance of the Pope.

Two persons were joined in the embassy, the Count of Tillières, whom the English were believed greatly to fear, and his brother-in-law, the Marshal de Bassompierre, an elderly diplomat of great experience, whose old-fashioned elegance of manner was already making him a little ridiculous in the eyes of younger men who despised the Italian grace of the days of Catherine de' Medici. In the end this exquisite person had to go alone, for it was intimated that the King of England would not receive his colleague; he was rather unwilling to undertake the embassy, and his dissatisfaction was not decreased by the coolness of his reception in London, which coolness, as he reminded himself, it was clearly a duty to resent as an insult to the Crown of France.

He found matters in bad case. The King was inflexible in his refusal to come to terms, and the Queen, though she was still depressed and bitterly angry with Buckingham, showed herself, since the cession which permitted her to retain Madame de Vantelet and her old nurse, more reconciled to the change. About her spiritual welfare the Ambassador expressed himself much concerned, for she was surrounded by heretics, and in place of the irreproachable ecclesiastics appointed by her brother she had been forced to receive two English priests, by name Godfrey and Potter, who belonged to a school of thought which in his eyes, and in those of the Bishop of Mende, was little less than heretical, for they had both taken the oath of allegiance, and they had both assured the Earl of Carlisle that they did not belong to the Church of Rome, but to that which was Catholic, Gallican, and "Sorbonique," an assertion which particularly enraged Bassompierre, who saw in it an insult to the French Church and nation. He was probably little more moved by the accusation brought against one of them by the Bishop of bracketing together "the three Impostors, Mahomet, Jesus Christ, and Moses."[58] Only one person showed any cordiality to the unfortunate Ambassador. Buckingham, thinking on the Queen of France in Paris, felt that he had gone too far, and decided that it would be well to conciliate Henrietta. With this purpose he came secretly, through the darkness of the night and attended only by his young friend Montagu, to wait on Bassompierre. He complained bitterly of the hatred of which he was the victim, and inquired plaintively whether M. de Mende were saying as many disagreeable things about him on the other side of the Channel as he had been wont to do in England. To the last question the polite Frenchman must have found it difficult to frame an answer at once courteous and true, but he promised to use his influence as intermediary with Henrietta, and he was so far successful that the young Queen was induced to regard the Duke, at any rate outwardly, with greater favour.

But the situation, as regarded its real objects, was foredoomed to failure. Madame S. Georges, the Bishop of Mende, and the Fathers of the Oratory had so prejudiced Charles' mind that he refused to receive Frenchmen, bishop or religious, at the Court of his Queen. There was a deadlock, and Bassompierre, who had made matters worse by his grave indiscretion in bringing as his chaplain the Queen's late confessor, Father Sancy, with all his diplomacy could do no more. He was indeed anxious to be gone. The account of his embassy in England, which he included in his memoirs, is penned in no flattering spirit towards this island, but the full irritation of his feelings can only be gathered from the private letters which, during his sojourn in London, he dispatched to the Bishop of Mende, who was with Richelieu at Pontoise, watching the course of events.

"I have found," wrote the enraged diplomatist in one of these epistles, "humility among the Spaniards and courtesy among the Swiss during the embassies which I have carried on there on behalf of the King, but the English have abated nothing of their natural pride and arrogance."[59]

The Bishop sent a sympathetic answer, commenting on our national character in a manner which is worth quoting, as it serves to explain the unpopularity of that fascinating person in English society.

"I am not surprised," so ran the letter, "that you have found more courtesy and satisfaction among the Spaniards and the Swiss than in the island on the shores of which the tempest has thrown you. I myself have always considered the English less reasonable than the Swiss, and at the same time less faithful, while I think they are just as vainglorious as the Spaniards, without possessing anything of their real merit."

This was not all. A report was about that the Bishop wished to return to England, and he thoughtfully seized the opportunity to set everybody's mind at rest on the subject. The English were to have no uneasiness, he was only too willing to fall in with their wishes. "They will not have much difficulty in carrying into effect the resolution which they have taken to prevent my return," he wrote, "for both parties are quite of one opinion on that matter, my humour (setting aside the interests of my mistress) being rather to fly from than to invite another sojourn in England. It would need a very definite command to induce me to live there again, while to persuade myself to remain here I have only to consult my own inclination."[60]

So Bassompierre departed, taking with him, as a slight compensation for his trouble, some English priests who had been released from prison in compliment to the King of France. And thus ended the last stage of this sordid struggle which came near to wrecking the happiness of what was to prove one of the most loving of royal marriages.

It is hard in such a matter to apportion blame. Charles cannot be acquitted of harshness and of a certain degree of subservience to Buckingham, while the act of expulsion was a flagrant breach of the faith plighted only a year before to a brother-sovereign. But it must be remembered that most of the information comes from French, and consequently hostile, sources. After all, the King of England's real fault was that, by his marriage contract, he had allowed himself to be placed in an impossible position, from which only violence could extricate him. On their own showing it is difficult to see how any self-respecting husband, let alone a great king, could have endured the Bishop of Mende, Madame S. Georges, or even Father Bérulle. They, for their part, had much to complain of, and they saw in every approximation of their mistress to English customs and ways of thought a menace, not only to the interests of France, but to the immortal soul placed in their charge. As for Henrietta herself, she can hardly be blamed. She was but a child, and it is not surprising that she followed the counsel of those whom her mother had set over her. The severest thing that can justly be said of her is that, at the age of sixteen, she had not completely learned the lesson of a wife, and, above all, of a royal wife, "to forget her own people and her father's house."

[ [29]The Mémoires inédits du Comte Leveneur de Tillières, published in 1862, are one of the principal authorities for Henrietta Maria's early married life: they are very full and vivid, but are coloured by the writer's dislike to the English, and especially to Buckingham.

[ [30]Cf. the following description of Paris in a humorous poem of the day:

"We came to Paris, on the Seyn, 'Tis wondrous faire but nothing clean, 'Tis Europes greatest Town. How strong it is, I need not tell it, For any man may easily smell it, That walkes it up and down."

Musarum Deliciæ, by Sir J. M. and Ja. S. (1655), p. 19.

[ [31]Musarum Deliciæ, by Sir J. M. and Ja. S. (1655), p. 49.

[ [32]She had been in Turin with Henrietta's sister, Christine.

[ [33]The French Oratory was quite distinct from the better known Roman Oratory founded by S. Philip Neri.

[ [34]See the list of miracles attributed to his intercession in La Vie du Cardinal Bérulle. Par Germain Habert, Abbé de Cerisy (1646). Liv. III, chaps. XIV., XV.

[ [35]P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.

[ [36]The English Catholics were anxious lest she should allow herself to be crowned by a heretic: Fr. Leander de S. Martino, an English Benedictine, wrote a long letter to Bérulle on the subject in June, 1625, expressing his anxiety. Archives Nationales, M. 232.

[ [37]As, for instance, Sir Lewis Lewknor, an official charged with the reception of ambassadors: he received £2000 per annum from Richelieu, and he was particularly useful to the French, whom he did not openly favour, because, being a Catholic, he received the confidences of the Spaniards and the Flemings.

[ [38]Bérulle to P. Bertin, Superior of French Oratory at Rome. Arch. Nat., M. 232.

[ [39]La Hermana y Mujer [of Buckingham] son Eresas muy perniciosas. Spanish news-letter, P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.

[ [40]"My Wyfe beginnes to mend her maners."—Harleian MS., 6988, f. 5.

[ [41]Verissima relacion en que se da cuenta en el estado en que estan los Catholicos de Inglaterra, ete Sevilla (1626).

[ [42]See chapter IV.

[ [43]Bishop of Mende to Ville-aux-clercs. MS. Français, 3693.

[ [44]"Seeing daylie the malitiusness of the Monsers by making and fomenting discontentments in my Wyfe I could tarie no longer from adverticing of you that I meane to seeke for no other grounds to casier my Monsers,"—Harleian MS., 6988, f. I.

[ [45]Arch. Nat., M. 232, from which the account in the text is taken: perhaps an account written by Charles or Buckingham would have been somewhat different: it is printed in an article entitled "L'Ambassade de M. de Blainville," published in Revue des Questions Historiques, 1878, t. 23.

[ [46]Bishop of Mende to (apparently) Richelieu, June 24th, 1626. "La Royne ma maitresse est reduite de fouiller dans nos bourses, si ces choses dureront sa maison durera fort peu."—Affaires Etrangères Ang., t. 41, f. 133.

[ [47]The date is not certain, it was probably at the time of the Jubilee, June, 1626: in February Henrietta had written to the Pope asking that she, her household, and the Catholics of England might share in the privileges of the Jubilee.—P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.

[ [48]Archives of See of Westminster. See Appendix, Doc. I.

[ [49]Court and Times of Charles I, I, 119.

[ [50]Such petty malice was part of Charles' character: cf. his refusal to allow Sir John Eliot to be buried at his home in Cornwall.

[ [51]Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 41: it is endorsed "copie," and is perhaps a rough draft; it is apparently in Henrietta's handwriting. "Mamie" is Madame S. Georges.

[ [52]Charles wrote a violent note to Buckingham, commanding him to see to the departure of the French. "If you can by faire meanes (but stike not longe in disputing) otherways force them away, dryving away so manie wild beasts untill you have shipped them and so the Devill go with them." The French landed at Calais, August 3/13, 1626.

[ [53]Bishop of Mende to Mary de' Medici. Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 41.

[ [54]The second Oratorian who remained was Father Viette, who became the Queen's confessor on Father Philip's death. She was allowed to keep also a few inferior French servants, and Maurice Aubert, who appears in a list of her servants made at the time of her marriage, continued with her; he was the companion of Windbank's flight to France in 1641.

[ [55]Baillon: Henriette Marie de France, reine d'Angleterre (1877), p. 348.

[ [56]She said, probably with truth, that the money they had received was in part payment of the debts incurred by her to them: her statement is confirmed by the fact that Charles requested the French Government to pay the debts owing to his wife's servants out of the half of her dot, which had not yet been paid.—Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 41.

[ [57]Mary de' Medici to Henrietta Maria, August 22nd, 1626. MS. Français, 3692. She wrote on the same day to Charles.

[ [58]Bishop of Mende to King of France, August 12th, 1626. Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 41.

[ [59]Bassompierre to Bishop of Mende, October 17th. MS. Français, 3692.

[ [60]Bishop of Mende to Bassompierre, October 29th, 1626. MS. Français, 3692.

CHAPTER III
THE QUEEN OF THE COURTIERS

Let's now take our time While w'are in our prime, And old, old Age is a-farre off: For the evill, evill dayes Will come on apace Before we can be aware of. Robert Herrick

"I was," Henrietta Maria[61] was accustomed to say in the days of her sorrow, "I was the happiest and most fortunate of Queens. Not only had I every pleasure which heart could desire, but, above all, I had the love of my husband, who adored me." The expulsion of her French attendants was the foundation of the Queen's married happiness. Away from the insinuations of Madame S. Georges and the gibes of the Bishop of Mende, she began, in an amazingly short time, to appreciate the good qualities of her husband, to which indeed she had never been totally blind; and, in the words of Madame de Motteville, to "make her pleasure of her duty." "The incomparable virtues of the King," wrote Holland at this time, "are working upon the generosity and goodness of the Queen, so that his Majesty should soon have the best wife in the world."[62] And somewhat later an exceptionally well-qualified witness[63] was able to say that the royal couple lived together with the satisfaction which all their loyal subjects ought to desire.

But still one thing was lacking to her full content. Her husband's nature was such that his full confidence and affection could only be bestowed upon one person at the time, and she knew well who held the first place in his heart and counsels. But she had not long to wait. On August 23rd, 1628, the knife of Felton ended, in a few moments, the dazzling career of the Duke of Buckingham. Charles' grief was deep and lasting. He had loved his favourite like a brother, and he never had another personal friend. But to Henrietta the news, though shocking in its suddenness, cannot have been unwelcome. She showed all due respect to his memory, but, as one of her friends wrote to Carlisle, her lamentations were rather "out of discretion than out of a true sensation of his death. I need not tell you she is glad of it, for you must imagine as much."[64]

Thenceforward there was nothing to check the growth of an affection which became the admiration of Europe. Charles' artistic eye had always dwelt with pleasure upon his wife's beautiful face, and her wit and readiness relieved his sombre nature much as Buckingham's bright audacity had, and now that the latter's hostile influence was removed, he was so completely captivated that the watchful courtiers soon perceived that the advent of another favourite was not to be feared, "for the King has made over all his affection to his wife."[65] The tokens of his love were innumerable. He delighted in making her gifts of jewels, of religious pictures, of anything which he thought would please her. He caused her portrait, painted by the hand of Van Dyck, to be hung in his bedroom, and as early as 1629 it was remarked that he wished always to be in her company. Nor was she behindhand in affection. It is pleasant to read that when the King was away for a few days his wife lay awake at night sighing for his return, and that, on another occasion when she was at Tunbridge Wells drinking the waters which were just coming into fashion, she was so home-sick for her husband after a few days' separation that she cut short her visit and went home to him, arriving after a long journey quite unexpectedly. Such little incidents show that Charles was not exaggerating when, in 1630, he wrote to his mother-in-law that "the only dispute that now exists between us is that of conquering each other by affection, both esteeming ourselves victorious in following the will of the other";[66] and that the virtuous Habington, the poet of wedded love, was not paying one of the empty compliments of a courtier when he appealed to the example of his sovereign to enforce the lessons of virtue:

"Princes' example is a law: then we If loyalle subjects must true lovers be."[67]

Of course the Queen's great wish was to give the King, her husband, an heir to his throne. But for several years no children appeared, and it was not until the early spring of 1629 that Henrietta retired to Greenwich for her first confinement, and even then her hopes were disappointed, for the boy who was born only lived long enough to receive his father's name. She herself was very ill; but she showed the brave spirit which never deserted her in suffering, and her physician was able to report that she was "full of strength and courage."[68]

But the next year she was more fortunate, perhaps because, owing to her mother's representations, she had been induced to take great care of herself and to avoid exertion. This time she chose to remain at St. James's Palace, which was considered a very suitable place as being near London, and yet quiet and retired; and there, on May 29th, 1630, the boy was born who was afterwards Charles II. The delight of the parents and of the Court may be imagined, while the people at large, who had not been very anxious for the birth of an heir to the Popish Queen, now remembering that the baby was the first native-born prince since the children of Henry VIII, entered with zest into the public rejoicings, which took the usual form of bell-ringing, bonfires, and fireworks, and which were increased by a general pardon and release of prisoners. The christening, though it was a private ceremony, was worthy of the rank of the child who was the first prince to be born heir, not only of England, but of Scotland also. It took place in the chapel of St. James's Palace, in the middle of which a dais was erected bearing the silver font which the loyalty of the Lord Mayor of London had provided. The chapel and every room through which the christening procession had to pass were hung with choice tapestry, while the greatness of the occasion was marked by the munificent gift of £1000 which was offered to the nurse.

It was a happy day for Henrietta, but marred by one disappointment, and that a great one. It was the King of England's wish that, against the spirit of the stipulations of his marriage treaty,[69] his heir's christening should follow the rites of the Established Church. Nevertheless, two of the baby's sponsors, the King of France and the Queen-Mother, were Catholics. These and the second godfather, the Prince Palatine, were represented by three noble Scots, the Duke of Lennox—a member of a family that the Queen particularly disliked—the Duke of Hamilton, and the Duchess of Richmond; and the King, with characteristic unwisdom, desired to pay yet another compliment to his native land by appointing another Scotchwoman, Lady Roxburgh, to the office of governess to his infant son. But this lady, who was a Catholic and who, as lady of the bedchamber to the consort of James, was supposed to have exercised a baleful religious influence over her mistress, discreetly refused the offered dignity, which was passed on to the Countess of Dorset, whose husband was to fill the complementary position of governor to the royal child.

The baby inherited neither the stately beauty of his father nor the vivacious prettiness of his mother, though he was rather like his grandfather, Henry IV, whom Henrietta so greatly resembled. But his size and forwardness atoned for his lack of beauty. "He is so fat and so tall," wrote the happy mother to her old friend Madame S. Georges, "that he is taken for a year old, and he is only four months. His teeth are already beginning to come. I will send you his portrait as soon as he is a little fairer, for at present he is so dark that I am quite ashamed of him."[70] And again, somewhat later, her humorous delight in her baby comes out in another letter to the same correspondent. "I wish you could see the gentleman, for he has no ordinary mien. He is so serious in all he does, that I cannot help fancying him far wiser than myself."[71]

Henrietta's happiness was crowned by the birth of her son, which was followed as the years went on by that of other sons and daughters.[72] But apart from these domestic joys, in which she delighted with all the strength of her healthy nature, her life was a very happy one. To the pleasures of love she added those of friendship, and she had the art, all too rare among the great, of treating her friends with openness and confidence without losing her royal dignity. No sooner were her French ladies gone than she turned to those of her new country to fill their place, and perhaps her principal choice was not altogether a happy one.

No woman of that time was more brilliant than Lucy, Countess of Carlisle, whose romantic friendship with the great Strafford, which the imagination of a modern poet has immortalized, is only one of her claims to remembrance. A member of the border House of Percy, she incurred, by her marriage with a Scotch nobleman, the serious displeasure of her father, who, as he said, could not bear that his daughter should dance Scotch jigs. But her union with the distinguished Lord Carlisle, whom Henrietta speedily forgave for his share in her early troubles, was to her advantage at Court, where, in virtue of her ten years' seniority over the young Queen, she wielded the influence which often belongs to a married woman, who, though still in the bloom of her beauty, has had time to acquire a knowledge of life. That she was beautiful her portraits remain to testify; that in the mingled arts of coquetry and diplomacy she was so proficient as to challenge comparison with Madame de Chevreuse herself there is ample evidence in the fascination which she exercised, first over Strafford and then over Pym, who, neither of them were men to be caught by mediocre ability or charm; that she was cowardly, false, treacherous to her heart's core Henrietta's simple and affectionate nature had as yet no means of discovering.[73]

There was another man of less intellectual distinction whom she had once been able to lead captive by her charms, but who had deserted her for a royal mistress across the Channel. The story of her frustrated revenge, though it rests upon the authority of gossiping memoirs,[74] is so characteristic of the lady herself and of others who played a part in Henrietta's life, that it carries with it some degree of conviction, and moreover has an illustrative value apart from its literal truth.

Lady Carlisle was not a woman to forgive a faithless lover, even though that lover were the favourite of her King and had left her for the smiles of a foreign Queen. She determined to take a delicate revenge which should punish both the Duke of Buckingham and the Queen of France; and to compass this end she became one of the earliest of the English spies of Richelieu, who would be only too glad to welcome any proof of the levity of Anne of Austria.

The Countess laid her plans well. She noticed that Buckingham, after his return from France, was accustomed to wear some diamond studs which she had never seen before, and which she conjectured correctly to have been given to him by the Queen of France. She determined to gain possession of one of these jewels, that she might send it to Richelieu, who would be at no loss to draw his own conclusions. A Court ball gave her an opportunity, and before the evening was out she held in her hand the compromising ornament.

But she was to be outwitted after all by Buckingham, who, whatever his failings, was neither a tepid nor a dull-witted lover, and who was able to gauge, pretty correctly, the spite of the woman he knew so well. Taking advantage of his unbounded power with the King, he obtained the closure of all the ports of England for a certain time, during which interval he caused an exact replica of the stolen stud to be made, which, together with the remaining studs, he dispatched to Anne. The Queen of France was thus able to produce the jewels when her husband, their original donor, asked for them, and the accusing stud which the malice of her enemies sent to Paris was deprived of power to injure her.

It is not surprising that there were people at the Court of England who disliked the young Queen's intimacy with Lady Carlisle. That lady, whose talk with those of her own sex was ever of dress and fashion, had already, it was rumoured, taught Henrietta to paint, and she would, no doubt, lead her on to other "debaucheries"; but her influence seemed established. By the royal favour she enjoyed a pension of £2000 a year, and Henrietta's affection was so great that even when the Countess had the smallpox she could hardly be kept from her side. The Queen was the convalescent's first visitor, and a little later she permitted her favourite to appear at Court in a black velvet mask, so that she might enjoy her society at an earlier date than otherwise would have been possible, for it was not to be expected that Lady Carlisle would show her face in the circles of which she was one of the brightest ornaments until its beauty was fully restored. Such a woman could not fail to arouse jealousy. Buckingham's relatives, who served the Queen, feared and distrusted her, and perhaps her most formidable rival in Henrietta's affection was the Duke's sister, the pious and cultured Lady Denbigh, who, distasteful at first, had won her mistress' heart, and whose long fidelity, which neither years nor exile could diminish, contrasts favourably with the self-seeking of the more brilliant Lady Carlisle.

OLD SOMERSET HOUSE
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER AN ANCIENT PAINTING IN DULWICH COLLEGE

But the society of friends of her own sex was only one among the many joys which were Henrietta's during the happy years which elapsed between the troubles of her youth and the storm of the Civil War. For a few months after the departure of the French her husband seems to have kept her short of money,[75] but in 1627 she enjoyed the income of £18,000, which was guaranteed to her by the terms of her marriage contract. Moreover, large grants of manors and lands were made to her. Thus came into her possession the park of East Greenwich, whither she was wont to retire when she wished for country air and quiet, and yet could not be far from town; thus she acquired Oatlands in Surrey, the pleasant country-house of which nothing now remains, where she spent many happy days with her friends and children; thus she was able to call her own Somerset or Denmark House, her much-loved and beautiful London home which stood with other noblemen's houses facing the Strand, while behind lovely pleasure gardens sloped down to the still silver Thames. None of her other houses, probably, was as dear to her as this, where she kept an establishment befitting her rank as Queen-Consort, and where she frequently gave entertainments which reflected the taste and grace of their hostess, and to which she had the pleasure of inviting her husband, the King.

Henrietta was not a lady of literary tastes, and in spite of the fact that the Scotch poet, Sir Robert Ayton, was her private secretary, her patronage of general literature was confined to smiling on poets, such as Edmund Waller, who presented her with copies of complimentary verses, and to receiving the dedication of devotional works, usually translated from foreign originals. But to the drama she was devoted, and she specially liked the pretty and fashionable plays known as masques, of which the veteran laureate, Ben Jonson, wrote a number, and of which a younger poet, John Milton, produced in Comus, the most famous example. Henrietta was delighted with the great pageant and masque offered to their Majesties by the Inns of Court in 1633,[76] and even the grave Laud, when he entertained royalty at Oxford in 1638, provided a play, Cartwright's Royal Slave, for the amusement of his guests. But the Queen's pleasure was not only as a spectator. As a child she had been accustomed to take her part in private theatricals acted in the spacious salons of the Luxembourg, where Rubens' voluptuous women looked down upon the royal actresses. She brought the taste for these amusements with her to England. The first Christmas after her marriage she and her ladies acted a French pastoral at Somerset House, in which she took the leading part. "It would have been thought a strange sight once,"[77] commented sourly her new subjects.

But she was not to be deterred from her pleasures. She was always too careless of public opinion, and, as an acute and sympathetic observer remarked somewhat later, she was a true Bourbon in her love of amusement. To a lady whose dancing was something quite unusual, and whose sweet voice and skill in touching the lute testified to real musical taste, dramatic representations were naturally attractive. Her second English Christmas was enlivened by a masque, in which, as her French attendants were gone by this time, she had the assistance of her English friends. Her own band of players was always ready, and played for her amusement, now at Hampton Court, now at Somerset House, and it was owing to her influence and patronage that theatres increased to such an extent in the capital that the Puritan feeling of the City was aroused, which produced an order in Council "for the restraint of the inordinate use and company of playhouse and players." The playgoers were to content themselves with two theatres, of which one was to be in Middlesex and the other across the river in Surrey, while no plays were to be acted on Sunday, in Lent, or in times of common infection.

But the merrymakings of the Court became more instead of less as the years went on. In 1631 the Queen was so taken up with her Shrovetide play that she had no thoughts to spare for important news which came from France, and the next year she took the principal part in an elaborate play, The Shepherd's Paradise, which was written for her by Walter Montagu, who added to his fine manners and diplomatic skill some pretensions (if nothing more) to literature. This play, which is of the allegorical type so dear to the heart of the seventeenth century, is indeed a very poor one, and hardly contains a line which rises above the level of an indifferent verse-maker. It is, moreover, fatiguingly long, and the Queen must have found her part a great labour to learn, specially as, notwithstanding her seven years' residence in England, she was not yet perfect in the English tongue, and indeed was acting partly in order to improve herself in this necessary accomplishment.[78] Her companions in the play were her ladies, for not a man was admitted even to take the male parts. But in spite of difficulties, when the night of the representation came, everything went off merrily at Somerset House; all acted with great spirit, and the Queen was able to speak with playful conviction the oath of the new queendom to which she had been elected:—

"By beauty, Innocence, and all that's faire I, Bellesa, as a Queen do sweare, To keep the honour and the regall due Without exacting anything that's new, And to assume no more to me than must Give me the meanes and power to be just, And but for charity and mercies cause Reserve no power to suspend the Lawes. This do I vow even as I hope to rise From this into another Paradise."[79]

The author of these lines was in high favour, not only with the Queen, but with the King, who went out of his way to congratulate his father, the Earl of Manchester, on such a son. This approval more than compensated for the castigation of the pastoral by another poet, whose verses, unlike Montagu's, still retain power to charm:—

"Wat Montague now stood forth to his trial, And did not so much as suspect a denial; But witty Apollo ask'd him first of all If he understood his own Pastoral.

"For if he could do it, 'twould plainly appear He understood more than any man there, And did merit the bayes above all the rest; But the mounsieur was modest, and silence confest."[80]

There was another slight annoyance connected with the play which was, perhaps, even less felt than Suckling's wit, for what did it matter to Henrietta, to Montagu, or to any of the brilliant company, if a cross-grained puritanical lawyer such as William Prynne chose to insult the Queen by base and indiscriminate charges against actresses, thereby bringing upon himself the just punishment of the loss of his ears?

All disagreeable matters were, indeed, shut out from the brilliant drawing-rooms of Henrietta Maria, where the hostess set an example of free amiability at which strict persons looked a little askance. Those were most welcome who could most contribute by beauty, wit, or conversation to the entertainment of all. Lord Holland,[81] the most elegant dandy of the day, was often to be seen there chatting with the Queen about France or Madame de Chevreuse, to whom he was known to be devoted. Walter Montagu's ready wit and charming conversation always availed to win him a few smiles from his royal hostess. Henry Percy was welcomed as much, perhaps, for the sake of his sister, Lady Carlisle, as for any shining qualities of his own. Above all, Henry Jermyn, the Queen's greatest friend—and she was a woman of many men friends—was constantly to be seen at her side, building up a friendship which only death was to end.

It is hard to account for Henrietta's affection for this man—an affection so great that from that day to this scandal has been busy with their names. Henry Jermyn was not particularly well born, and he was neither radiantly handsome like Holland, nor clever and witty like Montagu. His abilities, which were severely tested in the course of his life, did not rise above mediocrity; his religion, such of it as existed, was of a very nebulous character, and his morals were of a distinctly commonplace type; indeed, one of his early achievements at Court was to run off with a maid of honour. To set against all this we only know that he was a man of very soft and gentle manners, such as made him a fitting agent in delicate negotiations, and that when the day of trouble came he showed considerable fidelity to the interests of a losing cause. That Henrietta should have lavished on such a man an affection and a confidence which some of her best friends, both now and later, thought exaggerated, is surprising; but she was never a good judge of character, and it must be remembered that personal charm is one of the most evanescent of qualities which cannot be bottled for the use of the historian.

That in these happy days Henrietta was one of the brightest ornaments of her own Court cannot be doubted. Old men, who remembered the later years of Elizabeth, must have contrasted the forced compliments offered to her faded charms with the free devotion laid at the feet of this young and beautiful woman,

"In whom th' extremes of power and beauty move, The Queen of Britain and the Queen of Love."[82]

Her beauty soon reached its prime and soon faded a little, so that in later days she used to say with a touch of pique that no woman was handsome after two-and-twenty. Though she was not tall, her figure was good, and her sweet face with its animated expression attracted all beholders. Fastidious critics did, indeed, find fault with her mouth, which was rather large, but they had nothing but praise for her well-formed nose, her pretty complexion, and, above all, for her sparkling black eyes which, as in the days of her girlhood, were her most striking beauty; so lovely were they that the Puritan Sir Simonds d'Ewes was fain to lament that their owner should be in the thraldom of Popery.[83]

With such beauty to adorn, no woman, much less a Frenchwoman and a queen, could be indifferent to dress. Henrietta took a great interest in the subject, and loved to deck herself in the beautiful robes which were then in fashion and which we know so well from the portraits of Van Dyck. The trousseau which she had brought with her to England bore witness to her brother's generosity, and was so ample and magnificent[84] that it may well have lasted her life, as trousseaux did in those days. Four dozen embroidered nightgowns with a dozen night-caps to match, four dozen chemises with another "fort belle, toute pointe coupe" thrown in for special occasions, and five dozen handkerchiefs seem an ample allowance of linen even for a queen, while the five petticoats which were provided made up in splendour what they lacked in number. The dozen pairs of English silk stockings, to which was added a dainty pair of red velvet boots lined with fur, were a luxury to which few could have aspired. But it was in the matter of gowns that Henrietta was most fortunate. No less than thirteen did she possess, apart from her "royal robe," and all were very magnificent, four being of gold and silver cloth on a satin foundation, whether of black, crimson, green, or "jus de lin," those of the two last-named colours being provided with a court train and long hanging sleeves. As for the robe of state, which perhaps is the same as that which had already done duty at the wedding, it surpassed the rest in splendour, being of red velvet covered with fleur-de-lis. A heavy mantle of the same material and colour lined up with ermine was evidently intended to be worn with it on ceremonial occasions.

Such toilettes would have been incomplete without magnificent jewels, of which the taste of the time allowed great display. With Mary de' Medici they were a passion, and her daughter, though she had no avarice in her nature and was to show herself capable of sacrificing jewels or any other material good for those she loved, yet was far from indifferent to the sparkle and colour of these beautiful ornaments. Many and valuable were the jewels which on her departure from France were handed over to the care of her dame d'atours, who must have found them an anxious charge. Fillets of pearls, chains of precious stones, diamond ear-rings, a magnificent diamond ring, all these were provided for the young Queen, besides such fine jewels as a cross of diamonds and pearls, an anchor studded with four diamonds, and a "bouquet" of five petals made of diamonds, together with a quantity of lesser trinkets, including several dozen diamond buttons to be used as trimmings for dresses. It may be safely conjectured that the Queen found plenty of use for a "grand mirror, silver-backed," which she brought over with her from Paris, and it is not surprising to learn that Father Bérulle thought her rather too fond of dress.

A very girl Henrietta remained for several years after her marriage. Politics did not greatly interest her, and her trust in her husband was such that she turned aside from serious matters to employ herself in bright trifles, for, to the joye de vivre, which came to her from her father, she added a delight in all that was pretty, which recalls her descent from Florence and the Medici. She had, also, a taste for the grotesque which was common in her day, and she long kept at her Court a pugnacious dwarf, by name Geoffrey Hudson, who, later on, during the exile, caused her considerable embarrassment by killing a gentleman in a duel. There is ample evidence of her interest in dainty possessions and amusements. Now she is writing to Madame S. Georges for velvet petticoats from her Paris tailor, or "a dozen pairs of sweet chamois gloves and ... one of doe skin." Now she is receiving "rare and outlandish flowers," or asking her mother to send her fruit trees and plants for her gardens, whose "faire flowers" she so cherished as to merit the dedication by Parkinson the herbalist of his Paradisus Terrestris. Or, again, she is setting out with her lords and ladies to celebrate in good old English fashion the festival of May Day, and to witness all those pretty rights of country festivity over which the withering wind of the Civil War had not yet passed.

"Marke How each field turnsa street: each street a Parke Made green and trimm'd with trees: see how Devotion gives each house a Bough Or Branch: each Porch, each doore, ere this An Arke a Tabernacle is Made up of white thorn neatly enterwove As if here were those cooler shades of love."[85]

Nor was the Queen merely an idle spectator. No sooner did the first snowy May bush catch her eye than, with all the zest of a village maiden, she leaped from her fine coach, and breaking off a bough placed it merrily in her hat.

In all the revels of the Court Henrietta's was the moving spirit, but her sweetness of temper prevented her energy from degenerating into domineering. She was never really popular with the people at large, on account of her race and her religion, and there were murmurs now and then at Court about her undue preference for the Scotch. But that in her own circle she was tenderly loved there can be no doubt. Innocent,[86] yet so sprightly that she sometimes gave scandal without suspecting it; gay, yet with moments of sadness which only solitude could relieve; open and talkative, yet faithful to conceal secrets, "for a queen should be as a confessor, hearing all yet telling nothing"; sympathetic with sorrow, yet chaffing unmercifully the malades imaginaires of a luxurious Court; delicate in consideration for the feelings of the meanest of her servants, yet gifted with a caustic tongue used at times rather unsparingly. Such was Henrietta Maria, Queen of England.

But it is time to turn from the merely social and decorative aspect of Henrietta's married life to consider the interests and intrigues which, behind the brilliant show, were working and struggling.

One of the first questions which came up for settlement on the conclusion of peace between England and France in 1629 was that of the Queen's household, and the ambassador sent to London to arrange this matter turned out to be one of those fascinating but factious persons whom ill-fortune threw so often in Henrietta's path. To make things worse he found already in England another Frenchman more fascinating and more factious than himself, with whom he formed a close friendship. The Chevalier de Jars,[87] whose exile was the result of Anne of Austria's affection and of Richelieu's dislike, added to all his other charms a skill in the game of tennis, which commended him to the King of England, himself a proficient in the game.

Charles de l'Aubépine, Marquis of Chateauneuf, arrived in London in 1629. He was a finished gentleman, and he was able quickly to win the confidence of the Queen whose heart always turned kindly to those of her own nation. But the ambassador was not slow in discovering that instead of having to defend an ill-used and discontented wife, as perhaps he had expected, he must adapt his diplomacy to the requirements of a happy married couple. "I am not only the happiest princess, but the happiest woman in the world,"[88] said Henrietta to him triumphantly, while Charles was careful to show his affection for his beautiful wife by kissing her a hundred times in the course of an hour as Chateauneuf looked on. "You have not seen that in Piedmont," said the King, turning to his foreign guest, "nor," he added, sinking his voice to a discreet whisper, "in France either."

Such news was gratifying to Mary de' Medici's maternal affection, and Chateauneuf dwelt in his dispatches upon the kindness of the King, on the pretty gifts of jewellery which he gave to his wife, and on the general happiness of the royal marriage. But the real objects of his mission, despite the personal favour with which he was regarded, were not advanced, for Henrietta had now no wish to receive a French establishment such as she had wept for so bitterly three years earlier.[89] She was now an English queen, and she was well content with the attendance which her husband provided for her. She confessed, however, that she should like to have a lady of the bedchamber to whom she could talk in her own language and who could come to church with her, "for the Countess of Buckingham and Madame Savage are often away, and the rest of my ladies are Protestants," she said.

She took a favourable opportunity of expressing her views to her brother's ambassador with the frankness she was accustomed to show towards those she liked. She invited him to stay with her at Nonsuch "as a private person serving the Queen," and one evening there, after supper, when Charles had ridden away to hunt, she requested her guest to walk with her in the park, to enjoy the coolness of the July evening. A long conversation followed. Chateauneuf spoke to the Queen of the great affection which her mother had for her, the daughter whom she had kept longest at her side, and whose marriage was her own work. Henrietta assented, and confessed that the jealousy she had once felt of her sister Christine was unfounded, but she quickly went on to speak of the happiness of her married life and of the religious freedom which she enjoyed. "I do not want another governess," she declared at last. "I am no longer a child to allow myself to be ruled."[90]

There were indeed many difficulties to be smoothed if Mary de' Medici was to realize her hope of bringing her young daughter again into tutelage. Both Charles and Henrietta saw what the aim of the French Government was, and they quietly defeated it. The ecclesiastical question, which will be discussed elsewhere, was, indeed, settled by a compromise favourable to Catholic interests, but no gouvernante arrived to oust the Countess of Buckingham, who held the position formerly occupied by Madame S. Georges; and the doctor, "a Frenchman and a Catholic," who came to supplant the excellent Mayerne, a learned French Protestant who served Henrietta faithfully for many years, found his position at the English Court so intolerable that he begged to be recalled.

But there is another aspect of Chateauneuf's brief stay in England which requires careful consideration. The French ambassador was believed to be devoted to the interests of Richelieu, or else, assuredly, he had never set foot in the English Court; but even Richelieu was sometimes mistaken, and the man whom he had chosen to represent him was probably already jealous of his patron, and already falling under the influence of the bright eyes of Madame de Chevreuse, the friend of Queen Anne, the ally of Spain.

It is probable also that Henrietta was beginning to look coldly upon Richelieu even before she met Chateauneuf, for other influences were working against him in her mind. The day of Dupes was fast approaching, when her mother would leave for ever the Court of France. Gaston of Orleans' persistent hostility to the Cardinal was not without its weight with his sister. Bérulle, whose memory she deeply revered, had died in 1628, summing up the experience of a lifetime in his dying words, "As for the Court it is but vanity"; it was well known that he was at enmity with the man who had raised him from the simple priesthood to the dignity of the cardinal's purple. Taking all these things into account, it is not surprising that the young Queen of England turned no unwilling ear to the insinuation of Chateauneuf and the hints of Jars, and the result was an intrigue which only became apparent when the ambassador had returned to France, leaving the fascinating Chevalier to carry on the work which he had begun.

The interaction of French and English politics now becomes of great importance. Charles never allowed another to occupy the place of Buckingham, either in his heart or in his counsels; but at this time his chief dependence was upon the Treasurer, Richard Weston, who became Earl of Portland in 1633; a dull, safe man, who could be trusted to prevent the disagreeable necessity of calling a Parliament. He was, certainly at the beginning of his career, rather pro-Spanish in his sympathies, and he died a Catholic; but his aversion from war so recommended him to Richelieu, who knew that while he held the reins of power England would not interfere in his continental designs, that an understanding and almost a friendship gradually grew up between them.

Henrietta never liked Weston. Perhaps she was jealous of her husband's regard, and saw in him a potential Buckingham; certainly she disliked his close-fisted ways, which curbed her extravagance, always considerable, in money matters. She allowed a cabal of discontented spirits to gather round her, whose double aim was the overthrow of the powerful minister in England and of the far greater statesman across the Channel. That cabal, founded in French opinion by Chateauneuf,[91] included most of the Queen's personal friends. Holland,[92] who was jealous of Weston, and whose devotion to Madame de Chevreuse accounted for his attitude to Richelieu, without taking into account a warm friendship with Chateauneuf; Montagu, who laid such portion of his homage as he could spare from Queen Anne at the feet of the same seductive lady, and who had been and was "very well" with Monsieur the factious Duke of Orleans; Jermyn and Henry Percy—these are some of those[93] implicated in Henrietta's first attempt at the fascinating game of diplomatic chicanery. To them must be added Madame de Vantelet, whom Chateauneuf thought a little neglected, but who, as the only French lady of the royal household, had considerable influence over her mistress, and whose partisanship became so marked that the pension assigned to her by the King of France was taken away.

The difficulties began with the arrival of Chateauneuf's successor, the Marquis of Fontenay-Mareuil, who threw himself on the side of Weston, and who soon found that he had to reckon with a foe in the person of the Chevalier de Jars. He met with little less opposition from Madame de Vantelet and from Father Philip, who disliked the ecclesiastical policy of the ambassador, and who was himself disliked by the party of Richelieu, because as a subject of King Charles he was quite independent of France and could not be persuaded to use the great influence over the Queen which his position gave him in the interests of a foreign Government.[94] The Queen proved even more intractable. She refused to dismiss Father Philip at her eldest brother's request, and it was an ominous sign that in 1631 an agent of Monsieur was in England, even though Charles took care that his presence should be reported to the French authorities. When the news arrived of the execution of the gallant Montmorency, Henrietta spoke with pity of his fate, while her husband, who had many of the instincts of absolutism, readily allowed that it was a painful necessity.

Her friendship for Jars continued unabated in spite of the open enmity which that worthy showed to Fontenay-Mareuil, whose position was only rendered tolerable by the kindness of the King, who had not yet fallen under the domination of his wife in affairs, however much he might kiss and caress her. As for Henrietta, she was openly rude to the hapless ambassador. She frankly told him that though she was obliged to receive him in his official capacity, out of respect for her brother, she would not discuss her private affairs with him, and wished to have as little to do with him personally as possible. It is not surprising that he was anxious to return to his own country.

Nor is it surprising that he took steps to clear himself from the name freely bestowed upon him. Apart from the clique of Chateauneuf's personal friends, of whom the chief perhaps were Holland and Montagu, he was fairly liked at Court, and he believed that, could he but unmask the intrigues of the Chevalier and of his patron Chateauneuf, he might yet triumph over his enemies. With this object in view he descended to a trick hardly in keeping either with his rank or with his office. One evening when he knew that the Chevalier would be away from home, he caused two of his servants to enter the rooms of his rival, where they carried on a burglarious search, which ended in a small cabinet containing letters finding its way into the hands of the ambassador.

Jars, as was only to be expected, was exceedingly angry, but he believed that his influence with the King and the Queen would ensure his redress. They did indeed take up the matter with great zeal, and, for a few days, nothing else was talked of at Court. But when Charles came to question Fontenay-Mareuil, the affair assumed a different complexion. The ambassador did not attempt to deny the theft. He only said coolly that since Jars was a subject of the King of France, and since he had reason to believe that he was compromising his sovereign's interests, he was at liberty to take any steps which seemed good to him to discover the truth. The King of England was much struck by this reply, which fitted in well with his own theory and practice of statecraft. Moreover, much as he personally liked Jars, he distrusted the political party to which he belonged. He therefore determined to take no steps in the matter. He showed marked cordiality to Fontenay-Mareuil, and the Chevalier, to his infinite chagrin, had to submit to the loss of his papers, which were probably sent to Richelieu to help forward the disgrace of Chateauneuf.

For in the early spring of 1633 the Court of England was startled by the news of the arrest of that nobleman and of the Chevalier de Jars, who had returned to France after the above incident. In a moment the power of those who were the Queen of England's friends in her native land seemed destroyed. Chateauneuf was sent into captivity at Angoulême. His fair charmer, Madame de Chevreuse, was forced into uncongenial retirement, which ended in her dramatic escape, dressed up as a man, across the Pyrenees into Spain. While for Jars was reserved a still harder lot. Two years of rigorous imprisonment in the Bastille were followed by a sentence of death, pronounced by one who was known as the "bourreau du Cardinal." It was only as the victim kneeled upon the scaffold awaiting the stroke of the executioner that he received, by the tardy mercy of Richelieu, a reprieve from death, a reprieve so sudden and startling that for many minutes he was too stunned to appreciate his good fortune, which, however, was none too great, for he was reconducted to his prison, whence all the efforts of his friends, headed by the Queen of England, were long unavailing to drag him.

It was not indeed likely that Richelieu would look favourably on a request proferred by Henrietta, for he was beginning to feel that distrust of her which never left him to the end of his life. Among the letters which the affaire Chateauneuf placed in his power were many written by English hands, those of Holland, of Montagu, of the Queen herself. He knew also that the royal lady had spoken slighting words of him, saying that Chateauneuf was no participant of the evil counsels of the Cardinal, and that after the death of the latter he would be able to fill his place much more worthily. This information, moreover, came from an unimpeachable source, none other than the Treasurer of England. Weston indeed watched with no ordinary interest the course of events in France, and it is not surprising that he did not scruple to report to the Cardinal the uncomplimentary remarks of the Queen of England. The enemies of Richelieu were his own, and their overthrow prepared the way for his victory, which, though on a smaller scale and of less dramatic quality, was equally decisive.

In the spring of 1633, not long after the fall of Chateauneuf, Jerome Weston, the son of the Treasurer, was on his way home from Paris, whither he had been as ambassador. On the journey he happened to fall in with a letter which he thought to be written by the Earl of Holland, and remembering the hostility of that nobleman to his father, he took possession of it. On opening the packet he found within a letter addressed in the Queen's handwriting, which he did not presume to unfold; but on his arrival in London laid it, just as he had found it, in the hands of the King.

It appears that the letter was of trifling importance, being nothing more than one of the many which, at different times, Henrietta Maria wrote on behalf of the Chevalier de Jars to Cardinal Richelieu. But Holland, not unnaturally perhaps, felt that he had been insulted, and he probably thought that the King would see in Jerome Weston's conduct an affront to his wife. In a moment of imprudence he sent a challenge by the hands of Henry Jermyn to the Treasurer's son, asking for satisfaction. The latter, instead of sending an answer in the way usual in such cases, informed his father of what had occurred, and Portland without delay laid the matter before the King. This trifling incident thus became the touchstone of the respective influence of the Treasurer and of the cabal which was trying to ruin him. It was the former who came off victorious. Charles' trust in his minister was not to be shaken, while he was exceedingly angry with Holland. To his punctilious mind it seemed intolerable that a nobleman of his own council should send a challenge to one of his servants on account of an act performed in his official capacity. His orders were sharp and stern. Jermyn, as an accessory, was to be confined in a private house, while Holland was ordered to retire to the beautiful mansion at Kensington, which he had acquired with his wealthy wife Isabel Cope, and there to remain during His Majesty's pleasure. All believed that the day of the brilliant Earl was over, and that his friends, particularly Montagu and Madame de Vantelet, would share in his fall. Holland House was indeed a gilded prison, but the prisoner was made to feel that the sentence had not been pronounced in play, for when he showed a disposition to amuse himself with his friends, Charles sent a stern rebuke, forbidding him to receive company. Everything pointed to a complete withdrawal of royal favour.

But Henrietta, as she proved in the case of Jars and of many others, was a good friend. She was truly attached to Holland, who was not only possessed of unrivalled grace of person and manner, but was connected in her mind with the happy memory of her marriage. Exerting all the strength of her growing influence over her husband—an influence which was increased by the fact that she was about again to become a mother[95]—she succeeded in winning the pardon of the now repentant Earl. Handsome and brilliant as ever, Holland reappeared in the drawing-rooms of the Queen, and his accomplices, Jermyn, Montagu, and Madame de Vantelet, seemed to be in as high favour at Court as before the occurrence of this untoward event.

But, nevertheless, Portland was the victor. Charles' eyes had been opened to see the machinations of the enemies of his minister who, notwithstanding the smothered hostility of the Queen and her circle, preserved his confidence until his death. Henrietta's first attempt to play the game of politics—an attempt into which she had been drawn by her friends with probably little volition or comprehension of her own—had ended on both sides of the Channel in sorry failure. In France her friends were scattered and exiled, and the great Cardinal was stronger than ever; in England she had proved her power to touch her husband's heart, but not to rule his counsels.

But other days were coming. In March, 1635, Portland died. As Charles grew older his disposition to keep the direction of affairs in his own hands grew also, and as Buckingham had had no real successor so Portland had none. Instead, his heritage of influence and power was divided among several heirs, one of whom was the Queen of England. Hardly was the Treasurer in his grave when Henrietta Maria began to show an interest in political concerns which she had not previously displayed.

She was now twenty-five years of age, and her early marriage had brought with it an early development of character. She had outgrown the levity of extreme youth, and her acute and energetic mind was beginning to feel and respond to the stimulus of affairs. She had not lived for ten years with her husband without being aware of the difficulties of his sombre and obstinate character,[96] but she knew also his great love for her, and she was encouraged by the fact that her devoted servant the Earl of Holland had been restored to more than his former place in Charles' confidence. Perhaps the hostile influence which she most feared was that of Laud, for whom the King had a regard not only as an ecclesiastic after his own heart, but as a friend and protégé of Buckingham. There was also another and a stronger mind from which she instinctively shrank, but Wentworth was far away in Ireland, and, at the time, seldom came into personal relation with her. But though it is unquestionable that the disappearance of Portland marks a change which came over the spirit of the Queen, yet that change may easily be exaggerated. It was, moreover, very gradual, and only became complete in the dark days which preceded the Civil War. For the present, though the instincts of intrigue inherent in the Medici blood were aroused, yet her chief interests remained those of the normal young married woman, her husband, her babies, her home. If she entered into political matters, as she had not done in earlier years, yet her efforts were intermittent, and two independent witnesses attest with regret the indifference of her attempts to win over the Ministers of State, and the slightness of the part which she played in public life.[97] Nevertheless, as the death of Buckingham gave her ascendancy over her husband's heart, so that of Portland paved the way for the ascendancy which she gradually acquired over his mind.

It was not to be expected that Henrietta's development of character, slight and gradual though it might be, would escape the vigilant eyes fixed upon her from across the Channel. Portland's death was a blow to Richelieu, who, with a European war about to begin, could not afford the hostility of England. He did not like Henrietta, but he was too acute not to appreciate that her character was of the feminine type, which is largely dependent upon personal influence, and he hoped that the removal of Chateauneuf and Jars would lead to a return on her part to such sentiments as he conceived to be fitting towards her native land, in other words, towards himself, for to the Cardinal even more than to Louis XIV "l'Etat c'est moi." When he heard how all the courtiers of England, and even the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, were trying to win her favour, he felt that he must take some pains to recapture her. His schemes—the details of which may be read in the dispatches which he wrote and received—were not quite unsuccessful. Henrietta, for a few years, did show a certain friendliness towards him, and perhaps, had he complied at once with her wishes in releasing Jars, he might have won her real friendship.[98] Her friends in England were not neglected. The unstable Montagu, who at this time had great influence over her, and who was attempting, quite unsuccessfully, to make Richelieu forget the part he had played in Chateauneuf's schemes, was rewarded for his shuffling by the offer of a pension, which, however, the Queen thought it prudent he should refuse.[99] Certainly grievances of her French servants were removed. Madame de Vantelet's pension was restored, while in 1637 Francis Windbank, one of the Secretaries of State, who was becoming involved in her schemes, was delicately asked to accept a present in lieu of the less respectable pension.[100]

CHARLES I AND HENRIETTA MARIA
FROM THE PAINTING BY VAN DYCK IN THE GALLERIA PITTI, FLORENCE

But Richelieu, in spite of all his schemes, was by now aware of one fact, which redounds greatly to Henrietta's credit: he recognized that she would never be an Anne of Austria, an alien and spy in the Court of her husband, and that all he could hope for was to win her as a friendly ally who should counteract in some degree the pro-Spanish tendencies of the King. "The Queen of England," ran the instructions given to an ambassador who was starting for London, "shows herself always very well disposed towards France. But care must be taken, and she must not be required to act beyond that which she considers may contribute to the common good of the two crowns."[101]