Henrietta Maria Part 2

A good Wif was ther of byside Bath

Sche was a worthy womman al hire lyfe Housbondes atte chirche dore hadde sche fyfe.]

[Footnote 18: George Goring, Baron Goring, 1628, Earl of Norwich, 1644; d.

1663.]

[Footnote 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.]

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

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

[Footnote 22: MS. Francais, 23,600.]

[Footnote 23: L'Entree superbe magnifique faite a 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 qualite. A. Paris, MDCXXV.]

[Footnote 24: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 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 Berulle. Among the Berulle papers (Archives Nationales, M. 232) is an authenticated copy, whose note of authentication states that "ce discours a este compose par nostre tres reverend pere" (i.e. Berulle), as the copyist was informed in 1660. Berulle in 1627 wrote another letter for Mary de' Medici to send to her daughter. See chap. IV.]

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

[Footnote 27: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 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 Tillieres,[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 circ.u.mstances 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 n.o.bles and ladies as Madame S. Georges, the princ.i.p.al lady-in-waiting, and the Count de Tillieres, 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 a.s.similation 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 Tillieres, 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 amba.s.sador.

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 Berulle, 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. Berulle, 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 Fenelon 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 pet.i.te Mademoiselle," had their foundation in facts, facts for which Berulle was largely responsible.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARDINAL PIERRE DE BeRULLE

FROM AN ENGRAVING]

The Bishop of Mende was a very different person from the austere Oratorian.

A member of one of the n.o.blest houses in France, high-spirited, cultured, and fascinating, he owed a position to which his twenty and odd years would not have ent.i.tled 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 Tillieres 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 Berulle, 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 Tillieres, detailed everything that occurred to Richelieu, and abundance of letters written by his hand remain to prove the truth of this statement. As for Tillieres himself, his att.i.tude 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 Berulle 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 amba.s.sador? 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 n.o.bleman 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 Amba.s.sadors, 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 Tillieres 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 Roch.e.l.le, and the concessions to the Catholics, though nominally secret, were more than suspected. Charles found himself embarra.s.sed 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 pet.i.tion 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 Tillieres, 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 Berulle and the Bishop, Henrietta pleaded for her co-religionists. Her prayers were unavailing, and only served to anger Charles further. "You are rather the amba.s.sador 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 Tillieres 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 Tillieres and the Bishop, what was needed was a vigorous amba.s.sador 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 G.o.d should work for us the miracle of enabling you to be in two places at once,"[43] could not indeed be spared, but a subst.i.tute was found in the person of "M. le Marquis de Blainville,"

who before he left Paris had a long conversation with Berulle; 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 emba.s.sy 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 Amba.s.sador-Extraordinary--a t.i.tle 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 Berulle, 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 ill.u.s.trates 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 a.s.sent without, however, considering the matter of grave consequence.