“ When the Long Parliament met, the Catholics were believed to be the authors and agents of every arbitrary scheme which was supposed to have entered into the plans of Strafford or Laud. Before the Long Parliament had sat for two months, the queen was urging upon the pope the duty of lending money to enable her to restore her husband’s authority. She threw herself heart and soul into the schemes for rescuing Strafford and coercing the parliament. The army plot, the scheme for using Scotland against England, and the attempt upon the five members were the fruits of her political activity. ”

“ In the next year the queen effected her passage to the Continent. In February 1643 she landed at Burlington Quay, placed herself at the head of a force of loyalists, and marched through England to join the king near Oxford. After little more than a year’s residence there, on the 3rd of April 1644, she left her husband, to see his face no more. Henrietta Maria found a refuge in France. Richelieu was dead, and Anne of Austria was compassionate. As long as her husband was alive the queen never ceased to encourage him to resistance. ”

“ She had then recently opened a diplomatic communication with the see of Rome. She appointed an agent to reside at Rome, and a papal agent, a Scotsman named George Conn, accredited to her, was soon engaged in effecting conversions amongst the English gentry and nobility. ”