Queen Henrietta Maria of France

“ Great was the love with which Henrietta was received by the queen-regent and her young sons and all the French people. Anne of Austria gave her distressed sister-in-law 12,000 crowns per month, and inducted her into the royal apartments of the Louvre, the young king leading her to them by the hand. All the money Henrietta received she sent to the king her husband, reserving the smallest modicum for her own use. The fever hanging on her in France, in order that she might be near the baths of Bourbon for its cure, the queen-regent lent her the castle and park of Nevers. ”

“ Those who had been the father's bitterest enemies now bowed before the son. They called him the "King of Hearts". From his people he would receive a "crown of hearts", they said; "the duty of all men would be to make him forget the past; he was to be the most glorious king of the happiest people. Such was his welcome!"
All this was reported to his mother, still living at the Louvre, waiting for her summons to go home, and the whole of that summer passed in joy and laughter. Princess Henrietta was courted by foreign potentates and even by kings, but the queen would not part with her. ”

“ But Queen Henrietta, without even turning toward him who made these hypocritical pretensions, crossed the cabinet, opened the door for herself and passing through the midst of the cardinal's numerous guards, courtiers eager to pay homage, the luxurious show of a competing royalty, she went and took the hand of De Winter, who stood apart in isolation. Poor queen, already fallen! ”

“ A year later the Château de Vaux received the widow of Charles I, Henriette of France, Queen of England. She was accompanied by her daughter, Henrietta of England, and the Duc d'Orléans, her son-in-law. Henrietta, or, to give her her title, Madame, was in all the brilliance of her youth, had a genius both for affairs of gallantry and matters of State. She lived as though in haste, consuming in coquetry and in intrigue a life which was not fated to be a lone one. ”

“ It was on a cold winter's night nigh upon twenty years ago, and snow lay thick upon the ground, when Patience had found her way to the Palace of the Louvre, and begged and prayed, and almost forced herself into Queen Henrietta's presence. It was in the early days of the queen's widowhood. She had pawned all her jewels; she had sent all her money to the assistance of her son; and she herself was living a beggar on the bounty of the King of France, and that was measured out stingily. Poverty was in the air; the great rooms assigned to her in the Palace of the Louvre were bare and cold ”

“ A few weeks later arrived the news that the queen's son-in-law, William of Orange, had died of small-pox at The Hague, and in him the family had lost another friend, and a sure refuge in all their troubles. Henrietta Maria's heart ached for her eldest daughter, gay, charming, yet melancholy like all the Stuarts, left a widow at nineteen, with only a baby son to comfort her. Henriette was very much grieved for her mother's distress, but as her sisters were merely names to her, she was soon ready to attend to her lessons again, given to her daily by lady Morton and the good father Cyprian. ”

“ In the course of 1646 Henrietta Maria recovered her youngest daughter, Henrietta, who was brought from England by Lady Morton in the disguise of a beggar. Her joy did not cause her to forget her anxiety for her husband. Money was before all things needful if the queen's many schemes were to come to anything, and one of her first objects now was to obtain a rich wife for her son. The Dutch marriage treaty having broken down, she urged the young Charles, a boy of fifteen, to make love to ‘La Grande Mademoiselle,’ the daughter and heiress of her brother Gaston. ”

“ As to Henrietta Maria at dinner, an anecdote is reported by Jesse: “Notwithstanding her conciliating manners on her first arrival in [Pg 52] England, it soon became evident that the spirit of Henry IV. was not entirely dormant in the bosom of his daughter. A singular scene, which took place at Court, shortly after her marriage, is thus described by an eye-witness. ‘The Queen, howsoever very little of stature, is yet of a pleasing countenance, if she be pleased, but full of spirit and vigour, and seems of a more than ordinary resolution. ”

“ In these statements there is probably a confusion between the diamond of Henrietta Maria, known later as that of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a diamond signet of Charles I, for such a signet is said to have been given to Bishop Juxon by Charles just before his execution. We have every reason to believe that Henrietta Maria bore her own signet with her when she left England. ”

“ The Prayer-Book of Queen Henrietta Maria, the Fables of La Fontaine with the arms of Marie Antoinette as Dauphine, an unquestioned Grolier or Maioli, and still more such a bibliographical phœnix as that volume bound in gold of Lady Elizabeth Tyrrwhit's Prayers, formerly belonging to Queen Elizabeth, which the late Sir Wollaston Franks purchased at an incredible price and presented to the British Museum—these, and many more, speak for themselves. ”

“ Before the violence of grief was abated, it became needful that Queen Henrietta should leave Paris for St. Germains, where the court of France then was. The transit was dangerous, but it is from the superabundant spite of the English republican news-letters the fact is revealed that the young King of England, in his deep mourning for his father, rode by the side of his mother's carriage, guarding her from the infuriated rabble. The queen-regent of France and her sons were waiting at Chatou to comfort them by every kindness after this terrible journey. ”

“ Charles II. and his wife were high in popular favor. Her second son, James, Duke of York, was happily married and surrounded by a promising family. James’ eldest daughter, the Lady Mary, later Queen Mary II. of England, was a great favorite with the affectionate grandmother, Henrietta Maria. Anne, James’ second daughter, afterward Queen Anne of England, was also attached to the kindly old Queen-mother.
The old-age years of Henrietta Maria rolled on in comparative happiness. Some lives seem to have their sorrows scattered uniformly over the years, a gentle drizzle, never dazzling [126] sunlight ”

“ A further suggestion made by her, that the ladies of England should make a present to the king, was less successful. After Charles had left London for the borders, Henrietta Maria was with some difficulty prevented from following him to the camp, where she hoped to prevent him from exposing himself to danger. After the first bishops' war was at an end, the queen was again active in court intrigues, hoping to obtain promotion for her friends irrespective of their qualifications for office. ”

“ Anne of Austria, who was then queen-regent, sent her confidential lady-of-honor to Henrietta, with offers of all the assistance it was in the power of France to bestow, and supplied her with liberal sums of money; but Queen Henrietta stripped herself of every farthing she could command to send to her husband, over whose misfortunes she wept constantly. ”

“ Live long on earth, and England's sceptre sway,'" &c.
Henrietta Maria, that pretty, wilful queen of Charles I., accompanied by the Duke of Buckingham and Bassompierre, the French ambassador, went to what the latter calls Shipside, to view the Lord Mayor's procession. She also came to a masquerade at the Temple, in the costume of a City lady. Mistress Bassett, the great lace-woman of Cheapside, went foremost of the Court party at the Temple carnival, and led the Queen by the hand. ”

“ When one considers the wonderful success of women upon the stage to-day, and their splendid position socially, it seems almost impossible to believe that they never acted in England until the reign of Charles I., when a French Company which numbered women among its players crossed the Channel, and craved a hearing from Queen Henrietta Maria. ”

“ Perhaps, though, Bossuet is better known today by that other funeral oration delivered some months later at the obsequies of Queen Henrietta Maria’s youngest daughter, Henriette of England, Duchess of Orleans.
When the old die, well—there can be no Shelleyan lamentation. ”

“ So the Prince begged the Queen of England to give him her charming daughter Henrietta, who, having come to France during her unfortunate father's captivity, had been educated in Paris.
The Princess possessed an admirable admixture of grace and beauty, wit being allied to great affability and good-nature; to all these natural gifts she added a capacity and intelligence such as one might desire sovereigns to possess. ”

“ W. of London; the river is spanned here by a fine five-arch bridge, and the annual amateur regatta is a noted social event; malting and brewing are the chief industries.
Henotheism, a polytheism which assigns to one god of the pantheon superiority over the rest.
Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I., born at the Louvre; daughter of Henry IV. of France and of Marie de Medicis; a beautiful and able woman, much beloved, and deservedly so, by her husband, but from her bigotry as a Roman Catholic disliked and distrusted by the nation, not without good reason ”

“ In terror for her youngest, the mother fled from Somerset House when the sickness 151declared itself, and betook herself with the Princess Henrietta to St James’s, leaving Mary to her fate. But it is to be remarked, that from the time her youngest child was restored to her by Lady Dalkeith after their escape, the Queen concentrated all the force of her affection on her. ”

“ The marriage was concluded, under circumstances which appeared to promise great prosperity; but alas, for human foresight! the young Queen’s life was destined to be one prolonged struggle, of sorrow, distress, and difficulty. She took refuge in France, soon after the birth of her daughter Henrietta, and was there warmly welcomed, and treated with liberality by the King; her constant pecuniary difficulties being usually attributed to her generosity, to the English Royalists. ”

“ The multitude of panegyrics in prose and verse penned in sorrow for her untimely death led Rochester to declare that ‘never was any one so regretted since dying was the fashion.’ Henrietta left two daughters: the elder, Marie Louise, became the queen of Charles II of Spain; the younger, Marie, was married to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy. In the year following Henrietta's death Philippe married her second cousin, Elizabeth Charlotte, daughter of Charles Louis, elector palatine, eldest son of the queen of Bohemia. ”

“ Her governess was Mademoiselle de Monglat, whom she used to call Mamanga. She received her education from her brother Gaston's school-master, M. de Bevis: she was the constant companion of Duke Gaston, who was only eighteen months older than herself.
Henriette was the darling of her mother, perhaps her spoiled darling, for Maria de Medicis, queen-regent of France, was neither wise nor judicious. When the queen was deprived of the regency and her liberty, Henriette was permitted to share her royal mother's captivity. ”

“ Woman's individuality is too strong for general principles and abstract considerations. She has too much pleasure in the particulars and details around her, to develope much of the higher and more comprehensive powers of generalization. She judges of the great characters who are moving forward the mighty drama of politics as she would judge of beaux in a ball room, or friends and relatives in a parlor. Henrietta, queen of Charles I, is an admirable specimen of female politicians. She viewed the characters of great men with all the sensations of a woman. ”

“ Notwithstanding his exclusion, however, from the exercise of what he considered his right to reign, he was acknowledged as king by all true Royalists in England, and by all the continental powers. They would not aid him to recover his throne, but in the courts and royal palaces which he visited he was regarded as a king, and was treated, in form at least, with all the consideration and honor which belonged to royalty. Queen Henrietta was overwhelmed with grief and despair when she learned the dreadful tidings of the execution of her husband. ”

“ Charles, who was then waiting for her at Canterbury, replied, that if Henrietta did not instantly proceed, he would return alone to London. Henrietta doubtless sighed for the Pope and the penance, but she set off the day she received the king's letter. The king, either by his wisdom or his impatience, detected the aim of the Roman pontiff, who, had he been permitted to arrest the progress of a Queen of England for sixteen days in the face of all Europe, would thus have obtained a tacit supremacy over a British monarch. ”

“ About six years after her husband's death, France had become so desolated by the civil wars brought on by unwise government, that the queen-regent was imprisoned at the Castle of Blois, and the boy king of France assumed the power. [148] Princess Henrietta shared her mother's imprisonment for three years. At the expiration of that time she was present at the marriage of her sister Christine to the Duke of Savoy, and this event was succeeded by a reconciliation between Marie de Medicis and the young king. ”

“ Queen Henrietta had never been able to reconcile to herself Princess Mary’s appointment of Hyde’s daughter about her person, and since its accomplishment had constantly appealed to her to dismiss Anne from her service. [36] Lord Hatton, in fact, writes: “The Queen’s last sickness was by the chamber confident said to be expressed by the Queen by reason of some late letters from the young Prsse Orange wherein she still contests for retaining with her Sir E. H. daughter which the Queen will not cease till she out her there. ”