"MY LORD:--I would not have you take too much physic, for it doth
always make me worse; and I think it will do the like with you. I
ride every day, and am ready to follow any other directions from
you. Make haste back to him that loves you.
"CHARLES P."
This letter is written between double-ruled lines in a round text hand.
Some months after this the Princess Anne, the youngest daughter of
Charles I. and Queen Henrietta, a sweet, well-trained infant of four
years old, was stricken with mortal sickness; and being required to say
her prayers, as the hour of death was at hand, said, "she did not think
she could repeat her long prayer," meaning the Lord's Prayer, "then; but
she would say her short prayer;" and then lisped out, "Lighten mine
eyes, O Lord, that I sleep not the sleep of death," and expired with
these words on her innocent lips.
It is possible that Charles I. might have contended successfully with
the inimical party that was arraying itself against him, if he and his
queen had not incurred the enmity of Cardinal Richelieu by granting an
asylum in England to the queen-dowager of France, Marie de Medicis,
Henrietta's mother, the object of that vindictive ecclesiastic's malice,
whom he had exiled from France, and pursued with unappeasable hatred
from every place in Europe where she sought shelter in her adversity.
Charles not only received her with unbounded courtesy and respect, but
travelled to meet the royal fugitive at Harwich, where she landed, and
conducted her in state to London. When the royal carriage in which
Charles and his guest were seated arrived at the great quadrangle of St.
James's Palace, Queen Henrietta, accompanied by her children, Charles,
Prince of Wales, the little Duke of York, and the Princesses Mary and
Elizabeth, descended the stairs to receive her royal mother. She even
attempted to open the carriage door with her own hands; and the moment
her mother alighted she sunk on her knees to receive her blessing, and
her example was followed by her children, who all knelt round her.
Marie de Medicis was a woman of weak judgment, and proved a troublesome
visitor. Charles and Henrietta, whose affairs were in a very difficult
position, had great cause to regret her visit, which lasted nearly two
years.
The queen-mother, Marie de Medicis, was given forty grand apartments in
St. James's Palace. She brought a great number of priests with her,
which added to the rage of the people; and the king's affairs went from
bad to worse. Charles was compelled to give up his great minister
Strafford to the axe, who was condemned by Parliament for having served
him too faithfully. Henrietta exerted herself to support him; she often
wanted judgment, but her courage never failed.
In the midst of the awful scenes of Strafford's impeachment, trial, and
death, the princess-royal was espoused to the young Prince of Orange; he
was but eleven, and the bride ten years old. Henrietta made no
opposition to this Protestant alliance. She had hoped that the proof of
the king's attachment to the Protestants would silence the cries of
popery against him; but those cries were got up for party purposes by
those intent on plunder, to whom all creeds were indifferent. After her
mother had quitted England, and the king had departed, with the attempt
to pacify Scotland, the royal family assembled round her were of tender
ages. They were soon separated, some of them never to meet again.
Charles, Prince of Wales, was eleven years of age, Mary the young bride
of Orange, ten, James, Duke of York, seven, Elizabeth six, and Henry,
Duke of Gloucester, a babe in arms. When alarms occurred at night, the
queen more than once armed her household, and herself headed their
patrole about Oatlands Park; thus personally guarding her slumbering
little ones.
The king had received such proofs in Scotland of Richelieu's bribery of
the five members of Parliament, that he went to arrest Mr. Pym and his
colleagues in person. Unfortunately, he had confided to the queen his
intent, and told her at such an hour all his regal perplexities would
cease. The queen put misplaced confidence in one of her attendants, Lady
Carlisle, a spy leagued with the agitators; to this treacherous person
she told her royal husband's intentions. Lady Carlisle sent instantly
word to the factious members, who escaped. As Whitehall was close to the
House of Commons, the affair was easy, the king being delayed awhile by
poor persons' petitions on the way. Long after, Henrietta related this
event to her biographer with the most passionate penitence. "Not a
reproach," she said, "did Charles give me when I threw myself into his
arms, and confessed my fault of tattling."
Such was the state of affairs when Henrietta proposed to escort her
young daughter, the bride of Orange, to Holland. Her real object was to
sell some valuable jewels, and obtain arms for defence there. The king
attended his wife and daughter to Dover, where they embarked, February
24, 1642. As the wind was favourable for coasting, the king rode many
miles, following the vessel along the winding of the shores, his tearful
eyes gazing after those dear ones he feared he never should behold
again. The royal standard was raised at Nottingham, and civil war
occurred as soon as the queen departed.
* * * * *
Henrietta met her mother again in Holland, and stayed nearly twelve
months, during which time her business was performed with no little
skill and sagacity. The Dutch mynheers, grateful both to the King of
England, and to the exiled queen-mother of France for their political
existence, did not send Henrietta empty away. She embarked for return
February 2, 1643, in a fine ship called the Princess Royal; but fierce
tempests arose, and the northeast gales, after many days, threw the
queen back from whence she came on the wild Scheveling coast. Henrietta
bore the terrors of the storm with high courage, replying to her ladies,
when they were screaming and lamenting round her, "Queens of England are
never drowned."
After a few days' rest and refreshment the undaunted Henrietta again set
sail, followed by Admiral Van Tromp's Dutch fleet, which kept out of
sight of the English shores, when she and her armed transports arrived
in Burlington Bay, Yorkshire. A troop of two hundred cavaliers appeared
on the hills, and under that protection the queen's transports safely
landed their ammunition and stores.
The sleep of the queen was broken at dawn next day by the parliamentary
Admiral Batten bombarding the town of Burlington. The queen had been
voted guilty of high treason; so this hero was trying to take her life.
She fled as soon as dressed; but directly she was in a place of shelter,
remembering that an old dog named Mitte, which had guarded her chamber
for years, was left at the mercy of the parliamentary admiral, despite
of her attendants, she ran back through Burlington to her
sleeping-chamber, caught up Mitte in her arms, and fled back to the dry
ditch where she could crouch while the balls flew over her head. Van
Tromp came up with the tide to the rescue, but his ships were too big to
enter Burlington quay. Nevertheless, he mauled Batten in the rear.
Meantime the queen, with Mitte and her ladies, obtained hospitality at
Boynton Hall, close by, the seat of Sir William Strickland.
The cavaliers of Yorkshire and Lancashire poured in to swell her forces.
Prince Rupert met her at the head of his victorious cavalry; and she was
welcomed by her king on his own victorious field of Keinton, near
Edgehill.
For a few months the beautiful city of Oxford was the seat of the
English court, over which Queen Henrietta presided. Hope existed among
the cavaliers that the discontents of the people would be finally
silenced by force of arms. The queen afterward reproached herself that
she was too much flushed with success to plead with earnestness for the
peace which the whole people now desired. Her triumphs had been dearly
bought; chronic rheumatic fever had seized on her delicate frame, owing
to the hardships of her campaign. The king's fortunes changed; the year
1644 opened disastrously, and the poor queen had to seek a safer shelter
than Oxford, as she was near her accouchement. Charles I. escorted his
beloved consort to Abingdon; and there, on April 3, 1644, with streaming
tears and dark forebodings, this loving pair parted. The queen sought
relief from the fever at Bath, but there she could not stay; it was an
abode of horror; the dreadful civil war had filled the bright city full
of decaying corpses.
Henrietta took shelter in loyal Exeter, and there gave birth to her
daughter, afterward Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans. The queen-regent of
France, her sister-in-law, generously sent her 50,000 pistoles.
Henrietta reserved very little for her own needs, but sent the bulk of
the sum to her husband. In less than ten days the Earl of Essex
commenced his march, intending to drag the sick queen from her childbed,
to be tried before his masters of the Parliament for levying war in
England. His approach on this manly errand caused the sick queen to rise
and fly, leaving her babe in Exeter, to the care of Lady Morton. The
queen went through great dangers by the way,[2] but at last embarked
with her faithful ladies (who joined her in various disguises) on board
a little bark bound for Dieppe. It was chased and even cannonaded by a
parliamentary cruiser. Her ladies sent forth piercing shrieks as a shot
struck the vessel. The daughter of Henry the Great compressed her lips,
and uttered not a cry. At the moment all seemed lost, a little fleet of
Dieppe vessels issued out of the port of loyal Jersey, when the enemy
made off. Then a storm sprang up, which drove the queen on the coast of
Bretagne, where she landed at Chastel.
[Footnote 2: See "Lives of the Queens of England."]
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. Her convalescence was stopped by an accident that grieved her.
One of her most efficient aids in her misfortunes was her dwarf,
Geoffrey Hudson. He had lately saved her life in her desperate retreat
from Exeter; and she had found him faithful in all her fortunes, ever
since the little man had stepped out of a cold pie to the side of her
plate at Nonsuch; he was at that time eighteen years old, and eighteen
inches high. He had grown four or five inches since he had been in royal
service, and done heroic deeds. During the retirement at Nevers one of
the queen's gentlemen of the household tormented and mocked Geoffrey,
until the brave little man, who contrived to manage his steed better
than many horsemen four feet taller, challenged Croft to fight him in
the park at Nevers. The joking cavalier armed himself with a huge
squirt, but Geoffrey took a pistol; and, as his hand was as unerring as
his heart was bold, his persecutor fell at the first fire. Croft only
met with his deserts; yet Queen Henrietta had to write very humbly to
the all-powerful prime minister, Mazarine, that "Le Jofroy," as she
called the little man, might not be put to death.
Letters perpetually passed between the sick queen and her husband.
Love-letters they were, in the truest sense of the term. The heart of
Henrietta yearned for the little babe she had left at Exeter. When the
king had raised the siege of that city the infant was presented to him,
and he caused her to be baptized by the name of her absent mother,
Henrietta; but he was compelled to leave her under the care of his loyal
lieges in the west. When all was lost on the king's side, Lady Morton
escaped with this little one to France, in the disguise of a
pedlar-woman, taking the royal infant of two years old on her back,
disguised as a beggar-boy. Often the little princess, who did not
approve of the change, tried to tell the wayfarers on the Dover road
that "she was not Pierre the beggar-child, but the princess." No one
understood her babble but her loving guardian, who succeeded in getting
her charge safe to Paris and the queen. "Oh, the joy of that moment,"
wrote Père Gamache, who saw the meeting between the royal mother and the
babe, lost and again found. "How many times we saw her clasp her, kiss
her, and then kiss her over again. The queen called her the child of
benediction, and charged me to teach her the Roman Catholic faith." And
this, of course, was turned against King Charles, then enduring the
worst malice of his enemies in England.
The flames of civil war spread from England to France; and Paris was,
before the close of 1647, involved in the war of the Fronde. It was
occasioned by quarrels concerning taxation. Anne the queen-regent and
her children retired to St. Germains; but the extreme love the citizens
of Paris bore to Queen Henrietta made her stay at the Louvre, where she
could obtain earlier intelligence of King Charles, who after enduring
imprisonment in various places, was soon to be put on what his enemies
called a trial.
Meantime winter in its most terrific form had set in. Famine reigned, as
it usually does in civil war. Queen Henrietta had sent all her money to
her distressed husband. Her officers had none to buy food, and had
dispersed themselves in Paris to save her the cost of feeding them.
Fierce battles were fought hourly in the streets. In the broils Queen
Henrietta and her little daughter were forgotten. She was then writing
to the French ambassador at London concerning the impending fate of her
husband. She felt neither hunger nor the freezing atmosphere in this
absorbing occupation. Providence guided M. de Retz, who was all-powerful
with the Paris Parliament, to visit the hapless queen. She was sitting
by the bed side of her little child. "You find me," said the queen,
calmly, "keeping company with my Henrietta. I would not let the poor
child rise to-day, for we have no fire." De Retz immediately sent the
queen relief from his own resources, which she thankfully accepted, and
then exerted his eloquence so successfully in the Parliament, by
mentioning the distresses of the daughter of Henry the Great and her
child, that a bountiful supply was accorded.
We must leave Henrietta for a while in Paris, to follow her hapless
husband to the close of his tragic fate. The king had heard, from time
to time, of the preparation of a court to try him. Murder he expected.
He was brought prisoner to London, January 15, 1648-9, and taken to St.
James's Palace, where, for the first time, he was deprived of royal
attendance, and left alone with his faithful Herbert, who fortunately
was sufficiently literary to be the historian of his master's progress
to his untimely tomb.
Violent expulsions had taken place from the intimidated House of
Commons, until only sixty-nine members remained, who thought themselves
fitted for the task of king-killing. Yet some found themselves mistaken
as to the hardness of their hearts, when they saw their king face to
face, and heard him speak.
This small junta met privately in the Painted Chamber, January 20.
Cromwell's purple face was seen to turn very pale; he ran to the window,
where he saw his captive king advancing between two ranks of soldiers
from Cotton House. "Here he is! here he is!" exclaimed he, with great
animation; "the hour of the great affair approaches. Decide speedily
what answer you will give him, for he will immediately ask by what
authority you pretend to judge him." The mere sight of the scanty number
of the commons, with the army choking every avenue to Westminster, up to
the door of the hall, offered forcible answers to the illegality of this
arraignment; but brute force is not obliged to be logical. Bradshawe, a
serjeant-at-law of no practice, was the president, wearing a high
Puritan hat lined inside with iron. The regicidal junta entered the
hall, its great gate was set open, and the populace rushed into all the
vacant spaces. While the king was on his way to Westminster Hall, his
anxious people crowded as near to his person as possible, crying, "God
save your majesty!" The soldiers beat them back with their partisans,
and some of the men in Colonel Axtel's regiment raised the cry of
"Justice--justice! execution!" But as their commander was bestowing on
them vigorous canings, the cry was ambiguous. The king entered,
conducted under the guard of Colonel Hacker and thirty-two officers. His
eyes were bright and powerful; his features calm and composed, yet
bearing the traces of care and sorrow, which had scattered early snows
on his hair. He regarded the tribunal with a searching look, never moved
his hat, but seated himself with calm majesty.
An argument ensued between the royal prisoner and Bradshawe, on the
point of whether the monarchy of England was elective or not; and when
the man of law was worsted in the dispute, he hastily adjourned the
court. The king was taken from the hall amid the irrepressible cries of
"God bless your majesty! God save you from your enemies!" Such was the
only part that the people of England took in the trial of Charles the
First.
The king's conduct caused perplexing discussions among his destroyers;
they sat in council during the intervening day of his trial, devising
petty schemes for breaking his moral courage, and impairing that innate
majesty which is beyond the power of brute force to depose. Some base
spirits among them proposed that his hat should be pulled off, and that
two men should hold his head between them; and that he should be dressed
up in his robes and crown, meaning to divest him ignominiously of them.
As far as mere bodily means went, Charles was utterly helpless, yet the
calm power of his demeanour preserved him from the personal obloquy
their malice had contrived: they butchered him, but could not succeed in
degrading him.
Seven agitated days passed away, during which the king had appeared
thrice before his self-constituted judges, when, on the 27th of January,
alarmed by the defection of their numbers, the regicides resolved to
doom their victim without farther mockery of justice. The king, for the
fourth time, was brought before the remnant of the regicidal junta.
Bradshawe was robed in red, a circumstance from which the king drew an
intimation of the conclusion. When the list of the members was read
over, few of them answered: but they proceeded with the miserable
remnant. As the clerk pronounced the name of Fairfax, a voice cried out,
"Not such a fool as to come here to-day." When the name of Cromwell was
called, the voice exclaimed, "Oliver Cromwell is a rogue and a traitor."
When Bradshawe mentioned "The Commons of England assembled in
Parliament," "It is false," again responded the voice; "not one-half
quarter of them." The voice was a female one, and issued from amid some
masked ladies. The oaths and execrations of the ruffian commander Axtel
were heard above an uproar raised by the populace, commanding his
soldiers, "Fire--fire into the box where she sits!" A lady arose and
quitted the gallery. She was Lady Fairfax. Her husband was still in
power: the ruffian Axtel dared not harm her. This lofty protest against
a public falsehood will remain as an instance of moral and personal
female courage, till history shall be no more. The earnest letter the
queen had written, entreating the Parliament and army to permit her to
share her royal husband's prison, may be remembered. It is known that
she wrote to Fairfax on the same subject. The conduct of the general's
wife was probably the result of Henrietta's tender appeal.
Bradshawe was proceeding to pass sentence on the king, who demanded the
whole of the members of the House of Commons, and the lords who were in
England, to be assembled to hear it, when one of the regicides, Colonel
Downes, rose in tears, exclaiming, "Have we hearts of stone? are we
men?"--"You will ruin us, and yourself too," whispered Mr. Cawley, one
of the members, pulling him down on one side, while his friend Colonel
Walton held him down on the other. "If I die for it," said Colonel
Downes, "no matter,"--"Colonel!" exclaimed Cromwell, who sat just
beneath him, turning suddenly round, "are you mad? Can't you sit
still?"--"No," answered Downes, "I cannot, and will not sit still." Then
rising, he declared that his conscience would not permit him to refuse
the king's request. "I move that we adjourn to deliberate." Bradshawe
complied, probably lest Downes's passionate remorse should become
infectious, and the junta retired. Cromwell angrily exclaimed, in
reference to Downes, "He wants to save his old master; but make an end
of it, and return to your duty." Colonel Harvey supported Downes's
endeavours, but all they obtained was one-half hour added to the king's
agony. The dark conclave returned amid a tumult of piteous prayers of
the people, of "God save the king! God keep you from your enemies!" The
sentence was passed in the midst of confusion; the king, who in vain
endeavoured to remonstrate, was dragged away by the soldiers who
surrounded him. As he was forced down the stairs, the grossest personal
insults were offered him. Some of the troopers blew tobacco-smoke in his
face; some spat on him; all yelled in his ears "Justice--execution!" The
real bitterness of death to a man of Charles the First's exquisite
sensitiveness occurred in that transit; the block, the axe, the
scaffold, and all their ghastly adjuncts, could be met, and were met,
with calmness; the spittings and buffetings of the brutal mob were
harder to be borne.
The king recovered his serenity before he arrived at the place where his
sedan stood. How could it be otherwise? The voices of his affectionate
people, in earnest prayers for his deliverance, rose high. One, and a
soldier, close to him, echoed the cry of the people--"God help and save
your majesty!" His commander struck him to the earth. "Poor fellow!"
said the king; "it is a heavy blow for a small offence." As the royal
victim approached his chair, his bearers pulled off their hats, and
stood in reverential attitudes to receive him. This unbought homage
again roused the wrath of Axtel, who, with blows of his indefatigable
cudgel, vainly endeavoured to prevail on the poor men to cover their
heads.
He bade Herbert refuse admittance to his friends if they came. The night
of his condemnation he was deprived of rest by the knocking of the
workmen, who were commencing the scaffold for his execution. In the
restless watches of that perturbed night, Charles finished his best
devotional verses.
The king was removed from Whitehall, Sunday, January 28, to St. James's
Palace, where he heard Bishop Juxon preach in the private chapel. "I
wanted to preach to the poor wretch," said the zealous fanatic, Hugh
Peters, in great indignation, "but the poor wretch would not hear me."
When Bishop Juxon entered the presence of his captive sovereign, he gave
way to the most violent burst of sorrow. "Compose yourself, my lord,"
said the king, "we have no time to waste on grief; let us, rather, think
of the great matter. I must prepare to appear before God, to whom, in a
few hours, I have to render my account. I hope to meet death with
calmness. Do not let us speak of the men in whose hands I have fallen.
They thirst for my blood--they shall have it. God's will be done; I give
him thanks. I forgive them all sincerely; but let us say no more about
them." It was with the greatest difficulty that the two sentinels
appointed by the regicidal junta could be kept on the other side of the
door while his majesty was engaged in his devotions.
The next day the royal children arrived from Sion House to see their
parent for the last time. He had not been indulged with a sight of them
since his captivity to the army, and on the morrow he was to die! The
Princess Elizabeth burst into a passion of tears at the sight of her
father, and her brother, the little Duke of Gloucester, wept as fast for
company. The royal father consoled and soothed them, and, when he had
solemnly blessed them, drew them to his bosom. The young princess, who
was but twelve, has left her reminiscences of this touching interview in
manuscript: "He told me that he was glad I was come, for, though he had
not time to say much, yet somewhat he wished to say to me which he could
not to another, and he feared 'the cruelty' was too great to permit his
writing. 'But, sweetheart,' he added, 'thou wilt forget what I tell
thee.' Then, shedding abundance of tears," continues the princess, "I
told him that I would write down all he said to me. 'He wished me,' he
said, 'not to grieve and torment myself for him, for it was a glorious
death he should die, it being for the laws and religion of the land.' He
told me what books to read against popery. He said 'that he had
forgiven all his enemies, and he hoped God would forgive them also; and
he commanded us, and all the rest of my brothers and sisters, to forgive
them also.' Above all, he bade me tell my mother, 'that his thoughts had
never strayed from her, and that his love for her would be the same to
the last;' withal he commanded me (and my brother) to love her, and be
obedient to her. He desired me 'not to grieve for him, for he should die
a martyr, and that he doubted not but God would restore the throne to
his son; and that then we should be all happier than we could possibly
have been if he had lived.' Then, taking my brother Gloucester on his
knee, he said, 'Sweetheart, now will they cut off thy father's head.'
Upon which the child looked very steadfastly upon him. 'Heed, my child,
what I say: they will cut off my head, and perhaps make thee a king. But
mark what I say: you must not be a king as long as your brothers Charles
and James live; therefore, I charge you, do not be made a king by them.'
At which the child, sighing deeply, replied, 'I will be torn in pieces
first.' And these words, coming so unexpectedly from so young a child,
rejoiced my father exceedingly. And his majesty spoke to him of the
welfare of his soul, and to keep his religion, commanding him to fear
God, and he would provide for him. All which the young child earnestly
promised." The king fervently kissed and blessed his children, and
called to Bishop Juxon to take them away: they sobbed aloud. The king
leaned his head against the window, trying to repress his tears, when,
catching a view of them as they went through the door, he hastily came
from the window, snatched them again to his breast, kissed and blessed
them once more; then, tearing himself from their tears and caresses, he
fell on his knees, and strove to calm, by prayer, the agony of that
parting.
It ought not to be forgotten that the king had previously waited several
days before that appointed for his execution, and had had the
satisfaction of receiving a letter from his son Charles, by Mr. Seymour,
a special messenger, enclosing a _carte blanche_ with his signature, to
be filled up at pleasure. In this paper the prince bound himself to any
terms, if his royal father's life might be spared. It must have proved a
cordial to the king's heart to find, in that dire hour, how far family
affection prevailed over ambition. The king carefully burnt the _carte
blanche_, lest an evil use might be made of it, and did not attempt to
bargain for his life by means of concession from his heir.
On the night preceding the awful day, Charles I. was blessed with calm
and refreshing sleep. He awoke before daybreak, undrew his curtain, and
said to Herbert, "I will rise; I have a great work to do this day."
Herbert's hands trembled while combing the king's hair. Charles,
observing that it was not arranged so well as usual, said, "Nay, though
my head be not to stand long on my shoulders, take the same pains with
it that you were wont to do. Herbert, this is my second marriage-day; I
would be as trim to-day as may be." The cold was intense at that season,
and the king desired to have a warm additional shirt. "For," continued
he, "the weather is sharp, and probably may make me shake. I would have
no imputation of fear, for death is not terrible to me. I bless my God I
am prepared. Let the rogues come whenever they please." He observed that
he was glad he had slept at St. James's, for the walk through the park
would circulate his blood, and counteract the numbness of the cold.
Bishop Juxon arrived by the dawn of day. He prayed with the king, and
read to him the twenty-seventh chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew.
At ten o'clock the summons came to conduct the king to Whitehall, and he
went down into the park, through which he was to pass. Ten companies of
infantry formed a double line on each side of his path. The detachment
of halberdiers preceded him, with banners flying and drums beating. On
the king's right hand was the bishop; on the left, with head uncovered,
walked Colonel Tomlinson. The king walked through the park, as was his
wont, at a quick, lively pace. He wondered at the slowness of his guard,
and called out pleasantly, "Come, my good fellows, step on apace." One
of the officers asked him, "If it was true that he had concurred with
the Duke of Buckingham in causing his father's death?" "My friend,"
replied Charles, with gentle contempt, "if I had no other sin than that,
as God knows, I should have little need to beg his forgiveness at this
hour." The question has been cited as an instance of premeditated
cruelty and audacity on the part of the officer. But this was the
falsehood that had injured him most among the common people.
As the king drew near Whitehall Palace, he pointed to a tree in the
park, and said to either Juxon or Tomlinson, "That tree was planted by
my brother Henry." There was a broad flight of stairs from the park, by
which access was gained to the ancient palace of Whitehall. The king
entered the palace that way; he ascended the stairs with a light step,
passed through the long gallery, and gained his own bedroom, where he
was left with Bishop Juxon, who administered the sacrament to him. Nye
and Godwin, two Independent ministers, knocked at the door, and tendered
their spiritual assistance. "Say to them frankly," said the king, "that
they have so often prayed against me, that they shall not pray with me
in mine agony. But if they will pray _for_ me now, tell them that I
shall be thankful." Dinner had been prepared for the king at Whitehall;
he refused to eat. "Sir," said Juxon, "you have fasted long to-day; the
weather is so cold, that faintness may occur." "You are right," replied
the king. He therefore took a piece of bread and a glass of wine. "Now,"
said the king, cheerfully, "let the rascals come. I have forgiven them,
and am quite ready." But "the rascals" were not ready.
A series of contests had taken place regarding the executioner and the
warrant. Moreover, the military commanders, Huncks and Phayer, appointed
to superintend the bloody work, resisted alike the scoffings, the jests,
and threats of Cromwell, and had their names scratched out of the
warrant; as to Huncks, he refused to write or sign the order to the
executioner. This dispute occurred just before the execution took place.
Huncks was one of the officers who guarded the king on his trial, and
had been chosen for that purpose as the most furious of his foes; he
had, like Tomlinson, become wholly altered from the result of his
personal observations. Colonel Axtel and Colonel Hewson had, the
preceding night, convened a meeting of thirty-eight stout sergeants of
the army, to whom they proposed, that whosoever among them would aid the
hangman in disguise, should have 100_l._ and rapid promotion in the
army. Each one refused, with disgust. Late in the morning of the
execution, Colonel Hewson prevailed on a sergeant in his regiment, one
Hulet, to undertake the detestable office; and while this business was
in progress, Elisha Axtel, brother of the colonel, went by water to
Rosemary Lane, beyond the Tower, and dragged from thence the reluctant
hangman, Gregory Brandon, who was, by threats and the promise of 30_l._
in half-crowns, induced to strike the blow. The disguises of the
executioners were hideous, and must have been imposed for the purpose of
trying the firmness of the royal victim. They were coarse woollen garbs
buttoned close to the body, which was the costume of butchers at that
era. Hulet added a long grey peruke, and a black mask, with a large grey
beard affixed to it. Gregory Brandon wore a black mask, a black peruke,
and a large flapped black hat, looped up in front.
It was past one o'clock before the grisly attendants and apparatus of
the scaffold were ready. Colonel Hacker led the king through his former
banqueting-hall, one of the windows of which had originally been
contrived to support stands for public pageantries; it had been taken
out, and led to the platform raised in the street. The noble bearing of
the king as he stepped on the scaffold, his beaming eyes and high
expression, were noticed by all who saw him. He looked on all sides for
his people, but dense masses of soldiery only presented themselves far
and near. He was out of hearing of any persons but Juxon and Herbert,
save those who were interested in his destruction. The soldiers
preserved a dead silence; this time they did not insult him. The distant
populace wept, and occasionally raised mournful cries in blessings and
prayers for him. The king uttered a short speech, to point out that
every institute of the original constitution of England had been
subverted with the sovereign power. While he was speaking, some one
touched the axe, which laid enveloped in black crape on the block. The
king turned round hastily, and exclaimed, "Have a care of the axe. If
the edge is spoiled, it will be the worse for me." The executioner,
Gregory Brandon, drew near, and kneeling before him, entreated his
forgiveness. "No!" said the king; "I forgive no subject of mine who
comes deliberately to shed my blood." The king spoke as became his duty
as chief magistrate and the source of the laws, which were violated in
his murder.
The king put up his flowing hair under a cap; then, turning to the
executioner, asked, "Is any of my hair in the way?"--"I beg your majesty
to push it more under your cap," replied the man, bowing. The bishop
assisted his royal master to do so, and observed to him, "There is but
one stage more, which, though turbulent and troublesome, is yet a very
short one. Consider, it will carry you a great way--even from earth to
heaven."--"I go," replied the king, "from a corruptible to an
incorruptible crown." He unfastened his cloak, and took off the
medallion of the order of the Garter. The latter he gave to Juxon,
saying, with emphasis, "Remember!" Beneath the medallion of St. George
was a secret spring which removed a plate ornamented with lilies, under
which was a beautiful miniature of his Henrietta. The warning word,
which has caused many historical surmises, evidently referred to the
fact that he only had parted with the portrait of his beloved wife at
the last moment of his existence. He then took off his coat, and put on
his cloak; and pointing to the block, said to the executioner, "Place it
so that it will not shake."--"It is firm, sir," replied the man. "I
shall say a short prayer," said the king; "and when I hold out my hand
thus, strike." The king stood in profound meditation, said a few words
to himself, looked upward on the heavens, then knelt, and laid his head
on the block. In about a minute he stretched out his hands, and his head
was severed at one blow.
A simultaneous groan of agony arose from the assembled multitude at the
moment when the fatal blow fell on the neck of Charles I. It was the
protest of an outraged people, suffering, equally with their monarch,
under military tyranny, and those who heard that cry remembered it with
horror to their deaths. When the king's head fell, Hulet, the gray-beard
mask, came forward to earn his bribe and subsequent promotion. He held
up the bleeding head, and vociferated, "This is the head of a traitor!"
A deep and angry murmur from the people followed the announcement. Two
troops of horse, advancing in different directions, dispersed the
indignant crowd. Hulet, in his anxiety to gain his stipulated reward,
did more than was required, for he dashed down the dissevered head of
the king, yet warm with life, and bruised one cheek grievously--an
outrage noted with sorrow. The king was buried in St. George's Chapel,
Windsor; the burial service was not permitted. The body was, when it was
conveyed for interment to Windsor, followed by Bishop Juxon and the six
attached gentlemen who had attended on the king in all his wanderings.
The king had expressed a wish to be interred by his father in the royal
chapel in Westminster Abbey, but Cromwell forbade it, having, from an
absurd species of ambition, reserved that place for himself.
The trial, death, and burial of Charles I. had taken place before Queen
Henrietta, besieged as Paris was from without, and her place of abode,
the Louvre, beset from within, could receive the least intelligence
concerning him. Meantime, her second son James, the young Duke of York,
who had escaped from the custody of the republican English, was brought
to her through the beleaguering lines of Paris. His arrival raised her
spirits very high, too soon to be crushed. Whispers of the dire events
in England had transpired through her circle at the Louvre; her English
household gazed aghast on the unconscious widow, marveling how the
tidings were to be told her. Such awe-struck looks caused her inquiries,
but the answers she received almost stopped the springs of her life;
when at last the queen comprehended her loss with all its frightful
facts, she stood motionless as a statue, without words and without
tears. "To all we could say our queen was deaf--frozen in her grief,"
writes Père Gamache, "at last, awed by her appalling grief, we became
silent, with tearful looks bent on her. So passed the time till
night-fall. When her aunt, the Duchess de Vendôme, whom she loved much
and we had sent to in fear for the queen's life, came, she gently took
the hand of the royal widow, kissed it, remained silent, and wept. Then
Henrietta felt the relief of tears. She was able to sigh and weep when
her little daughter, then four years old, was brought to her; and though
she felt it hard to part with her, yet she longed to retire to some
quiet place where she might, as she said, 'weep at will.'" The convent
of the Carmelites, St. Jacques, was the place to which she retreated,
with one or two of her ladies.
The queen-regent of France sent Madame de Motteville to her afflicted
sister of England. The sympathy felt for the afflicted daughter of their
great Henry, induced the Frondoneers to let this lady pass their lines.
"I was," she says, "admitted to her bedside. The queen, Henrietta, gave
me her hand while sobs choked her speech. 'I have lost a crown,' she
cried, 'but that I have long ceased to regret; it is the husband for
whom I grieve; good, just, wise, virtuous as he was, most worthy of my
love and that of his subjects; the future time must be for me but one
succession of torture.'" Henrietta then sent important messages of
advice to her sister-queen on her affairs, implored her to seek and hear
the truth before it was too late, which, if her Charles or herself had
ever been told, affairs needed not have taken the fatal turn that she
should ever mourn. Queen Henrietta then asked that her newly-arrived
son, the Duke of York, might be given the same allowance as his brother,
now called by all her exiled court Charles II.
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.
Henrietta's next trouble was parting from her son Charles II. for his
adventurous attempts in Scotland and England. After the failure of the
royal cause at the hard-fought battle of Worcester, the young king
retired into exile at Cologne. Queen Henrietta had to weep alone over
the sad death of her beautiful daughter Elizabeth, who died
broken-hearted in her cruel imprisonment, at Carisbrook Castle. The
indignation of all Europe obliged the English republicans to send the
young Duke of Gloucester to Paris. The last interview of Charles I. with
these children had made every feeling heart sympathize with them. It
must be owned that the worst action Queen Henrietta ever committed was
the persecution she raised against her son Henry, Duke of Gloucester, to
make him change his religion. Not out of fanatic bigotry, which though
troublesome may possibly be sincere, but from the sordid motive of
providing for him as a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic. The boy, at the
tender age of eight years, had earnestly promised his sire, as he sat on
his knee, never to forsake the faith of the Church of England, or to
supersede his elder brothers, and now he kept his word as sturdily as if
he had been thirty.[3] Charles II. stopped his mother's tampering with
the faith of his younger brother, ordering, as their sovereign, that
Gloucester should be sent to his loving sister Mary, Princess of Orange,
then at Breda.
[Footnote 3: For the details of this event, see "Lives of the Queens of
England," vol. v.]
In another attempt to mend adverse fortune Henrietta was signally
disappointed; she tried in vain to induce her rich and beautiful niece,
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the second lady in France, to accept the
hand of her eldest son, the expatriated Charles II. To her subsequent
regret, the princess scorned the young king for his poverty.
Time and death at last did their work, and the royal family was
restored, not by foreign force, but by acclamation. England, having for
twenty years experienced anarchy, was glad to welcome her king home
again, all people know, with his two brothers York and Gloucester, at
Dover, on his birthday, May 29, 1660.
The queen-mother, as Henrietta was now called, did not witness the
delirious joy of the Restoration. She was busy with the marriage-treaty
of her beautiful darling, the Princess Henrietta, with her youngest
nephew, Philippe, Duke d'Orleans, brother of Louis XIV. About five
months after she came with the princess to obtain her dowry from the now
loving Parliament of England, likewise her own arrears, which had been
scornfully refused by the republic, with the remark "that she had not
been crowned, therefore they ignored her as queen." Surely she deserved
no great pity on that point, considering her perverse conduct to her
husband concerning it.
Of her three sons who had returned to England, Henrietta was destined to
meet but two. The small-pox, so fatal in that country, deprived her of
young Gloucester, whom she had never met since endeavouring to force him
into the Roman Catholic faith. The marriage that the Duke of York had
avowed with Anne Hyde, Clarendon's daughter, not only enraged but
grieved her more than the early death of poor Gloucester. She wrote to
her daughter, the Princess of Orange, then visiting Charles II. in
England, that she came to break the disgraceful marriage of James; but
before Christmas was turned Henrietta had mourned over the death-bed of
her beloved eldest daughter, who had been the greatest benefactress to
her and her exiled family when in Holland. Moreover Queen Henrietta
found that neither her own dower or her young princess's
marriage-portion would be very quick in coming to hand, without the
assistance of Clarendon; so she did exactly contrary to her avowed
intentions, and acknowledged Anne Hyde as her second son's wife, which
she certainly was, by every law of God and man. On New Year's Day, 1661,
the Duke of York brought his wife in state to Whitehall. As the queen
passed to dine in public, the Duchess of York knelt to her; the queen
raised her, kissed her, and placed her at table. The Earl of Clarendon
and the queen came to an understanding on business that same evening.
There was the utmost difficulty regarding the lands she held as
queen-dowager; but the parliament gave her 30,000_l._ compensation and a
large annuity. But as the English law did not allow queen-dowagers to be
absentees, her establishment was settled at Somerset House, which she
altered with great taste. As London was infected with the small-pox, the
queen was desirous of withdrawing her lovely Henrietta from its dangers
before her beauty was injured.
Charles II. attended his mother to Portsmouth, where she embarked with
her young princess, who was seized with eruptive illness next day,
supposed to be the small-pox. The captain ran the ship aground; and all
had to disembark at Portsmouth, where the princess remained till
convalescent. At last they arrived safely at Havre, February 26, 1661,
and were escorted in great triumph by the French nobility to Paris,
where the marriage of the young princess with Philippe, Duke of Orleans,
took place, at the chapel of the Palais Royal. The marriage was not
happy; the bridegroom was odd-tempered and totally uneducated.
When Somerset House was repaired and beautified, the queen came to take
up her residence in England, where she first was introduced to the bride
of Charles II., Catharine of Braganza. And in England she lived three
years, her health gradually giving way before the climate--always
inimical to her. She saw her second son and his duchess, Anne Hyde, with
promising children about them. The Lady Mary, afterward queen-regnant,
was born while Henrietta was in England.
Charles II. and his queen accompanied the invalid queen-mother to the
Nore, when she returned to France, where she went direct to her
favourite château of Colombe, on the river Seine, between Paris and St.
Germain-en-Laye. Its park and groups of trees are still visible from the
railway. The château was destroyed at the revolution of France.
Henrietta lived a sweet, easy life in her pleasant château, troubled
only by the fluctuations of the asthmatic cough she had never lost since
her Yorkshire campaign. Her charity was very extensive; in England she
had distributed from her chapel at Somerset House thousands of pounds
among the poor suffering from the plague, in the year 1666.
She paid visits to the baths of Bourbon, for increasing illness, during
the three next years. Toward the close of 1669, she had been agitated
with impending war between France and England, which she strove to
avert. M. Valot, the first physician to Louis XIV., held a consultation
at Colombe with her own medical man. The new remedy of opium was then
the fashionable medicine. It was vain her own physician declared it was
most inimical to Queen Henrietta. M. Valot left the prescription,
positively asserting that it would allay her tearing cough. On the
evening of August 30, she was better than usual, sat up later, and
chatted pleasantly with her ladies. That night she was sleeping sweetly,
when the lady in waiting awoke her, to administer the sleeping-draught.
Could any thing be more absurd than to wake a patient to administer a
sleeping-potion? At dawn, the lady came with another draught, but the
first had been fatal; Henrietta was cold and speechless, and never woke
again, though she respired for some time. A messenger hurried to St.
Germains, and her son-in-law, the Duke of Orleans, came directly; but
Henrietta had ceased to breathe, August 31, 1669. Her little
grand-daughter, afterward our queen-regnant, Anne, was staying at
Colombe for her health at that time.
Queen Henrietta was embalmed, and buried at St. Denis, in the royal
vault of the Kings of France, her ancestors. Her daughter, the Duchess
of Orleans, was too ill and utterly cast down with grief to follow her
mother to the grave; but her niece, Mademoiselle Montpensier, attended
as chief mourner. Forty days after, a much grander service was performed
to her memory, by the nuns of the Visitation, at Chaillot, whose convent
she had founded. There her daughter and her husband, the Duke and
Duchess of Orleans, attended, in the deepest grief and mourning; and
there Bossuet preached that beautiful biographical oration, which has
deservedly taken place among the classics of France. Our limits in this
edition will not permit more than one passage, which is illustrative of
the true character of the queen, though not of that set forth in general
English history. "Batten, the captain who cannonaded her at Burlington,
was taken prisoner afterward, and condemned to death, without the
queen's knowledge; but, seeing him led to execution past her window,
full of horror at his impending fate, the queen cried out she had
pardoned him long ago, and insisted on his liberation. Batten was not
ungrateful, for he helped in the revolt of part of the English fleet to
the young king." Pepys, in his diary, often names him as in favour with
the Duke of York, when lord admiral, after the Restoration.
Henrietta Maria had been the mother of four sons and four daughters;
she outlived all her children but Charles II., who left no legitimate
offspring; James, Duke of York, afterward the unfortunate James II., and
Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, who survived her some months.