THE QUEEN AND THE WAR
I
'Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armour's rust,
Removing from the wall
The corselet of the hall.
ANDREW MARVELL
It would be impossible, within the limits of these studies, to give even a
brief outline of the events of that momentous period of our history known
as the Civil War. All that can be attempted is to indicate the various
activities of Henrietta Maria in connection with it.
With the knowledge that a struggle was inevitable a change came over the
Queen's spirit. As long as an accommodation seemed possible she had shown,
certainly from time to time, some moderation and some desire to propitiate
her enemies, but it seemed to her that the demands of Parliament were
unreasonable, and that, in fact, when she spoke of peace her foes made them
ready for battle. There was no way through the impasse, for they, on their
side, were of just the same opinion. Thenceforward her tactics were
different. As she had opposed an ignominious peace with the Scotch rebels,
so now she was an advocate of no compromise. Throwing herself with all the
energy of her nature--she could never do anything by halves, said one who
knew her well[262]--into her husband's cause, she took her place among the
most active members of the royalist party. Gone was the Queen of love and
beauty, the gentle lady whose interests were those of the drawing-room, the
nursery, and the chapel. Gone even was the Queen of tears, who sat cowering
in London on the eve of the war. Instead is seen a woman stern and
determined, brushing aside concessions and half-measures with undisguised
scorn, leaving without a sigh the luxuries in which from her cradle she had
been lapped, and in which she had shown an artistic and sensuous delight,
posting over land and sea, regardless of comfort, of health, of life
itself, to bring succour to her husband. The daughter of Henry IV had risen
to the measure of her likeness to her great father.
Henrietta set out for Holland in February, 1642. The ostensible reason of
her journey was to escort her daughter Mary, who was only ten years old, to
her husband, the Prince of Orange. The real reason was to raise such sums
of money and to collect such quantities of arms and ammunition as she could
obtain on the security of the treasures which she took with her, her own
jewels and those of the Crown of England.
After a stormy crossing, which resulted in the loss of the chapel vessels
and of the servants' clothes, Henrietta was able to gather round her on the
soil of Holland her small household. It included Lord Goring, Lady Denbigh,
Lady Roxburgh, who had been the little princesses' governess, and Father
Philip, who was accompanied by one of his old rivals of the Capuchin Order.
The storm-tossed exiles were met at the coast by Henry, Prince of Orange,
who, anxious to give due honour to his son's bride and mother-in-law,
welcomed the sorrowful Queen with a "brief and succinct speech," running to
a length of three and a half closely printed quarto pages, and couched in a
style of inflated flattery[263] which, sad as she was, must have taxed
Henrietta's gravity to listen to. She replied, however, with great decorum
that the Prince appeared to her "the god of eloquence," after which she and
her little daughter were royally feasted in the palace at The Hague.
Nevertheless, a welcome which savoured of absurdity was better than
"greetings where no kindness is." In the Dutch capital Henrietta found her
husband's sister, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, who was living there in
exile. This lady, who had taken an accurate measure of her sister-in-law's
influence over her brother, held her in the cool esteem with which
relatives by marriage are frequently regarded, and had no real cordiality
to show to the woman who was beginning to tread the Via Dolorosa her own
feet had trodden so long. It happened, besides, that just at this time
parties in Holland reproduced in miniature those of England. The House of
Orange clung to the alliance with the House of Stuart, but the wealthy
burgesses of Amsterdam and The Hague, who were democratic and republican in
their views, had more sympathy with those who were fighting the battle of
liberty across the waters of the North Sea. They showed Henrietta little
kindness and scant courtesy. They gave her hints, which she refused to
take, that they would be glad to see the last of her. They treated her with
none of the deference due to her rank. A sturdy Dutch burgher would stride
into her presence without removing his hat, sit down beside her and enter
into conversation with her as if she were a fellow-townsman whom he had met
in the street; or, perhaps, if he could not think of anything to say, would
turn on his heel and go away without stopping to salute the Queen of
England, all which amazing manners Henrietta, whose sense of humour never
deserted her, carefully noted and described years afterward to Madame de
Motteville.[264]
But in spite of hostility the Queen's work prospered. She kept her daughter
with her, while the boy-husband pursued the studies suitable to his age and
rank; but she devoted her chief energies to raising money, a task in which
she experienced some difficulty, as reports were circulated that she had
carried off the crown jewels without the King's consent. She was, moreover,
carefully watched, both by her unwilling hosts and by spies of the
Parliament; but, nevertheless, she managed to sell or pawn some of her
store, though at exorbitant rates, for, as she wrote to her husband, no
sooner was it known that the King of England was in need of money than the
usurers and merchants "keep their foot on our throat." Parliament issued a
proclamation forbidding any of the "traitors" to approach the person of the
Queen; but, nevertheless, her friends came not without the connivance of
the Prince of Orange, who allowed two of them to lie at his own lodgings.
George Digby and Henry Jermyn hastened to her side, and she was cheered by
the arrival from France of another old friend from whom she had parted the
year before in fear and distress.
Walter Montagu, after his hasty flight from England, had been received with
rather unexpected kindness by Richelieu. He spent, however, most of his
exile at Pontoise, where he made friends with Mother Jeanne Séguier,[265] a
lady who combined the professions of a Carmelite nun and of a political
intriguer, and to whom he probably owed an acquaintance with the rising
Mazarin, which was rapidly ripening into friendship. But, in spite of the
seduction of French affairs, he did not forget the lady to whom his
allegiance was pledged; and in the late spring of 1642 he hurried to
Holland to give advice in matters where his intimate knowledge of the
French Court was invaluable.
For Henrietta's eyes were turning to her native land as a possible refuge
in case of the worst. She had wished to go to Cologne, where her poor old
mother lay sick to death; but her masters in Holland forbade her. Ireland,
which had been suggested, seemed "a strange place"; so sometimes she
thought she would go to her beloved nuns in the Faubourg S. Jacques, and
there, where she had been so happy, hide her humiliated head in case of her
husband's discomfiture. She knew that Richelieu hated her, and she deeply
resented the attitude taken up by the French ambassador in London; but she
thought, and thought justly, that Louis XIII, or rather the Cardinal, would
not, for very shame, refuse her, a daughter of France, an asylum in the
extremity to which her affairs had come. Her Grand Almoner, Du Perron, who
had not felt it necessary to risk himself in England again, wrote from
Paris that she would be given entertainment in France in case of need. He
also gave the welcome news that he was coming to see her on behalf of her
brother the King, on receiving which intelligence her elastic spirits rose
high with hope, so that she wrote friendly letters both to the great
Cardinal himself and to Mazarin, with whom Montagu had smoothed her way.
It was a comfort to feel that she had an assured retreat, for the news from
England became more and more exciting. The setting up of the King's
standard at Nottingham on August 22nd, 1642, made the war a reality. The
first blood shed in civil strife since the battle of Bosworth was drawn at
Powick Bridge on September 23rd, 1642. On October 23rd the first regular
engagement between the rival armies took place at Edgehill.
The Queen watched the course of events with painful and unremitting
anxiety. Nor was she a mere spectator. There yet exists the remarkable
series of letters[266] which she addressed from Holland, some written by
her own hand, some by that of a secretary, probably Henry Jermyn, to her
husband. In them, more clearly than anywhere else, we see the working of
Henrietta's fierce and determined mind at this crisis. How she urged
Charles on, against the advice of more moderate counsellors, to take Hull
by force, though Parliament had not begun hostilities. "Is it not beginning
to put persons into it against your will?"[267] How she wished she were in
the place of her son James, who was in that town. "I would have flung the
rascal over the walls, or he should have done the same thing to me."[268]
How she entreated and almost commanded the King to make no accommodation
which would abate by one jot or tittle his royal power,[269] and how she
threatened, in case he did not take her advice, to go to France instead of
returning to England, "for to die of consumption of royalty is a death
which I cannot endure, having found by experience the malady to be too
insupportable."[270] How she exhorted him to take good heed that their
children did not fall into the hands of the enemy, and to be faithful to
the few friends whom she really trusted. It is evident that she was no wise
guide for her unhappy husband, whose vacillations, born of a glimmering
perception of the position of a constitutional King, roused her to scorn
and almost to fury. She cannot be acquitted of having done all that lay in
her power (which was much) to widen the breach between the King and his
subjects in these early and critical days. Hers was the stronger spirit,
and she knew it. The tone of her letters to "le roy monseigneur," if always
loving is often peremptory, and sometimes even dictatorial, while she does
not hesitate to show her contempt for his lack of decision and promptitude.
She is ever exhorting him to courage, to energy, to vengeance. The day of
mercy is gone, and it is time to give place to justice. Even her
benedictions end in curses such as the Puritans excelled in heaping on the
heads of their enemies and those of the Lord.[271] She had not for nothing
sat at the feet of Richelieu. "Charles, be a King," is the burden of all
her advice.
In these letters to her struggling husband Henrietta seldom allows herself
to give way; but the softer side of her nature, though often obscured by
sterner elements, never wholly disappeared. "Pray to God for me," she wrote
in her pain to Madame S. Georges; "for be assured there is not a more
wretched creature in this world than I, separated from the King my lord,
from my children, out of my country, and without hope of returning thence,
except at imminent peril, abandoned by all the world, unless God assist me,
and the good prayers of my friends, among whom I number you."[272]
But such temporary despondency was drowned in work. Henrietta had too much
to do, raising money, not only in Holland but in Denmark, sending arms and
accoutrements into England, and keeping the Prince of Orange in a good
temper, to have much time for low spirits. Towards the end of 1642 she had
raised such sums of money as the amount of her resources and the caution of
her customers permitted.[273] The state of affairs in England was not very
promising, but nothing could keep her from her husband when she could be at
his side with honour to herself and advantage to him. For danger she cared
little, but various delays occurred, and it was not until the end of the
following January, when she had been almost a year in the land where she
had intended but a short stay, that she set sail for England.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN'S DEPARTURE FROM HOLLAND
FROM AN ENGRAVING]
This attempted journey was one of the stormiest incidents of Henrietta's
stormy career. Hardly had she set sail, accompanied by eleven vessels, when
(by the agency of the devil, as some thought)[274] "the wind turned
contrary, and the greatest storme that hath been seene this many a
yeere"[275] arose. Nine days the Queen tossed upon the waves of the North
Sea, lashed, as were all her ladies, into a narrow berth. The misery of the
small, stuffy cabin was indescribable, and worse than bodily discomfort was
the continual fear of death, which was so menacing that the Queen and the
other Catholics on board, throwing aside their natural reticence on such
matters, confessed their sins in a loud voice, which, perhaps, in the din
of the storm, was necessary to the priest's hearing. It is said that the
horror of the scene was so great that some of the sailors threw themselves
into the sea. Henrietta believed that her last hour was come, and, as she
confessed later, "a storm of nine days is a very frightful thing."[276] But
the first alarm over, she reflected that after all there was little at
present to make her cling to life, and she rallied her courage so
effectually as to be able to derive amusement from the ridiculous incidents
which never fail to occur on a storm-tossed vessel, while she reassured her
terrified ladies by telling them that queens were never drowned.
At last, after getting tantalizingly near to Newcastle-on-Tyne, the boat
was tossed back on to the shores of Holland, where Montagu was waiting in
great anxiety. The weary voyagers landed from a small fishing-smack in a
state of filth and exhaustion, for which their delicate lives had little
prepared them, and which shocked the Prince of Orange, who, together with
his son and daughter-in-law, came down to the seashore to meet the Queen.
Henrietta and her ladies were so feeble that they could hardly stand, while
one of the Capuchin Fathers required the support of two men to help him to
say Mass. The Queen lost in this tempest a precious ship laden with the
stuff of war, but "she gained in the opinion of all the witnesses what she
can never lose,"[277] for indeed her courage, which seemed above that of
her sex, won an admiration which was still further increased when it was
found that she meant, against the advice of her friends, to put to sea
again as soon as the weather permitted and her several ships which had been
dispersed in the storm came up. "They that are delivered from shipwrack,
bid an eternall adieu to the sea, and to the shipps; nay, they are not able
to endure the sight thereof. These are Tertullian's words. Yet within
eleauen days after, O admirable resolution! the Queen, being scarce yet
escaped from a dreadfull storme, spurred on by the desire of seeing the
King and of coming in to his ayde, adventures againe to trust herself to
the furie of the ocean and to the winters rigour."[278] So, recalling this
incident, cried her eloquent panegyrist at her funeral service a quarter of
a century later. Perhaps Henrietta felt that she feared the dangers of the
deep less than the tongues and the acts of the enemies she was leaving
behind. The Hollanders dared to detain a ship which she had caused to be
loaded with ammunition, so that she was obliged to address to them an angry
protest, while the preachers in their pulpits began to rail against the
Prince of Orange and his son's English match, affirming that he wished to
make himself King, and saying that if they must have a tyrant they would
prefer their old master the Spaniard.
Thus Henrietta, bidding a long farewell to Montagu, who set out almost
immediately for France, embarked once more. This time the sea was kinder to
her, but the land proved her enemy. She intended landing at
Newcastle-on-Tyne, but a change in the wind, which until the English coast
was near had been very light, drove the vessel into Burlington Bay in
Yorkshire. The Queen at once sent to inform the Earl of Newcastle, who was
commanding the royalist forces in the neighbourhood. She had not long to
wait before she received his answer in the shape of a body of cavalry,
whose arrival enabled her to land. But, weary as she was, there was no rest
for her. She brought with her a thousand old soldiers from the Low
Countries, for she had heard rumours of a plot to seize her on landing.
They, as well as the escort sent by her husband, were needed, for at four
o'clock on the dark February morning she was roused by the sound of firing.
Four of the Parliament ships had arrived in the bay, and they were shelling
the village, with special attention, it appeared, to the Queen's
lodgings.[279] In a few moments Jermyn appeared and told her to flee for
her life. She jumped up, and having hastily flung on some clothing was
hurrying to a place of refuge when suddenly she stopped, remembering that
lying asleep on her bed was her pet dog, Mitte--an ugly beast, says Madame
de Motteville, who was evidently no lover of the canine race, in recounting
the story. Henrietta could not bear to leave her pet to death, or possibly
to ill-treatment;[280] so, notwithstanding the entreaties of her friends
and the rain of bullets that was falling, she insisted on retracing her
steps to the house she had just left. It was the work of a few minutes to
rush to her room and pick up Mitte. Then with all speed she sought an
uncomfortable safety in a ditch outside the village, where for two hours
the balls played over the heads of the Queen and her suite, until at last
the Admiral of Holland sent to tell the rebels that unless they desisted he
would fire on them in return. "That was done a little late,"[281] was
Henrietta's caustic and characteristic comment.
No less characteristic was her high-spirited return to the village the next
morning, "not choosing that they should have the vanity to say they made me
quit."[282] In spite of all her spirits rose at finding herself again in
England, and she had the satisfaction of knowing that she brought with her
substantial help in the way of arms, ammunition, and money, which her
gallant soldiers had guarded through that night of battle. Her great wish
was to rejoin her husband as soon as possible, and setting herself at the
head of her army she started to march towards Oxford, where Charles was
keeping his Court.
But five months were to elapse before the royal pair were united, and this
five months forms one of the most curious episodes of Henrietta's career.
She became for the time being a military captain, "her she majesty
generalissima," as she calls herself. She played her part right well, as if
she remembered that in her veins flowed not only the blood of her father,
but of her heroic Medici ancestor, Giovanni delle Bande Nere.[283] This
delicately nurtured woman, who was, moreover, in bad health, lived among
her soldiers, says the admiring Madame de Motteville, almost as imagination
may picture Alexander living among his. Forgetting feebleness and fatigue,
she was constantly in the saddle; setting aside all etiquette, she dined in
the open air with her followers, each of whom she treated as a brother. It
was no wonder that the Popish army of the Queen, as it was angrily called
by its enemies, adored its royal mistress. Few probably thought of
Alexander, but some--old soldiers from the Continent, perhaps--may have
remembered the stories of Henry of Navarre among his companions-in-arms.
The military details of the campaign cannot be entered into here. The Queen
was much in the hands of military specialists, a position she did not love,
and which elicited some complaints that she could not rule the army which
bore her name. There were jealousies and differences of opinion, such as on
the question of attacking Leeds, in which matter both she and the Earl of
Newcastle, her general, followed a course which drew upon them a mild
censure from the King. Perhaps the most notable success was the gain of
Scarborough, which was delivered up by its Parliamentary governor, Sir Hugh
Cholmondley, who came to kiss the Queen's hand at York. In that ancient
city she made a considerable stay, which was further enlivened by the
reception of some of the northern loyalist nobility, among whom was the
Marquis of Montrose.
In July Henrietta at last reached her husband. They met in Kineton Vale,
below Edgehill, and at the same time she was able to embrace her two eldest
sons, who were with their father. A few days later she entered Oxford, and
for a moment the welcome of the faithful city diverted her from her woes.
Crowds of spectators lined the streets or peeped out from the
house-windows, and as the procession went by they cheered and blessed the
Queen as the pledge and harbinger of peace.[284] At Carfax "the Major[285]
and his brethren entertained Her Majesty with an English speech, delivered
by Master Carter, the Town Clerk, in the name of the city, and presented
her with a purse of gold."[286] She went on to Christ Church, where she was
received by the Vice-Chancellor and the Heads of Houses, and thence to the
Warden's lodgings[287] at Merton, which had been prepared for her
reception, and where on her arrival she was offered by the University
authorities books of verses and pairs of gloves. This college, which was
probably chosen on account of its proximity to Christ Church, where the
King kept his Court, possessed a secret passage which led into the gardens
of the neighbouring foundation of Corpus Christi, so that Charles could
visit his wife without going into the public street.
There was, indeed, much for the royal pair to discuss, for since their
parting neither had been idle for a moment, and each had to recount to the
other the results of their labours, while the changing circumstances of the
Continent called for careful consideration.
In December, 1642, before Henrietta left Holland, Cardinal Richelieu died
in Paris. The passing away of this great man, who, knowing how to bend men
and circumstances to his will, had built up France as two hundred years
later Bismarck was to build up Germany, was a severe blow to the
Parliamentary party, which knew him to be their friend;[288] but to the
Queen it appeared the removal of the chief obstacle in the way of obtaining
that help from her native country of which she was already beginning to
think. It was believed that now her enemy was gone she would hasten to
Paris herself, but she judged otherwise, and contented herself with
carrying on negotiations by means of Walter Montagu, on whose friendship
with Mazarin she counted. That gentleman supplied the French Government
with a curious paper on English affairs,[289] which he probably drew up at
The Hague under the Queen's direction. It set forth the miserable plight of
Catholicism in that country, and urged the King of France to give help,
which, in the event of his brother of England's success, would be well
repaid, while his failure could bring no prejudice to an ally. These cogent
reasonings were not disregarded, but they did not make as much impression
on the minds of those to whom they were addressed as Henrietta and Montagu
perhaps expected.
All France hoped that the death of the Cardinal would mean a reversal of
his policy, for the nobles were discontented, while the people were
overtaxed and miserable. Already the faint grumblings of discontent could
be heard, which became articulate a few years later in the rebellions of
the Fronde. Such hopes were strengthened by the fact that Louis XIII was
evidently following to the grave the minister who had made him, almost
against his will, a great and victorious monarch. But France was not to
escape so easily the influence of the mighty personality which had
dominated her for so long.
Louis XIII died in May, 1643, and Anne of Austria, after a lifetime of
neglect, found herself at the head of affairs as regent for her little son
Louis XIV. The past career of this lady, her affection for Spain, her not
uncalled for hatred of Richelieu, pointed to a complete reversal of the
Cardinal's policy. His enemies began to come back to Court, and Madame de
Chevreuse herself left her retreat in Flanders, and was seen at the side of
the Queen-Regent.
But Anne soon found out the difficulties of her position. She was an idle
woman who had never been accustomed to use her mind, and she craved
instinctively for a stronger arm and brain on which to lean. She found them
in the low-born Italian adventurer Jules Mazarin, whom Richelieu had
trained to be his successor. Mazarin had not his master's dislike to the
English nation or its Queen. Moreover, he owed much to Walter Montagu,
whose influence with Queen Anne was greater than ever, and who had been
instrumental in introducing the Cardinal to her favour. It is probable that
when Henrietta heard the turn which affairs had taken in France she
rejoiced. She had some cause to do so, but yet in the years that were
coming she was to learn that Mazarin, like Richelieu, only cared, in his
heart, for the interests of France, and that his desire was so to hold the
balance of power between her and her enemies that he might be able to
pursue unmolested the task of humbling the House of Austria, which had been
bequeathed to him by his great predecessor.
In the autumn of 1643 an event occurred which caused much annoyance to
Henrietta, and resulted in the removal from the French Court of the man
most able and willing to advance her interests there.
It is probable that the Queen-Regent was really anxious to succour the King
and Queen of England. She was grateful to them for the kindness which they
had shown to Madame de Chevreuse, and she remembered their common hatred of
Richelieu. Mazarin did not fail in polite condolences, and he thought that
it would be a good thing to send over an ambassador to England, to see at
least that Henrietta was properly treated, and that the interests of France
were duly considered. To this post the Count of Harcourt was appointed,
whose way was to be prepared by an agent of inferior rank, M. de Gressy.
Under cover of this embassy Walter Montagu thought that he would be able to
reach Oxford unobserved. He did not travel with the ambassador, but joined
himself to Gressy's company in England in a disguised dress and a large
wig, which he hoped would be sufficient to conceal the identity of a person
better known in France than in England; but either he overdid his disguise,
or else he went about with injudicious openness in search of amusement, for
at Rochester he was recognized. The sharp eyes of a Parliamentary officer
spied him out, took him in charge and carried him off to London, where he
was put in the Tower and there kept, in spite of the remonstrances of the
French ambassador, the entreaties of the Queen-Regent of France, and the
somewhat lukewarm representations of Mazarin, who perhaps saw in him a
possible rival.[290] All that the two Houses of Parliament would do was to
deliver up to Harcourt the letters of Queen Anne, which were found on the
prisoner. They regarded him as a "grand Jesuiticall English Papist," and
they urged "that he hath been a great incendiary of this unnatural war
against the Parliament, was formerly banished by Act of Parliament, and no
letter from a foreign Prince can defend him."[291]
Henrietta was deeply chagrined, the more so as this vexation came upon the
top of others.
She was not unaware of the feelings with which her husband's enemies
regarded her. The comments and slanders with which she had been pursued in
Holland would have been sufficient to enlighten her, without the reception
which met her at Burlington Bay. The proposal of her enemies, couched in
specious language, to escort her to London, where she should be "lovingly
entertained," roused her to fury, for she who did not fear the bullets or
the waves shrank with a feeling of almost physical repulsion from falling
into the hands of her foes. But a further insult was to come. In May, 1643,
she was impeached of high treason as the greatest papist in the land, and
that her cup of humiliation might be full she was not allowed the title of
Queen of England, on the pretext that, as she had never been crowned, she
had no legal right to it. Truly the mistakes of her youth were returning
upon her head. "You will give a share of all these news to all our friends,
if any dare own themselves such after the House of Commons hath declared me
traitor, and carried up their charge against me to the Lords,"[292] she
wrote sadly to the Duke of Hamilton. It was indeed no advantage to be known
as her friend, specially in London, where the Puritan hatred, of which she
was the chief object, was beginning to attack the priceless memorials of
the past. Stained-glass windows were smashed in the churches, and
"Cheapside Crosse, which at her Majestie's first coming into England was
beautified in a glorious and splendid manner ... as it dazzlled a many eyes
to behold the gods, Popes, and saints thereon,"[293] and which was boasted
of by the Catholics even in Rome as one of the chief relics of the ancient
religion, was torn down, and it was decided that "the Lead about the
Crosse" should "be cast into Bullets, and bestowed on the Papists in
armes."[294] This was bad enough, but even more trying to the Queen's
feelings were the piteous accounts which came of the sufferings of her poor
Capuchins, who, after more than a year of terrified waiting, saw themselves
and their property in the hands of a ruthless mob, which was none the
better because it acted in the name of the House of Commons, and which was
led by Henry Martin, a man of unusually violent character, who was
afterwards one of the regicides. All the remonstrances of the French agent
and the House of Lords, "whose members have learned by their travels that
there are other countries besides England,"[295] were brushed aside.
Hideous orgies and blasphemous revels were witnessed, testifying to the
anti-Catholic hatred of the populace. The beautiful chapel which had been
built with such high hopes only a few years earlier was sacked, and the
ornaments, pictures, and vestments destroyed, except such of the latter as
Martin carried off for his mistress. The picture by the brush of Rubens
which adorned the High Altar was wantonly spoiled; the seat of the Queen
was broken up with peculiar violence. Outside in the garden some of the
rough soldiers played at ball with the heads of a Christ and of a St.
Francis, while others indoors trod underfoot the escutcheons of Henry IV
and his wife, which were kept for use on their anniversaries. Only one
consolation had the unhappy Fathers. Such a scene would not have been
complete without its miracle, and they had the satisfaction of tracing the
hand of Providence in the blindness of their spoilers to a small box of
consecrated hosts hidden away in a cupboard, whose contents were turned
upside down by rough hands of the mob.
Henrietta's wrath may be imagined when she heard of this fresh insult
offered, not only to her but to her parents and to her country under whose
protection the Capuchins lived. It probably outweighed the grief she felt
for the destruction of her beautiful chapel. As for her husband, he was so
incensed that he is said to have specially excluded from pardon all those
concerned in the riot. Again, just as the Queen entered Oxford, another
trouble fell upon her, which was another proof of the remorseless hatred of
the Puritans. Edmund Waller, who in happier days had made verses to her
charms, raised a plot in London in the King's interest. It was discovered,
and among its victims was a faithful servant of Henrietta, Master Tomkins,
who, condemned by "a new counsell of war (consisting of Kimbolton,
Mainwaring, Venn, the Devill, and a few others),"[296] was executed outside
his own door in Holborn by the common hangman.
Nor even within the walls of Oxford was there freedom from jealousy and
strife. Henrietta could not bring herself to look cordially upon
Holland[297] when he came to ask pardon of the King for his rebellion, even
though he used Jermyn as his intermediary, and there were others who,
though faithful to the cause, stood between her and that complete
ascendancy over her husband at which she aimed. Perhaps it was hardly to be
expected that she should like Rupert of the Rhine, the son of the Queen of
Bohemia, who had great influence over his uncle in military matters. Never
at any time during the war did the affairs of the King promise better than
during Henrietta's stay at Oxford. She and her advisers, among whom were
prominent the Earl of Bristol and his son, that same George Digby who had
been with her in Holland, with their usual leaning to the bold and
enterprising course, wished Charles to march on London, and end the war by
a grand _coup_. It was a sore disappointment to her when, on the advice of
Rupert, he turned aside to the siege of Gloucester. She believed (and she
kept the belief to the end of her days[298]) that had he pushed on to the
capital at this favourable moment, he would have been able to overcome his
enemies.
But, in spite of all these accumulated worries, Henrietta's stay in Oxford
was probably the happiest time she had known since the opening of the Long
Parliament. After her long absence she was restored to "the dearest thing
in the world to her, after God, the presence of the King her husband and
the Princes her children."[299] After the troubles and dangers of her
sojourn in Holland and her campaign in the north she was in peace and
safety, though the city was strongly fortified and cannon were to be seen
both at "Newparkes and S. Giles his fields." Nor, in spite of these warlike
preparations, was the mimic Court without its diversions, for each college
and hall was turned into a dwelling for gay royalist ladies and gentlemen,
so that as Henrietta took her airing in Trinity Grove, the Hyde Park of
Oxford, she saw many of the faces she had been accustomed to see in the
real Hyde Park in London.
Absurd reports were rife among the enemy of the condition of the city; how
it swarmed with Irish rebels, how Mass was said in every street; while the
more sober-minded descanted upon the condition of the colleges, which "look
as they did in Queen Elizabeth's daies on the street side, but if you go in
you will find Henry the 8 his reformation in the Chappell."[300] It is
probable that the Queen paid little attention to the flights of the Puritan
fancy, but she took some pains to conciliate her husband's Protestant
friends; and when a sermon which was used to be preached in Merton College
chapel on Sundays was discontinued as a compliment to her, she was much
annoyed, and gave orders that it should be resumed.
But even Oxford could be no permanent resting-place for the Queen. Her foes
were gathering round it, and unless she wished to run the risk of seeing
the horrors of a siege, it was time to be gone. She had, moreover, to care
for another life, for she was about again to become a mother. The King
could not, of course, leave his headquarters, and the husband and wife
prepared to part once more, and this time for ever.
Henrietta left Oxford on April 17th, 1644. The parting between her and her
husband, which took place at Abingdon, was sufficiently sad, even though
the knowledge that it was final was hidden from her. Then, escorted by
Jermyn, whose loyalty had been rewarded by a barony, and whose presence at
her side excited scurrilous comments which she scornfully ignored, she
turned to the south-west. By the 21st of April she was in Bath. She pushed
on by the great city of Bristol, which formed part of her dowry, and thence
to Exeter, where she arrived in a condition so serious that it seemed
likely her troubles would soon find their surest consolation. "Mayerne, for
the love of me, go to my wife,"[301] wrote Charles, and Henrietta herself
penned a short, piteous note to her old physician. "My disease will invite
you more strongly, I hope, than many lines would do."[302] The faithful
Swiss needed no further summons. He was at the Queen's side when, on June
16th, the child, whose short life and tragic death were to be in keeping
with the circumstances of her birth, was born at Bedford House, in the city
of Exeter. The little princess was an unusually pretty baby, and the father
she was never to see wrote expressing great pleasure at the reports of her
beauty, and requesting that she might be christened in the cathedral of her
birthplace, an injunction which aroused the wrath of the Puritans all the
more because Charles had just attempted to silence the unpleasant rumours
current on the subject of his religion by issuing a declaration of his
unalterable attachment to the Protestant faith.[303]
Henrietta, who was always brave in illness, had hoped that the physical
miseries from which she suffered would disappear with her confinement.
Instead, she found herself rather worse than better. "The most miserable
creature in the world, who can write no more"[304]--thus she describes
herself in a letter to her husband written from her bed, and containing an
account of her ailments. To crown all, she found that it was impossible for
her to remain at Exeter. Essex was on her track, and to all the entreaties
for a safe conduct to Bath, which she addressed to him by means of a French
agent named Sabran who happened to be with her, he returned answers which
in the circumstances were brutal. The Queen was no concern of his, he said.
Henrietta, fearing above all things in her weak state the noise of firing
which a siege would involve, dragged herself from her bed a few days after
the birth of her baby, whose helpless life she confided to one of her
attendants, the Countess of Morton. Accompanied by Jermyn and by her
devoted confessor, Father Philip, she fled still farther into the western
peninsula, down to that strange land beyond Truro which was then hardly
considered a part of England, and where still lingered the accents of the
Cornish tongue. There in the castle of Pendennis, which guarded the village
of Penycomequick,[305] she found a refuge. She was indeed in a sad plight.
Mayerne himself believed "that her days would not be many," and a
compassionate Cornish gentleman wrote to his wife that "here is the
woefullest spectacle my eyes yet ever looked on, the most worne and weake
pitifull creature in ye world, the poore Queen shifting for an hour's liffe
longer."[306]
From Pendennis Henrietta found means to put to sea; but not even when she
left English soil did the hatred of her enemies leave her. Ships of the
Parliament were on the watch, and the boat which she was aboard was not
only chased, but pursued by rounds of shot, as the Roundheads wished her to
have "no other courtesy from England, but cannon balls to convey her into
France."[307] Then at last the Queen's brave spirit, which had not faltered
in sorrow, danger, or pain, gave way. She did not fear death, but she
shuddered at the idea of falling into the hands of her foes, and it seemed
as if capture were to be her fate. In her agony she called upon the captain
to fire the powder on board, and to let her die with her friends, rather
than that those impious hands should touch her. When the danger was passed
she reproached herself for having thought of suicide, and happily so
desperate a remedy was not needed. She escaped her enemies once more, and
after a long tossing on the Channel the travellers saw with joy the rocky
coast of Brittany. At the little village of Conquest, near Brest, the
landing was effected, and the daughter of France, returning to her native
land, retired to a whitewashed cottage to rest from her fatigues. But the
news soon spread that the daughter of Henry IV had arrived, and the
nobility of the country-side, who, like all good Frenchmen, honoured the
memory of the great King, flocked to do her service, and to make up by
their generosity the deficiencies of her poverty. Her first care was to
dispatch Jermyn to announce her arrival to the Court of France and to
Mazarin, and to beg the medical assistance which her condition so urgently
required. Meanwhile she was content. The country in which she found herself
was indeed wild and rough as the Cornwall she had left, but at least she
was safe and among friends. In later days she retained no unpleasant memory
of the rocky coast, the desolate moorland, and the brave, simple-hearted
folk of La Basse Bretagne.
[Footnote 262: Walter Montagu. Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 47.]
[Footnote 263: The following is a specimen of it: "You are the abstracted
Quintessence of artificiall Nature: your glorious countenance is crowned
with Majestie, your brow interwoven with occasionall Lenity and discreet
austerity, your eye (like mounted Phoebus in his meridian pride) shoots
such reflective beams of radiant brightnesse that it captivates the dazled
beholder; your Cupidinean cheeks are clothed with intermixed Lillies and
Roses; your purpureous lips (like a Nectarean current) do redound with
expressed Oratory; your Murcurian tongue is gilded with such admirable
Rhetorick that the Muses themselves seem to inhabit there and make it their
Helicon: your Aromatick smelling-breath is so oderiferous that it exceeds
the Arabian Odours, and seems rather celestial than breathed from a mortal
creature, your melodious voice is so harmonious that Apollo may lay down
his Harpe, and the Sphears themselves become astonished."--_The Prince of
Orange, his Royall Entertainment to the Queen of England_ (1641).]
[Footnote 264: Mme de Motteville: _Mémoires_ (1783), I, 270.]
[Footnote 265: Sister of Séguier the Chancellor: she was a great friend of
Mazarin.]
[Footnote 266: Printed in Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria._]
[Footnote 267: Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 60.]
[Footnote 268: _Ibid._, p. 70.]
[Footnote 269: "I send you this man express, hoping that you will not have
passed the militia bill. If you have, I must think about retiring for the
present, into a convent, for you are no longer capable of protecting any
one, not even yourself."--_Ibid._, p. 69.]
[Footnote 270: _Ibid._, p. 117.]
[Footnote 271: "May Heaven load you with as many benedictions as you have
had afflictions, and may those who are the cause of your misfortunes, and
those of your Kingdom, perish under the load of their damnable
intentions."--Henrietta Maria to Charles. _Ibid._, p. 71.]
[Footnote 272: Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 72.]
[Footnote 273: "The Puritan imagination saw the Queen gathering in
contributions from the religious houses of the Low Countries, many of which
were English. The pamphlet which describes these contributions is marked by
just the slight inaccuracies of a forgery, and if any money came from this
source it was probably a very small sum."--_Queen's Proceedings in Holland_
(1642). See Appendix III.]
[Footnote 274: "... others thought that some witches were made use of to
raise these winds. But all saw that if any such villainy came from Hell it
was curb'd by Heaven in the merciful preservation of the Quene, and that
when God will help the Devill cannot hurt us."--_A true relation of the
Queens Maiesties returne out of Holland, etc. Written by me in the same
storme and ship with her Majesty._ Printed at York and reprinted at Oxford
(1643).]
[Footnote 275: Letter of Lady Denbigh. Hist. MSS. Cam. Ap. to 4th Rep.]
[Footnote 276: Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 161.]
[Footnote 277: Montagu to Mazarin (apparently), February 9th, 1642. Aff.
Etran. Ang., t. 49. See Appendix IV.]
[Footnote 278: _The Funerall Sermon of the Queen of Great Britain_
(Bossuet), translated by Thomas Carre. Paris, 1670.]
[Footnote 279: It is said that Charles did not believe this.]
[Footnote 280: Henrietta was always fond of animals. Evelyn records how in
August, 1662, he went to visit her, and she told him "many observable
stories of the sagacity of some dogs she formerly had."--Evelyn: _Diary_.
Under date August 22nd, 1662.]
[Footnote 281: Green: _Letters of Henrietta Maria_, p. 167.]
[Footnote 282: Green: _Letters of Henrietta Maria_, p. 167.]
[Footnote 283: He was her great-great-grandfather.]
[Footnote 284: See _l'Angleterre Paisible_ (1644).]
[Footnote 285: A man named Dennys. See Anthony Wood's account in his Life.]
[Footnote 286: _Mercurius Aulicus_, July 14th, 1643.]
[Footnote 287: Now part of the general college buildings.]
[Footnote 288: Salvetti says the Parliamentary party regretted him "come
quello che aveva sempre assicurato detto Parlamento per bocca dell'
Ambasciatore di Francia che era qui, che da quella banda haverebbe havuto
ogni assistenza per mantenimento della sua libertà e privilegii: certo è
che l'Ambasciatore fece la parte sua et causò in buona parte la divisione
et cattiva intelligenza che passa fra il re e il Parlamento!"--Add. MS.,
27,962, K., f. 32_b._]
[Footnote 289: This document, which is among the Archives of the Ministère
des Affaires Etrangères Ang., t. 48, is unsigned and without date, but it
is in the handwriting of Montagu, and is among the documents of 1641; it
speaks of "la rebellion presente d'Angleterre," which points to its having
been drawn up after the final rupture in 1642.]
[Footnote 290: Montagu had a good many enemies in France among the
Importants, who disliked him as a friend of Mazarin and as a foreigner who
had great influence with the Queen-Regent.]
[Footnote 291: _Perfect Diurnall_, October, 1643.]
[Footnote 292: Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 215.]
[Footnote 293: Kingdom's _Weekly Intelligencer_, May, 1643.]
[Footnote 294: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 295: Sieur de Marsys: _Histoire de la Persecution Presente des
Catholiques en Angleterre_ (1646), from which the above account is chiefly
taken. The Capuchins were sent back to France by Parliament, April, 1643.]
[Footnote 296: _Mercurius Aulicus_, July, 1643.]
[Footnote 297: "De l'entretient que j'ay eu avec le Reyne d'Angleterre j'ay
bien compris qu'elle mésprise autant qu'elle peut hayr le Comte de
Hollande."--Brienne to Sabran, December 21st, 1644. Add. MS., 5460.]
[Footnote 298: The opinion of Bossuet was probably derived from the Queen
through Mme de Motteville: "... si la reine en eût été crue, si au lieu de
diviser les armées royales et de les amener contre son avis aux siéges
infortunés de Hull et de Gloucester, on eût marché à Londres, l'affaire
était décidée, et cette campagne eût fini la guerre."--_Oraison funèbra de
la reine d'Angleterre._]
[Footnote 299: Du Perron: _Proces verbal de l'assemblie du Clergé_, 1645.]
[Footnote 300: _The Spie_ (1643).]
[Footnote 301: Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 243.]
[Footnote 302: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 303: "Declaratio servenissimi potentissimique principis Caroli
magnae Britanniae, etc., regis Ultramarinis Protestantium Ecclesiis
transmissa."--Dupuy MS., 642.]
[Footnote 304: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 243.]
[Footnote 305: Now Falmouth.]
[Footnote 306: Francis Basset to his wife. Polwhele: _Traditions and
Recollections_, Vol. I, p. 17.]
[Footnote 307: _Mercurius Pragmaticus_, October, 1644.]