Harsh words have been utter'd and written on her, Henrietta the Queen:
She was young in a difficult part, on a cruel and difficult scene:--
Was it strange she should fail? that the King overmuch should bow down to
her will?
--So of old with the women, God bless them!--it was, so will ever be
still!
Rash in counsel and rash in courage, she aided and marr'd
The shifting tides of the fight, the star of the Stuarts ill-starr'd.
In her the false Florentine blood,--in him the bad strain of the Guise;
Suspicion against her and hate, all that malice can forge and devise;--
As a bird by the fowlers o'ernetted, she shuffles and changes her ground;
No wile unlawful in war, and the foe unscrupulous round!
Woman-like overbelieving Herself and the Cause and the Man,
Fights with two-edged intrigue, suicidal, plan upon plan;
Till the law of this world had its way, and she fled,--like a frigate
unsail'd,
Unmasted, unflagg'd,--to her land; and the strength of the stronger
prevail'd.
But it was not thus, not thus, in the years of thy springtide, O
Queen,
When thy children came in their beauty, and all their future unseen:
When the kingdom had wealth and peace, one smile o'er the face of the
land:
England, too happy, if thou could'st thy happiness understand!
As those over Etna who slumber, and under them rankles the fire.
At her side was the gallant King, her first-love, her girlhood's desire,
And around her, best jewels and dearest to brighten the steps of the
throne,
Three golden heads, three fair little maids, in their nursery shone.
'As the mother, so be the daughters,' they say:--nor could mother wish
more
For her own, than men saw in the Queen's, ere the rosebud-dawning was
o'er,
Heart-wise and head-wise, a joy to behold, as they knelt for her kiss,--
Best crown of a woman's life, her true vocation and bliss!--
But the flowers were pale and frail, and the mother watch'd them with
dread,
As the sunbeams play'd round the room on each gay, glistening head.
Anne in that garden of childhood grew nearest Elizabeth: she
Tenderly tended and loved her, a babe with a babe on her knee:
Slight and white from the cradle was Anne; a floweret born
Rathe, out of season, a rose that peep'd out when the hedge was in thorn.
'Why should it be so with us?' thought Elizabeth oft; for in her
The soul 'gainst the body protesting, was but more keenly astir:
'As saplings stunted by forest around o'ershading, we two:
What work for our life, my mother,' she said, 'is left us to do?
Or is't from the evil to come, the days without pleasure, that God
In mercy would spare us, over our childhood outstretching the rod?'
--So she, from her innocent heart; in all things seeing the best
With the wholesome spirit of childhood; to God submitting the rest:
Not seeing the desolate years, the dungeon of Carisbrook drear;
Eyes dry-glazed with fever, and none to lend even a tear!
Now, all her heart to the little one goes; for, day upon day,
As a rosebud in canker, she pales and pines, and the cough has its way.
And the gardens of Richmond on Thames, the fine blythe air of the vale
Stay not the waning pulse, and the masters of science fail.
Then the little footsteps are faint, and a child may take her with ease;
As the flowers a babe flings down she is spread on Elizabeth's knees,
Slipping back to the cradle-life, in her wasting weakness and pain:
And the sister prays and smiles and watches the sister in vain.
So she watch'd by the bed all night, and the lights were yellow and
low,
And a cold blue blink shimmer'd up from the park that was sheeted in
snow:
And the frost of the passing hour, when souls from the body divide,
The Sarsar-wind of the dawn, crept into the palace, and sigh'd.
And the child just turn'd her head towards Elizabeth there as she lay,
And her little hands came together in haste, as though she would pray;
And the words wrestled in her for speech that the fever-dry mouth cannot
frame,
And the strife of the soul on the delicate brow was written in flame:
And Elizabeth call'd 'O Father, why does she look at me so?
Will it soon be better for Anne? her face is all in a glow':--
But with womanly speed and heed is the mother beside her, and slips
Her arm 'neath the failing head, and moistens the rose of the lips,
Pale and sweet as the wild rose of June, and whispers to pray
To the Father in heaven, 'the one she likes best, my baby, to say':
And the soul hover'd yet o'er the lips, as a dove when her pinions are
spread,
And the light of the after-life came again in her eyes, and she said;
'For my long prayer it is not time; for my short one I think I have
breath;
_Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, that I sleep not the sleep of death_.'
--O! into life, fair child, as she pray'd, her innocence slept!
'It is better for her,' they said:--and knelt, and kiss'd her, and wept.
_In her_; Henrietta's mother was by birth Mary de' Medici; the
great-grandmother of Charles was Mary of Guise.
'With Charles I,' says Ranke, 'nothing was more seductive than secrecy.
The contradictions in his conduct entangled him in embarrassments, in
which his declarations, if always true in the sense he privately gave
them, were only a hair's-breadth removed from actual, and even from
intentional, untruth.'--Whether traceable to descent, or to the evil
influence of Buckingham and the intriguing atmosphere of the Spanish
marriage-negotiations, this defect in political honesty is,
unquestionably, the one serious blot on the character of Charles I.--Yet,
whilst noting it, candid students will regretfully confess that the
career of Elizabeth and her counsellors is defaced by shades of bad
faith, darker and more numerous.
_When the kingdom_; See Clarendon's description of England during this
period, 'enjoying the greatest calm and the fullest measure of felicity
that any people in any age for so long time together have been blessed
with.'
_Three golden heads_; Mary, the second child of Charles and Henrietta,
was born Nov. 4, 1631: Elizabeth, Dec. 28, 1635: Anne, Mar. 17, 1637. The
last two were feeble from infancy. Consumption soon showed itself in
Anne, and her short life, passed at Richmond, closed in November, 1640.
For her last words, we are indebted to Fuller, who adds: 'This done, the
little lamb gave up the ghost.'
The affection and care of the royal parents is well attested. 'Their
arrival,' when visiting the nursery, 'was the signal of a general
rejoicing.'
In the latter portion of this piece I have ventured, it will be seen, on
an ideal treatment. The main facts, and the words of the dear child, are
historical:--for the details I appeal to any mother who has suffered
similar loss whether they could have been much otherwise.
_Not seeing_; See the _Captive Child_.
_The frost_; It is noticed that death, the _Sarsar-wind_ of Southey's
_Thalaba_, often occurs at the turn between night and day, when the
atmosphere is wont to be at the coldest.