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THE LIFE OF QUEEN
HENRIETTA MARIA .
VOL. II

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THE LIFE OF QUEEN
HENRIETTA MARIA
By I. A. TAYLOR, Author of
" Lord Edward Fitzgerald," etc, ^ ^

WITH 32 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS AND
2 PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECES

VOL, II

SECOND EDITION

NEW YORK
E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY
1906

[Printed in Great Britain^

CONTENTS
VOL. II

CHAPTER XV
1644

PAGE
Henrietta as wife and mother — Her reception in France — " La grande
Mademoiselle" — Arrival in Paris — A changed court^Henrietta
in middle age — Her life in Paris — Jermyn — Newcastle — Letters
to the King  307

CHAPTER XVI
1645 — 1646
The King at Oxford — Henrietta at work in Paris — Her court — The
Nuncio at Paris — Percy and Wilmot — Marriage projects for the
Prince of Wales — The King's letters — Henrietta's illness —
Naseby — The King's policy and character — Hopes of help from
Rome — Surrender of Bristol — Charles' correspondence . . 326

CHAPTER XVII
1646 — 1647
The Prince of Wales in Jersey — Digby's schemes — Henrietta
summons him to Paris — Distrust of Jermyn and the Queen —
Prince of Wales at Paris — Mademoiselle — Charles' position —
His letters — Arrival in France of Henriette-Anne — A ball in Paris
— Charles' plans — Rumoured journey of the Queen and Prince to
Ireland — Lady Derby and her family  348

vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVIII
1647— 1649
PAGE^
Charles handed over to the Parliament — Difficulty of communication
— Affairs in Paris — The Prince's position there — Improvement
in the King's condition — Paris — The Prince of Wales and his
cousins — An expedition planned — Disturbances in Paris —
Collapse of the Royalist rising — Hyde and the Queen — Charles
in the Isle of Wight — The Queen's appeal — His execution . . 368'
CHAPTER XIX
1649
Paris in 1649 — The Queen's poverty — Her reception of the news ofthe
King's death — Charles II. and his mother — His marriage with
Mademoiselle again in question — Charles in France — Disputes
with the Queen — Hyde's intervention — A visit from Mademoiselle
— Charles leaves France  389
CHAPTER XX
1649 — 1651
Chaillot — The Christmas of 1649 — Opposition to the Queen amongst
Royalists — Its causes — Jermyn — Hyde's correspondence — Meet
ing of Queen and King at Beauvais — Henrietta's indignation at
Charles' compact with the Scotch — Disorders in Paris — Death
of Princess Elizabeth — Quarrels with the Duke of York — Death
of the Prince of Orange — Nicholas and Ormond — Lord Digby
— Religious ministrations to the English refugees — Walter
Montagu's influence — Return of the Duke of York — Worcester . 41 1
CHAPTER XXI
1651—1653
Charles' return to Paris — A gay winter — Hyde, Nicholas, and the
Queen — Jealousy of her influence — Duke of York joins the
French army- — Charles and Mademoiselle — The Fronde —
Charles' life in Paris — Henrietta's intervention between court
and Fronde — Hostility of the populace — Withdrawal to Saint-
Germain — Removal to the Palais Royal — Quarrels between
Henrietta and Hyde — France and England — Release of the
Duke of Gloucester— Charles' defence of Hyde .... 434

CONTENTS vii
CHAPTER XXII
1653— 1654
PAGE
Peace rumours between England and Holland — Henriette-Anne —
Disputes with Charles — The Duke of Gloucester — Interview of
the Queen with Hyde — Charles' departure — Anne Hyde —
Attempted conversion of Gloucester — He is removed from Paris
— Princess Louise a convert .  454
CHAPTER XXIII
1655—1656
Court parties — The Cardinal and Henrietta — Family reconciliations
— Louis XIV. and Henriette-Anne — The Princess Royal's visit —
Disagreements between the Duke of York and the King — The
Princess and Henry Jermyn  473

CHAPTER XXIV
1657 — 1660
Treaty with Spain — Henrietta's appeal to Cromwell — Her dependent
condition — Death of Cromwell — Question of Louis' marriage —
Charles at Fontarabia — And at Colombes — Royalist chances —
Reresby at court — Charles' improving prospects — The Restora
tion— Henriette-Anne and the Due d'0rl6ans— The Queen and
Mademoiselle  491

CHAPTER XXV
1660
The Duke of York and Anne Hyde — Arrival of the Princess of
Orange in London — Gloucester's death — -The Queen's coming —
Henrietta in London — The Duke of York and his marriage —
Henrietta's melancholy — The Princess Royal's death — The Queen
and the Chancellor reconciled — ^The Duke's marriage recognised
— Henrietta's departure .  5 1 1

viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXVI
1661— 1665 PAGE
Henrietta's return to France — The Princess's marriage — And character
— Her mother's anxieties — Charles' marriage — Henrietta in
London — The King's affection — Changes in the Queen — Bristol
and Clarendon — Deaths in the royal family — Henrietta's house
hold — The French ambassadors — War with Holland — Failing
health — Returns to France  528
CHAPTER XXVII
1665 — 1669
Latter years — Detachment from life — Madame's health — Influence
on politics — Louis at Colombes — Henrietta remains in France —
England and France — Henrietta's intervention — Clarendon's
disgrace — Monmouth — Last days — Death and burial . . • 554

Appendix I. — Henrietta Maria and Jermyn  571
Appendix II. — Authorities consulted  575
Index . . .  579

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. II

QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA {Photogravure)  Frontispiece
Facingpage
ANNE OP AUSTRIA, QUEEN OF LOUIS XIII  316
From a contemporary engraving.
MOUNTJOY BLOUNT, EARL OF NEWPORT, AND GEORGE, LORD GORING . . 330
From the picture by William Dobson in the National Portrait Gallery.

PRINCE RUPERT, K.G.

After the picture by Sir Peter Lely in the National Portrait Gallery.

344

JAMES II. AS DUKE OP YORK  378
From the picture by Honthorst at Hampton Court.
LUCY PERCY, COUNTESS OF CARLISLE  382
After the picture by Van Dyck.
CHARLES THE FIRST  386
After the picture by Van Dyck at Dresden.
SIR THEODORE MAYERNE  422
From a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens, in the British Museum.
JAMES BUTLER, FIRST DUKE OF ORMOND, K.G  426
After the picture by Sir Peter Lely in the National Portrait Gallery.
JOHN COSIN, BISHOP OF DURHAM  430
By permission ofthe Bishop of Durham.
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER  448
After the picture by W, Wissing in the National Portrait Gallery.
HENRY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER (YOUNGEST SON OF gHARLES I.) . . . 452
From the picture by Van Dyck at Windsor Castle.
ix

X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing page
From the picture by Sir Peter Lely.

ANNE HYDE, DUCHESS OF YORK  jI2

CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE, COUNTESS OP DERBY  518
From a miniature.
HENRIETTE, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS  . . 530
From the picture by Sir Peter Lely at Buckingham Palace.
HENRIETTE, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS  558
From the picture by Sir Peter Lely.
JAMES SCOTT, DUKE OF MONMOUTH  562
After the picture in the collection ofthe Duke of Buccleuch.

HENRIETTA MARIA

CHAPTER XV
1644

Henrietta as wife and mother — Her reception in France — "La grande
Mademoiselle '' — Arrival in Paris — A changed court — Henrietta in
middle age — Her life in Paris — Jermyn — Newcastle — Letters to
the King.
WHEN Henrietta parted from Charles at Abingdon,
and when she fled the kingdom after the birth
of her child, she had looked forward, should her life be
prolonged, to a speedy reunion. Yet, the fact that she
not only consented to put the Channel between herself
and her husband and five out of her six children, but was
eager to do so, demands explanation ; and in the case
of a woman of strong affections and no lack of courage
the. explanation is not at once forthcoming.
It must be remembered in her defence that she was
in a condition when nerves and health had been shattered
by a prolonged strain of physical and mental suffering.
Not her own letters alone bear witness to her entire
prostration. Mayerne, the King's physician, gave it as
his opinion that " her days would not be many " ; and a
Cornishman, Sir Francis Barrett, writing to his wife a few
days before she set sail from Falmouth, describes as the
VOL. II. 307 I

3o8 HENRIETTA MARIA
woefuUest spectacle his eyes ever yet beheld the poor
Queen, " the most worn and pitiful creature in the w^orld,
shifting for one hour's life longer." In this condition,
apparently complicated by hysteria, a woman can scarcely
be held accountable for the line of conduct she adopts.
It is also clear that, when more competent to form a
judgment, she considered that vfhilst her presence in
England might have been a cause of danger to the
King, it was urgently necessary in France, in order that
his interests should be forwarded in that country.
Yet, when all is said, it cannot be denied that her
flight put her at a disadvantage as a wife and a mother,
and afforded their opportunity to her enemies. There
can, nevertheless, be no doubt that in her passionate
devotion to the King she never faltered. From the time
when, at Buckingham's death, their hearts were first knit
together, her love for Charles, in spite of petulance, dis
approval and impatience, was a chief motive power of her
life. Passage after passage in the letters belonging to this
period indicates her longing to be with him. "Though
I am well treated here," she writes from Paris, " that will
not prevent me from desiring to return to England.
I have there what here I lack — that is, you ; and I
think I shall never recover my health till I see you
again. . . If your affairs do not retain me here, I shall
not stay long, for I have no pleasure in things of this
world." Or again, a month or two later, " I trust that in
spring I shall recover my health entirely, provided that I
have the hope of seeing you soon again ; for without that
there is neither medicine nor air that can cure me. . . .
Nothing could please me where you are not." " I thought
the air of France would cure me," she says wistfully,
" but a little of that of England is needed as well." It
is unnecessary to multiply proofs of her loyal and true

HENRIETTA AND HER CHILDREN 309
affection, nor can there be any question of the genuine
ness of her professions, mingled as they are with impatience
and blame. The absence of pose or pretence, the perfect
naturalness with which her passing moods find expression,
are amongst Henrietta's most attractive features.
Turning from the King to the children from whom
she had separated herself, it is a somewhat different matter.
It is impossible to resist the conviction that the thought
of them, if not the love for them, had been in a measure
temporarily crowded out by the stress of the struggle.
It has been seen how limited was the space devoted to
them in the letters she addressed to the King from
Holland. In those she wrote from France no more than
occasional references to her second son occur. Prince
Charles' movements are indeed a question for anxious
consideration ; but the impression is conveyed that it
was rather from a political than from a domestic point
of view that she regarded them. His safety was not
only important to the Royalist cause, but had a distinct
bearing upon that of the King. " I need not re
member you," she wrote to Hyde in April, 1646, "of
what importance to the King and all his party the
safety of the Prince's person is " ; and upon her son
himself she urged his immediate journey to Paris, " for
certain your coming hither is the security of the King
your father." It was primarily as the King was affected
by his movements, and in a secondary degree for his
own sake, that she urged upon Charles the necessity
of seeking a place of safety.
In the letter of doubtful authenticity quoted in the
last chapter the writer dwells, after a fashion natural
in one setting himself to fill in from imagination
the anxieties of a mother, upon the position of the
little daughter in the hands of the Parliament, " the

3IO HENRIETTA MARIA
unfortunate Elizabeth." " Oh, if before my death," the
Queen is made to exclaim, " I could see her out of the
hands of the traitors, I could die content," enjoining
on the elder brother the duty of doing his utmost to
withdraw " so dear a part of my own heart, this innocent
victim oftheir fury, your worthy sister, from London."
The outburst has, in its magniloquence, no resemblance
to Henrietta's modes of expression, and it fails to strike
the reader as genuine. There is nothing of a similar
character to be found in the letters she addressed to
the King, and it is fair to conclude that other anxieties
had, for the time, taken precedence of care for her
children. It was near Brest that Henrietta's landing in France
had been effected ; and before proceeding further she
sent messengers to Paris to announce her arrival to her
sister-in-law, the Queen-Regent, and to beg that
physicians should be despatched to meet her.
Anne of Austria was wanting neither in generosity
nor kindness. The forlorn condition of the fugitive
may well have appealed to her compassion, and she sent
not only the doctors Henrietta desired, but two special
envoys, to greet the involuntary guest and supply her
needs. For the sake of her father Henrietta was dear
to the French people, and crowds added their spontaneous
welcome to that of the Regent's deputies. " I have
been everywhere received," the Queen wrote to Charles,
" with such honour and affection by all, from the greatest
to the least, as could not have been imagined. I think
you will be very glad of it."
Anne of Austria's kindness quickly took practical
shape; and Jermyn, having proceeded to the capital,
returned with a large present in cash, and the promise
of 30,000 livres a month, to be paid to his mistress as

HER RECEPTION IN FRANCE 311
a daughter of France. She was by this time on her
way to Bourbon, and was able, before the middle of
August, to report herself from Amboise as better in
health and hoping for still greater relief from the
waters. On August i8th she arrived at Tours, where,
according to Evelyn, she was " very nobly received by
the people and clergy," who went to meet her with the
trained bands, the Archbishop entertaining her at his
palace. The reception she was accorded in her native country
had not commended itself to her enemies in England,
from whence her movements were watched with a jealous
eye by the Parliamentary party. " The Queen," says a
contemporary chronicle, " as it is certified by letters
from Paris, hath not been in that city, but passing
by it. Prince d'Harcourt and two doctors were also
sent out of Paris to meet her, and to go along with
her to the King's house by the Bourbon waters, whither
with them she will drink of those waters. But will
the Bourbon waters cure her ? There are other waters
set open for her to drink, in the Protestant Church,
the waters of repentance, the waters of the gospel to
wash her from Popery. Oh, that she would wash in
those waters and be clean ! "
Henrietta passed some three months at Bourbon,
arriving there in so crippled a condition that she could
not walk without being supported on either side, and
so weakened in nerves that she was almost always in
tears. Before the conclusion of her treatment she was
able to report a certain amount of improvement — " I
begin to hope I shall not die " — and to look forward
to attaining a measure of health which should fit her
to labour again in the royal cause. Before leaving
Bourbon she received a visit from the first member

312 HENRIETTA MARIA
of her family, save her mother, whom she had seen
since she left France. This was Gaston, the Due
d'Orleans, commonly called Monsieur, though the title
belonged of right to his little nephew, Philippe d'Anjou,
the boy-King's brother. The next to Henrietta in
point of age, it must have been a strange and melan
choly meeting for the two who had parted as boy
and girl. Monsieur had been twice married in the
interval, and his daughter by his first wife. Mademoiselle
de Montpensier (" La grande Mademoiselle " of history),
was already, in spite of her youth — she was no more
than seventeen — fully awake to the importance of her
position, not as granddaughter of a king alone but as
one of the' greatest heiresses of Europe.
When the time came for Henrietta to leave Bourbon
she passed some weeks at Nevers, on her way to Paris,
receiving there news of the King's successes in Cornwall,
and sending him a letter of joyful congratulation. It
was during her stay at the provincial town that the
tragic farce took place, when little Geoffrey Hudson,
the dwarf- — in spite of his mistress's favour the butt
of the royal household — challenged one Crofts, also
belonging to her retinue, to single combat, and upon
his adversary appearing armed with a squirt, shot him
dead. Henrietta must have been impatient to find herself
at Paris, there to press upon the authorities Charles'
necessities ; and the Regent was determined to leave
none of the honours befitting her rank unpaid. Made
moiselle de Montpensier was accordingly despatched in
a royal carriage to meet her aunt and bring her on her
way. In point of position the Queen's niece was doubt
less the proper person to be selected for the purpose ;
yet one is inclined to indulge in a speculation whether

RECEPTION BY QUEEN REGENT 313
Henrietta may not have failed to find her brother's
daughter — the spoilt child, as she herself had once been,
of the French court — wholly sympathetic. There is
something hard and uncompromising in the younger
woman's account of the fallen Queen, suggesting that
the pity she professes was not untouched with con
tempt. Though her aunt had taken all the pains she
could to recover health and strength, observes Made
moiselle, recording her first impressions, so deplorable
was her condition as to inspire compassion in those
who saw her. The Due d'Orleans had been Henrietta's
travelling companion, and the fugitive was conducted
by father and daughter to the outskirts of the capital,
where she was met and welcomed near Montrouge by
the Regent, her two little sons, and the court. On
meeting her the King and Queen left their carriage,
and dismounting upon a great carpet spread upon the
ground, greeted the fugitive with cordiality and affection ;
after which they entered the royal coach with her, and
all returned to Paris together.
The Cardinal had been absent on this first occasion ;
but Henrietta received a visit from him on the following
day, when she made profession of her interest in what
concerned him and doubtless did what she could to
enlist on behalf of the cause she represented the sympathy
of the powerful minister. Apartments in the Louvre
were assigned to the Queen, -and on the day after her
arrival she was installed in the palace with the honours
due to a queen and a daughter of France. Here, with
the exception of intervals spent at Saint-Germain-en-Laye,
she passed most of her time until her removal, in 1652,
to the Palais Royal.
A month before Henrietta's arrival in Paris, the death
of her eldest sister, the Queen of Spain, had taken place.

314 HENRIETTA MARIA
The public announcement of the event was postponed
until after her entry into the capital — in order presumably
that court mourning should not interfere with the
welcome to be accorded to the guest. In those days
news travelled slowly, and it is possible that the Queen
was ignorant of a loss appealing rather to the imagination
than to the practical affections. The funeral service
held at Notre Dame in commemoration of an almost
unknown sister, at which Henrietta was not present,
was signalised by a hot dispute between Mademoiselle
and the Condes concerning questions of precedence. The
affair was characteristic of the atmosphere of petty rivalry
into which the fugitive Queen, fresh from her own great
sorrows and oppressed by anxiety, was to be plunged.
Confronted as she had been with the realities of life, the
desperate contention over the trivialities of court etiquette
must have presented a vivid contrast to the struggle
for life or for death, and for the very existence of the
monarchy, going forward across the Channel. But of
what she thought of it no record remains. Many other
things must likewise have seemed strange to the " reine
malheureuse " on her return to the scenes in which her
childhood had been passed. So large a portion of
Henrietta's life was to be spent in those familiar
surroundings, that it is not irrelevant to linger for a
moment over the frame supplying the future setting to
her figure.
The change both in the spirit of the court and in
those who filled the stage must have gone far to render
them unrecognisable. She had left her brother king ;
her mother, if no longer predominant in his councils,
had exercised an influence not yet destroyed by that of
the man who, raised to power by her means, was to
prove her relentless enemy. Anne of Austria, as the

THE FRENCH COURT 315
King's unloved and childless wife, had been of small
account at her husband's court, and had been the object
of Henrietta's own childish malice, finding its support and
encouragement in the Queen-Mother's hostility to her
daughter-in-law. All was now different. Louis XIII., with Marie de
Medicis, was dead ; and his widow, with the prospect of
filling the ofiice of regent during a long minority, had
become the most conspicuous figure at court. With rare
generosity she had forgotten in her prosperity the slights
she had once suffered at Henrietta's hands, and had
shown every disposition to befriend her. But if she
was the nominal ruler, another and a less kindly power
was paramount in the State. Inferior to Richelieu in
intellect and calibre as his successor at the helm might
be, the influence exercised by Mazarin over the Queen
was such as to render his will scarcely less dominant than
that of the great dead Cardinal in the past. He had
gradually succeeded in removing from about the Regent
every person in whom he had discerned an obstacle to his
own ambition, replacing them by those upon whom he
could count to make no attempt to dispute his sway ;
and Henrietta, as she learnt to understand the politics of
the court, must have felt that it was through the minister
alone that the practical assistance she craved could be
obtained. In the first instance, such a conviction would
have caused her but little disquiet, for the Cardinal was
fair in his professions ; but as time went on she had cause
to regret the ascendency he exercised in the councils of
the State.
Turning from political to social affairs, the change
was scarcely less marked. Twenty years earlier, when
the court had been coloured and pervaded by the
traditions belonging to the reign of Henri-Quatre, " la

3i6 HENRIETTA MARIA
civilite et le respect etoient en regne pour les dames,"
observes Madame de Motteville regretfully— a civihty
and respect enjoyed to the full by the youngest daughter
of France. But all was altered. The light-hearted
merriment of the days when even Anne of Austria,
always inclined by nature to take a serious view of
life, was learning from Madame de Chevreuse to ap
preciate mundane delights, had been supplanted by a
gravity and decorum reflecting the present attitude of
the Regent, no longer young, a widow and fully conscious
of the responsibilities of her position. The influence of
the late King Louis XIII., as well as of the Cardinal,
was perceptible in the manner now adopted towards women,
" men holding it almost a shame to show them any
courtesy." Such being the spirit of the reconstituted society
of Paris, there can have been little to remind Henrietta
of her childish days. Madame de Chevreuse, who might
have furnished a link with the past, was absent from the
court. Recalled from exile by the Regent on her ac
cession to power, the Duchess had triumphantly boasted
of her future influence, adding a promise to employ it
in favour of the country where she had found a refuge
and a welcome during the period of her disgrace. The
renewal of intercourse between the old friends had not,
however, been attended with success. Time and mis
fortune had left Madame de Chevreuse much as they
had found her, whilst Anne had acquired the seriousness
lacking in her former comrade. The counsels she be
stowed upon the veteran intriguer, to the effect that she
should abstain from her old pastimes, lead a quiet life,
and enjoy the peace and repose placed within her reach,
were not received by the Duchess in good part. It
might be only too true, as Anne represented to her, that
it was time to "take pleasure in retirement and to regulate

From a conieinporary engraving.
ANNE OF AUSTRIA, QUEEN OF LOUIS XIII.

HENRIETTA IN MIDDLE AGE 317
life upon thoughts of the other world," but it is pro
verbially a difficult matter to beat swords into plough
shares. It became quickly evident that Madame de
Chevreuse's residence at court would in no wise conduce
to its peace ; and the experiment of a resuscitated friend
ship ended with the recommendation on the part of the
Regent that the Duchess should withdraw elsewhere.
She was, therefore, practically in disgrace when Henri
etta reached France ; and though to a request preferred
by the latter, to be permitted to invite the Duchess
to Bourbon, Anne had rephed that her sister-in-law was
at liberty to indulge a natural inclination, it was privately
intimated to her that the Regent would take it amiss if
she acted upon the permission, and she wisely abstained
from doing so. Bassompierre, her father's friend and her
own good counseller in her early days of marriage, died
shortly after her arrival, having outlived his popularity
and being regretted by few. The men of the day had
grown impatient of the survival of the representatives of
past traditions. Inordinate ambition and love of money
had supplanted the lighter follies of an earlier generation.
If Henrietta, looking around her, will have been
acutely aware of the changes she saw, she must have been
also conscious, more painfully, of the alteration in herself
wrought by time and sorrow and care. She was accus
tomed, Madame de Motteville observes, to maintain
that the beauty of a woman is inevitably lost with her
twenty-second year ; nor is the further suggestion that
the judgment might have been a generalisation from
personal experience too far-fetched. She had scarcely
reached middle age at the time of her flight from
Exeter ; yet it is plain that her beauty was a thing of
the past. Her friend sorrowfully admitted that few
traces of it remained. Her eyes were still beautiful, her

31 8 HENRIETTA MARIA
complexion good ; but she was thin and wasted, her
figure spoilt, whilst the emaciation of her face rendered
the mouth disproportionately large.
But if Henrietta's beauty was gone, she retained,
though worn by suffering and grief, more lasting attrac
tions than those due to colour and form. There was
a charm about her winning love from all with whom
she was not brought into collision, a briUiant wit, and
a remains of the brightness characterising her when,
in her earlier happy days, she had been the central
figure at Whitehall. Living on famihar terms with
those around her, she took her share in daily life, so
naturally incHned to gaiety that, in the midst of her
tears, she could be moved to laughter when occasion
offered. Such was Henrietta when, at thirty-five, she
came to take her place in the atmosphere of intrigue,
of cabal and of petty jealousy in which her lot was
to be cast.
When she first took up her residence at the Louvre
it was as a queen. Then, and for some months after
wards, she kept up the semblance of a court, with its
officials, its ladies-in-waiting, maids-of-honour, guards,
footmen, coaches. But little by little her expenses were
curtailed, in order that all available money should be sent
to England, "so that shortly afterwards," says her niece,
" nothing could be further from her dignity than her
train and her manner of life." Again one suspects in the
description a touch of contempt. Mademoiselle, at this
time, was the last person to consider the world well
lost for love or for any of those intangible goods not
to be expressed either in pounds, shillings and pence
or in consideration ; and the ultimate result of the
struggle in England may have seemed to her too doubt
ful to justify the sacrifice of a proper establishment in

LIFE IN PARIS 319
Paris. To Henrietta, conscious of the eyes of the court
upon her, hostile, indifferent, or compassionate, it may
have cost something to set public opinion at defiance.
She cannot, however, have had much attention to spare
for the opinions of her critics.
During the years preceding that January day when
the final scene at Whitehall took place, she must have
lived a singularly dual life. On the one hand she will
have taken part in all that was going forward in Paris ;
will have watched, with the added interest due to a
kindred experience, the disputes between court and
Parliament ; and will have thrown herself keenly into
the incidents of every day. Henrietta had neither the
loftiness of mind to despise the trivialities of ordinary
occurrence nor the insincerity to feign an indifference she
did not feel. Yet who can question that all the while,
ever present, beyond and behind the scenes actually
before her eyes, must have been the sombre background
furnished by the tragedy drawing towards its close on
the other side of the narrow seas : the constant, wearing
anxiety ; the alternations of hope and fear ; the struggle
to obtain the wherewithal to carry on a losing fight ;
the perpetual watch for the messengers who, fitfully and
as opportunity offered, came bearing letters from the
King, — letters manly, tender and devoted, and for the
most part uncomplaining ; yet with sentences here and
there wrung from him in his loneliness and desolation,
and striking a note of poignant appeal for sympathy
and comfort that must have gone far to deafen the
ears ofthe woman who loved him to all other sounds.
To understand Henrietta, perhaps to make allowances
for her, the constant strain of those years, dating from
the autumn of 1 644, must be borne in mind.
Before concluding a general survey of this section

320 HENRIETTA MARIA
of her history one subject should not be ignored. The
slanders linking her name with Henry Jermyn's have
been already noticed. They have been too often repeated
to be cursorily dismissed. The relationship between
Henrietta and the man who, whatever his faults, had
been her loyal and faithful servant, in prosperity and
adversity, for close upon twenty years, was one easily
misconstrued or misrepresented by those eager to blacken
her reputation. Attached to her service soon after
her arrival in England, he had attended her ever since,
and, in her present reduced establishment, united in
his own person many posts. He supervised her house
hold, controlled her expenditure, and managed her
finances. He likewise acted as her secretary, putting her
letters to the King into cipher at such times as health
and strength did not admit of her performing personally
the arduous task. He was, in fact, the confidential servant
of husband and wife, and constant references to him in
the King's letters indicate entire trust. " Tell Jermyn,"
he once writes, " that I will make him know the eminent
service he hath done me ... as soon as it shall please
God to enable me to reward honest men." But if to
Charles he was a valued and faithful servant, to Henrietta
he was more ; and when she found herself alone, a
stranger amongst strangers in the land of her birth, she
will have turned to him with the relief afforded by the
sight of a familiar face where all else is new and un
accustomed. Those of her own blood and race, by
whom she was surrounded, might treat her with kind
ness and affection ; but it would not have been possible
for her to forget, during the mournful years when life
itself hung in the balance, that they were affected by the
doom darkening over the country of her adoption in
no other way than as lookers-on are affected by a

HENRY JERMYN 321
coming catastrophe in no wise touching their fortunes.
Jermyn's interests, on the contrary, though differing
in degree and intensity, were identical with her own.
He, like herself, was watching the issue of events
with the genuine and personal anxiety to be counter
feited neither by courtesy nor by sympathy. Under
these circumstances it may be that he acquired a hold
over his mistress disproportionate to his merits and his
deserts. By the sequel this is indeed rendered certain.
But whilst so much may be freely granted, it must be
remembered that, save in the venomous accusations of
her enemies, there is nowhere apparent a trace of any
sentiment on her part other than that called forth by
the affection and service of a loyal friend. Prudent
Henrietta had never been ; but it would be difficult,
reading her letters at this period, to admit the possibility
of her having failed by so much as a thought in her
faith to the King.
Of Jermyn as he appeared in these days Madame
de Motteville gives an account. The Queen's favourite,
as she terms him, was in her opinion a sufficiently
honest man, limited in capacity, fitter for small than
for great things, yet faithful. She goes on to add that,
though placing overmuch confidence in him, Henrietta
was not ruled by him completely, but remained her
own mistress, carrying out her will in spite of Lord
Jermyn, as she carried it out in spite of other advisers —
a condition of things presenting, it may be observed,
a marked contrast to the subservience of the Queen-
Regent to her minister.
If Henrietta was well served, she deserved it. She
was a staunch friend, and a letter, written soon after her
arrival in Paris to the Marquis of Newcastle, shows
a spirit of generosity calculated to attach men to her

322 HENRIETTA MARIA
service. In July, immediately after the defeat of Mar-
ston Moor, Newcastle had thrown up his command and
quitted the country. On the face of it, the act was
an abandonment of the royal cause, nor were those
wanting who taxed him with treason. He had served the
King well ; his courage was unquestionable, and his
loyalty had never faltered. But he was a courtier rather
than a soldier ; and, conspicuously gallant in action, he
had nothing but dislike for the dull routine of a cam
paign. Jealous, besides, of Rupert's interference, and
" utterly wearied," says Clarendon, " with a condition
and employment so contrary to his humour, nature, and
education," he acted upon the impulse of the moment
and left his post. It would have been easy to brand
him as a deserter ; but no trace of a like charge appears
in the Queen's letter. That he had been unfortunate was
in itself sufficient to range her upon his side, and a
reason that she should hasten to make known to him her
undiminished confidence. Already, at Bourbon, she had
received and answered a letter from the Marquis, and
in November she wrote again from Paris, " to assure you
of the continuance of my esteem, not being so unjust as
to forget past services upon a present misfortune. And
therefore believe that I shall always continue to give
proof of what I say, letting me know wherein I may
be of use to you, when you shall see how I shall act,
and with what truth I am your very good and affec
tionate friend, Henrietta Maria R."
It will presently be seen that the Queen's confidence
was not misplaced. Meantime, she was recovering from
the shattered condition of nerves in which she had
reached France ; and her first letter to Charles after her
arrival in Paris indicates an improvement in health and
spirits. It may be that the httle triumph of the royal

IN PARIS 323
reception accorded to her had raised her hopes of assist
ance ; and though an English newspaper, describing her
entry and the honours she had received, speaks of her
as " like one in a deep consumption," she had evidently
regained her courage, and, though admitting that her
health is not yet "quite good," expresses her anticipa
tions of complete recovery. Passing on to practical
affairs, she informed the King that Mazarin had been sick
but that Jermyn was to visit him on the following day,
and was confident that powder, arms, and money would
be at once forthcoming. " There is nothing so certain,"
she adds, " as that I do take all pains I can imaginable
to procure you assistance, and am incapable of taking
any delight or being pleased with being here — though
I have all kinds of contentments — but as I hope it may
enable me to send you help. ... I know not what need
you may have, nor can say what will here be had, only
this be assured of — there is not, nor shall be ever, any
diligence omitted, nor delight admitted from any earthly
thing, but the serving to the supplies of your wants ;
assure yourself of this."
A few days later she begs him not to believe that
she is to blame if letters do not reach him oftener, " for
it is a punishment severe enough to me not to be able
to write, which is the greatest satisfaction I now have."
Money was at present the one thing needful, and
the different means of raising it are constantly detailed
in the business communications sent by Jermyn in
the Queen's name, or as her secretary. Mazarin was
profuse in the matter of promises — promises costing
nothing ; and at this early stage, Henrietta, letting
her hopes colour her anticipations, seems to have believed
she had found a good friend in the Cardinal. He had
used her marvellously well ; had suggested an application
VOL. II. 2

324 HENRIETTA MARIA
for troops to the Duke of Lorraine, France under
taking the payment of the army to be sent ; an appeal
to the French clergy was to be permitted ; and Charles
must be careful to use great civility in addressing the
all-powerful minister. " You must call him ' My cousin,'
and at the bottom ' Your affectionate cousin.' " Both
Queen and Cardinal had testified the greatest affection
for Charles, and all promised well.
On the whole, affairs appeared in a not unhopeful
condition when first Henrietta took up her work in
Paris. It was, nevertheless, necessarily attended with
difficulties, and towards the end of December insufficient
information from England was furnishing her with a
special grievance. Few letters had been received from
Charles, and besides her own consequent anxiety, any
neglect displayed towards her would prejudice her efforts
on his behalf " When they see that I am so ignorant of
what is doing in England, it makes them think that there
is no desire for me to know it." Although adding that
she herself is too well satisfied with the love borne her
by Charles — as, indeed, she might be — to indulge these
fancies, it is evident that she was sore at her lack of
direct information. The King, for his part, brushed
the idea of deliberate concealment aside with a touch of
impatience. " It is such a folly," he wrote, " that I shall
not believe that any can think it, though he say it."
Thus the year 1644, so sorrowfully eventful for the
Queen, drew to an end, not without a promise of better
things. Though the royal successes in the west had been
followed by the defeat at the second battle of Newbury,
Charles had been permitted to regain Oxford. At Paris
the Parliamentary agent had received orders to leave the
kingdom, and, to crown all, the Queen and the Cardinal
are " so kind that they could not be more so."

IN PARIS 325
And yet, in spite of all — of work, of endeavour, of
kindness received and help promised — the bitterness of
absence and the stress of anxiety finds expression. " You
should take more care of yourself. You risk yourself
too much. That makes me die when I hear of it. . .
If not for love of yourself, for love of me, preserve
yourself." And again, " Let me have news of you as
often as possible, since I have no joy in the world but
that."

CHAPTER XVI
1645 — 1646
The King at Oxford— Henrietta at work in Paris— Her court— The Nuncio
at Paris— Percy and Wilmot— Marriage proj ects for the Prince of Wales
— The King's letters— Henrietta's illness— Naseby — The King's policy
and character — Hopes of help from Rome — Surrender of Bristol —
Charles' correspondence.
WHEN the year opened the King was at Oxford.
Negotiations were proceeding at Uxbridge be
tween the Royalist and Parliamentary parties, and the
secret intrigues with the Irish Catholics which, chiefly
conducted through Glamorgan, had been carried on for
several months, were in full progress.
Up to the present time Charles had kept his son
with him ; but the precarious condition of his affairs
drove him early in the year to the conclusion that it
would be well that they should separate, so that, should
evil fortune overtake him, his heir would not be in
volved in the disaster. In March, therefore, he sent
the Prince to take up a position in the west, where his
presence formed a second centre for the same rivalries
and jealousies rife at the King's own court.
A council of trusted servants of the Crown accom
panied the boy. Lord Berkshire attending him as
governor. His nomination to this office had been one
of the unfortunate arrangements made at the time of the
Queen's visit to Oxford ; and the choice of a man whose
incapacity to fiU the post with credit was an open secret
326

HOPES FROM FRANCE 327
had apparently been made under no delusion as to his
fitness for the trust. The appointment was a matter of
little consequence, Jermyn had observed easily when the
astonishing nature of the selection was under discussion,
since it was the intention of the King and Queen them
selves to act as governors to the lad, never permitting
him to be absent from both together. In Lord Berk
shire's charge the Prince was to remain until he
joined his mother in Paris. With his father the parting
was final.
Henrietta, meanwhile, was continuing her labours at
the French court, cheered by hopes of success. Charles
was less sanguine as to the result of her endeavours
to enlist upon his behalf the practical sympathy of
France. Warning her, in a letter of January, that the
Speaker, Lenthall, bragged of the intelligence existing
between himself and Mazarin, he added that, though
he would not swear that Lenthall spoke the truth, it
was fit that she should hear of his assertion. With
regard to Sabran, sent to England for purposes of
mediation, he felt no doubt that either his instructions
had not been framed in the royal interests or that he
had failed to act upon them. Henrietta, he admitted,
might indeed cure this " coldness of friendship," but
the way to do so was, in Charles' opinion, not so much
to be sought by means of the Cardinal as by a personal
friendship with the Queen-Regent. " Excuse me to
tell thee in earnest," he says, with a clear perception of
the weariness begotten from the importunities of a
constant petitioner, " that it is no wonder that mere
statesmen should desire to be rid of thee." The
suggestion of personal recourse to the Regent indicates
the King's ignorance of the nature of the relationship
between Queen and minister at Paris,

32 8 HENRIETTA MARIA
In March, when the treaty of Uxbridge had ended
in failure, he wrote to Henrietta offering, in notable
language, fresh concessions to the Catholics. " I have
thought of one means more to furnish thee with for
my assistance than hitherto thou hast had. It is that
I give thee power to promise in my name (to whom
thou thinkest most fit) that I wiU take away aU the
penal laws against the Roman Catholics as soon as God
shall enable me to do it ; so as by their means, or in
their favours, I may have so powerful assistance as may
deserve so great a favour, and enable me to do it. . . .
I need not tell thee what secrecy this business requires ;
yet this I will say, that this is the greatest point of
confidence I can express to thee ; for it is no thanks
to me to trust thee in anything else but in this, which
is the only thing of difference in opinion betwixt us.
And yet I know thou wilt make as good a bargain
for me, even in this, I trusting thee (though it concern
religion) as if thou wert a Protestant, the visible good
of my affairs so much depending on it."
At the end of March he further sent Henrietta
word of a curious suggestion made by one of the most
considerable of the " London rebels," that since the
Uxbridge treaty had come to nought, and neither party
could resume it without too great an appearance of
yielding, it should be renewed on a motion of the
Queen's, with a pre-assurance that the rebels would listen
to reason. "The answer that I permitted my servant
to make was that thou art the much fittest person to
be the means of so happy and glorious a work as the
peace of this kingdom ; but that upon no terms thy
name was to be profaned " — therefore, that pledges must
be given that the rebels would be ready to yield before
she should be brought into the matter. " This I believe

THE COURT AT THE LOUVRE 329
wiU come to nothing," added the King, as well he
might. It was not likely that the authorities at West
minster would look to Henrietta to faciHtate a pacifi
cation on terms they would accept.
How many a wild and hopeless scheme was dis
cussed at the little court collected round the Queen at
the Louvre none can tell. To her vicinity would
naturally resort men of different kinds and for different
reasons. There would be her own permanent household,
with Jermyn at its head, and his secretary, Cowley the
poet, whose literary labours had given place to the duty
of putting into cipher or deciphering such portions of the
royal correspondence as were not too private to be en
trusted to his knowledge. There was the Queen's old
servant. Goring, now created Earl of Norwich, whose
son — described by Clarendon as wanting nothing but
industry to have been as eminent and successful in the
highest attempt of wickedness as any man in the age
he lived in or before — was carrying on the war in the
western counties on the King's behalf and his own, and
threatening that, though his father was not well treated
by the Queen at Paris, King and Queen would shortly
find it reasonable to deal better with father and son alike.
There would be the knot of refugees, such as the
secretary, Windebank — men who had been forced to
fly from England at an earlier date, and had drifted
sooner or later to Paris ; and others who, not unwilling
to find an excuse to withdraw from personal participation
in the struggle, had exchanged active service for such
as could be rendered from a safe distance. A later
comer, Newcastle, had found his way to the Louvre —
with, no doubt, explanations to offer of his abandonment
of his post, but ready, should his presence there be
thought desirable, to return to England and take up

330 HENRIETTA MARIA
arms once more ; and meantime, one imagines, like the
" ven- fine gentleman " he is called by Clarendon, con
temptuously tolera.nt of the motley crew collected round
the Queen.
Prominent amongst the outer circle or hangers-on at
her cout must have been the group of Irish adventurers
who had beer, already carrying on their schemes in Paris
before her arrival. A joint committee of Catholics,
English and Irish, had been formed, and its members would
naturally look to Henrietta for assistance in gaining
the objects they had in ^--ev.. Of these objects, some
were avowed, others secret ; and whilst a certain number
of the men at work were anxious both to serve the King
and to establish matters of religion upon a more satis-
fectory footing, others were merely seeking to turn
the royal necessities to their own profit. The Queen
can scarcely be blamed it, on her first arrival, she
found it difficvdt to distinguish between the two classes.
A Jesuit named O'Hartegan, stigmatised later on by
Charles as an arrant knave, seems to have been successful
in gaining her confidence, though she was subsequently
converted to the King's opinion, assuring Digby that he
need not be uneasy with regard to Hartegan and would
shortly hear that she had spoken to him according to
his deserts.
One of the more eminent Catholics at Paris was Sir
Kenelm Digby, who, released from his London prison
through the mediation of Anne of Austria, did not
consider himself debarred by his promise to carry on
no practices prejudicial to the Parliament from conducting
negotiations with the Vatican. To Rome he was accord
ingly to be despatched, his mission being carefiilly limited
in a contemporary letter to that of " a high messenger
of honour " bearing the Queen's congratulations to the

From Ihe picture by WUliam Dobson in the National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Emery IValker.
MOUNTJOY BLOUNT, EARL OF NEWPORT, AND GEORGE, LORD GORING.

ROME AND IRELAND 331
new Pope, "^not of an ambassador as the vulgar give
out," that title being reserved for the envoys of reigning
sovereigns. It was necessary to insist on the distinction,
owing to the tendency mentioned by the same writer " to
cry [Henrietta] up for Queen-Regent of England as her
sister is of France " ; but the absence of the title will have
been no obstacle to the exercise by Digby of the functions
of an ambassador at a juncture when the presence of a
practised diplomatist at the papal court was of special value.
The influence of Rome and the question of the fashion
after which it would be exerted was of the greater
moment to the Royalist party owing to the condition
of Ireland and the hopes entertained with regard to it.
In the month of May Rinuccini was sent as Nuncio to
that country, with instructions to pass through Paris,
visit Henrietta, and assure her that his mission was purely
religious, and included no design of infringing the rights
of the Crown. The Nuncio was also directed to use all
available means to prevent the Queen from resorting
to Ireland. That an explanation amounting to little
more than a promise of neutrality should have been
offered indicates that little assistance was to be expected
from the Pope. It may have been the conviction
that this was the case that inspired the Queen with
unusual discretion. When Rinuccini upon his arrival
in Paris expressed his desire to present himself at the
Louvre, she declined to accord him a formal audience,
on the grounds that it would appear that he had been
sent to her from Rome, and would thus furnish fresh
cause for calumny. To her offer to receive the Nuncio
privately, he, in his turn, replied by a refusal, and the
envoy proceeded on his mission without an interview.
His subsequent conduct proved that no good would
have been Ukely to result from a meeting.

332 HENRIETTA MARIA
Besides the other heterogeneous elements forming
Henrietta's court, there were included in it men whose
presence at the Louvre was due to the fact that, of two
evils, the King had considered it the least, and had
thought them safest out of England. Such were
Henry Percy, whose brother Northumberland had
lately " taken the protection " of the two royal
children left in London, and Lord Wilmot, afterwards
Earl of Rochester. Deprived of high posts in the
army on suspicion of mutinous tendencies, the two
had been placed under arrest, being afterwards set at
liberty on condition that they quitted the country. In
announcing to the Queen that Percy had started for Paris
— Wilmot having preceded him — Charles gave frank
expression to his opinion of the pair.
" But that I know thou carest not for a Uttle trouble
to free me from greater inconvenience, yet I must teU
thee that if I knew not the perfect steadiness of thy love
to me, I might reasonably apprehend that their repair to
thee would rather prove a change than an end to their
villainies, and I cannot deny that my confidence in thee
was some cause for this permission."
On the whole it appears from the sequel that, though
they continued unpopular and were distrusted by the
sager amongst the cavaUers, Percy and Wilmot re
mained faithful in future to the losing cause of royalism.
But at the present time it must have been a grave
addition to Henrietta's cares that men should have
been included amongst those around her whose good
faith was open to question, and who might be suspected
of playing the part of spies in her household. The
difficulty of so regulating her conduct towards these
doubtful adherents as to avoid a further alienation of
their sympathies, whilst withholding a display of favour

PERCY AND WILMOT 333
in no wise merited by their past behaviour, is to be
inferred from a letter addressed by Henrietta to Lord
Digby, now secretary to, the King, in answer to some
expression of surprise on his part that Wilmot should
have been well received. If he had been well received, the
Queen replied, it was by the King's directions, and
Digby's own. She added, however, that by his good
carriage in Paris he had merited this entertainment ;
and noted, as a point in his favour, that Percy and
he were less good friends than had been thought.
In announcing Percy's arrival to the secretary Jermyn
wrote that he had waited on the Queen, Henrietta
having inferred from a warning sent her by the King as
to the untrustworthiness of the reports he might be
expected to make that it was not Charles' pleasure that
she should refuse him an audience.
If the Mercurius Britannicus is to be trusted Henri
etta had, a little later, her own counter-warnings to
send across the Channel. According to this authority,
" Rupert himself (after all his merciful service) is not
to be trusted, for our sovereign she-saint sends a scold
ing epistle out of France (she knows how to do it) to
the King her husband, wherein . . . she signifies her
displeasure for making Rupert General." Her caution,
if it had been sent, may have been the repetition of
the warning she had given before, not unjustified by
the event.
During part of the spring Henrietta's labours had
been perforce intermitted by reason of her condition
of health. She had, Jermyn reported to Digby in April,
been sick of an ague, adding his belief that danger was
then over. In a letter from the King belonging to the
same month, he left it to Jermyn's discretion how far it
would be well to refrain from troubling the invalid with

334 HENRIETTA MARIA
business. Her health was to be the first thing cared
for ; then the King's affairs. " In your next," he wrote,
" let me know particularly how my wife is. Though
[her health] be not as I would have it, yet the perfect
knowledge will hinder me to imagine her worse than
she is. If well, then every word will please me."
Amongst the questions of most importance occupying
Henrietta at this time was the suggested marriage of
her son to the Prince of Orange's daughter ; and letters
between Paris and the Hague on the subject were
constantly passing, money and practical support being
the conditions of the proposed arrangement. But the
consideration of this scheme did not prevent the Queen
from seeking to pave the way, in case of necessity, for
another alliance, and one more to her own taste.
The year, according to Mademoiselle de Montpensier,
had been uneventful in Paris. The dissensions between
the court and the representatives of the people, soon after
wards to take such serious developments, were having
their beginnings, but had not reached so acute a stage
as to take precedence in Mademoiselle's eyes, could
that in any case have been possible, of her private
concerns. At eighteen her own future was the subject
of her serious consideration, and she was weighing the
possibUity of a marriage with the new-made widower,
the King of Spain. Dazzled by the contemplation of
this briUiant match, the attentions she bestowed upon
her ill-starred aunt assumed somewhat of the character
of a condescension ; nor was she inclined to view
with favour the design she suspected upon Henrietta's
part of securing for her son, with his doubtful prospects,
the hand of the greatest heiress in Europe.
" I visited the Queen of England with assiduity,"
she says. "Unhappy as she was, she did not faU to

THE QUEEN'S COMPLAINTS 335
take pleasure in exaggerating her past prosperity ; the
sweetness of the life she had led in England ; the beauty
and the friendliness [bonte] of the country ; the pastimes
she had had there ; and above all the good qualities of
her son, the Prince of Wales. She displayed a desire
that I should see him. From this I formed my own
conjectures as to her intentions ; and it will be seen by
the sequel that I was not mistaken."
But whilst projects vague and definite, of various
degrees of importance, were filling the Queen's mind,
it is in her letters to the King, and perhaps scarcely less
in the King's replies, that the hopes and fears distracting
her true inner life are to be discovered. It is evident
that she was haunted by the dread that by some change
of purpose, some display of irresolution, Charles might
discredit himself and her, and alienate the sympathies
of those from whom she was labouring to obtain
assistance. As early as December, 1644, she had given
vent to her annoyance at some lack of correspondence
between the facts and the expectations she had raised
in Paris. " It will make me henceforth learn to say
nothing," she wrote, " since you are not resolute in
your designs ; for the thing of all others that has
already most injured you here was your having this
reputation, which I tried with all my might to re
move. . . . Take care of your honour, which is to
remain constant in the resolutions that you have taken,
and in comparison with that think of no one. This is all
I desire." Again and again the counsels to stand firm by
his own resolutions, and by those who have been true
to him, betray his wife's lurking fears of a relinquish
ment of the position he had taken up. " Above all,"
she reiterated, " have a care not to abandon those
who have served you, as well the bishops as the

336 HENRIETTA MARIA
poor Catholics " ; and once more, when the treaty at
Uxbridge had been in progress, " I have long ago
recommended the bishops to you, and those who are
your servants, who have suffered for you."
She had no reason to fear that, in the matter of the
bishops, at least, or of his loyal friends, the King would
prove weak. With regard to the first it was not long
before she would have willingly found him less resolute.
He was, for the rest, anxious, eager, to convince her
that her counsels and wishes, save on the one point of
religion, were weighty in deciding his course. " I pray
thee consider," he wrote in April, " since I love thee
above all earthly things, and that my contentment is
unseparably conjoined with thine, must not all my
actions tend to serve and please thee ? " In this same
letter occurs one of those comparatively rare complaints
giving so pathetic a picture of his loneliness. " If thou
knew what a life I lead . . . even in point of conversation,
which in my mind is the chief joy or vexation of one's
life, I dare say thou would pity me ; for some are too
wise, others too foolish, some too busy, others too
reserved, many fantastic. ... I confess," he adds, in
tender flattery, " thy company hath perhaps made me
in this hard to be pleased, but not less to be pitied by
thee, who art the only cure for this disease. The end
of all this is to desire thee to comfort me as often as
thou can with thy letters ; and dost not thou think that
to know particulars of thy health, and how thou spendest
the time, are pleasing subjects to me, though thou hast
no other business to write of? Believe me. Sweet
heart, thy kindness is as necessary to comfort my heart
as thy assistance is for my affairs."
In May the King's affairs had assumed a more hope
ful aspect than for some time previously, and writing on

BATTLE OF NASEBY 337
the march he communicated his sanguine anticipations
to the Queen. Henrietta, too, had recovered from her
late malady, and, able to use her hand again, wrote to
give the King news of herself in terms which must have
been grateful to him.
" My dear heart, this letter is only to assure you
that God has still been pleased to leave me in this world
to do you some service. . . . The physicians give me
hope that the spring will cure me perfectly ; which I
the rather wish that I may see you again before I die
than for any love I have for the world, for all that
troubled me during my illness was that I was dying far
from you ; otherwise I did not greatly care about it.
I hope He will yet give me this joy, [for which I wait]
with much impatience."
On May 31st Charles wrote again to communicate
his continued success. By the middle of June he had
sustained the decisive and crushing defeat at Naseby,
when the royal papers, including Charles' letters to
Henrietta, and hers to him, with more compromising
documents stiU, fell into the hands of the enemy.
This last was a disaster the effect of which can
scarcely be exaggerated ; yet, writing to his secretary,
Nicholas, when aU had been printed and laid before
the nation, Charles' language proves his incapacity to
measure and calculate the sentiments likely to be aroused
by the revelation of his secret thoughts, plans, and
designs. "So that one clause be rightly understood"
— the term " mongrel Parliament " applied to that held
at Oxford — "I care not much though the rest take
their fortunes," he wrote, after stating that, though he
could have wished his foes had spared themselves the
trouble of printing, yet he would neither deny what
was set out in his name, nor, as a good Protestant

338 HENRIETTA MARIA
and honest man, blush for the papers. "As a discreet
man," he admitted, "J wiU not justify myself; and
yet I would fain know him who would be wiUing
that the freedom of all his private letters were publicly
seen, as now mine have been."
The regret thus expressed, not without dignity, was
incompatible with any true sense of the irreparable injury
inflicted on the royal cause by the revelation of the
pledges given to Catholics, the negotiations with the
Irish, and the endeavours to obtain armed assistance from
foreign mercenaries. Charles laboured under the special
disadvantage peculiar to kings. If, as it has been pointed
out, he belonged but by a fraction of his blood to the
people over whom he was set, it was no greater disability
than attaches to all royal houses, inevitably of mixed
race, belonging to no single nationality, but combining in
themselves the traditions of many alien stocks. An
accident of birth places a German, a Dane, an ItaUan,
upon the throne ; and only by a convenient conventional
fiction can he be regarded as other than a foreigner. Of
men of like descent it is vain to demand, and unfair
to expect, the instinctive apprehension of national pre
judices and national sentiment to be looked for in the
old families whose roots have been for centuries struck
into the native soil.
If Charles' sense of the damage caused by the capture
of the incriminating documents were incommensurate with
its extreme importance, he did not blind himself to the
extent of the actual blow he had received at Naseby,
and the thought of Henrietta's participation in the
disaster gave it added bitterness. " We live here in
great disquiet," wrote Lord Digby to the Queen on
July loth, " till we hear how your Majesty hath digested
our late misfortune. God be thanked, we have lost

AFTER NASEBY 339
already the sharp sense of it." Digby had a special
aptitude for a rapid loss of the sharp sense of disaster.
He also thanked God, deploring the loss of the King's
papers, that his own were safe, not guessing how quickly
he was in this respect to be in the King's case ; that
a copy of the very letter he was now writing would be
amongst those captured at Sherburn ; and that the assur
ance with which he concludes, to the effect that whilst the
Queen shows the reliance she has hitherto done " upon
my entire dedication of myself to your Majesty, no
worldly accident can make me unhappy," would be
shortly in the hands of his enemies.
By August 9th Digby was writing to Jermyn that
it was a prediction of good fortune that the Queen bore
the royal misfortunes with moderation, and was char
acteristically pointing out that the King's ill-success
would have the advantage of enlisting the assistance of
France, the interest of that country being to " balance
things here." Henrietta's courage may have risen to
meet disaster, and she may only have been spurred
on by it to fresh energy. Sir Dudley Wyatt, writing
to inform Digby of his arrival at Saint-Germain on
July 1 2 th and of the audience he had had with the
Queen, said that she had received all the letters and
messages of which he was the bearer with satisfaction,
" except in one particular, which was concerning his
Majesty's hazarding his own sacred person, which for
no reason of gallantry or necessity her Majesty would
grant to be well done, and this I desire you to let the
King know."
France, as usual, was lavish in the matter of protesta
tion. On the last day of July the Queen-Regent supped
with Henrietta at Saint-Germain, returning to Paris the
same night, and the Cardinal promised a visit two days
VOL. II. 3

340 HENRIETTA MARIA
later, " He is full of professions of desire to serve the
Queen importantly," wrote Jermyn to Digby, "which
now I observe for that they are renewed on his part since
the necessities on ours," Taught by experience not to
place overmuch faith in the minister's promises, Jermyn
added that what took away his pain is that vain expecta
tions were never less dangerous, "for if we had none
in the world I see no way open to treat in the condition
we are in." Naseby had marked the extinction of many
hopes. In spite of Montrose's brilliant victories, and
of gleams of success attending the King's own arms,
the royal cause was steadily declining. By the end of
July Rupert himself was counselling peace. Charles
refused to listen. He had made concession after conces
sion ; had raised more hopes than he would ever have
been likely to satisfy. But he was approaching a limit
which conscience — that strange and incalculable arbiter of
human destiny, would not allow him to over-step. And
as that limit was approached there came in sight the final
defeat which was to mean, to the monarchy and the
church, ultimate victory. So long as he drew breath the
strain of vacillation, and of something that, if not con
scious insincerity, was a radical want of candour and
of straightforward dealing in his character, would have
lent strength to his opponents. His death vindicated to
the nation alike himself and his cause, " One service
alone, a service beyond price, could Charles offer to the
church, and that was to die for it," -^ This service he
must have been becoming aware, in spite of his strangely
sanguine spirit, that he might be called upon to pay.
He was surrounded by those who would fain have
had him sacrifice conscience to expediency, or at the least
would have urged him to hold out anticipations of a like
' S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, vol, ii. p. 258.]

CHARLES' ATTITUDE 341
sacrifice. " Unless we allow the Scots," wrote Digby to
Jermyn, " without engagement, to hope that the King
may possibly be brought in time to hearken unto such
a change of [church] government, at least by referring
it to a synod, there is no hope that ever they will be
brought so much as to a parley with us, wherein if once
skilfully engaged by letting them promise themselves what
the King will never promise them, we shall find means
so to entangle them as that it shaU be impossible for
them ever to get off again." But Charles stood firm.
He would neither yield nor so much as hold out hopes
of yielding. Of Henrietta at this time little is to be known.
Of the difliiculties with which she had to contend in
her ill-assorted household a letter of October from Sir
Robert Honeywood, the Queen of Bohemia's agent in
London, to Sir Harry Vane gives a glimpse. News had
come from France, he tells his correspondent, of another
scufHe in the Queen's ante-chamber, between Wilmot and
Percy on the one side and Lord Jermyn and Captain
Watts on the other. The quarrel had had to do with
money, and had reached such a height that swords had
been drawn and the Queen herself obliged to come out
of her chamber to put an end to it.
For the rest, there is no doubt that she was pursuing
the old weary task of soliciting help wherever there might
be a chance, howsoever remote, of obtaining it. In July
a new envoy, Montreuil, was despatched by Mazarin to
England, with the object of acting as mediator between
the beUigerents, and, if possible, arranging a settlement of
the differences between them. The great obstacle to the
alhance between Charles and the Scotch favoured by the
Cardinal was the determination of the northern leaders to
force Presbyterianism on England, and the fixed resolve of

342 HENRIETTA MARIA
the King to maintain episcopacy there. For the question
of principle Mazarin cared not a jot, and his sentiments
were probably expressed by his envoy when he wrote that
the King should prefer the preservation of his crown
to that of all the mitres in the world. But upon this
point Henrietta at first sided with her husband. When
Sir Robert Moray was sent, as a preliminary step, to
obtain her influence in favour of the scheme, he found
her distinctly hostile to any plan involving the abandon
ment of the bishops. It was only reluctantly that she
gave way at length to Mazarin's representations and threw
her weight into the scales in favour of the suggested
concession. That, when her influence was thus brought
to bear upon Charles, it utterly failed to shake his
determination to refuse to purchase the support of the
northern kingdom at the cost of a surrender of principle,
should go far to atone for his former weakness and
compliance. Three things he would not do, so he wrote
to Nicholas in August. He would not yield up the
Church to the government of Papists, Presbyterians,
or Independents ; he would not injure his successors
by lessening the Crown in respect of its powers, military
and ecclesiastical ; nor would he forsake his friends. It
was the first of the three points at issue that was, during
the next few months, of most practical importance, and
a letter written in the ensuing February reflects the
attitude the Queen had then been induced to take up
with regard to it.
" I am grieved to differ with thee in opinion," wrote
the King, " though I am confident that my judgment,
not love, is censured by thee for it. But I hope, what
soever thou mayest wish, thou wilt not blame me at
all, if thou rightly understand the state of the question.
For I assure thee I put little or no difference between

CHARLES AND THE CHURCH 343
setting up the Presbyterian government or submitting to
the Church of Rome, Therefore make the case thine
own. With what patience would thou give ear to him
who should persuade thee, for worldly respects, to leave
the communion of the Roman church for any other ?
Indeed, Sweetheart, this is my case." Then, going on to
give vent to the ever-haunting remorse for his acquiescence
in the death of Strafford, he pursues : " I must confess
to my shame and grief, that heretofore I have for public
respects (yet I believe, if thy personal safety had not
been at stake, I might have hazarded the rest) yielded
unto those things which were no less against my con
science than this, for which I have been so deservedly
punished that a relapse now would be insufferable." But
he is resolved for the future against any such " mean
submission," " Let not this sad discourse trouble thee,"
he ends, " (for, as thou art free from my faults, so
doubtless God hath blessings in store for thee), it being
only a necessary freedom to show thee that no slight
cause can make me deny to do what thou desirest."
Part of Henrietta's earlier reluctance to lend her
support to a scheme pledging Charles to co-operation
with the Scots has been attributed to the efforts she was
still making to obtain aid from foreign Catholics, and to
a conviction that their sympathies might be alienated by
the suggested aUiance, Sir Kenelm Digby had at first
been full of hope as to the assistance to be expected from
Innocent "IL, and had sent encouraging reports from
Rome. Writing to Lord Digby in June, Jermyn
announced that his namesake had had audience of the
Pope, who had given him the best reception that the
first visit was capable of — " that is, the fairest promises
in general that can be wished." If Digby might be relied
upon, there were good hopes of money ; " but you know

344 HENRIETTA MARIA
he is of a sanguine family, and himself yet the melan-
choliest of it."
The King and his friends must have been growing
weary of fair promises in general ; and it soon appeared
that those made by Pope Innocent were not to be
reduced to the concrete, or to result in more practical
assistance than the lavish professions of Mazarin. When
it transpired that Sir Kenelm had no warrant for the
assurances he had been ready to give of the ultimate
submission of Charles to the Holy See, zeal on his
behalf speedily flagged ; whilst the proceedings of the
Nuncio in Ireland made it quickly apparent that he
had the interests of the Church more at heart than the
reduction of the country to obedience.
Thus that anxious autumn and winter wore them
selves out. In September the defeat of Philiphaugh had
followed upon Montrose's victories, and in England the
prospect was no less dark. Bristol had been delivered
up by Rupert to the enemy, the capitulation rousing
indignation bitter and deep in the King towards his
favourite nephew : " Tell my son," he wrote to Nicholas,
" that I shall less grieve to hear that he is knocked on
the head than that he should do so mean an action as
is the surrendering of Bristol upon the terms it was,"
To Rupert he wrote summarily dismissing him from his
service ; and it is reported in a contemporary letter that
Henrietta had given it out at Paris that the Prince had
sold the town for money. Although the King's anger
may not have been wholly justified, the consequent
estrangement must have added appreciably to his loneli
ness. Though his nephew ultimately returned to his
side, and it will be seen that Charles cancelled his harsh
judgment, the King is said never again to have bestowed
upon him the same degree of confidence as formerly.

AJicr the picture hy Sir Peter Lely in the National Portrait Gallery. Photo by F may IValkcr.
PRINCE RUPERT, K.G.

THE KING'S POSITION 345
By November Charles was once more at Oxford,
conscious of the gloom of the outlook — conscious also
that, in his determination to continue the war rather
than accept any terms of peace Hkely to be offered, he
was standing well-nigh alone.
Had a peace, indeed, been concluded at this time
it must inevitably have worn the aspect of a surrender.
Much had happened in the latter part of the year to
deepen the distrust felt for the King by those opposed
to him. In October the coup-de-grdce was given to
any lingering faith in his resistance to Catholic demands
by the discovery of the pledges given by Glamorgan
to the confederate Irish. Into the question to what
extent Charles was responsible for these promises it is
impossible to enter, any more than into the detaUs
of the mission so disastrously affecting his prospects.
That such promises had been made by his agent and in
his name was sufficient to damn him in the eyes
of those comparatively moderate in opposition to the
Papacy. The public mind was further inflamed by the
news that at Rome Kenelm Digby had engaged on
Henrietta's behalf that the penal laws, in England as
well as in Ireland, should be abolished ; that the French
clergy were meditating a large contribution towards the
expenses of an expedition, thus accentuating the fact
that Henrietta's cause was identified abroad with that
of Catholicism ; that Emery, Mazarin's comptroller of
finance, was hot in the Queen's cause and one of
her chief advisers ; and that a project was on foot
to marry the Prince of Wales to Mademoiselle de
Montpensier. More startling still was the report that
Henrietta was in communication with the Scotch com
missioners. The disavowals of Charles on the one
hand, and the Scotch on the other, did little towards

346 HENRIETTA MARIA
allaying the excitement prevailing at the opening of the
year 1646.
The series of Charles' letters of this year, mostly
addressed to the Queen, furnish an accurate index to
his history at this period. Here the story is told of his
failing hopes ; of the motives leading him to place
himself in the hands of the Scotch army ; of his nego
tiations with one party and another, his intrigues with
all. Not a few passages in the correspondence throw
a reflected light upon Henrietta's own proceedings, and
may, therefore, fitly find a place here.
These letters are cited by their editor as proof
conclusive that the distrust entertained for the King
was justified to the full, all the qualities attributed to
him by his enemies being found therein displayed.
The contention is not unjust. It is true that in cases
where, not his sense of honour alone but his conscience,
was touched, Charles could not only refuse to yield,
but could refuse to give false hopes of ultimate sub
mission. But these questions were comparatively few ;
and with regard to others, to leave himself a loophole
of escape from a pledge, to devise a form of words
susceptible of a double interpretation, and to turn to
his advantage a verbal quibble, was offensive neither
to his sense of honour nor to his conscience. Were
the secrets of most diplomatic negotiations disclosed
it would probably be found that he does not stand
alone in disingenuousness. But with a man known,
or reasonably suspected, to be capable of subterfuges
of the kind, it was impossible to treat with any sense of
security ; nor can it be denied that the letters in question
indicate an absence of that veracity which, not contenting
itself with technical accuracy, extendis as well to spirit
and intention.

CHARLES' LETTERS 347
Proving this, however, the correspondence proves
no less the lovable nature of the man whose affection
Henrietta returned so devotedly. It also bears witness to
his gallantry in fighting, almost single-handed, a losing
battle, and to his unfaltering courage. Nor, especially in
view of the sin towards Strafford which pressed so heavily
on his heart, should the steadfastness be overlooked
displayed by him in refusing to make terms disad
vantageous to his friends or to principles he regarded
as essential. It was part of the tragedy of his fate
that his virtues and his failings alike contributed to
lead him to the scaffold. His word, in its literal sense,
was not to be relied upon ; whilst the points upon
which conscience made its stand and refused to permit
to him even the appearance of yielding were precisely
those upon which his opponents were determined to
insist as a necessary condition of pacification.

CHAPTER XVII
1646 — 1647
The Prince of Wales in Jersey — Digby's schemes — Henrietta summons
him to Paris — Distrust of Jermyn and the Queen — Prince of Wales
at Paris — Mademoiselle — Charles' position — His letters — Arrival in
France of Henriette-Anne — A ball in Paris — Charles' plans — ¦
Rumoured journey of the Queen and Prince to Ireland — Lady Derby
and her family.
DURING the opening months of the year 1646,
whilst the King was carrying on from Oxford
the negotiations which ended in his taking the fatal
step of placing himself in the hands of the Scots, Hen
rietta was much concerned with the movements of her
eldest son.
If, in her desire to bring him to Paris — a plan strongly
deprecated by the members of the Prince's council — 'she
may have been partly actuated by selfish motives, it
should be remembered that Charles was no less anxious
than she that the boy should be placed in his mother's
hands. Again and again, during the time of his darken
ing fortunes, he had enjoined upon him, as weU as upon
those about him, that, in case of any apparent danger
of his faUing into the power of the enemy, he was to
leave the kingdom and convey himself to France, there
to remain under the care of his mother, who was to have
absolute control over him, save — the exception is always
emphatically made — in matters of religion, in which she
was " not to meddle at all." 348

THE PRINCE'S MOVEMENTS 349
It was, nevertheless, not till March that the situation
appeared to the Prince's council such as to warrant a
step so decided as the removal from the country of the
heir to the throne. He was first taken to Scilly, and
upon that island being judged unqualified for defence,
was carried on to await the course of events at Jersey.
The Queen, for her part, was urgent in her demands
that her son should join her in Paris. To the eagerness
with which she looked forward to his coming a letter
to her sister Christine, the constant confidante of her hopes
and fears, gave expression. " I think," she wrote, " he
will soon be here. It is not a little affliction to see him
driven out of his country, but a consolation if God gives
him back to me in a place of safety, his person being
of so much importance to me that so long as I have
him safe I shall never despair of our affairs. Besides,"
she adds candidly, " I must confess that he is my
favourite." ^
To those in charge of the boy she wrote whilst he
was still in Scilly that, as long as he remained there,
so iU satisfied was she of his safety that she could not
sleep in quiet ; and though it appeared at first that his
removal to Jersey would content her, her orders soon
became peremptory that he should proceed to France.
The majority of the Prince's advisers were strongly
opposed to the step; but when, added to her "very
passionate commands," he received a letter from his
father expressing a hope that it would find him with
the Queen, the boy showed a disposition to act upon
the wishes thus expressed by both his parents ; and it
was only by the persuasions of his council that he was
induced to delay doing this untU messengers should have
' This letter is dated, in the collection edited by M. Hermann Ferrero,
September 1646, This is a manifest error.

350 HENRIETTA MARIA
repaired once more to France to reason with the im
patient Queen.
Henrietta was found by those sent " much troubled,"
and, as might have been expected, inaccessible to any
arguments designed to lead her to acquiesce in the wisdom
of the Prince's continuance at Jersey. She consented,
nevertheless, upon the representations of the envoys, to
rescind her positive commands for the Prince's instant
removal, reserving a final decision until further news
should be received from the King, by this time with
the Scottish army.
At Jersey, meanwhile, fresh complications had arisen,
owing to the arrival upon the scene of Lord Digby,
full of new schemes and projects. It has been already
seen, by his attitude after the crushing defeat of Naseby,
that his manner of meeting disaster must have made
him an invaluable adherent to a losing cause, " He
was," says Clarendon, " a person of so rare a composition,
by nature and by art (for nature alone could never have
reached to it), that he was so far from being dismayed
upon any misfortune (and greater variety of misfortunes
never befel any man) that he quickly recollected himself,
so vigorously that he did really believe his condition
to be improved by that ill accident, and that he had an
opportunity thereby to gain a new stock of reputation
and honour," The times were, beyond dispute, apt for
the display of this inextinguishable energy, and Digby
was, perhaps, in these days of misfortune, one of the
servants highest in the King's confidence, as he was
one of those most hated by the greater portion of
the Royalist party. When he had been forced in the
preceding autumn to make his escape to the Isle of
Man, a fierce attack had been made upon him by Rupert,
then in disgrace with the King. Digby, the Prince

DIGBY'S SCHEMES 35 ^
had declared, was the man who had raised distractions
between himself and Charies. "They are aU rogues
and rascals that say so," answered the King hotly, " and
in effect traitors that seek to dishonour my best subjects."
Digby's passionate loyalty and personal devotion,
combined with his reckless courage and imperishable
hopefulness, were sufficient to account for the affection
of King and Queen. But Charles did not bUnd
himself to the unreliable nature of his friend's expecta
tions. When, in January, he had written to Henrietta
that Digby, being at the time in Ireland, was hopeful
of assistance from thence, he had added a caution,
" knowing my author to be most sanguine," against
placing overmuch confidence in the realisation of his
anticipations. Those anticipations lacked fulfilment ;
but Digby's spirits were proof against disappointment,
and he suddenly appeared at Jersey with a couple of
frigates and a certain number of men, imbued with the
conviction that nothing was wanting but the presence
of the heir-apparent in Ireland to transform the situation
there and to reduce the nation to submission. To
his suggestion that the Prince should lose no time
in crossing the Irish Channel, the boy replied that he
was awaiting the return of the envoys sent to the
Queen, but Digby was so far from acquiescence in delay
in acting on his scheme, that he made the singular
suggestion — no doubt to Hyde himself — that the Prince
should be invited on board a ship, that it should then set
saU, and that he should be conveyed, with or without his
own consent, to Ireland. When his confidant, not un
naturally, declined to countenance so wild a scheme, Digby,
having "a most pregnant fancy," at once started another.
He himself would hasten to Paris, convert the Queen from
her desire that the Prince should seek shelter in France,

352 HENRIETTA MARIA
and return to Jersey, armed with her approbation of
the Irish project, as well as provided with funds to
enable him to carry it to a successflil conclusion.
If it argued some presumption on Digby's part that
he should have been confident of turning the Queen
from her declared purpose, he had reason to count upon
his influence with Henrietta. Besides the fact that he
was her own convert to the King's cause, his hot
headed enthusiasm and his sanguine temperament must
have been much to her liking. In a letter of the pre
ceding year, after reproaching him for silence, she had
added that not for that reason would she forbear from
writing to him, though it were only to tell him that she
feared he was as inconstant to his friends as men to their
mistresses. " For my part, I have only this fault, to be
a good friend," she added ; " and I believe you know
it." Doubtless Digby did know it ; and, knowing it,
he may have failed to take into account another charac
teristic, not less marked, in the Queen — namely, her
strong will. When he appeared at Paris, full of his
project, she declined to be convinced of its wisdom.
Ready to do all in her power for Ireland, she was
not to be shaken in her determination to insist upon
the Prince's presence in Paris ; and considering that,
both in the King's eyes and her own, Charles' safety
depended upon that of his heir, she can scarcely be
blamed for refusing to lend an ear to Digby's plan of
transporting him to so disturbed a country.
From the Queen he proceeded to pay his respects to
the Cardinal, who, acquainted with the man with whom
he had to deal, was so adroit in his manipulation of him,
so lavish of his flattery and profuse in promises, that the
less astute Englishman was won over to a firm belief
in the minister's good intentions, and allowed himself

DIGBY AND MAZARIN 353
to be persuaded of the absolute necessity that the
Prince should resort to Paris, When the lad should
be on French soU, the Cardinal undertook that an
ambassador, to be nominated by Henrietta herself —
from whom he was to receive his instructions — should
proceed to England, present an ultimatum to the rebel
Government, and, upon its rejection, declare war ; an
army worthy of the Prince being forthwith placed at
his disposal.
This was the programme designed to dazzle Digby
and cause him to accept it in place of his own. It
fully answered its purpose. Passing with characteristic
rapidity from one plan to another, Digby now assured
Henrietta that he would convert all the Prince's
counsellors to approval of his removal to France, under
took that Charles should at once obey her commands,
and not only gave her his advice as to the choice of
an ambassador, but lent his hand to the preparation of
the envoy's instructions. Bellievre was selected to play
the part of the belligerent intermediary ; a sum of money
— less, indeed, than had been anticipated, but acceptable
enough — was placed by the Cardinal in Digby's hands ;
and to make all secure and quicken the Queen's anxiety
to have her son in her own care, the minister revealed,
in a letter to the Prince de Cond6 certain to be com
municated to Henrietta, news of a bogus plot hatching
at Jersey with the object of delivering the Prince into
the hands of the enemy.
Such is the account given by Clarendon of Digby's
visit to Paris — an account he must have received at
first hand from Digby, who hastened back to urge the
Prince's immediate departure for France,
The news anxiously awaited from the north had
been bad. It was abundantly clear that the step

354

HENRIETTA MARIA

taken by the King in placing himself in the hands of
the Scottish army had proved a failure, and by May
he was, according to his own account of the matter,
no better than a prisoner. In the letter giving an
account of his position he also distinctly expressed his
opinion that it was unsafe for the Prince to remain
in Jersey, and directed his wife to send for him to
Paris with all speed, " and in God's name let him stay
with thee till it be seen what ply my business wiU
take, and for my sake let the world see that the Queen
seeks not to alter his conscience,"
With her hands strengthened by this command, no
fault can be found with Henrietta for evincing a more
fixed resolve than before to carry her point, Jermyn,
with a numerous train, was despatched to fetch the
Prince, carrying her positive orders in a letter to her
son and given in the King's name, that he should join
her without further delay. Even under these circum
stances the Prince was not allowed to leave the island
without hot debate amongst the members of his councU ;
and when the boy had shown his determination to yield
obedience to the Queen's demands, aU but one of
them declined to accompany him to Paris, the rest
remaining for the most part in Jersey and watching from
thence the course of events.
The distrust with which these men — some of the
King's most loyal supporters — regarded not only the
French Government, but Jermyn himself, and by im
plication the Queen, is proved by a document preserved
amongst the Clarendon papers, containing " articles of
association " between Hyde himself, Hopton, Capel, and
Carteret, for the defence of Jersey against a supposed
design entertained by Jermyn to surrender it for a certain
sum of money to France, a French dukedom being the

THE PRINCE IN PARIS 355
reward allotted to the intermediary. That Jermyn
should have been credited with the scheme, upon the
report of " a worthy lady at Saint-Germain," and "a
discreet and knowing gentleman in Paris," is evidence
sufficient of the estimation in which he was held, and
explains the extreme reluctance displayed in obeying the
explicit commands of King and Queen and permitting
their charge to join his mother. But the matter had
been taken out of their hands, and by the end of June
Henrietta and her son were together at the Louvre,
If Clarendon is to be believed, the Prince was
received with but scant courtesy on the part of his hosts.
It is possible that, though it had been important in
Mazarin's eyes that the heir to the English throne should
seek shelter on French soil rather than elsewhere, he was
not unwilling to conciliate public opinion in England by
testifying some lack of cordiality towards the refugee.
Charles had, at all events, been in Paris two months before
he was accorded a reception at court, the interval being
apparently spent in discussions upon the ceremonial to
be observed on the occasion, " It can hardly be
believed," asserts Clarendon, " with how little respect
they treated him." On the other hand, since it appears
that Henrietta, founding her extravagant demand upon
the etiquette observed on the visit of his father to Spain,
had desired that her son should take precedence of King
Louis himself, it will be seen that some difficulty might
be experienced in satisfying her expectations.
At Fontainebleau the Prince was at length presented
to the Queen-Regent and the King. All that was
possible had been done to conciliate Henrietta, and on
his first visit of ceremony he was given, according to
the arrangements agreed upon between the two Queens,
the honour of z fauteuil. Dignity having been thus
VOL. II. 4

356 HENRIETTA MARIA
satisfied, a compromise was effected, and on future occa
sions both Charles and his little cousin occupied petits
sieges. Despite the difficulties connected with etiquette,
the three days' visit to the French court must have pre
sented a pleasant contrast to the life Charles had lately
led. He was at this time a tall, well-grown lad of fifteen,
dark-complexioned, black-haired, and dark-eyed. His
mouth, like his mother's, was bad, but his head finely
shaped, and his gravity of demeanour impressed beholders.
" II paroist estre fort serieux," observed d'Ormesson in
his journal. On the whole the Prince appears to have
produced a favourable impression at court, in spite of
his inability — a singular one when his mother's nation
ality is taken into account — either to understand the
French language or to make himself understood in it.
During the days spent at Fontainebleau all that was
possible was done for his entertainment. A ball was
given in his honour and that of his mother, and the
presence of his cousin, Mademoiselle, will have supplied
an additional element of interest. The marriage nego
tiations with Holland had collapsed ; and though
Henrietta seems to have had at this time no less than
three possible brides in view, there can be little doubt
that, in point of fortune, Mademoiselle would have been
the most eligible. The Queen had prepared the way
by despatching a portrait of her niece to Charles in
Jersey, and she lost no time, now that he was at hand,
in pushing forward the affair.
" I perceived," wrote Mademoiselle, " that the Queen
of England would have liked to persuade me that he
was in love with me ; that he talked of it incessantly ;
that, had she not prevented it, he would have come to
my apartment at all hours ; that he found me entirely
to his taste, and was in despair at the Empress's death,

THE KING'S LETTERS 357
being extremely apprehensive that they would marry me
to the Emperor. I received what she said as I ought
to do," adds Mademoiselle, "and did not put aU the
faith in it that she would perhaps have desired. ... I
do not know what would have been the result had he
himself spoken. I know weU that I should not make
great account of what I was told on behalf of a man who
could say nothing for himself."
Considering that the man in question was a boy of
sixteen, labouring under the disadvantage of an entire
ignorance of her language, it will be confessed that the
contempt his cousin displayed at his failure to plead his
own cause shows overmuch severity.
Into the comedy of scenes such as these and others,
with their petty vanities and ambitions and rivalries, the
letters constantly reaching Henrietta from the King must
have broken like importunate tragedy. " Albeit thou
dost hear that I am strangely and barbarously threatened,"
wrote Charles towards the end of July, " for God's sake
be not disheartened ; for I do not beHeve that the Scots
dare do what they say, for already they begin to be
more calm. And though the worst should come, yet
I conjure thee to turn thy grief into a just revenge upon
mine enemies, and the re-possessing of Prince Charles
into his just inheritance." The King's longing for the
approval of the woman he loved is repeated again and
again in tones which would have come near to making
many in her position forswear their true opinions. " In
deed, it would have broken my heart," he wrote in
August, " if thou hadst thought me wUful, as every one
here doth." Again, on the last day of the same month,
he makes a passionate protest against further pressure
being brought to induce him to abandon what to him
was a matter of conscience. "The Queen wiU break

358 HENRIETTA MARIA
my heart," he writes, using, as he sometimes does, the
third person in addressing her, " if she any more under
take to obtain my consent for Presbyterian government.
For if she once should openly condemn me for wilful
ness, but in one point, I should not be able to support
my daily miseries." In yet another letter he explains,
patiently and at length, the reasons forbidding him to
yield on the question at issue, hoping that, by con
vincing her, he will have " this comfort, that I shall
not be in any kind lessened in thy opinion, which is
the only thing that can make him truly miserable who
is eternally thine."
It is easy to discern weakness in the craving dis
played for his wife's approbation, as well as in the
eagerness shown to defer to her lightest wishes in matters,
great or small, in which he was able to do so without
an abandonment of principle. But it has another and
a pathetic side, when his position at the time — in the
enemy's camp, surrounded by foes, misjudged by many
friends, and practically alone — is taken into account.
To incur the condemnation of the one person whose
approval or blame meant more to him than that of all
the world beside, added the last drop of bitterness to
his cup. Nor can it be doubted, reading the few
letters of Henrietta's of this period preserved, that in
spite of her love for him, the frank and unsparing
expression of her opinions must have not seldom con
tributed to that end. Concessions were wrung from
Charles regarded by the Queen as fatal to ultimate
success, and she did not faU to tell him so. "I know
the pains you are suffering," she wrote, when the
possibUity of such compliance was in question, " and
so great is my compassion that it causes me suffering
no less than your own. But since we have thus

DIFFERENCES OF KING AND QUEEN 359
suffered, we must resolve to go through with it with
honour." It is only necessary to be acquainted with the
provisions contained in the instructions drawn up by
the Queen and Digby for Bellifevre — instructions practi
cally superseded by Mazarin's own — to understand the
impossibility of reconciling the course advocated by
Henrietta with Charles' views of right and wrong.
Presbyterianism, according to this memorandum, was
to be conceded, with the object of throwing the con
cession as an apple of discord between those professing
that creed, English and Scotch, and the party of Inde
pendents, Control of the militia was to be temporarily
ceded. The Act preventing the dissolution of the existing
Parliament was to be exchanged for a Triennial Act.
The Scots were to be induced to join with Montrose
and to endorse the Irish treaty. Charles' conscience
and opinions alike would have barred the way to an
accommodation based on these foundations. " If I know
anything of the King's heart and nature," wrote Hyde,
aUuding to the plan by conceding a principle to pro
duce dissension in the enemy's camp, " he will not
redeem the lives of his wife and children at the price."
And the Chancellor was right.
The policy actually pursued by Charles, wavering and
uncertain and disconnected, could not but rouse Hen
rietta, determined and resolute, to irritation ; and, in
particular, his ultimate offer to surrender the moot-point
of Church government for three years was characterised
by her as too little or too much — too much were it
indeed against his conscience, too little to satisfy his
enemies. Under these circumstances the Queen's letters
must not unfrequently have added to the bitterness of
Charles' position. Yet the suggestion of a possibUity

36o HENRIETTA MARIA
that she might cease from interference in his affairs
elicited more than once from him an impassioned pro
test. " For God's sake," he wrote to her on one
occasion, " leave off threatening me with thy desire to
meddle no more with business ; and albeit I am confident
thou dost not really intend, because I am sure thou
canst not in any kind forsake me (of which this were
a sort) or leave to love me, as thou lovest me give
me so much comfort (and God knows I have little
enough and that little must come from thee) as to
assure me that thou wilt think no more of any such
thing otherwise than to reject it."
But it is in a letter addressed to Jermyn, Culpepper,
and Ashburnham that the most vivid picture is to be
found of the King's condition of mind at this time, and
that the sharpest note of anguish is sounded. These
men, like the Queen, were urging upon him a course
which conscience forbade him to adopt. In replying to
them he practises no economy of truth.
" Instruct yourselves better," he wrote sternly, " and
undeceive those ye have misinformed, for believe me
there is need .... Only one particular I must mention,
wherewith Davenant hath threatened me, which is [the
Queen's] retiring from all business into a monastery.
This, if it fell out (which God forbid) is so destructive
to all my affairs — I say no more of it ; my heart is too
big. ... In another way I have mentioned this to [the
Queen] (my grief being the only thing I desire to conceal
from her, with which I am as full now as I can be
without bursting), commanding you to remember her,
to answer me, and to help to conceal my sorrow from
her as much as may be ; which wiU be some ease to
it, that of itself is so great as were not to be borne
but for the great cordial of her daily expressions of

ESCAPE OF HENRIETTE-ANNE 361
kindness to me, and that in this way I find some vent
for it." In after days, when her son and his advisers were
jealous of the suspicion that Henrietta's influence was
still dominant, she must have looked back with bitterness
to the time when the mere dread of her withdrawal from
public affairs could call forth so impassioned a protest.
There was, in truth, no real reason to apprehend that
vexation, irritation, or weariness would cause her to cease
from labouring in the King's service. Nor were there
wanting passages in her letters calculated to afford him
gleams of consolation in the surrounding darkness.
" Thy love," he writes, in reply to one of these — " thy
love preserves my life, and I tell thee that those words
of thine, ' tout ira bien a la fin ' and ' nous encore,'
did extremely cheer me, because I hope the Queen had
some reason to write it, besides her desire of comfort
ing me."
Whatever Henrietta's hopes may have been, it must
have been a melancholy summer and autumn. The one
bright spot in it, besides the presence of her son, was the
arrival from England in July of the baby daughter left
behind two years ago at Exeter. The child's governess.
Lady Dalkeith, was a woman of courage and resource ;
and disguising herself and her charge in beggar's rags, she
had succeeded in gaining the sea-coast and crossing
from Dover to Calais, the identity of little " Peter " with
the King's youngest daughter remaining unsuspected.
When she was once on French soil the child was safe,
and was speedily placed in the hands of her mother ; who,
says her attendant Capuchin, Pere Cyprian de Gamache,
regarding her as " un enfant de benediction," resolved
forthwith to use all her efforts to gain the King's consent
to bring her up as a Catholic. There is no indication

362 HENRIETTA MARIA
that his consent was obtained, but, if it were not,
Henrietta appears to have decided to dispense with it.
The same writer presently records that the Queen led
the child to the chapel at the Louvre, where he was
engaged in giving instruction to the children, liking
the catechising so well that she was overheard to observe
that she should herself attend it for the future. This
resolution, remarks P^re Cyprian with a touch of acri
mony, was not carried out, being set aside by persons
who had neither her zeal nor her humility.
Besides the distraction afforded by the society of her
little daughter, Henrietta was finding occupation in her
plans for her son's future. The season was a gay one
in Paris, and at the Palais Royal, where the French
court was held at the time, frequent dramatic per
formances, attended both by Prince Charles and by
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, supplied opportunities
for constant intercourse between the cousins, Charles
showing no lack of willingness to do what in him lay
to secure the heiress and her fortune. It was a certain
ball, given in honour of Mademoiselle herself, that seems
to have left the most vivid impression on Mademoiselle's
mind. On this occasion Henrietta had devoted herself
personally to the adornment of her niece, going so
far as to visit her apartment in order to arrange her
hair with her own hands ; whilst the Prince, wearing
his cousin's colours of black, white, and pink, held
a torch to light his mother at her labour of love.
Nor was this all ; for when the Regent, aware of what
was going on, had sent for Mademoiselle in order that
she might inspect the result of Henrietta's skill, the Prince
of Wales took the opportunity to steal a march upon
his cousin, and, arriving first at the ball, was found
awaiting her there and ready to hand her from her coach.

A BALL IN PARIS 363
"Before entering the assembly," pursues Mademoiselle,
" I delayed in a room to re-arrange my hair before the
mirror, and it was again he who held the torch " ; adding,
with a natural touch of scepticism, that, according to his
cousin. Prince Robert, who served as interpreter, the
Prince, in spite of his ignorance of the French language,
understood all that fell from her lips.
The " Robert " present at this scene, and evidently
engaged in furthering his cousin's suit, was Rupert, who
now, like so many others, had found his way to Paris,
forgiven by the King and commended by him to
Henrietta's favour ; " for albeit his passions may sometimes
make him mistake," said Charles, " yet I am confident
of his honest constancy and courage." He might well
be confident of it. Rupert's steadfastness in adhering
to a declining cause shone the more in contrast with the
self-seeking of his elder brother, who, having taken the
Covenant, was now high in favour with the ParUamentary
army. As Henrietta played with her name-child, or strove
to further her boy's suit, she must have been sore
enough at heart. At Newcastle the hopes of an agree
ment with the Scots were becoming less and less, and
Charles' prospects were darkening in proportion. His
future plans were subjects of anxious discussion at the
Louvre. In December Henrietta sent him her advice
concerning them in a letter from Jermyn and Culpepper,
she herself being disabled by toothache from writing.
Should the Scotch forsake him, it was her opinion and
the Cardinal's that, if Parliament would not guarantee
his safety in London, he should either cross the border
with the Scotch, or, if that were to be refiised him,
should repair to Ireland, the Highlands, or Jersey, only
leaving his own dominions at the last extremity. It did

364 HENRIETTA MARIA
not yet seem to have occurred to Charles' counsellors that
this last alternative might not be open to him. By
January a letter from the King must have made them
aware of the true state of the case. He then wrote to
teU his wife that he was now declared to be, what he
had been in fact ever since he had placed himself in the
hands of the Scottish army, a prisoner — the principal
difference being that escape, before easy enough, would
be difficult, if not impossible.
The presence of the King in Ireland being out of
the question, the inquiry appears to have been raised
whether it would not be well for the Queen and her son
to visit that portion of the kingdom. The project was
probably only entertained one week to be rejected the
next, but it finds mention in a letter from Hyde to
the Lord Treasurer, Cottington. He heard, the Chan
cellor wrote, that the Queen sometimes spoke of a
journey to Ireland, sometimes of a monastery — which
would be far the better choice of the two. As for the
Prince, he could only interpret the desire expressed by
Cottington that the lad should accompany his mother,
should she make the journey, as due to the wish that he
should at all costs be removed from France. If the
explanation was the true one, the Lord Treasurer's
desire was fully shared by the Chancellor. Though
finding some comfort in the conviction that the heir-
apparent had " a sweetness of nature not easy to be
corrupted," his longing that the boy should be removed
from Paris equalled the reluctance he had displayed that
he should be permitted to join his mother there. The
reported project of a marriage with his cousin added
to the uneasiness with which his residence at the Louvre
\yas regarded. Fears of such a scheme had been felt
before the Prince left Jersey ; but when Hyde had

QUARRELS AT COURT 2,6s
talked sadly with my Lord Jermyn on the subject,
he had been met by the assurance that there was no
such thought, and that, should the match be attempted,
Jermyn himself would pubUcly oppose it. By March,
however, he confessed himself by no means certain that
the rumours concerning it might not be true. It has
been seen that he was right.
It must have taxed all Henrietta's powers to keep
the peace amongst the quarrelsome and turbulent spirits
at her court. The brawl reported to have taken place
in her very ante-chamber has been mentioned. Again,
notwithstanding a solemn reconciliation a year earlier,
Digby and WUmot are to meet in a duel. And whilst
this meeting is pending, Digby receives a second challenge,
and eager to "receive that honour unto which Prince
Rupert had so generously called him," — of fighting a
prince of the blood royal — faUs out with Jermyn for
attempting to interpose. In the end, principals and
seconds are arrested by the Queen's guard, and the
quarrel is ended without bloodshed, Wilmot, fighting
Digby in his turn, escaping with no more serious mishap
than a wound in his hand.
If Henrietta exerted herself to maintain peace at the
Louvre, certain proceedings of her own were Hkely to
have an opposite effect. In the present condition of
public affairs, not to speak of her own domestic cares,
it might have been imagined that she had her hands full.
It was, nevertheless, about this time that she was risking
the alienation of an important adherent by interference in
a matter she would more prudently have left to be decided
by lawyers. This was the succession to the property of
a dead brother of Lady Derby's, Lady Derby was a
countrywoman of Henrietta's own, belonging to the great
Huguenot house of Tr^moiUe ; and upon the death ot

366 HENRIETTA MARIA
her brother, the Comte de Laval, a lady connected with
the Queen's nurse came forward, on the grounds of an
alleged marriage, to lay claim to the inheritance. The
dispute was clearly one to be legally settled, and the ,
services rendered by Lord Derby to the Royalist cause,
as well as the fact that a dependant of her own was
interested in the decision, should have been sufficient
to deter the Queen from seeking to interfere with the
course of justice. Yet she openly espoused the cause
of the claimant in opposition to the Stanley family. The
letters in which Lady Derby gave an account of the affair
furnish a curious picture of Henrietta's high-handed
mode of precedure on a similar occasion in the past,
and the terms in which so ardent a loyalist permits
herself to allude to the King's wife bear witness to
the bitterness roused by her present action,
" It is with great astonishment that I have read
the proceedings of the Queen of England in connection
with our law-suit," wrote Lady Derby. " By what I can
see, she has done more harm to herself than to us,
and every one is ashamed of her." " Her Majesty does
not remember," she says again, " how by her own
authority she annuUed a marriage that had been con
tracted by the sister of La Harpe and one of the nephews
of her nurse, and how she threatened an Irish priest
with hanging for having officiated in such an affair,"
Notwithstanding Henrietta's intervention, the law decided
against the claims of her protegee, and the affair would
only have had the result of creating or increasing a
feeling of distrust towards the Queen amongst those
connected with the powerful house of Stanley.
It was not a time when it was well to ride rough
shod over the susceptibilities of the King's loyal servants.
The general outlook must have seemed dark indeed to

CONDITION OF THE ROYAL FAMILY 367
RoyaHst eyes. The King was a prisoner. His second
son, James, left behind by his father at Oxford, had
fallen into the hands of the enemy. And in London
the Princess Elizabeth was a captive, as well as her little
brother, the Duke of Gloucester, of whom it was at
one time reported that Parliament intended to make a
provisional king, pending the establishment of a re-
pubHc.

CHAPTER XVIII
1647 — 1649
Charles handed over to the Parliament — Difficulty of communication —
Affairs in Paris — The Prince's position there — Improvement in the
King's condition — Paris — The Prince of Wales and his cousins — An
expedition planned — Disturbances in Paris — Collapse of the Royalist
rising — Hyde and the Queen — Charles in the Isle of Wight — The
Queen's appeal — His execution.
BY the end of January, 1 647, the Scottish bargain with
the Parliament had been concluded, and Charles
had been handed over to the custody of the English
commissioners, in whose keeping he remained until the
army gained possession of his person in June. During the
interval he remained, closely guarded, at Holmby House,
so strictly secluded from communication with his friends
that a scheme of pacification, devised by the Presbyterian
peers in January and sent to the Queen, to be forwarded
with her approbation of Charles, did not reach him till
April, Henrietta probably thought less of the chances of
the settlement thus suggested than of plans and hopes
of her own by which her mind was at the moment
occupied, A necessary preliminary to any effective assist
ance to be supplied by France was the conclusion ofthe war
being carried on upon the Continent, and the Queen
was therefore exerting herself to the utmost to induce
the Regent to make peace, A letter written by her in
May to Pope Innocent X. is illustrative of the energy
368

HENRIETTA AT WORK 369
she displayed in enlisting the sympathy of allies, spiritual
as weU as terrestrial, on the Royalist side. Certain
kings of England, she told his HoUness, had held in
special veneration Father Robert d'Abruissel, consulting
him on matters of importance to the Crown : " I therefore
hold it to be incumbent on me to do everything in my
power to procure that aU the faithful should acknow
ledge him as a saint." She accordingly urged the Pope
to proceed to the canonisation of this trusty counseUor,
"in the hope that, having contributed my endeavours
to render him important on earth after his death, he
may obtain in heaven, where his soul reposes, some
favours for the kingdom which he served with so much
fideHty during his life."
Meantime, ways and means had been found of
keeping up fitful communication with the King. A
Colonel Bamfield had been the medium through whom
Charles had been at length made acquainted with the
propositions of the Presbyterian lords ; and in May
Major Bosvile was arrested on the charge of conveying
letters from the Queen to her husband. Interrogated
as to their contents, he gave an account palpably intended
to propitiate pubUc opinion. The Queen, he said, had
desired her husband to seek his rights and privUeges,
and to secure a peace, even though she herself might
never return to England. She had likewise expressed
detestation of the war proclaimed by the Irish ; had
craved permission for the Prince of Wales to accompany
her brother and the other nobles belonging to the French
court to the war ; and had described a baU where her
son, dancing with Mademoiselle, had "exceeded all the
other gallants."
The King, questioned as to the nature of the papers
he had received, answered with spirit that he was

370 HENRIETTA MARIA
not called upon to give a reply to any man living ;
whilst a letter subsequently discovered — the messenger
being in this case " a handsome lady and wondrous bold "
— unlike others " of which my Lord of Southampton
said that all the business was in words and the love
in figures," was entirely in cipher, and yielded little
information to those who captured it.
At Paris and Fontainebleau the usual round of gaieties
was going on, in which Henrietta, however much she
may have been, in heart and spirit, with the prisoner at
Holmby House, was bound to play her part. They
will at least have afforded her opportunities of furthering
what might by courtesy be termed her son's love-
affair. One might have imagined that the result of her
daughter's premature marriage would have acted as a
warning against another such sacrifice to state-craft.
Although on her husband's death, some few years later,
Mary appears to have loyaUy mourned him, the match
at the present time did not promise to prove successful.
Writing to Lord Conway from Norgowe and giving
a description of the Prince's failings. Sir John Conyers
added that " the people stick not to say publicly that
he cares not a whit for his wife . . . and 'tis pity our
Princess hath not better counsel about him," It was
scarcely to be expected that a child not yet fifteen
should steer her course with wisdom ; but experience
of the dangers threatening one young marriage in no
wise deterred Henrietta from doing her best to effect
another. Though Anne of Austria had been tormented by
scruples — instilled by the cure of Saint-Germain — as to
the lawfulness of theatrical representations, her doubts
had been removed by a reference to the doctors of the
Sorbonne, and the dramatic entertainments went merrily

THE PRINCE AND HIS COUSINS 371
forward. An affair of the kind, marked by unusual
magnificence, took place on the Monday before Lent,
when Henrietta contributed to her niece's adornment
by the loan of such of her jewels as stiU remained
unsold and out of pawn. Though diamonds and pearls
belonging to the crown jewels of France had been
added by the Queen-Regent, MademoiseUe recorded
with complacency that those were not wanting who told
her, " assez a propos," that, in spite of the magnificence
of her ornaments, her natural advantages— her beautiful
figure, her white skin, and the brightness of her fair
hair — were no less decorative than the jewels she wore.
She enjoyed a veritable triumph. A species of
throne, reached by steps, had been erected on the stage ;
and the eight-year-old King, declining out of courtesy
to his guest, the Prince of Wales, to occupy it, caused
his cousin to take possession of the seat, he himself, with
Charles, sitting on the steps at her feet. The position
thus accorded her was thoroughly to Mademoiselle's
taste, and her ease and composure in filling it were
such that it was predicted, she says, by those who looked
on, that a time would come when she would be seated
upon a permanent and not a temporary throne. It was
not a moment to incline her to regard with favour
the suit of the boyish exile, and she adds that, filled
with the thought of wedding the Emperor, her heart,
as well as her eyes, looked down " de haut en bas "
upon the Prince, considering him merely in the Hght of
an object of compassion.
Notwithstanding his cousin's contempt, Charles seems
to have been popular at the French court, and when,
later in the year, he paid a visit to Fontainebleau, the
improvement in his appearance was noticed with approval.
His manners were probably good. Henrietta, according
VOL, II. c

372 HENRIETTA MARIA
to Burnet, in training her boys, had paid particular
attention to this point. Having, the Bishop says,
observed the great defects of her husband's breeding,
" and the stiff roughness that was in him, by which he
disobliged very many, and did often prejudice his affairs
very much," she had set herself to prevent a similar
disadvantage from attaching to her sons, and had given
strict orders that they should be trained to a " wonderful
civility " ; with the result that the elder, when he came
to be King, was civil rather to an excess, with a softness
and gentleness in air and expression that had a charm
in it. The results of his mother's care will have been
appreciated at court. With regard to intelligence it
was a different matter ; and so partial a witness as
Madame de Motteville admits that at this date the
Prince was not otherwise than dull — "son esprit ne
brUloit pas." His position was partly to blame, and
may also have been the reason that, in spite of Louis'
careful courtesy, the elder and younger lads were ill
at ease together. Notwithstanding Charles' careless and
debonnaire temper, the contrast between his fortunes and
his cousin's could scarcely fail to strike him with a
certain bitterness, and their intercourse was marked
by constraint and embarrassment. Young though he
was, Louis appears to have been sufficiently alive to the
dangers of speech to prefer silence ; and the Prince —
aided, perhaps, by his imperfect mastery of the French
language — followed his example.
In more ways than one, difficulties must have attached
to Charles' residence in Paris. According to Clarendon,
he was kept in a state of subjection to his mother and
discouraged from meddling in public affairs. In matters
of finance he had no separate income. An addition
had been made on his arrival to the allowance granted

CHARLES WITH THE ARMY 373
to Henrietta by the French court ; but upon the grounds
that it was inconsistent with the dignity of the heir to
the English throne to be a pensioner of France, the
money intended for his support was included in the sum
paid to his mother, and was employed as she thought
fit, passing through the hands of Lord Jermyn, as comp
troUer of all her expenditure. A condition of things
was thus produced certain to be unfavourable to good
feeling between the members of the Queen's household
and the Prince's servants, and resulting in the withdrawal
of many of the last from Paris.
Whilst Henrietta was labouring ceaselessly in the
endeavour to obtain assistance for the King, events
in England had assumed a more encouraging aspect.
Charles' transference to the custody of the army had
been followed by substantial amelioration in his position.
He was no longer debarred from the society of those
of his friends who cared to resort to him, and was
permitted the ministrations of his chaplains ; and Fairfax's
demeanour raised hopes of a conciliatory disposition
on the part of the military leaders. Under these cir
cumstances Henrietta decided to accept an offer made
by Sir John Berkeley, late governor of Exeter, to
proceed to England and attach himself to Charles'
service, in the hope of employing, on his master's behalf,
the credit he believed himself to possess with the rebel
officers. Carrying with him a recommendation from the
Queen, Berkeley repaired to Charles, and obtained
without difficulty permission to attend upon him. It
was, indeed, a singular coincidence, that Cromwell and
Fairfax, casting about for a fitting intermediary between
themselves and the King, had determined to invite
Berkeley to fiU that post at the very time that Henri
etta was despatching him from Paris. About the same

374 HENRIETTA MARIA
date Jack Ashburnham, who had accompanied Charles
to the Scotch camp and had thence been dismissed by
the authorities, gained permission to resume his attend
ance upon his master. These two men, with one
other, were the King's companions when, some months
afterwards, he effected his escape from Hampton Court,
incurring the suspicion of treachery by the blunder they
committed in consigning him to the keeping of Colonel
Hammond. It would be impossible to follow, even in outline,
the progress and the fluctuations of the negotiations
carried on through the ensuing months between Charles,
the Parliament, the army, and the Scotch, each opposed
to each, and each in turn anxious to make terms with
the King. It cannot be doubted that at this period,
Cromwell, soon to be supreme arbiter of the destinies of
England, was honestly desirous of securing a settlement
retaining the monarchy, safe-guarded and controlled, as
a part of the constitution. Again and again his influence
was opposed to more violent councils. But Charles
was incapable of grasping the situation or of gauging
the limits of the possibilities remaining open to him.
The history of the summer and autumn is the history
of the realisation by all parties of the impracticabUity
of arriving at a solid and lasting agreement, based upon
the monarchical principle represented by him. Mean
time he continued to be treated with consideration and
respect ; and above all, he was before long permitted the
pleasure of frequent intercourse with the three children
who had remained in the hands of the Parliament, and
were now brought by their custodian, the Earl of
Northumberland, to his own house in the neighbour
hood of Hampton Court, where at present the King
was residing.

CHARLES AND HIS CHILDREN 375
Upon each of the three Charles impressed the
lessons he conceived it desirable that they should learn.
To the elder boy, James, he gave directions that, should
his father's fortunes take a turn for the worse, he should
endeavour by any means in his power to make his
escape beyond seas. He enjoined upon Elizabeth, a
thoughtful child of twelve, should ill befall him, never
to consent to be bestowed in marriage without the
approbation of her mother and eldest brother ; to yield
her mother obedience in all things save religion, and on
that subject never to listen to her counsels. To little
Gloucester, not more than seven years old, and to whom
father and mother must have been hitherto scarcely
more than a name, he gave strong injunctions, repeated
at their last interview and afterwards shown to have
sunk deep into the child's mind, never to abjure the
faith in which he had been bred, nor to permit him
self to be placed upon the throne so long as either of
his elder brothers were alive.
The renewal of intercourse with his children, the
society of his friends and servants, and the hopes, un
certain though they might be, roused by the demeanour
of the army, must have given the King one of his last
breathing spaces before the doom of his destiny closed
finally around him. To Henrietta's sanguine spirit what
had been already gained may have seemed the presage
of a brighter future ; and even when hope had been
overcast by the King's flight, with its disastrous sequel,
affairs in England remained in a condition to stimulate
her to fresh efforts. If it was true that aU endeavours
made by either Presbyterians or Independents to arrive
at a satisfactory arrangement with the King had, so far,
ended in faUure, it was also certain that, when 1648
opened, a strong and growing Royalist re-action was

376 HENRIETTA MARIA
affecting not the country alone, but the city ; whilst the
dissensions separating the various bodies in the State
rendered the issue of a struggle in which the Scotch
should join hands with English Royalists increasingly
doubtful. Under these circumstances Cromwell continued
anxious to come to terms with the royal house ; and it
is considered probable that, during January, negotiations
had been opened with the Queen and her son with the
object of placing the Prince upon the throne. Upon
Charles himself there was a paralysing impossibility of
relying. The initial likelihood, common to all such cases,
that pledges wrested by necessity from him who gives
them will not be held binding, is said to have been
confirmed by intercepted letters. But this evidence was
not needed ; the day when Charles might have won
trust was over. The scheme of substituting the son for
the father would, however, have been difficult to carry
into effect, Charles' loyal supporters would not have
acquiesced in it, and Cromwell would have found it hard, at
this stage, to impose the Prince upon his comrades. Nor
had the lad any inclination to entertain the suggestion.
By February rumours were afloat that an expedition,
to be led by the Prince, was in preparation ; and pressure
was brought to bear upon the States-General to induce
them to refuse aid or facUities for borrowing money to
the Queen and her son. Edinburgh, now a chief centre
of agitation, was thronged by the King's adherents ; and
by the end of March it had been announced that the
Prince would be ready, on receiving the assurance that
the Scotch would take up arms, to repair to Scotland.
As early as January it had been determined that he
should proceed to Calais, to be at hand in case of need ;
but delays intervened, and it was not till June that he
actually left Paris,

THE CHANCELLOR AND HENRIETTA 377
It must have been a time of intense excitement at
Saint-Germain, where Henrietta then was. Counsellors
of various kinds had collected round her. The King's
loyal servant, the Marquis of Ormond, was in Paris,
eager to push forward Irish schemes, and, like others,
learning the exact value of the Cardinal's promises.
Digby was likewise at hand, as he was certain to be
when adventurous enterprises were in question ; and,
by April, Hyde had been in personal communication
with the Queen. Applying himself to his literary labours
in Jersey, he had been taking no part in public affairs,
recognising, so far, the uselessness of his presence in Paris.
In a despondent letter to Lady Dalkeith he had expressed
his conviction that, were he at hand, the Prince would
not follow his counsels. He may have been right. But
he had, nevertheless, kept a watchful eye upon what was
going forward, anxious if possible to regain the place
in his mistress's favour forfeited by his strenuous en
deavours to prevent her from obtaining possession of her
son. Was he the only man living, he wrote to Digby,
that was never to be pardoned ? Let his friend tell him
how he might free himself from the insupportable burden
of the Queen's displeasure.
Later on he learnt to bear that burden with a fair
amount of equanimity. But whUst the Royalist hopes
centred in the restoration to power of a king devoted,
body and soul, to his wife, her favour was not to be
lightly foregone. Even had it been otherwise, now that,
with active schemes on foot, the Prince was in need of
the assistance and advice of his father's faithful servants,
Hyde was not the man to allow personal resentment
to stand in the way of his duty. In a letter addressed
to Henrietta, he gave expression, in the exaggerated
terms then in use, to his sense of her displeasure.

378 HENRIETTA MARIA
The fear of it, he said, had caused him more affliction
than all the calamities of those times. To give her,
wiUingly, offence he would always think too great a
price to save his life.
Henrietta was possibly softened by the Chancellor's
abject appeal. She was, at any rate, too acute not to
recognise the value of his honesty and faithfulness,
and in June Digby was able to write that he should
before then have received a kind and earnest invitation
from Jermyn to Paris, there to wait upon the Prince —
adding that he would now do better to hasten to Rouen,
as the Prince would already have started on the way
to Calais. Hyde for his part returned thanks, through
Jermyn, to Queen and Prince for the great favour
of their commands, adding that he would obey the
summons as soon as he had boots to put on. The
quarrel between Queen and ChanceUor was, for the
time, at an end.
Whilst these affairs were in progress abroad, there
had followed upon Charles' unsuccessful endeavour to
effect his escape from Carisbrooke another attempt at
an agreement on the Independents' part. Whatever
rhay have been the terms offered, it has been believed that
they were accompanied by an intimation that a refusal
would be foUowed by his deposition and the proclamation
as king of his second son. In any case, it was un
desirable that James should remain in the hands of
his father's enemies ; and on April 21st, the boy, dressed
in woman's clothes, and making, it is said, a very pretty
girl, effected his escape from St. James' Palace. By
the 23rd he was safe on Dutch soil, and had received
a joyful welcome from his sister. It was a significant
fact that at St. James' his flight was followed by the
augmentation of the household of the little brother he

From the picture by Honthorst at Hampton Court.
JAMES II. AS DUKE OF YORK.

ROYALIST RISINGS 379
had left behind him, the only one of the King's sons
remaining in the power of his opponents.
Meantime the hopes of the RoyaHsts were rising. On
May 1st a formal invitation was sent to the Prince of
Wales to repair to Scotland. Before the end of the
month a portion of the fleet had declared for the King ;
Carlisle and Berwick were in the hands of his partisans ;
Wales was in arms ; and unorganised and spontaneous
risings were taking place in other parts of the country,
the spirit of Kent in particular being displayed in the
enthusiastic reception given at Sandwich to an impostor
masquerading as the Prince of Wales.
The zeal of the Kentish men carried them on too
fast, and by the first days of June the forces prematurely
gathered together under the Earl of Norwich had been
dispersed by Fairfax. On the other hand, Essex had
risen, and Fairfax's troops in their turn experienced
a reverse. When the Prince of Wales quitted
Saint-Germain on June 25 th, with the intention of
making his way, vid Calais, to HoUand, Colchester was
blockaded by the Independent forces, and the siege was
proceeding. The Prince — as usual when it was a question of the
fulfilment of promises made by Mazarin — had been
disappointed of money to be contributed by France
towards the expenses of his journey, and had started more
thinly attended than would otherwise have been the case.
All the available privy councillors had, nevertheless, re
ceived orders to repair to Calais, and the Lord Treasurer,
the Earl of Bristol, and the secretary, Nicholas, were on
their way thither. A fortnight later Jermyn followed,
Newcasde also leaving Paris for Holland. Thirty thou
sand pounds had been raised by the Queen upon jewels
StiU unsold ; and, thus supplied with the necessary funds.

38o HENRIETTA MARIA
Ormond was preparing to start for Ireland, there to
attempt to carry out his plans.
In Paris Henrietta remained, lonely and anxious
concerning the enterprise upon which her boy had set
forth. Other and more sordid cares oppressed her.
" Our court wants money," wrote Sir Richard Browne,
British Resident in Paris, at the end of July, " and
lives very quietly at Saint-Germain." It did want
money, badly. Some three weeks after the parting
of mother and son, Madame de Motteville, with a
friend, visited Henrietta at the Carmelite convent to
which she had temporarily withdrawn. The Queen was
found alone, busily engaged in writing and fastening
up her letters for England. When this had been done,
she turned to her guests, expressing her misgivings as
to the success of the Prince's expedition. Then she
spoke of her own condition, left almost without means
of subsistence. A little golden cup from which she drank
was, she told them, the only gold in her possession ; and
when her son's servants had come, on his departure, to
ask for money, she had had none wherewith to satisfy
their claims. To other troubles inseparable from her
position was added the menace of actual want.
That the Queen was reduced to these straits was in
part owing to the condition of French affairs. At the
Palais Royal money was scarce. Dissensions between
the court and the Parliament were becoming daily more
violent, and Anne of Austria and her minister to a greater
degree objects of aversion. To Henrietta, taught by ex
perience the length to which disaffection may be carried,
the struggle appeared a prelude to a convulsion such as
that which had taken place in England ; and she was
eager and anxious to act as peace-maker, and to convince
the Queen-Regent — as stubborn in her resistance to the

DISAFFECTION IN PARIS 381
popular demands as Henrietta herself at an earlier date —
of the necessity of a policy of conciUation. So far,
however, her sister-in-law had proved deaf to her
counsels, and not long after Charles' departure she had
taken the bold step of arresting Broussel, the popular
idol, with two of his parliamentary colleagues.
The most important of the prisoners had been taken
to Saint-Germain, where Henrietta was then living, and
had there been lodged on his way to a more distant
place of captivity. On hearing of his arrival it occurred
to the Queen that she might use the opportunity to
intervene. She therefore visited him in the room in
which he was confined, and addressing him graciously
with a promise to intercede on his behalf with the
Regent, proceeded to reproach him with language he
had used, and, so to speak, to deliver a sermon upon
the text furnished by the present condition of England.
Let Broussel save her native land and his from a like fate.
The prisoner's reply is not recorded. He was before
long to be in a position to profit, were he so minded, by
her exhortations. Paris was clamorously demanding his
liberation, barricades were set up, the city was in tumult,
but the Regent remained obstinate in her resistance.
Again Henrietta threw her weight into the scales in
favour of peace.
Mole, the President, with twenty colleagues, had been
introduced by Orleans himself into the petite chambre
grise where Anne sat, surrounded by the princesses of
the blood — Henrietta, who, it would seem, had hurried
up from Saint-Germain, being also present.
The petition was presented, Orleans imploring his
sister-in-law to relent. And still the Regent, proud
and indignant, rejected both his counsels of peace and
the entreaties of the princesses. Then Henrietta, laying

382 HENRIETTA MARIA
her hand upon the Queen's, as it hung over her chair,
added her supplications to the rest, enforcing them with
the old cogent argument afforded by personal experience.
At the first not even in England had the foment been
so great. " Yield, Madame," she urged, " listen to our
prayer." It is said that at this moment the King's
laughter rang out in the garden below where he was
at play. Mole seized his opportunity.
" Mon Dieu ! " he said, " whilst that child is playing
he is losing his crown."
Whether or not it was the boy's laugh that gave the
prisoners their liberty, Anne submitted to necessity. The
popular leaders were released, and an armistice between
the contending parties was arranged.
If Henrietta had done her best to promote a poHcy
of conciliation, she was not given credit for it. A
contemporary letter from a Royalist in Paris mentions
that the fact that Broussel had been confined in the
chamber of Crofts, Henrietta's captain of the guard,
together with the subsequent visit she paid to the Queen-
Regent, had damaged her in the eyes of the populace.
It was reported that, so far from her visit having been
paid in the interests of peace, her object had been to urge
resistance upon her sister-in-law, and to advise her to
take warning by the ill success following upon com
pliance in England. "I wish," added the writer of the
letter, " the visit had been spared, and that some other
place had been his prison."
Serious as was the situation in Paris, Henrietta can
have spared but a fitful interest to French affairs. News
from England was discouraging. A grave error had
been committed in the appointment of Holland, at long
last returned to his allegiance, to the supreme com
mand of the rising intended to coincide with a Scottish

After the picture by Van Dyck.
LUCY PERCY, COUNTESS OF CARLISLE.

COLLAPSE OF ROYALIST RISING 383
descent upon the country. The arrangement had been
mainly due to Lady Cariisle, who, it might have been
supposed, had sufliciendy proved her untrustworthiness
as an adviser ; and when the Earl, having " a mind
to redeem his former faults by a new and thorough
engagement," offered his services, the Queen deter
mined to accept them. His old friendship with Jermyn
had been renewed, and the post conferred upon him
was an earnest of the forgiveness he had won. His
present pledges were redeemed, and he was shortly to
pay for his tardy loyalty on the scaffold. It was a time
when pardon might be politic ; Holland would have
found it difficult, with the best will in the world, to change
sides again, and self-interest might be trusted to safe
guard his faith. But he was not the less unfitted for the
office he was to fill. In a business demanding the utmost
secrecy, his movements were matters of public report,
and when on Jvdy 4th he took the field, the fortunes
of the enterprise were decided in a week. By the loth
he was himself a prisoner ; his master of the Horse,
the young Duke of Buckingham, had made his escape
to HoUand ; and Buckingham's brother. Lord Francis
ViUiers, had lost his life. If the absolute collapse of
the attempt had done no more, it had proved that the
English Royalists were wholly incapable, unless supple
mented by aid from Scotland or abroad, of coping with
the Parliamentary troops.
Of the necessary assistance there was at present little
hope. Not long after the south-country rising had been
crushed, the Scottish expedition arranged to coincide
with it ended in failure no less complete, and the Prince,
on his arrival at the Downs, was met with the news of
Hamilton's capitulation at Uttoxeter. Before the end of
August Colchester had fallen. Deal was soon to follow ;

384 HENRIETTA MARIA
and, separated from the enemy's fleet when preparing
for battle, it only remained for Charles, denuded of all
necessaries, to put back to Holland. The net result of
the venture, so far as the Prince was concerned, was the
proof he had given, by accepting the terms proposed by
Lauderdale on behalf of the Scotch, that whatever might
be the case with his father, he would not permit scruples
of conscience to stand between himself and his heritage.
He had consented to go to Scotland unaccompanied by
those of his followers who had been proscribed ; and,
though not without some difficulty, had been induced to
undertake to conform, whilst in the Scotch camp,
to Presbyterian worship. The light in which these
concessions were likely to strike some of the warmest
adherents of the Royalist cause is reflected in a letter
addressed by Hyde to the Queen from the Hague,
when there was still a question of Charles' repairing
to Scotland. After reporting that he and Cottington had had
audience of the Prince, he expressed his deep regret
that he had not seen Henrietta and learnt her wishes.
The faUure to do so had been his first and greatest
misfortune, the presage of all that had followed. He
then proceeded to make a less courtier-like confession of
his religious and political faith. Had he had an interview
with her, he would have told her that he had changed in
nothing since he had first kissed her hands. His de
votion to the Church of England was such that he would
consent to nought that would destroy or change it. He
would also resist all attempts, were they of King or
Queen themselves, to lessen the power of the Crown.
He therefore begged her to consider how unfitted he was
to take part in the present transaction ; and trusted that
he would not lose her favour if he prayed for some

TREATY OF NEWPORT 385
service other than that of accompanying the Prince to
Scotland.
It must soon have been clear that nothing was to be
gained at the moment by Charles' presence in the
northern kingdom, and Jermyn told Hyde that, though
unconvinced by his arguments, the Scotch scheme was no
longer in question. "The Queen," he added, "makes
you no answer by this occasion." The fact that Charles'
fleet was blockaded at Helvoetsluys would in any case
have made the expedition impossible. Henrietta, how
ever, undaunted by disappointment, was still at work,
refusing to abandon hopes of carrying on the struggle.
The Duke of Lorraine might supply troops, Venice
money ; whilst the conclusion of the French war with
Germany seemed to render aid from France more possible
than before. But it was to Ireland that, Scotland having
proved a broken reed, the eyes of the Royalist party
were chiefly turning.
In the Isle of Wight, the spot where the interests of
the King's faithful servants were above all centred, the
treaty of Newport was in progress, though it must have
been patent from the first that little good was likely
to come of it. Charles' virtues and his faults continued
to bar the way to a genuine understanding. He was
distrusted, and he was distrusted with reason. He
made concessions with the deliberate intention, by some
sleight of language or moral sophistry, of evading them.
On the other hand, he refused to give way on points
which were amongst the necessary preliminaries to any
settlement. Conscience is an incalculable quantity. It
is difficult to comprehend the frame of mind permitting
a man to enter into one set of engagements with the
purpose of breaking them, whilst principle keeps him
firm in declining to give other pledges. Yet this was

386 HENRIETTA MARIA
Charles' case. " Lest the rumour of my concessions
concerning Ireland should prejudice my affairs there," he
wrote to the Queen, " I send the enclosed letter to the
Marquis of Ormond, the sum of which is to obey your
command, and to refuse mine till I certify him I am a
free man." "Be not startled at my great concessions
concerning Ireland," he wrote to Ormond himself, "for
that they will come to nothing." It would be difficult
to produce evidence more conclusive of the impossibiUty
of building a secure edifice upon the shifting foundation
of the King's word. And yet — here comes in the curious
caprice of a conscience at once elastic and scrupulous
— there were vital points, such as the old question of
church government, upon which he was as firm as ever
in decHning to treat. Upon some matters he would not
so much as appear to yield ; upon others he yielded,
deliberately intending to break the engagements made ;
whilst in the case of a third class it may be believed that
he meant in honesty to redeem his promises. Remem
bering besides that he had left himself a loophole for
escape should he be entangled in the network of com
promise, by the stipulation that no pledges should be held
binding unless a complete understanding upon every
point should be reached, it can scarcely have failed to be
clear that the negotiations, on the King's part, were
scarcely more than a device to gain time.
Schemes of effecting an escape had not been wanting ;
and Charles had been long intending to avail himself for
that purpose of the comparative liberty afforded by the
exchange of Carisbrooke Castle for a lodging in Newport.
His parole, it was true, had been given, but excuses had
appeared to justify, in contemplation, its breach. Brought
face to face with the opportunity of flight, the step wore a
different aspect ; and he could not bring himself to break

After the picture by J an D'ick at Drcsd
CHARLES THE FIRST.

THE KING'S TRIAL 387
the given pledge. On the following day, December ist,
his removal to Hurst Castle put an end to the chances
of evasion. By the 15th he was at Windsor; and
five weeks later he stood for the first time before his
judges. However long such a development had been pre
paring, the shock will have been none the less when
Henrietta learnt that the King was to be tried for his
life. In a letter of an earlier date, quoted in an old
biography, Charles appears to have striven to prepare her
for the coming blow. He was, he told her, thinking
rather of death than of keeping the fight up any longer.
Let her think no more of saving him, since it would
be useless. Reading this letter, the biographer adds,
the Queen was so unhappy that she seemed almost to be
dying, and the Regent was summoned. Arriving in a
few hours, Anne had comforted her sister-in-law with her
presence. Such comfort can have been but of little
avaU ; and now that the end was more plainly imminent
Henrietta wrote, on January 6th, an urgent appeal
to be permitted to join the King. " Struck to the
heart," says Clarendon, " with arhazement and confusion
upon the report of what the Parliament intended," she
sent to the French agent in London, de Grignan, letters
addressed to the " Speakers " of both Houses, desiring a
pass to enable her to go to London, and offering to use
her influence to induce Charles to satisfy Parliament.
Should her interposition be declined, she begged to be
permitted to be at hand in his extremity. Urgent
as was her pleading, she feared a refusal. " I dare
not promise myself," she told Grignan, in sending her
enclosures, " that they wiU give me leave to go. I
desire it too greatly to count upon it at a time when my
wishes so rarely find fulfilment."
VOL. II. 6

388 HENRIETTA MARIA
Her forebodings proved true. The petitions were
laid aside unopened, nor was any answer made.
In a letter to Charles^ she told him that she wished
to die for him, or at least with him ; that she could not
Hve without hopes of being restored to him ; that she
had done her utmost, and still hoped to help him.
Such hopes were quickly to end. On January 27th
sentence of death had been passed upon the King. The
night after, says the Moderate Intelligencer, he com
manded his dogs to be taken away and to be sent to the
Queen, unwilling to have anything present that might
take him off from serious consideration of himself. The
next day witnessed a more bitter parting. On the 29th
he took leave of his children. To Elizabeth, just thirteen,
he gave his last message to the wife he was to see no
more, bidding her let her mother know " that his thoughts
had never strayed from her, and that his love should be
the same to the last," To little Gloucester, not yet ten,
he reiterated his injunctions never to permit himself to
be made king in his brother's place, the child giving
his well-known promise, " I will sooner be torn in pieces
first," The scene familiar to all followed. Through the
grave and gate of death, Charles, vanquished and defeated,
passed out a victor. In the eyes of the mass of his
people he was quickly to become, from the representative
of a lost cause, a martyr and a saint.
' Quoted in an early biography.

CHAPTER XIX
1649
Paris in 1649 — The Queen's poverty — Her reception of the news of the
King's death — Charles II. and his mother — His marriage with Made
moiselle again in question — Charles in France — Disputes with the
Queen — Hyde's intervention — A visit from Mademoiselle — Charles
leaves France.
WHEN the news of the tragedy at Whitehall
reached France, Henrietta was at the Louvre,
deprived of what comfort and consolation she might
have found in the presence of her constant friend, the
Queen-Regent, by the absence of the latter from Paris.
The preceding weeks had been a time of riot and
disorder. The smouldering animosities of court and
Parliament had burst into open flame, and recourse had
been had to arms. Upon the eve of the Epiphany the
Regent had determined upon the important step of
quitting Paris secretly, taking with her the King ; to
proceed to Saint-Germain, and thence to lay siege to the
capital. In the smaU hours of January 6th messengers
from the Palais Royal apprised those belonging to the
court of her intention, and bade them rise and accompany
her without delay. There were some who made ex
cuses, but the majority obeyed, and Paris awoke in
the morning to find itself abandoned by Regent, King,
minister, and court.
All that day the city was in tumult. Some courtiers
who had been left behind followed the court to Saint-
389

390 HENRIETTA MARIA
Germain ; others quitted Paris for reasons of their own,
or to escape from the reigning confusion.
Henrietta had not been amongst those who had
joined in the general exodus. She was pre-occupied
by interests nearer home than even the breaking out
of a civil war under her eyes. On the very day that
the crowd of princes and nobles and ladies of the court
had taken the road to Saint-Germain, her appeal to the
Parliament sitting at Westminster had been written ;
and, with the thought of what was going forward in
England, it is likely that she had as little attention to
spare for the noisy demonstrations of the Parisian mob
as politicians more immediately concerned in the matter
had for her. She was not, however, wholly forgotten.
Five or six days before the court left Paris, the Cardinal
de Retz, leader of the Fronde, had paid a visit to the
Louvre, and has left upon record the condition in which
he found the exiled Queen of England and her little
child. It was in the room of the four-year-old Henriette-
Anne, still in bed, that Henrietta received her guest.
" You see I am here to keep Henriette company,"
she told him. " The poor child could not rise to-day
for want of a fire."
On inquiry it transpired that the pension paid to
her by Mazarin was six months in arrear, that she
was unable to obtain credit, and that not a bundle of
wood remained available in the palace.
"You will do me the justice to believe," adds the
Cardinal, " that the Princess of England did not keep
her bed the following day, for lack of a faggot," So
strongly did he represent Henrietta's needs to Parlia
ment that she shortly afterwards received a grant of
40,000 livres from that body.

THE QUEEN'S POVERTY 391
Remembering that, not a week later,^ the Queen was
to receive news of the urgent perU in which her
husband stood, and to send her appeal for permission
to share it, cold and hunger may well have been the
least of the troubles she had to bear. Nor was it
Henrietta's habit to lay stress upon physical discomfort.
When forced, now or later, for want of fuel to spend
the afternoons in the heated galleries of the Louvre,
she was accustomed to speak of her necessities as a
thing " ou U sembloit qu'eUe n'eust aucune part," nor
was she ever heard to complain. It is stated in a
manuscript of the day^ that, whilst any other queen
would have been abandoned by her attendants, owing
to the distress in her household at the time of the
Fronde, Henrietta's servants endured astonishing priva
tions before quitting her in search of food. " She
shares them with us," they said, " and what suflSces
her, suffices us." The comforts denied to her dependants,
she preferred to dispense with.
Yet, however heroically met, the fact that cold and
hunger were staring Henrietta in the face was a singular
feature of the times, and de Retz was justified in his
assertion that posterity would hardly believe that a
princess of England, grand-daughter of Henri-Quatre,
had wanted a faggot in the Louvre, in the month of
January and in the sight of the French court.
The insinuation, natural enough in the mouth of
the leader of the Fronde, that Henrietta had suffered
neglect at the hands of those bound by every obligation
of blood and race to minister to her necessities, is not
altogether fair. In the stress of the present crisis her
' Henrietta's letter is dated January 6th, N.S. It was laid aside on
January 3rd, O.S., at Westminster.
' Quoted by Miss Strickland,

392 HENRIETTA MARIA
condition may, indeed, have been overlooked ; but, so
long as Anne had been in a position to make it so,
her conduct towards her unfortunate sister-in-law had
been marked by consistent liberality. The days were
at hand when the Regent was to find it no easy matter
to supply the necessaries of life to her own court.
Personally, Henrietta had little to fear from the
stormy condition of Paris. The Condes, some of whom
had already thrown the weight of their great position
into the scales in favour of the Fronde, were her
friends ; nor was it forgotten by others besides the
Cardinal de Retz that she was the daughter of a king
of whom the nation was justly proud. In spite of her
penury, she was able to afford protection to those who
needed it ; and Madame de Motteville, on her own
confession far from vaillante, and terrified at the state
of the city, sought and obtained, for herself and her
sister, shelter at the Louvre.
Open warfare had begun and the town was blockaded
by the Queen-Regent's troops. The Seine was in flood,
and Paris inundated, traffic being carried on in some
parts of the town by means of boats. It was a dreary
January. Personal cares, however, take precedence of
public disaster, and to Henrietta the increased difficulty
in maintaining regular communication with England will
have appeared the most serious result of the siege.
Little news reached the beleaguered city, and to the
condition of public affairs in France the Queen attri
buted Charles' silence, due in reality to the strictness
of the guard kept upon the prisoner.
So the month wore away tUl the final scene took
place at Whitehall. The end had already come when
false tidings reached the Queen, telHng how Charles
had been led from prison to the scaffold, and how.

TIDINGS OF CHARLES' DEATH 393
before the execution could be carried out, the people
had intervened to save him. If, as it was surmised,
the tale had been deliberately invented by Jermyn to
pave the way for what he had no doubt was soon to
Mow, he miscalculated his mistress's sanguine spirit ;
for, relating the story with tears to her friends, Hen
rietta drew from it fresh hope for the future.
It was not until ten days after the event that the fatal
truth at length reached her. On the preceding after
noon her second son, James, in possession of the
facts, had made his way to Paris ; but it seems to
have been determined to leave the unhappy Queen in
ignorance of her calamity for another four-and-twenty
hours ; and at dinner next day she was anxiously
awaiting the return of a messenger who had been sent
to obtain news from Saint-Germain.^
Having pronounced the grace, her attendant Capuchin,
Pfere Cyprian de Gamache, who afterwards wrote an
account of the scene, had been about to withdraw,
when he received an intimation that he would do well
to remain at his post, in order that he might be at
hand when his mistress should receive tidings of the
death of her husband. An hour passed and nothing was
heard. As ordinary conversation was carried on, the
Queen's uneasiness at the delay of her messenger grew.
Why was he so long in coming? she questioned,
Jermyn answered, making use of the opportunity to
prepare her for what was to foUow. The gentleman
sent, he said, was so faithful and so prompt that, had
the news been favourable, he would not have failed to
reach her sooner,
'I In an early French biography, anonymously published, but attributed
to C. Cotolendi, Henrietta is stated to have received the news at a
Carmelite convent. But de Gamache's account is manifestly the true one.

394 HENRIETTA MARIA
" What, then, is it ? " asked the Queen. " I perceive
plainly that you know."
Jermyn did know. Not even now at once, but
graduaUy, he made the necessary announcement. AU
hope was over ; the King was dead.
The shock was overwhelming. Strange though it
may seem, in the Capuchin's word Henrietta " had not
expected anything of the kind," and the blow found
her — as such blows commonly do — wholly unprepared.
For long she sat, silent, motionless, " like a statue," deaf
to what was said, insensible to the efforts made to rouse
her. It was only when night was falling that her
sister-in-law, the Duchesse de Vendome, herself in tears,
succeeded in awakening her from the species of stupor in
which she was wrapped.
That February day marked the culminating point of
Henrietta's misfortunes. The goal towards which the
efforts, the labours, the longings of years had been
directed, was no longer attainable. Never again in this
life would she look upon Charles' melancholy face ;
never again, whatever might befall, would her King enjoy
his own. Her happiness lay in ruins around her, nor
was any reconstruction of it possible.
Her friend, Madame de Motteville, at once open-
eyed and affectionate, and who enjoyed exceptional
opportunities of forming a judgment, has left her convic
tion upon record that, in her heart as well as outwardly,
Henrietta wore henceforth perpetual mourning. " With
her the King had shared his greatness and his riches ; it
was just that she should taste largely of the bitterness
of his lot ; and that, he having died once, she should die
daily." Later on, indeed, she would wake to life again.
She was not forty. Her children remained, outcasts Hke
herself from the land where their father had reigned as

HENRIETTA'S MOURNING 395
king ; for them work was to be done, rights regained.
There was, besides, a buoyancy and elasticity about her
character which would reassert itself But, for the time,
the blow must have come near to be paralysing.
Two days later she was, nevertheless, in a condition
to take thought for others. Madame de MotteviUe,
having obtained a pass enabling her to rejoin the court at
Saint-Germain, came to take leave of her protectress, and,
kneeHng by the Queen's bedside, listened to the messages,
broken by sobs, sent by Henrietta to the Regent. " She
commanded me to let the Queen know of her condition,
and to tell her that her Lord the King, whose death
was to render her the most unhappy woman in the
world, had been lost because he had never known the
truth ; that she counselled her not to exasperate her
subjects unless she had strength to subdue them entirely;
that the people is a savage beast, never to be tamed ;
that her Lord the King had made proof of it ; and that
she prayed God that there might be more happiness in
France than in England. But above all she counseUed
her to listen to those who should speak the truth, to
labour to discover it, and to beHeve that the greatest
evil of which kings were capable, and which alone could
prove destructive to their kingdoms, was to be ignorant
of it." Proceeding to deal with matters bearing more directly
upon her personal interests, she demanded that no
time should be lost in recognising the Prince of Wales
as king, and the young Duke of York as heir to the
throne. Then, once more overcome with a passion
of grief, she recurred to her own irrecoverable loss, the
loss of a king, a husband, and a friend, and to the
undying sorrow he had bequeathed her.
In this interview Henrietta is very Hke herself, equally

396 HENRIETTA MARIA
in her passionate regrets, her desire to impress upon her
sister-in-law the lessons life had taught her, and the
instant measures she took to assert her children's rights.
In the first violence of her grief she took the step
of retiring for a time into the CarmeUte convent in the
Faubourg-Saint-Jacques, leaving, says Pere Cyprian, the
care of the morals of the four-year-old Henriette-Anne
to Lady Dalkeith — now become Lady Morton — and
her instruction to himself The affairs of her son were
not, however, in a condition to dispense with her atten
tion, and she had not been long in her place of retreat
when the Capuchin was sent to point out the desirability
of a return to the Louvre. It was, accordingly, at
the palace that she was found by Mademoiselle when,
two months later, she profited by the conclusion of a
temporary peace with the insurgents to come from Saint-
Germain to pay her aunt a visit of condolence.
To turn from the narratives of those who loved
Henrietta and made her sorrows their own, to that of
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, is a transition from tragedy
to comedy. It was not two months since the Queen
had reached the climax of her misfortunes. The event
filling all Royalists with horror and rage was new,
and their grief finding expression in strange and almost
blasphemous language.
" Even the crucifying of our blessed Saviour," wrote
Digby to Ormond in his first vehemence of sorrow and
wrath, " if we consider Him only in His human nature,
did nothing equal this. His kingdom being not of this
world, and He, though as unjustly condemned, yet
judged at a lawful tribunal. May all tears for his
Majesty be dried up in such an indignation as may
inflame all honest hearts to a noble vengeance of so
innocent a suffering."

A VISIT FROM MADEMOISELLE 397
Whilst this was the spirit breathed by the dead
King's servants, Henrietta would not be less moved ;
and Clarendon, who had little liking for her, acknow
ledges "the great agony she was in, which without
doubt was as great a passion of sorrow as she was able
to sustain." Mademoiselle took a different view ; nor
did she consider her aunt as much concerned as she might
have been at her bereavement. "For my part," adds
the niece, indulgently if inconsistently, " I beUeve it was
through strength of mind that she appeared thus." It
may rather have been owing to an instinct warning
Henrietta that sympathy was not to be expected from
her shrewd, hard-headed visitor.
It was on this occasion that MademoiseUe made
acquaintance with her young cousin, the Duke of York,
who appears to have been the one member of the English
royal family she thoroughly approved. He was, she says,
a very pretty boy, weU made and with a handsome face.
He also spoke French weU, which gave him a great advan
tage over his brother, the King. His conversation was
well chosen, and his cousin expressed herself in every way
pleased with her new companion. During her stay in
Paris she visited Henrietta daily, and was accustomed to
take the boy out, thus affording him a welcome diversion
from the sadness prevailing at the Louvre.
Though her second son had obeyed Henrietta's
summons to Paris, the new-made King lingered in
Holland, by no means desirous, according to Clarendon,
of returning to France and his mother's vicinity.
His disinclination wiU have been strengthened and
encouraged by those about him. It was true that, at the
first, minor differences had been sunk in the sense of
an overwhelming and common calamity. The rough
draught of an unsent letter from Charles to his mother.

398 HENRIETTA MARIA
whether emanating from himself or from Hyde, in
dicates the attitude then assumed by the King. He
there begs her not to yield to a destroying sorrow,
which would rob him of his only comfort and blessing ;
entreats that she will assist and guide him by her
counsels ; and assures her that, as never son had greater
obligations and bonds of duty and gratitude towards a
mother, so no mother ever received a fuller and more
entire submission and obedience from a son.
It was, perhaps, well that professions to which con
duct was soon to offer a signal contradiction remained
unmade. But the letter reflects with sufficient truth the
state of feeling at the Hague immediately consequent
upon the King's execution. In April Hyde gave ex
pression, writing to Sir John Berkeley in his own
person, to his sentiments. " My duty," he said, " to the
Queen is a part of my religion, and I shall as soon take
the Covenant as commit any fault willingly against her."
The oath — the strongest of which the Chancellor was
capable — was probably perfecdy sincere. Loyalty was to
him an article of his faith ; and Henrietta had the
further claim upon him of being the wife of a master he
had loved devotedly.
In the first keenness of her sorrow the Queen, too,
had evinced a disposition to bury the hatchet, and had
shown herself favourably incHned towards her husband's
old and faithful servants. Her state of feeling is
described in the letters of Lord Hatton — an English
refugee at this time, though not afterwards, in much
favour at the Louvre — to his friend Sir Edward Nicholas.
The good Queen, Hatton wrote, had "expressed her
content that such honest men should be about her son,"
adding that " if any strangeness had been, it was through
mistaking of her." Hatton believed in her sincerity.

DISTRUST OF JERMYN 399
and was confident that her heart dictated to her tongue.
A few days later, when just come from the presence
of "our good and sad Queen," the same writer was
again able to report that she was resolved to abide by
Ormond's advice— advice certain to be in harmony with
the views of Hyde and Nicholas— and to shun the rocks
upon which eariier designs had split. Should money
be lacking to enable the King to proceed to Ireland
 the project promising most success at the moment —
she would be ready to sacrifice the jewels in pawn in
HoUand rather than aUow financial difficulties to hinder
his journey. It is plain that, in Hatton's opinion,
had Henrietta been left to herself, Charles and his
advisers would have had no cause of complaint. On
the other hand, not Nicholas nor Hyde themselves
could have surpassed him in distrust of Jermyn and
his " vast and exorbitant power," and so long as this
counseUor retained his influence it was impossible that
the men who represented a party opposed to him should
feel confidence either in the Queen's wisdom and
discretion, or in her attitude towards themselves,
Charles had lost no time in causing the members
of his father's Council to be sworn of his own. This
had been done before a letter from his mother reached
him, not only expressing her desire that he would
at once repair to France, but urging him to admit
no person to be member of the Privy Council till
she should have conferred with him on the subject.
Lord Hatton, it is true, explained her request as a
mere wish to acquaint the new King with his father's
will ; but he was careful to add that Jermyn had no
share in the Queen's goodness and noble ends, and
that, in his belief, neither Hyde nor Cottington would
retain their posts could he compass their removal.

400 HENRlEllA MARIA
Hatton also told Secretary Nicholas, in his ear, that
he had a very, very great jealousy that Lord Digby
would be likewise left in the lurch. In the sequel it
would seem that Hatton's jealousy on this point was not
unfounded ; but for the present Henrietta was doing
her best to secure for Digby her son's favour ; since
in a letter to the late King's secretary Charles informed
him that his mother took all his concernments very much
to heart, and that he had given her his word that, when
better times should come, Digby should have a place
as near his own person and trust as he could desire.
Hyde indeed feared that, in his confidence of the Queen's
favour and Jermyn's friendship, his unwise friend would
again " put himself too much upon the stage." " What
this madness may produce, who knows ? " sighed the
Chancellor, ever sighting perils ahead.
WhUst Digby was ready to put faith in the Queen's
goodwill, the view taken by Hatton of the manner
in which Jermyn's influence would be asserted with
regard to the King's present advisers was not such as
to lessen their disinclination that he should return to
France. The saddest thing in their business, Hyde told
Nicholas, was that those about the Queen had learnt
to dissemble so much that they knew not whom to trust.
As for the King, nothing had been left unsaid to him
concerning both his father's and his mother's counsellors,
and he heartily loved all honest men. In other words,
all had been done that man could do to inspire him
with confidence in the first and distrust for the last.
Yet the Chancellor predicted another short reign for
Jermyn, Goring, and Percy before matters should go
right. Other reasons were not wanting to render Hyde and
his friends unwilHng that the King should betake himself

THE QUEEN'S HOPES 401
to Paris. It was held that he had been badly treated at
his coming thence, and distrust was felt in some quarters
as to the use that the possession of his person might
prove to the Fronde in trafficking with the Parliament
at Westminster. It was, at aU events, not tiU the
summer that the meeting to which Henrietta looked
forward with so much eagerness took place ; and Jermyn
had been despatched to the Hague to enforce her wishes
before her son yielded to the pressure brought to bear
upon him and proceeded to France.
The Queen had not spent the interval in idleness,
and had in particular been pursuing her efforts to obtain
for Charles a wealthy bride. WhUst he was lingering
in Holland, she had once more set on foot negotiations
designed to realise her dream of a marriage with his cousin.
At first it seemed not improbable that her endeavours
would be crowned with success. Charles' position had
undergone a change since he had sat at Mademoiselle's
feet at the ball. In theory at least, and in name, he
was a reigning sovereign, and, according to his mother's
anticipations, not without good hope of turning his
titular kingship into a reahty. " The King my son is
still in Holland," she wrote to her sister in May,
"but I am daUy expecting to hear of his departure
to come hither on his way to Ireland, where he is
awaited with the utmost impatience, aU that country
being reduced to obedience, with the exception of two
towns, one of them being the capital of the kingdom,
called Dublin, which is held by the Parliamentarians.
We hope to take it soon ; it is now besieged by the
Viceroy. If it is taken the other wiU not hold out.
AU Ireland is quiet, and the King will have an army
of 25,000 good men to dispose of as he pleases."
Nor was Henrietta's forecast unduly sanguine. The

402 HENRIETTA MARIA
King's execution had raised a formidable volume of public
indignation, at home and abroad. The Czar dismissed
the English envoy. France withdrew her ambassador.
The States-General of Holland recognised Charles as King,
and refused to receive the envoys from England, In
Scotland the new King had been proclaimed, and he
himself invited to repair thither. Ireland, under
Ormond, was said to be, three-fourths of it, loyal.
Dissension was present in the camp of his opponents.
Under such circumstances a restoration might well appear
to lie in the near future.
Mademoiselle was not insensible to the advantages
of a union offering many possibilities, besides the right
to take precedence of the Queen-Regent in her own
court, a privilege specially dazzling to an aspirant of
the temper of Anne of Austria's niece. When she was,
therefore, approached on the subject by her father, she
was found to be in a mood of unusual dociUty. He was
a better judge than herself, she declared, of what was for
her welfare ; she was prepared to yield him obedience
in all things, and his will should be hers. Mazarin
appeared favourably disposed towards the project, making
more of the " gaudy promises " — to use Clarendon's
phrase — of which he was lavish ; and the Regent set
herself to plead the cause of Henrietta's son, rallying
Mademoiselle so mercilessly, in Jermyn's presence, that
the victim wishes us to believe that she was put to the
blush. Reflection availed to show the wary heiress that
there was another side to the question. She had been
used to riches and pleasure, and she was too shrewd to
be blind to the contingency that, in the event of a
marriage with her cousin, aU her vast possessions might
prove insufficient to restore to him his throne. Deter
mining, therefore, to follow a non-committing policy, she

MADEMOISELLE AND CHARLES 403
discovered an obstacle to the match having the additional
merit of reflecting credit upon herself For her aunt's
sake, she told Jermyn, who was acting as intermediary,
she would have been ready to overlook its material
disadvantages, but religion presented an insuperable
hindrance, which it was for Charles to remove. Jermyn
made the natural reply that to declare himself a
Catholic would be whoHy destructive to her cousin's
chances of regaining his kingdom, and the marriage
question remained, as Mademoiselle had probably intended,
in abeyance. Thus matters stood when Charles' long-deferred
journey to France Was made. The French court, at the
time of his arrival, was at Compiegne, where he paid
a passing visit before proceeding to join his mother at
Saint-Germain. . The result of his meeting with MademoiseUe was
awaited with an interest and curiosity fully shared by his
cousin. She would have Hked the King, she frankly
admitted, to make love to her—" qu'U me dise des
douceurs" — since it was what no one else had dared
to do. This singular fact she ascribed, not to her rank
—queens of her acquaintance not having lacked lovers —
but to her own want of coquetry. « Without, however,
being a coquette, I could well listen to love-making from
a king to whom they would marry me. So I wish
very much that he would do it."
MademoiseUe's wish was not fulfiUed, As she
entered the royal carriage to go to meet the guest, the
Queen noticed her curled hair, and mocked at the
unusual care displayed in its arrangement. One could
easily see, she said, when gallants were expected. It
was upon MademoiseUe's lips to reply that those who
had possessed them were in a position to judge ; but
VOL, II, /

404 HENRIETTA MARIA
she repressed the insolent inuendo, and the party pro
ceeded on their way to welcome the visitor.
Charles produced, at the first, a favourable impression
upon the heiress. " Perhaps," she admits, " he might
now have found favour with me." But before the
palace was reached she had changed her mind. King
Louis entertained his guest with talk of dogs, horses,
Holland, and the Prince of Orange, Charles making
due reply. When, however, the Queen would have
questioned him on more important matters, he became
strangely ignorant of the French language, excusing
himself on that score from answering her inquiries.
It may be that the policy of reserve he was afterwards
to adopt towards his mother had been the cause of
his sudden want of conversaiicy with the Regent's
tongue ; but Mademoiselle interpreted it after another
fashion. From that moment, she says, she decided
against the marriage. To be a king, and to display
so little knowledge of his own affairs, had condemned
her suitor in her eyes.
The evening that followed was not a social success.
Left alone with his cousin, Charles permitted a quarter
of an hour to pass in dead silence. After which it
was vain for Monsieur's favourite to tell her that the
King had never removed his eyes from her during
dinner or since. The sole attempt made by Charles at
arriving at an understanding with his proposed bride
was when, at parting, he observed lamely that Lord
Jermyn, who spoke French better than himself, would
have explained his sentiments and plans, concluding by
the assurance that he was her very obedient servant.
Mademoiselle made fitting response, and thus the visit
ended. The King spent the rest of his stay in France —

MOTHER AND SON 405
some three months— with his mother at Saint-Germain,
lent to the English exiles as a place of quiet and
retirement during their time of mourning, and Httle
further intercourse took place between the cousins. The
French court was chiefly resident at Paris ; and those
belonging to it seldom cared to find their way to a
habitation offering so few attractions as Henrietta's, and
where, above all, "le malheur etoit de la partie."
To the Queen her son's eagerly expected visit
was far from proving as satisfactory as she had hoped.
The King, fresh from the admonitions of the Chancellor
and his friends, showed a strong incUnation to keep
his own counsel in matters of business ; and, upon
his mother reproaching him with his reticence, made
no secret of his intention of acting upon his own judg
ment, " and did as good as desire her not to trouble
herself in his affairs."^ The declaration of independ
ence, perhaps due in part to boyish bravado and a wish
to prove his emancipation from maternal control, must
have presented to the Queen a painful contrast to
his father's eager deference and vehement repudiation
of the very suggestion that she should withdraw from
matters of state policy ; nor was she a woman to disguise
her resentment. The natural result followed. " Finding
her passions strong, [the King] frequently retired from
her with some abruptness, and seemed not to desire
to be so much in her company as she expected." ^
A further subject of contention was furnished by one
Thomas Elliot, groom of the bedchamber. Distrusted
both by Charles I. and Henrietta, the new King had
always cherished a liking for him that he was now able
to indulge ; and Elliot, aspiring to the post of favourite,
had made his influence over the lad unfortunately felt
' Clarendon. ' Ibid.

4o6 HENRIETTA MARIA
in the exclusion of the Earl of Bristol and his son,
Digby, from the council board, and in the further
refusal of the King to continue the latter in his former
post of Secretary of State, a quasi promise having been
obtained from Charles that he should be replaced by
Elliot's own father-in-law, Windham, a man of no capacity
and totally unfitted for the proposed responsibUity.
The one point upon which Elliot and Charles' wiser
counsellors were agreed was the necessity of instilling
into his mind a dread of the injury to be suffered by
his cause should the suspicion be entertained that he
was governed by his mother ; and bearing in mind the
statement made by Hyde to Nicholas a few months
earlier, to the effect that the King had as ill an
opinion of Jermyn, " the greatest flatterer living," as
his correspondent, it will be seen that the elements at
the court of Saint-Germain were not likely to coalesce.
It was in this condition that matters were found by
Hyde when he and Lord Cottington, deputed to pro
ceed on a mission to the court of Madrid, arrived
in France shortly after the King. The Chancellor was
quickly made the confidant of both parties. Charles lost
no time in lodging with him complaints of his mother's
ill-humour, using in making them " a more exalted
dialect " than formerly, A private and confidential
interview with the Queen foUowed, when the new
comer was, in turn, duly acquainted with her grievances,
with the King's unkindness, Elliot's credit with him,
and his rudeness to herself. Adding professions of
goodwill towards the Chancellor, she expressed her
willingness that he should act as intermediary between
the belligerent parties, and do what he could to restore
peace. Though little love might be lost between the
Queen and her husband's old servant, she knew him

MOTHER AND SON 407
to be trusty and true, and at the present juncture was
glad to make use of his hold upon the King to counteract
the mischievous influence of the upstart EUiot,
Charles, taken to task by his monitor, was plausible
in his defence. He was genuinely fond of his mother,
though impatient of her dictation and, not unreasonably,
afraid of affording grounds for the beUef that he was
ruled by her. With regard to EUiot he was disposed
to hold his ground. He knew the man to be honest,
he said, and loved him well ; and though denying that
he was actually pledged to make his father-in-law
Secretary, he admitted that such was his intention,^
A second question at issue between the Queen and
her son was that of the religion of his youngest
sister. When Charles attempted to argue the point
with her, she not unnaturally evinced a determination
to continue to bring the child up in her own faith ;
and Charles, having failed to turn her from her pur
pose, desired the Chancellor to try what he could do.
The office of intermediary is not a grateful one, and
Hyde must have known that his chances of success
were small. He nevertheless obeyed, speaking, to use
his own words, as well as if it had been to save his
life, and using all the arguments most calculated to carry
weight — the suspicion which would fall upon the King,
the damage to Henrietta in the eyes of the English
people, and, finally, the " irrecoverable ruin to the lady "
of five years old.
Henrietta, as might have been expected, proved
stubborn. She urged the articles of her marriage treaty,
' This intention was afterwards frustrated by a jest of Lord Cottington,
who gravely requested the King to make a falconer, old and in poverty,
his chaplain, on the grounds that he was no less qualified for the post
than Windham to be Secretary,

4o8 HENRIETTA MARIA
declared herself to have had the late King's consent,
and showed herself fully resolved to continue her child's
education as she had begun it. It was clear that nothing
could be done in the matter, and both Charles and the
Chancellor had no alternative but to allow the Queen
her own way.
It is curious to contrast the rose-coloured account
given by Henrietta of her relations with her son with
the description of them furnished by the Chancellor.
Whatever might be her private grounds of dissatisfaction,
she was not inclined to make them public. " I think
you will not be sorry," she wrote to her sister in
July, " when I tell you that the King lives with me
in the greatest affection that is possible. You, who
have a son who treats you in the same manner, can judge
what this is to a mother."
The difficulties that had arisen may have contributed
to lessen Henrietta's regret at the conclusion of the
King's visit. His presence in France was desired neither
by court nor minister, and though the news from
Ireland and Cromwell's arrival in that country had
caused him to abandon his intention of proceeding thither,
it was decided that he should await the course of events
in Jersey rather than prolong his stay in a country
where he was an unwelcome guest.
When the time of his departure drew near, it
occurred to Mademoiselle that it was but fitting that
she should pay her respects to the mother and take
leave of the son, in whom she probably continued to feel
the interest attaching to a possible lover. An event had,
however, occurred since their meeting at Compiegne
carrying with it the downfall of any hopes that might
have been cherished by Henrietta, The Emperor was
once more a widower, and Mademoiselle's eyes were

A VISIT FROM MADEMOISELLE 409
again turned in his direction. A dignified silence upon
the subject of her disappointment was not likely to
be observed by the Queen ; and her references to the
designs she shrewdly surmised to exist on the part of
her niece were marked by both temper and bad taste.
" I must congratulate you," she told her visitor, " upon
the death of the Empress. If the affair came to nothing
before, it has every appearance of being now brought
to a successful conclusion."
Mademoiselle made the inevitable reply that the
arrangement to which her aunt's words pointed had no
place in her thoughts. But Henrietta refused to be
silenced. Here was a man, she said — Charles being
present — who was persuaded that a king of eighteen was
better worth having than an emperor of fifty, with four
children. Her son, however, was too much of a beggar
and too wretched for Mademoiselle. Then, pointing
out an English lady, she added that Charles was in love
with her : " He is afraid that you should know it. See
how ashamed he is that you should meet her, lest I
should tell you."
If the words were prompted by a desire to rouse the
heiress to jealousy, the attempt was a faUure, and Henrietta
changed her tactics. The King having by this time with
drawn, she took her niece into a room apart, and spoke
to her with greater seriousness. Her son, she said, had
begged her to ask her pardon if the proposal made
at Compiegne had displeased her. He was pursued
by the thought, and it was causing him despair. For
her own part, she would not have charged herself with
the message had not his entreaties rendered it impossible
for her to refuse. She was of her niece's own opinion.
Had Mademoiselle shared his evil fortune, she would
have been miserable. All Henrietta desired was that

4IO HENRIETTA MARIA
his present journey should prosper, and that in fliture
days his cousin should wish him well.
Mademoiselle made due acknowledgments, and the
visit might here have concluded. But when it ap
peared that Mademoiselle was proceeding to a convent
at Poissy, to visit her half-sisters, both the Duke of
York and his elder brother offered to escort her thither.
Their cousin demurred. The Duke, it was true, was
no more than a little boy, but Charles came under a
different category ; and in the end her scruples were
only removed when the King had induced his mother
to be of the party.
Conversation during the ensuing drive was eminently
personal, Henrietta enlarged upon the affection the
King would entertain for the woman who should become
his wife. She alone would absorb his love, predicted the
mother ; whilst Charles, endorsing all she said, piously
declared himself unable to understand how a man pos
sessing a reasonable wife could ever love another woman.
Whatever sentiments of the kind he might entertain
beforehand, from the moment that he was a married man
they would end, " I believed (and it was likely enough),"
adds Mademoiselle, " that all this discourse was not with
out an object. I remained but a short time at Poissy,
for it was late, I took leave of the Queen, who stayed
there. The King led me to my carriage and made me
the necessary compliments, but without any douceurs.
They would in any case have been useless. I was already
thinking of nothing but the empire,"
Thus Charles took leave of Mademoiselle and started
to seek his fortune afresh.

CHAPTER XX
1649 — 1651
Chaillot— The Christmas of 1649— Opposition ^° ^^^ Queen amongst
Royalists— Its causes— Jermyn— Hyde's correspondence— Meeting of
Queen and King at Beauvais— Henrietta's indignation at Charles'
compact with the Scotch— Disorders in Paris— Death of Princess
Elizabeth— Quarrels with the Duke of York— Death of the Prince of
Orange— Nicholas and Ormond— Lord Digby— Religious ministrations
to the English refugees — Walter Montagu's influence — Return of the
Duke of York — Worcester.
IT was not untU the foUowing spring that Charles left
Jersey to make his way to Scotland. The descent
upon Ireland originally planned having been rendered
impossible, Henrietta was, on the whole, in favour of
substituting the northern kingdom as a basis of operations.
Her own winter must have been a dreary one. On
the King's departure she had quitted Saint-Germain, to
return to her old quarters at the Louvre ; and, with the
exception of some weeks spent at Bourbon, autumn and
winter had been passed at Paris. In poverty, separated
from her son, and with little to aUeviate the hardships
of her lot, she now began, according to Clarendon, to
entertain the idea of that conventual retirement " which
from this time she practised by degrees."
The thought had not been absent from her at an
earlier date. " I own," she wrote to her sister some
three months after the King's execution, "that my
inclination is to retire to the Carmelites ; and if I find
4"

412 HENRIETTA MARIA
the King has no need of me, I shall do so ; for after
my loss I can have no moment of any joy."
That she should withdraw altogether from the world
was not possible. Had no other motive barred the way,
the little hands of Henriette-Anne would probably have
availed to hold her back. But a place of occasional
retreat seemed a necessity, and she was already considering
the alternatives open to her. At the Carmelites her visits
were inevitably a cause of disturbance to the nuns ; whUst
she declined the offer of a refuge made by the convent
of Port Royal. It was at Chaillot, in a house that had
belonged to Bassompierre, her father's friend, that she
eventually established herself ; founding there, not with
out opposition, a convent of the order of the Visitation,
and retaining in it apartments, overlooking the Seine and
Paris, ready to receive her at such times as she desired
to resort thither.
In this retreat, now the site of the Trocadero, no
small portion of Henrietta's latter years were spent ; and
she grew to love the place. " Without professing to
be devote^' says Madame de Motteville, " she was so
to a high degree." Her religious feelings, often im
prudently displayed, had ever been strong and genuine.
Headstrong in such matters, as in everything else, her
piety showed the defects of its qualities. If it was Hke
a child's in its simplicity, it was liable to be marred by
chUdish puerilities ; if it was the dominating principle
of her life, her zeal was far from being according to
knowledge. Yet she loved God, if not altogether wisely,
well. Her faith was no mere adhesion to doctrine, nor
practice of outward formalities, but animated and in
formed her life ; and the misfortunes that had wrecked
her happiness had driven her more and more to seek
in religion the comfort and consolation she was denied

CHAILLOT 413
elsewhere. To the quiet precincts where the echoes of
tumult and dissension penetrated but faintly, and the
sound of jarring voices was unheard, she turned with
growing relief.
At Chaillot as years went by she received visits from
the Queen-Mother, who would come accompanied by
her son, leaving him to walk in the convent garden
whilst she herself conversed with Henrietta within. A
graphic description of one of these visits is furnished in
a memoir drawn in part from material suppHed by the
nuns. On this occasion, Louis, apparently wearying of
conventual tranquillity, had conceived a desire to in
troduce his caliche within the walls. To gratify this
wish his young companions broke down the door ; a
crowd rushed in, overrunning every part of the enclosure
to which access was possible, and an end was only put to
the scene of confusion by the appearance on the balcony
above of the Queen-Mother, doubtless advertised by the
unusual noise that something untoward was in progress.
Her commands to Louis to stop the disorder were
prompdy obeyed. Reduced at once to penitence, and
not content with expeUing the intruders without delay,
the litde King inquired of the Bishop of Puy a method
of repairing his transgression ; the gift of a sum of
thirty pistoles was named, and quiet and peace was
restored. Henriette-Anne, as time went on, was accustomed to
accompany her mother on her visits to ChaiUot, taking
her share, after the custom of the day and as a lesson
in humility, in attendance on the nuns ; so that her
frequent presence at the convent was construed by watch
ful critics as indicating an intendon on the Queen's part
to make a nun of the child — a project of which mother
and daughter were equally innocent. Another and

414 HENRIETTA MARIA
possibly more reluctant guest was Charles himself, who,
it is said, was at one time taken by the Queen no less
than thrice weekly to Chaillot, that he might assist at
conferences there held by the persons of most ability
she could gather together.
At Christmastide of the sorrowful year of 1649
Chaillot was not yet avaUable as a place of retreat, and
it was at another convent that Henrietta spent the season.
" I believe," she wrote to her sister on the eve of
the festival, " you will receive my thanks better from the
place whence I write — which is the Carmelites — than from
the world. Here dissimulation does not reign, and it
is also a place where I can render you some service by
prayer to God. Although very unworthy, I think my
self happy that I can do this in the thing that most
concerns us. If I were good enough, you would soon
see the effects of it. I think," she added, " that being
here makes me write irrelevandy to the subject of my
letter," which was to return thanks for a gift.
Another Christmas present, and a strange one, had
been received by the Queen. The elder Princesse de
Conde — the latest object of her father's devotion — had
sent her " an extraordinary fat mutton • . . and in the
belly of the sheep were two thousand crowns."
The temporary respite to be enjoyed in her retreat
from the jealousy, intrigue, and backbiting natural to
the atmosphere of a court must have been welcome to
Henrietta, Such an atmosphere was accentuated by the
existence of the rival factions into which the Royalist
party was divided ; and by the fact, mentioned by Sir
John Berkeley, that so strong was the feeUng against
Henrietta entertained by a large number of her son's
adherents, that opposition to her imaginary power over
the King was the chief link by which they were united.

THE QUEEN AND JERMYN 415
For some of this prejudice the Queen was respons
ible. Her friendship for Jermyn was to the last degree
unfortunate. Allowing for the animosity almost in
variably aroused by the favouritism of a sovereign, the
consensus of opinion against him amongst trustworthy
judges is conclusive as to his unfitness to occupy the
post of the Queen's confidant and counsellor. But it
must be borne in mind, in her defence, that, unUke many
others, his faithfulness in misfortune as well as in pros
perity had been unwavering ; and the consciousness of
the hatred of which he was the object will have gone far
to enlist in a greater and greater measure on his side
the sympathies of a high-spirited and generous woman.
Amongst the multiplicity of charges against him some
were probably true ; but the exaggeration of others
would discredit in Henrietta's eyes the good faith of
those responsible for them. It was a time when no sin
was too black to be laid to the charge of an oppo
nent — witness the accusations brought later on against
Hyde himself, including intrigues with Cromwell ; and
a palpable gossip-monger like Lord Hatton was always
ready, in the pleasant news-letters he sent from Paris,
to stir up fresh suspicion against the favourite. In
October he was writing, with regard to an alleged attempt
to make mischief for him with the Queen, that it was
Jermyn's design and that of another unpopular person.
Long, the King's secretary, to engage her to espouse
Jermyn's quarrels as her own. And when the pawning
or selling of jewels was in question, he did not hesitate
to assert that the business would be found a " notable
juggle " ; that Jermyn was author of it ; and that, so long
as he could shelter himself behind the Queen, nothing
but trickery was to be expected. Darker hints of worse
things than dishonesty were not wanting in the insinuation

41 6 HENRIETTA MARIA
that designs entertained at the Louvre were over-well
known at Westminster.
That Jermyn was in possession of ample means, when
most of the refugee English were in abject poverty,
excused, if not justified, a certain amount of suspicion
on the part of men to whom he was an object of
dislike ; and Hatton did not scruple to suggest that
his aim was to possess himself of all the Queen was
worth. It is, however, asserted by others that, having
invested in good time large sums of money abroad, he
was not only able to live in comfort himself, but to
supplement on occasion Henrietta's slender income from
his private resources. On the whole, taking the circum
stances into consideration, and the intimacy and friendship
between the Queen and her servant being what it was, it
is no wonder that, at a period when a union of the kind
would have been in no wise without precedent, it was
asserted at the time, and has been constantly repeated
since, that a secret marriage bond existed between
Henrietta and the man who filled so many posts in
her reduced household. But the evidence in support of
this hypothesis is of the slenderest nature, whilst not
a few considerations make it improbable that the story
is founded on fact. The question, however, must be
pronounced one of those undetermined by history.'
Whatever may have been the true nature of the
relations between Henrietta and her favourite, there
can be no question that the bond, whether of friendship
or of something stronger than friendship, coupled with
the distrust for Jermyn felt by the wisest and most
loyal of the King's advisers, was largely the cause of
a reserve practised towards Henrietta, and adding much
• See Appendix for evidence for and against the Queen's marriage with
Jermyn,

CHARLES' RETICENCE 417
to the anxiety and uneasiness inseparable from her
position. It was taken for granted that Jermyn was also
acquainted with what the Queen knew, and there were
not a few Royalists, ready to risk life and fortune in
Charles' cause, who would have wholly declined to place
them in the hands of his mother's favourite. The
King can, therefore, scarcely be blamed if he deferred
to the advice of those by whom he was surrounded,
and continued in Jersey the system of reticence in
augurated at Saint-Germain. But to his mother the
exclusion from his counsels was the cause of much
bitterness. " I entreat you," she wrote to her sister, referring to
an envoy sent from Jersey to Savoy, " to tell him that
you wish to let me know what he has to say before
making any reply. You will oblige me extremely. It
must seem a little strange to you that I know nothing
of his commission." The confession must have cost
Henrietta no small amount of humiliation, more especi
ally after the boast she had made of her son's affection ;
and the suspicion that plans were laid and decisions
taken of which she was deliberately kept in ignorance,
will have added appreciably to the restless disquietude
of her situation.
It might possibly have been a source of consolation
had she known that others besides herself had cause to
complain of ignorance of the King's plans. Nicholas,
it was true, was with him in Jersey, but Hyde and
Cottington were still in Spain, detained there on Charles'
business, and the Chancellor himself was complaining
that for four months past no word had reached him
from Jersey, nor any information as to the King's plans.
Had he been at Constantinople he would have known
more.

41 8 HENRIETTA MARIA
He was at the time UI content with the world in
general, and a budget of letters despatched in March
reflects not only the condition of his own mind and
temper, but the prevailing disunion amongst Royalists,
A cloud had evidently risen even between his old friend
Nicholas and .himself, so that he was compelled to
rebut the charge of having deceived and abandoned
the Secretary by persuading him to remain behind when
Hyde had left the court for Madrid. He regretted to
hear that Berkeley, governor to the Duke of York, had
been taking the liberty of censuring living and dead,
and had moreover been so led away by vain and
shallow persons as to join with the false and dishonest
Jermyn in doing the honest Secretary ill offices with
the Queen. That Lord Percy should have been made
Governor of Guernsey by the King was a great dis
couragement and vexation to Hyde, " for always when
I spake to him of that man he seemed to understand
him as well as I did." As to Jermyn, who was probably
considered responsible for the appointment, the King
knew him to be vain, shallow, and false ; but it was
Charles' weakness not to give public proof of his
private sentiments. If the Chancellor did not hope
that he would outgrow this infirmity, it would break
his heart. Hyde had, strangely enough, fallen under
the suspicion of having courted favour from the
Queen. He deals with the charge with unusual
violence. He could as easily turn witch, he said, and
give himself to the devil, as descend to any little vUe
arts and tricks to gain any one's favour. He was
beginning to think that, taking into account the pre
judices felt against him, he might do well to retire for
a time from public affairs. In the meantime, he
wonders exceedingly — this in a letter to Lady Morton

AT BEAUVAIS 4^9
— what the King meant by saying that it had been
he who made him give way in the matter of the
Princess's religion ; unless it were that, seeing the
Queen's passion and resolution, he could not advise
him what to do, having no place whither he could
remove his sister, or means of supporting her had he
done so.
In brief, it is clear that, in the Chancellor's estimation,
things in general were going iU ; and that the scanty
information which reached him did not conduce to his
peace of mind.
In the very month that Hyde was making his
complaints of lack of news, Charles had decided — ¦
acting in this instance with his mother's knowledge
and approval — upon meeting the Scotch commissioners,
with a view to an arrangement enabling him to repair
to Scotland in person. Writing to urge upon him this
course, Henrietta offered to meet the King on his way
to Holland, in order that consultation might be held
upon his future plans.
The suggested conference took place at Beauvais,
where Charles remained nearly a fortnight. Henrietta's
advice was that he should neither take the Covenant,
abandon the Irish, nor give up his own adherents. At
the time he may have intended to act upon it. But his
attitude towards religion bore more resemblance to his
Bearnois grandfather's than to that of his father or mother ;
and when he left HoUand he had signed the treaty of
Breda, pledging him, should it be required by the
Scotch ParHament, to accept the Covenant,
Henrietta's grief and indignation were great. The
bias of the Queen's court had been believed to be in
favour of concessions to Presbyterianism ; and Hatton had
some months eariier, made aUusion to the "Louvre
VOL. II. o

420 HENRIETTA MARIA
Presbyter and Scot design." But it was evident that any
such design had not included Charles' present action.
To himself his mother wrote that though continuing to
love him as a son, she would never again be his political
adviser. To her friends at the convent she spoke with
tears of his " condescensions " to the Scotch, adding that
he had renounced and deserted his own religion, engaged
himself to persecute hers, and thus not only exasperated
Catholic princes, but disabled her from doing him service.
Upon Lady Boyle boldly observing that the Queen
was believed to be responsible for the King's present
agreement with the Scotch, Henrietta vehemently denied
the charge. " God forbid," she said, " that I should
have had a hand in persuading him to sacrifice his honour
or conscience." On her return from Beauvais, Henrietta appears to
have conversed with Mademoiselle rather upon personal
than upon political matters. She had, she told her niece,
found the King incorrigible. He loved his cousin more
than ever ; whilst she added — it is difficult to see why —
that she had chidden him severely on that account. It
was nevertheless plain that she was doing her best to
keep up the heiress's interest in the wanderer. " Often,"
says Mademoiselle, " did she talk to me of him."
When it is remembered that in selecting a third wife
the Emperor's choice had not fallen upon Henrietta's
niece, it may be believed that she listened the more
willingly to the mother's discourse.
Amongst the items of intelligence imparted by
Henrietta, it would be curious to learn whether she
included the arrival of a messenger early in the following
year, charged with the expression of her son's hopes
that the Queen would bestow her approval upon an
aUiance with Lady Anne CampbeU, daughter to the Duke

DISTURBANCES IN PARIS 421
of Argyle. Henrietta gave her voice against the match,
and may have kept her own council concerning the
plan. Not till eighteen months after the parting at Beauvais
was the Queen to see her son again. Meantime, disorders
and dissensions in Paris had not diminished ; and in
January 1 6 50 the Regent had ventured upon the bold stroke
of arresting the Princes of Conde and Conti, with their
brother-in-law the Due de Longueville, The necessitous
condition of the French court was reflected in the state
of Henrietta's finances ; and a month after her return
from Beauvais she was writing to her sister from the
Carmelites that she found herself compelled to retrench
her expenditure and to live like a poor damoiselle upon
the sixty thousand francs a year allowed her by the Queen
Regent. It was much for France to give, she added, in
the present condition of affairs, though little for her own
needs. "" But I am so much accustomed to miseries, so
great and so irremediable, that this is nothing."
There was both courage and dignity in Henrietta's
manner of meeting comparative poverty ; and, later on,
Madame de MotteviUe describes her at ChaiUot as taking
charge, without repugnance or grief, of her expenses,
at that time very smaU, and keeping her accounts, to
use her own words, like a poor damoiselle.
Whilst the disturbances in France threatened to
deprive Henrietta of an income, they appeared to her
not unlikely to rob her nephew of his crown. Looking
sadly on and remembering her past, she anxiously awaited
the issue of the struggle taking place before her eyes,
"For me," she wrote in August, "who have seen the
beginnings in England altogether similar to these, you may
judge in what trouble I am, I hope God wiU take care
of the poor littie King." Besides less personal anxieties.

422 HENRIETTA MARIA
she had sorrows and cares of her own to occupy
her during the summer and autumn of 1650. In
September the battle of Dunbar resulted in Cromwell's
complete mastery in Scotland ; and on the Sth of the
same month the Princess Elizabeth died at Carisbrooke,
"of a malignant fever," according to Mayerne, the royal
physician, " which constantly increased, despite medicine
and remedies." Henrietta gave a different account.
" It has pleased God," she wrote to her sister, " to
send me another affliction — the death of my daughter
Elizabeth. Although, for her part, she is very happy
to be out of the hands of those traitors in which she
was, I cannot help grieving greatly, nature having at
the first more power than reason. She died from grief
at finding herself brought to the same castle where her
father had been a prisoner, and in a place where she
had no assistance in her malady — a fever of which she
died on the tenth day. I am very sorry to write you
so melancholy a letter, but since you are good enough
to desire news of me it can be but sad."
Close upon this trouble followed another. None of
her children were destined to be a source of unmixed
satisfaction to the Queen. Her intercourse with
Charles had been attended with much disappointment ;
and the Duke of York was to occasion her more.
At his departure from Scotland, Charles, following his
father's example, had directed his brother to conform
in aU things, save religion, to the Queen's will. It
was a precept the young King had not found easy to
observe ; and though in James' position the dictates of filial
piety and duty were, as Clarendon observes, supplemented
by his absolute dependence upon his mother in material
matters, the younger brother was no more inclined to
submit to her authority than her eldest son. She had

From a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens in the British Musciin
SIR THEODORE MAYERNE.

DUKE OF YORK INSUBORDINATE 423
once again played her cards iU. Not only had she
failed to render Hfe in Paris pleasant to the Duke, but
had used the same "austere carriage" towards him as
to Charles himself, with a like result. A letter of
Lord Hatton's to Nicholas gives a graphic description
of the relations at this juncture between mother and
son. It is true that Hyde warned Nicholas that his
noble friend was liable, in his news-letters, to be guilty
of " mistakes," and that aU discontented persons were
accustomed to resort to him ; yet his gossip in this
case, corroborated by the evidence supplied by the
Duke's conduct, had probably an element of truth
in it. Henrietta, he said, omitted no opportunity of
expressing her undervalue of the Duke, where she
thought she could do it secretly ; and had lately told
a lady that the boy had said that, in his opinion, his
mother loved and valued Lord Jermyn more than all
her chUdren. When her confidante begged her not to
give ear to these tales, she answered that it was to the
King himself that the Duke had made the offensive
observation, and that Charles, who was of better nature
than his brother, had repeated it to her. With much
more of great bitterness. "All which being reported
again to the Duke of York, I leave you to consider
what impressions these things may [make] in each of
them." According to Nicholas, writing some months
later, causeless jealousies had been raised between the boy
and his elder brother ; the Duke did not conceive that
the Queen or any about her esteemed or had much
kindness for him ; and if he continued to be misrepre
sented, and his person "by the Queen and her sycophants
rendered contemptible in their table discourses," trouble
might come of it.
Nicholas' letter was written at a date, AprU 1651,

424 HENRIETTA MARIA
when the Duke had had time to repent at leisure of
the step he had taken to put an end to the conditions
attaching to his life in Paris. In the autumn of the
preceding year, dislike of those conditions had combined
with a spirit of adventure to render the lad eager to
seek his fortune elsewhere ; and on a certain day he
made the sudden and startling announcement to his
mother that it was his intention to start at once for
Belgium and there to visit the Duke of Lorraine,
who he had reason to believe might put him in the
way of action. When it further transpired that the
counsellors who had instigated the act of defiance were
provided with money to enable him to carry it into
effect, Henrietta was powerless to interpose. It only
remained to make the best of a bad business, which
she accordingly proceeded to do. Her own account
of the affair is given in an explanatory letter to Mazarin.
By this it appears that the alternative of serving in the
armies of France had been offered to the boy, and that
his mother would have gladly had him accept it. But
again she has to admit her own impotence : " I must
confess how little power I have over him. He insisted
on going to Flanders, and without telling me of his
plans, saying that he was bound by oath not to do so.
He has, however, promised me to take no employment
against France. I ought to be ashamed of avowing this
affair between me and the Duke of York, but I wish
to use the candour with you concerning aU my business
of which I have always made profession, and I protest
that it is much against my will that he has gone to
Flanders." There is something pathetic, when Henrietta's per
sonal griefs and anxieties are borne in mind, in the eager
sympathy she displays in the more cheerful events

DEATH OF PRINCE OF ORANGE 425
occurring in her sister's family. A daughter of the
Duchess of Savoy was to be married, and already, in
October, Henrietta had placed "her little knowledge"
in matters of dress at the service of the Savoyard
Comptroller-General, charged with the purchase of
wedding garments in Paris. In November she wrote
to assure the Duchess of the beauty of the gowns pro
vided for the bride, adding that her pleasure in them
was as great as if they were for her own daughter. She
was intending to talk on the subject to Mademoiselle
— that other unsatisfactory niece — who believed that
nothing was beautiful out of Paris, or except in being
empress. Henrietta's interest in Adelaide of Savoy's marriage
was no more than a short interlude in the quick sequence
of her sorrows. In Holland, as elsewhere, the evil
destiny overshadowing the house of Stuart had made
itself felt. The young Prince of Orange had been cut
off by an attack of small-pox, leaving his nineteen-year-
old wife daily expecting the birth of her first child,
and carrying with him to the grave many of the hopes
still remaining to the Royalist cause.
By Henrietta the disaster was bitterly felt. " It
seems," she wrote, "that God wishes to show me that
I should detach myself altogether from this world, by
taking from me those who would lead me to think
of it. The loss of my son-in-law makes me see this,
for in him were placed all my hopes for my son's
restoration." His wife, she added, had been passion
ately attached to the Prince, and her mother could
only trust that the child just born might comfort her.
" For her I hope much from him. For myself, I am too
old to see him grow up."
In December Henrietta must have been disquieted

426 HENRIETTA MARIA
by the report that the Duke of Lorraine was contem
plating handing over eight regiments to the Duke of»
York, to be used in the service of the King of Spain
or the Emperor, a proceeding which would have seriously
complicated her own relations with France. The plan,
if it had ever been entertained, died still-born, and,
disappointed in his hopes of obtaining assistance in
Flanders, James turned his thoughts towards Holland.
On his way thither he was, however, met by a messenger
from his sister, instructed to represent to him that his
presence at the Hague would be prejudicial at the
moment to her interests, and to induce him to seek
shelter at a house belonging to the Queen of Bohemia,
" Which unkindness," said Nicholas, " these Boores do
wonder at. . . . but the good Princess doth but as
she hath been advised from the Louvre, which is the
fountain of all the factions here, and to the whole
family." The worthy Secretary would not have scrupled
to attribute any evil in any quarter of the globe to that
centre of iniquity, " the Baal of the Louvre, which is the
Idol that hath ruined our Israel " ; and the virulence
of his allusions to his dead master's wife goes far to
justify Henrietta in her dislike.
Hatred begets hatred ; bitterness, bitterness : and it is
plain that in Nicholas the Queen was right in recognising
and warding against an enemy. Every malcontent, so
far as she was concerned, would find a sympathiser in
her son's official. Writing in March to Ormond, then at
Caen, the Secretary tells of those in England ready to
devote themselves to the royal cause, on receiving direc
tions from the King, " but none in Paris must know of
their designs. The Louvre management of affairs had
been not only unfortunate, but ever so unsecret " that aU
would be at once known to the rebels. " I am not wise

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After the picture by Sir Peter Lely in the National Portrait Gallery. Photo hy Emery IValker.
JAMES BUTLER, FIRST DUKE OF ORMOND, K.G,
NICHOLAS AND ORMOND 427
enough," the Secretary wrote again about the same time,
" to foresee what card shall be turned trumps, but I dare
boldly say, that be it what it can be in the whole pack,
the Louvre shall never have a saving game in the end."
Nicholas likewise enclosed a letter from a "very discreet
and right affected person of quality " in England, en
dorsing his views, and whose heart was almost broken
considering the results should the King be ruled by the
Louvre. Ormond's attitude towards their common mistress
marks the difference between the great Royalist noble and
the bourgeois Secretary, no less faithful, but ready,
in his envenomed animosity, to believe and retail every
petty piece of gossip which might redound to Henrietta's
discredit. It is not likely that, trusted and loved by
Hyde and the patron and confidant of Nicholas himself,
Ormond was in greater sympathy than they with the
errors committed at the Louvre. Yet his comments
upon the Secretary's complaints, his analysis of the
evidence brought to prove them, and above all hie
evident determination to act, so far as it was possible,
in concert with any fellow workers, however personally
distasteful, in the common cause, were marked by a
dignity and a self-restraint wholly lacking in his corre
spondent. An extract from the Mercurius Politicus
intended by Nicholas to prove the indiscretion, or worse
than indiscretion, of those at the Louvre, did not appear
to him to contain proof positive of the Secretary's
assertion. Much contained in it was well known outside
the walls of the palace. The Queen's interposition as
a peacemaker between the Queen-Regent and the Duke
of Orleans — to which Nicholas had taken exception, as
conducted in a manner to give offence to the Condes
— had been unavoidably put upon her, and not very

428 HENRIETTA MARIA
passionately undertaken or prosecuted, especially as to the
Cardinal, for whom Ormond believed she had no great
affection. As to the Duke of York, by this time heartily
weary of the results of his escapade, anxious to return to
Paris and, according to Nicholas, suffering from unkind
ness or neglect on the Queen's part in not summoning
him thither without delay, Ormond pointed out that
it was obviously fit that the Duke should wait until his
mother should have obtained an invitation for him from
the French court. Upon the general question, whilst
hoping never to be made use of to the prejudice of
honest men, Ormond frankly confessed that he would
not refuse or disavow concurrence to good counsels, by
whomsoever they might be offered.
In a letter to Henrietta a month or two later
he no less clearly dissociated himself from the men
leagued against her and determined to keep her in the
dark. The question at issue in this case was a project
of marriage between the Duke of York and an illegiti
mate daughter of the Duke of Lorraine ; and Ormond,
deprecating any displeasure the Queen might have felt
at the silence he had maintained when first the scheme
was made known to him, explains it by his desire to
give leisure to Lord Taaffe — the principal mover in the
affair — to redeem his mistake in not having himself
acquainted her with the matter.
Amongst those at present out of favour at the Queen's
court, it appears that her old friend, Digby, was included.
If James had so far shown no appreciation of the chance
of earning laurels under the French flag, other English
men, and Digby amongst them, had availed themselves
of the opportunity. Though offering his services to
Charles after his father's execution, the late King's
Secretary had written to Hyde that, though confident

LORD DIGBY OUT OF FAVOUR 429
of the Queen's favour and Jermyn's friendship, it would
be necessary for him to be much satisfied with his new
master's affection were he to be withdrawn from his in
clination to retire from the affairs of an unvirtuous and
unreasonable world. That satisfaction had not been
afforded him ; but though removing himself from the
exiled court, it had not been to a place offering facilities
for undisturbed meditation upon the vanity of human
ambition, but to the French camp ; and he was presently
excusing himself from yielding obedience to a summons
from Henrietta on the score of ruin to his fortunes
and honour should he leave his command. At the
end of the year he had the satisfaction of being made
the bearer of tidings of a victory gained over the enemies
of France, and of bringing, as an offering to the Queen
Regent, a captured banner " more welcome to her than
the finest diamond in the world,"
Whether the services rendered to France availed
to strengthen Henrietta's attachment to the man who
had been her vowed liegeman may be questioned.
In such matters women are jealous of their monopoly.
But one would be loath to believe the assertion made
by Hyde to Nicholas, some fifteen months later,
to the effect that the Queen and Jermyn hated Digby
more than the Secretary himself. Hatred was rife at
the Louvre, and Jermyn's dislike might be regarded
rather as a distinction than the reverse ; but with
regard to Henrietta it may be hoped that the Chancellor
was carried away by personal animus.
By April 1651 he was once more in Paris, and in a
position to make his own observations upon the situa
tion. The effects of Charles' ill success in Scotland had
been quickly apparent in the diminished consideration
shown to his adherents by foreign courts ; and Hyde

430 HENRIETTA MARIA
had become eager to be recalled from Madrid. He
wanted, he told Nicholas, to find some quiet place,
not crowded by English, who, with their uncharitable
humours towards each other, made themselves ridiculous
and contemptible to strangers. Of Paris he declared,
in particular, in a subsequent letter that " that cursed
place and company makes all people mad." Nevertheless,
he had arrived at that city, and was there detained by
the gout.
He had found the position of the Queen sensibly
affected by the Royalist misfortunes ; and one alteration
in especial had taken place at the Louvre, which, causing
much disturbance amongst the inmates of the palace, was
cited by Hyde as proof of the disrespect engendered by
the King's reverses. It would nevertheless appear that
another cause had had a share in contributing to it.
Not long before, a figure of no great prominence or
note had sUpped off the stage. This was Father PhiHp,
for many years confessor to the Queen. Described by
Carte as a quiet, pious, prudent and inoffensive man, he
had pursued his way in tranquillity and peace. With his
death a change was noticeable. Walter Montagu, some
time playwright at Whitehall and now a new-made
priest and Abbot of Pontoise, was to fill the vacant post,
and to give rise to many regrets at the removal of the
gentle old priest. Whether or not he had as yet formally
assumed the spiritual guidance of the Queen, she
suspected him of having a hand in an order of Anne of
Austria, directed towards interference with the exercise of
their religion on the part of the Protestant members
of Henrietta's household.
A room had hitherto been set apart at the Louvre,
where Dr. Cosins, afterwards Bishop of Durham, ministered
to those of his persuasion, and kept up "a constant

By permission of the Bishop ef Durham.
JOHN COSIN, BISHOP OF DURHAM.

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE AT PARIS 431
preachment of raUing against the roundheads, just as the
Capuchins do against the Protestants,^ " But on the
departure of Charles and his brother, the Regent had
issued a prohibition against any public exercise of
Protestant worship at the palace, adding that it would
no longer be permitted in any royal residence. The
ChanceUor, on his arrival, was desired by the injured
household to represent their grievance to the Queen, in
virtue of a promise he had personally received from
her that the chaplain should continue to exercise his
office and receive his salary.
Henrietta took the protest in good part. She had
herself, she declared, been troubled and surprised at
the Regent's command. But she was powerless in the
matter. Her sister-in-law had gone so far as to take
her to task for want of zeal in the matter of religion,
or care for her chUdren's conversion. She desired that
Hyde would confer with Mr. Montagu on the subject,
giving the Chancellor to understand that he and his
bigotry were to blame for what had occurred. She also
expressed her regret for the death of Father Philip, who
had never suffered her to be pressed to any " passionate
undertakings," and had desired that she should live well
with Protestants. She added that, though unable to
assign a room at the palace for purposes of worship,
she would see that her household had the opportunity
of exercising their religion elsewhere, and would continue
to Dr, Cosins the payment of his salary.^
Thus matters stood when Hyde left Paris, charged
with a letter from the Queen to the Duke of York,

' Verney Papers.
' This account of the affair is distinctly at variance with the
statement which has been made that all servants of the Queen who
declined to join the Catholic Church were to be at this time dismissed.

432 HENRIETTA MARIA
now at Breda, containing the long-desired summons
to Paris. The boy was eager to respond to it. Money
was scarce, his household discontented and quarrelsome ;
and though he proved impenitent and determined not
to own himself in the wrong, the invitation to Paris was
" a very seasonable redemption," and he set out the
next day. He had desired that Nicholas should attend
him, but the suggestion being unendorsed by the Queen,
and the Secretary having good reason to believe he
would be an unwelcome guest, he prudently remained
behind. On his arrival in Paris the Duke was received
with greater indulgence by the Queen than his conduct
had merited. She may have been learning wisdom in the
treatment of her sons ; and with the eldest seeking his
fortune in perilous paths, and the third still in the
hands of the enemy, she may have been anxious not
to alienate by overmuch severity the only one within
reach. Sir George Radcliffe, too, who, as a prime
instigator of the Duke's insubordination, had fallen
under the Queen's displeasure, was, at Ormond's in
stance, admitted to an interview with her and received
back into favour, the peacemaker being present, but
busying himself with looking at pictures whilst the
reconciliation took place. On one point Ormond
probably differed with the Queen. It was his opinion
that the Duke should either make fresh representations
to Anne of Austria as to a place of worship in the
Louvre itself, or should go " more frequently and
solemnly " to Sir Richard Browne's chapel.
Meantime, there was nothing in the news from England
or Scotland to afford satisfaction to the exiles. The King
had felt little personal regret for the defeat of Dunbar.
His position in Scotland had, before that event, come near

THE KING IN SCOTLAND 433
to being intolerable. He had bowed his neck to the
yoke ; had set his name to a declaration of which he
himself said that, signing it, he could never again look
his mother in the face. But his concessions had won
him no more than a bare toleration. By the Scotch
defeat he had been in a measure emancipated ; but the
conditions of his coronation were sufficiently humiliating.
He had been compelled to repent, so to speak, to order,
not only of his own transgressions, but of those of his
father and grandfather, till he was reported to have
observed that he thought he must also repent that
ever he had been born. Yet he played his sorry part
well, and subscribing to both Covenants, so acted the
farce that the ministers present were impressed with
his serious and devout bearing. But all was in vain.
By September the present phase of the struggle had
been decided at Worcester, and he was once more a
fugitive from the kingdom he had failed to win back.

CHAPTER XXI
1651— 1653
Charles' return to Paris — A gay 1 winter — Hyde, Nicholas, and the Queen
. — Jealousy of her influence — Duke of York joins the French army —
Charles and Mademoiselle — The Fronde — Charles' life in Paris —
Henrietta's intervention between court and Fronde — Hostility of
the populace — Withdrawal to Saint-Germain — Removal to the Palais
Royal — Quarrels between Henrietta and Hyde — France and England
— Release of the Duke of Gloucester — Charles' defence of Hyde.
THE Story of Charles' adventurous escape after
the battle of Worcester has been too often related
to require re-telling here. It was six weeks before he
was in France and in safety — an interval of intense
anxiety at the Louvre. On October i6th he landed
at Fecamp. By the 19th he was in Paris, and Made
moiselle has given a detailed account of the impression
he produced there.
On the day following his arrival she repaired to
the Louvre, to pay a visit of congratulation. Proceed
ing at once to prepare her guest for the alteration
in her son's appearance, Henrietta informed her that
she would find him very ridiculous. He had had to
cut his hair, and was singularly dressed. Mademoiselle
took a different view. In spite of his short hair
and his beard Charles, upon his entrance, seemed to
her greatly improved in looks. He also spoke French
better, and she listened with interest to his account
of his adventures. When his cousin took leave he
434

A WINTER AT PARIS 435
escorted her to the Tuileries, talking all the way of his
miserable life in Scotland, where he had been so
furieusement ennuy'e that he had the less regretted defeat
since it offered a hope of his return to France — a land
possessing so many attractions and containing those
to whom he was so deeply attached.
The visit was a promising beginning to a winter
of constant intercourse. The French court had left
Paris, and all who were gay or young were to be
found at Mademoiselle's little dances. Charles was
a constant guest, his mother not seldom present ; and
other, less formal, meetings took place, as when on
a certain evening Henrietta and her two sons took
Mademoiselle by surprise and came unbidden to supper,
their hostess's only regret being that the fare was not
more worthy of the occasion.
There were lookers-on with little liking for the
match that Henrietta was eager to promote ; and chief
amongst them was Hyde.
The ChanceUor had been at Antwerp when news
reached him of the King's escape, accompanied by a
summons to Paris. Before obeying it, he addressed a
letter of mingled congratulation and admonition to his
young master. God had instructed him by means of
the dangers he had run in knowledge not otherwise to
be attained. His own fate and his kingdom's now
depended on his virtue. Not long after this letter was
penned, satisfactory reports of Charles' amendment had
reached the writer, and he was sure that, if true, all
would have comfort in serving the young King. If it
were not so, he was not yet ripe for deliverance. This
monitor's misgivings, it is clear, had not been wholly
removed. Nicholas, also bidden to Paris, had, as before, reasons
VOL. II. 9

436 HENRIETTA MARIA
for preferring to remain at a distance from the exiled
court. It has been seen that he occupied the position
of confidant to those who made it a condition that what
they told him should not be communicated to the Queen,
Her displeasure at his silence was the more difficult to
remove, seeing that he could not engage that the offence
should not be repeated ; and upon the score of his
inability either to express penitence or promise amend
ment, he declined an offer of mediation from Ormond.
When Hyde arrived in Paris, he found to his comfort
not only that Ormond, " noble and excellent as ever,"
had already made his way thither, but that the young
King's state of mind was much to his liking. He was,
he reported to Nicholas, as firm in the matter of religion
as his blessed father ; and with regard to the Secretary
himself, when Nicholas' sense of the Queen's displeasure
had been broached, he had "answered at large, hand
somely, kindly, passionately," and had said that his
mother was in the wrong, and that, were Nicholas in
Paris, he would compose all.
Whether Charles had not over-estimated his own
powers of conciliation may be doubted. When Hyde
himself, always anxious that his old and tried friend
should be at hand, had a conference with Henrietta on
the same subject in the following February, the result
was not encouraging. The Queen made the unanswer
able complaint that the Secretary did not love her ; and
when Ormond and Hyde, apparently evading a direct
reply, expressed their confidence that she could not
but have a good opinion of him, and that on matters of
importance she herself would sooner trust him than those
by whom he was maligned, she laughed and said " indeed
he was very honest," but repeated again that he loved
her not. As this was another respect in which Nicholas

CHARLES' POSITION IN PARIS 437
would not have found amendment easy, he was doubtless
wise in electing to continue at a distance from the
Louvre, Whilst Charles was in the satisfactory frame of
mind described by Hyde, his position left much to
be desired. The pleasure of reunion had been accom
panied by financial complications, Henrietta's income
was barely sufficient to provide for her own necessities,
and when the penniless condition of the fugitive King
forced the French court to bestow upon him an allowance
of 6000 livres a year, it was arranged that, the Queen
remaining responsible for the support of her little daughter,
the Duke of York should board at his brother's expense.
Everybody alike was poor, Ormond having had to put
himself en pension at a pistole a week, and Jermyn alone
having money at his command,
Jermyn had been making himself busy at this time
after a fashion specially distasteful to others of the King's
counsellors. An indifferentist on matters of religion, he
was anxious that Charles should propitiate Presbyterian
opinion by assisting at the Huguenot services held at
Charenton. To this policy Henrietta, gave her counten
ance, either, as the Chancellor suggests, as a means of
disgusting her son with Protestantism in general, or from
other motives. The plan was not carried into effect. By
Hyde's advice, seconded, one may believe, by personal
disinclination, Charles resisted Jermyn's arguments ; and
the only result of the affair was an increased dislike on
the part of the Queen for the man whose counsels had
been followed in preference to her own.
Notwithstanding his disregard of her wishes on this
occasion, there was a prevailing impression abroad that
Charles had fallen under his mother's influence. So strong
was this conviction that Nicholas reported from the

438 HENRIETTA MARIA
Haguet hat, in consequence of it, numerous Royalists
were returning to England, " as having little hopes
left them, seeing they hear his Majesty intends to
make use of the Louvre counsels." At Paris it would
appear that the same suspicions were entertained. " It
seems by what you say," wrote Nicholas — always ready
to believe the worst— to Lord Hatton, " that the King's
secret council are the Queen, Lord Jermyn, and Wat
Montagu ; for that of greatest business he consults with
them only, without the knowledge of the Marquis of
Ormond, or Sir Edward Hyde."
Hyde, in a better position to form a judgment, was
explicit in his denial of any subjection on the part of
the King to his mother. " Neither Lord Jermyn nor
the Queen herself," he wrote to the Secretary, " are like
to govern more than they should, and I trust they begin
to believe so themselves." And again : "The King hath
not, nor will, resign himself or his affairs to the Queen,
nor is Lord Jermyn an image that anybody worships."
Charles was soon to corroborate the Chancellor's
assertion, and to give proof that he had no intention of
allowing himself to be guided by his mother. About this
time envoys arrived from Scotland, charged with proffers
of service from a section of the Royalist party there ;
but making it a condition that nothing connected with
their schemes and projects should be made known either
to Buckingham, Jermyn, or Wilmot, The conviction,
whether well grounded or not, was still wide-spread that
secrets at the Louvre were badly kept, and that plans
there discussed were apt to become known at Westminster.
With reference to Scottish affairs, in particular, it was
said that the Queen thought too well of Argyle, and
that what she knew would infallibly reach his ears. In
accordance with the demands of the envoys, it was, there-

DISSENSIONS IN PARIS 439
fore, agreed that Ormond, Hyde, and Newburgh should
alone be consulted in the matter.
No doubt the arrangement was wise. Yet one,
at least, of the chosen counseUors would wilHngly have
foregone a mark of confidence certain to bring him into
fresh coUision with the King's mother. But it was vain
for the Chancellor to protest. The King, though
listening to his arguments, was firm, and no alternative
remained to Hyde but to submit, his forebodings of
increased displeasure on Henrietta's part finding speedy
realisation. If the Queen disliked the chosen counsellors of her
eldest son, she was also, with more reason, hostile to the
friends and advisers of the Duke of York, and notwith
standing the reconciliation effected by Ormond between
her and Sir George Radcliffe, the chief offender in the
matter of the Duke's proceedings of the previous year,
the pacification between his mother and his advisers was
not likely to prove lasting. The lad's household, too, was
full of disorder and dissension, and although opposed to
the plan at first, Henrietta was probably less averse than
she might otherwise have been to the accomplishment
of the desire now shown by James to study the art of
warfare in the French camp.
The step was, of course, not to be taken lightly by
the heir-presumptive to the throne, and the matter
was referred to the Council of State, now consisting of
Hyde, Ormond, Jermyn and Wilmot. Upon this body
Charles called to determine whether his brother should
be permitted to carry out his wishes, A meeting took
place, Henrietta being present but taking no part in the
discussion ; and upon the Chancellor being bidden to
speak, he gave his voice, though with reluctance, in
favour of acquiescence in the Duke's desire. Whilst it

440 HENRIETTA MARIA
was impossible to advise such a step, he was of opinion
that the King should not forbid it, and the lad was
accordingly sent to serve his military apprenticeship
under Turenne.
It would have been well if the King himself had
shared his brother's ambition ; but he was to remain
behind in Paris and to undergo that training in a life
of pleasure the effect of which was so marked in later
days. His dilettante courtship of his cousin was still
proceeding, and presently entered upon a more definite
phase. Henrietta one day spoke plainly to her niece.
The terms, she told her, upon which she and her son
stood with Mademoiselle precluded an application to
her father until they should have ascertained her own
wishes. After this explanation, she made an explicit
proposal on Charles' behalf. Mademoiselle returned
an ambiguous reply, requesting time for consideration.
This Henrietta granted, adding that, should the marriage
take place, her niece would remain mistress of her
own fortune ; that she would be, moreover, a queen,
and the happiest woman in the world, owing to the
tenderness and attachment of her husband.
The heiress appears to have been at this time in a
genuine state of indecision. " The King of England
often said to me, ' The Queen is impatient to see you.'
And for my part I was in no haste to give him an
answer." At length Henrietta brought matters to a
point. Visiting her niece, she told her that she was
aware of her hopes of becoming Queen of France — an
ambition cherished at this time by Mademoiselle, not
withstanding the youth of the King — and that she and
her son had no desire to stand in the way of this more
advantageous match. What they asked was that, should
it fall through, she would bestow her hand upon Charles.

CHARLES AND MADEMOISELLE 441
Mademoiselle having discreetly referred the Queen
to her father, the Duke's reply was couched in terms so
vague that Charles, inspirited by his mother's report, felt
encouraged to plead his cause in person, A curious
dialogue ensued, when Mademoiselle pointed out the
necessity of her suitor's presence in England if his
dominion were to be regained, Charles waxed reproach
ful. Would she have him leave her, he asked, as soon
as they were wedded. His inexorable cousin answered in
the affirmative. Should that come to pass she would
share his interests more than before, and would, with
sorrow, see him dancing the triolet and amusing himself
when he ought to be where he would either have his
head broken or would place a crown upon it. He would
not be worthy, added his monitress, to wear a crown, did
he not go to seek it at the peril of his life and the point
of his sword.
The ardour of Charles' suit may possibly have been
cooled by the frank expression of Mademoiselle's views.
On the other hand, advisers were not wanting to warn
her of the injury her matrimonial chances would suffer
by constant intercourse with her detrimental cousin ;
and she expressed in consequence, through Jermyn, her
desire that he should make his visits less frequent, A
coolness ensued, and on her next appearance at the
Louvre, a great chair was produced in which Charles
ostentatiously placed himself, instead of occupying his
customary humbler seat.
Affairs had reached this point when, according to
Mademoiselle, " a much greater event " distracted her
thoughts from her relations with the exiled court.
Into the history of the Fronde, with its succes
sive phases and its different sections at war with one
another, the factions of de Retz, the Condes, and the Due

442 HENRIETTA MARIA
d'Orleans, their struggles and their coalitions, it has been
out of the question to enter. Nor is it possible to
foUow Mademoiselle when, in March, 1652, she left
Paris, to play the part of the amazon ; displayed herself
on horseback to the insurgent troops ; forced her way
into Orleans and shut its gates upon the royal army ;
returning to perform fresh exploits in the capital itself.
The EngHsh refugees had necessarily occupied the
position of spectators of the stormy scenes around them,
" not knowing whither to go, nor well able to stay "
where they were, owing to the non-payment of their
pensions. Paris must, at this time of tumult, have
been an undesirable place of residence. Henrietta was
on terms of affection with her brother, and, outwardly
at least, with the Condes, the popular leaders ; but her
connection with the court naturally rendered her liable
to suspicion, accentuated by the presence of her second
son in the royal army, " Every one knows," wrote
Conde's agent in London to the English Council, " that
all the ministers, as well of the pretended King as of
the Queen his mother, are wholly devoted to the Cardinal
and wholly made his creatures." The same writer also
disclaimed any connection between Charles and Conde,
adding that " things were as ill between them as could
be." Under these circumstances, residence in a city
ruled by the Prince and his friends must have been far from
agreeable ; and though Mademoiselle, on her return from
Orleans, received a visit from the King, it was evident
to his cousin that his sympathies were not enUsted on the
side of the party to which she belonged. Henrietta, for
her part, referring to her niece's triumph at Orleans,
observed sardonically that she had followed in the steps
of Joan of Arc, beginning, like her, by driving away the
English — an ironical aUusion to the quasi dismissal that

DUKE OF YORK'S MARRIAGE MOOTED 443
Charles had received at her hands. Opinions and views
being so opposite, Mademoiselle wisely diminished the
number of her visits to the Louvre, " taking no pleasure,"
she herself observes, " in disputing with those to whom
respect was due."
It must have been plain to Henrietta that her son's
suit was not likely to prosper so long as his fortunes
showed no signs of amendment. A match which had
been in contemplation for the Duke of York was like
wise abandoned about this time. It had been suggested
before he left Paris that Mademoiselle de Longueville,
stepdaughter to the Prince de Conde's sister and an
heiress in her own right, might prove a suitable bride.
Though she possessed few outward attractions, James
had shown himself not unwilling to entertain the plan,
and had visited her frequently. Hyde, however, was
strongly opposed to the marriage. When asked his
opinion by Henrietta, he pointed out the impropriety
of the heir to the throne being wedded before the
sovereign, " or that it should be in any woman's power
to say that, if there were but one person dead, she
would be a queen." Henrietta for once was convinced
by the Chancellor's reasoning. " Loving the King with
aU possible tenderness, she said, with some warmth,
that she would never give her consent that it should
be so," and the project had almost as rapid an ending
as a more presumptuous scheme mentioned in a letter
from Hyde to Nicholas. The King, said the ChanceUor,
abhorred the wUd pretence of the Duke of Buckingham
to marry the Princess of Orange ; and as for the Queen,
she said that were it possible for her daughter to indulge
so base a thought, she would tear her in pieces with
her own hands,
Hyde was presently to find the strong objection

444 HENRIETTA MARIA
felt by Henrietta to mesalliances on the part of her
chUdren of more personal inconvenience than in this
instance. For the present she must have been weary of
marriage projects, and there was sufficient gravity in
the condition of French affairs to take precedence for
the moment of matters of less pressing interest,
Henrietta had not been content to be a passive
spectator of the internal dissensions of France ; and in
May she wrote to her sister from Chaillot that she
and her son had been engaged, though with little hope
of success, in an endeavour to restore peace between
the belligerents. In the meantime the state of the country
was such that it was scarcely possible to go outside
the gates of Paris without danger, whether from soldiers
or robbers or from the peasantry who, reduced to
desperation, had fled to the forests and attacked unwary
wayfarers. As for Henrietta herself, " You may judge,"
she wrote, " of my condition when I see myself on
the eve of dying of hunger, and know not so much
as where to seek safety. It is true that, after my
misfortunes, I should fear nothing, nor should death
make me afraid ; but the manner of it is to be dreaded,
not coming at the time one would choose." She added
that, though she was at Chaillot at the time of writing,
it was not probable that either she or the nuns would
remain there long, since she would be forced to return
to Paris by the soldiers, who showed no respect of
persons. The Queen's letter was written on May Sth. By
the nth the King had come to fetch her back to the
Louvre, upon an alarm that the royal troops were
marching upon Paris. In June public feeling was
further excited against the English colony by the fact
that Charles had been unseasonably requested to act as

THE FRONDE 445
intermediary between the French court and the Duke
of Lorraine, and hostility towards him and his mother
ran so high that they were forced to remain shut up
in the palace. They had done their best to ruin
England, it was said, and were now attempting to do
the same by France. Gaston d'Orleans was indignant
that his sister should have ranged herself upon the
opposite side to that he had adopted ; whilst Cond6
conceived that he and his family had merited better
treatment at her hands. If gratitude to the court would
have prohibited her from taking part against it, she
might, it was thought, have remained neutral.
By July the situation had become intolerable. Charles
had been practically a prisoner in the Louvre for three
weeks. The attitude of the Parisian mob was threaten
ing ; the leaders of the Fronde held aloof ; and in
the end the French court, at the moment at Pontoise,
provided for the safety of its guests by offering them
an asylum at Saint-Germain. At the end of the first
week in July it had been determined to leave Paris in
two days ; but the journey was deferred, and when a
day and hour had been actually settled upon, it was
found that the passes were defective, the guards in
sufficient, and at eleven o'clock the night before the move
was to have been made, a message was brought from
Mademoiselle to advise a further postponement, on the
score that the populace was in disorder and the journey
would be unsafe.
When at length the departure of the Queen and her
son took place, one evening towards the middle of July,
a guard was supplied by the popular leaders as far as
the gates of the city, where Gaston d'Orleans and
Condd took leave of the travellers with courteous if
derfunctory expressions of affection. Once beyond the

446 HENRIETTA MARIA
walls, they were met by a troop of the royal horse, who
conducted them by torch-Hght to Saint-Germain, where
they arrived, in rain and darkness, at midnight, remaining
there tiU King Louis re-entered Paris in October.
No doubt Anne of Austria did her best for her
involuntary guests ; but the French court itself was in
no condition of plenty, and the Chancellor was not without
fears that his master might lack bread. France, however,
was weary of the struggle. By the autumn Mazarin had
made, for the second time, a feint of retiring from the
country and from office, and the Fronde was at an end.
When King Louis made his entrance into his rebellious
capital on the night of October 2 ist, Charles assisted
at the ceremony. His mother had arrived in Paris some
little time earlier, a reconciliation having taken place
between herself and her brother, of which the Duke's
daughter claimed the merit. For the present it can have
made little practical difference to Henrietta. Orleans
had fled from the city on the day preceding his nephew's
return, and Mademoiselle was to atone for her adven
turous experiences by ejectment from her quarters at
the TuUeries, and a six years' banishment from court
and from Paris.
It was at this time that Henrietta's removal from
the Louvre to the Palais Royal took place. It had been
determined that King Louis should take up his residence
for the future at the first, as offering greater security
for his person than the Palais, where hitherto the French
court had been held. Henrietta and her household were
therefore obliged to make way, being assigned apart
ments in the Palais Royal, which she continued to inhabit
with her son, so long as he remained in Paris. So
far as Henrietta was concerned it was a quiet life
that she there led. " The illustrious Queen of England,

CHARLES' DETERIORATION 447
who rarely goes abroad save to visit convents," is a
phrase occurring in Loret's versified account of a visit
paid by Henrietta to the CarmeUtes during the following
year. With Charles it was a different matter, and there
must have been many Royalists who anxiously desired
that the period of his sojourning in the French capital
should be curtailed. To the men who had been his
father's faithful servants, the life led by the titular King
in his place of banishment must have caused scarcely
less regret than the state of his fortunes ; and in the
letters addressed by Hyde to Nicholas, the helpless bitter
ness with which he looked on is apparent. Reports had
reached the Secretary of the contempt felt for the
CouncU. The Chancellor confessed that they were too
well founded. Not only the softness of the King, but
the corruption and licence of the court were responsible
for the condition of things. So long as Charles remained
with his mother, all the counsels of the world could not
reforrri him.
Hyde's account of the matter may have been coloured
by personal antagonism. Charles was rapidly losing,
in the enervating atmosphere around him, the energy
and vigour he had displayed at an earlier date ; and
Henrietta, to say the least, did not throw the weight
of her influence into the scales in support of his best
and wisest counsellors. But evidence enough has been
furnished of the bitter animosity of which she was
the object to serve in some sort as an excuse for her
own. A less prejudiced woman would have found it
hard to act dispassionately towards critics so hostile,
and so jealous of any favour bestowed upon her friends.
" Oh, Mr. Secretary," cried the Chancellor, " this last
act of the King's in making Mr. Crofts a gentleman
of the bedchamber, so contrary to what he assured me.

448 HENRIETTA MARIA
makes me mad and weary of my life ! " Nor can it be
doubted that, had the promotion of a partisan of Hyde's
been in question, Henrietta's protest would have been
as violent. Other influences besides his mother's were at work
to counteract the effect upon the King of men like
Ormond and Hyde. That of Wilmot, to be raised to
the earldom of Rochester, was on the increase, and
certain to work for ill ; and, powerless to remedy the
mischief he deplored, it was no wonder Hyde longed
to be released from his post. This release was not
granted him. Charles was acute enough to value his
faithful service, and was firm in resisting Henrietta's
desire for his removal. But the feud between Chancellor
and Queen reached such a height that, though under
the same roof, months passed without bringing about a
meeting. Apart from Henrietta, the Chancellor was not a
popular man. Obnoxious alike to Catholics and Presby
terians, both parties were at one time engaged in drawing
up petitions against the staunch Anglican official ; so
that Charles, making himself merry on the matter,
inquired pleasantly at dinner, in the Queen's presence,
when the two petitions against the Chancellor of the
Exchequer were to be presented. For Hyde himself
it was a more serious matter. It was not Henrietta's
custom to be silent over her grievances ; and the Queen-
Mother was made the recipient of her complaints.
Charles, however, acted with unusual vigour in defence
of his old friend. Taking him to witness the per
formance of a court masque, he placed him in a con
spicuous position near the seats of the royal spectators,
anticipating perhaps that, as actually happened, he would
be afforded an opportunity of removing the false

After the picture by W. Wissing in the National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Emery Wallier.

JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER.

FRENCH RECOGNITION OF CROMWELL 449
impression made by his mother's representations. As
Queen Anne entered, her attention was arrested by the
sight of the Chancellor, and she inquired who was the
fat man seated next to Lord Ormond.
" That," Charles made answer aloud, " is the naughty
man who did all the mischief and set me against my
mother." " Whereat all laughed, and the Queen was not
displeased." Before the end of the year 1652, Henrietta had been
furnished with a more serious grievance than the alleged
predominance of the Chancellor's power over her son.
This was the formal recognition by France of the present
Government in England. Cromwell's successes had
compelled the unwilling respect of neighbouring countries,
and a minister was to be sent by Mazarin to London.
In passionate terms the Queen expressed to her sister the
grief and humiliation caused her by the step. It had
given her, she said, her final death-blow — one she
could never have believed it possible that France would
have inflicted. To the Duke of York, fighting under
the French banner, she wrote that since France had
recognised those infamous traitors, it was the intention
of the King his brother to leave the country. With
regard to the Duke, no determination had yet been
taken. He was to appear to be ignorant of the embassy,
and if the subject were broached to declare himself
unable to believe it had been sent. Meantime he was to
let his mother know his views with regard to his future
course of action ; after which she would inform him
of hers, and would do her best to render him happy.
As to herself, "when I have given your affairs con
sideration I will think of my own, and will acquaint you
with my determination. I confess that since my great
sorrow, I have felt nothing so much as this."

450 HENRIETTA MARIA
If Charles had intended to mark his displeasure by
leaving France, his departure would have constituted,
in the eyes of the French authorities, a welcome result
of the step which had been taken. It was becoming
clear that he would not be permitted to find permanent
shelter in his cousin's territory, and his mother must
have anticipated a fresh parting with her eldest son.
But before she was called upon to undergo it, she had
the satisfaction of regaining possession of his youngest
brother. In February, 1653, the Duke of Gloucester was
released from captivity and permitted to join the rest of
his family abroad. The event, ultimately productive of
much dissension amongst his kinsfolk, was hailed by
Henrietta with rejoicing. Writing in her gladness to
impart the good news to her sister, she said she was
daily awaiting the arrival of the little son whom the
rebels had wearied of keeping, and who was to be sent
in the first place to Antwerp, from whence he would
join her in Paris,
It was natural that Henrietta should be impatient
to see the child from whom she had been separated since
his babyhood. There were many, however, who, as it
afterwards appeared not without reason, were unwiUing
that Gloucester should visit Paris. Hyde in particular
would have Hked to keep him at a distance from his
mother. The Catholics, he reported to Nicholas, were
already endeavouring to have him sent to France, but he
was satisfied with the King's promise. If Charles' promise
had been to the effect that the boy should not be placed
in his mother's hands, he would have found it difficult to
keep. The Chancellor himself was soon constrained
to admit the Queen's right to see her son, and by May
the Duke, not yet quite thirteen, was at Henrietta's
court, and was there winning golden opinions. Hyde

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER IN PARIS 451
told Rochester that the sweet Duke of Gloucester
was the finest youth and of the most manly understand
ing he had ever known, and added that the King had
determined that, upon his own departure, the boy should
return to his sister, the Princess of Orange, with whom
he had been staying before coming to Paris, and who
was exceedingly fond of him. To the Princess herself
Charles gave a promise that, after a short visit to his
mother, her brother should be sent back to the Hague.
Though the farewells of Mary and the boy had
been attended " with great passion of sorrow in
both," there must have been much, on his arrival in
Paris, to distract his thoughts from the recent parting ;
and he there enjoyed a great success. "You know,"
wrote his mother to her sister in June, " how well any
novelty is received in France, and how greatly it is run
after. I assure you that so many visits are paid me
for love of this little cavalier, whom every one desires
to see, that I have no leisure left. Your ambassador
came to visit him and will have told you what he thought
of him. All the world says he is your son rather than
mine. To say this is to praise him enough ; I will
add no more."
The court versifier, Loret, supplies a fuller descrip
tion of the new-comer :
" Encor qu'il soit petit et mince,
On dit que ce tres joly prince
Est agrSable au dernier point
Et que c'est ne le flatter point
De publier k sa louange
Qu'il est beau comme un petit ange."
If Henrietta was gratified at the presence of her little
" cavalier" she will the less readily have forgiven the
attempts made to deprive her of that satisfaction. It would
VOL. II. 10

452 HENRIETTA MARIA
be wearisome and unnecessary to enter at length into
the ceaseless wrangles between the Queen and her party
and the Chancellor and his friends ; but they must
have gone far to render his residence at the Palais Royal
distasteful to a man as ease-loving as the King, The
incessant struggle to deprive Hyde of credit with his
master was terminated, so far as the present period was
concerned, by a characteristic scene at the Council Board.
Some of the charges preferred against the Chancellor
were of so extravagant a nature as to carry their own
refutation. But on this occasion an accusation less easy
to refute was brought forward. He was charged with
having aspersed and reviled the King by asserting that
he was indisposed to business, over-fond of pleasure, and
did not love to take pains. The Chancellor, by his own
confession, was " a little out of countenance " at the
indictment. But an unexpected ally presented himself
in the King himself. Brushing aside Hyde's hesitating
defence, Charles asserted his belief that the words in
question had been truly reported — since the Chancellor
had often said as much to himself, and more. They
were true enough, he added. He was satisfied with the
Chancellor's affection and took nothing ill that he
had said.
When the injured party professed himself content,
little more could be done. It was generally understood
that further efforts to dislodge the obnoxious minister
would prove equally vain ; and Hyde, to use his own
words, continued to serve the King for God's sake.
So long as Charles remained in Paris it must have
been a painful service. A king without a throne, a
sovereign without a people, the centre of the intrigues
of a poverty-stricken group of courtiers, he may well
have envied his brother James, winning distinction under

From the picture by Van Dyck at IVindsor Castle.

HENRY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER,
Youngest son of Charles I.

FEARS FOR THE KING 453
Turenne — fighting for the present, as he once told the
King, to earn his own bread, but hoping soon to be
fighting to win back Charles' crown. The King was
impatient to quit a country where he remained on
sufferance, and where a complete understanding between
the Government and his father's executioners was every
day approaching nearer. Fears were even entertained
that the impending treaty might include the surrender
of the King's person, and EngHsh RoyaHsts were urgent
that he should convey himself elsewhere.
In July it appears by news-letters from Paris that
he was expected shortly to start for Holland ; but delays,
financial and other, intervened, and it was not until
a year later that he at length quitted France,

CHAPTER XXII
1653— 1654
Peace rumours between England and Holland — Henriette-Anne — Dis
putes with Charles — The Duke of Gloucester — Interview of the Queen
with Hyde — Charles' departure — Anne Hyde — Attempted conversion
of Gloucester — He is removed from Paris^Princess Louise a convert.
THE year closed gloomily so far as English affairs
were concerned. Should a treaty be arranged
between England and Holland, it would be a fresh
blow to Royalist hopes ; and though negotiations with
this object were said to be broken off, a news
letter from Paris, despatched on Christmas Eve, stated
that whUst "the Queen that was of England" had
betaken herself to Chaillot, her two sons were awaiting
the conclusion of such an alliance in Paris, Henrietta
was haunted by a worse fear — the apprehension, namely,
that ambassadors from Westminster would be received
at the French court. This, she told her sister in
a letter belonging to the spring of 1654, would be
the crown of her misfortunes ; and though the Queen-
Mother led her to hope it would not be the case, she
was holding herself in readiness to quit Paris, should
her dread be realised, and to await the event in some
neighbouring locality. " These reasons of State are
terrible," she added, " and I confess I do not understand
them. Perhaps it is because they are against me."
In May she was writing again, discarding on this
occasion the subject of politics, to give a description
4S4

HENRIETTE-ANNE 455
of the litde daughter who was her chief pleasure and
consolation. It appears that the Duchess of Savoy had
written, under the impression that the child was being
brought up in her father's faith, to remonstrate with
the Queen and to urge upon her the duty of making
a Catholic of her daughter. Henrietta hastened, with
some heat, to refute the charge : " I must tell you,"
she wrote, " that I am quite offended at the bad opinion
you have of me, that you can entertain a doubt that,
having had my daughter with me since the age of two
years, I should have brought her up a Catholic. She
is as good and zealous as any one. I would that the
beauty of her body were as great as that of her soul,
for truly she is a good child. She is much indebted
to those who have given her so much praise. It is
permitted to praise those at a distance, since one cannot
be given the lie, as I fear might be the case should
you see her. I am afraid I am a bad judge in this
matter. My desire that she should be beautiful makes
me, perhaps, believe that she is not. On the other hand,
attachment may lead me to believe her to be more so
than she is. This is why I should do better to be
silent." It is possible that Henrietta was right. In spite
of the admiration excited by her daughter in later
years, it does not appear that she gave promise in chUd
hood of any remarkable beauty. Yet even at this time
she possessed grace and charm — a charm possibly en
hanced by the retirement in which she had been bred.
Henrietta's austere methods of education did not alto
gether approve themselves to the judgment of her
sister-in-law, who cherished a special attachment for
the chUd, and it was probably in deference to the
opinion of the Queen-Mother that the Princess was

456 HENRIETTA MARIA
permitted this year to assist at the court entertainments.
Her debut was made in February, at a ball given in
honour of the Prince de Conti's marriage, when verses
were written, after the fashion of the day, to celebrate
her first appearance in public ; in April she took her
part in a royal ballet, crowned with lilies and roses,
and reciting a poem by Benserade illustrative of her
misfortunes ; and in June she was present with her
mother at King Louis' coronation.
It may be that Henrietta had not been altogether
unwilling to relax the severity of her own rule, and
to display her daughter to an admiring world. The
Duke of York must also have been a source of satis
faction and pride, having returned to Paris, according
to a report sent by Hyde to Sir Richard Browne, fuU
of reputation and honour. But if the Queen was
finding pleasure in two of her children, it is evident
from a draft of the King's reply that she had been
expressing no little discontent with regard to her eldest
son. Charles could not, he protested, accuse himself
of having used the Queen ill, as she said he had done.
He would thus affirm an untruth against himself. But
he could not acknowledge as a fault the concealment
of some matters of business ; nor could he promise to
follow her advice. There might be particulars of which
he could not inform her without a breach of trust ;
and to promise to follow any advice would be to ascribe
too much infallibility to any person and to give up
his liberty. He would defer to her judgment more
than to that of any one living, and no misconstruction
should ever lessen his affection. He wished to know
who were those enemies of hers who were so high
in his confidence, and would dismiss any man proved
to have been guilty of disrespect towards her.

DISPUTES WITH CHARLES 457
Whether mother or son were in the right, the
condition of things thus reflected would have been
equally disturbing, and that their strained relations were
matter of public gossip is proved by an intercepted
letter printed amongst the Thurloe papers. The " little
Queen " — Henrietta is often thus designated in documents
of the kind — was said to have had hot disputes with
the King, when Prince Rupert, Sir Edward Herbert,
and Sir John Berkeley had been the subjects of dis
cussion, Charles declaring that these men had so behaved
themselves that they should never more have his trust
nor his company. " My Lord Garrard," added the
writer, " is upon as ticklish terms, and so will all
those that think to use this young man as they did
his father ; for though in appearance he is gentle,
familiar and easy, yet he will not be purmanded nor
governed by violent humours such as these are. If I
am told truth, the little Queen and her Jermyn had
more of show than of reality in their last attempt, for
these men are as uneasy to them as to Charles Stewart,
and are glad to be rid of them at another's cost. Charles
Stewart has taken his leave of the French court, but not
of his mother, so that I conclude this month will be
spent in France."
It will be observed that the tone used in aUuding
to the young King indicates, in an opponent, if not a
certain degree of kindliness, at least an absence of personal
hostility. A mention of him in an earlier news-letter
conveys a similar impression. The writer of this last had
assisted at a supper at which, " to avoid being under
stood other than a cavalier, I did as the wicked would
have me, for which my head has well paid for it
since. . . . That night I saw their King. He is well
recovered of his fever, and he is a goodly young man.

458 HENRIETTA MARIA
God forgive me, I drank his health a dozen times that
cursed night."
The disputes between the goodly young man and
his mother may, as before, have tended to reconcile
Henrietta to a separation. It was becoming plain that
it could not be indefinitely postponed. The French
Government was anxious to be quit of its compromising
guest ; and by the end of June the Queen was writing
to her sister that Charles was to leave Paris the
following week, going in the first place to Spa, with
the intention of proceeding through Germany to Scotland.
The Duke of York was to rejoin the army, where he
was now to be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-
General. "As for the little one," the Queen added,
" he remains here, that I may do him some good if
I can." It was precisely the dread that his mother might
be successful in the intention thus expressed that was
causing apprehension to the family and friends of
the Duke of Gloucester. For reasons of State, as
well as for those of a more spiritual nature, it was
considered in the highest degree important that the
son of Charles I. and the brother of Charles II.
should not be led to conform to her faith. There
were observers ever on the watch, ready to make
capital out of any symptoms of Romish proclivities
on the part of the Stewart exiles ; as when, in
January of this year, news was forwarded to England
that " Charles Stewart and his fraternity went to pass
away the afternoon at the Jesuits of Saint Anthony's
Street ; and under pretence of the feast of New Year's
Day he did begin to contribute to the service of idols,
which discovers more and more of the baseness of
their hearts."

:FEARS FOR GLOUCESTER 459
Whatever imprudences he may have been guilty
of on his own account, Charles was fully determined
that his chances of restoration should not suffer through
his brother ; and he had originally intended that the
boy should not remain in Paris after he had quitted
it. The Queen, on the other hand, was urgent in
demanding that her son should be left in her care. She
represented with truth the singular disadvantages under
which he had, so far, laboured. Until his arrival in
France he had seen neither a court nor good company ;
and should he be removed from Paris it would argue
both disrespect to herself and unkindness to the boy.
She further gave the King to understand that it was
neither her own intention to interfere with his religion,
nor to permit others to do so.
This promise so far satisfied Charles that he was
prevailed upon to consent to his brother's remaining
behind. But judging by the instructions he issued,
both to the boy and to the Duke of York, he was
not untroubled by misgivings in so doing. On his
" brother Harry " he enjoined, as his father had upon
himself, obedience to the Queen in all save religion — in
which she had promised to attempt no change. Should
any one speak to him on that subject, he was to avoid
discussion and to inform his brothers. To the Duke
of York he wrote in the same strain, telling him of his
mother's promise, but adding that, should any attempt
be made to change the boy's religion, the Duke must
take the best care he could to prevent his being wrought
upon. Before leaving Paris Charles appears to have felt
that he had yet another duty to perform. Since his
mother and the Chancellor had found it impossible to
live together in amity, Charles desired that they should

460 HENRIETTA MARIA
at least part in peace ; and with that object arranged
a fareweU interview between them. It proved a failure,
Hyde, on being introduced to the Queen's presence,
instead of wisely letting bygones be bygones, begged to
be acquainted with the grounds of her displeasure ; when
Henrietta, " with more emotion and a louder voice than
usual," told him that she had consented to see him
by reason of the King's importunity ; that he had no
cause to expect to be welcome to her ; that his dis
respect was notorious ; that all men knew that, though
lodging under her roof, he avoided her, and that the
fact that she had not seen him for six months was an
affront in itself.
Hyde answered at length. He had never yet been
in Bedlam, he said, which he would have deserved had
he published the Queen's displeasure by a voluntary
avoidance of her ; adding that he had kept out of her
presence only after it had been made manifest that he
was unwelcome, and again begging to know his fault.
Henrietta was neither softened nor convinced. She
rehearsed her old grievances, Hyde's credit with the
King, and his alleged endeavours to lessen her own ;
added that she would be glad to see reason to change
her mind, " and so, carelessly extended her hand towards
him, which he kissing, her Majesty departed to her
chamber." Charles must have been sorry that he had insisted
upon a scene of reconcUiation corresponding so ill with
his hopes ; and thus mother and son took leave of
each other for an indefinite period. Relief, it may be,
mingled with their regrets ; whilst the rejoicing of the
Chancellor at his own escape from Paris and that of
his young master will have been unmixed. If he con
tinued to deplore the Queen's animosity, it was to

ANNE HYDE 461
prove no bar to the advancement of his interests ; and
in the autumn his daughter Anne was promoted to be
lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Orange — an appoint
ment productive of consequences well calculated to
justify in Henrietta's eyes her distrust of the father.
Mary had already cast a favourable eye upon the
Chancellor's daughter. " I presume," Hyde had written
some two years earHer to Nicholas, " you think my wife
a fool for being so indulgent to her girl as to send her
abroad on such a gadding journey. I am very glad she
hath had the good fortune to be graciously received by
her Royal Highness, but I think it would be too much
vanity in me to take any notice of it."
The dislike entertained by Henrietta for the Hyde
connection would have been a reason the more that her
sister-in-law, the Queen of Bohemia, should espouse
their cause, and in November, 1654, Elizabeth sent a
gracious message, through Nicholas, to tell the Chancellor
that she had seen his wife and daughter, adding that
she had found her favourite grown every way to her
advantage. The Princess Royal would therefore have
had her aunt's approval in bestowing upon Anne a post
in her household. The Chancellor, it was true, demurred.
The favour shown to his daughter would, he urged,
draw upon him a further access of the Queen's displeasure,
which already heavily oppressed him, and of which the
Princess would experience a share, Mary, however, was
not disposed to give way. She had always, she said,
paid her due duty to her mother, but she was mistress
in her own house, receiving what servants she pleased.
In the end the father's objections were overruled and
his daughter, for good or iU, accepted the proffered
position. Meantime, the months following upon the departure

462 HENRIETTA MARIA
of her two elder sons must have been ftdl of anxiety
to Henrietta, more especially with regard to the Duke
of York ; and when the victory of Arras was won by
Turenne, Henrietta was uncertain for two days whether
he was alive or dead. In September she was once more
in an agony of apprehension, lest Cromwell's ambassadors
should be received at the French court, " Nothing," she
repeated, " since the death of my Lord the King, has
touched me as nearly as this. It seems like killing his
memory, which is so dear to me,"
It would seem that absence had not put an end to
the questions at issue between the Queen and her eldest
son. Of what nature they were is not specified ; but
Lord Hatton, reporting in October that she continued
ill, added that it was said that she was as much vexed as
sick, " by reason of the King's noble ways, which recover
others," Before the end of the month she had given
Charles a legitimate cause of complaint.
Less than a week after Lord Hatton's letter had
been written, the English colony in Paris were startled
by the announcement that the Duke of Gloucester had
been sent to pay a visit to Pontoise, where Walter
Montagu was Abbot. The explanation of this arrange
ment was given in letters from Lovell, the Duke's tutor,
to Charles and Hyde — delayed for a week or two by
authority — stating that he had been apprised by the
Queen of her intention to endeavour by all fair means
to effect her son's conversion. The tutor, placed in a
difficult position, anxious alike to do his duty and avoid
giving offence, a timorous man moreover and by no
means of the stuff of which martyrs are made, had
replied that, whUst bound, so long as he was at hand, to
confirm his charge in his own faith, it was for the Queen
to dispose of him as she should please. In plain words

ATTEMPT TO CONVERT GLOUCESTER 463
he was ready, in case of necessity, to abandon the field to
the enemy.
Before any answer could be received from Cologne,
where the King then was, a concrete form had been
given to the apprehensions entertained by those watching
the course of events in Paris. Sir George Radcliffe,
chancing to visit the Jesuit college at Clermont, found
masons busy preparing an apartment destined to receive
the Duke, who was, he was told, shortly to be admitted
to the college. The news quickly spread, causing general
consternation. Dean Cosins was in tears, begging Lovell
to read the church prayers in the boy's bedroom at
Pontoise — an office the cautious tutor excused himself
from undertaking, lest offence should thereby be given
to the Abbot. He took the step, instead, of informing
his pupil of his mother's intentions of attacking him on
the subject of religion, whereat the Duke was " much
troubled" ; whilst Lovell began to contemplate a journey
to Italy and to indulge anxious misgivings with regard
to emoluments. Matters stood thus when Montagu inaugurated the
siege of what some one termed " the sweet fortress of
Gloucester " ; basing his earlier arguments chiefly upon
the mundane advantages likely to accrue to the convert.
It behoved the Duke to look for a subsistence ; nor was
it to be expected that the Queen, out of her limited
means, would provide for him unless his conduct was
such as to meet her wishes. Hints were also said to
be thrown out of a cardinal's hat, to be bestowed upon
a royal proselyte. To Lovell Montagu suggested the
discovery of a reason for absenting himself, and the pUable
tutor began to turn his thoughts more and more towards
a winter in Rome. It was diflScult, he truly said, to
serve two powers with contrary wills.

464 HENRIETTA MARIA
By November 5th Gloucester had been permitted to
visit Paris, for the ostensible purpose of paying his
respects to the King and Queen, recently returned from
the country. AvaiUng himself with promptness of the
opportunity thus afforded him, he sent on his arrival to
command Cosins' attendance on the foUowing morning ;
when, taking the Dean aside, he " complained of the
great task he had to undergo without authorised assist
ance," and repeated the arguments used by Montagu.
The interview was interrupted by the Abbot. He desired
the Duke to be in readiness to accompany him to the
court, reproved him for having failed to send for his
barber, and directed the length to which his hair was
to be cut.
Conducted to the Louvre by Montagu and his mother,
the boy was received with great civUity by King and
Queen. Was he yet absolutely turned .'' asked Anne
of Henrietta, watching with interest the progress of
her sister-in-law's enterprise. " Non pas encore," was
the Queen's reply. Determined to lose no time in
effecting the desired change, Henrietta had a second
interview with Lovell on the same day, informing him
that she was resolved to proceed in the matter and that
it would be advisable that he should depart. To lay
the affair first before the King, she said in reply to
a suggestion of the tutor's to that effect, would take
too much time. Upon this Montagu entered, and,
being made acquainted with the subject of the dis
cussion, took a high tone ; wondered at " that person's "
obstinacy in not obeying the Queen in her own house,
and proceeded further to speak in sUghting terms
of Charles' authority. LoveU, according to his own
account, had been very bold, and, informed that he
had leave to quit his post, had declined to do so.

ATTEMPT TO CONVERT GLOUCESTER 465
unless in obedience to a positive command. In making
his report, he likewise took much credit for the advice
he had given his charge. Others would have kindled the
Duke to such a flame as might have burned one hour
and died the next, and would have made him obstinate
in a manner to cause subsequent shame. But in his
interview with the Queen, Gloucester had fortunately
followed Lovell's own directions ; had shown humility
and affection, and professed his readiness to obey her
in all he could whilst remaining constant to his religion
and to the commands of his father and brother. He had
also added his prayers that the Queen would not make
him disobey, thereby putting her to " some trouble " ;
and had displayed the instructions left with him by
Charles. The assertion contained in this paper, to the
effect that she had promised not to meddle with the boy's
religion, Henrietta declared to be a mistake. She yielded,
however, in the end, so far as to say that matters should
proceed no further till communication had been held with
the King, Lovell was to be absented from the Duke
only temporarily ; " and the behaviour he [Gloucester]
has shown to-day has been so pretty, with such affection
and concernment," that his tutor hoped that he would
but be roused by solitude to understanding and spirit.
At this stage it seems to have occurred to the Queen
that the Cologne mail could not be indefinitely detained ;
and that it would be well that her report, supplement
ing that of others, should represent what was going
forward in as favourable a light as possible. She
therefore opened communication with the King. He
would no doubt have heard, she told him, much to
her prejudice, of her design ; proceeding further to
offer her explanations. Seeing that the Duke was wasting
his time and becoming very unruly, she had sent him

466 HENKiiilTA MARIA
to Pontoise, in order thereby to put an end to his
acquaintance with other Httle lads by whom he had
been persuaded to nothing but amusement. She had
also considered herself bound to make known to him
the articles of her religion, though she would neither
force him nor break her promise.
Gloucester wrote to his brother, with boyish succinct
ness. The Queen had spoken to him, and had said she
would have him instructed In her religion. Thereupon
he had quoted his father's and brother's commands,
begging her to write to the King before he heard any
disputing, Jermyn was the next writer, his tone of indifferentism
contrasting sharply with the excited partisanship of others,
and carefully guarding himself from the expression of
any forecast as to the result of the Queen's present
action. He could wish the thing had not been under
taken, and that it might not succeed ; but could add
nothing to such wishes. He, in fact, did not intend
interference. Lord Hatton was, on the contrary, in a
condition bordering on hysteria. At the hazard of his
own life and that of those nearest to him he would,
he wrote, venture all to rescue the sweet Duke, " If
the Duke of Gloucester be thus lost, we are lost," He
could neither eat nor sleep till a remedy was applied,
and had never been in such disorder before.
The bag containing these communications reached the
"little melancholy court " at Cologne on November loth,
Henrietta had begged the King not to be excited at her
tidings, counting perhaps upon his easy-going nature to
incline him to acquiescence. If so, her reckoning was
defective. Never before, said Hyde, had he seen him
in so great trouble of mind, or so awakened. To
his mother he promptly sent a hurried but urgent

CHARLES' ATTITUDE 467
remonstrance, reminding her of her promises and his
dead father's words. For his own part, what she was
doing would make all his Protestant subjects believe his
own acts and words to be " nothing but a grimace,"
To Jermyn he sent a sharp rebuke, adding that, did
he not exert himself to prevent the Duke's conversion,
he would see or hear from the King no more : the
breach between Charles and his mother would be
irreparable. His reply to Gloucester contained a similar
menace. Should he listen to the Queen he would never
see England or his brother more, and would be the ruin
of his King and his country. If he did not observe the
words of his dead father, it would be the last time he
would hear from Charles.
But it was not upon letters alone that the King
relied. Ormond was to carry his injunctions, and was
forthwith despatched to Paris with orders to bring
his influence to bear not only upon the Queen and
Gloucester, but, if necessary, upon the French authorities
by whom Henrietta was supported, and to use his
best endeavours to remove the boy from his mother's
vicinity and to bring him to Cologne,
On his arrival in Paris, the messenger found that
the Duke had been sent back to Pontoise. The
apartments destined for the boy's use at Clermont were
ready ; thanksgivings for his conversion had already
been offered in some churches, and keen anxiety was
felt as to the course likely to be pursued by the King,
So far, the object of aU this soHcitude had shown
singular determination and constancy ; a controversial
paper prepared by Dr. Cosins and smuggled into Pontoise
by Lord Hatton having been studied by his single
Protestant attendant, a mere lad named Griffin, who
communicated its purport to the Duke as the two
VOL. a. II

468 HENRix:.iiA ivlAKlA
lay awake at night and thus fortified his master against
any arguments by which he might be assailed.
Though delays had occurred in executing the
Queen's purpose, November 20th, the very day of
Ormond's arrival, had been fixed for the initiation of
the Duke's residence at Clermont ; and the Duke of
York, who had returned a day or two earHer from
the army, was permitted to hold no communication
with his brother save in the Queen's presence. It was
clear that there was no time to be lost.
Ormond's first interview with Henrietta was incon
clusive. Her promise to the King was declared by her to
have had reference to violence alone as a means of
persuasion ; and she ultimately cut the envoy short
with a promise to think the matter over. It was
unnecessary, she added, for Charles' messenger to visit
Pontoise, as the Duke was very shortly to return to
Paris. Ormond, though he did not say so, differed from
the Queen. He proceeded to Pontoise on the following
day ; obtained speech with the Duke, finding himself
astonished at the pertinence and method of Gloucester's
discourse ; and quickly succeeded in effecting the re
moval of the boy to Paris. To proceed further he was,
so far, powerless, the Queen having demanded a few
days' delay before making her reply to the King's letters
and directions.
The attitude taken up by Charles was causing, if
not surprise, some indignation at the Palais Royal ;
and Jermyn in particular accepted his rebuke in no
spirit of meekness. Had the King used desires and
commands instead of threatenings, he could, he wrote,
have done no more. If he were never to see and hear
from Charles again — though the facility with which that
resolution had been taken might afford him some con-

ORMOND'S MISSION 469
solation — no man would be more sensible of the mis
fortune. But it was strange that an event so easy to
foresee should not have been prevented by those on
whom it was incumbent, whilst it was expected from
perhaps the only Protestant in the world with a good
excuse to let it alone. Lord Percy, also fallen under
the King's displeasure, expressed his regrets that Charles
should have honoured him with a letter. He had never
been an officious though always a dutiful servant ; and
having received no commands would not act without
them, especially when such action would have clashed
with the Queen, whom he so much honoured.
Possibly Charles felt he had been unjust, Gloucester,
whether under pressure from the delinquents or not,
sent a letter to say that he heard the King had written
sharply to Jermyn ; but that had it not been for him,
Berkeley, and Crofts — all three accused of connivance
in the Queen's designs — Ormond would have found him
in the Jesuit college ; and Charles' authority had been
likewise upheld by Percy against the arguments of " that
desperate casuist " — to quote Hyde — Mr, Montagu,
who would have set limits to it.
Ormond, meanwhUe, was growing impatient. In
spite of assurances to the contrary, he was apprehensive
that obstacles would be placed in the way of the Duke's
rendering obedience to his brother's summons and
accompanying him to Cologne. On November 28 th,
when the envoy had been a week in Paris, a decisive
interview, however, took place between mother and son.
She presumed, she told him, that he was weary of being
solicited. Truly she was weary too. She would there
fore shorten his trial. He was to give Montagu one
more hearing, to sequester himself and to think the
matter over, and to bring her his answer that night.

470 HENRIETTA MARIA
When his answer was made it was such as might have
been expected. It is likely enough that, setting aside
the boy's natural bias in favour of the faith in which
he had been bred, the methods used in attempting
his conversion had caUed into play all the sturdy com-
bativeness inherent in the British schoolboy ; nor is it
improbable that by this time, and with Ormond to back
him, he had entered not without enjoyment into the
spirit of the fight. In any case, he was firm in his
determination to resist the Queen's wishes.
For Henrietta's conduct there is no excuse to be
made. It is impossible not to discern in it a very
unspiritual indignation at the resistance which had been
successfully offered to her will. With what must have
been an uncontrolled outbreak of passion, she told the
Duke that she would no longer own him as her son,
and commanded him to leave her presence ; forbidding
him to set foot again in her lodging, and adding that she
would allow him nothing but his chamber to lie in until
Ormond should provide for him elsewhere. When the
lad knelt to crave her blessing she refused it.
The next day or two were spent in hurried con
sultations. To Ormond the Queen said that she would
take no more care of the Duke ; and to his request for
permission to take him to his brother, replied that he
should have her leave for nothing, but that she would
not hinder him, York made intercession in vain, and
when Gloucester waylaid her on her way to mass, in
order once more to crave her blessing, she rejected him
" with great indignation," It would seem that the
Duke's own temper here gave way ; for when Montagu,
finding him " much discomposed," asked what had
occasioned his disorder, he turned fiercely upon the
Abbot, " What I am to thank you for, sir," he said

THE QUEEN'S ANGER 471
hotly, " and it is but reason that what my mother said
to me, I should now say to you — be sure I see your
face no more." After which he repaired with his
brother to Sir Richard Browne's chapel, there to attend
the English service.
It was manifest that no relenting was to be expected
from the Queen. Orders were given that the Duke
was not to be supplied with provisions ; his horses were
turned out of the stables, the sheets removed from his
bed, and when, after a day spent at Lord Hatton's,
he stole back, in his mother's absence, to the Palais
Royal to bid his little sister farewell, so great was the
child's consternation at his obstinacy that she could do
nothing but shriek aloud, crying, " Oh me, my mother !
Oh me, my brother ! Oh, my mother, what shall I do ?
I am undone for ever ! " Under these circumstances,
little comfort was to be had at the palace. It was there
fore arranged that Lord Hatton should give him house-
room for the present ; and when the Queen-Mother and
her younger son, the Duke of Anjou, called upon
Henrietta, and Anjou was sent to Gloucester's apart
ments, to try the effect of his persuasions, his cousin
was gone.
It is proof of the impecunious condition of the
English refugees, that only by pawning his Garter
and jewel could Ormond raise money to remove the
boy to Cologne. Meantime Gloucester's spirits were
rising at the prospect of emancipation from maternal
control, and in a letter to Nicholas his host gives a
message from his " little great ghest " to the effect that
he knew the Secretary would be active and accompany
him at all his sports ; and that, though he feared the
Chancellor would be lazy, he intended to put him to it.
Before Christmas the Duke, with Ormond and his smaU

472 HENRIETTA MARIA
household, were on their way to Cologne, and the
Queen's separation from her son was effected. To his
desire that he should be aUowed to take leave of
her and receive a parting blessing, she had repHed
by rejecting the letter conveying the request; and
Gloucester proceeded, unforgiven, to join his brother.
The two never met again.
Thus ended an episode presenting Henrietta in the
most unpleasing light of any to be recorded. That she
acted in obedience to the dictates of her conscience
there is no reason to doubt ; but it was a conscience
deUvered into the keeping of Walter Montagu ; and the
methods employed to force her son to act against his
own are suggestive of a fanaticism touched with madness.
Writing to Charles in answer to his remonstrances, she
told him, in reference to his reminder of his father's
wishes, that, though she could say with great truth
that she would wiUingly have given her life to save the
King's, nothing that he could say, were he now aUve,
woidd have had more effect than her son's protests.
In extenuation, if not in defence, of her conduct,
the spirit of the times must be borne in mind, and the
fact that the Queen of Bohemia's daughter Louise,
afterwards Abbess of Maubuisson, took the step of flying
from her mother's court on becoming a Catholic, points
to a condition of animosity as bitter in the opposite
camp. Her brother Prince Edward had, earlier still,
abjured his Protestantism, and when a letter was subse-
quentiy discovered in which he supplied the Princess
with facilities for flight, his mother observed sardonically
that she had always thought that the Devil and Prince
Edward had done it. That Louise sought and found a
refuge with Henrietta will not have improved the
relations between the sisters-in-law.

CHAPTER XXIII
1655— 1656
Court parties — The Cardinal and Henrietta— Family reconciliations —
Louis XIV. and Henriette-Anne — The Princess Royal's visit — Dis
agreements between the Duke of York and the King — The Princess
and Henry Jermyn.
TRANSACTIONS of the kind narrated in the last
chapter were not calculated to increase good feeling
amongst the rival factions into which the Royalists were
divided ; and Henrietta's defeat had doubtless its effect
in embittering party spirit. She was not likely to bestow
an easy forgiveness upon her opponents ; Lord Hatton
anticipated the necessity of quitting Paris ; and Radcliffe,
employed by the King to convey a letter to his brother,
was in no less disfavour. It was natural, Jermyn told
him when he sought access to the Queen, that she should
be offended with interlopers who meddled with things
that concerned them not, and thereby crossed her designs.
After which Radcliffe grew very weary of Paris.
On the other hand, the patty hostile to the Palais
Royal was on the alert, a watchful eye being kept
in particular upon the Duke of York, who remained
throughout the spring with his mother. It was
anxiously noted that the heir to the throne was on
terms of perilous friendliness with Sir John Berkeley
" and all that tribe," and James' letters tend to con
firm the impression that he did not at this time share
the general distrust of the Queen's confidants. It is
473

474 HENRIETTA MARIA
to Jermyn that he, like his mother, refers Charies for
information, even when his own position is in question.
Jermyn, he writes in one letter, wiU teU the King his
business affairs, " so that I need not trouble you with
it, or the other news of this place ; only this, that it
is so hot weather that I have been a-swimming this
afternoon and never found the water warmer." And he
sends some songs from the latest baUet. In the same
letter the Duke communicated the news of a proposal
made to him by certain CathoHcs bound by a solemn oath
to kiU CromweU. It is possible that in furnishing his
brother with this important piece of information, his
knowledge of Charles' character may have led him to
doubt whether the latest novelty in ballets might not prove
a subject of greater interest than the project of murder.
If the Queen was finding more comfort than at
an earlier date in the society of her second son, she
needed it. Her disappointment with regard to Gloucester
was said to have affected her health, and it seemed to
be visibly faUing. Other matters, besides the Duke's
recalcitrance, may well have been wearing alike to nerves
and spirits. The negotiations between the French and
English governments were believed to be not unHkely
to include a stipulation for the expulsion from France
of all Royalists, including Henrietta, unless she should
withdraw into a convent. In February Hatton told
Nicholas that Jermyn had been sent by her to the
Cardinal to make inquiries as to the truth of the rumours
afloat ; adding that the minister had been " very high and
loud " ; had wondered that the Queen and her son did
not perceive that his conduct was designed to serve them,
and declined to make any particulars known. At Charles'
court it was said that his mother had given Mazarin an
" heroic answer " — probably with regard to the obnoxious

RECONCILIATION WITH CHARLES 475
treaty ; but though entertaining no doubt of her own
" princely spirit," Hatton, on the spot, was too confident
of the strength of the influence exercised by Jermyn, who
dared not offend the Cardinal's dog, to credit the report.
In one respect Henrietta's horizon was brightening.
The partial estrangement between herself and the King
had added a painful element to her life during the winter
of 1654-5. Early in January, however, Jermyn was
writing to Charles that though the Queen could not
yet forget the business of the Duke of Gloucester, he
hoped that a very few days would make her capable
of meeting the King's advances towards a good under
standing ; and by the 1 5th he was able to enclose a
letter from Henrietta. Neither could in fact afford
to quarrel. To the Queen, Charles was alike her son
and her King ; whilst policy and affection equally made
it important to Charles to maintain terms of amity with
his mother. Money was scarce, and to an inquiry
concerning the payment of his pension by France, the
answer had been made that it would be paid " so far
forth as the Queen of England desired, and no otherwise."
By February a reconciliation appears to have been effected,
and Jermyn was transmitting to the King a suggestion
that the agent to be sent by Henrietta to the new Pope
on affairs of her own should be intrusted with the
King's business, since it would be difficult for Charles
to deal directly with Rome. The step, Jermyn urged,
would be not only advantageous to his interests, but
would promote a better understanding with his mother.
Though Charles answered dubiously, the ensuing
months were in fact much occupied with the attempt
to induce the new Pope, Alexander VIL, to supply
funds to render a Royalist enterprise possible ; and a
draft in Hyde's hand stating Charles' readiness to repeal

476 HENRIETTA MARIA
the penal laws against CathoHcs should he be assisted
in the recovery of his crown indicates the price
he was wiUing to pay for financial support. The
negotiations, like others of the same kind, produced no
result. The Pope had his own informants concerning
English affairs, and their reports did not tally with those
furnished by Charles' agents ; Cromwell's power appeared
to him to be too securely established to be overthrown,
and he declined to contribute funds towards the attempt.
Whilst the abortive attempt at a Royalist rising
during this year was productive of fresh disappointment
at . the Palais Royal, it wUl have been in some measure
counterbalanced, not only by the terms of amity estab
lished between Henrietta and the King, but by the
more friendly spirit which was replacing a coldness also
existing between the Queen and her elder daughter.
In June the Duke of York was writing to his sister,
by his mother's desire, to say that though at present
too sick to do so herself, the Princess should hear from
her when she was well, the Duke adding, on his own
account, that a kind answer might be expected. " I
hope," Mary added, communicating this intelligence to
the King, " there will be a good understanding amongst
us all, in spite of all hot heads, which have studied
nothing but how to make the Queen angry both with
you and me." Sir Henry Bennet, secretary to the
Duke of York, also congratulated the King upon the
fact that his mother's last letters had been " so kind
and obliging," adding his hopes that the two would
both talk themselves into that kindness that ought to
be between them. In spite of frequent disagreements,
there was no lack of love amongst the members of the
royal family, and Mary, in another letter, is found assuring
her eldest brother of her obedience in all respects, save

HENRIETTE-ANNE AND LOUIS 477
in not loving her boy (though her only child) above
all things in the world, so long as the King himself
was in it.
If Henrietta was now at peace with her own children,
she was at more than peace with her nephew, the young
King. Louis was, she wrote to Charles, so much grown
and embellished that he could not be more so ; she
was quite in love with him. He also conducted himself
towards her like a different person, and was become as
courteous as possible. It does not appear whether this
unqualified eulogy was pronounced before or after an
incident had occurred which may have lessened to some
extent her enthusiastic appreciation of the King's merits.
It was at a certain small entertainment given by Anne
of Austria that the incident in question took place.
On this occasion a particularly select company, of
ladies only, had been gathered together to see the King
dance, Anne appearing in cap and dressing-gown in order
to emphasise the private nature of the affair. When
the branle was to begin, the King, accustomed to pay
all honour to the Mancini sisters, nieces of the Cardinal,
had already selected one of them as his partner, when
his mother, indignant at the slight thereby offered to
the Princess Henriette, rising abruptly from her seat,
separated the couple, directing her son in a low voice
to offer his hand to his cousin. The meaning of her
interposition must have been patent to all present ; and
Henrietta, watching her angry sister-in-law, followed her
to beg that she would put no constraint upon Louis,
adding that Henriette had hurt her foot and was unable
to dance. The excuse was transparent, and Anne put it at once
aside. If Henriette could not dance, neither, she declared,
should the King ; and no choice was left to her cousin but

478 HENRIETTA MARIA
to accept the partner thus forced upon him, although
remaining impenitent, and replying sulkily at night to
the rebukes addressed to him by his mother that he did
not like little girls.
It is possible that the young King, as well as
others, attached a deeper significance to the incident
than the mere exchange of one partner for another.
The question of his marriage was now becoming an
important one ; and it was probably not unknown to
the person chiefly concerned that his aunt indulged the
dream that the daughter she loved so well might one
day reign as Queen in her native land. His own
mother was attached to the child who had grown up
under her eyes, and amongst the aspirants to the hand
of the best parti in Europe Henriette may have
seemed not the least likely to be selected. The mis
fortune was that whilst Louis was sixteen and looked
more, the Princess, at eleven, was still a child ; and
that, after the fashion of boys of his age, he entertained
a preference for older women. At the present time one
of the Mancini sisters, afterwaids married to the Comte
de Soissons, altogether eclipsed in his eyes his little
cousin. So far, however, his marriage was not a matter
of pressing urgency ; and Henrietta may reasonably
have hoped that in two or three years, should his choice
be delayed so long, her daughter might have reached
an age when she would find favour in his eyes. That
time was not to come until too late for matrimonial
purposes. Before the year 1655 had drawn to an end the blow
so long dreaded by Henrietta had fallen. Peace had
been formally declared between England and France,
and she was looking on with bitterness at the bonfires
lit to celebrate the event, and taking to herself such

PRINCESS ROYAL'S VISIT 479
comfort as could be afforded by the conviction that
the treaty was unpopular with the Parisian pubHc. She
had summoned the Duke of York to Paris, not con
sidering it fitting that he should serve in the army of
a nation at peace with those who had put his father to
death, and his future must have furnished additional
cause of anxiety.
Early in the new year the Queen was cheered by
a visit from her elder daughter, the Princess Royal,
Charles had been apprehensive of damage to the interests
of his little nephew, the Prince of Orange, as weU
as to his own, from his sisteris journey to Paris, and
opinion both at Cologne and the Hague had been
strongly against it. The Queen and her daughter
had, however, strong wiUs, and remonstrances failed to
induce them to abandon the project. Henrietta, for
her part, replied that she was unable to perceive how
the visit in question could be more prejudicial than
those already paid by Mary to her brother at Cologne
and Spa ; and the Princess herself showed no signs of an
incUnation to defer to his views.
There may have been other reasons, besides the
natural desire to see her mother, contributing to keep
Mary firm in her determination. A conversation was
reported to have taken place between the two Queen-
Mothers which had convinced Henrietta, " who had the
art of making herself beUeve anything she had a mind
to," that Louis might be inclined towards a marriage with
her elder daughter ; whereupon she was said to have
summoned the Princess to Paris, It will be seen that
Mademoiselle credited her cousin with designs upon the
King, Whether or not this was the case, Mary is said
to have spared no expense in preparing for her visit,
to have run into debt, and even to have sold, besides

48o HENRIETTA MARIA
jewels of her own, estates she held as guardian to
her son,^
The lack of deference to Charles' wishes shown by his
mother appears to have given rise to some fears of
renewed estrangement, and in a letter addressed by Jermyn
to the King he did his best to explain the mother to the
son, " You are not to judge," he wrote, " of the Queen's
affection, no more by her style than by her words ; for
they are both sometimes betrayers of her thoughts, and
have sharpness that in her heart she is not guilty of
And I do believe that you have not only her affection
to presume on, which can never be shaken, but even
all the tenderness and kindness that can be imagined,
which I say not to intrude myself into that, which
is very unnecessary between you, she doing this oflice,
but because a word in your letter leads me to it."
A communication from Henrietta bearing the same
date as that of Jermyn was chiefly occupied with a
different matter, and one she begged her son to keep
very secret. A certain gentleman and a great mathe
matician had written to make known to Charles what he
had discovered, by means of occult art, as to the King's
future fortunes. Henrietta had consented to take charge
of this paper and to forward it to her son, adding that
many of the prophecies of the seer had already been
fulfilled. " Although one cannot place much reUance on
things of the kind," added the Queen, " one nevertheless
allows oneself easily to believe what one desires. I pray
God he may be a true prophet."
More consoling than the forecasts of the soothsayer
will have been the prospect of renewed intercourse with
the daughter from whom she had been so long parted.
' Earl of Dartmouth's notes to Bishop Burnefs History of His Own
Times.

PRINCESS ROYAL'S VISIT 481
On January 17 th, in spite of disapproval and remon
strance, Mary set forth on her journey. " I see," wrote
an adverse critic from the Hague, " that all they who
disHke the King's present proceedings are much pleased
with it, desiring (it seems) he may be disappointed in
his counsels."
Mademoiselle, looking on with envious eyes from
her place of banishment, described the magnificent equipage,
dress, and jewels it had cost Mary so much to prepare.
All the world, she added, said that she came with the
design of dazzling the King ; and it was believed that
the Queen would not regret it ; and that, should she find
favour with them, she would soon become a Catholic.
If Mary had indulged the hopes ascribed to her —
and few, especially amongst the King's cousins, were not
credited with designs upon his hand — they were not
destined to find fulfilment ; and Mademoiselle records
with satisfaction the absence of any special attentions
paid by Louis to the guest. " I believe," she wrote,
" he did not so much as speak to her." In all other
respects Mary's reception can scarcely have fallen short of
any expectations she had formed. Louis and his mother
met her a league from the city. Her brother James had
already joined her at Perron, accompanied by a repre
sentative of the King, who, according to her own account
of the matter, would have done her that honour in
person, had not her mother represented the visit as paid
to herself alone. The Queen-Mother did all that was
possible for the guest, giving frequent private entertain
ments, since the Princess was precluded by her weeds
from attending those of a more public character ; and
balls took place every night. At one of these, given
by Monsieur and of a particularly brilliant description,
Henriette-Anne enjoyed a special success, being described

482 HENRIETTA MARIA
by the court versifier as like an angel on earth, and
leading the Most Christian King — on this occasion
resigning himself to accept his cousin as a partner —
with so good a grace that all were as much charmed
with the King as with the Mignonne.
Paris had done its best in the way of welcome ; and
it is easy to detect, through her complaints of fatigue,
Henrietta's satisfaction. His sister, she wrote to Charles,
had been royally received, and had pleased every one,
from the greatest to the least. " I believe she is very
weary of visits. They are paid her from morning till
night. For my part, I am nearly dead with them. But
you, who are acquainted with France, know well enough
that, after the beginning, one enjoys sufficient repose.
That is my hope." Jermyn added his report. The
Princess, he said, was well able to hold her place.
She had also shown herself anxious to do what in her
lay to render the confidence between her mother and
brother entire. For Jermyn's part, should it fall to
his lot to be of service in that matter, it would be
the greatest happiness that could befaU him,
Mary's own letter to the Dutch minister betrays a
pardonable pride in the welcome accorded her. She
had been so overwhelmed with visits that she had had
no time to write. Never in her life had she received
so much civility. Her mother treated her with all the
friendship and care imaginable — more than she deserved ;
but they had never yet been able to converse quite alone
for want of time. Details of expenses followed. She
bought her own wood and candles, and Jermyn desired
that the servants should not eat in the house, so that
an allowance had to be made them. And she was sure
her money would not be sufficient — which was more
than probable.

THE PRINCESS ROYAL'S VISIT 483
It was well that, whilst Henrietta enjoyed the
diversion from the monotony of alternating hopes and
fears afforded by her daughter's visit, she entertained
no suspicion of one most unwelcome consequence to
result from it. Amongst the ladies brought by Mary
In her train was Anne Hyde, and it was during this
visit that the Intimacy was Inaugurated between James
Duke of York and his sister's lady-in-waiting, which
ended, four years later. In marriage.
It was not the Chancellor's fault that his daughter
had accompanied her mistress to Paris, When first the
journey had been in contemplation, he had written to
Lady Stanhope, wife of Heenvliet, the Dutch minister,
to deprecate the intention he anticipated on the part of
the Princess to take Anne to France, That the Princess
Royal had received her into her service was, he wrote,
said to have been a chief cause of the Queen's displeasure
with her daughter, and any display of special favour to
wards her would only have the result of increasing the
Queen's dislike for himself. The protest was reasonable,
but took no effect ; and when Mary reached Paris,
Anne was in her train. The Duke of York was like
wise in Paris, and though treated with small consideration
and warned that he would shortly be compelled, in
consequence of pressure from England, to go elsewhere,
he lingered on. The Princess had reason four years
later to regret that she had not deferred to the Chan
cellor's wishes and left his daughter In Holland,
Mary was In no haste to be gone. It was true
that, according to Lord Hatton, the Queen's predic
tion had found speedy fulfilment, and when no longer
a novelty she had small cause to complain of overmuch
attention. She had, he said, shown her admirable good
nature in remaining where she was treated with so little
VOL. II. 12

484 HENRIETTA MARIA
respect. If report is to be believed, the Princess Royal,
like her brother, may have had reasons of her own for
condoning the want of consideration displayed towards
her. It is said that she was carrying on a love-affair
with young Harry Jermyn, nephew and heir to her
mother's favourite ; and it was afterwards alleged, as an
explanation of the singular favour shown him by her son
in later days, that she had married him secretly. The
report was certainly current at Paris, since MademoiseUe
casually mentions that it was said that her cousin had
wedded "le petit Germain," and it wiU be seen that,
later on, Charles felt caUed upon to take steps to prevent
his sister from giving colour to the scandal.
Whatever may have been the facts giving rise to
this story, Hfe in Paris must have had much to re
commend it, and the guest showed no eagerness to
return to her maternal duties in HoUand. Amongst
the relations to whom she was now introduced for the
first time was her cousin, MademoiseUe. It was not
untU the following year that the six years' penance with
which the heroine of the Fronde had expiated her mis
deeds came to an end, and she was re-admitted to court.
But, precluded from approaching it nearer, she was
hovering round the environs of Paris, and receiving
visits from such of her friends as remained faithful to
her In her disgrace. It was at Corbeil that she received
an intimation from Henrietta that, if she would fix a
place and time for the meeting, the Princess of Orange
should be brought to make her acquaintance, an attention
more appreciated by Mademoiselle In her banishment than
it would have been at an earlier date.
The meeting took place at Chilly, marked by much
cordiality on both sides. Henrietta arrived accompanied
by her two daughters, as well as by the Duke of York

THE PRINCESS AND MADEMOISELLE 485
and a numerous train of attendants. Mademoiselle
records with pride that all the princesses and duchesses
then in Paris had repaired to Chilly to do honour to the
occasion, and all went well.
" I here present to you a person who has had a great
desire to see you," said the Queen, as she introduced
her daughter ; and Mary kissed her cousin with much
affection, " for some one I had never seen."
A banquet followed ; after which, seated on a couch,
Henrietta held a species of court, whUst the Princess
Royal made up for lost time In cementing a friendship
with her hostess. She had heard so much of Mademoiselle,
she told her, from her brother the King, that, without
knowing her, she already loved her. She expressed her
liking for France, adding somewhat imprudently that
such was her aversion for Holland that as soon as Charles
should enjoy his own again she intended to make her
home with him In England. After this, it was scarcely
to be wondered at that Henrietta told her niece that she
had never seen the Princess talk so much since she had
come to Paris. The Queen also pointed out that her
daughter was arrayed most correctly in widow's weeds, in
deference to her mother's desire that her first visit should
be ceremonious — reguliere. If it had been owing to
Henrietta that Mary had donned her black gown and
pommette, she had Indemnified herself for her sombre
apparel by the magnificence of her ornaments. Her
pearl earrings, her diamond bracelets, and her rings
won Mademoiselle's admiration. The Queen adverted
to the display with less approval, aware, no doubt, of
all It had cost.
" My daughter Is not like me," she observed. " She
is magnificent; she has money and jewels; she loves
spending. I tell her every day that she should be

486 HENRIETTA MARIA
menagere — that I was once in her condition, and even
more so, and she sees my present state."
Having done her duty by the company, the Queen
made her excuses and retired to converse with her niece
in greater privacy. Her visit had probably had another
object besides the Introduction of her daughter, and
she was desirous of keeping alive her niece's Interest
in the King. After showing her sympathy " in the
tenderest manner " for Mademoiselle's condition of banish
ment, she broached the subject nearer to her heart.
" And that poor King of England," she said. " You
are so ungrateful that you ask no news of him .'' "
" It Is for me to listen when your Majesty speaks,"
answered Mademoiselle with unusual humility, "and
not to question you. Also, I was about to await an
opportunity of asking for tidings."
" Alas ! " repHed the Queen, " he is fooHsh enough
to love you still. When he departed he begged me to
make known to you that he was in despair at quitting
France without bidding you fareweU. I would not send
you word of it, lest I should make you too vain. When
I see you, I cannot adhere to these good resolutions.
Reflect that, had you wedded him, you would not now
be in your present condition with regard to your father "
— the Duke and his daughter had quarreUed — " that you
would be your own mistress, would make use of whom
it should please you to employ, and would have been
perhaps settled in England. I am persuaded that the poor
wretch wiU know no happiness apart from you. Had
you married him, he and I would have been on better
terms. You would have contributed to make him live
at peace with me."
MademoiseUe demurred at this assumption.
" Since he does not live on good terms with your

QUARREL BETWEEN KING AND JAMES 487
Majesty," she asked, " why is It to be believed that he
would do so with another.''"
Henrietta's answer seems to have been a vague ex
pression of the affection she cherished, in spite of his
delinquencies, for the King ; and, the explanation over,
she shortly after took her leave, not without fresh
demonstrations of cordiality on the part of the Princess
Royal, who held out hopes that she might effect another
meeting with her exiled cousin before her departure from
Paris. In spite of disfavour at court. Mademoiselle was
still a power to be reckoned with and conciliated.
Thus the months passed away, till in November
Mary brought her visit to a close and left Paris for
Bruges, where the King was now resident. She had
been preceded to the Flemish town by the Duke of
York, and the four visible hopes of England, as they are
termed by Hyde, were thus gathered together, Henriette-
Anne being the only one of Charles L's children wanting.
The reunion of the four visible hopes was not
attended with peace and amity. Henrietta reported to
her sister at the end of January that she was in fresh
trouble, the Duke of York having taken offence and
quitted his brother, to retire into Holland. She added
that she was labouring to restore peace between her sons
and to induce the Duke to return to Bruges.
The fact was that James had arrived at his brother's
court, accompanied not only by " le petit Germain," who,
as nephew to Henrietta's favourite, was unlikely to find
a welcome there, but by Sir John Berkeley, also con
nected with Jermyn, and in bad repute with Charles and
his counsellors. When It is remembered that Hyde had
successfiiUy interposed, as the friend of both, to prevent
a marriage between Lady Morton, Henriette's gouvernante,
and Berkeley, it will be seen that private grudges will

488 HENRIETTA MARIA
have embittered the relations of the rival parties. Sir
John's reception was of the coldest ; doubts were thrown
upon the Duke's right to select the members of his own
household, and it was finaUy intimated to Berkeley by
Digby, now Earl of Bristol, that he would do weU to
depart, since the King would probably insult him if he
did not take that step.
Such was the account sent to HoUand by the Princess
Royal, who had, on her arrival from Paris, entered with
zest Into the quarrel and taken part strongly with her
younger brother. She herself was treated, she said, as
if she had the plague, and poor Sir John Berkeley was
leaving. Three days later she was writing that the Duke
had departed, no one knew whither — he had, in fact,
gone to join his friend on a pre-arranged plan, taking
with him Harry Jermyn — and she entreated that an
urgent summons, worded for her brother's eyes, might
be sent to her from Holland. There was not a single
person in Bruges to whom she could speak freely.
After this outburst it is surprising to find that it was
not untU February that, in response to a genuine demand
for her presence, she left Bruges. Negotiations had
been set on foot between her two brothers which she
was anxious to see concluded ; and in the end the Duke
was permitted to retain Berkeley's services — the King's
dignity being saved by the delay of a month in his
return to Bruges — and a peerage was further bestowed
upon the object of the general distrust. The Duke of
York's display of independence had taken effect.
In spite of the efforts Henrietta represented herself
as making to restore peace between the brothers, she
seems to have espoused her younger son's cause with
as much warmth as the Princess Royal, and in as belli
gerent a spirit. Passing through Paris on his way

THE PRINCESS OF ORANGE 489
to Madrid, Sir Henry Bennet, formerly in the Duke's
service and now employed by the King, called at the
Palais Royal to deliver a letter from Charles, and wrote
to give Hyde a description of his reception there. The
Queen had said she had no commands for him ; that
he would do well to make the least stay In the house
that he could ; and that, the Duke being displeased with
him, had it not been for the letter of which he was the
bearer she would not have consented to see him at all.
Jermyn asked him coldly to dinner, but did not dispute
the point when he said that, after what the Queen
had said, he did not think he could safely accept the
invitation. After which discouraging interview the
messenger took his leave.
It must be confessed that Charles had no easy task
in regulating the affairs of his brothers and sisters, and
Mary herself was causing him no slight anxiety about
this time. It has been seen that Harry Jermyn had
been one of the Duke of York's companions, and it
may have been partly this fact that had ranged his sister
so vehemently on James' side. At any rate, it was not
long before the reports concerning the Princess's relations
with Lord Jermyn's heir had become so injurious that
the King took the step of demanding that the young
man should leave her vicinity and present himself at
his own court,
Mary had not reached the point of resistance to
her brother's express orders, and Jermyn was promptly
despatched to join him. She, however, wrote to say
that she trusted that, the King having been obeyed,
he would permit the Duke to recall his servant, since
Jermyn's absence would be less effective than his presence
in putting an end to any stories that might be afloat.
The reasoning does not appear conclusive ; but, having

490 HENRIETTA MARIA
vindicated his authority, Charles reluctantly yielded, and
permitted Harry Jermyn to go. The affair was not
even yet at an end. More than one interview took
place between brother and sister with regard to what
Charles termed " this unhappy business " ; and the King
was heard to exclaim that he thought Lord Jermyn and
his family were destined to be his ruin.

CHAPTER XXIV
1657 — 1660
Treaty with Spain — Henrietta's appeal to Cromwell — Her dependent con
dition — Death of Cromwell — Question of Louis' marriage — Charles
at Fontarabia — And at Colombes — Royalist chances — Reresby at
court — Charles' improving prospects — The Restoration — Henriette-
Anne and the Due d'Orleans — The Queen and Mademoiselle.
NOTWITHSTANDING the settiement of the dis
putes between the King and his brother, the
Duke of York was probably not sorry to leave Charles'
court and to resume his own trade of soldiering, to be
carried on under the Spanish instead of the French flag.
Recent negotiations with Spain had resulted in a
treaty between Charles and the Spanish Government
which, of small intrinsic importance, may have seemed,
to Royalist eyes, a presage of better things. Although
Spain was bound to scarcely more than a vague promise
of future assistance should the occasion for It present
itself, the alliance was dwelt upon with satisfaction. In
the case of a king concerning whom, in Clarendon's
words, all the princes of Europe had seemed to contend
amongst themselves who should most eminently forget
and neglect him, the mere recognition of his existence
may have been cheering.
The new treaty must have produced complications
at Paris, If the alliance between the exiled King and
a power at war with themselves had the advantage, in
the eyes of the French authorities, of shifting the burden
491

492 HENRIETTA MARIA
of Charies' support from France to Spain, it had other
results regarded with less favour, a large number of
Irish soldiers serving In the French army under Ormond's
nephew. Lord Muskerry, having followed the example
of their commander and transferred their services to
Charles' new ally. The further fact that Henrietta's
two younger sons were taking a personal part In the
war In Flanders, must have been also calculated to give
rise to discomfort In her relations with the court of
which she was still a pensioner. On June 13th the
battle of the Dunes was fought, when Englishmen were
opposed to Englishmen and French to French, and
Spain, reinforced by Conde and the English Royalists,
was defeated by Turenne and Cromwell's Ironsides. The
surrender of Dunkirk followed, and before the end of
the month the town was in Cromwell's hands.
Giving an account to Charles of the fears she had
entertained for his brother's safety, Henrietta touched
on the difficulties of her own position. " I pass my
time very UI here," she wrote, " seeing all that is taking
place. You cannot fail to judge that I myself must
suffer greatly, I hope that God will at last put an end
to our misfortunes, and wUl re-establish you, and give
me strength enough to witness that happy day." That
they might be all together was her daily prayer.
During the summer and autumn of 1657 Henrietta
seems to have been unusually suffering. Writing to her
sister In June, she excused herself for sUence on account
of IUness, adding that she had had herself carried to
ChaiUot, but had been no better for the change. In
September Loret records that she had gone to Bourbon
" with the young princess, whose beauty shone at her side
like a guardian angel " ; and a month later he registers
her return, again accompanied by "cette princesse angelique

HENRIETTA'S APPEAL TO CROMWELL 493
qui ne la quitte presque pas." On this occasion the
waters had faUed to produce their customary effect, and
she wrote to her sister from Paris that she was wearied
with the journey and still 111.
Some time before this Henrietta had taken a step
to which she must have been driven by the stress of
necessity alone. In the hope of securing a position
of greater Independence than was possible whilst she
depended for subsistence upon the bounty of the
French government, she had made an application
through the Cardinal to his new English allies for ithe
payment of the dower due to her as Queen of England.
As might have been expected, the demand was made
In vain. The money may have been hers by right ; but it
is scarcely to be wondered at that Cromwell should have
declined to provide funds of which, as he must have
been aware, every penny that could be spared would
go to furnish his enemies with supplies. His refusal,
however, was couched in terms of gratuitous insult.
Based upon the fact that Henrietta's childish bigotry had
caused her to decline to be crowned, the answer returned
to the Cardinal was to the effect that, having never been
recognised as Queen of England, she was not entitled
to what might otherwise have been her due.
Henrietta showed not a little dignity In her reception
of this message, delivered to her by the Cardinal in person.
It was not, she said, so much for her to resent the
outrage contained in it as for King Louis, who ought
not to suffer the implied affront to be offered to a
daughter of France. For her part, the recognition of
her position by her lord the King and all England
sufficed for her satisfaction, and the insult was shameful
rather to France than to herself.
If it is matter of regret that the Queen should

494- HENRIETTA MARIA
have made the petition to a man she hated and despised,
she was not without excuse. The bread of charity Is
proverbially bitter ; and though her sister-in-law never
failed in generosity and openhandedness, others displayed
less of these qualities, " Would she not have been
right if she had done so .'' " asked Monsieur, the
King's brother, hotly, when an alleged attempt on
MademoiseUe's part to take precedence of Princess
Henriette-Anne was in question. " Why should these
people, to whom we give bread, pass before us ? Why
do not they take themselves elsewhere ? " When the
lad's sneer was reported to Henrietta, she shed tears.
It was true that his mother had sharply rebuked
him. " You being what you are, and they what they
are. It well becomes you to speak thus 1 " she had told
her son. But the exiled Queen knew that her nephew
had done no more than give expression to the senti
ments of many who were silent.
Mademoiselle, the Immediate cause of the scene, could
afford to be magnanimous. She had by this time regained
her old footing at court, and having reUnquIshed her
hope of obtaining the hand of the King, was not unwiUing
to see in her young partisan, Anjou, a possible substitute.
Though admitting that under other circumstances she
might have contested the point at issue — in which It
appears she would have had Mazarin's support— she was
disincHned to enter at the present moment upon a quarrel
with her aunt. Remembering, perhaps, that Henrietta
had shown herself her friend during the period of her
disgrace, she went so far as to obtain permission to
withdraw from court on the occasions when the am
bassador from Westminster was to be received there ;
and when the news that Cromwell had passed away came
as a prophecy of better things, she rejoiced that the

CROMWELL'S DEATH 495
coincidence of this event with the death of an infant
prince of the blood had saved the French court from
the disgrace of wearing mourning for the Lord Protector,
adding that she would have done so only by the King's
express command.
It was on September 3rd, 1658, that Oliver Cromwell
was removed from his place at the helm, and at the
news Royalist hopes, as was natural, rose high. But
reiterated disappointment had done Its work, and dis
couragement Is apparent In Henrietta's letter acknow
ledging the congratulations of Madame de Motteville.
" I thought," she wrote, " that you would be glad
of the death of that scoundrel, I wUl tell you that
I know not whether It Is that my heart is so wrapped
about by melancholy that it is incapable of joy, or that
I see no great advantage likely to result from it ; but
I have not rejoiced very greatiy ; and my chief pleasure
is to perceive the joy of all my friends."
To her sister, whether from policy or because events
appeared to her to promise more than she had anticipated
when the news first reached her, she wrote in October
in better spirits. Cromwell's death, she said, was a
beginning upon which hopes for the future might be
grounded. No change could take place in England
without presenting opportunities for action, and she had
children who would not allow occasions to slip.
If the autumn was favourable to Royalist hopes, it
saw the downfall of certain others indulged by Henrietta
with regard to the future of her youngest and best-
loved child. The question of Louis' marriage was be
coming one of increasing Importance. His dangerous
Illness in the summer must have brought home to the
Cardinal and others the fact that his life alone stood
between his brother and the throne, and there can have

496 HENRIETTA MARIA
been few with the welfare of France at heart who would
have desired to see Philippe king. The aspirants to
Louis' hand were many. If Mademoiselle had with
drawn her claims, her younger half-sister was considered
by some to be a fitting bride. His mother was avowedly
anxious that peace should be concluded with Spain,
and that the King should give her as daughter-in-law her
own niece, the Infanta. Should that project prove
impracticable, she would not have been averse to his
marriage with Henriette-Anne. But besides the King's
distaste for the match, the Cardinal displayed a marked
preference for an alliance with the house of Savoy, with
which he had already connected himself by the marriage
of a niece. Marguerite, sister to the present Duke
and the daughter of Madame Royale, was the bride
backed by the ministerial Interest — an interest powerful
enough to outweigh that of the Queen-Mother ; whUst
Louis was so eager to be married that he was not dis
posed to be over-critical as to the wife proposed for
his acceptance. In the later autumn a journey to
Lyons was accordingly to be made, when a meeting
was to take place between the courts of France and
of Savoy, and Louis to be given an opportunity of
making acquaintance with his cousin. Should she find
favour In his eyes the marriage was to be definitely
arranged. All pointed towards the realisation of the scheme, and,
in spite of Henrietta's affection for her sister, it would
have been a bitter mortification to see a niece, inferior
both In birth and beauty, preferred to her child. This
mortification she was not to suffer. The history of
the collapse of the project has been detaUed at length
in the memoirs of the time. AU had at first promised
weU. In spite of Marguerite's lack of beauty, Louis, on

QUESTION OF LOUIS' MARRIAGE 497
their first meeting, had declared her much to his taste,
and the Queen-Mother was reluctantly resigning herself
to the inevitable, when the sudden appearance upon the
scene of an envoy from Spain, charged with instructions
to faciHtate the realisations of Anne's dream of a Spanish
alliance, changed in a moment the face of affairs. When
the Infanta was to be had. It was recognised on all hands
that Marguerite of Savoy must give way ; and the courts
separated, the discarded bride. In contrast to her mother,
accepting her disappointment with a dignity commanding
the respect of all the curious observers. When the fare
wells were over, freedom of speech was restored. The
Queen-Mother, according to MademoiseUe, gave open
vent to her relief. She was glad to be rid of all the
Savoyard train, derided the Duchess's tears, and declared
her to be the greatest comedian In the world. On the
other hand. Marguerite's brother, the Duke, was reported
— he denied the report — to have congratulated himself
upon having seen Mademoiselle, since he had thereby
been cured of the wish he had cherished of making her
his wife ; and King Louis himself was free to return for
the present to his allegiance to Marie de Mancini.
To Henrietta the downfall of the marriage scheme
will have been matter of unmixed rejoicing. If It was
clear that her daughter was not destined to be Queen
of France, to cede to the Infanta was very different from
giving place to the sister of the Duke of Savoy, and
she will have offered a special welcome to the court on
Its return to Paris.
The exhilaration felt by the Royalist party when it
had become known that the great spirit of their most
powerful opponent had passed away had, meantime, been
succeeded by disappointment and discouragement. The
uncontested accession of Richard Cromwell had seemed

498 HENRIETTA MARIA
to put an end to the expectation of any immediate
amelioration of the King's fortunes ; and the fact that,
when Charies, through his mother, expressed an informal
desire to be present at the negotiation of the treaty
entered into In the course of 1659 by France and Spain,
he was met with a distinct refusal from the Cardinal,
augured IU ofthe opinion entertained of his chances.
Henrietta's relations with her son were once more
in a condition leaving much to be desired. "Though
you show me littie confidence," she wrote to Charies in
August, 1659, " I do not cease from trying to serve you
in aU I can." During the same month Ormond was
again pursuing his old avocation of peace-maker, having
apparently been sent to Paris for that purpose. On his
way thither he had visited Walter Montagu at his abbey,
and had represented to the Abbot, high In favour at the
French court, the present need of French help. Arrived In
Paris, he had a conference lasting two hours with Jermyn,
when the question of the promotion of a better under
standing between the Queen and King had been discussed,
the terms proposed by Jermyn being general — " and so,
you may be sure, reasonable," wrote Ormond to Hyde.
The Queen, when she in turn received the envoy, had
been reproachful. Had Charles trusted her in time, he
would now, she believed, have been in England. Not
having that part in his trust, she durst not venture in
the dark to meddle in his business, lest she might disserve
him — contradicting herself In the same breath by avowing
that, such was her zeal without his order she had at
tempted something with regard to which she was forced to
preserve silence, but which she hoped might prove of great
advantage. Ormond had been very civilly used, " and
had much ado to defend myself from being, in this
woful equipage, lodged in the Palais Royal." Jermyn

ORMOND AT PARIS 499
had seconded his efforts at pacification, seeming " much
unsatisfied with the Queen's saying anything like a
reproach, or the ripping up of old unkindnesses."
Henrietta's servants were possibly by this time conscious
that it would be for their future advantage to keep on
good terms with the King and his counsellors, and when
Ormond left Paris in September he carried a letter from
Lord Crofts telling Charles that he would receive by the
bearer an account of all, except his own behaviour, " which
has been so prudent as the Queen remains entirely
satisfied with your affection and fully resolved to persist
in all the fair correspondence you can desire."
Before or after this declaration of goodwill, Henrietta,
acting by Charles' wish, had inquired of Mazarin, " as
of herself," whether it would not be fit that her son
should assist at the conferences between the repre
sentatives of France and Spain at Fontarabia. Should
the Cardinal's answer be favourable, passes were to be
obtained permitting the King to travel to the frontier by
way of France. But when Henrietta broached the subject,
the minister answered " very warmly " that it was by
no means fit that Charles should carry out his intention,
which would only result in harm to himself. The Queen,
he added, was to let her son know that his interests would
be cared for by the Cardinal so soon as it should appear
that the treaty would lead to a peace.
The message was duly transmitted by Henrietta,
accompanied by her assurances of Mazarin's kindness
and good intentions. But Charles appears to have
remained unconvinced. At all events, preferring to
be on the spot when negotiations were to be carried
on with his new ally, Spain, he proceeded to make
his way, though unauthorised, to Fontarabia. Finding
the treaty already concluded and the Cardinal firm
VOL. II. 13

500 HENRIETTA MARIA
in his refusal to admit him to an Interview, he had,
however, no alternative save to take the road back to
Flanders, paying on his way the short visit to his mother
at her country home, Colombes, which was aU that the
Cardinal would permit. On this occasion the meeting
was fuUy satisfactory, and " aU former mistakes " being
removed, the relations of mother and son were estabhshed
on a footing of amity which appears to have been at
last permanent. Ormond, summoned unexpectedly to
Colombes to advise upon the manner and time of the
King's departure, was able to send Hyde a good report
of the harmony he had found prevaUing. Their master
was to travel by coach — with useful horses bought,
Ormond doubted not, dear enough of my Lord Crofts —
leaving at soonest on December 17th ; and " there is an
entire satisfaction In the King and Queen with each other,
which I hope will put an end to all other differences
that flowed from a belief of the contrary, or render them
less hurtful." In other words, when their principals were
at peace, it might be hoped that subordinates would
cease from quarrelling.
For the present, the Queen and her son were again to
remain apart ; and whilst the destinies of England hung
in the balances, and the country was gradually reverting
to its old forms of government, restoring its Parliament
and preparing to restore its king, Henrietta carried on
her old way of life at the Palais Royal. Although the
Restoration was so quickly to follow, the treaty of the
Pyrenees had given little Indication of a suspicion on
the part of the two great powers concerned in it that
the errant King who had manifested an indiscreet desire
to Intrude himself into their counsels was to be in the
near future of sufficient importance to be worth taking
Into account. When Charles' affairs had been In question

SIR JOHN RERESBY 501
during the course of the negotiations, Mazarin was
believed to have been " cold and reserved " in speaking
of him ; and he had also declined a proposal of marriage
made on the King's behalf by Turenne for his niece
Hortense d'- Mancini — a match for which, though Jermyn
denied it, Henrietta Is said to have been keenly anxious.
Her desire for such a connection — especially when her
subsequent indignation at her second son's mesalliance
is taken into account — furnishes strong evidence of the
absence upon her part of any expectation of the peaceful
Restoration which was, in fact, imminent ; nor was
Mazarin likely to have rejected the addresses of a
sovereign with a fair chance of re-Instatement. It Is
true that, in conversation with Mademoiselle, he took
credit to himself for the disinterestedness of his conduct,
attributing his refusal to the Impropriety of accepting a
king's hand for his niece whilst cousins of his master
remained unwedded ; but it may be doubted whether he
would have resisted the temptation, had not the alliance
promised to prove a barren, if not an expensive, honour.
The neglect experienced by Charles at Fontarabia was
reflected at Paris ; and Sir John Reresby, a young man
travelling abroad and presenting himself at the Palais
Royal in the autumn of 1659, attributed the cordiality
of his reception in part to the fact that the King's affairs
were considered in so hopeless a condition that few
English resorted to Henrietta's court. It has been
suggested that Reresby's own assiduous attendance there
was due to better information on his part as to Royalist
chances ; but the hypothesis is scarcely necessary to
account for the attraction presented by the Palais Royal
to a visitor of twenty-four. He was a good dancer, was
also a master of the French language, and, in considera
tion of these advantages, was welcomed as a companion

502 HENRIETTA MARIA
by the fifteen-year-old Henriette. The two danced to
gether, and played on the harpsichord ; and Sir John was
permitted to walk with the Princess in the garden, had
the occasional privilege of tossing her in a swing hung
between two trees, and was treated by her with all
" civil freedom," When it is remembered that his play
mate was shortly to take her place as one of the most
charming women of her day. It is scarcely necessary to
seek ulterior motives to explain young Reresby's constant
attendance at her mother's court ; nor would he altogether
regret the absence of the forms and ceremonies which,
in more fortunate days, would have set him at a greater
distance from a princess of the blood royal.
The Queen, according to his own account, had
a liking for the young man, and encouraged him to
present himself frequently at -the Palais, Loyal to her
married traditions, his nationality may have Inclined her to
view him with favour, since he has left It upon record
that she was accustomed to display an attachment to
her husband's country scarcely warranted by the treat
ment she had there experienced. To Frenchmen especially
she had much to say In favour of England, qualifying
the late occurrences as the work of certain "desperate
enthusiasts," rather than due to the temper of the nation
at large. It had never been Henrietta's habit to be
Indifferent to trivIaUties, and Reresby mentions, as an
Instance of her jealousy on behalf of her adopted country,
an occasion when, "to be very fine," a companion brought
by Sir John to the palace had added to his dress a rich
trimming of yellow and red ribbon. CaUing Reresby
apart, the Queen bade him counsel his friend to " mend
his fancy a Httie," the two colours combined being
ridiculous In French eyes and affording matter for
derision.

CHANGING FORTUNES 503
Reresby had other acquaintances In Paris besides those
at the palace, and in especial a trio of cousins in an
English convent to which Henrietta was accustomed at
times to retire. One of these, — " an antient lady "
addicted to gossip, — entertained the young man with the
current reports of the Queen's relations with Jermyn —
reports which, though they did not find credit with him
at that moment, he afterwards believed to have been
well founded.
Events were succeeding one another rapidly, and it
was not many months before the same observer noticed
a marked change in the aspect of the Palais Royal, the
good-humour and wit of the Queen, and the beauty of
her daughter — supplemented, it is understood, by the
brightening of the Royalist fortunes — proving more
attractive than the formal etiquette observed at the
French court, and drawing numbers of guests thither.
It can only, however, have been gradually that Paris
became aware that the mother of a king in name alone,
a pensioner upon the bounty of her French kinsfolk, was
soon to occupy a position making It worth whUe to pay
her attentions.
During the spring of 1660 the French court was,
perhaps, too much occupied with the arrangements for
the King's marriage, and the journey to be under
taken to the frontier to meet and bring home his
bride, to have overmuch attention to spare for English
politics. But the change in Charles' fortunes must
have been regarded with interest ; and by the time
that he was receiving at Breda the loyal messages of
Parliament, army, and people, Spain and France were
vying with each other in offering civilities to the
wanderer to whom they had hitherto shown such scant
courtesy. Lie was urgently pressed by Spain to return

504 HENRIETTA MARIA
to his former quarters at Brussels ; whUst Mazarin was
sending him by Jermyn— now created Eari of St. Albans
— a cordial invitation to Paris contrasting sharply with
the grudging permission he had received to pass through
it during the preceding autumn. A treaty might In that
case be concluded, the Cardinal urged, which would prove
for his mother's advantage ; whUst an opportunity would
be afforded King Louis of performing those offices
towards his cousin which he had always desired, but had
hitherto been incapable of accompHshing. Should It
prove impossible for the King to repair to Paris, pre
parations would be made for his reception at Calais, or
at whatever other place he might appoint, where his
mother might attend him.
Charles did not accept the Cardinal's invitation, de
clining It civilly on the grounds that, having refused to
return to Brussels, it would be Impossible for him
decently to pass through Flanders on his way to
Paris.-' On April 24th he saUed for England, and
five days later had made his entry into the expectant
capital. It seems strange that neither his mother, nor the
little sister to whom he was devotedly attached, assisted
at the King's triumphant return to his dominions ; and
it is possible that the Princess, at least, looked wistfully
across the Channel. Part of that anxious spring had
been passed by the mother and daughter at Chaillot ;
and writing to his sister in February, before he had left
Brussels, Charles had expressed a desire to learn how
her days were passed — " for if you have been for some
• The assertion made on the authority of a manuscript in the Archives
Secretes de France at the Hotel de Soubise, that a visit was paid by
Charles incognito to his mother at Chaillot is uncorroborated by any
evidence, either in Clarendon's account of his master's movements or by
any allusion to the meeting in Henrietta's letters.

THE RESTORATION 505
length of time at Chaillot in this bad weather," he added,
" you will have been un peu beaucoup ennuyee."
It was not, however, from the conventual retreat,
but from Colombes, that Henrietta wrote on the eve
of the great event to pour out her thankfulness and
gladness to her sister. " At length the good God has
looked upon us in His mercy, and has performed, as
one may say, a miracle in this Restoration, having
changed in a moment the hearts of a people. . . .
I know not as yet what I shall do. It is not
that the King, my son, does not already begin to
urge my return . . . and I hope before I die to
see all my family, no longer vagabonds, once more
together." A little later, news had been brought of Charles'
reception in his capital, and Henrietta's cup of happiness
was filled to overflowing. Trouble and sorrow were
soon to cloud her joy, but for the moment it was com
plete ; she had seen the desire of her heart accomplished.
Writing to her son at five o'clock in the morning on
June 9th, she gave expression to her rejoicing at the
tidings his messenger had brought. " I am starting this
moment for Chaillot to have the Te Deum sung there ;
going from thence to Paris to cause our bonfires to be
lighted. ... I believe I shall have all Paris with me.
In truth, you cannot conceive the joy felt there. We
must praise God ; all this is His hand. You can see
It. . . . May God bless you."
A letter addressed to the Duchess of Savoy, some
weeks earlier, may supply a reason for a preference upon
Henrietta's part for remaining for the present in France.
The King's change of fortune had produced other results
besides the more obvious ones, and these were in especial
tending to make the realisation of one of his mother's

5o6 HENRIETTA MARIA
favourite schemes not only possible, but probable. This
was the marriage of her younger daughter with King
Louis' brother. Although in her letter to her sister
she disclaimed any certainty on the subject, it was
evidentiy under discussion. Monsieur was known to
desire the match, and there can have been little practical
doubt that It would be arranged. Rumours relating to
the matter had reached Turin, and it was in reference
to them that Henrietta wrote. It was true, she said,
that the report the Duchess had heard was current in
Paris ; but for her part, untU those had spoken who
should do so, she put smaU faith in rumours.
From a worldly point of view the match was aU
that could be desired. Henrietta had always wished
that her daughter should become the wife of one of her
French nephews ; and since the King was out of the
question, she was ready to welcome Monsieur, become
by his uncle's death Due d'Orleans, as a son-in-law.
Had it been the fashion to take personal considerations
into account, she might well have hesitated ; and It is
a strange and melancholy proof of the subordinate part
they played In the matrimonial arrangements of the
day, that the Queen should have been anxious and eager
to hand over the child who had absorbed the largest
measure of her love to a man of Philippe's stamp and
character — one who, to quote M. Anatole France, " fut
toute sa vie un enfant vicieux, une fausse femme, quelque
chose de falble, d'inquietant et de nulsible." It was
true he was not altogether without merits ; his love
for his mother may have appealed with special force
to a woman who was herself a mother ; and so far
as he was capable of it, he was at present in
love with his cousin. But, with the exception of his
position as first prince of the blood, there was

HENRIETTE AND MONSIEUR 507
nothing to cause Henrietta's mother to look favourably
upon his suit. That, however, was enough.
By the time of the wedding journey to Fontarabia
the matter was one of common talk, and Louis was
ridiculing his brother's eagerness to obtain a wife.
The King had no liking for the match. He owned
frankly that he was not free from the traditional
prejudice against the English nation, nor had he yet
overcome his distaste for his future sister-in-law.
Even when the engagement had been formally entered
upon, he was accustomed, In allusion to Henrietta's
unusual thinness, to deride his brother's haste to wed
the bones of the Holy Innocents ; and as they
travelled together to meet his bride, he told Monsieur
that he would certainly marry the Princess, since
nobody else wanted her and she had been refused
by the Duke of Savoy, to whom it was said that
Henrietta had made overtures. It was easy to see,
adds Mademoiselle, describing the scene, that. In spite
of his mother's affection for the Queen and her daughter,
Louis felt none. Yet the days were not far off when
fears would be entertained that he might love his cousin
not too little, but too much.
In the early spring, when the court was at Toulon,
on the way to the frontier, the death of the Due
d'Orleans had deprived Henrietta of her last brother.
Mademoiselle, who was accompanying the royal party,
finding consolation for the loss of her father in the
reflection that her mourning and that of her train was
le plus regulier that had ever been seen, and in the
commendations called forth by her elaborate arrange
ments. In private, the small amount of regret felt may
be gathered from her account of the perfunctory visit
of condolence paid her by the King and his brother.

5o8 HENRIETTA MARIA
" You will see my brother to-morrow with a trained
mantle," said Louis, reverting, after the necessary
compliments, to his habit of ridiculing the Duke.
" I believe he is enchanted at your father's death, since
it gives him an opportunity of wearing one. I am
delighted that he was older than I — otherwise my
brother would have desired my own death, so that he
might put it on." The King proved right. Monsieur,
who had more than a woman's love of dress, appearing
on the following day in a cloak of a furieuse longueur.
Louis' forecast of the success of his brother's suit
was likewise justified. By the time that the King
and his bride returned to Paris, the Duke's desire
to obtain his cousin's hand was considered likely enough
to prove successful to have raised her position to one
of importance. Hitherto treated as a chUd of no special
account, Mademoiselle now paid her the compliment
of jealousy on matters of etiquette, claiming at least
equal rights. Henrietta, on the other hand, was no
less anxious to maintain that the order observed when
the Stuart fortunes had been at a low ebb was not to
be allowed to serve as a precedent in times of greater
prosperity, and In August the contention was at Its
height. The Queen and her daughter looked down
from the windows of the Hotel de Beauvais upon the
procession when Louis and his bride made their entry
into Paris, Monsieur, magnificently arrayed and riding
a white charger, forming part of the show ; and a
momentary halt was made in order to pay the mother
and daughter the honour of a salute. Such marks of
distinction will have been watched with a jealous eye
by one who, like MademoiseUe, had been accustomed
to extend her patronage to the English refugees ; and
sending Charles an account of the disputes to which the

HENRIETTE'S ENGAGEMENT 509
great state function had given rise, his mother frankly
confessed that she had taken her share in them. The
Queen- Mother had sided with her sister-in-law against
her niece and a coldness had ensued. All were, in
fact, eager to do honour to the sister of a reigning
sovereign as well as to Monsieur's future wife. The
King and Queen, coming shortly after their arrival In
Paris to pay their respects at the Palais Royal, took
the Princess out driving with them ; whilst, later on, a
great entertainment given by the Cardinal was understood
to be in celebration of the engagement.
By August 25th the Queen had received a formal
and definite proposal, on the part of the Queen-Mother
of France, for the hand of her youngest child. Of
Henrietta's consent there can have been no question ;
and In transmitting Monsieur's offer to Charles, pending
the despatch of the ambassador who was to be sent to
London, his mother added that she made no doubt he
would charge her with the expression of his approval.
" I assure you," she wrote, " that your sister is in no
way sorry ; and as for Monsieur, he Is altogether in love
and very Impatient for your answer."
A visit to England, in spite of Monsieur's Impatience,
was found to be necessary before the marriage could
be actually carried Into effect, since not only had a por
tion to be obtained for the bride, but it was desirable
that Henrietta's own pecuniary affairs should be placed
without delay upon a satisfactory footing. Before the
journey could be undertaken it would appear that the
quarrel between the Queen and Mademoiselle had been
settled, since she made a final attempt to carry out
her old scheme of a marriage between her eldest son
and his cousin. According to Mademoiselle, Madame
de Motteville was instructed to approach her on the

5IO HENRIETTA MARIA
Queen's behalf, to say that she was more desirous than
before of this match, that the King had charged her
to open negotiations, and had written to her afresh
upon the subject.
Whether Mademoiselle's version of the Interview is
to be credited remains a question. That Henrietta would
have welcomed the marriage was probably true ; but
that the King by no means shared her wishes seems
clear, since, writing from England in March, 1661,
Lady Derby mentions his aversion to the plan on account
of his cousin's former contempt, and observes that it
was not considered likely he would be Induced to fall
into the arrangement. On the other hand, Henrietta
and her emissary may have coloured his views by their
hopes, and have deluded Mademoiselle into a belief that
the throne of England was still within her grasp. At
first she affected to treat the question with levity.
" The marriage with Hortense has, then, come to
an end ? " she inquired, " So long as the Queen of
England had hopes of that, she gave no thoughts to me,"
In spite of her scoff she must have known it was
a serious matter, and she listened with attention to the
arguments in favour of the plan. But when she answered,
it was — again according to her own account — to decUne
the proffered honour. She had refused the King in the
days of his adversity, and would therefore not accept
a proposal made in prosperity and thereby place it in
his power to reproach her with her former rejection.
With this reply the envoy was dismissed, UI content,
leaving MademoiseUe, on her own confession, in the
same condition. Whether the final end was put to the
project by herself or the King must remain undetermined.
Henrietta was presently to have her thoughts directed
to another marriage in her family.

CHAPTER XXV
1660
The Duke of York and Anne Hyde — Arrival of the Princess of Orange
in London — Gloucester's death — The Queen's coming— Henrietta in
London — The Duke of York and his marriage — Henrietta's melancholy
— ^The Princess Royal's death — The Queen and the Chancellor recon
ciled — The Duke's marriage recognised — Henrietta's departure,
WHILST all had gone well In Paris, new develop
ments had taken place In England causing
anger and consternation on either side of the Channel.
The startiing discovery of the Duke of York's relations
with the Chancellor's daughter, Anne Hyde, had come
to trouble the restoration festivities, and to fill his mother
with indignation and grief.
The mention of the affair in a letter from Henrietta
to her sister sufficiently indicates her attitude with regard
to her son's entanglement. The Duke, she said, had
married in England, and without her knowledge or
the King's, a damozelle already with child. God grant,
she added, that the child was his ; but a woman who
would yield to a prince would yield to another man.
The facts were as the Queen described them. Her
inference was groundless.-' It has been seen that, as
early as 1656, James had conceived an attachment for
his sister's mald-of-honour. Three or four years later
he had entered, at Breda, into a secret contract of marriage.
* The accounts of the marriage given in James' memoirs are difficult
to reconcile with each other. S"

512 HENRIETTA MARIA
As to the exact nature of this ceremony opinions have
differed, some regarding it as in Itself an irregular
marriage, others as a mere promise of future wedlock.
On September 3rd, 1660, he redeemed his pledge by
marrying her privately, at dead of night, at her father's
house in London, Dr. Crowther, the Duke's chaplain,
performing the ceremony, and Lord Ossory giving away
the bride. So much seems certain. But in Clarendon's
account of the matter no dates are given, and it is
difficult to trace the exact sequence of events. It appears,
however, that shortiy after the marriage and before the
birth of her child — on October 22nd — Anne insisted upon
the facts being made public. She was, she said, the
Duke's wife, and would have it known that she was so,
let him use her afterwards as he pleased.
James, yielding to her pressure, went to his brother
and made confession.^ There was trouble and dismay
at court, Charles, in spite of his easy good nature
and affection for the Chancellor, at first refused his
sanction to the connection ; and Hyde himself, according
to his own account utterly taken by surprise, was " struck
to the heart." He was an honest man, yet It is
difficult to beHeve that he had been as Ignorant as he
chose to appear of all that was going forward in his
house. At any rate, he averred that he would consider
it the lesser evil should his daughter prove in truth
not to be the Duke's wife. In the case of her account
of the matter being true, he would be ready to give
judgment for her committal to the Tower and execution
by Act of Parliament.
Of all concerning themselves In the matter, Charles
' From one entry in James' memoirs it would seem that the marriage
took place only after the King's consent had been obtained ; but this is
contradicted by another passage.

From the picture by Sir Peter Lely.
ANNE HYDE, DUCHESS OF YORK.

PRINCESS ROYAL IN LONDON 513
appears alone to have been disposed to weigh Anne's
claims with impartiality and justice, appointing a com
mittee of judges and bishops to inquire into the proofs
of her marriage and to determine upon its validity.
Meantime, the enemies of the Chancellor were busily
at work. Rumours were afloat that facts had been
brought to the Duke's knowledge fully justifying him
in repudiating his wife ; and the Princess of Orange,
especially Indignant at the exaltation of her own de
pendant, had arrived In London, eager and anxious to
bring her influence to bear against the recognition of
the culprit.
Her coming had been hastened by letters from
Charles, anxious that she should proceed to England
direct, instead of first joining her mother in France as
had been Intended. Though Mary had deferred to her
brother's wishes, she had not done so without fears of
possible offence to her mother. " For God's sake," she
wrote to the King, " agree between you what I have to
do, for I know what it is to displease both of you. God
keep me from it again." Before the end of September
she was in London ; nor was it to be long before the
Queen was to arrive, with the avowed purpose of
preventing " so great a stain and dishonour to the
Crown," ^ and, to quote a letter written to her sister,
" to get her son the King married and to endeavour
to unmarry the other."
With regard to the first of these two objects, it has
been seen that she had, according to Madame de Motte
viUe, now reverted to her project of a match between
Hortense de Mancini and the King, Jermyn and Montagu
being said to be In favour of the plan, on the grounds
that Charles' seat upon his throne was still so Insecure
' Life of Clarendon.

514 HENRIETTA MARIA
as to render the support of the Cardinal desirable, if not
indispensable. But Henrietta must have become aware,
before she had been long in England, that her son's affairs
were in too prosperous a condition to make it necessary
for him to marry the minister's low-born niece, nor was
the King himself in any wise disposed to accept her
as a wife.
With regard to the second motive she had alleged
for her journey to England, it at first appeared that
she was more likely to meet with success. Many were
ready and eager to lend a hand to the " unmarrying "
of the Duke of York. The Princess of Orange
maintained her attitude of violent hostility ; and the
Duke of Gloucester is said to have declined to show
his sister-in-law any civility, replying to the Earl of
Dartmouth, who remonstrated with him on the grounds
of the damage to his prospects should the King die
childless, by the admission of his Imprudence, but adding
that the lady smelt so strong of her father's green bag
that he could not get the better of himself, whenever he
had the misfortune to be in her presence.-*-
By September 22nd, less than three weeks after the
marriage was an accomplished fact, Gloucester was gone
to a place where questions of birth and blood were of
less account than at the court of St. James, and whither
his sister was soon to follow him. The mirth and enter
tainment following upon the Restoration had, according
to Burnet, so raised; his blood that he caught small-pox
and died, to the great grief of the King, who had never
been seen equally troubled as by this loss. Henrietta
' See 3rd Earl of Dartmouth's notes to Burnefs History of His Own
Times. Clarendon places the discovery of the Duke of York's marriage
after the death of his brother. Suspicions, however, may have been
entertained earlier. Henrietta mentions the two facts in the same letter
to the Duchess of Savoy.

HENRIETTA'S ARRIVAL EXPECTED 515
was not again to see the son from whom she had parted
in bitterness. Meantime, Anne Hyde's fate was hanging In the
balance. Sir Charles Berkeley — nephew to Sir John,
now Lord, Berkeley, and, like his uncle, high in James'
favour — had succeeded in convincing the Duke of his
wife's infidelity, coupling the charge with an obliging
offer to marry her himself ; and though the King
remained loyal to his old friend and expressed his
opinion that his brother was deceived, the future of the
victim of the slander remained uncertain. Under these
circumstances the arrival of the Queen and the effect
it would produce upon the situation will have been
anxiously awaited.
The announcement that she was to be shortly expected
had taken the uninitiated by surprise ; and writing to
her sister-in-law in October, Lady Derby expressed
the general astonishment. Visiting the Princess of
Orange — a connection by marriage of her own — she
had been informed by her that the Queen, her mother,
was to come to England as soon as possible. " Every
one," she added, " tries to guess the reason of this sudden
change ; for two days before it was said she would not
come tUl spring, and that she was afraid of the winter
air of this country, which Is Injurious to delicate
lungs." A passage at the conclusion of the letter might
have furnished a key to the mystery. It was reported.
Lady Derby said, repeating the current gossip, that
the Chancellor's daughter was with chUd, and that she
alleged a contract absolutely denied by the Duke. "The
Queen, who does not like the Chancellor, is coming
to work his downfall," Lady Derby added, expressing,
no doubt, the common conviction. "Every one hates
him." VOL. II. 14

5i6 HENtimiiA MARIA
The most important person at court should have
been excepted from this sweeping assertion. But though
the King had, so far, been proof against aU endeavours
to turn him against Hyde, he nevertheless appears to
have concurred In the general agreement to postpone
any decisive step until his mother should be on the
spot. The girl — once more to quote Lady Derby — was
called Duchess in her father's house ; but everything
was said to be put off till the coming of the Queen.
Henrietta's point of view can scarcely have been matter
of doubt ; and it was probably with the object of avoid
ing discussion that, before setting out for Dover to meet
his mother, Charles placed in the hands of the Attorney-
General a warrant creating Hyde a peer. He must
have been well aware of the opposition the mark of
favour would meet with from Henrietta, and may
have preferred that it should be bestowed before she
had been afforded an opportunity of remonstrance.
It was between James and the Queen that the first
interview took place. In his character of Lord High
Admiral the Duke had crossed to Calais to escort
his mother and sister across the Channel, and he
met Henrietta's angry reproaches without the support
of his brother's presence. His reply was calculated
to disarm her displeasure. He craved her pardon for
having placed his affection unequally, and was sure there
was now an end of it. He was not married, so he
declared, and had such evidence of Anne's unworthiness
that he should think no more of her. Cheered by this
unconditional surrender, the Queen set sail for England,
so singular a calm prevailing that, if her attendant
Capuchin, Father Cyprian, is to be believed, the passage
to Dover took no less than two days. James had
furnished his vessel with the means of entertaining the

HENRIETTA'S ARRIVAL 517
passengers sumptuously, and showed a kindly interest
In the Capuchins, for whom It chanced to be a day of
abstinence, by supplying them with sturgeon, an attention
recorded with special gratitude by Father Cyprian.
At Dover the King, the Princess of Orange, and
Prince Rupert were all awaiting the travellers, and dinner
was served and the night spent at the castle at which
Henrietta had arrived as a bride thirty-five years earlier.
That time and adversity, and all that had intervened since
the June day when she had first set her foot on English
soil, had not taught her caution, was shown by the fact
that high mass was celebrated In the great hall on the
following morning, and the day after at Canterbury,
where she rested on her way to London. It may be that
these facts, with others of like nature, were partly
responsible for the lack of warmth in her reception
noticed by Pepys. It was believed, he said, that her
coming pleased nobody. That the Queen, remembering,
it may be, former joyous entries Into London, had pre
ferred to make her present one privately and by way
of Lambeth, so that the general public were scarcely
aware of her arrival, may be a truer explanation of the
absence of demonstrative welcome. Lady Derby, at all
events, gives a different account from that of the surly
diarist. " I have to beg you a thousand pardons," she wrote
to her constant correspondent and sister-in-law, " for not
having told you before of the arrival of the Queen, which
took place last Friday to everybody's delight, with the
acclamations of the whole nation. I saw her on her
arrival and kissed her hand. She met me with much
emotion, and received me with tears and great kindness.
You may Imagine what I felt. Her Majesty charms
all who see her, and her courtesy cannot be enough

51 8 HENRIETTA MARIA
praised. She has constantly received visitors since she
came, without having kept her room."
Henrietta was clearly doing her best to make her
self popular at her son's court. An eariy biographer^
notices that she had that essential qualification for royalty
— a good memory. In the case of Lady Derby there
were special reasons forbidding her to forget the woman
whose husband had been so loyal and faithful a servant
of her own, and had lost his Hfe in her son's cause.
If In older days there had been little affinity between
the Queen, with her hot Catholicism, and the daughter
of the great Huguenot house of La TremoIUe, a common
loss will have drawn the two together at this meeting, and
It has been seen that Lady Derby had promptly forgotten
her old grudges and fallen under the Queen's charm.
But it was not only In an Instance when forgetfulness
would have been difficult that Henrietta showed a re
tentive memory. In spite of her long absence, she
overlooked none of the several degrees of rank and
position possessed by those with whom she was again
brought into contact, was ready to show interest In what
each had to tell of their fortunes in the past, and to
display the due amount of sympathy.
Broken in health as she was — " a generous spirit,"
says Father Cyprian, " and a delicate body " — she spared
herself no fatigue. On the very day after her arrival,
when the Princess Henriette was too much wearied by
her journey to appear, her mother held a reception.
Nor was her daughter permitted to remain undisturbed.
Although obUged to keep her room, " the Queen-
Mother," wrote the secretary of Soissons, the envoy
charged with the marriage negotiations, to Mazarin,
" wished that M, le Comte should see her as she was,
' Carlo Cotolendi.

From a jniniature. CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE, COUNTESS OF DERBY.

HENRIETTE-ANNE'S ENGAGEMENT 519
and the King conducted him to her himself." Charles'
tired sister had been found playing hombre, in a cornette
and a many-coloured muslin wrapper, with the Duke
of York and the Princess Royal ; and the secretary added
a message to Monsieur to the effect that, not even
when her lover had been leading her, " as lovely as
his littie guardian angel," In the Cardinal's gallery,
had she been seen to greater advantage than In this
deshabille. Charles' complaisance denoted his readiness to accede
to the proposal of marriage. His mother eagerly desired
the match ; Henriette herself wished it ; and under the
circumstances he was not to be deterred from giving his
consent by the offers for Henriette's hand tentatively
made not only by the Duke of Savoy but by the Emperor
Leopold. Parliament was showing itself ready to do its
duty in the way of providing a fitting portion for the
King's sister ; the matter was practically settled and all
was going well.
The Princess was winning golden opinions in the
land of her birth. In a letter to the Speaker acknow
ledging the gift of her dower, whilst apologising for
her lack of conversancy with the English tongue, she
asserted her possession of an English heart, and the
whole nation was ready to believe her. Lady Derby
termed her " our adorable Princess " ; General Monk
entertained mother and daughter at a supper, followed
by a comedy ; and whilst aU London was eager to
minister to her enjoyment, Henriette's pleasure in the
round of festivities will not have been seriously im
paired by the news that Monsieur was becoming thin
and melancholy and was suffering from insomnia. Her
sympathy took the practical form of the preparation of
some milk of almonds as a remedy for sleeplessness, and

520 HENRIETTA MARIA
in the meantime she had won at WhitehaU a bracelet
worth two hundred Jacobuses,
But if all was prospering in the matter of Henriette's
marriage, the Queen must have been quickly aware that
the realisation of her hopes of carrying out one of the
principal objects of her visit to England — that of putting
an end to what she considered her second son's entangle
ment — was more than doubtful. Though she had prob
ably augured well from the Duke's attitude on their
first meeting, her anticipations of success must have
been sensibly diminished by the fact that, on the very
morning after her arrival in London, her old enemy,
the Chancellor, took his seat in the House of Lords.
It was plain that, in spite of the affection he now lavished
on her, Charles was no more inclined than in earlier
days to defer to her prejudices ; and those who had
hoped that recent events might have turned him against
his tried friend and counsellor were to be disappointed.
The Chancellor's elevation to the peerage was Charles'
reply to the attacks and Intrigues of his opponents.
The step was the more significant owing to new
developments which had occurred in relation to the
Duke of York's affairs. The proofs of the marriage
had by this time been examined by those to whom they
had been submitted, with the result that it had been
declared vaHd and good. Under these circumstances
Charles had acted with unusual decision. He told
his brother that as he had brewed so he must drink ;
and when the birth of Anne's child was imminent, he
caused Lady Ormond, Lady Sunderland, and other
women of like position to be present in her chamber,
as at the birth of a possible heir to the throne.
The Bishop of Winchester, too, assisted there, availing
himself of the opportunity to address singularly ill-timed

HENRIETTA'S MELANCHOLY 521
questions to the sick woman as to her life, her conduct,
and the proofs of her marriage. Anne's replies, even
under circumstances when she can scarcely have been
in a condition to make the best case out for herself,
were such as to convince those present of the truth of
her story ; and Lady Ormond in particular, the wife of
her father's faithful friend, did not fail to report what
had passed to the Duke, perceiving In him symptoms of
relenting upon which she based hopes for the future.
More, however, was to be required before, in the
face of the circumstantial story to her disadvantage told
by his friend and comrade, Berkeley, James was to be
convinced that his wife was the victim of a malicious
slander, and for the present Anne remained under her
father's roof in an uncertain and ambiguous position.
Apart from the anger and disappointment connected
with this affair, Henrietta was not without causes of
grief more personal ; and there is something not a
Httle pitiful in the description of her condition at this
juncture. A natural reaction had followed upon the
exultation with which she had haUed the Restoration ;
and the past, at times at least reasserting its power, was
pressing upon her and turning her joy into the bitterness
of regret. In the first flush of glad excitement It may
be that she had half unconsciously dreamed that in the
land where her happiest years had been spent she might
once more become the Henrietta of those sunny days,
and meet again, so to speak, her vanished self. Had
she cherished the delusion she was to be quickly un
deceived. All had indeed gone well ; her utmost
expectations had been fulfilled ; she might have sung
her Nunc DImittis ; the long years of toil and repeated
disappointment were over. But fulfilment is apt to give
Its deathblow to hope ; and it is when the remedy has

522 HENRIETTA MARIA
been applied in vain that the patient realises his condition
as being beyond cure. In the familiar precincts to which
Henrietta had returned, a woman aged and broken
by grief and by years, she encountered the ghost of
a dead youth, of a happy past, and she was often found
alone in the rooms where she and Charles had lived
together, her eyes fuU of tears. The man who should
have occupied the centralj place ; who had loved her so
faithfully and so passionately ; to whom her lightest wish
had been law. If It were to his own undoing, was gone.
It was no wonder If, instead of a throne. It was by a
scaffold that the wife of Charles Stuart was confronted
as she looked on at the festl-vltles of the re-established
court. Her son might wear his father's crown, she
herself receive all honour ; her children might be around
her, " no longer vagabonds " ; and at scarcely more than
fifty she might look onward to an old age of peace and
prosperity : but with Charles lying in his grave It may
well have seemed that victory had come too late, and
that, in the midst of rejoicing, she remained " la reine
malheureuse." Whilst she was In this condition of profound dejection
a new sorrow was awaiting her, Christmas was at hand —
the first since the reign of Puritanism had been abolished
— and was to be observed with unusual festivities. But
on December i8th the Princess Royal was attacked by
small-pox, and by Christmas Eve she was dead. Like
her brother Gloucester, she had only come to England
to find a grave.
Henrietta was not with her daughter during her short
illness, yielding to those who feared her exposure to
the Infection. Henriette-Anne was removed from White
hall to St. James'. But the King kept his place at his
sister's side, watching in tears whilst Mary met death

ANNE HYDE VINDICATED 523
without fear or emotion, and with a spirit worthy
of her race. Confronted with the end, she Is said to
have repented of her harshness towards her former mald-
of-honour, and of the share she had taken in the attempts
to influence her brother against her ; and, so far as
she was able, she set herself to undo her own work.
When, almost simultaneously, Berkeley, Anne's principal
accuser, sought the Duke and confessed that his charges
had had no foundation in fact, the case against her could
no longer be maintained. The Duchess's position and
character were vindicated, and James, who had played
so sorry a part In the affair, apparently well pleased to
find his suspicions groundless, sent his Injured wife a
gracious message, promised her a speedy visit, and
enjoined upon her to have a care of his son.
Henrietta, it is to be feared, was less rejoiced at the
evidence that her son's affections had not been as
unworthily bestowed as she had believed than displeased
at the consequent necessity of acknowledging the
Chancellor's daughter to be the Duke's legal wife ; and
when it further transpired that he had paid his promised
visit to Anne and to his heir her indignation burst Into
open flame. Whenever that woman should be brought
to Whitehall by one door, she declared, she would go
out of it by another, nor ever enter it again. As an
additional reason why the King should give his consent
to Henriette's marriage, she urged the danger of her
being insulted by her low-born sister-in-law.
It was, however, becoming obvious that the op
position could not be carried on. In spite of all that
could be urged, Anne was indisputably the wife of the
heir-presumptive to the throne, her child his lawful son.
All were beginning to be weary of the strife, and even
Henrietta's adherents were ready to counsel submission

524 HENRIETTA MARIA
to the inevitable. But the Queen remained Implac
able, her estimate of Anne's offence matched by that of
the Chancellor ; who, when it was suggested that he
should make overtures to Henrietta, replied that she
had too great reason for her passion, and that he
himself had to complain of a transgression exceed
ing the Hmits of all justice, human and divine.
In this condition things remained when the date fixed
for Henrietta's return to France was approaching.
There was probably little desire on her part to
linger. Her financial affairs had been put by Parliament
on a secure and satisfactory footing, Charles' consent
given to his sister's marriage, and on the other side
of the Channel Monsieur was awaiting his bride. It
seemed Hkely that the Queen would leave England
unreconciled with her son and his wife. But suddenly
her bearing and demeanour underwent an entire change,
bewildering to all until It became known that she had
received a letter from the Cardinal, warning her that, in
the event of her parting on bad terms with her sons
and the ministers of State enjoying the King's confidence,
the welcome she would receive in France would be but
a cold one. Mazarin succeeded where others had
failed. It may be that Henrietta was glad of an excuse
for relenting ; and since peace was to be made she
determined to do it handsomely. Before she left the
country she made a treaty of amity with the • Chancellor,
and openly accepted his daughter as her son's wife.
This last ceremony took place on New Year's Day,
as observed In England. It must have been a melancholy
festival. Only two days earlier the Princess Royal had
been carried to her grave ; and at the table to which
Anne was to be admitted, the place of Gloucester, the
King's favourite brother, was vacant.

QUEEN AND CHANCELLOR RECONCILED 525
The unwelcome addition to the family circle was
brought by her husband in state to Whitehall ; then — it
is P^re Cyprian who describes the scene — as Henrietta
passed in to dinner, the Duchess fell on her knees.
Raising her daughter-in-law, the Queen kissed and placed
her at the table. The distasteful duty was performed.
The day before she left London Henrietta had an
Interview with the Chancellor, when she evinced a real
disposition to make peace. She spoke of Clarendon's
services to her dead husband, as well as to her son ; ac
quitted him of all complicity in the York marriage ;
described herself as determined to receive his daughter
as her own, and to show a mother's affection to both
Duke and Duchess. Lastly, she declared her desire of
cementing a friendship with the Chancellor,
Hyde made answer in fitting terms of humility and
gratitude. He anathematised the marriage ; assured the
Queen that, had she been less offended by it, her
honour and dignity would have suffered ; and pro
mised for his part all obedience for the future. The
Queen responded by expressing her confidence in his
affection, and the solemn farce was at an end. He
kissed her hand ; the two sworn enemies parted ; " and
from that time," adds the Chancellor bitterly, " there
did never appear any want of kindness In the Queen
towards him, whilst he stood in no need of It, nor until
it might have done him good."
Henrietta must have rejoiced to bring her visit to
England to an end. "The King says she will return
soon," wrote Lady Derby, " but I doubt It." It had,
in truth, been a time when much of sorrow and disillusion
had mingled with the joy of seeing her son seated upon
his father's throne ; and had nothing else urged her to
hasten her departure, terror lest the malady that had

526 HENRIETTA MARIA
proved fatal to two of her children might attack her
remaining daughter may have rendered her anxious
to remove Henriette from the infected city. It would
be necessary that she should ultimately make her home
in England, and there expend the income assured to her
by Parliament ; but there was nothing to detain her
for the moment, and her presence was essential in Paris
untU such time as Henriette should have been safely,
or unsafely, consigned to the keeping of her future
husband. There may have been yet another reason making
Henrietta consider it inexpedient to delay her departure.
Like father, like son. The ViUiers were prone to
sudden and violent passions, especially, it would seem,
for princesses of royal blood. According to the account
given by Madame de la Fayette, Henriette's friend, the
Duke of Buckingham, having arrived in England in love
with the Princess of Orange, had lost no time In trans
ferring his affections to the younger sister ; and, as his
father before him, had come near to losing his head.
Under these circumstances, and with Monsieur's urgent
messengers enjoining haste, Henrietta may have thought
it well to comply with his wishes.
She was not, however, at once to be quit of her
daughter's lover. The King and court escorted the
travellers to Portsmouth, and with them came Buckingham,
who, asking permission at the last moment of the King,
declared his intention of accompanying the travellers to
France ; and, though destitute of luggage or necessaries,
embarked on the same vessel as the Queen and Princess.
His presence must have been a cause of some anxiety
to Henrietta ; but worse foUowed. A curious fatality
pursued the Queen whenever she undertook a voyage,
and the ill-fortune she had often encountered again

RETURN TO FRANCE 527
overtook her. Before the vessel had been a day at sea,
the Princess developed symptoms of such a nature that
it was feared that she had contracted the disease that
had proved fatal to her brother and sister. The ship, by
her mother's orders, put back to shore, where, by a
further disaster, it ran aground near Portsmouth, the
Queen and her train being believed to be in peril of
their lives, and Buckingham In especial in a condition of
desperation at the danger threatening the Princess. Even
after it had been ascertained that the latter was suffering
from nothing more serious than a severe attack of
measles, the illness was serious enough to render It
necessary to delay over a fortnight at Portsmouth. When
sail was once more set, Buckingham was again on board
the vessel which bore the Queen and her daughter ; and
having made himself unwisely conspicuous by his conduct
during the Princess's sickness, he displayed such a
degree of jealousy at the attentions bestowed by the
Admiral upon his charge, that on arriving at Havre the
Queen took the precaution of sending him on to Paris
at once, whilst she and Henrietta remained behind to
perform their journey in more leisurely fashion.

CHAPTER XXVI
1661 — 1665
Henrietta's return to France — The Princess's marriage— And character —
Her mother's anxieties — Charles' marriage — Henrietta in London —
The King's affection — Changes in the Queen — Bristol and Clarendon
— Deaths in the royal family — Henrietta's household — The French
ambassadors — War with Holland — Failing health — Returns to France,
HENRIETTA cannot have faUed to contrast her
present arrival In France with her landing on
the rocky coast sixteen years earlier. A different wel
come is accorded to a fugitive escaping from misfortune
and death, to that which awaits the mother of a reign
ing and prosperous sovereign. For on this occasion
the Due de LonguevUle, governor of Normandy, met
and entertained her ; and when Pontoise was reached,
as a further stage on the road to Paris, Walter
Montagu, its abbot, had made great preparations ; and
it presently appeared that other guests besides Henri
etta and her daughter were expected ; and that the
young King and Queen, with Monsieur, were coming
thither to welcome the traveUers.
Henrietta must have congratulated herself upon
her timely dismissal of Buckingham. Monsieur had
had his own anxieties whilst his bride-elect had been
delayed at Portsmouth, and "by his grief, had shown
that it was at least his intention to be afflicted." ' P^re
Cyprian gives a less equivocal description of the lover's
' Madame de Motteville,
528

HENRIETTE-ANNE AND MONSIEUR 529
condition. According to him, the Duke had passed
sleepless nights and had suffered " angolsses effroyables."
Coming Into the Princess's presence at Pontoise, he
stood with his eyes fixed upon her, scarcely able to
believe that his bride was in truth before him. Then,
recovering himself, he kissed her, begged to learn all
her adventures from her own lips, and listened to her
account of them with rapt attention.
Monsieur was assiduous in his attendance on the
Princess during the short interval Intervening between
the meeting at Pontoise and the wedding day. Nothing,
according to Madame de la Fayette, was wanting to
his attentions — save love. The miracle of setting the
heart of the Prince on fire was one, she adds, that no
woman was to perform. If he was incapable of love he
was capable of jealousy, and the Duke of Buckingham's
presence in Paris threatened to produce complications,
Henriette, however, being fortunately indifferent to
the Duke, reported the state of things to her mother,
who set herself, not altogether without success, to
represent the matter to Monsieur in a less serious light
than that in which he had been Inclined to view it.
He nevertheless carried his grievances to his own mother ;
and though, remembering old times and another George
Villiers, she was not disposed to be unduly hard upon the
Duke, she was wise enough to see that an end must be
put to the situation. When Buckingham's visit to Paris
had lasted a reasonable time, he therefore received an
Intimation that his presence was required in England,
and Monsieur remained In possession of the field.
The marriage was not long deferred. Scarcely more
than a month after Henrietta's arrival the Cardinal, who
might have Interposed delays, had passed away at
VIncennes, and three weeks later Henriette-Anne had

530 HENRIETTA MARIA
been given into the keeping of PhUippe d'Orleans.
The formal betrothal took place on March 30th, and on
the following day the wedding ceremony was performed
in the Queen's chapel at the Palais Royal, only the
French royal family, Conde, the daughters of the late
Due d'Orleans, and some few other guests, being
present. One wonders whether Henrietta, remembering the
beginning of her own married life and the difficulties
which had beset her, felt no misgivings as she delivered
over her sixteen-year-old daughter into hands so unfitted
as those of PhiUppe for the trust. If she had succeeded
in blinding herself to the possibility of danger, her eyes
must quickly have been opened. The character of the
new Madame did not lessen the perils of the situation ;
nor was she adapted to steer her course with wisdom and
discretion. Her figure stands out with singular clearness
in the memoirs of the day, and with a charm no less
singular. There were women more beautiful, but none
who possessed In an equal degree that gift for which every
other might be freely bartered, le don de plaire. On this
point all witnesses are agreed. Of the portraits left of
her, that sketched by Daniel de Cosnac, her husband's
almoner and Bishop of Valence, is perhaps the most
distinct and Impartial. He tells of her solid and delicate
intelligence, of her good sense, her spirit of fairness and
justice ; he notes her knowledge of what was right even
when — whether from sloth or from a certain hauteur,
making her look on a duty as a degradation — she failed
to perform it. He describes her gentleness in conver
sation, her wonderful charm — " one would have said
that she appropriated hearts instead of leaving them
common property." Above all, she was the most human
person in the world. It was, perhaps, this last quality

From the picture by Sir Peter Lely.
HENRIETTE, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS,

MADAME'S NEW HOME 531
which best explains her attraction, and caused this
" terrible etourdie," to quote M, Anatole France, to be
so well loved. If she was a princess of the blood royal
she won hearts, not because of the glamour of her
position, but because she was pre-eminently a woman
and claimed a woman's rights. "When she speaks to
you," said some one, " she seems to ask for your heart
at once." It was not often that she asked in vain.
Never, according to Madame de la Fayette, was a
princess so much loved by men and adored by women.
Such was the girl who, before she had completed her
seventeenth year, was launched, with none but Monsieur
to pilot her frail little pleasure-boat, into the perilous
currents of life at the court of the Roi Soleil.
It seems that Henrietta had cherished the hope
that her daughter might be aUowed for a time to
make her home under her own roof. It could not
have been expected that the new-made bridegroom would
fall in with her views, and the marriage was not many
days old before he asserted his rights by removing his
wife to his apartments at the Tuileries. The thing was
just, admits Madame's tender old teacher, the Pfere
Cyprian, and according to the wUl of God, but was
accompanied by difficulties and ennuis. There had been
perfect love between mother and daughter, and the
parting was not effected without lamentation and tears.
It is plain that the Capuchin, too, was anxious over his
pupU, Often, he tells us, did he visit her in her new
home, warn her of the perils of court life, of the necessity
of grace, of the great love, the perfect submission, and
the absolute fidelity due from wife to husband. All he
said was true, and Henriette, gentle and affectionate,
wIU have listened patlentiy to the sermons of her former
teacher. But, when Monsieur was the husband to be
VOL. II. 15

532 HENRIETTA MARIA
loved, honoured, and obeyed, his precepts were not easy
to foUow. Meantime, she was taking the world of Paris by
storm. It was true that she had grown up in its midst ;
but her mother had kept her closely at her side. She
had not often been seen out of the Queen's presence, and
In it was rarely heard to speak. She was, therefore. In
a sense, a new discovery and a surprise. The King
led the way, making open recantation of his former
prejudice by constant attendance at the Tuileries ; and
when, before April was over, the French court left
Paris for Fontainebleau, Madame, staying behind for
the moment, carried all before her. No rival attrac
tion remaining to compete with her own, by the time
the newly married couple foUowed the court her position
was assured.
It is not necessary to trace the sequel in detail. The
story has been weU told elsewhere.^ But If a true
conception Is to be obtained of Henrietta's latter years,
the constant grief and disappointment with which she
must have watched the result of the match she had
laboured to bring about must be borne In mind.
Nor can it have been long before anxiety came to
trouble her satisfaction. WhUst Madame had followed
the court to Fontainebleau, Henrietta had retired to her
country home at Colombes ; but in the quiet of that
retreat she must have listened with growing uneasiness
to reports of the wild gaiety of those summer days, —
of entertainments of aU kinds ; of nightly wanderings
In the forest, sometimes protracted until two or three
in the morning ; of ballets danced in the open air by
Louis and his cousin. There would likewise be whispers
ofthe fears entertained of dangerous developments due
' Madame, by Julia Cartwright.

ANXIETIES 533
to the King's new-born affection for his brother's wife ;
of the growing displeasure of the Queen-Mother, her
disregarded admonitions, the rivalry of the courts
gathered round Madame and round the two Queens,
the sorrow and anger of Louis' Spanish wife, and
Monsieur's awakening jealousy.
A letter written by Henrietta to Madame de Motte
ville, then at Fontainebleau, gives some indication of
her disquiet. She had been visited on the previous day
by guests newly returned from Fontainebleau, from
whom she understood that her correspondent was in such
close attendance on the Queens that access to her was
difficult. But one imagines that her visitors had made
other reports to Henrietta besides those touching
Madame de MottevIUe's favour at court, and that she
had received full accounts of the round of pleasure and
excitement in which Madame was playing a leading part.
" If you have much noise where you are," Henrietta
wrote, " I have much silence here — a better condition
for the remembrance of friends. I believe you are
assured that you are numbered amongst mine ; and you
may be certain that you will remain so," And then
comes the end. In which one discerns the true motive
of the mother's letter : " You have with you another
little self of mine (un autre petit moi-meme) who Is much
your friend, I assure you. Remain hers. That is
enough to say."
It was enough. Madame de Motteville, reading
between the lines, did what she could. She had,
indeed, been commanded by her own mistress, the
Queen-Mother, to counsel more moderation in her
amusements to her daughter-in-law. To her admoni
tions Madame, after her fashion, listened with gentie-
ness, receiving the advice bestowed upon her in such

534 HENRIETTA MARIA
wise as to lead her monitress to indulge hopes that
it would not be without effect, and that at least the
nocturnal promenades which had been the chief cause of
offence might be discontinued. But aU was In vain, and
the whirl of gaiety went on as before. Pere Cyprian,
left behind with the Queen at Colombes, was occasionaUy
summoned to hear the confessions of his pupil ; but
could only speak to her on these occasions of matters
spiritual, "et encore assez brievement," since he found
her so much engrossed in the affairs and tracasseries
of the court that no leisure could be spared him to
discourse to her after his usual fashion. In the short
visits she paid from time to time at Colombes It may
be doubted whether the old priest found much more
opportunity for prolonging his exhortations.
Matters presently reached a point when Queen Anne
thought it necessary to lodge a serious complaint with
Montagu and St. Albans. Madame, she told them,
paid her no attention, nor did she show consideration
for her in any of her actions. She further directed
the Englishmen to report her causes of displeasure to
the culprit's mother.
Henrietta was probably helpless in the matter, nor
was she at this time really uneasy. Confident that
her child was innocent of any evil intentions, she was not
disposed to indulge in undue anxiety. St. Albans, when
he interposed, did more harm than good by his tactless
suggestion that the Queen-Mother should permit Madame
to pursue her course of harmless amusement unhindered,
Madame in return engaging to stand the Queen's friend
with Louis and to seek to promote a good understanding
between the two, Anne was not unnaturaUy roused to
bitter indignation by the assumption that the interposition
of a third person was necessary between herself and the

ANXIETIES 535
son who loved her. When she should feel the need of
anything of the kind, she replied, she would withdraw
herself altogether from the King.
Thus summer and autumn passed away. With
them passed away one cause of jealousy on Monsieur's
part and of anxiety on Henrietta's ; for the King had
transferred his affections from Madame to her mald-
of-honour. Louise de la Vallifere's reign had begun In
his heart, his place, so far as his sister-in-law was con
cerned, being filled by the less conspicuous figure of
de Guiche. Madame did not, however, regain what she
had forfeited in the good graces of the two Queens
of France, devotedly attached to one another. Having,
before the court left Fontainebleau, given a son to the
King and an heir to the throne, Marie Therese might
have afforded to forgive her sister-in-law. But when
there is as little liking as existed between the two,
reconciliation is difficult. Madame's real offence. In the
eyes of a woman "qu'on pouvait appeler belle, quolqu'elle
ne fut pas agreable,"^ was perhaps the charm which
men and women alike found it impossible to resist.
In the latter part of the year mother and daughter
were again, for a time, together. Madame had been sick
and suffering, and was brought back to Paris In a litter,
to pass sleepless nights, shaken by a choking cough. It
was considered necessary that she should keep her bed,
and Henrietta came to watch over her. But the sick
room was filled with guests, and the Invalid was
accustomed to make her toilette and receive those who
presented themselves from the morning onwards till nine
at night, when she would dismiss them and take the
opiates ordered by the doctors to give the necessary
amount of sleep. ^ Madame de la Fayette,

536 HENRIETTA MARIA
Henrietta, thus brought once more into close relation
ship with her child, must have seen enough to cause her
to doubt the wisdom of the marriage from which so much
had been hoped. The name of de Guiche was by this
time constantly coupled with that of Madame, and if
MademoiseUe Is to be trusted, the Queen-Mother of
France had begun to lament her error In having
bestowed upon her son a wife far less satisfactory
than one possessing the maturer years and sager principles
of Mademoiselle herself.
It was at the Palais Royal, in March, 1662, that
Madame's baby was born, proving, to her anger and
disappointment, a daughter. It had been the wish of
her mother, expressed before the birth of the chUd,
that her tried friend, Madame de MotteviUe, should be
appointed gouvernante ; and Anne of Austria would have
cordially seconded her choice. But upon this point
Henriette was firm in her opposition to both Queen-
Mothers. She may have borne Henrietta's friend malice
for her attempt at Interference in the summer ; at all
events, she was determined that no one closely con
nected with her mother-in-law should be entrusted with
the care of her child, and she had her way.
The time was approaching when, so far as Henrietta
was concerned, Madame would be left to her own
guidance. Charles was urging the Queen's promised
return to England ; and though Gui Patin, recording
the arrival of the mother and daughter at Havre,
mentions that it was beUeved that, unable to trust herself
to the English nation, Henrietta was come to make a
permanent home In the country of her birth, there can
have been at the time no such intention on her part.
She must have been aware that she could do but Httle
for Madame by remaining on the spot. The Comte de

HENRIETTA'S RETURN TO ENGLAND 537
Guiche, owing, it was said, to the concerted influence
of the two Queen-Mothers — had been sent out of
France, and It remained to hope the best for the future.
Nor, loath as was Henrietta to part with her daughter,
were reasons wanting to cause her to look forward to
a return to England ; and she must, in especial, have
been anxious to form an opinion of Catharine of
Braganza, Charles' Portuguese wife. The marriage
promised more success than was actually to result
from it, and the religion of the bride was in itself a
recommendation to Henrietta. Jermyn had been to
England, and had brought back a favourable report.
" The Earl of St. Albans," Henrietta wrote to her
sister in June, " who arrived last night from England,
tells me that [the Queen] Is very beautiful and more
agreeable. She is dark, not very tall, with an ordinary
enough figure, very well made, a great deal of intelli
gence, and very gentle. The King my son tells me he
Is well satisfied with her. I am preparing to start this
month or the beginning of next. The King my son
presses me greatly, which will cause me to hasten as
much as I can."
By July she was accordingly starting for England.
A long visit had previously been paid by her daughter
and son-in-law to Colombes, and the two accompanied
her on her journey as far as Beauvais, where the parting
took place with many tears. To Mademoiselle, before
leaving for England, Henrietta paid the compliment of
expressing an ultimate regret that she was not destined
to occupy the English throne, reiterating her old assurance
that in that position she would have been the happiest
woman in the world.
The Queen must soon have learnt that unalloyed
felicity was not to be her lot as the wife of Charles.

538 HENRIETTA MARIA
Hitherto, she had probably heard little of the condi
tion of the English court. Charles had at first found
a certain attraction in a bride, fresh, confiding, innocent,
and fond of himself But such a woman was not likely
to fix his affections. Lady Castlemaine had before long
reasserted her sway ; and upon Catharine displaying un
expected determination in withstanding the King's
endeavours to force his mistress upon her, the good
understanding which had existed between husband and
wife was replaced by scarcely disguised hostility.
It was when matters had reached this point that
Henrietta appeared upon the scene. The necessary
additions and repairs at Somerset House not being
completed, she went first to Greenwich, and it was at
the old palace there that she was visited by Charles and
his bride, when Henrietta's welcome to the stranger was
well calculated to assure her of a friend in her husband's
mother. Kissing her again and again, she told her to
lay aside all ceremony, since she had come to England
for the express purpose of seeing her, to love her
as her daughter and serve her as her Queen. It
may be that, remembering the time when she too had
been brought a foreign bride to an unknown husband, and
calling to mind her forlorn condition, Henrietta felt
compassion for the Queen, in a position so much more
difficult than her own. In any case, her presence
produced for the time more amicable relations between
husband and wife.
On the occasion of Catharine's visit to Greenwich,
one member of Henrietta's train will have been kept
In the background. A handsome child of twelve or
thirteen — called by Pepys " a most pretty spark " — who,
hitherto known by the name of Crofts, was shortly to be
created Duke of Monmouth and recognised by Charles

DUKE OF MONMOUTH 539
as his son, had accompanied the Queen from Paris.
Consigned to the care of Lord Crofts when taken
from his mother, Lucy Walters, Henrietta had heard of
his presence in France, and causing him to be frequently
brought to her, had used him, according to Clarendon,
with much grace. By Charles' desire he had accom
panied her to England, being received by the King
"with extraordinary fondness." As an earnest of his
affection Charles set himself forthwith to secure the boy's
fortunes by marrying him to the heiress of the Duke of
Buccleugh ; and the wedding took place In the following
April. There can have been little mystery about a parentage
causing the Duke to accept a nameless son-in-law. Yet
a discussion between Clarendon and his master on the
question whether, by bestowing a title upon the boy,
he should practically give him open recognition, points
to the distinction drawn between what was known and
what was avowed. The course proposed by the King
was, in the Chancellor's opinion, injudicious and likely to
offend public opinion, and he gave his voice strongly
against it. Charles listened to the arguments Clarendon
advanced, asking when he had finished if he had conferred
with his mother on the subject ; and adding, when the
Chancellor answered In the negative, that much of what
he had urged had been already said by the Queen, " who
was entirely of his opinion — which she used not to be."
After this comforting assurance, coupled with the
promise to confer with both his counsellors together.
Clarendon may have hoped that prudence would prevail.
But no more was said on the subject by the King. Like
his sister, he displayed more deference to advice in word
than in action ; and, consulting neither his mother nor
his Chancellor, he created the boy Duke of Monmouth.

540 HENRIETTA MARIA
Meantime, Henrietta had assisted at the grand entrance
into London made by the new Queen, and though in
capable of holding converse with each other without an
interpreter, a thoroughly good understanding had been
arrived at between them. At court, too, there was at
least the appearance of peace. Whether or not the
Queen-Mother had advised her daughter-in-law to accept
the inevitable. Lady Castlemaine was received by both ;
and on September 7th Pepys records that at Somerset
House he had witnessed a motley assemblage, including
both Queens, Lady Castlemaine, and young Crofts, " who
I perceive do hang much on my Lady Castlemaine, and
is always with her, and I hear the Queens are both
mightily kind to him." The King, with the Duke and
Duchess of York, afterwards joined the party, until,
evening coming on, Charles and his wife, with Lady
Castlemaine and the boy, all went away in one coach.
There had been laughter and merriment, and the Queen
had achieved one English sentence, which, being " You
lie," had caused the King much mirth, and he would
have made her say in English, " Confess, and be hanged."
Although Henrietta may have restored peace at court,
she must, one would think, have considered It but a
sorry one, built as it was upon condonation. Her own
relations with her son could scarcely have been bettered.
Now that Charles was a reigning sovereign, his mother
had probably given up the attempt to direct his counsels
and rule his conduct, productive of dissension in the
past ; and he was unfeignedly glad of her presence
in England and anxious to keep her there.
" The Queen," he wrote to Madame a few weeks
after her arrival, " has told you, I hope, that she is not
displeased with her being here. I am sure that I have
done all in my power to let her see the duty and kindness

CHANGES IN THE QUEEN 541
I have for her. The truth Is never any chUdren had so
good a mother as we have, and you and I shall never
have any disputes but only who loves her best, and in
that I will never yield to you."
The marked change In the relations of mother and
son may have been due to something more than outward
circumstances. It is not often, perhaps, that wisdom is
learnt with years, or that character is sensibly modified ;
but the thing is not Impossible, and, as one reads of
Henrietta In these latter days, the impression is conveyed
of a greater softness and gentleness than of old. She
had also realised the sovereign virtues of silence. " I
heard her say," wrote Madame de Motteville, " that
kings should be like confessors, knowing all and saying
nothing — that those who approach them tell of their
needs and often display their passions, their hate, their
malice, and their Injustice. . . . Of all this, as much out
of charity as to avoid making mischief, nothing should
be repeated." " There was no good quality," says
Cotolendi, " that she valued as much as secrecy. She
kept all secrets confided to her." Even more than by
her discretion, she was perhaps commended to Charles
by the brightness and keenness of her wit. In con
versation she was free and gay, jesting with easy grace.
It was true that in her laughter, innocent of the inten
tion of wounding as It might be, there was sometimes
a sting to which those at whom it was directed were
not insensible. But it was observed that gradually she
learnt to restrain her speech and to examine her words,
ReUgion was more and more with her a motive power,
and laid Its seal upon her lips.
It has been observed that she had the quaUties
necessary to a good friend. In London she was not
forgetful of those she had left behind in France ;

542 HENRIETTA MARIA
and her letter to the nuns at ChaiUot upon the death
of the Mfere de la Fayette indicates a real and personal
regret. " I cannot explain my grief to you," she wrote ;
"it is too great" — a grief based not only upon esteem,
but upon gratitude for aU she had learnt from the
dead. In spite of grief and loss — in spite, too, of haunting
memories — her present return to England had been a
happy one. It is true that, to a woman distinguished,
according to Madame de Motteville, judging by her
conversation and her honnetete naturelle, by special purity
of heart, the condition of her son's court must have
been saddening and disturbing. But she may have
possessed the faculty of resigning herself to Ills she was
incapable of mending. At first, too, she appears to
have shut her eyes to what would have caused her most
pain ; since, writing to her sister that no one was more
contented than herself, and the King was showing her
so much attachment and confidence that she could not
wish for more, she added that she had the joy of seeing
that he and his wife loved each other exceedingly.
This cause of rejoicing must have been short-lived.
But letter after letter, during these months, show
that the storm-tossed Queen felt at last in port. " I
am altogether satisfied with my son," she repeated
in November, "and I think that God wishes to give
me some happiness again in this world, finding myself
with my family, who do what they can to give it to
me." And once more, at Christmas time, " I am the
most satisfied person in the world with regard to my
daughter-in-law. She is a saint — she is altogether
devote. I am very happy with her." That she was
also at peace with her second son may be inferred from
her mention of " ma fiUe, la Duchesse de York " ; and

LIFE IN ENGLAND 543
Lady Derby, writing of the court during the autumn,
describes the Queen as never having been gayer or more
happy. Henrietta teUs of ballets to be given, and of
Charles' desire that she should be present. " Je crois,"
she says, "que j' auray aller."
Giving an account to his sister of his efforts to
organise the masque in which he desired that his
mother should take a part, the King confessed that
they had resulted in failure, owing to the impossibility
of finding a man capable of making a proper entree.
Catharine was, however, taking kindly to the pastime.
" My wife," he added, " has made a good beginning
in this way, for the other day she had contre-danses
performed in her bedchamber by my Lord Aubigny,'
her grand almoner, "and two others of her chaplains."
Altogether, the Impression is left upon the mind that,
for the present, the " reine malheureuse " had lost her
right to the name. It is true that, by P^re Cyprian's
account, her health had suffered from the first from
the climate of England, of which the Capuchin had
but a bad opinion ; but her letters during the year
following her return give no sign of permanent illness,
and writing in November, 1663, to her sister, who had
heard a report that she was to pay one of her accustomed
visits to the Bourbon springs, she altogether disclaimed
any such intention. She had, she declared, never thought
of doing so, and hoped to stand in no need of the cure.
She seems to have established herself, as if for a
permanency, in her son's kingdom. Her income was
settled, and her household arranged on a footing corre
sponding to her position, with all its officers, ecclesiastical
and secular, St. Albans as before occupying the chief
place. The report of the Queen's marriage to her
principal servant had gained currency, and is more than

544 HENRIETTA MARIA
once mentioned by Pepys— "how true God knows,"
adds, however, the gossip.
As was Inevitable, Henrietta was not without her
unfavourable critics. The magnificence of her court was
viewed with jealousy, and it was observed that it was
more frequented than that of her daughter-in-law,
where there was " no aUowance of laughing and
mirth that is at the other's." She was reported to
have exceeded her income and run into debt. That
she was lavish and open-handed is undoubtedly true ;
but her carefulness In regulating her expenditure does
not bear out the charge, and her principles as to
payment of debts are said to have been exceptionally
strong. Thus, when a guest was once extolling the
practice of sending alms to distant lands, the Queen,
wishing to read a lesson to the speaker, whilst concurring
in praise of the charities in question, added that debts
must first be paid ; otherwise God rejects and curses the
gift. An English memoir published shortly after her
death also states that, settled at Somerset House, " she
had a large reputation for her justice to all people, paying
exactly well foT whatsoever her occasions required, weekly
discharging all accounts, and withal bestowing good sums
of money quarterly to charitable uses."
A curious story belonging to this time finds a place
in the same pamphlet, worth quoting as an example of
the reports current even amongst those favourably dis
posed towards the Queen. " She desired," says the
writer, " to live with the least offence Imaginable to any
sort of men, and therefore was very much troubled to
hear that of Dr. Dumoulin, prebend of Canterbury . . .
her confessor was seen on horseback, brandishing his
sword, and to fling his hat by the scaffold where the
late King was beheaded ; and being asked why he of

HOSTILITY TOWARDS CATHOLICS 545
all men should do so, replied. That that was the most
glorious day that ever came, and that that act was the
greatest thing that ever was done to advance the Catholic
religion, whose greatest enemy was that day cut off."
Whether the Queen's confessor had been overtaken
by a sudden access of madness, or Dr. DumouUn of
Canterbury had dreamt a dream, or the tale was merely
invented to increase the odium attaching to CathoHcs,
must remain undetermined. The hostility of Parliament
towards their religion needed no strengthening ; and how
ever reluctant Charles may have been to proceed against
those belonging to the unpopular faith, he found himself
unable to resist the demand for an act of uniformity bearing
equally hard upon Catholics and Presbyterians. In
April, 1663, it was further necessary to satisfy public
sentiment by the issue of a proclamation ordering all
priests and Jesuits, save those permitted by the marriage
contracts of the two Queens, to leave the kingdom. It
does not appear that Henrietta took any active part in
opposition to measures so distasteful. She had probably
learnt the unwisdom of interference, and the knowledge
that Charles was no willing agent in the matter may
have helped her to resignation. His efforts to mitigate
the severity of religious tests had, indeed, raised so bitter
an opposition that he had no choice but to give way.
For the ecclesiastical posts attached to Henrietta's
household there had been at first a spirited com
petition between the Oratorians, supported by St. Albans
and Montagu, her almoner, and the Capuchins, who,
originally entrusted with the charge of her chapel, had
returned to claim their rights. But the Queen had
succeeded in composing their differences, and the
Capuchins remained in peaceful possession.
In opposition to any relaxation of the bills directed

546 HENRIETTA MARIA
against the Catholics, Henrietta's old antagonist.
Clarendon, had taken, as might have been expected, a
leading part — one which, it is said, was never forgiven
by his master. At the same time, when an attempt was
made In the summer by his old friend the Earl of
Bristol, now reconciled to the Catholic Church, to oust
the Chancellor from place and power, Charles was roused
to unusual activity on his behalf; whilst the French
ambassador, de Commlnges, expressing his amazement
at the attack made upon a man In Clarendon's position,
mentions twice over, amongst the defences which safe
guarded him, the support and goodwill of the Queen-
Mother. So far, it Is therefore evident, Henrietta had
remained faithful to the pledge of friendship she had
given him.
Meantime, affairs in the royal household were on
no better a footing. In the autumn of 1663 it had
appeared likely that the neglected Queen was about
to escape from her difficulties by betaking herself else
where, and a dangerous illness had threatened her life.
In her delirium, her preoccupying anxiety found vent,
and she raved of the little son she believed herself to
have borne, lamenting that her boy was but an ugly
boy, but taking comfort when the King, standing by,
assured her that he was a very pretty one. " Nay,"
she said, " if it be like you. It is a fine boy indeed,
and I would be very well pleased with it," Few in
England, save the Queen-Mother, would have grieved
had the childless Queen gone to her rest. Charles was
soft-hearted, and his tears, according to Waller, con
tributed to his wife's recovery. But speculation was
already rife as to whether the new object of his devotion,
Frances Stewart, would occupy the place the Queen would
leave vacant.

DEATH OF MADAME ROYALE 547
Human nature is many-sided, and there is no reason
to doubt that Charles' tears when he thought his wife
was upon her death-bed, mingled as they must have been
with remorse and shame, were sincere. Even when she
had done him so ill a turn as to recover, the effects of
his compunction were visible, and in December he
was not only concerning himself with her amusement,
reporting to his sister that she had been well enough to
be present at a little ball given in the private apartments,
but was also begging Madame to send him from France
a gift to her liking In the shape of religious prints to
place between the leaves of her prayer-book. " She
will look at them often enough," he added, enumerating
the offices his wife daily said. It was well that Catharine
found comfort in her religion, for she must have had
littie of other kinds. But so long as Henrietta was at
hand, her unfortunate daughter-in-law will at least have
been sure of one firm friend.
A fresh sorrow was to overtake the Queen-Mother
before the close of the year. Her attachment for
her sister, the Duchess of Savoy, had continued strong
and faithful through the long years of separation ; but
the tie was now to be broken. With the last days
of the year Madame Royale, as she was called in
the land of her birth, passed away. The chUdren of
Henri of Navarre and Marie de Medicis were a short
lived race, and by the Duchess's death Henrietta was
left the sole survivor of the group.
Links with the past were becoming ominously few ;
but the future lay hopefully before the Queen's sanguine
eyes. The little Duke of Cambridge, whose approaching
birth had caused the Duke of York to avow his marriage
in 1660, was dead, but other children had supplied
his place ; and writing to her sister at a time when
VOL. II. 16

548 HENRIETTA MARIA
she Indulged hopes of a direct heir to the throne, the
Queen-Mother had boasted that the house of Stuart
was not Hkely to become extinct. It was fortunate that
Its future destinies were hidden from her sight, and that
none of the soothsayers in whom she had displayed a
lingering faith had power to withdraw the veil that
covered the future, and to show her the lawful heirs
driven from their heritage, and become again, to use her
own words, vagabonds ; whilst strangers and foreigners,
with scarcely a drop of the old royal blood running In
their veins, sat on the throne of their fathers. With
James' chUdren coming fast, with Madame's nursery
filling, and with her daughter Mary's little son growing
up, there may have seemed- — leaving the chance of
possible direct heirs to the King out of the reckoning
—little fear of the race dying out.
During the year 1664 war with Holland was becoming
more anu more Imminent, whilst relations with France
were strained. The sale of Dunkirk had been too
bitterly resented by the nation to be easily forgotten,
and in allusion to the share he had had in the transaction
the Chancellor's new house was nicknamed by the mob
the New Dunkirk. When the Houses met in March,
Bristol was back in England, and was beUeved to be again
attempting to compass Clarendon's downfall. The King,
however, still showed himself the friend of the unpopular
minister, and " ran up and down to and from the Chan
cellor's like a boy." Clarendon's ruin was postponed.
One would imagine that Henrietta, in the course of
her present visit to England, must more than once have
regretted her choice of those she had brought in her
train from Paris. The beautiful Frances Stewart, daughter
of Lord Blantyre, who, resisting Louis' efforts to detain
her in France, had followed the Queen to England, was

MADAME DE FIENNES 549
contesting with Lady Castlemaine her place In the
King's affections ; and if the responsibility of having
introduced Monmouth into the country rested with
her, she must also have doubted her wisdom in assuming
it. Charles' " extraordinary fondness " for the boy had
produced whispers of possible complications in the future ;
and the scene at Windsor when the King, entering the
ballroom and finding the little Duke dancing bareheaded
with the Queen, had kissed him and bidden him put on
his hat, would have gone far to give colour to such
misgivings. In the autumn of 1664 two members of
Henrietta's own household, Madame de Fiennes, a lady
of mature years and much indiscretion, and her husband,
the Comte de Chapelles, were the chief actors In a scene
causing no small disturbance. The Count was the son of
Henrietta's nurse ; and in bestowing her hand upon him
his wife had been guilty of a mesalliance turned by
Mademoiselle Into bitter ridicule in days before she
contemplated a like sacrifice of sense to sentiment.
Her condemnation of the woman who, at forty, and
the daughter of an old house, had made herself the
daughter-in-law of Madame la Nourrlce, sister-in-law of
all the maid-servants, and the wife of a young man of
two-and-twenty, was not unjustified ; and that Made
moiselle's opinion was in some degree shared by the lady
herself is to be assumed from the fact that she never
consented to bear her husband's name.
Occupying the post of lady-in-waiting to Henrietta
in Paris, and gifted with a sharp tongue, a caustic wit,
and an arrogant temper, she had made an embittered
enemy of Anne of Austria, and was probably glad to
accompany Henrietta to England, where her husband
obtained a post in the Queen's Guards at Somerset House,
of which St. Albans was captain.

550 HENRIETTA MARIA
It was between the Count and his superior officer
that a quarrel took place in the very ante-chamber of the
Queen. Having by some show of insubordination given
offence to St, Albans, the latter addressed him after an
abusive fashion, adding that, had he not been restrained
by respect for the royal precincts, he would have run the
Count through the body, Chapelles resented the menace
with his hand on his sword, and those present were
obliged to throw themselves between the disputants to
part them.
Henrietta, informed of the quarrel, interposed at this
point in person, pardoned the outrage to herself, and
directed Chapelles to make proper apology to the earl.
All might have been thus composed, had not a new
element been introduced by the arrival upon the scene
of Madame de Fiennes, who, apparently beside herself
with anger, reproached the Queen with services done her
by Chapelles, and went so far as to tell her mistress
that it was to his mother that she owed her life. The
very extravagance of her passion probably prevented
Henrietta from taking the matter seriously, and though
the laugh with which she received the attack only kindled
the angry woman's wrath the more, the affair ended
without serious consequences, and Is chiefly worth notice
as corroborating other accounts ofthe Queen's indulgence
towards her servants. Chapelles was reported by the
King to his sister to have been " as much in the wrong
as a man could well be to his superior officer " ; but even
when that officer was St. Albans, Henrietta was ready to
forgive the offence. De Commlnges, it is true, noted that,
though " bonne jusqu'a I'excfes," she was not pleased, and
that this last outbreak of her lady-in-waiting had revived
the memory of numberless small offences in the past ;
whilst her vexation had been increased by the fact that

THE FRENCH AMBASSADORS 551
the King — suspected of anti-French proclivities — had
been delighted at the incident. It might, de Com
mlnges thought, end in Madame de Fiennes' and her
husband's return to France, Such was not, however,
the result. The extreme kindness of the Queen had,
the envoy reported, imposed silence upon all with regard
to what had passed, and it was not until Henrietta left
England that Madame de Fiennes likewise crossed the
Channel, The tendency shared by King and nation to rejoice
at whatever might redound to the discredit of France
must have been a serious cause of trouble to the French
Queen, For her part, she had done what she could
to atone, by special courtesy, for the lack of cordiality
displayed towards the representatives of the Roi Soleil,
come to England with a view to promote a good under
standing between the two countries, and to keep peace.
If possible, between England and Louis' own ally, Holland.
" I had an audience of the Queen-Mother," wrote de
Commlnges on his first arrival, " who, to oblige the King
[Louis], wished that my coaches might be allowed in the
yard ; and I must confess that I was received by all the
oflBcers with so much honour and such a show of satisfac
tion that nothing could be added to it." When the
ambassadors had been treated with deliberate incivIHty by
Clarendon and others at a banquet of the Lord Mayor's,
and the affair had been too serious to be passed lightly
over, St. Albans and Montagu were amongst the first to
repair to the embassy with the object of preserving
peace. It was, however, difficult, when the whole nation
was hostile, to avoid coUIsions ; and de Commlnges,
later on, mentions, as an example of the absurdity of
the reports which gained easy credence, that when he
had presented Henrietta with a caliche sent her by King

552 HENRIETTA MARIA
Louis, half the town had run to inspect it, saying that
it represented the tribute paid by France to England ;
and that, to conceal the obligation, the King had permitted
that it should be offered to his mother.
England was soon to realise that Louis was not
paying tribute to Charles, In the meantime, negotia
tions proceeded slowly ; and Henrietta will have
looked on anxiously at the efforts of the envoys — with
whom a half-brother of her own, the Due de VerneuU,
was associated — to place matters on a satisfactory
footing. A scene is described when, in the middle of
an inconclusive Interview between the ambassadors and
the King, a door was thrown open and the Queen-
Mother, In retiring, passed through the room, saying,
as she went by, the words, " Dieu vous benlsse," under
stood by the Frenchmen to contain an expression of
her hopes for their success. By the spring of 1665 it
was plain that those hopes would not be fulfilled, and
in April war was formally declared with Holland. At
first victory lay with the English, and James was the
hero of the hour. But by the time that news of his
successes reached London It was in a condition making
it difficult to rejoice. The plague was come.
Whether the epidemic had a share in deciding
Henrietta to pay a visit to France does not appear.
Independently of It, there was no lack of cause for
her to leave England for a time. Long before she had
contemplated the step, the French ambassador. In a
letter to his master, had predicted that she would be
forced to take it. She had, de Commlnges said, grown
very thin, and had a consumptive cough. Her doctor
told her that he could not answer for her life if she
remained In England, and all her household were of
the same opinion. The envoy's letter had been written

THE QUEEN GOES TO FRANCE 553
before she had been in London six months. It was now
close upon three years since she had left France. Her
health was failing more and more, and her thoughts were
turning towards the waters of Bourbon, always efficacious
in the past. One consideration alone deterred her from
trying the cure. This was the fear lest, her presence
removed, the interests of the Catholics who had gathered
round her chapel should suffer. If it were to be closed
for a single day in consequence of her absence, she
would, she told Charles, renounce the Idea of seeking
a remedy abroad, and would stay In London, live as
long as it pleased God, and then die. It was only when
the King gave her the required assurance that her
chapel should remain open, and the Capuchins at liberty
to continue their ministrations, that she determined to
seek relief from her ailments In her native air.
By the end of June her preparations for departure
had been made, and Pepys, calling at Somerset House
on the 29th, found all packing up, and heard that the
Queen was to start for France that day, " she being
in a consumption, and intended not to come home
till winter come twelve-months."
Before leaving London she called together the monks
in charge of the chapel, and gave them their directions.
By God's grace, she said, she hoped her absence would
not be long. The chapel was to remain open, and
she charged them to do their duty by those who re
sorted to it. After which she quitted London for the
last time, and started on her journey, accompanied by
the King, Queen, and court as far as the Nore, and by
the Duke of York to Calais. When she separated
from him there and proceeded on her way, she had
taken final leave of her two remaining sons.

CHAPTER XXVII
1665 — 1669
Latter years— Detachment from life — Madame's health — Influence on
politics — Louis at Colombes — Henrietta remains in France — Eng
land and France — Henrietta's intervention — Clarendon's disgrace
— Monmouth — Last days — Death and burial.
FOUR years of life remained to the Queen, They
were years of which comparatively little is to be
related. As a factor of importance in politics she had
long ceased to exist ; and if she had hitherto retained
her place as a social figure In the public view, this
modified form of notoriety was in great part to end.
At times, it Is true, she emerges from the obscurity,
and shows herself once again exercising an influence
upon the relations between the country of her adoption
and that of her birth ; but such occasions only break in,
as it were, upon a life of seclusion. For the most part
she remained behind the scenes. The memoir-writers of
the day had little attention to spare for a queen whose
life was In large measure that of a recluse ; and the
glimpses of her which it is possible to obtain are chiefly
supplied by the records of men and women who knew
and loved her, and were in some sort associated with
her vie intime : the faithful old Capuchin who had accom
panied her in her wanderings ; Madame de Motteville,
her friend ; and the biographer who drew his materials
from the nuns who had been the companions of her
solitude at ChaiUot. SS4

LATTER YEARS 555
Taking a general survey of these latter years, the
impression conveyed is that, in spite of failing health
and physical suffering — In spite, too, of the anxiety and
sorrow which must have been caused by the troubled
course of the domestic affairs of her " other little self,"
Madame — they were not unhappy. If the world was
becoming forgetful of the Queen, she for her part was
leaving the world behind her. The inner and religious
life which, in spite of mundane ambitions, vanities, and
trivialities, had always maintained a genuine existence,
was gradually asserting Its supremacy. Nor is there
any record of quarrels, rivalries, or intrigues belonging
to this period. If hers had been a day of storm and
tempest, partly the result of circumstances, partly of her
own unwisdom, the evening was closing in serenely, and
the sun, setting In tranquillity and peace, was illuminating
the darkness of past days. Looking backward, she
had learnt to be grateful for her sorrows ; and in the
seclusion of Chaillot, where much of her time was passed,
she was often heard to say that for two things she gave
thanks to God daily — that He had maae her a Christian,
and that she had been " la reine malheureuse." The title
she had claimed in the bitterness of her sorrow she now
accepted as a grace. " Her griefs," said Bossuet, in his
funeral oration, " had made her learned in the science
of salvation and the efficacy of the cross."
Of any other learning, even connected with religion,
she had probably Httle. It was her daily custom
to read part of the Imitation of Christ, beginning the
book afresh when the end was reached ; and so constant
had been her study of it that she had much of the text
by heart. But on theological problems or the con
troversies of the day her interest had never been great.
It is related that when two bishops were on one occasion

556 HENRIETTA MARIA
discussing In her presence the new doctrines concerning
grace then agitating men's minds, she listened for a time
to their arguments, whilst each strove to Instruct her
in the views to which he inclined ; then asked,
with a simplicity one Imagines to have been partly
assumed, whether the new tenets taught easier methods
of acquiring holiness, adding — the answer being manl-
festedly drawn from A Kempis — that she loved better
to labour at acquiring It than to know how it should
be defined. When not prelates, but a feminine theologian,
discussed the same controverted theme, the Queen heard
her with courteous attention, praised the " vivacite
de son esprit," and passed on to other subjects of
conversation. As time went by, those who watched her noted a
detachment from life the more remarkable in a nature
that, apart from the motive power of reUgion, would
have seemed made to cling to things material. When
the end was near at hand, she observed to a nun
charged with the duty of attending upon her that it was
true that for some time she had felt altogether God's.
So, In peace and tranquillity, she awaited what was to
come. It had been gradually and by degrees that, with
Increasing infirmities, she had let go, as it were, the
cords that, on her first arrival In France, bound her to
life. There was much In It to interest her, both
pleasurably and painfully ; nor was she likely, with her
warm heart and strong affections, to seek to withdraw
from participation in the sorrows and joys of those
she loved. She had been met at once by trouble and
anxiety, A false report of the death or disappearance
of the Duke of York, after the late naval battle, had
given so severe a shock to the Duchess of Orleans

HENRIETTA AS MEDIATRIX 557
that her baby was born dead ; and Henrietta reached
Versailles in time to nurse her and watch over her
recovery. When this was assured the Queen returned
to Colombes until it should be the season to proceed to
Bourbon, Other work besides that of nursing had awaited her
In France. It was possibly not on account of her
health alone that Charles had been ready to facilitate his
mother's visit to her native country. The relations be
tween the two Governments were in a critical condition ;
and he may have looked to the Queen, with her credit
with the Queen-Mother, to act as mediatrix.
At the French court there was every desire to avoid,
if possible, a breach with England ; but taking Into
account the " antipathic passionee " ^ existing at the
moment between the two nations, it scarcely required the
engagement pledging France to render assistance to
Holland to make war almost inevitable. Under these
circumstances, if peace was to be maintained, no means
of promoting it could be neglected, and Madame had
been rapidly becoming an important channel of com
munication between the two Kings, On Henrietta's
arrival she was associated with her daughter in conducting
these informal negotiations ; and a scene which took
place on the very day preceding her departure for Bourbon
indicates the importance which attached to the position
she occupied.
On that day Henrietta, in her retreat at Colombes,
received many visitors. Hollis, the English ambassador
at Paris, had come to pay his respects to King Charles'
mother. Upon HolHs foUowed Louis himself ; whilst
a third guest was the Prince de Conde, Whether or
not the young King was displeased at finding Charles'
1 C, Rousset, Histoire de Louvois.

558 HENRlElTA MARIA
ambassador in possession of the field, his bearing towards
Hollis was distinguished by scant courtesy. The envoy,
however, was equal to the occasion, and according to
his own report, having received nothing but "a Httle
salute with his head " from Louis, maintained the am
bassadorial dignity by replying with "just such another."
After which he employed himself, during the remainder
of the royal visit, by conversing with Conde, who showed
himself very affectionate In all that concerned Charles.
" Soon after," pursues the ambassador, " the King of
France and the Queen-Mother went alone into her bed
chamber ; and our Princess, Madame, went In after they
had been there at least an hour."
It was hard upon the professional diplomatist to be
set aside at his own business ; nor was he to be In
formed what had taken place at the conference. When
Louis had brought his visit to an end and had taken
leave of his aunt, Hollis ventured to ask the Queen
" how she found things ? " Henrietta, who appears to
have become versed in the art of speaking without con
veying Information, answered vaguely that all the talk
had been of the Dutch affairs, and that the King had
told her that he had made Charles some very fair
propositions, and that if they were refused he would
have to take part with Holland. When the ambassador
further inquired whether she knew what these pro
positions were, Henrietta answered In the negative ;
which Hollis considered, though possible, singular. Per
haps, he added, she had not thought fit to acquaint him
with them — a not improbable explanation.
Henrietta's hopes of obtaining relief from the
Bourbon waters were but imperfectly realised ; and
though she derived a certain amount of benefit from
them, her health continued unsatisfactory, and she suffered

From the picture by Sir Petei Lely at Buckingham Palace.
HENRIETTE, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS.

LATTER YEARS 559
In especial from sleeplessness. The question of a return
to England does not appear to have been mooted.
Clarendon suggests that she had all along contemplated a
longer absence than her avowed intentions had indicated.
She may, on the other hand, have insensibly drifted Into
making her home In France. At all events, the matter
never seems to have so much as come under discussion.
Her failing strength would have been reason enough to
cause a return to the more northern climate to be inde
finitely postponed ; and had she seriously taken the matter
Into consideration, it may be that her presence appeared
more necessary to Madame than to her sons on the other
side of the Channel. Her three years' residence in
London will have taught her the precise amount of
influence which, notwithstanding his affection for her, she
was able to exert with regard to Charles' domestic arrange
ments ; whilst the genuine liking for his mother-in-law's
society displayed by Monsieur and his confidence in her
judgment may have led her to hope that she might
prove of use in averting the accentuation of the differences
between her favourite child and her husband. She
remained in France, passing the winters in Paris at
the Hotel de la Bazlniere, assigned to her by the King,
and retiring in summer to Colombes, with frequent
Intervals spent at the home of her predilection, Chaillot.
Death was busy in the royal house during the year
1666. Anne of Austria, after a protracted agony, borne
with something approaching to heroism, went in January
to her rest, a tie which had lasted for Henrietta over
some fifty years being thus severed. And before the
close of the year Madame's little son, the Due de Valois,
was dead ; at which, says the Capuchin chronicler, the
Queen grieved very greatly, the more because she knew
that his mother could not be comforted.

56o HENRIETTA MARIA
To personal and domestic sorrows was added, for
Henrietta, the formal and reluctant declaration of war,
forced from Louis by the terms of his treaty with
Holland. Even when this had taken place there was no
undue haste in the initiation of active hostilities, and Louis
was manifestly ready to renew negotiations with Charles.
Henrietta was once more at work upon the endeavour
to promote peace, and Clarendon recorded, in 1667,
that she had found " another style " at the French court
" than the one it had been used to converse in," and
that the King showed a desire for pacific relations.
St. Albans was sent to London to obtain a com
mission to treat with Louis ; and though Charles at
first demurred at the intermediary, who, according to
the Chancellor, " he used always to say was more a
French than an English man," a limited authority to
carry on negotiations in Paris was at length conferred
upon him.
Notwithstanding the position he filled, Madame and
her mother remained the chief channels of communication
between the two courts ; and secrecy was considered
so essential that the letters of each King were sent under
cover to Henrietta at Colombes, to be forwarded
by her, in envelopes addressed in her handwriting, to
their respective destinations. That the secret is said
to have been well kept corroborates the assertion that
Henrietta had learnt the value of silence, and the con
fidence placed in her by both Kings bears witness to
a discretion she had acquired In later years. It was in
her hands that the written pledge embodying the terms
of the agreement, signed by both Louis and Charles,
was placed for greater security when the private negotia
tions had terminated successfully.
The furthering of these negotiations must have been

PEACE WITH FRANCE 561
the last public work of importance in which the Queen
engaged. Their issue was of the greater moment since,
at the very time that they were In progress, England
was watching with humlUation the blaze of her own
vessels, set on fire by the victorious enemy in the Thames.
By the end of July, peace had been concluded between
the three belligerents. The disastrous war was at an
end. If Henrietta had a right to rejoice in what was
In part the result of her labours, she can have had
little attention at this time to spare for the affairs of
nations. With women private interests commonly take
precedence of public ones ; and anxiety with regard to
Madame was pressing upon the Queen. Always delicate,
she had been prematurely confined, and her condition
had been so serious that for a quarter of an hour she
had been believed to be dead. Her mother remained
at Saint-Cloud to superintend her slow recovery, and to
induce her to forego for a time her habitual amusements.
It was, however, no unmitigated form of quiet that the
invalid could be brought to tolerate, and as she lay upon
her couch the stream of visitors succeeded one another
from morning till late at night.
Two events had taken place in London during the
course of this year which will have been regarded with
special interest by Henrietta. These were the marriage
of Frances Stewart with the Duke of Richmond, and the
disgrace and dismissal of Clarendon. The rumour that
the new-made Duchess, who had by her marriage incurred
the hot indignation of the King, was contemplating the
application for a post in Henrietta's household, as well
as the fact that she kept a " great court " at Somerset
House, makes it probable that the Queen had not shrunk
from braving her son's displeasure by lending her support

562 HENRIETTA MARIA
to the woman who had, for the time, severed her connec
tion with him and pursued a line of conduct characterised
by Charles in a letter to his sister, as being " as bad as a
breach of faith and friendship could make It," There
is also negative proof that Henrietta took no part in
precipitating the faU of her old enemy. Clarendon.
What evidence is forthcoming points, indeed, in an
opposite direction. In a letter replying to remon
strances addressed to him by Madame Charles added
that he had written at length to the Queen on the subject
of Lord Clarendon, and that he had no doubt that upon
this as upon other matters his sister had been greatly
misinformed. The inference to be drawn is that his
mother, no less than Madame, had taken the Chancellor's
part, and we are justified in hoping that she had no
pleasure in his undoing, and that old grudges were
forgotten. France was stIU the school of manners, and in the
winter of 1666-7 Charles sent his son, young Monmouth,
to make his debut there under his sister's auspices. By
her care, the lad, at nineteen, was initiated into life as
carried on at the court of the Roi Soleil ; and, according
to Mademoiselle, was singled out for special favour by
Louis. Between Madame and the Duke a fast friend
ship was formed, which, innocent as it was, gave a
fresh impulse to Monsieur's jealousy, and resulted in
the removal of his wife, in his company and that of his
favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine, to the country
retreat of Villers Cotterets, where Henrietta had taken
her daughter for change of 'air during the preceding year.
If Madame had then testified no liking for its enforced
quiet, she found it yet more unendurable when her re
tirement was shared by her present companions ; and she
must have felt she was paying dearly for the lessons in

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JAMES SCOTT, DUKE OF MONMOUTH.
FAILING HEALTH 563
the contre-danse received from her nephew in exchange
for her instructions in other arts.
Meantime Henrietta's strength was visibly failing.
If she had not refused to take her part In political affairs
when it seemed that her interposition might prove of
use ; if she was ever ready, in sickness or health, to be
at Madame's side when circumstances called for her
presence there, — she was gradually learning to realise that
the sands of her life were running out.
More and more she withdrew from the world, the
habits of the recluse encroaching upon those of the
Queen, Whether at Chaillot or without its walls, she
was wont to foUow, so far as health and the necessary
demands upon her time permitted, the rules of the
order there established, her attention concentrated to a
greater and greater degree upon another world from that
in which her part was nearly played out.
If, however, the end was approaching, it was pro
bably by imperceptible degrees, Madame and her
mother were too often together for the declining strength
of the one to have come with a shock to her daughter,
and In Charles' letters to his sister, still employed as
intermediary in matters political and the repository of
secrets of which his ministers were ignorant, there is no
evidence that the Queen's health was matter of serious
anxiety. In March, 1669, after deaUng with public
affairs, he goes on to jest at his mother's proverbial ill
luck at sea, A messenger sent by Madame had suffered,
it was supposed, shipwreck. " I hear," added the King,
" Mam sent me a present by him, which I believe brought
him the 111 luck, so as she ought In conscience to be at
the charges of praying for his soul, for 'tis her fortune
has made the man miscarry,"
Nevertheless, when In April another little daughter
VOL. II, 17

564 HENRIETTA MARIA
was added to the Orleans nursery, the fact that her
mother was not strong enough to be with the Duchess
points to a step downwards. She had been seriously
ill in the winter, and, though she had recovered, she
would tell those about her that she saw well that she
must think of her departure. If she feared death,
as Madame de Motteville says was the case, she did
not shrink from facing it ; and during her last visit
to Chaillot she had, as if with a presentiment of the
coming end, written out a species of will.
Her headquarters continued to be at Colombes, and
It was there that the summer and autumn of 1669
were to be spent. But she Intended to pass the Feast
of All Saints at Chaillot, and, as one biographer
states, to make her home there permanently for the
future. It was at her country home, however, that the end
came. Built near the river, some two leagues from
Paris, with nothing of grandeur or pretension about
the house or gardens, Colombes was a pleasant and quiet
place wherein to pass the summer days ; but, as they
went by, Henrietta's strength was falling. Her old
trouble of sleeplessness was gaining upon her, nor does
it seem that she contemplated further trial of the
Bourbon waters. There is a point where it is tacitly
agreed that remedies are vain. " The last time that
I had the honour of seeing her," wrote Madame de
MottevUle, " she told Mademoiselle Testu and myself
that she was going to establish herself at Chaillot, to
die there ; that she would think no more of doctors or
physic, but only of her salvation,"
The presentiment of coming death did not cloud or
sadden her mind. Up to the last Pere Cyprian records
that her conversation kept its gaiety and wit, brightening

LAST DAYS 565
all around her. She retained the gift of charming those
with whom she was brought into contact. In earlier
days it is said that the nuns at Chaillot found so much
pleasure In talking to her that ' their simplicity was
suffering,' and the Mother begged her to permit them
to take their recreation apart. Madame de Motteville
also dwells upon the familiarity she used, though without
losing her royal air, with her friends. " She loved truth,
loved to speak It and to hear it." Such qualities are
specially winning in a queen, and if Henrietta had had
her fair share of hate, she had been well loved. But
in spite of her courage, those belonging to the Inner
circle surrounding her must have had their unquiet
suspicions that the days of that pleasant intercourse
were numbered. In August her symptoms had become
serious enough to cause the Duke and Duchess of
Orleans to urge a consultation of physicians. King Louis
sending his doctor, M. Valot, to take part in it, when
the Queen explained her malady so clearly as to leave
her own medical attendant nothing to add save the nature
of the remedies he had used. M. Valot then gave his
opinion. The illness, he told the patient, was painful
but not dangerous — proceeding to prescribe a remedy
for the sleeplessness with which she was troubled. He
would add, for this purpose, three grains to the medicine
already administered by her domestic physician.
The mention of " grains " appears at once to have
suggested opium to the Queen's mind, and she protested
energetically. Her experience was opposed to any
thing of the kind, and she further quoted a warning
she had received In earlier days from Sir Theodore
Mayerne, who had cautioned her against the use of
any such drug — citing also, with a laugh, a prophecy
hazarded long ago in England that . she would die of

566 HENRIETTA MARIA
a " grain." She feared, she told the doctors lightly,
it would be one of those now to be given her.
M. Valot, though with much respect, declined to
be convinced either by the authority of the Queen's
old physician, by her conviction, or by the prophecy
she had adduced In support of It. The grain to be
administered, she was assured, did not contain opium ;
it was a medicine of special composition, of which he
begged she would make trial.
In the end the Queen gave way. Of the four
doctors present, three were In full agreement, and she
yielded to their representations.
At supper she was in good spirits, and Pere Cyprian
notes, with loving minuteness, that she laughed as If
she were feeling well. Going early to bed she fell
asleep, and remained sleeping, until the over-conscientious
lady-in-waiting, somewhat strangely, roused her at eleven
o'clock to administer the prescribed opiate. After this
she was never heard to speak again. Mayerne and
her own presentiments were justified. The " grain "
had kiUed her.
At daybreak the lady-in-waiting, who had left her
for the night, came to awaken her once more to take
a draught prescribed by Valot. Speaking to the Queen
and receiving no answer,- she became alarmed, and, when
all efforts to rouse her mistress had failed, she hastened
to summon priests and physicians. " We came first,"
says Pere Cyprian ; " the doctors soon foUowed."
Doctors and priests questioned her, each after their kind,
the first as to her physical condition, the others of sin,
of penitence, of the love of God. " We entreated her
to make some sign that she heard lis." But there
was no reply. The doctors believed her to be not only
living, but sensible. A duU vapour, mounting to the

DEATH 567
brain, they said, prevented speech. This would dissipate
and she would show consciousness. They were wrong.
The sacrament of extreme unction was administered,
and in silence, " with a great sweetness and serenity of
countenance," she passed away.
Accounts of the same event are apt, with no apparent
motive, to differ. Pfere Cyprian, who must have been
intimately acquainted with the facts, and from whose
narrative the description of the Queen's last hours has
been drawn, should be a good authority. On the other
hand, there Is no reason to believe that St. Albans,
in his report to the King, would have deliberately departed
from the truth. Yet his story varies in several particulars
from that of the Capuchin. According to his statement, the
condition of the Queen, at the hour when the laudanum
should have been taken, caused the physicians to decide,
at the last moment, against administering it ; and only
when, unable to sleep, Henrietta demanded the opiate,
did her domestic doctor suffer himself to be over
ruled, and, against his judgment, yield to her desire.
St. Albans goes on to say that, remaining at her
side to watch the effects of the drug and becoming
alarmed by the profoundness of her slumber. Dr.
Duquesne used all endeavours to rouse her, but in vain ;
and that between three and four in the morning the
end had come.
It is possible that the discrepancy between the two
accounts is due to an attempt upon the part of the
doctor to shift the responsibility of the fatal measure
as far as might be upon the dead, and also to shield
himself from the charge of negligence in having failed
to watch the effects of the drug. In any case, the matter
is of small importance, and is only worth noticing as an
instance of the difficulty of reconciling contemporaneous

568 HENRIEITA MARIA
reports of the same occurrence. The blame for the
disaster was very generally laid upon King Louis' doctor,
and an epigram of the day pointed out that, whilst
both her father and her husband had been murdered,
Henrietta had not escaped a similar fate :
Et maintenant meurt Henriette,
Par I'ignorance de Vallot.
Thus died Henrietta Maria de Bourbon, the last
surviving child of the great Henri, In the sixty-first
year of her age. On the following day her heart was
carried by Walter Montagu and the whole of the
household to Chaillot. Her body lay at the convent
in state until, on September 12 th, it was placed at Saint-
Denis amongst the kings of France, there to remain
untU, at the time of the Revolution, It was ejected from
its resting-place. All honour was paid to her memory. In England,
little as she had there been loved living, the mourning
at her death was deep and prolonged ; and In France her
funeral, as well as the subsequent memorial ceremonies,
were conducted with due splendour and magnificence.
It was at a great service, caused by Henriette-Anne to
be performed at Chaillot In the following November,
that. In the presence of the daughter who loved her
so well, and with the waxen effigy of the dead Queen
lying before the altar, Bossuet pronounced his celebrated
panegyric upon the Queen, the wife, and the mother.
Such panegyrics, true or false, must necessarily partake
more or less of the character of a perfunctory tribute ;
and Bossuet' s great oration is remembered rather as a
triumph of eloquence than as an eulogy of the dead.
But Henrietta is not of those who need a showman to
exhibit their merits and apologise for their defects. Such

HER CHARACTER 569
as she was, she displayed herself to the world, natural,
spontaneous, with a total absence of pose or pretence,
and — like her daughter — -very human. On the back
ground of a past of shadows her figure, painted by her
own actions and words, stands out, vivid and life-like.
In spite of her descent, and notwithstanding the
blood of Henri of Navarre, she was cast in no heroic
mould. Had a happier destiny been hers she might
have passed through life leaving little mark, loving
God and man, gay, thoughtless, self-willed, and winning.
Grief and disaster printed another stamp upon her, and
misfortune called forth a power of resistance, a courage, and
a buoyancy which might under other circumstances have
rested unsuspected. But the same circumstances caused
her blunders to take on the complexion of crimes. Un
fitted by nature and training to cope with a crisis of
almost unexampled difficulty, she was forced into a
position she was unqualified to fill ; and her errors of
judgment, whilst almost inevitable, invited the condemna
tion not only of her enemies, but of those of the King's
adherents who suffered for them. The measure dealt
out to her by contemporaries was hard ; but perhaps
posterity has been even more unrelenting. Living, if
the meddler in affairs of State, the blundering politician,
was hated and reviled, the woman was loved. Dead, the
woman has not seldom been forgotten, and the politician
alone, with the disastrous consequences of her mistaken
statecraft, remembered.
The apologist who should endeavour to justify her
public actions would have a difficult task. But in order
to apportion with fairness the degree of blame attaching
to her unwise endeavours to arrest the tide of revolution,
it must be borne in mind that, unlike many who, sharing
her responsibility, have Incurred a less amount or blame.

570 HENRIETTA MARIA
she was a foreigner whose period of naturalisation had
been wholly passed in the artificial atmosphere of a court ;
that any true and serviceable appreciation of the forces
arrayed against the English monarchy would, on her part,
have come near to a miracle ; and, finally, that she was a
woman, spirited and fearless, but with a woman's inapt-
ness for a grasp of the broader issues at stake and the
general trend of events.
For the rest, a revolution Inevitably appears to kings
something so out of the common, so abnormal, that they
find a difficulty in realising the conditions of the struggle
sufficiently to meet it with wisdom, " H61as," says
Amiel of the ultimate catastrophe of death, " II n'y a
pas d'antecedent pour cela. II faut Improviser — c'est
done si difficile." It is indeed difficult to meet a crisis
having no fellow in experience, and the actors called
upon to face it may fairly claim the indulgence accorded
to an unrehearsed effect. That measure of indulgence
should be granted, not only to Charles in his weakness
and vacillation, but to Henrietta, striving rashly and with
unpractised hands to build a dyke against a deluge.

APPENDIX I
HENRIETTA MARIA AND JERMYN
It was asserted at the time, and has constantly been repeated
since, that a secret marriage bond existed between the
Queen and the man who filled so many posts in her house
hold. It was a time when such reports, true or false, were
apt to gain currency. Anne of Austria has been believed
to have been Mazarin's wife, and it was said that the
widowed Princess of Orange, Charles L's eldest daughter, was
married to the younger Henry Jermyn, nephew and heir
to her mother's favourite.
With regard to the alleged marriage of Henrietta Maria,
the evidence is scanty. The affair was plainly matter of con
temporary gossip. It was mentioned to Sir John Reresby by a
cousin of his in a convent at Paris, and he adds that, though
he was incredulous at the time, it was certainly true. Pepys
twice alludes to the report, " This day Mr. Moore told me,"
he writes, November 22nd, 1662, " that for certain the Queen-
Mother is married to my Lord St. Albans ; " and again at
the end of the same year, " Her being married to my Lord
St. Albans is commonly talked of; and that they had a
daughter between them in France, how true, God knows."
The matter is also mentioned in the Comte de Gramont's
Memoirs. But the most circumstantial evidence that has
been brought in support of a fact which, so far, rests upon
mere rumour, is contained in a footnote added to an early
biography in a reprint belonging to the year 1820. It is
here stated as " undoubtedly true " that Henrietta Maria
was married to the Earl of St. Albans shortly after the
King's death. In proof of this assertion it is related that
" the late Mr. Coram, the print-seller, purchased of Yardly
S7I

572 APPENDIX I
(a dealer in waste paper and parchment) a deed of settle
ment of an estate from Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans,
to Henrietta Maria, as a marriage dower ; which, besides
the signature of the Earl, was subscribed by Cowley, the
poet, and other persons as witnesses, Mr, Coram sold the
deed to the Rev. Mr. Brand for five guineas, who cut off
many of the names on the deed to enrich his collection of
autographs. At the sale of this gentleman's effects they
passed into the hands of the late Mr, Bindley."
If the tale is circumstantial, it is unsupported by any
evidence now available ; and there are one or two details
which tend to discredit it. The statement, in particular,
that the King's widow married her favourite shortly after
Charles' death, and that the deed in question bore his signature
as Earl of St Albans, is disproved by the fact that only
immediately before the Restoration and ten years after
Charles' execution was Jermyn raised to that rank. The
explanation of the mutilation of so valuable a document
is also improbable.
It is likewise to be noted that, neither in the letters sent
by Lord Hatton from Paris, nor in any of those of Hyde,
Nicholas, Ormond, or other persons of weight, adverse as
many of them were to the Queen, is any allusion to the
marriage to be found. Their silence, it is true, might
result from one of two causes. They might have been
ignorant of so important a fact, although it was matter of
common talk, or respect for their dead master's memory
might have kept them silent. In the case of men such
as Ormond or Hyde, the latter theory is not untenable.
On the other hand, it is difficult to believe that, had the
marriage report been supported, if not by actual proof, by
a respectable amount of evidence, Hatton, with his inveterate
love of gossip, or Nicholas, in his personal dislike and
rancour, would have altogether avoided the subject and
forborne from allusions to a fact redounding to the Queen's
discredit. One more point should be taken into account in weighing
the evidence — evidence of a somewhat negative nature —
telling against the probability of the marriage having taken

APPENDIX I 573
place. Henrietta's violent repudiation of the possibility
of a marriage between her elder daughter and the Duke
of Buckingham, together with her indignation at the Duke
of York's union v;ith Anne Hyde, cannot be accepted as
disproving a mhalliance of her own. But the consciousness
of a secret of the kind, with the likelihood of its coming
to light, would surely have tended to moderate her language
on these occasions.
It must, however, be admitted that the perpetual coupling
by her contemporaries of the Queen's name with that of
Jermyn, in all matters of conduct, policy, or opinion, has a
cumulative weight which cannot be disregarded ; whilst the
letter from Jermyn to Charles II., with reference to the
Queen's attempt to convert the Duke of Gloucester, quoted
in Chapter XXII., appears to point to some special relation
ship between himself and Henrietta,
On the whole, it must be repeated that this question
is one of those hitherto undetermined by history.

APPENDIX 11
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
Letters of Henrietta Maria. Ed. M, A, Everett Green.
Lettres in'edites de Henriette Marie. Ed. Le Comte C. de
Baillon. Lettres de Henriette Marie de France ct sa Sceur, Christine,
Duchesse de Savoie. Ed. Ferrero.
Vie de Henriette Marie de France. C. C. [Carlo Cotolendi.]
1690. The Lives ofthe Queens of England. Agnes Strickland.
Henriette Marie. Comte de Baillon.
Frankland's Annals of Charles I. r68i.
Life and Death of Henrietta Maria de Bourbon. 1685. Re
printed by G. Smeeton. 1820.
Memoirs of Sir Philip Warwick.
Clarendon's History of the Rebellion.
Life of Clarendon.
Strafford's Letters and Despatches. With Life, by Sir G.
Radcliffe. The History of the Thrice Illustrious Priruess, Henrietta Maria
de Bourbon. J, Dauncey. 1660.
Court and Times of Charles I.
Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles I. B. Disraeli.
Cabala. 1691.
Rushworth's Historical Collections.
Calendars of State Papers in the Record Office.
Clarendon State Papers.
Calendar of Clarendon State Papers in the Bodleian Library.
Collins' Historical Collections.
Collection of Original Papers. Thomas Carte
History of England under Buckingham and Charles I. S.
Ra-wson Gardiner.
Personal Government of Charles I. S. Rawson Gardiner.
S7S

576 APPENDIX II
The Fall ofthe Monarchy. S. Rawson Gardiner.
History ofthe Great Civil War. S. Rawson Gardiner.
Macpherson's Original Papers, vol. i.
Sir John Berkeley's Relics.
The Lady of Latham. Life and Letters of the Countess of Derby.
Madame H, de Witt,
Letters of Charles I. to Henrietta Maria, 1646. Ed. J. Bruce
(Camden Society).
Life of James, Duke of Ormond. Thomas Carte.
Thurloe Papers.
Green's History of the English People.
Howell's Familiar Letters.
Supplement to Sir John Dalrymple's Memoirs.
Lives of the Princesses of England. M, A. Everett Green.
Pepys' Diary.
Appendix to Pepys' Diary.
Supplement to Burnefs History of His Own Times.
Collection of Royal Letters. Sir G. Bromley.
Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence.
Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers. E. B. G.
Warburton. Memoir of Gregorio Panzani, giving an account of his agency
in England. Tr. J. Berington,
Life of Strafford. John Forster,
Life of Sir John Eliot. John Forster,
Memoirs of the Embassy of the Marshal de Bassompierre to
England. Tr,, with notes, by J, W. Croker.
Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow. With original papers.
Original Letters. Sir Henry Ellis,
Autobiography of Sir Symonds d'Ewes.
Nicholas Papers. Correspondence of Sir Edward Nicholas.
Ed. G. F. Warner (Camden Society).
Life of Marie de Medicis. J. Pardoe.
Henri-Quatre and Marie de Medicis. Zeller.
Journal de Jean Hiroard. Publ. par E. Souli^ et E. de
Barth^lemy. Regency of Anne of Austria. Freer,
Dictionary of National Biography.
Memoirs of Pere Cyprian de Gamache.
Madame. Julia Cartwright.
Henriette Anne d'Angleterre. Comte de Baillon.

APPENDIX II

577

Memoires de Madame de la Fayette: Histoire de Madame
Henriette d^Angleterre.
Sir John Reresby's Memoirs.
Journal d' Olivier Lefkvre Ormesson.
Muse Historique. Loret,
Journaux de Pierre PEstoile.
Mimoires du Comte de Brienne.
Mimoires du Cardinal de Retz.
Memoires de Madame de Motteville.
Mhnoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier.
Mimoires du Comte Leveneur de Tillilres. Ed, M. C, Hippeau,
Journal de ma Vie. Le Mardchal de Bassompierre.
Sully's Mimoires.

INDEX

Abingdon, King and Queen part
at, 298
Abruissel, Father Robert d',
369
Alexander VII., Pope, 475-6
Amiens, Henrietta at, 47
Ancre, Marquis d", 12. See
Concini
Andover, Lord, 176
Anjou, Gaston, Due d', 8, 11.
See Orleans
Anjou, Philippe, Due d', 313,
471, 495, See Orleans
Anne of Austria, Queen of
Franee, 16, 18, 23, 24, 26,
35, 47-51, 58, 69, 92, III ;
Regent, 294, 300, 310, 313,
316 seq., 339, 355, 370, 371,
380-2, 387, 389, 402, 403,
413, 421, 429, 446, 449, 455,
464, 471, 477, 478, 481, 529,
- 534, 535, 549 ; her death, 559
Anne, Princess, birth of, 151 ;
death, 218
Argyle, Marquis of, 438
Army Plot, 222
Arras, battle of, 462
Arundel, Countess of, 178
Arundel, Earl of, 198, 199, 267
Ashburnham, John, 222, 360,
373
Aubigny, Lord; 543
VOL rr.

Augustine's Hall, St,, Canter
bury, 60
Bamfield, Colonel, 369
Barbarini, Cardinal, 161
Barram Downs, 59
Barrett, Sir Francis, 307
Basset, Mistress, 168
Bassompierre, Marechal de, 9,
67 ; his mission, 87 seq., 96 ;
death, 317
Bazinifere, Hotel de la, Henri
etta's Paris residence, 559
Beauvais, Henrietta at, 419,
537
Bedford, Earl of, 289 seq.
Bellievre, M, de, French am
bassador, 355, 359
Bennet, Sir Henry, 476, 489
Berkeley, Justice, 155
Berkeley, Sir Charles, 515, 521,
523
Berkeley, Sir John, afterwards
Lord, 373, 414, 418, 457, 469,
473, 487, 488
Berkshire, Earl of, 326
Bernini, the sculptor, 133
BeruUe, Pere de, 42, 49
Berwick, Treaty of, 202, 203
Blainville, M, de, French am
bassador, 80
Blois, Henrietta at, 16
579 18

58o

±A.y i^XLi.i\.

Bodleian Library, royal visit to,
171
Bonzy, Cardinal de, 14
Boulogne, Henrietta at, 55
Bourbon, Henrietta at, 311, 440
Bossuet, funeral oration, 568
Bosvile, Major, 369
Boswell, ambassador at the
Hague, 259-61
Boyle, Lady, 420
Breda, Treaty of, 419
Breves, M. de, 15
Brienne, Comte de, 46-8
Bristol, city of, surrenders to the
King, 289 ; given up by Prince
Rupert, 344
Bristol, Earl of, 406
Bristol, George, Earl of, 488, 546,
548, See Digby
Broussel, M., 381, 382
Browne, Sir R., British resident
in Paris, 380, 432, 456, 471
Bruges, Charles II, at, 487 seq.
Buckingham, George Villiers,
ist Duke of, 25, 32-5, 45-52,
63, 68-70, 75, 77-83, 85, 88-96,
98, 99 ; murder of, 100 seq.
Buckingham, George Villiers,
2nd Duke of, 383, 443, 526,
527, 529
Burt, Francis, 154
Byron, governor of the Tower,
255
Cadenet, Marechal de, 21, 22
Cadiz, expedition against, 68,
81
Campbell, Lady Anne, 420
Canterbury, Charles I. at, 55 ;
Henrietta at, 59-60, 517
Capel, Lord, 354
Capuchins in England, 91, 113-5,
242, 545

Carisbrook Castle, Charles I. at,
378, 386
Carleton, Sir Dudley, 69, 72,
134, See Dorchester
Carlisle, Countess of, 36, 140,
143, 144, 183, 197, 240, 248,
251, 383
Carlisle, Earl of, 35 ; sent to
Paris, 36 seq., 46, 102-4, 121,
142, 143
Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 63
Carnarvon, Lady, 170
Carnarvon, Lord, 170, 171
Castlemaine, Lady, 538, 540
Catharine of Braganza, Queen,
537, 538, 540, 543, 546, 547
Catholic League, 2
Cavendish, Lord Charles, 283,
284
Chaillot, 412 seq., 421, 454
Chapelles, Comte de, 549, 550
Charenton, 437
Charles, Archduke, 5
Charles I., King, 19, 24 ; in
Paris, 25, 26 ; in Spain, 28,
29 ; his marriage negotiations,
38 seq. ; meeting with Henri
etta, 54 seq. ; his coronation,
78, 79 ; dismisses her suite,
83-6 ; quarrels with her, 89 ;
relations with Buckingham,
78, 81, 93, 98, 99 ; harmony
between King and Queen, 96 ;
hears of Buckingham's mur
der, ICI ; its effect upon him,
102, 103; relations with Henri
etta, 103, 104, 109, III; atti
tude on religious matters,
112-5, 176, 177; Henrietta's
influence upon, 118-23; visits
Scotland, 128 ; Scottish corona
tion, 1 29 ; love of art, 134; affec
tion for Hamilton, 141, 142;

INDEX

581

has smallpox, 145 ; relations
with Panzani, 161, 162 ; re
ceives his nephews, 165 ; visits
Oxford, 170-2; presses collec
tion of shipmoney, 172; forces
liturgy on Scotland, 178 seq. ;
receives Marie de Medicis, 190 ;
at York and Berwick, 201,
202 ; signs Treaty of Berwick,
202 ; adopts Wentworth as
counseUor, 205 ; calls a Parlia
ment, 206, 215 ; goes north,
213 ; conduct towards Straf
ford, 221 seq. ; goes to Scot
land, 236 ; letters to Nicholas,
238, 239 ; in the City, 244 ;
his fears for the Queen,
247-9 ; attempts the arrest of
the five members, 250, 251 ;
leaves London, 253 ; parts
with the Queen, 258 ; refuses
to give up the militia, 265 ;
sets up the royal standard,
268, 269 ; letter to Henrietta,
274, 275 ; his anxiety, ibid. ;
influenced by the Queen, 280,
281 ; meeting of King and
Queen, 285, 286 ; at Oxford,
286 seq. ; final parting with
Henrietta, 298 ; letters to her,
304 seq. ; at Oxford, 326 seq. ;
successes, 336 ; defeated at
Naseby, 337 ; refuses con
cessions, 340, 341 ; in the
hands of the Scotch, 354 ;
wavering policy, 359 ; with
the army, 373 ; at Hamp
ton Court, 374 ; his injunc
tions to his children, 375 ;
in the Isle of Wight, 378, 385
seq. ; trial, 387 ; death, 388
Charles II. , King, born, 115,
116, 149; firstletter, 150, 182 ;

his dream, 211, 212; meets
his mother, 285; 309; parts
with his father, 326, 327 ;
marriage projects, 334, 335,
345 ; his movements, 347 seq. ;
at Paris, 355 seq., 362, 363,
370 seq., 376, 377, 384, 385 ;
succeeds his father, 388 ; in
Holland, 397-401 ; at Com
piegne and Paris, 403 seq. ; his
quarrels with the Queen, 405
seq. ; leaves Paris, 410 ; at
Jersey, 411 seq. ; at Beauvais,
419 ; signs Treaty of Breda,
ibid. ; in Paris again, 434 ;
his relations with Made
moiselle, 440 seq., 445 seq. ;
defends Hyde, 452 ; disputes
with his mother, 456, 457 ; de
scribed, 457, 458 ; leaves
Paris, 460 ; continued dis
sension, 462 ; attitude with
regard to attempted con
version of Gloucester, 466
seq. ; reconciliation with his
mother, 475 ; negotiations
with the Pope, 475, 476 ;
quarrel between the King and
Duke of York, 487, 488 ; in
terferes between his sister
and Harry Jermyn, 489, 490 ;
alliance with Spain, 491 ; at
Fontarabia, 499 ; visits his
mother, 500 ; Mazarin's cold
ness, 501 ; improving for
tunes, 503, 504 ; Restoration,
505 ; conduct re Duke of
York's marriage, 512 seq. ;
grief at Duke of Gloucester's
death, 5 14 ; meets his mother
at Dover, 517 ; consents to
his sister's marriage, 519, 524 ;
the Princess Royal's death.

582

nyuiLA.

522 ; takes his mother to
Portsmouth, 526 ; his mar
riage, 537 ; meets his mother
at Greenwich, 538 ; fondness
for Duke of Monmouth, 5 39 ;
affection for his mother, 540 ;
relations with his wife, 538,
542, 546, 547 ; loyal to Claren
don, 546, 548 ; anti-French
proclivities, 551 ; letter to
Madame, 563
Charles Lewis, Prince Palatine,
164 seq., 226, 235, 256, 269,
299
Chateauneuf, M. de, French
ambassador, iii, 118, 123
Chaulmes, Duchesse de, 48
Chevreuse, Due de, 33 ; Charles'
proxy, 44, 63, 209
Chevreuse, Duchesse de, 19, 23,
33, 34, 46, 58, 63, 70, 123, 183,
191, 197, 203, 208, 209, 316,
317
Chillingworth, 292
Chilly, Henrietta's visit to, 484
seq.
Cholmley, Sir Hugh, governor
of Scarborough, 279
Cioli, Tuscan secretary, 12
Clarendon, Edward Hyde, ist
Earl of, reconciliation with
the Queen, 524, 525, 539,
546, 548 ; his disgrace, 561,
562 ; also constantly quoted.
See Hyde
Clermont, Jesuit coUege at, 463
seq.
Cologne, Charles II. at, 463
seq.
Coloma, Don Carlos de, Spanish
envoy, 122
Colombes, Henrietta's country
home, 500, 505

Commlnges, M. de, French am
bassador, 546, 5502
Compiegne, Charles II, at, 403
Con, papal agent, 163, 164, 175
seq., 197, 219
Concini, 5, 13, 16. See Ancre
Conde, Prince de, 392, 421, 427,
442, 445, 492, 530, 557, 558
Conde, Princesse de, 13, 413
Conti, Prince de, 421, 456
Conti, Princesse de, 50
Conway, Lord, 55, 84, 161, 170,
207, 209, 37c
Conyers, Sir John, letter of, 370
Cordelier sent to England, 30, 3 1
Cosins, Dean, 430, 431, 463, 464,
467
Cosnac, Daniel de, Bishop of
Valence, 530
Cotolendi, Carlo, quoted, 541
Cottington, Lord, 108, 121, 160,
364, 384, 406, 407, 417
Covenant, the, 187, 295
Cowley, Abraham, 329
Crofts, Lord, 469, 499, 500, 539
CromweU, Oliver, 373, 374, 449,
474, 492, 493 ; death of, 494,
495
Cromwell, Richard, 497
Crowther, Dr., 512
Culpepper, Lord, 360, 363
Dalkeith, Lady, 302, 361, 377.
See Morton
Danby, Earl of, 172
Darley, Mr., 282
Dartmouth, 3rd Earl of, 514 note
Davenant, the poet, 297, 361
Davys, Lady Eleanor, 106, 107
Denbigh, Countess of, 68
Denton, Dr., letter of, 213
Derby, Countess of, 96, 365, 366,
510, 515, S17-9, 525, 543

INDEX

583

Desmond, Earl of, 200, 201
D'Ewes, Sir Simond, quoted, 62,
156
Digby, George, Lord, 219, 220,
249, 250, 254, 257, 258, 268,
269, 288, 330, 333, 338, 339,
350 seq., 364, 378, 396, 400,
466, 428, 429. See Bristol
Digby, Sir Kenelm, 330, 343-5
Digges, Sir Dudley, 82
Dillon, Lord, 246
DisraeU, Mr., 119
Dorchester, Viscount, 102, 108,
114. See Carleton
Dorset, Lady, 115, 131
Dorset, Lord, 113, 169
Du Buisson, envoy to England,
20, 21
DumouUn, Dr., prebend of
Canterbury, 544, 545
Dunbar, battle of, 422
Dunes, Battle of the, 492
Dunkirk, taken by Cromwell,
492 ; sale of, 548
Duquesne, Dr., 567
Edward, Prince Palatine, 492
EUot, Sir John, 31, 63, 81
Elizabeth de Bourbon, Queen of
Spain, 15, 29 ; her death, 313
EUzabeth Stuart, Queen of Bo
hemia, 116, 130, 165-7, 226,
245, 246, 256, 259, 261, 461,
472
EUiot, Thomas, 405-7
Essex, Earl of, 198, 199, 214, 253,
301, 302
Evangelical AlUance, 2
Evelyn, John, quoted, 311
Exeter, Queen at, 299 seq.
Fairfax, General, 277, 373,
379

Falkland, Viscount, 134, 288,
292 ; his death, 293
Falmouth, Queen saUs from, 307
Fayette, Madame de la, quoted,
526, 531
Felton, John, 10 1, 102
Fielding, Lord, 95
Fiennes, Madame de, 549-51
Finch, Sir John, Lord Keeper,
220, 268
Five members, attempted ar
rest of the, 250 seq.
Fontarabia, Charles II. at, 499,
500
Fontenoy-Mareuil, Marquis de,
French ambassador, 114, 123
seq.
Forster, John, quoted, 99, 109
France, M. Anatole, quoted, 506,
531
Francis, St., de Sales, 17
Fronde, the, 387 se^-., 441 seq.
Fuller, Thomas, quoted, 218
Gamache, Pere Cyprian de,
IIS, 304, 361, 393, 396, 516,
525, 528, 529, 531, 543, 564-7
Gamester, The, Shirley's play,
147
Gardiner, S. Rawson, quoted, 92,
156, 205, 229, 286, 340
Garrard, Lord, 457
Garrard, Master of the Charter
house, 178
Glamorgan, Earl of, 345
Glasgow, Archbishop of, 129
Gloucester, Duke of. See Henry
Goring, George, the younger,
199, 222 seq., 241, 242, 267,
329
Goring, Sir George, afterwards
Lordy 71, 104, 130, 143, 154,
168, 261, 267, See Norwich

584

INDEX

Green, J, R., quoted, 99
Griffin, Duke of Gloucester's
attendant, 467
Grignan, M, de, French agent,
387
Guiche, Comte de, 5 3 5-7
Gustavus Adolphus, King of
Sweden, 121
Hague, The, Buckingham at,
75, 76 ; Marie de Medicis
at, 189 ; Henrietta at, 259
seq.
HamUton, Marquis of, 141, 142,
199, 279
Hamilton, William, 163
Hampton Court, 73
Hampden, John, 63, 83, 181
Harcourt, Comte d', French
ambassador, 294, 295
Hatton, Lady, 165
Hatton, Lord, 398-400,415, 416,
419, 423, 462, 466, 467, 471,
473, 474, 483
Heenvliet, Dutch ambassador,
255, 482, 483
Henri-Quatre, i seq. ; murdered,
9-1 1
Henrietta Maria, Queen of
England, birth, i ; infancy,
6 ; her father's murder, 10 ;
childhood, 13; baptism, 14;
education, 15 ; at Blois, 16,
17 ; at her sister's marriage,
17 ; at court, 18 ; marriage
projects, 19 seq. ; the Comte
de Soissons her suitor, 24 ;
Charles I, sees her, 25 ; her
marriage negotiations, 30-44 ;
betrothal and marriage, 44 ;
parts with her mother, 49 ;
arrives in England, 53 ; at
Dover, 55 ; meeting with

Charles I., 56 ; first disagree
ment, 59 ; enters London,
60 ; first impressions of her,
62 ; alleged pilgrimage, 67 ;
quarrels at court, 67, 68, 70,
71 ; the King's complaints
of her, 72-5 ; refuses to be
crowned, 78-80 ; a fresh quar
rel, 80, 81 ; her retinue
ejected, 83-6 ; Bassompierre
and Henrietta, 87-90 ; do
mestic peace restored, 94 seq. ;
affection for the King, 103,
104 ; birth and death of her
first child, 105-8 ; the King
and his wife, 1 1 1 ; lays the
corner-stone of Capuchin
church, 113 ; birth of Charles
II,, 115; her description of
him, 116; her influence over
the King, 118; its limits,
120 seq. ; birth of Princess
Mary, 128 ; of James II.,
131 ; relations with Earl of
Portland, 1 36 ; wdth Laud,
138 ; with Wentworth, 139 ;
her friends at court, 142-5 ;
takes part in a masque, 146,
147 ; letter to Prince Charles,
1 50 ; letters to Duchess of
Savoy, 151, 152; popular dis
trust of her, 156, 157 ; relations
with Panzani, 161 seq. ; visit
to Oxford, 170, 171 ; religious
quarrels, 176-8 ; her account
of Scotch troubles, 179 ;
letters to Wentworth, 185,
186, 201 ; receives her mo
ther, 190 ; death of a child,
198 ; interferes in military
appointments, 199 ; quarrels
with Strafford, 207 ; Henrietta,
Strafford and Vane, 210, 211 ;

INDEX

585

appeals to the Pope, 212, 220 ;
the Queen and ParUament,
219 ; attempts to save Straf
ford, 220, 221 ; letter to her
sister, 226, 234 ; her account
of the Army Plot, 223-7 5
her plans frustrated by ParUa
ment, 233, 234 ; parts with
her mother, 236 ; at Oatlands,
238 seq. ; alleged design to
carry her off, 241 ; letter to
Nicholas, 243 ; still in favour
of resistance, 245, 246 ; ru
mour of her impeachment,
247-9 ; her indiscretion, 250,
251 ; leaves London, 253 ;
goes to Holland, 258 ; at the
Hague, 259 seq. ; her letters,
260 seq. ; her labours, 266
seq. ; in danger at sea, 273,
274 ; arrives in England, 276 ;
fired upon, ibid. ; in the north,
277 seq. ; impeached in Parlia
ment, 282 ; marches south,
283 ; meets the King, 285 ;
demands a peerage for Jermyn,
286 ; at Oxford, 287 seq. ;
letters to Newcastle, 293, 294,
296, 322 ; hopes of French
aid, 394 ; ill health, 297 ;
final parting with Charles,
289 ; at Exeter, 299 ; birth
of her youngest child, 301 ;
escape from England, 303,
304 ; her condition, 307 ; at
Bourbon, 311 ; reception in
Paris, 313 ; installed at the
Louvre, ibid. ; appearance in
middle age, 317 ; economies,
318 ; relations with Jermyn,
320, 321, 415, 416, Appendix,
571-3 ; work in Paris, 323 ;
the Louvre court, 329 ; de

clines to receive the Nuncio
publicly, 331 ; illness, 333 ;
correspondence with the King,
335-8 ; labours, 341 ; urges
the Prince's coming to Paris,
348 seq. ; the Queen and
Mademoiselle, 356, 357, 362,
363 ; her youngest child
brought to her, 361 ; inter
feres in Derby lawsuit, 365,
366 ; relations with Hyde,
377, 378 ; her poverty, 380,
390, 391 ; interview with
Broussel, 381 ; as peace
maker, 381, 382 ; visited by
de Retz, 390 ; receives tidings
of the King's death, 394 seq. ;
position at Paris, 398 ; her
hopes, 401 ; quarrels with
Charles II,, 405-8 ; is visited
by Mademoiselle, 408-10 ; her
religion, and Chaillot, 412
seq. ; feeling against her, 414 ;
treated by Charles with re
serve, 410, 417 ; meets him
at Beauvais, 319; disap
proves his policy, 319, 320;
poverty, 321 ; her daughter's
death, 322 ; quarrels with
Duke of York, 423, 424 ;
mourns her son-in-law, 425 ;
Ormond and the Queen, 427,
428 ; relations with Lord
Digby, 429 ; conduct towards
Protestants, 430, 43 1 ; re
calls Duke of York to Paris,
432 ; relations with Nicholas,
436 ; dissensions at Paris,
438 seq. ; promotes Charles'
suit to Mademoiselle, 440 seq. ;
views as to the matches pro
posed for James and Mary,
442 ; position at Paris, 444,

586

INDEX

445 ; at Saint-Germain, 446 ;
at the Palais Royal, ibid. seq. ;
feud with the ChanceUor, 447
seq., 460 ; receives Duke of
Gloucester, 450 seq. ; letter
re Henriette-Anne, 455 ; re
newed disputes with Charles,
456 seq. ; attempts Glou
cester's conversion, 462-70 ;
final parting with him, 470 ;
the Queen and Mazarin, 474 ;
reconciled with her children,
475 ; visit from the Princess
Royal, 479 seq. ; visits Made
moiseUe at Chilly, 484-7 5
difficulties of her position in
Paris, 492 ; appeal to Crom
weU, 493 ; receives news of
Cromwell's death, 495 ; re
lations with Charles II. , 498-
500 ; receives Reresby at the
Palais Royal, 501, 502 ; gos
sip concerning her, 503, 543 ;
joy at the Restoration, 505 ;
her daughter's marriage in
question, 506, 509 ; fresh
overtures to Mademoiselle,
509, 510; anger at Duke of
York's marriage, 511 seq.;
visits England, 516; arrival,
517 ; her melancholy, 521,
522 ; accepts the Duchess of
York. 524, 525 ; and is re
conciled with Clarendon, 525 ;
returns to Franee, 527 ; ar
rival tliere, 528 ; anxieties
concerning Madame, 532 seq. ;
return to England, 537 ; at
Greenwich, 538 ; changes in
her character, 541 ; hap
piness, 542, 543 ; her house
hold, 543-5 ; death of her
sister, 547 ; quarrel in her

household, 549-51 ; friendU-
ness towards France, 551,
552; ill health, 553; return
to France, ibid. ; peaceful
years, 554-6 ; acts as media
trix between England and
France, 557 seq. ; the end
approaching, 563 ; last ill
ness, 565 ; and death, 566 ;
funeral, 568 ; and character,
568-70
Henriette-Anne, Princess, birth '
of, 301, 302 ; in Franee, 361,
362, 390, 407, 408, 413, 455
seq., 471, 477, 478, 481, 482,
495, 504, 505 ; marriage in
question, 506 seq. ; in Eng
land, 518-20, 522, 523, 526,
527 ; marriage to Monsieur,
528, 530 ; character, 530, 531 ;
married life, 532 seq. ; her
child's birth, 536, 537, 557
seq., 56B
Henry, Prince, Duke of Glouces
ter, 375, 388 ; released, 450 ;
in Paris, 451 seq., 458, 459;
his attempted conversion, 462
seq. ; removal to Cologne,
471, 472 ; his death, 514
Herbert, Lord, ambassador at
Paris, 26
Herbert, Sir Edward, 457
Heroard, Jean, 5
Hertford, Marquis of, 240, 293
Holland, Earl of, 41, 46, 63,
125 seq., 142, 143, 168, 183,
184, 199, 239, 240, 246, 253,
289 seq., 382, 383 ; letters to
Buckingham, 69
Hollis, English ambassador, 557,
558
Holmby House, the King at, 368
Honeywood, Sir Robert, 341

INDEX

587

Hope, John, letter of, 143
Hotham, Sir John, 254, 266, 284
Howell, quoted, 63
Hudson, Geoffrey, the Queen's
Dwarf, 114, 162, 261, 303, 312
Humfrey, Andrew, 157
Hutchinson, Mrs., quoted, no
Hyde, Anne, lady-in-waiting to
Princess of Orange, 461, 483 ;
her marriage, etc, 511 seq.;
recognised by Henrietta, 524,
525
Hyde, Sir Edward, Chancellor,
225, 280, 351, 354, 364, 377,
378, 384, 385, 398-400, 406
seq., 415, 417 seq., 423, 429
seq., 435 seq., 443, 450, 452,
456, 460, 461, 466, 471, 483,
487, 489, 500, 516. See
Clarendon
James I,, King, 21, 22, 25, 26
James, Duke of York, 396, 410,
422, 424, 426, 428, 431, 432,
437, 439, 440, 449, 452, 453,
456, 459, 462, 466, 467, 468,
470, 471, 473-7, 479, 48i-4>
552, 553, 556; birth, 128, 131,
266, 285, 367, 375 ; escape
from England, 378 ; in Paris,
392 ; quarrel with the King,
487-9, 491 ; marriage, 511
seq.
Jars, Chevalier de, 128 seq.
Jermyn, Henry, afterwards
Lord, 126-8, 144, 168, 204,207,
222 seq., 268, 284 ; made a
peer, 286, 287, 288, 303, 310,
320, 321, 340, 341, 343, 353-5,
360, 364, 390, 394, 399, 400,
403, 404, 415, 416, 418, 423,
429, 437 seq., 457, 468, 469,
480, 482, 489, 490, 498, 499,

503, 513, Appendix, 571-3-
See St. Albans
Jermyn, Henry, the younger,
484, 487-90
Jersey, Prince of Wales at, 349
seq. ; Charles II. at, 41 1 seq.
Jonson, Ben, 148
Juxon, Bishop of London, 163
Kensington, Lord, envoy to
Paris, 31 seq. See Holland
Ker, Lord, 201
Langy, Madame de, 50, 51
Laud, Archbishop of Canter
bury, 79, ICI, 108, 116, 129,
138-40, 159, 169, 170-3, 175-7,
179, 191
La VaUiere, Louise de, 535
Legge, Robin, 284
Leicester, Earl of, letters to, 119,
181, 189, 197,
Lennox, Duchess of, 60
Lenthall, Speaker of the House
of Commons, 327
Leopold, the Emperor, 519
Lesley, Sir Alexander, 284
Long, secretary to Charles II,,
41S
LongueviUe, Due de, 421, 528
Longueville, Mademoiselle de,
443
Loret, quoted, 451, 492, 493
Lorraine, Duke of, 424, 426, 428,
445
Louis XIII,, King, 6,10, 11,45-7,
91, III, 189, 204; deathof,
294
Louis XIV,, King, 313, 354,
355, 382, 404, 413, 446, 456,
464, 477-9, 481, 482, 496, 507-
9, 532, 533,535, 551, 552,557.
558, 560, 565 ; birth of, 191

588

INDEX

Louise, Princess Palatine, 472
Louvre, Henrietta estabUshed at,
313
Lovel, Mr., Duke of Gloucester's
tutor, 462 seq.
Luynes, Due de, 13, 19-21
Madeleine, Mere, 18
Mancini, the sisters, 477, 478,
501, 513, 514
Marguerite de Valois, Queen, 14
Marie de Medicis, i, 3, 33, ^y,
38, 40, 41, 47, 49, 50, 69, 72,
116, 122, 161, 188 seq., 203,
204, 236, 237 ; her coronation,
6 seq. ; Regent, 10, 11, 12,
17-9, 23, 30, 31 ; Charles L's
letter to, 109; death of, 271,
272
Marie Thdrese, Queen of France,
535
Marriage Treaty, Charles L's,
41
Marston Moor, Battle of, 302
Mary, Princess, afterwards Prin
cess of Orange, no note
426, 443, 451, 461, 476 ; birth,
128 ; 208, 255, 260, 261 ;
widowed, 425 ; birth of her
son, ibid. ; visits Paris, 479
seq. ; at Bruges, 487 seq. ; in
London, 513 seq. ; death, 522,
523
Maurice, Prince Palatine, 235,
269
Mayerne, Sir Theodore, 108,
233, 234, 299, 300, 307, 422,
565, 566
Mazarin, Cardinal, 294, 313,
315, 323, 324, 327, 340, 341.
352, 353, 355, 402, 425, 474,
475, 493, 499-501, 503, 524;
death, 529

Meaux, M. de, 96
Mendes, Bishop of, 61, 71, 112
Michelet, J., quoted, 3, 12
Mole, President, 381
Monglat, Madame de, 2, 11, 15
Monk, General, 519
Monmouth, James, Duke of,
no note, 538-40, 549, 562,
5^3
Montagu, Walter, afterwards
Abbot of Pontoise, 141, 160,
175, 197, 295, 430, 431, 438,
462 seq., 498, 513, 528, 534,
568
Montague, Bishop of Chichester,
160
Montmorency, MademoiseUe de,
5 . See Conde
Montpensier, MademoiseUe de
(La Grande Mademoiselle), 312
seq., 334, 335, 345, 356, 357,
362, 363, 370 seq., 396, 397,
402 seq., 420, 434, 435, 440
seq., 479 seq., 484 seq.,
507-10, 549
Montreuil, French envoy, 341
Montrose, Earl of, 278, 279
Moray, Sir Robert, 342
Mordaunt, quoted, 62
Morley, Lord, 148
Morton, Countess of, 396, 418,
487
Motteville, Madame de, 23, 48,
50, 51, 68, 69, 140, 179, 1 80,
203, 220, 221, 253, 317, 380,
392, 394, 395, 412, 421, 495,
509, 510, 513, 533, 534, 536,
541, 542, 564, 565
Murray, William, 254, 261
Muskerry, Lord, 492
Mytens, the painter, 134
Naseby, Battle of, 337, 338

INDEX

589

Naworth's Almanack, quoted,
277
Nethersole, Sir Jb'rancis, 1 30, 131
Newark, Henrietta at, 283
Newburgh, Lord, 439
Newburn, English rout at, 213
Newbury, Battles of, 293, 324
Newcastle, Earl of, 148-50,
253, 329 ; Charles II, 's letter
to, 275 ; Henrietta's letters
to, 280, 293, 294, 296, 321,
322
Newport, Lady, 176
Newport, Lord, 176, 177, 249
Newport, Treaty of, 385
Newton, WiUiam, letter of,
259
Nicholas, Sir Edward, secretary
to Charles I. and Charles 1 1.,
195, 238 seq., 378, 398, 399,
423, 426 seq., 435-8, 471
Northumberland, Algernon, Earl
of, 119, 183, 197, 201, 207, 209,
223, 224, 280, 289, 293
Norwdch, Earl of, 329, 379, See
Goring
Nottingham, Royal Standard
set up at, 268
Oatlands, Queen at, 238 seq.
O'Hartegan, Jesuit, 330
Orange, Henry Frederick, Prince
of, 255, 260, 272
Orange, Princess of. See Mary
Orange, William II. , Prince of,
married to Princess Mary, 225,
260, 370 ; death of, 425
Orleans, Duchesse de. See
Henriette-Anne
Orleans, Gaston, Due de, 14, 15,
40, 122, 312, 313, 332, 441,
442 ; death of, 507, See
Anjou

Orleans, Henri, Due de, 13
Orleans, Philippe, Due de, 506
seq., 519, 524, 526, 528;
marries Princess Henriette-
Anne, 530; married life, 531
seq., 562, See Anjou
Ormond, Marchioness of, 520,
521
Ormond, Marquis 01, 377, 386,
402, 426-8, 432, 438, 439, 467
seq., 498-500
Ossory, Lord, 512
Oxford, royal visit to, 170, 171 ;
court at, 286 seq.
Palatine, Frederick, Elector,
20
Panzani, Gregorio, papal agent,
118, 158 seq.
Pastoral, the Queen' s, 14b, 147
Patin, Gui, quoted, 536
Pendennis Castle, the Queen at,
308
Pennington, Sir John, 191, 195,
246, 257
Pepys, Samuel, quoted, 517, 538,
540, 544, 553
Percy, Henry, Lord, 126, 144,
168, 181, 214, 222 seq., 268,
332, 333, 341, 418, 469
Peronne, Madame, 114, 300
Philip, Father, the Queen's con
fessor, 113, 430, 431
Philip, III, King of Spain, 16
Pollard, 222
Pontoise, Duke of Gloucester at,
462 seq.
Pontoise, Walter Montagu, Ab
bot of. See Montagu
Porter, Endymion, 167, 254
Porter, Mrs., 167
Portland, Earl of, Lord Trea
surer, 124, 128, 136, 137, 160

590

INDEX

Portsmouth, Queen and Princess
Henriette at, 527
Poyntz, Sir Robert, letter of,
279
Prynne, Mr., 147, 148
Pym, John, 63, 143, 227, 282
Radcliffe, Sir George, 432,
439, 463, 473
RavaiUae, Henri-Quatre's mur
derer, 10
Reade, Robert, letter from, 231
Rebellion, Irish, 242
Remonstrance, the Grand, 242-4
Reresby, Sir John, 501-3
Restoration, the, 505 seq.
Retz, Cardinal de, 58, 390, 391
RicheUeu, Cardinal, 19, 20, 122,
126, 128, 191, 198, 204
Right, Petition of, 98
Rinuccini, papal nuncio, 331
Rochefoucauld. Cardinal de la,
14,27
Rochelle, 77 : exueditions to,
93, 100
Rochester. See WUmot
Roe, Sir Thomas, letters to and
from, 130, 154, 155, 163-7,
245, 246, 261
Rossetti, papal agent, 208, 232
Roxburgh, Lady, 115, 268
Royal Slave, Cartwright's, 171
Rubens, Peter Paul, 134
Rudyard, Sir Benjamin, 44
Rupert, Prince, 164, 165 seq.,
195, 256, 268, 269, 284, 289,
290, 297, 333, 344, 363, 364,
457, 517
Sabran, M, de, French envoy,
302, 327
St. Albans, Earl of, 534, 537,

S43-S, 549-51, 560, 567. See
Jermyn
Saint-George, Madame de, 15,
59, 83 ; Henrietta's letters
to, 1 16, 266
Sancy, Pere de, 6y, 88
Savile, Lord, 284 ; letter of, 288
Savoy, Adelaide, Princess of,
425
Savoy, Christine de Bourbon,
Duchess of, 17, 151 ; Henri
etta's letters to, 160, 190, 216,
349, 401, 408, 414, 417, 421,
425, 454, 455, 495, 497, 505,
506 ; death of, 547
Savoy, Duke of, 497, 519
Savoy, Marguerite, Princess of,
496, 497
Senneterre, French ambassador,
29s
Ship-money, 181, 182
Smith, Sir Thomas, letters of,
246, 257
Somerset House, 90 ; chapel at,
164, 178
Soubise, Huguenot leader, 100
Spain, Charles II.'s treaty with,
491
Spencer, Lord. See Sunderland
Stanhope, Lady, 483
Stanley, Francis, 145
Stewart, Frances, afterwards
Duchess of Richmond, 546,
548 ; marriage, 561, 562
Strafford, Earl of, 207, 209, 211,
213, 217 seq. ; his trial, 221
seq. ; and execution, 230, See
Wentworth
Strickland, Sir WilUam, 278
Strickland, Walter, envoy to the
Hague, 268
SuckUng, Sir John, 222
Sully, Due de, 3, 9, 12

INDEX

591

Sunderland, Earl of, 270, 292 ;
death of, 293
Sussex, Lady, letter of, 267
Sutherland, Earl of, 187
Taaffe, Lord, 428
Temple, Lady, letter to, 288
Temple, Middle, masque at, 168
Theobald, Sir George, 148
Tillieres, Comte de, 20-2, 30, 31,
53, 55, 57, 61, 69, 83, 86, 87
TUlieres, Comtesse de, 53, 86
Traquair, High Treasurer of
Scotland, 183
Tromp, Admiral van, 273, 276
Turenne, Vieomte de, 453, 462,
492, 501
Urban, Pope, 43, 158, 161, 164
Uxbridge, negotiations at, 326,
328
VaLETTE, Due DE LA, I9I
VaUiere, Louise de la, 535
Valois, Due de, 559
Valot, Dr,, 565, 566
Vandyck, 133, 134
Vane, Sir Henry, 207, 210, 211,
246
Verneuil, Due de, 552
Verneuil, Marquise de, 4, 7
Verney, Ralph, 213, 267
Vervins, Peace of, 2
Vic, de, letter to, 114
ViUiers, Lord Francis, his death,
383

Warburton, quoted, 286
Warwick, Earl of, 172, 268
Warwick, Sir PhUip, quoted, 120,
134, 144 seq., 183, 199, 205,
208, 240, 253
Watts, Captain, 341
Wentworth, Lord, 97-9, 131,
139-41, 169, 173, 182, 184-7,
1946,199-201, 205,206, See
Strafford
Weston. See Portland, Earl of
Weston, Jerome, 125 seq.
Wharton, Nehemiah, letters
quoted, 270
WiUiams, Lord Keeper, Bishop
of Lincoln, 79
WUmot, Henry, afterwards Earl
of Rochester, 199, 222 seq.,
333, 341, 364, 438, 439, 448
Winchester, Bishop of, 520
Windebank, Sir F., Secretary of
State, 154, 159, 189, 208, 214,
220, 268, 329
Windebank, Thomas, letter to,
231
Windham, Mr,, 406, 407
Wingate, Mr,, the Queen's
tutor, 133
Wintour, Sir John, 186, 200, 303
Worcester, Battle of, 432, 433
Wyatt, Sir Dudley, 339
York, Charles I. at, 201, 214 ;
Henrietta at, 278 seq.
York, Duke of. See James

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author of the " Gentle Life " and other well-known books, Mr. Friswell,
who was intimately associated with most of the distinguished literary
men of his day, entertained many of them at his house. Miss Friswell's
recollections of the Literary Lions whom she has met are very lively
and interesting ; they cover a wide field and include Lord Beaconsfield,
W. E. Gladstone, Sir William Harcourt, Sir Richard and Lady Burton,
Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, Sir Henry Irving, Charles Dickens,
George Cruikshank, Mr. Swinburne, Lord Tennyson, George du Maurier,
Thomas Cooper the Chartist, Charles Kingsley, S, Phelps, Rev. J. M,
Bellew, Anthony Trollope, Wm. Black, James Rice, Louis Blanc, Maddox
Brown, William Morris, Sir Walter Besant, Sir H. M, Stanley, Artemus
Ward, Arthur Sketchley, etc, etc.

HUTCHINSON AND CO., 34, PATERNOSTER ROW

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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