The life of Queen Henrietta Maria (25 page)

The Queen's actions at this time, so far as they can be traced, give small evidence of wisdom, or of a comprehension of the condition of public feeling. It was known or believed that Marie de Medicis, herself always a meddler in politics, had desired her daughter to bring her influence to bear upon the King ; and to it the dissolution was in a measure ascribed. Yet, at this juncture and with the prejudice against herself and against Rome daily increasing, either the Queen, or Charles at her instance, applied to the Pope for assistance in men and money. It was an act certain to become known, and marked by little less than madness. The answer to the appeal, when it came, was what might have been expected, and contained an explicit refusal to afford any assistance to the King, except on the impossible condition of his submission to the Church.

Into the events of that mournful summer there is no space to enter at length. Strafford, struck down by

sickness at one time believed to be mortal, had rallied his strength, and, as Commander-in-Chief of the army, was infusing into the preparations for war all possible vigour. In Scotland the rebels were everywhere triumphant, and were openly announcing an invasion of England. In the south the temper of the King's levies was shown by the murder of one Catholic officer, and threats against others. The Parliamentary leaders, confident in their expectation of being shortly summoned to Westminster, were keeping up the constitutional agitation throughout the country. Vacillation, as usual, paralysed the King's policy. Only Strafford, making straight for the goal at which he aimed, never wavered.

By the middle of August, Charles, in spite of remonstrances, had gone north, to place himself in person at the head of his army. It was thus, he said, he could best secure the safety of his wife and children. What came of the anticipated campaign is well known. The disgraceful and bloodless rout of the raw English levies at Newburn was followed by the evacuation of Newcastle without a blow struck in its defence, and dissension was rife amongst the Royalists themselves. A challenge had passed between Newcastle and Holland ; and in a letter to Ralph Verney, a Dr. Denton told him that " one Cunningham hath related to the Queen that all the men run away from Kelsay, of which number your father was, a relation so generally distasteful to all that were there that he will be in no quiet until he hath fought with them all."

The gloom hanging over present and future can scarcely have been dispelled for more than a moment by the rejoicings at Berwick which celebrated the birth of Prince Henry, the King's third son. It must have been impossible to remain blind to the fact that disaffection,

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even in the south, was spreading to a class whose loyalty could once have been reckoned on. To Essex in particular, only the year before General-in-Chief of the King's army, so much suspicion had begun to attach that the question of how to regain him was an anxious one in the Council. In common with Holland and Arundel, he had been passed over in the appointments made to commands in the present year, and it v/as decided, by means of the Queen, to induce Charles to make personal overtures to the Earl, and, by offering him employment " in the most obliging way," to withdraw him if possible from association with other malcontents in London.

Henry Percy, selected to act as an intermediary between the lords of the Council and Henrietta, performed his service with zeal. " I thought time very important," he wrote to Windebank, " therefore I waited upon her Majesty this night, and represented those reasons to her that might conduce most to make her a party in this design ; which she apprehended so rightly that she instantly wrote as one much concerned, and gave them many thanks for preparing this, which she believes will prove much for his Majesty's service." The incident is worth noticing, not because of any effect produced upon Essex through Henrietta's means, but as significant of the importance by this time attached to the power exercised by her over the King. There can have been little question, at the moment, of the appointment of fresh officers to fill posts in the army. Denuded of means of carrying on the struggle, Charles was driven by September to announce to the Council of Peers convened at York his intention of summoning a Parliament for November.

In making this announcement, Charles—in order, to

quote Clarendon, " that the Queen might receive the honour of it "—declared that he was acting upon advice contained in a letter he had received from her. The statement may have had foundation in fact ; but another motive for the assertion is supplied by the certainty that the King " exceedingly desired to endear her to the people," and her own narrative seems to cqntain an explicit denial of the conduct attributed to her. Amongst the peers assembled at York, she said, were certain malcontents, who advised the summoning of a Parliament. Not recognising the malice contained in the suggestion, the King determined to act upon it, a resolution resulting in his ruin. For the rest, if Charles was guilty of straining truth in the matter, excuse, if not justification, might be found for him in the condition of public sentiment at the time with regard to his wife.

At all events, Parliament was to meet ; and, helpless to oppose an effective resistance to the invading army, an agreement was entered into, meantime, by which the Scots were to be left for the present in possession of the two northern counties, and to be subsidised, pending the assembling of the Houses, by English money. The triumph of the rebels was complete.

CHAPTER XI

1641

The Long Parliament—Henrietta's position—Strafford impeached—Death of Princess Anne—Suspicions of Parliament—Henrietta's endeavours to save Strafford—The Army Plot—Goring's treachery—Marriage of the Princess Royal—Strafford's execution—Attitude of the Houses— The Queen and Rossetti—Parliament interferes to prevent her leaving the country—Charles goes to Scotland—Marie de Medicis' departure.

EXCEPT in so far as they directly affected, or were affected by, the Queen, it is not possible to dwell here upon the proceedings of the Long Parliament. But Henrietta had become too important a factor in the game in course of being played out between King and country to allow of this period being passed over briefly. If it is difficult to assign to her her actual share of responsibility for the events rapidly succeeding one another, there can be no question that it was not a small one.

The time was one of terror and anxiety. u I swear to you," she wrote to her sister Christine of Savoy, " that I am almost mad with the sudden change in my fortunes; for from the highest degree of happiness I am fallen into unimaginable misfortunes of all kinds, not concerning myself alone, but others." The words were written in August, 1641, when Parliament had been already sitting nine months ; but they supply a key to the state of the Queen's mind during an earlier period of the session, and may be accepted as an excuse for much unwisdom.

The condition she describes was not one to produce in a vehement and undisciplined temperament the judicial frame of mind calculated to adapt itself with prudence to changed circumstances, and, recognising the inevitable, to accept it.

Parliament had met on November 3rd. Its members had assembled with the determination to do away with the quasi-absolutism which had been established, to render a similar system impossible for the future, and to vindicate the Protestantism of the kingdom. But the system they abhorred was clothed in concrete form. In Laud and Strafford they saw the embodiment of all those tendencies in Church and State most obnoxious to public sentiment. It was not difficult to prophesy that these two, first of all, would be called to account. Neither were men to flinch from facing the consequences of their principles. Yet both must have been aware of their peril. When StrafFord, in particular, left his home in the north to place himself, at the desire of King and Queen alike, at Charles' side, he did it with open eyes, knowing himself, he said, to be beset with more dangers than any man went with out of Yorkshire. His forebodings were quickly justified. On the very first day that the House of Commons met for business, his old comrade, Pym, attacked the "apostate" by name; and from that moment his formal impeachment was no more than a question of time. By November nth he was in custody.

Various causes may have contributed to hasten the movements of the popular leaders. The King had been suspected of a design to overawe Parliament by force of arms ; the fear of a Catholic plot was entertained. Nor can it be denied that for some of the reasons making delay appear dangerous Henrietta was responsible. Her

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apartments at Whitehall have been said to have formed a centre of intrigue,—intrigue for the most part, it is true, idle and hopeless, the Queen being, according to Burnet, bad at contrivance and much worse in execution ; but tending, none the less, to create an atmosphere of uneasiness and distrust, and to increase to a perilous degree not only her own unpopularity, but that of those who were regarded in the light of her partisans. The Archbishop, as well as Strafford, who had sins enough of their own to answer for, were further associated in the public mind with schemes, fictitious or real, for betraying the Protestant interests of England to the Pope.

Before the year closed a domestic sorrow formed an interlude, so far as the royal household was concerned, in the political drama going forward at Westminster. The little Princess Anne, not four years old, died on December 8th. Being " a very pregnant lady, above her age," Fuller relates, on the authority of one of her rockers, that " being minded by those about her to call upon God, even when the pangs of death were upon her, ' I am not able,' saith she, * to say my long prayer * (meaning the Lord's Prayer), * but I will say my short one, Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, lest I sleep the sleep of death.' This done, the little lamb gave up the ghost."

There can have been scanty leisure, even for her mother, for the indulgence of grief. Against the Catholics, in especial, public feeling was rising higher and higher, and any charge preferred against them, true or false, was likely to find credence. Incidents belonging to the past were raked up and examined, with the object of discovering in them a seditious significance. To the desire expressed by the Queen, in the year 1639, that a fast should be observed for her " pious intentions"

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—such intentions having reference merely to the safe return of the King from the north—a sinister interpretation was lent; the vague report of a woman relating to a mythical scheme of murder received grave consideration in the House of Commons ; and Henrietta's appeal to the English Catholics for contributions towards the expenses of the war was made the subject of minute inquiry, the suspicions entertained not being allayed when it appeared that the Pope's envoy, Con, had taken, a prominent part in the business. In what capacity, it was questioned, had Con visited England at all ? and how had it happened that he, coming immediately from the Pope, had thus concerned himself in the affair, and had so willingly undertaken the engaging of two kingdoms in a bloody war ?

The Queen did what she could to propitiate public opinion. A message was brought from her to the House stating that she had been ready to do her best to remove all misunderstandings between the King and his people ; whilst she expressly took credit, with truth or not, for having advised her husband to summon a Parliament, stating that she had written for this purpose to the King, and sent a gentleman to persuade him thereto. She also professed her willingness, in deference to public opinion on the subject, to consent to the removal of the papal envoy " in convenient time" ; pledged herself to be careful not to exceed, in regard to the practice of her religion, what was necessary ; and concluded by explaining that, in raising money from the Catholics, she had simply been moved by her dear and tender affection for the King, and that, if her conduct had been illegal, it was due to her ignorance of the law.

At the instance of Lord Digby, the Earl of Bristol's son, thanks were returned to the Queen for her message ;

but it was manifest that it had made little impression upon the House. It was probably known or guessed that during the preceding month she had been engaged in the endeavour to gain over those of the popular leaders who were likely to be accessible to her influence, and the change of tone on the part of Digby himself may have been attributed to its true cause. From a violent opponent of the court he had been converted by Henrietta's instrumentality into one of its most ardent supporters, and was now numbered amongst the minority engaged in the vain endeavour to avert Strafford's approaching doom. Nor were Henrietta's dealings with British subjects the only part of her conduct calculated to rouse popular feeling against her. With almost incredible rashness she had again, at this critical juncture, courted the indignation of the country by a second appeal, destined to prove as fruitless as those preceding and following it, to Rome for pecuniary aid. In spite of all that could be done, the outlook was black enough. Windebank, fearing to face his enemies, had fled to France, carrying with him letters of recommendation from the Queen. The Lord Keeper, Finch, soon followed him to a place of safety. Before the close of the year, Laud, like Straffbrd, had been impeached of high treason, and was presently to find a lodging in the Tower. All that spring the fate of the great Earl hung in the balances. His trial had been deferred till March, and during the interval Henrietta strove her best to make use of the influence of a woman and a Queen upon his behalf. No day passed, she afterwards told Madame de Motteville in describing this period,' that she did not meet the most malignant of his foes in the apartment of one of her ladies, which, near her own, was approached by a private staircase. " Thither she herself, a light in