Henrietta Maria Part 20

[Footnote 345: These articles are published among the doc.u.ments at the end of Rinuccini's _Emba.s.sy in Ireland_, p. 573; among the Roman Transcripts P.R.O. are very similar articles endorsed "in the handwriting of Sir Kenelm Digby." They are among the papers of 1647, and very possibly belong to the later date.]

[Footnote 346: In May, 1647, the Queen wrote to the Pope asking him not to receive communications from unauthorized persons who approached him in her name, but only from Digby. P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 347: "The grounds of obedience and government by Thomas White, gentleman (1635), dedicated 'to my most honoured and best friend Sir Kenelm Digby.'" White knew Hobbes, but his political theory is rather an antic.i.p.ation of that of Locke and the eighteenth-century Whigs.]

[Footnote 348: Later it was even believed that he was favourable to the Roundheads. An English gentleman who was in Rome in 1650 complained of his discourtesy, "who was the English (I say rebels') Protector."--John Bargrave: _Pope Alexander VII and the College of Cardinals_.]

[Footnote 349: _Blacklo's Cabal Discovered_, p. 6. This curious book, which was published in 1679, consists of a collection of letters which throws much light upon Sir Kenelm Digby's mission and the events of 1647.]

[Footnote 350: The writer of an unsigned letter in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris says that he was charged "de representer a la serieuse consideration de la Reyne et de Mgr. le Cardinal le trois que prennent les Independants qui va a la ruine totale du Roy et des siens et directement a charger le gouvernement et combien cela regarde la France; que les chefs de cette faction sont le Comte de Northumberland My lord Saye et les deux Vaines qui font agir aupres de notre Roy et au dela aupres de notre Reyne par My lord Percy et autres qui ont toutes leurs confidence au Pere Philipes; ceux la ont contre eux tous les Escossais et les meuilleurs Anglois si bien que si notre Reyne ne veut recevoir et a.s.sister ces bons Anglois et les Escossais il se trouvera quelle fera bien de ne penser plus a repa.s.ser en Angleterre."--MS. Francais, 15,994.]

[Footnote 351: _Blacklo's Cabal Discovered_, p. 21; the suggested oath is printed, p. 49.]

[Footnote 352: These negotiations were of the nature of a private understanding based on the twelfth article of the Heads of the Proposals offered by the army, which provided for "the repeal of all Acts or clauses in any Act enjoining the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and imposing any penalties for neglect thereof; as also of all Acts or clauses of any Act imposing any penalty for not coming to Church or for meetings elsewhere for prayer or other religious duties, exercises or ordinances and some other provision to be made for discovery of Papists and Popish recusants and for disabling of them and of all Jesuits or Priests found disturbing the State."--Gardiner: _Const.i.tutional Doc.u.ments of the Puritan Revolution_, p.

321.]

[Footnote 353: "The controversial Letter on the great controversie concerning the pretended temporal authority of Popes over the whole earth.

1673."]

[Footnote 354: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 355: The Three Propositions were printed several times in the latter half of the seventeenth century, among other places (together with the suggested oath of allegiance) in _Blacklo's Cabal Discovered_. There are several MS. copies among the archives of the See of Westminster, at the end of one of which it is said that it was signed by fifty Catholic n.o.bles, but was condemned by the Congregation at Rome. See Appendix VIII.]

[Footnote 356: The Three Propositions are statements of the opinions objected to, and which the Catholics were required to subscribe in the negative.]

[Footnote 357: He travelled under the pseudonym of Winter Grant. He was an old friend of the Queen, having been her chaplain before the war; he had been a friend of Father Philip. His own memoirs give the best account of his unsuccessful mission.]

[Footnote 358: Con, years earlier, in one of his letters from England, writes of Holden's extravagant opinions.]

[Footnote 359: Archives of the See of Westminster. It seems that the censure was of a private nature; it is printed in Jouvency: "Receuil de pieces touchant l'histoire de la Compagnie de Jesus" (1713), where it is ascribed to the influence of the Jesuits.]

[Footnote 360: Those less sanguine than Henrietta had long known this; "the Pope cannot doe much, all he can is promised for Ireland," occurs in a letter of the beginning of 1646 from Robert Wright to "Mr. Jones of the Commons." Tanner MS., LX.]

[Footnote 361: Among the Roman Transcripts in the P.R.O. are five memorials drawn up by Sir Kenelm Digby, dated respectively July 14th, July 26th, August 3rd, August 12th, and October 20th, 1647. Of the latter there is a duplicate dated 1648 among the Chigi Transcripts (P.R.O.), and there is an old English translation among the archives of the See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 362: Whitelocke: _Memorials of English Affairs_, p. 274.]

[Footnote 363: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 364: Digby to Barberini, April 28th, 1647. P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 365: Sir Kenelm Digby somewhat later entered into negotiations with Cromwell in the hope of obtaining toleration for the Catholics.

Henrietta Maria (if a story, which on the authority of Cosin found its way into a letter written from Paris, may be believed) grew suspicious at last of the man she had trusted so long; one of his friends was telling her of his arrival in Paris, "but she suddenly interrupted him as he was commending the knight and said openly in the hall, 'Mr. K. Digby, c'est un grand cochin [knave].'" Tanner MS., 149. George Davenport to W. Sancroft, Paris, January 15th, 165-6/7. Sir Kenelm died in 1665.]

[Footnote 366: Rinuccini: _Emba.s.sy in Ireland_, p. 367. Digby is George Digby, afterwards the second Earl of Bristol; he became a Catholic in later days, but Rinuccini seems to have disliked him rather more after his conversion than before.]

CHAPTER X

THE QUEEN OF THE EXILES

Rememberance sat as portress of this gate.

WILLIAM BROWNE

It was the beginning of the year 1649. France, which four years earlier had seemed so secure a refuge, was itself torn by civil war. The day of Barricades had come and gone; Paris was in the hands of the Frondeurs, deserted by Queen Anne and by the little King who had retired for safety to S. Germain-en-Laye: Mazarin seemed to the full as unpopular as even Strafford had been.

Within the city, in the palace of the Louvre, the Queen of England yet lingered; she would gladly have escaped to her relatives at S. Germain, but when she attempted to do so she was stopped at the end of the Tuileries Gardens. However, she had little fear; she knew that she was popular with the people, who preferred her sprightly ways to those of the _devote_ Spanish Queen, who thought of nothing but convents and monks, and she was content to wait upon events. It is true she was exceedingly uncomfortable; little by little the seemly establishment she had kept up in the early days of the exile had dwindled as she strained every nerve to send supplies to her husband, but she had never known need until now, when for six months her allowance from the King of France had not been paid. However, one day, when in the bitter cold of January she could not even afford a fire, she received a visit from the Coadjutor Bishop, who was a man of great importance among the Frondeurs. Little Princess Henrietta, who had been smuggled over to France in 1646 and who was now about four years old, was lying in bed. "You see," said the Queen, indicating the little girl and speaking with her usual cheerfulness, "the poor child cannot get up, as I have no means of keeping her warm." De Retz, in spite of his leanings to liberalism, was so shocked that a daughter of England and still more a granddaughter of Henry the Great should be in such a plight, that he prevailed upon the Parliament to send a considerable sum of money to the Queen of England.

It was never the physical accidents of life that weighed upon Henrietta--these she could bear so lightly as to shame her attendants into a like courage; but there was worse than cold or privation, worse even than the fear lest her native land might be rus.h.i.+ng to the same fate as had overwhelmed the land of her adoption.[367] The real misery was the anxiety which was gnawing at her heart for her children, and above all for her husband. During the day she was able in some degree to divert her mind from it, but in the silent watches of the night it overwhelmed her.

She had begged and entreated the French Government to intervene between Charles and the foes in whose hands he was; but after her long experience of Mazarin she was not surprised at the ineffectual character of such intervention as the French amba.s.sador gave. In Paris people were too much taken up with their own troubles "to take much notice" or to "care much of what may happen to the King of England."[368] Lower and lower sank the Queen's hopes, until at last all that she desired was to be at her husband's side to uphold him in his trouble. Laying aside in her great love the pride which prompted her to ask nothing from her enemies, she wrote to both Houses of Parliament asking for a safe conduct to England. Even this sorry comfort was denied her: her letters, the purport of which was known, were left unopened, to be found in that condition more than thirty years later among the State Papers.

In Paris the days dragged on. The city was so blockaded it was almost impossible for letters to enter it. There was great uncertainty as to the fate of the King of England, but sinister rumours, which probably came by way of Holland, began to be rife. One day Lord Jermyn presented himself before Henrietta and told her that her husband had been condemned to death and taken out to execution, but that the people had risen and saved him.

Thus did the faithful servant attempt to prepare the Queen; and even over this shadow of the merciless truth she wept in recounting it to her friends.

But at last concealment was impossible. Father Cyprien was at this time in attendance on the Queen, and one evening as he was leaving her dining-room at the supper hour he was stopped at the door and asked to remain, as she would have need of his consolation and support. His wondering looks were answered by a brief statement of the fate of the King of England, at which the old man shuddered all over as the messenger pa.s.sed on. Henrietta was talking cheerfully with such friends as the state of Paris permitted to gather round her, but she was awaiting anxiously the return of a gentleman whom she had sent to S. Germain-en-Laye. Jermyn (for it was he who had taken upon himself the task of breaking the hard news) said a few words intended to prepare her; she, with her usual quickness of perception, soon saw that something was wrong, and preferring certainty to suspense begged him to tell her plainly what had happened. With many circ.u.mlocutions he replied, until at last the fatal news was told.

"Curae leves loquuntur, graves stupent," is the comment of Father Cyprien, the spectator of this scene. Henrietta was utterly crushed by so awful a blow, which deprived her, by no ordinary visitation, but in so unheard-of and terrible manner, of him who had been at once "a husband, a friend, and a king"; she sank down in what was not so much a faint as a paralysis of all power and of all sensation except that of grief; she neither moved nor spoke nor wept, and so long did this unnatural state continue that her attendants became alarmed, and, in their fear, sent for the d.u.c.h.ess of Vendome,[369] a sweet and charitable lady whose whole life was devoted to doing good and of whom the Queen was particularly fond; she, by her tears and her gentle sympathy, was able to bring Henrietta to a more normal condition in which tears relieved her overcharged heart. All the next day she remained invisible, weeping over the horror which to her at least was unexpected, for she had never believed until the last that the English people would permit such an outrage, and recalling, with bursts of uncontrollable grief, the happy days she had spent with the husband who had been her lover to the end. "I wonder I did not die of grief," she said afterwards, and indeed, at first, death seemed the only thing left to be desired, but

"Jamas muere un triste Quando convienne que muera."[370]

On the following day, however, she was sufficiently recovered to receive Madame de Motteville, who was setting out for S. Germain-en-Laye. The Queen asked her friend to come and kneel beside the bed on which she was lying, and then taking her hand she begged of her to carry a message to the Queen-Regent. "Tell my sister," said Henrietta, "to beware of irritating her people, unless" (with a flash of the Bourbon spirit) "she has the means of crus.h.i.+ng them utterly." Then she turned her face to the wall and gave way once more to her uncontrollable sorrow. Only one thing could have increased her grief, and that was the knowledge, mercifully hidden from her, of the part which she had played in bringing her husband to his terrible doom.

It was but a few days later that she roused herself to go for a short visit to her friends, the Carmelite nuns in the Faubourg S. Jacques;[371] but there fresh agitation awaited her, for thither was brought the last tender letter which her husband had written for her consolation when he knew that he must die. As she read it grief once more overcame her and she sank fainting into the arms of two of the nuns who stood near; but she was stronger now than when she had met the first shock. Flinging herself on her knees before the crucifix which hung on the wall and raising her eyes and hands to heaven, she cried, "Lord, I will not complain, for it is Thou who hast permitted it." A similar courage upheld her in receiving indifferent acquaintance and uncongenial relatives who came to pay visits of condolence. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, indeed, considered that her aunt was less affected by her husband's death than she should have been, though she had the grace to add that it was probably self-respect and pride which forbade the widow to show the depth of her sorrow; this was undoubtedly the case. Henrietta might open her heart to dear friends such as Madame de Motteville or the d.u.c.h.ess of Vendome, but she could not expose the sacredness of grief to the curious eyes of her niece, who not only had shown herself very indifferent to the charms of the Prince of Wales, on which, perhaps, Henrietta had descanted rather too frequently, but was inclined to regard the Queen of England's tales of the happiness and prosperity of her married life as somewhat highly coloured.

The execution of Charles I caused an unparalleled sensation throughout Europe, and indeed the world. Kings s.h.i.+vered on their thrones and despotic governments trembled. Sovereigns had indeed been murdered with a frequency which made such tragedies almost commonplace, but it was without precedent that a king should be put to death after a judicial trial by the hands of his own subjects. Even in far-away India a king who heard the news from the crew of an English s.h.i.+p replied that "if any man mentioned such a thing he should be put to death, or if he could not be found out, they should all dy for it."[372] In France the horror was specially felt, both on account of the close ties which bound together the two royal houses and because, owing to the unforgotten murder of Henry IV, regicide was a crime particularly odious to all good Frenchmen, who abhorred the views held on this subject by an advanced school of Catholicism. Moreover, the state of the country was such as to cause apprehension of a civil war similar to that which had caused the tragedy. "It is a blow which should make all kings tremble,"

said Queen Anne. Even the rebellious Frondeurs were shocked at the news.

Many a gallant Frenchman would gladly have unsheathed the sword to avenge the murder of Charles Stuart, and many did take up the pen to exhort Christian princes to lay aside their differences and to turn their arms against the English murderers, which, of course, those potentates were not prepared to do, though they had a just appreciation of the offence offered to all kings.h.i.+p in this audacious act. Even the name of the much-loved Pucelle d'Orleans[373] was invoked in the cause, while a living lady, Dame Isabeau Bernard de Laynes, was so overcome by her feelings that she broke into verse, beginning--

"Hereux celui qui sur la terre Vengera du roi d'Angleterre La mort donnee injustement Par ses subjects, chose inouye, De lui avoir oste la vie Quel horrible dereglement."[374]

Zealous Catholics shook their heads and said that now the real tendencies of the impious Reformation were appearing, which theme Bossuet developed with great effect when he came to preach Henrietta's funeral sermon;[375]

others, more liberal-minded, contended that the two great religions of Rome and Geneva could live together very well, as was proved in France, but that the King of England had allowed all kinds of sects and sectaries, a course which clearly could only lead to disaster; the Sieur de Marsys, the French tutor of the young Princes of England, translated the story of the trial into French that all Frenchmen might read and ponder the monstrous doc.u.ment.[376] It was even said that the little Louis XIV, who was not yet eleven years old, took to heart in a way hardly to be expected the murder of his uncle, as if the child saw through the mists of the future another royal scaffold and the horrors of 1793.

Henrietta received plenty of sympathetic words and visits of condolence, but she received little else. It was believed that the condition to which Mazarin was reduced by the Frondeurs had emboldened the rebels in England to commit their last desperate act, but the instructions which the Cardinal penned to the French amba.s.sador in London, before the fatal January 30th, show that his fear of the Spanish was a good deal stronger than his desire to help the King of England, and after the tragedy he only expressed polite regrets that France had not been able to follow the good example of Holland, which had protested against the regicide, and made a great favour of recalling the amba.s.sador and refusing to recognize the republican agents in Paris. It was reserved for an old servant of Henrietta to show sympathy in a more practical manner. Du Perron, who at the request of the Queen of England had been translated to the See of Evreux, found himself detained by the Frondeurs, sorely against his will, in his own cathedral city. Ill, and wounded in his tenderest feelings by a compulsory semblance of disloyalty, he so took to heart the news of the terrible death of King Charles, to whom he was greatly attached, that he became rapidly worse and died in a few days.

The story of the heroic manner in which Charles met his terrible death wrung tears from many an eye in Paris. Henrietta, who had lived with him for twenty years, must have known that he would not fail in personal courage. After all, misfortune was no novelty to the House of Stuart.

Charles' own grandmother had mounted the scaffold of Elizabeth, and of his remoter ancestors who sat upon the throne of Scotland few had escaped a violent death; when the moment came he was ready to fulfil the tragic destiny of his race. To his widow his royal courage was so much a matter of course that it brought her little consolation; but some real comfort she might have known could she have foreseen that such ready acceptance of his fate would not only blot out in the mind of his people the memory of his many failings, but would throw a glory over his name and career which has not completely faded even to the present day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY JERMYN, EARL OF ST. ALBANS

FROM AN ENGRAVING]

No one felt more than Henrietta that the King of England's fate was a warning to those in authority. She watched with painful interest the course of rebellion in France, and when at last she was able to see the Queen-Regent,[377] she gave that obstinate lady some excellent advice, dwelling particularly on the goodwill of the Parisians to their little King, and the general dislike which was felt for Cardinal Mazarin. In 1649 the rebellion was repressed, but only that it might break out anew two years later. During the second war of the Fronde, Henrietta, who thought that English history was repeating itself in France,[378] sought Queen Anne at S. Germain-en-Laye. There in an a.s.sembly, composed of both Frenchmen and Englishmen, she pressed upon her sister-in-law counsels of wisdom and moderation which it had been well had she herself followed in the past. "My sister," said the haughty Spanish lady, who was weary of advice, specially perhaps from one who had known so little how to manage her own concerns, "do you wish to be Queen of France as well as of England?"