Henrietta Maria Part 7

[Footnote 83: The following description of the Queen is written by a Catholic hand: "Seremissima Maria Regina quinque ac viginti circiter annorum, figura corporis parva, sed venustissima, crine c.u.m suo Rege consimili [dark chestnut] const.i.tutione corporis prima, de qua hac virtutum Epitome quod formosissima, quod in aetatis vere, quod Regina, in Aula deliciis, et voluptatibus affluente, atque etiam Religionibus dispari, nec vel lerissimam offensionem dederit."--Archives of the See of Westminster: Status Angliae, 1635.]

[Footnote 84: The official list of the clothes, jewels, furniture, etc., which the Queen brought to England and from which the above account is taken, forms part of MS. Francais, 23,600. Among the furniture are mentioned "trois tapis de velours" and "deux grands tapis de Turquie."]

[Footnote 85: Robert Herrick: "Corinna's going a-Maying."]

[Footnote 86: The evidence of Father Philip on this point is conclusive.

See Con to Barberini: Add. MS., 15,389, f. 196.]

[Footnote 87: He was in England at the time of Ba.s.sompierre's mission.]

[Footnote 88: Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 43.]

[Footnote 89: In a secret article of the treaty between France and England, made in 1629, it was recognized by the King of France that it was inadvisable that Henrietta should have a large French household. Aff.

Etran. Ang., t. 43.]

[Footnote 90: Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 43.]

[Footnote 91: Fontenay-Mareuil to Richelieu (apparently). "Vos actions sont en telle veneration par tout le monde que le Roy de la Grande Bretagne anime d'un si bon exemple s'est enfin resolu de ruiner la Cabale qui estoit en sa Cour dont il estime que le Roy ni vous Monsieur ne serez pas marris puis-qu'elle avoit este fondee par M. de Chasteauneuf et sur les mesmes desseins que celle de France tres prejudiciables aux deux royaumes.... 14 April, 1633."--Aff. Etran, Ang., t. 45.]

[Footnote 92: Richelieu thought that Mme. de Chevreuse, swayed by her love for Holland, induced Chateauneuf to act against Weston, whom Holland hoped to supplant.]

[Footnote 93: This clique was considered "Puritan" as against the "Protestantism" of Portland. See chap. IV.]

[Footnote 94: "Pere Philippe qui possede la conscience de la Reyne de la Grande Bretagne est subject du roy son Mary et establi par luy de sorte qu'il est impossible d'y prendre aucune confiance pour les interests de France a laquelle il ne se tient point oblige."--Letters of Fontenay-Mareuil, French Transcripts P.R.O.]

[Footnote 95: Her son James was born October 14th, 1633.]

[Footnote 96: "La Reyne de la Grande Bretagne ne fait que commencer aussy a se mesler des affaires laquelle bienque son Mary layme extremement il fault de l'humeur qu'il est quelle use de grandes maniers avec luy et quelle y aille tres doucement."--Letters of French Amba.s.sador (Senneterre). May 24th, 1635. MS. Francais, 15,993.]

[Footnote 97: "J'ay beaucoup loue et remercie la Reyne de la Grande Bretagne de son election qui est un esprit qu'elle doive conserver a elle pour prendre plus de part dans les affaires quelle n'a fait iusques ici."--Letter of Senneterre, February, 1636. MS. Francais, 15,993.

"Al futuro applica poco confidata tutta nel Re. Bisogna che prema piu di guadagnare li ministri dello Stato de quali pu essere Padrona volendo."--Con to Barberini, Aug. 25, 1636. Add. MS., 15,389, f. 196.]

[Footnote 98: "... La reyne d'Angletera qul prendra entierement Vostre party sy vous luy donnez la liberte du chevalier de Jars."--Fontenay-Mareuil to Richelieu. Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 45.]

[Footnote 99: MS. Francais, 15,993.]

[Footnote 100: The Queen's Grand Almoner, Du Perron, was the intermediary in this matter. Windbank's name is not mentioned in Du Perron's letters, but there is little doubt he is intended. Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 46.]

[Footnote 101: Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 46]

[Footnote 102: Sir Robert Ayton]

[Footnote 103: William Habington.]

CHAPTER IV

THE QUEEN OF THE CATHOLICS

They knew not That what I motioned was of G.o.d; I knew From intimate impulse and therefore urged The Marriage on, that by occasions hence, I might begin Israel's deliverance, The work to which I was divinely called.

JOHN MILTON

Among all the activities of Queen Henrietta Maria's life none deserves more careful study than those connected with her work for her co-religionists in England.

The French marriage of Charles I represented, in a measure, a compromise between the hopes of the English Catholics and the fears of the English Puritans. From the point of view of the latter an alliance with any Catholic Princess was a misfortune; but, nevertheless, Henrietta was regarded as a modified evil by those who had feared a Spanish Infanta.

Spain was the old enemy, the land which had sent out the Great Armada, and which in every way had fostered the most militant and uncompromising elements of English Catholicism; France, if unfortunately it had not fulfilled the promise it had once given of becoming a Protestant country, was Catholic in another and a far less rigid sense, and it was remembered that Henrietta was the daughter of the man who had been at one time the hope of the Reformers, and who, if he had deserted his faith with a light-hearted cynicism not often to be paralleled, had found at the end that the Ma.s.s which gained Paris for him could not save him from the knife of the man who was believed to be the pupil of the Jesuits. The qualified satisfaction which was general in England is well reflected in the following paragraph which appeared in a newsletter when it was known that the negotiations for the marriage were approaching completion:--

"The first tidings of this joyfull newes were welcome unto all except Jezuited English who have not so much hope to accomplish their ambitious projects, allwayes hurtfull to the good and tranquillity of this Kingdome by this Marriage of France, as they had by that of Spaine, since all men know who know any thing at all, how all true-hearted Frenchmen detest and hate this cruell king-killing Ignatian order since the death and murther of two Burbonian Henries kild by them and their accomplices."[104]

But, on the other hand, the subst.i.tution of a French for a Spanish Queen was a severe blow to the English Catholics. These heroic men who, hiding their heads "mid ignomy, death and tombs," had kept alive through years of persecution the faith of their fathers, had acquired something of the harshness and narrowness which belongs to a persecuted remnant. The more liberal type of Catholicism prevalent in France was not congenial to them,[105] and they had, moreover, good reason to be grateful to the House of Austria. The King of Spain not only permitted English seminaries and religious houses to be established in Spain and in the Low Countries, but he even supported some of them with pensions, and during the negotiations with James I for a matrimonial alliance he showed both his will and his power to protect the English Catholics at home, where a peace of the Church was then enjoyed which was long remembered in less happy times. All persecution ceased, and at St. James's Palace a Catholic Chapel was seen in course of building, designed for the use of the Spanish Queen who never came.

It was not likely that the eyes of Richelieu,[106] which saw everything, should fail to observe the unfortunate predilection of the English Catholics for the enemies of France, and there is no doubt that one of the reasons for which Henrietta was sent into England was to detach them from this alliance. During the period of negotiations Richelieu wrote a friendly letter to the Catholic body in England,[107] and the French amba.s.sadors were charged to do all in their power to win the confidence of its princ.i.p.al members, and to combat the wiles of the Spaniards, who tried to persuade them that the French had no true regard for religion.

Ville-aux-clercs, when he was in London, was on one occasion obliged to attend a service at Westminster Abbey. He was careful to behave with the utmost rudeness, in order to show the uncompromising character of a Frenchman's Catholicism.[108] Tillieres took great pains to conciliate the chiefs of the English Catholics, and to persuade them that his master was as good a Catholic as the King of Spain. But it was no easy task, and it was not until Louis XIII had stayed the pa.s.sage of an anti-Catholic law in the English Parliament that they began to feel some confidence in him. Then a letter of thanks was sent to Paris,[109] and even the Jesuits, who were considered peculiarly pro-Spanish, wrote to express their desire for the coming alliance. Matters were the more satisfactory inasmuch as William Smith, who had recently been consecrated Bishop of Chalcedon, and who, in the teeth of the Jesuits, claimed the jurisdiction of an ordinary in England, was well known in France, where he had resided for many years in the household of Richelieu. It was, moreover, with the same object that the French Government insisted upon the promise to suspend the execution of the recusancy laws as a _sine qua non_ of the marriage, "otherwise," wrote Tillieres frankly, "the English Catholics will be lost to France and a.s.sured to Spain."[110] Thus Richelieu's action in this particular fits into his general scheme of anti-Austrian policy, and he is cleared from any suspicion that he was actuated by weak religious scruples in thus setting himself against the Protestant prejudice of England.

Henrietta was probably not unconscious of the dubious reception which would be afforded to her by her co-religionists, and her advisers were still more alive to the necessity of her making a good impression upon the English Catholics. At first all went well. Those who were unaware of the religious revival which was taking place in France were surprised at the piety of Berulle (who was one of the leaders of the revival), and at the zeal of the Bishop of Mende,[111] who, with great diplomacy, took care to interest himself in the general affairs of his co-religionists in England. The young Queen herself, who in Paris had not been remarkable for devotion, seemed on entering the heretic country to be dowered with a new piety and zeal. She showed great compa.s.sion for her Catholic subjects, and such devotion to her religious duties that she heard Ma.s.s every day, even when she was on one of the frequent progresses of the English Court, and on Sundays listened to a sermon and attended Vespers, which was usually enlivened by instrumental music. "Can such good things come out of Galilee?" was the wondering question of the pro-Spanish English Catholic; and if he suspended his ultimate judgment, he at least rejoiced for the time in the edifying conduct of those whose presence was the guarantee of his peace.

Even some of the Protestants seemed softened. Henrietta, in her earlier days, before sorrow deepened and hardened her character, was far from a bigot, and indeed the daughter of Henry IV never had in her the true stuff of fanaticism. When just after her marriage some one was rude enough to ask her if she disliked Huguenots, she answered gently, "Why should I? My father was one"; and some of Berulle's enemies, "the ministers," presuming on such girlish kindliness, boasted that in six months she would be at their preachings. Others, less sanguine, contented themselves with admiring the decorum of the services to which curiosity led them, and with praising the outward regularity of the lives of the Oratorian Fathers. Thus the Catholics had ground for hope, but not for exultation. "These are flowers of hopes," wrote the cautious Berulle, "but nothing but flowers and, moreover, flowers surrounded by thorns. These are hopes, but they have need of a greater maturity in the Queen and more persevering conduct on the part of France."[112]

It was therefore the greater disappointment when the persecution of 1625 fell. Nor was it a slight and pa.s.sing storm. Never, even in the days of Edward VI or Elizabeth, had the Catholics been in such evil case, except that the death penalty, to which the King had an invincible repugnance, was not exacted.[113] But the most loyal of laymen, such as the Marquis of Winchester, suffered in their goods, while the prisons became veritable cloisters of religious. It is not surprising that the persecuted contrasted the peace and security of the days of mere negotiations with Spain with the misery brought about by a consummated marriage with France, or that Richelieu and his emissaries in England ground their teeth with rage to see those whom they had hoped to capture flung back again into the arms of His Catholic Majesty.

Henrietta herself, though much distressed, did not despair. She had already discovered that her husband was naturally inclined to mercy, and she knew that persecution was to a great extent a financial expedient to fill the empty coffers of the State. Young as she was, she understood the task to which, religiously speaking, her marriage had called her,[114] for the performance of which the papal dispensation had been granted, and of which the importance had been impressed upon her by her mother, by Berulle, and by the Bishop of Mende, all of whom saw in her another Bertha who was to effect a new conversion of England. Even in the dark days of April, 1626, she did not falter. She was praying, she wrote to the Pope, who had honoured her with a Brief, not only that she might stand firm in the true religion, but that also she might "procure all the peace and comfort which I can for the Catholics of the Kingdoms, hoping that the natural goodness of the King my Lord, touched by a holy inspiration and by my ardent prayers, will produce some sweet and favourable effect for their comfort.

And although up to now there has been little fruit of my endeavours, yet I promise myself that my persevering constancy, aided by divine a.s.sistance, will not always be useless to them."[115]

The first step towards a better state of things was the reconstruction of the Queen's religious establishment which had been so abruptly broken up.

Charles was at first quite obdurate to the requests of the French Government, and refused not only to receive a Bishop as Grand Almoner,[116]

but even to entertain the idea of the establishment of a religious Order in England. But in this case, as in many others, he was talked over. Years before, in Spain, he had been acquainted with some Capuchin Fathers who had impressed him by their good sense and piety. The Order was a humble one, not likely to mix in politics, and eventually he intimated that he would be willing to receive some of its members in the capacity of chaplains to his wife.

But difficulties arose. The two Fathers of the Oratory, who were still in England, had been drawn into the intrigues of Chateauneuf, and Father Philip was considered almost an enemy of France. The Capuchins, on the other hand, were under the protection of Fontenay-Mareuil, and they quite expected to see the members of the rival congregation expelled and the path left clear for themselves.

It was, therefore, a grave disappointment, when, on their arrival in England, they found that the Queen had no intention of changing her confessor, of whose long-headed Scotch prudence she had a just appreciation. The poor Capuchins, with a certain Father Leonard at their head, were subjected to considerable annoyances from the Chateauneuf clique and the Fathers of the Oratory,[117] who were more men of the world than they, did not scruple to show a refined contempt for them. So uncomfortable were they that but for the support of Fontenay-Mareuil they would almost have returned to France.

But they were cheered by the courtesy of the Queen. Henrietta, in spite of her refusal to submit to their direction, received them with all kindness, and settled them in her own establishment at Somerset House, where, to their great satisfaction, they were permitted to wear the religious habit.

They were indeed simple men, so simple that she showed her wisdom in seeking a confessor elsewhere than among them; but they were zealous and disinterested, and, if at times they attempted to impose upon the unG.o.dly Protestant by a profession of greater austerity than that actually practised, there was no sham in their labours among the sick and poor of plague-stricken London, or in their devotion to their religious duties.[118] They, on their side, became much attached to Henrietta, and it is to the pen of one of them, Father Cyprien de Gamache, who in his old age wrote his memoirs of the English mission, that we owe many curious particulars of the Queen's life.[119]

With the Capuchins came a more distinguished person, who shared with them for a while the dislike of Chateauneuf's friends.

Jacques de Nowell du Perron, a nephew of the famous Cardinal of that name, who had had much to do with the conversion of the Queen's father, came to London as the successor of the Bishop of Mende, but no two men could have been less alike, and perhaps du Perron was selected because Richelieu had learned by experience that "surtout point de zele" was a sound maxim in dealing with heretics. Certainly the second Grand Almoner of Henrietta Maria was as much liked as the first had been detested. A man of the softest manners, "neutral in every question whatsoever,"[120] as a stronger spirit said of him with a touch of contempt, he knew not only how to keep the favour of the French authorities who had sent him to England, but how to win that of Charles, whom he charmed by his flow of interesting talk, and of the Protestant public, who so respected the regularity of his life and the moderation of his conduct, that even on the eve of the Civil War he was regarded "as among the hated the least so."[121] There were moments when his task of serving many masters was difficult, as when his courtier's soul was vexed because, by obeying Henrietta's commands to officiate at a service of welcome to her mother,[122] he offended his patrons in Paris; but in the main his conduct met with its due reward. It was no small tribute to his tact and prudence that he so far obliterated from the mind of Charles the memory of the Bishop of Mende that he permitted him, in 1637, to accept the Bishopric of Angouleme without forfeiting his position as Grand Almoner of the Queen. He went off to France to be consecrated, and returned to England with all the dignity of episcopal rank.

It fell to the lot of this courtly ecclesiastic to officiate at one of the most picturesque ceremonies of Henrietta's London life. Among the unkept stipulations of the marriage contract was a provision for the building of a chapel for the Queen's use. Henrietta, at her first coming, had been obliged to content herself with a small and mean room in which her chaplains, as best they might, celebrated divine service. It was not until 1632[123] that she had so won her husband's heart as to wring from him by prayers and caresses, and sometimes even by tears, permission to build a church for her Capuchins, which should be at once a memorial of her religious zeal and a thank-offering for her married happiness, which now had been crowned by the birth of her little son.

On September the 14th the foundation-stone was laid. The site of the new building, which was the tennis courtyard of Somerset House, was fitted up as a temporary church with tapestries for walls and stuffs of great price for roof. A large and brilliant company, numbering at least two thousand persons, was present, while at the beautifully decked altar stood M. du Perron to sing a Ma.s.s, which was accompanied by rare voices and choice instrumental music, and at which the attendant ceremonies were so magnificent that a Frenchman who happened to be present confessed[124] that nothing more splendid could be seen at Notre-Dame de Paris, even when a King of France honoured that cathedral with his presence. The Ma.s.s ended, Henrietta stepped forward, handed by her brother's amba.s.sador, M. de Fontenay-Mareuil, to whom the establishment of the Capuchins was so largely due. A trowel delicately fringed with velvet was offered to her, together with mortar served in a silver-gilt bowl. Thrice she threw the mortar on to the stone of foundation, which was then lowered into its place, bearing on a plate an inscription telling how she, the Queen of England and the daughter of France, had founded this temple for the honour of Catholicism and for the use of her servants the Capuchin Fathers.

This was one of Henrietta's brightest days, in which she tasted the joy her disappointed life knew so seldom, of seeing a happy result of her works and prayers. It began by a devout confession and reception of the Eucharist. It ended with cannon and fireworks and every sign of public rejoicing. So cordial seemed the att.i.tude of the London populace that the rosiest hopes for the future were entertained, specially by the French,[125] who would have welcomed the conversion of England by a French Queen as a delicate triumph, not only over the heretic, but over the Spaniard.[126] These sanguine persons did not go about in the streets and taverns of the city to hear, under the official rejoicings, the curses, "not loud but deep," of the Puritan citizens.