The life of Queen Henrietta Maria (24 page)

As the autumn drew on the aspect of affairs in the north did not improve; and it must quickly have become clear that the treaty had been not a peace but an armistice, and that, if Charles was not to relinquish supremacy in the State as well as in the Church in his

Scottish dominions, recourse must again be had to force. Nor was Scotland alone to be considered in the matter. To own himself defeated there would have come near to proving fatal to the King's chances of a successful vindication of his rights in England. The condition of affairs had, besides, already told upon British prestige abroad. It was impossible that Charles should have weight in foreign affairs whilst his powerlessness to control his own subjects was patent. The negotiations he continued to carry on with the old object of befriending his nephew were more unsuccessful than before ; and the Dutch presumed so far as to pursue a Spanish fleet under British protection to the English coast, and to fight it in the Downs.

In the month of September a new force made itself felt in the council-chamber. Wentworth had arrived in London. His presence was immediately due to intrigues carried on against him at court and in the Council ; but his coming had a far more important result than the vindication of his Irish administration. " From that time he became what he had never been before, the trusted counsellor of Charles, so far at least as it was possible for Charles to trust any one." l The sneer of Sir Philip Warwick points to the position he was henceforth to occupy, when he says that, later on, "as if the oracle at Delphi had been to be consulted, the great Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was to be sent for." His undaunted spirit and iron determination established his right to be regarded as the most capable of the counsellors to whom Charles could turn in time of danger. Scarcely less blind than his master as to the strength and dimensions of the opposition, constitutional and religious, he had a clear perception of the objects to be pursued

1 Gardiner's Fall of the Monarchy, vol. i. p. 278.

and unwavering resolution in advocating the means he imagined calculated to obtain them. It was at his suggestion that Charles at length brought himself to return, at least in appearance, to constitutional methods of government, and to summon a Parliament for the following spring.

Wentworth's counsel was due to no lingering concern or respect for the rights of the people or the ancient charters of liberty. But his experience in Ireland, and his signal success in rendering the Parliament he had there called together subservient in all things to his will, may well have caused him to be sanguine as to the result of a similar experiment in England. He had told the Privy Council in Dublin that the means of having the happiest Parliament ever held was " most easy ; no more than to put an absolute trust in the King, without offering any condition or restraint at all upon his will." This was his ideal. In Ireland it had been realised. He had to learn that the circumstances and conditions of the two kingdoms were not identical.

In December Charles gave his consent. Parliament was to be summoned to meet in the following April, affording time for the previous assembling of the Irish Houses, to lead the way in submissiveness. More was accomplished. The Council determined to make a personal loan to the Royal Exchequer amounting to £300,000. Wentworth at once contributed £20,000 ; other lords of the Council followed, and two-thirds of the whole sum had been contributed before Christmas.

Meantime, if the news of the coming Parliament had caused widespread satisfaction, it had come too late to allay suspicion. The nation stood on its guard against the King. Misgivings were felt as to the purpose the army now to be raised was to serve. Was it intended

SIR HARRY VANE SECRETARY 207

to intimidate the representatives of the people ? It remained to be seen, and judgments were suspended.

By January the earldom long withheld was bestowed upon Wentworth, and he became the Earl of Strafford, with the additional title of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In many of the appointments made to different posts his hand was apparent. The army was to be commanded by Northumberland, his friend ; Conway, also in his confidence and who had been visiting him in Dublin, was to command the Horse ; Strafford himself was named Lieutenant-General under Northumberland. But in the appointment to the important post of Secretary of State, the old enmity between the " Queen's side " and the King's new counsellor had shown itself afresh, and Strafford had been worsted. Sir Harry Vane, " by the dark contrivance of the Marquis of Hamilton, and by the open and visible power of the Queen," l was made secretary. And, what was perhaps more unfortunate than an unfortunate appointment, the affair had been marked by a " declared and unseasonable displeasure" in Henrietta towards the Earl of Strafford, who had succeeded in retarding the arrangement and in making it necessary for her to exert all her influence over the King before it was carried into effect. The Queen's solicitations, Northumberland told Leicester, had much furthered that business ; though he added that upon this occasion—in contra-distinction apparently to others of the kind—" certainly no money hath been employed either to Henry Jermyn or to anybody else." However his appointment had been procured, that the Secretary )f State should be the personal enemy of the man who was to stand at the helm, would increase to an incalculable degree the difficulty of steering the ship. But it

was done, and " with this untempered mortar," to quote Warwick again, " the poor King was to build in a most stormy season." It was not long before Henrietta had cause to regret her interference.

In the meantime, her trial of strength with the Lord Lieutenant did not prevent her from appealing to him when she had occasion to entertain fears as to the course likely to be pursued by Parliament with regard to Catholics. Con had been succeeded as papal agent by Rossetti ; and whilst the new-comer was astonished at the amount of indulgence displayed towards his coreligionists, as well as at the language—that of a " zealous Catholic "—used by the vacillating Windebank, he regarded his own dismissal as a not improbable result of Parliamentary action. Henrietta, having taken the King into council, was assured by him that, in case of necessity, he would assert that her right to correspond with Rome was secured by her marriage treaty. It was not true, she told Rossetti easily, but the King would use this pretext to silence any one meddling in the matter. Henrietta was likewise busying herself about the position of Catholic peers, hitherto excluded from the House of Lords by the necessity of taking the oath of allegiance. The attempt was to be made of proving that formality unnecessary, by which means the Catholic representation in Parliament would be materially increased. The wild scheme of a double Spanish marriage had also been started by the Duchesse de Chevreuse, Charles viewing with favour the project of uniting his two eldest children with the Infant and Infanta. The project was not one to be seriously entertained at Madrid, and its chief result was to disincline Charles to lend a favourable ear to the proposal that his daughter Mary should become the wife of the Prince of Orange's son.

After a picture by Van Dyck.

MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE.

In April the court was again engrossed in its amusements ; and Henry Percy, writing to tell his brother-in-law that he had delivered a letter of his to the Queen, warns him that he will have to wait for an answer, " for this day my Lord Chamberlain gives the King and Queen a play, so that you may judge the ladies will be empescht"

In this same month the visit of Madame de Chev-reuse was to end, and she was to remove herself and her intrigues elsewhere. Her favour at court had been so great that at one time trouble had threatened to come of it, and Louis had complained that she was granted privileges in the matter of the tabouret refused to the wife of his ambassador. If the answer returned by Leicester—namely, that this grace had not been enjoyed by reason of the Duchess's quality, but as a personal favour—was calculated to settle the matter of etiquette, the fact that his exiled subject was held in so much consideration at Whitehall was not likely to be pleasing to her offended sovereign ; whilst the scheme she had pressed of a cross marriage with Spain left no doubt as to the direction in which her influence would be employed. But England had by this time become weary of her, and few regrets were felt when a domestic catastrophe came to hasten her departure. u The Duke of Chevereux," wrote Northumberland to Lord Conway, " is coming hither to fetch his wife ; but she, to avoid him, is going away to Flanders." It had become the writer's duty, and one he performed with alacrity, to supply a ship to attend her, and on the following Sunday she was to set forth. " Happy shall we be," concluded the Earl, " if a greater loss do never befall this kingdom." Conway, in reply, hoped that Northumberland would get the Duchess lodgings.

Whether or not Henrietta had tired of her friend no VOL. i. 14

evidence remains to show. But she was probably ceasing to have heart for the amusements of which the Duchess was so indefatigable a purveyor.

In March, StrafFord, again in spite of illness, had crossed to Dublin. Parliament had already met when he arrived there, and the short session resulted in a complete triumph for the absolutism he had established. Without a single dissentient voice, and with enthusiasm, the subsidies he demanded were voted ; and he returned to England, to find a Parliament inspired by a very different spirit sitting at Westminster.

The three weeks during which the Short Parliament continued in session, whatever were the results to King and country, must have served to convict Henrietta of her own errors of judgment. Before they were over she had told Strafford that she considered him the most capable and faithful servant the King possessed ; whilst her opinion of the man she had placed in power, in the teeth of his opposition, is to be inferred from her own narrative. Though Vane's name is never mentioned, he is clearly indicated in the Secretary of State in whom the King had had confidence, and who had been given him by the Queen herself, believing him to be faithful. Out of hatred to Strafford this person had been guilty of signal treason ; since having allied himself with Charles' enemies, he had misrepresented to the House of Commons the King's intentions ; had led them to understand, in exact opposition to the orders he had received, that his master would content himself with nothing less than the entire sum he had originally demanded; and on the refusal of Parliament to grant this, had given them orders to dissolve—a measure intended by the King to serve only as a last resource. This harsh proceeding, for which Charles was not responsible, had been the means of

losing him many members hitherto well affected to his cause. Such was, in substance, the account of the matter furnished by the Queen. In spite of technical inaccuracies it has been mainly adopted by later historians, save that it is considered by some incredible that Vane should have acted without authority from the King, and his conduct is hypothetically held to be the result of a change of purpose on Charles' part.

The days following the dissolution must have been ones of stress and excitement. In the opinion of Straffbrd and his friends, Parliament had been tried and found wanting. It was now for the King to exert his own authority, and to take measures to reduce Scotland to submission. It was at the select committee of eight, accustomed to deal with Scottish affairs and now hastily summoned, that the Lord Lieutenant made the suggestion that troops should be brought from Ireland for service against the rebels—a suggestion afterwards constituting a formidable item in his impeachment. Money was demanded from the city, and was refused. Loans were requested from foreign powers. In the meantime, riots in London and elsewhere testified to the sentiments of the populace. Laud's house was made ready for defence, the trained bands called out. One placard announced that the King's palace was to let; another threatened an attack upon St. James'.

Of Henrietta's bearing during this time of trouble little is known. It was probably fearless enough ; but a story abroad in the town and reported by one William Mayle, in a letter to the Archbishop, is significant of the terror which had penetrated to the royal household. Prince Charles, now about ten, had been weeping bitterly for five days, no one able to pacify him. Also, he was troubled with dreams at night, so that at last the King

HENRIETTA MARIA

came to him and asked him what was the matter ; when the Prince said, " Your Majesty should have asked that sooner." Then the King required the Prince to tell him ; who answered, " My grandfather left you four kingdoms, and I am afraid your Majesty will leave me never a one." Whereupon the King asked the Prince, " Who have been your tutors in this ? "

Perhaps there had come to the ears of the little heir the story of the inscription scratched with a diamond upon a window-pane at Whitehall. " God save the King "—so it ran—" confound the Queen and her children, and give us the Palsgrave to reign -in this kingdom." No doubt it expressed the spirit that was abroad. Charles could shatter the glass with his own hand, but he could not quell the animosity to Henrietta of which it was the visible sign.