The life of Queen Henrietta Maria (29 page)

" Go, you coward," she is reported to have exclaimed, " and pull these rogues out by the ears, or never see my face more."

The taunt, spoken in jest, yet with an undercurrent of earnest, had its effect. Of what followed Henrietta herself gives a description. Kissing her, the King took his leave. He was now, he said, about to become master. In an hour's time he hoped to return to her possessed of more power than at present.

ATTEMPTED ARREST OF FIVE MEMBERS 251

Remaining behind, the Queen impatiently awaited the event, repeatedly consulting her watch to ascertain whether the hour mentioned was at an end. When it drew to a close she was not alone. Lady Carlisle was with her, and Henrietta's misplaced trust in her friend found rash expression. Judging that the moment had come when the King's intention was either carried out or frustrated, and that the necessity for caution was therefore over, she turned to Lady Carlisle. " Rejoice," she bade her, " for by this time the King, I hope, is master in his own State. Such and such persons are under arrest."

Lady Carlisle's reply is not recorded. Quietly withdrawing from the apartment, she made use without delay of the information by sending a warning of their danger to the menaced men. Her message probably did no more than confirm other similar intimations. Secrets were not well kept at Whitehall. Essex, as chamberlain of the royal household, is said to have taken his own measures to make the King's intentions known; whilst Ferte Imbault, the French ambassador, also claimed a share in the transaction. " J'avois prevenu mes amis," he wrote, " et ils s'etoient mis en surete." To which of the three channels of information the miscarriage of the scheme was chiefly due must be left undetermined. It seems certain that, delayed by business, Charles had not left Whitehall when his wife's indiscretion placed the secret in the hands of her friend. The sequel is too well known to need repetition. The scene in the House, the King's vain search for his intended victims, and his angry withdrawal, pursued by cries of " Privilege, privilege," has been often described. As he returned, defeated, to Whitehall, he must have recognised the fact that he had played a game full of danger, and that he had lost.

Of Henrietta, the poor, passionate, unwise Queen, no more is heard during that agitated day. Confessing her fault to the King, it is likely enough that he had no heart to blame her. " Elle en a fait penitence par son repentir," she says by Madame de Motteville's lips, " et point du tout par aucun reproche que ce prince lui en a fait."

During the ensuing days all was confusion. The threatened members had taken shelter in the city. Thither Charles proceeded, to be met again by cries of "Privilege," and hostile demonstrations, in the place of the loyal welcome with which, scarcely more than a month earlier, he had been greeted. Lord Digby, who was never deficient in personal courage, proposed to lead a band of cavaliers to that stronghold to seize the traitors harboured there, dead or alive ; and though Charles did not entertain the idea, vague reports of such counsels at court, getting abroad, increased the public excitement. In the tumultuous condition of London it may have seemed to the King that Henrietta's life was in danger ; he believed at the least she was to be taken from him. "The Queen's rebellion " was the name given by many to the Irish insurrection, and the fresh Remonstrance drawn up shortly afterwards by the committee of the House of Commons sitting in the city, was in great part directed against herself, her religion, and her interference in affairs of State, the suggestion being added that an oath should be exacted from the King's wife pledging her to give him no advice in such matters, nor ever again to mediate in the appointment of his officers and servants. When this temper of mind prevailed, it was not strange that Charles should have conceived it possible that hatred would find more forcible expression

than words could give it ; and his orders to the admiral, Pennington, directing him to keep a ship at Portsmouth ready for use, indicate that he was contemplating the necessity of the Queen's escape from the kingdom. In any case, he determined to leave London. It was useless to represent to him that by so doing he was abandoning the field to his enemies. Henrietta's safety was of greater moment to him than a victory—had one been possible—over the House of Commons. On January loth, therefore, he left Whitehall—to return there no more a free man—taking the Queen, " of whose person," says Warwick, u he was always more chary than of his business," with her children to Hampton Court.

It must have been a melancholy departure, ominously like a flight. Holland and Essex, both filling offices at court, refused to accompany their master ; and the palace, when it was reached, was so little prepared for the arrival of the royal party, that the King and Queen and three of their children occupied a single bedroom. Two days later they had made a further move to Windsor.

The struggle was entering upon a new phase. The riots in London, the concourses of armed apprentices and citizens, the opposing bands of Royalists gathered about Whitehall, had prepared men's minds for the possibility of an appeal to force. Charles' eyes were turning towards the north ; and he had scarcely left London before he secretly appointed Newcastle to be governor of Hull, where large stores of munitions of war had been accumulated. But it was one of the misfortunes of the King that spies were all around him. No sooner was a scheme laid in his secret chamber than it was betrayed to the Puritan leaders ; and on this occasion

Newcastle was at once required to attend in his place in Parliament, whilst a nominee of the Commons themselves, Sir John Hotham, was directed to take charge of Hull—his son, more hot than himself in the Parliamentary cause, being despatched from London to guard the guardian.

Lonelier and lonelier the King and Queen were left. Digby, charged with treason, was forced to fly the country. It was increasingly difficult, in the face of the evidence of constant treachery, to know whom to trust. A certain William Murray, high in their confidence, has been credited with part of the information conveyed to the enemy. Even Endymion Porter, groom of the bedchamber—the same at whose house the prudent Prince Palatine had regretted his brother's intimacy— took a certain degree of credit to himself for remaining true. " My duty and loyalty," he says, writing to his wife from Windsor, " have taught me to follow my King and master, and by the grace of God nothing shall divert me from it." Another passage in his letter adds a graphic touch to the picture of the reduced court. " I pray you, have a care of yourself and make much of your children. I wish sweet Tom with me, for the King and Queen are forced to lie with their children now, and I envy their happiness."

That happiness, if it existed at all, must have been chequered. War was approaching nearer every day. The two opposing parties were jealously watching one another, each striving to possess themselves of weapons to be used in the coming fight. The Tower was in the hands of a faithful servant of the King's, but it was manifestly doubtful how long his position there could be maintained. The Commons were inviting the local authorities to call out the trained bands, and

directing magistrates to attend to the supplying and guarding of magazines within their districts.

On the other hand, bodies of cavaliers were collecting in and near Windsor. The charge which had caused Digby's flight had had to do with a meeting of officers at Kingston. The King, it was probably known, was sanguine as to assistance from Holland. The Prince of Orange, anxious to obtain the custody of his little daughter-in-law, had been profuse in professions. Writing on January loth, he expressed his gratitude for the promise that the Princess should be sent over in the spring. " I cannot give your Majesty too great thanks for this honour," he said—adding that there was no one in the world over whom the King had a more absolute power, and that he desired nothing so passionately as to be able by his obedience to testify that he was the King's. They were brave words, and Charles might be forgiven if, destitute of other foreign allies, he counted upon words being supplemented by deeds. In the meantime, he had invited mediation on the part of the Dutch envoy, Heenvliet, between himself and his Parliament. As peacemaker, the ambassador can have seen little chance of success. Henrietta especially, in an interview with him on January i8th, used wild language. Never, she said, had she given the King evil counsels, as was alleged against her. She hated the Irish rebellion, at which she was accused of conniving. The King was worse off than a Doge of Venice. If not speedily satisfied he would betake himself to Portsmouth, and leaving her there in safety, would go, with the Prince, to the north. Byron, governor of the Tower, had instructions to blow it up rather than surrender it.

By February 5th both King and Queen knew that they had counted in vain on help from the Prince of Orange.

From that quarter no assistance was to be looked for. Instead of material aid the Prince sent his advice that war should be avoided. That same day Henrietta announced to the envoy her own intentions. She would take her daughter in person to Holland. Should peace be made between King and Parliament she would return. Otherwise he would go to the north, where the people were still loyal, and she would be best out of England. The plan was no new one, but the same which had been frustrated by Parliament in the summer. That body showed no disposition to interfere. They may even have welcomed the chance of the removal from the King's side of the woman whom they regarded as his evil genius ; and the Queen of Bohemia, writing to Roe on January 24th, and ante-dating her sister-in-law's movements, told him that Henrietta was at Dover. Rupert, his mother added, had gone to England.

Where blows were to be exchanged it was not likely that Elizabeth's second son would be absent, and he was causing his mother no little anxiety at the present juncture. Of the prudence and caution of the Prince Palatine she was secure, but a month earlier her difficulties with regard to the hot-headed Rupert had been confided to the same trusty counsellor. At the Hague, where she herself was, he would be idle, and in England no better off ; " for "—here her distrust of her brother's wife again finds vent—" I know that the Queen will use all means possible to gain him, to the prejudice of the Prince Elector and .his religion." Later on the elder brother, expressing once more to Roe his own determination not to return to England with the Queen, " except she go, as you say, as an angel of peace "—an unlikely contingency—added that it was impossible for his mother or himself to bridle Rupert's " youth and fieryness."

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With his uncle fighting for a kingdom across the narrow seas, it would have taken more than the admonitions of mother and brother to induce Rupert to remain a looker-on in Holland. For the present, however, he must have convinced himself that the appeal to arms was not imminent, for having met Henrietta at Dover, he returned in her company to the Hague.

February i2th had been settled upon as the day when, escorted by Charles, the Queen was to set out for the sea-coast, travelling by way of Hampton Court, Greenwich, Rochester, and Canterbury ; the journey having been arranged u in such post-haste," wrote Sir Thomas Smith to Admiral Pennington, " that I never heard of the like for persons of such dignity." Those breathing the atmosphere of a court are slow to recognise the fact that the time for ceremonial and etiquette is at an end. Notwithstanding the haste of which Sir Thomas complained, an event had occurred, before the Queen had crossed the Channel, well calculated to increase the distrust felt for her. Letters from Lord Digby had been intercepted, and amongst those thus fallen into the enemy's hands was one addressed to Henrietta. Matters had not yet reached such a point that to open a communication addressed to the King's wife should be taken as a matter of course ; but after a certain amount of hesitation it was determined that the gravity of the situation was sufficient to justify Parliament in acquainting itself with the contents, and the letter was accordingly opened and read before being forwarded to the King, accompanied by a message couched in terms of conventional respect. Whilst far from reflecting upon Henrietta in respect of a letter addressed to her, or expecting any satisfaction from her on the matter, the House " earnestly besought his Majesty to persuade the Queen that she would VOL. i. 17

not vouchsafe any countenance or correspondence with Lord Digby or any other fugitive traitors."

It must be admitted that Digby's communication had not been marked by caution. He wrote, he told Henrietta, to let her know " where the humblest and most faithful servant you have in the world is here at Middleborough, where I shall remain in the privatest way I can till I receive instructions how to serve the King and your Majesty in these parts. If the King betake himself to a safe place where he may avow and protect his servants, from rage (I mean) and violence (for from justice I will never implore it), I shall then live in impatience and in misery till I wait upon you." But if peace is to be made with Parliament, Digby will be better absent. If he cannot serve by his actions, it will comfort him to do so by his sufferings.

It was not a tender of service, however much prompted by zeal and loyalty, to profit the Queen when submitted to unfriendly inspection. The unfavourable opinion entertained of her was however scarcely capable of accentuation. That she was to be for the present removed from the King's side was no doubt matter of public rejoicing. The latest effects of her influence were apparent both in Charles' consent to the exclusion of the bishops from Parliament, and the determination he evinced to retain control of the militia.

After some delay caused by contrary winds, the parting took place. For the first time since their marriage the sea was to be put between husband and wife. Riding along the cliffs, Charles kept the vessel with his wife and child on board as long as possible in view. Then, alone, he returned to carry on his struggle against an evil destiny.

CHAPTER XIII

1642—1644

Henrietta at the Hague—Her labours—And letters—The royal standard set up—The Palatine Princes—The Queen in danger at sea— Letter from Charles—The Queen lands in England—Fired upon —Fairfax's offer of escort—Life with the troops—At York—The effects of her influence on Charles—Her impeachment in Parliament —Marches south—Joins the King.