The life of Queen Henrietta Maria (34 page)

Sunderland himself was still kept by " grinning honour" at his post, playing out the melancholy part undertaken with so little enthusiasm. Quartered a month earlier in a " little private cottage " before the beleaguered town of Gloucester, a letter to his wife gives a description of an interlude in the fight, of a supper when Falkland and Chillingworth had been his guests, spending their leisure, after the fashion of the day, in polemical discussion, and Falkland had defeated the divine in a dispute concerning Socinianism. Now, from Oxford, four days before his death, he was sending his blessing to the little daughter he was never to see again—" and tell her I would have writ to her but that, upon mature deliberation, I found it to be uncivil to return an answer to a lady in another character than her own, which I am not yet learned enough to do. 1 Though without a command in the army, he fought

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not a week later, at Newbury as a volunteer, and, with Falkland and Carnarvon, was amongst the slain. The victory, if such it were—success was claimed by either side—was dearly purchased.

To return to Holland, the evident poverty of the court, when he had had time to take stock of it, and the inability he must have recognised on the part of the King to make it pecuniarily worth his while to be faithful, may, as Clarendon surmises, have contributed to determine his future course. When Charles took the definite step of bestowing his former post upon the Marquis of Hertford, the disappointment gave its coup-de-grdce to the Earl's new-born loyalty ; and, creeping away by night to the enemy's quarters, he once more tendered his services to Parliament, rushing into print shortly afterwards in order to demonstrate that his visit to Oxford had been made in the interests of peace, but that, finding opinion there too adverse to a settlement, he had abandoned his endeavour and quitted the court. The most serious result of his double treason was that Northumberland thought better of his intention of changing sides, and that others were deterred from attempting a reconciliation with the King.

Meantime, judging from the tone of her letters to Newcastle, Henrietta contrived to face the situation gaily.

" My cousin," she wrote from Oxford towards the end of August and before men's spirits had been clouded by the mournful battlefield of Newbury, " for a person who is awaiting a siege, it is not ill— allez —to be able to write. But it is necessary that I should flatter you at the present moment, so that, should the King not come to succour us, you may do so. Nevertheless, I hope we shall not cause you to leave Beverley, whe

it is said here that you are. I must send you news of yourself, for you send none. It is so long since we have heard Yorkshire spoken of that were it not that we repeat what we know nothing at all could be said about it. I must scold you a little for not sending oftener, and at the same time assure you that I have not ceased to be your faithful and constant friend."

It is probable that at this time Henrietta felt that in the hope of practical intervention from France lay a better chance of such a pacification as she desired than in the negotiations constantly carried on between Charles and the Parliament or the unaided strength of the Royalist arms. The death of Louis XIII. had raised anticipations of French succour, and Henrietta had been reckoning on the good results to be obtained through the influence of his widow. The goodwill of Anne of Austria had been made clear, and her professions of amity would have been counted by Henrietta for more than they were worth. She had yet to learn that, if Richelieu was dead, his spirit, in a measure, survived in Mazarin; and that, whether the rumour was true or not by which the relations between Queen and Cardinal were reported to be of a closer character than those of Regent and minister, it was to be he who would determine the future policy of France. For the present, the intimation said by Clarendon to have reached Henrietta from France, to the effect that the King himself should direct what way he would be served, may well have seemed to promise effectual assistance. The recall of Senneterre, an avowed partisan of the Parliamentary party, would likewise have appeared an earnest of a change of policy. By Henrietta's own desire he was replaced as ambassador by the Comte d'Harcourt;

After the picture by Van Dyck.

HENRY RICH, EARL OF HOLLAND.

THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 295

but the hopes to which the mission of the new envoy gave rise were destined to end, like much else, in disappointment. Its very beginning was inauspicious. When Walter Montagu, the Catholic refugee, had been permitted, though in disguise, to accompany d'Harcourt across the Channel, Parliament was on the alert, and before he had been twenty-four hours on English soil he had been arrested, and placed, in spite of the ambassador's remonstrances, in the Tower. The embassy may have been intended as a mere empty display of goodwill; it certainly accomplished nothing ; whilst, on the other hand, the evidence afforded by intercepted letters that the King was engaged in negotiations with foreign powers, and was seeking assistance from abroad, was calculated to embitter public feeling, already excited by the detection of a variety of intrigues carried on by the court with the city of London, and with officers in the Parliamentary army.

It was, however, his dealings with Ireland which perhaps proved most fatal to Charles' chances of success. The discovery that troops from that country were to be brought to England and to Scotland, and that it was reckoned upon by the King as a force to be employed against his British subjects, was not only a dangerous weapon placed in the hands of the irreconcilable amongst his adversaries, but was well calculated to alienate those who might otherwise have listened to counsels of peace. The assistance once hoped for from Scotland became, in particular, a thing impossible. In August the Solemn League and Covenant was entered into by the House of Commons at Westminster and by the Assembly in Edinburgh, and Scotland had practically declared itself for the Parliament. In January the Scotch forces had crossed the Tweed, to lend their

assistance to Charles' northern opponents ; and Newcastle, writing to claim reinforcements on the ground that, could the Scots be beaten, the game was won, indicates the supreme importance he attached to their co-operation with the enemy.

During the spring of 1644 domestic anxieties had been added to the public cares pressing heavily upon the King. Henrietta was expecting the birth of another child in June, and was suffering besides from acute rheumatism—partly, perhaps, the result of the exposure she had undergone whilst with the northern army, partly due to the Oxford climate. She was, altogether, in a condition of restless discontent, anxious to try the waters of Bath as a cure for her malady, and a prey to nervous fears. Yet, writing to Newcastle in March, she preserved, notwithstanding her personal sufferings and the anxious outlook of affairs, her tone of bright, debonnaire friendliness.

" Mon cousin" she writes, "I have received your letter by Parsons with the history of all that has taken place at Newcastle, and am very glad that you have not yet eaten rats. Provided that the Scots eat no Yorkshire oat-cakes, all will go well. I hope you will take order accordingly." News follows of the course of the war ; of the doings of the Oxford Parliament he will already have been told, and a scoffing injunction is added " to take heed of our brethren of Scotland, for those alone can do us hurt." Since, however, it is Newcastle who is to deal with them, she has no fears.

Not much more than a fortnight after the Queen's letter was written it was decided that Oxford, in its present position and with a large body of Parliamentary troops quartered at Marlborough, was no fit resting place for her. Breaking off in the midst of a panegyric

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addressed to "the Queen at Oxford," the poet Davenant exclaims :

But what, sweet excellence, what dost thou here?

The same question, though in a different spirit, was probably asked by others. The presence of the Queen must have been an anxiety and an embarrassment to the King's adherents. Henrietta herself was eager to relieve them of it. Besides reasons of health, it has been suggested that a desire to escape from the venomous tongues of her enemies may have been one of the motives deciding her to seek a refuge elsewhere ; and the fact that four lines alone are accorded in her own narrative to the period passed at Oxford is not without significance. Whatever else it had been, it had been a time of failure.

When a place of resort was to be selected, some difficulty was experienced in arriving at a decision. Bristol would offer facilities for crossing to France, should such a step become necessary. From Chester it would be easy to pass over into Ireland. The distraction of the King's mind is indicated by the contradictory orders he issued. On April jrd, regardless of the ruinous consequences to the Royalist cause, Rupert was directed to break off his preparations for a northern campaign in order to serve as the Queen's escort to Chester—a hazardous task. The summons was cancelled on the following day, and Bath was finally decided upon as Henrietta's destination. Charles was himself once more to take the field, and had she remained at Oxford it was probable that it would be alone. She was impatient to be gone. On April i6th one of the Porters wrote that, "much against her will and content," the journey had been deferred ; but on the following day she did in fact leave Oxford, the King accompanying her

as far on her way as Abingdon. There he took leave for ever of the wife he loved so well.

A letter has been preserved, in an Italian translation, purporting to have been written by Henrietta to her eldest son after his father's execution. This document is markedly unlike others of undoubted authenticity, and even making allowance for embellishments added by the translator, it is difficult to accept the hypothesis offered by a critic to the effect that, whilst the matter was furnished by the Queen, the language was that of a secretary. In this composition Henrietta is made to blame herself for having quitted the King, and thus missed the opportunity of accompanying him to prison and to death. "But you know," she adds, " what resistance I made to leaving him, and in my last adieus, embracing his royal knees and supplicating your father and my lord not to permit this cruel separation, he raised me to his bosom, and said,' Madame, extreme remedies are requisite for extreme evils, and of two evils we must choose the least. Were you to remain with me. . . . who would liberate me from the hands and the snares of these ungrateful wretches, and who can procure me aid better than you? For mercy's sake, distress me no more by replying.' And I found myself ten leagues distant from him before I became conscious that I had left him, so much did grief overcome my natural senses."

Whether this account of the parting scene is due to the unaided imagination of a well-meaning scribe, or whether Henrietta had supplied some of the details, the inference to be drawn from it that her retreat to France was already a thing settled upon and determined is a manifest misrepresentation. At the moment it was a question merely of selecting a place of resort in England offering more security than Oxford. That

the responsibility for the parting lay with the King would appear to be inconsistent with what is known of his wishes. It was, on the contrary, said that he had "heartily wished that she could be diverted from her purpose." That, taking into consideration her nervous terrors and her condition of mind and body, he had yielded to her wishes, and consented to the separation, was proof of his loyal and unselfish love. Henceforth he was to meet his troubles alone.

Another event had occurred during the spring which, though dwarfed by the parting from the Queen, must have struck a man, in whom ties of blood were so strong, hard. This was the arrival of his eldest nephew, the Prince Palatine, in London, where he was entertained by the Parliamentary authorities at Whitehall, and assured of the continuance of the pension he must have known that the King would be no longer in a position to pay. He had gone over to the enemy. It was characteristic of Charles' natural dignity that he merely observed that 11 he was sorry on his nephew's account that he thought fit to declare such a compliance."

Henrietta was not long in discovering that Bath was in no condition to invite a prolonged visit. War and disease had preceded her to the town, and she only remained there long enough to rest before continuing her journey, by way of Bristol, to Exeter. At this last town she resolved to await her confinement, and thither, to attend her, the King sent his physician.

" Mayerne, for the love of me, go to my wife, C. R.," was the language in which Charles' brief appeal was couched. Henrietta had also written to beg that Sir Theodore would come. Her malady, she said, would bring him sooner than mere words. Remembering his constant care, she knew that if it were possible to

obey her summons he would do so. Her confidence was not misplaced. It is said that the physician cherished no particular affection for his patient. That he was not a courtier is shown by an anecdote which, related by the Queen to Madame de Motteville, illustrates his dry and sardonic humour. Overcome by her misfortunes, she told him one day that she felt her reason failing, and feared to go mad. " There is no occasion to fear it, Madame," replied the uncourtly doctor; "you are mad already." But his place was at present at her side, and he obeyed the command of his fallen master and went to tend his wife. Assistance had likewise been sent from France. Anne of Austria, if unable to furnish more valuable aid, had despatched the royal nurse, Madame Peronne, with 20,000 pistoles as a present to her sister-in-law. The nurse will have been welcome. For the rest, Henrietta—always lavishly generous—keeping only the little sum she had brought to meet her actual necessities, despatched the whole of the gift to Charles.