Loyal in Love: Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I

by Jean Plaidy

“He has plotted to overthrow the Maréchal d’Ancre,” said Mamie, “and has tried to assemble the nobles of France against the man he calls the Italian Schemer.”

  “Arrested!” I cried. “But he is a royal Prince!”

  “Royal Princes can be arrested for plotting against the Queen Mother.”

  “He has really plotted against my mother?”

  “Dear Princesse, he has plotted against the Maréchal d’Ancre, and that can be said to be plotting against the Queen Mother. There is a great deal of excitement in the streets. They are saying that a great many wish the plot had succeeded. But the Italian is too wily for that.”

  “What will happen to the Prince?”

  “I doubt they will dare execute him. He may well be sent to prison.”

  “At least,” I said, “the Princesse de Condé will be rid of him now.”

  She hugged me suddenly. “Oh, my dear Princesse, we live in dangerous times.”

  Everybody was talking about the coup that had failed and there was a surprising sequel. The Prince was exiled to Vincennes and instead of congratulating herself that she was rid of him, the Princesse de Condé declared her intention of joining him there in captivity and living with him as his faithful wife.

  “People are very strange,” commented Mamie. Then she laughed and kissed me. “It is good that they are,” she went on. “It makes life more interesting.”

  About this time Mère Magdalaine, a Carmelite nun, was chosen to look after my spiritual welfare. I spent long sessions with her; we prayed together; we asked for help; and she made me realize—as my mother did—that the most important motive in one’s life was to promote the Catholic Faith, bringing all those who were outside it to the Truth.

  The days sped by…religious instruction from Mère Magdalaine, lessons from François Savary de Breves, playing games with Gaston and the children of noblemen, dancing, singing, happy hours with Mamie…they were the pleasant days.

  It was only just beginning to occur to me that they could change.

  There was more talk than ever about Concini after the Prince de Condé went into confinement.

  “There is a great deal of dissatisfaction with Concini,” Mamie told me, “and the King is getting older. He is with Charles d’Albert more than ever, but Albert is only as powerful as the King is, whereas Concini walks with the Queen Mother.”

  “You talk as though my mother and the King are enemies.”

  “Perhaps that is because they are,” said Mamie.

  Then she went on to tell me about Concini’s vast possessions. “He has several beautiful châteaux in the country as well as two in Paris. He has vineyards and farms. They say he is one of the richest men in France and the people do not like that because they say that when he came here he had nothing.”

  “He has worked hard for my mother,” I said.

  “And for himself,” added Mamie.

  One day, in an unguarded moment, she said: “There is something in the air. I feel it in the streets. There are two factions now: the King with Charles d’Albert and the Queen Mother with Concini. Albert and Concini…both Italians…and the people don’t like either of them.”

  “Well,” I pointed out. “My mother is Italian so both I and my brother are half Italians.”

  “You are French,” cried Mamie fiercely. “You are your father’s children and he was one of the greatest Frenchmen who ever lived.”

  It was all very puzzling to me but I enjoyed hearing the news and I must confess to a certain disappointment when life continued smoothly. Sometimes I felt I wanted things to happen, and even tragic horrible things were better than nothing. They brought excitement into the monotony of my daily life.

  “Concini and his wife are shipping their wealth to Italy, so I heard,” Mamie told me one day. “That looks to me as though they intend to flit. It would be a wise thing for them to do that from what I hear in the streets. The people are gathering against them…sharpening their knives….” She laughed at me. “Oh, I did not mean that literally, my child. I mean they are preparing to drive him out of the country.”

  It could only have been a few days after that when the trouble started. Secretly Charles d’Albert had been plotting with the King and their idea was to get rid of Concini, for without him the Queen Mother would be powerless. She was not interested in statecraft—which had been obvious since the Regency—and she looked to Concini to see to all that for her—with the aid of his friends, of course. She liked food and had grown fat; she liked gaiety, religion, and parading her royalty. People said unkindly that that was all that could be expected of a banker’s daughter.

  It seemed that Charles d’Albert had decided that the moment had come to strike. The King was growing up. He should exert his rights or he would remain a puppet for years.

  The King signed a warrant for Concini’s arrest, which was delivered by six of the King’s guards. I can imagine Concini’s astonishment when he—who had been supreme—was suddenly confronted by the King’s men. He must have wished that he had followed his inclination and left for Italy. We learned afterward that he would have gone but for his wife who had insisted that the time was not yet ripe and that there were many more pickings to be had and thus they could augment their wealth.

  Elenora Galigaï was proved wrong.

  It was natural that such an important person as the Maréchal d’Ancre should demand to know on what grounds he was being arrested, and that when he was told to be silent and that they must leave right away, he should resist arrest. He drew his sword and that was the signal for which they had all been waiting. The guards fell upon him with their daggers and within seconds it was a bleeding corpse which lay at their feet. In the meantime, having seen the guards going into the residence of the mighty Maréchal d’Ancre, a crowd had gathered and when the guards appeared on the balcony dragging out the dead body of the once-powerful Maréchal, the mob became frenzied with excitement.

  One of the guards cried out: “Here is the body of the Italian Concini, Maréchal d’Ancre, for whose pleasure you have been paying dearly through your taxes.”

  With that they threw the body over the balcony and the mob seized it, savagely mutilating it, calling vengeance on all Italian schemers, and declaring that from henceforth France was to be for the French.

  That was the signal. The people had spoken.

  “Now,” prophesied Mamie, “there will be change.”

  How right she was! My brother lost no time in appointing Charles d’Albert as Chief Minister and created him Duc de Luynes. Concini’s wife was arrested. The rumor was that she was a sorceress for only such a person could have such complete control over the Queen Mother. Mamie said it was a waste of time to make her stand trial for her judges had already decided on the verdict beforehand. The charge against her was that only by spells could she have wielded the influence she had had over the Queen Mother.

  “There were no spells,” was her rejoinder. “If I have had the power to influence the Queen, it is that of a strong mind over a weak one.”

  My mother would not have liked to hear that, of course, but she had already been sent into exile and was more or less a prisoner in the Château of Blois.

  Poor Madame la Maréchale, as they called her. She did not long survive her husband. She was judged guilty, and in accordance with the law against sorceresses was beheaded and her body condemned to the flames.

  “At least,” said Mamie, “they did not burn her alive. She was lucky in that.”

  Lucky! Poor Elenora Galigaï who had enjoyed such favor and amassed such wealth and power. What were her thoughts when they led her to the scaffold? How she must have reproached herself, for if it was indeed true that her husband had wished to leave France, and it was she who had persuaded him to remain a little longer to make themselves more wealthy, she was certainly in a way responsible.

  I remembered well the pall of smoke which hung over the Place de Grève. I thought then how short a time ago it was when we were all rejoicing there
among the crowds who had come to see the processions. Now it had become a place of horror. I had never actually seen La Maréchale but I could imagine her horrible death.

  I forgot her after a while but I remembered her later, and when I was lonely and filled with remorse, certain incidents from my childhood would flash into my mind and I would see those events more clearly than I had done at the time when they happened.

  Louis was now sixteen years old. He had changed. He had looked so happy when my mother was leaving the Court for Blois. He really had been greatly in awe of her and she had never won his affection. He had never forgiven her for being so strict with him when he was a boy for often she had given orders that he was to be whipped for some trivial offense. Kings, she had said, had to be brought up very carefully; they must be chastised more severely than ordinary people. Sometimes she even administered the cane with her own hands. He had hated that more than ever. And when after my father died and she became Regent and he was King and yet not King and so much restraint was put on him, he blamed her for that. I could understand why he responded to people like Charles d’Albert.

  So I suppose it was not surprising that he had been so pleased on the day she left for Blois.

  He lost his stammer and I heard him say in a clear loud voice, full of the utmost satisfaction: “Enfin me voici Roi!”

  The nobles gathered round the King, and it was clear that they approved of what had happened. The Prince de Condé was released from confinement and he came to Paris to be with my brother.

  There was another matter of significance which I think perhaps none of us realized at the time. The Bishop of Luçon, Armand du Plessis, who had held office with the Maréchal d’Ancre, hastily left for Avignon and declared he intended to occupy himself with study and writing.

  After all the excitement we settled down to a normal routine again. I did not miss my own mother, for, in fact, she had never given me much loving attention.

  “It was very interesting while it lasted,” said Mamie.

  Queen Anne had joined her husband and was living with him now. Louis had grown up overnight when my mother was removed from Court. There were fewer entertainments now because it had been my mother who had loved them. Louis had never greatly cared for them, preferring his horses and dogs and hunting. Anne loved dancing so she was not very pleased by the change, and I believed she preferred being a juvenile in our nurseries to wife to Louis.

  In her rather impulsive way Mamie whispered to me that they were not really suited to each other and it was not a happy marriage; and then she put her fingers to her lips and said: “Forget I said that.”

  That was the sort of thing which endeared her to me. We grew more and more friendly and I often felt that I was in a cozy cocoon guarded by my dear Mamie. Since she had come, Madame de Montglat had more or less passed me over to her, only making sure that I attended my lessons and was getting my religious instruction. She did not mind so much about Monsieur de Breves. The most important duty was religious study; I had to learn to be an unswerving Catholic, to believe blindly in the Faith and to remember, no matter what happened, that I was the daughter of a king and queen and that such a state was bestowed by God.

  Sometimes I went to Court to enjoy some ball or entertainment devised by Anne. She and I often danced together for we made a very successful pair.

  I was to wish in later life that I had paid more attention to Monsieur de Breves and that I had had more than superficial knowledge of the history of my country and of the world. If I had had this I might not have made so many miscalculations. Often in my days of loneliness I look back and think how much I could have learned from the experiences of those who went before me.

  But I was impatient with serious matters for I was frivolous by nature and my mind was filled with the tune of a new song or an intricate dance step.

  Two years passed. My mother was still at Blois and Armand du Plessis was acting as a sort of go-between. He had been my mother’s adviser until the death of Maréchal d’Ancre, and after a spell in Avignon he had emerged and was now professing a desire to serve the King. He was endeavoring to bring about a reconciliation between my mother and Louis. Du Plessis was a brilliant man. We did not realize how brilliant then, but in later years when he became the Duc de Richelieu and later Cardinal, he made his mark on the history of France.

  It was two years after Louis’s marriage that Christine left us to become the Duchesse de Savoy. She had grown so accustomed to the idea of leaving home that she did not seem to mind as much as Elizabeth had done. There were festivities and banquets, but they were not as grand as those with which we had celebrated Louis’s wedding—naturally not, I supposed, because he was the King, but the real reason was that they lacked my mother’s extravagant hand.

  I was now ten years old—getting alarmingly near that time when my own future would be decided. I fancied that I was beginning to be noticed more. I was next in line for a husband and I began to dream romantically of what he would be like. I should like a king if possible. Elizabeth was Queen of Spain, Christine only Duchess of Savoy. What would be the fate of Henriette Marie? I talked about it with Mamie. We used to conjure up bridegrooms for me. It was a great game of mine and I always ended by saying, “And where I go, you shall be with me.”

  “But of course,” Mamie always said.

  I saw less of Gaston now. At eleven years old he was quite a little man. He was as indolent as I was and liked to be near the King. Louis was quite tolerant to him and Gaston was longing to cast off his youth—even as I was.

  There was an uneasy situation in the country as I suppose there always is with a king who is young and inexperienced and who has favorites jostling for the highest posts. The bitter Catholic–Protestant antagonism had been kept in check by my father but it was always simmering near the surface and ready to break out at any moment.

  It was disturbing to have a queen mother in captivity and a young King dominated by a minister who had been born Italian and was beginning to give himself far too many airs—as such people always did. The people were getting as irritated with the Duc de Luynes as they had with the Maréchal d’Ancre.

  Soon after Christine’s wedding there were rumors and whispering throughout the Court, so I knew something was happening, and heard what it was eventually from Mamie.

  “The Queen Mother has escaped from Blois!” she said in a hushed whisper. It was like Mamie to get the utmost drama out of a situation. She described it to me graphically. “The Queen Mother could no longer endure captivity and with the help of her friends, she made a plan of escape. How could this be brought about? There were guards all over the place. Well, she had made up her mind that she was going to try and you know that when your mother decided on something it was as good as done. A ladder was placed up against her window and she alighted to a terrace. But you know Blois. She was still very high up. So they got another ladder to take her to the next terrace. She was so exhausted by the first descent that she would not undertake the second so they let her down by means of a rope. At last she reached the ground, but she still had to get out of the castle, so she wrapped herself in a cloak and marched right past the sentries between two equerries. The equerries winked at the sentries and whispered something….”

  “What did they whisper?”

  “That the woman had come in to provide a little light entertainment for some of the men. So as they winked and nodded and made a few crude remarks, the Queen Mother passed on. The Duc D’Épernon had a carriage waiting for her and they sped away to Angoulême.”

  “But what does this mean?”

  “That your mother is no longer a prisoner. Something will have to be done now or there will be war.”

  “War between my mother and my brother! That’s impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible in France…or anywhere else for that matter, little Princesse. Always remember that.”

  How her words had a habit of coming back to me during my troubles. It was no use saying: Tha
t could never happen. She had been right. Anything could happen in France…or in England.

  We did not know very much of what was taking place in the Angoumois. It was a very uneasy time. The last thing my brother wanted was to be at war against his mother and I am sure she did not want to be at war with him. Fortunately Richelieu was able to convince them both that what the people wanted was a reconciliation. There were a few skirmishes and a great deal of negotiation and in time a meeting between my mother and brother took place in Paris. It was an occasion. The people did not want a civil war. My brother embraced my mother publicly to the people’s cheers and it was another excuse for balls and banquets.

  My mother declared that she was delighted to see me and kissed me more fervently than ever I remember her doing before. Then she looked at me speculatively.

  “You are growing out of girlhood, Henriette,” she said.

  I knew what that meant, and the prospect excited me while it filled me with apprehension.

  Elizabeth gone. Christine gone. It must be my turn next.

  I was nearly fifteen when I first became aware of the existence of the Prince of Wales. It came about in an unusual way.

  Queen Anne was devising a ballet as she so often did and as she and I danced well together she was arranging for a part to be written in for me. I was always excited at the prospect of a new dance and called in the seamstress to make a dress for me which would be suitable for the occasion.

  Anne and I practiced together and each complimented the other on the lightness of her step and the grace with which she twirled. Earnestly we discussed how we could make the dance more beautiful as—so Mamie said—two generals might plan a campaign which was going to result in the conquest of the world.

  I laughed at her. One of the few things about me which she did not fully understand was my passionate commitment to dancing.

  We rehearsed together and each time we were more enchanted by our performance. As we neared perfection we would sometimes have an audience from people who could persuade or bribe the guards to let them into that part of the palace where we were dancing.