Loyal in Love: Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I

by Jean Plaidy

  “If the Duke of Buckingham set foot in France now he would be torn to pieces by the mob.”

  “A befitting end for the monster,” I commented.

  “And imagine the effect that would have on the King. Why, it could result in war.”

  I was silent.

  “You see, my dear lady, many eyes are on you and this marriage. Your mother…your brother…they look to you to strengthen the bonds of friendship between the two countries. They will be very sad to hear the stories which your attendants are circulating.”

  “It is well that they should know.”

  “But you have nothing of which to complain. You have been treated royally. The King has shown you every consideration.”

  “By taking away from me those I loved best!”

  He was exasperated. “I have explained, my lady, that it is the custom for attendants to return home after a certain period. You cannot say that you—or they—have been ill treated here. Now let me explain what is happening in France. In the villages and the towns they are talking about the ills which have befallen their Princess. They speak as though you have been confined to prison and kept on bread and water.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that if I could have Mamie with me.”

  “Do try to understand. Let me explain to you that one girl, obviously deranged, has been to a convent in Limoges and asked for shelter there. She called herself the Princesse Henriette de Bourbon and told some garbled story about having escaped from England and cruel King Charles because she was persecuted there in an effort to make her give up her Faith. I can tell you this: Thousands of people are flocking to Limoges to see this girl. They believe her and are crying vengeance on King Charles of England.”

  “Surely it is easy to prove she is a fraud.”

  “To any who have knowledge of Courts, of course, but these are simple people and she is succeeding in deluding them. The King, your brother, is extremely angry. He has other matters with which to occupy himself. The Huguenots are causing a great deal of trouble.”

  “Tell me more of the girl. I should like to see her. Is she like me?”

  “She passes herself off well, I hear. She has a certain dignity and seems to know something of the English Court. Your brother has made a declaration that the girl is an impostor and that you are living amicably with your husband in England where you are given every dignity due to a queen.”

  I was silent.

  He went on: “She has been proved in a public trial to be a fraud. She has done a penance through the streets carrying a lighted taper and is now in prison. But that does not mean that certain people do not continue to believe her.” He bent toward me. “Please, Your Majesty, will you try to do your duty here. Do you see how easily great trouble could arise from your actions? I am sure you would not wish to be responsible for a war and to know that innocent blood was being shed because of your willful actions.”

  He did succeed in making me realize how important some trivial actions of mine might be. I said I would remember what he had told me and he went away a little happier than he had been on his arrival.

  After my talk with François de Bassompierre I did try to be a little more affable to Charles and I must admit that he was only too ready to meet me in this. We became friends again and without Mamie to confide in and Father Sancy to point out the iniquities of heretics we did seem to be happier together.

  He was very preoccupied at this time with affairs of state. He was more serious than ever and wanted so much to rule the country well. I heard him say that he and Steenie could manage very well without a parliament. It was Kings who had been chosen by God to rule not men who set themselves up—although they declared they had been elected by their fellow men—to say what should and should not be done.

  Looking back now I can see quite clearly the danger signals even at that time beginning to show. I was not very interested in politics, but I did know that there was a great deal of trouble in France and that somehow the English were not exactly aloof from it.

  Cardinal Richelieu had more or less taken over the reins of government, and it seemed that my brother—who had never been a very forceful character—was glad for him to do this. But my mother, who was a born intrigante, had become the center of an opposing faction. The Cardinal was a very strong man but even he had his difficulties when he was surrounded by those who would be ready to stab him in the back.

  I thought a great deal about Buckingham, whom I hated violently for I really believed he was the cause of the unhappiness I had endured since I came to this country.

  He was very unpopular I was glad to note. I always said he owed his rise to power to his good looks and certainly not to his performance in state matters. He would have been impeached if Charles had not saved him. He had failed in an expedition to Cadiz. Why he should have imagined himself as a military commander I could not say. He had no talent for command. He could hardly be impeached for failure in war, but accusations of other crimes were brought against him. Charles saved him by dissolving Parliament. What did he want a parliament for? he would say. He could govern on his own.

  Buckingham loved the applause of the crowd and wanted to regain his popularity so he began making a great show of his sympathy for the Huguenots who at that time were being a nuisance to my brother. In fact they were more than merely vociferous and the country was becoming weakened by civil war.

  Buckingham wanted to send help to the Huguenot citizens of Rochelle who were being blockaded by my brother; this naturally meant a declaration of war between France and England.

  I was most distressed. What a terrible position for a queen to find herself in: her husband at war with her brother! I thought constantly of my dear friends who had been torn away from me and although I was generally able to shut my mind to what I thought of as stupid politics, it was hardly possible to do so at this time.

  Charles and I were becoming more friendly, and he even talked a little about what was on his mind. He was always against the Parliament. What right had these men to tell a king what he should do? He was constantly asking that question.

  “I would go without a parliament altogether,” he said, “but I have to get them to grant me money. How can we carry on the country’s affairs without money?”

  He believed that he and his beloved Steenie could manage very well without those dreary men who were always putting obstacles in the way.

  He tried raising money without the aid of Parliament by making every one of his subjects pay a tax. If they refused they were imprisoned. He raised an army and the men were billeted in private houses whether the owners wanted them or not. Fortunately they blamed this on Buckingham. How they hated that man! I would laugh inwardly every time I saw a sign of this. Charles, however, continued to love him. It used to make me so angry when I heard his voice soften as he said his name.

  In spite of all his efforts Charles found it necessary to call Parliament, which immediately made him surrender his right to billet soldiers in private houses and to exact loans without the consent of Parliament.

  How he raged against them! But he needed their help if he was going to take part in the siege of Rochelle, and he was forced to accept their terms.

  I was relieved when the siege of Rochelle was over and ended in triumph for the French, partly because in my heart I liked to see my own countrymen triumphant and because it was another failure for my old enemy Buckingham. I was so delighted when I heard him reviled. There were satires and pasquinades written about him and stuck on buildings all over the country.

  To try to make the people like him again and to show how he upheld the Protestant Faith he started to plan a new expedition. This time it was to relieve the people of Rochelle.

  He came to see Charles, and I don’t think he was very pleased to realize how much better we were getting on. He was delighted, of course, that I had lost my friends; and I wondered what fresh unpleasantness he could plot against me when he was free from his present project, for at that time he was co
ncerned with little else but his expedition to Rochelle and he was going down to Portsmouth to make sure that all the provisions and ammunition they would need were on board.

  Charles came to me after he had left.

  “Steenie is in a strange mood,” he said. “I have never seen him gloomy before. He is usually so sure of success.”

  “His lack of success has probably made him doubt his powers after all. In which case it would be a good thing, for it is always well to see oneself as one really is rather than how one would wish to be.”

  Charles was a little hurt as always when I criticized his beloved Steenie, but he refused to be drawn into an argument and ceased to talk of Buckingham and became my loving husband.

  It was not long after that when it happened.

  The King was prostrate with grief and I was very sorry for him because I knew what it meant to lose someone one loved perhaps as deeply as one had ever loved anyone. Had I not lost my own beloved Mamie?

  It was ironic that the King who had robbed me of my dearest companion should now find that fate had robbed him of his.

  William Laud brought the news from Portsmouth. Laud was a priest and a great favorite of both Charles and Buckingham. My husband had shown him great favor and perhaps because Buckingham had thought so highly of him, he had made him a privy councillor and promised him the Bishopric of London. He was already Bishop of Bath and Wells. He had grown very friendly with Buckingham because Buckingham’s mother had shown signs of becoming too interested in the Catholic Faith and Charles had sent Laud to be her priest and bring her back to Protestantism. This Laud had tried to do, and while he was under Buckingham’s roof had formed a great friendship with the Duke, and as the King liked to share everything with his Steenie, Laud was his friend too.

  So it was Laud who came with the news.

  There was tension throughout Whitehall. I had never seen the King look as he did then. His face was quite devoid of color and his eyes stared ahead disbelievingly as though pleading with someone—the Almighty, I suppose—to tell him that it was not true.

  But it was true.

  “He had a presentiment that death was close to him,” Laud told us. “He called me to him the night before. He was very serious and Your Majesty knows that was not like him. He begged me, Your Majesty, to commend him to you and request you take care of his wife and family.”

  “Oh, Steenie,” murmured the King, “as if I would fail you!”

  “I said to him,” went on Laud, “‘Why do you say this? You have never before suggested that you are going to die. I have never seen you, my Lord, but when you are full of high hopes and good spirits.’ He answered me, ‘Some adventure may kill me. Others have been killed before me.’ I said to him, ‘Is it an assassin you fear?’ And he nodded. I suggested that he wear a shirt of mail under his clothes, but he laughed the idea to scorn. ‘That would not protect me against the fury of the mob,’ he said. So he would take no precautions.”

  “Oh, Steenie,” moaned the King.

  I wanted to know how it had happened, every detail. The King covered his face with his hands while I asked the questions. Laud whispered to me that the King could not bear to hear more.

  I could very well bear to hear more. I could listen and exult so I insisted that he proceed.

  “He was staying at the house of Captain Mason in the High Street,” said Laud. “It was convenient for the supervision of the loading. His Duchess was staying at the house with him before he sailed. He had come down to breakfast and partaken heartily of it. Then he went into the hall and paused for a moment to exchange a word or two with Sir Thomas Tryer who had come to see him. Suddenly a man stepped forward. He cried out: “God have mercy on thy soul!” and brandishing a knife he thrust it into the Duke’s left breast.”

  The King moaned softly and I went to him and took his hand. He pressed mine warmly.

  “The Duke himself withdrew the knife,” went on Laud. “He was bleeding profusely and there was blood spattered everywhere. My Lord Duke took two steps as though to go after the man. He cried, ‘Villain!’ and then fell to the floor. The Duchess came running into the hall. Poor lady, she is three months with child. She knelt beside him, but he was dying and I could see there was nothing we could do. I gave him what comfort I could and it was then that he again begged me to commend him to you and ask you to look after his family.”

  The King was still too overwrought to speak.

  I said: “Have they caught the assassin?”

  “Yes, a certain John Felton—a discharged officer who thought he had a grievance, and when the House of Commons showed their disapproval of the Duke he believed he was doing his country a service.”

  He was, I thought. Oh good John Felton!

  But I had learned my lessons. I said nothing; and then I devoted my time to attempting to comfort the King.

  How strange it was that the man who had done so much to drive a wedge between us in life, in death should be the means of bringing us together.

  I understood Charles’s grief so much and because for once I could see through someone else’s eyes, I could console him, because his was the greater pain. Steenie had gone for ever but I could still write to Mamie and I hoped to see her one day.

  He talked to me a great deal about Steenie and I had to control my impulses to say something derogatory about him, and then after a while I saw how comforting it was for him to talk about this beloved friend whose faults he could not and never would see.

  Life for him had lost its savor and it seemed that I was the one who could make up for that. I took a great pleasure in this and he could hardly bear to be away from me. I felt tender toward him. I sensed a certain weakness in him and instead of being critical of it, it endeared him to me.

  I treated him as though he were my child instead of my husband and he was grateful for that. Charles was not a man who enjoyed exerting his will. He was serious in his intentions to do right; he wanted to be a good ruler and a good husband. He had not enjoyed sending away my attendants but he had done so because he had thought it was the best for us all.

  I began to understand so much and each day I looked forward to our talks, and at night, in the privacy of our bedchamber, I think we truly became lovers.

  I began to wonder whether there had been two reasons why we had had such a stormy beginning to our married life. One was undoubtedly Buckingham and the other…could it really have been my attendants? Sancy had led me into some difficult situations culminating in the visit to Tyburn; my ladies had always reminded me that I was a French-woman among the English, and a Catholic in an alien land.

  Of course Mamie had done her best to help me, but she was apart from the rest.

  A few weeks passed while Charles mourned Buckingham deeply, but I knew his sorrow was passing because he was finding great pleasure and the deepest satisfaction in the new relationship which was springing up between us.

  Then I discovered that I was with child.

  I was very excited at the prospect of having a baby, and Charles was delighted.

  “It must be a boy,” I said. Then he smiled gently at me and told me I must not be disappointed if our first child was a girl. We would get boys in due course, he was sure.

  I talked about the child practically all the time with my women. One of them said she was sure it would be a boy by the way I was carrying it.

  “How I should like to know for sure,” I said.

  One of them whispered to me: “Why not consult Eleanor Davys.”

  It was the first time I had heard the woman’s name and I had no idea then that she would be the cause of frictions between Charles and me.

  I talked over the matter with those three who had become my special friends among the English ladies of the bedchamber: Susan Feilding, Countess of Denbigh; Katherine, Buckingham’s widow; and my favorite of the three, Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle. Poor Katherine was very sad at this time; she could not get over the shock of losing her husband. It was strange to me tha
t anyone could love that man, yet she had apparently done so—as had my own husband. She told me how she would never forget coming down the stairs and seeing him lying there in the hall with his blood spattering the walls. I could quite understand why she had nightmares nowadays. We did our best to cheer her and somehow that brought us all closer together.

  “Why not call in Eleanor Davys?” said Susan. I think she looked upon it as a diversion for me as well as for Katherine.

  Lucy said that Eleanor Davys had foretold her first husband’s death. “She said he would die in three days,” she added, “and he did.”

  We were all awestruck.

  “She would know then whether I was carrying a boy or a girl,” I said.

  “Why not wait and see,” suggested Katherine. “Wouldn’t it be nice to surprise yourself?”

  “I should like to know now,” I said. “Moreover I should like to put this wise woman to the test.”

  “Let us bring her in then,” suggested Lucy.

  “Who is she?” asked Katherine.

  “She is the wife of Sir John Davys, the King’s Attorney General,” Susan told us.

  “Her second husband,” I added, “since she foretold the death of her first husband. I wonder if she has told Sir John how long he has to live.”

  We were all laughing together and even Katherine managed to raise a smile.

  However it was arranged that Lady Davys should be brought to me and she was only too delighted to come. In the meantime I had found out certain facts about her. She was the daughter of the Earl of Castle-haven and was quite renowned for her prophecies. If the letters of her name—Eleanor Davys—were arranged differently and her first name spelt with two lls as it often was and her surname Davie instead of Davys (which one could say was used occasionally) the result would be “Reveal O Daniel.” This seemed very significant.