Loyal in Love: Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I

by Jean Plaidy

  Many people came to see me. I was still the Generalissima. Nobody could sneer at my efforts now. Hadn’t I been to Holland and brought back that which we needed more than anything? I had ridden at the head of my troops. The Parliament had thought it worthwhile to impeach me. I was a force to be reckoned with.

  Some said that the King listened too much to me. They even likened me to the ivy which clings to the oak and in time destroys the tree. That was something I was to remember in the years to come.

  But now the days were made for pleasure. We all believed that we were going to succeed. We were going to march back to London, take up our residence in Whitehall and fight our enemies. Charles and I used to walk arm in arm through the cloisters and sometimes our sons were with us. We talked and talked of what we would do, and everything seemed set fair.

  There were of course minor irritations and some which upset me a good deal. I could not bear to hear of the break-up of my chapel, which it had given me such pleasure to erect. The mob of savages had forced their way in and destroyed the place. Rubens’s picture over the High Altar had been spoiled; and the seat in which I had been wont to sit had been treated with special violence to indicate hatred of me. But what shocked me most was the thought of those ruffians breaking off the heads of Christ and St. Francis from their statues and playing ball with them.

  There was other sad news too. Edmund Waller, who used to write such beautiful verses for me in the old happy days, plotted in London to destroy the Parliamentarians and bring back the King. It was discovered and Waller was now in prison. Worse still, one of my faithful servants, Master Tomkins, who was concerned in the plot, had been hanged outside his own front door in Holborn.

  But as Charles said, we must not brood on these matters. We must look ahead to victory and when that was achieved we would remember our friends.

  “If they have not died in the meantime,” I added.

  “We will not forget the families of those who have served us,” answered Charles.

  Oxford became a very elegant place during our stay there. People came from all over the country to be at Court and almost every house in the town had to take in lodgers to accommodate all who wished to be there. The finest ladies and gentlemen were grateful for the smallest rooms in tiny houses. The citizens of Oxford were delighted for we were bringing prosperity to the town. The colleges were loyal and determined to help us. The belltower of Magdalen was loaded with ammunition to fire down should we be attacked. We strengthened the walls, and even the professors came out of their colleges to help dig ditches.

  Rupert was there with his brother Prince Maurice and at night they used to go out to see if they could find any of the enemy to fight. The Puritans hated Rupert. They called him Robert the Devil. He was a great asset to our cause for he could not have been more enthusiastic and determined on success if he had been fighting for his own country.

  Autumn was on the way and that beautiful summer was nearly over. It was to live in my memory as the last truly happy time I was to know, and perhaps the intensity of my joy in it was the knowledge that it was fleeting. I knew I had to grasp every delightful moment and savor it…and this I did.

  In September Henry Jermyn was created Baron Jermyn of St. Edmundsbury, an honor well deserved. A less happy event was the impudence of the Earl of Holland, who had worked with the Parliament and had the impertinence to present himself to the King and expect to be treated with the old friendliness which we had shown him in the days before his defection.

  This time Charles was inclined to forgive and forget, but I never could.

  Henry advised me to try to accept Holland because of his importance and he pointed out to me that if such men decided they had wavered toward the wrong side and were eager to make it clear that they were back on course, that was all to the good. It should mean that the general feeling was that we were the winning side.

  I could never bow to expediency in that way and I was annoyed with Charles for what I called being duped by such men. Our roles had reversed.

  Holland was trying to persuade Charles to make some sort of patched-up peace with the Parliament and I was urging exactly the opposite. I wanted Charles not only to call himself King but to be King. And if he were truly so he could not be dictated to by men like Holland, who were ready to give their services to the other side if they thought it was to their advantage to do so.

  I was right as it was later proved because, although Holland was with the King at the siege of Gloucester, he soon came to the conclusion that he could do better with the Parliament and left Oxford. He was one of those men who liked to hold themselves aloof from complete involvement and watch which way the conflict was going before leaping to the winning side.

  I was aware of this but could not make Charles see it and, though Henry agreed with me, even he thought we could make use of Holland.

  When the Earl left Oxford and took his seat in the Parliament I guessed that meant he felt the Roundheads had the greater chance of success. I had no patience with such men and, however much good they could bring when they appeared to be on my side, I did not care.

  I wanted only faithful friends around me. I was deeply hurt by traitors and still felt the wounds inflicted by Lucy Hay’s treachery.

  But as the autumn mists rose over the town I began to experience certain familiar symptoms.

  I was once more pregnant.

  It was the worst possible time for this to happen. I was tired and ill; the country was in a state of civil war; we had healthy children and did not need another child. However, it had happened and I should love this child when it was born—if I did not die in producing it, for to tell the truth, I felt near death, and as the months passed I became more and more indisposed. I was suffering badly from rheumatism, which was no doubt due to all my travels and sometimes sleeping in damp beds; and to add to my discomfort was this unwanted pregnancy!

  Charles was deeply disturbed. He wanted me to go to Exeter, where I could stay in Bedford House and he would entreat Dr. Mayerne to come to me. I wondered whether the rather perverse Sir Theodore would do that even for the King. He was old and did not want to concern himself in the country’s conflicts I was sure. But he had always loved Charles and had been his physician since Charles was a boy. He may have thought of me as a foolish woman and made no attempt to hide his opinion, but for Charles he had something like reverence and when Charles wrote to him: “For the love of me go to my wife,” he could not refuse.

  I also wrote: “Help me, or all you have done in the past will be of no use.” Then realizing that this was the kind of statement which might make him refuse I added: “If you cannot come to me in my extreme need I shall always remain grateful to you for what you have done in the past.”

  The result was that Dr. Mayerne came with all speed to Exeter, where in a state of considerable anxiety on account of the King, I awaited the birth of my child.

  I wrote to my sister-in-law Anne of France to tell her that I was expecting a baby in June. We had never been great friends but she herself had suffered a great deal from the dominance of Cardinal Richelieu and that might have made her more gentle and sympathetic toward the suffering of others. She was now in a strong position as Regent, with Mazarin beside her to guide her, and her standing must be more firm than it had ever been. I was looking to her for help. Perhaps I could go to France if I ever recovered from this birth and there raise money and arms as I had done in Holland.

  The response was immediate and I knew that I had been right in thinking that success often changed ambitious people for the better. She sent me fifty thousand pistoles, which was a good sum, and with it came everything I would need for my confinement. She wrote that she was sending Madame Perrone, her own sage femme, whom she could thoroughly recommend.

  I was absolutely delighted at both this display of Anne’s friendly feelings toward me and for the money—the greater part of which I immediately sent to Charles for his armies.

  It was a hot June day when
my daughter was born. She was a beautiful child from the moment of her birth and, perversely, because she was the one I had not wanted, I loved her more dearly than the others.

  I called her Henriette after myself and later I decided on Anne after the Queen of France in gratitude for past favors and in hope of future ones. But for the time being she was simply Henriette.

  I was very anxious about my new daughter for I feared that events were not moving as we had imagined they would during that flush of euphoria which Charles and I had experienced during our reunion.

  I sent word to Charles at once with the news of our daughter’s birth, telling him not to believe rumors which were being circulated to the effect that she had been born dead. She was very much alive and very beautiful and I was sure that he would only have to see her to love her.

  He sent word that she was to be baptized in Exeter Cathedral according to the doctrines of the Church of England. Dear Charles, he was terrified that I would have her baptized in the Catholic Church!

  He was right, of course, and I suppose Dr. Mayerne was too when he implied that a great many of the troubles through which England was passing were due to my adherence to the Catholic Faith and my efforts to introduce it into the country.

  I immediately complied with Charles’s wishes and our little one was taken to the cathedral where a canopy of state had been hastily erected, but the ceremony was naturally conducted without the usual pomp.

  Whatever was happening outside I did feel that joy which mothers feel when they have been safely delivered of an infant. If Charles could have been with us—even for a brief time—I could have forgotten what was happening in the outside world.

  It was just over a week later, when I was still in bed and weak from my ordeal, when Henry Jermyn came to see me in some agitation.

  He cried out unceremoniously: “Your Majesty is in danger. Essex is mustering troops in the town. He is going to ask for its surrender or there will be a siege.”

  “Then we must leave here without delay.”

  “That would be unsafe. Essex’s army is even now firmly entrenched about us.”

  “Can he really be such a brute? Does he not know that I have not yet risen from child-bed?”

  “He knows well and doubtless thinks it is a good time to force his will on you.”

  “Bring me pen and paper. I will write to him asking for safe conduct. If he has any compassion at all he will give it.”

  Henry obeyed and I wrote a letter to the Earl of Essex asking him to allow me to go unmolested to Bath or Bristol—a favor I greatly resented having to ask.

  When his reply came back I was furious. The request was denied. I should have known better than to make it. Essex, however, stated that it was his intention to escort me to London where my presence was required to answer to Parliament for having levied war in England.

  That was tantamount to a threat. I knew then that I had to get away before they captured me.

  How could I travel with an infant only a few days old? I was distraught. I did not know which way to turn. I believed that the fiendish Essex had contrived this because his main object was to capture me. How I loathed and despised the man. He should have been with us. He had turned against his own upbringing and his own people. I could more readily forgive that traitor Oliver Cromwell, whose name was being mentioned more and more and who seemed to be responsible for the greater success which the Roundheads were having now. Yes, I could forgive him. He was a man of the people—but when men like Essex turned against their own, that was unforgivable.

  But it was no use wasting time in expressing my fury against Essex. I had to think how I was going to escape, for escape I must. If they captured me and took me to London it would be the ultimate disaster. Charles would promise anything to free me.

  I had to escape, and as I could not take my newborn daughter with me, I must, perforce, leave her behind.

  I sent for Sir John Berkeley, who was the Governor of the city of Exeter and a tenant of Bedford House where I was living. I already had Lady Dalkeith with me, a woman of great integrity who, Charles and I had agreed, must be the one to look after our daughter. In this we proved right. I shall never forget what I owe to that woman.

  Briefly I explained that for the King’s cause I had no alternative but to escape. The Roundheads were almost at our gates and their object was to capture me and take me to London, there to accuse me of treachery to the crown.

  “This as you know would be such a blow to the King that he would do anything to save me, jeopardizing his own throne and losing it if need be. There is only one course open to me. I know you understand that.”

  Sir John said he did indeed and would do anything I asked of him. Lady Dalkeith joined her loyal expressions to his and told me that she would defend my child with her life if need be.

  I took her into my arms and we wept together. Sir John raised my hand to his lips and kissed it.

  So fifteen days after the birth of my little Henriette I left her, desolate and heartbroken as I was, for I knew it was the only course to take.

  I waited until night fell and then dressed as a servant and, with only two of my attendants and a confessor, I escaped from Bedford House.

  We had arranged that others of my household who were determined to accompany us should leave the house at various times in disguises so that they should not be recognized. My faithful dwarf, Geoffrey Hudson, who had stepped out of a pie to comfort me in no small degree, had begged to be of the party and I could not refuse him. He knew of a wood near Plymouth in which there was an old hut, and he suggested that we should make this our meeting place and all make our way to it by different routes.

  When dawn came we were only three miles from Exeter and it was clearly too dangerous to walk about in daylight, for there were so many soldiers about. We found a hut. It was tumbledown and filled with straw and litter and we hastened to take refuge in this when we heard the sound of horses’ hoofs. It was fortunate that we did for the horses belonged to a group of Roundhead soldiers who were on their way to join the forces who were gathering on the outskirts of Exeter.

  Our dismay was great when we realized that the soldiers were coming straight to the hut and we were thankful for the litter underneath which we were able to hide ourselves.

  When I heard the soldiers right outside, my heart seemed as if it would suffocate me and I had rarely been so frightened as when I heard the door creak. We all held our breath as a soldier stepped inside the hut and kicked some of the rubbish aside.

  I prayed—something incoherent and silent—and on that occasion my prayers were answered for I heard the man shout: “Nothing in here but a load of rubbish.” Then the door creaked again and the soldier was no longer inside the hut.

  We waited breathlessly, listening. The man must have been leaning against the wall of the hut. He was talking to another.

  He said: “There is a reward of fifty thousand crowns for her head.”

  I knew they were talking of mine.

  “I’d like to be the one to carry that to London.”

  “Who wouldn’t? Fifty thousand crowns, eh? A goodly sum and ridding the country of the Papist whore at the same time.”

  It was difficult to curb my anger. I wanted to go out to them, to denounce them for the traitors they were. Traitors, liars, defamers of virtue and my religion. I restrained myself, thinking of Charles. I would endure anything for him, discomfort, insults, pain, hardship…anything for Charles.

  It was some time before they passed on, but we did not emerge from the hut until darkness fell; then we sped on our way. We were fortunate after that and reached our rendezvous in the woodland cabin in safety. There I was rejoined by many of my faithful friends including Geoffrey Hudson, who had brought Mitte and another of my dogs with him, for he was certain that I should be unhappy without them.

  How the good friends made up for the treacherous ones!

  At Pendennis Castle Henry Jermyn was waiting for me with a suitable guard a
nd when he saw how ill I was he immediately gave orders that I was to be carried on a litter for the rest of the journey to Falmouth. How thankful I was for his thoughtfulness! And what a relief it was to see a fleet of friendly Dutch vessels in the bay.

  Before I went on board I wrote to Charles explaining why I had left the child behind. It was for his sake for if I had been captured by our enemies, as I was sure I should have been had I remained in Exeter, that would have been a great blow to our cause.

  “I am hazarding my life that I may not incommode your affairs. Adieu, dear Heart. If I die believe that you will lose a person who has never been other than entirely yours and who, by her affection, has deserved that you should not forget her.”

  I stood on deck, exhausted almost beyond endurance, but determined to remain there until I could no longer see the land where he was…as desolate and unhappy by this parting as I was.

  MURDER IN WHITEHALL

  Once again the sea proved that it was always my enemy. No sooner had I returned to my cabin for a much needed rest than I heard cries of alarm and Henry Jermyn came dashing in looking distraught.

  “Pray don’t be alarmed,” he said, “but we have sighted three ships which are obviously pursuing us.”

  “Enemies?” I asked.

  “I fear so,” replied Henry. “I should stay here. We are equipped to fight them.”

  “If we stop to fight we shall never escape,” I cried. “We must be free of English waters as soon as possible.”

  “If we do not fight they could take us.”

  “They shall not take me,” I cried vehemently. “I will die first. To take me would be disaster to the King’s cause…far greater than my death would be.”

  Henry was aghast. “My dear lady,” he stammered, “you must not talk thus. Your death would be the greatest sorrow that could befall me.”

  “Personal sorrows cannot be weighed against major calamities, dear friend,” I said. “Help me up.”

  “Where are you going?”