Loyal in Love: Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I

by Jean Plaidy

  “To see the Captain.”

  I would not listen to his protests and tired as I was made my painful journey to the deck. The Captain looked amazed when he saw me; and by this time the enemy were drawing very close.

  “Do not stop to return the fire,” I commanded. “Let out all sails. Make all speed ahead.”

  “My lady, these ships are determined to take us.”

  “They must never do that. When you think it impossible to escape, set fire to the powder. Blow us up. I must not fall into their hands.”

  When they heard me, all those who were in attendance on me and who had crowded onto the deck began to cry out in alarm. The Captain looked startled but he was a man who would obey orders. I thought Henry was going to remonstrate with me so I said: “I shall go to my cabin and there await the outcome of this, and whether it is to be freedom or death I shall be ready.”

  Then I left them and when I reached my cabin I began to have serious misgivings. It was all very well for me to die if I wished to, but what right had I to condemn others to the same fate?

  “For Charles,” I said. “If I became a prisoner that would be the end for him. They would use me to subdue him. No, I must either live to serve him or I must die in the same cause.”

  Suddenly I heard shots which were almost immediately followed by cries of: “Land!” It could not be France which was sighted. It must be the Channel Islands. So there was hope yet. If we could reach land, if the people would help me…. Just at that moment I heard a loud explosion and the ship seemed to leap in the air and then begin to shiver.

  We are hit, I thought. All is lost.

  The ship appeared to have stopped.

  At any moment I was expecting the Captain to obey my orders. This must be the end.

  I waited…and then because I could endure the suspense no longer I came out of my cabin. I saw Henry. He was on his way to me. He told me that the rigging had been hit.

  “Are we sinking?” I asked.

  “We are very close to the coast of Jersey and the Roundheads are moving away fast because a number of French ships have appeared and are bearing down toward us.”

  “Praise be to God,” I cried. “Once again I am saved and all with me. Oh Henry, how cruel I was. Believe me, I regretted it as soon as I gave that order.”

  Henry understood me well. He knew I was near hysteria and he was always calm and somewhat jocular at such times, which was the best way to soothe me.

  “Come up with me,” he said. “See the Captain. I think he has decided to make for Dieppe.”

  It was like a miracle, but my old enemy the sea had not done with me yet. Even as we were in sight of Dieppe a violent gale arose. Henry advised me to return to my cabin and this I did and as I lay listening to the tempest all about us I wondered if Fate was playing another trick on me, making me believe that I had escaped the Roundhead ships by a miracle, only to become a victim of the storm.

  But after an hour or so of terror and with the knowledge that my escort had been scattered and my frail ship was battling alone, we were at length thrown up on a rocky coast.

  I stared at the land before me. France! The land of my birth.

  “A fine way to come visiting it,” I said to Henry.

  “You will be an honored visitor,” he assured me. “Don’t forget you are the daughter of France’s greatest King.”

  I could have wept with emotion. I felt so sick and ill, so anxious about what might be happening to Charles; but there was a certain lifting of my spirits because I was at last in France.

  A little boat took me ashore and I stood there staring up at those rocks. I wanted to feel the soil. I wanted to bend down and kiss it but we could not stay on the narrow strip of sand. We had to climb the rocks. On hands and knees I crawled. I was bruised and my hands were bleeding; my hair hung about my face and my gown was torn. I climbed to the top of the cliffs and there before me lay the tiny Breton fishing village.

  Dogs were barking; fisher folk were running out of their houses, carrying hatchets and scythes, believing us to be marauding pirates.

  “Hold!” I cried. “We are not pirates. We have not come to do you harm. I am the Queen of England, the daughter of your own great Henri IV. I need help….”

  They approached cautiously. But I had come to the end of my endurance. Henry Jermyn was there to catch me in his arms as I fell.

  When I recovered consciousness I was lying in a small room and Henry was at my bedside. I struggled up, feeling sick and dizzy.

  Henry said: “It is all right. The people here know who you are and will do everything within their power to help you.”

  “Oh, Henry,” I cried weakly, “what should I do without you.”

  “No need to wonder,” he said, “because while there is life in my body I shall be here to serve you.”

  I was weeping with emotion. I felt so helpless and it seemed that fate was determined to heap one sorrow upon me after another.

  “What now, Henry?” I asked.

  He was thoughtful. Then he said: “The Queen of France has shown herself to be a good friend. I think I should go to her with all speed and tell her that you are here in dire need of help. That should be the first move.”

  “I shall feel very uneasy without you.”

  “You will be surrounded by good friends. You don’t have to fear the Roundheads here. With your permission I will leave first thing in the morning. You need doctors first, I think. You have suffered a terrible ordeal and following so close on the birth of your daughter it has put a great strain on your endurance.”

  I saw that he was right and I told him that much as I regretted to lose his company for the short time I hoped it would be, he must go.

  He left the next day and I was deeply moved when visitors began to arrive at the tiny thatched cottage to see me. The gentry, from miles round, rode into that little fishing village with food and clothing, horses and carriages.

  I thanked them and they knelt to me, eager to pay homage to the daughter of their great King.

  Very soon I was able to move on but I could only travel in short stages and it took us twelve days to reach Nantes. From there we went to Ancenis and when we arrived in that town I was greeted by the Comte d’Harcourt, who told me that Henry had been received by the Queen, who was most grieved by my plight and had sent him to tell me so. With him were two physicians.

  I felt so relieved to be among friends and was immediately better; but when the doctors examined me they were grave and said that I must take the Bourbon waters.

  It was a great delight to see Henry again, particularly as he was overjoyed with the result of his mission. The Queen had given him ten thousand pistoles to defray the cost of the journey and a patent for a pension of thirty thousand livres.

  Why had I ever thought that Anne was not my friend? What a happy day it had been when she had joined our family. Now of course she was virtually ruler of all France. This was the first good luck which had come my way for a long time.

  One of the most delightful gestures of all was the Queen’s understanding of my need for a personal friend, someone in whom I could confide, someone whom I could trust, someone who could be something of what Mamie had been to me in the past. She sent me Madame de Motteville and I loved her from the moment I saw her.

  Her mother, a Spaniard, was a good friend of Queen Anne and had come with her to France when Anne came to marry my brother. Her father was a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. And she herself was beautiful and charming, very quietly spoken and gentle, yet shrewd and understanding. I was as grateful for my new friend as I was for the pistoles and the livres which were helping to make my life comfortable.

  In Bourbon l’Archambault I began to get better. It was such a beautiful place with an atmosphere of such peace that each day I awoke to a feeling of rejuvenation. So many hideous disasters had befallen me that I could not single out any particular one to brood on. My greatest sorrow was parting with my husband; but at least I was here and he was i
n England and while both lived there would always be the hope of being together again.

  It was a hot August. From the window of the castle I could look out on waving corn and watch the oxen pulling the carts across the fields and through the little lanes. Within the ivy-covered walls of our castle we were sheltered from the inquisitive eyes of those who were in the town to take the waters, for invalids had been coming since the time of the Romans as the waters were said to be beneficial. I certainly began to improve and with such good friends at hand as dear Henry Jermyn and Madame de Motteville, of whom I was becoming fonder every day, my health was rapidly returning.

  Dear Madame de Motteville had troubles of her own. She confided in me a good deal. She was a widow now, although only twenty-three years of age. She had been married when she was eighteen to a man of eighty but her bondage had not lasted long and now she was rejoicing in freedom as, she said, only those who had lost it would understand what a pleasant state it was to be free again.

  “Without the chains of affection,” I amended. “Sometimes I think love is a gift bestowed to bring the greatest joy and the greatest sorrow. One cannot have one without the other, for an intensity of love brings constant anxiety, particularly when one must be parted from the loved one.”

  How right I was! No sooner did I begin to experience a return to health and a raising of my spirits than I had news from England.

  There had been a fierce battle at Marston Moor—a defeat for the royalists, and although there had been heavy losses on both sides and over four thousand soldiers had been killed, three thousand of those were Cavaliers. My dear Lord Newcastle’s own regiment of Whitecoats, who had put up such a fierce resistance, had been cut to pieces and the whole of the artillery and baggage of Charles’s army had been captured with ten thousand arms.

  They were gone now—my hopes of early victory. This was disaster. Charles would be desolate and I would not be there to comfort him.

  The Roundheads were jubilant. They owed a great deal, it was said, to that wretched man Oliver Cromwell who had trained his men and somehow inspired them with talk of God and vengeance, making it almost a religious war.

  As for their attitude toward me, it had become abusive, and they were circulating pamphlets about me.

  I saw one of them which gave an account of the battle of Marston Moor, and of me was written: “Will the waters of Bourbon cure her? There are other waters open for her to drink in the Protestant Church, the waters of repentance, the waters of the Gospel to wash her clean from Popery. Oh, that she would wash in those waters and be clean!”

  I wept until I had no more tears. I felt a terrible lethargy come over me, a hopelessness. Fortune was against us.

  But my moods never lasted long and my dear quiet but wise Madame de Motteville was there to talk to me calmly and give me the help I needed.

  Although I was living quietly in my ivy-covered castle with its pepper-pot towers like so many I had known in my youth, storms gathered about me…small in comparison with the tempest which was raging in England, but they seemed violent while they lasted.

  Although I had begun to feel better, the ordeals through which I had passed had affected my health. I could not see very well and seemed to have lost the sight of one eye; my body was unnaturally swollen and I developed an ulcer in my breast. When this was lanced I felt better and my body became more its normal size.

  Then my favorite Geoffrey Hudson was in trouble. He was often teased because of his size and he certainly had a dignity which he did not like to be assailed. I could understand it perfectly and had always made a point of treating him as I would any normally sized man about me. I think that was one of the reasons why he adored me.

  There was some joke about a turkey. I never quite knew what it was. Probably they likened Geoffrey to one and this incensed him more than anything and naturally the more angry be became the more they liked to tease.

  One day in a rage Geoffrey said he would challenge to a duel the next man who mentioned turkeys in connection with him. I did not hear of this until it was too late. There was a young man in the household called Will Crofts who could not resist taking up the challenge. Geoffrey was serious and they chose pistols as the weapons. Crofts, treating the matter as a joke, had no intention of aiming seriously; but to Geoffrey it was no joke and he shot Crofts dead.

  I was angry and distressed for I was fond of Crofts and particularly of Geoffrey, and alas, it was not for me to decide what should be done. We were on French soil and subject to French laws and the penalty for murder was death. The only one who could override this was Cardinal Mazarin. I was not sure of his true friendship for me and it occurred to me that I might have favors to ask of him in the future; therefore I was loath to begin asking for anything that was not for Charles.

  But this was poor Geoffrey. He wept with me. I told him he had been a fool and he agreed with me. He was not afraid of death, he said, if that was the penalty. He cared very much though that I should be without him to care for me.

  I was deeply touched and decided that I must do everything I could to save him, so I did after all beg Mazarin for leniency.

  The Cardinal kept me in suspense for a long time and then finally sent word that the dwarf could go free if he left the country. Poor Geoffrey! Sometimes I think he would have preferred death to leaving me. I certainly had some good friends, even if others betrayed me.

  He wept bitterly and his sadness was unbearable but finally he left me. I never knew what became of him for I never saw him again.

  Events moved fast after that. My brother Gaston came with his daughter to escort me to Paris. It was an emotional meeting with Gaston, whom I remembered from my nursery days. We two being closer in age than the others had been together a great deal. I did not know this young man in his extremely scented garments, his quick black eyes and tufted beard and moustaches. He looked at me with some surprise. I was sure he did not recognize me either for I must have changed a good deal from that attractive girl who had left for England all those years ago. Illness had tampered with my looks and all that remained to me of them were my large eyes, which if they did not serve me well had retained something of their former beauty. Gaston’s daughter was a pert miss whom I did not like very much. She was utterly spoiled, having inherited a vast fortune through her mother which had made her the most desirable heiress in France. But they were my family and it was good to be with them—even though I returned to them a wreck of what I had been, a miserable exile and supplicant for aid. Not the happiest way to come home!

  As we approached the outskirts of Paris the Queen herself with her two sons, little Louis XIV, who was six years old, and his brother Philippe, the Duc d’Anjou, who was four, came to meet us.

  I was deeply moved to see my little nephews; they were such beautiful children, particularly the younger; their dark eyes sparkled with excitement to see me and they regarded me with undisguised curiosity.

  But it was Anne whom I wanted to see. She had changed a good deal in the sixteen years since we had last met. She had grown fat, but was still proud of those beautiful white hands and she had forgotten none of the old gestures which she had employed to show them off.

  But there was such kindliness and compassion in her plump face that I wept with joy to see her and there was such warmth in her embrace as to send my hopes soaring.

  “You will ride with me in the coach and the boys will accompany us,” she said.

  Thus I rode into Paris seated with the Queen Mother, the little King and his brother.

  We drove through streets which I remembered and now they were hung with bunting in my honor. How kind Anne was! I felt remorseful to remember that when she first came to France I might not have been so kind to her as I should have been. My mother had disliked her and colored my attitude toward her. But that was all past. Anne did not remember—if there was anything to remember—and now she had only friendship to offer.

  We went over the Pont Neuf to the Palace of the Louvre where I
had been born.

  “Apartments have been made ready for you here,” said Anne.

  I turned to her and pressed her hand, too moved for speech.

  The next day Cardinal Mazarin came to see me. The Cardinal was an extremely handsome man, and I could see at once why he had acquired such a sway over the Queen. There was something quite fascinating about him and, although I had not at first believed the rumors about the love between him and Anne, I now began to think that there might be some truth in them. Later I was to hear that some people were of the opinion that there had been a marriage between them. I could hardly accept that but it was clear that Queen Anne and Cardinal Mazarin enjoyed a very special relationship.

  He was shrewd—he would have had to be that to have been selected by Richelieu as his successor—and it was strange that Richelieu, who had been Anne’s enemy, should have brought to her notice the one who was to become her very close friend.

  My concern was not with the intricate relationship between those whom I hoped would be my benefactors. It was to enlist their help and save my poor beleaguered Charles.

  Anne, I was sure, would have promised a great deal. Mazarin was cautious; and it occurred to me that he was not altogether displeased by the way events were going in England as they meant that country could not interfere effectively in the policies of France. Anne was a goodhearted woman ruled by her emotions, but Mazarin was an astute statesman and he was going to make sure that everything worked to the advantage of France.

  He was extremely kind and gentle with me; he told me how much he disliked the English Parliament and those traitors who had risen against the King, but as military help from France would be considered an act of war, he reminded me he would have to go cautiously.

  I could never bear caution and in spite of the warm welcome I had been given I began to feel depressed. It was true I was able to send Charles a part of the pension Anne had given me, but that was nothing compared with what I had hoped to send in men and arms.

  Eventually Mazarin put forward the suggestion that I should approach the Duke of Lorraine. The Duke was friendly with Spain and had great resources with which he proposed to help that country. Now if those resources could be directed to England, they could be of inestimable help to Charles.