Part 12 (1/2)

Henrietta was indeed greatly pleased at her friend's release, and she cannot have failed to admire the graceful manner in which the great man had granted his favour, but a single act of kindness on the one hand and a single sentiment of grat.i.tude on the other could not overcome the mutual distrust of years. Moreover, events were even then occurring which were destroying any good feeling of which the incident may have been productive.

For some years Mary de' Medici had been casting her eyes upon England as a possible refuge. She disliked the Low Countries, where she was living, and as she felt no desire to return to her native Florence, which was the place of retirement selected for her by Louis XIII, or rather by Richelieu, she thought that it might be wise to take advantage of the kindness which her son-in-law, the King of England, had always felt for her. Her presence was not desired in England; she was considered, with some justice, a quarrelsome and mischief-making old lady, and her bigoted religious att.i.tude, joined with the favours which she showed to Spain, were sufficient to make her unpopular among the people. Charles, however much he might pity her as the victim of Richelieu, dreaded, short of money as he was, so expensive and inconvenient a guest. Even Henrietta, with the thought of her childhood in her mind, was afraid of her mother's arbitrary interference. ”_Adieu ma liberte_,” she sighed. Perhaps the Queen-Mother gathered that she would not be welcome, for the project seems to have been in abeyance when England was startled by the arrival of another exiled lady whose character and career presented even more of excitement and variety.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE d.u.c.h.eSS OF CHEVREUSE

AFTER THE PICTURE BY MOREELSE ONCE IN THE POSSESSION OF CHARLES I]

Madame de Chevreuse, on arriving in Madrid, had been received with great kindness, as was only to be expected, for she had been a good friend to Spain. But after some years of residence in the Spanish capital she found that, owing to the war between the two countries, communication with France was extremely difficult. She also began to think of England, where she had spent some happy days of her earlier life. She felt sure of a good reception, for she was united to the King by their common political sympathy with the Spanish, and the Queen, in the past, had regarded her with much affection. Her intention was quickly acted upon. She set sail from Corunna in May, 1638, and after a successful voyage landed in England.

She had not deceived herself. The reception given to her by her royal hosts was worthy of her rank as the wife of a kinsman of the King of England and of her position as a personal friend of his Queen. Charles and Henrietta, who were never wanting in hospitality, bade her heartily welcome, and even invited her to be present at Windsor on the occasion of the little Prince of Wales' invest.i.ture with the insignia of the Order of the Garter, an attention which was due to the fact that her husband was himself a knight of that n.o.ble order.[208] Nevertheless, the arrival of this factious lady at so critical a moment was part of that tragic ill-luck of the King and Queen of England on which their contemporaries remarked.

In London Madame de Chevreuse found many friends, among whom were her former lover, the Earl of Holland, and Walter Montagu, whose early devotion to her time had not destroyed. With the latter she at once began to scheme for the coming of Mary de' Medici, and though for a while it seemed unlikely that her plans would succeed, owing to the opposition of the King and the whole nation, yet such was the effect of her skill and persistency that, a few months after her own arrival, she witnessed the entry into London of that unfortunate royal lady, in whose sojourn in England must be sought one of the immediate contributory causes of the Civil War. Well might Richelieu write on this occasion, with even more truth than he knew, that ”there is nothing so capable of destroying a state as evil minds protected by their s.e.x.”[209]

Mary de' Medici arrived in the end unexpectedly. One Sunday afternoon a gentleman of her suite arrived at the Court and announced that she had already put to sea, and would land at Harwich that same evening if she were a.s.sured of a welcome. Neither the King nor the Queen was pleased, but Charles was too true a gentleman and Henrietta too affectionate a daughter not to receive her with all honour. The King rode out into the country to meet her, and escorted her through London amid official rejoicings, described by a French gentleman in an elaborate account which reflects his satisfaction.[210] Henrietta awaited her mother at St. James's Palace, where she received her affectionately, settling her in the pleasant rooms which had been there prepared, whence the old lady could look out upon the deer park, and upon the beautiful terrace, which formed the favourite promenade of the Court.

Meanwhile, Scottish affairs were going from bad to worse. ”They growl, but I hope they will not bite,”[211] wrote a courtier. They were to bite only too soon. In February, 1638, thousands of Scots were signing the National Covenant. A few months later the General a.s.sembly of the Kirk sitting at Glasgow abolished episcopacy, and followed up this act of defiance by refusing to dissolve at the command of the King's commissioner. Charles began to appreciate that his northern subjects were in open rebellion, whose due chastis.e.m.e.nt was the sword.

But then, as ever, he was crippled by lack of money, and one of the means which was taken to procure it was another of those acts by which he and his wife set themselves against the will and sentiment of their people, and thus prepared the way for their own final ruin, though, in this case, the blame fell chiefly upon Henrietta, and it is doubtful whether Charles'

share in the transaction was known to the Puritans.[212]

The English Catholics had enjoyed for many years an unprecedented peace and liberty, which now, owing to the kindness of the King and the Court for the fascinating Con, had reached such a pitch that England appeared to foreigners almost like a Catholic country. The recusancy fines, which were still exacted in a modified form, kept up a certain feeling of irritation, but on the whole the Catholics were loyal. They felt much grat.i.tude towards the Queen, on whom their prosperity depended, and when the Scotch rebellion broke out they would have liked to bear arms in the King's service. Con, who believed that Charles would willingly have employed them, a.s.sured him that few of his subjects would fight for him as loyally as those of the ancient faith. The King possibly believed him, but true to his cautious nature he preferred to ask for a present of money, which the envoy, who, notwithstanding his short sojourn in England, had a minute acquaintance with the persons and circ.u.mstances of the English Catholics, set himself to procure. As a first step he called together representatives both of the clergy and of the laity, and laid before them the royal request.

He had undertaken no easy task. Some of the Catholics, to whom sad experience had taught prudence, were alarmed at the idea of helping the King to rule without the need of calling Parliament. Others, going to the opposite extreme, offered their contributions separately, hoping thus to gain the royal favour. Worst of all, the ill-feeling between the secular and regular clergy made any cooperation between the two bodies a matter of great difficulty. From meetings lasting many hours, at which he had attempted to weld together these discordant elements, and from still more fatiguing private audiences, Con, ill and suffering as he then was, came away weary and dispirited, complaining bitterly of the ”obstinate prudence”

of the Jesuits and of the self-seeking of all. ”This kingdom,” he wrote on one of these occasions to Cardinal Barberini, ”has no men who are moved by the common good, but each one thinks only of his private interest.”[213]

At first the Queen's name appears little, but she watched the negotiations carefully, and in their latter stages she sent Montagu and Father Philip to attend the meetings on her behalf, and to bring her news of an undertaking in whose success she was deeply interested, and in which, for const.i.tutional reasons, she was now actively to intervene.

The fears of the more timid Catholics were not idle, but showed a truer political insight than either Charles or Henrietta possessed. It was necessary to rea.s.sure them without allowing the King's name to appear. The best expedient which could be devised was to make the contribution appear as a gift, which at the Queen's instigation was offered to her by her co-religionists. Henrietta had at her side the ingenious Montagu and the fantastic Sir Kenelm Digby, who was always pleased to adventure himself in any new enterprise. These two gentlemen now issued a joint appeal to the Catholics of England, asking, in the Queen's name, for liberal contributions, and to this appeal she herself prefixed a dignified letter urging her co-religionists to contribute liberally to the King's expenses in the northern expedition, ”for we believed that it became us who have been so often interested in the solicitation of their benefits, to show ourselves now in the persuasion of their grat.i.tudes.”[214] These letters, together with one from the ecclesiastical authorities, were circulated throughout the land; for each s.h.i.+re of England and Wales one or more collectors was appointed from among the Catholic gentry.[215]

The Queen had already asked the Catholics to fast every Sat.u.r.day ”for the King's happy progression in his designs, and for his safe return,” and special services were held in her chapel for the same intention. This was very well, but it was a different matter when money was asked for from those who for years had borne more than their share of taxation. In spite of the zeal of the promoters of the scheme, the money came in but slowly.

The difficulties of collection were great, and though individuals, such as the Dowager Countess of Rutland, who cheerfully gave 500, were generous, the general response was not hearty. The Queen, whose sanguine disposition often caused her to be disappointed, was distressed at the smallness of the sum which she would be able to offer to the King, and her fertile brain devised another expedient by which she hoped to increase the 30,000[216]

she had received from the Catholics to 50,000; 10,000 she laid aside out of her own revenue, and the remainder she hoped to raise among the ladies of England, ”as well widows as wives.” Her own friends, the great ladies of the Court, offered each her 100 with due _empress.e.m.e.nt_, but outside that circle the project was not a success, and Henrietta and her advisers were left to lament once more the lack of loyalty in those whose pleasure they considered it should have been to contribute to their sovereign's need.

In April Charles set out for Scotland. He left his wife almost regent in his absence, for he had ordered the Council to defer to her advice.

Henrietta was thus in a position of greater importance and authority than ever before, and she had the satisfaction of feeling that her influence over her husband was steadily increasing. The difficult circ.u.mstances, now beginning to entangle her as in a net, were developing that love of intrigue which had already shown itself in happier times. She had, moreover, no mean instructors in the art of diplomatic chicanery in two women who at this time were together at her side exercising a considerable influence over her. Madame de Chevreuse and Lady Carlisle, since the arrival of the former in England, had joined hands in a friends.h.i.+p which had its origin, perhaps, in a common hatred of Richelieu, but which might be easily accounted for by similarity of character and aims. Madame de Chevreuse could, indeed, boast a wider experience, for she had taken all Europe for her stage, while Lady Carlisle was content to play her part in the comparative obscurity of the British Isles; but a restless love of power and domination, which expressed itself in a determined effort to influence by womanly charms those who by force of intellect or by accident of birth were making the history of the time, was common to both, as also was a real talent for intrigue, which enabled these society ladies so far to conquer the disadvantages of their s.e.x as to become of considerable importance in affairs. Of such teachers Henrietta was a willing learner and in some sense an apt pupil. She, too, learned to plot and to scheme, to play off enemy against enemy, and to attempt to win over a chivalrous foe by honeyed words. But she never became in any real sense a diplomatist. Her brain, quick to seize a point of detail and sometimes sagacious in weighing the claims of alternate courses of action, had not sufficient grasp to take in the broad outlines of a complicated situation, nor the judicial faculty which can calmly appraise even values which are personal. It is the misfortune of the great that they breathe an atmosphere of fict.i.tious importance which induces a mental malady, whose taint infects all but the strongest intellects and the largest hearts. From the worst forms of this disease, as it appears, for instance, in Louis XIV, who at the end of his life believed himself to be almost superhuman, Henrietta escaped, by the strong sense of humour which was her father's best legacy to her. However obsequious her attendance and however regal her robes, she knew at heart that she was but a woman of flesh and blood as the rest; but the more subtle workings of the poison of flattery she could not escape, and the great weakness of her diplomacy--a weakness which that of her husband shared to the full--was her inability to appreciate that things precious to her were not necessarily so to other people, and that her friends and her foes were likely to be influenced by self-interest not largely coloured by a romantic sympathy with her misfortunes.

Henrietta's regency came to an end before she had much opportunity for action, for by July her husband was back in London. This is not the place to tell the story of the disastrous Scotch expedition; it suffices to say that Charles returned nominally a conqueror,[217] but in reality defeated, and with the bitter knowledge that he could only overcome his rebellious subjects in Scotland by asking the help of his discontented people in England.

Nevertheless, there was an interval of a few months before the next act of the tragedy was played, and during it were celebrated some of the last of those splendid festivities for which the Court of the Queen of England was renowned. A particularly splendid masque, which was played at Whitehall on January 21st, 16-39/40, deserves mention on account of the tragic discrepancy between the spirit of triumphant rejoicing and secure prosperity breathed by it, and on the one hand the discontent which, outside the brilliantly lighted rooms, was surging through the winter darkness of the city, and on the other the anxiety which was gnawing at the heart of some of those who appeared among the gayest and most careless of the revellers. The masque was got up by the Queen, whose fondness for such amus.e.m.e.nts did not decrease with age, and who found in the hard work which such a task involved a welcome diversion from her anxieties. It bore the name of _Salmacida Spolia_,[218] and was written by Sir William D'Avenant, the reputed son of Shakespeare, who had succeeded Ben Jonson as laureate, and who was specially devoted to Henrietta's service. The scenery and decorations, so important to the success of a masque, were supplied by Inigo Jones, who had before now co-operated with D'Avenant, while for the musical part of the entertainment Lewis Richard, Master of His Majesty's Musick, was responsible. Henrietta had considerable difficulty with her troupe,[219] which included not only the King but a number of ladies and gentlemen of the Court, and great annoyance was caused by Lady Carnarvon, who showed symptoms of the invading Puritan spirit in refusing to take part in the masque unless she were a.s.sured that the representation would not take place on a Sunday. However, all difficulties were smoothed over by the Queen, who was usually compliant in small matters, and the play was a notable success, though the Earl of Northumberland, who was not acting, wrote to his sister that ”a company of worse faces was never a.s.sembled than the Queen had got together.”[220] The royal pair alone might have given the lie to the Earl's ungallant words. King Charles, whose splendid looks have entered, through the genius of Van Dyck, into the heritage of the nation, played his part with the external dignity in which he was never lacking; while his wife displayed her still abundant charms to great advantage in an ”Amazonian habit of carnation, embroidered with silver, with a plumed Helme and a Bandricke with an antique Sword hanging by her side, all as rich as might be.” Her attendant ladies were similarly dressed, and it is perhaps not surprising that the strangeness of these habits was even more admired than their beauty.

The theme was designed, in reference to recent public events, to flatter the King, who played the part of Philogenes triumphing over Discord, which, ”a malicious Fury, appears in a storme, and by the Invocation of malignant spirits proper to her evill use, having already put most of the world into discord, endeavours to disturb these parts, envying the blessings and Tranquillity we have long enjoyed.”

”How am I griev'd,”

she cries out,

”The world should everywhere Be vext into a storme save only here, Thou over-lucky, too much happy Ile!

Grow more desirous of this flatt'ring style In thy long health can never alter'd be But by thy surfets on Felicitie.”[221]

After these words, which surely might have been spoken by the lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets of Ahab, the Queen came forward to be greeted by an outburst of triumphant loyalty:--

”But what is she that rules the night That kindles Ladies with her light And gives to Men the power of sight?