Part 25 (1/2)

Thus Henrietta Maria, Queen of England,

”Left love and life and slept in endless rest.”[445]

As she was unfortunate in life, so she has been unfortunate in death; for a people whose historical judgments were stereotyped by the revolution of 1688 has remembered her failings and forgotten her charms. It is only within recent years that the justice of history, working on the materials which are slowly unfolding the secrets of time, has been able to redress the balance and to reveal the personality of the woman who, amid all her misfortunes and all her faults, never lacked while living the devotion of love and friends.h.i.+p.

[Footnote 421: _Lettres de Henriette Marie a sa soeur Christine_, p. 121.]

[Footnote 422: This fine old house is still standing in the Rue Francois Mirron.]

[Footnote 423: Loret: _La Muse Historique_, t. 3, p. 252.]

[Footnote 424: This friar seems to have been more highly esteemed than, to judge by his memoirs, he quite deserved. _La Muse Historique_ has a long panegyric of him beginning--

Ce pere a beaucoup de science De vertue d'esprit d'eloquence Faizans quelque fois des Sermons A pouvoir toucher des Demons.--T. IV, p. 116.]

[Footnote 425: Archives of See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 426: Pepys: _Diary_, November 22nd, 1660.]

[Footnote 427: Mme de Motteville: _Memoires_ (1783), VI, pp. 307, 308.]

[Footnote 428: Hist. MSS. Com. MSS. of Duke of Buccleuch at Montagu House.

Vol. I, p. 438.]

[Footnote 429: There are several accounts of Henrietta's death differing considerably in detail, especially as to the time when the opiate was given. Vallot was much blamed for the advice he had given.]

[Footnote 430: Hist. MSS. Com. MSS. of Duke of Buccleuch at Montagu House.

Vol. I, p. 440.]

[Footnote 431: ”A nos chers et bien aimez le grand Prieur et Religieux de l'Abbaye Royalle de S. Denis en France” (September 12th, 1669).--Arch.

Nat., K. 119, No. 7.]

[Footnote 432: The official account of the Queen's death and of the three funeral services is contained in MS. Cinqants de Colbert, p. 142.]

[Footnote 433: ”Oraison funebre de Henriette Marie de France Reyne de la Grande Bretagne p.r.o.noncee dans l'Eglise de Saint Denys en France par Monseigneur l'Evesque d'Amiens” (1670).]

[Footnote 434: Her confessor at the time of her death was Father Lambert, who succeeded Father Viette.]

[Footnote 435: MS. Cinq cents de Colbert, p. 142.]

[Footnote 436: Cinq cents de Colbert, p. 142.]

[Footnote 437: On the first day of the year 1670 Walter Montagu ”Voulant temoyner sa reconnaissance envers la Reine d'Angleterre ... indiqua dans son eglise [S. Martin's, Pontoise] un service solemnel par le repos de son ame.”--Histoire de l'Abbaye de S. Martin de Pontoise, 1769. Bibliotheque Mazarine, MS. 3368.]

[Footnote 438: Arch. Nat., K. 1303, No. 6. The portion sold realized 4143.]

[Footnote 439: It is necessary to say a few words as to the alleged marriage between Henrietta Maria and Jermyn. It was believed by some contemporaries (e.g. Pepys and Reresby) that they were married, but it is very unlikely that this was the case. In a note to Smeaton's reprint (1820) to _The Life and Death of that matchless mirror of Magnanimity and Heroick Vertue Henrietta Maria de Bourbon_, it is a.s.serted that a doc.u.ment was in existence in which Jermyn settled property on Henrietta Maria at the time of his marriage with her. This statement is absolutely unsupported, and even if the doc.u.ment ever existed it may have been a forgery. Henrietta as a Catholic could not have married Jermyn, a Protestant, without a dispensation from the Pope, which it would have been very difficult to obtain without the transaction becoming known. No trace of a dispensation has ever been found. The Queen's closest friends, Mme de Motteville and the Chaillot nuns, give no hint of such marriage, of which, had it existed, they must have been aware.]