9—
A Daughter of France

Even before they left Spain, and while the question of the proxy was still outstanding, Charles and Buckingham had turned their thoughts to general strategy and, in particular, to the question of an alternative marriage alliance. The obvious Court for a new wooing was that of France where, although two Princesses had gone, to Spain and to Savoy respectively, there still remained little Henrietta-Maria, now entering her fifteenth year. France was generally held to be less obdurate on religious matters than Spain, and she still had powerful political reasons for lining up against the Hapsburg. Charles and Buckingham had talked in Madrid to an enigmatic friar named Grey, who had let fall the no doubt inspired belief that a French match was still open to Charles, and he had been despatched from Santander, with great secrecy, before Charles sailed for home, to sound the French Court further. The response, though guarded, was sufficiently encouraging for Henry Rich, Viscount Kensington, to be sent to Paris at the end of February 1624 to pursue the matter.

On the social side Kensington's embassy soon made headway. Handsome, polished, easy spoken, familiar with the language, fond of the French and a former lover of the Duchesse de Chevreuse, he had soon met not only the Queen Mother but Henrietta-Maria herself. She was 'the sweetest creature in France', he assured Charles, she danced well and sang most sweetly; and, commenting upon her known small stature, 'her growth is very little short of her age', he said, 'and her wisdom is infinitely beyond it. I heard her discourse with her mother, and the ladies about her, with extraordinary discretion and quickness.' Kensington also indicated a warmth in Madame, as she was known, which had been all too lacking in the Infanta, telling how anxious she had been to see a miniature of the Prince which he had been showing to some of the courtiers. She contrived to borrow it, blushing as she

opened it, and kept it for an hour, finally returning it with many praises. It was not difficult for Kensington to talk himself into a private interview with the Princess in which he dwelt upon Charles's virtues and his ardent desire for marriage. Henrietta-Maria knew well enough that this was a second wooing but, according to Kensington, she 'drank down his words with joy' and, with a low curtsey, added 'that she was extremely obliged to his Highness, and would think herself happy in the occasion that should be presented of meriting the place shee held in his good esteem'. From other remarks attributed to her it is likely, indeed, that she wanted to be a queen, that to be Queen of England appealed to her, and that, moreover, she had been genuinely attracted to the Prince she had seen at the French Court but who had no eyes for her at the time. 'The Prince', she is reputed to have said, 'need not have travelled so far to find a wife.' On hearing a rumour that Mlle de Montpensier was to be offered to the Prince in her stead she fell into such a passion that her mother had difficulty in calming her.

This distant and successful love-making was sweet to Charles after the frustrations of the Spanish wooing. Henrietta-Maria was the sixth and youngest child and third daughter of the Italian Marie de Medici and the Bourbon Henri IV of France. She was still in her cradle when her father was assassinated by the Catholic fanatic, François Ravaillac, as a protest against the King's toleration of the Huguenots. Her eldest brother became King as Louis XIII at the age of eight in May 1610, her mother acting as Regent until 1614, when Louis came into his majority. The younger children were brought up at St Germain-en-Laye, about two hours' coach ride from Paris, under the care of Madame de Montglat — the Mamangat of their early letters — to whom they were devoted. Henrietta herself formed an even stronger attachment to her governess's daughter, Madame de Saint-Georges, who was her constant companion. There was not much formal education at St Germain-en-Laye, but Henrietta inherited the quick wit of her father, a French aptness for the right phrase, and an obstinacy that was all her own. At fifteen she had barely learned to translate this obstinacy into determination.

While on the personal side the French marriage negotiations seemed to be going well, there were signs that the French were going to be hard bargainers, second only to the Spaniards, and in May the Earl of Carlisle (the former Viscount Doncaster) was sent to Paris to lend weight to the diplomatic manoeuvring. The French, like the

Spaniards, refused to include a military alliance in the marriage treaty but they expected, nevertheless, toleration for English Catholics. The steps by which agreement was reached were all too familiar, the English being beaten, stage by stage, into promising more than they could perform. The French would accept no verbal guarantee of toleration but demanded a written statement, signed and sealed. In view of the undertaking made to Parliament by James and by Charles this was impossible. James refused the French request, Carlisle was angry, Buckingham was for acquiescence, Charles, at first indignant, lost his indignation and wanted his father to agree. After two days of torment, egged on by the Duke and the Prince, James agreed on September 7, but on condition that his acceptance took the form of a letter. Kensington was rewarded with a peerage and became the Earl of Holland on September 15. Charles was delighted. 'The business', he wrote to Carlisle, 'is all brought to so good an issue that . . . I hope that the treaties will be shortly brought to a happy conclusion.' The Privy Council was informed and had little alternative but to accept the King's agreement and its corollary — the suspension of the laws against recusants. But Parliament was due to reassemble on November 2, and to face the House before the marriage was actually accomplished was to invite disaster. So it was prorogued until February on the pretext of plague. Yet the French were not satisfied, they refused to accept a letter, and repeated their demand for an official document signed and sealed by James; at the same time refusing to put into writing the minimal engagements of financial and military aid which they themselves were prepared to undertake.

But Charles was now as bent upon the French match, and as willing to accept any conditions to effect it, as he had been upon the Spanish match. A rumour that the Spaniards were despatching Gondomar again to England alarmed him. He spoke plainly to his father. He would never match with Spain. If not with France, who would his father find for him? James was startled, horrified and angry. But there was logic in Charles's reasoning; what other alliance was there? So James agreed to do what Charles wanted — which entailed breaking his own and his son's engagement to Parliament concerning Catholics.

The English Ambassadors in Paris signed the treaty on 10 November 1624. On December 12 it was ratified at Cambridge by James and Charles in the presence of Buckingham and Conway, the only members of the Privy Council allowed to attend. James's hands were so crippled with arthritis that he could barely sign. The public

engagements provided freedom of worship for Henrietta; gave into her care the education of any children of the marriage until their thirteenth year; guaranteed a chapel, which should be open to English Catholics, at all places where she resided; allowed twenty-eight religious attendants for her worship who would be permitted to wear their habits in public, and a domestic establishment of French Catholics chosen by the King of France. The secret engagement, signed by James and Charles, promised that all English Catholics imprisoned for their religion should be freed, that no English Catholic should be persecuted because of his religion, and that any Catholic deprived of property since the previous July should have it restored. In return for this, the French gave the bride a dowry of £120,000, a vague verbal assurance of military assistance, an unwritten promise to pay Mansfeld and his troops for six months, to allow him to land at a French port and to proceed through part of France if he thought fit.

Before welcoming the bride it was necessary for the English to carry out their part of the agreement, which they did as quietly as possible. On December 24 the recusancy laws were suspended. On the 26th an order was issued to the Lord Keeper for the release of all Catholics imprisoned for offences connected with their religion. James salved his conscience by a verbal twist — his promise to Parliament spoke of a treaty, his undertaking to the French was in an accompanying document. Charles later explained his agreement to the secret terms on the grounds that, with the French King's knowledge, he had signed in order to satisfy the Pope and obtain his dispensation for the marriage; it was never intended, he claimed, that the agreement should be binding.

He now felt he could write to Henrietta himself, but he had great difficulty in composing his letters, altering the rough drafts several times.

I have not dared to take the liberty of testifying to you, by a single line, the great impatience with which my spirit has been tormented, during my long waiting for the happy accomplishment of this treaty, until I received good tidings of it; begging you to be assured that, besides the renown of your virtues and perfections, which is everywhere spread abroad, my happiness has been completed by the honour which I have already had of seeing your person, although unknown to you; which sight has completely satisfied me that the exterior of your person in no degree belies the lustre of your virtues. But I cannot, by writing, express the passion of my soul to have the honour of being esteemed

Yours etc.

He sent the letter, with his portrait, by Sir Thomas Carey, and there followed jewels of great price, which included a necklace of one hundred and twenty large pearls, a diamond of 'incomparable size and worth', and two diamond earrings in the shape of pearls.^[1]

Much had been accomplished in the fifteen months since the return from Spain, but the difficult weather and the emotional strains were taking their toll. Charles stood up to both better than his father and Buckingham. James was repeatedly ailing, Buckingham was seriously ill in May and when he reappeared in June looked so pale and haggard that people spoke of attempts by the Spaniards to poison him. This was not so far-fetched as might appear, for the Spanish envoys were doing their best to discredit the Duke. Diplomatic relations had not been severed with Spain and there remained in England the Marquis of Inojosa, who had been sent as Ambassador Extraordinary in the spring of 1623 to deal with the marriage negotiations, and Don Carlos Coloma, who had succeeded Gondomar as Ambassador. This Rosencrantz and Guildenstern combination, with the aid of a handful of Spanish agents, supplied a continuing chorus and much of the offstage action to the first half of 1624. As characters they were Jonsonian rather than Shakespearean and their antics could hardly have been surpassed in the mind of Jonson himself. Four paid informants (whose names were never revealed in spite of Buckingham's offer of £10,000) kept them appraised of events in Parliament at £100 a time. Complaining that James was isolated by the deliberate policy of Buckingham, they were reduced to slipping notes to the King when Charles and the Duke were off their guard; they made contact with James through Don Francisco de Carondelet, Archdeacon of Cambrai and chaplain to Coloma; they obtained back-door access to him through various servants. Another member of the network was on his way from Spain with fresh instructions when he was set upon in Flanders and robbed of his papers by assailants disguised with false beards, whose identity was never discovered but who were suspected to be in the pay of Buckingham.

The object of all this activity was to keep England from war and, as an immediate goal, to separate Buckingham from James. Their attack upon Buckingham's narration to Parliament as a libel upon the Spanish King was too flimsy to gain credence but they then built up a more elaborate plot in which Charles figured as well as the favourite. James, it was alleged by the Spaniards in one of their clandestine interviews

with the King, was to be kept in the comfortable seclusion of one of his country houses while the Prince, with the support of the Duke, ruled in his place. Already James was, they declared, a prisoner and besieged, his very servants creatures of Buckingham, and people were saying it would be a great happiness if the Prince reigned instead. On another occasion they brought up a story which had, in fact, been circulating for some time, that Buckingham planned to marry his little daughter to Elizabeth's son, so joining his family to the royal line and perhaps even securing the succession.

James remained calm, merely muttering that Buckingham had he knew not how many devils in him since his return from Spain, and that Charles was strangely carried away with rash and youthful notions; yet, if what he heard of Buckingham were true, he would have his head cut off! He was sufficiently upset to greet the two young men with tears in his eyes as he proceeded by way of St James's to Windsor for the Garter ceremonies of April 1624 and Buckingham did not accompany the King and the Prince. Shortly afterwards, however, the Duke made his peace, categorically denying any desire or plan to marry his daughter to Elizabeth's son. Elizabeth made her own denial. The Spanish envoys could not substantiate any of their charges and Inojosa left the country on June 26 in a merchant ship, a mark of grave disrespect to an ambassador.^[2]

After a backward spring the summer of 1624 had set in hot and dry and plague and spotted fever persisted. Charles found time to remember his old friend, Dallington, who was knighted and given the headmastership of Charterhouse in July; as with Murray at Eton Charles had to fight the bishops in insisting upon the appointment for his nominee. In the autumn a mellow and temperate season brought relief as well as an abundant harvest of grain and fruit. Charles took pleasure in hunting, but suffered a severe fall from which it took him some while to recover. They all tried to enjoy Christmas with some of the old gaiety: after all, the French treaty had been signed, Parliament was not sitting, 10,000 volunteers had joined the Dutch in the summer and the drums in the City were beating up more, while sufficient men had been impressed to provide Mansfeld with an army of sorts. It was these pressed men and their pay and maintenance that were the most pressing problems. The men who already were fighting in Europe were volunteers. They knew what they were fighting for and their condition, though often bad, was rarely absolutely desperate. The men now pressed for Mansfeld's army were different. At the end of

the year they were still at Dover, there were insufficient vessels to carry them to France, insufficient food to feed them while they waited, insufficient authority to discipline them. Many who had homes to go to were running away, those to whom pillage was second nature were sacking shops and ravishing farms; hunger, cold, dirt and disease were reducing the most ordinary of men, swept up from their villages and their occupations by the press gang, to bands of marauders seeking food and shelter. Mansfeld had exhausted the October and November payments and, while the Privy Council spoke of martial law, he was demanding payment for December. Charles, with the incisive action of which he was sometimes capable, perceived the need and borrowed on his own personal security from Philip Burlamachi.

Though this merely relieved, and did not solve the problem, Charles made a great effort to entertain his cousin Christian who had briefly interrupted his fighting for Elizabeth to visit England. There was a show of dancing and the Twelfth Night masque, Jonson's The Fortunate Isles , was played on January 9. But James kept to his chamber, suffering from gout and depression. Not only had his control of foreign policy, so jealousy guarded throughout his reign, been wrenched from him but Charles was so bent on war that even his relationship with his son had changed. The dominant relationship which at one time had been the King and the Duke and had then become the King, the Duke and the Prince, was now the Prince and the Duke. Infirmity combined with inadequacy to produce depression. 'I am an old king', James had said to his Parliament — and there had been the suggestion not only that he was old in wisdom but that he was old in years.

It is difficult to say how far Charles and Buckingham were thinking in terms of the succession. Charles was no longer in awe of his father, and in proportion as he found he could guide Parliament his dependence upon James lessened. But his determination to purge himself of the Spanish humiliation was something of an obsession and he could still fear the pro-Spanish peace policy of the King. It had been difficult to keep James from listening to the Earl of Bristol and there would be cause for alarm if the threatened conjunction with Gondomar was allowed to take place. How far Charles wanted to be free, to act without recourse to the old man who now so often waited at Theobalds or Newmarket or Royston for the messages of his son, is mere conjecture.

As for Buckingham, he was now so firmly attached to Charles that

he had no fear of the succession: he might, indeed, even welcome an end to the maudlin protestations of affection which James, though somewhat perfunctorily, continued to bestow upon him. Moreover, there were straws to indicate that his popularity in that quarter might be waning, and it is possible that, once the joy of reunion was over, Buckingham sensed that his relationship with the King was not the same as before. The Earl of Clarendon, writing long after the event, said that the delicate Spanish marriage negotiations were 'solely broken' by the journey to Spain and that James 'never forgave the Duke of Buckingham'. The Venetian Ambassador, although thinking at first that the Duke was high in favour with James on his return from Spain, reversed his opinion later. 'I am assured', he wrote, 'that the King is tired of Buckingham.'^[3]

In the New Year of 1625 James roused himself, took an interest in affairs, and hunted from some of his favourite lodges. But on March 5, while at Theobalds, he was taken with a tertian ague. At first it did not seem serious, but an intermittent fever became so severe that he was driven to thrust his hands in cold water and to drink quantities of small beer to cool himself. By the 12th these fits were subsiding and he prepared to move to Hampton Court. A curious situation then developed. Buckingham was at Theobalds, and so was his mother, a lady of whom James had never been fond. Together they decided to by-pass James's physicians and apply some remedies of their own which allegedly had helped the Duke when he was ill. Accordingly some medicine and a plaster were obtained from Dr John Remington, who lived at Dunmow in Essex. James was given the medicine by the Duke, the plaster was applied by Buckingham's mother in the absence of James's doctors. When the next bout of fever ensued it was very bad and the physicians, realizing what had happened, protested strongly. But they were ordered from the room and the same treatment was repeated with the same adverse results. Dr Crappe, who protested particularly violently, was ordered not only out of the room but away from the Court by Buckingham.

Later, realizing that he was now very ill, James begged the Earl of Pembroke not to leave him and sent for his old friend, Launcelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester. But Andrewes himself was too sick to rise from his bed and John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, set out for Theobalds from London. William Harvey, one of the physicians in attendance, informed him that death was near, and with Charles's permission Williams prepared the King for his end. On March 24

James made profession of his faith in the presence of Charles, Williams, Buckingham, and his chief ministers, receiving communion according to the rites of the Church of England. He had a long talk, quite alone, with Charles, everyone else being ordered two or three rooms away so that there was no possibility of being overheard. The secrets of the deathbed confidences were never disclosed. For three more days he lingered. In the early hours of the 27th he called for Charles who came hurrying to him in night attire. But when Charles arrived his father was beyond speech and died shortly afterwards. He was in his fifty-seventh year.

After he had spent two or three hours in retirement Charles was proclaimed at Theobalds gate by the Knight Marshall as King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland. He then took coach for St James's and that evening was similarly proclaimed in London at Whitehall Gate, at Cheapside, and in other parts of the capital. Buckingham rode with him, in the same coach, and lay that night in the same chamber. Also in the same coach was the new King's Puritan chaplain, John Preston, who had hurried to Theobalds on news of James's relapse. Spiritual consolation would have been looked for from a chaplin and in the anti-Spanish turn of events Preston was not unwelcome: the significance of the episode was hardly as great as the Puritans cared to think. A suite was prepared for Buckingham next to the new King's in St James's, where Charles elected to stay until after the funeral, and the Duke was sworn of the King's bedchamber. Elizabeth wrote of the loss 'of so loving a father'; she could hardly say more, for his practical help had been little. But she said her sorrow would have been much greater had not God left her 'so dear and loving a brother . . . in whom, next God', she now placed all her confidence.

Rumours of poison were common enough in the seventeenth century. But many strange and unexplained circumstances surround the death of James. Why should Buckingham bring his mother to the King's deathbed? Why, when James appeared to be well enough to travel to Hampton Court, did he introduce another form of treatment? Why were the King's own doctors ordered from the room? Suspicions were strong enough for Dr John Eglisham to retrieve a piece of the plaster which had been used and to take it to Dr Remington who had allegedly supplied it. Remington, in surprise, declared it was not his plaster. Eglisham was compelled to flee the country but the following year published his evidence in a pamphlet printed in Frankfurt. Meanwhile, the doctors who embalmed the King found his

organs reasonably sound and no signs of poison, while Dr Harvey consistently dissociated himself from the charge. It is possible that James, like his son Henry and his mother Mary, was suffering from porphyria; he had been subject increasingly to vomiting, pain, and intermittent fever and these, as with Henry, caused people to think of poison. Besides, Buckingham's actions were performed too publicly for those of a would-be assassin — unless he was relying upon his position and the very openness of his actions to shield him. Motive, indeed, there may have been for on the very day that James was taken ill there came news that Gondomar was on his way and that he came neither unwelcome nor unsent for. The French match was still not beyond a breach and it was being whispered that there was no bulwark strong enough against Gondomar, but that he would 'mar all'. There was even talk of the Spanish match again, and that Gondomar's coming would again quicken that business. Buckingham had no need to be reminded of the effect of Gondomar on the convalescent and still weak King. More sinister was the faintest of murmurs, to be heard more loudly the following year, that Charles himself had not been unaware of the events in James's sick room. Charles's movements at the time, were indeed, unspecified. With his father about to move to Hampton Court it is likely that he was not at Theobalds when Buckingham was applying his quack remedies.

James's body was brought from Theobalds to London on April 4 in a hearse lined with black velvet and accompanied by guards and heralds, Charles heading the nobility who accompanied it in coaches. It was nine in the evening when, in foul weather, the hearse came to Holborn and made its way through Chancery Lane and the Strand to Denmark House where the coffin lay for nearly five weeks, flanked by six magnificent silver candlesticks which Charles had brought from Spain. The funeral on May 7 was one of the most magnificent ever staged. Inigo Jones designed the hearse, and mourning was distributed to over 9,000 people. It was in keeping with James's life that Chamberlain should describe the funeral as at the same time 'somewhat disorderly'. Charles was chief mourner and established a precedent by walking on foot from Denmark House to the interment in Westminster Abbey. Bishop Williams preached the sermon which took two hours. It was later published as Great Britain's Solomon and finished, predictably, with a double compliment: 'Though his father be dead, yet is he, as though hee were not dead, for he hath left one behind him most like himselfe, whom God prosper and preserve.'^[4]

When Charles on March 27 made his first journey as King into London it was raining. The weather, wrote James Howell,

was suitable to the Condition wherein he finds the Kingdom, which is cloudy; for he is left engaged in a war with a potent Prince, the People by long Desuetude unapt for Arms, the Fleet-Royal in quarter Repair, himself without a Queen, his Sister without a Country, the Crown pitifully laden with Debts, and the Purse of the State lightly balusted.^[5]

The summary was apt.

Charles himself was well aware that he had succeeded at no easy time. Yet the situation was largely of his own making. Foreign policy, since his return from Spain, had been his rather than his father's; his father's last Parliament had been called The Prince's Parliament; his father's ministers of state had consulted him; his father's favourite was his favourite. Charles had long ago accepted his position as heir to the throne, and James's ill-health, his own driving obsession with Spain and the Palatinate, and the presence of Buckingham all contrived to lessen the break of death and succession so that the transition to kingship was not as emotional as it might otherwise have been. At twenty-four Charles was confident, optimistic, physically strong and not overwhelmed with grief. He was glad that power was now in his hands, glad that he had the support of Buckingham, determined to attend meticulously to the day-to-day requirements of kingship; it is doubtful whether, at this stage, he looked beyond his immediate purpose to the wider responsibilities of a ruler. He accepted a divine right of kings, as his father had done, he had the same belief in his prerogative (did he remember his father's warning that prerogative 'ryves in the stretching'?). He had sufficient confidence in himself to believe that he could rule a kingdom of some 5,000,000 persons, including those as diverse as the Scots and the Irish. But there was no problem to him so large, so pressing, so all-consuming as that of war. Yet war was not altogether in his nature. He had been driven to it as the only way to help his sister and wipe out the memory of the inglorious Spanish adventure. He now derived some pleasure in putting to practical use the tactics he had worked upon with his model armies and the precepts he had imbibed from Guicciardini; he was fascinated by Buckingham's grandiose schemes for power and influence on the Continent of Europe; and the stronger the opposition the more determined he was to carry the enterprise through.

First, he must secure his wife and Queen. The proxy marriage, which Buckingham was to have attended, was postponed when James's illness became serious, but it was celebrated on May Day outside the West door of Notre Dame in Paris with the Duc de Chevreuse, a distant cousin of Charles's, acting as proxy. The little Princess wore a crown of diamonds and was gorgeously attired in cloth of silver and gold with a train so heavy that, it was said, the three bearers could scarcely lift it and a man had to walk beneath carrying the weight on his head and shoulders. As soon as the ceremony was over the waiting courier galloped off for England to take the news that Charles was married while Elizabeth, in exile, contrived to give a feast to honour the occasion. A little later Buckingham went to Paris to conduct the Queen to her husband. He also intended to negotiate military help from France. With these two important assignments on his hands Buckingham yet allowed himself to play a most extraordinary additional role, no less than that of lover to the Queen of France, whom he had seen on his way through Paris in 1623. Now he approached her more boldly, and when the royal party escorting Henrietta to the coast had reached Amiens he found an opportunity of being alone with her one evening in a riverside garden. So far, perhaps, Anne had not been averse to the attentions of the gallant Englishman, which were in marked contrast to her boorish husband's neglect. But whatever Buckingham attempted in the garden could not be permitted, and her cries brought her attendants rushing to her side.

The Queen stayed with Henrietta's mother at Amiens while the wedding party proceeded to the coast. Buckingham's farewells to her were more loving than courtesy required and he soon found an excuse to post back, leaving Henrietta in the care of her younger brother, while he carried on a series of open flirtations which were widely commented upon. The whole affair did nothing to cement the alliance between France and England. If that alliance was not to be close it would be the more unfortunate for the little Queen who had been diverted from Calais because of the plague and who reached the French coast at Boulogne on June 8. The farewells with her mother had been tearful. She had already promised the Pope and her brother, the King, that she would bring up her children as Catholics, and she had been charged with the heavy responsibility of acting as champion of the faith in an alien country. Now she carried a letter from her mother to the same effect. At Boulogne she spent some time gazing out at the sea which she had never seen before and met many of the

English courtiers who had braved the English Channel to greet her, among them Buckingham's redoubtable mother, who was one of the first to be presented. Toby Mathew, who had been knighted for his services to Charles in Madrid, acted as interpreter. In the account of the meeting he wrote for Buckingham's wife he remarked that Henrietta-Maria was taller than he had thought. He was clearly enchanted with her combination of youth and maturity: 'believe me', he wrote, 'she sits already upon the very skirts of womanhood . . . upon my faith, she is a most sweet lovely Creature . . . full of wit, and hath a lovely manner in expressing it.' But he perceived more: 'I dare give my word for her, that she is not afraid of her own shadow.'

In England all was excitement for her arrival. Charles himself set out from London on May 31 going by way of Gravesend and Rochester to Canterbury, where many of the Court were gathering. Impatiently he went on to Dover, climbing the Castle keep to look towards France. But the French cortège was still on the other side, making its slow way to the coast. The most he could do was to dine with Phineas Pett on the Prince Royal , the ship detailed to bring his bride over. Pett was at Boulogne in ample time to greet the new Queen but storms delayed their departure, and it was not until Sunday June 12 that they set sail, making Dover in a little over eight hours. Charles, who had returned to Canterbury, was told the moment the Prince Royal was sighted, and, as Henrietta-Maria disembarked, Robert Tyrwhitt, making the journey from Dover to Canterbury in thirty-six minutes, brought Charles the news. She came ashore by means of an 'artificial moveable Bridge' and was then carried in a litter to the town, where she was welcomed by the mayor, before proceeding by coach to Dover Castle. Her French attendants found the Castle dismal and the furniture old. Perhaps Charles should have been there. But he had promised Henrietta's mother to give her daughter a night's rest to recover from her journey before visiting her.

He gave her little more. The next morning, as she was breakfasting, news was brought that the King had arrived. Throwing composure to the winds she dashed downstairs preparing to kneel and kiss the hand of the young man who stood there. But Charles caught her up in his arms and embraced her with many kisses. Overcome, she began the speech in French she had been taught—'Sire, je suis venue en ce pais de vostre Majestie pour estre usée et commandée de vous . . .' but burst into tears. Then she thought that Charles was looking down to her feet and, conscious of her small stature, hastened, like a little girl,

to show him her shoes, saying in French, 'Sir, I stand upon mine own feet. I have no helps by art. Thus high I am, and am neither higher nor lower'. She reached, indeed, to his shoulder, which was fitting, for he was not tall. She was a bony little creature, quick in her movements; in contrast to the King, black-haired and dark-skinned. If her nose was a little large, her teeth a little prominent, her big black eyes obscured these shortcomings as they responded to every changing mood. She was fifteen, he was twenty-four. The couple retired in private for an hour, after which Henrietta presented her attendants to her husband and they all went in to dinner. Her Confessor, who was keeping as close to her as he could, kept reminding her that it was the eve of St John Baptist, a fast day. But Henrietta was young and hungry after the abstention of a rough sea passage and an interrupted breakfast. Moreover, her husband was carving pheasant and venison for her, and she ate heartily of both.

They went on then to Canterbury, but as they made to enter the royal carriage Madame de Saint-Georges, who was reluctant to leave her charge's side, was politely told by Charles that her rank did not permit her to ride by the Queen. In spite of Henrietta's appeal Charles was firm and Buckingham's wife, his mother, and the Countess of Arundel took their places in the royal coach. The villagers along the route turned out to greet them with cheering and the ringing of church bells. On Barham Down the King and Queen alighted to walk along the ranks of simple country people drawn up to wish them well. The French attendants, an onlooker reported, looked disdainfully on this English custom. But Henrietta performed her role admirably. After supper at Canterbury she was taken to her room by the Duchesse de Chevreuse. Charles followed and, when he was undressed, dismissed his two attendants and with his own hands pushed fast the seven bolts to the doors of the chamber. The following morning he lay abed until seven o'clock, which was late for him, and was found to be very merry and cheerful.

They journeyed to London by the route Charles had followed on his outward journey, going by river from Gravesend. The weather was bad, the plague deaths had mounted in London to a hundred in the week of the Queen's arrival, but everyone put on a brave show. The King and Queen were in green and kept the big window of their barge open, in spite of the rain, waving and smiling to the onlookers on shore and in the craft of all kinds and sizes which jostled for a view of the royal couple. Guns roared from the Tower of London as they

passed and from the ships of the fleet which accompanied them. A pleasure boat capsized but everyone was saved and the incident added to the merriment. And so they came to Denmark House, the much-loved home of Charles's mother, where his father had lain in state before his funeral and which Inigo Jones had restored for his wife. It was 16 June 1625 when Henrietta-Maria alighted there. At a ceremony in Whitehall Palace the following day her marriage was confirmed and declared to be lawfully and fully consummated and she was formally declared Queen.^[6]