II

If, at the time of her departure from England, Queen Henrietta Maria had been able to make choice of a book for her private reading and meditation, and if in that choice she had been guided by the most enlightened self-interest, she would perhaps have chosen a little pamphlet published in London in 1642. It was entitled A collection of Records of the great Misfortunes that hath hapned unto Kings that hath joyned themselves in a near allyance with forrein Princes with the happy successe of those that have only held correspondency at home.

Henrietta landed in France in the spring of 1644, and from that time until her husband's death her life was a continuation of that which she had led in Holland, namely, a perpetual struggle to gather together men and money—particularly the latter—to help on the cause of the King of England. For this she intrigued now with one foreign Prince, now with another, with the King of Denmark, with the Prince of Orange, with the Duke of Lorraine, the admirer of Madame de Chevreuse, the old enemy of Richelieu, with the Pope himself. The result was the undying hatred of a large section of the English people towards both her and her husband, and a growing distrust which had much to do with the King's final overthrow.

It is idle to blame her overmuch. It cannot be denied that hers were the mind and the will which impelled her husband along this fatal road; but he fell in gladly with her suggestions, and he was almost as eager as she for help from any quarter. She believed, moreover, that the Scotch rebels had set the example by intriguing with Richelieu, and she knew that the English Puritans had made it possible for an army of Scots, who at that time were looked upon almost as foreigners, to enter into England and to remain upon its soil. It would have required the brain of an Elizabeth to perceive that a king, by following such precedents, was courting disaster. Henrietta's brain, acute, lively, but never profound, was incapable of perceiving this. Besides, she was a Bourbon, and her simple political creed was identical with that of her husband: a King should be no tyrant, he should rule his people with justice and mercy; but it was his to command and theirs to obey, without asking questions as to matters with which they had no concern.

The exiled Queen spent some weeks at

Their healing influence, together with the care of some of the most distinguished physicians of France,[309] restored her to such a small measure of health as enabled her to turn her steps towards Paris. The kindness she had received since her arrival in her native land was a preparation for the magnificent reception which awaited her at the capital. Her brother, the Duke of Orleans, came out as far as Bourg la Reine to meet her, and was quickly followed by his daughter, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the richly dowered girl of whom Henrietta was already beginning to think as a possible bride for her eldest son. At Montrouge, on the southern outskirts of the city, the Queen of England received an even more distinguished attention, for there the Queen of France, accompanied by her two little sons, met her. Anne's kind heart was touched when she saw the sister-in-law from whom she had parted nearly twenty years earlier as a bride returning sad, sick almost to death, and bereft by ill-health and sorrow of the brilliant beauty which had then been hers. Forgetting the girlish unkindness which Henrietta had shown her in the past, remembering nothing but their common friends and enemies—Richelieu, Madame de Chevreuse, Jars, Montagu—the Queen of France took the Queen of England into her arms, and the two women clung together weeping and embracing. Then they climbed up into the royal coach, and Henrietta made the acquaintance of the little King, whose unexpected appearance in the world six years earlier had caused so much excitement, and of the still younger Duke of Anjou, "the real Monsieur" (as he was called in contradistinction to his uncle), who was one day to be her son-in-law. In such company there can have been no tedium in the long drive through the Rue S. Jacques, over the Pont Neuf, and through the Rue S. HonorÉ to the Louvre, where the kindness of Queen Anne had caused apartments to be prepared for the royal guest. That afternoon deputations from the city of Paris and from the various sovereign bodies waited upon Henrietta, and the ceremonies of reception were concluded a few days later by a State visit to Notre-Dame, where the Queen of England gave thanks to Heaven for her safe return to France through the ministry of the young Coadjutor Bishop of Paris, the witty and dissolute churchman who afterwards became famous as Cardinal de Retz, and who always retained a kindness for the exiled royal family of England.

Nothing could exceed the kindness and sympathy which were shown to the Queen, kindness all the more welcome because she was aware of the annoyance it would cause to her enemies. "I am so well treated everywhere that if my lords of London saw it, I think it would make them uneasy,"[310] she had written to her husband shortly after her landing in France. She was assigned a pension of 10,000 crowns a month, which enabled her to keep up a fitting establishment, and in addition to her lodgings at the Louvre she was given the ChÀteau of S. Germain-en-Laye, where she had played as a child, and where, half a century later, her son was to wear out a more desolate exile. Her own affairs prospered. Her health improved surely if slowly. She had the comfort of the presence of faithful servants—Jermyn, who acted as her secretary, Henry Percy and Lady Denbigh, who herself had tasted the full bitterness of civil strife in the death of her husband, who fell fighting for the King, and in the defection of her eldest son to the rebels, which sorrows bound her all the more closely to the Queen, who had shown the tenderest sympathy with her bereavement. Moreover, in Paris Henrietta found many friends. Familiar faces, indeed, were missed. The Bishop of Mende had not been given time to learn wisdom by experience, but had "made an angelical end" at the siege of Rochelle, dying in the same year as his enemy Buckingham. Madame S. Georges, who had found an honourable position as governess to the heiress of Montpensier, had passed away in 1643, and Louis XIII was gone, so that all his sister could do for him was to journey to S. Denys and to sprinkle his tomb with holy water. But old servants, such as the Bishop of AngoulÊme, were there to welcome her; and in the brilliant Paris of the day she came across not only friends of the past—M. de Chateauneuf, the Chevalier de Jars, and others—but new acquaintances, who soon became friends, of whom perhaps the most interesting was the accomplished Madame de Motteville, herself one of the band of exiles whom the death of Richelieu had brought back in triumph to the Court of France.

Nor did she fail to attract the exiles of England to her own Court, where she gathered round her some of the men of wit and learning whom the evil times had forced to quit their native land. Thither came "Master Richard Crashaw, Master of Arts of Peterhouse, Cambridge, well known for his excellent poems,"[311] who was introduced to the Queen's notice by a brother poet, Abraham Cowley, at this time Jermyn's secretary. It can hardly be supposed that Henrietta understood the highly difficult poems of the Cambridge mystic, but perhaps she talked with him of S. Teresa,[312] whose praise inspired some of his choicest work, and whom she herself had learned to love as a child among the Carmelites in Paris. Moreover, Crashaw was interesting as a recent convert to Catholicism. "Being a meer scholar and very shiftless,"[313] he was quite destitute in the French capital when he was found by Cowley, and he was delighted to accept Henrietta's hospitality. He dwelt nearly a year at her Court, making many friends by his talents and virtues, of whom the chief was Lady Denbigh. Her he exhorted, not without success, to follow his religious example, and to her he dedicated his book of poems, Carmen Deo Nostro, which was published after he had passed on to the Court of Rome, bearing a letter of introduction written to Innocent X by the Queen's own hand.[314] To the exiled Court of England came also another poet, Sir William D'Avenant, whose welcome was the warmer because he had been concerned in the army plot. At the Louvre he wrote the dreary verses of Gondibert, and dedicated them to Thomas Hobbes, that daring philosopher who had likewise found a refuge in Paris, where, apart from the turmoils of England, he was able to reflect upon those principles of government wherewith he startled the world a few years later on the publication of The Leviathan. To these literary refugees must be added English Catholic nobles, such as Lord Montagu, and ladies of the same persuasion, among whom was prominent the Dowager Countess of Banbury, a lady who, after a not irreproachable career in England, had settled down in Paris to enjoy the reputation of a rich dÉvote.

But no social pleasures and attentions could satisfy Henrietta, whose heart was with her struggling husband. "There is nothing so certain as that I do take all pains I can imaginable to procure you assistance, and am as incapable of taking any delight or being pleased with my being here, though I have all kinds of contentments, but as I hope it may enable me to send you help."[315] These words, written to the King on November 18th, 1644, were no idle sentiment; they are the truest epitome of her life in Paris.

The royal cause was balancing between hope and fear. The defeat of Marston Moor, on July 2nd, 1644, had been indeed a terrible blow, but new hope was infused into the party by the surrender of Essex in Cornwall, a victory peculiarly grateful to the Queen, who could not forget the Earl's ungallant conduct to her. The great need was men and money, and to procure these was the end of Henrietta's unremitting efforts. For this she carried on negotiations with the Prince of Orange, by means of an English Catholic named Stephen Goffe, for the marriage of Prince Charles with his daughter; for this she attempted to mortgage the tin mines of Cornwall; for this, above all, she carried on personally and through Jermyn long and weary negotiations with the Court of France.

France had not been unmindful of the difficulties of the King of England, or of the troubles which threatened the Queen; but great caution was used, and Gressy, who had shown too openly his partiality for the royal cause, was replaced by Sabran, who knew better how to trim between the two parties. It is probable that at the beginning of the struggle Mazarin desired the victory of the King, and it is said that up to 1644 the French Government gave as much as 300,000 crowns in money and munitions to aid him.[316] A letter of Goring,[317] Henrietta's agent in France, dated at the beginning of that year, which unfortunately fell into the hands of her enemies, spoke of the dispatch of a considerable quantity of arms, and gave a cheerful account of the kind words of the Queen-Regent and of Mazarin. Charles himself thought that a little French money and a little French influence would settle everything. His enemies were manifestly cast down, not only by the death of Richelieu, but by the accounts which reached London of the kind reception which had been given to the Queen. But, nevertheless, Henrietta was to find disappointment here as elsewhere. France was in no condition to give such help as would have sufficed for her needs. The country was overtaxed, and though the new reign was brightened by the Éclat of the victory of Recroy, at which the young Duke of Enghien, afterwards the great CondÉ, won his reputation, yet the war with Spain was a terrible burden. Moreover, in spite of the assertions of the Queen-Regent and her advisers that it was the means and not the will that was lacking, there is little doubt that the French Government was beginning to see in the English troubles a state of affairs highly satisfactory to itself. Besides, Mazarin certainly inherited from Richelieu a distrust of Charles and Henrietta. The Queen was specially distrusted. The English Catholics had not quite forgotten her French birth, but it was believed in France that they had inclined her to Spain, an opinion which was strengthened by the fact that up to the time of her leaving England two of her principal advisers were the Digbys, father and son,[318] who were well known to be pro-Spanish in their sympathies. Mazarin was quite aware of Henrietta's influence over her husband, and he hoped that her removal from his side would help to turn Charles' eyes from Spain.

And there were other and more personal reasons for Mazarin's distrust of the Queen of England. Henrietta, who was always too prone to believe that good diplomacy consisted in cultivating relations with all parties at once, allowed her ambassador Goring to meddle in the intrigues which grew up round Mazarin as they had round Richelieu, a fact of which the Cardinal, who had inherited a perfect system of espionage, was quite aware. By the time Henrietta reached France the power of the Importants was broken, and Madame de Chevreuse had again left the Court. The exiled Queen desired greatly to see her old friend, and without pausing to consider how imprudent was the appearance of any connection between herself and that factious lady, she asked her sister-in-law's permission to have an interview with the Duchess, permission which with all courtesy was refused, at the instance of Mazarin. The Cardinal, moreover, caused the Queen of England to be warned against others of her old friends, among whom may be mentioned M. de Chateauneuf, who had indeed escaped public disgrace, but who was known to be as inimical to Mazarin as ever he had been to Richelieu.[319]

Thus it came about that, in spite of the kind words and occasional assistance of the Queen-Regent and of Cardinal Mazarin,[320] Henrietta was less successful than she had hoped to be, and could by no means persuade Mazarin to an open breach with the Parliamentary party, whose strength he was beginning to appreciate. "I have not found the means of engaging France as forwardly in your interest as I expected," she wrote sadly to Charles. In 1645 she was informed that all the French Government could do for her was to permit her to make levies in the country (and she was so poor that it was thought she would not take advantage of the permission), and to make an appeal to the clergy of France on behalf of the necessities of the King of England.

Of this last grace Henrietta availed herself eagerly; but of all the many injudicious acts which she committed at this period of her life, this appeal to the clergy of a race and of a faith alien to those of her subjects was one of the most injudicious. The outburst of anti-Catholic rage which she had witnessed in England ought to have taught her prudence; but hers was not a mind to learn by experience. Moreover, she seems from the outbreak of the war to have looked upon the Puritans as irreconcilables who could only be subdued by force, and whom it was useless to attempt to propitiate. She thought also, and most erroneously, that they were but a small minority of the nation.

The Queen had recovered her spirits. Not only had Mazarin, in spite of his official refusals, sent her secretly a sum of money sufficient to raise her ever-ready hopes, but she expected great things from a growing friendship with Emery, the Deputy Treasurer and one of the richest men in France. To complete her satisfaction the clergy showed great sympathy with her, and sent her, on their first assembling, a sum of money as an earnest of more to come[321]; which money was immediately laid out in raising levies for England.

The assembly of the French clergy, which was presided over by the Cardinal-Archbishop of Lyons, the brother of the great Richelieu, met in May, 1645, but it was not until the February of the following year that the case of the Queen of England was seriously considered. Henrietta's advocate on this occasion was probably the best that could have been chosen. The Bishop of AngoulÊme during his sojourn in England had resisted in a really praiseworthy manner those foreign influences which had corrupted some of his fellow-countrymen who resided there, and he was perhaps regarded in Paris with greater favour than any other of the Queen's servants. He was, moreover, a speaker and preacher of repute, and the oration which he delivered before the Fathers of the Church was not only a fine piece of oratory, but was skilfully constructed to work as much as possible upon the feelings of his audience.[322]

He dwelt upon the miserable condition of the Catholic Church in England, which, before these troubles, had begun, after a century of persecution, to raise its head under the protection of the Queen. He asserted (what was true) that were the King forced to make terms with his foes, the Catholics would be the scapegoat. He drew lurid word-pictures of the terrible consequences to the Church throughout Europe should the impious rebels succeed in their object of setting up a Puritan republic in England. Then he turned to the even more powerful argument of self-interest. The Huguenots, he said, who were beaten down but not destroyed, were looking across the Channel to the Puritans of England, whose real design was the destruction of the Catholic Church as well in France as in their own land. To help forward this project of the Evil One large sums of money were being dispatched by the French Protestants to aid the armies of rebellion in England.[323]

cried the good Bishop, hoping, not without reason, to arouse the fears of his audience; for it was only twenty years since the fall of Rochelle, and the revival of the power of the Huguenots, which it had required the strong hand of Richelieu to repress, was an ever-present terror to the French Catholics. But Du Perron was not content with such arguments. He was able to make a statement which he hoped would tell much in favour of the cause he was advocating. He declared that the King of England had promised in writing to his wife that if he were restored by Catholic help he would repeal every law against the Catholics on the statute book,[324] and the Bishop added that he was at liberty to make this statement, as its purport was already known to the Puritans through the interception of the King's letter. That Charles made this promise there is no reason to doubt; that had cause arisen he would have broken it, as he broke others, is in the highest degree probable.[325] Perhaps the French bishops knew the man with whom they had to deal, perhaps they were instructed by Mazarin, whom they were too well trained not to consult. Be this as it may, the results of the eloquence of the Bishop of AngoulÊme were disappointing, even though he enforced his arguments by descriptions of the piteous condition of Henrietta and of her children, "the grandsons, the nephews, and the cousins of three of our Kings." The clergy of France did not feel able to offer to the Queen of England more than a few thousand crowns, "a somme fitter to buy hangings for a chamber than prosecute a war,"[326] as a newswriter of the day said.

But disappointed as the Queen was, she quickly turned to other hopes and schemes.

Ever since the Irish rebellion of 1641 Puritan scandal had linked Henrietta's name with that of the rebels. The accusation as it stood was ridiculous, but the Confederate Catholics,[327] as the Irish in arms called themselves, certainly hoped something from the Catholic Queen, and in 1642 they presented to her a petition, in which they begged her "Hester-like intercession to our most gracious Prince." They heard with sympathy of her arrival in Paris, and again dispatched a letter to congratulate her on that event.

She, on her side, regarded the Confederate Catholics as rebels in arms against their lawful King; but she had a certain sympathy with them as the victims of Puritan intolerance, and she thought, like her husband, that it might be possible to turn their arms against worse enemies. With this end in view she carried on negotiations with a certain Colonel FitzWilliams, whom she found in Paris, and for the same purpose she cultivated the acquaintance of the agent of the Confederate Catholics in that city, Father O'Hartegan, the Jesuit.

This patriot, who was of a type not uncommon in his native land, was greatly pleased at the notice of the Queen of England, whom he believed to be on the point of starting for Ireland. He also thought, on account of some slight attention shown to him by Mazarin,[328] that France, which up till now had shown herself very cool to the necessities of the persecuted Irish Catholics, and had even, by the mouth of the Cardinal, lectured them on their lack of loyalty to their sovereign, was about to do her duty by them. "What is needed," remarked the Jesuit modestly, "is 200,000 crowns out of hand, with a good store of arms and ammunition, and promise of yearly favour."

O'Hartegan had reason for his good spirits. His glib tongue recommended him where he was not too well known, and he was caressed by the English Catholics in Paris and by Jermyn, who was the more entirely satisfactory to deal with, inasmuch as he had no religious scruples of any kind. Moreover, the affairs of the Confederate Catholics were going very well in Rome.

When Henrietta had been but a short time in France, the news of two deaths arrived, that of Elizabeth, Queen of Spain, and that of Maffeo Barberini, Pope Urban VIII.

The Queen of England had long ceased to be in close touch with her sister,[329] but it was thought that she would be greatly distressed at the death of the Pope, for the Barberini had always been considered her friends. But it may be that she was not altogether displeased. Any change in the personnel of the European Courts meant a fresh chance for her schemes; and though Urban had been kind enough to send her 25,000 crowns, which she, or perhaps her husband, acknowledged from Oxford in 1643,[330] yet he had shown himself somewhat callous to her larger claims, and it was perhaps not unknown to her that Cardinal Francesco, in spite of his often-repeated professions of friendship, had been the first foreign prince to contribute to the necessities of the rebellious Confederate Catholics. The new Pope, Innocent X, was believed to favour Spain as his predecessor had favoured France, but Henrietta had not lived for nearly twenty years among the English Catholics without having learned to consider this an advantage rather than otherwise in religious negotiations. She determined to send an envoy to Rome, ostensibly to congratulate the Pope upon his accession, and O'Hartegan learned that her choice had fallen upon her old friend Sir Kenelm Digby.

There are few more picturesque figures in the history of the time than that of this gentleman: a scholar who was welcome among the learned of all nations, a chemist who was half scientist, half charlatan, a naval commander who had brought home stories even more remarkable than the majority of travellers' tales, it is not surprising that he should have attracted the attention of the Queen, who liked brilliant people. She may perhaps also have been touched by the strange story of his love, which had bound him in affectionate marriage to a woman who had been the acknowledged mistress of another man. But she ought to have known better than to send him to Rome. Not only was he a vain and undependable person—a teller of strange tales, as even the courteous Evelyn described him—but the religious vacillations and experiments which had made him unwelcome a few years earlier to Urban VIII were not likely to commend him to Innocent X, who would be less attracted by his learning and accomplishments than his scholarly predecessor. The English Catholics in Paris who opposed the appointment were wiser than could be understood by Henrietta; she added to her mistake by permitting the envoy who was going to Rome on an international mission, and who above all should have shown himself strictly impartial between the rival factions of English Catholicism, to take upon him before leaving Paris the charge of advancing at the Papal Court the interests of the Chapter, which, after the banishment of the Bishop of Chalcedon, claimed ecclesiastical authority in England, whose pretensions were resolutely opposed by the regular and some even of the secular clergy.[331]

And Sir Kenelm had hardly reached Rome when the need for help became more pressing than ever, for the 14th of June of that same year was the day of Naseby.

It was a crushing defeat, and after it the royal party never really rallied. Henrietta, in her unconquerable hopefulness, thought that now, at her extremity, France would come effectually to her aid; but Mazarin feared to offend the Puritans more than he feared their dominance, and the old weary round of intrigue was pursued with the same lack of result. Even an offer from which the Queen hoped much, made to her by the Duke of Bouillon, of raising troops for England round Cologne, came to nothing, because the Cardinal believed that the real intention of Bouillon was to use these men in the interests of Spain.

And Naseby was more than a military defeat. On that fatal field, through some misfortune or negligence, fell into the enemy's hand the papers of the King.[332] Nothing more unfortunate could have occurred. The secrecy of these letters, which were shortly published in London with choice comments, was worth more to Charles and Henrietta than men or money. Their publication betrayed the schemes in which the Queen had been spending her strength for winning back England by foreign troops or by foreign gold. It revealed how greatly the King was under the influence of his wife, and how deeply she was compromised with the hated Irish. Most disastrous of all, it showed how at the very time that he was promising to support the Protestant religion and never to permit Catholicism, he was secretly giving her authority to pledge his word for the complete toleration of the hated religion. He stood revealed as what he was, a shifty and untrustworthy man. After Naseby Charles was never trusted again.

Henrietta probably did not appreciate the magnitude of the disaster, and she turned again cheerfully to the tortuous intrigues from which she hoped so much.

At first it seemed as if Sir Kenelm Digby's mission would be successful. The smaller Italian princes to whom he appealed he found indeed "a frugal generation," but the Pope received him with great kindness, and appeared charmed by his flow of persuasive eloquence and by the piety and fascination of his manners. He even gave him an order for 20,000 crowns, to be used in arms and munitions of war, which the Queen of England gratefully acknowledged from S. Germain in September, 1645.[333] So far so good, but neither she nor her agent knew the odds against which they were fighting. Henrietta always believed that her husband's leniency to the Catholics during his years of power had given him a claim upon the gratitude of the whole Catholic world. She also knew better than any one else what the hatred of the Puritans to her co-religionists really was, and what their domination might mean. But at Rome matters were looked at in another light. A certain interest was taken in Charles, and considerable sympathy was felt for his unhappy wife; but neither were trusted. Henrietta was believed to be guided by heretics, and even, through their influence, to have been in the past "a powerful instrument for the destruction of the Catholics and of the Catholic religion";[334] while Charles was disliked as a heretic, and his failures to keep his word—his persecution of the Catholics in 1626, his desertion of Strafford and the like—were reckoned up against him with pitiless accuracy. As he had been in the past so no doubt would he be in the future. It cannot be said that it was a misreading of Charles' character which led the Pope and his advisers to think that he would have taken the money of the Church and then thrown over the Catholics, if by doing so he could further his own interests. And there were other and better claimants in the case. Hopes at Rome were rising high with regard to Ireland. Urban VIII, in 1628, had thought it would be a nice arrangement for all concerned if that island were handed over to the Holy See. Innocent X's designs were not quite so far-reaching, and he recommended loyalty to the King of England; but he thought that it might be possible to coerce a faithless and heretic Prince by means of the Confederate Catholics. Moreover, that body, which had agents all over Europe, was fortunate enough to have in Rome a representative as able and effective as Sir Kenelm Digby was the reverse, in the person of Father Luke Wadding, of the Order of St. Francis. This friar left Ireland when he was a boy of fifteen, and he never saw again his native land; but throughout a long life which he spent roaming about the Continent he preserved a fervid Hibernian patriotism, of which the effects are felt to the present day.[335] At this time he was living in Rome, and any slight feeling of loyalty to the King of England which he may have once possessed had long ago been lost in the desire to see his faith and his race triumph over the hated oppressor. It was he who had prevailed upon Cardinal Francesco Barberini to send money to Ireland, and though he had not been able to rouse the cautious Urban VIII to any considerable effort,[336] he prepared with undiminished hope to use all his influence to win over Innocent X, from whose Spanish sympathies he augured the happiest results.

And indeed it was largely owing to the representations of this Irish friar that, in the summer of 1645, while Sir Kenelm Digby was still fÊted in Rome, an envoy on his way from the Pope to the Confederate Catholics appeared in Paris bearing a large sum of money, which the indefatigable Wadding had amassed for the use of the faithful in his native land.

Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo, was a worthy ecclesiastic of middle age. It is said that he was appointed to this delicate mission to pleasure the Grand Duke of Tuscany, whose subject he was. He had, however, a certain interest in the British Isles, because as a young man he had been associated with a Scotch Capuchin, by name George Leslie, of whom he wrote an edifying biography, which may be considered an early example of religious romance.[337] Clarendon stigmatizes him as a "light-headed envoy," but the epithet is hardly happy as applied to this stern, unbending Churchman, whose unalterable determination it was that the money of the Church should not be squandered to further the interests of a heretic sovereign. In this respect, indeed, he followed with fidelity the instructions given to him which dwelt upon the necessity of the strongest guarantees of real benefit to the Catholics before money was advanced to the King of England, and which altogether would have been instructive, if not pleasant, reading for Charles and Henrietta.

The Queen was indeed already beginning to repent of her overtures to the Confederate Catholics,[338] for in the early part of the year some letters of O'Hartegan had fallen into the hands of the Roundheads, who caused them to be printed. These letters spoke disrespectfully of her, and showed how cheaply the Jesuit held the advantage of the King, so that Charles, who was wont to feel great indignation at every one's self-seeking and shiftiness except his own, wrote to his wife that the agent was "an arrant knave."[339] Rinuccini's arrival in Paris made matters worse. Henrietta was a Catholic, but she was a queen also, and it was an insult to which she could not tamely submit that the Pope should send an envoy to those who, after all, were rebels in arms against her husband. She wrote a dignified letter of remonstrance to Innocent, and she refused to receive Rinuccini except as a private person, a condition which the ambassador, one of whose strongest characteristics was his personal vanity, declined to accept.

The poor Queen was indeed in a mesh from which there was no escape, and she knew not how to carry out the task of so settling the affairs of Ireland that the King might be able to draw troops therefrom. She desired to make peace between Ormonde, her husband's Viceroy, and the Catholics, and her difficulties were such as attend all persons who, being in authority, are obliged to seek at one and the same time the help of representatives of opposing interests. Rinuccini, seeing her under the influence of Protestants, concluded, not unjustly on his own premises, that the duty of the Holy Father was to turn a deaf ear to her entreaties for aid, and to send such moneys as he could afford to the Confederate Catholics, whose loyalty to the Holy See was not compromised by any inconvenient devotion to a heretic Prince. Out in Rome Sir Kenelm was begging and praying for help, unconscious of the fact that the envoy was warning the Pope against him, and asserting, probably with some truth, that the rosy pictures which he drew of the intentions of the King of England with regard to the Catholics were greatly over-coloured. The Confederate Catholics in Ireland were waiting eagerly for the coming of Rinuccini, and had little desire to help the King of England, except in so far as such help would conduce to the realization of their chief object, the emancipation of Ireland from the hated foreigner.

Rinuccini, after a considerable delay in Paris, whence he wrote many letters to Rome expressing his views with great frankness upon the Queen of England and her advisers, pushed on to Ireland, where, far from making peace with Ormonde or with any one else, he set everybody by the ears—not a difficult task, it is true, in that island—and ended by excommunicating most of the Confederate Catholics themselves. Steps were taken by some of the victims to find out the opinion of the Sorbonne as to the validity of this sweeping ecclesiastical censure.

Meanwhile, in Paris, Henrietta was dragging on her old life of intrigue and disappointment. The presence at her side of Jermyn, whose great influence over her was generally remarked,[340] was not in her favour, either with the extreme Catholics, who disliked him as a heretic, or with the French, who considered him, with justice, to be a man of mediocre ability, and who were pleased to see that the Queen, in spite of her subservience, could sometimes assert her will against his. The French Government was becoming more and more afraid to provoke the Puritans, whom Mazarin feared to throw into the arms of Spain. The defeat of Naseby, whose importance the Queen and her friends vainly endeavoured to minimize, was followed by the hardly less disastrous day of Philiphaugh, when Montrose was overwhelmed by an army of the Covenant. Thus the year 1646 broke in gloom and despondency, which were not lightened when a scheme of the Queen's for the invasion of England by French troops was discovered by the interception of her letters.[341] In the spring affairs had so far advanced that Charles, with a confidence rendered pathetic by the event, gave himself up into the hands of the Scots, the true compatriots of a Stuart King.

For a moment there seemed to be hope, and it is possible that Charles might have recovered his crown had he been able to accept unreservedly the Covenant. His refusal to give up the Church of England, which was one of the most respectable acts of his life, brought upon him remonstrances, entreaties, and almost anger from his wife, to whom all Protestants were heretics alike. She even sent D'Avenant to him to represent her wishes on the subject; but Charles, with a violence he did not often show, drove the hapless poet from his presence with an intimation that he was never to enter it again. Mazarin at this time seems to have desired the King's restoration by means of an accommodation, though, owing to the ever-present fear of Spain, he would not openly assist him. He could not repress his scorn for the man who could throw away his crown for such a bagatelle as the Church of England. In fact, he frankly owned that he could not understand Charles. The latter had granted concessions which compromised his kingly dignity; why make a fuss about a trifle which, nevertheless, if conceded, might restore him to power? The Cardinal urged the French ambassador in England to do all he could to bring the King to reason; but the latter, who was becoming very sceptical as to the friendship of the French,[342] was not likely to listen. The chance was lost, and Charles soon found himself a prisoner in the hands of the English Presbyterians. His countrymen, to whom in the days of his power he had shown favour not always in accordance with his own interests, had sold him to his enemies.

Once again, a year later, there was a lifting of the clouds. In 1647 it became evident that the Puritan party was growing weary of the Presbyterian tyranny. As is commonly the case in revolutions, wilder and stronger spirits were crowding out the more moderate reformers who had begun the battle. The Independents, to whom in large measure the victories of Marston Moor and Naseby were due, had control of the army, and the great figure of Cromwell, which soon was to bestride England like a Colossus, was coming to the front. In the late spring it seemed as if Charles and the Presbyterians might come to terms. On June 4th a deputation from the army waited on the King at Holmby House, where he was imprisoned, took possession of his person, and carried him off to Newmarket.

The Independents showed great respect for their royal prisoner, and it seemed as if they would be willing to make an accommodation with him. Henrietta, in Paris, whither all news was quickly carried, thought with her usual hopefulness that at last, at the darkest hour, the day was dawning. There happened to be at her Court two gentlemen who seemed well fitted to act as intermediaries between Charles and the Independents; one of them, Sir John Denham, the bearer of a name which is still remembered in English literature, had improved a sojourn in prison by making friends with that worthy army chaplain Hugh Peters, who was closely connected with the Independent leaders; the other, Sir Edward Ford, was Ireton's brother-in-law. These two slipped across the Channel, and they were permitted to see the King; but whether the Queen did not feel much confidence in her envoys (and, indeed, Denham was a rash and headstrong man who died insane), or whether her restlessness would not permit her to cease from fresh attempts to improve her husband's position, she determined to send another emissary of higher standing to intermeddle in this delicate negotiation.

Just at this time Sir John Berkeley, who had distinguished himself during the war as Governor of Exeter, was returning from Holland, whither he had been to express the Queen's condolences on the death of the Prince of Orange. He was almost unknown to Henrietta personally, but she was aware of his reputation for loyalty and good sense, and she knew also perhaps that he was regarded with respect by the enemy; he had hardly arrived at S. Germain-en-Laye, where she was keeping her Court, when he accidentally fell in with one of her servants, Lord Culpepper.

"You must prepare for another journey, Sir John," said the latter; "the Queen designs to send you into England."

Berkeley, as is not surprising, was rather taken aback. England was the last place to which he desired to go; he knew none of the Independent leaders, and, as he justly remarked, it was a pity to send over too many of the King's servants to share in the places and preferments which those worthies hoped to keep for themselves; but Culpepper waived these objections aside. "If you are afraid, Sir John," he said contemptuously, "the Queen can easily find some one else to do her business."

No man of spirit could bear such an imputation. Berkeley, against his better judgment, set off to add another to the long list of the Queen's diplomatic failures.[343]

Another failure more personal and even more bitter was awaiting her.

In the first days of 1646 Sir Kenelm Digby appeared in Paris; he was immediately received by the Queen, and "he got three hours' conference with her and in end she seemed to be verie well pleased."[344] It appears that he brought with him for the Queen's consideration and the King's confirmation a document which he had drawn up in Rome and which had been provisionally accepted by the Pope, though a copy had been sent to Rinuccini for such emendations as he might think fit. By these articles Innocent agreed, in return for the abolition of the Penal Laws in England and the public establishment of Catholicism in Ireland, to make a grant, 100,000 crowns; but in his distrust of Charles he provided that the money should not be paid to the Queen until the King had carried out the provisions with regard to Ireland. It was further agreed that Irish troops under Catholic leaders should be taken into the King's service in England.[345]

It is hardly likely that either Charles or Henrietta relished these articles, which showed plainly enough how deeply they were distrusted at Rome, and which required so much before they could touch a penny of the coveted money. Perhaps the King was indignant with Sir Kenelm for suggesting such terms, for it was probably against his wishes that the knight, after the failure of his negotiations, was again dispatched to Rome in the autumn. He carried with him, however, the undiminished confidence of the Queen,[346] and by October he was fixed at the Papal Court waiting for the help which never came.

And, indeed, his chances of success were even slighter than before; he was, it is true, the most accomplished cavalier of his time—"the Magazine of all arts," as he was called. Distinguished foreigners who visited the Eternal City came to see him, and went away quite fascinated by his stores of learning and by his agreeable conversation; had he been dropped from the clouds on to any part of the world he would have made himself respected, said his admirers. Yes, retorted the Jesuits, who did not love him, but then he must not remain above six weeks; the trouble was that he had been in Rome a good deal more than six weeks. The Pope was tired of his endless talk and was beginning to think that he was mad, which perhaps was not far from the truth; his folly in mixing up matters of high policy concerning the King and Queen of England with an affair of purely ecclesiastical interest, such as the recognition of the Chapter, was commented on, and the extraordinary bitterness which both he and his friends displayed towards their opponents, among whom were the powerful religious Orders, was not in his favour; his position was further injured by his intimacy with Thomas White, a learned but eccentric priest then in Rome, who, afterward the elaborator of a theory of government which, like that of Hobbes, was believed to be a bid for the favour of Cromwell,[347] was already regarded with suspicion by the orthodox as unsound both in theology and philosophy; finally, the envoy suffered by the absence of Francesco Barberini, who had withdrawn from Rome. The Cardinal had not, it is true, been a very faithful friend[348] to the Queen of England, but in spite of occasional lapses he felt a certain interest in English affairs which might have counteracted in some measure the Irish influence brought to bear upon the Pope. Nor was it only Sir Kenelm who was out of favour; his cousin George Digby, through whose hands passed the negotiations of the King and Queen with the Irish, was industriously misrepresented by Rinuccini, while there were those who did not scruple to insinuate that the Queen required money for her private purposes, and that Jermyn, the heretic Jermyn, would have the spending of it. So greatly was the Pope influenced by these scandals that even those who favoured Henrietta and who would gladly have seen the Holy See unite with France to restore the King of England thought that Digby's best policy would be to plead for a grant of money for Ireland; but this course was prevented by the extraordinary conduct of Rinuccini, which has been already referred to, and which caused great wrath in the school of Catholics to which Digby belonged. It would be well, wrote White bitterly to Sir Kenelm, if the Pope could send into Ireland "such orders, or rather such a man, that may conserve the peace and seek more after the substance than after the outside of religion."[349]

Thus affairs stood in Rome at the crisis of 1647.

As early as 1645 it was believed that the Queen was inclined towards the Independents through the influence of Henry Percy and of Father Philip, who were suspected of communication with the leaders of that party;[350] in matters of religion they were less rigid than the Presbyterians; they possessed some glimmering of the idea of toleration, and they even showed some disposition to favour the Catholics. When in 1647 they gained the upper hand, Henrietta believed that the moment had come at last when the Catholics would be able to hold the balance between the King, the Presbyterians, and the Independents, and with the favour of the latter to win the long-hoped-for liberty of conscience, carrying with it the repeal of the penal laws. Never, it was thought, had the Catholics had such a chance since the days of Mary. Charles, characteristically, wished to keep out of sight in the negotiations. "You must know," wrote an English Catholic to Sir Kenelm Digby in August, 1647, "at last not only the Independents, but the King himself do give us solid hopes of a liberty of conscience for Catholics in England in case we can but gain security that our subjection to the Pope shall bring no prejudice to our allegiance towards his Majesty or that state; it is true the King will not appear in it, but would have the army make it their request unto him; and so I understand he hath advised the Catholics to treat with the army about it, and the business will be to frame an oath of allegiance."[351]

The Catholics carried on negotiations with Sir Thomas Fairfax;[352] the rationale of the penal laws had always been the suspicion that the recusants held opinions subversive of the State and indeed of all social life, and it was to overcome this difficulty that Three Propositions were drawn up by the Catholics "importing that the Pope and Church had no power to absolve from obedience to civil government or dispense with word or oath made to heretics or authorize to injure other men upon pretence of them being excommunicated."[353] It was intimated that if the Catholics, by subscribing these opinions, could "vindicate these principles from inconsistency with civil government,"[354] the penal laws would be repealed and liberty of conscience granted.[355]

It is no wonder that the English Catholics were in high spirits. The more moderate of them who were weary of being considered bad subjects for principles which they did not hold were glad to testify their loyalty not only to the Independents, but to the King, who had always been suspicious of it; a large number of Catholics came forward to sign the negative of the Three Propositions,[356] among whom were members of the religious Orders, even of the Society of Jesus, and well-known laymen, such as the Marquis of Winchester, whose defence of Basing House had won the admiration of the whole Royalist party, and Walter Montagu, who, though he was still in prison, was allowed to intermix in the negotiation.

Out in Paris the Queen, who had spent her life trying to persuade her husband of the unimpeachable loyalty of her co-religionists, was doing her part. In July, even before the Three Propositions were drawn up, she put further pressure upon Rome for aid; there were men, there were munitions, all that was needed was money; surely in such a crisis to gain all that was at stake the Holy Father would supply it. She sent her instructions to Digby and waited in hope.

Sir Kenelm pressed with all his eloquence the needs of the Catholics and their great opportunity. Perhaps the Pope was a little overwhelmed by his flow of words, for he requested him to put his arguments on paper; Digby, nothing loath, drew up memorials, of which the burden was always the need of money to enable the Catholics to take an influential part in the settlement which was believed to be pending. He descanted upon the hopes raised by the unexpected revolt of the Independents, who wished to destroy the Presbyterians and to favour the Catholics. The latter were exhausted by years of war and persecution, but if the Holy Father would only show a timely liberality they could so intervene as to bring about not only their own salvation, but that of their co-religionists in Ireland, thus saving the Pope the great expenses he was incurring on behalf of the Confederate Catholics. Moreover, by such conduct he would give proof that by sending Rinuccini to Ireland he had had no desire but the good of religion; if he refused the Queen's request, added Digby impressively, it would mean the ruin of religion, both in England and Ireland.

Innocent may have given some attention to Digby's arguments, but probably at no time did he think of acting upon them. The reputation of the envoy, which was not improved by his disrespectful, if just, criticisms of the methods of the Papal Court, told heavily against his requests. Moreover, the Queen herself was little trusted, particularly in Irish affairs, for she was believed to put the interests of her husband above those of religion, and to favour unduly Lord Ormonde, to whom (in the vain hope of bringing about an accommodation between him and the Confederates) she had recently sent an agent, by name George Leybourn,[357] who, though a Catholic priest, belonged to a very different school of thought from that of the fierce Rinuccini. Besides, the recent events in England were prejudicial to Henrietta's interests in Rome.

The negotiation of the Three Propositions was considered a private matter, but it came to the ears of the Pope. Innocent probably was aware that it was to a great extent managed by a section of the secular clergy, who, perhaps from their close connection with the intellectual society of Paris, held Gallican views of so extreme a type that they would gladly have settled the matter without reference to Rome, and who saw in the whole affair a nice opportunity of getting rid of their enemies the Jesuits, whom they thoughtfully suggested should be excluded from the general toleration; indeed, one of the chief supporters of the scheme was a priest named Holden, who was a great friend of Sir Kenelm Digby and Thomas White, and who had long been noted for the extravagance of his opinions.[358] This gentleman, now resident in Paris, wrote encouraging letters to his co-religionists in England, assuring them that their attitude on the questions raised by the Three Propositions was that of all the learned and judicious men of France. It is true that some of the more timid English Catholics, notwithstanding such encouragement, became alarmed, and wrote an exculpatory letter to the Holy Father, in which they informed him that the denial they had given to the Three Propositions was "in, the negative to theyr affirmative who presented them unto us, not absolutely in theyr negative, for that had indeed intruded further upon the Pope's authority than the subscribers were willing to doe."[359] But even such refinements could not save the conduct of the English Catholics from condemnation at Rome, where the deposing power was not so lightly to be parted with. Thus it is not surprising that Henrietta waited for a reply from the Pope with the heart-sickness of hope deferred. She did not know, what had long been confessed among the initiated, that the Holy Father's chief object was the success of the Confederate Catholics,[360] to whom in the spring of that same year he had sent, together with his paternal benediction, the sum of 50,000 crowns. In September she took up her ever-ready pen and wrote herself to Innocent, a sad letter, in which she speaks of her devotion to the Catholic faith, and of the good intentions which had not been seconded as they should have been. It is not known whether the Pope replied to these reproaches, but a month later he received Sir Kenelm Digby once again, though he was probably aware of the fact that that gentleman was hand-in-glove with those whom he had censured in England.

That gentleman's temper had not been improved by his long trials; the last memorial[361] which he drew up, which was to a great length, is extremely acrid in tone. It dwells with justice upon the services which the Queen had rendered to the Catholic Church, upon the fair hopes which had been blighted by the war. It speaks of the ill reception accorded to her friends—among whom are mentioned Richard Crashaw and Patrick Cary, the brother of Lord Falkland—at the Papal Court. Finally, it dwells with particular and not unmerited bitterness upon the conduct of Rinuccini, who, it was believed, had a secret commission to separate Ireland from England. It happened that just about the time of the presentation of this memorial the hopes of toleration for the Catholics in England disappeared as suddenly as they had arisen, for the two Houses of Parliament voted that religious liberty should not extend to the toleration of Papists;[362] but even had this untoward incident not occurred, Digby can hardly have expected much from the Pope. The answer came at last in March, 1648, and it was cold and decisive. The Holy Father would have liked to help the Queen of England, but seeing no hope of the success of the Catholics, he felt that he could not indulge his inclination.[363] Sir Kenelm shook the dust of Rome off his feet and left it more convinced than ever of what he had written a year previously, that no one could succeed at the Papal Court without money and influence, and that "piety, honour, generosity, devotion, zeal for the Catholic faith and for the service of God, with all other vertues, heroic and theological,"[364] were banished thence. Henrietta would perhaps hardly have endorsed this comprehensive indictment; but she was bitterly disappointed, and she was incapable of perceiving that from his own point of view Innocent was right in refusing money, of which such Catholics as Sir Kenelm Digby[365] and his friends would have had the spending. On larger principles also the papal policy was justified. The idea of founding a solid toleration for Catholics upon the basis of a union of the King and the Independents was chimerical, for those among the Puritans who favoured the scheme were but a small minority of advanced views, and even they, it seems, soon repented of their liberality. Even had Charles been trustworthy (and in this, as in other cases, he paid the penalty of his incurable shiftiness), the anti-Catholic feeling of the nation, which had been one of the chief causes of the war, would never have permitted the antedating by more than a century of the repeal of the penal laws, and had the guarantees been given they would assuredly have been broken. With regard to Ireland, the Queen is perhaps less to be blamed. She knew that the Confederate Catholics hoped much from her, and she could not know that Rinuccini, the envoy of the Holy Father, was using all his influence against her, or fathom the depth of the malice which led him to write that "from the Queen of England we must hope nothing except propositions hurtful to religion, since she is entirely in the hands of Jermyn, Digby, and other heretics."[366]

*****

"He perished for lack of knowing the truth," said Henrietta once of her husband, with a flash of insight not often given to her. That which was true of Charles was true of her also; she was her father's daughter, and she desired to know the truth, and she was accustomed to say that the chief need of princes was faithful counsellors who would declare it to them; but to such knowledge she could not reach. Her schemes, with all their ingenuity, failed one after another because she was unable to grasp the conditions in which she worked, or to read the motives and characters of the people with whom she had to deal. She lived in a world of unreality built up of the love which she bore to her husband, which made her as unable to understand that the restoration of Charles Stuart to the throne he had lost was not the main object of the diplomacy of Europe, as she was to appreciate the fact that such negotiations as those which she, the Queen of a Protestant country, carried on with the Pope and the Catholics of Europe were more fatal to him than the swords or the malice of his enemies.