Henrietta-Maria Stuart (Queen Mother)

Wikipedia

Henrietta Maria of France (French: Henriette Marie de France); (25 November[1] 1609 – 10 September 1669) was the Queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I.

She was the mother of two kings, Charles II and James II, and was grandmother to Mary II, William III, and Anne of Great Britain.

[edit] Biography

Like her elder sister Elisabeth, Henrietta Maria was known to be quite attractive in her youth.

Henrietta Maria was the daughter of King Henry IV of France (Henry III of Navarre) and his second wife, Marie de' Medici. She was born at the Palais du Louvre on 25 November 1609, but some historians give her a birthdate of 26 November. In England, where the Julian calendar was still in use, her date of birth is often recorded as 16 November. Henrietta Maria was brought up as a Roman Catholic. As the daughter of the Bourbon king of France, she was a Fille de France and a member of the House of Bourbon. She was the youngest sister of the future King Louis XIII of France. Her father was assassinated on 14 May 1610, in Paris, before she was a year old; her mother was banished from the royal court in 1617.

After her older sister Christine Marie married Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy, in 1619, Henriette Marie took on the highly prestigious style of Madame Royale; this style was used by the most senior royal princess at the French court.

[edit] Marriage

Henrietta Maria as a young princess of France

She first met her future husband in Paris, in 1623, while he was travelling to Spain with the Duke of Buckingham to arrange his marriage with the Infanta Maria Anna of Spain. Charles' trip to Spain ended badly, however, as King Philip III of Spain demanded that he convert to Roman Catholicism and remain in Spain for a year after the wedding as a sort of hostage to ensure England's compliance with all the terms of the treaty. Charles was outraged, and upon their return to England in October, he and Buckingham demanded that King James declare war on Spain.

Searching elsewhere for a bride, Charles looked to France where the attractive Henriette Marie lived at the court of her brother and was still unmarried by 1625. However, her religion made her an unpopular choice of wife for the English King, whom she married by proxy on 11 May 1625, shortly after his accession to the throne.

They were married in person at St. Augustine's Church, Canterbury, Kent, on 13 June 1625, but her Roman Catholic religion made it impossible for her to be crowned with her husband in an Anglican service.

Initially their relationship was rather frigid and argumentative. Henrietta Maria had brought a large and expensive retinue with her from France, all of them Roman Catholic. It is said that eventually Charles sent them home to France, only allowing his teenage bride to retain her chaplain and confessor, Robert Phillip, and two ladies in waiting. Finding her sadly watching the retinue depart for France at the window of a palace, Charles angrily and forcibly dragged his recalcitrant queen away.[citation needed]

Henrietta Maria took an immediate dislike to Buckingham, the former King's favourite. However, after Buckingham's death in August 1628, her relationship with her husband improved and the two finally forged deep bonds of love and affection. Her refusal to give up her Catholic faith alienated her from many of the English people and certain powerful courtiers such as William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury and Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. Charles, on the other hand, had definite leanings towards Catholicism. He also did not share his father's sexual ambivalence.

[edit] English Civil War activities

Henrietta Maria increasingly took part in national affairs as the country moved towards open conflict through the 1630s. She despised Puritan courtiers and sought a coup to pre-empt the Parliamentarians[citation needed]. As civil war approached, she was active in seeking funds and support for her husband, but her concentration on Catholic sources like Pope Urban VIII and the French angered many in England and hindered Charles' efforts. She was also sympathetic to her fellow Catholics and even gave a requiem mass in her private chapel at Somerset House for Father Richard Blount, S.J. upon his death in 1638.

In August 1642, when the conflict began, she was on the continent where she continued to raise money for the royalist cause, and did not return to England until early 1643. She landed at Bridlington in Yorkshire with troops and arms, and joined the royalist forces in northern England, making her headquarters at York. She remained with the army in the north for some months before rejoining the King at Oxford. The collapse of the king's position following Scottish intervention on the side of Parliament, and his refusal to accept stringent terms for a settlement led her to flee to France with her sons in July 1644. Charles was executed in 1649, leaving her almost destitute.

She settled in Paris, appointing as her chancellor the eccentric Sir Kenelm Digby. She angered both Royalists in exile and her eldest son by attempting to convert her youngest son, Henry, to Catholicism. She returned to England following the Restoration in October 1660 and lived as 'Dowager Queen' and 'Queen Mother' at Somerset House in London until 1665 when she returned permanently to France. After her son's restoration, she travelled to England where Pepys, on 22 November 1660, met her and described her as a 'very little plain old woman, and nothing more in her presence in any respect nor garb than any ordinary woman'.

Her financial problems were resolved by a generous pension. She founded a convent at Chaillot, where she settled.

In 1661, she saw her youngest daughter Henrietta Anne[2] marry the Duke of Orléans, only sibling of Louis XIV; that marriage made Henrietta Maria the maternal line great-grandmother of Louis XV of France and as such, an ancestor of the present-day Juan Carlos I of Spain, as well as the Duke of Parma and reigning Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

In August 1669, she saw the birth of her grand daughter Anne Marie d'Orléans; Anne Marie was the maternal grand mother of Louis XV making Henrietta Maria an ancestor of most of today's royal families.

Henrietta Maria died at the château de Colombes[3][4], near Paris, and was buried in the French royal necropolis at the Basilica of St Denis. As a member of the French royal family, her son-in-law, the Duke of Orléans, was also buried there in 1701.

[edit] Commemoration

The U.S. state of Maryland was named in her honour by her husband, Charles I. George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore submitted a draft charter for the colony with the name left blank, suggesting that Charles bestow a name in his own honour. Charles, having already honored himself and several family members in other colonial names, decided to honour his wife. The specific name given in the charter was "Terra Mariae, anglice, Maryland". The English name was preferred over the Latin due in part to the undesired association of "Mariae" with the Spanish Jesuit Juan de Mariana.[5] Cape Henrietta Maria, at the western meeting of James Bay and Hudson Bay in Northern Ontario, is also named for her.

The slave ship Henrietta Marie (which carried slaves to what is now the United States and sank 35 miles off the coast of Key West after selling 190 slaves to Jamaica in 1701) was also named after Henrietta Maria.

Family

A mural commissioned around 1670 by the Duke of Orléans, Henriette Marie's son-in-law; It shows the House of Bourbon in around 1670; (L-R) Henrietta Maria, Dowager Queen of England, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, her son-in-law; her granddaughter Marie Louise of Orléans (later Queen of Spain); the Duchess of Orléans Henrietta Anne Stuart (d. 1670); Anne of Austria (d. 1666); Henriette Marie's nieces, daughters of Gaston, Duke of Orléans; Louis XIV, Louis, le Grand Dauphin; the Queen of France Maria Theresa of Spain with her third daughter Marie-Thérèse de France; Philippe-Charles, Duke of Anjou; the far right is Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier. The picture frame with the two children are the other two daughters of Louis and Maria Theresa who died in 1662 and 1664.

[edit] Ancestors

[edit] Issue

See also descendants of Henrietta Maria de France, which maps how the Medici became part of the European Royal families, eventually leading to Prince William of Wales, future King of the United Kingdom.

[edit] Titles, styles, honours and arms

[edit] Titles and styles

Arms of Henrietta Maria of France[7]

• 25 November 1609 – 13 June 1625 Her Highness Princess Henriette Marie of France[8]
• circa 10 February 1619 - 13 June 1625 Madame Royale [9]
• 13 June 1625 – 30 January 1649 Her Majesty the Queen
• 30 January 1649 – 10 September 1669 Her Majesty the Queen Mother

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• A short profile of her alongside other influential women of her age: http://www.guide2womenleaders.com/womeninpower/Womeninpower1600.htm
• British Civil Wars Page Biography
• Decision Most Deadly Historical novel set in England, 1641 during the build up to the English Civil War

[edit] See also

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Annotations

• N David Quidnunc on Tue 25 Nov 2003, 12:41am. Flag this

• N helena murphy on Thu 27 Nov 2003, 11:43am. Flag this

  Henrietta Maria was born in France on November 25th 1609,the daughter of Marie de Medici and the pragmatic Henry of Navarre after whom she was named.The daughter of reigning sovereigns she was destined from birth to marry a king and in 1625 on May 11th she married Charles I,King of England,Scotland,Ireland and France.(English sovereigns still lay claim to the French crown in this period.)In England she was simply known as Queen Mary.
  The early years of her marriage to the austere Charles were not happy due above all else to his emotional dependence on George Villiers,first Duke of Buckingham and court favourite.Tragically for the King but fortuitously for Henrietta he was brutally stabbed to death in Portsmouth by an embittered unemployed officer,John Felton.Sensitive to her husband’s loss she stepped in and filled the emotional void in his life and from thence grew an unrivaled love and bond amid an ever increasing family,Henrietta having given birth to nine children in all,the youngest Princess Henrietta being born in Exeter On June 16th,1644 in the throes of the English civil war.
  The court painter,Sir Antony Van Dyck captures the serenity and happiness of the Queen as a fulfilled wife and mother.In his portraits from the 1630’s before the political storms ,her gorgeous floor length dresses,magnificent pearls and elegant grooming create an allusion of fragile beauty which was sadly to vanish in the turbulent years ahead .Christopher Hibbert writes “she was too eager and vivacious to be considered plain;her face always expressive of some emotion,of excitement,sorrow,happiness or anger,was appealing in its responsiveness and childish condour.”(Charles I P.84)
  The 1630’s were also the years when Charles ruled without parliament and he and his French wife held sway over the glittering vibrant Caroline Court.Whitehall,where the King kept open house was a fascinating centre of artistic achievement and performance.Magnificent masques created by Inigo Jones,Ben Jonson and D’avenant took place there,the Queen herself participating in “The Queen’s Pastoral”by Walter Montague,her almoner.Unfortunately theatricals infuriated the puritans and caused William Prynne to write that “women actors are notorious whores.”This was seen as an insult to the Queen and consequently Prynne was put in the pillory and had part of his ears sliced off!
  Henrietta’s overt and unapologetic Catholicism made her even more unpopular in England.She did not try to win English hearts with cups of tea and by practising her faith quietly as Catherine of Braganza so successfully did after The Restoration.According to Henrietta’s marriage contract she was allowed her own private chapel,which she built in Somerset house and had her own Catholic household.She did her utmost to ease life for the Roman Catholic minority in England,a body of men and women who lived cautiously in the shadows,eternal victims of social and political suspicion especially after the controversial gunpowder plot of 1605.
  Her courage and commitment were no less evident in the years of the civil war when Henrietta was both armsdealer,gunrunner and generalissima for her husband and the royalist cause.
  On July 14th 1644 she sailed from Falmouth to France hoping to assist her husband from overseas,but instead she endured all the poverty of an exile.Cardinal de Retz calling on her in The Louvre in the depths of winter was appalled that she was too poor to even have a fire and promptly sent her firewood.Her lack of means however did not prevent her from taking a tough stance with her son Charles whom she insisted should pay for his food and board.Still a loyal son he rode beside her carriage to protect her from the angry Parisien mob when they had to leave the Louvre due to the political upheaval of the Fronde.
  The saddest day of her life came when Henry Jermyn gently told her of the King,s execution.She stood for an hour”deaf and insensible” and only when her childhood friend Francoise de Vendome fell weeping at her feet did she too mourn in tears,for she had lived with the hope that Charles would be rescued.
  She returned to London in 1660 and worked on her son Charles II to restore the Irish Catholic gentry and nobility to their estates which they had lost during the interregnum. In this she was incredibly successful as Randal MacDonell,Marquis of Antrim,along with O’Hara,Macguire,MacCarthy,O’Neill,Talbot,Butler,Mountgarret and many others were all restored to their hereditary lands.
  Pepys was not alone in disliking Henrietta Maria. He even peevishly claimed that she lobbied on behalf of the Earl of Antrim who was childless so that he would leave his vast patrimony to an illegitimate daughter of hers and Henry Jermyn. There is absolutely no historical evidence for this assumption and the earl’s brother Alexander became his heir.
  Henrietta in her uncompromising religious faith was akin to Catherine of Aragon,in her high handed treatment of her sons she resembles the Medieval Eleanor of Aquitaine and in her love for her husband the 19th century Victoria. She died on September 9th 1669 and was buried in St.Denis but her heart was placed in a silver casket and buried in Chaillot.It bears the inscription:Henrietta Maria,Queen of England,France,Scotland and Ireland,daughter of the King of France Henry IV the Victorious,wife of Charles I the Martyr and mother of the restored Charles II.
  sources; Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms,the career of Randal Macdonnell,Marquis of Antrim by Jane Ohlmeyer,
  Henrietta Maria, by Alison Plowden,
  Lord Minimus, by Nick Page and Charles I,by Christopher Hibbert.

• N helena murphy on Thu 27 Nov 2003, 08:10pm. Flag this

  The unflattering description of Henrietta Maria taken from Nix’s annotation of November 22nd was made by eleven year old Princess Sophie, the daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia in her memoirs which she wrote many years later when she was married and had become Duchess of Hanover.She however qualified her statement by telling her aunt of her “beautiful eyes,a well shaped nosed and an admirable complexion.”Sophie was of course the mother of the future George I.

• N Alan Bedford on Sat 2 Jul 2005, 01:54pm. Flag this

  On the entry for 1 July 1662, Australian Susan noted:

  Good information about the Queen Mother here:
  http://www.answers.com/topic/henrietta-maria
  

References in the diary

1660

Oct: 6, 16, 22, 28, 30, 31
Nov: 2, 3, 20, 22, 25, 27
Dec: 26

1661

Jan: 1, 2, 11, 27
Feb: 7

1662

May: 12
Jun: 20
Jul: 1, 28
Sep: 7
Nov: 10, 22
Dec: 30, 31

1663

Jan: 21
Feb: 17
Apr: 25
May: 8
Jul: 13
Nov: 6

1664

Feb: 22
Jul: 20
Aug: 26
Oct: 18

1665

Jan: 21
Mar: 20
Jun: 29
Sep: 13

1666

Oct: 18
Nov: 25
Dec: 24

1667

Feb: 12