Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
| Henrietta Maria | |
|---|---|
| Queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland; later queen mother (more...) | |
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| Painting by Anthony Van Dyck, c. 1633 | |
| Consort | 13 June 1625 – 30 January 1649 |
| Consort to | Charles I |
| Issue | |
| Charles II Mary, Princess Royal James II and VII Elizabeth of England Anne of England Henry, Duke of Gloucester Henrietta Anne of England |
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| Royal house | House of Stuart House of Bourbon |
| Father | Henry IV of France |
| Mother | Marie de' Medici |
| Born | 25 November 1609 Louvre, Paris |
| Died | 10 September 1669 (aged 59) Château de Colombes, France |
| Burial | Saint Denis Basilica, Paris |
Henrietta Maria (25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669), was Princess of France and Queen Consort of England, Scotland and Ireland (13 June 1625 – 30 January 1649) through her marriage to Charles I. She was the mother of two kings, Charles II and James II, and was grandmother to both William and Mary and Queen Anne.
[edit] Early life
Henriette-Marie de France was born the youngest daughter of King Henry IV of France and his second wife, Marie de Medici. As the daughter of the king, she was a Fille de France. She was the youngest sister of the future King Louis XIII of France. Her father was killed before she was a year old; her mother was banished from the royal court in 1617.
She was born at the Palais du Louvre and brought up as a Roman Catholic. This 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.
[edit] Marriage
They were married in person at St. Augustine's Church, Canterbury, Kent, on 13 June 1625. However, her religion made it impossible for her to be crowned with her husband in an Anglican service. Initially their relationship was cold. Henrietta Maria had brought many servants with her from France, all of them Roman Catholic, and all costing the King a lot of money to maintain. It is said that eventually Charles sent this retinue home, only allowing his teenage bride to retain her chaplain 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 wayward queen away.
Charles had intended to marry Maria Anna, a daughter of Philip III of Spain, but a mission to Spain in 1623 had failed. Perhaps this earlier disappointment explains why relations with his French bride were strained; every time the couple met, they started arguing and would separate, not seeing each other for weeks. When next they met, again they had to separate, because they could not stop arguing.
Henrietta Maria took an immediate dislike to George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, the King's favourite. However, after Buckingham's death in August 1628, her relationship with her husband, Charles I, improved and they finally forged deep bonds of love and affection. Her refusal to give up her Catholic faith alienated her from many of the 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, and, once he had reached maturity, did not share his father's sexual ambivalence.
[edit] Ancestors
| Henrietta Maria of France, Queen of England and Scotland | Father: Henry IV of France |
Paternal Grandfather: Antoine of Navarre |
Paternal Great-grandfather: Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme |
| Paternal Great-grandmother: Françoise d'Alençon |
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| Paternal Grandmother: Jeanne III of Navarre |
Paternal Great-grandfather: Henry II of Navarre |
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| Paternal Great-grandmother: Marguerite de Navarre |
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| Mother: Marie de' Medici |
Maternal Grandfather: Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany |
Maternal Great-grandfather: Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany |
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| Maternal Great-grandmother: Eleonora di Toledo |
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| Maternal Grandmother: Johanna of Austria |
Maternal Great-grandfather: Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor |
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| Maternal Great-grandmother: Anna of Bohemia and Hungary |
[edit] Issue
See also descendants of Henrietta Maria de Bourbon, 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] 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 to deflect a diplomatic approach to Spain and sought a coup to pre-empt the Parliamentarians. As 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 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 in Europe. 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.
[edit] Widow
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. Her financial problems were resolved by a generous pension. She founded a convent at Chaillot, where she settled.
Henrietta Maria died at Château de Colombes, and was buried in the royal tombs at Saint Denis Basilica near Paris.
[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 honor. Charles, having already honored himself and several family members in other colonial names, decided to honor 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.[1] Cape Henrietta Maria, at the western meeting of James Bay and Hudson Bay in Northern Ontario, is also named for her.
A less pleasant commemoration of her was the naming of the slave ship "Henrietta Marie", one of the many that carried slaves to what is now the United States. In 1701 she sank 35 miles off the coast of Key West after selling 190 slaves to Jamaica.
[edit] References
- ^ Stewart, George R. [1945] (1967). Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States, Sentry edition (3rd), Houghton Mifflin, 42-43.
[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
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
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Henrietta Maria of France
Cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty
Born: 25 November 1609 Died: 10 September 1669 |
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| British royalty | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Anne of Denmark |
Queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland 1625 – 1649 |
Succeeded by Catherine of Braganza |
| Vacant
Title last held by
Elizabeth Woodville |
Queen mother 1649 - 1669 |
Vacant
Title next held by
Alexandra of Denmark |
Annotations
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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. -
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.
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On the entry for 1 July 1662, Australian Susan noted:
Good information about the Queen Mother here:
http://www.answers.com/topic/henrietta-maria