metamorphoses of goddesses: henriette marie de france (1609–1669)When the fifteen year-old French pr
metamorphoses of goddesses: henriette marie de france (1609–1669)When the fifteen year-old French princess Henriette Marie de Bourbon landed at Dover in June 1625 — after an unfortunate twelve-hour channel crossing which later resulted in a by-word in the Stuart family as “Mam’s ill luck at sea” — to join her husband Charles I, no one had thought it necessary to teach the new queen of England even a few words of English. The Dover castle was too Medieval, England was too unwelcoming, and her bridegroom too unimpressive: his manner awkward and stiff. What wasn’t a good start to begin with was soon to be worsened — Henrietta refused to be crowned with the king, and the marital discord reached a climax when Charles sent her French retinue back to France.Shortly after the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, king’s all-powerful favourite, however, the matters improved dramatically — Charles immediately transferred his emotional dependence to his wife, and one of the greatest love stories of English history began to unfold. For the next ten years, with a doting husband at her side, Henrietta could afford to ignore the Puritan disapproval over her perceived extravagance and frivolity. “…not only had I every pleasure the heart could desire;” she wrote later to Madame de Motteville, “I had a husband who adored me.” However things changed with frightening speed in the early 1640s, when Charles was finally forced to summon the parliament, and the Catholic queen became the target of a sustained and ugly campaign of vilification.Early in 1642, Henrietta Maria went to Holland, taking her own and king’s personal jewellery, together as many of the crown jewels as she could, and spent a year haggling with pawnbrokers and arms dealers as she strove to raise money and supplies for the upcoming conflict. Landing back on to the Yorkshire coast after enduring appalling storms at sea, she had to take shelter in a ditch while cannon balls fell all around and a man was killed not twenty paces from her. Henrietta was later to tell Madame de Motteville that during the early years of the Civil War, as the she-majesty generalissima, having got a fine army together, she had put herself at the head of her troops and marched towards the king, always on horseback, ‘sans nulle délicatesse de femme’, and living among the soldiers as she imagined the great Alexander must have lived with his; how she had picnicked with them outside in the sunshine, with no ceremony, treating them like brothers.Passionate in her loves and hates, in spite of her many all-too-obvious faults, there can be no denying the courage and steadfastness of this ardent, warm-hearted, and fiercely protective woman, who, once had told her husband, ‘there is nothing in the world, no trouble, which shall hinder me from serving you and loving you above everything in the world’. Her life at the Caroline Court, then said to be the ‘most sumptuous and happy in the world’, saw her generous patronage of the many, among whom were Inigo Jones, Ben Jonson, and Anthony van Dyck.— Henrietta Maria: Charles I’s Indomitable Queen, Alison Plowden -- source link
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