[Footnote 298: The opinion of Bossuet was probably derived from the Queen through Mme de Motteville: "... si la reine en eût été crue, si au lieu de diviser les armées royales et de les amener contre son avis aux siéges infortunés de Hull et de Gloucester, on eût marché à Londres, l'affaire était décidée, et cette campagne eût fini la guerre."--_Oraison funèbra de la reine d'Angleterre._] [Footnote 299: Du Perron: _Proces verbal de l'assemblie du Clergé_, 1645.] [Footnote 300: _The Spie_ (1643).] [Footnote 301: Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 243.] [Footnote 302: _Ibid._] [Footnote 303: "Declaratio servenissimi potentissimique principis Caroli magnae Britanniae, etc., regis Ultramarinis Protestantium Ecclesiis transmissa."--Dupuy MS., 642.] [Footnote 304: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 243.] [Footnote 305: Now Falmouth.] [Footnote 306: Francis Basset to his wife. Polwhele: _Traditions and Recollections_, Vol. I, p. 17.] [Footnote 307: _Mercurius Pragmaticus_, October, 1644.] CHAPTER IX THE QUEEN AND THE WAR II The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe Like a thick midnight fog mov'd there so slow He did not stay, nor go; Condemning thoughts--like sad eclipses--scowl Upon his soul, And clouds of crying witnesses without Pursued him with one shout. Yet digg'd the mole, and lest his ways be found Work'd underground Where he did clutch his prey. HENRY VAUGHAN 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.