[Footnote 15: Part of the song with which Henrietta was greeted at Amiens on her wedding journey. See pp. 20, 21.] [Footnote 16: Destroyed in February, 1831.] [Footnote 17: Cf. Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_: Prologue. A good Wif was ther of byside Bath * * * * * Sche was a worthy womman al hire lyfe Housbondes atte chirche dore hadde sche fyfe.] [Footnote 18: George Goring, Baron Goring, 1628, Earl of Norwich, 1644; d. 1663.] [Footnote 19: At some point in the ceremony Henrietta Maria renounced all her rights to the throne and dominions of France, as had been stipulated in the marriage treaty.] [Footnote 20: The dispensation is dated December, 1625.] [Footnote 21: They are smaller, part of them having been built over.] [Footnote 22: MS. Français, 23,600.] [Footnote 23: L'Entrée superbe magnifique faite à la Royne de la grande Bretagne dans la Ville d'Amiens, le Samedy septisme de Juin, 1625. Sur les fideles relations d'un seigneur de qualité. A. Paris, MDCXXV.] [Footnote 24: _Ibid._] [Footnote 25: On the question of the authorship of this letter see Avenal: _Lettres de Richelieu_, VIII., p. 27. There seems no doubt that it was written by Bérulle. Among the Bérulle papers (Archives Nationales, M. 232) is an authenticated copy, whose note of authentication states that "ce discours à este composé par nostre très révérend père" (i.e. Bérulle), as the copyist was informed in 1660. Bérulle in 1627 wrote another letter for Mary de' Medici to send to her daughter. See chap. IV.] [Footnote 26: Sir Tobie Matthew. Tanner MS., LXXII.] [Footnote 27: _Ibid._] [Footnote 28: Tanner MS., LXXII, 40.] CHAPTER II THE BRIDE OF ENGLAND Parents lawes must beare no weight When they happinesse prevent. And our sea is not so streight, But it room hath for content. WILLIAM HABINGTON Long years after the events occurred, when many happy years had softened the memory of their bitterness, Henrietta Maria confessed to her friend Madame de Motteville that her early married life had not been free from disappointment and vexation. Charles Stuart was not an easy man to live with, as all those who had much to do with him found out. He was moral, conscientious, in many respects admirable; but he was oppressed by a sense of his own importance, he was entirely without humour, and he was convinced that he was always, on all occasions, in the right. He did not, as many royal husbands, break his marriage vow, but he treated his girl-wife with a harshness which fell little short of unkindness, and that though she was ever anxious to do her duty and he was always sincerely a lover.