Henrietta Maria, Queen, consort of Charles I, King of England, 1609-1669
Of those who mourned for Henrietta Maria it remains to say a few words. The
future history of her two sons and of her nephew, Louis XIV, is too well
known to need remark, except that it may be mentioned that James, in the
tardy repentance of exile, found much comfort and edification among the
nuns of Chaillot. The tragic fate of her daughter has already been referred
to. Henrietta of Orleans, in the bloom of a beauty which recalled that of
her mother, died at S. Cloud in the autumn of 1670, not without suspicion
of poison. The Earl of St. Albans[439] returned to London, where he spent a
drinking and card-playing old age, of which the most notable achievement
was the foundation of St. James's Square, by which means he may almost
claim the title of founder of modern West London, where Jermyn Street yet
preserves his name. Walter Montagu, his friend of many years, had a very
different fate. After the death of his three patronesses, the Queen of
France, the Queen of England, and the Duchess of Orleans, he was made to
resign the Abbey of S. Martin's, Pontoise. He returned to Paris and entered
the Hospital of the Incurables in the Rue de Sève.[440] "My lord," said an
English priest[441] of remarkable piety, who was waiting there for death,
as he saw the Abbé enter, "you are come to teach me how to die." "No, Mr.
Clifford," replied Montagu, "I have come to learn from you how to live."
In this calm retreat his last years flowed quietly away. He "only occupied
himself with the eternal years and with the practice of all the
vertues,"[442] said the chronicler of S. Martin's; but incidentally he was
able to render many services to the English colony in Paris, though his
cousin Ralph complained that he had grown "very ignorant and out of
fashion."[443] He died peacefully at the Incurables in February, 1677, and
his body was carried to S. Martin's, at Pontoise, of which he had been a
princely benefactor, to be buried in the chapel[444] of S. Walter, the
first Abbot of the house and his patron saint, which he had beautified at
great expense. Mother Jeanne, who still ruled over the Carmelites of
Pontoise, caused a Mass to be sung for his soul, and equal honour was paid
to his memory by the English Benedictine nuns of the same town. In Paris
another old friend was doubtless thinking of him, for in a retirement
almost monastical Madame de Chevreuse yet lived, one of the last of those
who had gathered at the brilliant Court of Charles I and Henrietta Maria.
* * * * *
Thus Henrietta Maria, Queen of England,
"Left love and life and slept in endless rest."[445]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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