Henrietta Maria, Queen, consort of Charles I, King of England, 1609-1669
"I hide myself as much as I can in order to write to you. I am treated as
a prisoner, so that I cannot speak to any one, nor have I time to write
my miseries nor to complain. Only, in the name of God, have pity on a
poor prisoner in despair, and do something to relieve my sorrow. I am the
most afflicted creature in the world. Speak to the Queen my mother about
my miseries, and tell her my troubles. I say good-bye to you and to all
my poor officers, and I charge my friend S. Georges, the Countess, and
all my women and girls, that they do not forget me, and I will never
forget them, and bring some remedy to my sorrow, or I die.... Adieu,
cruel adieu, which will kill me if God does not have pity on me.
"[Ask] Father Sancy to pray for me still, and tell Mamie that I shall
love her always."[51]
Such a letter was not calculated to soothe the excitable Bishop of Mende,
whose spirit had already been roused to fury by hearing the cries and
protestations of the poor young mistress whom he was not permitted to see.
But it was little he could do. His captivity at Somerset House was broken
in upon by the King of England himself, who, with the unfortunate desire
for explanation which was always his, was anxious to point out with his own
mouth to those whom it most concerned the reasons of his action. According
to the Bishop, who occupied his leisure in writing angry letters to the
King of France and the Queen-Mother, Charles acknowledged that he had no
personal fault to find with his wife's servants, but said that it was
necessary, to content his people and for the good of his affairs, that they
should be expelled. This admission, which, if it ever existed outside the
mind of the Bishop, was intended as a courteous softening of unpleasant
truths, did not prevent the King from adding a command (which was obeyed)
that all the French were to be gone within four-and-twenty hours.[52] It
was perhaps some solace to them that before their departure a considerable
sum of money and costly jewels were distributed among them.
It remained to bring Henrietta, who was still weeping angrily in her
apartments, to a state of calm more befitting the Queen of England. Charles
was not cruel, and when the first flush of anger was over he could feel for
his wife's grief. At first he had determined that all the French, whether
lay or ecclesiastic, should go. "The Queen has been left neither confessor
nor doctor, and I believe that her life and her religion are in very grave
peril,"[53] wrote the Bishop. But Charles, though he was not to be moved by
such innuendoes, relented in some degree. In the end one of Henrietta's
ladies, Madame de Vantelet, was permitted to remain with her, and two of
the priests of the Oratory were granted like indulgence; one of whom was
the pious and sagacious Scotchman, Father Robert Philip, who continued the
Queen's confessor until his death, years later, in the days of the
exile.[54]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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