Henrietta Maria, Queen, consort of Charles I, King of England, 1609-1669
He found matters in bad case. The King was inflexible in his refusal to
come to terms, and the Queen, though she was still depressed and bitterly
angry with Buckingham, showed herself, since the cession which permitted
her to retain Madame de Vantelet and her old nurse, more reconciled to the
change. About her spiritual welfare the Ambassador expressed himself much
concerned, for she was surrounded by heretics, and in place of the
irreproachable ecclesiastics appointed by her brother she had been forced
to receive two English priests, by name Godfrey and Potter, who belonged to
a school of thought which in his eyes, and in those of the Bishop of Mende,
was little less than heretical, for they had both taken the oath of
allegiance, and they had both assured the Earl of Carlisle that they did
not belong to the Church of Rome, but to that which was Catholic, Gallican,
and "Sorbonique," an assertion which particularly enraged Bassompierre, who
saw in it an insult to the French Church and nation. He was probably little
more moved by the accusation brought against one of them by the Bishop of
bracketing together "the three Impostors, Mahomet, Jesus Christ, and
Moses."[58] Only one person showed any cordiality to the unfortunate
Ambassador. Buckingham, thinking on the Queen of France in Paris, felt that
he had gone too far, and decided that it would be well to conciliate
Henrietta. With this purpose he came secretly, through the darkness of the
night and attended only by his young friend Montagu, to wait on
Bassompierre. He complained bitterly of the hatred of which he was the
victim, and inquired plaintively whether M. de Mende were saying as many
disagreeable things about him on the other side of the Channel as he had
been wont to do in England. To the last question the polite Frenchman must
have found it difficult to frame an answer at once courteous and true, but
he promised to use his influence as intermediary with Henrietta, and he was
so far successful that the young Queen was induced to regard the Duke, at
any rate outwardly, with greater favour.
But the situation, as regarded its real objects, was foredoomed to failure.
Madame S. Georges, the Bishop of Mende, and the Fathers of the Oratory had
so prejudiced Charles' mind that he refused to receive Frenchmen, bishop or
religious, at the Court of his Queen. There was a deadlock, and
Bassompierre, who had made matters worse by his grave indiscretion in
bringing as his chaplain the Queen's late confessor, Father Sancy, with all
his diplomacy could do no more. He was indeed anxious to be gone. The
account of his embassy in England, which he included in his memoirs, is
penned in no flattering spirit towards this island, but the full irritation
of his feelings can only be gathered from the private letters which, during
his sojourn in London, he dispatched to the Bishop of Mende, who was with
Richelieu at Pontoise, watching the course of events.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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