There is, however, one sentence in an old biography of Henrietta which shows her youth in another and a sadder aspect. Young as she was at the time of her marriage, it appears that already she had had to learn the difficult art of adjusting her conduct to the requirements of Court factions and family dissensions.[4] Her childhood was cast in the stormy times which followed the removal of the strong hand of Henry IV. Her mother, whose lead she followed in the main, was a foolish woman under the domination of unworthy favourites, until by good fortune she fell in with Richelieu. It would be impossible to give here even an outline of the history of the events which in 1617 drove Mary de Medici in disgrace from her son's Court. It must suffice to point out that until her return in triumph in 1621 her little daughter had some difficulty in reconciling the respective claims of her mother and her brother, and in preserving the favour of both. It was not long after this return that negotiations for a matrimonial alliance with England were opened, and thereupon Henrietta became for the first time a person of political importance. Her mother learned to appreciate her wit and beauty, and Richelieu, whose reign was just beginning, looked upon her with interest as a co-operator in his schemes for the humiliation of the House of Austria and of the French Protestants, objects which he thought would be considerably furthered by the union of Henrietta with the heir of England. In due time two envoys-extraordinary arrived from England to carry out the negotiations for the marriage. They were both very fine gentlemen, but the elder, the Earl of Carlisle, who was a Scotchman and an able diplomatist, on whom most of the real work of the mission fell, was in social matters quite outshone by his junior, the Lord Kensington, shortly to become Earl of Holland,[5] who was the handsomest man of his time and accounted so fascinating that he was the despair of jealous husbands. He was a great connoisseur in female beauty, and was smiled upon by Madame de Chevreuse, the most brilliant woman of the French Court; but he was kind enough to approve of Henrietta, and he sent home to the bridegroom-elect such glowing accounts of her beauty as roused that rather cold person to a fever of expectation. She was, he wrote, "the sweetest creature in France. Her growth is very little short of her age, and her wisdom infinitely beyond it. I heard her discourse with her mother and the ladies about her with extraordinary discretion and quickness. She dances (the which I am a witness of) as well as ever I saw any creature. They say she sings very sweetly. I am sure she looks so."[6] To the Duke of Buckingham, who at this time entirely governed Charles' mind, he wrote an equally enthusiastic account, praising the Princess as a "lovely sweet young creature," who, if she was not tall in stature, was "perfect in shape."[7]