“It was this match,” adds Dr. Kennet, “that began to corrupt our nation with French modes and vanities; which gave occasion to Mr. Prynne to write that severe invective, called Histriomastix, against stage plays; to betray our councils to the French court; to weaken the poor Protestants in France, by rendering ineffectual the relief of Rochelle; nay, and to lessen our own trade and navigation. These ill effects, beyond the king’s intention, raised such a jealousy, and spread such a damp upon the English subjects, that it was unhappily turned into one of the unjust occasions of civil war, which indeed began more out of hatred to that party, than out of any disaffection to the king. The people thought themselves too much under French counsels, and a French ministry, or else, they could never have been drawn aside into that great rebellion. This interest when suspected to prevail, brought the king into urgent difficulties; and in the midst of them the aid and assistance, which that interest offered him, did but the more effectually weaken him. On this side the water the French services betrayed him; and on the other side, the French policies were at work to betray him.” And, indeed, as queen Henrietta had a mighty, if not a supreme sway over King Charles’s councils, so did her mother, Mary de Medicis, who came over by her invitation, administer great cause of jealousy to this nation. “The people,” says L’Estrange, “were generally malecontent at her coming, and wished her farther off. For they did not like her train and followers, which had often been observed to be the sword of pestilence, so that she was beheld as some meteor of evil signification. Nor was one of these calamities thought more the effect of her fortune than inclination; for her restless and unconstant spirit was prone to embroil all wheresoever she came. And besides, as queen Henrietta was extraordinary active in raising money among the Roman Catholics of this kingdom, to enable King Charles to make war against his subjects of Scotland, so was she extreme busy in fomenting the unhappy differences between his Majesty and his English Parliament.” Sir John Reresby, in his Memoirs, asserts that queen Henrietta Maria was married after the king’s death to Lord St. Alban’s. “The abbess of an English college in Paris, whither the queen used to retire, would tell me,” says Sir John, “that Lord Jermyn, since St. Alban’s, had the queen greatly in awe of him, and indeed it was obvious that he had great interest with her concerns; but that he was married to her, or _had children by her, as some have reported_, I did not then believe, _though the thing was certainly so_.”