The forgotten queen

On June 13th 1625, a young French princess walked into a church in Kent and emerged as Queen of England.  Henrietta Maria arrived in her future kingdom as a pretty, cultured woman who had already been used to commanding a court.  She left, 40 years later, as a largely unpopular woman who got little sympathy - even when her husband was executed during the Civil War that tore her adopted country apart in the 1640s.  In fact, there were plenty who blamed Henrietta Maria in part for the conduct of her husband in the conflict and who were willing to lay many of the problems of the Royalist faction at her feet.  Henrietta Maria is one of just a handful of women to have been wife to one king and mother to two more but in her lifetime she was, for some, a villain and now she is an unpopular queen that history has largely forgotten.

Henrietta Maria - Princess of France, Madame Royale and Queen of England

Many of Henrietta's problems as Queen of England came from her religion.  She was a Catholic and devoted to her faith.  From the very first moments of her reign, it set her at odds with many of the most important people at her new husband's court.  Charles had become king less than three months before his marriage and hadn't yet been crowned at the time of his wedding with Henrietta.  But her Catholicism meant she could not be crowned with her husband and her suggestion that a Catholic bishop carry out her coronation at the same time as her king's was rejected.  Henrietta was never crowned, despite reigning as consort for 24 years.  

Charles I preferred to call his wife by the second of her given names - Maria - and she was usually known as Queen Mary in her adopted country

She was soon widely criticised for her devotion to her faith but while the sixteen year old queen's actions - such as criticising a law that saw the eldest sons of Catholic families sent away from home to receive a Protestant education - were controversial, she was also a victim of circumstance.  England was still riven by religious dissent and the queen was an easy target for those who wished to criticise the Catholic faith.  It is perhaps understandable that these rows and controversies had no impact on Queen Henrietta who had grown up in the middle of religious wars.  Her father, Henri IV of France, had been baptised a Catholic but raised a Protestant and heavily involved in the religious wars that affected France in the late 16th century.  When he was left as the claimant to the French throne, he gave up his Protestant beliefs to embrace Catholicism with the famous line 'Paris is worth a Mass' attributed to him.  He issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598 which granted religious freedoms to Protestants but which won him many enemies.  His assassination, in 1610, when Henrietta was just months old led to a long regency by his wife, Marie de Medici.  The early life of this future queen was totally dominated by religious dissent.

Henri IV, King of France, 1589 - 1610

But other problems were of Henrietta's own making.  She had been raised at a lavish court and when she arrived to marry Charles I she came with a large entourage who all enjoyed luxurious lives.  The new queen carried on spending in an extravagent manner and soon ran up huge debts.  Her expensive tastes would win her more enemies as her reign progressed.  And her decision to spend large amounts of money on decorating the chapels she built in her private residences also caused problems.  But it was hard to tell Henrietta anything for one of her biggest problems was her strong sense of royalty.  

Henrietta Maria was one of England's most unpopular queens

In many ways, she was the wrong queen for the second Stuart king.  Charles I had been raised by a father who believed in the supreme power of monarchs.  As a result, Charles liked his own way and expected to get it as monarch.  And while Henrietta's father had had a popular touch that endeared him to his people, his youngest child had grown up in a very regal manner.  At the age of just ten, she had become the most important woman at the French court after the fall from power of her mother and the marriage of her sister.  As Madame Royale, she had commanded the women of the French court and her word was law.  When she arrived in England, aged 15, to marry her king and claim her crown she was already very sure of how a royal should be treated.  The combination of her unwavering belief in regality and her husband's own adherence to the idea that a king was always right would prove to be a dangerous one.

Henrietta Maria and Charles I with the future King Charles II and King James II in a portrait by Van Dyck

Because as the complex political situation in England that would lead to war and the temporary abolition of the monarchy began to take shape and the shadows of the battlefield loomed, Henrietta's influence over her husband grew stronger and together they headed into the beginnings of the Civil War with an unshakeable belief that they were right - and would prevail.  The queen went to Europe to raise funds for her husband's campaign, selling some of her jewellery to pay for troops, before returning to hold court in Oxford for several months in 1643.  The queen and her king were forced apart later that same year, while Henrietta was expecting their ninth baby, and circumstances became so bad in the following months that after the birth of a daughter, Henrietta left England again - little knowing that she would never see her husband again.  The queen set up a court in exile in Paris but her husband's campaign faltered and on his execution in 1649, the French princess who had commanded the court of her brother and had become a queen at fifteen she found herself short of money, friends, influence and power.  

Henrietta Maria by Lely

Henrietta Maria was just as unpopular when she finally returned to England following the restoration of the monarchy and the accession of her son who became Charles II in 1660.  Her attempts to convert two of her younger sons, James and Henry, to Catholicism hadn't helped her popularity and she was a largely ignored figure at court.  But around the time of Henrietta's death, Prince James did convert to Catholicism although it remained secret for several more years.  By then, Henrietta was back in France where she died in 1669.  She was buried at St Denis in Paris with her heart interred at the convent she had founded at Chaillot.  But sixteen years later, her dreams of a Catholic monarchy in England came true - if only briefly.  James succeeded his brother and ruled for three years until he was overthrown by his eldest daughter and son-in-law who became Mary II and William III - both were staunch Protestants.  Henrietta's whole life was touched by rows over religion and her legacy was the same.  Blamed for much during her reign, her life was never simple or easy.  But for all the drama she encountered, Henrietta Maria remains England's forgotten queen.