Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/120

106 his service. With these he set sail, to reach as soon as possible his army of French and German mercenaries, on the borders of the Palatinate. But the French, who had agreed to allow this force to pass through their territory, refused, on account of their disorderly character; for they were the scum of their own country, and several, on their march through it, had been hanged for their outrages. Mansfeldt conducted them to the island of Zealand, but there the authorities were equally averse to their landing; and whilst remaining cooped up in small miserable transports, in bad weather, and on a swampy shore, they began to perish of fever. Five thousand of them had died before they reached the borders of the Palatinate, and the united force was still too feeble to accomplish anything. Maurice of Orange, meantime, having done nothing at Antwerp, retired into winter quarters, and soon after died at the Hague; whereupon the earl of Southampton and other English officers returned home. Such was the miserable result of the campaign into which James had been hurried by the folly of Charles and Buckingham.

The melancholy thoughts of James were diverted from dwelling on these miserable affairs by the prospect of the marriage of Charles and Henrietta Maria, the youngest sister of the king of France.

It was a curious fact at the time of Charles's looking out for a wife from one of the principal houses of Europe, that the prospect of an English royal marriage was made gloomy by the most awful reflections to both France and Spain. The last Spanish queen of England was Catherine of Arragon, who had found such a tyrant in the sanguinary Henry VIII., and suffered divorce and severe usage; the last French queen was Margaret of Anjou, who had been driven from the country after the most heroic endeavours to maintain her husband on the throne. Besides these sombre memories, the question presented formidable difficulties from the temper of the English people regarding popery. Politically the alliance was attractive, and this is generally all-sufficient in regal matrimony. But it was singular that the present marriage with a French princess was followed by similar and even more fearful results than the former. Henrietta Maria married Charles only to engage in a similar contest for the retention of the throne as Margaret of Anjou, and not only to see her husband deposed, but put to death.

Charles is supposed by many to have been struck by the young princess of France at his visit to the French court on his way to Spain, and that he went there prepared to break off the match. It is probable, however, that the thought of Henrietta came back more strongly upon him after he found himself disappointed in Donna Maria of Spain; for independent of the other difficulties already related attending Charles's Spanish courtship, it is very likely that he was not extremely fascinated by the Infanta. On the way to Spain, Henrietta, as seen by him, was merely a girl of little more than fourteen years of age, of short stature, and seen but for a brief space. The impression which she left could not be very vivid; but the queen of France, the elder sister of Donna Maria, was strikingly beautiful, and, as Charles himself said, in his letters to bis father at the time, had so much struck him, as to inspire him with a greater desire to see her sister." There can be little doubt that Charles was disappointed in his expectation, for he was of that romantic turn that had he been strongly fascinated by the lady, he would have broken through all difficulties for her sake. But at the court of Spain he met with another queen, the sister of Louis of France and of Henrietta, who not only cast the Infanta into the shade by her beauty and grace, but actually suggested to Charles the more desirable union with her sister of France. The rigid etiquette of the Spanish court prevented much intercourse betwixt Charles and the queen; she dared not even converse with him in French without express permission, and that one opportunity obtained, she begged him never to speak to her again, for that it was the custom in Spain to poison all gentlemen who were very marked in their attentions to the queen. But she seized that one opportunity to say that she wished he would marry her sister Henrietta, which indeed he would be able to do, because his engagement with the Infanta would be certainly broken."

On the other hand, there was a decided desire in the French court for this alliance, spite of past experience. Mary de Medici, the queen-mother of France, had acquired a predominating influence in the government of her son Louis XIII., by means of her clever and intriguing almoner, Richelieu, who soon mounted into vast power in the state. She entertained a strong hope of effecting a marriage for her daughter with the heir of England, and was no doubt early informed of the probability of the failure of the Spanish courtship. It was soon conveyed to Charles by the English ambassador at Paris, that Henrietta had said, "The prince of Wales need not have gone so far as Madrid to look for a wife." This following the suggestion of the queen of Spain, left no doubt of the wishes of the court of France, and the bait seems to have been soon taken. Buckingham would certainly promote the idea to spite the Spaniards; and Henry Rich, lord Kensington, appeared in Paris before the Spanish match was formally broken off, to open the subject to the queen-mother.

The object of the envoy was instantly divined, and the Spanish ambassador exclaimed at court, "How! does the prince of Wales, then, mean to wed two wives, since he is nearly married to our Infanta?"

Mary de Medici, though extremely anxious for the marriage, played the part of the politician well under Richelieu, and gave no decided encouragement to the hints of the English envoy, till he assured her plainly that the match with Spain was positively broken off. Even then, she assured lord Kensington that "she could not consider the matter seriously, as she had received no intimation of such proposal from the king of England, and that the princess could not make advances; she must be sought." On this Kensington spoke out on authority, and received a favourable answer. We are assured that a great sensation was excited at the French court, and the ladies crowded round lord Kensington to have a new of the prince's portrait, which he carried in a locket; and the locket was soon privately borrowed by the princess, and kept for a good long observation, she expressing her satisfaction with the looks of the royal lover. Kensington, by his courtly assiduity at Paris, and his letters to Charles, endeavoured to create a strong personal interest in the prince and princess towards each