Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/125

] of these affairs were not such as defied the efforts of a wise king, who had the protestant states of Germany and Holland in his favour, and was on the point of an intimate alliance with France. It was equally true that Charles had made an enemy of Spain, but the rupture there was not of a kind which defied the application of a wise and conciliatory policy. We shall be called upon, however, to observe how quickly and how irremediably the froward and headstrong spirit of Charles and his supercilious favourite, Buckingham, excited almost universal hostility towards him.

At home, though there was the most entire submission to his right to reign, and the state of parties was such that there demanded no immediate change of executive, yet there were at work feelings and principles which required the nicest wisdom to estimate their nature and their force, and the most able policy to deal with them. The battle betwixt prerogative and popular rights had to be fought out, and all depended on the capacity of the monarch to perceive what was capable of modulation, and what was immovable, whether the result should be success or ruin. Charles was equally prepared by his father's maxims, his father's practice, and his habit of favouritism, to convert one of the grandest opportunities in history into one of the most terrible of its catastrophes.

The first thing which augured ill for him was his continuing in the post of chief favourite and chief counsellor, the vain, incapable, and licentious Buckingham. It is very rarely that the favourite of a monarch continues that of his successor; but Buckingham had been made to feel that the old king's faith in him was shaken, and he had assiduously cultivated the good graces of the heir-apparent. His recommendation of the personal journey to Spain, was precisely the thing to captivate a chivalrous but not very profoundly percipient young man. In this journey Buckingham, with all his folly, sensuality, and audacity, had managed to seize a firm hold on the affectionate and tenacious nature of the prince; and his blind regard for him outlasted counsels of folly, and deeds of wickedness and weakness, which would have ruined him a score of tunes with a more sagacious patron.

The first matter to which Charles turned his attention was his marriage with the princess Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII. of France, the contract for which was already signed. The third day after his accession, he ratified this treaty as king, which he had signed as prince. The pope Urban, as we have stated, seeing that he could not prevail on the royal family of France to give up the marriage with the heretic prince of England, at length had, through his nuncio, delivered the breve of dispensation.

Louis of France, the queen-mother, the bride, Gaston, duke of Orleans, and the duke of Chevreuse, Charles's proxy, signed the document with the English ambassadors, on the 8th of May, 1625, and the marriage took place on a platform in front of the ancient cathedral of Notre Dame on the 11th. That stately old fabric was hung with rich tapestry and tissues of gold and silver for the occasion. From the palace of the archbishop of Paris to the church, a gallery was erected on raised pillars draped with violet satin, and figured with golden fleurs-de-lis. A great procession marched from the Louvre to the archbishop's palace, and thence through this gallery to the church. First went Chevreuse, as representative of the king of England, arrayed in black velvet, and over it thrown a scarf glittering with roses composed of diamonds. The English ambassadors followed next, and after them walked the bride, wearing a splendid crown of England; her brother the king conducting her on the right hand, and her younger brother Gaston, the duke of Orleans, on the left. Her mother, Maria de Medici, followed her, and next to her Anne of Austria, the queen-consort, in a robe bordered with gold and precious stones, and her long train borne by princesses of the house of Conde and Conti. Marie Montpnsier, the great heiress afterwards married to Gaston, duke of Orleans, led the remaining ladies of the royal family.

At the church door, the king of France and his brother Gaston delivered the bride into the hand of Chevreuse, Charles's proxy, and the cardinal de la Rochefocault performed the ceremony. From the platform the bride and her attendants advanced into the cathedral, and witnessed mass at the high altar; but Chevreuse, acting exactly as a protestant for the protestant king, whom he represented, retired with the English ambassadors during these ceremonies to a withdrawing apartment prepared for the purpose. On the return of the royal procession to the Louvre, Henrietta, as queen of England, was placed at the banquet on the right hand of king Louis, and was served at dinner by the marshal Bassompierre. as her carver, and by marshal Vitry, the assassin of marshal d'Ancre, the grand panetier.

The duke of Buckingham arrived to conduct the young queen to England, attended by a numerous and splendid retinue of English nobility. The showy and extravagant upstart appeared at the French court in a style which threw even the monarch into the shade. He wore "a rich white satin uncut velvet suit, set all over, suit and cloak, with diamonds, the value whereof," say the Hardwicke Papers, "is thought to be worth fourscore thousand pounds; besides a feather made with great diamonds, with sword, girdle, hatband, and spurs with diamonds, and he had twenty-seven other suits, all rich as invention could frame or art fashion." His conduct was as devoid of all modesty as his address, and threw discredit on the king, his master, who intrusted his honour and his counsels to such a man.

The king, queen, and queen-mother, accompanied by the whole court, set out to conduct the young fiancée to the port where she should embark for England. The procession was made as gorgeous and imposing as possible, and at each halting place the court was amused by a variety of pageants and entertainments drawn from a past age. One alone of these deserves remark, being afterwards deemed ominous—a representation of all the French princesses who had become queens of England. They presented a group distinguished by their misfortunes, and the only one wanting to complete the number being herself yet a spectator, the girlish Henrietta, little more than fifteen years of age, who was destined to exceed them all in calamity.

The king was, however, seized with an illness, which compelled him to discontinue the journey, and at Compeigne the queen-mother was also taken so ill as to detain the procession a fortnight at Amiens. There the queen and queen-mother took leave of Henrietta, the mother putting