Henrietta Maria
Henrietta Maria (1609-1669) was a French princess and the queen consort of King Charles I of England. Born as the daughter of King Henry IV of France and Marie de Médicis, she experienced a tumultuous early life marked by her father's assassination when she was just six months old. As queen, Henrietta Maria's primary role was to secure the royal succession, which she successfully achieved by giving birth to six children, including the future kings Charles II and James II.
Henrietta Maria was a devout Roman Catholic, and her open practice of Catholicism at the English court fueled suspicion and animosity among the predominantly Protestant English populace. Her close relationship with Charles I allowed her to wield considerable influence over political decisions, which many viewed unfavorably, especially during the tumultuous period leading to the English Civil War. Despite her efforts to support the Royalist cause through fundraising and military recruitment abroad, her actions were often perceived as treasonous by Parliamentarians.
Henrietta Maria's legacy is intertwined with the political strife of her time, as her presence and influence contributed to the mounting tensions between the monarchy and Parliament that ultimately led to the Civil War. After Charles I's execution, she helped establish the court-in-exile for her son, Charles II, but faced ongoing challenges due to her religious beliefs and French heritage. Henrietta Maria spent her later years in France until her death in 1669.
Henrietta Maria
French-born queen consort of England (r. 1625-1649)
- Born: November 25 or 26, 1609
- Birthplace: Louvre Palace, Paris, France
- Died: September 10, 1669
- Place of death: Château de Colombes, near Paris, France
Henrietta Maria’s Catholicism and her influence over her husband, Charles I, aroused distrust and animosity not only toward her, but toward the king as well, contributing to the outbreak of the English Civil War. As the mother of the future kings Charles II and James II, however, Henrietta Maria helped ensure the English succession.
Early Life
Henrietta Maria (hehn-ree-EHT-uh muh-RI-uh), the sixth child and third daughter of King Henry IV of France and his wife, Marie de Médicis , was named after both of her parents. Just before she was six months old, on May 14, 1610, Henrietta Maria’s father was assassinated. Her eldest brother then succeeded to the throne as Louis XIII , but, since he was only eight years old, his mother acted as regent for him until he came of age.
Ruling France left Marie de Médicis little time for motherhood, but it was the custom of the time anyway for royal and noble children to be raised by governesses. Henrietta Maria and her brothers and sisters, excluding her brother the king, resided in a château outside Paris under the care of Madame de Montglat. Henrietta Maria grew up seeing very little of her mother or eldest brother. She was, perhaps naturally, closest to the sibling that was nearest her in age, her brother Gascon. All of the children were well-cared-for but not coddled by Madame de Montglat and her staff.
Henrietta Maria’s education was typical for a young princess of her day: She learned religion, court etiquette, riding, dancing, and singing. Academic subjects like history were mostly neglected. Her chief and only purpose, after all, was to marry according to the dictates of French foreign policy, and potential matches were being seriously considered before she even reached adolescence. In 1624, the English approached Marie de Médicis about her youngest daughter’s hand after a proposed match between then-Prince Charles and a Spanish princess fell through. The marriage took place when Henrietta Maria was just fifteen, in May of 1625, shortly after Charles had become king.
Life’s Work
As queen of England, Henrietta Maria’s most important job was to secure the succession by producing a male heir, but the first four years of her marriage were childless. This may have been due, in part, to her young age, but it might also have been because of a certain coldness that existed between husband and wife in the first years of their marriage, a coldness that can be blamed on Charles’s deep attachment to George Villiers, first duke of Buckingham . After Buckingham was assassinated in 1628, however, relations warmed between the royal spouses, with Charles IIII25IIII becoming as emotionally dependent on Henrietta Maria as he had been on Buckingham.
The couple’s first child, a boy, was born prematurely in May of 1629, dying shortly after birth. A year later, though, Henrietta Maria gave birth to a healthy son, the future Charles II, on May 29, 1630. She eventually had five more surviving children with Charles: Mary, born December 4, 1631, who married William II of Orange; James (the future James II ), born October 14, 1633; Elizabeth, born December 28, 1635; Henry, born July 8, 1639; and Henrietta Anne, known in the family as “Minette,” born June 16, 1644, and later married to Philip, duke of Orléans.
Throughout the 1630’s, Henrietta Maria was her husband’s close companion and confidante, advising him on many matters, including political issues and affairs of state. Her influence over the king, however, aroused distrust and concern among the English. The primary reason for this was that Henrietta Maria, a Roman Catholic, openly practiced her religion at court, and this caused fears that she was leading her husband into “popish” policies, a fear not lessened by the increase in ceremony and ritual that Charles was bringing into the Anglican Church during this period.
Another reason for the suspicion was that the queen was French and in many ways remained very French in her tastes and habits, despite living in England. The English associated France with the sort of divine right absolute monarchy that Henrietta Maria’s brother, king Louis XIII, was establishing there, and they believed the queen was influencing the king to adopt similar policies. In actuality, Charles needed little persuasion, as he was already a firm believer in royal divine right, but Henrietta Maria was an easy target, especially as she led the court in masques and pageants on royal absolutist themes. Beloved by her husband, Henrietta Maria was increasingly hated by the English, who blamed her, along with Charles’s other “evil counselors,” for the distasteful royal policies imposed on them during the eleven years Charles ruled without a Parliament.
It was, in fact, to prevent Henrietta Maria from being impeached by the Long Parliament in January, 1642, that Charles attempted to arrest five members of the House of Commons, a violation of parliamentary privilege. The next month, Henrietta Maria sailed to the Netherlands to be a fund-raiser, recruiter, arms-supplier, and advocate for the royal cause abroad.
Henrietta Maria made two trips to the Netherlands, each of which also had the benefit of removing her from the dangers posed to her by the hostile Parliamentarians. In her first trip, the more successful one, she amassed a considerable sum of money by securing loans for the king and selling or pledging royal jewels. She also procured a large supply of weapons and other war materiel, in addition to mercenary troops. Upon returning to England in February, 1643, however, Henrietta Maria was unable to join her husband at his court in Oxford until July. Fears for her safety soon prompted her to flee England again, this time for her native France, in July of 1644. She took up residence just outside Paris and tried to garner support for Charles’s cause from the French and the Irish.
Charles I was ultimately defeated, tried, and executed by Parliament. Afterward, Henrietta Maria helped establish the court-in-exile of her son, now King Charles II, but she found that she did not have the political influence with him that she had had with her husband. Moreover, her Catholicism continued to be controversial and divisive among the British Royalists. After her son’s Restoration to the throne, she made two visits to England, but she returned to France in 1665 and died there in 1669.
Significance
In addition to giving birth to the future kings Charles II and James II, Henrietta Maria’s main historical significance lies in her contribution both to the political problems that helped cause the English Civil War and to the failure to find a negotiated peace between king and Parliament. Her open Catholicism and her nationality led the English to take an overwhelmingly negative view of the influence that she wielded over her husband, arousing increasing hostility and suspicion toward both her and Charles I, which did much to help bring on the war. Henrietta Maria’s actions abroad did provide crucial financial and military support for the Royalist cause, but they were construed by many of the English as nothing less than treason, impugning the king’s loyalty to England as well. Moreover, whether separated from Charles or by his side, Henrietta Maria encouraged him to be resolute in his absolutist positions, insisting that no compromise could be made with “rebels.” She was thus the chief voice of absolutism among the Royalists whose views strengthened Charles’s intransigence in the face of opposition.
Bibliography
Bone, Quentin. Henrietta Maria: Queen of the Cavaliers. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972. An older but scholarly biography of Henrietta Maria.
Coote, Stephen. Royal Survivor: A Life of Charles II. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999. A biography of Henrietta Maria’s eldest son.
Morrah, Patrick. A Royal Family: Charles I and His Family. London: Constable, 1982. A portrait of the marriage and family life of Charles and Henrietta Maria.
Plowden, Alison. Henrietta Maria: Charles I’s Indomitable Queen. Stroud, Gloucestershire, England: Sutton, 2001. A useful biography of Henrietta Maria.
Quintrell, Brian. Charles I, 1625-1640. New York: Longman, 1993. A relatively brief and accessible biography of the king.