An Unhappy Queen

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6626, 12 August 1931, Page 10

An Unhappy Queen

Who: QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA. Where: France and England.

When: Seventeenth century.

Why famous: A French princess, daughter of Henry IV, who, through her marriage to Charles I of England, became one of the most unhappy Queens that country has ever known. Early overtures for her hand were made on behalf of Prince Charles of England, a recent visitor to the French Court in the company of his favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, in May, 1625, Henrietta Maria was married in Paris'by proxy to Charles, was escorted on the first half of her journey to England by her mother and her sister-in-law, Anne of Austria, on the second half by Buckingham. She could not know that, across the English. Channel, there awaited her 19 years of increasing tragedy. Though tho daughter of Henry of Navarre, a stout cnampion of tne Protestant cause, the Queen was a devout Roman Catholic, who found herself surrounded by subjects whoso sympathies were rapidly becoming Protestant and Puritan. They were speedily irritated by the trappings of tho Queen’s religion, her chapel, her monks; and in dealing with the English, the Queen showed small tact. Charles had arranged his marriago with a view to strengthening the forces of Protestantism in Europe; while at the same time he had promised to relax certain laws which had oppressed Roman Catholics in England if the Huguenots in Eranco were likewise treated with more tolerance. But none of these worthy projects came to pass. In English eyes all Romanists, of whatever nationality, were unwelcome —their Queen in particular. They resented her extavagant ways, her efforts to re-establish relations between the English Court and the Vatican. For while at first she was taken up with the pleasures at Court, she turned later to politics and sought to influence her husband in his dealings with Parliament. Hence have historians held that the Queen was at least partially responsible for the series of disasters which overwhelmed Charles 1 and brought him finally to the scaffold.

Thus, hatred of the Queen grew until she was actually impeached by the House of Commons. After the battle of Marston Moor and the advance of the Parliamentary forces, Henrietta Maria fled across to France. While kindly treated there, she and her infant daughter experienced sufferings and privations. Once or twice she returned to London, lastly when Charles II was established upon the throne; but she was never able to remain. Like her ill-fated husband, sho seemed swept along by an avalanche of misfortune throughout her whole life.

Mrs Woodrow Wilson definitely has accepted an invitation to be present at Poznan, Poland, for the dedication of a memorial to the war-time President, on July 4,