Henrietta_maria_of_france

This article is about the Queen. For the slave ship, see Henrietta Marie.

Henrietta Maria of France
Queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland; later queen mother (more...)
Painting by Anthony Van Dyck, c. 1633
Consort	13 June 1625 – 30 January 1649
Consort to	Charles I
Issue
Charles II Mary, Princess Royal James II and VII Elizabeth of England Anne of England Henry, Duke of Gloucester Henrietta Anne of England
Royal house	House of Stuart House of Bourbon
Father	Henry IV of France
Mother	Marie de\' Medici
Born	25 November 1609 Louvre, Paris
Died	10 September 1669 (aged 59) Château de Colombes, France
Burial	Saint Denis Basilica, Paris

Henrietta Maria (25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669), was Princess of France and Queen Consort of England, Scotland and Ireland (13 June 1625 – 30 January 1649) through her marriage to Charles I. She was the mother of two kings, Charles II and James II, and was grandmother to both William and Mary and Queen Anne.

Early life

Born as Henriette-Marie de France, Princess of France, she was the youngest daughter of Henry IV of France and Marie de Medici and the sister of the future Louis XIII of France. Her father was killed before she was a year old; her mother was banished from the royal court in 1617.

She was born at the Louvre Palace and brought up as a Roman Catholic. This made her an unpopular choice of wife for the English King, whom she married by Proxy marriage|proxy on 11 May 1625, shortly after his accession to the throne.

Marriage

They were married in person at St. Augustine\'s Church, Canterbury, Kent, on 13 June 1625. However, her religion made it impossible for her to be crowned with her husband in an Anglican service. Initially their relationship was cold. Henrietta Maria had brought many servants with her from France, all of them Roman Catholic, and all costing the King a lot of money to maintain. It is said that eventually Charles sent this retinue home, only allowing his teenage bride to retain her chaplain and two ladies in waiting. Finding her sadly watching the retinue depart for France at the window of a palace, Charles angrily and forcibly dragged his wayward queen away. Charles had intended to marry Maria Anna, a daughter of Philip III of Spain, but a mission to Spain in 1623 had failed. Perhaps this earlier disappointment explains why relations with his French bride were strained; every time the couple met, they started arguing and would separate, not seeing each other for weeks. When next they met, again they had to separate, because they could not stop arguing.

Henrietta Maria took an immediate dislike to George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, the King\'s favourite. However, after Buckingham\'s death in August 1628, her relationship with her husband, Charles I, improved and they finally forged deep bonds of love and affection. Her refusal to give up her Catholic faith alienated her from many of the people and certain powerful courtiers such as William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury and Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. Charles, on the other hand, had definite leanings towards Catholicism, and, once he had reached maturity, did not share his father\'s sexual ambivalence.

Ancestors

Henrietta Maria\'s ancestors in three generations

Issue

See also descendants of Henrietta Maria de Bourbon, which maps how the Medici became part of the European Royal families, eventually leading to Prince William of Wales, future King of the United Kingdom.

English Civil War activities

Henrietta Maria in the 1630s

Henrietta Maria increasingly took part in national affairs as the country moved towards open conflict through the 1630s. She despised Puritan courtiers to deflect a diplomatic approach to Spain and sought a coup to pre-empt the Parliamentarians. As war approached she was active in seeking funds and support for her husband, but her concentration on Catholic sources like Pope Urban VIII and the French angered many in England and hindered Charles\' efforts. She was also sympathetic to her fellow Catholics and even gave a requiem in her private chapel at Somerset House for Father Richard Blount, S.J. upon his death in 1638.

In August 1642, when the conflict began, she was in Europe. She continued to raise money for the Royalist cause, and did not return to England until early 1643. She landed at Bridlington in Yorkshire with troops and arms, and joined the Royalist forces in northern England, making her headquarters at York. She remained with the army in the north for some months before rejoining the King at Oxford. The collapse of the king\'s position following Scottish intervention on the side of Parliament, and his refusal to accept stringent terms for a settlement led her to flee to France with her sons in July 1644. Charles was executed in 1649, leaving her almost destitute.

Widow

She settled in Paris, appointing as her chancellor the eccentric Sir Kenelm Digby. She angered both Royalists in exile and her eldest son by attempting to convert her youngest son, Henry, to Catholicism. She returned to England following the Restoration in October 1660 and lived as \'Dowager Queen\' and \'Queen Mother\' at Somerset House in London until 1665 when she returned permanently to France. Her financial problems were resolved by a generous pension. She founded a convent at Chaillot, where she settled.

Henrietta Maria died at Château de Colombes, and was buried in the royal tombs at Saint Denis Basilica near Paris.

Commemoration

The U.S. state of Maryland was named in her honour by her husband, Charles I. George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore submitted a draft charter for the colony with the name left blank, suggesting that Charles bestow a name in his own honor. Charles, hadving already honored himself and several family members in other colonial names, decided to honor his wife. The specific name given in the charter was "Terra Mariae, anglice, Maryland". The English name was preferred over the Latin due in part to the undesired association of "Mariae" with the Spanish Jesuit Juan de Mariana.Stewart, George R. [1945] (1967). Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States, Sentry edition (3rd), Houghton Mifflin, 42-43.  Cape Henrietta Maria, at the western meeting of James Bay and Hudson Bay in Northern Ontario, is also named for her.

A less pleasant commemoration of her was the naming of the slave ship "Henrietta Marie", one of the many that carried slaves to what is now the United States. In 1701 she sank 35 miles off the coast of Key West after selling 190 slaves to Jamaica.

References

External links

• A short profile of her alongside other influential women of her age: http://www.guide2womenleaders.com/womeninpower/Womeninpower1600.htm
• British Civil Wars Page Biography

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Henrietta Maria of France

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