Page:The Queens of England.djvu/512

464 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. by the queen, which he recommended to his observance "in all other things." During her residence in Paris, besides effecting a treaty with Holland and France, she set on foot a negotiation of marriage between her son and the Princess of Orange and attached several malcontents to the king's party by receiving them at her court ; but so straightened were her resources by the king's demands that upon the arrival of the Prince of Wales, followed by that of his infant sister, Henrietta (who had been restored to her mother bv the courage of Lady Mor- ton), the queen's condition was /ery deplorable. Both the royal children had escaped with imminent peril — -the princess, disguised as a boy, was carried bv the countess to Dover and increased the hazard of detection by endeavoring, with child- like simplicity, to inform every one that "she was not a beggar boy, but a princess." Notwithstanding that the queen herself, with all the endurance of woman's fond idolatry, had been, to use her own words, "ready to die with famine rather than not send her husband the means of maintaining his rights, though she had already affliction enough to bear, which without his love she could not do, but his service surmounted all" — the last drop of anguish was even then distilling, and the horrid tragedy rapidly drew to a close. For some time no tidings had reached her from England, and when at length the ill- fated messenger arrived he bore the intelligence that the fac- tion of Scottish covenanters, in whom she had admonished the king never to confide, had basely sold their sovereign to the English parliament, which had resolved to bring him to a mock trial. Struck to the heart with amazement and con- fusion, she sent a paper to "the parliament, containing a very passionate lamentation of the sad condition the king, her hus- band, was in. desiring that they would grant her a pass to come over to him, offering to use all her credit with him to give them satisfaction ; and if this were denied she implored onlv per- mission to perform the duties she owed him, to be near him in the uttermost extremity. It will scarcely be believed that the ambassador. Paw, could not get leave to see the king ; and though the queen's paper was delivered to the parliament it was flung aside with the observation that the house had. in 1643, voted his majesty guilty of high treason." Nothing can exceed the misery to which Henrietta was at this time reduced. Not onlv was she torn with the most terri-