intercession of those whom she counted as martyrs. Charles heard this in an exaggerated form, and on 31 July–10 Aug. drove all the queen's French attendants from the palace and shipped them off to France in the course of a few days. Their places were filled by English. Louis XIII complained of this breach of the marriage treaty, but sent Bassompierre over to find some compromise; and an arrangement would probably have been come to if war had not broken out between France and England on other grounds. The absence of the French attendants no doubt contributed to remove some causes of friction; but it was not till after Buckingham's murder, in 1628, that all causes of mutual dispute were removed. The reconciliation then effected was the beginning of an affection which lasted as long as they both lived.
On 13 May 1629 Henrietta Maria gave birth prematurely to her first child, a boy, who died after two hours. Her eldest surviving child, afterwards Charles II, was born on 29 May 1630. She subsequently became the mother of Mary, afterwards princess of Orange, on 4 Nov. 1631; of James, afterwards James II, on 14 Oct. 1633; of Elizabeth on 28 Jan. 1636; of Henry, afterwards duke of Gloucester, on 8 July 1640; and of Henrietta, afterwards duchess of Orleans, on 16 June 1644 (all are separately noticed). For some time after her reconciliation with her husband it was impossible to induce her to take any part in politics. She was fond of pleasure and extravagant; and though she bore ill-will to the lord treasurer, Weston, it was not on account of his political conduct, but solely on account of the difficulty she found in extracting money from him. In 1629 the French ambassador, Châteauneuf, attempted in vain to use her influence to gain his ends (Châteauneuf's Despatches, Arch. des Aff. Etrangères, Angleterre, xliii.). Châteauneuf found that the queen was allowed all freedom in her religion; but though Charles consented to his proposal to establish eight Capuchins in her household, he refused to allow a bishop to be introduced to preside over them, lest he should meddle in other matters. The arrival of the Capuchins was accordingly postponed to a later period. In 1630, however, she broke her rule about abstaining from politics, so far as to be rude to the Spanish ambassador Coloma, who came to England to negotiate a peace. In 1631 she quarrelled with Châteauneuf's successor, Fontenay-Mareuil, and Charles refused to support her. She had, in fact, been drawn by Châteauneuf to sympathise with the intrigues against Richelieu, in which her mother was implicated. She did not, however, give much more than her sympathy in the matter.
The queen gathered around her court the lighter elements of Charles's society. Edmund Waller sang her praises, and the empty-headed Earl of Holland, who as Viscount Kensington had carried to Paris the proposal for her marriage, was a favoured visitor in her drawing-room. In 1632 Walter Montague wrote ‘The Shepherd's Pastoral,’ in which she was to act on the king's birthday; and it was her part in the rehearsal of this which called out from Prynne the well-known attack on ‘women actors’ which cost him his ears. On 2 Feb. 1634 she welcomed the members of the Inns of Court when they came to Whitehall to present a masque as a protest against Prynne's condemnation of the stage, and she afterwards danced with some of the masquers. That her own life was thoroughly pure we have the testimony of her confessor (Conn to Barberini, Add. MS. 15389, fol. 196); but she was frivolous, and without any appreciation of real merit, and frequently used her influence with her husband to obtain favours for courtiers unworthy of consideration. It was the facility with which Charles complied with her desires that brought her into collision with Wentworth, who found himself hampered by her interference.
Such aid as Henrietta Maria gave to the French ambassadors was too fitful to be of much use, and for some time her interferences on behalf of the English Roman catholics were of little more avail. She kept her chapel at Somerset House open to all who chose to use it, and the Capuchin priests, who had at last been sent to officiate in it, were zealous in the work of proselytism. Through the queen's influence Gregorio Panzani, who arrived in England on 12 Dec. 1634 on a special mission from Rome, was informally received by Secretary Windebank. She took her eldest son to mass; but Panzani complained that she could not be brought to attend steadily even to the business of supporting her church. It was finally resolved that Panzani should be succeeded by George Conn [q. v.] In February 1636, however, the king took alarm, at least so far as to forbid his wife to take her eldest boy to mass. In August she accompanied the king to Oxford, where Conn, who had lately arrived, was present with Panzani. Conn gradually acquired considerable influence over her, at least so far as to bring her to support his efforts at conversion. At this time she was brought into collision with Laud, who urged the king to throw obstacles in the way of Conn's activity in converting the court ladies by putting the laws against the catholics in force. After
