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HENRIETTA MARIA

Henrietta Maria was queen of Charles I of England. She was born in 1609 at Paris and died in 1669. She was the youngest child of Henry IV of France, by his second wife, Maria de'Medici. The proposed marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales, and the Infanta of Spain having failed, a matrimonial negotiation was opened with Henrietta, whom he had first met at a ball in Paris while on his way to Spain. The marriage was celebrated by proxy at Paris in 1625, but her first popularity in England was soon destroyed by her bigotry, hauteur, and despotic ideas as to divine right. Much of the subsequent procedure which brought Charles I to the block may be traced indirectly to her influence. On the breaking out of the English Civil War she proceeded to Holland, procured money and troops, and afterwards joined Charles I at Oxford. She again went to the Continent in 1644, and resided in France until the Restoration. On that occasion she visited England, but soon returned to France, and died near Paris in 1669.
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