Jean Plaidy - The Wondering Prince

“You are going to see your mother, the Queen,” Anne told her.

The child was wide-eyed with wonder. Her mother, the Queen, was just a name to her. Nan, during the Princess’s two years of life, had been the only mother she had known.

“You must love her very dearly,” Anne explained. “She will be so happy to see you, and you will be the only one of all your brothers and sisters who may be with her to make her happy.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because the others cannot be with her.”

“Why not?”

“Because your brothers, James and Henry, must stay with your sister Elizabeth; and your big brother, Charles, cannot stay with his mother in France because he has other matters to which he must attend. Your big sister, Mary, is the Princess of Holland, so she cannot be with your mother either.”

But Henrietta did not understand. She only knew that she was happy again, that she had bright clothes to wear and that people called her Princess.

So she was escorted from Calais to Saint-Germain.

The news had spread that her infant daughter was about to be restored to the poor sad Queen. There was a romantic story of a brave governess who had brought the child out of a war-torn country under the very eyes of the King’s enemies. The story was one to delight the warmhearted French. They wanted to see the little Princess; they wanted to cheer the brave governess. So they gathered along the route from Calais that they might cry “Good Luck” to the little girl, and let her know that as granddaughter of their greatest King, they were ready to welcome her to their country.

The people cheered her. “Long live the little Princess from England! Long live the granddaughter of our great Henri! Long live the brave governess!”

And the Princess smiled and took this ovation as her right; she had already forgotten her uncomfortable journey. Anne was worn out with fatigue, and now that her anxiety had lifted, she felt light-headed; she could not believe that the people of France were cheering her; and while she smiled she felt as though she were not really there in France but sitting on a bank while the Princess betrayed their secret, or that she was in an attic, terrified while a groom told her that her hump was slipping.

When they came to the château on the edge of the forest, Henrietta Maria was waiting to greet them. She had been granted the use of the château at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and she had her own apartments in the Louvre; she had been given a pension by her royal relatives of France, and at the time of Henrietta’s arrival she lived at Court with all the state of a visiting Queen.

She was waiting in her salon—surrounded by her attendants and some of the exiles from England who visited her from time to time—magnificently dressed in blue brocade decorated with frills of fine lace and pearls; her black eyes were filled with tears, and her usually sallow cheeks were aflame. This was the happiest moment of her life since she had left England, she declared.

When the Princess was brought to her she gave a great cry of joy; she dispensed with all ceremony and swooped on the child, pressing her against her pearl-decorated gown while tears gushed from her eyes. She began to talk in French, which the little girl could not understand.

“So at last, my little one, I have you here with me. Oh, how I have suffered! You, my little one, my baby, whom I had to leave when I fled from those wicked men! But now you are back with me. Now you are here and we shall never be parted as long as we live. Oh see, this is my daughter, my youngest and my most precious. She is returned to me and it is such a miracle that I must give great thanks to God and all the saints. And I do so here in this happy moment.” She turned her tearful yet radiant face to Cyprien de Gamaches, her priest, who stood beside her. “Père Cyprien shall instruct this child of mine. She shall be brought up in the true faith of Rome. Rejoice, for she is not only snatched from her enemies—those round-headed villains who would destroy her father—she is saved from a subtler enemy; she is saved for Holy Church!”

Henrietta wriggled; the pearls on her mother’s gown were hurting her; she turned and held out her hand to Anne who was standing close by.

The Queen’s brilliant eyes were now on the governess.

“And here is my dearest Lady Anne … my dear faithful servant! We shall never forget what you have done. All Paris, all France talks of the wonderful deed. You have behaved with great courage and I shall never forget you.”

The Queen put down the child and would have embraced Anne, but as she was about to do so, Anne, worn out by the terrible fatigue of her long tramp and by all the anxieties of the previous days, sank fainting to the floor.

It seemed that her determination to hand over the Princess to none but the child’s mother had kept her going; now that her task was completed she must pay the price of the mental strain and physical hardship she had suffered.

Henrietta Maria sat with her niece Mademoiselle de Montpensier in her apartments in Saint-Germain. Henrietta Maria was a schemer; when she decided she wanted something, she could be very single-minded. There were several things she wanted very badly; the first was to see an end to the war in England, with her husband victorious; the second was to bring her children up in the Roman Catholic faith; and the third was to arrange suitable marriages for her children.

All of these seemed to her not only natural but virtuous desires. It was a fact that in their marriage contract, the King, her husband, had promised that their children should be instructed in the Catholic faith. In this he had not kept his word; the whole of England would have been against his keeping his word; England still remembered the reign of Bloody Mary, and the people had decided to run no risk of a recurrence of those terrible days.

Henrietta Maria loved her husband and was devoted to her family; but, she told herself, as a staunch Catholic, she loved her religion more. Fate had played into her hands by delivering to her the Princess Henrietta; here was one child who should not be contaminated by wrong teaching; Père Cyprien was already taking matters in hand. He had had a clear run so far, because the Protestant governess, Anne Dalkeith, had been seriously ill since her arrival at Saint-Germain, and had been unable to take a hand in the Princess’s upbringing or to remind the Queen of the King’s wishes which were those of the majority of the people of England. And she would have reminded her, thought Henrietta Maria grimly; even though her ears would have been boxed for it, even though she would have to protest to the Queen and the mother of the child, Anne would do what she considered her duty. It would have been a pity to quarrel with Anne so soon after her glorious adventure. Perhaps, as Père Cyprien said, the hand of God was in this; first, in bringing her daughter to France at an early age before the contamination of a hostile Church could be begun, and secondly, by striking the Protestant governess with a fever and so preventing her interference. Père Cyprien would go even further; he would say that the Great Rebellion and Civil War in England had doubtless been an act of God calculated to save the soul of the young Princess.

Henrietta Maria could not follow him as far as that, but she was at least satisfied that her young daughter would be safe from heresy and now she could turn her thoughts to the marriages of her children. There was one whose marriage was of the utmost importance: Charles, Prince of Wales.

He was a boy of sixteen, very young to marry; yet Princes married young. Henrietta Maria’s illogical mind darted hither and thither, taking up one idea, rejecting it for another, and then returning to the first. If young Charles were to remain an exile, he would need a very rich wife; if he were to be King, he would need a royal wife. But riches were always useful; she had not thought of that until she found herself an exile from her adopted country. What would have happened to her, she wondered, if, instead of being the daughter of the fourth Henri of beloved memory, she had been the daughter of the despised third Henri. Who could say?