Author Topic: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers  (Read 43099 times)

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Offline Prince_Lieven

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #90 on: July 09, 2006, 05:27:10 PM »


"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
-Sherlock Holmes

"Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget."

suburbanbeatnik

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #91 on: September 21, 2006, 04:24:32 PM »
Wow, now I'm beginning to feel like the only person in the world to actually LIKE Henrietta Maria.   I really don't think she was as horrible as her enemies paint her to be.  She didn't combine the worst qualities of Anne Boleyn and Marie Antoinette- she was no "flaunting extravagant quean."  She had enough smarts to keep her head on her shoulders- she was tough, fiesty, fiercely loyal, and of course stylish.  Of course, she was a difficult, flawed individual, but I feel that she's used as a convenient scapegoat for her husband's foolishness.  (Charles, I think, didn't need any help digging his own grave- and as Alison Plowden points out, Henrietta's influence ocer her husband was often grossly overrated.)   I still haven't found a satisfactory bio about her- the Plowden book was all right but hardly as satisfying as the Gristwood bio about Arbella Stuart and John Guy's "My Heart is My Own: the life of Mary Queen of Scots." 

bell_the_cat

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #92 on: September 21, 2006, 04:51:13 PM »
Hi Suburban Beatnik!

Yes, we may well have been a bit harsh about HM!  :)

We are eagerly waiting Palatine's (a poster) account of the Stuarts in exile which would cast some interesting light on her life!

Any other HM fans out there? I think if she hadn't left England so early in the Civil War, she might have had a better reputation (at risk of her life, of course).
« Last Edit: September 21, 2006, 04:53:27 PM by bell_the_cat »

Offline Prince_Lieven

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #93 on: September 21, 2006, 05:06:55 PM »
I don't dislike her. I think her heart was in the right place, and I really admire her bravery and passion.
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
-Sherlock Holmes

"Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget."

ilyala

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #94 on: September 22, 2006, 02:53:20 AM »
i think her heart was in the right place as far as her education went. but i don't think that her education was good for a future queen of england. she just stayed true to herself.

Yseult

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #95 on: September 22, 2006, 05:08:36 AM »
I think that Henrietta was a brave woman. I have read that when civil war looked inevitable, at the beginning of the year 1642, she left England and spent almost a year in the Netherlands. By selling or pawning jewels, she raised a fortune...it was gossiped that she had two million pounds to buy convoys of weapons and ammunition, and to recruit troops to fight for the king. Then, she returned to England braving great storms but also the attacks of Parliament´s warships, to land at Yorskshire...And she styled herself "Her She-Majesty, Generalissima" as she moved south at the head of her army.

I believe she was a beautiful and undomitable woman. The letter she wrotte to her beloved husband Charles about her experiences in the ship when she tried to reach the York coast line and the Parliament´s ship tried to chase her is the letter of a woman of substance:

"All day we unloaded our ammunition...The cannon balls whistled over me, and as you can imagine I dont like the music...I went on foot some distance from the village, and got shelter in a dicht. But before I could reach it the balls sang merrily over our heads and a sargeant was killed twenty paces from me".


Offline Prince_Lieven

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #96 on: September 22, 2006, 09:54:49 AM »
That's a lovely portrait (though probably a little flattering). I admire that she didn't mind 'roughing' it with her troops, and that she had a 'never say die' attitude. I think 'Indominitable' is certainly a good word to describe her, as in Alison Plowden's bio of her - 'Charles I's Indominitable Queen'.
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
-Sherlock Holmes

"Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget."

suburbanbeatnik

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #97 on: September 22, 2006, 02:25:07 PM »
I think while Henrietta was not classically beautiful, with her quirky nose and jutting chin, she was very attractive, in the true sense of the word "mignonne."  Remember, that when Sophia of Bohemia said her famous words about her aunt having "long lean arms, crooked shoulders, and teeth protruding from her mouth like guns from a fort," she was eleven years old.  (I actually laughed when I read the quote in full... it reminded me so much of something my ten year old niece would say.  'Oh my God, I thought she would be pretty, but she was kind of ugly, with really funny teeth, but then she said I looked like her daughter, who is totally cute, so now I think my aunt is really pretty!')   

Here's another version of the picture that was posted earlier- this one is at the Wallace Collection.  (I find it amusing that this dress is more low-cut and tightly laced than the previous version- how much fun did these usually [male] artists have painting these royal ladies anyway?)  ;D


palatine

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #98 on: September 23, 2006, 03:12:30 PM »
Remember, that when Sophia of Bohemia said her famous words about her aunt having "long lean arms, crooked shoulders, and teeth protruding from her mouth like guns from a fort," she was eleven years old.  (I actually laughed when I read the quote in full... it reminded me so much of something my ten year old niece would say.  'Oh my God, I thought she would be pretty, but she was kind of ugly, with really funny teeth, but then she said I looked like her daughter, who is totally cute, so now I think my aunt is really pretty!')   

Eleven year old Sophia was on her very best behavior when she met Henrietta Maria.  She did not blurt out that Henrietta was a belle laide instead of the ethereal beauty that we see in Van Dyck’s portraits.  She was over fifty years old when she documented Henrietta’s simian appearance for posterity. 

You mentioned that you were looking for a good biography of Henrietta.  The best and most scholarly one that I have been able to find is Quentin Bone’s Henrietta Maria: Queen of the Cavaliers.  It’s out of print, but copies are readily available on the used book sites.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2006, 03:15:14 PM by palatine »

suburbanbeatnik

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #99 on: September 23, 2006, 10:58:49 PM »
Simian appearance?  Do you honestly believe that this woman who is portrayed identically in dozens of portraits by various artists looked like Doctor Zaius from "Planet of the Apes"?  :D

Yseult

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #100 on: September 24, 2006, 01:14:14 AM »
From my point of view, Henriette was pretty enough:



It could be that she had been in fact the kind of woman named "a jolie laide" by the french, but she had good looks in all the pictures. Her mother, Marie of Medici, was also a pretty thing when she was young:



And both the paternal and maternal grandmothers were not ugly women. They were not the great beauties of their times, but they were not ugly. Look at Jeanne queen of Navarre and Johanna of Austria:






Offline Prince_Lieven

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #101 on: September 24, 2006, 07:38:13 AM »
Apparently Henrietta's sparkling eyes were a big part of her appeal.
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
-Sherlock Holmes

"Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget."

palatine

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #102 on: September 24, 2006, 09:43:29 AM »
Simian appearance?  Do you honestly believe that this woman who is portrayed identically in dozens of portraits by various artists looked like Doctor Zaius from "Planet of the Apes"?  :D

Antonia Fraser, Royal Charles, page 11:

Henrietta Maria’s appearance also needed the help of a great artist and courtier to flower on the canvas.  There is general agreement about the quality of her looks: when she was young, her attraction lay in her animation and in particular her sparkling black eyes, which, combined with her doll-like figure, made her at the time of her marriage ‘a most absolute delicate lady’ in the words of Simonds D’Ewes.  But there was something simian about her.  Her arms were disproportionately long, and, as she grew older and more unhappy, she lost weight rapidly, which did not suit her.  By the birth of Henriette-Anne in 1644 she had become a sad, small monkey of a person, whose wide mouth looked almost grotesque.  It was left to Pepys, at the Restoration, to describe Henrietta Maria - at fifty- as 'a very little plain old woman.

suburbanbeatnik

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #103 on: September 24, 2006, 01:58:41 PM »
Although I like some of her books, Antonia Fraser has been quite wrong at times.  I've noticed she tends to jump to conclusions- like in her bio of Mary Queen of Scots.  She claims Mary's marriage to Darnley was a love match, although there's plenty of evidence (presented in John Guy's biography) that it was a strictly political decision; also she portrays Bothwell as Mr. Evil, although apparently Mary might have had great sex with him- that she perhaps liked to be "dominated." And then there's her biography of "Marie Antoinette," where she argues, with no evidence whatsoever, that Antoinette and Fersen probably used condoms in their extra-marital hanky-panky... Therefore, I would take Ms. Fraser's descriptions of Henrietta as a "monkey" with a grain of salt. 

palatine

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Re: Henrietta Maria, Queen of the Cavaliers
« Reply #104 on: September 24, 2006, 03:37:24 PM »
Although I like some of her books, Antonia Fraser has been quite wrong at times.  I've noticed she tends to jump to conclusions- like in her bio of Mary Queen of Scots.  She claims Mary's marriage to Darnley was a love match, although there's plenty of evidence (presented in John Guy's biography) that it was a strictly political decision; also she portrays Bothwell as Mr. Evil, although apparently Mary might have had great sex with him- that she perhaps liked to be "dominated." And then there's her biography of "Marie Antoinette," where she argues, with no evidence whatsoever, that Antoinette and Fersen probably used condoms in their extra-marital hanky-panky... Therefore, I would take Ms. Fraser's descriptions of Henrietta as a "monkey" with a grain of salt. 

I have also found some of Fraser's works to be, shall we say, problematic.  However, her opinion about Henrietta’s looks was just that – her opinion.  Neither you nor anyone else is required to agree with her.  After all, if everyone agreed about everything all of the time, that would get really boring.   ;)

I referred to Henrietta by the French phrase belle laide because I think that difficult to translate French phrase sums up her appeal.  It's used to describe a woman who possesses great charm, charisma, vitality, something, in short, that fascinates contemporaries and transcends the fact that she's no great beauty.  In my opinion, Henrietta possessed that je ne sais quoi quality in spades, as did the Empress Josephine and Wallis, Duchess of Windsor.