QUEENSHIP AND POWER

Series Editors: Carole Levin and Charles Beem

This series brings together monographs, edited volumes, and textbooks from
scholars specializing in gender analysis, women’s studies, literary interpretation,
and cultural, political, constitutional, and diplomatic history. It aims to broaden
our understanding of the strategies that queens—both consorts and regnants,
as well as female regents—pursued in order to wield political power within the
structures of male-dominant societies. In addition to works describing European
queenship, it also includes books on queenship as it appeared in other parts of the
world, such as East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Islamic civilization.

Editorial Board
Linda Darling, University of Arizona (Ottoman Empire)
Theresa Earenfight, Seattle University (Spain)
Dorothy Ko, Barnard College (China)
Nancy Kollman, Stanford University (Russia)
John Thornton, Boston University (Africa and the Atlantic World)
John Watkins (France and Italy)

Published by Palgrave Macmillan

The Lioness Roared: The Problems of Female Rule in English History
By Charles Beem
Elizabeth of York
By Arlene Naylor Okerlund
Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry
By Linda Shenk
“High and Mighty Queens” of Early Modern England: Realities and Representations
Edited by Carole Levin, Jo Eldridge Carney, and Debra Barrett-Graves
The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe
By Sharon L. Jansen
The Face of Queenship: Early Modern Representations of Elizabeth I
By Anna Riehl
Elizabeth I: The Voice of a Monarch
By Ilona Bell
Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth
Edited by Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock
The Death of Elizabeth I: Remembering and Reconstructing the Virgin Queen
By Catherine Loomis
Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe
By William Layher
The Foreign Relations of Elizabeth I
Edited by Charles Beem
The French Queen’s Letters: Mary Tudor Brandon and the Politics of Marriage in
Sixteenth-Century Europe
By Erin A. Sadlack
Wicked Women of Tudor England: Queens, Aristocrats, Commoners
By Retha M. Warnicke
A Monarchy of Letters: Royal Correspondence and English Diplomacy in the
Reign of Elizabeth I
By Rayne Allinson
Three Medieval Queens: Queenship and the Crown in Fourteenth-Century England
By Lisa Benz St. John
Mary I: Gender, Power, and Ceremony in the Reign of England’s First Queen
By Sarah Duncan
The Last Plantagenet Consorts: Gender, Genre, and Historiography, 1440–1627
By Kavita Mudan Finn
Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship
By Jo Eldridge Carney
Mother Queens and Princely Sons: Rogue Madonnas in the Age of Shakespeare
By Sid Ray
The Name of a Queen: William Fleetwood’s Itinerarium ad Windsor
Edited by Charles Beem and Dennis Moore
The Emblematic Queen: Extra-Literary Representations of Early Modern Queenship
Edited by Debra Barrett-Graves
The Queens Regnant of Navarre: Succession, Politics, and Partnership, 1274–1512
By Elena Woodacre
Queenship in the Mediterranean: Negotiating the Role of the Queen in the Medieval and
Early Modern Eras
Edited by Elena Woodacre
The Queen’s Mercy: Gender and Judgment in Representations of Elizabeth I
By Mary Villeponteaux
Titled Elizabethans: A Directory of Elizabethan Court, State, and Church Officers,
1558–1603
Edited by Arthur F. Kinney and Jane A. Lawson
Elizabeth I’s Foreign Correspondence: Letters, Rhetoric, and Politics
Edited by Carlo M. Bajetta, Guillaume Coatalen, and Jonathan Gibson
The Man behind the Queen: Male Consorts in History
Edited by Charles Beem and Miles Taylor
Berenice II Euergetis: Essays in Early Hellenistic Queenship
By Branko F. van Oppen de Ruiter
Mary I and the Art of Book Dedications: Royal Women, Power, and Persuasion
By Valerie Schutte
Scholars and Poets Talk About Queens
Edited by Carole Levin and Associate Editor Christine Stewart-Nu ñez
Royal Mothers and their Ruling Children: Wielding Political Authority from
Antiquity to the Early Modern Era
Edited by Elena Woodacre and Carey Fleiner
Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe: Henrietta Maria and
Marie Antoinette
By Carolyn Harris
QUEENSHIP AND REVOLUTION
IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE

Henrietta Maria and

Marie Antoinette

Carolyn Harris
QUEENSHIP AND REVOLUTION IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
Copyright © Carolyn Harris 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-49772-7
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this
publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written
permission. In accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited
copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10
Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
First published 2016 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
The author has asserted their right to be identified as the author of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers
Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature America, Inc., One
New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, NY 10004-1562.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
E-PDF ISBN: 978–1–137–49168–8
ISBN 978-1-349-57026-3 ISBN 978-1-137-49168-8 (eBook)
DOI: 10.1057/9781137491688
Distribution in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world is by Palgrave
Macmillan®, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in
England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harris, Carolyn, 1984– author.
Queenship and revolution in early modern Europe : Henrietta Maria
and Marie Antoinette / Carolyn Harris.
pages cm.—(Queenship and power)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-57026-3
1. Queens—Europe—History. 2. Queens—Europe—Biography.
3. Henrietta Maria, Queen, consort of Charles I, King of England,
1609–1669. 4. Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of Louis XVI,
King of France, 1755–1793. 5. Europe—Court and courtiers—
History. 6. Europe—Politics and government. I. Title.
D244.7.H37 2015
941.0692092—dc23
[B] 2015017612
A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.
For Bruce, with love
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: The Queen versus the People 1

1 Education, Example, and Expectations 15
2 Governing the Queen’s Household 49
3 Wife of the King 85
4 Mother to the Royal Children 121
5 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 155
Conclusion: The Legacy of Two Queens 193

Notes 203
Bibliography 247
Index 265
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

N
umerous institutions and agencies provided financial assistance
for the research and writing of this book. I would like to thank
the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRC)
for the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship,
which funded much of my doctoral studies, and Michael Smith Foreign
Study Supplement, which funded the bulk of my overseas research.
Generous support was also provided through the Queen’s University
Graduate Awards, the William C. Leggett Graduate Fellowship, and
Timothy C.S. Franks Research Travel Grants. Without this support,
the extensive archival research necessary for this book would not have
been possible.
During the course of my research, I was assisted by numerous help-
ful librarians and archivists in Europe. In Paris, I would like to thank
the staff of the Archives des Affaires Etrangeres, Archives Nationale,
Bibliotheque Nationale, Bibliotheque St. Genevieve, and Bibliotheque
de la Ville de Paris for deciphering my pronunciation and my hand-
writing, and helping me to find additional sources regarding Marie
Antoinette. In London, I would like to thank the staff of the British
Library, the Lambeth Palace Library, the National Art Library, the
Parliamentary Archives at Westminster, and the National Archives of
the United Kingdom for directing me toward new material and answer-
ing my questions about papers pertaining to Henrietta Maria.
I would also like to thank the staff of the National Library of Wales
in Aberystwyth, the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh, the
Sheffield Archives in Sheffield, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the
Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library in Toronto, and Stauffer Library in
Kingston.
I have had the opportunity to discuss Henrietta Maria and Marie
Antoinette with numerous scholars during the research of this book.
I would like to thank Karen Britland, James Collins, Joel Felix, Erin
Griffey, Colin Jones, Malcolm Smuts, Dale Van Kley, and Michelle
Anne White for discussing my work with me and providing invaluable
insights and suggestions.
During my six months as a visiting overseas research student at
Birkbeck College in 2009, I had the opportunity to work with the fac-
ulty of the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology. I would
xii Acknowledgments

like to thank my guest advisor Julian Swann, as well as Laura Stewart,

John Arnold, and Sean Brady for their comments on my research and
suggestions for primary and secondary reading.
My friends and colleagues at Queen’s University, where I completed
my PhD in 2012, and other institutions have always been willing to pro-
vide support, encouragement, and feedback on my ideas. In Kingston,
I would like to thank Marisha Caswell, Leigh-Ann Coffey, Claire
Cookson-Hills, Caralee Daigle Hau, Rob Engen, and Katie Griffiths in
particular for their friendship and advice over the years. Special thanks
to S. D. Jowett for reviewing my French translations. In England, Amy
Tims, Anne Byrne, and Sara Wolfson discussed my research with me
and drew my attention to some interesting documents. In Toronto,
I would like to thank Malka and Miriam Siegel for their friendship and
encouragement.
At Queen’s University, Donald Akenson and Rebecca Manley have
provided helpful feedback, suggestions, and insightful comments. My
PhD co-supervisors, Andrew Jainchill and Jeffrey Collins, guided this
project since the writing of my MA cognate paper “Motherhood and
Marie Antoinette.” Their assistance and guidance was invaluable to
the completion of the dissertation that evolved into this book and I am
fortunate to have worked with them.
At Palgrave Macmillan, I would like to thank Chris Chappell, who
first encouraged me to develop this manuscript for the Queenship and
Power Series, series editors Charles Beem and Carole Levin, and the
history editor Kristin Purdy, as well as Michelle Smith and Chelsea
Morgan.
I am grateful to my parents, Richard and Sue Harris, my brother,
David Harris, and my grandparents Mary Harris and Bob Hanbidge for
their tireless encouragement and support of my work. My grandfather,
Desmond Harris, passed away in 2013, during the writing of this book
and continues to be missed.
Finally, special thanks go to my husband Bruce Harpham. My MA,
PhD, and the research and writing of this book often resulted in our
living in separate cities, or occasionally separate countries, but he has
always encouraged me in this project and all my endeavors. Bruce has
been there for me with love and support since we were undergraduates at
the University of Toronto and my life is enriched by his presence in it.
 INTRODUCTION: THE QUEEN
VERSUS THE PEOPLE

W
hen Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were deposed
as king and queen of France in 1791, there were few
precedents for their situation. France had experi-
enced dynastic change, vilification of unpopular monarchs and con-
sorts, and assassinations of kings. The formal overthrow of a monarch
by a representative body of the king’s subjects, however, had not taken
place in French history. To make sense of her new circumstances, Marie
Antoinette reputedly drew parallels between her family’s situation and
that of King Charles I of England, his queen Henrietta Maria and their
children during the English Civil Wars of the 1640s. Marie Antoinette
explained to Jeanne Campan, one of her ladies of the bedchamber:

[The King] had long since observed to her that all that was going for-
ward in France was an imitation of the revolution in England in the
time of Charles I, and that he was incessantly reading the history of that
unfortunate monarch in order that he might act better than Charles had
done at a similar crisis. “I begin to be fearful of the King being brought
to trial,” continued the Queen; “as to me, I am a foreigner; they will
assassinate me. What will become of my poor children?1

Marie Antoinette alluded to the sources of her unpopularity at the

time of collapse of the French monarchy. She was the foreign wife of
the king and the mother of the royal children during a time of ideo-
logical debate concerning the role of women within their families. As
the allusion to Louis XVI’s eventual trial demonstrates, the activities
of the royal family, including their eventual condemnation, unfolded
before the public gaze.
The parallels between Charles I and Louis XVI have been recog-
nized since the French Revolution but few have compared the expe-
riences of Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette. Queen Henrietta
Maria (1609–1669) was born almost a century and half before Marie
Antoinette, conducted her marriage in a different kingdom, and faced
2 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

a different set of political circumstances and ideological boundaries.

Henrietta Maria also avoided Marie Antoinette’s fate because she fled
England in 1644, at the height of the English Civil Wars, and outlived
her husband by twenty years, becoming a significant political figure at
the Stuart court in exile and after the Restoration.
Nevertheless, the parallels between Henrietta Maria and Marie
Antoinette are striking. As unmarried princesses, both women received
little formal education but observed the example of their respective
mothers—Marie de Medici, Regent of France and Empress Maria
Theresa of the Habsburg Empire—who wielded political authority in
regions that proscribed female rule. Upon their marriages at the ages
of fifteen and fourteen respectively, the new Queen Henrietta Maria
and Dauphiness Marie Antoinette found that their formative experi-
ences conflicted with the expectations of their husbands’ subjects and
the precedents set by previous queens consort. As wives, both women
managed their households, related to their husbands, and supervised
the upbringing of their children according to their own conceptions
of these roles. During outbreaks of revolutionary upheaval, they both
faced public accusations from representative bodies of their husband’s
subjects or former subjects, resulting in unprecedented legal action
against a sovereign’s wife.
The seemingly private activities of a queen consort became politi-
cal acts when they conflicted with the expectations of her husband’s
subjects. Both queens faced accusations that they had transgressed
social, gender, and regional norms, and attempted to defend them-
selves against negative reactions to their behavior. The failure of
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette to be accepted in the roles of
head of a royal household, wife of the sovereign, and mother of the
royal children undermined the stability of the monarchy in both mid-
seventeenth century England and late eighteenth century France.
Opponents of the monarchy during the English Civil Wars and the
French Revolution alike utilized the queen’s poor reputation to rein-
force the authority of alternative forms of government. This condem-
nation was formalized and conducted within the public sphere during
both periods of revolution.
In 1643, the English House of Commons passed articles of impeach-
ment against Henrietta Maria in absentia while Marie Antoinette
faced trial and sentencing before the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1793.
Comparative analysis of Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette provides
a framework for understanding the historical processes that contrib-
uted to the overthrow of the English and French monarchies during the
English Civil Wars and French Revolution respectively. These points of
similarity deepen the understanding of Henrietta Maria’s impeachment
 Introduction 3

and Marie Antoinette’s trial because the juxtaposition of the two events
reveals the continuous presence of the queen consort as a divisive figure
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Comparative analysis
of the experiences of the two queens illuminates changes in the percep-
tion of monarchy, the place of women within their families, the public
sphere, and ideas of foreignness that occurred over the course of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Western Europe.
The potential for comparative study of consorts within periods of
political upheaval was explored by Nancy Nichols Barker in her paper
“Revolution and the Royal Consort,” which broadened the compara-
tive structure beyond the Early Modern period to encompass Emperor
Nicholas II of Russia’s consort, Alexandra Feodorovna, in addition to
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette.2 Barker identified all three
women as targets of critiques fueled by their perceived status as repre-
sentatives of the political and/or religious interests of foreign powers,
and transgressors of established gender roles. Her research demon-
strated the potential for queens consort to illuminate significant themes
in revolutionary politics from the English Civil Wars in the seventeenth
century to the Russian Revolution in the twentieth century.3
This broad time frame, however, obscures the specific developments
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As will be discussed in
the conclusion, the parallels between perceptions of Marie Antoinette
and Alexandra were so clear that Russian memoirists remarked upon
them, and biographers of both women routinely compare their experi-
ences. In contrast, Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette had their
legitimacy as queens consort challenged at opposite ends of an Early
Modern continuum concerning the perception of the ideal marriage
and the family, the expansion of the public sphere, and the change
from strictly dynastic to more broadly sovereign ideas of monarchy.
The near absence of comparative works concerning Henrietta Maria
and Marie Antoinette reflects the limited focus of existing studies
of transnational court culture.4 Comparison of Henrietta Maria and
Marie Antoinette illuminates neglected themes related to the queen
consort’s role at court and encompasses the changing nature of Early
Modern monarchical government, the public sphere, domesticity, and
the emergence of national identities.
Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe places Henrietta
Maria and Marie Antoinette in a thematic framework, focusing on the
dialogue between their perceptions of themselves as heads of house-
holds, wives, and mothers and the expectations of their husbands’ sub-
jects concerning the queen consort’s performance of these roles. The
actual dynamics within the royal domestic sphere receive little atten-
tion within political histories because scholars frequently judge analysis
4 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

of the activities of royal wives and mothers to be relevant only to his-

tories of women and the family or of court life. The public nature of
the queen consort’s position transformed the choices Henrietta Maria
and Marie Antoinette made as wives and mothers into political acts
with lasting implications for their respective royal houses. Both queens
approached their roles in a manner that ultimately contributed to the
collapse of monarchical government. The question of the queen’s actual
activities and her contribution to popular discourse has been particu-
larly neglected as the symbolism, of Henrietta Maria and especially
Marie Antoinette, has received more recent scholarly attention while
discussion of each queen’s actual motives has been relegated to popular
biographies. The juxtaposition of the queen’s own intentions with the
expectations of her husband’s subjects provides a more complex picture
of the ideological conflicts centering on the consort.
The experiences of Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette inter-
sected with some of the most significant aspects of the transfor-
mation of state and society in Early Modern Europe. During the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the perception of monarchical
government changed significantly in the popular imaginations. Charles
I and his father, James I, favored concepts of divine right monarchy.5
Unfortunately for Charles, the absolute authority of kings was already
contested in the British Isles.6 Attempts to impose sovereign author-
ity over matters of religion only increased dissentions and opposition
to monarchical government. Elizabeth I of England achieved success
in the contested role of a Protestant queen regnant by recognizing the
limits of her power, and successfully collaborating with her council-
ors7 while Mary, Queen of Scots, was deposed early in her adult reign
because she could not successfully negotiate the political and religious
factionalism of her kingdom.8
Although royalists during the English Civil Wars would evoke refer-
ences to “the sacred person of the Queen,”9 the sense of the monarch and
consort as accountable to elite interests was already well developed by
Charles’s reign. Charles’s decision to reign without parliament during
the 1630s engendered widespread resentment as the imposition of direct
taxes by the monarch appeared to contravene long established customs
concerning the monarchy’s accountability to parliament.10 By the out-
break of the English Civil Wars, both courtiers and country gentlemen
supported a rule of law independent from royal intervention.11 In this con-
text, the queen was a particular target for popular scrutiny because she
could influence the king without involving herself with any representative
institution of his subjects. Her perceived involvement in foreign intrigues
appeared to render her unsuitable to exercise those privileges enjoyed by
previous queens consort including patronage and intercession.
 Introduction 5

The eighteenth century French model of monarchical government

derived from Louis XIV’s centralization of power, which was termed
absolutism in the work of French and English constitutionalists after
1830.12 There were, however, significant practical constraints on the
monarch’s seemingly absolute authority imposed by both ideology and
geography during Louis XIV’s reign. The sixteenth century French
political philosopher Jean Bodin argued that it was the duty of the
monarch to provide peace and security for the inhabitants of France,
demanding the further constraint of natural law over the authority of
the monarch. Bodin’s conception of natural law included the sanctity
of private property, limiting the degree to which the king could collect
revenue from his subjects.13 Taxation was constrained by the continued
autonomy of certain provinces. The pays d’état in particular retained a
significant portion of the tax revenues, limiting the monarch’s ability
to increase his revenues.14 Attempts to shape the family as a microcosm
of the absolutist state, to control the distribution of patronage,15 were
equally constrained by practice and local customs.16
The theoretical absolutism enjoyed by Louis XIV was already in con-
tention at the end of his successor Louis XV’s reign as the Paris par-
lements overruled the king’s wishes, 17 arguing they were acting in the
sovereign’s best interests during the Unigenitus controversy between
the Jesuits and the Jansenists.18 While disputes between the sixteenth
and early seventeenth century Tudor and Stuart monarchs and their
counsellors occurred at court and circulated to a broader audience slowly
through conversation and written newsletters, printed political pam-
phlets increased in availability during the English Civil Wars and this
print culture continued to expand throughout Western Europe during
the eighteenth century. The disputes between the king of France and
the parlements were immediately published, allowing all urban social
estates to engage with the dispute over the nature of sovereignty. This
expansion of the public sphere had a further effect on popular percep-
tions of monarchy, including perceptions of royal women. In contrast to
Louis XIV’s reign, which largely marginalized women after the regency
of Anne of Austria,19 Louis XV’s wife and daughters provided leader-
ship for the devot party at court, which supported the Jesuits.20 The per-
ception of Louis XV as dissolute while his female family members were
popularly respected for their piety foreshadowed the intense scrutiny of
Louis XVI’s and Marie Antoinette’s domestic life in the final decades
of the eighteenth century.
Marie Antoinette experienced the phenomenon of the queen consort
as a celebrity, discussed publicly in the same manner as any other promi-
nent figure. This delegitimized conception of the royal family emerged
directly from the popular disapproval of Louis XV, whose disputes with
6 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the parlements and patronage toward his mistresses were critiqued in

manuscript and printed pamphlets.21 Since neither Henrietta Maria nor
Marie Antoinette enjoyed a coronation they were placed even further
outside the framework of sacral monarchy. Henrietta Maria would be
judged within the framework of delegitimized monarchy while view-
ing her own role in traditional, dynastic terms. Marie Antoinette would
attempt to create a private domestic sphere that conflicted with French
conceptions of the public nature of monarchical government.
The popular perception that the queen was not a suitable advisor to
the king, during the reigns of Charles I and Louis XVI, reflected chang-
ing conceptions of what constituted “foreignness,” in both religious and
political realms. The view of the queen as a foreigner directly affected
the reception of Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette after their mar-
riages. Although England was a comparatively centralized state from
the Norman Conquest, medieval society was intensely regional with
loyalties to the community superseding that of the state.22 This region-
alism was even more pronounced in France as the king only gradually
gained control of modern day French territory and distinct regional lan-
guages and cultures persisted until at least the First World War.23 In
mid-seventeenth century England, Henrietta Maria’s Roman Catholic
religion was the most significant manifestation of her perceived status
as a foreigner. Henrietta Maria’s advocacy of toleration for her coreli-
gionists in England only reinforced the Protestant popular perception
that both the queen and Roman Catholics residing within the British
Isles were members of a foreign community.
By Marie Antoinette’s marriage to the future Louis XVI in 1770,
religious difference was only one of numerous markers of identity that
enabled individuals to identify their own region as distinct from sur-
rounding, foreign kingdoms. Henry IV’s reign was marked by the iden-
tification of the monarchy with Gallican Catholicism24 and Louis XV
had responded to pressure from the parlements by expelling the Jesuits
from France.25 The long-standing political conflicts between France and
Austria superseded any religious similarities that might have existed
between the two kingdoms in the popular imagination. This history of
hostilities between the Habsburgs and the Bourbons contributed to the
popular French conception of a treacherous “Austrian” character that
would fuel negative perceptions of Marie Antoinette.26
The dialogue between queen and public prior to both the English
Civil Wars and French Revolution also reveals the changing percep-
tions of women within their families that occurred during the Early
Modern period. As the most prominent woman in the kingdom,
each queen performed her domestic role before a popular audience.
The political and religious significance of her decisions within her
 Introduction 7

household were widely scrutinized. Henrietta Maria married Charles I

during a period in which stories of recusant Catholic wives converting
members of otherwise Protestant households circulated in the British
Isles.27 In late eighteenth century France, the position of the wife and
mother in her family was also the focus of popular interest. As Jean-
Jacques Rousseau’s ideas became popular with the urban bourgeoisie
and nobility, including Marie Antoinette herself, the queen faced criti-
cism for her perceived political influence and patronage activities in
the public sphere.
Outside of the specific ideological circumstances of Charles I’s and
Louis XVI’s reigns, Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette interacted
with their husbands, children, and servants at opposite ends of a con-
tinuum concerning the rise of companionate marriage and sentimental
childrearing.28 The degree to which each queen actually expected her
marriage to conform to this image reflected the increasing desirability
of companionate marriage, particularly among urban, literate European
communities, by the end of the eighteenth century.29 While Henrietta
Maria was content to present an image of domestic felicity at the same
time as she was experiencing continued tensions with her husband over
religion, household appointments, and the upbringing of her children,
Marie Antoinette was disappointed when she did not actually experi-
ence a happy marriage. By the outbreak of the French Revolution, a per-
sonally fulfilling domestic life was considered desirable for all wives and
mothers, including the queen herself.
The changing conceptions of monarchical government, foreignness,
and domesticity that intersected with the experiences of Henrietta
Maria and Marie Antoinette were all shaped by the changing public
sphere in Early Modern Europe. While Marie Antoinette and subse-
quent unpopular consorts faced a broad spectrum of public opposition
encompassing all social estates, Henrietta Maria defended her actions
to a much smaller group of the literate, politically engaged figures
who comprised “public opinion” in the mid-seventeenth century.30
During the 1620s and 1630s, Henrietta Maria left the defense of her
reputation in the broad public sphere to Charles I while she focused
on presenting herself to a court audience through her cultural patron-
age.31 This approach changed in the early 1640s when Henrietta Maria
began to directly communicate with parliament concerning her inten-
tions as a wife, mother, and head of a royal household.32 In contrast
to Marie Antoinette, Henrietta Maria initially focused her defense of
her reputation on small groups including the members of parliament
and courtiers, identifying the influential figures. Although all social
estates expressed interest in Henrietta Maria’s activities, the queen
correctly noted that a much smaller group was engaged in shaping
8 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

popular opinion, and directed much of her defense of her reputation

to these cultural and political elites.
In contrast, Marie Antoinette identified with Louis XVI’s female
subjects as fellow wives and mothers, and therefore constructed her
image for an appropriately broad public audience. When the queen of
France found herself facing accusations of sexual immorality or extrav-
agance she attempted to persuade people of all social estates of her good
intentions through domestic portraiture and public announcements
detailing economies in her household. When she encountered groups of
her husband’s subjects, particularly after the outbreak of revolution in
1789, she attempted to express her conception of her role, demonstrat-
ing that everyone had the potential to shape popular opinion during
this period.33 Throughout her time in France, Marie Antoinette dis-
played a consistent approach to the defense of her domestic worldview,
which reflected the diverse nature of the eighteenth century French
public sphere.34
Although both queens were prominent historical figures who have
inspired numerous scholarly and popular works, certain primary
sources remain underutilized, and discussion of their domestic roles
remains fragmented and incomplete. The current historiography of
the life and significance of Henrietta Maria emphasizes three clearly
defined aspects of her identity: the Catholic queen, the historical per-
sonality, and, in the past twenty years, the artistic and theatrical patron.
While studies of these themes have greatly expanded scholarly under-
standing of both Henrietta Maria’s motivations and the public expecta-
tions of their queen, the narrow focus on these topics has precluded a
thorough understanding of the perceptions and reality of her domestic
role. Instead, the scholarship regarding the queen’s position as a wife
exists in fragments within studies focusing on her religious, political,
or artistic influence while her relationship with her children remains a
neglected aspect of her life.
Analysis of Henrietta Maria as a Roman Catholic political force,
which historian Michelle Anne White describes as the “traditionalist”
approach to the study of the queen,35 is exemplified by Samuel Rawson
Gardiner’s numerous nineteenth century works concerning the English
Civil Wars. The traditionalists argue that the queen’s Catholicism and
political activities helped bring about the downfall of Charles I.36 Studies
of Henrietta Maria as a Catholic political influence continued to be pub-
lished alongside popular biographies throughout much of the twentieth
century. During the 1970s, scholars such as Quentin Bone and Elizabeth
Hamilton, whom White describes as “iconoclasts,” began to challenge
the “traditionalist” conclusion that Henrietta Maria’s Catholicism and
influence over Charles I was fatal to the royalist cause.37 Bone’s political
 Introduction 9

biography of the queen and Hamilton’s social history also drew upon a
more diverse array of archival sources than their predecessors, incorpo-
rating viewpoints beyond the collections of royal correspondence and
published accounts of the Civil Wars favored by traditionalists.38
In recent years, scholars have finally expanded the boundaries of
the analysis of Henrietta Maria’s political influence established by the
“traditionalists” and accepted by the “iconoclasts.” Malcolm Smuts and
Caroline Hibbard discuss the queen’s significance as a political figure
in her own right while numerous historians, art historians, and literary
theorists, most notably Erica Veevers, Erin Griffey, and Karen Britland
analyze her role in Stuart cultural production. Both approaches pro-
vide valuable insights concerning Henrietta Maria’s perception of her-
self as a wife and mother including her determination to retain control
over appointments to her own household,39 and interest in presenting
the ideals of platonic love through theatrical performance.40 At pres-
ent, the only comprehensive study of the manner in which the popular
press influenced contemporary opinion of the queen and her relation-
ship with Charles I is White’s book Henrietta Maria and the English Civil
Wars.41 The analysis of popular representations of the queen apart from
her actual biography is a technique utilized by numerous current Marie
Antoinette scholars, 42 but White is the only historian of Henrietta
Maria’s reign to structure her work in this manner.
In contrast to Henrietta Maria, who received relatively sporadic
attention from historians until the recent outpouring of interest in her
cultural activities, Marie Antoinette has been the focus of intense schol-
arly and popular interest throughout the past 200 years. She remains a
cultural icon, inspiring a broad range of interpretations of her personal-
ity and significance.43 A sense of saturation has permeated scholarly dis-
course concerning both the queen herself and the broader context of her
reign.44 Although Marie Antoinette certainly remains a popular focus
for research, the historiography of her role as a royal wife and mother
demonstrates that there remain neglected aspects of her reign includ-
ing her perception of herself as a queen consort and her place within a
comparative framework of Early Modern queenship.
Following the final collapse of the French monarchy in 1848, Marie
Antoinette appeared in both scholarly and popular literature as a polar-
izing figure. Scholars frequently held her responsible for undermining
the French monarchy while popular writers argued that she was an
innocent martyr of the excesses of the French Revolution.45 This polar-
ization mirrored the disparity between “traditionalist” interpretations
of Henrietta Maria and popular biographies, which were also published
during the mid-nineteenth century. Both groups of authors analyzing
Marie Antoinette’s reign, however, encountered obstacles with source
10 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

materials. The widespread sale of forged letters, supposedly written

by Marie Antoinette and members of her household, undermined the
potential for balanced scholarship concerning the queen’s motivations.
This false correspondence encouraged the spread of both wholly posi-
tive and wholly negative conceptions of her character.46 In his 1932 work
Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman, German biogra-
pher Stefan Zweig challenged the conclusions of both the admirers and
detractors of the queen.47 His work possesses a balanced scholarly tone
unknown in the polarizing nineteenth century writings. Unfortunately,
Zweig’s commitment to the portrayal of Marie Antoinette as an aver-
age person encouraged him to dismiss any sentiment attributed to the
queen that displays wit or understanding of political realities, regardless
of the reliability of its provenance.48
In the past thirty years, there has been an outpouring of scholar-
ship on various aspects of Marie Antoinette’s life and historical sig-
nificance. While current historians of Henrietta Maria have primarily
focussd on the queen’s role in court culture, the majority of current
scholarly Marie Antoinette literature falls into two broad categories:
studies of the gender politics that influenced the condemnation of
the queen in the popular press, and analyses of her political signifi-
cance within a court that was hostile toward her Habsburg ancestry.49
Marie Antoinette’s conception of herself receives little attention in all
these works, resulting in discussion of the accusations against her by
the popular press without mention of her reaction to them. Modern
analysis of the degree to which Marie Antoinette herself possessed
concrete political ambitions provides a greater degree of insight into
her personal motivations than the recent studies of pamphlet litera-
ture.50 Authors who discuss her conception of herself within a political
context, however, often present the queen through the narrow lens of
her relationship with Louis XVI and his ministers. Current accounts
of Marie Antoinette’s political role simplify her relationship with her
husband and inaccurately relegate her motherhood to a supposedly
apolitical private sphere.
The recent research of Thomas Kaiser concerning the popular reac-
tion to the queen as a representative of France’s traditional enemy, the
Habsburg Empire, bridges the two recent categories of analysis con-
cerning Marie Antoinette. Kaiser focuses on the political dimension
of the pamphlet literature that Chantal Thomas and Lynn Hunt dis-
cuss in exclusively gendered terms. His studies of Marie Antoinette and
French Austrophobia assert that the hostility to the queen expressed
through the popular press reflected concern that she represented a
threat to national security as well as the accepted gender hierarchy.51
 Introduction 11

A subsequent article by Kaiser “Scandal in the Royal Nursery: Marie-

Antoinette and the Gouvernantes des Enfants de France,” further unites
the various trends in scholarship concerning Marie Antoinette by dis-
cussing pamphlet literature and Austrophobia within the context of the
queen’s domestic life. The historiography concerning Henrietta Maria
and Marie Antoinette demonstrates that despite the volume and diver-
sity of works concerning both queens, there are various perspectives
that have not been addressed.
The comparison of two queens consort illuminates themes that
permeate the relationship between state and society over the course
of Early Modern history, providing evidence of different British and
French approaches to issues of foreignness, monarchical government,
and domesticity within a court context over a two century period. The
first chapter will begin the analysis of the dialogue between the queen’s
intentions and the expectations of her subjects by viewing her domestic
role through the comparison of the environment in which she spent her
childhood, and the mythology of queenship in England, Scotland, and
France. The three themes that will be addressed are the academic and
practical education each princess received prior to marriage, the influ-
ence of each queen’s mother and other prominent women from their
courts of origin, and the perceptions of previous consorts in England
and France. The education and maternal example experienced by both
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette contributed to their attitudes
toward their roles as royal wives and mothers, which conflicted with
the expectations of the polities in which they would eventually reign.
In the eighteenth century, the French possessed a popular mythology of
“unnatural” queens, who exerted political power on behalf of their chil-
dren to the perceived disadvantage of the French people. Seventeenth
century England and Scotland accepted the potential for women to rule
independently as queens regnant but there were few recent examples of
politically active queens consort.
Chapters 2–4 will address the central facets of each queen’s domes-
tic role between the time of her marriage and the outbreak of revolu-
tion in her adopted kingdom. Chapter 2 will discuss each queen’s role
as head of her household. While this position may appear to be outside
the realm of the domestic sphere, household records for both Henrietta
Maria and Marie Antoinette often refer to servants as the queen’s “fam-
ily,” demonstrating the parental role that heads of such satellite courts
were expected to occupy. The relationship between the king’s court
and the queen’s circle often created tension in the royal marriage. Both
queens were publicly accused of misconduct regarding appointments
to their households, fueling popular debate concerning such topics as
12 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the potential for the queen’s household to serve as a center for espio-
nage, corruption, or sexual misconduct. Henrietta Maria and Marie
Antoinette also had to act as nominal administrators of jointure lands,
and estates, a position of authority that had the potential to create a
popular perception of an inverted gender hierarchy at court.
Chapter 3 will discuss the queen’s role as wife to the sovereign. This
relationship had numerous dimensions that contributed to the manner
in which a royal couple organized its own affairs, and the popular per-
ception of ideal marital relations between the king and queen. Henrietta
Maria and Marie Antoinette were expected by their sovereign moth-
ers to further the interests of their kingdoms of origin. Their status as
foreigners in England and France respectively created anxiety concern-
ing their opportunities to influence the king’s political decisions. The
gender hierarchy within each royal marriage also reflected on the mon-
arch’s authority. Both queens were popularly perceived as dominating
their husbands at various times in their marriages, inviting accusations
that the king was unable to maintain his dominance over his family and,
by extension, his kingdom. The public performance of the royal mar-
riage was further complicated by the changing perception of the ideal
relationship between husband and wife during the Early Modern period
while the dynastic imperatives of a royal marriage remained constant.
Chapter 4 will discuss the dialogue between each queen’s percep-
tion of herself as a mother and popular expectations of her maternity
including political implications of each queen’s motherhood, the man-
ner in which each queen intended her children to be raised, and the
degree of personal involvement of the royal mother in the nursery. The
maternity of both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette challenged
established political factions within England and France respectively.
For both queens, the birth of heirs, one of the primary purposes of a
royal marriage, contributed to their unpopularity as the number and
gender of their children received a complex array of responses from
their husbands’ subjects. The childrearing techniques and perceived
involvement of each queen in the royal nursery fueled popular anxi-
eties concerning the children as both Henrietta Maria and Marie
Antoinette became mothers during periods of ideological debate con-
cerning the definition of the “good mother.” Both Henrietta Maria and
Marie Antoinette were aware of this scrutiny and attempted to chal-
lenge negative portrayals of themselves as mothers through their cor-
respondence and the commission of family portraits. Henrietta Maria
and Marie Antoinette each formulated a parenting philosophy that
reflected the ideological trends of their own lifetimes and the broader
emergence of sentimental childrearing.
 Introduction 13

Chapter 5 addresses how the queen’s domestic role fueled conflict

during the English Civil Wars and French Revolution. This chapter
will focus on the most prominent examples of popular judgment of
the queen’s domesticity, which were the 1643 impeachment in absen-
tia of Henrietta Maria by the English House of Commons, and the
1793 trial of Marie Antoinette before the Revolutionary Tribunal.
In both sets of proceedings, the queen received intense criticism as
a wife and mother. Members of the consort’s household were inter-
rogated and accused of treason, the royal marriage was critiqued as
a site of unnatural female dominance and foreign intrusion into the
monarchy, and efforts were made to present the queen as a malign
influence over her children. Both queens attempted to defend them-
selves against the accusations, crafting sympathetic narratives of their
conflicts with the new governments. The impeachment of Henrietta
Maria and the trial of Marie Antoinette served as forums for debate
concerning whether each queen had transgressed in her three pivotal
domestic roles as queen consort. These events also served as forums
for new regimes to express opposition to monarchical government as
the queen consort acted as an advisor to the monarch without being
accountable to his subjects.
The conclusion will briefly discuss the widowhood of Henrietta Maria
and the influence of Marie Antoinette’s experiences over nineteenth
and twentieth century royal consorts. Despite the decline of dynastic
marriage as a strategic policy following the Congress of Vienna, the
expectation that royalty would marry members of foreign royal houses,
which persisted until the First World War, meant that the consort was
significant to popular conceptions of the nation state in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. There are numerous examples of queens and
princesses who became unpopular in their marital kingdoms during
this period because their conception of their role appeared foreign to
their husband’s subjects. The most notable examples from the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries are Princess Victoria of Great Britain,
who married Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia in 1858, and Princess
Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, who became Empress Alexandra of Russia
upon her marriage in 1858. During the same period in which these two
consorts were vilified as foreigners, Marie Antoinette was the subject
of romantic biographies, and Alexandra in particular expressed admira-
tion for the queen of France. Marie Antoinette’s experiences informed
the situations of subsequent consorts who became unpopular due to
their foreign origins.
The dialogue between Henrietta Maria, Marie Antoinette, and the
respective subjects of Charles I and Louis XVI concerning the proper
14 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

role of a queen consort as a wife, mother, and head of a royal house-

hold intersects with some of the most significant topics in the history
of Early Modern Europe: popular perceptions of monarchical govern-
ment, foreignness, domesticity, and the public sphere between the
English Civil Wars and the French Revolution. Each queen was chal-
lenged by her husband’s subjects at opposite points in a continuum con-
cerning the relationship between the state and society and the place of
women within their families. The experiences of Henrietta Maria and
Marie Antoinette illuminate the broader political and social changes
that occurred in Early Modern Europe during the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries.
 CHAPTER 1

EDUCATION, EXAMPLE, AND

EXPECTATIONS

P
rincess Henriette-Marie of France and the Archduchess
Maria Antonia of Austria were born at a time when educa-
tion and leadership ambitions for royal women were limited.
During the sixteenth century, humanist ideals regarding the academic
development of both men and women resulted in highly educated prin-
cesses schooled in foreign languages, classics, and literature in addition to
the accepted feminine accomplishments of music, dancing, needlework,
and piety.1 These learned princesses were expected to have the necessary
training to wield political power as the dynastic and geographical condi-
tions of the sixteenth century enabled an unusual number of women to
rule independently.2 The prevalence of female rule during the sixteenth
century attracted popular critiques3 and the royal women of this period
had to employ various means of justifying their exercise of the tradition-
ally masculine prerogative of sovereignty.
By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the education, politi-
cal prospects, and popular expectations of European princesses had
changed. The ideological climate altered to preclude widespread female
sovereignty because of political and dynastic conditions including the
increased availability of male heirs. The education received by royal
women changed accordingly. The broad humanist training received by
sixteenth century royal women fell from favor and was replaced by les-
sons consisting almost entirely of feminine accomplishments. Within
the English context, a comparison of the rigorous classical education
received by the future Mary I and Elizabeth I in the sixteenth century,
and the limited schooling in domestic arts, music, and religion expe-
rienced by the future queens Mary II and Anne in the seventeenth
century reveals the extent of the decline of educational standards for
princesses during the Early Modern period.4 Since both Henrietta
Maria and Marie Antoinette were born the youngest daughters of large
families, their educations were particularly neglected as their ruling
parents assumed that these princesses were destined for comparatively
16 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

insignificant dynastic marriages. The two young women therefore

received the cultural and religious education necessary to serve orna-
mental purposes in court spectacles. They would express regret regard-
ing their limited academic educations when circumstances required
them to engage in foreign court politics or respond to popular critiques
of their reputations.5
Although the academic education of Henrietta Maria and Marie
Antoinette reflected the low standard expected of seventeenth and
eighteenth century princesses, the examples provided by their moth-
ers demonstrated that female rule was still possible during this period.
The assassination of Henrietta Maria’s father, King Henry IV of
France and Navarre, in 1610 allowed her mother, Marie de Medici, to
become regent for her nine-year-old son, King Louis XIII. In Austria,
the extinction of the Habsburg male line provided the impetus for the
Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, the legal foundation for Marie Antoinette’s
mother, Maria Theresa, to inherit her father’s domains. Both Marie and
Maria Theresa faced widespread opposition to their rule, and were com-
pelled to justify their sovereignty to their subjects to a degree unknown
to male sovereigns of the period. Although the upbringing of both
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette was largely entrusted to gov-
ernesses, the connection between the sovereign mother and her chil-
dren provided a powerful means for Marie and Maria Theresa to justify
wielding political power. The upbringing received by the two princesses
would strongly influence their own decisions as royal mothers and is
therefore crucial to the understanding of their eventual domestic roles
as queens consort.
When Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette married, they left
their families and became members of foreign royal courts without liv-
ing dowager queens to provide a surrogate maternal example of accept-
able behavior for a queen consort. In both seventeenth century England
and eighteenth century France, there were few recent examples of polit-
ically active queens consort for princesses raised by influential mothers
to emulate. Instead, Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette encoun-
tered both the mythology of queens consort active in previous centu-
ries, and ideological shifts concerning the role of women within their
families. In England, Henrietta Maria found her training as a defender
of English Roman Catholics and participant in court theatricals in con-
flict with a society where there was widespread concern about recusant
Catholic women married to Protestant husbands, and unfamiliarity
with women on the theatrical stage.
In France, the specific role of the queen consort invited widespread
scrutiny as there was a popular mythology of the evil queen who
advanced her own interests and those of her children at the expense of
 Education, Example, and Expectations 17

the French people. The legacy of the Fronde and the French Wars of
Religion, which encompassed opposition to the regencies of Anne of
Austria and Catherine de Medici respectively, reinforced popular hos-
tility toward a politically active queen, particularly one who represented
a foreign power. Marie Antoinette’s instructions from Maria Theresa
to further Habsburg interests in France placed her in opposition to the
acceptable role of a French queen consort. For both Henrietta Maria
and Marie Antoinette, their limited academic education, the power-
ful example of female sovereignty provided by their mothers, and the
mythology of queenship present in their adopted kingdoms would pro-
vide the context for their eventual unpopularity as heads of royal house-
holds, wives, and mothers.

Henrietta Maria: Daughter of

the Queen Regent
Henrietta Maria’s position as the sixth child and third daughter of
Henry IV defined her life as a princess of France from her birth in
1609 to her marriage to King Charles I of England in 1625. The source
material concerning this period of her life is fragmentary. Unlike Marie
Antoinette, Henrietta Maria did not discuss her upbringing in her cor-
respondence. Since the main upheaval of her childhood concerned the
conflict between her mother and her brother Louis XIII, the diplomatic
correspondence of the period paid little attention to the princesses
until their marriages. The two main sources concerning Henrietta
Maria’s childhood are the correspondence of the royal family and the
journal of Louis XIII’s doctor Jean Heroard. The surviving letters are
often undated and addressed to “my daughter” or “my sister” making
it unclear when the documents were written and whether the recipient
was Henrietta Maria herself or one of her elder sisters. Heroard focused
on the upbringing of the young king, mentioning his sisters only when
they visited their elder brother or were involved in a significant court
ceremony. Despite the shortcomings of these documents, they hint at
the ornamental nature of Henrietta Maria’s education and the strong
influence of her mother on her upbringing.
There is scattered evidence concerning the actual subjects Henrietta
Maria learned from her tutors, and the literature she encountered dur-
ing the course of her education. Agnes Strickland wrote that the young
princess and her elder brother Gaston, Duc d’Orleans, were tutored
by the diplomat and scholar of Oriental languages Francois Savary de
Breves,6 but Quentin Bone notes that he was dismissed from court
when Henrietta Maria was nine years old, limiting his opportunity
18 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

to contribute to her education.7 An undated letter from Marie to

Henrietta Maria encourages the princess to complete her exercises and
attend to the instructions sent for her education, but the nature of these
instructions is not discussed in the document.8 As queen of England,
the absence of booksellers from the lists of people owed payment in
her household accounts suggests that she was not a great reader or a
patron of literature.9 Accounts of her wedding presents and possessions
lost during the interregnum suggest her primary reading material was
devotional literature including prayer books and the lives of saints.10
She also owned a book of proverbs attributed to her late father, which
she received as a wedding present.11 As an adult, Henrietta Maria would
complain that her ignorance of history made it difficult to understand
the political conditions of England12 and the numerous inaccuracies in
her recorded discussions of English history and politics during her wid-
owhood suggest that she never developed the skills necessary to engage
in sustained study of these subjects.13
Henrietta Maria’s interests as an adult provide evidence that the
primary focus of her education was instruction in the tenets of the
Roman Catholic faith, and training in the accomplishments necessary
to participate in court ceremonies and entertainments. This educa-
tion prepared Henrietta Maria for the role of queen consort as it was
interpreted in France. Marie de Medici’s most recent biographer argues
that a foreign queen consort arriving at the seventeenth century French
court was expected to perform three main roles: leader of court cer-
emonies, representative of the Gallican Roman Catholic piety of the
royal family, and mother of the royal children.14 The few references to
the princess in diplomatic correspondence during the first fifteen years
of her life concern her presence at court ceremonies from the earliest
months of her infancy, when she attended the coronation of her mother
and funeral of her father.
In common with her elder sisters, Henrietta Maria’s eventual des-
tiny was a politically advantageous marriage. As the youngest daugh-
ter, there was a strong possibility that she would be married into one
of the cadet branches of the French royal family to ensure its con-
tinued support for Louis XIII’s rule.15 The Venetian ambassador to
France referred to Henrietta Maria as the Count of Soissons’s “des-
tined bride” as late as 1623.16 Various Italian and Habsburg princes
were also potential matches for the young princess17 until concern
in both England and France regarding the diplomatic implications
of a Spanish marriage for the future Charles I precipitated serious
discussion of a cross-confessional Anglo-French union.18 The Count
of Soissons, however, remained the most likely future husband for
the young princess throughout much of her childhood. Under these
 Education, Example, and Expectations 19

circumstances, an education consisting entirely of French court cul-

ture and religious practices may have appeared suitable for an even-
tual marriage to one of her Bourbon cousins.
This parochial training was not unusual for an Early Modern
European princess, particularly one who belonged to a prominent and
influential royal house. Princesses from great powers such as France and
Spain, who were often betrothed to foreign princes as young children,
were rarely prepared for the specific customs of their future courts.19
French and Latin were considered international languages among the
nobility, and the most influential courts were considered models for less
powerful dynasties to emulate. The princesses best trained to assimi-
late into a new court were the daughters of minor rulers, whose suit-
ability for dynastic marriage was partially determined by their mastery
of more widely spoken languages and court ceremonies.20 Henrietta
Maria’s prominence as a Bourbon princess of France, and potential for
marriage to a French prince resulted in an education that provided little
preparation for the circumstances she would eventually encounter at a
foreign court.
The presence of all the royal children at Marie’s coronation in 1610,
the last major court ceremony before the assassination of Henry IV, pro-
vided opportunities for court panegyrists to praise the queen’s fertility
and the potential for her daughters to benefit France through advanta-
geous marriages. One ode to Marie published on the occasion of her
coronation stated, “She is also the mother of three princesses, the joys
of this crown desired by the foreign ones.” 21 Henrietta Maria took part
in the betrothal and marriage ceremonies of her elder siblings through-
out her childhood, reinforcing her position at court as a marriageable
princess.22 As she entered adolescence, she began to participate in court
theatricals. Her elder sisters, Elisabeth, future queen of Spain, and
Christine, future Duchess of Savoy, participated in Italian style masques
sponsored by their mother in her capacity as regent of France23 but the
political landscape had changed considerably by the time Henrietta
Maria came of age. Louis XIII had asserted his independence from his
mother, although the period of open warfare between the two factions
had ended with the dowager queen’s reinstatement on the royal coun-
cil in 1621. During the princess’s theatrical performances at the French
court, most notably the 1624 ballet de la reine, danse pour les nymphes des
jardins, the productions themselves were sponsored by Louis XIII’s con-
sort Anne of Austria but Henrietta Maria recited onstage odes to her
mother, who was a prominent member of the audience.24
As an unmarried princess, her performances provided her with
opportunities to demonstrate her courtly accomplishments before audi-
ences of foreign diplomats and eventually contribute to the creation of a
20 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

romantic courtship narrative concerning the circumstances of her even-

tual marriage to Charles I. The heir to the English throne25 first sighted
Henrietta Maria while she was rehearsing a court ballet,26 during his
brief visit to the French court on his 1623 journey to Spain.27 When the
negotiations for the Spanish match failed and Charles instead married
Henrietta Maria, the royal couple and the courtiers who composed ele-
gies on the occasion of their marriage presented this meeting as the
beginning of a romance.28 In fact, the young princess was one of numer-
ous court ladies involved in this particular theatrical performance and
Charles was most interested in observing her sister-in-law, Anne, who
played the lead role in the ballet, as he intended to marry her sister,
the Infanta Maria. Since Henrietta Maria’s precise role in this ballet is
unrecorded in English sources, it is unlikely that she made a significant
impression on Charles during his visit to the French court. As will be
discussed in chapter 3, Charles would later claim that he fell in love at
first sight to construct his marriage as a chivalric romance. Henrietta
Maria’s participation in court theatricals as a princess contributed to
the manner in which she attempted to shape the public perception of
her marriage as queen.
While Charles I and Henrietta Maria constructed the romantic
interpretation of their first meeting after their marriage took place,
English diplomats attended court theatricals to determine the prin-
cess’s suitability as queen consort before the formal betrothal. The
presentation of a royal masque containing a performance by a marriage-
able princess provided opportunities for the assessment of the potential
queen consort’s appearance, accomplishments, and ability to contribute
to court occasions. When Henry Rich, Lord Kensington, the future
Earl of Holland, attended a ballet de la reine in 1624, he wrote to Charles
of Henrietta Maria, “Her growth is very little, short of her age; and her
wisdom infinitely beyond it. I heard her discourse with her mother,
and the ladies about her, with extraordinary discretion and quickness.
She dances . . . as well as ever I saw any Creature; They say she sings so
sweetly.”29 This account provides evidence of both the queenly attributes
demonstrable through theatrical performance and the qualities consid-
ered desirable for an English consort. As queen of England, Henrietta
Maria would be responsible for an independent royal household and
would therefore have to converse with a wide circle of courtiers. Her
proficiency in singing and dancing would enhance her participation
in court occasions including the form of court masque patronized by
Charles’s late mother, Anna of Denmark, who used theatrical perfor-
mance to shape her identity as queen.30 Court theatricals also provided
an opportunity for diplomats to observe the future queen’s appearance.
Henrietta Maria’s short stature and childlike physique was a source of
 Education, Example, and Expectations 21

concern to Charles and to courtiers who encountered her as a princess

and newlywed queen because her appearance did not appear to be con-
ducive to childbearing.31 These perceived characteristics of the young
princess were observed by English diplomats through attendance at the-
atrical performances, which demonstrated the importance of Henrietta
Maria’s cultural education to her future position.
In contrast to Henrietta Maria’s courtly education, where the attri-
butes expected of French and English queens consort overlapped, her
religious education reflected French Roman Catholic interests alone.
In Henrietta Maria’s lifetime, cross-confessional dynastic marriage
served as a means of attempting to negotiate toleration and a public
presence for the minority faith in a princess’s marital kingdom. The
shifting diplomatic climate, which often resulted in numerous suc-
cessive betrothals for royal princes and princesses, meant that even
the most junior royal personage in the seventeenth century had to be
trained for the eventuality of maintaining their faith during a cross-
confessional marriage. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
cross-confessional royal marriages were rarer, involving spouses who
were comparatively diplomatically insignificant.32 In contrast to Marie
Antoinette, who married another Roman Catholic in a period of wide-
spread anticlericalism, Henrietta Maria’s religious education was of
strong political and diplomatic significance.
The religious influences on Henrietta Maria included diverse inter-
pretations of piety, missionary activity, and obedience to papal author-
ity. The Gallican devotional practices at the Bourbon court meant that
a Roman Catholic French princess and her household were not necessar-
ily representatives of the papacy as the Protestant English and Scottish
public would often assume. This religious diversity helps to explain
the different approaches to her role as a Catholic queen consort that
Henrietta Maria adopted during her marriage and widowhood. Her reli-
gious education as a child was entrusted to the Sisters of the Carmelite
Order,33 whose devotions focused on the veneration of the Virgin Mary
who was also the patron saint of Henrietta Maria’s mother, and a signifi-
cant figure in the queen regent’s iconography.34 Marie had attempted to
reinforce her own legitimacy as regent through the public espousal of
conventional Roman Catholic piety, incorporating her devotional prac-
tices into her public image and patronizing religious orders such as the
Carmelites and Franciscans.35
In contrast to Louis XIII, who favored an Anglo-French alliance
for military purposes, Marie regarded the marriage of her youngest
daughter to Charles as an opportunity to alleviate the persecution of
English and Scottish Catholics and eventually restore the allegiance of
the Stuart kingdoms to the papacy.36 When Henrietta Maria arrived
22 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

in England, her household contained both Oratorian priests, who

viewed their position through the lens of Counterreformation mission-
ary activity37 and members of the Capuchin order, who were consid-
ered moderate by Protestant observers compared to the proselytizing
Jesuit order.38 During her time as a queen consort and dowager queen in
England, Henrietta Maria would adopt both Oratorian and Capuchin
approaches to Catholic observance. When the majority of her French
household was dismissed in 1626, the French ambassador attempted to
secure the restoration of the queen’s priests with the argument that they
were not members of the Jesuit order and therefore would not attempt
to spread the Catholic faith in England and Scotland.39 Henrietta Maria
attempted missionary activity as a young bride and widow but accepted
Protestants in her circle as a mature queen.
Henrietta Maria’s correspondence around the time of her wedding
and the nature of the religious clauses in her marriage contract dem-
onstrate that as a young princess, she perceived herself to be a cham-
pion of the Catholic faith in England. The phrasing of her 6 April 162540
letter to Pope Urban VIII, who granted the dispensation necessary for
the Catholic princess to marry the Protestant Charles I, reveals the
influence of her religious education on her attitude toward her future
position. In the letter, she promises the pope that she will appoint only
Catholics to the households of her children, “Following the good train-
ing and instructions of the Queen my mother.”41 This statement demon-
strates that the young princess identified with the religious goals of her
mother regarding the English marriage. Henrietta Maria also wrote in
this letter that her elder brother Louis XIII had given her instructions,
influenced by the terms of the papal dispensation, regarding the main-
tenance of her own faith and the improvement of the position of English
Catholics.42 She wrote, “I have learned and understood, through my
lord the king, the careful and prudent counsels and advice which it has
pleased your highness to give him, on the occasion of the treaty made
in reference to my marriage to the Prince of Wales.”43 Henrietta Maria’s
impending marriage resulted in the king of France and the pope tak-
ing a direct interest in the development of her religious education. In
her capacity as queen of England, the French princess would have the
potential to further Catholic interests abroad and her religious educa-
tion was clearly tailored to prepare her for this role, providing the con-
text for an eventual conflict with Charles I’s Protestant subjects.
The religious clauses of the marriage contract between Charles and
Henrietta Maria reflected the promises the princess made in her letter.
The contract stated that Henrietta Maria’s household would contain
twenty-eight priests including a Grand Almoner appointed to over-
see her Catholic chapel, all her attendants would be French, Roman
 Education, Example, and Expectations 23

Catholic, and appointed by Louis, and she would have authority over the
upbringing of her children until they reached the age of thirteen.44 These
terms infringed on Charles’s authority as Henrietta Maria’s husband as
well as the sovereign of her adopted kingdom because they theoretically
gave his wife and her brother sole authority over the construction of the
royal household and the upbringing of his children. The contract fur-
ther reinforced Henrietta Maria’s autonomy from her husband because
it forbade Charles from attempting to impose his own influence on the
religious education his wife had received as a French princess, stating,
“His Majesty the King of Great Britain is by oath bound not to endeav-
our by any means at all to have his said Queen to renounce or forfeit the
Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion nor compel her to do anything
whatsoever that is contrary to the said religion.”45 Henrietta Maria’s
freedom of conscience, which was guaranteed by her marriage contract,
disappointed Protestant subjects of Charles who hoped for her conver-
sion and fueled popular concerns regarding recusant Catholic wives in
Church of England households.
The selective nature of Henrietta Maria’s education shaped her atti-
tude toward her background as a French princess throughout her adult
life. Her absence of instruction in European history and governance,
combined with the political upheaval that occurred in France during
her childhood, precluded an understanding of herself as a representative
of a unified French kingdom. As Caroline Hibbard argues, “Henrietta
Maria’s approach to international politics was personal, dynastic, or cul-
tural rather than nationalistic.”46 The conflict between Louis and Marie
divided the queen’s loyalties to her natal family throughout much of her
tenure as queen consort, with her sympathies often aligning with the
grievances of her mother. Her strong cultural and religious training also
encouraged her to regard herself as a member or patron of extra-national
institutions such as the Catholic Church, the Baroque artistic move-
ment of the seventeenth century, or the extended family of European
monarchs. This worldview would inhibit her ability to understand the
eventual anxieties of Charles’s subjects, who would observe her house-
hold, relatives, and tastes through the lens of her French background.
Henrietta Maria’s paltry academic education and strong cultural
and religious training also reflected the influence and priorities of
her mother. From 1601 until 1610, the year of Henrietta Maria’s birth,
Marie was queen consort and developed a prominent public profile as
a wife and mother.47 In contrast to Henry IV’s first wife Marguerite de
Valois, and the daughters-in-law of Henry II, Marie’s image was well
known through the commission of double portraits of the royal cou-
ple.48 The births of all six of her children occurred publicly at either
Fontainebleau palace or the Louvre to demonstrate the legitimacy of
24 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the royal line, 49 a practice that would continue until Marie Antoinette’s
tenure as queen consort. Despite the often repeated assertion that the
arrival of a sixth child and third daughter was so insignificant to Henry
IV that he “hardly turned his attention from the gaming table” on hear-
ing of Henrietta Maria’s birth,50 Heroard’s journal indicates that he was
close at hand throughout Marie’s labor.51 The queen consort received
additional income upon the birth of each one of her children beyond the
Dauphin.52 The prominence granted Marie and all six of her children
demonstrates that Henry considered the public recognition of the entire
royal family significant to the legitimacy of the House of Bourbon.
Henrietta Maria’s position as a wife and mother would be equally politi-
cally significant during her marriage to Charles.
Scholars continue to debate whether Marie fulfilled the seventeenth
century conception of the “good mother” in her relationship with her
children. The expectations seventeenth century mothers encoun-
tered were different from the ideals expressed by Rousseau’s Emile and
other Enlightenment works concerning the family that would influ-
ence Marie Antoinette. Marie de Medici and other elite women were
expected to make decisions that ensured the health, safety, education,
and spiritual welfare of their children but the actual childrearing was
usually conducted by servants under the supervision of a head gov-
erness.53 The future Charles I and Henrietta Maria were both raised
in nurseries typical of royal households of the period, interacting with
their governesses and tutors daily and visiting their mothers on infre-
quent formal occasions.54
In contrast to the numerous other French queens who were vilified
at the time of the French Revolution, such as Catherine de Medici and
Anne of Austria, there have been few efforts to rehabilitate Marie’s rep-
utation. Twentieth century scholarship generally argues that the queen
regent failed to achieve even seventeenth century parenting ideals,
comparing Marie unfavorably with her more demonstrative husband.55
Twenty-first century works display a more balanced analysis of Marie’s
activities as a parent.56 The scholarly debate concerning Marie’s behavior
as a mother is not reflective of her actual relationship with her youngest
daughter, Henrietta Maria. Henry IV was assassinated during the prin-
cess’s infancy and therefore did not serve as a figure of comparison to
her mother. Instead, the most prominent figure involved in Henrietta
Maria’s upbringing was her governess, the Marquise de Montglat, who
acted in close consultation with Marie. Louis XIII received his own
household in the Louvre at the time of his accession but Montglat,
whom the children called Mamangat,57 remained in charge of the Duke
d’Orleans and the princesses until their marriages. In contrast to the
current view that Marie Antoinette was the first French queen consort
 Education, Example, and Expectations 25

to actively interfere with the autonomous position of the Governess to

the Children of France,58 Marie’s letters to Montglat provide detailed
instructions concerning the medical care the children should receive,
the structure of their households, and the necessary frequency of
inspections of the royal nursery.59 Marie also corresponded with all of
her children, making frequent inquiries about their health and educa-
tion and often enclosing small gifts, such as jewelry, for her daughters.60
Henrietta Maria would engage in a similar style of correspondence with
her own children, demonstrating the enduring influence of her mother.
During the first eight years of Henrietta Maria’s life, Marie occupied
the role of regent for the young Louis, wielding direct political power
in a kingdom where the Salic law forbade the ascension of a queen reg-
nant.61 The regent’s three daughters were crucial to her diplomatic goals
during this period because the negotiation of their marriages to foreign
princes would cement treaties and enhance the prestige of the House
of Bourbon without transmitting succession rights outside of France.62
Henrietta Maria was not permitted to accompany her mother upon her
exile from Paris to the Chateau Blois in 1617 but traveled with her to the
outskirts of Paris63 and continued to correspond with her until her rein-
statement on the royal council.64 Marie provided Henrietta Maria with
an example of a queen who wielded political power, lost her position,
then fought to regain a measure of her former influence. The former
regent was able to utilize both her status as mother of the sovereign and
ability to exploit factionalism within the French nobility to regain her
place on the royal council in 1621 after a period of exile from Louis’s
court. Henrietta Maria formed a close attachment to her mother that
would influence her own decisions as a wife, mother, and head of a royal
household in England.

Henrietta Maria: The Intercessor from France

When Henrietta Maria became queen consort in 1625, she encountered
a populace with strong opinions concerning French spouses of English
monarchs, Catholic wives married to Protestant husbands, and the legacy
created by the most recent queen consort of England and Scotland, Anna
of Denmark. The new queen would have to address these critiques to
defend her own conception of her position. The precedents set by Anna
regarding the queen’s household will be discussed in greater detail in
chapter 2, and the popular perception of recusant wives will be addressed
in chapter 3. The view of French princesses who married English mon-
archs and the expectations these princesses encountered upon their mar-
riages, however, directly demonstrates the conflict between Henrietta
Maria’s upbringing and her position as a wife and will be discussed here.
26 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

During the mid-seventeenth century, popular attitudes toward

previous queens consort of French origin were often contradictory.
Supporters of Henrietta Maria’s marriage noted positive examples
while opponents described instances of political upheaval caused by the
arrival of French princesses in England. From 1066 to 1272, all the queens
consort of England, with the exception of Henry I’s first wife Edith
(Matilda) of Scotland, were born in modern day France.65 Seventeenth
century writers searching for comparisons to Henrietta Maria did not
mention this early succession of French queens. The English queens of
this period were not members of this rival French royal house but prin-
cesses of regional French powers such as Provence, Navarre, Louvain,
Angoulême, and Aquitaine. The expectations they faced were very dif-
ferent from those of the seventeenth century.
The perception of continental queens as distinctly French dates from
the reign of Edward II, whose marriage to Isabelle of Valois provided
a direct connection with the ruling French dynasty. Since the Salic law
was first publicly invoked during Isabelle’s lifetime, the royal marriage
provided the English royal family with a plausible claim to the French
throne, which served as one of the eventual pretexts for the Hundred
Years’ War. Isabelle’s marriage and those of successive French queens
often took place amidst Anglo-French conflict, cementing the popular
perception of such queens consort as Katherine of Valois and Marguerite
of Anjou as members of distinctly foreign royal houses. The mythol-
ogy concerning these queens was spread through English drama of
the sixteenth century. Katherine and Marguerite appeared in William
Shakespeare’s history plays representing the potential for peace and war
with France respectively while Isabelle was a prominent instigator of
political upheaval in Christopher Marlowe’s play, Edward II. In both the
Shakespeare and Marlowe plays, consorts of French origin clearly belong
to a foreign royal family and become prominent through military con-
flict or court intrigue. This perception of French princesses as members
of a foreign royal house whose interests were often contrary to those of
England permeated both positive and negative comparisons of Henrietta
Maria and previous English queens consort of French origin.66
The official celebrations in honor of the marriage between Charles
I and Henrietta Maria addressed the new queen’s origins, emphasizing
the positive attributes of previous French queens consort in England.
This reinforcement of the marriage’s virtues was necessary because
the concessions to Catholicism in the marriage contract and the long
delay between the proxy marriage and Henrietta Maria’s arrival in
England attracted criticism from a diverse array of sources. There
was widespread opposition to the marriage in England because of the
bride’s background and religion. The Venetian ambassador observed,
 Education, Example, and Expectations 27

“The English in general and the Puritans abhor this alliance. The for-
mer because they are afraid of losing their bread, and that the French
and Scots, natural allies, may unite to their disadvantage; the Puritans
desire no marriage, except with the reformed religion, because that is
their interest.”67 This account demonstrates that the arrival of a for-
eign queen had the potential not only to exacerbate tensions between
England and France but also to expose the weaknesses inherent in
the dynastic union of the English and Scottish crowns. Since the two
kingdoms shared only a monarch and not a parliament, differing atti-
tudes toward foreign policy had the potential to undermine the frag-
ile political cohesion of Great Britain. Charles attempted to stem
debate concerning the marriage by proroguing the English parliament
until Henrietta Maria’s arrival68 but the delays created by the issue of
the papal dispensation and the health of Louis XIII meant that the
members had to remain in London during plague season at their own
expense.69 Official celebrations proclaiming the merits of the marriage
were therefore essential to ensuring that Henrietta Maria received a
positive reception as the new queen consort.
When Charles and Henrietta Maria reached Canterbury on her
first English progress from Dover to London, they were greeted with
an official speech delivered by Sir John Finch extolling the merits
of previous French princesses who became English queens consort.
Finch stated, “From a daughter of France came Edward the third of
England, a glorious and happy prince. By another match with a daugh-
ter of Charles the Sixth did our Henry V reconcile those differences,
which the sword and war could never do betwixt us.”70 Although this
speech celebrated the achievements of Isabelle and Katherine respec-
tively, their names were not directly stated, implying that part of their
achievement as English queens consort was their complete identifica-
tion with their husbands and children. Finch also omitted the decisions
these princesses made as individuals, which transgressed the expecta-
tions they faced as wives, mothers, and widows.71 Instead, he declares
that a harmonious marriage between Charles and Henrietta Maria
would lead to a peaceful alliance between England and France.72
The favorable interpretation of the marriage appears to have pre-
vailed in 1625. The people of Canterbury lit bonfires to celebrate the
new queen’s arrival73 as the Londoners had done upon learning of the
proxy marriage in France.74 The writings of elite women of the period
reveal that ambitious noble parents insisted that their daughters learn
French in the hopes of increasing their chances of joining the queen’s
household.75 As Henrietta Maria’s popularity declined, the negative
precedents concerning French queens were publicly reasserted. Lucy
Hutchison, the wife of the Puritan parliamentary commander Colonel
28 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

John Hutchison, seized upon popular distrust of the queen’s antecedents,

writing in her memoirs, “and it hath been observed that a French Queen
never brought happiness to England.”76 While Hutchison was writing
long after Henrietta Maria’s direct involvement in the English Civil
Wars, her comparison of the queen to previous French queens consort
in England demonstrates the mythology concerning Isabelle, Katherine,
and Marguerite in the seventeenth century popular imagination.
The republican newsletters of the English Civil Wars were more
specific in their comparisons between Henrietta Maria and contro-
versial French queens of English monarchs, particularly Marguerite.
While Henry VI’s consort has a positive place in French popular
mythology,77 the English accused her of prolonging the Wars of Roses
because of her military activities on behalf of the House of Lancaster.78
Mercurius Britannicus drew a direct comparison between the military
activities of Henrietta Maria and those of Marguerite, who was the
queen’s most recent predecessor as a French princess married to an
English sovereign. The newssheet stated that Henrietta Maria should
not “plot the ruin of a famous nation, and afterwards to ramble up and
down Christendom (like another Marguerite, who yet had better cause)
that weapons and wildfire might not be wanting to increase the flame
in England.”79 The popular association between English consorts of
French origin and strife in England would be reinforced by Henrietta
Maria’s active role in the English Civil Wars.
Henrietta Maria’s role as queen was the focus of an equally varied
array of expectations. Until recently, scholars have judged that she
did not conduct herself appropriately without discussing exactly what
behavior was expected of an English royal consort in the mid-seven-
teenth century.80 The absence of immediate precedents made the
expected duties of an English consort difficult to define. Henrietta
Maria had the precedents set by her late mother-in-law to follow for
such matters as the organization of the queen’s household81 or the stag-
ing of court masques but Anna established her position as a wife and
mother at the Scottish court in Edinburgh long before James VI suc-
ceeded to the English throne as James I. The long reign of the unmar-
ried Elizabeth I allowed the position of consort to fall into abeyance
and the spouses of sovereigns reigning from the time of Marguerite to
that of Henrietta Maria faced frequent attacks against their legitimacy
and were the focus of varying degrees of popular controversy.
The grounds for critiques of previous royal consorts included trans-
gression of accepted gender roles, attempts by claimants to the throne
to discredit a rival branch of the royal family, and dubious legitimacy.
Edward IV’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of a Lancastrian
knight, was widely suspected of corruption and witchcraft and her
 Education, Example, and Expectations 29

marriage would be declared invalid by Richard III.82 This decree chal-

lenged the legitimacy of her daughter, Henry VII’s spouse Elizabeth
of York, who was also the target of popular scrutiny because Richard
III appeared to consider his young niece a possible successor to his own
consort, the ailing Anne Neville.83 Henry VIII’s funeral oration only
mentioned his marriages to Jane Seymour, the mother of Edward VI
and Catherine Parr, his wife at the time of his death because his four
other marriages had been declared invalid for reasons spanning from
consanguinity to adultery. Although there is evidence that Mary I’s hus-
band, Philip II of Spain, occasionally performed the intercessory role
associated with English queens consort, his gender, religion, and status
as the ruler of a foreign power made him the focus of popular distrust.84
Henrietta Maria therefore became queen consort during a period when
there was no recent example of an indisputably legitimate and exem-
plary royal spouse for her to emulate. While Marie Antoinette would
be told by Maria Theresa to follow the example of Louis XV’s queen,
Marie Leszczynska,85 Henrietta Maria would be reminded by French
Ambassador Francois de Bassompierre that she would be wise to obey
her husband because queens had been beheaded in England.86
Despite the controversial reputations of Henrietta Maria’s prede-
cessors there have been recent attempts to define the qualities that an
ideal royal spouse was expected to possess in mid-seventeenth century
England. The ideal queen consort would be the mother of many chil-
dren, conduct her marriage with the same deference expected of any
Englishwoman, serve as social leader at court, and play a symbolic role
within the monarchy that precluded involvement in the actual exercise
of sovereignty.87 The identification of these broad categories is the first
step toward understanding the expectations Henrietta Maria faced as
queen but the discussion of conflicting ideals held by religious and eco-
nomic subsets of the English population is necessary for a full under-
standing of her position.
While Charles’s Protestant subjects expected Henrietta Maria
to refrain from involvement in the business of government, Roman
Catholics of all social backgrounds hoped the queen would influence
her husband to alleviate their persecution. The Venetian ambassador
wrote as early as 1622, when a Spanish marriage was under consideration
for the Prince of Wales, that Catholics hoped Charles’s marriage would
“facilitate the conversion of the kingdom wherein the public exercise
of the princess alone, not to speak of the queen and her household,
would serve as a great example and undoubtedly win over many souls.”88
This observation encapsulates the complications inherent in any broad
description of the ideal English queen consort.
30 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

While Protestants might favor a queen whose position in monarchi-

cal government was entirely symbolic, Catholics hoped that Charles’s
bride would revive a medieval conception of royal marriage in which the
monarch dispensed justice but the consort had the ability to intercede
on behalf of those condemned.89 This intercessory role was expected
of medieval queens and those consorts who instead identified with the
masculine prerogative of conquest or harsh enforcement of royal pre-
rogatives were often unpopular.90 The practice of queenly intercession
fell into relative disuse during the Wars of the Roses as consorts such
as Marguerite of Anjou and Elizabeth Woodville and royal mothers
such as Margaret Beaufort displayed the same degree of ruthlessness
as male members of the royal family.91 The expectation of intercessory
queenship enjoyed a brief revival during the reign of Henry VIII when
Catherine of Aragon gained widespread popularity on account of her
requesting the king’s mercy for rioting apprentices, and Jane Seymour
unsuccessfully attempted to intercede on behalf of the participants in
the Pilgrimage of Grace.92 By the early seventeenth century, however,
the long absence of a queen consort at the English court and James
I’s well-known distrust of female involvement in the business of govern-
ment93 had removed intercession from the widely expected duties of the
sovereign’s wife.
The challenge that the English Reformation posed to the interces-
sory role of saints, including the Virgin Mary further undermined the
desirability of an intercessory queen at the Protestant English court.
Nevertheless, English Catholics retained the ideal of the queen consort
as an intercessor and the French diplomats who negotiated the union
of Charles I and Henrietta Maria incorporated this role into the mar-
riage contract.94 The young princess’s religious education predisposed
her to view herself in this intercessory role, preferring the conception of
the queen consort’s position favored by English Catholics instead of the
symbolic role favored by English Protestants. A queen who attempted
to intercede on behalf of the Catholic minority in mid-seventeenth
century England therefore placed herself in a fundamentally divisive
position, fulfilling a conception of queenship that English Protestants
considered to be antiquated or even dangerous. The perceived politi-
cal and military advantages to Great Britain of an Anglo-French mar-
riage alliance encouraged Charles’s representatives to accept clauses
suggested by Louis and Marie that reflected French interests but would
ultimately undermine her popularity with Protestants.
Henrietta Maria faced a complicated array of expectations from
Charles’s subjects when she arrived in England as queen consort in 1625.
A queen consort of French origin might be viewed positively as a peace-
maker or negatively as an instigator of further hostilities but popular
 Education, Example, and Expectations 31

perceptions of her would always be framed by conceptions of the for-

eigner. The popular mythology of French princesses as English queens
consort provided Charles’s subjects with a wide variety of archetypes,
allowing Henrietta Maria to be compared with Katherine of Valois in
the context of her wedding celebrations, and Marguerite of Anjou in the
context of the English Civil Wars. The ideological schism created by
the English Reformation and the absence of recent positive examples of
English queens consort precluded the existence of a unified set of popu-
lar expectations directed toward Henrietta Maria’s position. Instead,
Protestants largely expected the new queen to occupy a symbolic role
at court while Catholics hoped the consort would follow the older tra-
dition of intercessory queenship. Henrietta Maria’s education and the
example provided by her mother did not provide her with the full range
of training necessary to navigate the complex and often contradictory
expectations that she would face as the head of a royal household, wife,
and mother at the English court.

Marie Antoinette: The Fifteenth Child

As a married dauphine and queen, Marie Antoinette would participate
in prodigious correspondence with Maria Theresa. During her first
fourteen years as an archduchess of Austria, from 1754 to 1770, how-
ever, evidence of instructions transmitted from mother to daughter
by letter is fragmentary. In contrast to Henrietta Maria, who shared
her governess with all her siblings and therefore received the same
instructions concerning her upbringing as the more prominent mem-
bers of her family, Maria Antonia and the sister closest in age to herself,
Maria Carolina, had a designated governess, Countess Brandeis, who
appears to have received few precise guidelines concerning their edu-
cation beyond piety and feminine accomplishments in a manner that
would ornament the court. Childhood portraits of the archduchesses
commissioned by their mother portray them engaged in art, music, or
needlework. A 1762 drawing of Maria Antonia by Jean-Etienne Liotard
shows her holding a spindle while a 1768 painting by Franz Xavier
Wagenschon depicts the young archduchess at the harpsichord. As
the two youngest daughters, Maria Antonia and Maria Carolina were
expected to make the least significant marriages and their education
was not a priority for their parents.
Although Maria Theresa complained of her own limited educa-
tion upon her ascension to the Habsburg dominions,95 she took little
direct interest in the instruction of her own daughters.96 One historian
describes Maria Theresa’s education as “absurd,” stating that she appears
to have learned little more than manners, music, and religion while
32 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

another notes that her husband, Francis of Lorraine, was appointed

to the Privy Council at the time of their marriage while she was not
permitted to even listen to the debates until her accession.97 Maria
Theresa’s awareness of her own educational limitations combined with
her desire to establish her husband as the authority within the domes-
tic sphere of the royal household meant that the instruction of all the
royal children fell under Francis’s authority. He designed an extensive
educational program for his sons but expected his daughters to focus
their studies on feminine accomplishments and religious education.98
Brandeis appears to have been a particularly undemanding instructor,
shortening the hours devoted to reading and writing, and allowing her
charges to devote their time to dancing, riding, and sleighing around the
Schonbrunn estate, where the Imperial family spent their summers.99
As dauphine and then queen of France, Marie Antoinette would occa-
sionally express awareness of her inadequate education.100 Her memo-
ries of her early childhood, however, were happy ones. As dauphine, she
would write to Maria Theresa in 1773 that she wished that she could
be transported back to Schonbrunn Palace.101 Campan also noted the
queen’s nostalgic perspective toward her childhood, observing that she
frequently discussed her early youth with her and the other ladies-in-
waiting.102 Marie Antoinette’s positive memories of her childhood and
family in Vienna would influence her political goals as queen and her
decisions regarding the upbringing of her own children.
The nature of the youngest archduchess’s upbringing changed
abruptly in 1767 when smallpox caused a series of deaths and disfigure-
ments among her elder sisters, precipitating her betrothal to Dauphin
Louis-Auguste, grandson of Louis XV and future king of France.
Maria Theresa suddenly assumed personal control over her youngest
daughter’s education, appointing the French cleric, the Abbe Jean de
Vermond, to inculcate the knowledge of languages, history, and lit-
erature that Brandeis had neglected to teach. Vermond presented this
material through short lessons about personalities rather than ideas.
This approach was necessary because the haphazard education of Maria
Antonia’s childhood had not only failed to provide her with the knowl-
edge necessary for her future role but had neglected to inculcate the
concentration and interest in sustained study necessary to acquire these
skills later in life.103
Maria Theresa and her advisors attempted to extend Marie
Antoinette’s education beyond her marriage, encouraging her to devote
her mornings to reading, an activity Vermond complained that his pupil
detested.104 In the first letter Maria Theresa wrote to Marie Antoinette
upon her departure from Vienna in 1770, which the empress presented
as a rule that should be read every month, the fourteen-year-old bride
 Education, Example, and Expectations 33

is reminded of the importance of reading for her own edification.105 In

a subsequent letter, Maria Theresa asks her daughter how much time
she devotes to spiritual readings,106 while a letter written the following
year notes that she has been waiting for a list of the dauphine’s reading
material.107 The empress wanted to direct her daughter toward more
serious pursuits than gambling, dancing, and horseback riding, which
Maria Theresa feared would undermine Marie Antoinette’s reputa-
tion, damage her relationship with her husband, and, in the case of rid-
ing, possibly prevent her from conceiving children.108 The empress also
envisioned reading as a means to bring Marie Antoinette and Louis
Auguste closer together as the dauphin expressed admiration for a
number of serious authors including the Scottish philosopher David
Hume. Marie Antoinette dutifully ordered Hume’s works as well as a
number of historical works recommended by Vermond for her reading
list but it is unknown whether she finished these works or discussed
them with her husband.109
In contrast to Henrietta Maria, who left little evidence concerning
the books she acquired for her personal library beyond religious works,
the receipts for Marie Antoinette’s literary subscriptions still exist,
providing evidence of the books she bought. The complete catalogue
of her personal library in the Petit Trianon, which divides the library
by subject matter, provides further evidence of her taste in literature,
demonstrating her interest in collecting dramatic works for her per-
sonal theater.110 In common with the historical works mentioned in the
letters to Maria Theresa, it is difficult to discern the degree of atten-
tion Marie Antoinette paid to these books but the presence of readers in
her household suggests that she might have listened to the works being
read aloud while she went about other tasks. The books she acquired in
1785 include a number of sentimental novels with titles such as Romeo
et Juliet et Adelaide and Affection et Innocence111 as well as plays such as
Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale and early romanticist literature including
Johann von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther.112 One of the most
interesting acquisitions for Marie Antoinette’s library is a subscription
to Louise de Karalio’s L’Histoire d’Elizabeth, Reine d’Angleterre. Karalio
was one of the first recognized French female historians,113 and Marie
Antoinette’s purchase of the book suggests that she was interested in
promoting female writers, just as her patronage of Elisabeth Vigée
LeBrun encouraged the acceptance of women artists. The evidence of
all these literary purchases demonstrates that despite her limited and
haphazard education, Marie Antoinette engaged with elements of
French literary culture. The amount and seriousness of her reading may
not have met the expectations of Maria Theresa or Vermond but she
appears to have followed popular literary trends.
34 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

The role of an eighteenth century French queen consort had changed

little since the time of Marie de Medici. Like Marie, Marie Antoinette
was expected to give birth to male heirs, display accepted Gallican
Catholic piety, and occupy a leading role in court ceremonies. The
consequences of the seven year gap between Marie Antoinette’s mar-
riage and birth of her first child have received extensive analysis and
will be discussed further in chapter 4. The differences between Marie
Antoinette’s religious background and attitude toward court ceremo-
nies, and the expectations of her subjects regarding these two roles,
however, has received less attention. Marie Antoinette’s perceived for-
eignness in the realms of piety and ceremony stemmed directly from her
education and the example of Maria Theresa.
In common with Henrietta Maria, Marie Antoinette’s reli-
gious education had the potential to become a point of contention
between her foreign heritage and the expectations of her husband’s
subjects. While Henrietta Maria was a devout Roman Catholic who
expected to intercede on behalf of Roman Catholics in the face of
widespread Protestant opposition, Marie Antoinette was raised at
the Habsburg court, which retained strong Jesuit influence, then
married the grandson of Louis XV, who had expelled Society of
Jesus from France in 1764. This decree followed a bitter ideological
struggle between court supporters of the Jesuits and adherents of
the more ascetic Jansenist movement that rapidly gained popularity
among the urban bourgeoisie.114
In Vienna, Maria Theresa’s tutors had been Jesuits who inculcated
the future empress with extensive religious instruction following the
ideals of their order.115 Despite this background, there is evidence that
Parisian Jansenists had clear expectations of Marie Antoinette as a
potential intercessor within the French court because of the sympathy
she expressed toward Jansenist individuals. When a widowed Jansenist
bookseller and her sons were imprisoned in the Bastille and then was
sentenced to expulsion from Paris by Louis XV, Marie Antoinette
interceded on their behalf and invited them to Versailles over the objec-
tions of the archbishop of Paris.116 This action attracted the praise of
Jansenist observers,117 but seems to have reflected Marie Antoinette`s
general benevolence toward mothers, and patronage of female profes-
sionals rather than any specific interest in Jansenism.
Maria Theresa advised her daughter to follow the example of Louis
XV’s late queen Marie Leszczynska in her own activities at the court of
Versailles.118 Nevertheless, she was aware of the controversy created by
past Jesuit influence at the French court and advised Marie Antoinette
in numerous letters to refrain from discussing the Society of Jesus in
 Education, Example, and Expectations 35

France. In the letter that Marie Antoinette was expected to reread on

a monthly basis, Maria Theresa warned against encounters with Jesuits
on the journey from Vienna to Strasbourg stating, “There remains for
me still a point with regard to the Jesuits. Do not enter into any dis-
cussions either for or against them.”119 If Marie Antoinette engaged in
discussions concerning this topic at the French court, she would draw
attention to her uneasy position as a foreign princess. Her situation par-
alleled that of Henrietta Maria, who excluded Jesuits from her Roman
Catholic household in England because of her Gallican religious back-
ground and the hostility toward this order expressed by Protestants.
Although France and the Habsburg Empire were both ruled by
Roman Catholic royal families, the differing perspectives regarding the
Jesuits demonstrated that even a princess of the same faith as her hus-
band had the potential to be perceived as foreign on the basis of her reli-
gious education. Maria Theresa would complain bitterly when the pope
abolished the Jesuit order in 1773120 but she did not intend for her daugh-
ter to display any form of piety that might alienate popular opinion
in France. Marie Antoinette’s marriage contract contained economic
clauses alone without the religious autonomy provided for Henrietta
Maria when she married Charles. Despite the differences between the
Gallican Catholicism of the French court and the stronger adherence to
papal dictates at the Austrian court, Marie Antoinette was expected to
engage in the devotional practices of the Bourbon court without con-
cessions to her own religious background.
As a young archduchess, Marie Antoinette excelled at the femi-
nine accomplishments that were central to court life at Versailles such
as dancing and participation in cultural activities.121 The boundaries
between public and private spaces at court, however, differed signifi-
cantly between Vienna and Versailles, placing Marie Antoinette at a dis-
advantage amidst French court ceremonies when she became dauphine.
The structure of Versailles allowed all the monarch’s subjects to observe
numerous aspects of his domestic life. The daily rising (lever) and bed-
ding (coucher) ceremonies allowed members of the court to participate in
the daily routines conducted by the king and queen, assisting the royal
couple according to their places in the order of precedence. Members
of the public had access to both the palace and gardens at Versailles on
the condition that they arrived in proper attire. Booths established at
the palace gates rented the required swords for men, allowing visitors
of modest means to observe the royal family alongside the members of
the court.122 During the reign of Louis XVI, more than ten thousand
people visited Versailles daily, including the three to four thousand
nobles who had been presented officially to the monarchs at court.123
36 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

The structure of the court remained similar whether the French royal
family was in residence at Versailles or at one of their country estates at
Marly, Fontainebleau, or St. Cloud.
In contrast, the Habsburgs presented themselves publicly to their
court through specific activities such as church attendance but domes-
tic apartments such as bedrooms were not public spaces.124 While previ-
ous emperors had displayed themselves to their subjects through dining
in public, in the manner of Versailles, Maria Theresa did not favor this
practice.125 The country palaces such as Schonbrunn and Laxenburg
were not open to public scrutiny in the manner of the staterooms at the
Hofburg in Vienna, allowing the Imperial family a degree of domestic
privacy unknown in France. Financial constraints exacerbated by the
costly War of the Austrian Succession and Seven Years’ War undoubtedly
contributed to Maria Theresa’s decision to gradually eliminate the for-
mal “Spanish” ceremonial practices favored by her father.126 The young
Marie Antoinette therefore expected to be a prominent participant in
court ceremonies but also be able to withdraw from this environment
into a domestic space accessible only to her family and intimate friends.
She expressed nostalgia for her childhood at Schonbrunn throughout
her life.127 Her attempts to create a Habsburg influenced private domes-
tic sphere in France would undermine her popularity and damage her
reputation among her husband’s subjects.
The most significant influence over all aspects of Marie Antoinette’s
education and worldview was her mother, Empress Maria Theresa.
The respect and admiration Marie Antoinette demonstrated regard-
ing her mother was clearly evident to the members of her household at
the French court, including Jeanne Campan, who wrote, “The Queen
often spoke of her mother, and with profound respect . . . Maria Theresa,
who inspired awe by her great qualities, taught the Archduchesses to
fear and respect rather than to love her, at least as I observed it in the
Queen’s feelings towards her august mother.”128 Despite this clear evi-
dence of Maria Theresa serving as an example for Marie Antoinette,
early biographers of Marie Antoinette, such as Stephen Zweig, under-
emphasized the relationship between mother and daughter.129 Recent
historians have convincingly challenged this older interpretation
of Marie Antoinette’s relationship with Maria Theresa, devoting
extensive analysis to the interplay demonstrated by the copious cor-
respondence between mother and daughter.130 The example of Maria
Theresa as a female ruler informed both Marie Antoinette’s actions
and popular perceptions.
In contrast to Marie de Medici, who assumed the position of regent
without organized opposition, Maria Theresa faced a prolonged military
struggle to secure the Habsburg inheritance after the death of Charles
 Education, Example, and Expectations 37

VI in 1740. During the War of the Austrian Succession, in which France

supported the territorial ambitions of Frederick the Great of Prussia
at the expense of Austria, Maria Theresa skillfully established her per-
sonal authority by combining the traditionally masculine attributes
of sovereignty with the feminine attributes of motherhood. The most
famous example of this duality occurred when Maria Theresa addressed
the Hungarian nobility in 1741 with her infant son, the future Joseph
II, in her arms, imploring them to support her claim to the throne.131
While the terms of Hungarian support for Maria Theresa’s claim to the
Habsburg inheritance had already been established in a series of meet-
ings preceding this dramatic moment,132 the presence of the infant heir
at Pressburg represented both an appeal to the chivalry of the nobles and
a pledge that Hungary would eventually have a king. Political moments
involving Maria Theresa’s children contrasted with the existence of
a private sphere at court where the Imperial family could conduct its
domestic life away from a public audience. Marie Antoinette’s concep-
tion of motherhood would display similar contradictions. She would
attempt to reinforce her own legitimacy as a political actor and public
figure through her role as mother and also attempt to establish a form
of private domestic sphere.
Maria Theresa’s relationship with her beloved husband, Francis of
Lorraine, presented similar contradictions. The empress’s position as
a sovereign “political hermaphrodite”133 complicated her relationship
with her consort because he occupied the roles of subject and husband.
Maria Theresa addressed the gender ambiguities created by her posi-
tion by alternating the roles of empress and wife depending on the
setting. Within the private sphere, she deferred to her husband, but
often ignored his advice in the political arena. In both settings, the
Imperial couple presented a united marriage to their subjects. Count
Otto Christopher Podewils, the first Prussian envoy appointed to the
Habsburg court since the War of the Austrian Succession observed this
tension in 1746, writing, “She especially tries to belie the weaknesses
of her sex and to strive for virtues which are least suitable to her and
which few women possess. She even seems angry to have been born a
woman.”134 Despite this potential for conflict, Francis appears to have
accepted the limitations of his position and there was little evidence of
discord within the Imperial marriage.
The roles Maria Theresa and Francis occupied in their anoma-
lous marriage did not serve as an effective example for their daugh-
ters because the archduchesses became consorts of foreign monarchs
instead of sovereigns. Despite her own experience, Maria Theresa advo-
cated traditional wifely behavior for her daughters, writing to Maria
Christina, “You know that we women are subject to our men, that we
38 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

are obligated to be obedient to them, and that our single endeavour

should be to serve our husbands . . . Even though many examples seem
to belie this view, I can by no means release you from your duty to fol-
low it.”135 Marie Antoinette received similar advice in a letter from her
mother that stated, “The wife is entirely submissive toward her hus-
band and need not have any occupation but to please him and do his
wishes . . . All depends on the wife, if she is kind, sweet and amusing.”136
Both letters demonstrate a clear contrast between the example set by
Maria Theresa’s marriage, and the advice she gave her daughters on the
occasion of their own marriages. The empress’s expectation that her
children’s marriages should advance the political interests of the House
of Habsburg would further complicate the attitudes concerning wifely
behavior that the archduchesses brought to their marital homes. Marie
Antoinette would never achieve the appearance of marital harmony
that strengthened Maria Theresa’s position as both a wife and empress
at the Habsburg court.
When Marie Antoinette married Louis-Auguste in 1770, she pos-
sessed contradictory instincts concerning her new position as a wife and
potential mother, which had been shaped by her inconsistent educa-
tion and the complicated example of her parents’ marriage. Attempts
at intensive instruction prior her marriage achieved only limited suc-
cess because she did not have the concentration necessary to absorb vast
amounts of new knowledge. Nevertheless, Marie Antoinette attempted
to follow her mother’s dictates regarding devoting part of each day to
literature and would acquire various genres of literature for her library
as queen. The powerful example of Maria Theresa provided Marie
Antoinette with ideas of royal marriage and motherhood that would not
effectively translate into a different environment.

Marie Antoinette: Cementing the

Franco-Austrian Alliance
When Marie Antoinette arrived in France, she faced a relatively cohe-
sive body of popular opinion concerning both the political implica-
tions of her marriage and the reputations of previous French queens
consort. This unified body of popular expectations contrasted with the
diverse responses to Henrietta Maria’s arrival in England the previous
century. Both advocates and opponents of Louis Auguste’s marriage
to Maria Antonia viewed the union as an attempt at peace between
two political entities that had been in conflict for decades. Whether a
Franco-Austrian alliance was desirable was a matter of debate in 1770
but the perception that the Habsburg Empire as a recent enemy of
 Education, Example, and Expectations 39

France was nearly unanimous.137 The marriage marked the dramatic

reversal of the long-standing French policy of forging alliances against
the Habsburg Empire.
In addition to emphasizing Marie Antoinette’s Austrian background,
the celebratory verse published upon Marie Antoinette’s marriage com-
pared the bride to mythological and classical figures instead of past
queens consort. Marie Antoinette’s initial marital status as a dauphine
instead of a queen and her position as the first Austrian archduchess to
marry a French royal heir since 1570 may partially explain the absence of
queenship allegories. The overtly negative or ambiguous reputations of
previous queens of France, however, suggests that even if the bride had
arrived from a traditionally friendly kingdom to marry a reigning king,
classical allegory would have remained the most uncontroversial means
of celebrating her virtues. Pamphlet literature written during the French
Revolution reprinted the most scandalous and violent stories concern-
ing certain Roman, Frankish, and French queens, such as Messalina,
Brunhilda, Fredegunde, Isabeau of Bavaria, Catherine de Medici, and
Marie de Medici in an attempt to discredit Marie Antoinette. At Marie
Antoinette’s trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1793, public
prosecutor Antoine-Quentin Fouquier stated in his opening address,
“In the manner of the Messalinas-Brunhildas, Fredegunds and Medicis,
that one called in other times Queens of France, whose names forever
hateful will not be erased from the annals of history, Marie Antoinette
has been since her time in France the plague and the bloodsucker of the
French.”138 Negative attitudes toward French queens consort, however,
existed long before the Revolution, precluding comparisons between
the royal bride and her predecessors.
Marie Antoinette entered French territory through Alsace-Lorraine,
provinces that had previously been claimed by both the Bourbon and
Habsburg kingdoms and would continue to be disputed territory
between France and Germany until the twentieth century. The festivi-
ties ordered by Louis XV, and organized by the prominent members of
the nobility who held influential administrative and ecclesiastic posi-
tions in these regions, were not only designed to impress the bride and
curious onlookers but to make a broader statement about the supposed
unanimous support among French elites for the Franco-Austrian alli-
ance and the prosperity of Alsace-Lorraine under French rule. The actual
economic difficulties experienced by the inhabitants of Strasbourg in
the 1760s and the continued opposition to the alliance in certain elite
circles were ignored during celebrations.
The theme of newfound Franco-Austrian cooperation, expressed
by published pamphlets celebrating the wedding of Louis Auguste
and Marie Antoinette, was established by the official speeches and
40 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

celebrations that welcomed the archduchess onto French soil. The for-
mal handover of the bride from the Habsburg Empire to France, in a
specially constructed pavilion on a neutral island in the Rhine River,
is the most well-known aspect of Marie Antoinette’s bridal journey to
France. The impact the replacement of Marie Antoinette’s Austrian
household and trousseau with French equivalents was in fact minimized
by the numerous references to Austria and Lorraine in the subsequent
wedding celebrations. Austrian nobles may have been dismissed from
Marie Antoinette’s household but they were able to travel indepen-
dently to France to attend the celebrations, a circumstance that would
have temporarily increased the number of German speaking foreign-
ers in French cities, reinforcing the bride’s origins.139 Although Marie
Antoinette entered her new kingdom in a French dress, surrounded by
French ladies-in-waiting, her antecedents would be noted in every city
she visited on her journey to Versailles.
Cardinal Constantine de Rohan, archbishop of Strasbourg, set the
tone for the wedding celebrations in his speech celebrating the Franco-
Austrian alliance. Rohan did not deliver the speech himself but instead
left Strasbourg while Marie Antoinette was still in residence to oversee
the wedding festivities in nearby Saverne, leaving his nephew, Louis de
Rohan, to actually convey his sentiments to the bride and the assembled
onlookers.140 The House of Rohan had opposed the Franco-Austrian
alliance and the cardinal’s decision to delegate the actual speech while
still remaining involved in the celebrations may have been a means of rec-
onciling both the king’s commands and his own family’s political inter-
ests. Louis de Rohan’s eventual notoriety as a central figure in the Affair
of the Diamond Necklace has informed analysis of his role in the mar-
riage festivities.141 Since Marie Antoinette eventually rejected Rohan’s
attempts to become a member of her inner circle and supported Louis
XVI’s decision to publicly prosecute him for his role in the commis-
sion of the necklace, the effect of this first meeting between the future
queen and the future cardinal interests Marie Antoinette’s biographers.
The political significance of his speech and its impact on both French
and Austrian observers is obscured by this focus on future events. In
1770, Louis de Rohan was not viewed as the eventual “Cardinal Collier ”
but a representative of one of France’s most prominent families welcom-
ing an Austrian archduchess as the future queen of France.
In his speech, the young Rohan extolled the marriage as an oppor-
tunity for friendship between France and Austria and praised Maria
Theresa as a newfound ally for the House of Bourbon.142 This empha-
sis reflected French popular opinion. While the Habsburg Empire
was considered a long-standing opponent of French interests, Maria
Theresa’s moral character inspired personal respect in France.143 An
 Education, Example, and Expectations 41

anonymous letter published in Amsterdam describing the wedding

celebrations quoted Rohan’s speech in detail stating, “It is the soul of
Maria Theresa who goes to link with the soul of the Bourbons: Of such
a beautiful union the Golden Age must be reborn.”144 The publication of
the speech demonstrates that Rohan’s sentiments spread far beyond the
welcoming committee of Strasbourg notables and the assembled towns-
people who witnessed the parades and military reviews celebrating the
marriage. The praise for Maria Theresa would have also created the
impression the Rohans endorsed the marriage. The perceived support
of one of France’s oldest and most influential families was necessary for
the marriage to gain a certain degree of popular acceptance.
The lavish celebrations in Strasbourg that accompanied Rohan’s
speech emphasized the themes of prosperity brought by French rule
over the disputed region of Alsace-Lorraine and highlighted customs
distinct to the region. This approach allowed Louis XV to demonstrate
the justice of his sovereignty over these provinces without offending
his new allies thought it did not necessarily reflect the actual economic
or social conditions of Alsace-Lorraine. The inhabitants of Strasbourg
owed more than 5,000,000 livres in back taxes to the crown and a
remonstrance sent to Louis XV the previous year described the city as
“un théâtre de bankroutes.”145 While the improvement of the facades of
city buildings, fireworks, mass entertainments, and theatrical perfor-
mances had the immediate effect of glorifying Louis XV’s sovereignty
in a disputed region, the inhabitants would have ultimately found their
financial obligations to the crown increased by the splendor of festivi-
ties. Marie Antoinette’s eventual reputation as “Madame Deficit” was
prefigured by the lavish celebrations in her honor that worsened the
financial situation of already economically depressed regions.
The factionalism within the French nobility regarding the Franco-
Austrian alliance was obscured by the emphasis in the wedding celebra-
tions on customs that were “Alsatian” rather than French or German and
the commissioning of classical allegories instead of performances of his-
torical events for the bride’s entertainment. Strasbourg itself contained
a variety of architectural styles reflecting its shifting place in Europe’s
political structure. The presence of a cathedral in the French style amid
German style houses made it the ideal setting for celebrations intended
to cement a Franco-Austrian alliance.146 The local notables Marie
Antoinette received during her stay in Strasbourg were dressed in local
Alsatian costume for the celebrations,147 which had the effect of obscur-
ing which families had specifically French or German antecedents. For
Marie Antoinette and the assembled observers, the city of Strasbourg
appeared to be a place where people of both backgrounds lived in har-
mony with their own distinct traditions, enjoying prosperity under the
42 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

benevolent rule of Louis XV. Any evidence of unpleasant realities was

kept apart from the wedding celebrations, as demonstrated by Goethe’s
amusement at the decree that people with disfiguring skin conditions
were to stay out of sight during the archduchess’s visit to Strasbourg.148
Marie Antoinette’s first impressions of France obscured both the
dire financial situation that would eventually precipitate the French
Revolution and the continued opposition to the Franco-Austrian alli-
ance among the nobility particularly within Alsace-Lorraine.
The obscuring of the history of hostility between France and
Marie Antoinette’s Habsburg and Lorraine ancestors was effective in
Strasbourg but the façade of harmony could not be maintained within
the rigid court etiquette of Versailles. During the planning of a fancy
dress ball designed to rival the celebrations in Vienna that preceded the
archduchess’s departure, the king gave permission for Anne Charlotte,
princess of Lorraine, to dance after the princes of the blood but before
the dukes and peers. This disruption to the usual order of precedence
outraged the French nobility who threatened to boycott the ball and
collected two hundred signatures on a petition that stated the reasons
for this drastic action.149 Louis XV managed to calm the overt anger
among the courtiers by promising that the duchesses would dance ahead
of representatives of the House of Lorraine at the next ball. This event
gave the most influential nobles at court reason to resent her from the
outset of her marriage to the dauphin.150 The circumstances of the han-
dover on the border between France and the Habsburg Empire suggest
that the purpose of subsequent wedding celebrations was to integrate
the bride into her husband’s family and kingdom. Nevertheless, a vari-
ety of elements in these festivities including the welcoming speech in
Strasbourg, the published odes describing the role of the marriage in the
Franco-Austrian alliance, and the “Affair of the Minuet” at Versailles all
reinforced Marie Antoinette’s status as a foreign princess.
In the accounts of these festivities, there are glimpses of Marie
Antoinette’s own attempts to reconcile her Austrian heritage with her
French marriage. Unlike Henrietta Maria, whose marriage contract
promised her a French household, respect for the religious observances
of her youth and direct control over the upbringing of the children,
Marie Antoinette’s marriage contract focused exclusively on her finan-
cial settlement as dauphine.151 The bride would therefore have had little
expectation of respect for Austrian court traditions in her new home.
There is evidence that Marie Antoinette initially attempted to assert
her identity as a French dauphine over the actions of French notables
whose behavior emphasized her foreignness. The Baronne Henriette
d’Oberkirch wrote that when a Strasbourg notable addressed Marie
Antoinette in German, the dauphine firmly replied, “Don’t speak to
 Education, Example, and Expectations 43

me in German, From now on I want to hear no language but French.”152

She continued to assert her new identity upon her arrival at the French
court. The dauphine’s apartments at the royal palace of Compiegne were
not ready upon her arrival and the ceiling of the queen’s bedchamber of
Versailles was in disrepair and had to be replaced.153 The ongoing renova-
tions allowed the bride to express an opinion concerning her surround-
ings, issues that had been the preserve of Maria Theresa, Louis XV, and
Anne d’Arpajon, Countess de Noailles, the appointed mistress of Marie
Antoinette’s household, before the dauphine’s arrival in France.
While architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel envisioned an elaborate ceil-
ing incorporating the double-headed eagle symbol of the Habsburg
Empire, the dauphine expressed a preference for a simple flat ceiling
with a rose pattern.154 While Ian Dunlop argues that her preference for
the simpler ceiling reflected a desire to move into Marie Lesczynska’s
former rooms as quickly as possible, her remarks concerning her prefer-
ence for the French language in Strasbourg indicate that she was eager
to alleviate hostility toward her ancestry by emphasizing her allegiance
to France. The queen’s bedroom was a public space, where she would
experience the daily ceremonial lever and coucher, and give birth to
her children in front of witnesses. Her preference for the rose ceiling,
which was ultimately overruled by Louis XV in favor of the architect’s
preferred design, reflected her desire to assimilate into French society
within the public sphere. Marie Antoinette’s initial eagerness to please
the French people contrasted markedly with the approach adopted by
Henrietta Maria, who was married in a dress emblazoned with fleur de
lys, emphasizing her own ancestry.155 Henrietta Maria’s public declara-
tion of her French identity reflected her confidence in the comparative
stature of the Bourbon court over the Stuart court in contrast to the
dauphine’s marriage, which was the union of two powerful dynasties.
Despite Marie Antoinette’s conciliatory sentiments, the transition
between Habsburg and French practices was clearly challenging for
the young bride.
The lengthy wedding festivities were extremely tiring for Marie
Antoinette who was unaccustomed to being continuously in public
view. The “Intendant of the Menus,” Monsieur de Ferte, recorded in his
description of the festivities that the dauphine found herself exhausted
because in Strasbourg and Nancy, the receptions continued through
dinner. He notes elsewhere in his account that during the wedding cele-
brations in Vienna, the bride dined in public but retired with her family
immediately afterward.156 Louis XV anticipated his new granddaughter-
in-law would be confused by differences between French and Austrian
court customs. In a ten page letter to de Noailles, the king noted that
the etiquette at Versailles was very different from that of Vienna and
44 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

that it was essential that the new dauphine be properly trained for her
new role.157 Marie Antoinette would behave as though de Noailles was
concerned with protocol for its own sake and refer to her as “Madame
Etiquette” but the goal of the Mistress of the Household was to smooth
the dauphine’s transition between two different court cultures.
Marie Antoinette was aware that the transition from foreigner to
Frenchwoman had been experienced by previous dauphines and queens
of France with varying degrees of success. The household presided
over by de Noailles contained numerous figures who had served Marie
Lesczynska.158 These ladies-in-waiting seemed ancient to the fifteen-
year-old dauphine but they had the best knowledge of a queen consort’s
role at the French court. Maria Theresa encouraged her daughter to lis-
ten to de Noailles’s advice159 but she also reinforced Marie Antoinette’s
duty to her family in Vienna. The empress advised that she maintain
regular contact with the ambassador from her country of origin, in the
manner of both Marie Lesczynska and Maria Josepha of Saxony.160
Marie Antoinette therefore had to inhabit two contradictory roles as a
fully French dauphine and an informant for the Habsburg Empire.
The negative mythology surrounding previous queens consort
demonstrates that few of her predecessors had successfully balanced
these roles in the popular imagination. As early as 1610, when Marie
de Medici received her long delayed coronation, even the celebratory
verse found it difficult to find beloved predecessors for comparison to
the newly crowned queen. One noteworthy ode remarked that Marie
was the seventh Queen Marie of France and that she would be the most
fortunate because the previous Maries led unhappy lives.161 Despite
the festive occasion for this ode, the exact misfortunes of the previous
Queen Maries, not to mention their foreign antecedents, are listed in
detail as though to serve as a warning for Henry IV’s consort: “Seven
Maries of seven diverse nations . . . All the other Maries had no happi-
ness other than the name. Marie of Moravia was repudiated, Marie of
Brabant was accused of poisoning the eldest son of her husband, Marie
of Luxembourg died . . . in the first year of her marriage.”162 The pam-
phlet goes on describe the subsequent Queen Maries and their unhappy
marriages, scandals, or premature deaths. The litany of negative state-
ments in a published document ostensibly celebrating a queen consort’s
coronation demonstrates long-standing French anxieties concerning
the position of the monarch’s wife.
The negative perceptions of previous French queens consort
expressed in the seventeenth century reached a wider audience by the
time of Marie Antoinette’s marriage. Increased literacy rates, the intro-
duction of subscriptions for long works, such as the Encyclopedia edited
by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, and the expansion of
 Education, Example, and Expectations 45

the pamphlet press allowed stories previously transmitted through con-

versation and occasional documents to be spread relatively quickly to
a large audience. Late eighteenth century writers also distinguished
between fictional and historical narratives, lending historians a degree
of authority that they had not enjoyed when these genres overlapped to a
greater degree.163 The Encyclopedia provides numerous examples of scat-
tered tales of queen consorts from medieval chronicles and the oral tra-
dition, synthesized into an authoritative sounding narrative. The entry
about Archbishop Gregory of Tours reinforced the negative mythology
surrounding the Frankish Queen Brunhilda, stating, “But the princi-
ple trait of the life of St. Gregory that all moralists have condemned is
how he prostituted himself through praise to insinuate himself in the
friendship . . . of Queen Brunhilda, one of the most malicious women on
earth.”164 The negative mythology surrounding Brunhilda was so per-
vasive that it blackened the posthumous reputation of members of her
circle in addition to the queen herself.
Narrative histories written during the late eighteenth century adopted
a similar tone, lending perceived authority to the negative mythology
of previous French queens consort. In Marie Antoinette’s time, female
writers who defined themselves as “historiennes”165 praised reigning
foreign queens such as Elizabeth I, but reiterated negative portrayals
of French queens consort. In 1783, Marie Genevieve Charlotte Thiroux
d’Arconville published a History of Francois II, in which she describes
his mother, Catherine de Medici, as “a woman without character, who
combined all the weaknesses and vices of every type . . . using them as
needed for her insatiable ambition and satisfaction.”166 de Karalio would
portray Catherine in a similar vein, emphasizing her dissimulation then
applying that trait to all French queens consort.167 Marie Antoinette’s
descent into extreme unpopularity would be marked by comparisons to
previous queens consort who were not mentioned in the festive atmo-
sphere and classical allegories of the wedding celebrations.
The common characteristics of the celebratory odes and speeches
marking the wedding of Archduchess Maria Antonia to Dauphin Louis
Auguste revealed both French perceptions of the marriage and attitudes
toward queens consort in France. The wedding celebrations continually
reinforced her role in cementing the Franco-Austrian alliance. Rohan’s
speech in Strasbourg praising Maria Theresa, the attempts of various
notables to address her in German, the redecorating of the queen’s bed-
chamber to include the Habsburg double-headed eagle, and the empha-
sis on her paternal lineage in the Affair of the Minuet all reinforced her
foreign heritage as an archduchess of Austria and princess of Lorraine.
The omission of comparisons to previous French queens consort dur-
ing the festivities is equally significant. Repeated comparisons between
46 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the bride and virtuous women of antiquity masked the long-standing

negative mythology surrounding previous queens consort, which had
existed in France for centuries. Marie Antoinette therefore began her
marriage with the twin disadvantages of clearly demarcated foreign ori-
gins and the reputation of French queens consort. Both these factors
would undermine her popularity and legitimacy as queen of France.

Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette:

The Conflict between Education,
Example, and Expectations
For Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette alike, the manner of their
education, the example of their powerful mothers, and the attitudes of
their future subjects were contradictory, leaving ample room for conflict
between the way they perceived their own role and the expectations of
the people they would encounter in their adopted homelands. The edu-
cation they received strongly reflected the values of their kingdoms of
origin without regard for the differing customs of the places where they
would reside as wives. Henrietta Maria’s religious education as a devout
Roman Catholic would arouse the suspicions of the Protestant English
while Marie Antoinette’s expectation of a private domestic sphere in
the manner of the Imperial family in Vienna would challenge French
court protocol.
Both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette were the young-
est daughters of mothers who wielded direct political power during
a period when female sovereignty was comparatively rare and both
France and the Habsburg Empire had legal strictures against queens
regnant. While Marie has been judged by certain historians as failing
to fulfill the requirements of seventeenth century elite motherhood,
Henrietta Maria clearly loved and respected her, modelling her reli-
gious observances and expectations of a political role on her example.
Marie Antoinette appears to have received little of her mother’s atten-
tion until negotiations for her marriage began. Nevertheless, the con-
flict between Maria Theresa’s sovereignty over the Habsburg Empire
and her insistence that her daughters conform to accepted gender roles
would profoundly shape her daughter’s experiences.
The reputations of past queens consort shaped how Henrietta Maria
and Marie Antoinette were perceived at the time of their marriages. In
seventeenth century England, the scarcity of recent examples of queens
consort meant that there was little consensus regarding the desirability
of the position and what duties it entailed. Since there was a long his-
tory of intermarriage between English and French royal houses, there
 Education, Example, and Expectations 47

were plenty of examples to inform a broad range of debate about the

role of dynastic marriage in Anglo-French relations. In eighteenth cen-
tury France, the mythology concerning previous queens consort was
uniformly negative and the rarity of previous royal marriages between
French princes and Austrian archduchesses meant that there were few
precedents for direct comparisons.
Both the seventeenth century English and Scots, and the eighteenth
century French, however, were united by their uneasiness concerning
the proximity of a foreign princess to the center of power. Although the
festivities surrounding their weddings were intended to be celebratory,
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of Strasbourg alike
emphasized that the royal bride was there to cement an alliance and
extensively discussed her foreignness. In both kingdoms, the most effec-
tive means for a new royal wife to gain popularity was through the con-
spicuous abandonment of their heritage but the diplomatic imperatives
governing dynastic marriages made this transition difficult. The uneas-
iness expressed toward both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette
demonstrates popular anxieties concerning women in positions of influ-
ence and early conceptions of nationalism. Although the inhabitants of
seventeenth century England and eighteenth century France engaged
in diverse cultural practices and often spoke different languages, they
could all agree that the king’s wife represented a foreign power that
was often hostile to their collective interests. While Henrietta Maria’s
religious background was most significant to her reputation, Marie
Antoinette’s Austrian origins received the most criticism from the eigh-
teenth century French. As foreign born queens consort, both Henrietta
Maria and Marie Antoinette would have to defend themselves in their
roles as head of a royal household, wife, and mother.
 CHAPTER 2

GOVERNING THE QUEEN’S

HOUSEHOLD

A
s queens consort, Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette
became mistresses of vast households of servants and
legal administrators of numerous estates. The bestowal
of these households and properties as dower lands in exchange for an
actual or promised dowry was crucial to the legitimacy of an Early
Modern European royal marriage. The precise nature of a princess’s
settlement was central to the diplomatic negotiations that sealed a
union between two sovereign powers. The extent of the dower lands,
size of the household, and the degree of autonomy the bride received
in the management of these spheres reflected the balance of the power
between royal houses. Once married, the administration of the house-
hold and estates provided the consort with opportunities for cultural,
religious, and political patronage, allowing her a relatively independent
space to further her own conception of her role as wife to the sovereign
and mother of the royal children.
Comparison of the two households demonstrates that the central
conflict both queens experienced concerning household governance was
between their own inclination to appoint personal friends to high office
and the popular expectation that royal servants would be selected accord-
ing to their existing status and reputation. The foreign background of
the two queens intensified this conflict as any favorites who owed their
position entirely to the consort would be perceived as beholden to the
political interests of other kingdoms. The goals Henrietta Maria and
Marie Antoinette sought to achieve differed according to the political,
ideological, and religious conditions of their lifetimes. Nevertheless, the
legitimacy of Charles I and Louis XVI respectively was undermined by
the widespread perception that they were unable or unwilling to control
their wives.
The queen’s actual servants and estates provided opportunities
for popular scrutiny of monarchical government. In both mid-seven-
teenth century England and late eighteenth century France, however,
50 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the precise composition of the household was larger in the popular

imagination than in actual practice. The widespread experience of ser-
vice in Early Modern Europe meant that Charles’s and Louis’s subjects
had a clear framework for critiquing the governance of the consort’s
household. In seventeenth century Britain and eighteenth century
France, servants were engaged by employers from a diverse range
of social backgrounds and the mistresses of these households were
expected to treat the servants as dependents, similar to their own chil-
dren.1 Members of the royal family and friends without official posi-
tions were often discussed by observers within the framework of the
“Queen’s household” regardless of the individual’s position. The actual
household, however, consisted exclusively of personnel who served
the queen directly including ecclesiastical figures, ladies-in-waiting,
administrative staff, and servants of the chamber, table, and stables.2
Each queen’s own perception of her household therefore referenced a
narrower range of people than the critiques that mentioned the “court”
and “household,” providing additional opportunities for observers to
perceive impropriety and mismanagement.
When Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette married, their author-
ity over a small satellite court transferred to a household whose promi-
nence was only superseded by that of the king. The royal families of
England and France largely shared the familial conception of service
held by their subjects. Royal personages throughout this period took an
intense interest in the religious observance, marriages, and incomes of
their servants.3 In the French diplomatic correspondence concerning the
composition of Henrietta Maria’s household, the servants are described
as “the Queen’s Family.”4 The opportunities for political advancement
provided by the queen’s household made the background and charac-
ter of its members a target of particular popular scrutiny. Prominent
courtiers enjoyed opportunities for financial and social patronage and
opportunities to influence government policy through proximity to the
royal couple. Both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette were accused
of interfering with state business by attempting to advance their own
favorites through governance of their households.
The accepted Early Modern gender hierarchy was complicated
within royal families by the vast lands and incomes granted queens con-
sort by the terms of their marriage contracts and the degree of auton-
omy they exerted over household appointments. The views of the king
himself varied as Charles attempted to exert control over Henrietta
Maria’s household appointments while Louis allowed Marie Antoinette
to make appointments and dispense patronage independently. In con-
trast to each king’s married female subjects, whose goods became the
property of their husbands upon marriage, both Henrietta Maria and
 Governing the Queen’s Household 51

Marie Antoinette were landowners in their own right. Henrietta Maria

was explicitly exempt from the coverture laws that applied to English
married women,5 allowing her to hold property in her own name and be
sued independently. While a series of legislative acts passed by Louis
XIV attempted to impose patriarchal control over female property
ownership and marital choices,6 prominent women close to the mon-
arch managed their own incomes and estates.
Since Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette came to be perceived as
the most prominent authorities within their respective households, the
behavior of their social circle and servants reflected upon their charac-
ter and legitimacy. When Henrietta Maria arrived in England, she was
accompanied by hundreds of French servants. They were greeted with
suspicion because of their Roman Catholicism and foreign origins.
These negative feelings intensified when privately circulated newslet-
ters spread rumors of inappropriate behavior by these servants that
appeared to prevent the young Henrietta Maria from performing her
duties as a wife.7 When Charles expelled a large number of the French
servants the following year, his decision was greeted with enthusiasm
as he appeared to be firmly asserting his authority.8 The perception
that Charles was the master of his family, including both royal house-
holds, did not last because Henrietta Maria rewarded those courtiers
whom she personally favored9 and maintained an active correspon-
dence with her dismissed French servants.10 By the outbreak of the
English Civil Wars, the queen’s household was widely regarded by all
social estates as a site of foreign intrigues, conversion to Catholicism,
and moral transgression.
In contrast to Henrietta Maria, Marie Antoinette was not permitted
to bring Austrian servants to France at the time of her marriage. The
French tradition that queens consort dismiss the attendants from their
country of origin combined with the bride’s initial status as dauphine
enabled the House of Bourbon to exert stricter control over Marie
Antoinette’s household for the first four years of her marriage. The con-
flict between Marie Antoinette’s wishes concerning her household and
the expectations of the court and general populace occurred after Louis
XVI’s ascension to the throne.11 Like Charles and Henrietta Maria,
both Louis and Marie Antoinette experienced increased popularity
when there appeared to be masculine and sovereign authority over the
consort’s household then lost this favor as the queen’s power appeared
to increase. Marie Antoinette’s ascent in this realm after Louis became
king was clear to observers because she broke established precedents,
and revived long discarded titles and honors to reward her friends.
The position of Superintendent of the Queen’s Household was revived
for Marie-Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballe in 1774. Gabrielle
52 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Polastron, Duchesse de Polignac became Governess to the Children of

France in 1782.12 The bestowal of these positions, which included sizable
incomes, prestige, and opportunities for patronage, on women who did
not belong to the highest circles of court precedence undermined the
queen’s popularity at court.
While Henrietta Maria was widely criticized for turning a blind
eye to immorality at court,13 Marie Antoinette faced accusations that
she personally participated in indecent acts with members of her
circle.14 Hunt and Thomas have argued that the defamation of the
queen reflected broader cultural conditions independent of Marie
Antoinette’s agency 15 but the relationship between the perceived
locus of authority over the household and her popularity demonstrates
that critiques followed irregular appointments and unusual decisions
regarding her estates. This negative perception of the queen’s house-
hold contributed to the explosion of the revolutionary pamphlet lit-
erature undermining the legitimacy of the queen consort and by
extension the king.
Neither Henrietta Maria nor Marie Antoinette succeeded in
defending themselves against disapproval of the structure and behav-
ior of their respective households. Henrietta Maria did not directly
defend her household arrangements until the 1640s, leaving this role to
Charles until the outbreak of the English Civil Wars. Louis and Marie
Antoinette made attempts to address the accusations of fiscal irrespon-
sibility by publishing economy measures within their households but
they did not counter the rumors of immorality in the queen’s circle. The
subjects of Charles and Louis viewed the royal household as a public
entity as it provided an opportunity for the political advancement of
courtiers, received a sizable public expenditure and helped set the moral
tone of the court.

Henrietta Maria: Demanding an

Autonomous Household
When Henrietta Maria married Charles in 1625, she had definite ideas
concerning the proper management of a queen’s household. The most
important prerogative that she insisted upon throughout her marriage
was the right to make appointments independently, in the manner of
her mother and late mother-in-law.16 Marie’s widowhood and Anna’s
maintenance of an establishment separate from that of her husband
enabled both queens to make decisions concerning appointments
to their households without recourse to male authority. The factions
that developed in these autonomous households often opposed the
 Governing the Queen’s Household 53

sovereign’s policies. When Louis XIII asserted his majority, one of

his first acts was to arrest prominent Italian members of his mother’s
household.17Anna’s circle expressed different political ideas than that of
James and her court periodically became a center for opposition to the
king’s policies.18 Despite the tensions created by these courts, Henrietta
Maria regarded the autonomy enjoyed by her mother and late mother-
in-law as evidence that appointments to the consort’s household should
occur independently of sovereign authority. The marriage contract,
however, did not make clear which queens would serve as precedents
for the privileges enjoyed by Charles’s wife, stating, “The said Queen’s
house shall be kept with much dignity and with so great a number of
officers as any had that was Queen of England.”19 As discussed in the
preceding chapter, there were few immediate English examples to pro-
vide precedents for what the dignity of a queen consort’s household
entailed. Henrietta Maria would cite Anna’s experience throughout
her disputes with Charles concerning her French household despite the
ambiguity of her marriage contract.20
The culture of the autonomous household that Henrietta Maria
expected to manage as queen consort was strongly informed by the ser-
vants who had attended upon her since childhood. From 1615 to 1622,
Henrietta Maria shared a household of fifty servants with the sister clos-
est in age to herself, Christine.21 At the age of twelve, Henrietta Maria
received her own household, consisting of sixty-two servants. Many
of the attendants assigned to her service were members of her child-
hood staff and would accompany her to England. For example, Jeanne
de Harlay, Madame St. Georges, the daughter of Montglat, is listed as a
sub-governess in 1615, a governess in 1622, and Mistress of the Household
and Groom of the Stool in 1625.22 Members of other prominent court
families favored by Marie such as the Ventelets and the Garniers also
appear on all three household lists. A prominent subgroup within the
two hundred person household that accompanied Henrietta Maria to
England was therefore servants she had known all her life and would
have considered family.
The long-standing relationship between Henrietta Maria and a sig-
nificant proportion of her prominent servants may explain the informal
relations that existed within the newlywed queen’s household. Foreign
ambassadors and English observers alike commented on the compara-
tive absence of decorum within the French household. The Venetian
ambassador to London wrote in a dispatch dated 13 November 1625,

His Majesty [Charles I] requested the ambassador to wean the queen

from certain degrading ceremonies introduced of yore by the French
attendants, and especially from betaking herself on solemn festivals to
54 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

some small rooms built like a monastery at the top of her palace, where
she remains without decorum, as she did lately on All Saints’ day. The king
seems very vexed about this, and Bassompierre [The French Ambassador]
does not approve, but the queen is obstinate and very determined.23

These ceremonies and observances were cherished long-standing

traditions for Henrietta Maria and appear to have included fasts and
other penances that created perceived equality between the queen and
her servants. Charles had markedly different ideas concerning etiquette
within the royal family as he introduced boundaries and decorum at the
Stuart court unknown during the reign of James I, and expressed admi-
ration for Spanish ceremonial court culture.24 The formality and strict
social hierarchy that Charles expected of his wife’s household did not
reflect her previous experiences as a princess of France.
Correspondence between French diplomats provides further evi-
dence of the queen’s determination to be the independent head of her
household. They describe the refusal of the Duke of Buckingham’s
female relatives, and other candidates favored by Charles and his advi-
sors, within the context of the consort’s autonomy over appointments.
In July of 1626, when Charles insisted that Buckingham’s sister and
niece, the Countess of Denbigh and the Marchioness of Hamilton, be
admitted to the queen’s household,25 Henrietta Maria’s almoner, the
Bishop of Mandé wrote to Cardinal Richelieu, “On [her] refusal, the
Queen took the occasion to tell him that she objected extremely of
this procedure, because the Queen, her mother, and all the preceding
Queens had always the free provision of their households.”26 Whether
Henrietta Maria referred to preceding English or French queens is not
recorded but since she rarely referred to Charles’s female ancestors
beyond his mother, it is possible that she referenced continental tradi-
tions. Henrietta Maria regarded Buckingham as an upstart and made
clear that she would have no confidence in his relatives.27
Conflict regarding religious observance within the queen’s house-
hold highlights a further expectation expressed by Henrietta Maria.
The terms of the marriage contract appeared to guarantee a Roman
Catholic household and grant positions to French people alone with
future appointments accessible to both English and French Catholics.
Various statements in the contract also appear to exclude Charles from
decisions concerning the queen’s household, reinforcing Henrietta
Maria’s desire for autonomy within this sphere, including, “All the
household servants . . . will be Apostolic, Catholic and French by birth
and chosen or appointed by his most Christian Majesty [Louis XIII],
and if it happen that any of them should die or that the aforesaid lady
be willing to change her said servants than she shall take in their stead
 Governing the Queen’s Household 55

other Catholics, French or English.”28 While there is a brief mention

in the contract of the necessity of Charles’s consent for changes to his
wife’s household, Henrietta Maria and her brother appeared to have had
the most control over household appointments. The experience of the
different customs at the English court did not alter Henrietta Maria’s
determination to preside over a household that was autonomous, com-
paratively informal, and exclusively Catholic.
Henrietta Maria was compelled to develop a new conception of the
queen consort’s household following the dismissal of the majority of her
French servants in 1626 for reasons that included Charles’s personal dis-
like of the foreign household, the treatment of the Huguenots preced-
ing the 1627 siege of La Rochelle, and the failure of Louis XIII to pay the
full amount of his sister’s dowry. This change in personnel challenged all
three of the expectations of her household that she brought to her mar-
riage. The households of Charles and his wife became closely linked,
with members of the same English noble families serving in both plac-
es.29 The courtiers from Buckingham’s sphere of influence whom she
repeatedly rejected during the early months of her marriage were for-
mally sworn in,30 and Protestant nobles joined her household.31 Even the
general atmosphere of comparative informality that Henrietta Maria
had experienced since childhood changed abruptly with the appoint-
ment of unfamiliar English servants to her household. The Venetian
ambassador wrote, “The extreme formality and outward decorum with
which the queen is now waited on by the English ladies, so contrary to
French custom and familiarity, begins to weary her Majesty, who leads
a very discontented life, as she is not allowed either to speak or to write
save in their presence.”32 Despite Henrietta Maria’s attempts to secure
the reinstatement of her original household with its distinctly informal
culture through various means including appeals through diplomatic
channels, direct protestations to Charles, and, according to the French
ambassador, a hunger strike,33 the changes were permanent and the
queen had to adopt a new role as head of her household.
The most immediate effect of the dismissal of the French house-
hold was the regularization of Henrietta Maria’s income and dower
estates as promised by her marriage contract. The initial household
was expensive to maintain and Henrietta Maria appeared to have been
unable to discharge her debts while supporting her French servants.34
The appointment of staff to oversee Henrietta Maria’s English prop-
erty remained a topic of contention between the royal couple during
the late 1620s and Charles appeared to have been reluctant to honor all
the material provisions of the marriage contract. This document stated
that the queen would receive a jointure of eighteen thousand pounds
sterling per year as well as additional funds for the maintenance of
56 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

her servants and twenty thousand pounds for the purchase of jewels.35
These provisions were not immediately honored; a situation fur-
ther complicated by the nonpayment of the expected second half of
Henrietta Maria’s dowry.36
Although there were previous English queens consort who never
received their full dowries, most notably Catherine of Aragon, Louis
XIII’s failure to provide his sister’s promised settlement appeared to
be a particular slight to Charles I because his other sister Elisabeth
received her full dowry in addition to plate and jewels upon her mar-
riage to Philip IV of Spain.37 The Venetian ambassador observed irregu-
larities regarding Henrietta Maria’s maintenance in April, 1626, noting,
“Someday the king will be obliged to establish and assign to the queen
the dominion due to her.”38 The queen’s precarious financial situation
would create further difficulties because the dismissed servants would
later claim they had loaned the queen money to compensate for the
absence of her jointure income.39 The financial records in the domestic
state papers for 1625–1626 provide evidence that Henrietta Maria did
receive payments toward the maintenance of her household during the
early months of her marriage40 but the absence of a dedicated set of join-
ture estates created the perception of financial distress.
Henrietta Maria’s financial situation improved beginning in 1627
due to a systematic assessment of the wages owed to her servants41
and the granting of a vast array of jointure estates such as the Duchy
of Lancaster42 and residences including Somerset House, Oatlands, and
Denmark House.43 The settlement bestowed upon the queen by Charles
I increased further in 1631, 44 granting her additional income that
amounted to 30,000 pounds, 45 which translated into increased stature
and opportunities for patronage. While Henrietta Maria’s household
included a council of treasurers and surveyors appointed to maintain
palaces, collect rents and income from wardships, and pay pensions and
wages to the Consort’s household, 46 there is evidence of the queen’s
personal involvement in the administration of these lands. Henrietta
Maria oversaw the queen’s Court in Chancery at Westminster, which
was active throughout her reign, 47 and she appointed a new solicitor
general in 1626.48
Through the queen’s Council of Revenue she also received a diverse
array of petitioners in conjunction with the management of her house-
hold including Anna’s former servants seeking employment in the new
queen’s household.49 Henrietta Maria took a close interest in the per-
sonal welfare of her servants. Her financial records contain detailed lists
of the pensions owed to elderly retainers and the portions to be paid
upon marriage.50 Henrietta Maria preferred to arrange these marriages
herself and appears to have disapproved of ladies of the bedchamber
 Governing the Queen’s Household 57

marrying without her involvement.51 She also spent large sums on gifts
for her household, particularly during New Year’s celebrations.52 The
household may not have been entirely autonomous following the dis-
missal of the French servants but Henrietta Maria’s direct involvement
in its administration increased as Charles’s reign progressed, allowing
her to make decisions regarding the welfare of her servants within the
boundaries set by the sovereign.
Henrietta Maria also utilized her position to engage in extensive
social and cultural patronage, enhancing her own prestige and legiti-
macy as queen. These two spheres of activity were closely intertwined
because involvement in a royal masque served as a means of bestowing
favor upon select members of the household and the content of these
spectacles allowed the queen to project an idealized image of French
culture, Catholicism, and the internal dynamics of her household. Marie
Antoinette would also sponsor court theatricals during Louis XVI’s
reign but she would treat them as part of her private sphere rather than
her public image.
From 1625 to 1631, however, Henrietta Maria involved herself in few
masques and there is comparatively little evidence concerning the prep-
aration of these spectacles.53 Since 1631 saw the increase of her dower
income, financial considerations may have dictated the comparative
absence of spectacles at the queen’s court in the early years of her mar-
riage. In contrast, the 1630s were a period of intense cultural activity with
regular theatrical performances showcasing the talents of Henrietta
Maria and her household.54 While Anna preferred exotic spectacles fea-
turing female warriors, Henrietta Maria favored pastoral masques that
emphasized harmony, love, and beauty, demonstrating the connections
between her household and that of Charles.55 While the queen’s patron-
age over these masques affirmed that her household occupied a separate
space from that of her husband, the content of the spectacles presented
the two main royal households in harmony with one another, obscuring
previous conflicts.
Henrietta Maria’s independent social patronage indicates that this
new conception of harmony between the royal households was never
achieved in practice. In the early years of the royal marriage both
spouses adopted similar methods of bestowing royal favor, such as
cross-confessional godparentage,56 but as Charles’s reign continued,
their differing approaches to court patronage became increasingly
apparent. In keeping with Henrietta Maria’s youthful experiences
of a comparatively informal royal household, she was accepting of
indiscretions committed by those who served her and frequently peti-
tioned her husband to return disgraced courtiers to favor.57 When
Henry Jermyn, Henrietta Maria’s Master of the Horse, seduced then
58 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

abandoned Eleanor Villiers, the niece of the Duke of Buckingham, in

1633, Charles exiled him from court but he was restored to his offices
within four years at the queen’s request.58 Jermyn’s rehabilitation
was not an isolated case. The queen’s most prominent courtiers were
“notorious rakes,” including William Davenant, a heavy drinker and
adulterer, whom she elevated to the post of Poet Laureate in 1638, and
George Goring the younger, who fled London in 1633 to escape his
gambling debts.59 Charles appears to have been reluctant to directly
chastise her for her choice of friends during the 1630s, as he did in the
1620s, because she was frequently pregnant and in poor health dur-
ing this period. Furthermore, the couple had an established public
image of harmony within their marriage that would have been under-
mined by open quarrels concerning the management of her household.
The distinction between the governance of the king’s court and that
of the queen’s court, however, would have been clear to observers at
Whitehall, a residence that the couple often shared. While Henrietta
Maria was not identified in the earliest pamphlets as a participant in
her household’s transgressions as Marie Antoinette would be, her ser-
vants’ behavior appeared to enable immorality at the royal court.
The final role that Henrietta Maria conceived for her household
during the 1630s was its use as a forum to promote her own interests
in domestic and foreign policy. Her origins would suggest that she sur-
rounded herself with Catholic courtiers and promoted French interests,
but her political goals were more complex, encompassing Puritan fac-
tions and pro-Spanish policies. Despite her initial unhappiness upon
the departure of the majority of her original household, Henrietta
Maria accepted the decision.60 In the 1630s, she attempted to cultivate
factions among English courtiers to assist in such endeavors as gaining
toleration for English Catholics, the restoration of Charles’s relatives
to the Palatinate, and support for her mother’s interests.61 Henrietta
Maria’s Scottish confessor, Father Robert Philip, told the papal envoy
Panzani in 1636, “It seemed to him that one could gain far more favours
in religious matters from the Protestants of the court than from the
Catholics and he gave as an example that when the court of the queen
was all Catholic, no one wanted to speak for the Catholics.”62 Philip’s
assessment demonstrates Henrietta Maria’s increasing political matu-
rity and her changing conception of her household during the 1630s.
Rather than insisting upon a Catholic household, as she had during the
early years of her marriage, she recognized that she might alleviate the
position of English Catholics by cultivating Protestants.
The ongoing conflict between Cardinal Richelieu, advisor to Louis
XIII, and Marie also complicated Henrietta Maria’s loyalty to the
kingdom of her birth. By 1640, a French envoy to Charles I’s court was
 Governing the Queen’s Household 59

complaining of the queen’s strong attachment to Spanish interests, not-

ing that many English Catholics opposed closer relations with France.63
This allegiance reflected the influence of Marie’s foreign policy during
her daughter’s childhood, which focused on an alliance with the Spanish
Habsburgs.64 Henrietta Maria’s support of her mother during periods
of factional conflict in France meant that she did not identify herself
with a monolithic “French” party but instead supported different fac-
tions within her household to further her foreign policy goals. The rela-
tionship between region of origin and a conception of nationality was
more fluid in the seventeenth century than it would be in the eighteenth
century, allowing Henrietta Maria to pursue foreign policy goals that
did not necessarily advance French interests while Marie Antoinette
would be immediately labelled an “Austrian,” and would be expected to
behave as a clear representative of her kingdom of origin by supporters
and detractors alike.
When Henrietta Maria arrived in England in 1625, she possessed
clear ideas concerning her role as head of the queen’s household. During
her youth in France, she had been at the center of an autonomous house-
hold, which was staffed by French Catholics, and conducted itself with
comparative informality. When Charles challenged all three tenets of
Henrietta Maria’s conception of her role as mistress of her household,
she had to reconceptualize her position. By the 1630s, the queen was
exerting her independence by granting privileges to her servants and
exercising cultural patronage while reluctantly accepting Charles’s ulti-
mate authority over appointments to her household. Henrietta Maria’s
conception of her role became more flexible as Charles’s reign pro-
gressed but elements of her initial ideas of autonomy, informality, and
Catholicism continued to govern her actions in this capacity until the
outbreak of the English Civil Wars.
Henrietta Maria’s focus on dynastic prestige rather than national
interest contributed to her ability to change her conception of her role
as head of the queen’s household according to Charles’s dictates and
the conditions at his court. The comparative privacy of the English
royal apartments also enabled the couple to develop a public image of
unity that obscured continuing conflicts regarding the composition
of her household. This flexibility would prove impossible for Marie
Antoinette as she could not transcend her Austrian background and
was expected to conduct both her marriage and the governance of
her household in public. Henrietta Maria’s ability to alter her actions
to reflect the political climate at court was not sufficient to rehabili-
tate her reputation among Charles’s subjects because she changed her
policies according to conditions within her marriage rather than her
popular reputation.
60 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Henrietta Maria: Conspiracy in

the Royal Household
Criticism of Henrietta Maria’s French household was constant among
all social estates and members of the diplomatic corps from the start
of the marriage negotiations until the expulsion of the majority of
these servants from England in August 1626. A widely circulated news-
letter stated, “Nay their insolences toward the Queen were not to be
endured . . . Yea they have made her to go barefoot, to beat cornmeal out
of china dishes to wait at the table and many other ridiculous and absurd
practices. And if these rogues dare this . . . over the daughter, sister and
wife of great Kings, what shame would they not make us, the people, to
undergo.”65 The newsletter also repeated speculation that the queen’s
French servants were conducting espionage on behalf of the pope. In
contrast to Henrietta Maria’s actual assertive behavior, publicly circu-
lated accounts detailing the negative attributes of this household always
presented the queen as a passive figure, a depiction reinforced by her
youth and unfamiliarity with English customs.
The evidence concerning the public view of Henrietta Maria within
the context of her household during the first fifteen years of Charles’s
reign is sparse compared to the outpouring of pamphlet literature
published during the English Civil Wars. The absence of a sitting par-
liament between 1629 and 1640 eliminated an accepted forum for com-
plaints against the queen to be lodged and heard. Popular discourse
concerning Henrietta Maria’s failings could be prosecuted as seditious
speech.66 Nevertheless, there are numerous forms of extant source mate-
rial including privately circulated newsletters, published descriptions of
royal ceremonies, diplomatic correspondence, and petitions directly
addressed to Charles and Henrietta Maria. There were also cases where
the laws concerning seditious speech were broken, providing direct evi-
dence of negative perceptions of the queen.
As early as December 1624, the Venetian ambassador to France ques-
tioned the character of the women chosen to attend Henrietta Maria at
her wedding, writing, “Four ladies of honour and one demoiselle are to
help the bride, in choosing whom favour has prevailed over merit and
worth.”67 The household made an equally negative impression on the
public when Henrietta Maria arrived in England. A further dispatch
detailed the bridal progress to London, “The people here complain that
the queen’s suite exceeds what was arranged, because the two kings had
arranged to cut down expense and display, but the number of superflu-
ous and vagabond folk is large . . . They speak about it openly.”68 This
account provides evidence of both the substance of initial English suspi-
cions regarding the French household, and the form of these critiques.
 Governing the Queen’s Household 61

English observers did not recognize a clear hierarchy of duties among

the new queen’s French household and the number of servants there-
fore appeared excessive, fueling speculation regarding the purpose of
so many foreign servants. The arrival of these people inspired criticism
that would eventually inform written critiques such as newsletters and
petitions addressed to the monarch.
In contrast to the discontented conversations recorded in the dip-
lomatic correspondence of the 1620s, the printed works published
in England and France to commemorate the marriage of Charles and
Henrietta Maria were exclusively celebratory. The extensive descrip-
tions of the French courtiers surrounding the bride and the publication
of excerpts from the marriage contract, however, had the potential to
reinforce English concerns regarding Henrietta Maria’s household.
Accounts of the queen’s progress were inseparable from descriptions
of her foreign, Catholic household. One pamphlet described the pro-
cession into a gala banquet at Whitehall stating, “The King leading his
Queen, accompanied with the Duke de Chevreuse and his Duchess,
with the two French Ambassadors with all the rest of the nobility and
ladies as well as English, Scots and French.”69 As in the discontented
conversations concerning the household, the celebratory accounts that
mention these servants presented the queen as a passive figure and the
foreigners as a multitude present at the English court. The account of
the banquet also mentions the reading aloud of the marriage contract,
demonstrating that the clauses guaranteeing the presence of French ser-
vants, not to mention the bride’s freedom of religion, were widely known
in court circles.70 The circulation of published versions of the contract
throughout the reign of Charles indicate that knowledge of these clauses
spread well beyond the court, informing widespread discussion of the
presence of French Catholic servants in the queen’s household.71
The complaints expressed against the French servants during the
months following Henrietta Maria’s arrival in England varied accord-
ing to the rank of the observer. Members of the nobility, particularly
those who had held office in the household of the previous queens,
resented the employment of foreigners in lucrative and prestigious
positions. In contrast, Protestants outside court circles focused on the
potential for conspiracies advancing Catholic interests to emerge from
the queen’s foreign household. Those English ladies who succeeded in
gaining any mark of favor from the queen considered themselves to be
unusually fortunate as the dominance of the French household was dis-
cussed and resented within elite circles. Katherine Gorges, kinswoman
to Buckingham’s sister Lady Denbigh, wrote to her brother-in-law in
December 1625, “I receaued a great grace from the Queen, for shee kissed
me, and that she doeth not usually doe to any, nor scarce speake to any
62 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Lady that speakes French to hir unless they be Papists . . . she will be no
meanes as yet admit any Protestines to any place about hir.”72 Henrietta
Maria’s apparent refusal to speak to Protestant ladies, regardless of
their attempts to address her in French, reinforced the perception that
she was entirely under the influence of her Catholic household.
Former court servants with humbler origins than the elite ladies who
sought ornamental positions at the queen’s court petitioned Charles,
requesting the positions and salaries they enjoyed in Anna’s household.
In August 1626, around the same time as the dismissal of the majority of
the French household, John Chalk and Phillip Payne wrote to the King
that they “served for many years during the lifetime of the late Queen;
and since the coming of the present Queen, have waited as before with-
out allowance; pray that their names may be entered in the book of the
Queen’s household to be signed by the King.”73 The petitions addressed
by Anna’s former servants reveal a crucial difference between Henrietta
Maria’s conception of the precedents set by her mother-in-law and the
views of Charles’s subjects. While Henrietta Maria believed that Anna’s
example reinforced her view that the queen should have authority over
appointments to her household, royal servants at the English court
argued that their past service to the late queen should guarantee them
employment. The complaints of former royal servants also illuminate
the degree to which the arrival of hundreds of French servants disrupted
the usual system of patronage and appointments at the English court.
In newsletters, pamphlets, and petitions authored by Charles’s sub-
jects of middling economic status, outside court circles, the threat
posed by the French household was not to their livelihoods but to the
security of the monarchy and the Church of England. Henrietta Maria
did not travel around Charles’s kingdoms as part of extensive royal pro-
gresses or pilgrimages in the manner of previous English consorts, such
as Henry VIII’s wives.74 The queen and her household were therefore
rarely seen in public by the majority of Charles’s subjects outside court
circles, allowing speculation to flourish concerning their activities on
behalf of Roman Catholicism and foreign political interests. During
the early months of his marriage, Charles received frequent reports of
rumored sedition by the French household, encouraging him to dismiss
these people from his wife’s service.75
One prominent example of the public perception that the French
household was advancing its own political and religious agenda through
manipulation of Henrietta Maria was the much discussed “Pilgrimage
to Tyburn” that took place on 26 June 1625.76 Charles received a report
that Henrietta Maria had visited Tyburn gallows with members of her
household and prayed for the Catholics who had been executed there.77
The queen denied that she had uttered prayers at Tyburn but the account
 Governing the Queen’s Household 63

nevertheless served as a pretext for the planned dismissal of the majority

of the French household.78 A newsletter contained a version of the event
that followed the prevailing popular trend of presenting the queen as
a victim of her French household, stating, “those hypocritical Doges
made the poor Queen to walk afoot (some said barefoot) from her house
at St. James to the gallows at Tyburn thereby to honour the Saint of the
Day in visiting the Holy place where go many martyrs (forsooth) had
shed their blood in defence of the Catholic cause.”79 This interpretation
preserves the queen’s reputation at the expense of her household, pre-
senting her as youthful victim of French servants who disregard English
laws, Protestant religious sensibilities, and the accepted social hierar-
chy. The depiction of the sovereign’s wife traveling by foot, let alone
barefoot, indicated that the religious devotions recommended by her
household subverted her rank, and compelled her to behave in a manner
unworthy of a queen of England.
In this climate of hostility toward the French household, Charles’s
abrupt decision to expel the majority of the queen’s servants received
praise from members of all social estates. Charles wrote to the Duke of
Buckingham in November 1625, “I thought I would have cause enough
in a short time to put away the Monsieurs either by attempting to steal
away my wife or by making plots with my own subjects.”80 Charles
came to this decision within the first months of his marriage due to
complex factors including worsening relations with France because of
the ill treatment of French Huguenots during the siege of La Rochelle81
and Louis XIII’s failure to pay the second half of his sister’s dowry.82
The expulsion of the French servants was greeted by widespread rejoic-
ing by both court elites who stood to occupy the vacated positions at
the queen’s court, and ordinary English Protestants who believed their
king was taking a firm stand against political and religious intrigue in
his wife’s household.
Political tracts against Catholic and foreign intrigues in England
appeared in the last months of 1626, in the form of letters praising
Charles for expelling the French servants.83 In these letters, the young
queen continued to appear as a passive figure, manipulated by her priests.
Henry Cock wrote, “it was reported the last summer in the court that the
Queen should accompany your Majesty in the Progress, the Queen, said
she shall not go with the King till he have released the two priests who
are imprisoned at Canterbury. This is the humility and lowliness of these
priests who dare to outface the world.”84 This tract also reveals that news
concerning the queen was “reported” on from court circles and that the
rarity of royal progresses was initially blamed on the machinations of the
French household. The departure of the majority of the French house-
hold increased the popularity of both Charles and Henrietta Maria.
64 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

The replacement of French servants with English ones, particularly

those favored by the queen herself, removed a significant scapegoat for
perceived transgressions within Henrietta Maria’s household. During
the 1630s, popular opinion would shift from viewing the queen as the
victim of intrigues within her household to regarding her as the instiga-
tor of these activities. Just as the French servants had been criticized
as negative influences on the queen, in the 1620s, Henrietta Maria
herself would be scrutinized as a dangerous advisor to Charles I in the
1630s. The queen’s attempts to adapt her conception of her household
to English political realities through administration of her property,
social, and cultural patronage, and the pursuit of political goals did not
meet with the approval of Charles’s subjects. Instead, Henrietta Maria
appeared to be utilizing her household to undermine Charles’s authority
over his own family and the state.
The composition of Henrietta Maria’s household changed little
from the late 1620s to the outbreak of the English Civil Wars, a situ-
ation that allowed criticism levelled against particular members of
the queen’s circle to increase without an apparent response from the
royal couple. After Buckingham’s assassination, his prominent ser-
vants became influential members of the queen’s household and associ-
ated with the pro-French faction at court.85 In her extensive analysis
of Henrietta Maria’s household records, Caroline Hibbard concluded
that extensive changes during the 1630s were precluded by factors
beyond the control of the royal couple including the court social hier-
archy, favors owed to those who presented themselves for service and
patronage expected by members of families who had served Anna and
Elizabeth I.86 Members of this familiar household eventually accom-
panied her into exile and served her during the Restoration.87 The dis-
missal of unpopular members of the queen’s household therefore rarely
occurred during the 1630s, minimizing opportunities for the royal cou-
ple to appear to respond to popular opinion through the management
of their court.
Outside the court, the tenants of the additional jointure lands
bestowed on Henrietta Maria in 1631 blamed the queen personally for
what they perceived to be the mismanagement of these estates. During a
rare progress through the Duchy of Lancaster that same year, Henrietta
Maria’s horse was stopped by “rebels” presenting a petition on behalf of
2,000 local people demanding access to enclosed lands.88 The petition
complained that local townspeople had enjoyed rights to two hundred
acres of common land until the Lord Justice recently appointed by the
queen enclosed these grounds.89 The perceived solution to this problem
was Charles’s direct intervention in the administration of the Duchy.
The petition ends with the appeal, “It may therefore please your majesty
 Governing the Queen’s Household 65

the number . . . of your poor petitioners & loyal subjects considered that
the King’s Majesty would take the town . . . into his own power.”90 The
nature of the petition suggests that inhabitants of the queen’s jointure
lands thought their traditional rights were more likely to be respected
under the direct authority of the sovereign.
Henrietta Maria’s attempts to exercise social and cultural patronage
through participation in court masques also attracted criticism from
Charles’s subjects. The accessibility of these performances remains a
subject of debate. Malcolm Smuts argues, “The masques and most other
forms of court culture were intended for a relatively restricted audience,
consisting mainly of courtiers, country peers, prominent gentry and
foreign diplomats.”91 While the actual attendance at Henrietta Maria’s
masques undoubtedly reflected this social composition, the criticism
directed toward the queen’s participation in the masques indicates that
Charles’s subjects believed the royal performances to be more publicly
accessible. In a retrospective screed against the crimes of the House of
Stuart published in 1652, Edward Peyton would argue royal masques
“were used only for incentives of lust; therefore the courtiers invited
the citizens’ wives to those shows in purpose to defile them in such
sort.”92 Although this conclusion appears in a work written to justify
Charles’s overthrow, the idea that ordinary English people, particularly
the attractive wives of town dwellers, could access court masques was
a common plot device in Caroline plays.93 Henrietta Maria’s masques
were therefore perceived to take place in a public space vulnerable to
popular criticism.
While Stuart court masques were clearly considered morally
dubious in Puritan circles regardless of the individual participants,
Henrietta Maria attracted particular criticism because of the French
innovations she introduced to these court spectacles. Her active par-
ticipation in the masques, including unprecedented speaking roles,
was commented upon as early as 1626 when the gentleman John
Chamberlain wrote to the diplomat Dudley Carleton concerning the
performance of Honorat de Bueil Racan’s pastoral masque, “Artenice,”
“I have knowne the time when this wold have seemed a straunge sight,
to see a Quene act in play but tempora mutantur et nos [times change
and so must we].”94 While Chamberlain seemed more amused than
offended by Henrietta Maria’s behavior,95 the queen’s participation in
Walter Montagu’s “The Shepherd’s Paradise” would precipitate one of
the most well-known attacks against her character prior to the out-
break of the English Civil Wars.
Five weeks before the performance of this much anticipated
masque, London barrister William Prynne published Histrio-mastix:
The Player’s Scourge. The index to this thousand page tome categorized
66 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

“Women Actors” as “Notorious Whores”96 while the text denounced

“any Christian woman be so more then whorishly impudent, as to act,
to speake publickely on a stage.”97 Henrietta Maria was not named in
this diatribe but the timing of its publication and frequent comparisons
between court celebrations and Catholic rites indicated that Prynne was
directly criticizing the queen’s involvement in court masques.98 Prynne
was convicted of high treason in the Star Chamber and sentenced to
be disbarred, stripped of his degree from Oxford, fined 5,000 pounds,
imprisoned, and was to have his ears cropped and the initials “SL” for
seditious libeller branded on his cheek.99 The harshness of Prynne’s pun-
ishment reflects Charles I’s concern that any work labelling the activi-
ties of the queen and her household as immoral and conducive to the
spread of Catholicism in England undermined his authority as king.
Prynne’s interpretation of court theatricals as subversive methods
for converting Protestant audiences to Catholicism reflected wide-
spread concerns that Henrietta Maria was utilizing her own religious
freedom to encourage members of the Church of England to adopt
her faith. Henrietta Maria’s right to maintain Catholic chapels in her
residences and practice her faith privately, as guaranteed by her mar-
riage contract,100 was never seriously challenged during Charles’s reign.
What attracted popular condemnation was the accessibility of these
spaces to the general public, including Protestant members of the
queen’s circle. This openness reflected Henrietta Maria’s main domes-
tic political goal, the achievement of toleration, and accepted places of
worship for English Catholics. Charles’s Protestant subjects, however,
regarded public access to the queen’s chapels as a means of effecting
large-scale conversions.
Concerns regarding the accessibility of supposedly private devotions
were formally expressed through both petitions to the monarch, and,
prior to Charles’s personal rule, in parliamentary proceedings. In 1628,
the Bishop of Norwich wrote to the king complaining that the masses
performed for foreign ambassadors were leading Protestants to super-
stition.101 That same year, the House of Commons committee for reli-
gion scrutinized attendance at masses performed for Henrietta Maria’s
household, stating, “Besides the Queen’s mass, there are two masses
daily in the Queenes Court, so that its common in discourse; will you
goe to mass, or, have you been to mass at Somerset House: There coming
five hundred at a time from mass.”102 Londoners who did not belong to
court circles may have attended to satisfy their curiosity regarding the
ritual, the palace, or the queen. Nevertheless, evidence of casual conver-
sation regarding attendance at masses for Henrietta Maria’s household
appeared to indicate willingness to embrace the Catholic faith, a situa-
tion that dismayed Protestants.
 Governing the Queen’s Household 67

During the 1630s, the missionary activities of individual members

of Henrietta Maria’s ecclesiastical establishment and the conversion
of prominent ladies-in-waiting fueled criticism of the queen’s manage-
ment of her servants. The Venetian ambassador described the mission-
ary activities of the grand almoner, writing in 1637, “He no longer has
any scruple about frequenting openly the houses of the Protestants,
and when there he takes the opportunity to dispute with them and
with the women in particular, and to try and make converts.”103 When
Anne Blount, Countess of Newport, began to appear at mass with the
queen, that same year, rumors circulated that she had been recruited by
papal agents.104 Charles attempted to counter popular condemnation of
Catholic missionary activity in Henrietta Maria’s household by issuing
decrees limiting attendance at palace masses105 but these measures were
widely regarded as ineffectual.106
During this same period, negative reactions to public attendance
at the queen’s masses became more militant than the petitions and
parliamentary debates of the late 1620s. At least one incident that
occurred during the implementation of Charles’s decree limiting public
attendance at Mass resulted in the physical assault of a member of the
queen’s household. In 1631, Marie Aubert, the heavily pregnant wife of
Henrietta Maria’s French surgeon Maurice Aubert, was attacked while
traveling to mass at Somerset House by a junior officer at arms who
“slighted [the King’s written permission allowing her to attend mass]
and the Queen,”107 resulting in a miscarriage. The combination of an
assault against a member of the queen’s household and a dismissal of the
king’s authority demonstrates that Henrietta Maria was not respected
as mistress of her household and this position was utilized as means of
undermining her legitimacy. The fact that Aubert’s assailant had been
appointed to enforce a royal decree demonstrates that disrespect for the
queen and her household had spread beyond the king’s political oppo-
nents to servants of the crown.
Popular criticism of Henrietta Maria’s household occurred in two
distinct phases during the 1620s and 1630s. While the young queen
employed an extensive foreign household, she was pitied as the victim
of the machinations of her French servants. With the expulsion of the
majority of the French household, an act that temporarily increased
the popularity of both the king and queen, there was no longer a clear
scapegoat for unpopular activities within Henrietta Maria’s household.
In the 1630s, Henrietta Maria herself was criticized for mismanaging
her jointure, speaking on the stage, and facilitating the spread of Roman
Catholicism. Charles made attempts to preserve his wife’s reputation
through such actions as the harsh punishment of those who publicly
criticized Henrietta Maria’s activities and restrictions regarding public
68 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

attendance at the queen’s masses. These measures did not discourage

criticism of the queen as they were applied inconsistently. Henrietta
Maria ultimately failed to present herself to her subjects as an effective
head of her household, and her perceived activities in this role would be
used to discredit the monarchy during the English Civil Wars. In late
eighteenth century France, Marie Antoinette also would be criticized
for attempting innovations within the sphere of the queen’s household.
The accessibility of the Versailles court to observers of all social estates
combined with the more robust public sphere would speed the process
of defamation that occurred gradually for Henrietta Maria.

Marie Antoinette: The Household as

Private Sphere
Marie Antoinette’s discontent with the formal etiquette and person-
ages that she encountered in her capacity as head of l’hotel de la reine
is well known. Campan discussed the major issues in her memoirs
including how “The Queen abolished all this formality. When her
head was dressed, she curtsied to all the ladies who were in her cham-
ber, and, followed only by her own women, went into her closet, where
Mademoiselle Bertin who could not be admitted into the chamber, used
to await her.”108 The creation of a comparatively private sphere in which
personal friends and tradespeople, such as the dressmaker Rose Bertin,
could be received to the exclusion of the established court hierarchy was
an unpopular innovation. While Henrietta Maria’s most prominent
retainers are little known, Marie Antoinette’s controversial appoint-
ments to her household, Lamballe and Polignac, have been extensively
analyzed in works focusing on a diverse range of issues concerning the
ancien regime and French Revolution. Marie Antoinette’s household
records, the recollections of members of her household, and royal cor-
respondence demonstrate that the queen sought have control over her
domestic arrangements and utilize her position to create a loyal fac-
tion apart from the often Austrophobic sensibilities of the established
Versailles nobility. Despite the insights provided by this pre-revolution-
ary primary evidence, the accusations levelled by French Revolutionary
pamphlet literature have largely defined the major issues discussed in
both scholarly and popular accounts of Marie Antoinette’s relationship
with her household.109
There are few records of Marie Antoinette`s own conception of her
role as head of her household during the first four years of her marriage.
The subordinate status of the dauphine`s establishment to that of the
king, and concerns regarding the assimilation of a Habsburg princess
 Governing the Queen’s Household 69

into the French court resulted in Marie Antoinette being taught to obey
senior members of her household. In contrast, Henrietta Maria expected
to preside over her retainers directly. The dauphine’s personal posses-
sions were abandoned at the border along with her Austrian wardrobe.110
The letters written by Louis XV and Noailles regarding the furnishing
of Marie Antoinette`s household therefore indicate that the Dauphine`s
living space was arranged without the involvement of the young bride,
circumstances that help to explain her strong interest in the properties
she received upon Louis XVI`s accession. According to the Austrian
ambassador to France, Count Florimond Mercy-Argenteau, Marie
Antoinette expressed a desire for her own country estate as dauphine,111
indicating a desire to exercise autonomy over her own household and
living space.
Maria Theresa and Mercy-Argenteau also shaped the dauphine’s
household without involving Marie Antoinette. While there was cer-
tainly correspondence between members of Henrietta Maria’s house-
hold and Marie de Medici concerning the conditions the French
princess encountered in England,112 Mercy-Argenteau cultivated spe-
cific servants to report Marie Antoinette’s daily activities to himself
and the empress. He wrote to Maria Theresa, “I am assured of three
people who serve under Madame the Archduchess. One of her women
and two chamber boys will return an exact account of what passes in
the interior. Day by day I am informed of the conversations of the arch-
duchess with Abbe Vermond, to whom she does not hide anything.”113
While Marie Antoinette was keenly aware of the gaze of the French
court during such public occasions as masses and state dinners,114 and
commented upon her portrayal in the popular press,115 she does not
appear to have suspected the complicity of her household in the scru-
tiny of her daily activities.116
Marie Antoinette’s failure to recognize the involvement of her
household in the dissemination of information concerning her behavior
indicates that she viewed her establishment as a private sphere where
she could indulge in activities discouraged by Versailles etiquette and
form friendships outside the court hierarchy. While Maria Theresa and
Louis XV alike regarded the assimilation of the dauphine into French
court culture as one of the primary duties of her household, Marie
Antoinette often participated in pastimes that drew attention to her
Austrian origins while in the company of her attendants. Although her
spoken German rapidly deteriorated from disuse,117 she attempted to
maintain a correspondence with members of her childhood household
after her marriage, a practice that implicitly challenged the dismissal
of her Austrian household at the French border. She wrote to her for-
mer governess, until Maria Theresa intervened on account of Brandeis’s
70 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

indiscretions.118 The Habsburg diplomatic correspondence indicates

that she felt comfortable speaking openly about her life at the French
court with visiting Austrian nobles, such as Count Xavier Rosenberg,
and resident diplomats, such as Mercy-Argenteau.119 The prohibition
against Austrian servants in the dauphine’s household did not prevent
Marie Antoinette from nurturing relationships with Habsburg con-
tacts. Although these interactions were inconsequential compared to
the enormous household that accompanied Henrietta Maria to England,
the increased popular perception of national boundaries made Marie
Antoinette’s contact with a few select Austrians appear equally danger-
ous. Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette were motivated by a similar
desire to revive elements of their childhood courts as married women
but the recentness of the Franco-Austrian alliance made the queen of
France’s contacts with Austria suspect.
The four years Marie Antoinette spent in France as dauphine, and
her first years as queen, were also a period in which she formed friend-
ships outside the established court hierarchy, often by encouraging pas-
times unfamiliar to the French court. The sleighing party where the
dauphine first met Lamballe has been so heavily romanticized by Marie
Antoinette’s admiring biographers that the unusual circumstances of
the event are often overlooked. Campan makes clear in her memoirs
that sleighing was not an accepted pastime at the French court, and
that the dauphine was attempting to introduce a foreign custom to her
household. She wrote, “the recollections of the pleasure which sleighing
parties had given the Queen in her childhood made her wish to intro-
duce similar ones in France . . . Sleigh driving, savouring of the Northern
courts, had no favour among the Parisians.”120 The sight of Marie
Antoinette and select friends traveling from Versailles to the outskirts
of Paris by sleigh was unfamiliar to ordinary Parisians, and therefore
reinforced the dauphine’s image as a foreigner.
Maria Theresa immediately recognized that Lamballe would be per-
ceived as a member of a Savoyard faction, along with the Dauphin Louis-
Auguste’s two sisters-in-law, the Countesses of Provence and Artois.121
In keeping with her view of the household as a comparatively private
space, Marie Antoinette dismissed her mother’s concerns, writing,
“[Lamballe] has always had a good reputation and does not at all have an
Italian character. She was established for her life here as was her brother.
I believe they feel, the one and the other, that France is at present their
true country.”122 This justification of Lamballe’s character demonstrates
that the queen of France held attitudes concerning foreignness and
the privacy of her domestic sphere that differed from French popular
opinion. The emphasis on Marie Antoinette’s Austrian origins dur-
ing her wedding celebrations demonstrates that Louis XVI’s subjects
 Governing the Queen’s Household 71

regarded her background as unchangeable regardless of her attempts

to speak French or integrate local customs into her existing pastimes.
Lamballe’s Savoyard background would have been regarded as equally
fixed in the popular imagination. The flexible allegiance to dynasty or
religion over kingdom of origin that had provided additional options
for Henrietta Maria no longer existed by the late eighteenth century as
national boundaries were perceived as increasingly immutable. Marie
Antoinette’s defense of Lamballe’s personal reputation without refer-
ence to her rank or origins also demonstrates an attitude toward her
social circle more in keeping with the French urban bourgeoisie than
the nobility or royal family. Within the context of the French court,
Lamballe’s place in the broader social hierarchy would determine the
manner in which she was perceived by her peers rather than the quali-
ties considered admirable in a private citizen.
The Dauphin Louis-Auguste’s ascension to the French throne as
King Louis XVI in 1774 allowed Marie Antoinette to directly chal-
lenge the circumscribed property and household arrangements that
she experienced as dauphine. Since the marriage of the young king and
queen was not fully consummated for seven years, Marie Antoinette’s
biographers often judge their union to have been unstable or unhappy.123
In contrast, the relationship between Charles and Henrietta Maria,
the parents of many children, is romanticized as a loving and compat-
ible partnership. In the realm of household appointments and property
administration, however, both marriages confounded these simplistic
assessments. While Henrietta Maria’s expectation of autonomy over
appointments remained a source of friction in her marriage until the
outbreak of the English Civil Wars, Louis and Marie Antoinette held
similar views concerning the queen’s autonomy in her role as head of
her household. Marie Antoinette was permitted to manage her own
properties, make independent appointments and changes to her
household, and dispense patronage without the direct involvement of
her husband.
The generous property and household arrangements that Marie
Antoinette received from Louis at the time of his ascension were
remarked upon by diplomats and courtiers alike. In her memoirs,
Campan states, “the King threw no impediment in the way of Marie
Antoinette’s inclinations,”124 while Maria Theresa remarked in a let-
ter to her youngest daughter, “The generosity of the King regard-
ing Trianon, said to be the most agreeable of houses, gives me great
pleasure.”125 Marie Antoinette’s marriage contract did not contain spe-
cific clauses concerning her income, property, and household, stating
only that a royal household should be created for her, she should receive
lands and incomes worthy of her station, and that these lands should be
72 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

administered according to French customs.126 Louis interpreted these

clauses to his wife’s advantage. He provided Marie Antoinette with a
household and income reminiscent of the grand establishments of Anne
of Austria and Maria Teresa of Spain, instead of the comparatively mod-
est allowance enjoyed by Marie Leszczy ńska.127
While these arrangements undoubtedly reflected the greater pres-
tige and influence of the Spanish and Austrian branches of the House
of Habsburg compared to the deposed Polish royal house, they also pro-
vide evidence for Louis’s acceptance of Marie Antoinette’s autonomy
as head of her household. The king shared his wife’s discomfort with
formal court etiquette, preferring such active pastimes as hunting and
blacksmithing to participation in public ceremonies.128 He also appears
to have genuinely enjoyed the company of her circle, particularly
Polignac.129 Marie Antoinette wrote to her mother in 1780, “It is a great
joy to me to see that the manner of the King’s thinking spares myself
any request for my friend . . . He will be delighted to do her good for
herself.”130 Just as the Dauphine’s initial household had been staffed by
elderly women who had served Marie Leszczy ńska, Louis acquired his
father’s servants as dauphin then his grandfather’s household as king.131
The French king’s household was a continuous entity, unlike the queen’s
household, which was reconstituted upon each successive monarch’s
marriage.132 The consort therefore had greater latitude over appoint-
ments than the sovereign and Marie Antoinette used her prerogatives to
employ attendants close to her own age such as Lamballe, Polignac, and
Campan. Marie Antoinette’s household therefore provided an opportu-
nity for the king and queen alike to socialize with other young people at
court and circumvent protocol that favored older courtiers.
Upon Louis’s ascension to the throne, Marie Antoinette made imme-
diate use of her husband`s generous interpretation of her marriage con-
tract to introduce two innovations that contributed to her eventual
unpopularity. The new queen fashioned her new estate at Petit Trianon
into a comparatively private sphere with staff directly answerable to
the consort alone. She also took advantage of Louis’s decision to revive
the position of Superintendent of the Queen’s household, awarding
this sinecure to Lamballe. While both decisions would be condemned
as evidence of Marie Antoinette’s foreignness and extravagance, the
queen was motivated by her desire to establish a comparatively private
sphere in the manner of the Rousseauian idealization of domesticity.
In keeping with Marie Antoinette’s conception of the Petit Trianon,
visitors were allowed to walk the gardens but could not enter the pal-
ace itself without an invitation.133 The queen herself did not have the
opportunity to spend all her time at her country estate as the court
was highly mobile, spending months at Fontainebleau, Marly, and her
 Governing the Queen’s Household 73

other properties such as St. Cloud in addition to Versailles. In the ten

years immediately preceding the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette
spent only 216 days at Petit Trianon, never spending more than a month
there in a single year.134 The perception of Marie Antoinette and Petit
Trianon as secluded from the ordinary rhythms of the French court is
therefore inaccurate. The small palace was located close to Versailles
and the queen continued to accompany the court in its travels to other
royal residences.
The limited amount of time Marie Antoinette spent at Petit
Trianon demonstrates that she did not intend for her country estate
to become her primary residence. Nevertheless, her household records
indicate that she considered her property to be exempt from Louis’s
authority and established court conventions. In contrast to the court
at Versailles, where the consort`s household was clearly subordinate
to the king`s establishment, the servants at Petit Trianon wore Marie
Antoinette`s livery and all improvements were undertaken by order of
the queen.135 Household records for the maintenance of Petit Trianon
between 1774 and 1789 demonstrate that Marie Antoinette was con-
sulted before any improvements to the property were undertaken.136
The establishment of an idealized model farm in the Petit Trianon gar-
dens, inspired by the hamlet on the ground of the Duke of Condé’s
palace at Chantilly, reflected Marie Antoinette’s interest in pastoral
romanticism.137 The model theater provided her with the opportunity
to engage in amateur theatricals before an audience of her close friends
instead of the aristocratic families who were entitled to attend court
ceremonies at Versailles.138
The queen’s interest in improving royal properties was not confined
to Petit Trianon. Louis affirmed in 1787 that Marie Antoinette had the
right to administer the country palace of St. Cloud according to the
terms of her marriage contract and provided her with the letters patent
necessary to defend her ownership before the parlements.139 The admin-
istrative staff at St Cloud conferred with the queen regarding the supply
of goods to the palace and the payment of the servants.140 The king also
allowed his wife to make alterations to crown properties, most nota-
bly the installation of an elevator connecting the queen’s apartments to
the royal nurseries at the Palace of Fontainebleau.141 Marie Antoinette`s
autonomy in the administration of Petit Trianon was the most promi-
nent example of her interest in altering royal properties to reflect her
desire to create a domestic sphere for her family and household but she
also introduced innovations into other royal residences.
Marie Antoinette`s decision to create spaces and social groups
indicative of a private domestic sphere instead of remaining within a
ceremonial public forum at all times reflected a trend toward pastoral
74 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

romanticism that swept the northern European royal courts in the late
eighteenth century. The northern monarchs who visited the French
court during Louis’s reign uniformly traveled incognito to avoid the
formal ceremonies that traditionally accompanied the state visits of
reigning monarchs or their heirs.142 Marie Antoinette entertained all
these royal visitors privately at Petit Trianon, demonstrating her sym-
pathy with their rejection of the customary formalities that accompa-
nied royal status.143 In structuring her household and properties in the
same manner as foreign kingdoms, she reinforced the perception that
the queen was not interested in conforming to French court etiquette.
The appointment of Lamballe as superintendent reflected a combi-
nation of Louis’s desire to grant his wife an establishment reminiscent
of Spanish Habsburg queens consort144 and Marie Antoinette’s desire
to have close friends occupy one of the most prominent roles in her
household. Although Louis and Marie Antoinette were in agreement
concerning their motives for reviving this position,145 the French court
did not regard the queen’s appointment of Lamballe as appropriate for
this prestigious position. During the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis
XIV, the superintendent of the queen’s household belonged to the high-
est circles of the French nobility 146 whereas Lamballe was a foreign
princess who had married into a comparatively obscure junior branch of
the House of Bourbon. Her appointment challenged the stature of the
Noailles family at court147 in the same manner that the appointment
of Polignac as governess in 1781 would undermine the prestige of the
powerful Rohans. Since the superintendent’s duties included acting as
chief of the queen’s council, which governed household expenses, the
position was a powerful source of patronage.148 The appointment of a
foreigner and comparatively unknown figure as superintendent there-
fore attracted the negative attention of the most powerful and influen-
tial court families.
Marie Antoinette’s appointment of Lamballe did not simply reflect a
desire to reward her friend with the ability to dispense patronage. The
promotion also demonstrates that the queen viewed certain aspects
of the superintendent’s position to be within the realm of the domes-
tic sphere. The amount of money placed under Lamballe’s control
attracted so much attention from Marie Antoinette’s contemporaries
and her subsequent biographers that the other duties of this position
have not received sufficient attention. In addition to acting as chief of
the queen’s household, the superintendent also administered the oath
of loyalty to the women of the bedchamber who attended the consort,
and, most significantly, spent the first three nights after the birth of
a royal child in the queen’s bedchamber. 149 Since Marie Antoinette
regarded appointments to her household and the births of her children
 Governing the Queen’s Household 75

to be primarily domestic matters, the employment of a close friend in

the role of superintendent matched her conception of the ideal admin-
istration of her establishment. Lamballe served an important personal
role within the queen’s household as well as an economic role through
her patronage activities as chief of the queen’s council.
In contrast to the frequent disagreements between Charles and
Henrietta Maria concerning household appointments, there is no dip-
lomatic correspondence describing Marie Antoinette’s goals as head of
her household in opposition to those of Louis. Marie Antoinette’s cor-
respondence and household records, however, illuminate two general
themes concerning her motives in this position. The queen was eager to
gain control over appointments and the administration of independent
properties, and construct her household as a comparatively domestic
realm where she could form friendships and pursue interests that were
not compatible with the etiquette and social hierarchy of Versailles.
This approach was a marked departure from the public performance of
queenship practiced by the consorts of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Once
Marie Antoinette achieved autonomy over properties and household
appointments, her actions were heavily influenced by her inability to
autonomously manage her servants as dauphine, and the trend toward
pastoral simplicity espoused by northern European monarchs during
the late eighteenth century.
Although the queen was following practices lauded by the urban
bourgeoisie in their own domestic lives, the division of public and pri-
vate spheres was not considered suitable for a foreign consort presid-
ing over the French court. Marie Antoinette’s attempts to transform
her household and properties into a comparatively private sphere would
damage her reputation at court and encourage popular suspicion of her
foreign background. The queen’s management of her household accord-
ing to popular trends instead of long-standing court traditions encour-
aged Louis’s subjects to view her as they would any ordinary wife and
mother. This process stripped away the mystique traditionally associ-
ated with members of the royal family and allowed her, and by exten-
sion her family, to be judged no differently from any other inhabitant of
France, undermining the legitimacy of monarchical government.

Marie Antoinette: Unnatural Friendships

Marie Antoinette’s correspondence demonstrates a clear awareness
of the rumors concerning her conduct that began to circulate in both
courtly and popular circles during Louis XVI’s reign. In 1775, just one
year after Louis XVI became king, she wrote to her mother, “We are
in an epidemic of satirical songs . . . It is very liberally supposed that I
76 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

have two tastes, for women and lovers. Though there is spitefulness
enough in this country, these are blows in such a bad tone that they
have no success, neither in the public nor in good company.” 150 Marie
Antoinette’s analysis of the popular rumors concerning her reputa-
tion contrasts with Henrietta Maria’s apparent disinterest in how her
activities were perceived beyond her immediate circle. Both spoken and
written libels appear to have circulated throughout Louis’s reign, and,
contrary to Marie Antoinette’s view, had great success in both court and
popular circles. Between the lifetimes of the two queens, the outlets
and audience for popular critiques of prominent figures had expanded
significantly, encouraging critiques of the queen as a celebrity as well as
the sovereign’s wife. Just as Marie Antoinette sought to embrace ideals
of domesticity espoused by the urban bourgeoisie, her status as a royal
personage was losing its distinct mystique during the late eighteenth
century as the appetite for knowledge of the daily lives of prominent
personages spread to a wide popular audience.
The extent that the pamphlet press disseminated negative rumors
concerning Marie Antoinette before the outbreak of the French
Revolution is a subject of extensive scholarly debate.151 The pornographic
interpretation of the French Revolution, as applied to the public percep-
tion of Marie Antoinette’s household, has been challenged by scholars
who argue that the supposed deluge of prerevolutionary pamphlets mis-
represents both the source of popular hostility toward the queen and
the availability of printed libels. The queen’s household attracted popu-
lar scrutiny on political as well as moral grounds. The Polignac family
were rumored to be providing Emperor Joseph II of Austria with funds
from the largesse they received from the queen.152 The comparative pau-
city of pamphlet literature prior to 1789 has never been in dispute,153 but
the thematic similarities between the libels circulated before and after
the French Revolution demonstrate that the earlier documents closely
influenced revolutionary publications.
While the debate concerning the content of the pamphlets demon-
izing Marie Antoinette’s household has encompassed a wide range of
themes including misogyny and Austrophobia, historical analysis of
the proliferation of these documents focuses narrowly on printed criti-
cism of the queen. As demonstrated by the diverse array of sources
concerning the public perception of Henrietta Maria’s role as head of
the queen’s household, conversation and the circulation of manuscript
newsletters were effective methods of spreading criticism of promi-
nent personages. The scrutiny of pamphlets to the exclusion of other
forms of political discourse also obscures the relationship between the
queen’s decisions concerning her household and the changing attitudes
of Louis’s subjects. Thomas argues pornographic pamphlet literature
 Governing the Queen’s Household 77

defaming the queen developed its own momentum independent of

Marie Antoinette’s actual behavior.154 The correspondence between
Marie Antoinette, Maria Theresa, and Mercy-Argenteau demonstrates
otherwise. In these letters, the writers discuss both written and spoken
forms of political critique, which generally follow changes to the royal
household, developments illuminating the state of the royal marriage,
or the births of children. Within the context of the queen’s role as head
of her household, criticism of various forms followed the distribution of
state funds to royal favorites.
The changes to Marie Antoinette’s household that accompanied the
ascension of Louis XVI to the throne resulted in a sharp increase in royal
expenditure. In 1772, the expenses of the dauphine’s household amounted
to 1,600,000 livres.155 The reorganization of Marie Antoinette’s house-
hold as queen, which included the appointment of Lamballe, increased
this expenditure to 2,200,000 livres.156 Mercy-Argenteau was aware of
the public scrutiny this expenditure attracted around the time of Marie
Antoinette’s acquisition of Petit Trianon.157 He wrote to Maria Theresa,
“At first, the public saw with pleasure that the King gave Trianon to
the Queen. They have started to become anxious and alarmed at her
Majesty’s expenses. By her order, the gardens have been turned over to
make an English garden, which will cost at least a hundred and fifty
thousand livres.”158 The gardens at Trianon were open to the thousands
of sightseers who visited the grounds of Versailles every day, allowing
rumors of the queen’s extravagance to circulate.
Critiques of the household and properties Marie Antoinette
acquired were further informed by the new queen’’s apparent rejection
of senior courtiers, such as Noailles, in favor of inexperienced newcom-
ers such as Lamballe and Polignac. In her memoirs, Campan recounts
an unfortunate incident that occurred at La Muette when the senior
ladies of the court visited Marie Antoinette to offer condolences upon
the death of Louis XV. The queen smiled at the antics of one of her
ladies, who sat behind her and pulled faces at the other maids of honor,
as she received the visiting courtiers.159 As a result, “the severe old
ladies pronounced that the young Queen had derided all those respect-
able persons who were pressing forward to pay homage to her; that she
liked none but the young; that she was deficient in decorum; and that
not one of them would attend her court again.”160 Marie Antoinette’s
laughter at this mournful reception, during a period when her house-
hold was being reorganized to accord greater prominence to younger
ladies, severely damaged her reputation among the most prominent
families in France.
The reception at La Muette became the subject of satirical songs
in the “epidemic” Marie Antoinette described, ensuring that accounts
78 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

of the incident would spread beyond court circles to the general pub-
lic. These songs attacked both the queen’s preference for the society
of courtiers her own age and her Austrian ancestry. The refrain to
one song critiquing this incident was, “Little twenty year old Queen/
Since you treat people with no shame/You’ll go back from where you
came.”161 Campan remembered another version of this song in which
the outraged courtiers themselves were to see the queen returned to the
Franco-Austrian border.162 The references to Marie Antoinette’s heri-
tage may appear surprising in this context because her behavior was a
social transgression rather than the introduction of obviously foreign
customs. Nevertheless, the reorganization of her household appeared to
herald a new ascendance of the pro-Austrian faction at court, which had
been weakened by the forced retirement of the architect of the Franco-
Austrian alliance, the Duc de Choiseul, in 1770.163 Marie Antoinette’s
autonomy over household appointments appeared to demonstrate the
queen’s political influence over the king, although Louis would largely
exclude his wife from affairs of state until the late 1780s.
The expensive improvements to Petit Trianon were also a focus of
popular xenophobia as the small palace and its gardens became known as
“Le Petit Vienne” or “Le Petit Schonnbrunn” after Maria Theresa’s seat
of government and country estate respectively.164 Marie Antoinette’s
ambitious building and landscaping program appeared to represent
an attempt to recreate the setting of her childhood on the grounds of
Versailles. The exclusion of the public from the Petit Trianon palace
itself fueled speculation that it was the site of pro-Austrian conspira-
cies. A 1789 pamphlet entitled “The Aristocratic League or the French
Catalinas” printed the speculation that had circulated throughout
Louis XVI’s reign concerning the activities in Marie Antoinette’s com-
paratively private sphere. The pamphlet stated, “It is in the boudoirs
of a Messalina, that, seated on sofas soiled by criminal acts, the Peers
of the Realm, Tyrants of Peoples, Friends of the queen and enemies of
the king, swear oaths of conspiracy through the medium of Vermond,
priest of crime, and on the breast of La Polignac, altar of Vice.”165 The
assumption that the queen’s friends were enemies of the king and that
Marie Antoinette’s private rooms provided opportunities for treason-
ous conspiracy demonstrates the degree to which Marie Antoinette’s
household and properties had reinforced popular perceptions of her
foreign origins by 1789.
Lamballe’s failure to successfully discharge her duties as superin-
tendent encouraged popular speculation concerning the nature of her
relationship with Marie Antoinette. Resentment of Lamballe fueled
an undercurrent of criticism against the queen that focused on her
extravagance and perceived sexuality. Even Campan was critical of the
 Governing the Queen’s Household 79

queen’s decision to promote Lamballe beyond her capabilities, writing,

“Differences which soon took place between Marie Antoinette and the
Princesse de Lamballe respecting the official prerogatives of the latter
proved that the wife of Louis XV had acted judiciously in abolishing
this office.”166 Although Lamballe retained her position, the queen’s
relationship with Polignac became closer following these conflicts con-
cerning the management of the household.167
The queen’s household records provide hints that Lamballe’s expen-
ditures impeded the effective functioning of Marie Antoinette’s estab-
lishment. These documents provide evidence that the superintendent
dispensed extensive patronage and was the recipient of petitions ask-
ing her to intercede with the queen.168 In a 1786 letter, her treasurer
complained of Lamballe’s pretentions and referred to conflicts that
involved the superintendent.169 Mercy-Argenteau provided a specific
example of Lamballe’s mismanagement of household resources in a
1776 letter to Maria Theresa. He wrote, “The survival of the position of
First Horseman170 recalls the superintendence created for Madame de
Lamballe. One is sad to see the use of 150,000 livres for appointments
for a position that is good only for the cause of disagreement and divi-
sion in the Queen’s household.”171 Mercy-Argenteau was referring to the
appointment of Polignac’s husband, Count Jules de Polignac, to the pres-
tigious post. The diplomat was critical of largesse received by Lamballe
and objected to her use of patronage to create additional lucrative posi-
tions at court. Members of the premier aristocratic houses resident at
Versailles found additional reasons to object to Lamballe’s exercise of
her duties because she did not invite them to receptions.172 Her mistakes
in the capacity of superintendent attracted negative scrutiny toward the
queen who appeared unable to exercise her own duties as head of the
household because of her favoritism toward her friends.
While the court critiqued Lamballe’s mismanagement of the queen’s
household, the public interpreted her disproportionate largesse toward
her friends as evidence of sexual impropriety. At Marie Antoinette’s
trial in 1793, the prosecutors would argue that the “orgies” involving the
queen and her household began at Versailles in 1779 and continued until
the outbreak of revolution, an accusation that alludes to years of suppo-
sition concerning her comparatively private sphere.173 These accusations
contrast with the critiques faced by Henrietta Maria, whose distinct
status as queen was acknowledged by satirical works that criticized her
for tolerating sexual immorality but did not question her own reputa-
tion until the outbreak of the English Civil Wars.
Mercy-Argenteau did not discuss these rumors directly in letters to
Maria Theresa but implied that the friendship between the two women
was undermining the queen’s reputation. He observed the reunion
80 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

between Marie Antoinette and Lamballe after the latter’s brief absence
from court in 1777, writing, “The Princess de Lamballe, who has returned
after fifteen days at the waters of Plombiéres, has been received by the
Queen with many demonstrations of goodwill, but this reception is only
the form of propriety, which is becoming more and more embarrassing
and awkward.”174 Marie Antoinette’s letters prove that she was aware
of the rumors circulating both at court and among the general public
concerning her relationship with Lamballe and other female members
of her household but scholars largely dismiss the idea that she attempted
to counter these rumors. Thomas raises the question of the queen’s reac-
tion but quickly dismisses the issue, stating, “The anonymous voice of
the pamphlets never had any effect on Marie-Antoinette.”175 The ten-
dency of prerevolutionary libels to spread though speech and manu-
script at court instead of printed pamphlets enabled the queen to gain
a broad understanding of the rumors concerning her relationship with
her household. Marie Antoinette’s indifference to her reputation can-
not be assumed based on current scholarship concerning the reception
of the pamphlets even though her unchanging determination to reward
her friends and create a private sphere appeared to indicate an absence
of concern for popular opinion.
The printed documents issued by Louis and Marie Antoinette
in the late 1780s concerning the reduction of the queen’s household
expenditure provide evidence that her reputation as a profligate head
of her establishment was a matter of concern to the royal couple. In
1780 and 1788, Louis published edicts announcing the suppression of
various charges concerning the queen’s household.176 In contrast to
the various actions taken by Charles to respond to complaints against
Henrietta Maria, the king of France’s edict directly references his
wife’s opinion concerning the measures taken to curb expenditure.
Louis’s 1788 edict states, “We have announced that the Queen, our
dear spouse and partner, desires to work with us toward the execution
of projects of economy that are required by the state of our finances,
having settled a plan of reform for the expenses of her household.”177
The wording of this document refers to the queen’s capacity as head
of her household and administrator of her properties. The degree to
which Marie Antoinette actually involved herself in the planning of
economies to her household is unknown but the inclusion of her goals
in the document suggests that she desired to be perceived as economiz-
ing during this period of fiscal hardship for France. The king’s consis-
tent deferral to his wife’s wishes concerning her household throughout
his reign made it unlikely any reduction in expenditure would have
occurred without her express approval. Appointments to the house-
holds of Marie Antoinette’s predecessors often clearly contradicted
 Governing the Queen’s Household 81

their wishes.178 In contrast, Louis’s edict presents the king and queen
as a unified couple, both eager to make the changes necessary to allay
popular concerns regarding court expenditures.
The nature of the reductions to the royal expenditure announced in
the 1788 edict addresses the issues that attracted popular condemnation
of Marie Antoinette as head of her household in the early years of Louis’s
reign. While senior members of the queen’s household such as Lamballe
and Polignac retained their appointments, their ability to dispense
patronage was diminished by the elimination of numerous subordinate
posts such as ordinary horsemen, valets, and gentlemen servants.179 The
document lists the salaries attached to these positions and predicts
that the changes to the queen’s household would result in nine hundred
thousand additional livres for the royal treasury. The document does
not discuss the expenses incurred by improvements to the queen’s prop-
erties as Petit Trianon and St. Cloud, but the phrasing of the edict and
the planned dismissal of royal servants indicates that Louis and Marie
Antoinette were interested in responding to public opinion concerning
their expenditure.
Marie Antoinette’s correspondence provides further evidence that
the queen believed the source of her unpopularity as head of her house-
hold was directly related to her perceived extravagance. In a 1788 letter
to her elder brother, Emperor Joseph II, 180she expressed an interest in
the economies underway at court, writing, “One continues here with
the economies and retrenchments. The bodyguards have been reduced
by four squadrons of 250 men each . . . The destruction of the gendar-
merie is applauded by all the military.”181 While the impetus for this
particular report may have been Joseph II’s scathing critique of the
amount of money she had spent improving Petit Trianon and enriching
the Polignac family,182 it demonstrates an awareness of her reputation
and recognition of how reforms had the potential to change popular
opinion. Mercy-Argenteau wrote around the same time, “This prin-
cess is now all given over to the interior arrangements, the economies;
the reforms . . . These subjects are addressed without plan, without fur-
ther action, always decided by the intrigue and impulses of society.”183
This analysis provides evidence demonstrating why Marie Antoinette’s
desire to counter her reputation for extravagance did not improve her
reputation both at court and within the wider public sphere. Despite
her interest in economies and reforms, her inability to maintain a clear
program of action and disassociate herself from unpopular members of
her social circle doomed her efforts to failure.
While pamphlet literature was available to a limited extent before
1789, conversation and manuscript transmission provided the most
effective means of spreading rumors concerning Marie Antoinette’s
82 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

relationship with female members of her household prior to the revolu-

tion. These libels followed specific changes to the queen’s establishment
and properties including the appointment of Lamballe as superinten-
dent and visible changes to the gardens at Petit Trianon. Court gossip
concerning the shortcomings of Lamballe in her position of responsi-
bility or the exclusion of senior courtiers from Petit Trianon acquired
sexual or xenophobic elements within the broader public sphere. Marie
Antoinette appears to have been aware of the accusations of extrava-
gance and attempted to counter them by consenting to the reduction
of her household but she was unable to follow an effective program of
reform that would communicate her good intentions to Louis’s subjects.
The queen also considered the accusations of sexual immorality to be
so outrageous that she did not recognize the influence they had over
popular opinion of her reputation. Marie Antoinette failed to present
herself as an effective head of her household throughout Louis’s reign
but her writings indicate that she attempted to engage with the popular
debate concerning her expenditure and address the various media by
which libels proliferated in the late eighteenth century public sphere.

Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette:

Disorder in the Royal Household
When the queen was perceived to be at the head of a disorderly house-
hold, both the consort and her servants became the focus of popular
anxieties concerning the role of women within their families, the influ-
ence of foreign interests over the government, and religious difference.
The spread of these debates reveals the degree to which spoken and
manuscript transmission of information continued throughout the
Early Modern period alongside the rise of printed pamphlets and news-
sheets. Discussion and correspondence often served as the first means
of disseminating an interpretation of the queen’s household dynamics
before these issues appeared in print.
Henrietta Maria arrived in England in 1625 with a clear conception of
her role as head of the queen’s household. She expected the atmosphere
and personnel of her childhood establishment to remain constant dur-
ing her married life, retaining its comparatively informal character and
French Catholic staff. Her conception of her household caused the most
significant conflict of her early married life. Charles’s courtiers and ser-
vants viewed the foreign household with dismay since the king’s marriage
because they expected the queen’s household to provide opportunities
for employment and advancement. While Henrietta Maria perceived
herself as autonomous, English observers concluded that she was under
 Governing the Queen’s Household 83

the control of her French servants, upsetting the natural order of both
the royal household and the king’s marriage.
The negative attention attracted by Henrietta Maria’s French estab-
lishment gradually shifted to the queen herself as she reinterpreted her
role and developed a closer relationship with Charles. During the late
1620s and 1630s, she began to take a close interest in the administra-
tion of her jointure lands, continued her patronage of court theatricals,
and utilized her household as visible means of pursuing her political
goals including pro-Spanish foreign policies and Catholic emancipa-
tion within England and Scotland. The fact that high profile courtiers
converted to Catholicism, and curious members of the general pub-
lic attended mass at Somerset house alarmed numerous Protestants.
Henrietta Maria’s attempts to assert her autonomy as head of her house-
hold undermined her legitimacy as queen.
Marie Antoinette did not arrive in France with an Austrian house-
hold but her view of her establishment as a comparatively private
sphere within the public realm of the court appeared foreign to French
observers. As dauphine, Louis XV and Noailles closely managed Marie
Antoinette’s establishment. As queen, Marie Antoinette found her
husband to be accepting of her conception of her role as head of her
household. The changes to the queen’s household that occurred dur-
ing the early years of Louis XVI’s reign, including the appointment
of Lamballe as superintendent of the queen’s household and extensive
landscaping of the Petit Trianon gardens, caused discontent at court,
which in turn fueled popular anxieties concerning women and foreign-
ers in positions of power.
The concerns regarding Marie Antoinette’s household differed
according to the observer’s involvement in French court politics. Among
influential aristocratic families who expected patronage appointments
at court, the queen’s appointment of comparative outsiders to influen-
tial positions appeared to challenge the accepted hierarchy at court.
Marie Antoinette’s perceived neglect of senior nobles, the exclusion of
the public from Petit Trianon palace itself, and Lamballe’s inability to
successfully perform her duties as superintendent attracted negative
comment from influential courtiers. Once negative publicity concern-
ing Marie Antoinette’s establishment spread outside the circle of court-
iers directly affected by appointments to the consort’s household, the
queen’s sexuality and foreign origins became matters of debate. The
difficulties concerning the consummation of the royal marriage fueled
speculation that favored members of the household were the queen’s
lovers. These anxieties would become major themes in revolutionary
pamphlet literature, undermining the queen’s reputation and the legiti-
macy of the monarchy.
84 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Both the English and French royal families made limited attempts to
address the mounting criticism directed toward the queen’s household.
Charles dismissed the majority of Henrietta Maria’s French servants,
asserting his dominance over all the satellite royal households. During
the late 1620s and 1630s, he engaged in numerous activities concerning
the queen’s reputation including the dismissal of “immoral” courtiers
from her household, the prosecution of the most virulent critics of her
theatrical endeavors, and the limitation of public access to court masses.
These actions had little effect on Henrietta Maria’s reputation because
she appeared to be undermining the king’s efforts though manoeuvers
of her own including the reinstatement of dismissed courtiers and the
softening of restrictions against English Catholics. Marie Antoinette
expressed her agreement with Louis’s attempts to reduce court expendi-
tures by including her opinion in published pamphlets concerning this
issue, and expressing her compliance with economies in her conversa-
tions and correspondence. Despite the queen’s apparent involvement in
these measures, her reputation also continued to suffer as Louis’s reign
progressed. Both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette failed to effec-
tively contribute to the dialogue concerning their respective positions
as heads of royal households. Their relationships with their servants and
their administration of their properties therefore became the focus of
widespread discontent, undermining their positions as royal consorts
and the legitimacy of monarchical government.
 CHAPTER 3

WIFE OF THE KING

W
hen Henrietta Maria married Charles I in 1625 and
Marie Antoinette married the future Louis XVI in
1770, both princesses experienced the most significant
transformation in the life cycle of an Early Modern European woman.
They became wives, assuming the social identities of their husbands.
Royal weddings of the period attracted extensive popular interest and
comment because the couples were participating in a ritual familiar to
both genders and members of all social estates. Although numerous fac-
tors separated an elite wedding from the experiences of most Europeans,
royal marriage still provided an opportunity for subjects to identify with
their sovereigns.1 While public discussion of a monarch’s policies usually
occurred at gatherings of nobles or educated townspeople, critiques of
royal marital relations occurred in diverse settings. Debates concerning
the royal couple provided opportunities for women in particular to par-
ticipate in the emerging public sphere with the authority of their own
experiences, beginning their statements with phrases such as “If I were
the Queen . . . ” or “I know the Queen to be . . . ” A royal wedding therefore
had a social and political impact beyond the immediate diplomatic and
personal goals of any individual marriage contract.
Although biblical scriptures, prescriptive literature, and folk wisdom
affirmed the significance of marriage to a woman’s life cycle, the precise
nature of this institution was a matter of debate during the lives of both
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette. The experiences of the two
queens intersected with controversies concerning the role of wives that
were characteristic of the entire period and specific to their individual
regions and lifetimes. The broad ideological change that encompassed
the entire period was the rise of affective marriage as a desirable goal.
Western Europe experienced a gradual trend toward this form of mar-
riage with personal considerations gradually superseding material and
economic considerations in the ideal conception of marital relations.2
While actual marriages founded upon sentiment were more prevalent
during the eighteenth century, especially among the upper classes, and
in urban areas, the increased importance granted marriage during the
86 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Reformation and Counterreformation made affective marriage theo-

retically desirable throughout the Early Modern period despite regional
differences in family structure.3 Emerging social norms that did not
reflect the position or responsibilities of royalty shaped responses to the
performance of royal marriage.
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette both incorporated elements
of this emerging conception of affective marriage into their public
images even though their own unions had been arranged for reasons
of state. During the 1630s, Charles and Henrietta Maria commissioned
portraits and masques that portrayed their marriage as a harmonious
union. Through this imagery, the king and queen attempted to dem-
onstrate that their religious differences could be overcome through
loving marriage and that their personal happiness would contribute to
harmonious governance.4 Marie Antoinette introduced innovations
to court culture that encouraged greater intimacy between married
couples.5 The king and queen themselves set an example of marital har-
mony by promenading together through the gardens of Versailles and
taking their meals as a couple with Louis’s brothers and their wives.6
This public display of marital unity acted as a counterpoint to both the
debauchery of the late Louis XV, and the rumors of sexual dysfunc-
tion within the childless royal marriage. Neither Charles I nor Louis
XVI had publicly known mistresses during their reigns, reinforcing
the image of marital unity that both royal couples attempted to project
to their subjects.
Unfortunately for Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette, their
attempts to include certain elements indicative of affective marriage in
their public image attracted criticism because these gestures appeared
to signify the queen’s increased political influence. In the absence of
acknowledged mistresses, the consort appeared to have greater oppor-
tunities to influence state policy or exercise patronage through her
exclusive personal relationship with the sovereign. Since both queens
were female and foreign, the perception that they engaged in the grow-
ing trend toward affective marriage aroused popular anxieties concern-
ing the inversion of the gender hierarchy and the subversion of the state
by outside interests. Public displays of marital love and harmony also
appeared to contradict known tensions within each royal marriage. The
trend toward affective marriage undermined the reputations of both
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette as their acceptance of a new
conception of marital relations often appeared dangerous. Domestic
imagery of royal couples was incompatible with the dynastic impera-
tives that governed marriages of state because the combination of for-
eign alliances and emotional intimacy appeared to indicate conspiracy
in the popular imagination.
 Wife of the King 87

The marriages of the two queens consort also intersected with con-
troversies concerning marital relations unique to their own respec-
tive polities and lifetimes. In seventeenth century England, Henrietta
Maria’s marriage coincided with anxieties concerning recusant Roman
Catholic wives and mothers in families that otherwise conformed to
Church of England observance.7 During Charles I’s reign, the desir-
ability of marriage between Catholics and Protestants was a matter of
popular debate that directly involved the queen. Since Henrietta Maria
remained a Roman Catholic throughout her lifetime and her marriage
contract officially forbade Charles from influencing her to convert
to his faith,8 she achieved popular notoriety as the most prominent
recusant wife in her husband’s kingdoms. This reputation shaped the
negative popular responses to her attempts to act as an intercessory
queen, in the manner of previous English consorts. At the same time,
her attempts to include Protestants in her social and political endeav-
ors aroused suspicions among her coreligionists. From the dismissal of
the majority of the French household to the outbreak of the English
Civil Wars, Henrietta Maria attracted criticism from Protestants who
argued that she was too active on behalf of members of her own faith
and Roman Catholics who thought her too willing to compromise with
Puritan factions at court.
The religious, social, and political conditions of seventeenth century
England created additional opportunities for popular critiques of the
queen in her position as wife of the sovereign. Since Reformation theol-
ogy rejected clerical celibacy and priestly intercession, marriage gained
additional spiritual significance in Protestant conceptions of the ideal
society.9 The existence of religious conflict during this period raised the
question of whether women should be expected to be subordinate to
their husbands in matters of conscience.10 Henrietta Maria’s apparent
religious and political influence over Charles threatened his reputation
as head of his family, which was considered a microcosm of the larger
state. The king and queen experienced a controversial marriage in a reli-
gious climate that encouraged judgment and critique of family life.
More than a century later, Marie Antoinette also experienced
the transition to married life during a period of ideological debate as
Enlightenment scholars debated the place of women within their fami-
lies. The seven year delay between the wedding and the consummation
of the marriage invited popular speculation concerning Louis’s authority
over his wife. In the Encyclopedie, contributing author, Louis, Chevalier
de Jaucourt, argued that female subordination to masculine author-
ity reflected civil law.11 This civic justification of masculine authority
within marriage reflected the Encyclopedie’s goal of celebrating human
knowledge and achievement.12 By the time Marie Antoinette became
88 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

dauphine, Rousseau had challenged the Encyclopedie’s civic justification

of the gender hierarchy.13 According to the ideas expressed in Emile,
women’s ability to bear children rendered them subordinate to their
husbands according to the principles of natural law, which could not
be altered by human innovation.14 Marie Antoinette’s actions as a wife
therefore had greater significance to Louis XVI’s subjects than those of
previous queens of France.
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette became wives during a
period of ideological debate concerning the ideal role of women within
their families. Henrietta Maria became the most prominent recusant
wife in the British Isles while Marie Antoinette’s married life inter-
sected with the philosophical debates of the Enlightenment con-
cerning the justification for the subordinate place of the wife within
marriage. Both queens found their own conceptions of their respective
roles as wives to be the focus of critiques within wider popular debates
concerning women and marriage, undermining their legitimacy and
authority as queens consort and the viability of monarchical govern-
ment during the years preceding the English Civil Wars and French
Revolution.

Henrietta Maria: Loving Wife and

Intercessory Queen
From the time of their betrothal, Charles and Henrietta Maria viewed
their union as a combination of politics and sentiment. In an undated
letter to Charles from 1625, the soon to be married Princess Henriette-
Marie wrote, “The impatience which you shew me you have had, during
the time the treaty was pending, and the satisfaction that you tell me
you have received on the news of what has been accomplished here, give
me certain assurance of your goodwill toward me, as you represent it
by your letter.”15 The references to the treaty, and the recently accom-
plished negotiations, underscore the pragmatic intent of the union.
Through the negotiation of this marriage for his only surviving son,
James I hoped to increase his revenue through the acquisition of the
princess’s dowry,16 make a strategic alliance with one of the key conti-
nental powers, and gain support for the restoration of his son-in-law,
the former King Frederick of Bohemia, to his lands in the Palatinate.17
In France, the political intentions of the marriage were more divided.
Marie de Medici favored the match for the opportunity it provided for
her daughter to attempt to alleviate the persecution of English Catholics
while Louis XIII focused his attention on the geopolitical advantages
that would arise from preventing a possible dynastic marriage between
England and Spain.18
 Wife of the King 89

Both Charles and Henrietta Maria were in agreement with the

terms that their respective kingdoms brought to the marriage negotia-
tions, and developed a certain degree of sympathy for the other’s politi-
cal goals. Henrietta Maria expressed verbal support for the restoration
of Frederick to the Palatinate and attempted to further this cause
through diplomatic channels.19 The king did not grant the religious
toleration to English Catholics but allowed her household freedom of
religion and frequently allowed her to intercede in individual recusancy
cases. These political and religious goals shaped the initial marriage
negotiations and therefore influenced the royal couple’s interactions
with each other and the wider diplomatic sphere. As queen, Henrietta
Maria would be criticized by the French diplomatic corps for not exert-
ing formal political influence over her husband but this interpretation
does not take into account her cultural patronage and intercessory
activities. These traditional prerogatives exercised by previous English
queens consort served as an alternate means of achieving political and
religious goals as wife of the sovereign.
The correspondence Charles and Henrietta Maria exchanged dur-
ing the period between their betrothal and marriage, however, also
suggests a common desire for an affective marriage that would provide
personal satisfaction to both parties. The princess notes “testimonies
of your affection”20 and subtly indicates that she will return these feel-
ings. These courtship motifs may appear incongruous considering
that the couple had never met and the motivations for the union were
political but they are indicative of the emerging ideal of companionate
marriage that grew in popularity from Henrietta Maria’s lifetime to
that of Marie Antoinette. Charles would have been aware of compara-
tively recent English and Scottish examples of monarchs presenting
their dynastic marriages to their subjects and foreign monarchs alike
as affective unions while Henrietta Maria was familiar with represen-
tations of marital harmony favored by her mother.
In sixteenth century England, Henry VIII initially presented his
first marriage to his brother’s widow, Catherine of Aragon, to his sub-
jects as a chivalric romance, prominently displaying the queen’s colors
when he participated in tournaments.21 Catherine was an active par-
ticipant in these displays, appearing at the numerous court and public
celebrations during the first years of Henry’s reign to receive the king’s
declarations of love and homage.22 Although Henry would eventually
divorce Catherine and his other foreign wife, Anna of Cleves, and order
the execution of two of his wives from the English noble Howard family,
Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, he continued to publicly portray
himself as a loving husband throughout his reign and included his wives
in displays of marital devotion.23 In Scotland, Charles’s grandmother,
90 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Mary, and father, James VI and I, both presented their marriages to

their subjects as the culmination of romantic quests in the chivalric tra-
dition. Despite the disastrous precedents set by Mary’s second and third
marriages, James utilized romantic motifs upon his marriage to Anna of
Denmark. For a male sovereign contracting an accepted dynastic mar-
riage with a fellow member of a Protestant royal house,24 chivalric dis-
plays conveyed the impression of stability. Although James expressed
a personal disinclination toward marriage,25 he recognized that a suc-
cessful performance of the role of loving husband would create a favor-
able reputation for virility, leadership, and other virtues worthy of a
Renaissance prince. He therefore sailed to Scandinavia to claim “the
Queen, our bedfellow” returning to an enthusiastic populace that com-
pared him to a romantic hero.26
Henry VIII and James VI and I demonstrated that there was poten-
tial for an English or Scottish sovereign to gain popular acclaim by
applying medieval ideals of courtly love to the public performance of
their marriages. The enthusiasm inspired by James’s journey may have
inspired Charles to embark on a similar quest to Spain in an attempt to
marry the Infanta Maria, in 1623.27 The unpopularity of the proposed
match resulted in Charles also returning home to widespread popular
acclaim, celebrating the failure of the Spanish match.28 James’s subjects
did not interpret his son’s the journey to Spain as a romantic quest but
as a strategic union that ignored Protestant popular opinion.29 Charles
would adopt a different approach to his marriage to Henrietta Maria,
emphasizing the supposed romance of their chance meeting to obscure
the political implications of the bride’s Catholicism.
The French court traditions familiar to Henrietta Maria did not
include the theatrical romantic gestures between royal couples employed
by Charles’s Tudor and Stuart predecessors. Marie de Medici could
credibly present her marriage to Henry IV, which endured until the
king’s death and produced five surviving children, as a relative success
compared to the most recent unions within the Houses of Valois and
Bourbon. The marriages of Henry II’s three sons, Francois II, Charles
IX, and Henry III did not produce surviving children, and Henry IV’s
first marriage to Marguerite de Valois was immediately followed by the
St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and ended in an annulment. Despite
the comparative success of her marriage, Marie emphasized harmony
instead of romance in the depictions she commissioned of herself and
Henry. The Marie de Medici cycle, painted by Peter Paul Rubens for
display in the Luxembourg Palace during Henrietta Maria’s wedding
celebrations, portrayed the events of Henry and Marie’s betrothal and
wedding, such as the presentation of the bride’s portrait and the proxy
marriage, as occurrences of religious and mythological significance.
 Wife of the King 91

In the painting where Henry gazes upon the portrait of his intended,
Jupiter and Juno watch over him and cherubs hold the image in the man-
ner of an icon.30 Marie’s attempts to shape the popular perception of her-
self as a wife influenced Henrietta Maria, ensuring that similar images
of marital harmony would be commissioned by the queen of England.
From the moment of their betrothal, Charles and Henrietta Maria
incorporated their respective family traditions concerning the presenta-
tion of affective marriage into the manner in which they presented their
union to the public. The motifs of chivalric romance and platonic har-
mony that infused public imagery of the royal couple throughout their
marriage often contrasted with their actual complicated relationship.
The letters exchanged by the Prince of Wales and princess of France
attempt to obscure the inexperience of the participants31 and the politi-
cal and religious contingencies of the marriage negotiations with the
language of affective marriage. Although Charles’s 1623 letters to James
make clear that he took little notice of Henrietta Maria on his brief visit
to Paris on the way to Madrid, he would later claim that he fell in love
at first sight with his future bride. In his first letter to Henrietta Maria,
Charles wrote, “My happiness has been completed by the honour which
I have already had of seeing your person, although unknown to you;
which sight has completely satisfied me that the exterior of your person
in no degree belies the lustre of your virtues.”32 The reinterpretation of
the first meeting as a romantic encounter would also influence the con-
tent of the queen’s first masques in England and the poetry circulated
to celebrate the marriage.33
The circulation of a romantic interpretation of the marriage pro-
vided a means for Charles to preserve the reputation he sought as a
chivalric hero after the failure of his journey to Madrid.34 Henrietta
Maria’s motives for contributing to this mythology through her artistic
patronage are more complicated. Romantic interpretations of the mar-
riage emphasized France’s diplomatic triumph at the expense of Spain
and an affective relationship between Charles and Henrietta Maria sug-
gested commonality between Roman Catholicism and the Church of
England.35 The hierarchy of power at the English court, however, cre-
ated an additional impetus for Henrietta Maria to favor portrayals of
her marriage as harmonious as it had the potential to create a popular
perception of the queen as the most significant influence at court. Since
she was unwilling to participate in Church of England ceremonies that
traditionally affirmed the legitimacy of English queens, such as the cor-
onation, the motifs of affective marriage served as an alternate means
of reinforcing her position.
The highly publicized conflicts between the royal couple from their
marriage in 1625 until the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham
92 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

in 1628 resulted in the romantic mythology favored by Charles and

Henrietta Maria themselves becoming only one of a diverse range of
popular interpretations of the early years of the royal marriage. The
same public that served as an audience for celebratory odes of the
shared affection between the newlyweds might also circulate newslet-
ters detailing the latest public conflict concerning appointments to the
queen’s household. Sometimes, romantic and adversarial interpreta-
tions of the royal marriage coexisted in a single document such as a
newsletter describing the dismissal of the majority of the queen’s French
servants in 1626, which stated, “It is said the Queen, when she under-
stood the designs grew very impatient and broke the glass windows
with her fists but since I hear, her rages are appeased and the King and
she went together to Nonsuch and have been very jocund together.”36
The nature of the relationship between Charles and Henrietta Maria
could not be consistently categorized by their subjects during the late
1620s, resulting in a diverse array of seemingly contradictory accounts
of their marriage.
The diplomatic correspondence of the late 1620s provides clear
evidence of direct marital tension. There were numerous instances of
Charles avoiding his wife’s bed as a direct response to her refusal to accept
his wishes concerning her household. After Henrietta Maria refused to
stand with Buckingham’s female relatives to watch the 1626 state open-
ing of parliament, the Venetian ambassador wrote, “The private quar-
rel between the king and queen is settled, as after the queen had asked
for and obtained a long conference with the king, apart from all, they
resumed sleeping together after being separated for two nights.”37 The
frequent conflicts and reconciliations between Charles and Henrietta
Maria were scrutinized by both domestic and foreign observers alike
as they revealed the real tension behind the images of harmony that the
royal couple sought to convey to their subjects.
The religious, political, and personal conflicts between the couple
were frequently negotiated within the setting of the bedchamber, which
Charles attempted to demarcate as a comparatively private space upon
his ascension to the English throne.38 When rumors spread of con-
cessions to Roman Catholics being granted on account of the queen’s
intercession, Buckingham expressed his concern to the royal couple
by discussing the matter in their bedchamber.39 Henrietta Maria simi-
larly attempted to affirm her autonomy over her household while in
her husband`s bed. Charles complained to Dudley Carleton, Viscount
Dorchester, who had been closely involved in the marriage negotiations,
“One night while I was in bed she put a paper in my hand telling me it
was a list of those she desired to be of the revenue [administer her join-
ture] . . . Then she fell into great passionate discourse, how she was most
 Wife of the King 93

miserable in not having power to place her servants.”40 The king and
queen were still negotiating their marital dynamics in the late 1620s, a
situation that precluded a consistent public image of themselves as hus-
band and wife.
Romantic and harmonious portrayals of the royal marriage gained
ascendancy after 1628 as Henrietta Maria replaced Buckingham as the
king’s favorite. Henrietta Maria was pregnant eight times between 1629
and 1640, demonstrating the intimacy and proximity of husband and
wife during the 1630s. The apparent harmony and affection between
the couple was noted by the diplomatic corps, which began to view the
queen’s closeness to the king as a means of exerting political influence.
Venetian envoys soon realized that Henrietta Maria did not pursue
broader foreign policy goals but instead focused on particular issues
including religious toleration for English Catholics and Marie’s position
in France. The continuing strong relationship between Henrietta Maria
and her mother, which culminated in Marie’s residence in England in
1638–1639, demonstrates that the queen’s marriage did not preclude
close ties with her natal family
In contrast to the Venetian understanding of the personal relation-
ships that underscored Henrietta Maria’s attempts at political interven-
tion, the French diplomatic corps attempted to encourage the queen to
unconditionally support French interests in England and expressed dis-
appointment when she did not do so. In an April 1634 letter, the French
ambassador, discussed Henrietta Maria’s influence at the English court
through her role as a wife, writing, “The Queen, [the King’s] wife,
has a monstrous passion for the King: we will see at this hour, if she
will take . . . another credit in the business about the Lord Treasurer.”41
Subsequent letters discuss the queen’s ill will toward Charles I’s trea-
surer, Lord Richard Weston, who attempted to strictly enforce the
fines for recusancy to increase the crown’s revenues during the period
of Personal Rule and advised against Marie taking up residence in
England.42 Successive French diplomats resident in England hoped that
the queen’s attempts to influence her husband in matters of domestic
policy signified a willingness to further French foreign policy.43 As dis-
cussed in the previous chapter, the political goals she pursued by means
of her household reflected her broader religious objectives instead of her
national origins alone, resulting in frequent pro-Spanish overtures that
infuriated Louis XIII’s representatives.44
During the 1630s, Henrietta Maria attempted to revive the tradi-
tional independent prerogatives employed by English queens consort.
The most significant of these traditions was intercessory queenship,
wherein the consort mediated on behalf of people who had incurred the
displeasure of the sovereign. These intercessions were not examples of
94 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the private influence of a royal wife over her husband but public ceremo-
nial acts that provided the queen with a distinct political role. Since this
prerogative had last been exercised effectively by an English queen con-
sort during the reign of Henry VIII, 45 Henrietta Maria modified the
practice to suit her own inclinations and the conditions of her times. She
viewed her activities on behalf of English Catholics as within the scope
of her traditional role as an intercessory queen. While her foreign policy
goals varied throughout Charles’s reign, her attempts to intercede on
behalf of her coreligionists remained consistent from her marriage to
the outbreak of the English Civil Wars.
In 1641, Henrietta Maria wrote to her sister Christine, “The suffer-
ing of the poor Catholics and the others who have served my lord the
King are more perceptible to me that what might happen to me in par-
ticular. You can imagine what my condition is to see the power removed
from the King, [and] the Catholics persecuted.”46 As will be discussed
in chapter 5, she also viewed her intercessory role to be a reciprocal
arrangement between sovereign and subject. When Charles engaged in
military campaigns against his own subjects, she expected her coreli-
gionists to provide financial contributions, a clear distinction from the
practices of previous queens consort, who asked only for the loyalty of
the people they assisted through intercession.
The outbreak of the English Civil Wars interrupted another long-
standing prerogative enjoyed by English queens consort, which
Henrietta Maria adapted to her own circumstances and tastes. Since
the Middle Ages, the queens of England had engaged in cultural patron-
age and the influence of Marie de Medici made this role particularly
attractive to Charles I’s consort. In the same manner as her practice
of intercessory queenship, however, Henrietta Maria introduced pre-
viously unknown elements into a traditional prerogative enjoyed by
English consorts. Whereas James and Anna had overseen separate
households that generated differing cultural products, Charles and
Henrietta Maria often sponsored joint masques and paintings that
celebrated married love, incorporating elements of both the chivalric
traditions that informed Charles’s experiences and the images of har-
mony that Henrietta Maria adapted from her mother’s example. The
most prominent example of this combined imagery is Thomas Carew’s
masque, “Coelum Britanicum,” which was sponsored by Charles and
performed at Whitehall Palace in 1633. In this drama, the figure of the
chivalric knight is presented as a guardian of the kingdom’s peace, 47 and
the chorus addressed to the queen describes love and beauty as the goals
of a virtuous journey.48 The marriage of Charles and Henrietta Maria
is singled out as “that great example of matrimonial union” and is com-
memorated with a new constellation entitled “Carlo-maria.”49 Through
 Wife of the King 95

“Coelum Britanicum” and other products of artistic patronage, Charles

and Henrietta Maria presented their marriage as an affective union,
infused with the chivalric and harmonious elements that emerged from
their respective backgrounds.
The marriage of Charles and Henrietta Maria, in common with the
union of Louis and Marie Antoinette, was a dynastic union. English
and French envoys expressed clear political and religious goals during
the negotiation of the marriage contract, which the respective parties
expected to further through their union. Although the terms of the
marriage contract were public knowledge, Charles and Henrietta Maria
both downplayed the political realities of the marriage when presenting
themselves as a couple to their subjects. Instead, they drew upon the
emerging ideal of affective marriage, and their own family traditions
of chivalric or harmonious motifs to present themselves to their sub-
jects as a united couple. While Enlightenment thinkers would conflate
affective marriage with sentimentality and natural bonds, seventeenth
century affective ideals were more formalized as demonstrated by the
manner in which Charles and Henrietta Maria presented their marriage
to Charles’s subjects.
During the late 1620s, these images competed with accounts of the
frequent tensions concerning the queen’s household, but by the 1630s,
the couple’s private behavior appeared to match their public imagery.
The degree to which Henrietta Maria exerted political influence over
her husband became a matter of diplomatic interest. Henrietta Maria
revived the traditional privileges of English consorts, such as interces-
sion and cultural patronage, and adapted these practices to conform with
her own tastes and circumstances. The queen’s intercessions focused on
alleviating the persecution of English Catholics and her artistic inter-
ests fueled joint depictions of affective marital relations, in conjunction
with the king. Charles and Henrietta Maria each brought different con-
ceptions of affective marriage into their politically determined union
and combined these motifs in an attempt legitimize the queen’s role as a
wife to the king’s subjects.

Henrietta Maria: Recusant Wife and

Subversive Queen
In 1643, one of Henrietta Maria’s most vocal critics, William Prynne,
wrote, “[Roman Catholics] had Queen Mary her selfe in the Kings
own bed and bosome for their most powerful mediatrix, of whom they
might really affirme in reference to His Majesty, what some of their
Popish Doctors have most blasphemously written of the Virgin Mary in
96 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

relation to God and Christ, That all things are subject to the command
of Mary even God himselfe.”50 This tract reveals the failure of Henrietta
Maria’s use of intercessory queenship as a means of legitimizing her
position as wife to the sovereign. Prynne did not interpret intercessions
on behalf of persecuted English Catholics within the context of the tra-
ditional prerogatives of consorts. Instead, he utilized Protestant anxi-
eties concerning recusant wives within otherwise conformist families
to further his argument concerning the queen’s malignant influence on
the king. Since Henrietta Maria was Charles’s wife and the royal couple
presented themselves to their subjects through images of harmonious
unity, Prynne argued that the queen’s influence extended beyond indi-
vidual intercessions on behalf of her coreligionists. The absence of par-
liamentary sittings during the 1630s fueled fears that Henrietta Maria’s
intimacy with the king allowed her to become the most powerful royal
advisor in England, influencing domestic and foreign policy.
Prynne conflated the supposed faith among English Catholics in the
queen’s grace and mercy with the intercessory role of the Virgin Mary,
which was prominent in Counterreformation Roman Catholic theology
and favored by certain prominent adherents of William Laud’s unpopu-
lar reforms to the Church of England.51 For Protestants who adhered
to Calvinist or Presbyterian doctrines, Marian intercession was anath-
ema. The failure of the queen’s intercessions and public image of har-
mony in the royal marriage to inspire widespread loyalty toward the
monarchy extended beyond those who shared Prynne’s interpretation
of Protestant doctrine. People from all social backgrounds, particularly
women, judged the public indications of affective marriage between
Charles and Henrietta Maria to be insincere while Catholics were dis-
appointed that the queen failed to negotiate official toleration of her
coreligionists. Prynne referred to Henrietta Maria as “Queen Mary,” the
Anglicization of her name that appeared in prayers for the royal fam-
ily in the Church of England liturgy.52 This name seemed reminiscent
of the burning of Protestants for heresy during Mary I’s reign, which
had been kept alive in the popular imagination by such widely circu-
lated works as John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.53 Lucy Hutchison alluded to
the impact of the queen’s name on Protestant popular opinion, writ-
ing, “Some kind of fatality too, the English imagined to be in her name
of Marie, which, it is said, the King rather chose to have her called by
rather than her other, Henrietta, because the land should find a blessing
in that name, which had been more unfortunate.”54 The numerous mis-
spellings of Henrietta Maria’s name in pamphlets describing the wed-
ding celebrations and the 1625 public prayers offered to the king’s bride,
“Queen Henry,” suggest that Charles’s actual rationale for calling his
wife Mary was the unfamiliarity of Henrietta as an English name in the
 Wife of the King 97

early seventeenth century.55 Nevertheless, Hutchison’s account reveals

the impact of decades of discussion of Charles’s consort as Queen Mary
had on the popular imagination. For Protestants, a second Queen Mary
appeared to symbolize the revival of state Roman Catholicism, threat-
ening the hegemony of the Church of England.
For Roman Catholics, the royal marriage invoked different historical
precedents. While Protestants viewed the English Reformation as an
inevitable occurrence, emphasizing the hand of providence, Catholics
focused on the human contingencies that shaped this religious change,
particularly Henry VIII’s second marriage to Anne Boleyn outside the
jurisdiction of the papacy. While few Catholics publicly expressed this
interpretation as bluntly as the Yorkshire gentleman Harry More, who
was arrested in 1624 for declaring, “The religion now professed here
came out of King Henry the eighth his codpiece.”56 Charles’s marriage
encouraged speculation concerning the influence of queens consort
over the religious policy of their sovereign husbands.
During the negotiations for the proposed marriage between Charles
and Maria of Spain, diplomats observed the high expectations a Catholic
queen would encounter from her coreligionists in her adopted king-
dom. The Venetian instructions to the Papal Nuncio in Spain charged
with negotiating a dispensation for a Spanish marriage state, “Even if
the prince is not converted he will almost certainly do much for the
Catholic religion out of love for her . . . A king out of love for a lady not
of royal birth repudiated his lawful wife and ruined religion in England,
and a king might easily restore it in a lawful manner by a true and just
love.”57 Although the Spanish negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful,
the chivalric and harmonious motifs that Charles and Henrietta Maria
employed in the public imagery concerning their marriage encouraged
Catholics to hope the relationship of the royal couple would influence
state religious policy in their favor.
In contrast to the optimism a loving royal marriage inspired
among Catholics, the gendered nature of recusancy discourse among
Protestants encouraged them to regard the apparent close relationship
between the king and queen with alarm. The harmony between Charles
and Henrietta Maria in the 1630s associated the royal couple with
Protestant anxieties concerning recusant wives in otherwise conform-
ist households. The existence of a clear religious divide in the seven-
teenth century combined with different penalties for recusancy applied
to men and women appeared to undermine the accepted authority of a
husband over his wife. In households and communities across Charles’s
kingdoms, the question of whether husbandly authority extended to the
wife’s conscience was a matter of contentious debate.58 Roman Catholic
wives argued that their relationship with God superseded any human
98 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

authority, a stance that appeared to give them increased prominence

in the home through their religious convictions.59 The Protestant cri-
tique of priestly authority and emphasis on personal faith encouraged
scrutiny of the family because it had the potential to influence reli-
gious convictions.60 Popular representations of extreme cases of recu-
sancy within families, such as the case of the Roman Catholic Margaret
Vincent who murdered her conformist children to make them “Saints
in Heaven” when they refused to convert to Catholicism, captured the
popular imagination.61 These circumstances encouraged a mythology of
the dangerous. recusant wife, who rejected the authority of husband and
the state, and sought to convert her family to Roman Catholicism.
The religious clauses of Charles’s and Henrietta Maria’s marriage
contract fueled Protestant anxieties, which increased as the relation-
ship between the couple appeared to develop into a loving and harmo-
nious union. While the statements guaranteeing the queen’s authority
over her jointure and dowry would have been familiar to any proper-
tied family in England, the freedom of religion granted to the bride
appeared to undermine the king’s position as a husband and head of the
Church of England. Although Henrietta Maria’s religious autonomy
reflected foreign pressures within the marriage negotiations including
the necessity of a papal dispensation, and Louis XIII’s determination
to receive the same terms offered to Philip IV of Spain, it appeared
to English Protestants that the state was creating a precedent favor-
able to recusant wives. Henrietta Maria was not bound by reciprocal
strictures, and Catholic monarchs hoped that she would successfully
convert her husband, and, by extension, the inhabitants of his king-
doms.62 This inversion of the traditional hierarchy between husband
and wife, which inspired hope in Roman Catholics, appeared to be a
direct affront to Protestants.
The newsletters and seditious speech cases of the 1620s and 1630s
reveal the contrast between the terms of the marriage contract and
Protestant popular opinion. Just as the reduction of the French house-
hold, whose positions were theoretically guaranteed by this document,
received widespread popular accolades, Charles’s conformist subjects
hoped for the conversion of the queen. The demands for the expul-
sion of Henrietta Maria’s French servants reflected this ultimate
goal because her youth and relationship to the previously Huguenot
Henry IV appeared to provide evidence of a willingness to convert if
surrounded by Protestant influences. Public incidents that suggested
dissatisfaction with Catholic devotional practices, such as her consump-
tion of meat on a fast day that coincided with her arrival in England,
were eagerly discussed as evidence of her willingness to consider her
husband’s religion.63 A 1626 newsletter, referred to the departure of the
 Wife of the King 99

majority of the French household, “It is hoped, after they are gone, the
Queen will by degrees find the sweetness of liberty in being exempted
from those beggarly rudiments of Popish penance.”64 The hope was
that she would associate receiving the honors due her rank with the
arrival of Protestant attendants, and, with time, conversion to the
Church of England.
During the 1630s, Henrietta Maria’s continued adherence to Roman
Catholicism, and the admittance of the general public to her masses
encouraged renewed interest in her conversion. In contrast to the news-
letters of the 1620s, which described her faith as a threat to the queen’s
happiness and dignity to a limited circle of readers, the sermons preached
during the period of Personal Rule described Roman Catholicism as a
threat to the security of Charles’s kingdoms, before a wide audience of
parishioners. In 1633, the English Catholic John Southcott wrote to his
coreligionist Peter Biddulph, “There was a minister of Essex [Nathaniel
Bernard] also fined in the high commission court a little before, and
degraded for praying in his sermons publickly either to convert or con-
found the Queen, and the king, as I heare, was so offended at it that he
threateneth to hang him.”65
The findings of a 1637 royal commission charged with investigating
irregularities affecting the conduct of divine service in London provide
further examples of Church of England clergymen who “pray before
and after sermons loosely and factiously, as for the conversion of the
Queen.”66 As described in Southcott’s letter, Charles was outraged by
these sermons and considered them to be examples of seditious speech,
worthy of investigation and prosecution. The addresses delivered by
Protestant clergymen during the period of Personal Rule implied that
Henrietta Maria’s refusal to convert to her husband’s faith could be
a justification for her removal as queen, statements that prefigured
the parliamentary debates concerning her impeachment during the
English Civil Wars.
In an environment in which Catholics hoped that Henrietta Maria
would persuade her husband to grant official toleration and Protestants
publicly prayed for her conversion, the queen disappointed both reli-
gious groups. Her intercessions alarmed Protestants, who regarded
them as evidence of growing state toleration of Roman Catholicism, and
disappointed Catholics, who expected more of their queen than the alle-
viation of individual cases of religious persecution. Among Protestant
commentators, Prynne was the most assiduous chronicler and critic
of the queen’s intercessions with Charles on behalf of Catholics. He
reprinted individual pardons of foreign Jesuits and recusant priests,
emphasizing references to Henrietta Maria’s involvement. For example,
a 1632 edict reprinted with Prynne’s emphases states, “Whereas on the
100 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

24 of March last, our pleasure was declared to the Lords of Our Privy
Council that AT THE INSTANCE OF OUR DEAREST CONSORT
THE QUEENE . . . we were graciously pleased that THESE PRIESTS
and recusants here undernamed . . . should be released.”67 Following this
document, Prynne provided further annotations that highlighted the
queen’s influence over Charles’s decision to release the priests.68
The foreign and domestic state papers of the 1630s demonstrate that
the queenly intercessions that attracted the most negative comment
from Protestants were the releases of proselytizing Roman Catholic
clergymen or criminals convicted of charges against other individuals,
instead of the state. These forms of intercession reflected Henrietta
Maria’s innovations to the traditional prerogatives of English queens
consort. As early as 1628, Charles was receiving petitions from various
regions of his kingdoms demanding that the laws against recusancy be
enforced. One petition from Kent was endorsed by “the gentry, ministry
and commonality . . . agreed upon at the general offices for the county”
demonstrating that the perceived toleration of Roman Catholicism con-
cerned Protestants of all social estates.69
Although the Capuchin friars were initially considered to be a lesser
threat to English Protestantism than Jesuit priests, the ease of pub-
lic access to their sermons and their intimacy with the royal couple
attracted popular indignation. The Venetian ambassador explained
how a private dinner for the royal couple in 1637, hosted in the refec-
tory of the Capuchin priory in London under Henrietta Maria’s patron-
age, attracted politically charged criticism, stating, “Those also who for
other ends call passionately for the convocation of parliament, increase
their outcry because of this circumstance, declaring that the exces-
sive desire to avoid hurting the interests of the Catholics is leading to
greater and more serious hurt to the crown and the gravest disasters.”70
He argued that the dinner itself was of little actual significance because
the king was only making a gesture to please the queen.71 This ratio-
nale actually made the dinner appear to have immense political and
religious importance. In the absence of regular parliamentary sessions,
the queen’s intercessions appeared to represent a significant influence
over the sovereign. Since Henrietta Maria’s activities were on behalf of
her coreligionists, the absence of parliament also seemed to represent
the exclusion of Protestant interests from governance. In place of par-
liament, domestic policy appeared to be shaped by a Protestant king
dominated by his Catholic wife, mirroring broader popular anxieties
concerning the influence of recusant wives in conformist households.
Charles’s Scottish Protestant subjects were equally concerned about
the influence of the queen’s religious intercessions on state policy. In
June 1638, the same ambassador described the king dismissing the papal
 Wife of the King 101

envoy to the queen and recalling her resident in Rome, in response

to Scottish demands for parliament to be called to guarantee the
Presbyterian liturgy. He wrote, “This step has displeased the queen,
but the king told her that it was required by the present state of affairs,
to avoid greater scandal among his subjects.”72 Through this decisive
action, Charles may have been attempting to regain the Protestant
acclaim he once received for dismissing the majority of his wife’s French
household. The changed political circumstances created by his Personal
Rule, and the perception of a united relationship between the royal
couple, however, intensified Protestant feelings of exclusion from state
policy, undermining the legitimacy of monarchical government prior to
the outbreak of Civil War.
In this atmosphere of Protestant hostility toward Henrietta Maria’s
intercessory activities, the queen apparently believed that Roman
Catholics were all loyal royalists, as demonstrated by her special appeal
to her coreligionists for the Contribution of 1639.73 Catholic newsletters
from the 1630s, however, provide evidence of significant dissatisfaction
with the scope of the queen’s intercessory activities. While Protestants
wrote that she was too influential on behalf of foreign clergymen and
recusants, Catholics disapproved of her willingness to compromise with
diverse religious factions at court, arguing that she had not done enough
to advance toleration. An anonymous open letter to the king describing
the various sources of opposition to the Duke of Buckingham’s promi-
nence at court stated that among the duke’s enemies were “Recusants
and church-papists,74 whose hatred is irreconcilable against the Duke,
for the breach of the Spanish match. The French lady, though as zeal-
ous a Catholique, doth not please them, for they were tyed to Spain by
the hopes of a change of religion that way.”75 This letter described the
various connections between the English and Spanish Catholic com-
munities including the education of the children of prominent English
families in Spanish Jesuit seminaries and convents.76 These extensive
Anglo-Spanish religious networks predisposed prominent Catholics to
regard the French marriage as a comparative disappointment.77
During the 1630s, Roman Catholic attitudes concerning the suc-
cess of Henrietta Maria’s intercessions diverged across a broad spec-
trum. Some observers wrote that her influence over religious policy
was immense while others argued that her efforts on behalf of tolera-
tion were inadequate. Charles recognized that public expressions of
the former conclusion would undermine his legitimacy, and that of the
queen, among Protestants, and he therefore punished reports of his
supposed Catholic sympathies severely. The Venetian ambassador
reported in June 1638, “a Catholic, for retorting to a Protestant, who
called him a Papist, that so was the queen and the king also at heart,
102 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

was condemned to pay 10,000l. sterling, for the king’s use, to have
his ears cut and his tongue pierced.”78 The defendant in this seditious
speech case clearly accepted the harmonious imagery of the royal mar-
riage and imagined that Charles I and Henrietta Maria shared com-
mon religious sensibilities.
A case prosecuted against Essex maidservant Mary Cole that same
month demonstrates that these views were not certainly shared by all
English Catholics. The evidence provided for the Attorney General
stated, “one of the company demanding why it might not be, in regard
the King had matched with a Catholic, the said Mrs. Cole said, if she
were as the Queen she would hang the King for dealing so hardly with
papists.”79 The maidservant placed herself in the position of the queen
and imagined her frustration at Charles’s continued enforcement of
recusancy laws. While Cole apparently believed that Henrietta Maria
was actively campaigning for the rights of her coreligionists against the
opposition of her husband, Catholic newsletters recorded rumors of the
queen’s apparent absence of zeal as an intercessor. Southcott reported
in a 1633 letter to Biddulph that he had heard it said “that our Catholick
queen did us no more good than if she were an heretick.”80 While the
references to the harmony of the royal marriage in other Catholic
authored newsletters of the same period indicates this disappoint-
ment in Henrietta Maria’s intercessions was far from universal among
English Catholics,81 the existence of critiques authored by Catholics
indicate that the queen did not have the universal support and approval
of her coreligionists.
The seditious speech case against Cole indicates that the harmoni-
ous imagery of the royal marriage was not universally accepted, par-
ticularly among women. The queen’s position as a married woman, in
common with the majority of her female subjects, provided an oppor-
tunity for women to engage in political and religious discourse with
the authority of their own experiences. Henrietta Maria’s activities as a
wife were of great interest to Charles’s female subjects who scrutinized
and critiqued the images of love and harmony that the royal couple
favored as representations of their marriage. While male clergymen,
diplomats, and newsletter authors writing in the 1630s largely accepted
that Charles and Henrietta Maria enjoyed a loving marriage and only
disagreed about the nature of this relationship’s implications, female
observers questioned whether the harmony itself was sincere.
These critiques of the royal marriage were expressed by women
of vastly different political allegiances. Hutchison speculated about
Henrietta Maria’s attachment to Charles, arguing that while his love
for her may have been sincere, the queen feigned affection to pursue her
own religious goals. She wrote, “This lady being by her priests affected
 Wife of the King 103

with the meritoriousness of advancing her own religion . . . the power her
haughty spirit kept over her husband, who was enslaved in his affection
only to her, though she had no more passion for him than what served
to promote her designs.”82 Although Hutchison wrote this assessment
of the royal marriage after the deaths of both Charles and Henrietta
Maria, her comments reflect the tension that existed in the 1630s popu-
lar imagination between the emerging ideals of affective marriage and
the subversive activities of recusant wives. In her analysis of the royal
couple, she weighs both the public imagery of love and harmony and
the actual religious differences that existed throughout their marriage
concluding that Henrietta Maria’s goals as a recusant wife precluded a
genuine emotional attachment to her husband.
Hutchison’s suspicions of Henrietta Maria as a wife were shaped
by her republican political allegiances but skepticism among Charles’s
female subjects concerning the royal marriage also existed among
members of the royal household. The works of the most prolific writer
among the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, Margaret Lucas, later Margaret
Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, reveal that the motifs of love and har-
mony favored by the royal couple conflicted with actual Caroline court
society, making this imagery appear artificial and foreign. Cavendish
satirized the contrast between the romantic and religious ideals propa-
gated by the queen, and the frequent sexual scandals among her circle.
While the harmonious and chivalric imagery focused on the virtuous
qualities of the ladies, the narrator of Cavendish’s Sociable Letters states
that the most beautiful ladies receive the accolades of male courtiers
regardless of their virtues.83 The religious imagery of the Sociable Letters
draws upon the relationship in the popular imagination between the
motifs the royal couple utilized to publicize the affective harmony of
their marriage and the queen’s Roman Catholicism.
Sociable Letters was not published until the Restoration but the libel-
ous verse that circulated in the 1630s demonstrates that the popular
perception that a harmonious royal marriage was exceptional within
an otherwise immoral court predated the publication of Cavendish’s
works. Cavendish had numerous personal difficulties within Henrietta
Maria’s court, including her difficulty relating to other members of the
household, inability to speak French, and her desire to distance herself
from the Louvre Group faction while in exile during the late 1640s
and 1650s.84 The content of the satirical verse that circulated during
the 1630s, however, suggests that she was inspired by existing litera-
ture juxtaposing the royal marriage with the sexual scandals of the
surrounding court. A 1634 libel that circulated at the time of the royal
progress through East Anglia begins, “See what love there is betweene/
The K. and his endeared Queene,/And all their subjects love & care/Is
104 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

fixed upon this royall paire/But did their Majesties select/Deserving

persons to affect/Like to themselves, & not love all/The court would
soon be very small.”85 This verse highlights the incongruity of the
apparently virtuous and loving royal marriage amidst a court that
was the setting for numerous sexual scandals, which Henrietta Maria
accepted among her favorites. While satires such as “The Progresse”
were careful to affirm that the king and queen did not participate in
the general licentiousness of the court, the juxtaposition of the sup-
posedly happy marriage of the royal couple with the scandals within
their household implicitly questioned the veracity of the harmonious
marital motifs.
Hutchison and Cavendish were both women who possessed a degree
of education unusual for seventeenth century women, which enabled
them to engage with the complexity of the tensions between the sup-
posedly affective royal marriage, and Henrietta Maria’s position as a
recusant wife. Charles’s less educated female subjects addressed the sin-
cerity of the affective imagery of the royal marriage in a more straight-
forward manner, focusing on the question of whether they believed the
queen was faithful to the king. Henrietta Maria did not face the degree
of speculation concerning her marital relations that Marie Antoinette
would encounter as the frequent births of royal children appeared to
affirm a close relationship. Nevertheless, there are examples of ordinary
Englishwomen questioning the queen’s chastity, suggesting that there
was a degree of skepticism regarding the unity of the royal marriage.
In 1638, a Middlesex maidservant, Rachel Thorne, in the presence of
two other servants, who “verily believed Thorne was drunk,” “referred
to a rumour that the Queen’s mother was dead, and said she was a cut-
purse whore, and that the Queen was a whore.”86 Marie’s extended resi-
dency in England from 1638 to 1641 was deeply unpopular because of
the costs incurred by her six-hundred person household, Catholicism,
and connections to the Papacy.87 Charles’s agreement to this expensive
and controversial period of residency also appeared to confirm suspi-
cions that Henrietta Maria was influencing her husband’s political and
religious policy. The first recorded rumors of the queen’s supposed infi-
delities emerged amid the popular opposition to Marie’s presence in
England, which appeared to demonstrate Henrietta Maria’s unnatural
dominance within her own marriage.
The popular criticism of Henrietta Maria in her role as wife to the
sovereign reflected the conflict between the harmonious marital imag-
ery promoted by the royal couple and Protestant anxieties concerning
recusant wives. Although the public sphere was not as well developed
as it would become in Marie Antoinette’s time, discussion and corre-
spondence served as effective means of disseminating both positive and
 Wife of the King 105

negative opinions concerning the queen’s role as a wife. In this ideologi-

cal climate, Henrietta Maria’s adoption of the traditional prerogatives
of intercession and cultural patronage undermined her legitimacy. Her
intercessions on behalf of her coreligionists, which extended to pros-
elytizing clergymen and Catholics involved in civil disputes, alienated
Protestants, who argued that she was slowly succeeding in her goal of
achieving full toleration, and dissatisfied Catholics, who did not believe
that she made sufficient efforts toward the same goal.
The queen’s cultural patronage, which promoted harmonious
imagery of the royal couple, attracted hostility instead of admiration.
Without regular meetings of parliament, an affective royal marriage
appeared to demonstrate the queen’s dominant influence over politi-
cal and religious policy. A socially diverse range of commentators, par-
ticularly women, recognized the tensions between these harmonious
motifs and real religious differences between the king and queen, and
therefore doubted the sincerity of the love between the royal couple.
While the expression of these doubts in various forums provided
mid-seventeenth century women with opportunities to engage in the
nascent public sphere, they undermined the legitimacy of the royal
marriage in the popular imagination. Marie Antoinette would face a
different set of ideological tensions intersecting with the trend toward
affective marriage as an ideal within the greatly expanded public sphere
of the late eighteenth century.

Marie Antoinette:
The Unconsummated Marriage
By 1775, Marie Antoinette was unhappy with her marriage for personal
reasons. She wrote to Count Rosenberg, an Austrian courtier, “My
tastes are not the same as those of the King, who has only those of the
hunt and mechanical works. You have to admit that I should look rather
poor nearby the forge. I do not wish to be Vulcan and the role of Venus
could displease him much more than my tastes, which he does not disap-
prove of.”88 The tone and content of this letter, and a subsequent letter
to Rosenberg in which Marie Antoinette described Louis XVI as “the
poor man” and boasted of her influence over him, are extraordinary for
an eighteenth century queen.89 In these documents, Marie Antoinette
expressed her dissatisfaction with her marriage because of her personal
incompatibility with her husband, focusing on shared interests rather
than issues that concerned Louis’s subjects, including her continued
childlessness and the political goals of the match. The recipient was
both the queen’s social inferior and an Austrian. When Maria Theresa
106 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

learned of this correspondence, she chastised her daughter. The empress

significantly did not compare Marie Antoinette to previous queens who
had committed social indiscretions but to Louis XV’s most prominent
mistresses, Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry.90 Marie
Antoinette’s concern for her personal happiness over the dynastic suc-
cess of the marriage demonstrated the conflict between eighteenth cen-
tury sentimental ideals of companionate marriage and the continuing
political realities of royal unions during the same period.
Political studies of Louis’s reign often cite the Rosenberg letters as
evidence of Marie Antoinette’s immaturity and imprudence. As Maria
Theresa observed, these letters could easily be publicly circulated and
fuel dangerous speculation that the queen was a disloyal wife who
engaged in intrigues with the Habsburg Empire.91 In contrast, popular
biographies focus on what information the letters convey about Marie
Antoinette’s degree of personal happiness during this period, utiliz-
ing anachronistic definitions of the good marriage that obscure just
how unusual the queen’s sentiments were for a person in her position
and milieu.92 For Marie Antoinette to believe that common interests
between husband and wife were important to a successful royal mar-
riage, let alone express this attitude to Rosenberg, suggested that she
had internalized the ideal of companionate marriage that was gain-
ing favor among the literate, urban bourgeoisie in both France and the
Habsburg Empire during the eighteenth century.
As a broader social trend, the popular conception of affective mar-
riage had evolved significantly since Henrietta Maria’s lifetime, devel-
oping from an ideal of harmony to genuine compatibility encompassing
common interests.93 These changes explain Henrietta Maria’s confi-
dence in commissioning imagery of marital happiness in spite of her
clear differences with Charles while Marie Antoinette regarded the
paucity of shared interests as evidence of an unsuccessful marriage.
Furthermore, Marie Antoinette did not have the prerogatives of an
English queen because her recent predecessors had not engaged in
public displays of intercession, and cultural patronage was increasingly
associated with French royal mistresses.94 Marie Antoinette lived in a
social and ideological milieu that reinforced changing conceptions of
affective marriage and a court culture that had not reached a consensus
concerning the appropriate role of the queen during this period.
Enlightenment discourse, particularly the widely read works of
Rousseau, placed great emphasis on the domestic realm, discussing
the responsibilities husbands and wives had to each other and to their
children within marriage.95 While Rousseau’s argument that wives
were subordinate to their husbands according to natural law appears to
denigrate women, Marie Antoinette’s educated female contemporaries
 Wife of the King 107

largely embraced this interpretation of domesticity because it seemed

to give them moral, cultural, and intellectual authority within the
home.96 Since Rousseau’s writings argued that women achieved hap-
piness and fulfillment through their roles as wives and mothers, the
husband’s personal qualities gained importance for all women, includ-
ing the queen. Unfortunately for Marie Antoinette, her attempts to
participate in the trend toward companionate marriage, and “natural”
motherhood, were not compatible with the diverse range of popular
expectations concerning her position. The apparent domesticity of
the royal family fueled widespread anxieties concerning the queen’s
increased political influence as her private sphere appeared to create
opportunities for intrigues.
In contrast to Marie de Medici, whose advice to Henrietta Maria
focused on her role as intercessor, Maria Theresa was deeply concerned
with her daughter’s role as wife to the sovereign. Despite her professed
personal attachment to her children, the empress always placed politi-
cal expediency over their personal inclinations, most famously com-
pelling her daughter Maria Amalia to marry the Duke of Parma.97
The purpose of Marie Antoinette’s marriage was the cementing of the
Franco-Austrian alliance, not personal fulfillment. France supported
Prussia during the War of the Austrian Succession, a conflict that cost
Maria Theresa the valuable province of Silesia and drained her trea-
sury. A Franco-Austrian alliance, forged during the Seven Years’ War
as Great Britain and Prussia developed common political interests,
and cemented by the marriage therefore not only had the potential to
increase the prestige of the Habsburgs but to secure a lasting peace for
the Austrian Empire. Maria Theresa and her representative in France,
Mercy-Argenteau, impressed the geopolitical importance of the stabil-
ity of her marriage upon the newly married Marie Antoinette.98 In con-
trast, Marie Antoinette viewed herself as sharing the status of wife and
mother with Louis’s female subjects and therefore permitted to adopt
elements of the latest trends concerning companionate marriage with-
out regard for the particular contingencies of her political position.
While Maria Theresa despaired at the protracted childlessness of
the French royal couple, Marie Antoinette focused on attempting to
construct a marriage that was as personally fulfilling as possible under
the circumstances. She also attempted to project an image of marital
happiness to Louis XVI’s subjects that did not reflect French royal tra-
dition. Louis XIII ignored Anne of Austria for much of their marriage
while Louis XIV and Louis XV had relationships with influential mis-
tresses. In common with Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI was dissatisfied
with the traditional marital practices of French monarchs as his own
parents presented themselves to the French people as a faithful married
108 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

couple.99 Louis’s father was an admirer of Rousseau,100 and his son

shared this interest in reading contemporary philosophical texts. Due
to the differences between their own experiences and the traditions of
the French court, Louis and Marie Antoinette adopted a new approach
to the royal couple’s public image, presenting themselves to the French
people as a happily married couple.
Since the royal family directed social life at court, the nobility
attempted to follow the public example created by the royal couple.
Campan described numerous scenes of domestic intimacy between the
royal couple. During the official period of mourning for Louis XV, “they
went out . . . like husband and wife, the young King giving his arm to the
Queen . . . The influence of this example had such an effect on several
of the courtiers that the next day, several couples, who had long, and
for good reasons, been disunited, were seen walking upon the terrace
with same apparent conjugal intimacy.”101 The laws Louis XIV passed
enforcing parental authority over marital choices, which served as a
means for the state to control its patronage network discouraged purely
affective marriages among the eighteenth century French nobility.102
The Enlightenment interest in domesticity and the larger trend toward
loving marriage as an ideal did not reflect the realities of the French
court any more than it reflected the nature of dynastic marriage. Marie
Antoinette was therefore creating a social climate that could easily be
interpreted as foreign, insincere, or bourgeois as her activities were imi-
tated by aristocratic couples who were known to have entered into their
marriages for economic reasons alone.
The letters exchanged by Maria Theresa and Marie Antoinette
reveal that the young queen did not regard a loving marriage only as
an effective means of asserting her legitimacy as consort within the
ideological climate of the Enlightenment. Instead, she sought an actual
happy union with Louis. The queen’s attempts to align her personal
relationship with the public presentation of her marriage contrasts with
Henrietta Maria’s continued religious and jurisdictional differences
with Charles, which persisted behind the united facade of harmony.
Marie Antoinette’s participation in royal hunting trips reflected a desire
to both strengthen the relationship between her and Louis and present
a display of marital unity to the court. As she explained to Rosenberg,
she did not have any personal inclination toward his pastimes, which
included hunting, eating large meals, and blacksmithing. Maria Theresa
did not approve of her daughter joining her husband’s hunting parties
on horseback, as she feared that riding might induce a miscarriage,103
and asked Marie Antoinette to promise to abstain from this activity.
She wrote, “I do not disapprove of your promenades, but it does not
do to exceed them, especially on horseback. I am most angry to have
 Wife of the King 109

learned that you have not kept your word to me and that you participate
in the hunt.”104 Marie Antoinette denied having broken her word and
attempted to pacify her mother by stating that she had remained on foot
during her visit to Marly with her husband.105 The dauphine clearly had
her own conception of appropriate behavior as a wife but was reluctant
to openly challenge her mother, who continued to inspire feelings of
awe and reverence in her married daughter.106
In contrast to Marie Antoinette’s view that her marriage might be
strengthened by appearing to share her husband’s interests, her mother
urged her to focus exclusively on conceiving heirs. The childlessness of
a royal marriage had been grounds for annulment throughout French
history as dynastic succession was crucial to the continued viability of
monarchical government. Maria Theresa wrote to Mercy-Argenteau in
1770, describing a failed attempt at consummation, “I preach patience to
my daughter and that there is no harm done, but that she increases the
caresses.”107 Despite the measured tone of this letter, the empress’s anxi-
ety that her daughter’s marriage had not been successfully consummated
is palpable in her correspondence. She often requested details of the dau-
phine’s menstrual cycles and expressed delight at the news of the royal
couple sharing a bed or expressing physical interest in each other. For
the next seven years, the vast majority of marital advice that the empress
would convey to Marie Antoinette would concern the conception of heirs,
which Maria Theresa considered to be the sole means of fully legitimizing
the marriage and therefore safeguarding the Franco-Austrian alliance.108
Since Louis appeared uninterested in performing his marital duties,
the empress urged her daughter to be more assertive in this domain,
advice that demonstrated that the dynastic imperatives of the marriage
superseded the widespread ideal of feminine submissiveness that she
extolled in her first letters to the bride. As will be discussed, critiques
of the royal marriage by Louis’s subjects both within and outside court
circles would display a similar preoccupation with the absence of heirs.
While Maria Theresa deplored Marie Antoinette’s passion for evening
gambling parties as queen because this behavior fueled rumors of her
extravagance, she was particularly concerned with the disparity these
gatherings created in the couple’s sleeping habits. Maria Theresa wrote
in 1775, “I confess that I am in a state all the more so because, daily, you
are always idling, and without the King, if he does not happen to come
to bed with you more for the succession, it will thus be necessary to give
it up.”109 By the time Joseph II visited Versailles in 1777, she had achieved
neither the fruitful marriage envisioned by her mother and other propo-
nents of the Franco-Austrian alliance nor the companionate marriage
that reflected her own marital goals and the ideals of Enlightenment
conceptions of domesticity.
110 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Since Maria Theresa clearly had different ideas of the behavior nec-
essary to ensure a successful royal marriage than her daughter, Marie
Antoinette began to discuss her role as wife to the sovereign with a vari-
ety of other members of her circle including her husband’s unmarried
aunts, female courtiers, and, undoubtedly, her close female friends such
as Lamballe and Polignac.110 The Duc de Croy described Louis as a king
who “at the age of barely twenty had to deal with three aunts and three
princesses . . . women with whom he would live, each one with many in
their suite, including several shrewd ones, made it a hundred women
with whom he was dealing.”111 Croy’s account suggests a large degree
of intimacy between the female members of the royal family and their
attendants, creating opportunities for the spread of information about
the royal marriage.
Marie Antoinette’s openness concerning her marital difficulties
reflected her own focus on achieving personal fulfillment from her
marriage but her approach undermined her reputation and created
further impediments to the consummation of her marriage. For Marie
Antoinette to reveal her marital difficulties to members of the court,
particularly those who had opposed the Franco-Austrian alliance, such
as Louis XVI’s aunts, suggested that public displays of love between the
royal couple were insincere. The contrast between the image created
by the royal couple’s walks in the gardens and the queen’s open discus-
sion of her marital difficulties left Marie Antoinette vulnerable to accu-
sations of dissimulation that would contribute to popular views of the
famous Affair of the Necklace in 1785. Maria Theresa’s condemnation
of the Rosenberg correspondence emphasized the danger of her daugh-
ter’s indiscreet comments being circulated to a larger audience.112
While Marie Antoinette discussed her marriage with a wide vari-
ety of confidants, her initial refusal to speak to Louis XV’s mistress,
du Barry, as dauphine, and her later comments as queen regarding the
immorality of royal mistresses indicate that she did not fully under-
stand how this position had shaped French popular conceptions of
royal marriage. During the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV, the
king’s mistress served as counterpoint to his consort, often allowing the
sovereign’s wife to develop a reputation for virtue and fidelity. While
Louis XV, and his later mistresses, Pompadour and du Barry, attracted
criticism for extravagance and debauchery, Marie Leszczynska cul-
tivated a virtuous image as a devoted wife and mother.113 Despite the
personal distress the presence of a royal mistress at court might cause
for the queen, the counterpoint between the two women had the poten-
tial to deflect criticism from the sovereign’s wife. The consort and the
royal mistress personified each of the king’s two bodies.114 This ideo-
logical framework did not complement the eighteenth century ideas of
 Wife of the King 111

domesticity, which assumed that the wife would act as a companion to

her husband. A queen who exercised a dominant influence in both the
king’s personal and political realms had the potential to undermine the
monarch’s actual and perceived sovereign authority.
Marie Antoinette spent her four years as dauphine at a court with
an acknowledged royal mistress then spent her entire reign as queen
occupying the positions of both wife and mistress to Louis XVI. The
position of a publicly known royal mistress was foreign to both Marie
Antoinette’s personal experience and sympathies. The dauphine, wife
of the king’s grandson, however, could not place herself in open oppo-
sition to the king’s mistress without appearing to challenge the sov-
ereign’s authority. Through her initial silence toward du Barry, Marie
Antoinette may have been attempting to support her husband’s sensi-
bilities, as he too disapproved of his grandfather’s lifestyle, but she was
ultimately forced to abandon her stance because of her comparative
insignificance in the dynastic hierarchy.
In a court environment with neither a dowager queen nor an
acknowledged royal mistress to serve as an alternate source of court
patronage, the sovereign’s wife attracted intense scrutiny from both
courtiers and members of the public who were able to visit Versailles.
Marie Antoinette’s correspondence concerning this matter character-
istically focused on its personal implications instead of its wider conse-
quences concerning her reputation. In 1777, after seven years of childless
marriage, Mercy-Argenteau wrote to Maria Theresa of the queen’s
apparent indifference to the king’s fidelity to her, stating, “[Marie
Antoinette] believes him to be too apathetic and timid, assuming that
he could never have the power to engage in evil ways of gallantry. The
Queen is so persuaded of this that she sometimes tells a few surround-
ing people that she is neither pained nor sorry that the king took some
momentary and fleeting inclination.”115 Maria Theresa was predictably
outraged that her childless daughter could express such indifference to
her physical relationship with her husband but Marie Antoinette was
continuing to view her marriage in terms of her own happiness instead
of dynastic ideals.116
The full consummation of the marriage and potential for the birth
of the children appeared to Marie Antoinette to be a personal triumph
above all other considerations. Once she experienced intimacy with
Louis XVI, she wrote to her mother, “The manner in which the king
is now living with me, I am very confident that before long I will have
nothing more to desire.”117 While Maria Theresa was interested in the
effect a pregnancy would have on Marie Antoinette’s position as queen,
her daughter eagerly anticipated the fulfillment of her personal desire
for motherhood. When the queen took the waters for her health near
112 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Fontainebleau, immediately prior to her first pregnancy, she wrote of

the satisfying personal relationship she was developing with Louis,
seven years into their marriage, stating, “I do feel the advantage that
there he comes to spend the night to build trust.”118 Even though Marie
Antoinette had been queen for three years, she focused on the personal
fulfillment that she would gain from increased intimacy with her hus-
band and motherhood instead of the necessity of an heir to ensure the
continued success of the Franco-Austrian alliance.
Throughout her marriage, Marie Antoinette explored a conception
of herself as wife to the sovereign that reflected an emerging ideal of
affective marriage instead of the political and dynastic realities of her
position. The queen also sought personal satisfaction in keeping with
the public displays of marital harmony that she displayed at the French
court. Her focus on the personal relationship between herself and the
king, disappointment when the marriage did not conform to her ideals,
and delight at moments of personal intimacy provides a clear contrast
with the situation of Henrietta Maria, who experienced continuing
differences with Charles behind the public displays of chivalry and
harmony. In Marie Antoinette’s lifetime, Rousseau’s view that comple-
mentary interpersonal relations between husband and wife were “natu-
ral” and the enthusiasm for companionate marriage among the late
eighteenth century French urban middle classes made these new ideals
appear attainable in both public and domestic spheres. Unfortunately
for Marie Antoinette, she was not considered the equivalent of any
other French wife but exceptional due to her exalted status, foreign ori-
gins, and court culture that judged the mistress as a counterpoint for
the consort. During the same period in which the queen was writing of
her personal unhappiness within her marriage, her subjects were engag-
ing in speculation fueled by her protracted childlessness and apparent
insincerity of her public displays of marital harmony.

Marie Antoinette: The Deceptive Wife

In becoming the object of public speculation concerning her relation-
ship with her husband, Marie Antoinette appeared to be more similar to
a mistress than a legitimate consort. One 1781 pamphlet compared the
queen directly to du Barry, concluding, “These two famous women are
similar again in the art of deceit and degrading those who should respect
her.”119 The reference to deceit reveals that the sincerity of the displays of
marital harmony presented by Louis and Marie Antoinette in the early
years of their reign was doubted by a significant number of the king’s
subjects. Public scrutiny of Marie Antoinette surrounding the birth of
the Duc d’Angouleme to her sister-in-law the Comtesse de Artois in 1775
 Wife of the King 113

and the prosecution of the famous Diamond Necklace Scandal in 1785

reveal the degree to which her own perception of her role as wife to the
sovereign was rejected by French people of all social estates.
From the moment of Marie Antoinette’s arrival in France, the suc-
cessful consummation of her marriage and the birth of children were
considered to be the most effective means of securing the Franco-
Austrian alliance, and guaranteeing a seamless succession within the
House of Bourbon. Numerous popular songs that circulated around
the time of the wedding crudely described the popular conception of
marital success for the dauphin and his bride. One of these songs stated,
“The German and the French Long ago/killed each other for their
kings; /fighting is a rotten thing/screwing is more pleasant . . . /they are
going to make it legal/to mate the lily with the eagle.”120 For supporters
and detractors of this treaty alike, rumors of the difficulties the royal
couple experienced engaging in marital relations and conceiving chil-
dren introduced an element of uncertainty into France’s future foreign
policy. Verses discussing the consummation of the marriage were also
significant because they conflated the individuals getting married to
the kingdoms they represented. In contrast to Marie Antoinette’s inter-
est in her personal fulfillment within her marriage, her subjects focused
on her diplomatic and dynastic role.
Prior to the French Revolution, opinions concerning the royal family
circulated primarily through conversation and manuscript transmission,
in the same manner as critiques of Henrietta Maria disseminated in the
1630s. The public nature of royal births and the tradition of including
congratulatory addresses from humble groups of tradespeople, such as
fishwives, allowed spoken opinions concerning the queen’s unconsum-
mated marriage and childlessness to be voiced publicly at court upon
the birth of her nephew.121 The two seemingly disparate events of the
birth of a male heir to one of Marie Antoinette’s sisters-in-law, and the
theft of necklace that had been offered for sale to the queen therefore
served as discussion points for a public that judged the sovereign’s wife
to be behaving in a manner more suitable to a mistress than a consort.
While Marie Antoinette was interested in the latest trends in
Enlightenment discourse and sentimental literature concerning com-
panionate marriage and “natural” motherhood, French people of all
social estates expected the royal family to embody constancy and
unchanging tradition. One published homily included a direct quota-
tion from the Old Testament, stating, “Blessed is the Lord who will
fulfill . . . the promise he once made to Abraham about Sarah [Genesis
17:16]: ‘I shall bless her, I shall make her greatly fertile; I shall give thee
a son, born of her.’ May [the Dauphine] be, in the enclosed garden of
her palace, like a vine abundant with fruit!”122 The only aspect of this
114 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

piece that parallels late eighteenth century French debates on domestic-

ity is the description of the royal palace as an “enclosed garden” for the
queen. Rousseau’s works encouraged women to confine their energies
to the domestic sphere,123 and the public life of Louis XV’s mistresses,
which included cultural patronage and involvement in the appointment
of ministers, inspired numerous critical pamphlets.124 The main theme
of the sermon, however, is the timelessness of Marie Antoinette’s role
as wife to the sovereign. The success of her marriage would be judged
according to its successful consummation and the birth of heirs.
Even a 1775 printed petition addressed to the queen by a delega-
tion of country women requesting that she continue to wear feathers
so that changing fashions would not disrupt their livelihood selling
these items to hairdressers in Versailles concluded with a reference to
her childlessness. The women wrote that if Marie Antoinette granted
their request to support French laboring women instead of foreign lux-
ury markets,125 a request that makes significant assumptions about the
queen’s natural loyalties, “we promise to do much rejoicing when you
give us a beautiful Dauphin.”126 This style of address differs from the
numerous petitions addressed to Henrietta Maria requesting employ-
ment in such capacities as sewers and lacemakers to the queen. The
contrast between the public displays of marital harmony that Louis
and Marie Antoinette presented to their subjects and the couple’s fail-
ure to fulfill what the French people considered to be the most impor-
tant aspect of a royal marriage focused popular scrutiny of the queen’s
activities within her marriage.
The petition from the feather sellers was printed the same year as
the birth of the Duc d’Angouleme, which provided an opportunity for
opinions concerning the state of Marie Antoinette’s marriage to be
voiced in the queen’s presence. The contrast between the Comtesse
d’Artois’s apparent focus on her marriage and the conception of chil-
dren and the queen’s involvement in court entertainments and incog-
nito visits to Paris opera houses and masquerades undermined the
reputation of the sovereign’s wife. Mercy-Argenteau noted the climate
at court created by the birth of a royal child to a collateral branch of the
dynasty, writing to Maria Theresa a few months before the Comtesse’s
confinement that he would advise Marie Antoinette, “That the voice of
the public has made it known to Your Majesty that the Queen (of her
own volition) was away from the King’s bed for several weeks, that all
Paris has been told and has rambled to the great detriment of the credit
and esteem of the Queen.”127
Mercy-Argenteau’s letter provides evidence of communication
between the court and broader Parisian society because untitled visi-
tors to Versailles would not have had access to Marie Antoinette’s
 Wife of the King 115

bedchamber, except upon special occasions such as the births of her

children. The rapid spread of this information among Parisians demon-
strates the ultimate failure of Louis’s and Marie Antoinette’s attempts
to successfully present themselves to their subjects as a happily married
couple that contrasted with the excesses of Louis XV’s reign. Parisian
public opinion instead focused on rumors of the behavior within the
royal couple’s comparatively private sphere, blaming the queen for her
childlessness because her social life appeared to draw her away from the
king’s bedchamber.
The birth of Angouleme intensified this criticism of Marie
Antoinette’s activities as wife to the sovereign. She was well aware of the
public perception of the contrast between herself and her sister-in-law,
writing to her mother, “It is needless to say to my dear mama how much
I have suffered to see an heir who is not mine.”128 Marie Antoinette’s
use of the word heir instead of child129 indicates that she recognized the
political implications of the birth, despite her usual focus on the per-
sonal fulfillment parenthood would bring to her marriage. She clearly
observed that the juxtaposition of her own childlessness with the fertil-
ity of a junior member of the royal family undermined her position as
the senior female at court. Marie Antoinette made little mention of the
external opinions reinforcing her disappointment but Campan would
later record her mistress’s distress at facing a critical crowd of Parisian
market women outside her sister-in-law’s bedchamber. Campan wrote
in her memoirs, “The poissardes who had assumed the right of speak-
ing to sovereigns in their own vulgar language, followed her to the very
doors of her apartments, calling out to her with gross expressions that
she ought to produce heirs. The Queen reached her inner room, hur-
ried and agitated; she shut herself up to weep.”130 The hostility Marie
Antoinette faced upon the birth of her nephew facilitated the emer-
gence of a critical narrative concerning the queen’s suitability as a wife
that transcended social boundaries.
The births of four children to Louis and Marie Antoinette between
1778 and 1786 attracted widespread public rejoicing but did not success-
fully rehabilitate the queen’s reputation as a wife. The speculation con-
cerning Marie Antoinette’s marriage that emerged from the Diamond
Necklace Scandal demonstrates that the negative popular consensus
concerning the queen continued to develop throughout the 1780s.131 Trial
briefs were a popular form of mass produced reading material during the
reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI,132 and Marie Antoinette’s apparent
distance from the theft of the jewelry allowed the testimonies of the
defendants to be published without the censorship that inhibited the cir-
culation of such inflammatory pamphlets about the queen.133 The Affair
of the Necklace was a key series of events that specifically undermined
116 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Marie Antoinette’s reputation and contributed significantly to the popu-

lar perception that she behaved as both consort and mistress to Louis.
The famous necklace was originally designed with the expectation
that Louis XV would purchase it for du Barry.134 Since the king died
while the necklace was being assembled and Louis XVI did not have
an official mistress in the manner of his grandfather, Marie Antoinette
was the obvious recipient for this lavish gift. Following the queen’s
rejection of the diamond necklace, it was stolen by a group of conspira-
tors who drew upon popular perceptions of the queen’s reputation to
persuade Cardinal Rohan, who was out of favor at court, that he might
gain the consort’s favor by secretly acquiring the necklace for her.
The chief conspirator, the self-styled Countess Jeanne de la Motte-
Valois, claimed to be a close female friend of the queen, was charged
with serving as an intermediary between Marie Antoinette and the
cardinal. Louis decided to prosecute the case through the Paris parle-
ments instead of settling the matter privately, a plan that ensured there
would be a large public audience for the trials of the conspirators and
the duped cardinal.135 For a significant case, which explicitly judged
a prominent member of the nobility and implicitly judged the queen
as a wife, the print run of the testimonies of those involved exceeded
ten thousand copies.136 Like the birth of Angouleme, the Affair of the
Necklace provided an opportunity for public opinion both inside and
outside the court to coalesce around a common narrative concerning
the queen’s suitability as a wife.
Marie Antoinette’s correspondence demonstrates that she recog-
nized the potential for the Diamond Necklace case to undermine her
reputation despite her obvious lack of involvement in the conspiracy.
She wrote to her brother, Joseph II, describing the case, “There has not
been any punishment for counterfeiting my writing because it does not
resemble it and I never sign ‘of France.’ It is a strange story, in the eyes
of all the country who want to assume that I could have wanted to give
a secret commission to the Cardinal.”137 Marie Antoinette’s reference
to what people observing the case would like to believe is particularly
significant because it demonstrates that she was aware of popular per-
ceptions of her marriage. The cardinal’s defense hinged on his ability to
prove that he had reason to believe the queen had authorized his involve-
ment in the purchase of the Diamond Necklace. His testimony, which
was printed and circulated as a trial brief, makes repeated reference to
the queen, although she is never directly quoted in his account.138 The
publicly disseminated literature surrounding the Affair may have out-
wardly bemoaned the negative attention the case directed toward the
queen but Rohan’s defense depended on the plausibility of the actions
the conspirators attributed to Marie Antoinette.139
 Wife of the King 117

The fictional queen created by de la Motte-Valois and her fellow

conspirators to deceive Rohan embodied all the negative character-
istics that had been attributed to the royal marriage throughout the
reign of Louis XVI. In the scenario presented by the conspirators,
Marie Antoinette refused to approve of the purchase of an extrava-
gant diamond necklace in the presence of her husband then resorted
to subterfuge to acquire the gems. de la Motte-Valois’s decision to pres-
ent the queen’s motives to Rohan in this manner suggests that while
Louis’s attachment to his wife and desire to curb court expenditure was
considered to be sincere, Marie Antoinette was feigning both marital
harmony and comparative frugality.
This interpretation of the queen’s relationship with her husband par-
allels Hutchison’s seventeenth century judgment that while Charles may
have been sincerely attached to his wife, Henrietta Maria was pretend-
ing to return his feelings to further her own political and religious goals.
In common with Lamballe, de la Motte-Valois appeared to be a scion
of an illegitimate branch of the French royal house who had achieved
prominence and influence through friendship with Marie Antoinette.140
Rohan’s professed assumption that de la Motte-Valois was authorized to
further the queen’s interests, without consultation with the king, drew
upon a widely held perception that Marie Antoinette had rejected her
proper role as wife to sovereign and favored her female friends above
her husband. The meeting between Rohan and Nicole Leguay, a dress-
maker who styled herself Baronne d’Oliva and impersonated the queen
at the behest of de la Motte-Valois, also mirrored popular conceptions
of dysfunction within the royal marriage. Campan recorded in her
memoirs that one of the earliest episodes at Louis XVI’s court that
fueled speculation concerning the queen’s impropriety as a wife was a
dawn walk through the gardens of Versailles with young courtiers of
both genders to watch the sunrise.141 This pastime was interpreted as
a nocturnal debauch in which Marie Antoinette and her favorites were
able to pursue forbidden pleasures away from the watchful eye of senior
arbiters of court etiquette and propriety.142
The controversy concerning this activity foreshadowed the disap-
proval Louis’s subjects expressed when Marie Antoinette attempted to
create a relatively private domestic sphere where she entertained guests
according to her own inclination instead of her rank. According to
d’Oliva’s trial brief, she appeared to Rohan in the gardens of Versailles,
heavily veiled in the manner of the queen’s incognito visits to Paris.143
As in the supposed conversations with de la Motte-Valois, the king is
neither mentioned nor present. Implicit in the description of the meet-
ing between Rohan and the woman he presumed was the queen is the
assumption that Marie Antoinette might engage in nocturnal meetings
118 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

with men to further her own goals without her husband’s knowledge.
Rohan’s eventual acquittal served as an indictment of Marie Antoinette’s
as a wife because in absolving the cardinal of involvement in the theft of
the Diamond Necklace, the Paris parlement implied that he had made
reasonable assumptions concerning the queen’s deception of the king.
Marie Antoinette occupied the position of both consort and mistress
in the popular imagination. In common with the marriage of Charles
and Henrietta Maria, the differences within the French royal marriage
appeared to be too great to allow the couple to engage in the growing
trend toward domesticity. Although the vast majority of pamphlet lit-
erature and imagery accusing Marie Antoinette of infidelity to Louis
would not circulate until the outbreak of the revolution, events such
as the birth of Angouleme and the prosecution of the participants in
the Diamond Necklace Scandal provided opportunities for members of
varying social estates to form a common narrative concerning the queen’s
unsuitability as wife to the sovereign. Throughout Marie Antoinette’s
marriage, her position as wife to the sovereign was delegitimized in the
public sphere, providing the foundation for the accusations she would
eventually face at her trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1793.

Henrietta Maria and Marie

Antoinette as Wives
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette experienced the transition from
princess to wife in different regions nearly one hundred and fifty years
apart but they both engaged with the trend toward affective marriage as
well as the ideological circumstances of their own lifetimes. Although
both brides were aware that their marriages had been arranged to pur-
sue specific foreign policy goals, they each recognized opportunities
to employ motifs of affective marriage to affirm the legitimacy and
popularity of their unions. Despite the continuing differences between
Charles and Henrietta Maria in matters such as religion and court
appointments, their shared interest in artistic patronage and public
displays of marital unity resulted in the dissemination of harmonious
imagery. These cultural depictions allowed Henrietta Maria to declare
her ascendancy over other court favorites and attempt to depoliticize
the religious divide between herself and her husband.
By Louis XVI’s reign, the trend toward affective marriage had evolved
from the chivalric and harmonious displays of the seventeenth century
to the late eighteenth century ideal of affective marriage, where hus-
band and wife shared common interests and enjoyed each other’s com-
pany in a distinct domestic sphere. Despite the political circumstances
 Wife of the King 119

of her marriage, Marie Antoinette sought a personally fulfilling mar-

riage in both the public and private realms. Accordingly, she engaged in
displays of contentment with her husband but complained bitterly in her
correspondence and conversation when the reality of her marriage did
not match the ideals she presented to observers at court. In her affinity
for the ideal marriage described in Enlightenment philosophy and the
sentimental literature she acquired for her library, she failed to recog-
nize the singularity of her position as a foreign queen at a court without
an official mistress.
Marie Antoinette’s inability to navigate the complicated position she
occupied as perceived consort and mistress to the king was a manifes-
tation of the way the intersection of affective marriage ideals with the
unique debates concerning the role of women in marriage undermined
the legitimacy of both queens. Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette
each faced accusations of insincerity, levelled within the emerging
public sphere because the realities of their marriages, as witnessed by
observers both inside and outside the court, did not appear to match
their professed devotion to the ideal of affective marriage. In England,
the Protestant mythology surrounding recusant wives made an affec-
tive marriage between a Protestant sovereign and a Roman Catholic
consort subversive. Protestants feared that Henrietta Maria’s willing-
ness to adapt to the traditional queenly prerogatives of intercession and
cultural patronage to her circumstances would threaten the supremacy
of the Church of England while Catholics were skeptical of her inclu-
sion of Puritans in her social circle. Henrietta Maria did not meet the
expectations of members of both religions.
For Marie Antoinette, the conflict between the conception of affec-
tive marriage within a distinct domestic sphere, which was particularly
favored by the urban bourgeoisie, and the reality of a dynastic mar-
riage at the apex of the French social hierarchy performed within the
public sphere of the French court undermined her legitimacy as queen
consort. While the queen viewed the circumstances of her marriage
through a personal lens, Louis’s subjects judged her according to the
political and social realities created by previous French royal unions,
and the distinct characteristics accorded to consorts and mistresses.
Strict royal censorship suppressed the circulation of most pamphlets
explicitly criticizing Marie Antoinette prior to the outbreak of revo-
lution but the public nature of such events as the wedding itself, the
birth of Angouleme, and the trials of the participants in the Diamond
Necklace Scandal provided opportunities for members of varying social
estates to form a common narrative concerning the queen’s shortcom-
ings as wife to the sovereign. The protracted childlessness of Louis’s
and Marie Antoinette’s marriage combined with the perception that
120 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the consort was behaving like a royal mistress fueled speculation con-
cerning her perceived infidelities and deception of the sovereign.
For Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette public displays of love
and harmony appeared insincere when contrasted with the complicated
realities of their union. Both women were members of foreign royal
houses who entered into dynastic marriages. Henrietta Maria belonged
to a different religious background than Charles and demanded unusual
autonomy over her household while Marie Antoinette belonged to a
royal house that had long been hostile to France, and often appeared
to be physically and temperamentally incompatible with Louis. Since
members of the public had ideas of marriage from their own experi-
ences, regardless of their social background, the manner in which each
queen fulfilled her duties as wife to the sovereign was the focus of
intense scrutiny.
The dialogue between each queen’s interpretation of her role as a wife
and the expectations of her husband’s subjects focused critical atten-
tion on the consort’s role within the framework of monarchical govern-
ment. The intersection between the personal and political provided
an opportunity for the legitimacy of the queen consort, and implicitly,
monarchical government itself to be questioned through analysis of the
royal marriage. Comparative analysis of the marriages of both queens
demonstrates the evolution of ideas of affective marriage from harmony
to true companionship, the expansion of the public sphere during the
same time and the universality of royal marriage as a means for ordinary
women to engage in political discourse.
 CHAPTER 4

MOTHER TO THE ROYAL

CHILDREN

T
he primary duty of a queen consort was the perpetuation
of the royal line through the birth of children, particularly
male heirs. The political, social, and ideological realities
of mid-seventeenth century England and Scotland and late eighteenth
century France, however, made the position of mother to the royal
children contentious for both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette.
During the reigns of Charles I and Louis XVI respectively, there were
alternate successors among the monarch’s siblings and extended fam-
ily whose positions were threatened by the birth of legitimate children
to the queen. For those who welcomed or accepted the birth of chil-
dren to Henrietta Maria or Marie Antoinette, the queen still faced
intense scrutiny as a mother because the ideology of the Reformation,
Counterreformation, and Enlightenment emphasized the importance
of maternal influence and education for children. Both queens there-
fore oversaw the upbringings of their children in environments fraught
with political, religious, and ideological tensions that threatened their
legitimacy as mothers to royal heirs.
The correspondence of both queens demonstrates that they were
aware of contemporary debates concerning the mother’s role in chil-
drearing and education. Unusually for royal mothers of the period,
whose children were in the care of an extensive nursery staff, they each
articulated a parenting philosophy in their letters. These approaches dif-
fered significantly from each other, reflecting the changes in attitudes
toward children that occurred between the mid-seventeenth century
and late eighteenth century. Both queens developed views that reflected
contemporary parenting trends but did not reflect the political realities
of their respective positions as mothers of royal heirs.
In her letters to King Louis XIII and Pope Urban VIII, written at the
time of her marriage, Henrietta Maria conformed to Counterreformation
parenting trends by stating that she would guarantee her children’s reli-
gious education personally through the appointment of Roman Catholic
122 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

attendants and tutors to their households.1 This intense personal inter-

est in her children’s religious education contrasted with the pre-Refor-
mation emphasis on the community as the main transmitter of religious
values and social norms to each generation of children.2 Royal children
often had experience residing in noble households during the Middle
Ages, learning from adults outside their immediate families.3 Henrietta
Maria would discover over the course of her marriage that Protestant
households were also intensely concerned with the questions of the
proper upbringing and religious education of children. Protestants
would express disapproval of any evidence that the royal heirs were
being exposed to Catholicism.
In other respects, Henrietta Maria’s interactions with her children
provided hints of innovative child-centered parenting within the frame-
work of the hierarchical parent–child relations of the mid-seventeenth
century. Henrietta Maria recorded observations of her children’s dis-
tinct personalities in her correspondence and appeared in the first paint-
ings portraying an English queen consort holding her young children.4
Nevertheless, she focused her attention on her children’s health, reli-
gious education, and future political roles rather than on their happiness.
Henrietta Maria also expected her children to display strict obedience
toward her wishes, even as adults. This hierarchical approach to mother-
hood was typical of Henrietta Maria’s time but would result in troubled
personal relationships with her adult children, particularly her sons.
The ideal relationship between parent and child and the perception
of the good mother underwent a significant transformation between
Henrietta Maria’s lifetime and that of Marie Antoinette. The ideologi-
cal currents that were disseminated during the late eighteenth century
did not invent the concept of childhood but instead altered perceptions
of what actions constituted desirable childrearing.5 While swaddling and
wet nursing were considered ideal methods of safeguarding a child’s health
in the seventeenth century, breastfeeding and free movement were prefer-
able in the eighteenth century. The ideal Enlightenment mother shaped
the citizen within the domestic sphere by actively engaging with her chil-
dren’s education and providing a strong moral example. Marie Antoinette
raised her children within a broader ideological debate concerning natural
behavior for a mother, and appropriate activities for a queen.
Marie Antoinette provided extensive summaries of her parenting
philosophy in her correspondence with Maria Theresa and the succes-
sive governesses to the Children of France, the Princess de Guéméné,
the Duchess de Polignac, and the Marquise de Tourzel. In common
with Henrietta Maria, Marie Antoinette recognized that her children
had distinct personalities but her parenting reflected the social and
ideological influences of her own milieu by expecting the governesses
 Mother to the Royal Children 123

and tutors to take these differences into account when disciplining or

educating them.6 Marie Antoinette also observed fashionable trends
in childrearing being practiced by other mothers in her social circle.7
In contrast to her immediate predecessors as queens of France, who
were interested in their children but comparatively removed from their
upbringing, Marie Antoinette engaged in such practices as breastfeed-
ing, and attempted to be in frequent physical proximity to her children.
While these practices were admirable for the ideal mothers described in
the works of Rousseau and his contemporaries, they were problematic
for a queen who had developed a reputation for extravagance, immo-
rality, and failure to conform to established court practices. The care
and education of the royal children, particularly her sons, Louis-Joseph
and Louis-Charles, became a matter of public interest and the close
involvement of Marie Antoinette in their upbringing appeared to be a
corrupting influence that would impede the development of a character
suitable for a virtuous king of France. The practices considered desir-
able for an aristocratic or bourgeois woman were not considered suit-
able for a queen. The creation of the domestic sphere necessary to the
practice of natural motherhood would remove the royal family from the
public gaze of the French court. For both Henrietta Maria and Marie
Antoinette, the role of mother to the royal children, which had success-
fully legitimized past queens consort, left them vulnerable to criticism.

Henrietta Maria: The Health and

Salvation of the Royal Children
Although there are fewer surviving records of the upbringing of
Henrietta Maria’s children, compared to the extensive documentation
of Marie Antoinette’s involvement in the nursery, there is sufficient evi-
dence to indicate that she spent time with her children and had clear
wishes concerning their care and education. Although Henrietta Maria
confidently stated in her correspondence with the papal representative
to the English court that she intended to raise her sons as Catholics as
late as the mid-1630s,8 her actual approach reflected a pragmatism dic-
tated by Charles’s insistence on Protestant baptisms and attendants for
his heirs, gradually shifting from an emphasis on their religious educa-
tion to the importance of obedience to their mother’s wishes.
Henrietta Maria’s initial philosophy concerning the upbringing
and education of her children was enshrined in her marriage contract,
the result of extensive diplomatic negotiations. The final draft of the
marriage contract stated, “The children, which shall by reason of the
said intermarriage be born and live shall be brought up . . . unto the said
Lady and Queen from the time of their birth until they do reach the
124 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

age of 13 years.”9 This clause does not explicitly state that the English
royal children would be baptized and educated as Roman Catholics but
Henrietta Maria’s letters demonstrate that she interpreted the marriage
contract in this manner and envisioned herself appointing attendants
who shared her faith.
The Puritan emphasis on parental inculcation of religious values
and widespread concern regarding the religious influence of recusant
women in otherwise conformist households ensured that the clause
would be interpreted by Charles’s Protestant subjects as ensuring a
Catholic succession. For Scots, entrusting the upbringing of heirs to
a queen would have appeared to be a foreign custom because the care
of both James VI and Charles I was entrusted to prominent members
of the nobility. The last Scottish queen to form a close relationship
with her child and make direct decisions concerning her upbring-
ing, education, and marriage was Marie of Guise.10 This precedent
placed Henrietta Maria within a tradition of politically active French
Catholic queens consort who threatened Presbyterian Scotland. In
both Scotland and England, the combination of a clause guaranteeing
the queen’s authority over the upbringing of her children combined
with a further clause preventing Charles from influencing his wife’s
religious beliefs appeared to diminish the king’s authority as a husband
and father over his own family.11
Despite this intense scrutiny of Henrietta Maria’s intentions as a
mother, she arranged for frequent personal contact with her young chil-
dren. A few weeks before the birth of the third surviving royal child,
James, Duke of York, in 1633, Secretary Edward Nicholas wrote to
Captain John Pennington, “The Queen expects a good hour for her deliv-
ery. The Prince comes from Richmond to Whitehall on Tuesday next to
continue till his mother be up.”12 Nicholas wrote again to Pennington
the next week, stating that both Prince Charles and the Lady Mary were
resident in their lodgings at Whitehall Palace.13 These letters indicate
that the royal children resided with their mother for nearly two consec-
utive months as Henrietta Maria would not have left her lying in cham-
ber until she was churched forty days after James’s birth, which took
place on October 14.14 The proximity of the two eldest children at the
time of her recovery from the birth of her third child demonstrates that
interaction between the queen and her young children was not as infre-
quent as biographers of her sons have asserted based on the existence of
separate royal households for the royal couple and their children.15
Henrietta Maria’s correspondence with her former governess,
Madame St. George, demonstrates that she found opportunities to
observe her children’s appearance and personality, particularly that of
her eldest surviving son. In 1631, Henrietta Maria wrote, “He is so ugly,
 Mother to the Royal Children 125

that I am ashamed of him, but his size and fatness supply the want of
beauty. I wish you could see the gentleman, for he has no ordinary mien;
he is so serious in all that he does, that I cannot help fancying him as far
wiser than myself.”16 The queen’s description of her dissatisfaction with
the young Prince’s appearance provides evidence of time spent with her
son as it is unlikely that the members of the baby’s household would
have described him in these terms to his royal parents. Her account of
the child’s seriousness “in all that he does” implies sustained observation
of the child’s development. Nevertheless, the actual day to day care and
education of the royal children was delegated to an extensive household
of attendants and tutors. In 1630, £5,000 were allocated for the mainte-
nance of Prince Charles’s household, which included a full staff of nurses
and cradle rockers under the supervision of the Countess of Dorset,
and a further £2,500 were allocated for the maintenance of Princess
Mary’s attendants the following year.17 By April of 1635, Charles, Mary,
and James had an ordinary allowance of £9,000, presumably reflecting
the increased expenses incurred by the hiring of tutors for the growing
children.18 Charles I’s treasurers complained of the vast sums required
to house, feed, and remunerate the royal children’s attendants19 but the
king and queen clearly considered this large household necessary to the
successful upbringing of princes and princesses.
The complexity of the upbringing of Henrietta Maria’s children,
in which their care and education were managed by a large household
of attendants but their mother was often in close proximity reflected
the diverse approaches to parenting previously adopted by the English,
Scottish and French royal families. In contrast to the similar attitudes
the Tudors and Stuarts displayed toward the public performance of
royal marriage, Charles’s predecessors had very different degrees of
involvement in the upbringing of their children. In England, Tudor
queens were closely involved in caring for their sons and daughters and
directing their education. Henry VII’s wife, Elizabeth of York, appears
to have devoted a great deal of personal attention to the upbringing of
her daughters and younger son, the future Henry VIII. Recent com-
parisons of Elizabeth’s handwriting to that of her children suggest that
she taught her three youngest to read and write.20 Henry VIII’s first
wife, Catherine of Aragon, gave her daughter Mary latin lessons, and
they demonstrated their close bond in their combined opposition to the
king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn.21 Henry’s sixth wife Catherine Parr
encouraged closer relations between her three stepchildren and the
king, and took personal charge of the education of the younger chil-
dren, the future Elizabeth I and Edward VI, ensuring that their tutelage
reflected her own Protestant religious sensibilities.22 The involvement
of Tudor royal mothers in childrearing was remarkably consistent,
126 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

suggesting that close relationships with their children and stepchildren

were important to each queen’s conception of her role.
In Scotland, the majority of Stewart queens had far less personal
involvement in the upbringing and education of their children.23 During
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a succession of Scottish monarchs
ascended the throne as minors and their care and tutelage was a matter
of state. The establishment of a separate household for Scottish royal
children, a considerable distance from that of their parents, was consid-
ered a necessary security consideration during a period when factional
conflict often led to the assassination of members of the ruling house.24
While the consort of James II, Marie of Guelders, successfully ruled as
regent for James III,25 and James V’s widow, Marie of Guise, retained
custody of the infant Queen Mary despite the existence of a regency
council, other Scottish queens consort were excluded from involve-
ment in the education and upbringing of their children. In his minority,
James V was forcibly removed from the custody of his mother, Margaret
Tudor, who was outraged as she expected to be as closely involved in
the upbringing of her children as her own mother had been during
her youth.26
During Charles’s own lifetime, his mother furiously opposed his
father’s decision to grant of custody of their eldest son Henry to the
Earls of Mar, who had raised him following the exile of his own mother,
Mary.27 In the same manner as Margaret Tudor, Anna had been raised
in a royal house where the queen exerted personal influence over the
upbringing of her children.28 Charles therefore emerged from a family
background in which his immediate antecedents, the Stuart monarchs,
established separate households for their children and entrusted their
upbringing and education to trusted deputies, but there were prece-
dents set by his English and Danish forebears for personal involvement
by royal mothers in various aspects of childrearing. The turmoil of the
Scottish monarchical succession and the paucity of heirs within the
Tudor dynasty created the antecedents for two contrasting models of
motherhood in Charles’s background.
Henrietta Maria experienced a hybrid of the approaches to maternal
involvement in royal childrearing practiced in England and Scotland. In
contrast to previous consorts, however, Henrietta Maria articulated a
parenting philosophy, reflecting the increased importance of parental
influence during the religious turmoil of the seventeenth century.29 In
a letter to Pope Urban VIII, written during her betrothal to Charles,
she wrote, “that if it please God to bless this marriage, and if he grant
me the favour to give me progeny, I will not choose any but Catholics
to nurse or educate the children who shall be born, or do any other ser-
vice for them, and will take care the officers who choose them be only
 Mother to the Royal Children 127

Catholics.”30 Henrietta Maria expressed the same intentions concern-

ing her future children in a letter to her brother, Louis XIII, written
at the time of her marriage.31 These letters demonstrate that she was
not only concerned with her degree of involvement in the upbringing of
her future children but the nature of her influence over their care and
education. Her concern with the Catholicism of her future children’s
attendants reflected the tensions created by a cross-confessional mar-
riage and the Counterreformation emphasis on parental influence on
religious education that may have been reinforced by her mother’s use
of Marian imagery.32 Although previous consorts had involved them-
selves in decisions concerning the care and education of their children,
the religious climate of the mid-seventeenth century increased the per-
ceived significance of attentive parenting.
Henrietta Maria was childless during the first five years of her mar-
riage. She modified her stance concerning her marriage and household
before she was compelled to compromise her parenting philosophy.
Despite the conflicts she experienced with Charles in the late 1620s
concerning her servants, which often resulted in the royal couple
inhabiting separate living quarters,33 there is evidence that she was
concerned by the absence of children within her troubled marriage. In
July 1627, the Venetian ambassador reported, “The queen has gone to
Wellingborough, 150 miles away, to drink some mineral waters, which
facilitate generation, as with no signs of anything in more than two
years people naturally begin to comment on the matter.”34 The marriage
between her own parents had only occurred because of the annulment
of Henry IV’s first marriage to the childless Marguerite de Valois so
Henrietta Maria would have been acutely aware of the threat infertility
posed to the legitimacy of her marriage.
The childlessness that preoccupied Henrietta Maria in the late 1620s
did not last and she ultimately gave birth nine times over the course
of her marriage. Her second daughter Elizabeth recorded the birthdays
and birthplaces of each of her siblings, writing:

Prince Charles born at Greenwich, May 15, 1629/ Prince Charles born at
St. James, May 29, 1630/ Princess Mary born at St. James, November 4,
1631/ James, Duke of York, born at St. James, October 14, 1633/ Princess
Elizabeth born at St. James, December 29, 1635/ Princess Anne born at St
James, March 17, 1636/ Princess Katharine born at Whitehall, June 29,
1639/ Henry, Duke of Gloucester, born at Oatlands, July 8, 1640/ Princess
Henrietta, born at Exeter, June 16, 1644.35

Elizabeth significantly records the arrival of every child, listing

the birthday of the first Prince Charles, who was born two months
128 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

prematurely and died at birth, Katharine, who lived for only a few
hours, and Anne, who died at age three. This evidence of continued
memory of the siblings who died in infancy or early childhood reflects
Charles I’s and Henrietta Maria’s attachment to all their children and
the demonstration of these feelings to their surviving offspring. Despite
the large size of the royal family, which had not been equaled in England
since the reign of Edward IV in the fifteenth century, and the high
infant mortality rate during this period, both Charles I and Henrietta
Maria expressed grief when they lost children in infancy and sought to
memorialize them.
When Katharine died at birth in 1639, the Venetian ambassador
wrote, “The queen gave birth to a princess on Sunday, but after only
one hour of the miseries of this world, God called her back to Heaven,
to the deep grief of her mother, who is now quite well, after some pain-
ful experiences.”36 The sudden death of Anne, the following year, also
occurred “to the intense grief of their Majesties.”37 Charles and Henrietta
Maria not only mourned their daughters privately but attempted to
ensure they would remain in the popular consciousness after their
deaths. Following Katharine’s death, the king and queen commissioned
a commemorative volume memorializing their daughter’s brief life.38
This gesture reflected the broader seventeenth century English prac-
tice among the nobility and literate townspeople of commemorating
the deaths of infant children through written elegies and verse.39 The
publication demonstrates that Henrietta Maria engaged with emerging
trends concerning maternal attitudes to children and attempted to pres-
ent herself to Charles’s subjects in a manner that conformed to their
expectations of virtuous motherhood.
Henrietta Maria was uncomfortable with the traditions surround-
ing royal births in her adopted country and attempted to introduce
innovations utilized by her own mother to ensure her own health and
that of her infants. The most significant was the employment of her
mother’s midwife, Madame Peronne, to deliver her children along-
side Charles’s trusted physician, Theodore Mayerne.40 In contrast to
England, where professional accreditation was reserved for male physi-
cians, there were schools for midwives in France, providing the queen’s
midwife with a degree of professional authority unknown to English
female birth attendants.41 Peronne, who frequently traveled around
Europe to deliver all Marie de Medici’s grandchildren, had not yet
arrived in England when the queen went into premature labor with the
first Prince Charles in 1629.
Henrietta Maria’s reliance on Peronne was not understood by her
husband’s subjects at that time42 because of the increased prestige of
male doctors during this period. The queen was widely ridiculed for
 Mother to the Royal Children 129

her anxiety when her midwife was captured by Dutch privateers during
her journey to attend the birth of the second Prince Charles in 1630.
According to the Venetian ambassador, “The news moved the queen to
tears . . . It caused so much disturbance that one of the lords here, laugh-
ing at their weakness, remarked to me that they were more upset at
court than if they had lost a fleet.”43 This dismissive attitude regarding
Peronne’s importance changed after her release, when she successfully
delivered the heir and received a substantial monetary award for her ser-
vices from the king.44 By the birth of the third surviving royal child,
James, there were English celebratory odes dedicated to Peronne, 45 and
the midwife managed to secure parliamentary permission to deliver
the queen’s youngest child in Exeter, alongside Mayerne, during the
English Civil Wars.46 Although Peronne’s fame as a midwife does not
appear to have increased professional opportunities for English female
birth attendants, or reversed the trend toward the presence of male doc-
tors in elite birthing chambers, her prominence at Henrietta Maria’s
deliveries was accepted, and she became part of the public image of the
queen’s maternity.
The images Charles and Henrietta Maria commissioned of their
surviving children also demonstrated an interest in emerging concep-
tions of domesticity, and the ideal of direct parental involvement in
childrearing. In common with the volume commemorating Katharine,
paintings depicting the royal couple and their children as an intercon-
nected family group followed elite English trends concerning pub-
lic depictions of family life. 47 The depiction of Henrietta Maria and
her children in portraiture, most notably the work of Anthony Van
Dyck and Hendrik Pot, departed from previous depictions of royal
consorts, showing the queen in the apolitical role of demonstrative
mother. Henrietta Maria maintained a close interest in the manner
in which she and her children were depicted in portraits throughout
Charles’s reign, often sending images of her children as gifts to for-
eign sovereigns and requesting reciprocal paintings of their children. 48
Van Dyck and Pot both painted Henrietta Maria holding one of her
children with gestures of loving intimacy between mother and child.
In Pot’s 1632 painting, “Charles I and Henrietta Maria with their son
Charles, Prince of Wales,” the queen is portrayed holding the hand of
her infant son, who sits on a table bearing state regalia.49 Van Dyck’s
1632 “Greate Peece” projects a similar tableau of maternal solicitude
in the presence of the king and the symbols of monarchical govern-
ment. The young Charles stands next to a table bearing the crown and
scepter with his hands on his father’s knee while the infant Mary is
shown in Henrietta Maria’s arms, her fingers intertwined with those
of her mother.50 Through these innovative royal portraits, the queen’s
130 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

involvement in her children’s upbringing appears to be evidence of a

loving bond instead of political and religious intrigue. 51
Charles I’s determination to ensure a Protestant succession com-
pelled Henrietta Maria to compromise the parenting philosophy she
developed during her betrothal. Prince Charles was baptized as a mem-
ber of the Church of England and the Scottish Catholic nurse appointed
by Henrietta Maria, the Countess of Roxburgh, was quickly replaced by
the Protestant Countess of Dorset. At the age of eight, the young prince
was entrusted to the tutelage of the Protestant William Cavendish, Earl
of Newcastle, who drew up an educational program for their heir that
did not provide a role for his mother in his upbringing, encouraging
only a general courtesy toward women.52 Henrietta Maria was permit-
ted to implement her parenting philosophy to a greater degree with her
younger children, appointing Catholics, including Roxburgh, to their
households.53 In her interactions with all her children, she emphasized
her concern for their health, salvation, and realization of their political
potential, insisting on their obedience to her authority. Her only surviv-
ing letter to her eldest son before the outbreak of the English Civil Wars
stated, “I hear that you will not take physic, I hope it was only for this
day and tomorrow you will do it for if you will not I must come to you
and make you take it for it is for your health that I have given order to
my lord Newcastle to send me word tonight whether you will or not.”54
While the existence of this letter and Henrietta Maria’s willingness to
visit her son to ensure her wishes are followed provides evidence of a per-
sonal relationship between mother and son, the queen’s goal as a mother
was to ensure her son’s obedience to her wishes.55 As the children grew
older, she attempted to ensure their obedience to her wishes regarding
their marriages, political activities, and religious faith.
Henrietta Maria was neither the primary caregiver for her children
or an uninvolved parent. The queen took her relationship with her chil-
dren and the public performance of her role as mother of Charles’s heirs
seriously. She had a broad range of precedents to inform her approach to
motherhood as recent Stuart consorts had little contact with their chil-
dren while their Tudor counterparts played an active role in childrear-
ing. The experiences of this diverse range of predecessors, as well as her
own mother’s example, are reflected in Henrietta Maria’s parenting as
she displayed a close attachment to all her children and an interest in
their individual personalities while ultimately entrusting their primary
care to their households and expecting them to display strict obedience
to her wishes. Concurrent to this actual relationship between Henrietta
Maria and her children was the commissioning of portraits and com-
memorative volumes that emphasized the desirability of close interper-
sonal relationships within the royal family by employing popular motifs
 Mother to the Royal Children 131

of affective motherhood. The religious, political, and gender ideology of

mid-seventeenth century England, however, would preclude the accep-
tance of a Roman Catholic French queen as a dominant influence over
the upbringing and education of the royal children.

Henrietta Maria: The Threat of a

Roman Catholic Succession
Public responses to Henrietta Maria’s maternity were intertwined with
interest in the position of Charles’s sister, Elizabeth, and her husband
the former King Frederick of Bohemia, whose lands had been devas-
tated by Imperial forces at the outset of the Thirty Years’ War. When
Henrietta Maria became queen, the popular Elizabeth was heir to
the throne, a circumstance that prompted a broad range of reactions
to the queen’s fertility, encompassing both disappointment and reluc-
tant acceptance. In common with Marie Antoinette, Henrietta Maria’s
motherhood undermined the political interests of a potential alternate
heir and that figure’s supporters, complicating widespread acceptance
of her legitimacy as mother of the king’s heirs. While royal births had
always disadvantaged reversionary lines of succession, the religious cli-
mate of mid-seventeenth century England gave alternate heirs increased
legitimacy at the expense of the queen.
From the first negotiations for Charles’s marriage, diplomatic cor-
respondence framed the potential religious and political significance
of his future children within the context of Elizabeth’s place in the suc-
cession. During discussion of the Spanish match, the Venetian ambas-
sador immediately envisioned rivalry within the royal family, writing
that English Catholics “have equal hopes of [Charles I’s] offspring under
their mother’s education, who would find it easy to instil suspicion and
jealousy of the Palatine’s children, as competitors for the crown with
the help of heretics.”56 Before Henrietta Maria became Charles’s wife,
her potential to become the mother of royal heirs was already consid-
ered a threat to the political interests of Elizabeth. The “heretics” who
supported the eventual succession of the former queen of Bohemia
and her children represented a broad cross-section of Protestants who
believed that Charles’s sister would guarantee the supremacy of the
Church of England.
The protracted childlessness of the royal marriage allowed Elizabeth
to occupy the position of acknowledged heir to the English and Scottish
thrones from 1625 to 1630. Although Frederick, Elizabeth, and their
children resided in the Netherlands, their reputation as defenders of
the Protestant Bohemians against the Catholic Holy Roman Empire
132 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

made them a politically significant force within England and Scotland.

Elizabeth’s children were aware that they were potential successors
to a childless Charles and attempted to maintain his favor and that of
Henrietta Maria. In 1628, Elizabeth’s eldest son Frederick Henry wrote
a courteous letter to Henrietta Maria inquiring after her health.57 The
prince significantly signed this document, “Your Majesties most obe-
dient son and servant—Fredrick Henry”58 revealing that he wished to
be thought of as a son, and potentially an heir, by the childless English
royal couple. The births of successive royal children in the 1630s less-
ened the perception of Elizabeth and her children as alternate heirs
but the marks of favor they received from Charles and Henrietta Maria
remained a popular means of assessing the royal couple’s commitment
to Protestantism.
In this political climate, the birth of the future Charles II in 1630
provoked a broad range of responses from Charles’s subjects, prefiguring
the opposition to the motherhood of Mary of Modena at the end of the
seventeenth century. The Venetian ambassador reported, “while there
were no children, the people themselves clamoured for [Elizabeth],
in the hope of having her one day as their mistress.”59 There were also
reports of Puritans refusing to join the celebrations in honor of Prince
Charles’s birth because they believed that God had already provided for
the succession in the person of Elizabeth.60 One of Elizabeth’s supporters
attempted to spread a rumor that Henrietta Maria had been betrothed
to another prince prior to her marriage, and her children were therefore
illegitimate.61 He was arrested for seditious speech and rumors concern-
ing the legitimacy of the royal children did not regain popular currency
until the impeachment of the queen during the English Civil Wars.62
The perception of the king’s sister as a possible and desirable heir,
however, continued to shape popular perceptions of the queen as a
mother. When Archbishop William Laud introduced controversial
liturgical changes during the 1630s, the removal of Elizabeth and her
children from the prayers for the royal family disturbed Protestant
worshippers. In 1637, a speech delivered in the Star Chamber criticized
Laud’s reforms for numerous reasons including, “The sixth innovation
is that the Lady Elizabeth and her Princely children are dashed (that’s
their phrase) out of the new collect, whereas they were in the collect of
the former book.”63 As will be discussed in the following chapter, the
continued popularity of Elizabeth and her children, and their perceived
desirability as royal heirs influenced criticism of Henrietta Maria as a
mother during the English Civil Wars and contributed to the political
conditions of her impeachment.
At the same time, the novelty of a royal birth on English soil
attracted widespread attention and provided the impetus for popular
 Mother to the Royal Children 133

celebrations. Despite the expressed support for Elizabeth’s succession

rights while Henrietta Maria was childless, Catholics and Protestants
in both England and Scotland recognized that the birth of a direct male
heir followed historical precedents and appeared to ensure future politi-
cal stability. Sir Simond d’Ewes wrote, “The young Prince of Scotland
and Duke of Cornwall is the royal object of a more certain relation being
the first Prince born in England since the year 1537, the 29th year of
King Henry VIII and may if God send life succeed in time upon his cre-
ation Prince of Wales.”64 This comparison placed Prince Charles’s birth
within the broader context of English monarchical government, implic-
itly legitimizing Henrietta Maria’s position as mother to royal heirs.
Since nearly a century had passed since Edward VI’s birth, the proto-
col for an English royal christening was not widely known65 and research
concerning the relevant precedents was undertaken by the royal house-
hold.66 Outside the court, the country nobility were the first to learn of
the birth of the new prince through official announcements conveyed
by messenger and their networks of correspondence. Lord Poulett
wrote to Secretary Dorchester on June 6, 1630, that he “Presently gave
signs of joy to his neighbours by bells bonfire and public thanksgiving.
They followed his example in expressions of gladness.”67 The detail con-
cerning the nature and scope of the celebrations in a letter to Charles
I’s secretary suggests that the royal couple were interested to know how
the birth was received outside the capital, and were inclined to favor
those who led the celebrations.
The celebratory verses dedicated to Henrietta Maria upon the
births of her three eldest children suggest the primary impetus for
favorable perceptions of the queen as a mother was the stability her
childbearing brought to the succession. These odes reflected a long
tradition of celebratory material commissioned to glorify the queen
consort’s virtue and motherhood.68 Henrietta Maria’s involvement
in the care and education of these children was only desirable to the
degree that it would further the interests of the state. Prior to Prince
Charles’s birth “A Thankesgiving and Prayer for the safe child-bear-
ing of the Queens Majestie” stated, “since lineall succession is under
thee the great security of Kingdomes, and the very life of peace: Wee
therefore give thee most humble and hearty thankes for the great
blessing.”69 This official prayer is dedicated to the queen but reduces
her role to a means for ensuring the succession, in contrast to the
active role she envisioned for herself.
Despite the existence of clauses in the marriage contract granting
her control over the upbringing of her young children, Charles’s sub-
jects were encouraged to view the queen’s motherhood in largely imper-
sonal terms. The prayer concludes, “Lord make her a happy mother
134 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

of successful children, to the increase of thy Glory, the comfort of his

Majestie, the joy of her owne heart, the safety of the State, and the pres-
ervation of the Church and true Religion amongst us.”70 While the ref-
erence to Henrietta Maria’s personal joy reflects the increased perceived
importance of the relationship between parents and children following
the Reformation, the emphasis on Church and State has the effect of
depersonalizing the queen’s motherhood and obscuring her intention to
raise her issue as Roman Catholics.
Scrutiny of the consequences of Henrietta Maria occupying the role
of mother to the royal children continued as the ruling family expanded
throughout the 1630s. The financial burden created by the establish-
ment of the children’s households was considered unfortunate and
directly connected to the rapid expansion of the royal family. The births
of the first few children may have appeared to ensure political stabil-
ity but the arrivals of the youngest prince and additional princesses
appear to have inspired little popular enthusiasm. The dispatches of the
Venetian ambassador suggest that while the birth of an heir and a cou-
ple of younger children appeared to ensure stability, a large royal family
could increase the potential for political unrest. When the fourth child,
Elizabeth, was born in 1635, he wrote, “The generality are more pleased
than if it had been a boy, because girls ensure posterity as much as boys,
and the kingdom is relieved of the danger to which states sometimes
succumb from there being too many princes of the blood royal.”71 There
were precedents for political instability emerging from large royal
families. Edward III’s numerous descendants fought the Wars of the
Roses and the Tudors regarded the surviving members of the previous
Plantagenet dynasty as dangerous to their claim to the throne.72 The
continued expansion of the royal family did not increase the queen’s
popularity because a large number of princes and princesses meant
greater household expenses and the threat of future conflict between
powerful siblings.
The queen’s reputation also suffered because the royal edicts
accompanying the births of her children that were intended to allevi-
ate suffering among Charles’s subjects, such as amnesties for prisoners,
were not successfully enforced. In contrast, the arrival of each succes-
sive royal child appeared to increase Henrietta Maria’s influence over
the state as a Roman Catholic and a representative of the French royal
family. In common with Marie Antoinette, motherhood appeared to
provide her with the influence to pursue political goals against the
interests of a large proportion of her husband’s subjects. Successful
childbearing provided an opportunity for criticism of each queen’s
position within her family that implicitly questioned her legitimacy as
mother of the royal children.
 Mother to the Royal Children 135

During the celebrations in honor of Prince Charles’s birth, Charles I

issued a general amnesty for prisoners in his kingdoms, allowing those
convicted of such crimes as theft or assault to escape execution and
regain their freedom. This amnesty provided Henrietta Maria with an
opportunity to practice a more traditional method of queenly interces-
sion, utilizing her position as a wife and mother to alleviate the position
of Charles’s most disadvantaged subjects. The petitions addressed to
Charles after he granted the general pardon, however, demonstrate that
the amnesty was not successfully enforced and Henrietta Maria did not
take advantage of this opportunity to engage in political activity that
would enhance her reputation among Protestants.
These documents were addressed to the king alone, which revealed
the absence of the queen’s perceived involvement in this magnanimous
gesture. On September 24, 1630, Ellen Charlton of Bower, Northampton,
addressed a petition to the king stating, “By violence of heavy prosecu-
tors, her sons John Charlton and Thomas Charlton, have been cast for
pretended thefts of two mares, and the petitioner is in danger of questions
as an accessory. Prays they may enjoy the general pardon granted on the
birth of the Prince.”73 Charlton’s second petition reveals that although
her sons were granted this pardon, they were nevertheless executed by
local authorities and her own life was in danger despite also being eli-
gible for the amnesty.74 The Charlton case was not an isolated example
of the royal amnesty being declared but not enforced by local authori-
ties. By 1631, Charles was the recipient of petitions from the inmates of
numerous English gaols who complained that town clerks and clerks of
assize would not advance individual cases for the amnesty unless the
prisoners had the means to reward them for honoring this pardon.75 The
multitude of petitions from intended recipients of the amnesty demon-
strates that this edict was not successfully enforced, depriving the royal
couple of an opportunity to publicly equate Henrietta Maria’s moth-
erhood with royal largess. The absence of the queen’s involvement in
resolving these disputes would have reinforced the perception that her
intercessory actions were restricted to her coreligionists.
In contrast to the failure of the general pardon honoring Prince
Charles’s birth, Henrietta Maria’s perceived involvement in political
and religious initiatives that appeared to be harmful to the state and
the Church of England unfolded before the public gaze. She appeared
to be using her time with her children to introduce them to Roman
Catholicism, against the wishes of Protestants, including the king. In
1634, John How, vicar of Loughborough, was suspended from his min-
istry and fined 5,00l for publicly praying during his sermons, “that the
young prince, meaning prince Charles, might not be brought up in pop-
ery, whereof there was great cause to fear.”76 Despite Charles I’s efforts
136 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

to ensure that his subjects were aware that his heir would be baptized
and raised Protestant, Henrietta Maria invited controversy by including
her family in her religious devotions when they visited her residences.77
The queen’s involvement in the upbringing of the royal children dur-
ing Charles I’s period of personal rule influenced the decisions of the
1640 parliament, which demanded the princes and princesses remain in
a separate household than that of their mother.78
The births of the royal children also appeared to inspire amnes-
ties for Roman Catholic priests, which appeared to be more widely
enforced than the general pardons for prisoners. The Capuchin Friars
who staffed the queen’s chapels celebrated the births of royal children
because her fertility appeared to alleviate the sanctions against Roman
Catholic worship. The Franciscan order recorded that Charles initially
attempted to limit attendance at Catholic houses of worship in London,
particularly the queen’s chapel at Somerset house, “But the Queen being
not long after delivered of a young son: third proclamation raised so that
the chapels not only of the Queen but of the Catholic Ambassadors also
from day to day were by numbers of people frequented.”79 While the
amnesties for prisoners in honor of Prince Charles’s birth were not effec-
tively implemented, conditions for Catholics and those curious about
the queen’s faith appeared to improve when royal births occurred. This
contrast reinforced the Protestant perception that Henrietta Maria was
only willing to utilize her intercessory prerogatives as queen consort on
behalf of Catholics and that her maternity adversely affected the inter-
ests of Protestants.
In common with Marie Antoinette, Henrietta Maria’s mother-
hood was viewed by the diplomatic corps of the period as an oppor-
tunity for the queen to increase her political influence. In the realm
of foreign policy, the happy event of the birth of an heir to Charles I
and nephew to Louis XIII appeared to be an opportunity for lasting
peace between England and France without either sovereign appear-
ing to make concessions to his counterpart. The Venetian ambassador
observed in 1630, “They speak openly here about the peace between
England and France . . . The French ambassador has no news from his
Court on the subject, but seems to believe it. He remarked to me that
the pregnancy of the Queen of England had given a great impulse to
this reconciliation.”80 Through motherhood, Henrietta Maria had the
potential to alleviate the conflicts between the kingdom of her birth
and that of her marriage.
While the symbolism provided by a fertile queen in a harmonious
marriage was significant to diplomatic negotiations between England
and France, the births of numerous children to Henrietta Maria pro-
vided little opportunity for her to directly influence Charles’s policies
 Mother to the Royal Children 137

prior to the outbreak of the English Civil Wars. Marie Antoinette also
did not fulfill the political potential envisioned by the foreign diplo-
matic corps until the outbreak of the French Revolution. Despite the
perceived acceptance of public attendance at the queen’s chapel in the
aftermath of royal births, Henrietta Maria’s motherhood did not allow
her to facilitate official toleration for Catholics. The evolution of her
parenting philosophy revealed the limits imposed on her political influ-
ence despite the births of numerous healthy children. Her perceived
influence during the 1630s exceeded her actual ability to pursue her
political and religious goals.
The experiences of previous queens consort indicated that the birth
of children to Henrietta Maria should have cemented her legitimacy
and invited the approval of Charles I’s subjects. Elizabeth of Bohemia
appeared to represent a stable Protestant succession, however, whereas
Henrietta Maria’s intentions and the clauses of her marriage contract
appeared to indicate that her children had the potential to threaten
the supremacy of the Church of England. Prince Charles’s birth was
nevertheless greeted with a certain degree of enthusiasm because of
the positive precedents provided by lineal succession, the novelty of an
heir’s birth on English soil, and the potential for the birth to serve as an
occasion for royal largess, including amnesties for prisoners. Henrietta
Maria’s motherhood did not fulfill these expectations because only
Catholics and their priests appeared to benefit from the royal largess
that accompanied the birth. Despite Charles I’s attempts to affirm the
Protestant upbringing of his children and curtail Henrietta Maria’s
ability to achieve her political and religious goals, the role of the queen
as mother to the royal children attracted popular scrutiny and criticism.
In common with Marie Antoinette, Henrietta Maria discovered that
motherhood, the traditional means by which a queen consort gained
legitimacy and acceptance, instead increased popular hostility to her
place within the royal family.

Marie Antoinette: Natural Childrearing

In 1789, Marie Antoinette wrote lengthy instructions to her children’s
new governess, the Marquise de Tourzel, which included the reflection,
“One had always accustomed my children to have great confidence in me,
and when they were in the wrong, they had to tell me themselves. When
they were scolded, I looked more pained and afflicted with what they
had done than angry.”81 This letter had a very different tone and content
than Henrietta Maria’s description of her eldest surviving son in 1631.
Marie Antoinette’s recognition of her children’s distinct personalities
and emotional needs reflect the influence of Enlightenment ideals of
138 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

domesticity, which became popular among the nobility and urban bour-
geoisie during the late eighteenth century. Henrietta Maria and Marie
Antoinette did not, however, become mothers on opposite sides of a
revolution concerning parental attitudes toward children but instead
formulated their parenting philosophies along a continuum. During
the same period in which affective marriage increasingly became the
ideal relationship between men and women, close maternal involvement
in childrearing and tailoring parental practices to the personalities of
individual children became crucial elements of the domestic sphere.
The similarities and differences between the attitudes displayed by
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette toward their children provide
evidence of changing parenting ideals between their lifetimes.
In common with each queen’s attitude toward the success of her mar-
riage, Henrietta Maria was content to present the motifs of a close rela-
tionship between mother and child while Marie Antoinette expected
to be closely involved with the process of childrearing in practice.
Henrietta Maria spent substantial periods of time in the same residence
as her children and recognized that they had distinct personalities but
the evolution of her approach to motherhood reflected the political and
religious parameters imposed by her relationship with Charles. In con-
trast, Marie Antoinette became a mother with the intention of becom-
ing personally involved in the upbringing of her children, responding
to their individual personalities and shielding them from the con-
straints created by their social status. The opposition that the queen
encountered from the French court did not result in any change to her
parenting. Marie Antoinette’s determination to behave as mother to
her children according to Enlightenment conceptions of domesticity
remained constant throughout her marriage.
Marie Antoinette emerged from her own childhood with the per-
ception that her motherhood encompassed both public and private
dimensions. In the manner of Maria Theresa, Marie Antoinette
expected to exert political influence as mother of the royal children
but privately raise them according to the domestic ideals popularized
by such writers as Rousseau. The empress distrusted the influence of
Enlightenment writers but her domestic life bore numerous similari-
ties to Rousseau’s conception of natural childrearing. In his writings on
what he perceived to be ideal family life, he argued that women natu-
rally found happiness and fulfillment through personal involvement in
the upbringing of their children, believing that such public pursuits as
political activity should remain a masculine preserve.82 Many of Marie
Antoinette’s subjects, however, expected all their queen’s actions to
occur in the public sphere, following ideals of the submissive wife and
involved mother. The perception that politically active royal mothers
 Mother to the Royal Children 139

endangered the interests of the French people meant that the queen’s
attempts to exert authority undermined her reputation.
The most recent literature concerning perceptions of the French
royal nursery does not attempt to probe the queen’s motives, stating,
“The Queen often lamented that her mother, the Austrian Empress
Maria Theresa had been a remote figure, and for reasons that remain
unclear, she resolved to be a very different kind of parent.”83 Recent
French scholarship highlights evidence of the queen making decisions
recognizing the political significance of her motherhood, such as pub-
licly praying for a Dauphin after the birth of her eldest daughter, while
treating her personal relations with her children as comparatively insig-
nificant.84 Placing Marie Antoinette within the context of her cultural
milieu illuminates her reasoning and the importance of her domestic
activities to her reputation in the public sphere. The queen’s formula-
tion of a parenting philosophy reflective of Enlightenment ideals of
domesticity and her steadfast adherence to the implementation of these
ideals is crucial to the understanding of the dialogue between Marie
Antoinette and the expectations of Louis XVI’s subjects.
In Emile, which was one of numerous educational treatises circulat-
ing during the late eighteenth century, Rousseau detailed the education
of what he perceived to be a natural woman. Emile’s eventual spouse,
Sophie, spends her childhood under the supervision of her mother, learn-
ing the domestic skills necessary for her eventual marriage.85 Sophie
must learn to be obedient to male authority because her livelihood and
self-respect will eventually depend on her husband.86 Rousseau envisions
the eventual marriage as the union of two products of a noncoercive
education in which both parties instinctively sought a natural hierarchy.
Since he believed that maternity was every woman’s natural vocation,
he condemned all childrearing techniques that separated mothers from
their children such as wet nursing, swaddling, coercive discipline, and
formal education during early childhood.87
Rousseau’s ideals were influential within the queen’s cultural milieu.
Nevertheless, Marie Antoinette envisioned a clear separation between a
private sphere, where she would operate as a submissive wife and mother
and a public sphere where she might exercise political influence over
her husband. In Emile, Rousseau argued that his conception of the fam-
ily was impervious to criticism because it reflected natural law instead
of human prejudice. He wrote, “Women do wrong to complain of the
inequality of man-made laws; this inequality is not of man’s making, or at
any rate it is not the result of mere prejudice but of reason. She to whom
nature has entrusted the care of the children must hold herself respon-
sible for them to their father.”88 Despite the emphasis Emile placed on
feminine subordination, the work was popular with women as it gave
140 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

them cultural, moral, and intellectual authority within the domestic

sphere and social respect through their roles as wives and mothers.89
French society also expected the structure of authority within the royal
family to mirror this conception of natural law. Marie Antoinette’s pop-
ularity therefore depended on the impression that she was submissive to
her husband’s leadership, confining her activities to the upbringing of
her children without displays of independent political ambition.
Marie Antoinette’s degree of familiarity with the actual text of
Rousseau’s works concerning childrearing is unknown. The records
of the queen’s librarian, M. Campan,90 do not reference the purchase
of any works by this author91 and the catalogue of her private library
at Petit Trianon only includes his plays,92 although she did collect the
complete works of other Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire.93
The absence of Rousseau’s works from these documents does not pre-
clude Marie Antoinette’s exposure to Emile through alternate chan-
nels. When Joseph II conversed with Campan during his 1777 visit to
Versailles, they talked “of our most celebrated authors,”94 a category that
would have included Rousseau at that time. Louis XVI’s library con-
tained more intellectual works than that of his wife, creating another
opportunity for her to be directly exposed to Enlightenment thought.
After Rousseau died in 1778, the queen participated in a pilgrimage to
his grave site, a fashionable activity among the noble and bourgeois
women who embraced his ideals of domesticity.95
Regardless of whether Marie Antoinette read Rousseau firsthand, she
clearly identified herself with Rousseau’s philosophies concerning moth-
erhood and domesticity despite the uniqueness of her position as mother
of the royal children. A few months before her eldest daughter, Marie-
Thérèse, was born, the queen explained to Maria Theresa, “In the man-
ner they are brought up now, they are far less uncomfortable. They are not
swaddled; they are always in a basket or in the arms and the moment they
are able to be outside, they are accustomed to it little by little, and end up
being there always. I believe this is the healthiest and best way to raise
them.”96 Although Emile had been published during Marie Antoinette’s
own childhood in Vienna, in 1762, his ideals concerning childrearing were
already, “the manner they are brought up now” when her first child was
born in 1778. The queen’s praise of freedom of movement for young chil-
dren undoubtedly reflected the enthusiasm of her social circle.97 Whereas
Henrietta Maria was primarily concerned with their religious education
and obedience, Marie Antoinette sought the best way to raise her children
as happy, healthy individuals. The queen’s unique status is notably absent
from Marie Antoinette’s justification of her parenting philosophy.
Marie Antoinette’s reaction to the birth of her daughter indicates
that she also sought personal fulfillment through close involvement in
 Mother to the Royal Children 141

children’s upbringing. Jeanne Campan wrote that when the queen first
saw the infant princess, she stated, “A son would have been the property
of the state. You shall be mine: you shall have my undivided care, shall
share all my happiness, and console me in all my troubles.”98 Although
Marie Antoinette expressed the expected disappointment by publicly
praying to Saint Genevieve for a dauphin following the Paris thanks-
giving celebrations for Marie-Thérèse’s birth,99 her close involvement in
her daughter’s upbringing suggests that Campan accurately recounted
the queen’s actual emotions. Following the birth of Louis-Joseph in 1781,
Marie Antoinette rejected established precedents for the education of
French royal children by placing Marie-Thérèse under her personal
tutelage.100 This action mirrored Rousseau’s argument that mothers
should be solely responsible for the education of their female children101
but challenged the court convention that royal princesses be instructed
by their governesses or other nonfamilial figures.102
At the same time, the births of children appeared to facilitate Marie
Antoinette’s influence in the political realm through her status as
mother to the royal children. In February 1781, two months before a
public announcement of Marie Antoinette’s second pregnancy, Mercy-
Argenteau noted that if the rumors circulating at court were correct,
“This circumstance, so desired and so happy, will add a great weight to
the influence and the credit of the Queen.”103 In October, the heavily
pregnant queen followed Mercy-Argenteau’s suggestion that she should
pressure her husband to make peace with Great Britain. Joseph II
feared French involvement in the American Revolution would upset the
balance of power in Europe and prevent France from assisting with his
own goal of regaining the Austrian Netherlands.104
Mercy-Argenteau wrote to Joseph of his success advising Marie
Antoinette, stating, “The Queen enjoys her perfect health and great
credit. She lends herself to these entreaties, which I have sometimes
made conversation with her about, with the political matters of the
King.”105 This letter demonstrates that Marie Antoinette understood
that the impending birth of her second child increased her potential
for influence over Louis’s policies. The prospect of a healthy delivery
of a possible heir gave her the confidence to request political conces-
sions from the secure position of matriarch to the direct royal line. In
common with Henrietta Maria, Marie Antoinette’s actual political
influence remained comparatively insignificant until the outbreak of
political upheaval but motherhood increased her own opinion of her
status as a potential advisor to the sovereign.
Marie Antoinette combined her political ambitions with a desire for
privacy and personal involvement in her children’s upbringing. When
the time arrived for her confinement with Louis-Joseph, she challenged
142 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the tradition that royal births should occur before interested members
of the court and the public. Instead, she gave birth before a compara-
tively small audience consisting of the royal family, the Ladies of the
Queen’s Bedchamber, Lord Chancellor, and various ministers.106 This
arrangement reflected Marie Antoinette’s desire to establish a private
domain and safeguard her health but directly challenged the court
convention that the birth of an heir was a public event.107 Although
Marie Antoinette immediately entrusted the newborn dauphin to the
Governess of the Children of France, Princess Guéméné, who was both
a member of the Rohan family and a part of the queen’s social circle,
Mercy-Argenteau noted that Marie Antoinette was preoccupied with
plans for her son’s education. He wrote to Joseph when Louis-Joseph
was less than a month old, “The Queen is strongly occupied with the
means of drawing up a good plan of education for the Dauphin. Her
Majesty agrees with the King that he will not have a designated tutor
until the age of five.”108 The ambassador significantly used the word
“education” to describe Marie Antoinette’s plans for the Dauphin
instead of “instruction,” implying that she intended to help shape all
aspects of her son’s character.109 Records for the household of the royal
children demonstrate a meticulous attention to the instruction of both
the royal children, including descriptions and wages of a broad range
of tutors.110 Marie Antoinette also acquired educational works for
her library including language primers and dramatic works for young
people,111 showing her interest in the emergence of children’s literature
during this period.112
As will be discussed in the following section, the tutelage of the royal
children, particularly the future king, was considered too important a mat-
ter of state to be entrusted to a foreign, female queen. Marie Antoinette’s
personal involvement in the instruction of the heir was a novel innovation
at court and appeared to exceed her accepted role. As early as 1689, the
jurist Cardin le Bret stated in his definition of the role of the queen, “the
tutelage of their children does not belong to them . . . for all their being
the wife or mother of the King.”113 The household records concerning the
Children of France bear the signature of the king but the appointment
of Polignac as governess upon Guéméné’s resignation due to bankruptcy
in 1782 reflects the extent of Marie Antoinette’s personal involvement in
the nurseries. Polignac was a minor member of the nobility who owed
her advancement to Marie Antoinette’s patronage alone. She therefore
directly represented the queen in the royal nurseries, ensuring that the
children were raised according to their mother’s wishes instead of court
tradition where possible. In securing the appointment of one of her clos-
est friends to a position that was both prestigious and intimately con-
nected with the daily care of her children, Marie Antoinette succeeded
 Mother to the Royal Children 143

in a realm where Henrietta Maria was unable to establish personal influ-

ence. While Charles’s consort had struggled to ensure the appointment
of Roman Catholic attendants for her children, Louis’s regard for his
wife’s favorites allowed Marie Antoinette to directly influence the care
and education of the royal children to an unprecedented degree.
The role of Governess to the Children of France in the late eigh-
teenth century was far more prestigious than the equivalent position at
Charles I’s court. Although the Scottish court had established a prec-
edent of entrusting the heir to the Earls of Mar before the union of
the two crowns in 1603, Charles and Henrietta Maria did not provide
their children’s attendants with extraordinary privileges. Individual
governesses could be dismissed according to the political and religious
climate at court and the expenses of the children’s household were scru-
tinized and critiqued by Charles`s advisors. In contrast, the position of
Governess of the Children of France had become even more prestigious
since Henrietta Maria’s childhood. The consolidation of the French
court at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV meant that the gov-
erness resided in the same residences as the king and queen, enjoying
unrivalled access to the entire ruling family.
The governess’s intimacy with the monarch, consort, and their chil-
dren was accompanied by a host of unique privileges including protec-
tion from dismissal, command of the royal guards during the dauphin`s
residence, and precedence over all other ladies at court while in the com-
pany of her charges.114 Louis XV’s governess, Madame de Ventadour,
was famous for protecting the health of her charge during an outbreak
of smallpox at court and she enjoyed the honor of having her likeness
included in a group portrait of Louis XIV, his son, grandson, and great-
grandson.115 Once Polignac swore the traditional oath to the king to
ensure all aspects of the moral welfare of the royal children,116 only the
outbreak of the French Revolution allowed for her replacement by the
more socially acceptable Tourzel.
Marie Antoinette’s attitudes toward her role as mother to the royal
children were more ambitious than those of Henrietta Maria. Marie
Antoinette not only recognized that her children had individual per-
sonalities but intended for their upbringing and education to respond
to these distinctive characteristics. She attempted to create a compara-
tively domestic sphere within the public environment of Louis’s court
where her children could grow up with fewer constraints created by
their political position. Nevertheless, she expected to exert political
influence by virtue of her maternity. This dual perception of her role as
mother to the royal children reflected the influence of Enlightenment
thought on her social circle and the example of her Maria Theresa.
Both aspects of this performance of motherhood, however, challenged
144 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

court traditions and fueled popular anxieties concerning political

activity by a queen who had been born an Austrian archduchess. Marie
Antoinette’s involvement in the education of her children, particularly
the two successive dauphins, would become the locus of popular oppo-
sition to her motherhood.

Marie Antoinette: The Education of

the Children of France
For both courtiers and broader French society, Marie Antoinette was
not a desirable caregiver and educator for the royal children but a nega-
tive example of foreign, female, extravagant political interference that
Louis’s successor should prevent from gaining influence during his
own reign. Since nearly a decade passed between the royal marriage
and the birth of a child, there was rampant speculation concerning the
paternity of the royal children that was connected to the position of
potential alternate heirs. In common with Henrietta Maria, the birth
of children to Marie Antoinette threatened the political ambitions of
potential alternate successors to the throne. Louis’s two younger broth-
ers, Provence and Artois, and his cousin, the Duc de Chartres, later Duc
d’Orleans117 resided at court and directly benefited from the queen’s
childlessness. Within the court, Louis’s brothers would be perceived as
the most influential alternate successors to the French throne, and the
potential source of libelous verse questioning the paternity of the royal
children. Among the wider Parisian populace, the well-known Orleans,
who transformed his Palais Royale into a public space composed of
shops, cafes, and gardens, was viewed by supporters and detractors of
the queen alike as the chief opponent to her children’s succession.
Provence’s correspondence reveals the degree to which Louis’s
brother viewed his own succession prospects through the lens of Marie
Antoinette’s potential maternity. When Marie-Thérèse was born, he
wrote to King Gustavus III of Sweden, “I do not hide from myself that
this matter has been a home thrust . . . As far as outward appearances are
concerned, I was soon able to master myself, and I have behaved with
the same decorum as before, though without any demonstrations of joy,
which would have been regarded as . . . mendacious.”118 Marie-Thérèse’s
birth proved Louis’s and Marie Antoinette’s ability to become parents,
jeopardizing the succession prospects of the king’s brothers in the event
of a dauphin’s birth. There is evidence that Provence quietly attempted
to consolidate his position by encouraging the circulation of pamphlets
at court that questioned the paternity of the Children of France, par-
ticularly the dauphin.119
 Mother to the Royal Children 145

Regardless of Provence’s degree of involvement in the spread of these

rumors, the king’s brothers would become prominent figures in the
pamphlet literature that disseminated after the outbreak of Revolution
as Artois was caricatured as a possible father of the queen’s children.
The 1789 edition of “The Austrian Woman on the Rampage,” suppos-
edly composed by an anonymous royal bodyguard, explicitly denied
Louis’s paternity of his wife’s children. In the pamphlet, the bodyguard
claims to have witnessed an orgy in the queen’s private apartments
involving Marie Antoinette, Artois, and Polignac. In one scene, Artois
says to the queen, “Quiet you little fool, or I’ll give my brother another
son tonight!”120 The authors of this pamphlet and others of the period
such as “Les Amours de Charlot et Toinette”121 and “Lettre de la Reine
envoyée au Comte d’Artois avec la Réponse du Comte D’Artois a la
Reine”122 attribute the queen’s “unnatural” behavior to her Austrian ori-
gin and feminine weakness. In contrast, Artois appears as a dominant,
politically ambitious figure who is eager to usurp his elder brother’s sov-
ereignty and place his children on the throne. The perceived contrast
between Artois’s virility and ambition and Louis’s indolence and impo-
tence persisted after the birth of Marie Antoinette’s children, delegiti-
mizing her position as mother of the future sovereign.
Marie Antoinette’s correspondence demonstrates that she actively
fostered a close relationship with Provence, Artois, and their wives,
including them in family dinners and amateur theatricals despite Maria
Theresa’s concern that the Savoyard princesses would undermine the
queen’s position at court.123 Mercy-Argenteau observed, “The royal fam-
ily has dinner and supper together in the Queen’s apartments, and the
King puts much simplicity, friendship and comfort in the way of being
with his brothers and sisters-in-law and he ordered them to remove
the title of Majesty when they speak with him.”124 Marie Antoinette’s
biographers have attributed her desire to keep company with Provence,
Artois, and their wives to naivety or an attempt to recreate the com-
paratively informal atmosphere she experienced amongst her family in
Vienna, before her marriage.125 The queen’s awareness of the emergence
of satirical verse from the court combined with the political significance
of Provence and Artois as potential opponents of her own children’s
succession rights suggests that her decision to host these comparatively
informal family gatherings may have had a political dimension.
Just as Henrietta Maria portrayed herself as a champion of the resto-
ration of Elizabeth and her family to the Palatinate, Marie Antoinette
may have been attempting to project an image of familial unity through
her apparent friendship with potential alternate successors to the
throne. Early in Louis’s reign, she was eager to refute any rumor of con-
flict between herself and Provence, writing to her mother, “It is quite
146 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

certain that not only is there no disagreement between [Provence]

and I, but what is more is that it is not believed and everyone notices my
good manners for him and his wife.”126 The focus of this letter on the
popular perception of her relationship with her brother-in-law is signifi-
cant as she recognized the political importance of projecting an image
of dynastic unity. Marie Antoinette’s correspondence also hints at her
awareness of Provence’s ambitions. In 1779, the queen urged her mother
not to believe news reports that the Comtesse de Provence was expect-
ing a child, stating that the marriage was likely to remain childless
despite her brother-in-law’s boasting.127 The expectation that Provence
and Artois would take their meals with the king and queen also reduced
their opportunities to cultivate their own factions. The appearance of
familial unity had the potential to counteract rumors concerning each
prince’s individual political ambitions.
The popular debate concerning Marie Antoinette’s performance of
her role as mother to the royal children intersected with criticism of
her management of her household when Polignac became governess.
Polignac’s appointment attracted the same criticism as Lamballe’s ele-
vation to the position of superintendent because both women were con-
sidered unqualified by lineage and ability to dispense the considerable
patronage that accompanied these roles. The duties of governess tradi-
tionally focused on the safekeeping of the dauphin but as the queen’s
favorite, Polignac spent much of her time in the company of Marie
Antoinette instead of the royal children.128 Although Joseph II formed
a favorable impression of Polignac during his visit to Versailles,129
Mercy-Argenteau recognized her potential to undermine the queen’s
reputation. In 1777, the ambassador observed, “The Queen cannot do
without the society of this young woman. She is the depository of all
her thoughts and I strongly doubt that there have been any exceptions
to this boundless confidence.”130 The apparent absence of limits to the
queen’s confidence in her favorite foreshadowed Polignac`s eventual
receipt of patronage opportunities previously reserved for France’s
most prominent families. Marie Antoinette spent much of her time in
the company of both Artois and Polignac,131 a social combination that
would be utilized by the queen’s detractors to cast doubt on the pater-
nity of the royal children.
The administrative records for the households of the royal children
reveal the extent of Polignac’s influence over patronage appointments.
The financial receipts for the establishments of the two successive dau-
phins bear her signature, revealing her ability to control both the wages
paid to members of the children’s households and the appointment of
new attendants to the children.132 While Louis had ultimate authority
over the households of his children,133 the existence of petitions addressed
 Mother to the Royal Children 147

to Polignac by prospective attendants demonstrates that the governess,

and by extension Marie Antoinette, made many of the daily decisions.134
Marie-Thérèse and Louis-Joseph already had households appointed by
Guéméné during her tenure as governess but Polignac was able to exert
extensive influence over the composition of the establishments of the
younger royal children. Louis-Charles’s household was especially filled
with her appointments. She wrote to the king proposing numerous new
members of the baby’s establishment in 1785, including a doctor, sur-
geon, valets, and chambermaids.135 When Sophie-Beatrix was born in
1786, the prospective sub-governesses, who ranked immediately below
the governess of the Children of France in the royal nurseries, were also
proposed to the king by Polignac, demonstrating the continued expan-
sion of her patronage prerogatives.136 Throughout the 1780s, Polignac’s
influence expanded, contributing to criticism of the queen as a mother.
Polignac’s social origins, exercise of patronage of her position as
governess, and attention to her friendship with the queen over her
responsibilities for the royal children attracted negative scrutiny from
those inclined to both favorable and critical attitudes toward Marie
Antoinette. The queen’s supporters argued that her friendship with
Polignac encouraged her to overlook her clear inability to success-
fully occupy the position of governess while her detractors speculated
that the arrangements within the royal nurseries concealed political
intrigues, corruption, and sexual immorality. Members of all social
estates expressed concern that the care and education of the royal
children, especially the dauphin, was being neglected because of the
arrangements for the governance of the royal nurseries created by
Marie Antoinette. Previous unpopular queens of France, most notably
Charles VI’s consort Isabeau of Bavaria, had been accused of neglecting
their children to provide benefits for their favorites.137 The importance
ascribed to childhood and education by Enlightenment thinkers such
as Rousseau, however, increased the importance of Marie Antoinette’s
perceived transgressions as a mother to her reputation.
The writings of émigré French aristocrats who sympathized with
Marie Antoinette’s attempts to become more involved in the daily
care of her children than previous French queens consort argued that
her good intentions failed because of both flaws in her character and
her reliance on unsuitable favorites. The Marquis de Bombelles was
critical of Polignac’s appointment and Marie Antoinette’s innovations
to the royal nursery. In October of 1782, after Guéméné had submit-
ted her resignation but before the Polignac had made her oath to the
king, Bombelles wrote in his journal, “Among the bad stories that the
interregnum of the Governess of the Children of France has made, one
notes the one that supposes [Provence] has gone to the king, his brother,
148 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

and told him . . . if his choice to replace Madame de Guémémé fell upon
Madame de Polignac, he would be blamed in all of France.”138 The per-
ceived involvement of Provence in Louis’s deliberations is significant
as the circulation of this rumor would make Polignac’s appointment
appear to be a triumph of the queen’s political influence over the objec-
tions of the senior male member of the royal family and popular opinion
across France.
Once Polignac became governess, Bombelles criticized her decisions,
arguing that such decisions as separating the households of Marie-
Thérèse and Louis-Joseph did not reflect the queen’s intentions.139 He
ultimately concluded that Marie Antoinette had failed to ensure the
appropriate care and education of her children, writing in 1784 regard-
ing the Dauphin’s illness, “The Queen did not know again how much
this child, so precious to the state and to her, has been in danger. She has
a very good heart, and loves her daughter and son very much but dissipa-
tion necessarily harms this feeling, and often deafens one what should
affect us the most.”140 Bombelles recognized that the queen genuinely
intended to fulfill the ideal of the good mother and appointed her favor-
ites to powerful positions in the royal nurseries with the best of inten-
tions. He blamed Polignac’s shortcomings as a governess combined with
the queen’s social life for Marie Antoinette’s failure to successfully par-
ent her children.
While Bombelles acknowledged the queen’s good intentions, the
pamphlet literature that began to circulate in the 1780s argued that
Marie Antoinette intended to weaken the French succession through her
mismanagement of the nurseries. The libels accusing Marie Antoinette
of sexual relationships with Polignac and Artois also contributed
to rumors of the royal children’s exposure to sexual immorality and
neglect. A pamphlet that first circulated during the early 1780s directly
connected Marie Antoinette’s motherhood to her perceived corruption
and immorality. Following an extended discussion of her “nocturnal
promenades” with Artois,141 the author accused her of exploiting the
king’s happiness upon learning of her first pregnancy to be forgiven the
massive debts incurred by her personal extravagance and gifts to her
favorites. The pamphlet stated:

The Queen became pregnant and when her pregnancy was declared,
Madame de Lamballe was again her intimate friend. The time of delivery
arrived and, the fear of death seized her mind. She had nearly two million
in debt already. She did not want to die insolvent . . . The Queen . . . spoke
to the King herself, who hoping for a Dauphin, “consoled the Queen,
had her debts paid, and expressed gratitude to Mr. [Finance Minister
Jacques] Necker.”.142
 Mother to the Royal Children 149

In this context, Marie Antoinette’s pregnancy was a burden instead

of a blessing for France. The queen remained focused on her extrava-
gant tastes and her social life with her favorites, viewing motherhood
as a means of furthering these pursuits at the expense of the state.143
Rumors accusing the queen of being a bad mother to her own children
eventually expanded after the Revolution to encompass depictions of
the consort as a failed mother to the nation.144 The various strands of
criticism concerning the queen’s behavior as a mother would culminate
in accusations of incest at her trial.
There is evidence that Louis and Marie Antoinette were aware
of the negative perception of the queen as a mother and attempted
to counteract these rumors though public indications of the king’s
authority over his family, bulletins concerning the children’s health,
and artistic portrayals of her maternity. In her correspondence with
Maria Theresa, the queen noted the criticism of her favor toward the
Polignac family and attempted to justify her largesse by emphasiz-
ing the King’s friendship with her favorites. She wrote to her mother
in April 1780, “I could say the same for Mme. Polignac in relation to
the King. He likes her very much and though I am very sensitive and
appreciative of the good he did, I did not need to seek it. The news-
men and story writers know more than me. I have neither heard about
the land, the two million nor any other.”145 Marie Antoinette clearly
viewed the friendly relations between her favorites and her husband as
a defense against the popular rumors that she was utilizing her preg-
nancies to gain favors for the Polignac family. Once Polignac became
governess, the documents concerning the households of the dauphin
and his siblings bore her signature and that of Louis XVI alone with
few recorded references to the queen’s wishes.146 Unfortunately for
Marie Antoinette’s reputation, Polignac was viewed as her mistress’s
representative within the royal nurseries regardless of the formal deci-
sion making process. The queen’s argument that Polignac received
royal largesse and governed the royal nurseries according to Louis’s
wishes was therefore unconvincing to the king’s subjects.
Louis and Marie Antoinette also attempted to counteract negative
press regarding the royal nurseries with their own published bulletins
celebrating the births of their children and providing updates regard-
ing their health. These official announcements were released during the
same period in which rumors concerning neglect by successive govern-
esses were circulating both at court and within printed pamphlets.147
Bombelles recorded in his journal in 1782 that a piece of glass had been
discovered in Louis-Joseph’s food and that Guéméné had concealed this
negligence to protect her own position.148 The prince’s health declined
precipitously during Polignac’s tenure as governess and his death in
150 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

1789 prompted speculation concerning the care he received from his

attendants and, by extension, his mother. The Historical Essays on the
Life of Marie Antoinette, which was first published in 1781, and then were
reprinted in 1789, stated, “At the first announcement of the disease, the
people began, following in its own way, to reason about the causes but
the effects cannot prove it.”149 The pamphlet reveals the degree of popu-
lar speculation surrounding the dauphin’s death, ultimately arguing that
he may have been slowly poisoned by members of Marie Antoinette’s
social circle.150 These rumors were particularly damaging to the queen
because Polignac was known have become governess due to her friend-
ship with Marie Antoinette instead of her lineage.
The official bulletins issued by Louis concerning the births, health,
and care of his children are the antithesis of the rumors of neglect and
foul play that circulated through both conversation and print during the
1780s. The measured, official tone of these documents emphasizes the
importance of these children to the continuance of the dynasty and
the scrupulous attention paid to their health. When Marie-Thérèse was
born in 1778, the printed announcement emphasized the good health of
the newborn princess, stating that on “The 19th of the present month,
at eleven hours and thirty five minutes in the morning, the Queen gave
birth, at term, to a strong and well constituted princess after a long and
painful labour lasting twelve hours.”151 The precise description of the
queen’s labor was in keeping with the public nature of the birth.152 As
her children grew up, their illnesses and inoculations were described to
the public in official bulletins that appeared to contradict any rumors
of neglect in the royal nurseries. The household documents pertaining
to the royal children contain drafts of reports intended for the Gazette
de France concerning inoculations and treatments for illnesses153 demon-
strating that the royal couple had their own interpretation of the care
of the princes and princesses that they wished to publicize to Louis`s
subjects. The official bulletins pertaining to the royal children place the
monarch’s own views within the public sphere, implicitly defending the
governance of the royal nursery.
While the household documents and official bulletins concerning the
royal children bore the signature of the king, Marie Antoinette person-
ally attempted to shape her image as a mother before the French people
through the commission of a series of family portraits. In the same man-
ner as Henrietta Maria, her likeness appeared in domestic portraiture
that was unprecedented for a queen consort. While Van Dyck’s “Great
Peace” was displayed at court for an elite audience, Eugene Bataillé and
Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun created portraits for display to a wider public
in France’s art salons. During the 1780s, these salons received 30,000
visitors,154 a broad audience that the queen attempted to engage through
 Mother to the Royal Children 151

her artistic commissions. The domestic portraits of Marie Antoinette

and her children departed from traditional imagery of French queens
consort. While formal portraits of Marie Leszczynska employed tradi-
tional motifs such as court dress, an immobile stance, and the presence
of state regalia,155 Marie Antoinette commissioned images where she
appeared in matching chemise dresses with Marie-Thérèse or lovingly
surrounded by all her children.156 While Louis XV’s queen displayed the
emblems of his position and represented his sovereignty, portraits of
Marie Antoinette showed her personal interest in more “natural” styles
of dress and her close relationship with her children. Battaile’s portrait
does not contain any emblems suggestive of the queen’s marital status
or exalted rank while Vigée-Lebrun only provides a partial image of the
crown in the top right corner of her painting, keeping the focus on the
image of the consort, her three children, and the empty cradle.157
Vigée-Lebrun`s memoirs provide evidence concerning the negative
popular reaction to Marie Antoinette`s domestic portrait. When the
artist exhibited her own painting of Marie Antoinette in a chemise
dress, “the malicious did not refrain from saying that the queen was
represented in her underwear.”158 By the time “Marie Antoinette et ses
enfants” was exhibited at the salon, the queen’s reputation had deterio-
rated to such a degree that the display of her portrait encouraged popular
discussion of her extravagance instead of the imagery presented in the
painting.159 While Marie Antoinette clearly intended for her portraits
to elicit compassion for the loss of her youngest child or admiration for
her embrace of popular ideas of natural deportment, the departure from
traditional styles of royal portraiture and the absence of Louis or his
emblems from her imagery reinforced concerns regarding the inversion
of the gender hierarchy within the royal family.
Despite the attempts of the royal couple to defend the queen’s per-
ception of her role as a mother through reinforcement of the king’s
sovereign authority, official bulletins concerning the children’s health,
and artistic portrayals of the consort embodying late eighteenth cen-
tury ideals of domesticity, she ultimately failed to present an effective
maternal image to her subjects. The paternity of Marie Antoinette’s
children was the focus of widespread speculation, undermining the
queen’s legitimacy as mother to the royal children. For those who never-
theless welcomed the births of Marie Antoinette’s children, her involve-
ment in the royal nurseries was not considered beneficial to their care
and education. The appointment of Polignac as governess was opposed
by the queen’s supporters and detractors alike because of her social
background, absence of qualifications for this prestigious position, and
history of receiving patronage. The authors of anonymous pamphlets
that circulated during the 1780s accused her of deliberately placing her
152 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

extravagance and friendship with Polignac above the welfare of her

children. By 1789, there were even rumors that the dauphin had been
poisoned by his attendants. Marie Antoinette was unable to effectively
defend herself against accusations that she had failed to properly occupy
the position of mother to the royal children.

Henrietta Maria, Marie Antoinette,

and Motherhood
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette became mothers at different
points along an Early Modern European continuum of increased parental
involvement in childrearing and the emergence of sentimental concep-
tions of childhood. The births of children had always been events that
contributed to the legitimacy of a foreign princess’s position as queen
because the future prospects of these heirs were linked to their mother’s
adopted kingdom. The care and education of these children, however,
varied significantly prior to the seventeenth century. Tudor queens con-
tributed significantly to childrearing decisions but within the Stuart,
Valois, and Bourbon royal houses, the daily care and instruction of royal
children was the primary responsibility of prominent members of the
nobility. French and Scottish queens consort might confer with these
guardians and governesses, as Henrietta Maria’s mother corresponded
with Madame de Montglat but their physical presence in the nursery
was minimal and they were rarely publicly perceived to be involved in
their children’s care.
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette diverged from the respective
Scottish and French precedents concerning the role of queens consort
as mothers, formulating parenting philosophies that reflected the ideo-
logical trends concerning the family in their respective lifetimes. While
these goals often reflected domestic trends embraced by their hus-
bands’ subjects, they rarely complimented popular expectations of the
queen consort. In seventeenth century Europe, when both Reformation
and Counterreformation theologians emphasized the importance of
the mother’s example to determining a child’s religious orthodoxy,
Henrietta Maria expressed her intention to surround her children with
Roman Catholic attendants.
Henrietta Maria had to modify her parenting philosophy to reflect
Charles’s insistence that his children receive a Protestant upbringing,
demanding obedience from her children during Charles’s lifetime.
Despite the king’s determination to counter his consort’s parenting phi-
losophy, the 1630s were a period of widespread Protestant anxiety con-
cerning the queen’s influence in the royal nurseries. The upbringing and
 Mother to the Royal Children 153

education of the royal children would become a central issue of parlia-

mentary debate after the collapse of Charles I’s Personal Rule in 1640,
demonstrating the degree to which popular opposition to Henrietta
Maria’s conception of her role as mother to the royal children had devel-
oped by the outbreak of the English Civil Wars.
In contrast to Henrietta Maria, Marie Antoinette maintained con-
sistent parenting views throughout the late 1770s and 1780s. Although
the evidence that she was personally conversant with the writings
of Enlightenment philosophers on domesticity is inconclusive, she
absorbed the cultural trends inspired by their works. Marie Antoinette
was determined to staff the nursery with her own favorites and create a
comparatively private realm for her sons and daughters. The appoint-
ment of Polignac was particularly unpopular and allowed the conver-
gence of criticism of the queen as head of her household with objections
to her behavior as a mother. In Polignac’s care, the dauphin was widely
believed to be neglected at best and subjected to foul play at worst. This
popular perception of Marie Antoinette as a bad mother would inform
the inflammatory pamphlet literature that publicly circulated after 1789
and the accusations levelled at her trial.
For both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette, legitimacy through
motherhood was elusive. In the reigns of Charles and Louis, alternate
successors existed among the monarch’s siblings whose political pros-
pects were threatened by the existence of direct successors to the king.
The multiyear periods of childlessness in the royal marriages that pre-
ceded the births of heirs allowed speculation to circulate concerning the
desirability of these alternate successors as future monarchs. Once both
queens became mothers, their attempts to implement their parenting
philosophies attracted scrutiny and criticism. Instead of legitimizing
their positions through motherhood both Henrietta Maria and Marie
Antoinette found themselves criticized on the basis of their maternity,
a circumstance that ultimately weakened the authority of monarchical
succession in both seventeenth century England and Scotland and eigh-
teenth century France.
 CHAPTER 5

THE ENGLISH CIVIL WARS AND

THE FRENCH R EVOLUTION

T
he collapse of monarchical authority during the English
Civil Wars and French Revolution followed a sustained
period of delegitimization of the respective royal families
of England and France. During the reigns of Charles I and Louis XVI,
the queen had been judged within the popular ideological climate con-
cerning the place of women within their families without respect for her
position. This process, which occurred before an ever expanding public
sphere, stripped away the royal mystique and reduced each consort to
the position of any other vulnerable public figure, creating the potential
for the seeming paradox of “royal treason.” The delegitimization of the
queen also served as a framework for observers to critique the state of
monarchical government without directly attacking the king because
his consort was perceived to occupy the role of advisor. The accessibil-
ity of the positions of wife and mother to a broad audience made cri-
tiques of the queen possible for all social estates, which was facilitated
by the increased proliferation of printed political tracts. Dismantling
the queen’s legitimacy in her domestic role was a crucial part of the pro-
cess wherein new governments asserted their rule. If the consort was not
fulfilling her duties in roles that combined both domestic and political
implications, the king appeared unable to act as the head of his house-
hold or his kingdom.1
The perceived failure of both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette
to successfully occupy their roles within their families resulted in the
formal removal of each queen by representatives of her husband’s sub-
jects. The impeachment of Henrietta Maria by the English House
of Commons in 1643 and the trial of Marie Antoinette before the
Revolutionary Tribunal in 1793 were without direct precedents. The
trials and executions of two of Henry VIII’s wives in 1536 and 1542 or
the imprisonment of Philip IV of France’s daughters-in-law following
the Tour de Nesle affair of 1314 were prompted by accusations of adul-
tery, which was considered to be a crime against their husbands as
well as a crime against the state because of its potential effect on the
156 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

succession. Although both the English House of Commons and the

French Revolutionary Tribunal attempted to frame their respective
judgments of Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette within the history
of subversive royal women both the charges and the prosecution dif-
fered from the accusations faced by previous consorts. The two queens
were not charged with crimes against their husbands but accused of
opposing their husbands’ subjects.
The prosecution of each queen reflected changing interpretations of
treason. At the outbreak of the English Civil Wars, medieval treason
statutes were recognized as antiquated but had not yet been replaced by
new formal statutes.2 In France, the Unigenitus controversy cemented
the independence of French law from the will of any individual mon-
arch.3 The impeachment of Henrietta Maria and the trial of Marie
Antoinette provided new governments with the opportunity to use the
perceived activities of the consort as evidence of illegitimate influence
by foreigners and women over the discredited monarch. Formal proceed-
ings against a queen also implied that the entire monarchical system was
irrevocably corrupt rather than simply weakened by the failings of an
individual sovereign. The delegitimization of both queens compromised
the entire dynastic line, emphasizing the necessity of regime change.
The House of Commons and the Revolutionary Tribunal justified
their charges against the queen through a combination of historical
precedent and contemporary political expediency. Charging Henrietta
Maria with high treason reflected seventeenth century anxieties con-
cerning the intimate proximity of a Catholic, French woman to the king,
but the House of Lords, which received the motion for impeachment
from the House of Commons, still discussed the charges presented at
Anne Boleyn’s trial.4 Although the trial of Marie Antoinette focused
on her suspected correspondence with the Habsburgs, influence over
Louis, and moral character, the public prosecutor placed her within the
context of past queens, including Catherine de Medici.5 While both the
House of Commons and the Revolutionary Tribunal asserted them-
selves as representative bodies of new regimes, they also sought to rein-
force the legality of their actions by referring to past queens deposed for
crimes against their husbands and the state.
In these environments of political upheaval informed by the mythol-
ogy surrounding previous queens consort, the queen herself often
developed a symbolic significance beyond her actual activities, but
the impeachment and the trial were the culmination of long-standing
dialogues between each queen and her husband’s subjects concerning
her activities as a wife, mother, and head of a royal household. Both
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette viewed the formal accusations
of treasonable activities as opportunities to defend themselves against
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 157

the critiques they received throughout their marriages. Henrietta

Maria wrote letters to members of parliament defending her actions
on behalf of Charles. The format of Marie Antoinette’s trial provided
her with a public forum where she could defend her political and per-
sonal conduct.
Although neither queen successfully rehabilitated her reputation,
their engagement with their detractors informed the political dis-
course of the English Civil Wars and French Revolution. The House of
Commons and the Revolutionary Tribunal, as well as ordinary support-
ers of the new regimes, framed their critiques as part of a dialogue with
the queen’s responses. Supporters of each consort adopted the queen’s
interpretation of her activities and the threats she faced from new
regimes to craft their defenses of monarchical government. In these
unprecedented circumstances, both queens were judged for crimes
against her husband’s subjects rather than the king himself in com-
paratively public forums that allowed the accused to defend her con-
duct before a broad audience. The impeachment and the trial focused
on matters that cast doubt on the legitimacy of monarchical govern-
ment, such as the perceived influence of the queen over her husband’s
relationship with his subjects and the apparent obligations of the sover-
eign to foreign interests. Both queens were actively engaged in the royal
response to the English Civil Wars and French Revolution respectively
and their opponents were obliged to tailor their own critiques to engage
with the words and activities of the consorts.

Henrietta Maria: The Suffering Mother and

the “Insolent” Parliament
Henrietta Maria’s letter to her former governess, Madame St. George,
upon her departure for Holland in May 1642 provides clear evidence
that the queen was aware of plans for her impeachment from the out-
break of the English Civil Wars, and recognized the implications of
being treated as any other subject. She wrote,

For unless I had made up my mind to a prison, I could not remain

there; but still if in this I had been the only sufferer, I am so accus-
tomed to afflictions that that would have passed over like the rest:
but their design was to separate me from the king my lord, and they
have publicly declared that it is necessary to do this; and also that a
queen was only a subject, and was amenable to the laws of the country
like other persons. Moreover than that, they have publicly accused
me, and by name, as having wished to overthrow the laws and religion
158 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

of the kingdom, and that it was I who roused the Irish to revolt: they
have even got witnesses to swear that this was the case, and upon
that, affirmed that as long as ever I remained with the king, the state
would be in danger.6

Although the memoirs of Sir Simond d’Ewes clearly state that the
members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords were not
in agreement concerning the implications of the queen’s impeachment,7
Henrietta Maria assumed that she would be forcibly separated from
Charles, imprisoned, and possibly placed on trial. Her perception that
she was engaged in a struggle against parliament for her own safety and
position as well as Charles’s regal prerogatives informed her actions.
While the queen’s correspondence with parliament, which was printed
and circulated in newssheets, states that she did not believe parliament
intended to impeach her,8 her letter demonstrates that she was not only
aware of a motion for her impeachment but studied the charges and
grounds for this decision.
The queen made efforts to ensure that accounts of her flight from
England, which emphasized her separation from her family, and her
personal suffering were disseminated to a wide public audience. She
conveyed her interpretation of her situation to her almoner, Jacques du
Perron, Bishop of Angouleme, who discussed her plight in a widely cir-
culated sermon, which stated that Henrietta Maria “hath twice been
chased from her own kingdom, and forced to flee from the cruelty of
her enemies . . . who not content to have prosecuted her criminally and
to death, in their parliament, by their devilish calumnies, they have
persecuted her in this flight.9 This public description of misfortunes
experienced because of the conflict between king and parliament
acquired additional details, most notably threats to her life instead of
her liberty alone, which do not appear in Henrietta Maria’s private
correspondence.
These discrepancies suggest Henrietta Maria consciously devel-
oped a sympathetic narrative as a strategy to regain popular support.
The veracity of this publicly circulated account was accepted by royal-
ists and informed the content of subsequent biographies of Henrietta
Maria.10 In contrast, the queen’s conception of the dangers she faced
was openly questioned by members of parliament and their supporters.11
D’Ewes questioned the accuracy of these kinds of accounts in his jour-
nals, declaring Secretary Nicholas’s assertion that parliament sought to
assassinate the queen, “notorious lies.”12 The portrayal of the queen by
the House of Commons as a foreign Roman Catholic who engaged in
treasonous activities conflicted with Henrietta Maria’s equally public
insistence that she was a loyal wife driven into exile by rebels.
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 159

The popular opposition among Protestants to Marie de Medici’s

residence in England from 1638 to 1641 prefigured the conflict between
Henrietta Maria and Charles’s subjects regarding the implications of
her impeachment. Marie’s presence at Charles’s court was problem-
atic for Henrietta Maria’s reputation because the roles of daughter and
wife were difficult to reconcile for a consort. Both Henrietta Maria
and Marie Antoinette were expected to identify completely with
their husbands. The public imagery of the king’s wife in the company
of her foreign mother therefore had the potential to undermine her
legitimacy as wife to the sovereign. The lavish entertainments and
allowance provided for Marie on English soil, and the perception that
arbitrary taxation financed this largesse, appeared to confirm the
queen’s political influence over Charles, particularly in foreign policy
and religion.
The contrast between Henrietta Maria’s joyful reception of her
mother at court and the degree to which Marie was identified with
Catholic conspiracies in the Protestant popular imagination reflects
the queen’s failure to comprehend the negative impact of the visit on
her position. She commissioned a special masque, “Spalmacida Spolida,”
which praised Marie as the mother of “the fair partner of our monarch’s
throne.”13 While the queen was eager to celebrate her relationship with
her mother, and even describe Charles as Henry IV’s political heir,14
the close association between mother and daughter undermined the
queen’s reputation because of Marie’s reputation for involving her-
self in plots and conspiracies. Pamphlets circulated purporting to be
accounts of ordinary English people identifying Jesuit agents of “the
Queen Mother” involved in treasonous activities.15 Just as criticism of
Henrietta Maria would serve as a means of critiquing the king’s policies
without directly targeting the sovereign, Marie served as a proxy for the
queen’s unpopularity.16
Even those observers who did not immediately assume Marie was
assisting her daughter in the promotion of Roman Catholic interests
resented the expenses incurred by her stay. Upon Marie de Medici’s arrival
in England, Henrietta Maria immediately required 20,000 pounds to
pay her mother’s debts.17 Charles’s unpopular policy of collecting “ship
money,” which was a tax levied on inhabitants of coastal towns for their
defense was attributed to the maintenance of Marie. A printed satire
entitled, “Reasons why ship and conduct money ought to be had and
also money [lent] by the City of London” stated, “Wherever the Queen
mother has been there could be no peace, yet ship and conduct money
must be had to keep her.”18 This pamphlet viewed Marie’s residence
as part of the burden of arbitrary taxation during Charles’s Personal
Rule. While ship money did not directly fund Marie’s maintenance, the
160 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

perception that these monies were misdirected revealed the view that
the king was not capable of governing effectively without parliament,
allocating funds according to the interests of the queen and her mother
instead of his subjects.
Henrietta Maria was aware that her mother’s expenses were con-
troversial and unsuccessfully attempted to counter this criticism. The
Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Giustinian, who generally portrayed
Henrietta Maria sympathetically in his dispatches, did not appear to
believe the queen’s account of her mother’s maintenance. He wrote,
“She maintains with all her might, in order to diminish the universal
murmuring at such expense, that her mother will only remain a few days
at the expense of her husband, and that her appanages will promptly
be supplied from France to pay for her stay and all her requirements.”19
Hostility to Marie’s presence as both a Catholic and a recipient of royal
largesse precipitated her departure from England in 1641.20 The removal
of Marie represented a victory of popular and parliamentary demands
over Henrietta Maria’s perceived political influence.
Henrietta Maria’s determination to shape the manner in which she
was perceived in parliament and among all social estates reflected her
active involvement in the conflicts between Charles and his subjects.
In 1639, while Charles was still reigning without parliament and there-
fore required funds from alternate sources to finance the Bishops’ War,
Henrietta Maria made the unprecedented decision to appeal to her hus-
band’s Catholic subjects to make donations to the war effort. Current
historians usually discuss the donation in the context of the degree of
Catholic support for Charles21 or Protestant fears of a “papist plot.”22
Henrietta Maria’s appeal to Charles’s Catholic subjects also provides
evidence of her unique interpretation of queenly intercession, which
shaped her reputation throughout her marriage.
The “Advice and motives for the noblemen, knights and gentlemen
that shall employ in the country in soliciting Catholics for a contribu-
tion to His Majesty upon occasion of his present northern journey,”
which was circulated with a letter signed by Henrietta Maria explic-
itly states the relationship between the proposed donation and the
queen’s intercessory activities. When the king required funds for his
Scottish campaign, she attempted to transform the traditional prac-
tice of queenly intercession into a reciprocal relationship. The “Advice”
encouraged collectors of the donations to remind potential donors of
“the extraordinary graces and perfections we owe the Queen’s Majesty,
and to her favourable intercession meeting with the King’s clemency
we must ascribe the happy moderation we live under . . . to make them
apprehend how . . . just and necessary a duty it is to express our bond and
gratitude to both your majesties.”23 Through a financial contribution
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 161

to the campaign, Henrietta Maria’s coreligionists had the opportunity

to express their gratitude for the queen’s past intercessions and ensure
that she would continue to champion the Catholic cause. The Venetian
ambassador suggested that the queen even envisioned a particular mini-
mum contribution as a just response to the king’s financial needs, writ-
ing in May 1639, “She has written in forma precaria to all the gentry and
ladies as well, earnestly begging for fresh help in these emergencies, and
not to contribute less than 100l.”24 While the ambassador assumed that
the recipients of the appeal would be pleased to donate in response to
Henrietta Maria’s appeal, the amount raised, while significant, did not
meet Charles’s military needs.25 As demonstrated by the mixed reac-
tions to the queen’s intercessory activities expressed in the newsletters
authored by Catholics, the intercessory relationship outlined in “The
Advice” was not considered adequate by all the queen’s coreligionists.26
The dissatisfaction many prominent Catholics expressed concerning
the degree to which Henrietta Maria alleviated strictures against the
practice of their religion may explain the comparatively modest dona-
tion received in response to the 1639 appeal.
The hostile response to the Donation from Charles’s Protestant
subjects prompted Henrietta Maria’s first direct communication with
the Long Parliament, which was called in 1640. In contrast to Marie
Antoinette, who identified with Louis’s female subjects as fellow wives
and mothers and therefore sought to rehabilitate her reputation by
addressing them, Henrietta Maria initially focused on forging alliances
among the nobility and members of Charles’s government. Only after
her final exile to France in 1644 and the reversal of royalist fortunes did
she ensure that the narrative where parliament separated her unjustly
from her husband spread to a wide audience.27
Henrietta Maria’s defense of her conduct concerning the Donation
attempted to justify her activities as a wife and the mistress of her house-
hold. Charles’s ambassador at the French court received a newsletter stat-
ing, “Lady Denby says Lady Killigrew hath put the Queen upon a design
to . . . all the grand ladies . . . to contribute out of their allowances towards
the charge of the King’s army.”28 During the 1630s, the queen’s ladies
had been critiqued by Protestant popular opinion for their participation
in court masques and apparent willingness to convert to Catholicism.
With the outbreak the of Bishops’ Wars, they became potential co-con-
spirators in apparent plotting on behalf of Catholics. Among the gentle-
men in the queen’s circle, Sir Kenelm Digby and Sir Basil Brooke were
mentioned as central collectors.29 Once parliament was summoned,
Digby’s correspondence with the queen would be intercepted and ana-
lyzed for evidence of conspiracies within Henrietta Maria’s household.30
The decision to present the initial appeal to prominent women reflected
162 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Henrietta Maria’s desire to present the Donation as the action of a loyal

wife. The queen’s focus on the allowances of wives and the incomes of
widows may have also reflected the gendered religious politics of the
seventeenth century, implicitly appealing to recusant wives within con-
formist aristocratic households.
When Henrietta Maria ordered her Comptroller, Henry Jermyn, to
deliver a conciliatory message to the Houses of Commons on 5 February
1640, she took full responsibility for organizing the Donation, absolv-
ing her household and declaring disinterested devotion to Charles’s
interests. The letter to parliament stated, “She further taketh notice
that the parliament is not satisfied with the manner of raising money
for the assistance of the King in his journey to the North . . . She was
moved hereunto merely out of her dear and tender affection to the
King.”31 The queen presented herself in a domestic role in an attempt
to diffuse popular anger concerning her involvement the king’s military
campaign, which was outside the traditional feminine sphere. Henrietta
Maria also suggested concessions to parliament’s concerns regarding
the spread of Catholicism from the queen’s court, offering to dismiss
the papal envoy resident in her household and bar the public from her
chapels.32 Through this letter, the queen attempted to perform the role
of intercessor between the king and his subjects and depoliticize her
position as a wife, in the same manner as the domestic portraiture com-
missioned in the 1630s.
In the same manner as all Henrietta Maria’s correspondence with
parliament, she presented a sympathetic public persona that differed
from her actual views. The Venetian ambassador recorded a conver-
sation with the queen in July 1641 where she explained, “She was pre-
pared to obey the king, but not 400 of his subjects, as this did not befit
her spirit or her birth.”33 The differences between Henrietta Maria’s
actual intentions and the concessions she offered parliament were made
explicitly clear after the seizure of Charles’s correspondence following
the Battle of Naseby in 1645.34 The possession of numerous documented
examples of the queen’s involvement in the royalist war effort would give
the House of Commons clear evidence that the Revolutionary Tribunal
did not have during its trial of Marie Antoinette. As early as 1641, how-
ever, Henrietta Maria’s interpretation of her actions was rejected by
parliament. d’Ewes noted in his journal that the letter justifying the
Donation was greeted with silence, and a motion to thank the queen
was rejected.35 Her decision to directly engage with parliament contra-
dicted her narrative of an apolitical marriage regardless of the actual
content of her letter. The silence that greeted the reading of her letter in
parliament was an implicit challenge to her legitimacy as queen consort
and as a political figure in her own right.
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 163

The credibility of the queen’s stated attempts to act as a peacemaker

between Charles and parliament was also challenged in printed politi-
cal pamphlets, which circulated in large numbers following the end of
the king’s Personal Rule.36 Henrietta Maria was called upon to publicly
pledge her loyalty to parliament in a tract that stated, “That for the
securing of the kingdom in this behalf . . . the Queen would be pleased
to take a solemn oath in the presence of both Houses of Parliament, that
will not hereafter . . . at all intermeddle in any affairs of State and govern-
ment of the kingdom.”37 This statement is both a rejection of Henrietta
Maria’s apparent good faith as an intercessor between king and parlia-
ment and a critique of her past activities. While accounts of Charles’s
and Henrietta Maria’s wedding had been made available to consumers
of print literature, conversations at court or speculation concerning
the political activities of the royal family were confined to newsletters
and diplomatic correspondence. In contrast, the 1640s saw the publi-
cation of royal correspondence originally intended to be read by the
recipient alone. Publications stating the intentions of “Both Houses of
Parliament”38 spread news of state business beyond the political elites to
a wider audience and printed analysis of these documents was circulated
by independent publishers. This expansion of the public sphere had the
effect of desacralizing the royal couple, as they were now viewed within
the context of disputes with the representatives of their subjects.
Interestingly, the Long Parliament also objected to the creation of
suppositious royal correspondence for public consumption including
letters falsely attributed to Henrietta Maria.39 Individual members of
parliament also attempted to prosecute those printers who falsely attrib-
uted published speeches to members of the houses of parliament.40 This
concern with the accuracy of documents circulated by independent
publishers contrasted with the National Assembly’s approach to the
public sphere during the French Revolution, which focused on the polit-
ical stance of the publishers rather than the accuracy of their content.41
Parliament’s objection to the spread of falsified documents attributed
to both its own members and their opponents suggests an interest in
the nascent public sphere as a means of gaining popular legitimacy from
disagreements with Charles and Henrietta Maria. The suppression of
these documents also reflected the continued influence of state cen-
sorship, which would be wholly rejected during the French Revolution.
The publication of parliamentary debates was made illegal in March
1642, though publication of general proceedings was largely tolerated,42
so falsified documents were considered particularly subversive by both
houses of parliament.
Despite the failure of the Donation to provide the financial capi-
tal necessary for Charles to achieve success in the Bishops’ Wars,
164 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Henrietta Maria continued to assert what she considered her preroga-

tives until her departure for Holland in 1642. Although the second half
of her dowry had not yet been paid by 164043 and Charles himself had
not honored all the provisions of her marriage contract, she insisted
that parliament uphold the clauses of this document.44 The contract,
which had been drafted according to the Anglo-French diplomatic
imperatives of 1625, remained essential to Henrietta Maria’s concep-
tion of her own position throughout the 1640s, limiting her opportu-
nities to negotiate with parliament. The queen’s insistence that the
precise terms of her marriage contract must be respected throughout
her lifetime limited her opportunities to reach any form of compro-
mise with parliament. Nevertheless, the accusations levelled against
her honor and loyalty to the state resulted in moderate royalists, even
those who opposed Henrietta Maria’s political influence, repeating
the queen’s narrative of suffering in their own works. For example,
although the Earl of Clarendon made numerous references to percep-
tions of the queen’s great influence over politics and religion in his
history of the English Civil Wars, 45 he still argued that Charles agreed
to the execution of the Earl of Strafford, because “he saw in what com-
motion the people were; that his own life, and that of the Queen and
royal issue might probably be sacrificed to that fury.”46 Although par-
liament consistently denied that they threatened Henrietta Maria’s
life, the House of Commons’ contempt for “the sacred person of the
Queen”47 allowed her perception of threats to her life and liberty to
gain credence in elite circles.
Despite the extraordinary political circumstances of the 1640s,
Henrietta Maria continued to devote herself to the roles discussed in
the previous chapters. In her position as head of her household, she
continued her activities from the 1630s, including the development
of her estates and the pursuit of benefits for her circle. 48 She had pro-
tested Charles’s dismissal of the majority of her French household
but ultimately accepted his authority and altered her conception of
her role to reflect the realities of her marriage. Although her corre-
spondence with parliament appeared conciliatory, the relationship
between the queen and the House of Commons was essentially antag-
onistic as neither party approved of the other having significant influ-
ence over Charles.
Between the summoning of the Long Parliament in the fall of 1640
and Henrietta Maria’s departure for Holland in the spring of 1642, the
queen clashed with the House of Commons regarding the arrest and
interrogation of prominent members of her household, particularly
Catholics. The removal of her servants and the critiques of her circle
by prominent figures questioned by the House of Commons, such as
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 165

George Goring and James Chudleigh, not only destabilized the queen’s
customary surroundings but critically undermined her legitimacy.49
The results of the interviews questioned her very ability to manage her
court, casting doubt on her loyalty and fidelity to Charles. Goring was
recorded in the House of Lords Journals as stating, “thereupon Mr.
Jermyn50 brought him into the Queen’s bedchamber, but before [he]
could enter into any discourse with the Queene, the King came in, and
then [he] did withdraw; and went away for that time: but returned again
that same night.”51 While the ostensible purpose of these interviews
was to obtain evidence of Catholic plots at court,52 the identification
of Henrietta Maria’s bedchamber as a setting for conspiratorial discus-
sions also implied her involvement in scandalous activities.
In contrast to the French court during the reign of Louis XVI, the
bedchambers of the English monarch and consort were comparatively
private spaces that could not be entered without the express permis-
sion of a member of the royal family. Charles enforced this distinction
between public and domestic spheres in his household and that of his
wife’s in reaction to the comparative accessibility of the king’s inner
chambers during his father’s reign.53 Henrietta Maria’s discussions with
male favorites in her bedchamber at night, without the king’s knowl-
edge, therefore, encouraged speculation concerning her fidelity. The
Venetian ambassador recognized the danger of parliament’s scrutiny of
the royal household to the queen’s legitimacy, writing on 17 May 1641:

Five servants of the queen of the highest standing and favour, took
flight last night, being accused of conspiring with the king against
the parliament and trying to induce the English army to support His
Majesty’s designs. Among these is the High Steward [ Jermyn], who
in addition to the crimes alleged against his fellows, is accused of too
great an intimacy with the queen, so that even the honour of these
unhappy princes is not safe from the slanderous tongues of their
subjects.54

Speculation concerning the queen’s relations with the prominent gentle-

men in her household, which had previously been confined to the records
of seditious speech cases, was now implied by the House of Commons.
Although Henrietta Maria was never libeled in pornographic pamphlets
in the manner of Marie Antoinette, discussion of possible infidelities
within a public forum was still a direct challenge to her legitimacy as
a wife and mother. The dispatch also reveals the degree to which par-
liament had assumed Henrietta Maria’s role as head of her household,
depriving her of authority in this sphere. That the five servants fled
the court in response to the accusations demonstrated that they did
166 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

not believe the queen could protect them. Parliament’s management

of Henrietta Maria’s household removed one of the essential elements
of her position and challenged Charles’s authority by implying that he
could not preserve order within the court let alone his kingdoms.
While speculation concerning Henrietta Maria’s fidelity to Charles
implicitly challenged her legitimacy as a mother and demonstrated the
extent of her unpopularity in other spheres, parliament also actively
challenged her involvement in the upbringing of her children. The
main points of conflict between queen and parliament were the inde-
pendence of the future Charles II’s household, and the age at which
Princess Mary should travel to Holland to begin her married life. The
House of Commons raised objections to Prince Charles’s upbringing
as soon as Charles I’s Personal Rule ended, indicating long-standing
popular discontent with the children’s circumstances. When parlia-
ment was summoned in 1640, all the royal children were residing in
their mother’s household.
The impetus for this merger of the queen’s and royal children’s
households was ostensibly a plot against the life of Prince Charles. The
Venetian ambassador wrote on 21 September 1640, “A Scottish maitre de
cuisine of the Prince has been arrested for having expressed the intention
to kill his Highness with a knife. It is proposed that for greater safety
the prince with the others shall go to the queen, who has proceeded from
Oatlands to Hampton Court.”55 At this time, Henrietta Maria had just
given birth to her youngest son, Henry, and the presence of her other
children in her residence during her forty days lying in had precedents
dating from the birth of James. The identification of the servant’s back-
ground within the politically charged climate of the Bishops’ Wars was
significant as there were few Scots in any of the royal households and
an increase in their number at court was one of the demands expressed
by the covenanters.56 Henrietta Maria’s decision to absorb her children
into her household in response to an accusation against one of her son’s
few Scottish servants may have been a means of exerting direct control
over appointments. By residing in the same household as her children,
the queen was also conforming to the clause of her marriage contract
permitting her control over their upbringing. The king’s absence during
his campaign against the Scots provided an opportunity for Henrietta
Maria to assert her authority over her children and household in defi-
ance of Protestant popular opinion.
As Marie was still in England in 1640, the potential for the royal chil-
dren to be exposed to Catholic influences within their family seemed
particularly acute. The House of Commons formally requested that
Prince Charles be removed from his mother’s custody to his own house-
hold because members of her circle might attempt to convert him to
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 167

Catholicism.57 The Venetian ambassador reported, “Parliament has

sent instructions to . . . governor of the Prince, not to permit them to go
to their mother in future,” demonstrating that parliament intended to
end Henrietta Maria’s practice of spending periods of several months in
the same residence as her children.58 This event proved to be one of the
significant incidents in the queen’s public presentation of herself as a
wronged mother and victim of parliament’s machinations.
Henrietta Maria’s friend Madame de Motteville later explained,
“they sent her Word, that she would do well to put [her children] into
their hands during the King’s Absence, because they could learn noth-
ing with her, and they feared that she would make them papists. But
the Queen returned for an Answer than they were mistaken . . . she
knew it was not the King’s pleasure that he be so.”59 Henrietta Maria
may have genuinely believed this interpretation of events but the differ-
ence between her accounts of this event and that of the parliamentary
records suggest that she was attempting her assert her own authority. In
de Motteville’s memoirs, the queen appeared to be arranging the care
of her children according to her husband’s wishes when parliament’s
“insolence”60 compelled her to relinquish them.
When the queen wished to depart for Holland she again presented
herself as a dutiful wife and mother who sought only to escort her
daughter Mary to her marital home.61 Henrietta Maria’s support-
ers and detractors alike suspected that there were other compelling
reasons for her flight.62 The French envoy wrote that the queen had
resolved to leave because of the danger to her person and repeated dis-
putes with parliament.63 The House of Commons correctly suspected
that the queen regarded her journey as an opportunity to gather
further resources for the king’s military activities64 and attempted
to postpone her departure by challenging her portrayal of herself as
a good mother. While Henrietta Maria emphasized her duty to her
daughter, various members of parliament argued that the princess,
aged ten at the time of her wedding, was too young to reside with her
new husband and that it was beneath the dignity of an English queen
to visit the Stadholder’s court.65
Although the queen ultimately gained the necessary permission to
travel abroad, she was compelled to defend herself as a mother in order
to achieve her goals. By the time Henrietta Maria departed for Holland,
parliament had usurped elements of her role as head of her household,
wife, and mother. In response, she developed a public image of herself
as a wronged woman deprived of her accepted place within her fam-
ily. The queen would expand this narrative to encompass her military
activities on behalf of Charles as she faced the consequences of her
impeachment.
168 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Henrietta Maria: Impeaching the Queen

On 5 June 1643, the Venetian ambassador reported the impeachment
of Henrietta Maria as queen, writing, “It was proposed in the Lower
House last Tuesday to accuse [the queen] of high treason, for having
induced the king to make war against the state, and having procured
assistance. This was carried, and the accusation was at once taken to
the House of Lords.”66 This account of how the House of Commons
presented a motion for the impeachment of the queen to the House
of Lords reveals the unprecedented significance of the event for the
legitimacy of monarchical government as the envoy observed, “Where
this complication of things and this audacious presumption of sub-
jects will end no one would presume to prophesy.”67 An attempt to
remove the king’s wife from her accepted position without the sov-
ereign’s consent did not have clear precedents in either English or
Scottish history. The dispatch also discussed how the members of
parliament disagreed with one another concerning the wording of the
motion and the action that should be taken in the event of the docu-
ment’s assent by the House of Lords. The House of Commons argued
that Henrietta Maria should not be treated differently than any other
subject of Charles accused of treasonous activities.68 Attitudes in the
House of Lords were more divided as Protestant peers recognized the
complications created by her status as wife of Charles and sister of
Louis XIII of France, and Catholic peers left the chamber rather than
discuss the impeachment.69
The possible outcomes of the resolution, in the event that parliament
actually arrested Henrietta Maria, were not discussed when the initial
motion was presented to the House of Lords though the writings of
individual members of parliament and parliamentary generals indicate
a broad range of interpretations. As news of the impeachment spread,
an equally diverse range of popular reactions to the idea of impeach-
ing the queen emerged. Despite these ambiguities, the Venetian ambas-
sador was correct to observe that any acceptance of this motion was
an attack on the legitimacy of monarchical government. By declar-
ing Henrietta Maria subject to laws that applied to all inhabitants of
England, the House of Commons rejected her dynastic legitimacy as
queen. For Henrietta Maria’s opponents, dynastic monarchy had been
superseded by a broader concept of sovereignty that had the effect of
diminishing perceived distinctions between the actions of royalty and
those of non-royal public figures.
The failure of the two houses of parliament to clarify the meaning
and consequences of the “impeachment” of Henrietta Maria, exacer-
bated by her successful final escape to France in 1644, has encouraged
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 169

current historians to dismiss the formal judgment of Charles’s consort as

a motion of comparative historical insignificance. In contrast to the trial
of Marie Antoinette in 1793, the motion to impeach Henrietta Maria
is not the focus of any studies.70 Biographies of Henrietta Maria often
summarize the impeachment in a single sentence, placing it within the
larger context of parliamentary distrust of the queen and the privations
she suffered during the Civil Wars.71 This approach mirrors Henrietta
Maria’s own portrayal of the impeachment, which deliberately down-
played the significance of the motion. Recent analysis of depictions of
the queen within the Civil Wars, however, acknowledges the signifi-
cance of the impeachment to Charles’s failed attempt to arrest five of his
opponents in the House of Commons and the subsequent breakdown of
negotiations between crown and parliament.72 The absence of discus-
sion of the impeachment in French Revolutionary pamphlet literature
contributes to the comparative invisibility of the legal actions taken
against Henrietta Maria in subsequent scholarship. Her status as a prin-
cess of France made comparisons with Marie Antoinette problematic.
Although numerous pamphlets would be published in the 1790s com-
paring the fate of Charles I to that of Louis XVI,73 Marie Antoinette
would be compared to such notorious figures as Catherine de Medici
and Messalina instead of Henrietta Maria.
While preparations for the trial of Marie Antoinette occurred
after the execution of Louis in a climate of Austrophobia, misogyny,
and court factionalism personally directed at the queen, the impeach-
ment of Henrietta Maria emerged from parliamentary discussion of
the relationship between the royal couple and English common law in
the aftermath of a protracted period of Personal Rule by the sovereign.
During the reigns of James I and Charles I, Magna Carta, a charter that
imposed limits on the power of King John in 1215, experienced a revival
in the popular imagination and informed the Petition of Right imposed
on Charles in 1628. Both the king and queen were expected to operate
within the boundaries of the law. While the impeachment of the king
would have been widely opposed in the early 1640s as a threat to the
political stability of the kingdom, the removal of an unpopular queen
served as a more acceptable means of challenging monarchical govern-
ment. There was hope that Charles I would be more amenable to the
expectations of his Protestant subjects if certain advisors, most notably
the Roman Catholic queen Henrietta Maria, no longer had the author-
ity to influence him.
Henrietta Maria’s Catholicism was particularly contentious within
the context of Archbishop Laud’s high church reforms, which appeared
to be part of a popish plot, particularly by Puritans and Presbyterians.
There were rumors that Laud had been offered a Cardinal’s hat, fueled by
170 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the presence of a papal envoy in Henrietta Maria’s circle.74 The absence

of parliamentary sessions in the 1630s fueled the popular view that
Henrietta Maria wielded great political influence over Charles through
her unique relationship to him. The initial attempts by the members of
parliament to define the queen’s position as that of “a subject like any
other” were similar to their determination to ensure that the king acted
within the framework of common law.
The formalization of the monarch’s place within the English and
Scottish legal systems, which would not be complete until the joint reign
of Henrietta Maria’s grandchildren William III and Mary II, necessar-
ily challenged the queen’s opportunities to wield political influence.
This scrutiny of the place of court women in the political life of a mon-
archy would also be challenged during the French Revolution, as the
National Assembly objected to the privileges accorded the queen and
her female favorites. The description of Henrietta Maria as a subject in
English parliamentary discourse reflected a similar interest in ensuring
that the right to advise the monarch would be the preserve of promi-
nent male representatives instead of a foreign born, female consort. The
framework of a broad conflict concerning Henrietta Maria’s role in a
state governed by both king and parliament was therefore established
from the end of Charles’s Personal Rule.
Henrietta Maria’s position in this conflict regarding her right to
wield political influence through her personal relationship to the king
was weakened by her exemption from the coverture laws that dictated
the economic position of Charles’s female subjects,75 her absence from
her husband’s coronations, and her Catholicism. Her French back-
ground inflamed public opinion regarding her close involvement in the
royalist war effort but her ancestry actually complicated the process of
impeachment. The Venetian ambassador stated that legal action against
Henrietta Maria raised the specter of war with France, writing, “the
minister [sent by Louis XIII] increases instead of diminishing suspicion,
as he says roundly that France will not suffer the king and queen here
to perish, whatever the cost.”76 Although this particular envoy may have
exaggerated the likelihood of French interference in English affairs, the
members of parliament still focused on laws pertaining to Catholics
in England and her circumstances within her husband’s kingdom. The
House of Commons’ approach contrasted with the accusations levelled
at Marie Antoinette by the Revolutionary Tribunal, which focused
much of its case on her supposed correspondence the Habsburgs. While
the English parliament sought to prevent the breakdown of relations
with France, Marie Antoinette’s accusers attempted to use the deposed
queen’s trial as an opportunity to increase French patriotic feeling dur-
ing existing hostilities with the Habsburg Empire.77
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 171

The case for Henrietta Maria’s impeachment was supported by

English law and custom, in the opinion of the members of parliament,
instead of threats posed by foreign powers. Both English and Scottish
consorts were traditionally crowned alongside their husbands or at the
time of their marriages. The coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533 was a
powerful statement of her legitimacy as Henry VIII’s wife during the
lifetime of her predecessor Catherine of Aragon. Anna of Denmark
was crowned queen in Scotland’s first Protestant coronation in 1590
then crowned again as queen of England alongside James I in 1603.
Although Henrietta Maria’s rejection of a Church of England corona-
tion rite for herself in 1626 forestalled the appearance of compromising
her Catholicism,78 she denied herself the opportunity to strengthen her
legitimacy in the manner of her predecessors.79
Those newsletters that supported parliament’s legal proceed-
ings against the queen emphasized her accountability to the law, an
approach that foreshadowed the seemingly paradoxical accusations of
“royal treason” that Charles would face at his trial.80 In May 1643, the
Perfect Diurnall wrote, “After a long and serious debate, touching the
proceedings of the Queen, in her late being in Holland . . . it was debated
and fully agreed, that she was liable to the censure of the law, as any sub-
ject in the kingdom.”81 The House of Commons also received petitions
from prominent citizens that called for the accountability of the royal
family to the law that applied to all other subjects. According to one
petition, the people of London and its environs “would have made both
Kings, Queens, Princes, Dukes, Earls, Lords and all persons alike liable
to every Law of the Land, made or to be Made; that so all persons even
the highest might fear.”82 The placing of queens in the same category as
other members of nobility implicitly rejected the legitimacy of the dis-
tinct prerogatives practiced by Charles’s consort and her predecessors.
Although the House of Commons discussed judicial evidence against
the wives of previous kings,83 there few similarities between the trial of
Anne Boleyn and the proposed impeachment of Henrietta Maria. The
House of Commons, the parliamentary press, and the petitions circu-
lated by prominent Londoners all suggested any person who acted in the
same manner as Henrietta Maria would be equally answerable to the
law, regardless of their social position.
While Henrietta Maria’s absence from Charles’s coronations pro-
vided the most powerful evidence against her legitimacy as queen, par-
liament’s determination to enforce strictures against the participation
of Catholics in public life further undermined her position. By 1640,
rumors circulated that the king himself was a secret Catholic. Elizabeth
Thorowgod, the wife of a “trooper” under Henrietta Maria’s favorite,
Digby, was investigated by the House of Commons for publicly stating to
172 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the other boarders at the house where she lodged, “Will the king say my
wife is a papist, shall I not love them? . . . she had heard divers of our own
sect, meaning the Protestants, say that now the King commonly went
to mass and was turned to be a papist.”84 These rumors strengthened
the relationship between Henrietta Maria’s position as queen and the
spread of Catholicism in the popular imagination. The queen enjoyed
a friendly correspondence with Strafford85 and fears of a Catholic Irish
revolt that would threaten the lives of Protestants made the religious
orthodoxy of the sovereign a matter of urgent importance. The sugges-
tion that Charles had abandoned his duties as governor of the Church of
England out of love for his Catholic consort undermined his sovereignty
and strengthened that of parliament.
Parliament sought to enforce all existing laws proscribing Catholic
devotional practices and the participation of Henrietta Maria’s core-
ligionists in public life. At the time of her departure for Holland, the
French ambassador observed that parliament’s success reflected the
ruin of the Catholic cause in England.86 His Venetian counterpart
was more specific, writing to the Doge of the persecution of individ-
ual Catholics and militant Protestant opposition to Henrietta Maria’s
attempts to intercede on behalf of her coreligionists. He reported on
8 February 1641 that she had persuaded Charles to commute a death
sentence against an Englishman convicted of proselytizing Catholicism
as a priest. In response, “When the parliament and the city learned this
they both had recourse to the king, to permit the sentence to be car-
ried out, or else they assured him of the offence his people would take
and that they would not grant him any subsidy in the future. They also
threatened the queen with greater ills.”87 Charles’s decision to uphold
his wife’s wishes in this particular case above those of the members
of parliament fueled opposition to Henrietta Maria’s ability to exert
political influence.
From 1640 to 1643, numerous printed news books concluded that
the solution to the problems posed by Henrietta Maria’s influence was
the delegitimization of her place within her family. One tract summa-
rized the problem created by the influence of a Catholic queen over a
Protestant sovereign, stating, “If the King himself were a Papist, he
would yet look upon us as his natural subjects, but when his regal power
is secondarily in the hands of a Papist, to that Papist we appear but as
mere heretics without any other relation of subjects. By secondary power
also, a cloak is given with more secrecy and security.”88 While Charles
possessed authority over his subjects through his coronation oath prom-
ising responsibility for their welfare, his wife had not entered into any
similar covenant. Her influence therefore corrupted the relationship
between the sovereign and his people.
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 173

A Scottish advertisement for military recruits that circulated dur-

ing the Bishops’ Wars discussed the queen as though she were the
king’s mistress instead of his legitimate wife, a technique that would be
employed at length by Marie Antoinette’s opponents. In this document,
Lord Conway, declared, “we know well what the honest King does in his
bedchamber, as that Papist wench that lies by his side, who is the only
animator of the best sort of men that are against us, for to say honestly
as God bade, there are diverse commanders or brave men of that whor-
ish religion.”89 This document explicitly focuses on the physical inti-
macy between Charles and Henrietta Maria, making the bond between
husband and wife appear illicit and dangerous. While the King retains
his title and status in the advertisement, his consort is merely a “papist
wench” whose religion is equally “whorish” and a source of corruption.
Upon Henrietta Maria’s return from Holland with arms and merce-
naries for the royalist cause in February 1643, the implicit challenges
to the queen’s legitimacy became an explicit charge of high treason.
Although her final flight to France precluded the possibility of an
actual trial, the charges were public knowledge. This circulation of the
accusations against Henrietta Maria in printed tracts available to all
social estates divided public opinion between those who agreed with
the substance of the accusations and those who defended the queen as
a loyal wife. In May, the House of Commons laid the foundations for
formal charges against the queen by announcing, “That all papists that
have been in actual war against the Parliament be protected against as
Traitors and protest enemies to the state and kingdom.”90 This decla-
ration reflected the Long Parliament’s previous practice of enforcing
strictures against Catholics in opposition to Henrietta Maria’s preroga-
tives as an intercessor.
By June, the eight charges against Henrietta Maria presented by the
House of Commons to the House of Lords were circulating in print.
While the announcement that all Catholics at war against parliament
were traitors was widely recognized to be an implicit condemnation of
the queen,91 who had styled herself, “She Majesty Generalissima,”92 the
impeachment identified specific instances of perceived criminal behav-
ior. According to a newsbook entitled “The Parliament Scout,” the
House of Commons formally accused Henrietta Maria of inciting the
Irish Revolt and seven other charges:

1) That Henrietta Maria had traitorously and wickedly conspired

with Popish priests, to subvert the Protestant religion, and to intro-
duce popery and for ten years hath advanced the power and jurisdic-
tion of the bishop of Rome. 2) That she hath incited and maintained
a war against the subjects of Scotland, and caused monies to be
174 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

raised amongst the Papists for the advancement and maintenance

of this war. 3) Hath by several ways and means traitorously assisted
and maintained this unnatural war against the Parliament and the
Kingdom . . . 4) Hath to provide monies and arms, pawned and sold
the jewels of this realm. 5) Hath brought over with her not only arms
and ammunition but strangers and foreigners and is herself the head
of the Popish Army. 6) Hath harboured and protected notorious per-
sons detracted and accused of High Treason by the two Houses of
Parliament, namely George, Lord Digby, Henry Percy, Henry Jermyn
and others. 7) That she hath put ill affected persons in great places
and offices of credit, whereby to advance the Popish party.93

These charges represented the culmination of parliament’s attempts to

delegitimize the queen by emphasizing the laws proscribing political and
military activity by Catholics, Henrietta Maria’s absence from Charles’s
coronations, and her exemption from the coverture laws. The accusa-
tions ignored all the significant relationships and sources of authority
that she had enjoyed throughout her life, including her status as daugh-
ter of the late Henry IV of France, wife of Charles I, and mother of the
royal children, stating her given name instead of her titles. Her relation-
ship with Charles is not mentioned, allowing her to be accused indepen-
dently of him. In contrast, Marie Antoinette was placed on trial after
the judgment and execution of Louis and was therefore described as
“Widow Capet” by the Revolutionary Tribunal.94 Various members of
her household are mentioned in the indictment of Henrietta Maria but
they are described as “notorious persons” depriving her of any claim to
authority within this sphere. In contrast to consorts condemned by the
will of their sovereign husbands, Henrietta Maria was judged by virtue
of her perceived actions without regard for her status or relationships.
The impeachment of Henrietta Maria near the beginning of the
Civil Wars, six years before the trial and execution of Charles, provided
the queen with the opportunity to develop a public image as a suffering
wife, and parliament with the opportunity to delegitimize a royal “advi-
sor” before challenging the king’s right to rule. The members of the
House of Commons clearly held differing opinions regarding the con-
sequences of the accusations, as demonstrated by d’Ewes, who stated,
“some conceived they meant to go no further with her but to have her
out of the public prayer [in the book of Common Prayer] but others were
of another opinion”95 and the fact that the House of Lords never passed
the motion.96 Nevertheless, the royalist newspaper Mercurius Aulicus
categorically rejected parliament’s attempt to condemn Henrietta
Maria without regard for her place within her family, stating, “Good
women live the while in a wretched age, who cannot be assisting to their
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 175

husbands in their great necessities, as by the laws of God and Nature

they are bound to be, without being traitors to Master Pym, and some
of the good members of both Houses.”97 According to this newssheet,
Henrietta Maria’s militancy on behalf of Charles reflected her natural
desire to support her husband in his struggle to preserve his sovereign
authority. The Mercurius Aulicus noted the differences of opinion within
the houses of parliament but the interpretation of the impeachment
provided by Henrietta Maria to such prominent figures as Motteville
and Duperron was filled with dramatic examples of threats to her physi-
cal safety. Her residence in exile allowed this narrative concerning her
activities, character, and experiences to circulate throughout the Civil
Wars and Protectorate. In 1660, Charles II would ultimately imply that
he accepted his mother’s interpretation of her experiences in the 1640s,
restoring her income, title, and social position despite opposition to her
return to England shaped by her reputation.
Henrietta Maria, Queen of England and Scotland, was impeached by
the House of Commons in 1643 as an ordinary inhabitant of Charles’s
kingdoms. During the months between the summoning of the Long
Parliament and the presentation of formal charges to the House of
Lords, the queen’s legitimacy was challenged by virtue of the enforce-
ment of proscriptions against the participation of Catholics in public
life, her absence from Charles’s coronations, and her exemption from
the covertures laws. The indictment of the queen omitted any refer-
ence to her titles, her marriage, and her authority over a vast household
or the existence of the royal children. The manner in which Henrietta
Maria’s perceived militant Catholicism challenged existing English
laws was the focus of the impeachment rather than her foreign birth.
The approach adopted by the House of Commons reflected the dif-
ferent opinions among the members and absence of consensus in 1643
concerning the ultimate fate of Charles and monarchical government.
In common with Henrietta Maria, Marie Antoinette would attempt to
counter legal charges by publicly presenting herself as a loyal wife and
wronged mother.

Marie Antoinette: Achieving

Political Ascendancy
When Louis convened the Assembly of Notables in 1787, an event that
ultimately allowed Marie Antoinette to assume an influential role over
the king’s decision making, the queen was experiencing a period of
crisis in her roles as head of a royal household, wife, and mother that
did not have a parallel in Henrietta Maria’s experience. The separation
176 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

between Charles and Henrietta Maria after 1644 created opportunities

for miscommunication,98 and for the king to pursue an affair during the
last years of his life.99 Nevertheless, Henrietta Maria’s marriage, rela-
tions with her children, and household remained relatively stable until
her widowhood. In contrast, Marie Antoinette grew apart from her
husband, had difficulties with her elder children, and experienced the
departure of numerous servants. The crises Marie Antoinette experi-
enced in the late 1780s are crucial to the assessment of her motives dur-
ing the revolutionary period.
The queen’s political ascendancy from 1787 to 1789 has received
extensive scholarly attention with the debate focusing on the degree to
which she was in agreement with Louis as she pursued the restoration
of his full traditional prerogatives through political overtures to both
French statesmen and foreign monarchs.100 As a greater number of her
papers have survived to the present day than those of Louis, the degree
to which the royal couple pursed political objectives in tandem is diffi-
cult to determine with certainty.101 Her ability to wield concrete politi-
cal power as mother of a reigning sovereign below the age of majority
was certainly recognized by the queen’s contemporaries, complicating
the symbolic recognition of Louis XVII for royalists and increasing
Austrophobic hostility to the monarchy.102
English and American historians of Louis’s reign argue that the
royal couple acted as a single political unit throughout the revolution-
ary period.103 None of these historians connect the difficulties Marie
Antoinette faced in her positions as wife, mother, and head of a royal
household in the late 1780s to her political activities during the revolu-
tionary period.104 This interpretation remains open to scholarly debate
because of the existence of at least one letter in which Marie Antoinette
forged her husband’s handwriting,105 and independent correspondence
between the queen of France and her “sister” queens consort and reg-
nant throughout Europe during the French Revolution. 106 In 1792, she
wrote to the queen of Spain, who had once visited the royal family at
St. Cloud,107 “I had wanted to be able to write to you at the same time
that the King had written to the King of Spain, but the moment was not
right, and one must be circumspect in all our efforts.”108 This opening
is followed by general expressions of goodwill but since not all Marie
Antoinette’s correspondence survives, the questions of why she needed
to write separately and the nature of the efforts she alludes to in this
letter remain unanswered.
Marie Antoinette’s sentiments and actions do not appear to conform
to either extreme duplicity or unconditional marital unity. She was
aware that her own plans for the restoration of prerogatives tradition-
ally belonging to the monarchy and the eventual Flight to Varennes had
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 177

little chance of success without Louis’s consent.109 The queen was also
acutely aware of the king’s indecision following the royal family’s trans-
fer to Paris, however, and made plans focused on Louis-Charles’s future
inheritance instead of her present position alone. In the formulation of
plans concerning both her husband and her son, she was clearly heav-
ily reliant on the Swedish nobleman Axel Fersen, who presented him-
self to the royal couple as a man of action, contrasting directly with the
king’s caution and indecisiveness. Following the departure of Polignac
and Artois and the arrest of Lamballe there were few members of the
queen’s social circle whom she trusted with the full extent of her politi-
cal correspondence. The personal crises of the 1780s therefore directly
shaped Marie Antoinette’s political activities as a wife, mother, and
head of a royal household during the revolutionary period.
The changes in Marie Antoinette’s relationship with Louis date from
1787. The births of the royal children initially brought the couple closer
together but there is evidence that after Sophie-Beatrix’s death that
year, they ceased to have marital relations.110 When Joseph II wrote to
his sister in 1788 to clarify rumors that she was expecting a fifth child,
the queen replied, “I have not even had a day’s suspicion of it.”111 During
this same period, Marie Antoinette developed a romantic friendship
with Fersen, who would become involved in the queen’s political activi-
ties after the outbreak of Revolution, including the Flight to Varennes.
The relationship between the queen and Fersen was little known
among Louis’s subjects and he was rarely named in the pamphlets that
circulated about Marie Antoinette’s perceived sexual indiscretions.112
Regardless of whether she actually consummated her relationship with
Fersen,113 her closeness to a person to whom she wrote in 1791, “I am only
able to tell you that I love you and have only time for that,” 114 impacted
her relationship with Louis and the decisions she made as his wife dur-
ing the revolutionary period. As the king grew increasingly passive after
1787, the queen increasingly relied on Fersen to assume a leadership role
in her political activities.
The innovations Marie Antoinette introduced to the royal nurser-
ies contributed to conflicts with her two eldest children during the
same period. Marie-Thérèse rebelled against her mother’s attempts
to restructure the nursery routine to expose her children to the daily
lives of Louis’s subjects.115 Despite Marie Antoinette`s attempts to
encourage her daughter to interact with children of all social estates
as equals, Marie Thérèse had a keen sense of her position, reprimand-
ing the Baronne d’Oberkirch for addressing her without first being
acknowledged.116 Marie-Thérèse’s perception that she was being com-
pelled to perform activities beneath her dignity fueled hostility toward
her mother that she expressed in the presence of prominent courtiers.
178 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Bombelles recorded in his journal that when Vermond informed Marie-

Thérèse had fallen from her horse and might have died, the princess
replied, “It would have been all the same to me.” 117 The circumstances
of the French Revolution superseded these disagreements between
mother and daughter and Marie-Thérèse’s memoirs indicate they devel-
oped a close bond.118
During the same period in which Marie Antoinette faced the resis-
tance of her daughter to her parenting innovations, there is evidence
that the appointment of Polignac as governess undermined her relation-
ship with her eldest son. Louis-Joseph developed tuberculosis of the
spine in the mid-1780s, corresponding with Polignac’s tenure, and his
health steadily declined until his death soon after the summoning of the
Estates-General in 1789. Campan recalled in her memoirs that Polignac
and the child’s governor, the Duc de Harcourt, were in frequent conflict
concerning his care and education.119 Louis-Joseph often perceived his
mother as a figure who prevented him from fully participating in court
ceremonies because she did not want him exposed to the public gaze
while he was visibly unwell.120
Although Marie Antoinette continued to be actively concerned with
Louis-Joseph’s health, her correspondence indicates that she increas-
ingly focused her affections on her younger son. She wrote an extended
letter to Joseph II in which she discussed Louis-Joseph’s health problems
at length then praised Louis-Charles, stating, “As for the youngest, he
has all the strength and health that his brother does not have enough of.
He is a true peasant child, large, fresh and fat.”121 This close relationship
between Marie Antoinette and her youngest son would persist through-
out the revolutionary period and his position as heir to the throne would
impact the queen’s political stance toward the National Assembly. The
dimensions of the conspicuously large carriage that conveyed the royal
family on the failed Flight to Varennes was partially dictated by Marie
Antoinette’s unwillingness to be separated from her children under any
circumstances.122 The Revolutionary Tribunal would eventually exploit
the close relationship between mother and son in an attempt to further
discredit Marie Antoinette’s reputation.
In contrast to Henrietta Maria, who escaped into exile at the French
court and was accompanied by a large number of her English atten-
dants throughout the English Civil Wars, Marie Antoinette remained
under varying degrees of surveillance for four years, from the removal
of the royal family to the Tuileries in October 1789, until her execu-
tion in October 1793, and experienced the departure of a number of
members of her household. While Lamballe ultimately returned from
exile in England to attend Marie Antoinette until they were forc-
ibly separated, the Polignac family fled soon after the storming of
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 179

the Bastille and never returned to the queen’s household.123 Mercy-

Argenteau interpreted their departure as a concession to public opin-
ion, writing “The Queen supports her position with much patience
and courage. She has sacrificed the favourites surrounding her to pub-
lic opinion.”124 The ambassador’s description of Marie Antoinette’s
motives for becoming separated from the Polignacs and other promi-
nent courtiers presents the queen in a favorable light to her brother
and suggests that she maintained an interest in her reputation among
Louis’s subjects. It is unlikely that Mercy-Argenteau’s letter, however,
presents the full reasoning for their separation because the Polignacs
had been the subject of scurrilous rumor throughout the 1780s.125
Campan alludes to political disagreements between the queen and
the governess, in addition to difficulties within the royal nursery,
which provides evidence that the friendship between the two women
may have broken down by 1789. Marie Antoinette had to rebuild her
household during the revolutionary period, ascertaining who would
remain loyal to her interests.126
When Louis was compelled to accept limits on his sovereignty under
the constitutional monarchy initially crafted by the National Assembly,
Marie Antoinette’s displeasure was public knowledge. In common with
Henrietta Maria, the queen of France regarded representative institu-
tions as advisory to the sovereign instead of independent legislative
authorities. Few letters in Marie Antoinette’s own hand survive from
1789 but Mercy-Argenteau’s correspondence with Joseph II, his succes-
sor Leopold II, and Prince Anton von Kaunitz provide insights con-
cerning her attitude toward the rapidly changing political conditions
in France. In contrast to the numerous letters the ambassador wrote
prior to the revolution, which expressed hope that the births of royal
children might increase Marie Antoinette’s political significance, he
confidently wrote to Joseph II the week before the fall of the Bastille
in July 1789, “Although this august princess allowed herself to be too
moved by the infernal cabal against the Minister of Finance, however,
it’s to the moderation and wisdom of the Queen’s advice what the pres-
ent state of things is and the advantage of having avoided the greatest
misfortunes.”127 From the perspective of Mercy-Argenteau and other
statesmen in favor of a sustained Franco-Austrian alliance, “the great-
est misfortunes” would be the further transfer of power from the sov-
ereign to the National Assembly because of the widespread popular
Austrophobia that existed in France.128
By 1790, Marie Antoinette was attempting to defuse hostility toward
the royal family by adopting the outward symbolism of revolutionary
politics, appearing at the anniversary celebrations of the Fall of the
Bastille in a Tricolor sash.129 Nevertheless, the queen’s opposition to the
180 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

sovereignty of the National Assembly remained constant. She wrote

to Leopold II, “The King himself has always desired the happiness of
his people but not the license and anarchy that precipitated the finest
kingdom in all possible evils.”130 Louis’s apparent acceptance of a cer-
tain degree of representative government, when contrasted with Marie
Antoinette’s superficial acceptance of revolutionary emblems against
her own political interests allowed the king to retain a measure of pop-
ularity until his authority was ultimately discredited by the Flight to
Varennes.131 Louis’s willingness to be influenced his wife during this
period reflected a profound shift in their marital dynamics. Scholars
have noted that he became increasingly indecisive during the last years
of his life, overwhelmed by the breakdown of his government and the
deaths of two of his four children.132 The Duc de Serent, governor to
Artois’s sons, remarked that when his master fled Versailles and the
flight of the king and queen was being considered, Louis appeared to
be “in a state of profound distraction”133 and modern historians have
identified symptoms of depression.134 Regardless of the causes of the
king’s increased passivity, his behavior provided an opportunity for
Marie Antoinette to gain political ascendancy over her husband during
a period in which her personal relationship with him mirrored the celi-
bacy of the early years of their marriage.
In common with Henrietta Maria, Marie Antoinette was aware of
how she was perceived and sought to create a sympathetic narrative
that would justify assuming a leadership role within her family. While
Henrietta Maria presented herself as a suffering wife and mother who
had been separated from her husband and children by the machinations
of parliament, Marie Antoinette declared herself a reluctant political
figure, compelled to overstep the boundaries of her accepted role by
the unique political upheaval of the late 1780s and early 1790s. Marie
Antoinette wrote to Mercy-Argenteau in January 1789 when discussion
of a renewed alliance with Austria was attributed to her influence, “It is
inevitable that treaties will be attributed to me and that Estates General
ministers will apologize for the credibility of my credit and influence.
Consider the odious role that I shall play there.”135 Even in correspon-
dence with Mercy-Argenteau, whom she had known for nearly twenty
years, Marie Antoinette described the perception of her political role as
“odious.” While the queen had discovered that her political will could
compensate for Louis’s periods of indecision, she was aware that the
perception that she had become the dominant partner in her marriage
would further erode her reputation.
Following the removal of the royal family to the Tuileries in October,
1789, Marie Antoinette had the opportunity to personally present a
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 181

sympathetic narrative of her activities to a broad range of Louis’s sub-

jects. Campan, who accompanied the queen to Paris, recorded in her
memoirs, “She sought to discover the real opinions of the Parisians
respecting her, and how she could have so completely lost the affec-
tions of the people, and even of many persons in the higher ranks.”136
Marie Antoinette’s desire to engage with the opinions of Parisians from
all social estates while Henrietta Maria focused her attention on refut-
ing accusations levelled by members of parliament reflects the expan-
sion of the public sphere between the English Civil Wars and French
Revolution. Although Henrietta Maria’s activities interested people of
all social estates, a comparatively small audience shaped public opinion.
In contrast, Marie Antoinette faced a population that was increasingly
literate and politically engaged,137 encouraging her to attempt to influ-
ence a broad audience. The queen wrote in October, 1789, “I talk to
the people, militia, fishwives, all reaching out to me . . . In the Hotel de
Ville, I was personally very well received . . . I told the fishwives to go
repeat everything we had to say.”138 The queen was making an effort to
create a positive impression for Parisians of all social estates and wanted
accounts of successful encounters with Louis’s subjects to be dissemi-
nated to a broad audience.
Marie Antoinette’s attempts to engage with the public probably
precipitated her decision to flee Paris. Her correspondence indicates
that she considered flight to the Habsburg border, an action that had
the potential to start a civil war between royalists and revolutionaries,
before this course of action was accepted by Louis.139 She described the
National Guard’s decision to prevent the royal family from spending
the summer at Marie Antoinette’s country estate at St. Cloud in 1791 as
an occurrence that confirmed her existing plans to escape rather than
inspiring these plans.140 Although she wrote to Leopold II that both she
and the king were convinced they should proceed with caution,141 the
interest she demonstrated in Austrian troop movements during subse-
quent letters written in 1791 indicates that Louis alone was interested in
acting in a cautious manner.142
Once the king acquiesced to the proposed escape, Marie Antoinette
entrusted much of the actual planning of the secret departure to Fersen,
who was loyal to her personally. The queen and Fersen engaged in
extensive correspondence during the summer of 1791 in which Marie
Antoinette summarized Louis’s views concerning the escape rather
than involving the indecisive king himself in the arrangements.143
Fersen successfully organized the escape of the royal family from Paris
but the party encountered delays after he parted from them and they
were ultimately apprehended in Varennes and returned to Paris.144 The
182 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

failure of the Flight to Varennes revealed Marie Antoinette’s weak-

nesses as the instigator of a politically and logistically complex event.
Campan remembered that the queen seemed overly concerned with
comparatively trivial aspects of the escape plans such as smuggling her
wardrobe out of the Tuileries.145 These conspicuous preparations and
the splendor of the carriage that conveyed the royal party to the bor-
der undermined the secrecy of the flight. Marie Antoinette also failed
to plan for the consequences in the event of the royal family’s forced
return to Paris. The perception that Louis and Marie Antoinette had
attempted to abandon the French people and reestablish their preroga-
tives through the deployment of foreign troops doomed the constitu-
tional monarchy to failure. Louis famously left a letter in the Tuileries
that renounced his previous appearance of support for the revolution,
which was printed and circulated to a broad popular audience.146 Under
these circumstances, Marie Antoinette would face trial as the wife of a
deposed sovereign instead of a queen consort.
The failure of the Flight to Varennes marked a turning point in
Marie Antoinette’s domestic role and political significance. The queen
experienced a period of political ascendancy beginning in 1787 when
Louis’s increased passivity and the political upheaval created by the
summoning of the Assembly of Notables allowed her to gain unprec-
edented influence over her husband’s decisions as a monarch. This
increased ability to shape ministerial appointments and strengthen
Louis’s resolve against the diminishment of his traditional prerogatives
as king occurred during a period of intense personal crisis, in which she
became increasingly identified with the interests of her younger son.
Despite the change in her relationship with Louis, and development
of a close relationship with Fersen, she presented herself to ordinary
Parisians as a loyal wife. Following the royal family’s return to Paris
in 1791 and the subsequent overthrow of the constitutional monarchy,
Marie Antoinette would begin to emphasize her role as mother of the
dauphin. Her motherhood would ultimately shape the accusations at
her unprecedented trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Marie Antoinette: The Queen’s Trial

The evidence presented against Marie Antoinette by the Revolution-
ary Tribunal in October 1793, conveyed to a broad Parisian audience
through a series of transcriptions of the trial proceedings published
in successive issues of the Moniteur Universel after Marie Antoinette’s
execution, demonstrates the degree to which the nature of the for-
mer queen’s motherhood was in contention before a broad popular
audience. While the precise charges levelled against the queen of
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 183

England in 1643 must be reconstructed by diplomatic correspondence

and excerpts of printed broadsheets, every word of the proceedings
against Marie Antoinette in 1793 was conveyed to the French public
through official press outlets such as the Moniteur and continues to be
publicly available in published works.147
While Henrietta Maria’s accusers were still constructing their
case against monarchical government and could not agree on the
consequences that would follow the impeachment of a queen, the
Revolutionary Tribunal expressed confidence in its condemnation
of Marie Antoinette. The French monarchy had been overthrown,
and Louis had been tried and executed the previous year. Charles and
Henrietta Maria had both dismissed parliament’s claim to have the
ability to judge their actions, refusing to acknowledge the legality of
any formal accusations levelled by Charles I’s subjects.148 Louis’s deci-
sion to acknowledge the charges against him and attempt to prove his
innocence unwittingly revealed that the French Revolution was a very
different conflict from the English Civil Wars. At Marie Antoinette’s
insistence, Louis had made efforts to challenge the limits on his author-
ity imposed by the National Assembly. Nevertheless, his decision to
challenge the accusations instead of the trial itself demonstrated that
he had once sought to reign with the consent of his subjects. Marie
Antoinette would adopt the same stance toward her accusers as Louis,
appealing to the sympathies of the audience and attempting to project
her own narrative of domestic virtue and patriotism by virtue of her
motherhood to the French people.
Olympe de Gouges decision to dedicate the first edition of her
Declaration of the Rights of Women to the queen 149 demonstrates that
Marie Antoinette’s status was not only connected to debates concern-
ing the role of women in public life but that she was considered an
active participant in these controversies. Gouges wrote, “If the for-
eigner brings the iron into France, you are not falsely accused in my
eyes, this interesting Queen but an implacable enemy of the French.
Oh Madame, remember that you are a mother and wife; use all your
influence for the return of the princes.”150 Gouges’s text reveals that
Marie Antoinette’s actual political activities were of interest to
French people of all social estates, including early French feminists.
The document also connects the court factionalist and feminist inter-
pretations of the context surrounding Marie Antoinette’s eventual
trial by invoking the queen’s status within her family. Her perceived
ability to wield political influence based on her roles as wife, mother,
and head of a royal household was a central theme at her trial and
provided part of the rationale for attempts to thoroughly discredit
the widowed queen as mother of the dauphin. The queen’s supporters
184 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

and accusers alike do not appear to have regarded her as a symbolic

figure but an active political force.
The range of accusations presented by the witnesses summoned
before the Revolutionary Tribunal reflects the paucity of actual evi-
dence in the hands of the former queen’s accusers. In contrast to the
English Civil Wars, in which parliament captured a significant body
of royal correspondence, which it was able to annotate and publish,151
Marie Antoinette’s correspondence with her supporters and Austrian
relatives was not widely accessible until the mid-nineteenth century.152
The evidence supporting the queen’s treasonous activities was therefore
entirely circumstantial in 1789, encouraging a broad range of invective
against her character and position within the royal family instead of the
strictly political and religious accusations levelled against Henrietta
Maria. The extent of the Revolutionary Tribunal’s ignorance of the
queen’s correspondence is demonstrated by the brief series of ques-
tions concerning Fersen’s role in the Flight to Varennes. The prosecutor
admonished her for involving a foreigner in the scheme but did not argue
that a personal relationship existed between them.153 In its attempts to
denigrate the former queen’s character in a public forum, the Tribunal
would undoubtedly have accused her of adultery if it had knowledge of
her intimate correspondence.
The absence of crucial pieces of evidence for the prosecution of Marie
Antoinette contrasted with the trial of Louis, in which the deposed king
was presented with writings in his own hand and asked to answer for
their contents.154 The queen was instead expected to defend her char-
acter in the refutation of the charges of treason. Marie Antoinette’s
defense was also devoid of clear evidence as she had not been granted
the extensive time to confer with lawyers that was permitted Louis and
her requests for adequate time to prepare her case were not acknowl-
edged by the Tribunal.155 The presence of a queen in the courtroom of
her husband’s former subjects also provided the opportunity for her
detractors to find opportunities to undermine her defense by person-
ally embarrassing her. The absence of documentary evidence proving
the accusations against Marie Antoinette not only allowed the former
queen to confidently present her defense but also allowed the trial to
expand into a broader judgment of her character.
The pieces of evidence concerning Marie Antoinette’s relation-
ship with Louis-Charles appear to contradict each other as well as
the formal charges assessed by the Tribunal. The former queen stood
accused of both abusing her son and exalting him. Neither accusation
appeared relevant to the charges that would formally determine her
guilt or innocence. When the prosecution rested its case, Armand
Hermann, president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, called upon the
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 185

jury to deliberate four specific questions that focused exclusively on

her relationship with the Habsburg Empire:

1. Is it established that there were plots and secret dealings

with foreign powers and other external enemies of the repub-
lic, which plots and secret dealings were aimed at providing
these enemies with monetary help, giving them entry into the
French territory and facilitating the progress of their armed
forces there.
2. Is Marie Antoinette convicted of having cooperated in these
machinations and having maintained these secret dealings?
3. Is it established that there existed a plot and conspiracy to
ignite a civil war within the republic?
4. Is Marie-Antoinette of Austria . . . convicted of having partici-
pated in this plot and conspiracy?156

In these accusations, the queen is significantly styled “Marie-

Antoinette of Austria,” as she was no longer queen, a style that encour-
aged the jurors to consider the defendant guilty because of the active
hostilities between France and the Habsburg Empire. While the English
House of Commons feared referring to Henrietta Maria as “Henriette-
Marie de Bourbon” because they did not want to involve the French in
their proceedings, the trial of Marie Antoinette as an Austrian arch-
duchess served as a means of establishing the patriotism and legitimacy
of the new regime. Claims that Marie-Antoinette sought to ignite a civil
war enabled the Revolutionary Tribunal to make use of the Flight to
Varennes as evidence against the former queen, which had discredited
the constitutional monarchy.157 The formulation of the final charges
presented against Marie Antoinette served as a means of establishing
the legitimacy of the new regime by condemning the most prominent
influence in Louis’s government who was both a representative of a for-
eign power and unaccountable to the French people.
The accusations that Marie Antoinette both abused her son and
encouraged him to regard himself as the rightful king of France were a
logical extension of the Revolutionary Tribunal’s condemnation of the
former queen as an Austrian agent and independent source of political
influence. Since Marie Antoinette successfully gained the sympathy of
observers by expressing her long-standing assumption that she shared a
natural affinity with other French wives and mothers, historians often
assume that the Tribunal had overreached itself by inventing such an
outrageous personal attack. Marie Antoinette’s biographers often sup-
port this interpretation by presenting the former queen’s response to the
186 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

incest charges as an immediate reply to Jacques Hebert’s accusations.158

The structure of successive issues of the Moniteur reveals that Hebert
presented a long series of accusations that Marie Antoinette refused to
answer until her silence was remarked upon by one of the jurors of the
Revolutionary Tribunal.159
The Moniteur ’s decision to publish Hebert’s accusations concerning
Marie-Antoinette’s alleged abuse of her son on a separate day than his
claim that she had treated him as Louis XVII, which immediately pre-
ceded her defense of herself as mother, mitigated the emotional impact
of the former queen’s appeal to her fellow mothers for observers who
were not present in the courtroom. Within the climate of explicit pam-
phlet literature, Marie Antoinette’s impassioned defense of her con-
duct as a mother had little opportunity to gain an immediate audience
beyond those present at her trial. Her appeal to her fellow mothers may
have appeared a “public triumph” to deputies in the National Assembly
such as Robespierre160 but it would have a greater effect on her future
biographers than her contemporaries. It was the prospect of the queen
being brought to trial and judged by Louis’s former subjects that cap-
tured the imagination of sympathetic observers rather than this par-
ticular exchange.
The seemingly contradictory accusations that Marie Antoinette
both abused her son and exalted him were an extension of the charges
that she acted as an Austrian agent through her intimate place in the
royal family, and that she placed her son in the role of her late hus-
band. Following the failure of the Flight to Varennes, Marie-Thérèse
and Louis-Charles began to appear as individuals in republican pam-
phlets. Imagery that circulated of Marie Antoinette and her chil-
dren in the last months of 1791 included one drawing of the queen
flying from the Tuileries with the dauphin on her back and another
of the royal family as pigs being driven back into Paris in a livestock
wagon.161 Louis’s and Marie Antoinette’s decision to flee France with
their children reflected an unwillingness to have the family separated
and concern for the safety of the dauphin and princess in Paris. For
observers hostile to the royal family, however, the presence of the heir
to the throne on a secretive journey to the Habsburg border appeared
to demonstrate the queen’s determination to maintain her influence
through motherhood. In the event that Louis perished attempting
to regain his throne by force, there were clear historical precedents
for the queen’s assumption of the regency. Since Louis-Charles was
only seven years old at the time of the Flight, his mother might enjoy
a protracted period of political leadership, continuing her presumed
treasonous activities. This interpretation of the Flight to Varennes
was so widespread in the 1790s that it shaped the accusations at Marie
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 187

Antoinette’s trial and even informed a particular strain of modern

French scholarship concerning the queen’s actual motivations.162
Following the Flight to Varennes, there is evidence that Marie
Antoinette began to shape her political activities as a mother rather
than as a wife. Once the constitutional monarchy had collapsed and
the royal family was imprisoned in the Temple, the former queen’s cor-
respondence suggests a preoccupation with the safety and future pros-
pects of her children. There are fewer references to Louis in her letters,
whom she was separated from as he prepared for his trial, and a greater
degree of attention to Louis-Charles’s future. As a widow, she attempted
to neutralize the long-standing factionalism between her immediate
family and Louis’s brothers, writing to them to request they act as pro-
tectors of her son’s interests.163 From 1791 to 1793, her correspondence
indicates that she poured much of her emotional and political energies
into the care of her children. She wrote to Fersen after the royal family`s
return to Paris in 1791, “I have not a moment to myself between the peo-
ple I need to see, my correspondence, and the time I am with my chil-
dren. That last occupation is not the least, it is my only happiness . . . and
when I’m sad I take my little boy in my arms, I embrace him with all my
heart and that consoles me in the moment.”164 The failure of the Flight
to Varennes, which immediately precipitated the overthrow of the con-
stitutional monarchy, appears to have shifted Marie Antoinette`s politi-
cal and personal energies from her husband to her son.
The political upheaval of the early 1790s appeared to increase the
threat of Marie Antoinette’s renewed political ascendancy. Following
the execution of the discredited former monarch, it was conceivable that
royalists would rally around Louis-Charles as a figurehead to present a
united opposition to the new regime. The prospect of Marie Antoinette
having the potential to become regent because of her motherhood dis-
gusted revolutionaries, who associated her with the most flagrant cor-
ruption of the Old Regime. Even royalists feared her polarizing effect
on public opinion. Prior to the Flight to Varennes, Mirabeau believed
it inevitable that Marie Antoinette would attempt to gain power for
herself by appealing to the French people as a mother, citing Maria
Theresa’s presentation of her infant heir to the Hungarian people dur-
ing the war of Austrian Succession.165
Fersen recognized the emergence of this political controversy among
royalists after the execution of Louis, writing in February 1793, “There
are already divisions among the French. Some consent to the regency of
Monsieur; others recall the rights of the Queen, and it is very easy to fear
that this division of opinion will give birth to others someday.”166 The
1791 constitution provided little clarity on this issue for monarchists
or revolutionaries as the deputies of the National Assembly sought to
188 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

prevent any member of the royal family from achieving exclusive politi-
cal power during a minority by making an underage king’s mother his
guardian and his senior male relative resident in France his regent.167
By the time of Marie Antoinette’s trial, this constitution had been sus-
pended but the perception of the deposed queen as a threat to the French
republic persisted beyond the collapse of the constitutional monarchy.
The Revolutionary Tribunal sought to discredit Marie Antoinette’s
legitimacy as a political figure through her motherhood by discrediting
previous queens regent, presenting her presumed respect for her son as
Louis XVII as evidence of treason against the new regime and arguing
the dauphin was the victim of his mother’s physical abuse and political
machinations. Public prosecutor Antoine-Quentin Fouquier used the
notoriety of previous queens of France to discredit Marie Antoinette
in his opening address to the Revolutionary Tribunal.168 All the queens
mentioned by the prosecutor were foreigners who wielded direct politi-
cal power as mothers of royal heirs. Fouquier’s decision to begin the trial
with a disparaging comparison between the defendant and previous con-
sorts suggests that the Revolutionary Tribunal sought to use the trial
as a means of eliminating any perceived legitimacy Marie Antoinette
might possess as the mother of Louis’s heir.
Since those queens who had wielded political power on behalf of
their young children were presented to the court as bloodsuckers of the
French, the accusation that Marie Antoinette served Louis-Charles as
king allowed the Revolutionary Tribunal to provide further evidence of
the former queen’s treason against France. If Louis-Charles was regarded
as king by his mother, the precedents set by previous queens of France
empowered her to communicate with foreign powers on his behalf. In
her defense, Marie Antoinette recognized that Hebert was discredit-
ing her by describing her behavior in this manner and attempted to cast
doubt upon his political testimony by noting that he was not present
during family dinners in the Temple.169 Throughout the trial, Marie
Antoinette aspired to present her role as a wife and mother as evidence
of her essential loyalty to France to counter insinuations that she was
utilizing this position to engage in political intrigues with her Austrian
relatives. She informed the Revolutionary Tribunal that as the king’s
wife it was her duty to conform to his wishes, attempting to refute accu-
sations that she had manipulated the sovereign.170
During the preliminary examination preceding her trial she
responded to the question of whether she was sorry her son had not
ascended the throne due to the overthrow of the French monarchy by
stating, “I shall never regret my son’s loss of anything, should his loss
prove to be the gain of the country.”171 Marie Antoinette’s attempt to
present herself to the Tribunal as a patriotic Frenchwoman by virtue of
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 189

her relationship to her husband and children was certainly convincing to

individual observers, particularly other wives and mothers. The author
Germaine de Stael, the daughter of the popular former finance minister
Jacques Necker and the mother of two young sons, in 1793 emphasized
the universality of the former queen’s plight in Réflexions sur le Procès de
la Reine. In the introduction to this work, Stael declared, “The destiny
of Marie Antoinette contains everything that might touch your heart: if
you are happy, she has happiness; if you suffer, for one year and longer, all
the pains of her life have torn her apart” concluding that Louis-Charles
was on his knees demanding his mother’s life be spared.172 The Tribunal
therefore had the task of discrediting the queen irretrievably as a wife
and mother to gain the support of significant groups within French
public opinion. The proceedings against Marie Antoinette would unite
personal and political accusations to justify her eventual execution.
The incest charges concocted by Hebert were not only an attempt
to discredit Marie Antoinette`s personal relationship with her son and
thereby blacken her character but to eliminate any possibility that she
might be seen as a viable alternative to republican government. Hebert’s
testimony focused on the political motivation for the alleged abuse,
stating, “It is believed that this criminal pastime was not dictated by
the pleasure, but in the political hope of weakening the child’s physique,
which one liked to believe was still intended to occupy a throne, and in
which one wanted, by this manoeuvre, to secure the right to rule.” 173
Through this rationale for Marie Antoinette’s alleged abuse of her son,
Hebert connected the seemingly disparate accusations of incest, trea-
son, and the political exaltation of her son levelled at the former queen
over the course of her trial. The manipulation of Louis-Charles to pro-
vide testimony against his mother represented an attempt to deprive
Marie Antoinette of any public sympathy she might gain by virtue of
her widowhood and maternity.174 In the final confrontation between
the former queen and the French people, her motherhood was entirely
politicized by the Revolutionary Tribunal as perceived evidence of her
treasonous activities.
The popular controversy concerning the potential for the former
queen to engage in treasonous activities combined with evidence that
she became increasingly focused on her children’s future above all other
concerns demonstrates that her actual potential for political ascendancy
concerned the Revolutionary Tribunal. Throughout the proceedings,
Marie Antoinette defended herself as a patriotic French citizen based
on her relationship to her husband and children and appealed to other
wives and mothers in the courtroom and in certain circles of broader
French society. Accusations that the former queen both abused her son
and served him as Louis XVII challenged her defense of her conduct
190 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

and reinforced the perception that her primary political goal was the
increased power of the Habsburg Empire at the expense of France. The
Revolutionary Tribunal did not sentence a symbolic figure to execu-
tion by guillotine but an actual former queen whom they perceived to
be a political threat through her relationships to her late husband, her
imprisoned son, and her reigning Austrian relatives.

Judgment of Henrietta Maria and

Marie Antoinette
The impeachment of Henrietta Maria and the trial of Marie Antoinette
were unprecedented historical events. Previous queens consort experi-
enced the annulment of their marriages but the English Civil Wars and
French Revolution provided the political context for the formal judg-
ment of the monarch’s wife by his subjects. Comparative analysis of the
formal judgments levelled at the two queens demonstrates the degree
to which both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette were aware of an
emergent public sphere and attempted to craft their images to appeal to
a broad range of her husband’s subjects.
In the mid-seventeenth century, the queen of England focused her
attention on the members of parliament and the literate consumers of
newsletters and printed works, responding to accusations levelled by
members of the House of Commons and consenting to the publication
of works that portrayed her as a suffering wife and mother. In the late
eighteenth century, Marie Antoinette’s own inclination to view herself
within the context of her fellow wives and mothers in France combined
with increasing literacy rates allowing the participation of a broader
cross-section of French people in the public sphere resulted in both
sympathetic and accusatory accounts of the queen’s actions reaching a
diverse public audience. The queen’s portrayal of herself as a patriotic
French citizen as demonstrated by her relationships with her husband
and son directly reflected revolutionary ideology and revealed her
awareness of the nature of the prosecution she faced at her trial.
The defenses provided by each queen demonstrate that analysis of
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette as symbolic figures does not take
into account the extent of their personal participation in revolution-
ary politics. The upheaval of the 1640s and 1780s allowed both queens
a greater degree of political ascendancy than they enjoyed during the
more peaceful periods of their husbands’ reigns. Henrietta Maria solic-
ited contributions from her Catholic coreligionists during the Bishops’
Wars while Marie Antoinette influenced ministerial appointments and
Louis’s responses to attempts to limit his authority during the 1780s.
 The English Civil Wars and the French Revolution 191

Once active hostilities existed between the crown and new forms of
government emerged both queens actively worked for monarchical
legitimacy, tailoring their political activities to their circumstances.
Henrietta Maria enjoyed personal liberty throughout the Civil Wars,
enabling her to raise funds and mercenaries for the royalist cause. Marie
Antoinette experienced varying degrees of surveillance and imprison-
ment from 1789 to 1793 and she therefore focused her energies on cor-
respondence with foreign rulers, and organizing an escape attempt.
Both queens refused to accept the legitimacy of the varying forms of
representative government that opposed monarchical rule and actively
sought to secure the crown for their husbands and sons.
Henrietta Maria’s impeachment and Marie Antoinette’s trial were
the culmination of decades of conflict between each queen and her
husband’s subjects concerning the consort’s traditional roles as a wife,
mother, and head of a royal household. Both queens ultimately con-
structed a sympathetic narrative of their activities in these spheres that
they may have believed but did not conform to their actual activities.
For the House of Commons or the Revolutionary Tribunal to effectively
present themselves as legitimate representatives of the people, it was
necessary for these bodies to systematically discredit the queen’s pre-
rogatives in addition to those of the king. Henrietta Maria’s impeach-
ment occurred early in the English Civil Wars when there was still
parliamentary debate concerning the fate of the monarchy and the King
himself. She was therefore judged as an individual engaged in treasonous
activities independent of her status within her family. In contrast, Marie
Antoinette was brought to trial after the overthrow of the French mon-
archy, the execution of Louis XVI, and the commencement of hostilities
between France and Austria. Her familial relationships were therefore
also on trial as the Revolutionary Tribunal sought to prevent the possi-
bility of her gaining sympathy for her motherhood. The impeachment of
Henrietta Maria in 1643 and the trial of Marie Antoinette in 1793 dem-
onstrated both the extent of each queen’s involvement in the English
Civil Wars and French Revolution respectively, and their failure to gain
the necessary public support to legitimize their political activities.
 CONCLUSION: THE LEGACY OF
T WO QUEENS

T
he English Civil Wars and the French Revolution repre-
sented the culmination of decades of conflict between the
queen’s view of her role and the expectations of her hus-
band’s subjects. Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette lived in sepa-
rate centuries and experienced different periods of political upheaval.
Nevertheless, there are striking parallels between their experiences. The
development of popular perceptions of monarchical government, the rise
of the public sphere, the concept of foreignness, the rise of companionate
marriage, and sentimental childrearing all intersected with the experi-
ences of Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette.
The French Revolution often stands as a dividing point between the
Early Modern and Modern periods suggesting that this event is incom-
parable to the conflicts between monarchs and their subjects that
occurred in previous centuries. Henrietta Maria’s attempts to shape the
popular narrative of her activities as queen consort in the face of criti-
cism of her religion, gender, and foreign origins indicate that attacks
on the queen consort were already effective means of delegitimizing
monarchical government in the seventeenth century. Henrietta Maria
and Marie Antoinette did not participate in their domestic lives across
a historical and ideological divide but at different ends of a continuum
demonstrating the relationship between state and society in Early
Modern Europe.
Despite the differences between the English Civil Wars and French
Revolution, the parallels between the experiences of Henrietta Maria
and Marie Antoinette are compelling, revealing the degree to which
the queen consort’s decisions as a wife and mother were political acts
throughout the Early Modern period. Neither princess was adequately
prepared for the monumental task of reconciling her foreign origins
with the popular expectation that she would conform to the customs
of her husband’s kingdom in all matters, including the management of
her servants, marriage, and childrearing. The most powerful influence
194 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

over the identities of both princesses was their mothers, Marie de

Medici, regent of France, and Maria Theresa, empress of the Habsburg
Empire. These women wielded sovereign authority in polities with for-
mal strictures against female rule. The exceptional circumstances that
allowed Marie and Maria Theresa to rule independently created a com-
plicated example for their daughters, who were expected to represent
their mothers but be obedient to their husbands within marriage.
Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette experienced tensions in their
roles as heads of royal households as soon as their betrothals were final-
ized because they employed servants before their marriages. Regardless
of the individual diplomatic circumstances that precipitated a dynastic
union, the nature of the bride’s household was always a central aspect
of the marriage contract because the size and splendor of her establish-
ment reflected her status and that of her family. Henrietta Maria ini-
tially brought a vast household of Roman Catholic servants to England
but was compelled to replace many of them with English and Scottish
courtiers. Although Henrietta Maria ultimately accepted the expulsion
of the majority of her French servants, she never acquiesced to Charles
I’s complete control over her household. In contrast, Marie Antoinette
was not permitted to retain Austrian servants as dauphine, even at the
beginning of her marriage. Still, her frank discussion of her relations
with Louis in correspondence with Austrian courtiers appeared to dem-
onstrate a continued attachment to her homeland. Since Louis XVI
accepted the autonomy of his wife’s household, she was able to advance
the fortunes of her favorites to the dismay of both courtiers and ordi-
nary Parisians.
As wives, both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette faced the
popular perception that they were the dominant partners in their mar-
riages, exerting political influence over their husbands on behalf of
their mothers, and therefore on behalf of foreign powers. The emerg-
ing ideal of companionate marriage was employed by both queens con-
sort to present a positive image of her relationship with her husband to
varying public audiences. Charles I’s Personal Rule and Louis XVI’s
inheritance of an absolutist system of government fueled the view that
the queen wielded inordinate influence over government affairs. The
direct involvement of both Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette in
the upbringing of their respective children matched emerging con-
ceptions of sentimental parenting but appeared to represent a foreign
queen consort’s enduring influence over multiple generations of rul-
ers. The singular parenting philosophies expressed by the two queens
reflected what they considered to be important conditions for the
welfare of their children. Their determination to shape the education
and upbringing of heirs to their husband’s respective thrones, however,
 Conclusion 195

appeared to represent an incursion into the relationship between

monarchical government and society.
The criticism levelled at Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette as
wives, mothers, and heads of households by all social estates allowed
the English House of Commons and the French National Assembly
to present themselves as masculine patriots protecting their home-
lands from a monarchical government corrupted by feminine foreign
influences. When alternate forums for political legitimacy emerged
in England and France, they immediately increased the dissemination
of negative perceptions of the queen’s domestic role and attempted to
exert control publicly over her household, marriage, and children. The
formal charges levelled during the impeachment of Henrietta Maria
and trial of Marie Antoinette were ostensibly confined to perceived
acts of treason such as inciting the Irish revolt or sharing French mili-
tary secrets with the Habsburg Empire. The debates surrounding
these events, however, demonstrate that the real purpose of these pro-
ceedings was to discredit all aspects of the queen consort’s political
and domestic role, thereby affirming the legitimacy of regimes that
replaced monarchical government. Henrietta Maria’s exile and Marie
Antoinette’s execution appeared to represent the triumph of each
queen’s detractors.
The continued debate regarding the desirability of monarchical gov-
ernment after the English Civil Wars and French Revolution, however,
ensured that the reputations of Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette
would continue to be in the popular consciousness for decades after
they faced formal charges of treason. England, Scotland, and France all
restored a form of monarchical government that allowed the heirs of
previously discredited rulers to regain power on the condition that they
adopted political reforms brought about by the English Civil Wars and
French Revolution. Great Britain’s political system ultimately evolved
toward constitutional monarchy in the late seventeenth century while
the Bourbon dynasty in France was permanently deposed with the abdi-
cation of King Louis-Philippe in 1848. In this environment, the legacies
of queens consort who had once symbolized the perceived corruption
and foreignness continued to be utilized for political purposes. Those
who supported monarchical government or romanticized the pre-
revolutionary regimes attempted to rehabilitate Henrietta Maria and
Marie Antoinette while those who opposed the restoration of monar-
chical government continued to disseminate negative accounts of these
two figures. The British and French cases differed, however, because
Henrietta Maria enjoyed a long widowhood as an active political figure
while Marie Antoinette did not survive the French Revolution. British
observers would debate the actions of an actual dowager queen while
196 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

the French contemplated the image of a deceased queen, who was con-
sidered a martyr by numerous royalists.
Henrietta Maria survived Charles I by twenty years, dying in August
1669, following the ingestion of laudanum prescribed by a physician for
her recurrent insomnia.1 In the last third of her life, Henrietta Maria
continued to perform a political role both within the actual royalist
court and in the popular imagination. The conflict between her own
perception of her role and the expectations of English and Scottish
observers continued to affect the popular understanding of her new
domestic roles as the mother of adult children, a mother-in-law, and
a grandmother.
The negative reputation of Henrietta Maria as a mother, which had
been exploited by the Long Parliament in the early 1640s to under-
mine the reputation of the monarchy, remained a concern for royalists
in exile during the 1650s, regardless of their factional loyalties. During
the Gloucester affair of 1654, in which Henrietta Maria attempted to
convert her youngest son Henry to Catholicism against his own wishes
and those of her eldest son Charles, Secretary Edward Nicholas advised
fellow members of the Old Royalist faction against any publicity that
might increase Charles’s popularity at the expense of his mother’s rep-
utation. He wrote to Josiah Jane, “I agree with you that it were much
to the King’s honour that his care and piety to prevent the Duke of
Gloucester being perverted were known to all friends in England and in
foreign parts, but it would so reflect on the Queen mother that, though
I am one she most hates, I disadvise it.”2 This letter demonstrates that
despite the disputes between the Old Royalist faction and the Louvre
group, Charles’s supporters recognized that publicizing disputes, par-
ticularly religious divisions, between Henrietta Maria and her children
would ultimately hinder the cause of Restoration. Although Charles
had formally atoned for his mother’s Catholicism during his Scottish
campaign, Nicholas and various fellow Old Royalists recognized that
a Restoration of the monarchy would require the British people to
accept the royal family as a whole rather than the king alone. Publicity
that reinforced the popular perception that Henrietta Maria sought
to undermine the Protestant faith in England was therefore undesir-
able, despite Charles’s defense of the practice of the Church of England
within his own family.
Charles’s defense of Henrietta Maria’s position within the royal fam-
ily persisted though mother and son did not visit each other between
the Gloucester Affair and the Restoration. Nevertheless, his approach
failed to convince all supporters of a monarchical Restoration that
Henrietta Maria could be successfully reintroduced to the British peo-
ple as a viable dowager queen. The French ambassador to England noted
 Conclusion 197

in May 1660 that parliament was willing to grant lands and incomes
to the king’s brothers but was unwilling to do the same for Henrietta
Maria because there was no recent precedents concerning the financial
position of a king’s mother.3 The fact that much of the queen’s prop-
erty had been bought or claimed by supporters of the Protectorate also
contributed to parliament’s reluctance to honor the income granted the
widowed Henrietta Maria by her marriage contract.4
Despite what the French ambassador described as “the repugnance
of the King’s ministers for her residency in England”5 because they
feared she might influence her son to abandon his policies of modera-
tion and compromise,6 Charles negotiated a substantial financial settle-
ment for Henrietta Maria and invited her to join the other members
of the restored royal family in London.7 The king also kept his mother
informed of political events in Great Britain, sending her a digest of
the negotiations with the Portuguese ambassador for his marriage to
Catherine of Braganza.8 One of the most prominent artists at court,
Peter Lely, received a commission to paint a portrait of the dowager
queen in the style of the Van Dyck paintings that captured her image as
queen consort.9 Charles II’s generous treatment of his mother was likely
influenced by both his past support for the principles of hereditary
monarchy and the expressed displeasure of King Louis XIV of France
concerning parliament’s treatment of his aunt, Henrietta Maria.10
The queen’s financial settlement and her intention to exert politi-
cal influence as an intercessory figure at her son’s court were public
knowledge. A letter received by the political economist and demogra-
pher William Petty dated 3 November 1660, the day after Henrietta
Maria’s arrival in London provides an example of popular speculation
concerning the dowager queen’s potential political role. The letter
stated, “It is beleaved that ye Queen Mother will become a Mediatrix
for ye Condemned Prisners now in ye Tower, his Maiesty hath under ye
broad seal, Confirmed ye Queen Mothers Joynter, & so Augmented it,
that her Maiesty hath power to lett leases for 3 lifes or 21 years, wch is
suposed will raise in present money 2000000 & upwards.”11 Henrietta
Maria was therefore reintroduced to the English people as a wealthy
dowager queen who was perceived to have the ability to influence
Charles II’s decisions.
The ostentation of the dowager queen’s court in England, the vast
household required to maintain this establishment, and the evidence of
good relations between Charles II and his mother fueled rumors dis-
paraging Henrietta Maria on the grounds of her Catholicism, French
origins, and perceived sexual misconduct as a widow. While her bridal
household had been disparaged in manuscript newsletters for suppos-
edly taking an immoral interest in Henrietta Maria’s marital relations
198 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

with Charles I, the members of her household as a widow attracted accu-

sations of personal misconduct. Throughout Henrietta Maria’s second
period of residence in England as dowager queen, the circumstance that
attracted the greatest number of rumors concerning her morality was
the conspicuous presence of her secretary and long-standing favorite
Henry Jermyn, the Earl of St. Albans, in her household. In his capac-
ity as vice chamberlain, Jermyn was in close contact with the dowager
queen, screening petitioners who sought audiences and handling her
most important correspondence.
As Henrietta Maria’s court attracted greater prominence, the rumors
concerning her conduct became more elaborate. On 31 December 1662,
the diarist Samuel Pepys wrote, “The Queene Mother is said to keep
too great a Court now; and her being married to my Lord St. Albans
is commonly talked of, and that they had a daughter between them in
France. How true, God knows.”12 Pepys was not the only diarist to record
these rumors. Yorkshire baronet Sir John Reresby, who had attended
Henrietta Maria’s court in exile, recorded in his memoirs that he heard
from one of his English cousins in the 1660s of the supposed relation-
ship between the queen mother and St. Albans, writing, “but that he was
married to her or had children by her, as some have reported, I did not
then believe, though the thing was certainly so.”13 The fact that these
rumors were so widely believed, even by those who attended Henrietta
Maria’s court, reflects the influence of the seditious speech that circu-
lated in the months immediately following the Restoration.
The continued criticism of Henrietta Maria’s activities in the
domestic sphere during her widowhood demonstrate that the English
Civil Wars and Restoration did not resolve the conflict between the
queen’s perception of herself as a wife, mother, and head of household
and the expectations of her husband’s or son’s subjects. Both Charles
II’s consort Catherine of Braganza and James II’s consort Mary of
Modena would become the target of popular criticism because of their
performance of their domestic roles, culminating in the warming pan
scandal and Glorious Revolution of 1688. In the Act of Settlement of
1701, the succession to the thrones of England and Scotland was lim-
ited to the Protestant descendants of Princess Sophia of Hanover who
were not married to Catholics. The Protestant fear of the “recusant
wife” in the most powerful family in the kingdom, which had shaped
the popular response to Henrietta Maria during her marriage, con-
tinued to influence the British monarchy until the succession reforms
that came into force in 2015.
While Henrietta Maria enjoyed a long period of political influence
during her widowhood, Marie Antoinette was executed in 1793. The
queen of France therefore did not have the opportunity to wield political
 Conclusion 199

influence as a dowager queen at a Restoration court. Instead, her repu-

tation would become a point of contestation between supporters of a
restored monarchy in the nineteenth century and those who feared that
the legacy of the French Revolution would be undone by the return of
the Bourbon dynasty. Louis XVI’s brother, Louis XVIII, was particu-
larly invested in rehabilitating Marie Antoinette’s image. The reburial
of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at St. Denis and the publication
of Marie-Thérèse’s memoirs all contributed to the legitimization of the
Restoration regime. Challenges to restored monarchical rule there-
fore incorporated challenges to the Restoration conception of Marie
Antoinette as a martyr.
Following the end of legitimist Bourbon rule in 1830 and the final
collapse of the Orleans branch of the French monarchy in 1848, Marie
Antoinette appeared in both scholarly and popular literature as a polar-
izing figure. Scholars frequently held her responsible for undermining
the French monarchy while popular writers argued that she was an
innocent martyr of the excesses of the French Revolution. Nineteenth
century scholarly accounts of Marie Antoinette’s activities analyzed the
symbolic value of her perceived extravagance and distance from the eco-
nomic realities faced by her subjects.14 In contrast, the popular biogra-
phies presented the queen as a tragic heroine.15
Just as Marie Antoinette had longed for a companionate marriage
in a political climate where dynastic marriages were the norm among
ruling houses, her image became associated with nineteenth and
twentieth century princesses who experienced criticism as foreigners
in their husbands’ realms. The continued polarizing impact of Marie
Antoinette’s reputation during the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries reflected the vestiges of Early Modern forms of dynastic
marriage in modern European politics. Although marriages between
members of royal houses no longer determined the fate of nations after
the Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815, dynasts faced the expectation that
they would marry members of foreign reigning houses until the end of
the First World War.16 In this environment, foreign born consorts of
reigning sovereigns continued to be the focus of popular scrutiny. The
strict separation of public and private spheres that became common-
place throughout nineteenth century Europe did not ease the expec-
tations that queens and empresses consort be exemplary wives and
mothers. Instead, they faced the same concerns encountered by Marie
Antoinette when she attempted to conduct short periods of her domes-
tic life in the comparative privacy of the Petit Trianon. When the mon-
arch spent periods of time in domestic seclusion with his consort, there
was widespread concern that he was being influenced by the opinions of
a foreigner against the best interests of his court and subjects.
200 Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

One of the most prominent nineteenth century princesses who spent

her married life under scrutiny as a foreigner was Princess Victoria, the
eldest daughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Prince Albert of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Upon her marriage to Crown Prince Frederick of
Prussia in 1858, she faced conflicting demands from her parents and the
Prussian court. The Princess remained in close contact with her family
throughout her marriage and tactlessly made clear to Prussian court-
iers that she preferred English customs. Crown Princess Victoria’s iden-
tity as a representative of England at the conservative Prussian court
attracted hostility. Chancellor Otto von Bismark famously stated to a
friend, “The ‘English’ in it does not please me, the ‘marriage’ may be
quite good . . . If the Princess can leave the Englishwoman at home.”17
The perception that Victoria never left the Englishwoman at home
prompted German criticism of her close relationship with her husband,
her employment of English nursemaids for her children, and the mar-
riage partners whom she favored for her daughters. Her son, Kaiser
Wilhelm II, shared the popular distrust of his mother and attempted to
intercept her correspondence.
The prominent modern example of a royal consort reviled for her
position a foreigner is Empress Alexandra of Russia, who was born
Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1872. In contrast to her immedi-
ate predecessors in Russia, who belonged to politically insignificant
powers, Alexandra was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and first
cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Her illustrious connections caused suspi-
cion in Russia, where there were popular fears that the empire might be
drawn into a broader European conflict, which ultimately happened in
1914. Like Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette, Alexandra grew up
under the example of a strong female monarch. Queen Victoria care-
fully managed the upbringing of her Hessian granddaughters, setting a
clear example of female leadership. Upon her marriage to Nicholas II,
Alexandra constructed a living space that reflected English influences
over her upbringing, installing chintz wallpaper and Maples assem-
bly line furniture in Russian palaces.18 She also employed English and
German servants alongside her Russian staff, and promoted courtiers of
comparatively low standing to high positions in her household, attract-
ing the same accusations of household mismanagement faced by Marie
Antoinette.19 Nicholas’s and Alexandra’s decision to raise their family
in the comparatively secluded Alexander Palace outside St. Petersburg
contributed to popular suspicions of the empress’s influence over the
emperor and the manner in which their children were being raised.
While Alexandra faced accusations of being overly British during the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the outbreak of the First
World War cemented her reputation as a “German Woman.” When
 Conclusion 201

Nicholas II appointed himself commander in chief of the Russian armies

in 1915, his ministers were required to report to Alexandra. In this envi-
ronment, the empress faced popular accusations of disloyalty to Russia
and her husband.20 Her confidante Grigori Rasputin was rumored to be
a German agent and there was unfounded speculation that he was her
lover. Since the heir to the throne’s hemophilia was kept a state secret,
the empress was denied an opportunity for sympathy as a suffering
mother as well as an explanation for Rasputin’s visits to the Alexander
Palace.21 Following Nicholas II’s abdication and the relaxation of state
censorship, Alexandra was the focus of negative pamphlet literature that
presented the deposed Imperial house as hopelessly, corrupt, effemi-
nate, and beholden to foreign interests, allowing the Bolshevik Party,
which took power in November 1917, to present themselves in contrast
as patriotic, masculine Russians.22 Despite being cleared of charges of
disloyalty to Russia by an informal Provisional Government commis-
sion in 1917, Alexandra was murdered alongside her husband, children,
and servants by representatives of the Ural Soviet in July 1918.
The reputations of Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette contin-
ued to be historically significant long after the English Civil Wars and
French Revolution. Henrietta Maria survived Charles I for twenty years.
She remained active in royalist circles in exile and the Restoration court.
Throughout the 1650s and 1660s, negative perceptions of her behavior
as a wife, mother, and head of household continued to shape perceptions
of the monarchy. Perceptions of Henrietta Maria shaped responses to
Catherine of Braganza and Mary of Modena, as well as the proscrip-
tions against royal marriages to Catholics in the 1701 Act of Settlement.
Henrietta Maria’s reputation as a subversive Roman Catholic agent
cast a long shadow over centuries of British monarchical government.
Although Marie Antoinette was executed during the Terror, her image
remained important to the Restoration monarchy, and was fiercely
debated by her admirers and detractors throughout the nineteenth cen-
tury. Both Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia and Empress Alexandra
of Russia became widely unpopular during their marriages as they were
associated with the interests of foreign powers. Alexandra, in particular,
is often compared with Marie Antoinette in memoir literature discuss-
ing the Russian Revolution as the parallels between the two consorts are
numerous. The responses to Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette as
queens consort shaped centuries of attitudes toward monarchical gov-
ernment, transcending their personal experiences during the English
Civil Wars and French Revolution.
NOTES

Introduction: The Queen versus the People

1. Jeanne Louise Campan, Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen
of France, ed. M de Lamartine (Philadelphia, PA: Parry and McMillan,
1854), pp. 158–159.
2. Nancy Nichols Barker, “Revolution and the Royal Consort,” in
Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe (1989): 136–143.
3 . Barker, “Revolution and the Royal Consort,” p. 136.
4 . Clarissa Campbell Orr notes in the introduction to a 2004 collection
of essays concerning the role of the European queen consort in the
Baroque era that “there is little comparative work in English on any
facet of European Court life in the period from 1660 to 1800.” See
Clarissa Campbell Orr, “Introduction” in Clarissa Campbell Orr (ed.),
Queenship in Europe: 1660–1815: The Role of the Consort (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 2. There are strong exceptions
to Orr’s conclusion, including the works of Jeroen Duidam and T.C.W.
Blanning, which compare the culture, structure, and politics of Early
Modern courts revealing both change and continuity but these stud-
ies devote little space to the specific role of the queen consort within
her family and court. See Jeroen Duindam, Vienna and Versailles: The
Courts of Europe’s Dynastic Rivals 1550–1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), and T.C.W. Blanning, The Culture of Power
and the Power of Culture: Old Regime Europe 1660–1789 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002).
5. See Kevin Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1996); Bernard Bourdin, The Theological-Political
Origins of the Modern State: Controversy between James I of England and
Cardinal Bellamine (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2010), pp. 70–94; J.P. Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots:
Politics and Ideology in England 1603–1640 (New York: Longman, 1999);
and James VI, The Trve Lawe of free Monarchies: Or, The Reciprock and
Mvtvall Dvetie Betwixt a free King, and his naturall Subiectes (Edinburgh:
Robert Valdemane, 1598).
6. Carolyn Harris, Magna Carta and Its Gifts to Canada (Toronto: Dundurn,
2015).
7. David Loades, Elizabeth I: A Life (New York: Continuum International
Publishing Group, 2006), p. 182.
8. John Guy, Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart (New York:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004), pp. 342–343.
204 Notes

9. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and

Civil Wars in England begun in the year 1641, Second Edition (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1703), Volume 1, p. 573.
10. L.J. Reeve, Charles I and the Road to Personal Rule (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989), p. 17. Kevin Sharpe, the author of the most
detailed and authoritative study of the period of Personal Rule explic-
itly argues that Charles I had limited control over local affairs. See
Sharpe, The Personal Rule p. 455.
11. David Smith, Constitutional Royalism and the Search for Settlement c.
1640–1649 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 61.
12. James B. Collins, The State in Early Modern France, Second Edition
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 106–115. The
term absolute power and similar phrases were used previously. See
Fanny Cosandey and Robert Descimon, L’absolutisme en France: Histoire
et Historiographie (Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 2002), p. 14.
13 . Nannerl Keohane, Philosophy and the State from the Renaissance to the
French Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980),
p. 55
14. William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth Century France
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 245–277.
15. Sarah Hanley, “Engendering the State: Family Formation and State
Formation in Early Modern France,” French Historical Studies (Volume
16, Number 1, 1989), p. 6
16. Collins, The State in Early Modern France, pp. 175–180.
17. See Michel Antoine, Louis XV (Paris: Librarie Arthéme Fayard, 1989),
pp. 567–594.
18. Dale Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin
to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791 (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1996), pp. 58–75.
19. Michel Deon, Louis XIV par lui-meme. Morceaux chosis du roi avec intro-
duction et commentaires (Paris: Perring, 1964), p. 284.
20. Van Kley, Religious Origins, p. 115.
21. Simon Burrows, Blackmail, Scandal and Revolution: London’s French
Libellistes, 1758–1792 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006),
p. 14. See also Jeffrey Merrick, The Desacralization of the French Monarchy
in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State Press,
1990) and Robert Darnton, “An Early Information Society: News
and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” The American Historical
Review (February, 2000).
22. See D. M. Palliser, “Towns and the English State 1066–1500,” in
J. R. Maddicott and D. M. Palliser (eds.), The Medieval State (London:
Hambledon Press, 2000), pp. 127–146.
23 . See Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural
France (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976), p. 73.
24. Jean- Francois Dubost, Marie de Medicis, La Reine Dévoilée (Paris:
Biographie Payot, 2009), pp. 204–227.
25. Van Kley, Religious Origins, pp. 157–159.
 Notes 205

26. Thomas E. Kaiser, “From Fiscal Crisis to Revolution: The Court and
French Foreign Policy, 1787–1789,” in Thomas E. Kaiser and Dale Van
Kley (eds.), From Deficit to Deluge: The Origins of the French Revolution
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), pp. 139–164.
27. Frances E. Dolan, Whores of Babylon: Catholicism, Gender, and Seventeenth
Century Print Culture (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1999).
28. Philippe Ariés stated in his 1960 history of European family life that
a popular conception of childhood did not exist until the eighteenth
century See Philippe Ariés, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of
Family Life (New York: Vintage Books, 1960), p. 39. Recent scholar-
ship, most notably the writings of Steven Ozment and Linda Pollock,
has challenged the theory that the Enlightenment invented parental
attachment to their children. See Steven Ozment, Ancestors: The Loving
Family in Modern Europe (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press,
2001), p. 75, and Linda A. Pollock, “Parent-Child Relations” in David
I. Kertzer (ed.), Family Life in Modern Times: 1500–1789 (New Haven,
CO: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 191–194.
29. Sarah Maza, “The Bourgeois Family Revisted: Sentimentalism and
Social Class and Pre-revolutionary French Culture,” in Richard Rand
and Juliette M. Bianco (eds.), Intimate Encounters: Love and Domesticity
in Eighteenth Century France (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1997), pp. 39–48.
30. Jason Peacey, “Print and Public Politics in Seventeenth Century
England,” History Compass (Volume 5, Issue 1, 2007), pp. 85–111.
31. See Erica Veevers, Images of Love and Religion: Queen Henrietta Maria
and Court Entertainments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989); Karen Britland, Drama at the Courts of Queen Henrietta Maria
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Rebecca A. Bailey,
Staging the Old Faith: Henrietta Maria and the Theatre of Caroline England
1625–1642 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009); Malcolm
Smuts, Court Culture and the Origins of A Royalist Tradition in Early
Stuart England (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1987); Erin Griffey (ed.), Henrietta Maria: Piety, Politics and Patronage
(Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2008); and Claire McManus
(ed.), Women and Culture at the Courts of the Stuart Queens (Hampshire:
Palgrave MacMillan, 2003).
32. For an example, see Henrietta Maria’s conciliatory message to the
Houses of Commons, delivered on 5 February 1640. BL, Harley Mss
1519, f. 104.
33 . Campan, Memoirs, p. 263.
34. For further information about attitudes toward the family during
the French Revolution, see Suzanne Desan, The Family on Trial in
Revolutionary France (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
2004).
35. Michelle Anne White, Henrietta Maria and The English Civil Wars
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), p. 3.
206 Notes

36. See Samuel Rawson Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, 1642–1649
(London: Longman, Green and Co., 1886), pp. 83–84.
37. Bone concludes, “Even without Henrietta’s admonitions, Charles I’s
political course would not have been very different from what it in
fact was and he still would have ended his days with his head upon
the block.” See Quentin Bone, Henrietta Maria: Queen of the Cavaliers
(Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1972), p. vi.
38. See Bone, Henrietta Maria, pp. 253–271 and Elizabeth Hamilton,
Henrietta Maria (New York: Coward, McCann and Geogegan Inc.,
1976), p. xiii.
39. Malcolm Smuts, “The Puritan Followers of Henrietta Maria in the
1630s,” The English Historical Review (Volume 93, Number 366, January
1978), p. 33 and Malcolm Smuts, “Religion, European Politics and
Henrietta Maria’s Circle, 1625–41,” in Griffey, Henrietta Maria, p. 13.
40. Veevers, Images of Love and Religion, pp. 56–64.
41. See White, Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars.
42. See Chantal Thomas, The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie
Antoinette (New York: Zone Books, 2001) and the articles in Dena
Goodman (ed.), Marie Antoinette: Writings on the Body of the Queen (New
York: Routledge, 2003).
43 . See Terry Castle, “Marie-Antoinette Obsession,” in Goodman, Marie
Antoinette, pp. 199–238; Mason, “‘We’re Just Little People, Louis’ Marie
Antoinette on Film,” in Goodman, Marie Antoinette, pp. 239–252; Pierre
Saint-Amand, “Terrorizing Marie Antoinette,” in Goodman, Marie
Antoinette, pp. 253–272; and Susan S Lanser, “Eating Cake: The (Ab)uses
of Marie Antoinette,” in Goodman, Marie Antoinette, pp. 273–290.
44. For example, Dena Goodman, “Introduction: Not another Biography
of Marie Antoinette!” in Goodman, Marie Antoinette, pp. 1–15. One of
the few comparative studies of queens consort in the eighteenth century
excludes Marie Antoinette on the grounds that she has already attracted
sustained analytical and biographical attention. See Campbell Orr,
“Introduction” in Campbell Orr, Queenship in Europe, p. 2, respectively.
45. In Jules Michelet’s writings, the Parisian women represent good moth-
ers, whose goal is the acquisition of food for their families, while Marie
Antoinette is the neglectful mother, more concerned with politi-
cal intrigue and lavish entertainments than caring for her children.
See Jules Michelet, Histoire de la Revolution Française (Paris: Librarie
Internationale, 1859). For an example of popular hagiography of Marie
Antoinette from the same period see Imbert de Saint-Amand, Marie
Antoinette and the End of the Old Regime (Boston, MA: Berwick and
Smith, 1890).
46. Evelyne Lever (ed.), Correspondance de Marie-Antoinette: 1770–1793 (Paris:
Tallander Editions, 2005), p. 35.
47. Munro Price describes Zweig as Marie Antoinette’s first serious biog-
rapher see Munro Price, The Road from Versailles: Louis XVI, Marie
Antoinette and the Fall of the French Monarchy (New York: St. Marvin’s
Griffin, 2002), p. 12.
 Notes 207

48. Stefan Zweig, Marie Antoinette: Portrait of an Average Woman, trans.

Eden and Cedar Paul (New York: Garden City Publishing, 1933),
p. 471.
49. See Thomas, The Wicked Queen, and Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance
of the French Revolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1992). Robert Darnton has also discussed pamphlet critiques of Marie
Antoinette within the broader context of libel within French pamphlet
literature, focussing on the singularity of attacks against the queen. See
Robert Darnton, The Devil in the Holy Water, or The Art of Slander from
Louis XIV to Napoleon (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2009), p. 377.
50. See Vincent Cronin, Louis and Antoinette (New York: William Morrow
and Co. Inc., 1975), pp. 13–16; John Hardman, French Politics: 1774–
1789: From the Ascension of Louis XVI to the Fall of the Bastille (London:
Longman Group, 1995), p. 200; and Joel Felix, Louis XVI, et Marie
Antoinette (Paris: Biographie Payot, 2006), pp. 330–341.
51. Thomas Kaiser, “From the Austrian Committee to the Foreign Plot:
Marie Antoinette, Austrophobia and the Terror,” French Historical
Studies (Volume 26, Number 4, Fall 2003), p. 600 and Thomas Kaiser,
“Who’s Afraid of Marie-Antoinette? Diplomacy, Austrophobia
and the Queen,” French History (Volume 14, Number 3, 2000),
p. 241.

1 Education, Example, and Expectations

1. See A. D. Cousins, “Humanism, Female Education and Myth: Erasmus,
Vives and More’s ‘To Candidus,’” Journal of the History of Ideas (Volume
63, Number 2, April, 2004), pp. 213–230.
2. Sharon Jansen, The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early
Modern Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 204
3 . One of the most prominent examples of this scrutiny was the work of
the Scottish theologian John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet against
the Monstrous Regiment of Women (Edinburgh: n.p., 1558).
4. See Edward Gregg, Queen Anne (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1984), p. 11.
5. Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, Volume 5 (London:
George Bell and Sons, 1840–1848), p. 191.
6. Strickland, Lives, Volume 5, p. 191.
7. Bone, Henrietta Maria, p. 11.
8. Bibliotheque Nationale (BN), Manuscrits Francais 3818, f. 5.
9. The National Archives of the United Kingdom (TNA), PRO LR 63.
10. British Library (BL), Additional Mss 34262, f. 88b.
11. BL, Royal Mss, 16E, f. XLI.
12. Jacques Bousset, “Oraison Funebre de Henriette Marie de France” in
P. Jacquinet (ed.), Oraisons Funebres (Paris : n.p., n.d.), p. 1 and Bone,
Henrietta Maria, p. 11.
208 Notes

13 . Francoise de Motteville, Memoires of the History of Anne of Austria

translated from the original French (London: J. Darby, A. Bettesworth,
F. Fayram, J. Pemberton, C. Rivington, and 4 others in London, 1725),
pp. 192–197.
14. Dubost, Marie de Medicis, pp. 109–115.
15. The outbreak of the Fronde of the Nobles during Henrietta Maria’s
residency in France as a widow demonstrated the fragility of the unity
within the French royal family.
16. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 18, p. 182; see also Volume 17,
p. 586.
17. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 17, p. 597 and Jean Heroard,
Journal de Jean Heroard, 2 volumes, ed. Madeleine Foisil (Paris: Fayard,
1989), Volume 2, p. 2590.
18. Calendar of the Venetian State Papers, Volume 17, p. 586.
19. See Starkey, Six Wives, p. 18.
20. King Edward IV of England’s daughter Elizabeth of York, the even-
tual wife of Henry VII learned French, had her wardrobe remade in
the French style, and was trained in continental court etiquette in
anticipation of a proposed marriage to the eldest son of Louis XI of
France. The degree to which the princess was trained to assimilate
into the French court reflected England’s status as a lesser power in
the fifteenth century. See Nancy Lenz Harvey, Elizabeth of York: The
Mother of Henry VIII (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co, 1973),
pp. 29–30.
21. “Elle est aussi Mère de trois princesses, les joies de cette couronne les
désirs des étrangères” in Anonymous, Panégyrie sur le Couronnement de la
Reine (Paris: P. Mettayer, 1610), p. 36.
22. Anonymous, The Life and Death of Henrietta Maria de Bourbon (London:
Dorman Newman, 1685), p. 4.
23 . See Melinda J. Gough, “Courtly Comediantes: Henrietta Maria and
Amateur Women’s Stage Plays in France and England,” in Pamela
Allen Brown and Peter Parolin (eds.), Women Players in England: Beyond
the All-Male Stage (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 195–202.
24. Melinda J. Gough, “A Newly Discovered Performance by Queen
Henrietta Maria,” The Huntingdon Library Quarterly (Volume 65,
Number 3/4, 2002), p. 442.
25. James VI and I’s eldest son Henry had died in 1612.
26. Karen Britland, “A Fairy-Tale Marriage: Charles and Henrietta Maria’s
Romance,” in Alexander Sampson (ed.), The Spanish Match: Prince
Charles’s Journey to Madrid in 1623 (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing
Ltd., 2006), p. 124.
27. BL, Egerton Mss, 2533, p. 60, John Rushworth, Mr. Rushworth’s
Historical Collections, Abridged and Improved, Volume 1 (London: n.p.,
1703), p. 54.
28. See Britland, “A Fairy-Tale Marriage,” pp. 123–138.
29. Anonymous, Cabala: Mysteries of State (London: G. Bedell and T. Collins,
1654), pp. 276–277.
 Notes 209

30. See Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: A Cultural

Biography (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001),
p. 75.
31. Henry Ellis, Original Letters (12 volumes in 3 series, London: 1824–1846),
Series 3, Volume 3, pp. 197–198.
32. Patricia H. Fleming, “The Politics of Marriage among Non-Catholic
European Royalty,” Current Anthropology (Volume 14, Number 3, 1973),
pp. 238–239.
33 . Caroline Hibbard, “Henrietta Maria,” in The Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography (Oxford, 2004).
34. Jessica Bell, “The Three Marys: The Virgin; Marie de Medicis; and
Henrietta Maria,” in Erin Griffey (ed.), Henrietta Maria: Piety, Politics
and Patronage (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 89–114.
35. See Dubost, Marie de Medicis, pp. 204–225 and Bell, “The Three
Marys.”
36. Smuts, “Religion, European Politics and Henrietta Maria’s Circle,” p. 15.
37. Smuts, “Religion, European Politics and Henrietta Maria’s Circle,” p. 16
38. Veevers, Images of Love, p. 182.
39. TNA, PRO 31/3/66, f. 58.
40. France followed the Gregorian calendar, which was ten days ahead of
the Julian calendar in use in England during the seventeenth century.
41. Mary Anne Everett Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria including
Her Private Correspondence with Charles I (London: Richard Bentley,
1858), p. 9.
42. The French diplomatic correspondence of this period discusses Louis
XIII’s interest in the rights of English Catholics. See TNA, PRO
31/3/62, f. 6.
43 . Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, p. 9.
44. BL, Additional Mss 27402, ff. 57–66.
45. BL, Additional Mss 27402, ff. 57–66.
46. Hibbard, “Henrietta Maria.”
47. Dubost, Marie de Medicis, p. 347 and Katherine Crawford, Perilous
Performances: Gender and Regency in Early Modern France (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 61.
48. Crawford, Perilous Performances, p. 203.
49. Heroard, Journal de Jean Heroard, p. 1693.
50. Bone, Henrietta Maria, p. 4.
51. Heroard, Journal de Jean Heroard, p. 1693
52. Dubost, Marie de Medicis, pp. 178–179.
53 . David Hunt, Parents and Children in History: The Psychology of Family Life
in Early Modern France (New York: Basic Books, 1970), pp. 89–109.
54. Charles Carlton, Charles I: The Personal Monarch, Second Edition (New
York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 1–12 and Bone, Henrietta Maria, pp. 3–15.
55. See Hunt, Parents and Children in History, pp. 171–172; Michel Carmona,
Marie de Médicis (Paris: Fayard, 1981); and Simone Berthière, Les reines
de France au temps des Bourbons, 4 vols. (Paris: Éditions de Fallois,
1996–2000).
210 Notes

56. See Crawford, Perilous Performances, p. 71. Dubost focuses his analysis
on Marie’s correspondence, concluding that her letters demonstrate
concern for her children’s health, which was not exhibited by Henry,
despite his frequent physical presence in the royal nurseries. See
Dubost, Marie de Medicis, p. 151.
57. Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, p. 4.
58. Thomas Kaiser, “Scandal in the Royal Nursery,” pp. 405–406.
59. BN, Mss Francais 3818, f. 11 and Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria,
p. 3.
60. BN, Mss Francais 3818, f. 28.
61. For more on the origins of the Salic Law, see Sarah Hanley, “Identity
Politics and Rulership in France: Female Political Place and the
Fraudulent Salic Law in Christine de Pizan and Jean de Montreuil,”
in Michael Wolfe (ed.), Changing Identities in Early Modern France
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), p. 78.
62. Dubost, Marie de Medicis, p. 391.
63 . Dubost, Marie de Medicis, p. 572
64. BN, Mss Francais 3818, f. 28.
65. See Lisa Hilton, Queens Consort: England’s Medieval Queens (London:
Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 2008).
66. Scottish attitudes toward the French were different from English per-
ceptions because France and Scotland maintained a long-standing alli-
ance against England until the Union of the Crowns in 1603.
67. Calendar of Venetian State Papers, Volume 18, pp. 455–456.
68. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, The Earl of Strafford’s Letters
(2 volumes, ed. William Knowler, London, 1734), Volume 1, p. 24.
69. Calendar of Venetian State Papers, Volume 19, p. 62.
70. BL, Additional Mss 22473, f. 72.
71. Isabelle organized a rebellion against her husband, Edward II, and
eventually helped to force his abdication. Katherine secretly remarried
Owen Tudor after the death of Henry V despite his inferior rank and
became the ancestress of the Tudor dynasty.
72. BL, Additional Mss 22473, f. 73.
73 . Calendar of Venetian State Papers, Volume 19, p. 87.
74. Calendar of Venetian State Papers, Volume 19, p. 61.
75. See Lucy Hutchison, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchison, ed. N. H.
Keeble (London: Pheonix Press, 2000), p. 14 and Katie Whitaker, Mad
Madge: Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle, Royalist, Writer and
Romantic (London: Chatto and Windus, 2003), p. 17.
76. Hutchison, Memoirs, p. 70.
77. A statue in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris invites the viewer to pity
Marguerite of Anjou as a deposed queen and bereaved mother.
78. Patricia Anne Lee, “Reflections of Power: Margaret of Anjou and the
Dark Side of Queenship,” Renaissance Quarterly (Volume 39, Number 2,
Summer 1986), p. 183.
79. Mercurius Britanicus Communicating the Affairs of Great Britain (London,
England), Monday, January 6, 1645, Issue 65.
 Notes 211

80. See Bone, Henrietta Maria, p. vi and Strickland, Lives, Volume 5, p. 257.
81. The National Archives of the United Kingdom (TNA) LR 5/57.
82. See Mortimer Levine, “Richard III: Usurper or Lawful King,”
Speculum: A Journal of Medieval History (Volume 34, Number 3, July
1959), pp. 391–392.
83 . Hilton, Queens Consort, pp. 464–467.
84. Sarah Duncan, “Most godly heart Fraight with al mercy:” Queens’
Mercy during the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I,” in Carole Levin
and Robert Bucholz (eds.), Queens and Power in Medieval and Early
Modern England (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press,
2009), pp. 37–41.
85. Letter from Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, May 8, 1771. Included
in Evelyne Lever (ed.), Correspondance de Marie Antoinette (1770–1793)
(Paris: Tallandier Editions, 2005), p. 76.
86. Strickland, Lives, Volume 5, p. 257.
87. Michelle Anne White, “‘She is the man and raignes:’ Popular
Representations of Henrietta Maria during the English Civil Wars,” in
Levin and Bucholz, Queens and Power, pp. 216–217.
88. Calendar of Venetian State Papers, Volume 17, pp. 453–454.
89. Lois L. Hunycutt, “Intercession and the High Medieval Queen: The
Esther Topos,” in Jennifer Carpenter and Sally-Beth Maclean (eds.), Power
of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois
Press, 1995), pp. 126–147; John Carmi Parsons, “Queen’s Intercession in
Thirteenth Century England,” in Carpenter and Maclean, Power of the
Weak, pp. 147–177; and Sarah Duncan, “’Most godly heart Fraight with
al mercy:’ Queens’ Mercy during the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I,”
in Levin and Bucholz (eds.), Queens and Power, pp. 31–50.
90. For examples, see discussion of Empress Matilda in Charles Beem, The
Lioness Roared: The Problems of Female Rule in English History (London:
Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), pp. 26–27 and Eleanor of Castile in Marc
Morris, A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain
(London: Hutchison, 2008), pp. 229–230.
91. Jansen, Monstrous Regiment, pp. 111–120.
92. Starkey, Six Wives, pp. 601–607.
93 . Michael B. Young, “Queen Anna Bites Back: Protest, Effeminacy
and Manliness at the Jacobean Court,” in Jessica Munns and Penny
Richards (eds.), Gender, Power and Privilege in Early Modern Europe
(Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2003), p. 114.
94. TNA, PRO 31/3/61, f. 70 and TNA PRO 31/3/62, p. 6.
95. Edward Crankshaw, Maria Theresa (London: Sphere Books Ltd., 1969),
p. 48.
96. The exception was her intellectually gifted favorite child Maria
Christina. See Maria Theresa to Maria Christina, April 1766, in
W. Fred (ed.), Brief der Kaiserin Maria Theresia (Munich and Leipzig:
George Muller, 1914), Volume I, pp. 346–351, trans. Karl A. Roider
Jr. in Maria Theresa (London: Prentice Hall International Inc., 1973),
pp. 81–85.
212 Notes

97. See Crankshaw, Maria Theresa, 33 and C. A. Macartney, Maria Theresa

and the House of Austria (London: The English Universities Press,
1969), p. 7.
98. Evelyne Lever, Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France (London:
St. Martin’s Press, 2001), p. 8.
99. Lever, Marie Antoinette, p. 8 and Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The
Journey (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001), pp. 30–33.
100. Strickland, Lives, Volume 5, p. 191.
101. Marie Antoinette to Marie Theresa, 17 May 1773 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 145.
102. Campan, Memoirs, pp. 32–33.
103 . Price, Road from Versailles, pp. 8–9.
104. G.P. Gooch, Maria Theresa and Other Studies (Edinburgh: Neill and
Company, 1951), p. 122.
105. Marie Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 21 April 1770 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 41.
106. Marie Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 1 November 1770 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 61.
107. Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 9 July 1771, Lever, Correspondance,
p. 83.
108. Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 2 December 1770 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 65.
109. In Lever, Correspondance, see: Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, 17
July 1772, pp. 115–116; Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, 14 October
1772, pp. 118–119; and Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, Versailles,
January 13, 1773, pp. 125–127.
110. Paul Lacroix (ed.), Bibliotheque de la Reine Marie-Antoinette au Petit
Trianon (Paris: Jules Gay, 1863).
111. Archives Nationale (AN), AP 440 2 correspondance de Monsieur
Campan et Marie Antoinette, 1784–1788, “Notes et Memoirs compt-
ables de Campan, secretaire de la souveraine, et lettres et recus des
fournisseurs.”
112. AN, AP 440 1
113 . Carla Hesse, The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 82.
114. Merrick, Desacralization, p. 50 and Van Kley, Religious Origins,
pp. 89–91.
115. Macartney, Maria Theresa, p. 6.
116. Van Kley, Religious Origins, p. 272.
117. Simeon Prosper Hardy, Mes Loisirs, ou journal d’évènements tels qu’ils par-
viennent à ma connoissance (Quebec City: Les Presses de l’Université de
Laval, 2008), pp. 280, 287, 297, and 305.
118. Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 8 May 1771 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 76.
119. “Il me reste encore un point par rapport aux Jésuites. N’entrez dans
aucun discours, ni pour ni contre eux,” in Letter from Marie Theresa to
Marie Antoinette, Vienna, April 21, 1770 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 44
 Notes 213

120. Roider, Maria Theresa, p. 8.

121. Lever, Marie Antoinette, p. 8 and Fraser, Marie Antoinette, pp. 30–33.
122. Lever, Marie Antoinette, p. 28.
123 . Lever, Marie Antoinette, p. 28.
124. Duindam, Vienna and Versailles, pp. 164 and 173.
125. Duindam, Vienna and Versailles, p. 173.
126. General Court Expenditure was cut from 3,703,000 gulden in Charles’s
day to 2,780,000 in 1747. See Macartney, Maria Theresa, p. 78.
127. Campan, Memoirs, pp. 32–33.
128. Campan, Memoirs, pp. 32–33.
129. Zweig, Marie Antoinette, p. 10.
130. Larry Wolff, “Hapsburg Letters: The Disciplinary Dynamics of
Epistolary Narrative in the Correspondence of Maria Theresa and
Marie Antoinette,” in Goodman, Marie Antoinette, pp. 25–44 and
Regina Schulte, “Conceptual Approaches to the Queen’s Body,” in
Regina Schulte (ed.), The Body of the Queen: Gender and Rule in the Courtly
World 1500–2000 (New York: Bergham Books, 2006).
131. Schulte, Body of the Queen, pp. 9–10.
132. Crankshaw, Maria Theresa, pp. 79–80.
133 . Felix, Louis XVI, et Marie Antoinette, p. 60.
134. Count Otto Christopher Podewils to Frederick II, King of Prussia, in
Carl Hinrichs (ed.), Frederich der Grosse und Maria Theresia: Diplomatische
Berichte von Otto Christoph Graf von Podewils (Berlin: R.V. Deckers
Verlag, G. Schenk, 1937), trans. Roider, Maria Theresa, p. 101.
135. Maria Theresa to Maria Christina, April 1766, in W. Fred (ed.), Brief
der Kaiserin Maria Theresia (Munich and Leipzig: George Muller, 1914),
Volume I, pp. 346–351, trans. Roider, Maria Theresa, p. 82.
136. “La femme est soumise en tout à son mari et ne doit avoir aucune occu-
pation que lui plaire et de faire ses volontés . . . Tout dépend de la femme,
si elle est complaisant, douce et amusante.” Letter from Maria Theresa
to Marie Antoinette, 4 May 1770 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 45.
137. Annie Duprat, Marie Antoinette: Une reine brisée (Paris: Perrin, 2006),
p. 27.
138. “A l’instar des Messalines-Brunehaut, Frédégonde et Médicis, que
l’on qualifiait autrefois de reines de France, et dont les noms a jamais
odieux ne s’effacèrent pas des fastes d’histoire, Marie-Antoinette . . . a
été depuis son séjour en France le fléau et la sangsue des Français”:
Leonard Gallois (ed.), Réimpression de L’Ancien Moniteur, Volume 18
(Paris: Au Bureau Centrale, 1841), p. 122.
139. Archives des Affaires Etrangeres (AE), Memoirs et Documents de
France, 426, f. 80.
140. Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, p. 36.
141. Philippe Delorme, Histoire de Reines de France : Marie Antoinette, Epouse
de Louis XVI, mere de Louis XVII (Paris : Pygmalion Gerard Watelet,
1999), p. 40.
142. BL, Additional Mss 20707, “Description et Relation de tout co qui a été
fait et de ce qui s’est passé à l’occasion du Mariage de Louis Auguste,
214 Notes

Dauphin de France [Louis XVI], avec Marie Antoinette Josèphe

Jeanne, Archiduchesse d’Autriche [le 16 Mai 1770]. Par M. De la Ferté,
Intendant des Menus.” Another copy of this document is part of the
collection in the AN, O1, 3245.
143 . Kaiser, “From the Austrian Committee to the Foreign Plot,” p. 582.
144. “C’est l’amé de Marie-Thérèse qui va s; unir a l’â me des Bourbons: d’une
si belle union doivent renaitre les jours de l’â ge d’or” in Anonymous,
Lettre sur le mariage de Monseigneur Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Dauphin de
France, avec l’Archiduchesse Marie Antoinette Josephe Jeanne d’Autriche, etc.
(Amsterdam, 1770), pp. 13–14.
145. Ian Dunlop, Marie Antoinette: A Portrait (London: Sinclair Stevenson,
1993), p. 52.
146. Dunlop, Marie Antoinette, pp. 49–50.
147. Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, p. 35.
148. Dunlop, Marie Antoinette, p. 51 and Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen,
p. 35.
149. Thomas E. Kaiser, “Ambiguous Identities: Marie Antoinette and the
House of Lorraine from the Affair of the Minuet to Lambesc’s Charge,”
in Goodman, Marie Antoinette, pp. 171–172.
150. Kaiser, “Ambiguous Identities,” in Goodman, Marie Antoinette,
pp. 173–174.
151. AE, Memoirs et Documents de France, 426, f. 308.
152. Baronne Henriette d’Oberkirch, Memoirs sur la cour de Louis XVI et la
societe francais avant 1789 (Paris: Mercure de France, 1989), p. 42.
153 . Dunlop. Marie Antoinette, p. 72.
154. Dunlop, Marie Antoinette, p. 73.
155. Anonymous, L’Ordre des Cérémonies Observées au Mariage du Roy de la
Grand Bretagne & de Madame sœur du Roy (Paris: Jean Martin, 1625), p. 5.
156. BL, Additional Mss 20707 and AN, O1, 3245.
157. AE, Memoirs et Documents de France, 426, ff. 228–338.
158. Fraser, Marie Antoinette, p. 62
159. Marie Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 21 April 1770 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 41.
160. Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 8 May 1771 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 76.
161. Panegyre sur le Coronnement de la Reine, p. 30.
162. “Sept Maries de sept diverses nations . . . Toutes les autres Maries n’ont
rien eu d’heureux que le nom. Marie de Moravie fut repudiée. Marie de
Brabant accusée d’avoir fait empoisonner le premier fils de son mari.
Marie de Luxemboug mourut . . . de la première année de son mariage,”
Panegyre sur le Coronnement de la Reine, pp. 29–30.
163 . Hesse, The Other Enlightenment, p. 86.
164. “Mais le principal trait de la vie de S. Grégoire, que tous les moralistes
ont condamné, c’est la prostitution des louanges avec laquelle il s’insinua
dans l’amitié . . . de la reine Brunehaut, une des méchante femmes de la
terre.” Jacques D’Alembert and Denis Diderot, “Pere de l’Eglise,” in
Jacques d’Alembert and Denis Diderot, The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire
 Notes 215

raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une Société de Gens de letters
(Paris: 1751–1777), Volume 12, p. 338.
165. Hesse, The Other Enlightenment, p. 46.
166. Marie Genevieve Charlotte Thiroux d’Arconville, Histoire de Francois
II, quoted in Elaine Kruse, “The Woman in Black: The Image of
Catherine de Medici from Marlowe to Queen Margot,” in Carole Levin,
Jo Eldridge Carney, and Debra Barrett-Graves (eds.), High and Mighty
Queens of Early Modern England: Realities and Representations (New York:
Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), p. 230.
167. Kruse, “The Woman in Black,” p. 230.

2 Governing the Queen’s Household

1. See Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, “Women and Work,” in Samia I. Spencer
(ed.), French Women and the Age of Enlightenment (Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 114–115 and Sara Mendelson and
Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England 1550–1720 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 309–310.
2. See Ruth Kleinman, “Social Dynamics at the French Court: The
Household of Anne of Austria,” French Historical Studies (Volume 16,
Number 3, Spring 1990), p. 318.
3. See Caroline Hibbard, “Translating Royalty: Henrietta Maria and the
Transition from Princess to Queen,” The Court Historian (Volume 1,
2000), p. 21.
4. TNA, PRO 31/3/66, f. 100.
5. Mendelson and Crawford, Women in Early Modern England 1550–1720,
p. 37.
6. Hanley, “Engendering the State,” p. 6.
7. BL, Harley Mss 383, f. 33.
8. BL, Harley Mss 383, f. 45.
9. Smuts, “Religion, European Politics and Henrietta Maria’s Circle,”
pp. 24–25.
10. Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, pp. 16–19, 20–21, and 22–24.
11. Vivian R. Gruder, “The Question of Marie Antoinette: The Queen
and Public Opinion before the Revolution,” French History (Volume 16,
Number 3, 2002), p. 295.
12. Lever, Marie-Antoinette, pp. 104–105 and 138–139.
13 . Bone, Henrietta Maria, p. 85.
14. Elizabeth Colwill, “Pass as a Woman: Act Like a Man: Marie
Antoinette as Tribade in the Pornography of the French Revolution,”
in Goodman, Marie Antoinette, p. 149.
15. See Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution, pp. 89–123 and
Thomas, The Wicked Queen, pp. 20–21.
16. TNA PRO 31/3/64, f. 112 and Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume
20, p. 498.
17. Dubost, Marie de Medicis, pp. 573–577.
216 Notes

18. Barroll, Anna of Denmark, p. 44, and Fairchilds, p. 270.

19. BL, Additional Mss 27402, ff. 57–66.
20. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, p. 498.
21. Eugene Griselle (ed.), Etat de la Maison du Roi Louis XIII De celles de
sa mere, marie de medicis; de ses sœurs Chrestienne, elisabeth et henriette de
France; de son frere, gaston d’orleans; de sa femme, Anne d’Austriche; de ses
fils Le Dauphin (Louis XIV) et Philippe d’Orleans (Paris: Editions de
Documents d’Histoire, 1912), p. 81.
22 . Griselle, Etat de la Maison, pp. 81 and 83 and BL, Additional Mss 8730,
f. 295.
23 . Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, p. 9.
24. Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 51.
25. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, p. 494.
26. “Sur ce refus, la Reine pris occasion de lui dire qu’elle s’etormait
extrement de ceste procédure veu que la Reine, sa mère, et toutes les
reines précédents avaient toujours eu la disposition libre de leurs mai-
sons.” TNA, PRO 31/3/64, f. 113.
27. Carlton, Charles I, p. 87.
28. BL, Additional Mss 27402, ff. 57–66.
29. Caroline Hibbard, “The Role of a Queen Consort: The Household
and Court of Henrietta Maria, 1625–1642,” in Ronald G. Asch and
Adolf M. Birke, Princes, Patronage and the Nobility: The Court at the
Beginning of the Modern Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991),
pp. 393–394.
30. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, p. 515.
31. TNA, Baschet’s French Transcripts, PRO 31/3/64, f. 142b.
32. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, p. 520.
33 . TNA, PRO 31/3/64, f. 225.
34. TNA, PRO 31/3/64, ff. 118 and 144b.
35. BL, Additional Mss 27402, ff. 57–66.
36. Charles I and Henrietta Maria sought the payment of dowry arrears
throughout the 1630s. See BL, Additional Mss 78202, f. 31.
37. Dubost, Marie de Medicis, p. 371.
38. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, p. 391.
39. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, p. 506.
40. John Bruce, William Douglass Hamilton, and Sophia Crawford Lomas
(eds.), Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the reign of Charles I, pre-
served in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty’s Public Record Office
(London: Public Record Office, 1858), Volume 1625–1626, pp. 66 and 157.
41. TNA, PRO LR 57.
42. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 1627–1628, p. 573.
43 . TNA PRO LR 57 and PRO LR 63.
44. BL, Landowne Mss 885, f. 138.
45. Erin Griffey and Caroline Hibbard, “Henrietta Maria’s Inventory at
Colombes: Courtly Magnificence and Hidden Politics,” Journal of the
History of Collections (May 2011), p. 18n.
 Notes 217

46. NLW, Wynnstay Mss 176.

47. N. R. R. Fisher, “The Queene’s Court in Her Councell Chamber at
Westminster,” The English Historical Review (Volume 108, Number 427,
April 1993), pp. 314–337.
48. BL, Stowe Mss 142, f. 35.
49. For examples see TNA, PRO LR 63, Calendar of State Papers Domestic,
Volume 1625–1626, p. 416 and Volume 1628–1629, p. 508.
50. NLW, Wynnstay Mss 176.
51. Whitaker, Mad Madge, pp. 82–83.
52. Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque, p. 79.
53. Britland, “A Fairy-Tale Marriage,” p. 53 and Butler, The Stuart Court
Masque, p. 277.
54. Veevers, Images of Love, pp. 4–5.
55. Butler, The Stuart Court Masque, p. 143 and Claire McManus, “Women on
the Renaissance Stage,” in McManus, Women and Culture, pp. 208–211.
56. Hibbard, “Transition from Princess to Queen,” p. 21.
57. White, Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars, pp. 18–19.
58. White, Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars, p. 18.
59. White, Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars, p. 19.
60. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 21, pp. 375 and 377.
61. For an example of Henrietta Maria’s political correspondence con-
cerning the fate of the Palatinate see Calendar of State Papers Domestic,
Volume 1633–1644, p. 198.
62. TNA, PRO Roman Transcripts, Dispatch of 27 February 1635/6 cited
in Smuts, “The Puritan Followers of Henrietta Maria,” p. 33.
63 . TNA, Baschet’s French Transcripts, PRO, 31/3/72, f. 344.
64. Paul Sonnino, Mazarin’s Quest: The Congress of Westphalia and the Coming
of the Fronde (Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), p. 11.
65. BL, Harley Mss 383, f. 33.
66. BL, Harley Mss 383, ff. 25–26.
67. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 18, p. 507.
68. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, p. 101.
69. Anonymous, A true discourse of all the royal passages, tryumphs and cere-
monies, obserued at the contract and mariage of the high and mighty Charles,
King of Great Britaine, and the most excellentest of ladies, the Lady Henrietta
Maria of Burbon, sister to the most Christian King of France (London: Iohn
Hauiland, 1625), p. 34.
70. Anonymous, A true discourse of all the royal passages, p. 35.
71. Anonymous, A true relation of the treaty and ratification of the marriage
concluded and agreed upon betweene our Soveraigne Lord Charles by the Grace
of God, King of great Britaine, France and Ireland, and the Lady Henretta
Maria daughter of France and sister to his most Christian Majestie the French
King (London: 1642), pp. 1–8.
72. Bristol Record Office, Ashton Court Muniments, AC/C/47–3, cited in
Britland, “A Fairy-Tale Marriage,” p. 31.
73 . Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 1625–1626, p. 416.
74. Starkey, Six Wives, pp. 149, 171, and 525–532.
218 Notes

75. For an example see “A discovery of practices of the Queen’s French ser-
vants prejudicial to the court and state,” in Calendar of Domestic State
Papers, 1625–1626, p. 390.
76. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, Volume 6, p. 135n.
77. BL, Additional Mss 39288, f. 7.
78. Bone, Henrietta Maria, 56–57.
79. BL, Harley Mss 383, f. 33.
80. BL, Harley Mss 6988, p. 96.
81. Sara Wolfson, “‘Poor, Pitiful Sort of Women’ The French Catholic
Female household of Queen Henrietta Maria and the Breakdown of
Anglo-French Relations 1625–1626” (Paper presented at The Society for
the Study of French History, 23rd annual conference, Dublin, Ireland,
29–30 June 2009).
82. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 20, p. 616.
83 . BL, Royal Mss 136, f. 18a.
84. BL, Royal Mss 136, f. 18a.
85. White, Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars, pp. 16–17.
86. Caroline Hibbard, “The Role of a Queen Consort,” pp. 399–400
87. For example, Dorothy Seymour remained part of Henrietta Maria’s
household until at least 1665. See Sarah Poynting, “‘In the name of all
the Sisters’: Henrietta Maria’s Notorious Whores,” in Clare McManus
(ed.), Women and Culture, p. 174.
88. BL, Egerton Mss 2987, ff. 42 and 37.
89. BL, Egerton Mss 2987, f. 37.
90. BL, Egerton Mss 2987, f. 37.
91. Smuts, Court Culture and the Origins of a Royalist Tradition in Early Stuart
England, p. 251.
92. Edward Peyton, The Divine Catastrophe of the Kingly Family of the House
of Stuart or, A short history of the rise, reign and ruin thereof (London: Giles
Calvert, 1652), p. 47.
93 . Butler, The Stuart Court Masque, pp. 56–57.
94. Norman Egbert McClure (ed.), The Letters of John Chamberlain, 2 vol-
umes (Philadelphia, PA: The American Philosophical Society, 1939),
Volume 1, p. 630.
95. Britland, “A Fairy-Tale Marriage,” p. 45.
96. William Prynne, Historio-matix or The Players Scourge (London: Michael
Sparke, 1633), index.
97. Prynne, Historio-matix, p. 47.
98. For further discussion of Catholicism in Historio-matix see Veevers,
Images of Love, pp. 89–92.
99. White, Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars, p. 27.
100. BL, Additional Mss 27402, ff. 57–66
101. BL, Lansdowne Mss 93, f. 136.
102. Parliament of England and Wales, The Diurnall Occurrences of every day’s
proceeding in Parliament since the beginning thereof, being Tuesday the twen-
tieth of January, which ended the 10th of March Anno Dom 1628. With the
arguments of the members of the House then assembled (London: William
Cooke, 1641), p. 45.
 Notes 219

103 . Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 24, p. 217.

104. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 24, p. 319.
105. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 24, p. 319.
106. BL Harley Mss 3888, f. 119.
107. Calendar of Domestic State Papers, Volume 1631–1633, p. 142.
108. Campan, Memoirs, pp. 75–76.
109. For a detailed discussion of nineteenth century defenses of Marie
Antoinette’s relationships with her female favorites see Castle, “Marie-
Antoinette Obsession,” in Goodman, Marie Antoinette, pp. 199–238.
For analysis of the queen in pamphlet literature, see Hunt, The Family
Romance of the French Revolution, p. 17; Thomas, The Wicked Queen, p. 13;
and Elizabeth Colwill, “Pass as a Woman, Act Like a Man: Marie
Antoinette as Tribade in the Pornography of the French Revolution” in
Goodman, Marie Antoinette, pp. 139–169.
110. Henrietta Maria transported the furniture for her private rooms and
chapel to England from France. For the inventory of her chapel goods
see BL Additional Mss 22,724, f. 412.
111. Mercy Argenteau to Maria Theresa, 7 June 1774 in Lever, Marie-
Antoinette, p. 179.
112. Henrietta Maria`s first grand almoner the Bishop of Mandé challenged
his expulsion with the majority of the French household on the grounds
of diplomatic immunity. See BL Harley Mss 383, f. 33.
113 . “Je me suis assure de trois personnes du service en sous-ordre de Mme
l’archiduchesse. C’est une de ses femmes et deux garçons de chambre
qui me rendent un compte exact de ce qui se passé dans l’intérieur. Je
suis informé jour par jour des conversations de l’archiduchesse avec
l’abbé Vermond auquel elle ne cache rien.” Mercy-Argenteau to Maria
Theresa, 16 November 1770, Lever, Marie-Antoinette, p. 63.
114. Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, 12 July 1770 in Lever, Marie-
Antoinette, pp. 50–52.
115. Marie Antoinette to Marie Theresa, 22 June 1775 in Lever, Marie-
Antoinette, p. 216.
116. Fraser, Marie Antoinette, p. 81.
117. Mercy-Argenteau to Maria Theresa, 19 January 1775 in Lever, Marie-
Antoinette, p. 204.
118. Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, 18 April 1773 in Lever, Marie-
Antoinette, p. 141 and Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 4 May 1773
in Lever, Marie-Antoinette, p. 143.
119. Marie Antoinette to Rosenberg, 13 July 1775 in Lever, Marie-Antoinette,
pp. 217–218.
120. Campan, Memoirs, p. 103.
121. Letter from Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 30 July 1775 in Lever,
Marie-Antoinette, p. 224.
122. “Elle a toujours eu bonne réputation et n`a pas du tout le caractère ita-
lien. Elle est établie pour sa vie ici, ainsi que son frère. Je crois qu’ils
sentent bien, l’un et l’autre, que la France est à présent leur véritable
patrie.” Letter from Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, 15 September
1775 in Lever, Marie-Antoinette, p. 228.
220 Notes

123 . Zweig, Marie Antoinette, p. 26.

124. Campan, Memoirs p. 120.
125. “La générosité du roi pour Trianon, qu’on dit la plus agréable des
maisons, me fait grand plaisir.” Letter from Maria Theresa to Marie
Antoinette, 16 June 1774 in Lever, Marie-Antoinette, p. 183.
126. Archives des Affairs Etrangeres (AE), Documents Relative to the
Marriage of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, 426, f. 308.
127. For evidence of Anne Austria and Maria Theresa of Spain serving as
precedents for the household of Marie Antoinette, see AN, O1 3791.
128. Jean-Francois Solnon, La Cour de France (Paris: Fayard, 1987), p. 433.
129. Felix, Louis XVI, et Marie Antoinette, pp. 249–250.
130. “C’est une grande joie pour moi de voir que la manière de penser du roi
m’épargnera toute sollicitation pour mon amie . . . Il sera charmé de lui
faire du bien pour elle-même.” Letter from Marie Antoinette to Maria
Theresa, 15 February 1780 in Lever, Marie-Antoinette, p. 376.
131. Letter from Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, 15 February 1780 in
Lever, Marie-Antoinette, pp. 150–156.
132. Francoise Barry, La Reine de France (Paris: Les Editions du Scorpion,
1964), p. 222.
133 . Lever, Marie Antoinette p. 134.
134. Louis Nicolardot, Journal de Louis XVI (Paris: E. Dentu, 1873), p. 44.
135. AN, O1 1875.
136. AN, O1 1874, 1875, and 1883.
137. Elisabeth Reynaud, Le Petit Trianon et Marie Antoinette (Paris: Éditions
SW Télémaque, 2010), pp. 191–196.
138. Vincent Bastien, “Se Mettre en Scéne,” in ed. Aillagon, pp. 292–293.
139. AN, O1 3795
140. AN, O1 3795 and 3796.
141. Annick Notter, The Palace of Fontainebleau (Versailles: Artlys, 2007),
pp. 52–53 and Yves Carlier, “Le Boudoir de la Reine au Chateau de
Fontainebleau,” in ed. Aillagon, p. 170.
142. Marie Antoinette’s elder brother, Joseph II, visited Versailles in 1777,
maintaining a strict incognito as Count von Falkenstein. See Lever,
Marie Antoinette, p. 106. Gustavus III of Sweden arrived at the French
court “uninvited and unexpected” in 1784 and Catherine II of Russia’s
heir, Grand Duke Paul, and his wife Maria visited as the Comte and
Comtesse du Nord in 1782. See Campan, Memoirs, pp. 169 and 166.
143 . Reynaud, Le Petit Trianon, pp. 66–73, 180–185, and 212–217.
144. AN, O1 3791.
145. Letter from Marie Antoinette to Rosenberg, 13 July 1775 in Lever,
Marie-Antoinette, p. 218.
146. Ruth Kleinman, “Social Dynamics at the French Court: The Household
of Anne of Austria,” French Historical Studies (Volume 16, Number 3,
Spring 1990), p. 526.
147. Reynaud, Le Petit Trianon, pp. 47–48.
148. Barry, La Reine de France, p. 233.
 Notes 221

149. Kleinmann, “Social Dynamics at the French Court,” p. 518 and Barry,
La Reine de France, p. 223.
150. “Nous sommes dans une épidémie de chansons satiriques . . . On m’a très
libéralement suppose les deux gouts, celui des femmes et des amants.
Quoique les méchancetés plaisent assez dans ce pays-ci, celles-ci sont si
plates et de si mauvais ton qu’elles n’ont eu aucun succès ni dans le pub-
lic ni dans la bonne compagnie.” Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa,
15 December 1775, in Lever, Marie-Antoinette, p. 235.
151. Historians who posit that political pornography was a significant cause
of the French Revolution, most notably Robert Darnton, Lynn Hunt,
and Chantal Thomas argue that obscene images of Marie Antoinette
and her circle were widely available and influential throughout Louis’s
reign. See Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 195–196;
Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution, pp. 89–123; Lynn
Hunt, “The Many Bodies of Marie Antoinette,” in Goodman, Marie
Antoinette, pp. 117–138; Thomas, The Wicked Queen, in Goodman, Marie
Antoinette; and Thomas, “The Heroine of the Crime: Marie Antoinette
in Pamphlets,” in Goodman, Marie Antoinette, pp. 99–116.
152. Kaiser, “From the Austrian Committee to the Foreign Plot,” p. 604.
Simon Burrows and Vivian Gruder discuss the transmission of pam-
phlet literature, arguing that libels concerning the queen were diffi-
cult to obtain prior to the French Revolution. See Burrows, Blackmail,
pp. 147–170 and Gruder, “The Question of Marie Antoinette,
pp. 269–298.
153 . Fewer than 10 percent of surviving pamphlets pertaining to Marie
Antoinette were written prior to 1789. See Hunt, “The Many Bodies of
Marie Antoinette,” in Goodman, Marie Antoinette, p. 124.
154. Hunt, “The Many Bodies of Marie Antoinette,” in Goodman, Marie
Antoinette, p. 17.
155. Vincent Bastien, “Les Dépenses” in Aillagon et al., p. 266.
156. Vincent Bastien, “Les Dépenses” in Aillagon et al., p. 266. Despite well
publicized cost saving measures introduced to address popular outrage
concerning court expenditure, the budget for the queen’s household
continued to increase, climbing to 4,700,000 livres by 1788.
157. Letter from Mercy-Argenteau to Maria Theresa, 17 September 1776 in
Lever, Marie-Antoinette, pp. 258–259.
158. “Le public a vu d’abord avec plaisir que le roi donnait Trianon a la reine. Il
commence a etre inquiet et alarmé des dépenses que S.M. y fait. Par son
ordre, on a culbuté les jardins pour y faire un jardin anglais, qui coutera
au moins cent cinquante mille livres.” Letter from Mercy-Argenteau to
Maria Theresa, 17 September 1776 in Lever, Marie-Antoinette, p. 258.
159. Campan, Memoirs, pp. 68–69.
160. Campan, Memoirs, p. 69.
161. Lever, Marie Antoinette p. 63.
162. Campan, Memoirs p. 69.
222 Notes

163 . Felix, Louis XVI, et Marie Antoinette, pp. 103–109.

164. Xavier Salmon, “Le Petit Vienne,” in Aillagon et al., p. 272.
165. Anonymous, La Ligue Aristocratique ou Les Catiniaires Francoises (Paris:
Josseran, 1789), translated and reprinted in Thomas, The Wicked Queen,
p. 230.
166. Campan, Memoirs, p. 104 and Fraser, Marie Antoinette, p. 130.
167. Campan, Memoirs, p. 107.
168. AN, O1 3795
169. AN, O1 3791
170. During the reign of Louis XIV, the queen’s first horseman lost the right
to control the expenditure and appointments to the queen’s stables but
the mention of expenditure in Mercy’s letter indicates this prerogative
was restored by Marie Antoinette. See Barry, La Reine de France, p. 232.
171. “La survivance de la place de premier écuyer rappelle la surintendance
créée pour Mme de Lamballe. On voit avec peine l’emploi de 150 000
livres d’appointements pour une place qui n’est bonne que pour occa-
sionner de la bouillerie et de la division dans la maison de la reine.”
Mercy-Argenteau to Maria Theresa, 17 September 1776 in Lever, Marie-
Antoinette, p. 258.
172. Albert-Émile Sorel, La Princesse de Lamballe: Une Amie de la Reine Marie
Antoinette (Paris: Brodard et Taupin, 1933), pp. 89–92.
173 . Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution, p. 94.
174. “La Princesse de Lamballe, qui est revenue depuis quinze jours des eau
de Plombières, a été reçue par la reine avec beaucoup de démonstra-
tions de bonté, mais cet accueil n’est qu’une forme de bienséance qui
devient de plus en plus embarrassent et gênante.” Letter from Mercy-
Argenteau to Maria Theresa, 12 September 1777 in Lever, Marie-
Antoinette, p. 296.
175. Thomas, The Wicked Queen, p. 56.
176. AN, O1 3791
177. AN, O1 3791
178. John Rogister, “Queen Marie Leszczynska and Faction at the French
Court 1725–1768,” in Campbell Orr, Queenship in Europe, p. 193.
179. AN, O1 3791
180. Maria Theresa had died in 1780.
181. “On continue ici les économies et retranchements. On réduit les gardes
du corps a quatre escadrons de 250 hommes chacun . . . La destruction
de la gendarmerie est applaudie de tout le militaire.” Marie Antoinette
to Joseph II, 22 February 1788 in Lever, Marie-Antoinette, p. 458.
182. Letter from Joseph II to Marie Antoinette, 5 November 1787 in Lever,
Marie-Antoinette, p. 456.
183 . “Cette princesse est maintenant toute livrée aux arrangements de
l’intérieur, aux économies, aux reformes . . . Ces matières sont traitées
sans plan, sans suite, toujours décidées par the intrigue et des impul-
sions de société.” Mercy Argenteau quoted in Lever, Marie-Antoinette,
p. 458n.
 Notes 223

3 Wife of the King

1. Outside noble and courtly circles, most marriages in Early Modern
Europe were celebrated between couples in their twenties who
belonged to the same locality. Marriage celebrations themselves were
relatively simple. For marriage demographics in early modern England
and France, see Merry Weisner, Women and Gender in Early Modern
Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 72–78.
2. Susan Moller Okin, “Patriarchy and Married Women’s Property in
England: Questions on Some Current Views,” Eighteenth-Century
Studies (Volume 17, Number 2, Winter 1983–1984), p. 12.
3 . See Ozment, Ancestors, pp. 33–37 and Alan Macfarlane, Marriage and
Love in England: Modes of Reproduction 1300–1840 (London: Blackwell,
1987), p. 46.
4. Veevers, Images of Love and Religion, p. 205 and Karen Hearne (ed.), Van
Dyck and Britain (London: Tate Publishing, 2009), p. 65.
5. Duidam, Vienna and Versailles, p. 180.
6. Campan, Memoirs, p. 67 and Lever, Marie Antoinette, p. 64.
7. See Dolan, Whores of Babylon, pp. 95–156.
8. For a publicly circulated English translation of the marriage articles
printed in 1625, see BL, Egerton Mss 2026, f. 68. The clauses protect-
ing Henrietta Maria’s Catholicism were also reprinted and circulated
during the English Civil Wars in William Prynne, The Popish Royal
Favourite (London: William Spark, 1643), p. 53.
9. Weisner, Women and Gender, p. 222.
10. Anne Kugler, “Constructing Wifely Identity: Prescription and Practice
in the Life of Lady Sarah Cowper,” The Journal of British Studies (Volume
40, Number 3, July 2001), pp. 291–323.
11. Louis, Chevalier de Jacourt, “La Femme” in Jacques d’Alembert and
Denis Diderot, The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des
arts et des métiers, par une Société de Gens de letters (Paris: Brisson, David,
Le Breton, and Durand, 1751–1772), Volume 6, p. 471.
12. Dena Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French
Enlightenment (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 32–33.
13 . Timothy O’Hagan, Rousseau (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 3–4.
14. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, trans. Barbara Foxley (London:
Everyman, 1998), p. 388.
15. This letter is reprinted in Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria,
pp. 5–6 and Various Authors, Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1869), Volume II, Appendix, p. xvii.
16. The royal houses of France and Spain were the only powers that could
provide a dowry large enough to meet England’s financial needs. See
Conrad Russell, Parliaments and English Politics 1621–1629 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1979), p. 154.
17. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 18, p. 479 and Bibliotheque St.
Genevieve (BSG) Mss 820, f. 291.
224 Notes

18. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 18, pp. 124, 139, 202, and 326
and BSG Mss 820, f. 33b.
19. TNA PRO/31/3/68, f. 58.
20. Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, pp. 5–6.
21. Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (New York: Book-of-the-Month
Club, 1990), pp. 142–143.
22. Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s Spanish Queen (London:
Faber and Faber Ltd, 2010), pp. 160–161.
23 . During the divorce proceedings from Catherine of Aragon, Henry
VIII stated publicly, “As touching the Queen if it may be adjudged by
law of God that she is my lawful wife, there was never anything more
pleasant and acceptable to me in my life . . . she is a woman of most gen-
tleness, of most humility and buxomness . . . if I were to marry again, if
the marriage might be good, I would surely choose her above all other
women.” Cited in Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, p. 280.
24. Anna of Denmark would later convert to Roman Catholicism.
25. James Thomson Gibson Craig (ed.), Papers Relevant to the Marriage of
James the Sixth of Scotland, with the Princess Anna of Denmark (Edinburgh,
1828), p. 13.
26. Craig, Papers, p. 5.
27. Glyn Redworth, The Prince and the Infanta: The Cultural Politics of the
Spanish Match (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), pp. 39–50
and Strickland, Lives, Volume 5, p. 98.
28. Redworth, The Prince and the Infanta, p. 138
29. Redworth, The Prince and the Infanta, p. 3.
30. Bell, “The Three Marys,” p. 95 and Geraldine A. Johnson, “Pictures Fit
for a Queen: Peter Paul Rubens and the Marie de’ Medici Cycle,” Art
History (Volume 16, Number 3, September 1993), p. 458.
31. While Henrietta Maria was eager to be married and pestered her
mother and brother to conclude the negotiations, the future Charles I
did not have the strong interest in women that his late brother, Henry,
Prince of Wales, had exhibited. See Calendar of State Papers Venetian,
Volume 17, pp. 450–451 and Volume 18, pp. 486 and 459.
32. Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, p. 5.
33 . Britland, “A Fairy Tale Marriage,” pp. 123–138.
34. Britland, “A Fairy Tale Marriage,” p. 124.
35. See Britland, “A Fairy Tale Marriage,” p. 126 and Veevers, Images of
Love and Religion, pp. 174–178.
36. BL, Harley Mss 383, f. 33.
37. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, p. 329.
38. Kevin Sharpe, “The Image of Virtue: The Court and Household of
Charles I, 1625–1642,” in David Starkey (ed.), The English Court from the
Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (London: Longman, 1987), p. 247.
39. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, p. 427.
40. Charles I to Dudley Carleton Viscount Dorchester, 7 December 1626,
reprinted in Carlton, Charles I pp. 86–87.
 Notes 225

41. “La Reine, sa femme monstre passionnée pour la roi: nous verrons a
cette heure, si celle prendra . . . autre credit dans les affaires que du
Temps du Grand Trésorier.” TNA, Baschet’s French Transcripts, PRO
31/3/68, f. 38.
42. TNA, Baschet’s French Transcripts, PRO 31/3/68, f. 33b.
43 . Michael Questier, Stuart Dynastic Policy and Religious Politics, 1621–1625
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 22–23n.
44. TNA, Baschets French Transcripts, PRO 31/3/68, f. 29 and PRO 31/3/66,
f. 31b.
45. Caroline Hibbard, “Henrietta Maria in the 1630s: Perspectives on the
Role of Consort Queens in Ancien Regime Courts,” in Ian Atherton
and Julie Saunders (eds.), The 1630s: Interdisciplinary Essays on Culture and
Politics in the Caroline Era (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
2006), pp. 92–93.
46. “Les souffrances des pauvres catholiques et des autres qui sont ser-
viteurs du Roi monseigneur m’est plus sensible que quoy qui me put
arriver en mon particulier. Imaginés quelle est ma condition de voir le
pouvoir osté au Roy, les Catholiques persécutés.” Letter from Queen
Henrietta Maria of England to Christine, Duchess of Savoy, 18 August
1641, in Hermann Ferrero (ed.), Lettres de Henriette-Marie de France,
Reine d’Angleterre a sa Soeur Christine Duchesse de Savoie (Rome: Bocca
Freres, 1881), p. 58.
47. J. S. A. Adamson, “Chivalry and Political Culture in Caroline England,”
in Kevin Sharpe and Peter Lake (eds.), Culture and Politics in Early Stuart
England (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 170–177.
48. Britland, Drama at the Courts of Henrietta Maria, pp. 146–147.
49. Thomas Carew, Coelum Britanicum, A Masque at Whitehall in the
Banqueting House, on Shrove Tuesday Night, the 18 of February, 1633
(London: Thomas Walkley, 1634), p. 9.
50. Prynne, The Popish Royal Favourite, p. 56.
51. Graham Parry, The Arts of the Anglican Counter Reformation: Glory, Laud
and Honour (Woodbride: The Boydell Press, 2006), pp. 127–128.
52. See the address received by Henrietta Maria in Canterbury, upon her
arrival in England, in which she is described as “Queen Marie, fair
daughter of France.” BL, Additional Mss 28011, f. 14.
53 . A recent biographer of Mary I argues that the burnings would not
have persisted in the popular imagination without the widespread dis-
semination of Foxe’s work, with its gruesome illustrations. See Linda
Porter, Mary Tudor: The First Queen (London: Piatkus Books, 2009),
pp. 361–362.
54. Hutchison, Memoirs, p. 70.
55. Anonymous, Epithalamium: Gallo-Britanicum (London: Thomas Archer,
1625), p. 1 and Alison Plowden, Henrietta Maria: Charles I’s Indomitable
Queen (London: Sutton Publishing, 2001), p. 28.
56. Letter from Thomas More to Thomas Rant, 28 February 1624 in
Questier, Stuart Dynastic Policy, p. 250.
226 Notes

57. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 17, p. 623.

58. Mendelson and Crawford, Women in Early Modern England, p. 138.
59. Dolan, Whores of Babylon, p. 62.
60. Susan Amussen, An Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern
England (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 100.
61. See Anonymous, A pittilesse mother That most vnnaturally at one time,
murthered two of her owne children at Acton within sixe miles from London
vppon holy Thursday last 1616. The ninth of May (London: n.p., 1616) and
Frances Dolan, Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime
in England (1550–1700) (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994),
p. 148.
62. BSG Mss 820, f. 4.
63 . Bone, Henrietta Maria, p. 41.
64. BL, Harley Mss 383, f. 33.
65. Southcott to Biddulph, 15 February 1633 in Michael Questier (ed.),
Newsletters from the Caroline Court (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), p. 153.
66. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 11, p. 518.
67. Prynne, The Popish Royall Favourite, p. 18.
68. Prynne, The Popish Royall Favourite, p. 19.
69. BL, Egerton Mss 2541, f. 116.
70. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 24, pp. 120–121.
71. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 24, pp. 120–121.
72. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 24, f. 419.
73. Caroline Hibbard, “The Contribution of 1639: Court and Country
Catholicism,” Recusant History (Volume 16, Issue 1, 1982), pp. 42–60.
74. Secret Catholics who attended Church of England services to avoid
arrest.
75. “To His Sacred Majesty, ab ignoto” in Anonymous, Cabala, p. 278.
76. “To His Sacred Majesty, ab ignoto” in Anonymous, Cabala, p. 278.
77. Christopher Highley, Catholics Writing the Nation in Early Modern Britain
and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 157–158.
78. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 24, f. 424.
79. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 12, p. 521.
80. Southcott to Biddulph, 7 June 1633, reprinted in Questier, Newsletters
from the Caroline Court, p. 182.
81. “Instruction concerning the present state of the Protestant church of
England, May 1636,” reprinted in Questier, Newsletters from the Caroline
Court, p. 278.
82. Hutchison, Memoirs, p. 70.
83 . Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, CCXI Sociable Letters
(London: William Wilson, 1664), pp. 15–16.
84. Whitaker, Mad Madge, pp. 53–56 and Emma L. E. Rees, Margaret
Cavendish: Gender, Genre, Exile (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2003), pp. 43–44.
85. Bodleian Library (BodL), Ashmole Mss, 36–37, fol. 264r.
86. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 12, p. 259.
 Notes 227

87. For the expenditures relating to Marie de Medici’s visit, see Calendar of
State Papers Venetian, Volume 24, p. 471.
88. “Mes goûts ne sont pas les mêmes que ceux du roi, qui n’a que ceux de
la chasse et des ouvrages méchaniques. Vous conviendrez que j’aurais
assez mauvais grâce auprés d’une forge. Je n’y serais pas Vulcain, et le
rôle de Vénus pourrait lui déplaire beaucoup plus que mes goûts, qu’il
ne désapprouve pas.” Marie Antoinette to Rosenberg, 17 April 1775, in
Lever, Correspondance, p. 208.
89. Marie Antoinette to Rosenberg, 13 July 1775 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 217. Also, BL, Zweig Mss 171.
90. Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 30 July 1775 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 223.
91. Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 30 July 1775 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 224. For Marie Antoinette’s political naivety, see Felix, Louis XVI,
p. 162–163. Other political studies analyzing Louis XVI’s reign focus
instead on the veracity of her claims that she influenced “the poor man”
to meet with the pro-Austrian Duke of Choiseul and dismiss his suc-
cessor as chief minister, the Duke d’Aiguillon. See Hardman, French
Politics, p. 205 and Price, Road from Versailles, p. 37.
92. Fraser, Marie Antoinette, pp. 140–141.
93 . See Margaret R. Darrow, “Popular Concepts of Marital Choice in
Eighteenth Century France,” Journal of Social History (Voume 19,
Number 2, 1985), pp. 261–272.
94. See Evelyne Lever, Madame de Pompadour: A Life (New York: Farrar,
Strauss and Giroux, 2002), pp. 168–179.
95. Rousseau, Emile, pp. 429 and 446 and Susan Moller Okin, “The Fate
of Rousseau’s Heroines,” in Lynda Lange (ed.), Feminist Interpretations
of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2002), p. 99.
96. Jennifer Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters: Domesticity, Education and
Autonomy in Modern France (Lebanon: University of New Hampshire
Press, 2008), p. 9.
97. Even Archduchess Marie Christine’s “love match” with Prince Albert of
Saxe-Teschen suited Maria Theresa’s goals concerning the governance
of the Austrian Netherlands. Macartney, Maria Theresa, pp. 110–113.
98. Maria Theresa to Mercy-Argenteau, 4 January 1771 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 68.
99. Felix, Louis XVI, p. 17.
100. Felix, Louis XVI, pp. 28–29.
101. Campan, Memoirs, p. 67.
102. Hanley, “Engendering the State,” p. 6.
103. Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 2 December 1770 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 65.
104. “Je ne désapprouve pas les promenades, mais il ne faut pas y excéder,
surtout à cheval. Je suis bien fâchée d’avoir appris que vous ne m’avez pas
tenu parole et que vous courez à la chasse.” Letter from Maria Theresa
to Marie Antoinette, 9 June 1771 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 80
228 Notes

105. Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, 21 June 1771, in Lever,

Correspondance, p. 81.
106. Campan, Memoirs, pp. 32–33.
107. “Je prêche a ma fille la patience et qu’il n’y a rien de perdu, mais qu’elle
redouble de caresses.” Maria Theresa to Mercy-Argenteau, 2 October
1770 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 55.
108. Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 8 May 1771, in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 76.
109. “J’avoue que cela me frappe d’autant plus que, de jour, étant toujours
dissipée et sans le roi, s’il ne vient plus coucher chez vous pour de la suc-
cession, il faudra donc y renoncer.” Letter from Maria Theresa to Marie
Antoinette, 2 June 1775 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 214.
110. Mercy-Argenteau to Maria Theresa, 14 July 1770 in Lever,
Correspondance, pp. 53–54 and Letter from Mercy-Argenteau to Maria
Theresa, 20 October 1770 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 59.
111. “Le roi actuel, ayant peine vingt ans, avait affaire a trois tantes et trois
princesses . . . femmes avec qui il allait vivre et qui, en ayant chacune
beaucoup a leur suite, dont plusiers habiles, lui faisaient une centaine
de femmes a qui il allait avoir affaire.” Anne-Emmanuel, Duc de
Croy, Journal Inedit du duc de Croy – 1718–1784 – publié d’apres le manu-
script autographe conserve a la Bibliothéque de l’Institut, Volume 3 (Paris:
Flammerion, 1906–1921), pp. 117–118.
112. Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 30 July 1775 in Lever, Correspondance,
pp. 223–224.
113 . See Rogister, “Queen Marie Leszczynska,” pp. 186–220.
114. This unity between the physical existence of the monarch and the
divine right of kingship encouraged the theory of “The King’s Two
Bodies.” Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval
Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 7.
115. “Elle le croit trop apathique et timide pour supposer qu’il puisse jamais
se livrer aux désordres de la galanterie. La reine en est si persuadée qui
lui est arrivé de dire à quelques gens de ses entours qu’elle ne serait ni en
peine ni bien fâchée que le roi prit quelques inclination momentanée et
passagère.” Mercy-Argenteau to Maria Theresa, 19 November 1777, in
Lever, Correspondance, p. 304.
116. Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, 5 December 1777, in Lever,
Correspondance, pp. 305–306.
117. “à la manière dont le roi est et vit actuellement avec moi, j’ai grand con-
fiance qu’avant peu je n’aurai plus rien désirer.” Marie Antoinette to
Maria Theresa, 19 December 1777, in Lever, Correspondance, p. 306.
118. “Je sens bien l’avantage qu’il y à ce qu’il vienne passer la nuit pour étab-
lir la confiance.” Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, October 1777 in
Lever, Correspondance, p. 300.
119. “Ces deux femmes célèbres se ressemblèrent encore dans l’art de
tromper et d’avilir celui qu’elles devaient faire respecter.” Anonymous,
Essai Historique sur la vie de Marie-Antoinette d’Autriche Reine de France
(Paris: Chez la Montensier, 1789), pp. 4–5.
 Notes 229

120. Anonymous, Song on the Wedding of His Royal Highness the Dauphin
(Paris: n.p., 1770), Bibliotheque Nationale (BN), Ye 20763, quoted
in Antoine de Baecque, The Body Politic: Corporeal Metaphor in
Revolutionary France, 1770–1800 (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1993), p. 36.
121. Hesse, The Other Enlightenment, pp. 15–16; Fraser, Marie Antoinette,
p. 137, Lever, Marie Antoinette, p. 93.
122. Anonymous, Sermon on the Wedding of His Royal Highness the Dauphin
(Paris: n.p., 1770); BN, Lb 39, 119A, translated and reprinted in Baecque,
The Body Politic, p. 36.
123 . Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Politics and the Arts: Letter to M. D’Alembert on
the Theatre, trans. and ed. Allan Bloom (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1960), p. 49
124. Lever, Madame de Pompadour, pp. 115–122 and Joan Haslip, Marie
Antoinette ( London: Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1987), p. 105.
125. Various Authors, Lettre des Laboureuses de la Paraisse de Noisi pres Versailles
a la Reine ( Paris: n.p., 1775), Bibliotheque de la Histoire de la Ville de
Paris (BHVP), p. 5.
126. Various Authors, Lettre des Laboureuses, p. 15.
127. “Que la voie publique a appris à Votre Majesté que la reine (de sa propre
volonté) était restée plusieurs semaines faisant lit à part avec le roi, que
tout Paris en été instruit et en a glosé, au grand détriment du crédit et
de la considération de la reine.” Mercy-Argenteau to Maria Theresa, 18
May 1775 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 212.
128. “Il est inutile de dire à ma chère maman combine j’ai souffert de voir
un héritier qui n’est pas de moi.” Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa,
Versailles, 12 August 1775 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 225.
129. “heritier” instead of “enfant.”
130. Campan, Memoirs, p. 95.
131. Sarah Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Celebres of
Prerevolutionary France (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1993), pp. 167–211; Frances Mossiker, The Queen’s Necklace (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1961); Frantz Funck-Bretano, L’Affaire du Collier
(Paris: Hachette, 1901); and Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the
French Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1989), pp. 203–227.
132. Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs, pp. 319–320.
133 . Burrows, Blackmail p. 205.
134. Mossiker, The Queen’s Necklace, pp. 35–37 and Haslip, Marie Antoinette,
pp. 133–134.
135. Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs, pp. 185.
136. Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs, pp. 190–191.
137. “On n’a pris nulle peine pour contrefaire mon écriture, car elle ne lui
ressemble en rien, et je n’ai jamais signé ‘de France.’ C’est un étrange
roman, aux yeux de tout ce pays-ci, que de vouloir supposer que j’ai
pu vouloir donner une commission secrète au Cardinal.” Letter from
Marie Antoinette to Joseph II, 22 August 1785 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 443.
230 Notes

138. Archives Nationale (AN), K 162.

139. Maza briefly compares the reputations of Henrietta Maria and
Alexandra of Russia to that of Marie Antoinette.” See Maza, Private
Lives and Public Affairs, p. 172.
140. Lamballe was the widow of a grandson of Louis XIV’s legitimized
son, Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse while de la
Motte-Valois was a descendent of an illegitimate son of Henry II. See
Mossiker, The Queen’s Necklace, pp. 4–5.
141. Campan, Memoirs pp. 70–71.
142. Campan, Memoirs p. 71.
143 . Campan, Memoirs p. 120.

4 Mother to the Royal Children

1. Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, pp. 8–10.
2. David Herlihy, Medieval Households (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1985), pp. 113 and 128.
3 . In Scotland, James VI and his firstborn son, Prince Henry, were raised
by the Earls of Mar. In France, the future Henry IV spent extended
periods at the French court, under the nominal supervision of King
Henry II.
4. See Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, pp. 28–29 and Hearn, Van
Dyck and Britain, pp. 68–69.
5. Michael Anderson, Approaches to the History of the Western Family: 1500–
1914 (London: The MacMillan Press Ltd, 1980), p. 60; Pollock, “Parent-
Child Relations,” pp. 194–195; and Ozment, Ancestors, pp. 74–75.
6. Marie Antoinette to Tourzel, 24 July 1789 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 489.
7. Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, Versailles, 12 June 1778 in Lever,
Ancestors, p. 331.
8. Ronald Hutton, Charles the Second, King of England, Scotland and Ireland
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 4.
9. BL, Additional Mss 27402, ff. 57–66. BL, Stowe Mss 132, ff. 208–211,
and BL, Egerton Mss 2554.
10. Rosalind K. Marshall, Queen Mary’s Women: Female Relatives, Servants,
Friends and Enemies of Mary Queen of Scots (Edinburgh: John Donald,
2006), p. 4.
11. Susan Amussen, An Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern
England (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 34–66 and
Mendelson and Crawford, Women in Early Modern England, pp. 62
and 67.
12. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 6, 1633–1634, p. 229.
13 . Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 6, 1633–1634, p. 242.
14. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 6, 1633–1634, p. 264.
15. Hutton, Charles the Second, p. 1
 Notes 231

16. Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, p. 18

17. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 4, 1629–1631, p. 439 and p. 329
and Volume 5, 1631–1633, p. 250.
18. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 8, 1635, p. 25 and Volume 6,
1633–1634, p. 375.
19. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 6, pp. 250 and 270
20. David Starkey and Susan Doran, Henry VIII: Man and Monarch
(London: The British Library, 2009), pp. 23 and 29.
21. Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon, pp. 239–240 and 382–383.
22. Starkey, Six Wives, pp. 717–720 and 756–758.
23 . Mary Queen of Scots adopted the French spelling of the name during
her upbringing in France.
24. Rosalind K. Marshall, Scottish Queens: 1034–1714 (East Lothian:
Tuckwell Press, 2003), p. 147.
25. Marshall, Scottish Queens, p. 71.
26. Maria Perry, The Sisters of Henry VIII: The Tumultuous Lives of Margaret
of Scotland and Mary of France (London: Andre Deutsch Ltd., 1998),
pp. 78–79.
27. Maureen M. Meikle, “A Meddlesome Princess: Anna of Denmark and
Scottish Court Politics 1589–1603,” in Julian Goodare and Michael
Lynch (eds.), The Reign of James VI (East Lothian: Tuckwell Press,
2000), pp. 132–135.
28. Marshall, Scottish Queens, pp. 142 and 147.
29. Steven Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983) and Marc R. Forester
and Benjamin J. Kaplan (eds.), Piety and Family in Early Modern Europe
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).
30. Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, pp. 9–10. See also British
Library (BL), Stowe Mss 132, f. 206.
31. Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, p. 8. See also BL, Stowe Mss
132, f. 205.
32. Robert Mandrou, Introduction to Modern France 1500–1640: An Essay in
Historical Psychology (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1976), p. 86; David
Martin Luebke (ed.), The Counter Reformation: The Essential Readings
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1999), pp. 11–12; and Elizabeth
Rapley, The Devotes: Women and the Church in Seventeenth Century France
(Kingston: Queens-McGill Press, 1993), pp. 10–19.
33 . Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 19, pp. 494–498.
34. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 20, p. 297.
35. BL, Harley Mss, 6988, f. 220. The list contains at least three mistakes,
including Princess Anne’s year of birth and Princess Elizabeth’s birth-
day. See White, Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars, p. 15n.
36. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 24, p. 495.
37. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 25, p. 106.
38. Anonymous, Musarium Oxoniensium Charisteria pro Serenissima Regina
Maria (Oxford: n.p., 1639).
232 Notes

39. See Raymond A. Anselment, “‘The Tears of Nature’: Seventeenth

Century Parental Bereavement,” Modern Philology (Volume 91,
Number 1, August 1993), pp. 26–53.
40. French diplomatic correspondence of the period describes Marie de
Medici as personally dispatching Peronne to attend her daughter. See
TNA, PRO 31/3/66, p. 41.
41. See Philip A. Kalisch, Margaret Scobey, and Beatrice J. Kalisch, “Louyse
Bourgeois and the Emergence of Modern Midwifery,” in Edwin R. Van
Teijlingen, George W. Lowis, and Peter McCaffery (eds.), Midwivery
and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives (New York:
Nova Science Publishers Inc., 2004), pp. 75–88 and Antonia Fraser,
The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth Century England (London:
Mandarin Paperbacks, 1984), p. 500.
42. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 3, p. 548.
43 . Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 22, p. 316.
44. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 4, p. 278.
45. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 6, p. 246.
46. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 27, p. 107.
47. Linda Levy Peck, Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth
Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005),
pp. 25–26 and 162–168.
48. Queen Henrietta Maria to Christine, Princess of Piedmont, July 1635,
in Ferrero, Lettres de Henriette-Marie, pp. 39–40 and Letter of Lord
Astor to Mr. Windebrooke, 25 February 1637, Bodleian Library (BodL),
Clarendon State Papers, Volume 11, f. 889.
49. Hamilton, Henrietta Maria, p. viii.
50. Hearn, Van Dyck and Britain, pp. 68–69.
51. Laura Lunger Knoppers, Politicizing Domesticity from Henrietta Maria to
Milton’s Eve (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 4.
52. BL, Harley Mss 6988, f. 111.
53 . National Archives of Scotland (NAS), MS GD. 112/39/43/22 and Calendar
of State Papers Venetian, Volume 23, p. 160.
54. BL, Harley Mss 6988, f. 95. Also reprinted in Green, Letters of Queen
Henrietta Maria, pp. 28–29.
55. Princes Charles continued to resist taking his medicine. See BL, Harley
Mss 6988, ff. 99 and 101.
56. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 17, p. 573.
57. BL, Harley Mss 6988, f. 81.
58. BL, Harley Mss 6988, f. 81.
59. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 22, p. 431.
60. See Elizabeth Coiro, “‘A ball of strife’: Caroline Poetry and Royal
Marriage,” in Thomas H. Corns (ed.), The Royal Image: Representations
of Charles I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 28 and
Malcolm Smuts, “The Political Failure of Stuart Court Patronage,” in
Guy Fitch Lytle and Stephen Orgel (eds.), Patronage in the Renaissance
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 182.
 Notes 233

61. John Rous, Diary of John Rous: Incumbent of Santon Downham, Suffolk
from 1625 to 1642, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (London: Camden
Society, 1856), p. 54.
62. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 27, p. 130.
63 . Anonymous, A speech delivered in the star chamber on Wednesday the 14th of
June, 1637 (London: Richard Badger, 1637), p. 25.
64. BL, Harley Mss 383, f. 98.
65. BL, Harley Mss 383, f. 98.
66. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 4, p. 283.
67. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 4, p. 277.
68. Sybil Jack, “In Praise of Queens: The Public Presentation of the
Virtuous Consort in Seventeenth Century Britain,” in Stephanie
Tarbin and Susan Broomhall (eds.), Women, Identities and Communities
in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 211–224.
69. Anonymous, A Thankesgiving and Prayer for the safe child-bearing of the
Queens Majestie (London: Robert Barker and John Bill, 1629), p. 1
70. Anonymous, A Thankesgiving and Prayer, p. 1.
71. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 23, p. 501.
72. Trevor Royle, The Wars of the Roses: England’s First Civil War (London:
Little Brown Book Group Ltd, 2010), Anne Crawford, The Yorkists:
The History of a Dynasty (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007),
pp. 151–168.
73 . Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 4, p. 346.
74. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 4, p. 489.
75. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 4, p. 477.
76. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 7, p. 318.
77. Hutton, Charles the Second, p. 4.
78. TNA, PRO 31/3/72, f. 630.
79. TNA, PRO 31/3/72, f. 119.
80. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 22, p. 58.
81. “On a toujours accoutumé mes enfants à avoir grand confiance en moi,
et, quand ils ont eu des torts, à me le dire eux-mêmes. Cela fait qu’en les
grondant, j’ai l’air plus peinée et affligée de ce qu’ils ont fait que fâchée.”
Marie Antoinette to Tourzel, 24 July 1789 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 489.
82. Rousseau, Emile, pp. 389–390.
83 . Kaiser, Scandal in the Royal Nursery, p. 410.
84. Felix, Louis XVI, pp. 238–239.
85. Felix, Louis XVI, pp. 428–429.
86. Okin, “The Fate of Rousseau’s Heroines,” p. 99.
87. Rousseau, Emile, p. 169.
88. Rousseau, Emile, p. 388.
89. Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters, p. 9.
90. Father-in-law of Jeanne Campan.
91. Archives Nationale (AN), 440 AP2.
92. See Lacroix, Bibliotheque de la Reine, p. 30.
234 Notes

93 . Lacroix, Bibliotheque de la Reine, p. 88.

94. Campan, Memoirs p. 131.
95. Ourida Mostefai, “The Author as Celebrity and Outcast: Authorship
and Autobiography in Rousseau,” in John O’Neal and Ourida Mostefai
(eds.), Approaches to Teaching Rousseau’s Confessions and Reveries of the
Solitary Walker (New York: Modern Language Association, 2003),
p. 72.
96. “A la manière dont on les élevé à cette heure, ils sont bien moins gênés;
on ne les emmaillote pas, ils sont toujours dans une barcelonnette ou
sur le bras, et du moment qu’ils peuvent être a l’aire, on les y accoutume
petit à petit, et ils finissent par y être presque toujours. Je crois que c’est
la manière la plus saine et la meilleure de les élever.” Marie Antoinette
to Maria Theresa, Versailles, 12 June 1778 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 331.
97. Margaret H. Darrow, “French Noblewomen and the New Domesticity
1750–1850,” Feminist Studies, (Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 1979), p. 42.
98. Campan, Memoirs, p. 147.
99. Felix, Louis XVI, p. 239.
100. Campan, Memoirs, p. 152 and De Baecque, The Body Politic, p. 46.
101. Rousseau, Emile, p. 391.
102. Rogister, “Queen Marie Leszczynska,” in Campbell Orr, Queenship in
Europe, p. 209.
103 . “Cette circonstance si désirée et si heureuse ajouterait un grand poids
à la influence et au crédit de la Reine.” Mercy-Argenteau to Joseph
II, Paris, 21 February 1781 in Chevalier Alfred D’Arneth and Jules
Flammermont (eds.), Correspondance Secrete de Comte de Mercy-Argenteau
avec L’Empereur Joseph II et Le Prince de Kaunitz (Paris: Imprimerie
Nationale, 1889), p. 24.
104. D’Arneth and Flammermont, Correspondance Secrete, p. 66 and Colin
Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon 1715–1799
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 305.
105. “La Reine jouit de la plus parfaite santé et du plus grand credit . . . Elle se
prête aux instances que je Lui ai faites de s’entretenir quelquefois avec
le Roi de matières politiques. J’ai particulièrement suggère trios points
essentiels: celui de l’utilité d’ouvrir le congrès de paix le plus tôt possi-
ble, celui de parer aux machinations de le cour de Berlin, et finalement
d’être attentive à diminuer l’impression de jalousie que causent ici les
liaisons de Votre Majesté avec la Russie.” Mercy-Argenteau to Joseph II,
Paris, 16 October 1781 in D’Arneth and Flammermont, Correspondance
Secrete, p. 66.
106. Lever, Marie Antoinette, pp. 142–143.
107. Campan, Memoirs, pp. 197–199.
108. “La Reine est fortement occupe des moyens d’établir un bon plan
d’éducation pour le Dauphin. Sa Majesté est convenue avec le Roi qu’il
n’y aura point de gouverneur désigne avant cinq ans.” Mercy-Argenteau
to Joseph II, Paris, 11 November 1781 in D’Arneth and Flammermont,
Correspondance Secrete, pp. 74–75.
 Notes 235

109. D’Arneth and Flammermont, Correspondance Secrete, pp. 74–75.

110. AN O 3798,
111. Lacroix, Bibliotheque de la Reine, p. 17.
112. See Andrew O’Malley, The Making of the Modern Child: Children’s
Literature and Childhood in the Late Eighteenth Century (New York:
Routledge, 2003).
113 . Cardin le Bret, De la souverainte, cited in Kaiser, “Scandal in the Royal
Nursery,” p. 404.
114. Kaiser, “Scandal in the Royal Nursery,” p. 407.
115. Various Authors, The Wallace Collection (London: Scala Publishers Ltd.,
2006), p. 138.
116. AN KK 1452: “Livre qui contient tout ce qui peut intéresser Madame
La Gouvernante des Enfants de France et surintendante de Leurs
Maisons,” cited in Kaiser, “Scandal in the Royal Nursery,” p. 407.
117. Louis-Philippe succeeded his father as Duke d’Orleans in 1785.
118. Provence to King Gustavus of Sweden cited and translated in Zweig,
Marie Antoinette, p. 150.
119. Zweig, Marie Antoinette, pp. 149–151 and Thomas, “The Heroine of the
Crime,” in Goodman, Marie Antoinette, p. 105.
120. “The Austrian Woman on the Rampage or the Royal Orgy,” 1789, in
Thomas, “The Heroine of the Crime,” p. 205.
121. Anonymous, Les Amours de Charlot et Toinette (Versailles: n.p., 1789).
122. Anonymous, Lettre de la Reine envoyee au Comte d’Artois avec la Reponse du
Comte D’Artois a la Reine (Paris: Valois, n.d.).
123 . Georges Bordonove, Louis XVIII Le Désiré (Paris: Pygmalion, 1989),
p. 26.
124 . Mercy-Argenteau to Maria Theresa, 7 June 1774 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 178: “La famille royale d î ne et soupe ensemble dans
l’appartement de la reine, et le roi met beaucoup de simplicité, d’amitié
et d’aisance dans la façon d’être vis-à-vis de ses frères et de ses belle-
sœur; il leur a ordonné de supprimer le titre de Majesté lorsqu’ils lui
parlent.”
125. Fraser, The Weaker Vessel, p. 101 and Lever, Marie Antoinette, p. 201.
126. “Il est bien certain que non seulement il n’y a point de brouillerie entre
Monsieur et moi, mais ce qui est plus, c’est qu’on n’en croit pas, et
tout le monde remarque mes bonnes manières pour lui et sa femme.”
Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, 12 November 1775 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 232.
127. Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, 16 August 1779 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 361.
128. Kaiser, “Scandal in the Royal Nursery,” p. 418.
129. Mercy-Argenteau to Maria Theresa, 15 June 1777 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 282.
130. “La reine ne peut plus se passer de la société de cette jeune femme. Elle est
dépositaire de toutes ses pensées et je doute fort qu’il y en ait d’exceptées
a cette confiance sans bornes.” Letter from Mercy-Argenteau to Maria
Theresa, 12 September 1777 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 295.
236 Notes

131. Maria Theresa to Mercy-Argenteau, 1 October 1777 in Lever,

Correspondance, p. 298.
132. AN, O1 3799.
133 . AN, O1 3799.
134. AN, O1 3799.
135. AN, O1 3799.
136. AN, O1 3799.
137. Tracy Adams, The Life and Afterlife of Isabeau of Bavaria (Baltimore,
MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2010), pp. 38–72.
138. “Parmi les mauvais contes que l’interrègne de la gouvernante des
Enfants de France fait faire on remarque celui qui suppose que
Monsieur Provence est allé trouver le roi, son frère, et lui a dit que . . . si
son choix pour remplacer Madame de Guememe tombait sur Madame
de Polignac, il serait blâ mé de tout la France.” Bombelles,, Marquis
de Bombelles: Journal, ed. Georges, Comte de Clam-Martinic, Jean
Grasson, and Frans Durif (Geneva: Librarie Droz S.A., 1977), Volume
1, p. 165.
139. Bombelles, Journal, p. 169.
140. “La Reine ne sait pas encore combien cet enfant, si précieux pour l’Etat
et pour elle, a été en danger. Elle a la cœur très bon, aime beaucoup
son fils et sa fille, mais une grande dissipation nui nécessairement a la
sensibilité, et l’on s’étourdit souvent sur ce qui devrait nous affecter le
plus.” Bombelles, Journal, p. 326.
141. “Promenades nocturnes.” Anonymous, Porte-Feuille d’un Talon Rouge.
Contenant des anecdotes galantes et secrettes de la cour de France (Paris: De
l’imprimerie du Comte de Paradès, ca. 1780), p. 11.
142. “Le Reine devint enceinte & quand sa grossesse fut déclarée. Madame
de Lamballe fut encore son intime amie. Le tems de couches arrive, la
frayeur de la mort s’empara de son esprit. Elle avait déjà prés deux mil-
lions de Dettes; elle ne voulait pas mourir insolvable . . . La Reine . . . en
parla elle-même au roi, qui espérant un Dauphin, consola la reine,
fit payer ses dettes, & témoigna sa reconnaissance a M. Necker.”
Anonymous, Porte-Feuille, pp. 23–24.
143 . In the pamphlet, Necker valiantly attempts to protect the funds
until her receives orders from the king. See Anonymous, Porte-Feuille,
pp. 23–24.
144. Hunt, Family Romance, pp. 89–123.
145. “Je pourrais en dire autant pour Mme de Polignac par rapport au roi.
Il l’aime beaucoup, et quoique je sois fort sensible et reconnaissante du
bien qu’il lui fait, je n’ai pas besoin de l’en solliciter. Les gazetiers et nou-
vellistes en savent plus que moi. Je n’ai entendu parler ni de la terre de
deux millions ni d’aucune autre.” Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa,
13 April 1780 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 381.
146. AN, O1 3799
147. Kaiser, “Scandal in the Royal Nursery,” pp. 412 and 418.
148. Bombelles, Journal, Volume 1, p. 160.
149. Anonymous, Essai Historique, p. 127.
 Notes 237

150. Anonymous, Essai Historique, pp. 126–128.

151. “Le 19 du présent mois, a onze heures 35 minutes de matin, la reine
est accouchée, a terme, d’une princesse forte & bien constituée, après
une travail long & douloureux de prés de 12 heures.” E. Lasson, Premier
Bulletin (Versailles: De l’imprimerie du Cabinet du Roi, 1778), p. 1 and
AN, O1 3791.
152. Lever, Marie Antoinette, pp. 120–121 and 142–143.
153 . AN, O1 3799.
154. Blanning, Culture of Power p. 107.
155. Mary D. Sherriff, “The Portrait of the Queen,” in Goodman, Marie
Antoinette, p. 49.
156. See “Marie-Antoinette, Madame de Royale et le dauphin dans les jar-
dins de Trianon” by Eugene Battailé, which was displayed at the Grand
Palais in 1785 and “Marie Antoinette et ses enfants” by Eugene Battailé,
which was exhibited in the Salon in 1787. Xavier Salmon, “Repondre a
la critique par l’image,” in Aillagon et al., pp. 306–321.
157. Sophie-Beatrix died in 1787.
158. Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, Souvenirs, ed. Claudine Herrmann (Paris:
Des Femmes, 1986), Volume 1, pp. 65–66. Excerpt translated and cited
in Sherriff, “The Portrait of the Queen,” p. 46.
159. Salmon, “Repondre a la critique,” p. 314.

5 The English Civil Wars and

the French Revolution
1. Amusson, An Ordered Society, pp. 34–66
2. Orr, Queenship in Europe, pp. 11–29.
3 . See Collins, The State in Early Modern France, pp. 281–290 and Van Kley,
Religious Origins, pp. 75–134.
4. Parliamentary Archives at Westminster (PAW), House of Lords
Journals, 4 February 1641–25 March 1642, f. 5.
5. Reimpression de L’Ancien Moniteur, Volume 18, p. 122.
6. Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, p. 71.
7. British Library (BL), Harley Mss 164, f. 395.
8. Anonymous, Seaven Great Matters of Note . . . 4. Her Majesties Answer to a
Message of Both Houses (London: R.O and G.D. for F. Coules, ca. 1641),
p. 4.
9. Jacques Dupperon, A Warning to the Parliament of England (London:
R.W., 1647), p. 9.
10. Strickland, Lives, Volume 5, pp. 180; Haynes, Henrietta Maria, p. 215;
and Rosalind K. Marshall, Henrietta Maria: The Intrepid Queen (London:
H.M.S.O., 1990), p. 106.
11. Sir Simonds d’Ewes, Journal of the House of Commons (Volume III, 3
February1641–27 June 1643 and BL, Harley Mss 164, f. 329.
12. BL, Harley Mss 164, f. 329
238 Notes

13. Sir William Davenant, “Spalmacida Spolida,” in David Lindley (ed.),

Court Masques: Jacobean and Caroline Entertainments 1605–1640 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995), line 271.
14. Britland, Drama at the Courts of Henrietta Maria, p. 185.
15. Anonymous, A Discoverie, to the praise of God, and joy of all truehearted
Protestants (London: n.p., 1641).
16. Caroline Hibbard, Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press, 1983), p. 181.
17. TNA, PRO 31/3/70, f. 113
18. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 17, p. 126.
19. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 24, p. 468.
20. BL, Egerton Mss 2533.
21. Hibbard, “The Contribution of 1639,” pp. 52; Gordon Albion, Charles I
and the Court of Rome: A Study in Seventeenth Century Diplomacy (London:
Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd, 1935), p. 335 and K. J. Lindley, “Lay
Catholics of England in the Reign of Charles I,” Journal of Ecclesiastical
History (Volume 22, 1971), p. 214.
22. Hibbard, “The Contribution of 1639,” pp. 53–56.
23 . BL, Sloan Mss 1470, f. 41.
24. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 24, p. 539.
25. Hibbard, “The Contribution of 1639,” p. 52.
26. See letter from John Southcott to Peter Biddulph, 7 June 1633, reprinted
in Questier, Stuart Dynastic Policy, p. 182.
27. See Dupperon, A Warning to the Parliament, and Laura Lunger
Knoppers, “Opening the Queen’s Closet: Henrietta Maria, Elizabeth
Cromwell and the Politics of Cookery,” Renaissance Quarterly (Volume
60, 2007), pp. 464–499.
28. BL, Additional Mss 11045, f. 16.
29. John Rylands Library, Manchester, English Mss 737, f. 1, cited in
Hibbard, “The Contribution of 1639,” p. 44.
30. PAW, House of Lords Journals, 4 February 1641–25 March 1642, ff. 147
and 234.
31. BL, Harley Mss 1519, f. 104.
32. BL, Harley Mss 1519, f. 104.
33 . Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 25, p. 186.
34. Parliament of England and Wales, The Kings cabinet opened (London:
Robert Bostock, 1645).
35. Ed. Wallace Notestein, Journal of Sir Simond d ’Ewes (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1923), pp. 323–325.
36. Peacey, “Print and Public Politics in Seventeenth Century London,”
pp. 85–86.
37. Parliament of England and Wales, The Declaration of Both Houses
of Parliament to the King ’s Majestie, concerning the Queene (London: I.
Weight, 1643), p. 7.
38. In the early 1640s, accounts of discussions in parliament appear to have
been provided for independent publishers to print for a broad audience.
See The Declaration of Both Houses of Parliament to the King ’s Majestie,
 Notes 239

concerning the Queen. By the Protectorate Period, particular publications

were explicitly “ordered by parliament.” See Parliament of England and
Wales, An additional act for sale of the goods belonging to the late King, Queen
and Prince (London: Printed by John Field, Printer to the Parliament of
England, 1651).
39. Peacey, “Print and Public Politics in Seventeenth Century London,”
p. 93.
40. J. Nalson, An Impartial Collection, 2 volumes (London: n.p., 1682–1683),
Volume 2, p. ix, cited in Peacey, “Print and Public Politics in Seventeenth
Century England,” p. 91.
41. Alexandra K. Wettlaufer, “Absent Fathers, Martyred Mothers:
Domestic Drama and (Royal) Family Values in A Graphic History of
Louis XVI,” Eighteenth Century Life (Volume 23, Issue 3, 1999).
42. Thomas Hansard (ed.), Hansard ’s Parliamentary debates (London:
Cornelius Buck, 1858), Volume 149, p. 954.
43 . There were numerous missions by English diplomats to acquire the
unpaid portion of Henrietta Maria’s dowry. BL, Additional Mss, 78202,
f. 31.
44. TNA, PRO 31/3/72, f. 352.
45. The Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars,
Volume 1, p. 233n.
46. Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars, p. 470.
47. Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars, p. 573.
48. National Library of Wales (NLW), Wynnstay Mss 171 and 172.
49. PAW, House of Lords Journals, 4 November 1640–4 February 1641,
f. 140.
50. Henry Jermyn was Henrietta Maria’s High Steward and one of the
most prominent members of her household.
51. PAW, House of Lords Journals, 4 February 1641–25 March 1642, f. 150.
52. PAW, House of Lords Journals, 4 February 1641–25 March 1642, f. 73.
53 . Sharpe, “The Image of Virtue,” p. 247.
54. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 25, p. 150.
55. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 25, p. 80 and Volume 17, p. 12.
56. PAW, House of Lords Journals, 4 February 1641–25 March 1642, f. 5.
57. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Report on the Manuscripts
of Lord Montague of Beaulieu (London: Mackie and Co. Ltd, 1900), p. 132.
See also Bone, Henrietta Maria, p. 131.
58. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 25, p. 241.
59. Francoise de Motteville, Memoires of the History of Anne of Austria
translated from the original French (London: J. Darby, A. Bettesworth,
F. Fayram, J. Pemberton, C. Rivington, and 4 others, 1725), pp. 210–211.
60. Francoise de Motteville, Memoires, p. 211.
61. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 18, p. 282 and PAW, House of
Lords Journals, 4 February 1641–25 March 1642, f. 37.
62. White, Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars, p. 46.
63 . TNA, PRO 31/3/73, f. 91.
64. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 26, p. 13.
240 Notes

65. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 25, p. 186 and White, Henrietta
Maria and the English Civil Wars, p. 55.
66. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 26, p. 280.
67. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 26, p. 280.
68. Bone, Henrietta Maria, p. 162.
69. Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars, Volume 1,
p. 413n.
70. Quentin Bone’s biography of Henrietta Maria has a chapter entitled,
“The Queen and the Tribunal of People” but it discusses general per-
ceptions of the queen during the 1640s rather than the impeachment
alone. See Bone, Henrietta Maria, pp. 115–143. Other works discuss the
impeachment with the broader context of the English Civil Wars. See
White, Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars, pp. 53–55.
71. Bone dismisses the impeachment as a matter that did not greatly con-
cern Henrietta Maria, see Bone, Henrietta Maria, p. 162. The most
recent popular biography of Henrietta Maria does not once directly
mention the impeachment. See Plowden, Henrietta Maria.
72. See White, Henrietta Maria and the English Civil Wars, pp. 54–55.
73 . Anonymous, L’Angleterre Instruisant la France ou Tableau: Historique et
Politique du Regne de Charles I et de Charles II (London and Paris: Chez
Lepetit, 1793) and J. Ango, Relation Veritable de la Mort Cruelle et Barbare
de Charles I, Roi D ’Angleterre (Paris: Lepetit, 1792).
74. Charles Carlton, Archbishop William Laud (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1987), p. 86.
75. Mendelson and Crawford, Women in Early Modern England, p. 37.
76. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 26, p. 287.
77. Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York:
Vintage Books, 1989), p. 597.
78. TNA, PRO 31/3/63, f. 32.
79. TNA, PRO 31/3/62, f. 8b.
80. See Orr, Queenship in Europe, pp. 171–172 and Roger D. Congleton,
Perfecting Parliament: Constitutional Reform, Liberalism, and the Rise of
Western Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010),
p. 315.
81. Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, p. 214
82. The National Art Library (NAL), Forster Mss 1560.
83 . PAW, House of Lords Journals, 4 February 1641–25 March 1642, f. 5.
84. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 16, p. 293.
85. Wentworth Papers, Sheffield Archives (SA), ff. 42–46
86. TNA, PRO 31/3/73, f. 94.
87. Calendar of State Papers Venetian, Volume 25, p. 119.
88. Anonymous, Contrareplicant His Complaint to His Majesty (London:
1643).
89. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Volume 16, p. 507.
90. Continuation of Certain special and remarkable passages from both Houses
of parliament (London: Coles and Leach, Thursday, 18 May 1643,
Issue 46), p. 4.
 Notes 241

91. Continuation of Certain special and remarkable passages, p. 4

92. Strickland, Lives, Volume 4, p. 225 and Bone, Henrietta Maria, p. 165.
93 . Parliament Scout Communicating His Intelligence to the Kingdom (London:
Tuesday, 20 June 1643, Issue 1).
94. Lynn Hunt, “The Many Bodies of Marie Antoinette,” in Goodman,
Marie Antoinette, p. 118.
95. BL, Harley Mss 164, f. 395.
96. Caroline Hibbard, “Henrietta Maria,” Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography.
97. Mercurius Aulicus (Oxford: Sunday, 21 May 1643), p. 13.
98. NAL, Forester Mss 254.
99. Sarah Poynting, “Deciphering the King: Charles I’s letters to Jane
Whorwood,” The Seventeenth Century (Volume 21, Number 1, Spring
2006), pp. 128–140.
100. Lever, Correspondance, pp. 455–821.
101. Paul and Pierette Girault de Coursac, Enquete sur la proces du roi Louis
XVI (Paris: Table Ronde, 1982), pp. 240–256, 181–183.
102. See Crawford, Perilous Performances, pp. 177–198.
103 . Hardman, French Politics, pp. 211–215; Price, French Politics, pp. 366–
367; and David P. Jordan, The King ’s Trial: Louis XVI vs. The French
Revolution, 25th Anniversary Edition (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 2004), pp. xvi–xviii.
104. Price, Road from Versailles, p. 366.
105. Price, Road from Versailles, p. 366.
106. AN, 440AP1, ff. 58 and 59.
107. Archives Nationale (AN), O1 3795.
108. “J’aurais bien désire pouvoir écrire a votre majesté en même temps que
la Roi a écrit au Roi d’Espagne, mas les moments n’ont marques, et il
faut être si circonspect dans toutes nos démarches.” AN, AP 440.
109. Price, Road from Versailles, p. 366.
110. Zweig, Marie Antoinette, pp. 246–247.
111. “Je n’en ai pas même eu le soupçon un jour.” Marie Antoinette to Joseph
II, 22 February 1788 in Lever, Correspondance, p. 458
112. A rare pamphlet that mentioned Fersen is Anonymous, Confession
Derniere et Testament de Marie-Antoinette, Veuve Capet (Paris: Lefevre,
1793), p. 15.
113 . Historians who argue a physical affair took place posit a variety of
dates for the consummation of the relationship between 1787 and 1793.
See Price, Road from Versailles, pp. 16–17. Zweig, Marie Antoinette,
pp. 226–247; Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 33; and Fraser, The Weaker
Vessel, pp. 204–205.
114. Marie Antoinette to Fersen, 4 July 1791 in Fersen, Rescue the Queen: A
Diary of the French Revolution 1789 –1793, ed. Anni Carlsson (London: G.
Bell and Sons, 1971), p. 39.
115. Vigée-Lebrun, Souvenirs, p. 45 and AN, O1 3799.
116. d’Oberkirch, Memoirs sur la cour de Louis XVI, p. 260.
242 Notes

117. Bombelles, Journal, Volume 1, p. 208.

118. See Marie Thérèse, Duchesse de Angouleme, Memoirs, ed. M. de
Barghon-Fortrion (Paris: Bureau de la Mode Nouvelle, 1858), pp. 54–65.
119. Campan, Memoirs, pp. 227–228.
120. Campan, Memoirs, p. 228.
121. “Pour le cadet, il a exactement en force et en sante tout ce que son frere
n’en pas assez. C’est un vrai enfant de paysan, grand, frais et gros.” Marie
Antoinette to Joseph II, 22 February 1788 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 458.
122. Tackett, When the King Took Flight, p. 47.
123 . Campan, Memoirs pp. 234–236.
124. “La Reine supporte sa position avec beaucoup de patience et de cour-
age. Elle a fait a l’opinion publique le sacrifice de ses alentours favouris.”
Mercy-Argenteau to Joseph II, 23 July 1789 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 487.
125. The first editions of Essai Historique sur la vie de Marie-Antoinette, circu-
lated as early as 1781.
126. Polignac’s replacement, Tourzel, was especially significant to Marie
Antoinette’s political activities, becoming a key figure in the Flight to
Varennes. See Tackett, When the King Took Flight, pp. 53–54 and 60–63.
127. “Quoique cette auguste princesse se soit laissé un peu trop émou-
voir par la cabale infernale dirigée contre le ministre de finances,
cependant, c`est à la moderation et à la sagesse de avis de la reine
qu’est dû l’etat présent des choses et l’avantage d’avoir évité de plus
grands malheurs.” Mercy Argenteau to Joseph II, 4 July1789 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 484.
128. Thomas Kaiser, “Who’s Afraid of Marie Antoinette: Diplomacy,
Austrophobia and the Queen,” French History (Volume 14, Number
3, 2000), p. 243 and Vincent Cronin, Louis and Antoinette (New York:
William Morrow and Co. Inc.), p. 311.
129. Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, pp. 221–222.
130. “le roi l’a toujours désirée lui-même pour le bonheur de son peuple,
mais loin de la licence et de l’anarchie qui précipitaient le plus beau roy-
aume dans tous les maux possibles.” Marie Antoinette to Leopold II, 7
November 1790, p. 518.
131. See Tackett, When the King Took Flight, pp. 35–37.
132. Hardman, French Politics, pp. 184–197
133 . Duc de Sérent, “Note sur les motifs qui ont déterminé le depart de
Monseigneur le comte d’Artois et de ses enfants dans la nuit du 15 au
16 julliet 1789,” Bombelles papers, translated in Price, French Politics,
pp. 94–95.
134. Price, French Politics, p. 95.
135. “Il est immanquable qu’on m’attribuera ce traité, et qu’aux états générale
les ministres s’excuseront par la vraisemblance de mon crédit et de mon
influence. Jugez du rôle odieux qu’on m’y fera jouer.” Marie Antoinette
to Mercy-Argenteau, 27 January 1789, p. 477.
136. Campan, Memoirs, p. 263.
 Notes 243

137. By the outbreak of the French Revolution, literacy rates in France were
estimated to be 47% for men and 27% for women but these numbers
were higher in urban areas, particularly Paris. See Blanning, Culture of
Power, p. 112.
138. “Je parle au peuple: milices, poissardes, tous me tendent la main . . . Dans
l’intérieur de l’Hôtel de Ville, j’ai été personnellement très bien
reçue . . . J’ai dit aux poissardes d’aller répéter tout ce que nous venions
de nous dire.” Marie Antoinette to Mercy-Argenteau, 7 October 1789
in Lever, Correspondance, p. 496.
139. Lever, Correspondance, p. 522n.
140. Marie Antoinette to Mercy-Argenteau, 20 April 1791, in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 528.
141. Marie Antoinette to Leopold II, 27 February 1791 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 522.
142. Marie Antoinette to Mercy-Argenteau, 27 April 1791 in Lever,
Correspondance, p. 531.
143 . Marie Antoinette to Count Fersen, 8 July 1791 in Lever, Correspondance,
p. 548.
144. Tackett, When the King Took Flight, p. 63. Zweig argues that Louis XVI
himself may have dismissed Fersen as soon as the royal party left Paris.
See Zweig, Marie Antoinette, pp. 301–302.
145. She wrote in her memoirs, “It was with uneasiness that I saw her occu-
pied with cares that seemed to me useless, and even dangerous, and I
remarked to her that a Queen of France would find linen and gowns
anywhere.” Campan, Memoirs, p. 291. Marie Antoinette also famously
insisted that her hairdresser be part of an advance party traveling to
Montmedy. See Tackett, When the King Took Flight, pp. 59.
146. Tackett, When the King Took Flight, pp. 101–102.
147. See Gerard Walter, Le Procé s de Marie Antoinette, 23 – 25 Vendemiarie an
II (October 14–16, 1793), Acts du Tribunal révolutionnaire (Paris: Éditions
Complex, 1993) and Andre Castelot, Le process de Marie Antoinette (Paris:
Presses Pocket, 1965).
148. Carlton, Archbishop William Laud, p. 345.
149. Marie-Olympe de Gouges, Declaration de les droits de la femme adressé à la
reine (Paris: n.p., 1791), pp. 1–5.
150. “Si l’étranger porte le fer en France, vous n’êtes plus a mes yeux cette
faussement inculpée, cette Reine intéressante, mais une implacable
ennemie des Français. Ah Madame, songez que vous êtes mère et
épouse; employez tout votre crédit pour le retour des princes.” de
Gouges, Declaration de les droits de la femme, p. 2.
151. Parliament of England and Wales, The Kings cabinet opened.
152. See Lever, Correspondence, pp. 35–37.
153 . Walter, Le Procé s de Marie Antoinette, p. 24 andFraser, The Weaker Vessel,
p. 432.
154. Jordan, The King ’s Trial, p. 120.
155. Claude François Chauveau-Lagarde, Note Historique sur le procè s
de Marie-Antoinette, Reine de France et de Madame Élisabeth au
244 Notes

tribunal révolutionnaire (Paris: Guide et Delaunay, 1816), p. 5. For Marie

Antoinette`s letter to the President of the National Convention, see
Lever, Correspondance, p. 820.
156. Reimpression de L’Ancien Moniteur, Volume 18, pp. 218–219. Translated
and reprinted in Lever, Marie-Antoinette, p. 302.
157. Tackett, When the King Took Flight, pp. 54–55.
158. Zweig, Marie Antoinette, p. 438, Lever, Marie Antoinette, p. 300. Of
Marie Antoinette’s recent biographers, only Fraser notes the timing of
Marie Antoinette’s defence within the larger context of Hebert’s accu-
sations. See Fraser, The Weaker Vessel, p. 431.
159. Reimpression de L’Ancien Moniteur, Volume 18, p. 146.
160. Zweig, Marie Antoinette, pp. 438–439.
161. Bibliotheque Nationale (BN), Départment des Estampes et de la
Photographie, reprinted and annotated in Xavier Salmon, “La cal-
omnie” in Various authors, Marie Antoinette, pp. 356–357.
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163 . Antoinette to the Comte de Provence and Comte d’Artois, March or
April 1793 in Lever, Correspondance, pp. 818–819.
164. “Je n’ai pas un moment à moi, entre les personnes qu’il faut voir, les écri-
tures, et le temps que je suis avec mes enfants. Cette dernière occupa-
tion, qui n’est pas la moindre, fait mon seul bonheur . . . et quand je suis
bien triste, je prends mon petit garçon dans mes bras, je l’embrasse de
tout mon cœur, et cela me console dans ce moment.” Marie Antoinette
to Fersen, 7 December 1791 in Lever, Correspondance, pp. 724–725.
165. Mirabeau, “Notes a la Cour,” reprinted in Coursac, La Secret de la Reine,
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166. Axel de Fersen, Le Comte de Fersen et La Cour de France. Extraits des
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167. Crawford, Perilous Performances, pp. 180–189.
168. These comparisons were also a popular theme in revolutionary pam-
phlet literature of the 1790s. See Anonymous, Catherine de Medicis dans
le Cabinet de Marie-Antoinette a St. Cloud, Premier Dialogue, de l ’Imprimerie
Royale ( Paris: n.p., 1789).
169. Moniteur Universel, Volume 18, p. 146.
170. Moniteur Universel, Volume 18, p. 211.
171. Zweig, Marie Antoinette, p. 430.
172. Germaine de Stael, Réflexions sur le Procè s de la Reine, ed. Monique
Contret (Paris: Montpellier, 1994), pp. v and xxx. Translated in Fraser,
The Weaker Vessel, p. 425.
173. “Il y a lieu de croire que cette criminelle jouissance n`etait point dictée
par le plaisir, mais bien par l’espoir politique d’énerver le physique de cet
enfant, que l’on se plaisait encore à croire destiné à occuper un trône, et
sur lequel on voulait, par cette manœuvre, s’assurer le droit de régner.”
174. Fraser, The Weaker Vessel, p. 426.
 Notes 245

Conclusion: The Legacy of Two Queens

1. Bone, Henrietta Maria, p. 251.
2. Calendar of State Papers Domestic Series (1649–1660),Volume 7: 1654,
p. 407
3 . TNA, PRO 31/3/107, f. 36.
4. BL, Egerton Mss 2542, f. 518 and TNA, PRO 31/3/106, f. 143.
5. TNA, PRO 31/3/106, f. 149.
6. TNA, PRO 31/3/106, f. 155.
7. All of Charles II’s surviving siblings, Princess Mary of Orange, James,
Duke of York, Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and Princess Henrietta
Anne, future Duchess of Orleans, joined him in England in 1660. Mary
and Henry died of smallpox the same year.
8. BodL, Mss CSP, Volume 74, ff. 311–312.
9. This portrait is now part of the collection of the Musee Conde in
Chantilly.
10. TNA, PRO 31/3/107, f. 119.
11. BL, Add. Mss 72850, f. 88. The actual value of the jointure was 60,000
pounds with the potential for this income to increase by 10,000 or
20,000 through the improvement of her lands. See Calendar of State
Papers Domestic of the reign of Charles II, Volume 1, p. 7.
12. Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Robert Latham and
William Matthews (London: Bell and Hyman, 1983), Volume 3, p. 303
13 . Sir John Reresby, The Memoirs and Travels of Sir John Reresby (London:
Edward Jeffery, 1813), p. 163.
14. See Michelet, Histoire de la Revolution Francaise, p. 591.
15. See de Saint-Amand, Marie Antoinette, p. 19 and Castle, “Marie
Antoinette Obsession,” pp. 213–214
16. See Robert H. Jackson, Sovereignty: The Evolution of an Idea (Cambridge:
Polity Books, 2007), pp. 63–64.
17. Hannah Pakula, An Uncommon Woman: The Empress Frederick, Daughter
of Queen Victoria, Wife of the Crown Prince of Prussia, Mother of Kaiser
Wilhelm (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), pp. 69–70.
18. Iraida Bott, “The Home of the Last Russian Emperor,” in Marilyn
Pfeifer Sweezey (ed.), Nicholas and Alexandra: At Home with the Last Tsar
and His Family (Washington, DC: The American-Russian Cultural
Co-operation Foundation, 2004), pp. 27–38.
19. Virginia Rounding, Alix and Nicky: The Passion of the Last Tsar and
Tsarina (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2012), pp. 18–33.
20. Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, Once a Grand Duke (New York:
Garden City Publishing Inc., 1932), p. 270.
21. Robert Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra (New York: Random House,
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22 . See Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii, “The Descralization of the
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 INDEX

Act of Settlement (1701), 198, 201 Bombelles, Marquis de, 147–8, 149,
Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 178
200–1 Bourbon dynasty, 6, 19, 24, 25, 35,
Alexander Palace, 200 39–41, 74, 90, 113, 152, 199
Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of Brandeis, Countess, 31–2, 69–70
Russia, 3, 13, 200–1 Brooke, Sir Basil, 161
Alsace-Lorraine, 39–43 Brunhilda, Queen of the Franks,
Anna of Cleves, 89 39, 45
Anna of Denmark, 25 Buckingham, George Villiers 1st
coronations, 171 Duke of, 54, 55, 58, 63, 64,
cultural patronage, 20, 28, 57, 94 91–3, 101
household, 28, 50–3, 56, 62, 64
marriage, 90 Campan, Jeanne, 1, 32, 36, 68, 70,
motherhood, 126 71, 72, 78–9, 108, 115, 117, 141,
Anne, Princess of England and 178–9, 181
Scotland, 127, 128 Campan, M., 140
Anne, Queen of England and Capuchin Order, 21–2, 100, 136
Scotland, 15 Carew, Thomas, 94
Anne Charlotte, Princess of Carleton, Dudley, Viscount
Lorraine, 42 Dorchester, 65, 92, 133
Anne of Austria, Queen of France, 5, Carmelite Order, 21
16–17, 19, 20, 24, 72, 75, 107 Catherine de Medici, 16–17, 24, 39,
Aubert, Marie, 67 45, 156, 169
Aubert, Maurice, 67 Catherine of Aragon, 30, 56, 89, 125,
171, 224n23
Bataillé, Eugene, 150–1 Catherine of Braganza, 197, 198, 201
Beaufort, Margaret, 30 Cavendish, Margaret, Duchess of
Bernard, Nathaniel, 99 Newcastle, 103–4
Bertin, Rose, 68 Cavendish, William, Duke of
Biddulph, Peter, 99, 102 Newcastle, 130
Bishops’ War, 94, 160–1, 163, 166, 173, Chalk, John, 62
190 Chamberlain, John, 65
Bismarck, Otto von, 200 Chantilly Castle, 73
Blois Castle, 25 Charles I
Bodin, Jean, 5 amnesties, 135
Boleyn, Anne, 89, 97, 125, 155, 156, 171 Arrest of the Five Members, 169
266 Index

Charles I—Continued Charles II

betrothal, 88–90 appearance, 124–5
character, 86 baptism, 130, 135–6
court, 54, 64–5, 92, 103, 121, 143, birth, 127, 129, 132–4, 135, 136, 137
159, 165 education, 130
cultural patronage, 86, 94–5 exile, 196
decrees, 67 household, 124–5, 143, 166–7
defense of Henrietta Maria’s portraits, 129–30
reputation, 67–8, 84, 99, 101–2, restoration, 175, 196–7
135–7 upbringing, 124–5, 130, 135
English Civil Wars and, 155–9 Charles IV, King of Spain, 176
execution, 174 Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor,
fatherhood, 123, 125, 128, 135–7, 37, 213n126
143, 153 Charles VI, King of France, 27, 147
finances, 125, 134, 159–60 Charles IX, King of France, 90
foreign policy, 89, 159 Charles X, King of France (Charles
French court, visit to, 20, 90, 91 Philippe, Comte de Artois), 86,
Henrietta Maria and, 86–105, 144–6, 148, 177, 180, 187
118, 127, 171–3, 176, 206n37, Charles, Prince of England and
224n31 Scotland (1629), 127–8
Henrietta Maria’s household Charlton family, 135
and, 50–2, 53–6, 58, 63–4, 89, Chevreuse, Duke and Duchess of, 61
194 Choiseul, Duke of, 78, 227n91
Long Parliament and, 163–6 Christine of France, Duchess of
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette Savoy, 19, 53, 94
on, 1 Chudleigh, James, 164–5
marriage contract, 22–3, 55, 61, Cock, Henry, 63
95, 98 Cole, Mary, 102
marriage negotiations, 18, Compaigne Castle, 43
88–90, 131 Condé, Duke of, 73
military campaigns, 94, 160–2 Congress of Vienna, 199
Personal Rule (1629–1640), 4, Conway, Lord, 173
60, 93, 96, 99, 100–1, 153, 159, counterreformation, 22, 121, 127, 152
169–70, 194, 204n10
petitions received by, 62, 64–5, 66, d’Alembert, Jean le Rond, 44
100, 135 d’Arconville, Marie Genevieve
politics, 4, 86–7, 89, 169 Charlotte Thiroux, 45
portraits, 129–30 Davenant, William, 58
reputation, 49, 87, 163, 172 de Bassompierre, Francois, 29, 54
Spanish match, 19–20, 29, 91, de Croy, Duc de, 110
97, 131 de Gouges, Olympe, 183
trial, 174, 183 de Karalio, Louise, 33
upbringing, 24, 124 de la Motte-Valois, Jeanne, 116, 117
wedding, response to criticism of, de Motteville, Madame, 167, 175
26–7 de Stael, Germaine, 189
 Index 267

de Ventadour, Madame, 143 Elizabeth of France, Queen of Spain,

Denbigh, Countess of, 54, 61, 161 19, 56
Denmark House, 56 Elizabeth of York, 29, 125, 208n20
D’Ewes, Sir Simond, 133, 158, 162, 174 English Civil Wars (1642–1651), 2
Diderot, Denis, 44 Henrietta Maria and, 28, 31, 51, 129,
Digby, Sir Kenelm, 161, 171, 174 155–9, 173
d’Oberkirch, Baronne Helene, 42, 177 Naseby, Battle of (1645), 162
Dorset, Countess of, 125 pamphlet literature, 60, 163, 171–5
du Barry, Madame, 106, 110–11, 112, English Reformation, 30, 31, 87, 97,
116 121, 134, 152
du Perron, Jacques, Bishop of
Angoulême, 158, 175 Fersen, Axel, 176, 181–2, 184, 187
dynastic marriage, 19, 21, 49–50, Ferte, Monsieur de, 43
86, 89, 95, 105–6, 109, 119–20, Finch, Sir John, 27
194, 199 Fontainbleau Palace, 23, 36, 72, 73,
111–12
Early Modern Europe, 3, 4 Fouquier, Antoine-Quentin, 39, 188
childrearing, 7, 121–3, 147, 152–3, Foxe, John, 96, 225n53
205n28 Francis II, King of France, 45, 90
marriage, 7, 85–8, 89, 95, 105–6, Francis of Lorraine, 32, 37
118–19, 223n1 Franciscan Order, 136
monarchical government, 4–6, 88, Franco-Austrian alliance, 38–42, 70,
109, 110–11, 120, 155, 193–5, 199, 78, 107, 109, 110, 112, 113, 179
203n4 Fredegunde, 39
mourning, 128 Frederick III, German Emperor and
public sphere, 7–8, 60, 62, 76–7, King of Prussia, 200
81–2, 85, 104–5, 113, 115–16, 119, Frederick, Elector Palatine (King
139, 150–1, 155, 181, 190 of Bohemia), 88, 131–2
servants, attitudes toward, 49–50 Frederick Henry of the Rhine, 132
time frame, 193 Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, 37
Edith (Matilda) of Scotland, 26 French Enlightenment, 87–8, 95,
Edward II, King of England, 26, 106–9, 113–14, 119, 121–2,
210n71 137–40, 143, 147, 153
Edward III, King of England, 27, 134 French Revolution (1789), 2, 193
Edward IV, King of England, 28–9, causes, 42
128, 208n20 Marie Antoinette and, 175–90
Edward VI, King of England, 29, pamphlets, 76–8, 80, 163, 169,
125, 133 186, 221n151
Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 4, 15, political change, 179, 187–8
28, 45, 64, 125 women and, 170
Elizabeth, Princess of England and French Wars of Religion, 17
Scotland, 127–8, 134 Fronde, 16–17
Elizabeth, Princess of England and
Scotland (Queen of Bohemia), Gabriel, Ange-Jacques, 43
131–3, 137, 145 Gallican Catholicism, 6, 18, 21, 34–5
268 Index

Gaston, Duc d’Orleans, 17 foreign origins, responses to, 6,

Glorious Revolution, 198 30–1
Goethe, Johann von, 33, 42 French court ceremonies,
Gorges, Katherine, 61–2 attendance at, 18–21
Goring, George, 58, 164–5 historiography, 3–4, 8–9, 76, 168–9
Greenwich Palace, 127 household, 21–3, 49–59, 60–8,
Gregory of Tours, 45 82–4, 92, 98–9, 103–4, 127,
Guéméné, Princesse de, 122, 142, 161–2, 164–6, 178, 193–4, 197–8,
147–8, 149 219n112
Gustavus III, 144 impeachment (1643), 2–3, 99, 132,
155–9, 167, 168–75, 183, 185, 191,
Habsburg dynasty, 6, 34–41, 44, 72, 195
105, 107 income, 55–7, 197
Hamilton, Marchioness of, 54 intercessions, 30, 63, 87, 89, 93–6,
Hampton Court, 166 99–101, 135–6, 160–2, 172
Harcourt, Duc de, 178 Long Parliament and, 161–75, 196
Hebert, Jacques, 186, 188–9 Marie de Medici, relationship
Henrietta Anne, Princess of with, 22, 23–5, 58–9, 93, 95,
England and Scotland (Duchess 159–60
d’Orleans), 127, 129 marriage contract, 22–3, 26, 30, 42,
Henrietta Maria 53, 54–5, 61, 95, 98, 123–4, 133,
administration of estates, 56–7, 164, 166
64–5, 92–3, 164 motherhood, 93, 121–37, 138, 143,
appearance, 20, 91 166–7
betrothal, 88–91, 132 name, 96–7
birth, 1, 17, 23–4 “Pilgrimage to Tyburn,” 62–3
books, 18 political goals, 58–9, 89, 93, 136–7,
Charles I and, 7, 19–20, 71, 86–105, 176
118, 127, 138, 176, 194–5 portraits, 122, 129–30, 162
confinements, 124, 128–9, 133–4 reputation, 59, 60, 76, 95–6, 134–5,
contribution of 1639, 101, 160–2, 163 163, 165, 173, 195, 197–8
cultural patronage, 7, 57, 65–6, 86, restoration of Charles II and, 64,
89, 91, 94–5, 105, 159 196–8
defense of reputation, 7, 52, 84, Roman Catholicism, 6, 18, 21–3,
156–7, 162, 190–1 29–30, 53–5, 66–7, 87, 91, 99, 121,
education, 2, 15–16, 17–23, 30, 31 126–7, 162, 169, 171–3
English Civil Wars and, 155–75 upbringing, 24–5, 53–5
escape to France (1644), 2, 161, wedding, 2, 26–8, 27, 43, 60–1, 85,
168, 178 90–1, 224n31
expectations from Protestants, widowhood, 196–8, 201
29–31, 61–2, 65–7, 87, 96–101, 119, women’s attitudes toward, 102–5,
122, 152–3, 159, 161, 166, 171–2 120
expectations from Roman Henry II, King of France, 23, 90,
Catholics, 29–31, 87, 96–8, 101–2, 230n
119, 160–1 Henry III, King of France, 90
 Index 269

Henry IV, King of France, 6, 16, 17, John, King of England, 169
18, 19, 23–4, 90–1, 98, 127, 159, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, 37,
174, 230n3 76, 81, 109, 116, 140–2, 146, 177,
Henry V, King of England, 27, 210n 178, 179, 187
Henry VI, King of England, 28
Henry VII, King of England, 29, 125, Katharine, Princess of England and
208n Scotland, 127, 128, 129
Henry VIII, King of England, 29, Katherine of Valois, 26, 27, 28, 31,
30, 62, 89, 90, 94, 97, 125, 133, 210n71
155, 171, 224n23 Killegrew, 161
Henry, Duke of Gloucester, 127, 134,
166, 196–7 La Rochelle, Siege of, 55, 63
Henry, Prince of Wales, 208n25, Lamballe, Marie-Louise of Savoy,
224n31, 230n3 Princess de, 51, 68, 70–1, 72,
Hermann, Armand, 184–5 74–5, 77, 78–81, 110, 117, 146, 148,
Heroard, Jean, 17, 24 177, 178
Hofburg Palace, 36 Lancaster, Duchy of, 56, 64
Holland, Henry Rich, Earl of, 20 Laud, William, 96, 132, 169–70
How, John, 135 Laxenburg Castle, 36
Howard, Catherine, 89, 155 Le Bret, Cardinal, 142
humanism, 15 Leguay, Nicole (Baronne d’Oliva), 117
Hume David, 33 Lely, Peter, 197
Hutchison, John, 28 Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor,
Hutchison, Lucy, 27–8, 96–7, 102–3, 179–81
104, 117 Liotard, Jean-Etienne, 31
Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 164 Louis XI, King of France, 208n20
Louis XIII, King of France
Isabeau of Bavaria, 39, 147 accession, 16
Isabelle de Valois, 26, 27, 28, 210n71 health, 27
Henrietta Maria’s impeachment
Jacourt, Louis, Chevalier de, 87 and, 168, 170
James I, King of England ( James VI Henrietta Maria’s marriage and,
of Scotland), 4, 28, 30, 54, 88, 90, 21, 22, 30, 54–5, 56, 63, 88, 93, 98,
91, 94, 124, 126, 169, 171, 230n3 121, 127
James II, King of England ( James household, 24, 53
VII of Scotland), 124–5, 127, 129, marriage, 107
166, 197 reign, 18, 19, 57, 58–9, 74
James II, King of Scotland, 126 Louis XIV, King of France, 5, 51, 74,
James III, King of Scotland, 126 108, 110, 143, 197
James V, King of Scotland, 126 Louis XV, King of France, 32
Jane, Josiah, 196 court, 42–4, 111
Jansenists, 5, 34 death, 77, 108
Jermyn, Henry, Earl of St. Albans, marriage of Louis XVI, 39, 69
57–8, 162, 165, 174, 198 mistresses, 106, 107, 110–11, 114, 116
Jesuits, 5, 22, 34–5, 99, 101, 159 reign, 41–2, 115
270 Index

Louis XV, King of France—Continued Louvre Palace, 23, 24

religious policy, 5, 6, 34 Luxembourg Palace, 90
upbringing, 143
Louis XVI, King of France Magna Carta, 169
accession, 69, 71 Mandé, Bishop of, 54
aunts, 110 Mar, Earls of, 126, 143, 230n3
books, 33, 140 Margaret Tudor (Queen of Scotland),
character, 86 126
court, 42, 68–9, 77–9, 82, 108, Marguerite de Valois, 23, 90, 127
111–12, 113, 117, 121, 138 Marguerite of Anjou, 26, 28, 30, 31
deposed as King of France (1791), Maria, Infanta of Spain, 20, 90, 97
1, 183 Maria Amalia of Austria, 107
diamond necklace affair and, Maria Carolina of Austria, 31
116–18 Maria Christina of Austria, 37–8,
edicts, 80 211n96
execution, 191 Maria Josepha of Saxony, 44
expenditure, 80–1 Maria Luisa of Parma, (Queen of
fatherhood, 147–50 Spain), 176
Flight to Varennes and, 176–7, Maria Teresa of Spain (Queen of
180–2, 186 France), 72
French Revolution and, 155–7, Maria Theresa
179–80 advice to Marie Antoinette, 29,
Marie Antoinette and, 6, 86–8, 31–8, 44, 105–7, 108–9, 111–12, 145
105–20, 141–2, 149, 175–7 described, 36
Marie Antoinette’s household education, 31–2, 34
and, 50, 71–5, 149, 194 example to Marie Antoinette, 2,
pastimes, 72, 105 16, 138–9, 143, 194
political goals, 176, 179–80 Marie Antoinette’s household and,
reign, 35, 78, 115, 194 69, 71, 149
reputation, 49, 145 marriage, 37–8
trial, 183–4 reputation in France, 40–1
Louis XVII, King of France, 123, War of the Austrian Succession,
146–7, 176, 177, 178, 182, 184, 36–7, 187
186–9 Marie Antoinette
Louis XVIII, King of France, 86, betrothal, 32
144–6, 147–8, 187, 199 birth, 31
Louis, Dauphin of France, 108 books, 33, 119, 140, 142
Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, compared to Alexandra
112, 114–15 Feodorovna, 3
Louis Philippe, Duke d’Orleans, 144 confinements, 141–2, 150
Louis-Joseph, Dauphin of France, cultural patronage, 33, 57, 73
123, 141–2, 146–50, 153, 178 defense of her reputation, 8, 52,
Louis-Philippe, King of France, 195 80–4, 86, 116, 149–51, 156–7,
Louvre faction, 103, 196 180–1, 183, 190–1
 Index 271

Diamond Necklace Affair and, 40, confinements, 128

110, 113, 115–18 conflict with Louis XIII, 17, 19, 23,
education, 2, 15–16, 31–3, 35 25, 58–9
execution, 198 coronation, 19, 44
finances, 41, 77, 79–81, 148–9 correspondence, 17
Flight to Varennes and, 176, 178, cultural patronage, 19, 90–1
181–2, 184–7, 243n145 Henrietta Maria’s marriage and,
foreign origins, responses to, 6, 78, 21, 22, 30, 88, 107, 194
145, 181–2, 185, 189–90 household, 52–3, 54, 128
French Revolution and, 1, 8, 155–7, iconography, 21, 23, 127
175–90 marriage, 90
historiography, 3–4, 9–11, 36, 68, motherhood, 24, 152, 210n56
76–7, 105, 139, 176, 184–5, 199, regency, 2, 16, 19, 21, 25, 59
206n44, 206n45 religious patronage, 21
household, 40, 68–75, 77–84, 146–7, reputation, 24, 39, 104
153, 178–9, 193–4, 200 role as queen consort, 18, 23–4
intercessions, 34 Marie Josephine of Savoy (Comtesse
Louis XVI and, 7, 71, 80–1, 86–8, de Provence), 70, 112, 115, 145–6
105–20, 141–2, 175–7, 187, 194–5 Marie Leszczyńska, 5, 29, 34, 43, 44,
Maria Theresa, and, 29, 31–2, 36–8, 72, 75, 79, 110, 151
72, 75–7, 105–6, 108–9, 111, 138–9, Marie of Brabant, 44
140, 149 Marie of Guelders, 126
marriage contract, 35, 42, 71–2 Marie of Guise, 124, 126
motherhood, 111–12, 113–15, 119–20, Marie of Luxembourg, 44
121–3, 137–52, 177–8, 182, 184–90 Marie of Moravia, 44
pastimes, 33, 35, 69–70, 105, 108–9, Marie Thérèse of Savoy (Comtesse
114, 117 d’Artois), 70, 112, 115, 145
political influence, 141, 175–6, Marie-Thérèse of France (Madame
179–83, 187 Royale), 139, 140–1, 144, 147–8,
portraits, 31, 149, 150–1 150–1, 177–8, 186, 199
properties, 69, 71–3, 77–81 Marlowe, Christopher, 26
reputation, 43–6, 68, 75–82, 86, Marly Palace, 36, 72, 109
114–16, 144–53, 186, 195, 199 Mary I, 15, 29, 96–7, 225n53
Roman Catholicism, 34 Mary II, 15, 170
trial, 2–3, 39, 79, 149, 155–7, 170, Mary, Princess of Orange, 127, 124,
182–91, 195 125, 129, 166, 167
upbringing, 31–2, 138, 145 Mary, Queen of Scots, 4, 89–90, 126
wedding celebrations (1770), 2, 6, Mary of Modena, 198, 201
38–44, 70–1, 85, 113 Mayerne, Theodore, 128–9
women’s attitudes towards, 113–15, Mercy-Argenteau, Count Florimond,
120, 181, 183, 189 69–70, 77, 79–81, 107, 109, 111,
Marie de Medici 114, 141–2, 145, 146, 179, 180
Charles I’s court, residence at, 93, Messalina, 39, 78, 169
104, 159–60, 166 Mirabeau, Comte de, 187
272 Index

Montagu, Walter, 65 Pompadour, Madame de, 106, 110

Montglat, Marquise de, 24–5, 53, 152 Pot, Hendrik, 129
More, Harry, 97 Poulett, Lord, 133
Pragmatic Sanction (1713), 16
Necker, Jacques, 148, 179, 189 Prynne, William, 65–6, 95–6, 99–100
Neville, Anne, 29
Newport, Anne Blount, Countess Rasputin, Grigori, 201
of, 67 recusants, 7, 23, 87, 88, 89, 93, 97–8,
Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 3, 100, 101, 103–4, 119, 125, 162, 198
200–1 Reresby, Sir John, 198
Nicholas, Sir Edward, 124, 158, 196 Richard III, 29
Noailles, Anne de Arpajon, Countess Richelieu, Cardinal Jean du Plessis,
de, 43–4, 69, 77 54, 58–9
Nonsuch Palace, 92 Richmond Palace, 124
Norman Conquest (1066), 6 Robespierre, Maximilien, 186
Norwich, Bishop of, 66 Rohan, Constantine, 40
Rohan, Louis (Cardinal), 40–1, 116–18
Oatlands, 56, 166 Rohan family, 40–1, 74, 142
Oratorian Order, 21–2 Rosenberg, Count Xavier, 70, 105–6,
108
Parr, Katherine, 29, 125 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 7, 24, 72, 88,
Pastoral romanticism, 73–4 106–8, 112, 114, 123, 138, 139–41,
Payne, Philiip, 62 147
Pennington, John, 124 Roxburgh, Countess, 130
Pepys, Samuel, 198 Rubens, Peter Paul, 90
Percy, Henry, 174 Russian Revolution (1917), 3, 201
Peronne, Madame, 128–9
Petit Trianon, 33, 71, 72–4, 77–8, Salic Law, 25, 26
81–2, 140, 199 Savary de Breves, Francois, 17
Petition of Right, 169 Serent, Duc de, 180
Petty, William, 197 Seven Years’ War, 36, 107
Peyton, Edward, 65 Seymour, Jane, 29, 30
Philip II, King of Spain, 29 Schonbrunn Palace, 32, 36, 78
Philip IV, King of France, 155 Shakespeare, William, 26, 33
Philip IV, King of Spain, 56, 98 Soissons, Count of, 18–19
Philip, Robert, 58 Somerset House, 56, 66–7, 83, 136
Pilgrimage of Grace, 30 Sophia of Hanover, 198
Podewils, Count Otto Sophie-Beatrix of France, 147, 151, 177
Christopher, 37 Southcott, John, 99, 102
Polignac, Jules de, 79 St. Bartholomew`s Day Massacre, 90
Polignac, Yolande Gabrielle St. Cloud Palace, 36, 73, 81, 176, 181
Polastron, Duchesse de, 51–2, 68, St. George, Jeanne Harlay, Madame
72, 74, 76–9, 81, 110, 122, 142–3, de, 53, 124, 157
145–53, 177, 178–9 St. James’s Palace, 63, 127
 Index 273

Thirty Years’ War, 131 Vincent, Margaret, 98

Thorne, Rachel, 104 Voltaire, 140
Thorowgod, Elizabeth, 171 Von Kaunitz, Anton, 179
Tour de Nesle affair, 155
Tourzel, Marquise de, 122, 137, 143, Wagenschon, Franz Xavier, 31, 134
242n126 War of the Austrian Succession,
Tudor, Owen, 210n 36–7, 107, 187
Tuileries Palace, 178, 180, 182, 186 Wars of the Roses, 28, 30
Wentworth, Thomas, Earl of
Unigenitus Controversy, 5, 156 Strafford, 164, 172
Urban VIII, 22, 60, 121, 126 Weston, Lord Richard, 93
Whitehall Palace, 58, 61, 94, 124, 127
Valois dynasty, 90 Wilhelm II, 200
Van Dyck, Anthony, 129, 150, 197 William III, 170
Vermond, Abbe Jean de, 32, 33, 69, women
78, 178 domestic roles, 6–7
Versailles, 34, 35–6, 40, 42, 68, 73, 78, education, 15–16
111, 114, 117, 143, 146, 180 marriage, 50–1, 85–8, 96–8, 102–5,
Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 200 106–7, 174–5
Victoria of Great Britain, (Crown monarchs, 15
Princess of Prussia), 13, 200 motherhood, 121–3, 139–40
Vigée LeBrun, Elisabeth, 33, 150–1 public sphere, 85, 96, 102–5
Villiers, Eleanor, 58 Woodville, Elizabeth, 28–9, 30