63 Facts About Henrietta Maria

Henrietta Maria was mother of his sons Charles II and James II and VII.

Henrietta Maria immersed herself in national affairs as civil war loomed, and in 1644, following the birth of her youngest daughter, Henrietta, during the height of the First English Civil War, was compelled to seek refuge in France.

Henrietta Maria settled in Paris and returned to England after the Restoration of Charles II to the throne.

Henrietta Maria was the youngest daughter of Henry IV of France and his second wife, Marie de' Medici, and was named after her parents.

Henrietta Maria was the youngest sister of the future Louis XIII of France.

Henrietta Maria was trained, along with her sisters, in riding, dancing, and singing, and took part in court plays.

Henrietta Maria first met her future husband in 1623 at a court entertainment in Paris, when he was on his way to Spain with the Duke of Buckingham to discuss a possible marriage with Maria Anna of Spain.

Henrietta Maria was aged fifteen at the time of her marriage, which was not unusual for royal princesses of the period.

Henrietta Maria's arms were long and lean, her shoulders uneven, and some of her teeth were coming out of her mouth like tusks.

Henrietta Maria did have pretty eyes, nose, and a good complexion.

Henrietta Maria did not speak English before her marriage, and as late as the 1640s had difficulty writing or speaking the language.

Henrietta Maria has been criticised as being an "intrinsically apolitical, undereducated and frivolous" figure during the 1630s; others have suggested that she exercised a degree of personal power through a combination of her piety, her femininity, and her sponsorship of the arts.

Henrietta Maria was open about her beliefs, obstructing plans to require the eldest sons of Catholic families to be raised as Protestants, and facilitated Catholic marriages, a criminal offence under English law at the time.

Henrietta Maria was accompanied by a large and costly retinue, including her ladies-in-waiting, twelve Oratorian priests, and her pages.

Henrietta Maria acquired several court dwarves, including Jeffrey Hudson and "little Sara".

Henrietta Maria established her presence at Somerset House, Greenwich Palace, Oatlands, Nonsuch Palace, Richmond Palace and Holdenby as part of her jointure lands by 1630.

Henrietta Maria added Wimbledon House in 1639, which was bought for her as a present by Charles.

Henrietta Maria acquired a menagerie of dogs, monkeys and caged birds.

Many contemporaries believed her to be a mistress to Buckingham, rumours which Henrietta Maria would have been aware of, and it has been argued that Lucy was attempting to control the new queen on his behalf.

Henrietta Maria became pregnant for the first time in 1628 but lost her first child shortly after birth in 1629, following a very difficult labour.

Henrietta Maria had a strong interest in the arts, and her patronage of various activities was one of the various ways in which she tried to shape court events.

Henrietta Maria was particularly known for her patronage of the Italian painter Orazio Gentileschi, who came to England in 1626 in the entourage of her favorite Francois de Bassompierre.

Henrietta Maria became a key patron in Stuart masques, complementing her husband's strong interest in paintings and the visual arts.

Henrietta Maria performed in various works herself, including as an Amazon in William Davenant's 1640 "Salmacida Spolia".

Henrietta Maria was a patron of English composer Nicholas Lanier, and was responsible for Davenant being appointed the Poet Laureat in 1638.

Henrietta Maria patronized Huguenot sculptor Hubert Le Sueur, while her private chapel was plain on the outside, but its interior included gold and silver reliquaries, paintings, statues, a chapel garden and a magnificent altarpiece by Rubens.

Henrietta Maria had quite an interest in commercial theatre and, much like paintings and sculptures, was a prime patronage to many actors, their companies, and the theaters they performed in.

Queen Henrietta Maria became heavily involved in this conflict that resulted in her husband's death and her exile in France.

The traditional perspective on the Queen has suggested that she was a strong-willed woman who dominated her weaker-willed husband for the worse; the historian Wedgwood, for example, highlights Henrietta Maria's steadily increasing ascendancy over Charles, observing that "he sought her advice on every subject, except religion" and indeed complained that he could not make her an official member of his council.

Henrietta Maria remained sympathetic to her fellow Catholics, and in 1632 began construction of a new Catholic chapel at Somerset House.

Henrietta Maria continued to act in Masque plays throughout the 1630s, which met with criticism from the more Puritan wing of English society.

Henrietta Maria herself was rarely seen in London, as Charles and she had largely withdrawn from public society during the 1630s, both because of their desire for privacy and because of the cost of court pageants.

Henrietta Maria encouraged Charles to take a firm line with Pym and his colleagues.

Henrietta Maria focused on raising money on the security of the royal jewels, and on attempting to persuade Prince Frederick Henry of Orange and King Christian IV of Denmark to support Charles's cause.

Henrietta Maria was not well during this period, suffering from toothache, headaches, a cold and coughs.

Henrietta Maria was finally partially successful in her negotiations, particularly for the smaller pieces, but she was portrayed in the English press as selling off the crown jewels to foreigners to buy guns for a religious conflict, adding to her unpopularity at home.

Henrietta Maria urged Charles, then in York, to take firm action and secure the strategic port of Hull at the earliest opportunity, angrily responding to his delays in taking action.

At the beginning of 1643, Henrietta Maria attempted to return to England.

Henrietta Maria used the delay to convince the Dutch to release a shipload of arms for the king, which had been held at the request of Parliament.

The pursuing naval vessels then bombarded the town, forcing the royal party to take cover in neighbouring fields; Henrietta Maria returned under fire to recover her pet dog Mitte which had been forgotten by her staff.

Henrietta Maria paused for a period at York, where she was entertained in some style by the Earl of Newcastle.

Henrietta Maria took the opportunity to discuss the situation north of the border with Royalist Scots, promoting the plans of Montrose and others for an uprising.

Henrietta Maria supported the Earl of Antrim's proposals to settle the rebellion in Ireland and bring forces across the sea to support the king in England.

Henrietta Maria continued to argue vigorously for nothing less than a total victory over Charles's enemies, countering proposals for a compromise.

Henrietta Maria rejected private messages from Pym and Hampden asking her to use her influence over the king to create a peace treaty, and was impeached by Parliament shortly afterwards.

Henrietta Maria arrived in Oxford bringing fresh supplies to great acclaim; poems were written in her honour, and Jermyn, her chamberlain, was given a peerage by the king at her request.

Henrietta Maria spent the autumn and winter of 1643 in Oxford with Charles, where she attempted, as best she could, to maintain the pleasant court life that they had enjoyed before the war.

The atmosphere in Oxford was a combination of a fortified city and a royal court, and Henrietta Maria was frequently stressed with worry.

Henrietta Maria eventually continued southwest beyond Bath to Exeter, where she stopped, awaiting her imminent labour.

Henrietta Maria was increasingly depressed and anxious in France, from where she attempted to convince Charles to accept a Presbyterian government in England as a means of mobilising Scottish support for the re-invasion of England and the defeat of Parliament.

Henrietta Maria had been joined by a wide collection of Royalist exiles, including Henry Wilmot, Lord John Byron, George Digby, Henry Percy, John Colepeper and Charles Gerard.

The Queen's court was beset with factionalism, rivalry and duelling; Henrietta Maria had to prevent Prince Rupert from fighting a duel with Digby, arresting them both she was unable to prevent a later duel between Digby and Percy, and between Rupert and Percy shortly after that.

Henrietta Maria quarrelled with Ormonde: when she said that if she had been trusted the King would be in England, Ormonde, with his usual bluntness, retorted that if she had never been trusted the King need never have left England.

Co-location began to bring the factions together, but Henrietta Maria's influence was waning.

Henrietta Maria increasingly focused on her faith and on her children, especially Henrietta, James and Henry.

Henrietta Maria attempted to convert both James and Henry to Catholicism, her attempts with Henry angering both Royalists in exile and Charles II.

Henrietta Maria had founded a convent at Chaillot in 1651, and she lived there for much of the 1650s.

Henrietta Maria took up residence once more at Somerset House, supported by a generous pension.

Henrietta Maria's return was partially prompted by a liaison between her second son, James, Duke of York, and Anne Hyde, the daughter of Edward Hyde, Charles II's chief minister.

Henrietta Maria was horrified; she still disliked Edward Hyde, did not approve of the pregnant Anne, and certainly did not want the courtier's daughter to marry her son.

In 1661, Henrietta Maria returned to France and arranged for her youngest daughter, Henrietta, to marry her first cousin, Philippe I, Duke of Orleans, the only brother of Louis XIV.

Henrietta Maria had intended to remain in England for the rest of her life, but by 1665 was suffering badly from bronchitis, which she blamed on the damp British weather.

Henrietta Maria was buried in the French royal necropolis at the Basilica of St Denis, with her heart being placed in a silver casket and buried at her convent in Chaillot.