suitor to converse with her except in public, and he lingered on in Madrid becoming more and more dissatisfied at the state of affairs, until he finally returned home in anger, and the negotiations for the marriage were broken off.

Soon after this came the death of James I. and Charles' accession to the throne. The joy with which his Protestant subjects had seen the failure of his attempt to win the Infanta as his bride was soon damped by his marriage with another Roman Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria, the sister of the French king and the youngest daughter of the famous Henri IV. She was not sixteen at the time of her marriage by proxy in Paris, and she then came over to England, with a large retinue of priests and attendants, and escorted by Buckingham, who had been sent over to Paris. for that purpose. She met her young husband at Dover, whither he had come to welcome her; she was evidently no better a sailor than he, for she sent to him a request to delay his arrival at Dover until the day after her own, so as to give her time to recover from the " 'green sickness."

Henrietta Maria was a little slender, black-eyed maiden of fifteen; brown-haired, dark-skinned, graceful and vivacious. She had been bred up according to the French fashion of the time, with

elegant accomplishments, such as dancing, singing, and acting, but with no training at all in the more serious subjects of education, which might have helped her to understand something about the people among whom she now came to dwell. She had been educated as a devoted Catholic, and she came to her kingdom surrounded with zealous ecclesiastics of her own faith, whose ministrations and prohibitions were a source of trouble between her and her husband from the beginning of their union.

When her mother, Mary de Medici, had parted with her at Amiens, she had given her a letter of advice and exhortation which, while signed and written by her, was in reality the work of Cardinal Richelieu. In this letter breathes the spirit which aggravated so many of the difficulties between the royal pair and their subjects. The young queen is not only urged to be firm and zealous in her own religion, like her great ancestor, St. Louis, but to pray daily, and have special prayers made, that her husband too might be drawn into the true religion. In the light of startling to find

modern history, it is a little

Henrietta being told that Mary Queen of Scots,

her husband's grandmother, is filled in heaven with this great wish for her grandchild.

Animated by such instructions, and with nothing but an uneducated girl's sharp shallow nature to help her, it was not much wonder that the poor child soon grew up into a mischievous intriguer.

Her meeting with Charles at Dover was most affectionate; she kneeled and kissed his hand, and he lifted the small figure in his arms and kissed her many times. Later in the day he, having already dined, carved for her at her first dinner on English soil, for in her storm-tossed condition the previous evening she had probably eaten little.

Venison and pheasant were served, and the Queen partook of both, though warned by her confessor that it was a fast-day, and from this little incident her Protestant subjects formed the erroneous belief that she would soon join the faith of her husband.

A letter written at the time gives a good account of their reception in London, whither they journeyed leisurely vid Canterbury and Gravesend, and there embarked on the royal barge.

"The last night at five o'clock, there being a very great shower, the King and Queen in the royal barge, with many other barges of honour, and thousands of boats, passed through London Bridge to Whitehall; infinite numbers, besides

these, in wherries, standing in houses, ships, lighters, western barges, and on each side of the shore. Fifty good ships discharging their ordnance as their majesties passed along by; as, last of all, the Tower did such a peal, as I believe she never before heard the like. The King and Queen were both in green suits. The barge windows, notwithstanding the vehement shower, were open, and all the people shouting amain. She put out her hand and shaked it unto them. She hath already given some good signs of hope that she may ere long, by God's blessing, become ours in religion."

And another contemporary account says: "Yesterday I saw them coming up from Gravesend, and never beheld the King to look so merrily. In stature, her head reached to his shoulder; but she is young enough to grow taller. . . . 'Twixt Gravesend and London she had the beautiful and stately view of part of our Navy that is to go to sea, which gave her a volley of fifteen hundred great shot. So they arrived at Whitehall, where they continue till Monday, when they go to Hampton Court. On Sunday there is a great feast at Whitehall."

It is pleasant to think that there were some bright days at the beginning of the marriage