sweet and humble!"[207] However, this was in the first days of her arrival, and these “sweet and humble looks” were not constant ones; for a courier at Whitehall, writing to a friend, observes that “the queen, however little of stature, yet is of a pleasing countenance, if she be pleased, otherwise full of spirit and vigour, and seems of more than ordinary resolution;” and he adds an incident of one of her “frowns.”  The room in which the queen was at dinner, being somewhat over-heated with the fire and company, “she drove us all out of the chamber.  I suppose none but a queen could have cast such a scowl."[208] We may already detect the fair waxen mask melting away on the features it covered, even in one short month!

By the marriage-contract, Henrietta was to be allowed a household establishment, composed of her own people; and this had been contrived to be not less than a small French colony, exceeding three hundred persons.  It composed, in fact, a French faction, and looks like a covert project of Richelieu’s to further his intrigues here, by opening a perpetual correspondence with the discontented Catholics of England.  In the instructions of Bassompierre, one of the alleged objects of the marriage is the general good of the Catholic religion, by affording some relief to those English who professed it.  If, however, that great statesman ever entertained this political design, the simplicity and pride of the Roman priests here completely overturned it; for in their blind zeal they dared to extend their domestic tyranny over majesty itself.

The French party had not long resided here ere the mutual jealousies between the two nations broke out.  All the English who were not Catholics were soon dismissed from their attendance on the queen, by herself; while Charles was compelled, by the popular cry, to forbid any English Catholics to serve the queen, or to be present at the celebration of her mass.  The king was even obliged to employ pursuivants or king’s messengers, to stand at the door of her chapel to seize on any of the English who entered there, while on these occasions the French would draw their swords to defend these concealed Catholics.  “The queen and hers” became an odious distinction in the nation.  Such were the indecent scenes exhibited in public; they were not less reserved in private.  The following anecdote of saying a grace before the king, at his own table, in a most indecorous race run between the catholic priest and the king’s chaplain, is given in a manuscript letter of the times.

“The king and queen dining together in the presence,[209] Mr. Hacket (chaplain to the Lord Keeper Williams)[210] being then to say grace, the confessor would have prevented him, but that Hacket shoved him away; whereupon the confessor went to the queen’s side, and was about to say grace again, but that the king pulling the dishes unto him, and the carvers falling to their business, hindered.  When dinner was done, the