Charles had prepared a proclamation such as Laud required, the queen obtained a modification of it which rendered it practically valueless. At Christmas 1636 she arranged that all the new converts should receive the communion in a separate body in her chapel, in order to exhibit their numbers. ‘You have now seen,’ she afterwards said to Conn, ‘what has come of the proclamation’ (Conn's Despatches, Addit. MSS. 15390–1).
Conn describes her at this time as ‘so full of incredible innocence that in the presence of strangers she is as modest as a girl.’ ‘Father Philip avers,’ Conn continues, ‘that she is without sin, except of omission. … In respect to the faith or sins of the flesh she is never tempted. When she confesses or communicates she is so absorbed as to astonish the confessor and everybody. In her bedroom no one may enter but women, with whom she sometimes retires and indulges in innocent amusements. She sometimes suffers from melancholy, and then she likes silence. When she is in trouble she turns with heart and soul to God. She has little care for the future, trusting altogether in the king. Consequently it is of more importance to gain the ministers of state, of whom she may be the patroness if she likes’ (Conn to Barberini, 13–23 Aug. 1636, Record Office Transcripts).
Such was Henrietta Maria, light-hearted, joyous, and innocent, but apparently incapable of sustained application when her husband's troubles began. In October 1638 she had the pleasure of once more seeing her mother, who arrived in England as a fugitive. In 1639, when there was a difficulty in raising money for the impending war with the Scots, she urged the catholics to contribute towards it, and obtained from them a grant of 20,000l. A further suggestion made by her, that the ladies of England should make a present to the king, was less successful. After Charles had left London for the borders, Henrietta Maria was with some difficulty prevented from following him to the camp, where she hoped to prevent him from exposing himself to danger. After the first bishops' war was at an end, the queen was again active in court intrigues, hoping to obtain promotion for her friends irrespective of their qualifications for office. She pleaded unsuccessfully for the appointment of Leicester to a vacant secretaryship of state, and afterwards (early in 1640) more successfully for Vane, who was appointed at her instance, in opposition to the strongly expressed opinion of Strafford. When the Short parliament was about to meet she was naturally anxious lest it should insist on a renewal of the persecution of the catholics, and especially on the removal of Rossetti, who had lately succeeded Conn as the papal agent at her court. Charles, however, told her that he would tell parliament that her marriage treaty secured her right to hold correspondence with Rome. ‘This,’ she said to Rossetti, ‘is not true; but the king will take this pretext to silence any one who meddles with the matter’ (Rossetti to Barberini, 27 Dec.–6 Jan. 1639–40, Record Office Transcripts). The queen, however, was not altogether relieved, and applied to Strafford for help. As her danger increased she discovered that it was possible that Strafford, whom she had hitherto regarded as an enemy, because he refused her unreasonable requests, might be of some use to her. In April 1640 she declared openly that she considered him the most capable and faithful of her husband's servants (Montreuil to Belliévre, 30 April–10 May 1640, Bibl. Nat. Fr. 15995, fol. 81).
After the dissolution of the Short parliament Henrietta Maria was fully impressed with the gravity of her own and her husband's situation, but though she had been fifteen years in England, she had even less knowledge than Charles of the character and prejudices of Englishmen. She now began, doubtless with her husband's full consent, that long course of intrigues for foreign aid which did more than anything else to bring the king to the block. On 15 May Windebank asked Rossetti to write to the pope for money and men for Charles, and it is hardly possible to doubt that this was done in consequence of orders from both Charles and the queen (the question is discussed in Gardiner, Hist. of England, 1603–1642, ix. 135, n. 1). Before the end of July she learnt that the pope would do nothing unless Charles would change his religion, in which case six or eight thousand soldiers would be sent (Barberini to Rossetti, 20–30 June; Rossetti to Barberini, 31 July–10 May, Record Office Transcripts).
When the Long parliament met in November 1640 Henrietta Maria seconded her husband's entreaties to Strafford, on whose vigorous support she now counted, to come to London. She was herself in the utmost danger, as, though the parliamentary leaders knew nothing of her appeal to Rome for help, they knew that the court had been the centre of the machinery of conversion, which they regarded as more dangerous than it really was. She on her part treated the members of the puritan opposition as actuated only by factious and personal motives. Before the end of November 1640 she again urged the pope to send her money, specifying
