Portrayed as a ‘Popish Brat’ who tried to convert Charles I to Catholicism and thus helped spark the Civil War and the eventual regicide of Charles (so far from the reality of the events) Henrietta Maria is painted with a dark brush. Henrietta Maria, daughter of Italy’s Marie de Medici and King Henry IV of France and Queen consort of England’s King Charles I was just one of these women. This is endlessly true in western European history and especially in England. These ‘men’ (better described as ‘boys’) simply can’t/couldn’t handle an independent, alpha, decisive, complex, literate, warrior, boss babe and had to instead belittle and demean them with propaganda.

There are far too many examples of women being either pegged as a villain or being omitted from history, entirely (history WAS written by men, as they say!). It is time to look again at this often-criticized queen and determine if she is not, in fact, one of British history's most remarkable women. In fact, Henrietta Maria rose from the ashes of her husband's failures-a 'phoenix queen”-presiding over a court judged to have had 'more mirth” even than that of the Merry Monarch, Charles II. A witty conversationalist, Henrietta Maria was a patron of the arts and a champion of the female voice, as well as a mediatrix for her persecuted fellow Catholics.ĭuring the civil war, the queen's enemies agreed that Charles would never have survived as long as he did without the 'She Generalissimo.' Seeing events through her gaze reveals the truth behind the claims that she caused the war, explains her estrangement from her son Henry, and diminishes the image of the Restoration queen as an irrelevant crone. A portrait emerges of a woman whose closest friends included Puritans as well as Catholics, who crossed swords with Cardinal Richelieu, and led the anti-Spanish faction at the English court. This clear-eyed biography unpicks the myths and considers the story from Henrietta Maria's point of view. Condemned in her lifetime as the 'Popish brat of France,” an adulteress, and a traitor, she remains in popular memory the wife who wore the breeches in her marriage, the woman who turned her husband Catholic (and so caused the English Civil War), and a cruel and bigoted mother.

Henrietta Maria is British history’s most reviled queen consort. Dispelling the myths around this legendary queen, this biography of Henrietta Maria, queen consort of King Charles I, retells the dramatic story of the English Civil War from the perspective of this dynamic woman.

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