Henrietta
MARIA, queen of Charles I. of England; youngest child of Henry IV., of France, by his second wife, Maria de' Medici; born in Paris in 1609. The proposed marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales, and the Infanta of Spain having failed, a matrimonial negotiation was opened with Henrietta, whom he had first met at a ball in Paris while on his way to Spain. The marriage was celebrated by proxy at Paris in 1625, but her first popularity in England was soon destroyed by her bigotry, hauteur and despotic ideas as to divine right. Much of the subsequent procedure which brought Charles to the block may be traced indirectly to her influence. On the breaking out of civil war she proceeded to Holland, procured money and troops, and afterward joined Charles at Oxford. She again went to the Continent in 1644, and resided in France till the Restoration. On that occasion she visited England, but soon returned to France, and died near Paris in 1669.