T
HIS feal of brafs very finely cut, belongs to Henrietta Maria, daughter of the
Great Henry IV. of France, and wife to our Charles I. The arms are England,
France, and Navarre, borne separately in a lozenge, with the words HENRETTA MARIA,
DEI GRATIAE ANGLIAE, SCOTIAE, FRAVNCIAE, ET HIBERNIAE, REGINAE round it.
The supporters of the arms are, the Lion of England and the St. Michael powdered with
fleurs de lis. On the reverse, the queen at full length, under a canopy, crowned and in
royal robes, with the scepter in her right hand, and the globe in her left; the arms of
England on her right side and of France without Navarre, on her left; both crowned with
Imperial crowns, and the fame inscription round the whole.

WHAT little we know of this queen is, that upon the Spanish match being broken off
between Charles, when prince of Wales, and the Infanta of Spain, he applied to his father
James the First, to demand Henrietta of France, whom he had been incognito at a ball
at Paris, when on his journey to Spain.

PREVIOUS to the marriage, it was agreed, that the queen should enjoy all manner of
indulgence with respect to her religion, and should superintend the education of her children
till their age of thirteen; which will account in a great measure for the religion both
Charles the Second and James the Second died in.

THE portion this queen brought with her was only 60,000 French crowns, which
Charles soon disposed of, and made grants of lands to her in lieu of it, for lives and years,
at Chertsey and in several counties in England, which accounts for her having such a feal.
Several leaves granted by her, with this feal annexed, are still extant, and I have heard of
one which appears to have been executed some time after her death, the feal being always
kept in England.

A LITTLE before King Charles put himself into the arms of the Scotch, she fled first to Holland, and next to France, where, after paying the king one more visit in England, she in general refided.

IN November 1660, she returned to England to congratulate her son Charles the Second upon his restoration, and then went back to France, where she died in 1669.

MUCH mischief enfued to Charles's affairs by her intermeddling at first, as well as by
her pride and bigotry. She inherited none of the talents of her great father, and though she
was artful she had little good success in all her schemes.