Childhood
Henrietta Maria was the youngest daughter of King Henry IV of France (Henry III of Navarre) and his second wife, Marie de' Medici. She was born at the Palais du Louvre on 25 November 1609, but some historians give her a birth-date of 26 November. In England, where the Julian calendar was still in use, her date of birth is often recorded as 16 November. Henrietta Maria was brought up as a Catholic. As daughter of the Bourbon king of France, she was a Fille de France and a member of the House of Bourbon. She was the youngest sister of the future King Louis XIII of France. Her father was assassinated on 14 May 1610, in Paris, before she was a year old; her mother was banished from the royal court in 1617.
After her older sister, Christine Marie, married Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy, in 1619, Henriette took the highly prestigious style of Madame Royale; this was used by the most senior royal princess at the French court. Henrietta was trained, along with her sisters, in riding, dancing, and singing, and took part in French court plays. Although tutored in reading and writing, she was not known for her academic skills; the princess was heavily influenced by the Carmelites at French court. By 1622, Henrietta was living in Paris with a household of some 200 staff, and marriage plans were being discussed.
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Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“The fact remains that the human being in early childhood learns to consider one or the other aspect of bodily function as evil, shameful, or unsafe. There is not a culture which does not use a combination of these devils to develop, by way of counterpoint, its own style of faith, pride, certainty, and initiative.”
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“It is not however, adulthood itself, but parenthood that forms the glass shroud of memory. For there is an interesting quirk in the memory of women. At 30, women see their adolescence quite clearly. At 30 a woman’s adolescence remains a facet fitting into her current self.... At 40, however, memories of adolescence are blurred. Women of this age look much more to their earlier childhood for memories of themselves and of their mothers. This links up to her typical parenting phase.”
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“We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where they live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.”
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