Henrietta Stewart

On 21 July 1588, Henrietta married George Gordon, Earl of Huntly, at Holyroodhouse. Before the wedding the couple were made to declare their (Protestant) faith, without which the minister John Craig would not declare the banns.[5]

James VI of Scotland wrote a masque to be performed at the wedding celebrations.[6] The king sent requests to lairds, like Murray of Abercairny, for "venison, wild fowls, fed capons" for the feasts.[7] The celebrations involving "plays and masquerades" lasted two or three days. Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell gave her a chain of pearls and hair garnishings.[8] There was "great triumph, mirth, and pastime."[9]

Marie Stewart became a lady-in-waiting in the household of Anne of Denmark in December 1590 at Henrietta's request, which increased Henrietta's access at court. She married the Earl of Mar in December 1592.[10] Their younger sister Gabrielle was a nun in France at Glatigny, but a scheme for her to marry Hugh Montgomerie, 5th Earl of Eglinton in 1598 came to nothing.[11]

In February 1593 King James came north to punish and subdue the earls of Huntly, Angus, and Erroll for plotting on behalf of the Catholic faith but they went into hiding. Henrietta and Elizabeth Douglas, Countess of Erroll came to him at Aberdeen and he allowed them to keep their houses and estates.[12] She was at court in May 1593 with a "greater train and busier heads than are thought fit" according to the English diplomat Robert Bowes.[13] He and some of the Privy Council tried to persuade James VI to send her away. On 31 May she accompanied the queen and her sister the Countess of Mar to Leith to inspect the ship of the Danish ambassadors Niels Krag and Steen Bille at Leith.[14]

In June she went to Leith and intended to go north to Carneborough near Strathbogie.[15] Henrietta Stewart came back to court in September 1593 at the invitation of the queen, and it was supposed Anna of Denmark had invited her to please the king.[16]

Henrietta came to be a favourite of the queen, Anna of Denmark, and exerted an influence over her which became controversial. Henrietta was known to be a fervent Catholic, and the friendship between her and Anne was politically sensitive and developed into a cause for conflict between the king and the queen. It also brought Queen Anne negative publicity and exposed her to criticism from the Scottish church. Henrietta Stewart is speculated to have played a part in Queen Anne's rumoured secret Catholic conversion. When she parted from the court in April 1594, the disapproving English ambassador Robert Bowes wrote that the queen gave her gifts that were "liberal and exceeding the common order and proportion used here."[17]

Henrietta was able to further her husband's cause at court even when he was forfeited, except in June 1594 when James expressly forbade her attendance. She defied his order and visited Anne of Denmark at Holyroodhouse in "base array", disguised as a servant, on a day when the king had gone to Stirling Castle to see the building work on the new Chapel Royal.[18] In July 1594 James VI ordered Robert Melville to tell her to leave Edinburgh, and she went to Seton Palace and took a ship to Aberdeen.[19] At the end of October 1594 James VI came to Huntly Castle to demolish or slight the building. David Foulis wrote to Anthony Bacon that the Countess of Huntly watched the demolition and was not allowed to have an audience with the king to plead her case.[20] The kirk minister Andrew Melville was present and urged James VI to blow the castle up.[21]

The king placed the castle and estates in the hands of Sir John Gordon of Pitlurg, but on 9 November 1594 he requested that Pitlurg should not take up her rental incomes.[22]

In 1596 pressure was exerted on her and her husband to convert from Catholicism by taking away her eldest son Lord Gordon. He was delivered to Anna of Denmark to be brought up at court and sent to the University of Edinburgh as a pupil of Robert Rollock.[23] Anna of Denmark bought him clothes including a velvet coat and a belt with a little dagger.[24] David Moysie wrote that Henrietta's representations to a Convention of the Estates were twice rejected.[25] On 19 October 1596 Henrietta's representatives presented her signed seven-point offer to the Synod of the Presbyteries of Moray at Elgin on behalf of her husband, undertaking to assist the Protestant ministry and to eject Jesuits from his company.[26]

She was a godmother to Princess Elizabeth at her christening on 28 November 1596, attended the birth of Princess Margaret at Dalkeith Palace in December 1598,[27] and held Prince Charles at his christening in 1600.[28] It was noted in November 1600 that she was "chiefest" in favour with Anna of Denmark.[29]

At the ceremony of the Riding of the Parliament in Edinburgh in January 1598, she and Anna of Denmark and the Countess of Erroll rode to Mercat Cross and watched the symbolic restoration of the forfeited earls of Angus, Erroll and Huntly, by the Lyon King of Arms to the sound of trumpets. It was said that the queen had so much favour to Henrietta and the Countess of Erroll that sometimes she shared a bed with one or the other.[30]

Her name is carved in stone across the upper storey of Huntly Castle in 20-inch letters, in equal prominence to her husband's.[31]

She died on 2 September 1642 in Paris.[32] She was buried at Lyon where her mother was buried.[33]