The French wife and muse of Charles I was central to the narrative of the English Civil War and the Stuart Restoration. Henrietta Maria was an exceptionally courageous and spirited woman and a misunderstood Queen of England

A myth-busting biography of Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, which retells the dramatic story of the civil war from her perspective A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE Henrietta Maria, Charles I's queen, is the most reviled consort in British history. Condemned as the 'Popish brat of France' and a 'notorious whore', she remains in popular memory the woman who turned the king Catholic - so causing a civil war - and a cruel and bigoted mother. Leanda de Lisle unpicks these myths to reveal a very different queen. We meet a new bride who enjoyed annoying her uptight husband, who was a passionate advocate for the female voice in public affairs and who, when civil war came, proved crucial to Charles's campaign. The image of the Restoration queen as an irrelevant crone is replaced with Henrietta Maria as an influential 'phoenix queen'. It is time to look again at this despised queen and judge if she is not in fact one of our most remarkable. 'Brilliantly written, mesmerising, superb scholarship and totally immersive... A total game changer' KATE WILLIAMS, author of Rival Queens 'This is revisionist history at its absolute best' ANDREW ROBERTS author of Churchill 'Beautifully written and endlessly fascinating' ALEXANDER LARMAN author of The Crown in Crisis 'Popular history of the finest kind' RONALD HUTTON author of The Witch

Knoppers examines the domestic image of the royal family as a contested propaganda tool in the English Revolution and beyond.

The influence exercised by Queen Henrietta Maria over her husband Charles I during the English Civil Wars, has long been a subject of interest. To many of her contemporaries, especially those sympathetic to Parliament, her French origins and Catholic beliefs meant that she was regarded with great suspicion. Later historians picking up on this, have spent much time arguing over her political role and the degree to which she could influence the decisions of her husband. What has not been so thoroughly investigated, however, are issues surrounding the popular perceptions of the Queen that inspired the plethora of pamphlets, newsbooks and broadsides. Although most of these documents are polemical propaganda devices that tell us little about the actual power wielded by Henrietta Maria, they do throw much light on how contemporaries viewed the King and Queen, and their relationship. The picture created by Charles and Henrietta's enemies was one of a royal household in patriarchal disorder. The Queen was characterized as an overly assertive, unduly influential, foreign, Catholic queen consort, whilst Charles was portrayed as a submissive and weak husband. Such an image had wide political ramifications, resulting in accusations that Charles was unfit to rule, and thus helping to justify Parliamentary resistance to the monarch. Because Charles had permitted his Catholic wife to interfere in state matters he stood accused of threatening the patriarchal order upon which all of society rested, and of imperilling the Church of England. In this book Michelle White tackles these dual issues of Henrietta's actual and perceived influence, and how this was portrayed in popular print by those sympathetic and hostile to her cause. In so doing she presents a vivid portrait of a strong willed woman who had a profound influence on the course of English history.

A 2006 study of Queen Henrietta Maria's patronage of drama in England and her French heritage.