Why was Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s beautiful wife, so reviled?

On 15 June 1645, as Thomas Fairfax’s soldiers picked over the scattered debris on the Naseby battlefield, they made a sensational discovery. Amid the corpses and musket balls, dismembered limbs and severed swords there nestled a carrying case of personal letters and papers. It was nothing less than the king’s private correspondence. The cache included letters between Charles I and his queen, Henrietta Maria – his always opened ‘My deare harte’ – which discussed in detail the tactics and strategies of the war. Never ones to miss a PR opportunity, the Parliamentary high command ordered that a selection should be published with a guiding commentary. The first editorial note got straight to the point:

It is plain, here, first, that the Kings Counsels are wholly governed by the Queen… Though she be of the weaker sex, borne an alien, bred up in a contrary religion, yet nothing great or small is transacted without her privity and consent.