King Charles I., at the instigation of his favorite the Duke of Buckingham, had suddenly and unfeelingly dismissed the French servants of the queen his wife, without giving her even time to say good by to them, insomuch that "the poor princess, hearing their voices in the court-yard, dashed to the window, and, breaking the glass with her head, clung with her hands to the bars to show herself to her women and take the last look at them.

The king indignantly dragged her back with so great an effort that he tore her hands right away." Louis XIII.

had sent Marshal Bassompierre to England to complain of the insult done to his sister; the Duke of Buckingham wished to go in person to France to arrange the difference, but the cardinal refused.

"Has Buckingham ever undertaken any foreign commission without going away dissatisfied and offended with the princes to whom he was sent ?" said Cardinal Richelieu to the king.

So the favorite of Charles I.resolved to go to France "in other style and with other attendants than he had as yet done; having determined to win back the good graces of the Parliament and the people of England by the succor he was about to carry to the oppressed Protestant churches," he pledged his property; he sold the trading-vessels captured on the coasts of France; and on the 17th of July, 1627, he set sail with a hundred and twenty vessels, heading for La Rochelle.