15. Charles angered his people by marrying a Catholic.
Another big mistake Charles made was marrying Henrietta Maria (1609-69) in 1625, barely three months into his reign. Not only was Henrietta a Catholic, infuriating every Protestant in the land, but French. England had been at war with France on-and-off since the Norman Conquest of 1066, and so she was not only a heretic for many people – crucially, those in power, since Catholicism was illegal and anyone suspected of practicing it without evidence was ostracised – but a natural enemy of the country itself. And, obviously, Charles bluntly ignored the opposition to the marriage in Parliament, making them even more angry.
At this period, Catholicism was at a low ebb of popularity. Many people were old enough to remember the Catholic Mary I’s reign of terror, and Catholic Spain had tried to invade England in 1588. Fears over the new queen’s bad influence were confirmed when she arrived for her wedding. She was accompanied by 200 French priests and Catholics, and stopped to pray for the Catholic martyrs of Tyburn. Rather than allaying these fears by passing laws against Catholics and making Henrietta convert, Charles blundered again by allowing her to continue practicing and pursued a policy of Catholic tolerance.