Henrietta Maria Queen of England Pursued by the Army of Cromwell

(Paul Delaroche)

The English Civil War of the late seventeenth century, the most popular historical
subject in Victorian painting,[1] inspired three major pictures by Delaroche: Cromwell Gazing at the Body of Charles I (1831; fig. 85), The Mocking of Charles I (1837), and Strafford on his Way to Execution (1837).
The oil sketch of Henrietta-Maria Queen of England Pursued by the Army of Cromwell (cat. 15 fig. 86) was completed as a finished painting by one of
Delaroche’s pupils. It is an unusual illustration of Delaroche
XE “Delaroche:Paul”‘s important role as a teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he attracted a large following and
inherited his master Gros’ studio after 1835.[2]
A print after the finished version, which was exhibited in the 1839 Salon, is
inscribed “Delaroche comp. Béranger pinx.,” which means that Delaroche XE “Delaroche:Paul designed the composition
and Béranger executed it. This sketch was apparently; the original conception that Delaroche
showed his pupil.[3] Although an engraving after this composition was advertised as a subject drawn from
Walter Scott, who popularized the Civil War in Rokeby and Woodstock, Delaroche’s source was actually
Châteaubriand’s Les Quatre Stuarts. Henrietta Maria (1609-1669) was the
daughter of Henri IV of France and Marie de Medici and the sister of King Louis XIII. At age fifteen she was married to England’s King Charles I whose conflicts with
Parliament over the royal prerogative led to the English Civil War and his own
execution. She was a courageous woman who actively assisted her husband in the
Royalist cause by rallying support from the Pope, the French, and the Dutch.
Following the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Marston Moor she fled to France and
never saw her husband again. This picture represents Henrietta Maria in hiding
accompanied by a cleric and a Cavalier soldier while Cromwell’s troops ride above.

Provenance: London, Count Andrew Ciechanowiecki; New York, Private Collection

Related work: Engraving, inscribed: Delaroche comp. Béranger pinx, Exhibited, Paris, Salon, 1839.

Exhibited: New Orleans Museum of Art, New York Stair Sainty Matthiesen, Cincinnati Taft Museum of Art, Romance and Chivalry: Literature and History reflected in early nineteenth century painting, June 1996 – February 1997, no 15, pp. 121-122, 216, 257, il