Henrietta of England of the execution of her husband Charles I, who had been beheaded on 30 January. At the end of the Fronde, Queen Henrietta Maria and her daughter moved into the Palais Royal with the young Louis XIV and his mother and brother Philippe. At the same time, Queen Henrietta Maria decided to have her daughter, who had been baptised in the Church of England, brought up as a Catholic. With the arrival of Henrietta's brother, Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester, in 1652, their small court was increased. After the Fronde was over, the French court made it a priority to
Henrietta Maria of France Charles retreated from Whitehall to Hampton Court. The situation was steadily moving towards open war, and in February Henrietta Maria left for the Hague, both for her own safety and to attempt to defuse public tensions about her Catholicism and her closeness to the King. The Hague was the seat of Henrietta's prospective son-in-law, William II of Orange, and the queen was to accompany the bride, her 10-year-old daughter Mary, to her new home. Also, her widowed sister-in-law Elizabeth, mother of the queen's old favourite, Prince Rupert, had been living in the Hague for some years already. The Hague was