While English
and French colonists dueled in North America, the two countries
were also doing battle in Europe. This latest episode in a
continuing series of fights between the two countries stemmed
from the marriage in 1625 of King Charles I of England to
Henriette-Marie, the sister of King Louis XIII of France.
The
trouble started in 1625, when the Duke of Buckingham, a friend
of King Charles, went to France to escort Henriette-Marie to
England. While he was in France, Buckingham made a pass at King
Louis' wife, Anne. Then, after the wedding, King Louis accused
King Charles of disrespect for Henriette-Marie's Catholic faith
and used that to refuse to pay part of her promised dowry.
It all boiled over
in 1627, when Buckingham sided with French Protestants in La
Rochelle and led an army to fight with them against forces under
King Charles. French and English soldiers fought on the Isle de
Re, in the English Channel just off La Rochelle. The French won
the fight.
That
was enough for King Charles of England. He was beginning to face
serious threats to his throne from Oliver Cromwell and a
recalcitrant Parliament, so he sought peace. The two countries
signed a peace treaty in April 1629, three months before the
Kirke brothers took Quebec, but before William Alexander's
Scotsmen settled in Nova Scotia.
It was
clear that Quebec would have to be returned to the French
because it was taken after a peace treaty was concluded.
Acadia's fate was less clear. There had been no French
surrender there. Scottish settlers had simply moved into a place
that had been mostly vacant and established a colony with only
minimal challenge by the French.
According to Charles Mahaffie, "Three years of ponderous
negotiations were required before (the question of what to do
with Acadia) and other questions left unanswered (by the
treaty of April 1629) were resolved, and while the diplomats
argued in Europe, no one gave anything away in Acadia. In 1630,
the Company of New France sent reinforcements for Charles de la
Tour, and he built a second fort, this one at Saint John Harbor.
Bearing his name, it would be his stronghold. The Scots were
reinforced too, and to add to the confusion, traders were
infiltrating from a new English colony at Plymouth Bay. In 1628,
they built a post upstream of the Kennebec River at the site of
present-day Augusta, Maine's capital. At about the same time,
they moved into Penobscot Bay, near what is now the campus of
the Maine Maritime Academy at Castine. By 1631, they had pushed
even farther east to Machias, just below Passamaquoddy Bay."
The
English had a good argument to keep their Acadian settlements
and they had enough strength in the neighborhood to make the
argument stick. But King Charles needed money, and the chief
French minister, Cardinal Richelieu, knew it. He made a deal: If
the English abandoned their settlements in Nova Scotia, King
Louis would pay the rest of Henriette-Marie's dowry. King
Charles took the money and ordered the Scots in Nova Scotia to
come back to Great Britain.
He sent
this order to the settlers: "Forasmuch as a final agreement hath
been passed between us and our good Brother the Most Christian
King, And that for the conclusion thereof we have consented that
Port Royal shall be restored to the same condition wherein it
was prior to the beginning of the last war, To the end that
there may be no advantage on one side or the other...and Without
prejudice to any previous right to title... Our pleasure and
will is that we command you by these presents, that with all
diligence you cause to be demolished the Fort which was built at
the sd. (sic) place by our well beloved William Alexander knt
(sic), and to remove yourselves thence with your goods...Leaving
the limits thereof wholly deserted and depeopled."
As part of the
deal, King Charles promised Alexander 10,000 pounds to pay him
for his settlement expenses. Alexander never got the money and
died heavily in debt.
Acadia
was formally returned to the French by the Treaty of St-Germain-en-Laye
in March 1632.
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