On Cultural and Political Mediation Bossuet’s Oraisons funèbres for Queen Henrietta Maria and Princess Henrietta Anne

My paper shows how Bossuet unfolds a dual perspective in his funeral orations for Henrietta Maria and her daughter by providing a retrospective assessment of the queen’s life as a Catholic princess and as a mediator. In a surprising move, Bossuet also addresses Anglo-French relations to come. In the funeral oration for Henrietta Anne, he takes up this political as well as religious motif. He thus speaks to both English and French royalty at a politically sensitive time.