The wedding of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland and Henrietta Maria of France attracted a great deal of public attention in 1625. Henrietta Maria was a Roman Catholic and the sister of King Louis XIII of France, which meant that the wedding had significant political and religious implications. In addition to these concerns, there was interest in the fashions, celebrations, and art that accompanied the occasion. A reigning English monarch had not celebrated a wedding since Queen Mary I married the future King Philip II of Spain in 1554, nearly seventy-five years previously, and curious crowds gathered to watch the festivities as Henrietta Maria traveled across France and England to her new home. The printed accounts of the wedding, which included descriptions of the guests and what they wore and the terms of the marriage contract, set important precedents for coverage of future royal weddings. Despite the significance of the occasion in its own time and its key place in the history of royal ceremonial occasions, the wedding of Charles I and Henrietta Maria has received little scholarly attention compared to the royal couple's later experiences during the English Civil Wars. The contributions to The Wedding of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, 1625: Celebrations and Controversy, edited by Marie Canova-Green and Sara Wolfson, place the wedding in its proper historical context and analyze the artistic and literary developments prompted by the festivities.

Analyses of royal weddings often focuses closely on the ceremonies and celebrations, and devote less attention to other events of the time, but the contributors to this volume discuss how the political and social conditions of the era shaped both the marriage negotiations and popular responses to the wedding. Lucinda H. S. Dean situates the wedding in the history of marriage alliances within England, Scotland, and France, noting that the “Auld Alliance” between France and Scotland resulted in comparatively few marriages between French and Scottish royalty until the high-profile weddings of James V to Madeleine de Valois and his daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, to the future King Francis II of France. Wolfson highlights Stuart-Bourbon relations in the aftermath of Charles I and Henrietta Maria's wedding. Other contributors contrast the festivities with other, more somber events taking place at the same time. In their respective chapters, Karen Britland and Sydney Anglo discuss the 1625–26 plague epidemic that resulted in the postponement and later the cancellation of Charles I and Henrietta Maria's ceremonial entry into London. The plague caused significant loss of life at the time but is little remembered today, especially in the context of the 1625 royal wedding.

The Wedding of Charles I and Henrietta Maria includes beautifully illustrated chapters about the art and literature that emerged from the wedding festivities. While most of the contributions to this volume focus on the wedding festivities, their historical contexts, and their immediate aftermath, Gordon Higgott examines how a nuptial allegory on Henrietta Maria's bedchamber ceiling in the Queen's House at Greenwich celebrated the fruitfulness of the match as the queen gave birth to numerous children in the 1630s and portraits of the royal couple celebrated their growing family. The volume would have been enhanced by the inclusion of chapters comparing the wedding of Charles I and Henrietta Maria and its cultural influence to subsequent Stuart royal weddings to Roman Catholic princesses, such as the wedding of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza in 1662 and that of James II and Mary of Modena in 1673.

There are clear examples in the volume of royal wedding precedents set by Charles I and Henrietta Maria that continue to shape royal ceremonies and public responses to these events. Erin Griffey discusses the place of fashion and display in printed accounts of the wedding, noting how the magnificence of the wedding dress, wedding party attire, and locations for the ceremony and reception reinforced the status of the royal couple and the importance of the match. There are also details about the festivities that demonstrate significant change over time in terms of how the royal family and their circle related to the public. King Charles I did not attend his own wedding because of his recent accession to the throne; the Duke of Chevreuse acted as his proxy. Prominent figures at court did not scale back the magnificence of their attire in response to the plague epidemic in London. The Duke of Buckingham wore a suit adorned with diamonds. Britland notes that what would be considered insensitive or tasteless display today reflected the duke's understanding of the importance of courtly splendor at the time.

This fascinating and engaging volume will be of interest to scholars of early modern court culture, monarchy, and public festivals as well as general readers interested in learning more about a royal wedding that set key precedents for press coverage of subsequent royal occasions. The book includes an appendix of primary source material from both the English and French perspectives on the wedding, complementing the scholarly analysis of the festivities, and providing important examples of early seventeenth-century print culture.