The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart

The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart
Sarah Fraser

Henry Stuart’s life is the last great forgotten Jacobean tale. Shadowed by the gravity of the Thirty Years’ War and the huge changes taking place across Europe in seventeenth-century society, economy, politics and empire, his life was visually and verbally gorgeous.NOW THE SUBJECT OF BBC2 DOCUMENTARY The Best King We Never HadHenry Stuart, Prince of Wales was once the hope of Britain. Eldest son to James VI of Scotland, James I of England, Henry was the epitome of heroic Renaissance princely virtue, his life set against a period about as rich and momentous as any.Educated to rule, Henry was interested in everything. His court was awash with leading artists, musicians, writers and composers such as Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones. He founded a royal art collection of European breadth, amassed a vast collection of priceless books, led grand renovations of royal palaces and mounted operatic, highly politicised masques.But his ambitions were even greater. He embraced cutting-edge science, funded telescopes and automata, was patron of the North West Passage Company and wanted to sail through the barriers of the known world to explore new continents. He reviewed and modernised Britain’s naval and military capacity and in his advocacy for the colonisation of North America he helped to transform the world.At his death aged only eighteen, and considering himself to be as much a European as British, he was preparing to stake his claim to be the next leader of Protestant Christendom in the struggle to resist a resurgent militant Catholicism.In this rich and lively book, Sarah Fraser seeks to restore Henry to his place in history. Set against the bloody traumas of the Thirty Years’ War, the writing of the King James Bible, the Gunpowder Plot and the dark tragedies pouring from Shakespeare’s quill, Henry’s life is the last great forgotten Jacobean tale: the story of a man who, had he lived, might have saved Britain from King Charles I, his spaniels and the Civil War with its appalling loss of life his misrule engendered.

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COPYRIGHT (#ub3b57da1-b2da-52aa-9601-7e702768554d)

William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017

Copyright © Sarah Fraser 2017

Cover image shows detail from Henry, Prince of Wales with Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex in the Hunting Fieldc. 1605 by Robert Peake (active 1580–1635) Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017

Sarah Fraser asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Maps by Martin Brown

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007548101

Ebook Edition © May 2017 ISBN: 9780007548095

Version: 2018-02-13

DEDICATION (#ub3b57da1-b2da-52aa-9601-7e702768554d)

For my sons, Sandy and Calum

CONTENTS

Cover (#u884786a3-80a5-578f-980c-3454fddcff17)

Title Page (#udcd210e1-cc69-5553-b91a-1eb5f6661b7d)

Copyright (#uf80e9848-3c4e-5c7e-93da-72ec6cc04088)

Dedication (#u8c0e02b4-cba0-5593-ae06-e9a7ebadba25)

House of Stuart Family Tree (#ucb81e37f-d7b4-5efb-bc9b-19371242ad5d)

Maps (#uc2b40ca5-356e-533d-b1c0-3357ff028bca)

Conventions and Style (#u44bae989-6606-5af7-9931-97e324e92847)

Preface: Effigy (#uee511a1f-c384-5e56-98c8-0b0f9fc16b19)

PART ONE: SCOTLAND, 1954–1603 (#ua5d86acf-3aa1-5797-b887-5056c715f335)

1 Birth, Parents, Crisis: ‘A son of goodly hability and expectation’ (#u4310fc6e-29e7-52a4-b2c2-4345eee238cb)

2 Launching a European Prince (#u1a364700-f1eb-5f64-bca2-0111b9bd87fb)

3 The Fight for Henry: ‘Two mighty factions’ (#u8a664999-81ba-5146-8a44-5893a498fa21)

4 Nursery to Schoolroom: ‘The King’s Gift’ (#u6c8bef63-da0a-5835-97ea-370958af8718)

5 Tutors and Mentors: ‘Study to rule’ (#u2ab7065e-5ec3-5714-9e73-3d65de652064)

PART TWO: ENGLAND, 1604–10 (#u7503159a-d086-5311-a25e-282159b39dd3)

6 The Stuarts Inaugurate the New Age (#ub364674c-2386-507b-b59e-da33772e9a55)

7 A Home for Henry and Elizabeth: Oatlands (#u59979851-feb8-5ff7-81af-6c229294c9b6)

8 The Stuarts Enter London: ‘We are all players’ (#udced9ade-efb5-5d94-9f72-477af7417b58)

9 Henry’s Anglo-Scottish Family: Nonsuch (#u4b632b05-1ee3-5790-ad0e-9ac2aa9ad76a)

10 Henry’s Day: ‘The education of a Christian prince’ (#u679a46fd-4882-5af1-91dc-419815c557f2)

11 Union and Disunion: ‘Blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains’ (#u686eff89-17c9-5d65-a9dd-2495abe5c083)

12 Europe Assesses Henry: ‘A prince who promises very much’ (#litres_trial_promo)

13 The Collegiate Court of St James’s (#litres_trial_promo)

14 Money and Empire: ‘O brave new world’ (#litres_trial_promo)

15 Friends as Tourists and Spies: ‘Traveller for the English wits’ (#litres_trial_promo)

16 Henry’s Political Philosophy: ‘Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power’ (#litres_trial_promo)

17 Favourites: ‘The moths and mice of court’ (#litres_trial_promo)

18 Henry’s Supper Tables: Lumley’s library and tavern wits (#litres_trial_promo)