The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart
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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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
For my sons, Sandy and Calum
CONTENTS
1 Birth, Parents, Crisis: ‘A son of goodly hability and expectation’
3 The Fight for Henry: ‘Two mighty factions’
4 Nursery to Schoolroom: ‘The King’s Gift’
5 Tutors and Mentors: ‘Study to rule’
6 The Stuarts Inaugurate the New Age
7 A Home for Henry and Elizabeth: Oatlands
8 The Stuarts Enter London: ‘We are all players’
9 Henry’s Anglo-Scottish Family: Nonsuch
10 Henry’s Day: ‘The education of a Christian prince’
11 Union and Disunion: ‘Blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains’
12 Europe Assesses Henry: ‘A prince who promises very much’
13 The Collegiate Court of St James’s
14 Money and Empire: ‘O brave new world’
15 Friends as Tourists and Spies: ‘Traveller for the English wits’
16 Henry’s Political Philosophy: ‘Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power’
17 Favourites: ‘The moths and mice of court’
18 Henry’s Supper Tables: Lumley’s library and tavern wits
19 Henry’s Foreign Policy: ‘Talk for peace, prepare for war’
20 Heir of Virginia: ‘There is a world elsewhere’
PART THREE: PRINCE OF WALES, 1610–12
21 Epiphany: ‘To fight their Saviour’s battles’
22 Prince of Wales: ‘Every man rejoicing and praising God’
23 Henry’s Men Go to War: Jülich-Cleves
24 Henry Plays the King’s Part: King of the Underworld
25 From Courtly College to Royal Court
26 Court Cormorants: Henry and the king’s coterie
27 The Humour of Henry’s Court: Coryate’s Crudities
28 Marital Diplomacy: ‘Two religions should never lie in his bed’
29 Supreme Protector: The Northwest Passage Company
30 Selling Henry to the Highest Bidder: ‘The god of money has stolen Love’s ensigns’
31 A Model Army: ‘His fame shall strike the Starres’
32 End of an Era: ‘My audit is made’
33 Wedding Parties: ‘Let British strength be added to the German’
34 Henry Loses Time: ‘I would say somewhat, but I cannot utter it!’
Spelling and punctuation, unstable in this period, are modernised to assist comprehension, and to prevent interruption of the narrative by lexical curiosities that might catch the eye and distract from the narrative flow. Even James VI and I revised his Basilikon Doron for publication to ease readability.
Contractions are expanded (thus mistie becomes Majesty). The spelling of proper names has been standardised. For example, Henry also spelled his name ‘Henrie’, but I have opted here for Henry. Individuals born with several titles, or those who changed name on receipt of them, can be a particular problem for the biographer writing for a non-specialist audience. Cecil was not the monolith ‘Salisbury’ when James VI negotiated in treasonable secrecy with Secretary Robert Cecil to inherit Elizabeth’s thrones. I note in media res when an important change has taken place and from then on, I use the new name. With regard to place names, ‘Great Britain’ as a term for the multiple Stuart territories is a bit of an anachronism, but I use it as it is so apposite. Place names are modernised and standardised (thus Finchingbrooke becomes Hinchingbrooke).
For dates, the year begins on 1 January not 25 March (as it did on this side of the Channel).
British currency was in pounds, shillings and pence: £s. d. One English pound was worth £12 Scots. To understand what a particular amount would represent today you can add two zeros to the figure, to get a rough approximation.
PREFACE
‘How much music you can still make with what remains’
