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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
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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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
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
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)
19 Henry’s Foreign Policy: ‘Talk for peace, prepare for war’ (#litres_trial_promo)
20 Heir of Virginia: ‘There is a world elsewhere’ (#litres_trial_promo)
PART THREE: PRINCE OF WALES, 1610–12 (#litres_trial_promo)
21 Epiphany: ‘To fight their Saviour’s battles’ (#litres_trial_promo)
22 Prince of Wales: ‘Every man rejoicing and praising God’ (#litres_trial_promo)
23 Henry’s Men Go to War: Jülich-Cleves (#litres_trial_promo)
24 Henry Plays the King’s Part: King of the Underworld (#litres_trial_promo)
25 From Courtly College to Royal Court (#litres_trial_promo)
26 Court Cormorants: Henry and the king’s coterie (#litres_trial_promo)
27 The Humour of Henry’s Court: Coryate’s Crudities (#litres_trial_promo)
28 Marital Diplomacy: ‘Two religions should never lie in his bed’ (#litres_trial_promo)
29 Supreme Protector: The Northwest Passage Company (#litres_trial_promo)
30 Selling Henry to the Highest Bidder: ‘The god of money has stolen Love’s ensigns’ (#litres_trial_promo)
31 A Model Army: ‘His fame shall strike the Starres’ (#litres_trial_promo)
32 End of an Era: ‘My audit is made’ (#litres_trial_promo)
33 Wedding Parties: ‘Let British strength be added to the German’ (#litres_trial_promo)
34 Henry Loses Time: ‘I would say somewhat, but I cannot utter it!’ (#litres_trial_promo)
35 Unravelling: After 6 November 1612 (#litres_trial_promo)
36 Endgame (#litres_trial_promo)
Notes (#litres_trial_promo)
Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo)
Illustration Credits (#litres_trial_promo)
Index (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
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CONVENTIONS AND STYLE (#ub3b57da1-b2da-52aa-9601-7e702768554d)
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
Effigy (#ub3b57da1-b2da-52aa-9601-7e702768554d)
‘How much music you can still make with what remains’
– ITZHAK PERLMAN
In the conservation room at Westminster Abbey lies the wreck of a life-sized wooden manikin, stretched out on a white table. This is what remains of Henry Frederick Stuart, Prince of Wales.
Recalling a cast of the nameless dead at Pompeii, the figure’s mute appeal touched me. Its ruined state tells of Henry’s importance, but also what happened to his legacy. After Henry died, visitors ransacked this likeness for relics – someone even stole his head. His effigy was unique in 1612. Up until then, they were made to honour monarchs and their consorts, not their offspring.
Who was Henry Stuart, to earn this effigy, and the state funeral that went with it – itself unprecedented in England, in scale and magnificence?
This book sets out to recreate Henry, an important but almost forgotten piece of history’s puzzle. Restoring Henry in his time and place reveals paths running through his court, from Elizabeth I to the Civil War, to a Puritan republic, and the British Empire in America; but also, to the transformation of the navy into a force achieving global domination of the high seas, and the breaking down and recreation of Britain’s armed forces into a world-class fighting machine.
Henry re-founded the Royal Library, amassing the biggest private collection in England. He began to create a royal art collection of European breadth – paintings, coins, jewellery and gem stones, sculpture, both new and antique, on a scale no royal had attempted before. These went on to become world-class collections under his brother, Charles I, and form the backbone of the British Library and the Queen’s Royal Collection today. Henry began the grandest renovations of royal palaces in his father King James VI and I’s reign, and mounted operatic, highly politicised masques. His court maintained a dozen artists, musicians, writers and composers. Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, George Chapman and Inigo Jones all created work for him. He responded with enthusiasm to the vogue for scientific research, putting time, money and men into buying state-of-the-art scientific instruments – telescopes and automata that tried to model the heavens. He financed ‘projects’ – business schemes – to try and extract silver from lead, and make furnaces more fuel efficient.
Henry and his circle’s curiosity and ambition reflected the era’s desire to sail through the barriers of the known world. He persuaded his father the king to let him begin a full-scale review and modernisation of Britain’s naval and military capacity. He was raised in the ancient culture of chivalry, but welcomed active servicemen from the front line of Europe’s religious wars. Henry’s court was where the latest developments in the art of warfare were received and developed. He became patron of the Northwest Passage Company, established to find a sea route across the top of America and open up the lucrative oriental trade to British merchants. He and his court were important promoters of the project to realise the decades-long dream of planting the British race permanently in American soil. Whatever we think of colonialisation now, such men transformed the world.
As a man and prince, Henry saw himself to be European as much as British, using as one of his mottoes the expansionist ‘Fas est aliorum quaerere regna’, ‘It is right to ask for the kingdoms of others’. At his death aged eighteen, he was preparing to go and stake his claim to be the next leader of Protestant Christendom in the struggle to resist a resurgent militant Catholicism. He was a devout, Puritan-minded Protestant. In the arena of politics, there is a case for seeing Henry’s court as a significant waystation between the abortive aristocratic uprising in 1601 – when the 2nd Earl of Essex sought to force Queen Elizabeth to name James VI of Scotland as her heir in Parliament – and the regicides who shivered in the Palace of Westminster’s Painted Chamber, ready to sign the death warrant of Henry’s little brother, Charles I, in January 1649. By the time of Henry’s death, you could see the prince and his court positioning themselves at the front line of so much that came to define Britain in its heyday.
I am aware that when I say, Henry did this, and Henry did that, one question arises at once. Who was Henry?
Henry was a son, brother, friend, master, patron. ‘Henry’ was the crown prince. The inverted commas around his name allude to the medieval idea of the king’s two bodies – ordinary man and the monarchy, the Crown. The natural man decayed and died. The Crown merely suffered a demise and passed to the next bearer. Crown Prince Henry possessed a physical body and a body politic. He was a boy and the crowns united: the first Prince of Wales born to inherit the united kingdoms of Britain.
His legacy stretched beyond his death to the conflagration coming in 1618. The Thirty Years’ War would be the longest, bloodiest conflict in European history until the First World War in 1914. It tore Europe apart, and Henry had been determined to drag England towards involvement in it. What did that imply about his character?
He was only nine when he came to England. For nearly a decade in Scotland and nearly a decade in England some of the most influential men, and women, of the Jacobean age wanted to shape the character of the future king and his monarchy. Who he responded to, and to whom he did not, suggests what kind of king he would have made.
