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

by Sarah Fraser

Overview

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 Had

Henry 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780007548095
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/04/2017
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishers
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	26 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Sarah Fraser won the 2012 Saltire First Scottish Book of the Year for her acclaimed debut The Last Highlander, which in 2016 also became a New York Times ebook bestseller. A writer and regular contributor on TV and radio, she has a PhD in obscene Gaelic poetry and lives in the Scottish Highlands. She has four children. Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarah_fraseruk. And at www.sarahfraser.co.uk where her speaking dates can be found, and regular blogs about the tumultuous Stuart era.

Table of Contents

Maps xi

House of Stuart Family Tree xv

Conventions and Style xvii

Preface: Effigy xix

Part 1 Scotland, 1594-1603

1 Birth, Parents, Crisis: 'A son of goodly hability and expectation' 3

2 Launching a Eueopean Prince 12

3 The Fight for Henry: 'Two mighty factions' 20

4 Nursery to Schoolroom: 'The King's Gift' 24

5 Tutors and Mentors: 'Study to rule' 27

Part 2 England, 1603-10

6 The Stuarts Inaugurate the New Age 39

7 A Home for Henry and Elizabeth: Oatlands 48

8 The Stuarts Enter London: 'We are all players' 55

9 Henry's Anglo-Scottish Family: Nonsuch 60

10 Henry's Day: 'The education of a Christian prince' 68

11 Union and Disunion: 'Blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains' 77

12 Europe Assesses Henry: 'A prince who promises very much' 86

13 The Collegiate Court of St James's 96

14 Money and Empire: 'O brave new world' 101

15 Friends as Tourists and Spies: 'Traveller for the English wits' 109

16 Henry's Political Philosophy: 'Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power' 117

17 Favourites: 'The moths and mice of court' 124

18 Henry's Supper Tables: Lumley's library and tavern wits 131

19 Henry's Foreign Policy: 'Talk for peace, prepare for war' 137

20 Heir of Virginia: 'There is a world elsewhere' 144

Part 3 Prince of Wales, 1610-12

21 Epiphany: 'To fight their Saviour's battles' 153

22 Prince of Wales: 'Every man rejoicing and praising God' 165

23 Henry's Men Go to War: Jülich-Cleves 179

24 Henry Plays the King's Part: King of the Underworld 185

25 From Courtly College to Royal Court 194

26 Court Cormorants: Henry and the king's coterie 200

27 The Humour of Henry's Court: Coryate's Crudities 206

28 Marital Diplomacy: 'Two religions should never lie in his bed' 209

29 Supreme Protector: The Northwest Passage Company 217

30 Selling Henry to the Highest Bidder: 'The god of money has stolen Love's ensigns' 224

31 A Model Army: 'His fame shall strike the Starres' 231

32 End of an Era: 'My audit is made' 235

33 Wedding Parties: 'Led British strength be added to the German' 238

34 Henry Loses Time: 'I would say somewhat, but I cannot utter it!' 245

35 Unravelling: After 6 November 1612 253

36 Endgame 260

Notes 267

Bibliography 295

Acknowledgements 313

Illustration Credits 315

Index 319

Editorial Reviews

01/15/2018
In this focused, engrossing narrative, Fraser (The Last Highlander) resurrects the memory of the oft-overlooked Protestant Prince Henry (1594–1612), who might have drastically changed the future of the Stuart line had he lived longer. With arrogance and youthful exuberance, the educated and well-trained Henry intended to serve as a beacon of Protestantism, pushing conversion efforts onto other European countries while building a solid, unified kingdom at home. Henry wasted no time, fighting for the long-dormant Crown Prince estates and financial independence at age 15 and establishing a court rivalling that of his comparatively staid father, James VI and I of England and Scotland. Though Fraser claims that Henry was no great scholar, she provides several examples of his love of learning and continual academic work. After Henry’s death from illness, his father dismissed his son’s devoted and like-minded court members without prospects, resulting in future defections to the regicide movement that later destroyed the Catholic Charles I. Fraser fills a gap in the Stuart story while making the family legacy of regicides, religious wars, and licentiousness even more tragic in context of the story of the king who never was. Agent: David Godwin, David Godwin Assoc. (U.K.). (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

‘A well-written account that reminds us, through vignettes of Thomas Coryate, Inigo Jones, and many others, how lively and promising the period was’, Books of the Year, Theodore K Rabb, TLS

'Fraser paints a striking picture…[this] highly readable book has restored this lost prince to his rightful place in our national memory…It is to be hoped she has also contributed to the necessary task of weaning us off our national addiction to the Tudors. The seventeenth century is a crucial…period of our history' BBC History Magazine

'Fraser…has created an attractive picture of a young man in a hurry…With a strong narrative…Fraser's account of his investiture in June 1610 is one of the highlights of the story…It helps that Fraser is clearly not a little in love with her subject and why not? From all the available accounts Henry was the Prince Charming of his day, a young man who combined physical attributes, notably courage, with a ready wit and a capacity to wear his learning lightly' Glasgow Herald

'Among the larger than life characters of the Tudor and Stuart period, Henry Stuart is often relegated to a … side player. Here, he gets a whole book dedicated to his story, and it's certainly a tale worth telling. Son of James VI and I, Henry was a key figure in his own right: he created a … renaissance court of writers and thinkers, and worked to establish a permanent British presence in America … What he packed into his brief life, and why it should be better remembered, are explored in this compelling, lively biography' History Revealed Magazine

‘The person to whom the public looked for future deliverance was James’s eldest son, Henry, the subject of this compelling and lyrical new biography. Fraser shows how Henry came first to embody the expectations of a nation and then shatter them by dying suddenly from typhoid in 1612, at the age of 18. She manages to distil from Henry’s short life a thorough case study of a crown prince coming of age … excellent book’ Country Life

From the Publisher