Henry Frederick, the eldest son of King James the Sixth (VI) of Scotland and Anne of Denmark was born on 19 February 1594. In 1603 James VI became James the First (I), King of England, and on 4 June 1610 Henry became Prince of Wales. From 1604, a household had been established for Henry at Nonsuch Palace near Cheam. Among his staff was Sir George More of Loseley who, on 10 December 1610, was appointed Treasurer and Receiver General (reference ).
Prince Henry was well educated and an accomplished athlete. With Europe divided between Catholics and Protestants, many looked to Henry as a future leader of the Protestant faction, due to his excellent military skills. However, after swimming in the River Thames near Richmond Palace in October 1612, he became ill. He soon appeared to recover and resumed his normal activities, even beginning to play sports again, but at St James’ Palace a few days later he relapsed.
The doctors did not know how to treat Henry's condition, which according to another member of his household, Sir Charles Cornwallis, was caused by 'the continual violences of his exercises, or his too frequent eating of abundance of grapes, and other fruits, or some settled Melancholy, engendered by some unknown causes' ('The life and death of our late most incomparable and heroique prince, Henry Prince of Wales', page 29 (1641)). They became increasingly desperate in their treatment, shaving his head to ease his headaches and at one stage applying pigeons to his head and a split cockerel to his feet in an attempt to balance the ‘humours’ of his body (see A spoonful of sugar, 17th century style).
Unfortunately, the doctors’ efforts were in vain and on 6 November 1612 the heir to the throne died. There would be no King Henry the Ninth (IX). The prince was buried in Westminster Abbey on 7 December; the King and Queen were so distraught they did not attend Henry’s funeral. In his speech at the opening of Parliament on 7 April 1614, King James declared, ‘since the last Parliament [in 1610], God hath taken from me my eldest son, a great part of my strength’ (reference ). Henry's cause of death was a mystery: Sir Charles Cornwallis called it a ‘new disease,’ while some believed he was poisoned. Today it is believed he died from typhoid, although even before Henry's swim in the Thames, Cornwallis says that he did ‘now and then complain of a small kind of giddy lumpish heaviness in his forehead… [and] he did also use to bleed at the nose often, and in great quantity, wherein he found great ease’ ('The life and death…', page 22). A copy of Henry’s autopsy was sent to Sir George More (reference ).
With Henry’s death the title of Prince of Wales passed to James’ younger son, Charles, who in 1625 became King Charles the First (I). Charles’ reign would end on 30 January 1649 with his execution at Whitehall in London, charged with being a ‘tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy to the good people of this Nation’. Some academics have put the death toll of the Civil Wars of the 1640s and 1650s, relative to the size of the population, as higher than both World Wars. Had Henry survived, then the course of British history may have been completely different.
Images
Select image to view a larger version.
- Image of Henry, Prince of Wales (reference )
- Copy of a 1582 print of Nonsuch Palace, by George Hoefnagel. After arriving in England, Prince Henry spent much of his childhood here (reference )
- Prince Henry’s seal attached to Sir George More’s commission appointing him Treasurer and Receiver General to the prince (reference LM/1661)
- View of Richmond Palace, where Prince Henry was staying when he first became ill (reference )