styled 1639-60 duke of Gloucester; cr. 13 May 1660 duke of GLOUCESTER
First sat 31 May 1660; last sat 29 Aug. 1660
b. 8 July 1639, 3rd surv. s. of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, da. Henry IV of France. educ. privately (Mr Lowell). Kntd. 1658. unm. d. 13 Sept. 1660.
Col. English Regt of Ft. (Spanish army) 1656.
PC, 1658-d.
High steward, Gloucester, Jun. 1660-d.; Ranger, Hyde Park July 1660.1
Likenesses: oil on canvas, after Johann Boeckhorst, (c.1659), NPG 1932; line engraving by Robert White, mid-seventeenth century, NPG D29321.
Although known as duke of Gloucester from birth and accorded precedence appropriate to a royal duke, Henry Stuart does not appear to have been formally created a duke until 1660. After his father’s execution he was effectively a prisoner of Parliament until late 1652 when Oliver Cromwell‡ not only agreed to allow him to go abroad but granted him £500 towards the expenses of doing so. Gloucester joined his mother in Paris but was removed from her custody when her attempts to convert him to Catholicism became known to Charles II. Even as a young boy he had impressed observers: Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, described him as ‘a prince of extraordinary hopes both from the comeliness and gracefulness of his person and the vivacity and vigour of his wit and understanding.’2 He was also brave: his service with the Spanish army, in which he fought alongside his brother James, duke of York, was marked by conspicuous gallantry.
Gloucester returned to England in May 1660 with his brothers, Charles II and York. Royalist propagandists depicted the three brothers as a sort of triptych of aristocratic virtues: the just king supported on the one hand by the military prowess of York and on the other by the wise counsel of Gloucester.3 His appointment in June 1660 as high steward of the former parliamentary stronghold of Gloucester suggests that had he lived he would have been expected to play a significant part in the electoral politics of that corporation. His only other known post, as ranger of Hyde Park, was almost immediately passed to James Hamilton.4
Still not quite 21, Gloucester took his seat without ceremony on 31 May, the day that the Lords agreed that ‘matters of honour do belong to his Majesty’ and that consequently the Oxford peers could be summoned. He attended regularly throughout June and July. On 6 June he was named to the committee of petitions and on 14 June to the committee to consider the question of whether peers should take the oath of allegiance. From the end of July, when the bill of indemnity had become the major topic of discussion, he began to attend almost every day. During this time he made a number of speeches which were received ‘with great applause.’ Although we have no record of what he said, he was clearly defending the alterations to the bill that had been made by the Lords. In August he was named as one of the managers of the various conferences on the same subject. He was also named to the committee to consider the claims made by John Paulet, 5th marquess of Winchester.
Shortly after Gloucester’s last attendance at the House on 28 Aug., he was taken ill. Although his illness was soon identified as smallpox, it was not thought to be life threatening. His unexpected death was blamed on ‘the great negligence’ of his doctors, and some private letters even suggested that one of the doctors ‘may have to account for it by the loss of his life’, but a post mortem revealed that Gloucester had died of a massive internal haemorrhage.5 He was buried with a private, but nevertheless lavish funeral, conducted by Gilbert Sheldon, bishop of London.6
R.P.