Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester

Henry Stuart
Duke of Gloucester
Portrait by Jan Boeckhorst, c. 1659[1]
Born	8 July 1640 Oatlands Palace, Surrey, England
Died	13 September 1660(1660-09-13) (aged 20) Palace of Whitehall, London, England
Burial	21 September 1660 Westminster Abbey, London
House	Stuart
Father	Charles I of England
Mother	Henrietta Maria of France

Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester (8 July 1640 – 13 September 1660)^[a] was the youngest son of Charles I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and his wife, Henrietta Maria of France. He is also known as Henry of Oatlands.^[2][3][4]

From the age of two, Henry and his sister Elizabeth were separated from their family during the English Civil War and became prisoners of Parliament. For several years, the children were constantly transported from one residence to another due to the plague raging in London. They also periodically changed their governesses and guardians to those more loyal to the government. In 1645, Henry and Elizabeth were joined by their elder brother James, Duke of York, who found himself in a difficult financial situation. In 1647, Charles I was arrested, and during the years 1647–1648 he was allowed to see his children several times. In April 1648 James fled the country; it was probably planned that he would take Henry with him, but Elizabeth was afraid to let her younger brother go. When in 1649 Charles I was sentenced to death, he, fearing that Henry would be proclaimed king and made a puppet of the government, took an oath from his eight-year-old son not to take the crown for anything while both of his older brothers were alive.

After the execution of Charles I, Scotland proclaimed his eldest son Charles II as their sovereign. In the summer of 1650, he landed in Scotland, which prompted Parliament to send the children of the late monarch to Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, where their father had previously been imprisoned. Before leaving for Carisbrooke, Henry and Elizabeth were stripped of all titles and privileges. Shortly after arriving on the Isle of Wight in September 1650, Henry's sister fell ill and died. Henry remained at Carisbrooke until the following year, when, with the permission of Oliver Cromwell, he returned to the continent, where he eventually joined his mother in Paris. With Henrietta Maria, whom the prince had not seen for eleven years, Henry did not have a good understanding: the prince was an ardent Protestant, and his mother was an implacable Catholic. The Queen, against the wishes of her late husband and eldest son, tried to convert Henry to Catholicism, but this only deteriorated their relationship. Henry went to his brother Charles in Cologne. In 1657, the prince fought on the side of the Spanish against France with his brother James. In May 1659, Charles restored to his brother the title of Duke of Gloucester, which Henry had been deprived of by Parliament in 1650, and bestowed the title of Earl of Cambridge.

After the restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660, Henry accompanied his brother during his return to Britain. There Henry received a number of appointments, but before the coronation of Charles II, he contracted smallpox and died. He was buried in the vault of Mary, Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey, where his elder sister Mary, who also died of smallpox, was buried a few weeks later.

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