[BITList] Hawking, hunting, running, leaping

[John Feltham]

========================================================================



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Henry Frederick, prince of Wales  (1594-1612), was born early on 19  
February 1594 at Stirling Castle. He was the eldest child of King  
James VI of Scotland  (1566-1625) and Anne  (1574-1619), second  
daughter of Frederick II, king of Denmark, and Sophia, and older  
sister of Christian IV. Although Henry's birth was celebrated  
immediately in Scotland, his baptism awaited the arrival of the earl  
of Sussex, proxy of Queen Elizabeth, the child's sole godparent. The  
ceremony finally took place on 30 August 1594 in the Chapel Royal at  
Stirling Castle. Henry's birth and baptism were marked by myriad  
festivities: nativity poems, banquets, tilts, and masques.

Childhood, 1594-1603

Two days after Henry's birth arrangements were made for his fostering  
with James's confidante, John Erskine, second earl of Mar, and his  
mother, Annabel Murray. Stirling Castle was then Mar's residence and  
there the prince was to live, legally removed from his reputedly Roman  
Catholic mother, who kept her primary residences at Edinburgh Castle  
and Buccleuch. The separation from her infant caused Anne great pain  
and in March 1595 she began vigorously to fight these arrangements,  
attracting powerful allies such as Chancellor Maitland to her cause of  
familial reunion. Her angry machinations were directed primarily  
against Mar, but James too fell victim to her well-considered efforts.  
Nevertheless, the king was steadfast in his choice of Mar: in July  
1595 he wrote to his friend, 'not to deliver [Henry] out of your hands  
except I command you with my own mouth'  (Barroll, 23). At the behest  
of her own mother, Anne gave up her bid for Henry and was reconciled  
with her husband and Mar in August 1595. Although signs of her  
displeasure continued to surface, Henry remained at Stirling until the  
spring of 1603.

In 1598 James clarified his educational programme for Henry in his  
Basilicon doron. Though originally written in Middle Scots it was  
reworked by James in English the following year; only a few copies of  
this 1599 version were printed, suggesting that the king intended it  
primarily for the edification of his heir and those near to him. In  
July 1599 James named the scholar Adam Newton as the prince's tutor,  
and placed the learned Sir David Murray in the youth's bedchamber.  
Along with Mar, these two men were charged with Henry's education. The  
courageous, resilient youth proved especially adept at sports and  
physical exercises, demonstrating early a penchant for endeavours  
equine and matters military. His promise was already recognized far  
beyond Scotland. Early in 1603 James received an offer from Pope  
Clement VIII of financial support for his bid for the English throne  
if he would transfer Henry to Rome for further education.  
Unsurprisingly, James refused.

When Elizabeth I died in late March 1603, James VI of Scotland was  
immediately recognized as King James I of England, and Henry acquired  
the title duke of Cornwall. James left Edinburgh for London on 4 April  
1603, accompanied by numerous nobles including Mar. Despite being four  
months pregnant, Anne was to follow James in mid-May, leaving Henry  
and her other two children, Princess Elizabeth  (1596-1662) and Prince  
Charles  (1600-1649), behind to continue their Scottish fostering.  
This is not what transpired, however, for Anne seized the opportunity  
to assert control over Henry's upbringing. She travelled to Stirling  
on 4 May and insisted that the prince be handed over. Initially  
rebuffed by Mar's mother and younger brother, Anne experienced a fury  
and despair so intense that she miscarried on 10 May; despite her  
illness, she steadfastly refused to leave Stirling without Henry. News  
of this situation reached James in England, and he commissioned Mar to  
return to Scotland and bring Anne to England. Mar failed: Anne  
declined to see him or to leave unless Henry was with her. Towards the  
end of May, James relented, officially transferring Mar's  
responsibilities for Henry to the duke of Lennox. Lennox then gave  
Henry up to the privy council, which, at the king's urging, delivered  
the prince to Anne. She returned to Edinburgh accompanied by Henry on  
27 May, and together they departed for England on 1 June 1603. Due to  
Anne's fortitude, the new duke of Cornwall arrived in England much  
sooner than James intended.

English adolescence, 1603-1610

On their journey into England, Anne and Henry were hosted from 25-27  
June at Althorp (Northamptonshire) by the Spencers, who regaled them  
with entertainments scripted by Ben Jonson. The two were soon reunited  
with James and they proceeded toward Windsor Castle, arriving on 30  
June. On 2 July Henry was invested as a knight of the Garter. His  
august bearing and lively intelligence during this ceremony impressed  
the English privy councillors the earls of Northampton and Nottingham.  
Due to concerns about the plague Henry was then removed to Oatlands  
Palace, Surrey, where James constituted Henry's first household,  
perhaps again trying to isolate the youth from his mother. He made Sir  
Thomas Chaloner governor, kept on Newton and Murray as tutors, and  
surrounded Henry with other trusted men and youths, numbering 141 by  
the year's end. Anne rose valiantly to this new challenge: in 1604 she  
forced the dissolution of Oatlands. As a result Henry took up a  
peripatetic life, moving between Nonsuch, Richmond, St James's, and  
other palaces, with Anne now enjoying near-constant access to him.

In August 1603 Henry was visited at Oatlands by Scaramelli, the  
Venetian ambassador, who (like Northampton and Nottingham) was struck  
by his wit and carriage: 'He is ceremonious beyond his years',  
remarked Scaramelli, 'and with great gravity he covered and bade me be  
covered. Through an interpreter he gave me a long discourse on his  
exercises, dancing, tennis, the chase'  (Wilson, 18-19). The first two  
of Henry's many portraits, painted at Oatlands by Robert Peake the  
elder that autumn, accord well with the Venetian's report: both depict  
the heir as an athletic young huntsman triumphing over a slain deer.

These references to Prince Henry at Oatlands, both verbal and visual,  
proved indicative of his future behaviour and interests. His  
ceremoniousness surfaced often. Anne and her ladies regaled him with a  
masque at Winchester in mid-October 1603 and he probably attended her  
twelfth night masques of 1604, 1605, and 1608; he expressed great  
interest in Anne's 1609 show, The Masque of Queens; he danced  
brilliantly at the conclusion of Jonson's 1606 marriage spectacle,  
Hymenaei; and he attended entertainments hosted by Robert Cecil, earl  
of Salisbury, in 1606, 1607, and 1609. Henry also appeared in venues  
beyond the court milieu. On 15 March 1604, accompanying his parents,  
he entered London amid great fanfare, and on 16 July 1607 he was  
initiated into the company of the Merchant Taylors at their guildhall.  
Henry's comportment at Oxford in July 1605, when he visited for four  
days and symbolically matriculated at Magdalen College, similarly  
reassured learned men of his determined (if not bookish) wisdom.

Prince Henry often displayed a preference for sports over learning.  
Newton and others encouraged him in his studies but his enthusiasm and  
energy were otherwise directed. An apocryphal tale has James scolding  
Henry for his lack of diligence in studies compared to his younger  
brother Charles, and Henry retorting, then 'we'll make him archbishop  
of Canterbury'  (Strong, 15). Henry's inclinations were noticed by  
many outside his immediate family. Sir Charles Cornwallis, treasurer  
of Henry's household and his biographer, remarked that the prince  
'pl[ied] his book hard for two or three years, continuing all his  
princely sports, hawking, hunting, running at the ring, leaping,  
riding of great horses, dancing, fencing, tossing of the  
pike'  (Wilson, 19-20). And the French ambassador, La Boderie, writing  
on 31 October 1606, reported that:

none of his pleasures savour the least of a child. He is a particular  
lover of horses ... He studies two hours a day, and employs the rest  
of his time in tossing the pike, or leaping, or shooting with the bow,  
or throwing the bar, or vaulting. (Strong, 66)

Increasingly Henry displayed ebullience in military, chivalric, and  
naval endeavours. He encouraged friends to send him secret reports on  
French fortifications, and he received suits of armour from several  
well-wishers. Gifts of horses were frequent, and during 1607-9 Henry  
sponsored the erection of a riding school at St James's Palace. When  
his uncle Christian IV of Denmark visited England in July-August 1606  
the prince tilted before him. And from 6 March 1604, when Lord Admiral  
Nottingham presented him with a small ship-the Disdain-designed by  
Phineas Pett, Henry's passion for maritime pursuit was unflagging.  
Pett later crafted the mammoth Prince Royal (1608-10) for the heir,  
who returned the favour by successfully, if blindly, protecting Pett  
from well-founded charges of corruption in May 1608. Henry was also a  
supporter of Sir Walter Ralegh, who though imprisoned in the Tower of  
London by James remained a valued correspondent and adviser on naval,  
colonial, and matrimonial matters. As the prince, often compared to  
Sir Philip Sidney and the second earl of Essex, promoted Elizabethan- 
style rites of knighthood and sea voyages of exploration, he  
electrified a resurgent war party frustrated by James's pacific  
policies. Likenesses of Henry from these teenage years repeatedly  
capture these martial interests. Marcus Gheeraerts the younger  
portrays him in his Garter robes and sporting a ship jewel upon his  
headdress (1608); an anonymous artist paints Henry in the suit of  
armour received from Henri IV (after 1607); Rowland Lockey fashions a  
miniature depicting the prince in armour from the prince de Joinville  
(1607); and Robert Peake depicts the heir as a dashing young conqueror  
about to unsheathe his sword in a canvas for the duke of Savoy  
(1604-10).

In religion Henry was unambiguously protestant, and in manners  
abstemious. Having survived the Gunpowder Plot of November 1605, his  
fervent commitment to reformed causes, both in England and on the  
continent, increased. Cornwallis recalls that he was 'a reverent and  
attentive hearer of sermons', that he had 'boxes kept at ... St James,  
Richmond, and Nonsuch', and that he demanded 'all those who did swear  
in his hearing, to pay moneys to the same, which were after duly given  
to the poor'  (Wilson, 41-2). A proclaimed enemy of Roman Catholicism,  
Henry worked zealously to root out recusants and bring them to  
justice. Books of all kinds were dedicated to Henry throughout his  
life, but the sermons, commentaries, and religious epistles of  
protestant clerics and reformers were especially plentiful.

Henry's burgeoning household included the godly, the learned, and the  
militant. Chaloner complained in 1607 of the expenses of this 'courtly  
college or ... collegiate court'  (Birch, 97) and Cornwallis claimed  
that nearly 500 men were attached to Henry by 1610. Chief among the  
prince's contemporaries were John Harington of Exton, the third earl  
of Essex, and William Cecil, Lord Cranborne. Henry's older friends  
included Edward Cecil and the earls of Southampton and Arundel.  
Outside of this immediate circle Prince Henry was widely noted, and  
the king's privy council paid him great respect. In fact, Salisbury  
seems to have encouraged the prince's inquiries into foreign affairs,  
and even sought his opinion on matters such as the Julich-Cleves  
succession crisis of 1609-10.

Prince Henry's scrutiny of events abroad was answered by great  
continental interest in the ambitious English heir apparent,  
especially as a potential marriage partner. Catholic proposals were  
more frequent than protestant offers. The grand duke of Tuscany looked  
into such possibilities as early as 1601. The potential of a match  
with the Spanish infanta was first broached in November 1603 and  
resurfaced again in 1605; the alliance was still being mooted as late  
as 1610, when Philip III secretly matched the infanta with the French  
dauphin following the assassination of Henri IV. To placate James,  
Philip encouraged the duke of Savoy to effect a double match between  
his children and Henry and Elizabeth, a proposal that caused great  
stir in London. The prince and many of his circle, such as Ralegh,  
were violently opposed to the Savoyard proposals, and following his  
investiture as prince of Wales, Henry took the lead in discovering a  
suitable protestant prince for Elizabeth, and searched too for a  
reformed bride for himself. Henry's earnestness in looking for a  
proper wife-he supposedly rejected the Catholic matches tendered by  
James with the rejoinder that 'two religions should never lie in [my]  
bed'  (Williamson, 135)-gives the lie to his reputed dalliance with  
Frances Howard.

Prince of Wales, 1610-1612

Henry's installation as prince of Wales in June 1610 conferred  
financial and political independence and increased prestige. In  
February 1609 a special tax for his knighting had been levied.  
Although the privy council urged James, for monetary reasons, to delay  
the creation for two years, the heir refused to wait. Late in 1609  
Henry commissioned research on previous installations of princes of  
Wales; arguing from historical precedent his servant Connock reported  
that Henry should be created in parliament as soon as possible. By  
1609 Salisbury had accepted Henry's and Connock's position, and he  
commissioned William Camden and Robert Cotton to conduct further  
research to articulate the prince of Wales's prerogatives vis-a-vis  
parliament and the monarch. Armed with their opinions in December,  
Salisbury was able to convince James and his fellow privy councillors  
that the installation should occur quickly, perhaps even in February  
1610, on or near Henry's sixteenth birthday. Due to lack of money the  
event was delayed until London agreed to a loan of £100,000.

On 4 June 1610 Henry was created prince of Wales and earl of Chester  
by his father in an elaborate ritual scripted by Salisbury. The  
installation took place in the court of requests at Westminster Palace  
before both houses of parliament and numerous guests; everyone  
compared the ceremony to a coronation. Trappings of solemnity were  
ubiquitous: the chamber had been hung with arras; all participants  
were lavishly robed and carefully seated; the prince donned an ermine- 
lined gown costing more than £1300; symbolic tokens-a sword, ring,  
verge, and coronet-were bestowed upon Henry; and an illuminated patent  
was proclaimed by Salisbury in both Latin and English.

This extraordinary quasi-sacramental parliamentary installation was  
surrounded by a whole year of court festivities that further demarcate  
1610 as the signal year in Henry's short life: on 6 January he tilted  
and performed in Ben Jonson's and Inigo Jones's neo-Arthurian show,  
The Barriers; on 31 May he enjoyed a water pageant on the Thames at  
Chelsea performed by a fleet of City boats and barges; on 3 June he  
witnessed the creation of twenty-five knights of the Bath he had  
personally selected; on the evening of his installation, Henry and his  
father attended Tethys Festival, a masque written by Samuel Daniel and  
designed by Jones; on 5 June he tilted again; and finally, on 1  
January 1611, he witnessed Jonson's and Jones's famous show, Oberon,  
along with the Barriers his most important masque commission.

At the time of his investiture Henry maintained the appearance of a  
healthy, sturdy teenager. One of his biographers, probably his  
bedchamberer William Haydon, recalls that:

he was tall and ... strong and well proportioned ... his eyes quick  
and pleasant, his forehead broad, his nose big, his chin broad and  
cloven, his hair inclining to black ... his whole face and visage  
comely and beautiful ... with a sweet, smiling, and amiable  
countenance ... full of gravity. (Strong, 12)
Haydon claimed Henry resembled his uncle Christian IV. In the autumn  
of 1611 his physiognomy altered to favour his mother. Hawkins, another  
biographer, wrote that 'his visage began to appear somewhat paler,  
longer and thinner than before'  (Strong, 12), and Francis Bacon  
remembered 'his face long and inclining to leanness ... his look  
grave ... the motion of his eyes composed' and expressing 'marks of  
severity'  (Strong, 12). This adult countenance, focused and stern, is  
marvellously depicted in Isaac Oliver's miniature of about 161012:  
Henry, clad in gilt armour, gazes confidently outward; a cannon and  
several armed soldiers before an encampment appear in the background.

Officially ensconced in St James's Palace, Henry developed into a  
major patron of the arts. He commissioned the Florentine architect de  
Servi and the Huguenot hydraulic engineer and garden designer de Caus  
to plan major renovations (never realized) at Richmond Palace, and he  
launched Inigo Jones's career. He avidly collected mannerist paintings  
from northern Italian and Netherlandish artists (although he never  
acquired a much-desired Michelangelo), Florentine bronzes (a  
remarkable set of fifteen arrived in May 1612), antique coins, medals,  
and cameos, and curiosities of every variety. He sponsored musicians  
and scientific inquiry at St James's. He inspired the praise of  
numerous authors, including George Chapman, John Davies, Michael  
Drayton, and Henry Peacham, and Francis Bacon dedicated the second  
edition of the Essays (1612) to Henry. After the prince acquired Lord  
Lumley's library in October 1609 he continued eagerly to collect books  
until his untimely death.

During the busy summer and autumn of 1612 Henry's arrangements for the  
visit of Frederick, the elector palatine, his chosen match for  
Elizabeth, particularly occupied him. Then, without warning, he fell  
desperately ill with fever (now thought to be typhoid) in mid-October;  
despite the best efforts of a bevy of doctors, including Theodore de  
Mayerne, the king's physician, he died on 6 November 1612. St James's  
was draped in black, and there was widespread grief across the nation,  
shared by many abroad. He lay in state for more than a month until his  
funeral on 7 December at Westminster Abbey; he was buried within an  
abbey chapel twelve days later. Among those who memorialized the  
prince were Thomas Campion, John Donne, Joseph Hall, and George  
Herbert. Ralegh perhaps best captured the gloomy mood, claiming his  
History (1614) was 'left to the world without a master'  (Wilson, 143).

Despite the jolt caused by Henry's death, estimations of what was lost  
have been greatly inflated, then and now. Clearly the prince of Wales  
was ambitious and bright, dedicated to protestant reform and artistic  
renewal. However, his death probably purchased six years of additional  
peace for protestant England and Catholic Europe before the  
misfortunes of his sister Elizabeth and brother-in-law Frederick in  
1618 led to thirty years of religious wars. Moreover, given the  
flowering of al' antica culture in later Jacobean and Caroline  
England, the notion that England lost a renaissance with his demise  
seems inflated. Future research on this fascinating individual might  
wisely emphasize cultural continuity instead of rupture, and further  
investigate Roman Catholic relief at his passing in addition to  
protestant mourning.

James M. Sutton

Sources  R. C. Strong, Henry, prince of Wales, and England's lost  
Renaissance (1986) + J. W. Williamson, The myth of the conqueror:  
Prince Henry Stuart, a study of 17th century personation (1978) + E.  
C. Wilson, Prince Henry and English literature (1946) + T. Birch, ed.,  
The life of Henry, prince of Wales (1760) + J. L. Barroll, Anna of  
Denmark, queen of England: a cultural biography (2001) + W. W. Seton,  
'The early years of Henry Frederick, prince of Wales, and Charles,  
duke of Albany [Charles I], 1593-1605', SHR, 13 (1915-16), 366-79 +  
DNB + P. Croft, 'The parliamentary installation of Henry, prince of  
Wales', BIHR, 65 (1992), 177-93 + C. A. Patrides, '"The greatest of  
the kingly race": the death of Henry Stuart', The Historian, 47  
(1985), 402-8 + R. Badenhausen, 'Disarming the infant warrior: Prince  
Henry, King James, and the chivalric revival', Papers on Language and  
Literature, 31/1 (1995), 20-37 + M. C. Williams, 'Merlin and the  
prince: the speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers', Renaissance Drama, 7  
(1977), 221-30 + J. Pitcher, '"In those figures which they seem":  
Samuel Daniel's Tethys' festival', The court masque, ed. D. Lindley  
(1984), 33-46 + R. Lockyer, James VI and I (1998) + P. C. Herman, '"Is  
this winning?": Prince Henry's death and the problem of chivalry in  
The two noble kinsmen', South Atlantic Review, 62/1 (winter 1997),  
1-32 + R. H. Wells, '"Manhood and chevalrie": Coriolanus, Prince  
Henry, and the chivalric revival', Review of English Studies, 51  
(2000), 395-422 + A. R. Beer, '"Left to the world without a maister":  
Sir Walter Ralegh's The history of the world as a public text',  
Studies in Philology, 91/4 (autumn 1994), 432-63 + J. R. Mulryne,  
'"Here's unfortunate revels": war and chivalry in plays and shows at  
the time of Prince Henry Stuart', War, literature and the arts in  
sixteenth-century Europe, ed. J. R. Mulryne and M. Shewring (1989),  
165-96 + E. Y. L. Ho, 'Author and reader in renaissance texts: Fulke  
Greville, Sidney, and Prince Henry', Connotations, 5/1 (1995-6), 34-48  
+ R. Soellner, 'Chapman's Caesar and Pompey and the fortunes of Prince  
Henry', Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, 2 (1985), 135-51 +  
S. Gossett, 'A new history for Ralegh's Notes on the navy', Modern  
Philology, 85 (1987), 12-26
Archives BL, papers and corresp., Harley MSS 7002, 7007, 7008, 7009 |  
Archivio di Stato, Florence, MS 4189 + Archivio di Stato, Florence,  
ASF Mediceo 1348, 1349, 1350 + TNA: PRO, audit office and state papers
Likenesses  M. Gheeraerts the younger, oils, c.1603, NPG · R. Peake  
the elder, double portrait, oils, 1603 (with J. Harington),  
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; version, Royal Collection · R.  
Peake the elder, oils, 1604-10, Palazzo Chiablese, Turin, Italy · R.  
Peake, oils, c.1605, Museum of London · N. Hilliard, miniature,  
watercolour, 1607, Royal Collection · attrib. R. Lockey, miniature,  
watercolour, 1607, Royal Collection · oils, c.1607, Dunster Castle,  
Minehead, Somerset · N. Hilliard, miniature, watercolour, c.1607-1610,  
Royal Collection · studio of I. Oliver, miniature, watercolour, c. 
1610, NPG · R. Peake, oils, c.1610, Magd. Oxf. · R. Peake the elder,  
oils, 1610, Parham Park, Pulborough, Sussex · R. Peake the elder,  
oils, c.1610, NPG · I. Oliver, miniature, oils, c.1610-1611, FM Cam. ·  
I. Oliver, miniature, watercolour, c.1610-1612, Royal Collection [see  
illus.] · S. de Passe, line engraving, 1610?-1612?, BM · I. Jones,  
drawing, 1611, Chatsworth, Derbyshire, Devonshire collections · C.  
Boel, line engraving, 1612, BM · H. Peacham, emblem, 1612, repro. in  
H. Peacham, Minerva Britanna (1612) · W. Hole, line engraving, BM;  
repro. in G. Chapman, An epicede (1612) · W. Hole, line engraving, BM,  
NPG; repro. in M. Drayton, Poly-Olbion (1612) · C. de Passe, line  
engraving, BM; repro. in C. de Passe, Regiae Angliae ... pictura  
(Cologne, 1604) · attrib. R. Peake the elder, oils, priv. coll.; on  
loan to Scot. NPG · medals, BM · portraits, repro. in Strong, Henry ·  
portraits, repro. in Williamson, Myth of the conqueror