Stirling Castle 1594 to 1603

It all started at Stirling Castle, nursery and protector of Scottish monarchs. Henry grew up here until the age of ten.

A coterie of loving but hard-line Scottish Protestants educated him intensively, from the age of four. They saw the break with Roman Catholicism as the defining moment of their time. To them, the Protestant reformation stalled half way to victory over Rome. It just needed a figurehead to complete the reforming mission. Their prince would be that man.

Among the first to arrive was Adam Newton, an Edinburgh baker’s son. Devout Calvinist, humanist scholar, he was Henry’s private tutor. Richard Preston, veteran of Europe’s religious wars, came to develop other sides of their Renaissance prince. Soon Henry and his friends loved nothing better than ‘active and manly exercises’, learning to ride, sing, dance, leap, shoot with the bow and gun, toss the pike, and being instructed in the use of arms’.

James trusted the Earl of Mar, the king’s oldest friend, with overall charge of Henry’s home. James VI grew up with Mar, whom he called ‘Jocky O’Sclaittis’ – Jock o’ Slates – recalling their school days. Hereditary keepers of Stirling, the godly Mars were the traditional Guardians of Scottish monarchs.

James himself contributed to his son’s education. He wrote Basilikon Doron for Henry: ‘The King’s Gift’. A practical guide to ruling, by someone in a unique position to know what he was talking about; it’s a how-to manual for moulding the divinely appointed monarch.

In it, James talked to Henry about everything from love and marriage, to when and how to wage war – and when not to. He discussed the military arts, sports, clothes, favourites, religion, and the nature of kingship. The king was a witty and clever man and Basilikon Doron became a European bestseller. People loved imagining they were eavesdropping on the private exchanges of royal father and son.

Richmond Palace, 1611, when it was Henry’s

An Inigo Jones costume for a Star in Henry’s masque, ‘Oberon’ (1611)

The New WORld – henry and america

Typical young man, his energy and ambitions were boundless. He reviewed Britain’s naval and military capacity, and set about modernising it. He patronised cutting-edge science, funding the acquisition of telescopes and automata. Becoming patron of the Northwest Passage Company, Henry yearned to sail through the barriers of the known world to explore new continents.

Called ‘the heir of Virginia’, Henry was behind the push to plant the British race permanently in American soil. The pioneer colonists first made land at the mouth of the James River, and promptly named the place, Cape Henry. The prince’s gunner, Robert Tindall drew up the first ever map of the Chesapeake area of Virginia for his prince. Henry found it exotic and alluring.

By 1610, Henry shone at the centre of the Court of St James’s. His court magnetised artists, musicians, scientists, explorers, and writers. Some of the most talented men of his generation, like Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, worked for him. A Renaissance prince, charismatic, vigorous, brave and cultured, he was seen to embody all the princely virtues. They were excited to be around him. Playwright John Webster said, it was ‘as if we stood in some spacious theatre, wondering what’ he would achieve for Britain.

Against the backdrop of growing religious instability in Europe, Henry schooled himself to be ready to lead all Christendom’s Protestants against a militant Catholic League threatening them. A cosmic conflict for the soul of Christendom loomed on their horizon.

The Thirty Years’ War began in 1618 and it would eventually claim the lives of nearly half the population of the German states, and devastate central Europe for decades.

King James, self-styled ‘King of Peace’, felt pride and discomfort when he considered his stellar son. At home and abroad, Henry seemed bent on action, intervention, and change. The prince entertained some politically and religiously radical men. They wanted to strengthen the rule of law by reforming the monarchy. The future Henry IX should rule through his parliament. Not, as his father and brother Charles did, by dismissing them, and issuing edicts by invoking the divine right of kings.

Whether you suspected Henry’s motives, or cheered him on, suddenly became irrelevant. Henry caught typhoid in the autumn of 1612. After suffering the barbaric treatment that passed for cures in 1612 – being bled, blistered, purged with vomitories and enemas – Prince Henry died, delirious with pain.

The King ordered a state funeral to satisfy his people’s need to grieve their golden prince.  But then… Henry disappeared from history. the story of his amazing state funeral, and the subsequent suppression of his legacy is the subject of next week’s blog…

The BBC loved Henry’s story and were intrigued by how little known he is today. They decided to put that right. Based on my lief of Henry, on Nov 30, BBC 2 Scotland, you can follow Paul Murton (Grand Tours of Scotland) and me on a journey to find a lost prince and restore him to our national memory.