Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales

Henry was born at Stirling Castle, Scotland and became Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland automatically on his birth. Henry's baptism on 30 August 1594 was celebrated with complex theatrical entertainments written by poet William Fowler and a ceremony in a new Chapel Royal at Stirling purpose-built by William Schaw.[2] James VI set a tax of £100,000 for the expenses. Textiles and costume for the event were bought using Anne's dowry of £100,000 Scots which had been in the safekeeping of various towns.[3]

Elizabeth sent a miniature portrait by Nicholas Hilliard to Prince Henry

His father placed him in the care of John Erskine, Earl of Mar and his mother Annabell Murray at Stirling Castle, out of the care of the boy's mother, because James worried that the mother's tendency toward Catholicism might affect the son. The child's removal to Stirling caused enormous tension between Anne and James, and Henry remained there under the care of Mar's family until 1603.[4] James VI frequently visited the Prince at Stirling and in August 1595 encouraged the infant to hold a pen and write on a document, noting "I will testify this is the prince's own mark".[5]

In 1596 Queen Elizabeth, via the Earl of Essex and his secretary Anthony Bacon, sent her miniature portrait by Nicholas Hilliard to Prince Henry, and this was received by the Earl of Mar at Stirling.[6] George Lauder was one of his tutors.[7]

James became King of England in 1603 at the Union of the Crowns and his family moved south. Anne of Denmark came to Stirling to collect her son, and after a struggle was allowed to take Henry to Edinburgh on 28 May, and on the following Sunday took him to St Giles Kirk in her famous silver coach, and they subsequently travelled to England.[8] Henry was lodged at Oatlands and Nonsuch Palace, and was relocated to Winchester during an outbreak of plague. At Winchester, in September 1603, Anne of Denmark produced a masque to welcome her son, which was controversial.[9]

Henry's tutor Adam Newton continued to serve the Prince, and several Scottish servants from the Stirling household were retained, including the poet David Murray. Henry was tutored in music by Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger.[10]

In 1606 the French ambassador Antoine le Fèvre de la Boderie noted that Prince Henry (in England) played golf, which he described as a Scottish game not unlike "pallemail" or pall-mall. One of Prince Henry's biographers, "W. H.", mentioned that Henry nearly hit Adam Newton with a golf ball, and Henry said that would have paid him back.[11] Henry also played tennis, and in July 1606 played with his uncle Christian IV of Denmark at Greenwich Palace.[12] In 1607 Henry sought permission to learn to swim, but the Earls of Suffolk and Shrewsbury wrote to Newton that swimming was a "dangerous thing" that their own sons might practice "like feathers as light as things of nought", but was not suitable for Princes as "things of great weight and consequence".[13]

Portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, c. 1603

The king greatly preferred the role of schoolmaster to that of father, and he wrote texts for the schooling of his children. James directed that Henry's household "should rather imitate a College than a Court",[14] or, as Sir Thomas Chaloner wrote in 1607, "His Highness's household [...] was intended by the King for a courtly college or a collegiate court"[15] He passionately engaged in such physical pursuits as hawking, hunting, jousting and fencing,[16] and from a young age studied naval and military affairs and national issues, about which he often disagreed with his father. He also disapproved of the way his father conducted the royal court, disliked Robert Carr, a favourite of his father, and esteemed Sir Walter Raleigh, wishing him to be released from the Tower of London.[4]

The prince's popularity rose so high that it threatened his father. Relations between the two could be tense, and on occasion surfaced in public. At one point, the two were hunting near Royston when James criticised his son for lacking enthusiasm for the chase, and Henry initially moved to strike his father with a cane, but rode off. Most of the hunting party then followed the son.[14]

"Upright to the point of priggishness, he fined all who swore in his presence", according to Charles Carlton, a biographer of Charles I, who describes Henry as an "obdurate Protestant".[14] In addition to the alms box to which Henry forced swearers to contribute, he made sure his household attended church services. His religious views were influenced by the clerics in his household, who came largely from a tradition of politicised Calvinism. Henry listened humbly, attentively, and regularly to the sermons preached to his household, and once told his chaplain, Richard Milbourne, that he esteemed most the preachers whose attitude suggested, "Sir, you must hear me diligently: you must have a care to observe what I say."[15]

Henry is said to have disliked his younger brother, Charles, and to have teased him, although this derives from only one anecdote: when Charles was nine years of age, Henry snatched the hat off a bishop and put it on the younger child's head, then told his younger brother that when he became king he would make Charles Archbishop of Canterbury, and then Charles would have a long robe to hide his ugly rickety legs. Charles stamped on the cap and had to be dragged off in tears.[14]

Portrait by Robert Peake the Elder, c. 1610

With his father's accession to the throne of England in 1603, Henry at once became Duke of Cornwall. In 1610 he was further invested as Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, thus for the first time uniting the six automatic and two traditional Scottish and English titles held by heirs-apparent to the two thrones. The ceremony of investiture was celebrated with a pageant London's Love to Prince Henry, and a masque Tethys' Festival during which his mother gave a sword encrusted with diamonds, intended to represent justice.[17]

As a young man, Henry showed great promise and was beginning to be active in leadership matters. Among his activities, he was responsible for the reassignment of Sir Thomas Dale to the Virginia Company of London's struggling colony in North America.

The Irish Gaelic lord of Inishowen, Sir Cahir O'Doherty, had applied to gain a position as a courtier in the household of Henry, to help him in his struggles against officials in Ireland. Unknown to Sir Cahir, on 19 April 1608, the day he launched O'Doherty's Rebellion by burning Derry, his application was approved.[18] Henry took an interest in the Kingdom of Ireland and was known to be supportive of the idea of a reconciliation with the former rebel Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who had fled into exile during the Flight of the Earls. Because of this Tyrone and his entourage mourned when the Prince met his early death.[19]

Henry died from typhoid fever at the age of 18, during the celebrations that led up to his sister Elizabeth's wedding. (The diagnosis can be made with reasonable certainty from written records of the post-mortem examination, which was ordered to be carried out in order to dispel rumours of poisoning.)[20] He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Prince Henry's death was widely regarded as a tragedy for the nation. According to Charles Carlton, "Few heirs to the English throne have been as widely and deeply mourned as Prince Henry."[21] His body lay in state at St. James's Palace for four weeks. On 7 December, over a thousand people walked in the mile-long cortège to Westminster Abbey to hear a two-hour sermon delivered by George Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury. As Henry's body was lowered into the ground, his chief servants broke their staves of office at the grave. An insane man ran naked through the mourners, yelling that he was the boy's ghost.[14]

Immediately after Henry's death, the prince's brother Charles fell ill, but he was the chief mourner at the funeral, which his father, King James (who detested funerals) refused to attend.[14] Henry's titles of Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay passed to Charles, who until then had lived in Henry's shadow. Four years later Charles, by then 16 years old, was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.