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The Myth of the Conqueror: Prince Henry Stuart : A Study of 17th Century Personation (Ams Studies in the Renaissance)

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After the death of Elizabeth, James VI of Scotland was welcomed to the English throne by wildly jubilent subjects. Most of their joy came from relief over the smooth succession and the avoidance of the devastating civil war that many of the Virgin Queen's subjects anticipated with dread. Suddenly the nightmare of an uncertain succession was a thing of the past. Here was an experienced king, a relatively young man wed to a king's daughter, and the father of three healthy children. England fell in love with the heir to the throne, the handsome, athletic, effortlessly regal and highly promising Prince Henry.

This book is not so much a biography of the young prince, but a study of his "personation." From his birth, Henry was the focus of myth-makers: clergymen, poets, noblemen, all eager to impose their own agendas. He would be a warrior king -- Henry V reborn. He would be the Protestant champion who would unite Protestant Europe and drive the Papists into oblivion. He would undo the lifework of his peacemaker father and rekindle the age-old conflict against Spain. He would promote English patriotism not only through war, but through aggressive colonization. He would rebuild the crumbling navy, and make England a power to be respected and feared. And he might have done all this and more, had he not died at the age of eighteen.

In a very real sense, a study of the myth -- the personation -- is a study of Henry's life. The young prince apparently absorbed these expectations and attempted to mold himself to fulfill them. He excelled in martial sports, was a fine horsemen, and was fascinated with naval and military history. He carried on correspondence with Henry VI of France, befriended Sir Walter Ralegh, supported the colonization of Virginia. The Puritans held up his austere, disciplined life as an example, as well as a rebuke the decadence of the Jacobean court.

It's tempting to speculate on what might have been. What if the athletic prince had contented himself with another tennis match rather than swimming in the highly poluted Thames? What if the medicine that the imprisoned Ralegh sent (probably quinine, which might have broken the debilitating fever)had been administered earlier? If Henry lived, could he have averted the Civil War that shattered his younger brother's reign? Or would he have led England into a disastrous continental war? This book suggests some interesting possibilities.

Not recommended for the casual reader, but an excellent addition to the library of anyone who is interested in the history of the early 17th century, and the fascinating story of the Stuart dynasty.