Accession of Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland.

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Charles I of England, English Civil War, Henri IV of France, Henrietta-Maria of France, Henry Frederick Prince of Wales, James VI-I of Scotland and England, Marie de' Medici, Monarchy, Parliament

Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from March 27, 1625 until his execution in 1649.

Charles was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603 (as James I), he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1612 on the death of his elder brother Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to the Spanish Habsburg princess Maria Anna culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiations. Two years later he married the Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France, the youngest daughter of Henri IV of France (Henri III of Navarre) and his second wife, Marie de’ Medici, and named after her parents.

Henrietta Maria of France

After his succession on March 27, 1625, Charles quarrelled with the Parliament of England, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. Charles believed in the divine right of kings, and was determined to govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent, and perceived his actions as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch. His religious policies, coupled with his marriage to a Roman Catholic, generated the antipathy and mistrust of Reformed groups such as the English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters, who thought his views were too Catholic. He supported high church Anglican ecclesiastics, such as Richard Montagu and William Laud, and failed to aid Protestant forces successfully during the Thirty Years’ War. His attempts to force the Church of Scotland to adopt high Anglican practices led to the Bishops’ Wars, strengthened the position of the English and Scottish parliaments, and helped precipitate his own downfall.

From 1642, Charles fought the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War. After his defeat in 1645, he surrendered to a Scottish force that eventually handed him over to the English Parliament. Charles refused to accept his captors’ demands for a constitutional monarchy, and temporarily escaped captivity in November 1647. Re-imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, Charles forged an alliance with Scotland, but by the end of 1648 Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army had consolidated its control over England. Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished and the Commonwealth of England was established as a republic. The monarchy would be restored to Charles’s son, Charles II, in 1660.

February 19, 1594: birth of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales

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Calvanism, Charles Stuart, Henry Frederick Prince of Wales, Henry IX of England, James VI-I of Scotland and England, Sir Walter Raleigh, Tower of London

Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (February 19, 1594 – November 6, 1612)was the eldest son of James VI and I, King of England and Scotland, and his wife Anne of Denmark. His name derives from his grandfathers: Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley and King Frederik II of Denmark. Prince Henry was widely seen as a bright and promising heir to his father’s thrones. However, at the age of 18, he predeceased his father when he died of typhoid fever. His younger brother Charles succeeded him as heir apparent to the English, Irish and Scottish thrones.

Henry was born at Stirling Castle, and since his father James VI was the reigning King of Scotland the new born prince and heir 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 August 30, 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.

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.

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.

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.

“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”. 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 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.

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.) 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.” 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.

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. 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.

Had he lived he would have reigned as King Henry IX of England, Scotland and Ireland….and the history of England would have been very different.

November 19, 1600: Birth of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland. Part I.

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Charles I of England, Duke of York, Happy Birthday, Henry Frederick Prince of Wales, James I of England, James VI-I of Scotland and England, Kings and Queens of England

Today I will begin a series on the life of King Charles I of England. In the coming weeks I will include entries on his marriage his accession to the throne, his reign and the English Civil War, culminating in his trial which I will cover on its anniversary this January.

Charles I of England was the second son of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, Charles was born in Dunfermline Palace, Fife, on November 19, 1600. At a Protestant ceremony in the Chapel Royal of Holyrood Palace in Edinburghon 23 December 1600, he was baptised by David Lindsay, Bishop of Ross, and created Duke of Albany, the traditional title of the second son of the King of Scotland, with the subsidiary titles of Marquess of Ormond, Earl of Ross and Lord Ardmannoch.

James VI was the first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth I of England, and when she died childless in March 1603, he became King of England as James I. Charles was a weak and sickly infant, and while his parents and older siblings left for England in April and early June that year, due to his fragile health, he remained in Scotland with his father’s friend Lord Fyvie, appointed as his guardian.

In January 1605, Charles was created Duke of York, as is customary in the case of the English sovereign’s second son, and made a Knight of the Bat. Thomas Murray, a presbyterian Scot, was appointed as a tutor. Charles learnt the usual subjects of classics, languages, mathematics and religion. In 1611, he was made a Knight of the Garter.

Eventually, Charles apparently conquered his physical infirmity, which might have been caused by rickets. He became an adept horseman and marksman, and took up fencing Even so, his public profile remained low in contrast to that of his physically stronger and taller elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, whom Charles adored and attempted to emulate.

However, in early November 1612, Henry died at the age of 18 of what is suspected to have been typhoid (or possibly porphyria) Charles, who turned 12 two weeks later, became heir apparent. As the eldest surviving son of the sovereign, Charles automatically gained several titles (including Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay). Four years later, in November 1616, he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.

Death of Queen Anne, Wife of James I-VI of England, Scotland & Ireland

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Anne of Denmark, Frederick II of Denmark, Henry Frederick Prince of Wales, James, James I of England, James VI of Scotland, Kingdom of Norway, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of Scotland

On this date in History death of Queen Anne, the wife of King James VI of Scotland and I of England, March 2, 1619.

Anne of Denmark (December 12, 1574 – March 2, 1619) was Queen consort of Scotland, England, and Ireland by marriage to King James VI and I. Anne was the second daughter of King Frederik II of Denmark and Norway, Duke of Schleswig and his wife Sophia of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, (a descendant of King John of Denmark, and also his own first half-cousin, through their grandfather, Frederik I, King of Denmark and Norway. Sophia was the daughter of Ulrich III, Duke of Mecklenburg-Güstrow and Elizabeth of Denmark).

Anne married James in 1589 at age 15 and bore him three children who survived infancy, including the future Charles I. She demonstrated an independent streak and a willingness to use factional Scottish politics in her conflicts with James over the custody of Prince Henry and his treatment of her friend Beatrix Ruthven. Anne appears to have loved James at first, but the couple gradually drifted and eventually lived apart, though mutual respect and a degree of affection survived.

In England, Anne shifted her energies from factional politics to patronage of the arts and constructed her own magnificent court, hosting one of the richest cultural salons in Europe.

The death of Prince Henry in 1612 at the age of eighteen, probably from typhoid, and the departure for Heidelberg of the sixteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth in April 1613, after marrying Elector Frederick V of the Palatine, further weakened the family ties binding Anne and James. Henry’s death hit Anne particularly hard; the Venetian ambassador was advised not to offer condolences to her “because she cannot bear to have it mentioned; nor does she ever recall it without abundant tears and sighs”. From this time forward, Anne’s health deteriorated, and she withdrew from the centre of cultural and political activities, staging her last known masque in 1614 and no longer maintaining a noble court. Her influence over James visibly waned as he became openly dependent on powerful favourites. Though she was reported to have been a Protestant at the time of her death, evidence suggests that she may have converted to Catholicism sometime in her life.

By late 1617, Anne’s bouts of illness had become debilitating; the letter writer John Chamberlain recorded: “The Queen continues still ill disposed and though she would fain lay all her infirmities upon the gout yet most of her physicians fear a further inconvenience of an ill habit or disposition through her whole body.” In January 1619, royal physician Sir Theodore de Mayerne instructed Anne to saw wood to improve her blood flow, but the exertion served to make her worse. James visited Anne only three times during her last illness, though Prince Charles often slept in the adjoining bedroom at Hampton Court Palace and was at her bedside during her last hours, when she had lost her sight. With her until the end was her personal maid, Anna Roos, who had arrived with her from Denmark in 1590. Queen Anne died aged 44 on March 2, 1619, of a dangerous form of dropsy.

Historians have traditionally dismissed Anne as a lightweight queen, frivolous and self-indulgent. However, recent reappraisals acknowledge Anne’s assertive independence and, in particular, her dynamic significance as a patron of the arts during the Jacobean age.

Queen Anne was buried in King Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey, on May 13, 1619.

What’s in a Name? Part II

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Buckingham Palace, Double Names, Elizabeth II, Henry Frederick Prince of Wales, King Carl XVI Gustaf, Kings and Queens of England, Prince of Wales, Princess Märtha Louise of Norway, Royal names, United Kingdom of Great Britain, Wilhelm II of Germany

Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales

I have a fascination with names. I don’t know if my fascination with names came after I developed my love of European Royalty or not, but I suspect it came later. Names are very personal and they are how we identify ourselves. I know of a couple of people who have changed their names, both first and last names, and seeing how attached to my identity my name is, I think it would take a lot of dissatisfaction with my name in order for me to change it. It is who I am. So to me, what we are called is important. 

When I am on a message board and a Princess is about to give birth there is a lot of fun guessing what the name might be. I don’t think I am alone in a fascination with names and royalty. Often the new royal prince or princess will have a string of names. I often wondered when did the tradition of giving a royal a string of names begin? I am not completely sure. I have the book Kings and Queen of Britain by David Williamson and the first royal listed in the book with more than one name is Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of King James I-VI of England and Scotland. After that there are a few examples of multiple names in the House of Stuart but they are rare. It seems that it was with the German House of Hanover that multiple names became a tradition practiced in the British Royal Family.

With apologies to HM King George V of the United Kingdom of Great Britain I also like double first names. He is on record stating he did not care for the practice. His elder brother who predeceased him in 1892 was known officially by the double first name of Albert-Victor, although he was called Eddy within the family. He probably would have been King Edward VIII had he lived to become king. Albert-Victor also had dual dukedoms, Clarence and Avondale, and this is another practice the king did not like. George V’s wife, Queen Mary, had a string of names herself, Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes, but was known as May in the family but known officially as Victoria-Mary. So when her husband became king in 1910 she had to decide what to be called. Her husband ruled out the double first name, and she herself knew should could not call herself Victoria while only being 9 years removed the reign of the Queen Victoria, so she decided on Mary. George V’s father was known by his double first names, Albert-Edward, while he was Prince of Wales but chose to be known as King Edward VII when he mounted the throne. Even Queen Victoria herself was christened Alexandrina-Victoria and was proclaimed as queen with those names in 1837 but quickly let it be known she wanted to be called simply “Victoria.”

As I peruse royal genealogy charts I notice the trend toward double first names becoming more prominent in the 17th century and reaching its zenith in the 19th century. This practice was more prominent in German royal families and by 19th century almost every extant royal house had German blood so the practice did become more widespread. It also seems to be a practice with male members of royal families rather than with females. Although there are exceptions such as the already mentioned Victoria-Mary of Teck and Alexandrina-Victoria of Kent. Another exception is Victoria-Luise of Prussia, daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and his wife, another double name, Augusta-Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein.

Prussia is one family where double names were common. 4 kings of Prussia had the name Friedrich-Wilhelm. Other common double first names in the Prussia royal house were, Joachim-Friedrich, Johann-Friedrich, Freidrich-Carl, and August-Wilhelm. The current pretender to the vacant German and Prussian thrones is known by the double first names of Georg-Friedrich. In the grand duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin they had 4 rulers named Friedrich-Franz and in the grand duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz they had 6 rulers named Adolf-Friedrich.

Like any trend this seems to be waning. However there are still examples. In Norway, the crown prince, Haakon, was christened Haakon-Magnus but is now only known by his one first name. His sister however, is known by her double first name, Märtha-Louise. In Sweden the king is Carl-Gustaf and his son is Carl-Philip. Sweden has always had a slightly different practice than the German monarchies in numbering their rulers with double names. In German states the ordinal number came after both names, Friedrich-Wilhelm IV of Prussia is a good example. In Sweden the ordinal comes after the first name. The current king, Carl XVI Gustaf. 

There you have my strange obsession and fascination with names. Next Monday I will continue the topic of names and discuss royal nicknames.