Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester

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Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester KG (July 8, 1639 - September 18, 1660) was the third adult (youngest) son of King Charles I of England and his Queen Henrietta Maria of France. He is also known as Henry of Oatland.

After his father's defeat at the end of the English civil war, the six year old prince (unlike his older brothers, who escaped with their mother to France), was captured and brought to London. He was lodged in the royal apartments in the white tower of the Tower of London, under the 'protection' of the Republican army. During the debates among Republican army leaders Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton about what kind of regime should succeed the now abolished rule of Charles I, it was briefly suggested that the young prince might be placed on the throne, and made to govern as the kind of limited, constitutional monarch that Parliament wanted. Part of the motivation for this came from the perception that, unlike Charles and James, he was sufficiently young to have not yet been 'corrupted' by the Catholic and absolutist views of his mother and father, and might be brought up by tutors who shared the Parliamentary perspective. However, this option quickly faded away, as the Rump Parliament opted instead for the establishment of a Republican Commonwealth. Henry was moved to more comfortable surroundings and allowed to live with relative freedom under the eyes of his Parliamentary guardians.

Eventually, in 1652, Republican leader Oliver Cromwell agreed to release him, and he traveled to join his mother and brothers in Paris. However, at least some of the influences that Cromwell hoped to have appeared to have been successful, as Henry had become a staunch Protestant, and quarreled bitterly with his mother over matters of religion and politics. Their dislike for one another reached such a level that Henrietta virtually expelled him from Paris, and he went to join the Spanish armies fighting at Dunkirk. He consistently distinguished himself in battle, and gradually gained a reputation as one of Europe's foremost Protestant soldiers. It was during the course of the campaign that he met the renegade French military commander Prince Louis Conde, who was leading the Spanish forces. Their common dislike for the Catholic Church (Conde was an agnostic, and one of the leading defenders of the Huguenots), created a strong bond between them and, shortly before his death, it was suggested that Henry might marry Conde's niece.

After the conclusion of peace between France and Spain, Henry resided at one of Conde's estates, until the death of Oliver Cromwell and the gradual collapse of the Commonwealth, led to calls for the restoration of the monarchy, and he was reunited with Charles. He returned to England as part of Charles' triumphant progress through London in May 1660, and took up residence in Whitehall. He was created Duke of Gloucester by the now King Charles II, but died suddenly of smallpox not long afterwards, much to his brother's distress. Decades later, during the exclusion crisis Henry was looked back on as a kind of 'lost leader'; as what might have been a legitimate, warlike, Protestant alternative to the equally unpalatable choices of either James II, or the Duke of Monmouth.