There is a strong resemblance between this young prince, and his uncle Henry, Prince of Wales, with whom we are so well acquainted. Both were grave and studious beyond their years. Both were diligent and active in whatever work came in their way to do. Both were strong Protestants. Both cared for the society and friendship of older and wiser men, rather than that of the gay, frivolous young courtiers of their own age. In face and form they must have been somewhat alike; but the circumstances of their lives were different.
Nothing could outwardly have been more happy and successful than the life of Henry, Prince of Wales, the son of a poor Scotch king, raised suddenly to the position of heir to the most prosperous kingdom in Europe. Henry, Duke of Gloucester, on the contrary, was destined to take his share from his earliest childhood in the disasters of his family. Before he was two years old his troubles began. While his father, as an old royalist writer expresses it, "was hunted from place to place like a partridge upon the mountains," his mother was over in Holland, where she gathered together an army with the proceeds of the crown jewels which she sold or pawned. She landed in England in 1643, fought several battles on her own account, and joined the king in Warwickshire on July 13, sleeping the night before in Shakespeare's house at Stratford-on-Avon, which then belonged to the poet's daughter, Mrs. Hall.
Henry of Oatlands, as the little Duke of Gloucester was called from his birthplace, was left meanwhile by his parents at St. James's Palace, with his sister Elizabeth. The Parliament on the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, secured complete possession of London, and the two children remained in their hands in a sort of honorable captivity.
They were both of so tender years that they were neither sensible of their father's sufferings nor capable to relieve them; so that their innocent harmlessness on any account not only protected them from the malice of their enemies, but proved to be a meanes to work on their evil mindes to provide for them not only an honorable sustenance, but a royal attendance.[96]
Little Henry must have been a charming child; and we can well imagine that he was kindly treated by his captors, who appeared to have entertained a notion that a royal child brought up under the stern puritan rule, and separated so early from the evil influences of courts and cavaliers, might be a good ruler for England when he grew up. The boy's natural disposition was all in favor of this possibility.
Such was the seriousness of his tender age, as wrought admiration in his attendants, for he proceeded in so sweet a method, that he was able in point of Religion—to render an account beyond many whose years should have manifested a surer and more certain judgment.[97]
The little boy did not even know his father by sight; for they had never met since the king left London in 1642. But when Henry was six years old an unexpected opportunity offered itself of learning more about his absent father. Henry's elder brother, the Duke of York, afterwards King James the Second, was taken prisoner at Oxford in 1646. His servants were all dismissed; and he was brought to London to live with the Duke of Gloucester and Princess Elizabeth.
This new society was exceedingly pleasing to the young innocent, who began now to hearken to his brother's discourses with man-like attention imbibing from his lips a new, though natural affection, towards his unknown and distressed father.[98]
This pleasant companionship between the two brothers lasted for nearly two years. Then the Duke of York escaped from St. James's and went to Holland to join his brother Charles, Prince of Wales, who had fitted out a fleet to attempt to rescue his father. Henry and Elizabeth were again left alone. Princess Elizabeth however kept her little brother constantly informed "of the hourely danger both themselves and father stood in." Poor little children! Our hearts ache for the eight-year-old boy and the thirteen-year-old girl who were trembling for their own and their father's safety. Their fears for the king were only too well founded.