Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester (8 July 1640 – 13 September 1660)[a] was the youngest son of Charles I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and his wife, Henrietta Maria of France.

When in 1649 Charles I was sentenced to death, he, fearing that Henry would be proclaimed king and made a puppet of the government, took an oath from his eight-year-old son not to take the crown for anything while both of his older brothers were alive.

In the summer of 1650, he landed in Scotland, which prompted Parliament to send the children of the late monarch to Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, where their father had previously been imprisoned.

Henry remained at Carisbrooke until the following year, when, with the permission of Oliver Cromwell, he returned to the continent, where he eventually joined his mother in Paris.

Henry was born on 8 July 1640 at Oatlands Palace[2] near Weybridge in Surrey[5] as the youngest son[3] and penultimate child of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland and his wife, Henrietta Maria of France.

[3] As a result of the civil war that began in August, Charles I and Henrietta Maria were forced to leave their two youngest children at that time, Henry and Elizabeth, in the care of Parliament.

On the recommendation of the governess, the Countess of Roxburghe, and with the permission of the House of Lords, the children were transferred to St James's Palace for lack of a more suitable residence.

[15] Later, the prince and his sister were completely deprived of wardrobe payments: this was the result of the confrontation between Charles I and the Parliament; as the representative of the House of Commons wrote: "...if the King wants to fight with us, they [children] must pay for clothes at their own expense!".

In July, doctors recommended that Elizabeth change the climate,[16][20] so the children were moved to Chelsea, to the residence of Sir John Danvers,[16][18][20] who would later become one of the signatories of the death warrant of Charles I.

The Earl of Northumberland was asked to choose one of the royal residences, and he chose St James's Palace, where Henry and Elizabeth were soon transferred.

[22] In September, the prince's brother, the Duke of York, found himself in a difficult position: he was in Oxford, where the plague was creeping up, accumulated debts and lost all provisions.

[24] In the summer of 1647, due to a new epidemic, the Earl of Northumberland was forced to transport the royal children from one residence to another and ended up staying at Syon House.

[26] On one of these visits, the King insisted that his youngest son should not be subjected to religious pressure; it is not clear whether he feared the influence of Catholics or Protestants.

[28] Thanks to the ingenuity of the princess,[16] James managed to deceive the personal guard and, disguised as a woman[18] in Elizabeth's chambers, escaped to the continent to The Hague at the side of his sister Mary on 21 April 1648.

[30] In August 1648, Charles I was again captured, but in October he sent an encouraging letter from Newport to his daughter Elizabeth with his trusted servant Sir Thomas Herbert, with whom the princess had a long conversation about her father.

[33] Elizabeth, who did not want to move to new, and in her opinion, less benevolent guardians,[37] again sent a request to Parliament to let her and Henry go to live with their sister Mary in Holland, and again to no avail.

[35] In the summer of 1650, when it became known that Charles II had landed in Scotland, it was decided to transfer Henry and Elizabeth to Carisbrook Castle on the Isle of Wight,[42] where their father had previously been imprisoned, under the care of Anthony Mildmay and his wife.

[35] Elizabeth was horrified at the prospect of being imprisoned in her father's former prison and petitioned for her and her brother to be left in Penshurst Place on the pretext of the princess's ill health, but was unsuccessful.

[35] Henry remained at Carisbrooke Castle until 1652, when Oliver Cromwell allowed the prince to leave the country[35] and provided him with funds to cover his travel expenses.

[45] With his mother, the prince, who had not seen her since the age of two, could not establish a good understanding, because during the separation he became a zealous Protestant, and Henrietta Maria was a staunch Catholic.

[35] In the absence of Lovel, the prince succumbed to the abbot's persuasion and agreed to get acquainted with Catholicism, but was deeply indignant at the actions of his mother.

Not getting a quick result, Henrietta Maria joined Montague and began to persuade her son to change religion but Henry was adamant, and it was decided to send him to a Jesuit College.

[45] When news of his mother's actions reached Charles II, he became furious[52] and immediately sent the Marquess of Ormonde to Paris to bring Henry to him in Cologne.

[45][52] Henry moved into the house of Lord Hutton, where he spent two months, while the Marquess of Ormond collected funds to send the prince to his brother in Cologne.

[45] Thus, Henrietta Maria's attempts to convert Henry to Catholicism not only failed and angered the royalists and Charles II,[53] but also completely ruined her relationship with her younger son.

When the city fell, Henry managed to escape capture by gathering some of the scattered troops and making a desperate breakthrough through the enemy battle formations.

[3][8][45][52] Following the restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660, Henry accompanied his brother Charles II to his homeland;[3][52] the costs of their trip were again paid by Parliament.

[52] A few weeks later Henry's elder sister Mary, Dowager Princess of Orange, also died of smallpox; on her deathbed, she wished to be buried next to her brother.

[57] The Earl of Clarendon, an English historian, statesman and father of the Duke of York's first wife, wrote enthusiastically of Henry as one of the finest youth, "the most manly...that I ever knew" and "a prince of extraordinary hopes, who had a personality of comely and graceful with liveliness and the power of reason and understanding."

Elias Ashmole's Institutions, Laws and Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter lists a coat of arms with three roses (one above the other) on each prong of the title.