If a prince of the royal house had bought the rights of the Proprietary Colonies?
THE PRINCE
Prince William Henry (Leicester House, Westminster, 25 November 1743 – Gloucester House, Upper Grosvenor Street, London, 25 August 1805), was a son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, and brother of the King George III.
Prince William Henry lived mostly at Kew, in Kew House (also known as the White House), where his father accumulated a menagerie of exotic animals and pursued a passion for botany which he shared with his wife. Frederick taught his family astronomy and encouraged a variety of entertainments including rowing, cricket, outings to fairs and play acting.
In 1751, Frederick caught pneumonia and died. Augusta made her peace with the King, who allowed her to continue bringing up her family at Kew. Prince William Henry and his brother Prince Henry Frederick (7 November 1745 – 18 September 1790) had a house on Kew Green which included a billiard room and a colonnade for fencing lessons. His studies included ancient and modern languages, history and geography. In 1765, he toured Kent and Cornwall and in 1766, Guernsey and Paris.
He had made a Knight of the Garter on 27 May 1762 (invested on 22 September) and was created Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh and Earl of Connaught on 19 November 1764.
Prince William Henry was made Ranger of Hampton Court Park, Ranger and Keeper of Cranborne Chase in Windsor Forest and Lord Warden and Keeper of the New Forest. He became Chancellor of the University of Dublin in 1771. He resided at Cranbourne Lodge.
He wanted to pursue an active military career, but neither his physical stamina nor his mental capacity were sufficient to carry a commander's position on active service. Nevertheless, he became Colonel of the 13th Regiment of Foot in 1766, and of the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards in 1767. He was promoted lieutenant-general and became Colonel of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards in 1770. During the War of Bavarian Succession (1777-1779), he longed to serve under Prince Frederick (Later King Frederick II) of Prussia, but his request was declined.
THE LOVERS
In 1764, Prince William Henry started courting
Maria Walpole (St. James', Westminster, Middlesex,10 July 1736 – Oxford Lodge, Brompton, Middlesex, 22 August 1807), the Countess Dowager Waldegrave. Maria was the illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole (1706 – 12 January 1784) and his mistress Dorothy Clement (c. 1715 - c. 1739), and the widow of James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave (4 March 1715 – 13 April 1763). On 6 September 1766, they were married secretly, without witnesses, at the Duke’s house in Pall Mall by Maria’s chaplain, Dr Morton.
Lady Mary Koke wrote that while Lady Waldegrave was a lovely woman, she had little sense, even if blameless in character and conduct. But, she continued, there was no disguising the fact her mother had kept «some infamous house», and «from the top of a cinder cart», she had used her beauty to lure Sir Edward Walpole. The Reynolds portrait, painted in 1762, just before the earl's death, displays the attractions that led the Duke of Gloucester to begin his ardent pursuit of her in 1764. «As she is so young,» wrote Horace Walpole, «she might find as great a match and a younger lover». She did indeed. Maria was claimed to be the most handsome woman in Britain, says Kisler.
Over the subsequent few years, Maria Walpole claimed as many royal privileges as she could, accompanying Gloucester on social occasions and dressing her servants in approximations of royal livery.
King George III did not believe the rumours that William had actually married Maria and sent his brother abroad to visit other European royal families as a diplomatic envoy for the British monarchy in an attempt to extricate him from his entanglement with Maria, whom he felt was a bad influence on him.
THE RUPTURE
When Maria became pregnant, Prince William Henry wrote to the King to acknowledge his marriage. An enquiry into the validity of the marriage was held by the Privy Council on 23 May 1773, just days before the birth of a daughter, Sophia Matilda (29 May 1773, Mayfair, Middlesex, and not at Gloucester House or Lodge, Weymouth). The King was forced to admit the legality of the marriage and the child was given the title of Princess.
But the King was deeply hurt by his favourite brother’s deception. Whilst Prince William Henry had been ranting about the Duke of Cumberland’s shameful marriage to Lady Ann Horton the previous year, he had all the time been married to a commoner himself [The Duke's marriage to a commoner, the widow Anne Horton (1743–1808), on 2 October 1771 caused a rift with the King, and was the catalyst for the Royal Marriages Act 1772 which forbids any descendant of George II to marry without the monarch's permission]. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh and their children were banned from the Court and William’s diplomatic missions came to an end. For the sake of economy and William’s health, they went to live on the continent [In early March 1775, Prince William Henry became seriously ill with smallpox. He was so much «shaken in health» that he decided to go abroad, thinking that a change of scenery would be beneficial].
The Gloucesters struggled to maintain the trappings of royal status and a growing family on his existing settlement of £29,000.
A financial crisis of a kind common to eighteenth-century royal dukes made the family flee to Quebec [in reality to Italy].
THE ACQUISITIONS
Meanwhile the Prince William Henry had purchased in May 1771 by Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore (6 February 1731/1732 – 4 September 1771)
the property of Maryland. This was done against the wishes of Calvert family, though Frederick did provide for cash payments to his sisters, specifically £20,000 to be divided between Louisa and Caroline.
In July 1771 Prince William Henry purchased by Penn family, the proprietors of Pennsylvania, their proprietary rights on the Colony and their property, Penn's private lands and manors. As compensation, the Penns were paid £130,000, a fraction of what the lands were worth, but a surprisingly large sum nonetheless. In additional Prince William Henry undertook to pay a sum in compensation for the loss of the right inherited
the right of Pennsylvania and Delaware, which awarded them £4,000 per year in perpetuity.
Richard Penn, Jr. (27 May 1735 – 27 May 1811), the grandson of the William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, returned to Pennsylvania in the summer of 1772 and was appointed Lieutenant Governor. James Boswell (who was a friend of Penn's) records that in 1789 the influential Earl of Lonsdale urged the government to appoint Penn as American's first Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. Penn sold his Philadelphia city house to Prince William Henry in 1785, renamed Gloucester House. From 1790 to 1800, while Philadelphia was the temporary capital of the kingdom of United States, it served as the executive mansion for the King until the national capital moved to ... in November 1800.
In the 1776, at the death without iusse of Robert Carteret, 3rd Earl Granville, Bailiff of Jersey 1763-1776 (Born on 21 September 1721, bap. 17 Oct 1721 St Martin In The Fields, Westminster; died childless on 13 February 1776 at age 54), bought The lands of the Granville District [King George I appointed royal governors for North and South Carolina, converting the colony’s status to that of a royal colony. In 1729 seven of the Lords Proprietors sold their interests in Carolina to the Crown, and both North Carolina and South Carolina became royal colonies; the Crown has paid them about £22,500, approximately the amount they had spent on the colony. The eighth share was Sir George Carteret's, which had passed to his great-grandson John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville. He retained title to the lands and quitrents in the northern third of North Carolina, namely ownership of a sixty-mile-wide strip of land in North Carolina adjoining the Virginia boundary, which became known as
the Granville District.
IN THE NEW WORLD
The Gloucesters lived in Quebec City, stepping into the centre of Lower Canadian society, and moving easily between circles of French Canadiens, English elites and American Loyalists alike, and they symbolized the Crown as the scaffolding in which modern Canada would emerge. Touring much of Lower Canada, Prince William Henry with his family resided in the heart of the ancient capital of New France (holidaying at nearby Montmorency Falls).
On 15 January 1776
in Charlesbourg, Quebec City, was born the only son of Prince William Henry and Maria Walpole,
Prince William Frederick (15 January 1776 - 30 November 1834): he was
the first prince of royal blood who was born on American soil.
At the Second Continental Congress, after that Henry Middleton declined the nomination, John Hancock was unanimously elected President on 24 May 1775. Hancock was one of the wealthiest men in the thirteen colonies and emerged as a leading political figure in Boston just as tensions with Great Britain were increasing. Hancock's political success benefited from the support of Samuel Adams. The two men made an unlikely pair: Adams had a somber, Puritan outlook that stood in marked contrast to Hancock's taste for luxury and extravagance; the relationship between the two was symbiotic, with Adams as the mentor and Hancock the protégé.
Hancock's wealth and social standing inspired the confidence of moderate delegates, while his association with Boston radicals made him acceptable to other radicals. His position was somewhat ambiguous, because the role of the president was not fully defined, and like other presidents of Congress, Hancock's authority was mostly limited to that of a presiding officer. He also had to handle a great deal of official correspondence.
On June 1775 George Washington was nominated as commander-in-chief of the army then gathered around Boston: Hancock had shown great disappointment at not getting the command for himself.
Hancock served in Congress through some of the darkest days of the Revolutionary War. The Second Continental Congress was moving towards declaring independence from the British Empire in May 1776, but many delegates lacked the authority from their home governments to take such an action; the resolution of independence was delayed for several weeks as revolutionaries consolidated support for independence in their home governments.
The records of the Second Continental Congress confirm that the need for a declaration of independence was intimately linked with the demands of international relations. On 7 June 1776, Richard Henry Lee tabled a resolution before the Continental Congress declaring the colonies independent. He also urged Congress to resolve «to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances» and to prepare a plan of confederation for the newly independent states. Lee argued that independence was the only way to ensure a foreign alliance, since no European monarchs would deal with America if they remained Britain's colonists, which prompted Hancock, with the support of the Committee of Five, to call to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Prince William Henry.
The Second Congress finally approved the resolution of independence
on July 2, 1776 and designated and proclaimed Prince William Henry as Governor in Chief of the Dominion of New England (Province of New Hampshire, Province of Massachusetts Bay, Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Colony of Connecticut, Province of New York, Province of New Jersey and the Lower Counties on Delaware)
and Lord Protector of the Continental Congress of the United Colonies of America. Congress next turned its attention to a formal explanation of this decision, the United States Declaration of Independence, which was approved on July 4 and published soon thereafter.
Prince William Henry was proclaimed
Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of the United States of America on 15 November 1777 and then
King of United States of America [as William the first] (proclaimed 4 March 1789, crowned at City Hall, New York City, on 30 April 1789).
