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Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester died suddenly at age 20 just as his brother Charles II was restored to the crown of England and Scotland. It was a crushing blow as the Stuart family was very close, and to outside observers young Henry was seen as an appealing alternative to Charles's heir, the Duke of York (James II). He was conspiciously Protestant in a crypto-Catholic and openly Catholic family (to the point he fell out with his mother about it) and was said to be a good solider.

So I'm wondering - instead of dying in 1660, give him another thirty years at least (to 1690) or have him live as long as Charles II (to 1695).

My two questions:

First, who would he marry? It would have to be a Protestant (I discount the idea he would marry a niece of the Prince Conde, whose only niece were through his sister who was a devout Catholic (and later Jansenist!). I'm sure Charles II would make him marry well and royally (perhaps with a large dowry and/or to sure up an allowance) especially after James's misalliance with Anne Hyde.

Secondly, how would he deal with the fallout of James II taking the throne and James's acts of Toleration and filling the court/army with Catholics (something even James's Catholic advisors and wife warned him against)?


Personally, I know some people would say he would side with the Glorious Revolution but I'm 99% sure he wouldn't. After all this was a boy who was witness (at age 9) to his martyred father's last words to never accept being a king while his brothers still alive and he promised never to do so (I think it highly unlikely he would assist in the removal of his brother AND his brother's newborn son) and then saw the other witness that day (his sister Elizabeth) die as a teenager in Parliamentary hands. Also if Henry had children they would be in the line of succession before William of Orange and there was no way he would agree that a) William would be King or b) William's heirs by any wife by Mary would come before Henry's children.

It is more likely that Henry would stay at James's side (which might forestall any Glorious Revolution) and talk him out of his more unpopular programs or he would assume a Regency for the young Prince of Wales and make sure he was raised an Anglican. Whatever it would almost certainly mean William and Mary are unlikely to reign in England (which would be a help to Louis XIV) and no Glorious Revolution as we know it (and possibly no Penal Law in Ireland as a result).
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