Remember, Remember the Sixth of November: British Messianism and the Mourning for Henry, Prince of Wales

Abstract

In the early seventeenth century, for the first time, the monarchies of England and Scotland were associated with the legendary figure of the Last World Emperor, an eschatological ruler who would purify the Church, defeat Islam, and bring peace and justice to the world before the end of time. This essay will focus on the first British royal figure to be the subject of widespread apocalyptic expectations: Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales (1594-1612). Prince Henry died at the age of eighteen, and many of the elegies mourning his premature death revealed their authors’ hopes that he would have fulfilled the role of a Protestant Last Emperor by destroying the “two Antichrists,” the Papacy and the Turks.