Hope for continuation of the Stuart dynasty in Britain ended with the death, from pneumonia in 1700, of the 11-year-old son of Princess Anne and Prince George, William Henry Duke of Gloucester. Considered by some to have been physically and mentally unfit to reign, careful examination of primary source materials shows him to have been a bright and interesting boy with mild hydrocephalus. Had he lived, he could have ruled.
LewisJ. Memoirs of Prince William Henry, Duke of Glocester. London: ‘The Editor’, 1789
9.
LoftieWJ. Queen Anne's Son. London: Edward Stanford, 1881:5–6
10.
BurnetG. History of his own time: from the restoration of King Charles II to the Treaty of Peace at Utrecht, in the reign of Queen Anne. London: Henry G Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, 1857, 669. This is a reprint of Bishop Burnet's original work. There are countless reprints of Burnet's classic work and titles seem randomly to vary between ‘My Own Time’ and ‘His Own Time’
11.
HannesE, BernardC, GreeneE, CowperW. Post mortem examination of William Henry Duke of Gloucester. British Library, Add MSS (Blenheim Papers) 61101, Vol I, 58–63. The most accessible source of this autopsy report is Jack Dewhurst's book Royal Confinements. (op. cit. ref. 2): pp. 189–91
12.
DewhurstJ(op. cit. ref. 2): pp. 189–91
13.
RadcliffeBP, HannesE, GibbonsW. A letter to a friend concerning the sickness and death of His Highness the Duke of Gloucester, including the true copies of three letters wrote by Dr Hannes, Dr Gibbons and Dr Radcliffe, to the King and also the surgeons certificate who dissected him. Published for the rectifying the many mistaken rumours spread on this most lamented loss. Reproduction of the original in the Goldsmith's Company, University of London. Most easily accessed through Early English Books, 1641–1700/1974: 01, also online through EEBO, http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home
14.
SalmonT(attributed).The Life of Her Late Majesty, Queen Anne. London: St Martin's Press, 1721;I:30–2
15.
LoftieWJ. (op. cit. ref. 9): pp. 34–5
16.
Ibid.: p. 58
17.
Ibid.: pp. 35–6
18.
Ibid.: p. 36
19.
Ibid.: pp. 37, 44–5
20.
Ibid.: pp. 49, 70–1
21.
Ibid.: pp. 76–8
22.
Ibid.: p. 109
23.
Ibid.: p. 41
24.
Ibid.: p. 41
25.
Ibid.: p. 98
26.
USDHHS.2000CDC Growth Charts, http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/. These are standard growth charts for infants and children as devised by the Centers for Disease Control in the USA. They are comparable to similar charts used in Europe and were William alive today would be the standard of growth appropriate for him
Personal Communication.Professor Lynda Payne, University of Missouri at Kansas City, 2006. She has studied the particular usage of the words ‘pole’ and ‘issue’ in the context of seventeenth-century Medicine. Some insight is to be gained from Cooke J. Mellificium Chirurgiae. London: 1685
61.
BatshawML. Children With Disabilities. 4th edn. Baltimore: Paul H Brooks Pub. Co, 1997:311, 799
62.
DewhurstJ. (op. cit. ref. 2): p. 43
63.
GreggE. Queen Anne. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980:100
64.
ButlerI. The Great Duchess: The Life of Sarah Churchill. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968:113
65.
LoftieWJ. (op. cit. ref. 9):. 98
66.
DewhurstJ. (op. cit. ref. 2): pp. 189–91, 42
67.
BurtonJH. A History of the Reign of Queen Anne. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. 1882:19–20
