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In a previous post I looked at Don Carlos was almost a king of Spain. But attention should also be paid to his maternal uncle, Joao Manuel of Portugal. Like Carlos, Joao was a victim of the royal families’ penchant for inter-family marriages.
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In the 17th century you couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a royal prince called “Louis”. As a result the figure in this blog post is going to be referred to by the name "Young Louis" or "Petite Dauphin", otherwise you’re going to get sick of the name while reading it and I’m going to get lost while I write it.
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I’ve previously written about an English “Almost King”, Prince Arthur Victor, whose early death led to his younger brother claiming both his crown and his pretty bride. The Romanov dynasty of Russia went through a similar situation a few decades earlier, although in their case the prince concerned was far more promising.
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Although many boys and young men from royal families have been felled by illness and bad luck there aren’t many who can be said to have been potentially murdered on their father’s orders.
Enter Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias.
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At the death of Queen Anne on 1 August 1714 the throne of Great Britain passed from the House of Stuart, to the House of Hanover. Despite multiple pregnancies Anne's only child to live past the age of three had been Prince William, Duke of Gloucester.
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After surviving the usual childhood illnesses, as well as a stint in the Royal Navy, Albert Victor was virtually a shoe-in to one day become King Albert I. Unfortunately a winter chill changed everything.
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Another one of those “could have changed the course of history” princes, Henry Stuart's arrival was greeted with immense relief by the Scottish court. But it wasn't long before his birth showed the stark division between his parents, which would set the scene for the rest of their marriage.
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Edward I and his wife Eleanor of Castile are known for having a large brood of children. Eleanor is believed to have given birth to sixteen children. However many of these children died young, and it took a long time before they had a surviving male heir. Edward of Carnarvon was the youngest of the sixteen and the fourth boy born to the couple. Had they survived, any of his brothers would have been King of England instead of him.
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Born on 5 August 1103 William Adelin would have been the first Anglo-Norman King, reflecting the changes in English society since the Conquest. While his father was King Henry I of England, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, his mother was Matilda (formerly Edith) of Scotland. Her mother had been a granddaughter of the old Anglo-Saxon kings, and had married King Malcolm III of Scotland in 1070. William Adelin might even have had a claim on the Scottish throne if he had survived.
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Unless he thought about changing his name, as later Kings did on accession, then Britain could have had it's first King Fred in the 18th century. On his birth in 1707 the idea that the Electors of Hanover would become Kings of Great Britain was becoming more obvious. Queen Anne had no surviving children, and Frederick's great-grandmother Sophia was Anne's nearest Protestant relative.
