The nation’s pendulum then swung from what some perceived as the Stuart oppression to fresh tyranny under Cromwell. The outcome of all the horrors of war resulted in a Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell and Charles, just like his grandmother, Mary, was beheaded, but this outside the beautiful English Palladian style Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace.

Alas, he was a stubborn man – a common characteristic of the Stuarts – and under his rule the country was plunged into Civil War, which caused widespread devastation. Sadly, Henry was cut down before his time and he died, aged only 18, from what was probably typhoid.Īnd so the younger son, Charles, eventually succeeded to his father’s throne.

James and his wife, Anne of Denmark, had a few children, the eldest son and heir, Henry, was the best and the brightest of them all. The belief they so strongly adhered to was that they had been chosen by God to rule and therefore no one could question their governance of the kingdoms. But James had potentially dangerous beliefs – beliefs that would ultimately prove fatal for his son and eventual heir, Charles I. Mary’s son with the profligate Lord Darnley, James, eventually became the last Tudor queen’s heir and began the English line of Stuart kings. When Elizabeth I had her beautiful cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, in 1587, could anyone have guessed that beheading would prove so tragically common with her descendants? Who would have thought that sickliness, unhappiness and infertility would plague them? The Stuarts had so many instances of doom that it is no surprise that it sometimes seems that they were cursed!

His Last Mistress by Andrea Zuvich