Prince William, Duke of Gloucester

Uncommon card · No. 87831

Prince William, Duke of Gloucester (William Henry; 24 July 1689 – 30 July 1700), was the son of Princess Anne (later Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1702) and her husband, Prince George of Denmark. He was their only child to survive infancy. Styled Duke of Gloucester, he was viewed by contemporaries as a Protestant champion because his birth seemed to cement the Protestant succession established in the "Glorious Revolution" that had deposed his Catholic grandfather James II & VII. Anne was estranged from her brother-in-law and cousin William III & II and her sister Mary II, but supported links between them and her son. He grew close to his uncle William, who created him a Knight of the Garter, and his aunt Mary, who frequently sent him presents. At his nursery in Campden House, Kensington, he befriended his Welsh body-servant, Jenkin Lewis, whose memoir of the Duke is an important source for historians, and operated his own miniature army, called the "Horse Guards", which eventually...

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