NPG's "Lost Prince" brings Jacobean superstar to life

When a national portrait gallery is really doing its job, it revives those long dead, and explains their impact on the world.  That's exactly what London's gallery is doing now with the little known prince Henry Stuart.

Who, you ask?

Unless you're a history buff with an interest in the 17th century, you probably don't know about poor Henry.  Once a glittering superstar and the hope of his generation, a paragon of noble virtues regarded with esteem by all the crowns of Europe ... but dead a few weeks short of his 19th birthday.  Thus did his far less prepared, but now far more famous brother come to the throne.  And start down a path that led to civil war, regicide and protectorate.

Charles I hardly gets a mention here, however, though the broader show goes a long way to explaining why he might have had such a massive chip on his narrow shoulders.  Henry was a hard act to follow.

The NPG mixes the expected portraits with bits and pieces from Henry's life to explore who he was, why he developed as he did and what his loss meant to the country.  His school notebooks are here, showing the depth and rigour of his classical education in his exquisite handwriting.  There are designs for the gardens he was planning at Richmond Palace.  Exquisite Inigo Jones drawings of the sets and costumes of the lavish court masques he appeared in.  Suits of armour displayed next to testimonials of his military prowess.  Bronzes, paintings and books from the art collection he'd started to assemble.

Finally, and tragically, items from his funeral.  There's a drawing of the lavish and detailed monument carried to the ceremony, complete with lifelike waxwork atop, positioned across the room from the headless, woodworm-riddled figure that's all that remains.  Over the sound system, the music written specifically for the funeral plays.  It's suitably depressing.

So who was Henry?  These four rooms present a remarkable young man.  He was clearly both a scholar and an athlete who excelled in the martial arts.  He was praised for his diplomatic skills, and seems to have been good at mixing and mingling at big state events.  He was bred from infancy to be serious, and do an adult's job, and it seems he never rebelled.  Like all worthy Renaissance princes, he was deeply interested in the arts and was already collecting with the eye and ardour of someone twice his age.  In fact, the overall impression is of someone who skipped childhood altogether, and was emerging into manhood as a fully-matured 40-something male.  He was, it seemed, all you'd want from someone born to leadership.  Although you had the feeling the poor kid never had much fun.

Certainly, the course of British history might have run very differently had he lived.  Imagine the consequences of no civil war.  Consider the impact Henry IX could have had on architecture and the arts.  How much greater might Great Britain have been if those middle years of the 17th century had been spent as a player on the world stage, rather than internally focused?  Proper historians hate the "what if" game, but here I think they missed a trick.  Indulging in a little guided exploration of those issues at the end of the show would have given that much more significance to his death.

That's a small quibble, however, for a show that does a great job of illuminating a dim bit of history with beautiful things to look at, given fine context.  There's just a week left to see it, so drop in if you get a chance.