William Henry Oldenburg, Duke of Gloucester

William Henry Prince of Oldenburg, Duke of Gloucester

Duke of Gloucester on 24 July 1689.

Knight, Order of the Garter (K.G.) on 6 January 1695.

Links:

• The Peerage
• Geniall
• Wikipedia

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Prince William, Duke of Gloucester (24 July 1689 – 30 July 1700[a]) was the son of Princess Anne, later Queen of England, Ireland and Scotland 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 the previous year.

Throughout his life, Gloucester suffered from a recurrent "ague", which was treated with regular doses of Jesuit's bark (an early form of quinine) by his physician, John Radcliffe. Gloucester disliked the treatment intensely, and usually vomited after being given it. Possibly as a result of hydrocephalus, he had an enlarged head, which his surgeons pierced intermittently to draw off fluid. He could not walk properly, and was apt to stumble. Nearing the age of five, Gloucester refused to climb stairs without two attendants to hold him, which Lewis blamed on indulgent nurses who over-protected the boy. His father birched him until he agreed to walk by himself. Corporal punishment was usual at the time, and such treatment would not have been considered harsh.

Prince William died close to 1 a.m. on 30 July 1700, with his parents beside him. In the end, the physicians decided the cause of death was "a malignant fever". An autopsy revealed severe swelling of the lymph nodes in the neck and an abnormal amount of fluid in the ventricles of his brain: "four and a half ounces of a limpid humour were taken out." A modern diagnosis is that Gloucester died of acute bacterial pharyngitis, with associated pneumonia. Had he lived, though, it is almost certain the prince would have succumbed to complications of his hydrocephalus. (Wikipedia - Prince William, Duke of Gloucester)