Elegies On The Death Of Prince Henry

Abstract Prince Henry’s death on 6 November 1612 provoked an unprecedentedly intense, widespread, and unequivocal outburst of lamentation. The King withdrew to Theobalds, the Queen to Somerset House: Foscarini reported that, even ‘in the midst of the most important discussions’, James would cry ‘Henry is dead, Henry is dead’: a little later Chamberlain noted how ‘on Tewsday I heard the bishop of Ely [Andrewes] preaching at court upon the third verse of the 37th of Esay … pray solemnly for Prince Henry without recalling himself’. All Protestant Europe joined in the mourning. Never before had so many elegies been written on a single occasion, by such a wide range of practitioners: poets of all kinds, all (or most) religious and political persuasions. Those who did, as what follows will show, included William Browne, George Chapman, John Donne, William Drummond, Sir William Alexander, Edward and George Herbert, Henry King, Joshua Sylvester, John Webster, Cyril Tourneur, Thomas Heywood, Sir Arthur Gorges, Sir Walter Ralegh, Thomas Campion, and George Wither.4 The only major writers who did not join in were Jonson, Daniel, Drayton, and Shakespeare.