James was capable of almost any crime or
baseness; but in the matter of poisoning his eldest son he is entitled
to the Scotch verdict of _Not Proven_.
Whether James killed his son or not, it is certain that the Prince's
death was a matter of extreme importance. Henry was one of those
characters who are capable of giving history a twist that shall
last forever. He had a fondness for active life, was very partial
to military pursuits, and was friendly to those opinions which
the bigoted chiefs of Austria and Bavaria were soon to combine to
suppress. Henry would have come to the throne in 1625, had he lived,
and there seems no reason to doubt that he would have anticipated the
part which Gustavus Adolphus played a few years later. He would have
made himself the champion of Protestantism, and not the less readily
because his sister, the Electress-Palatine and Winter-Queen of
Bohemia, would have been benefited by his successes in war. Bohemia
might have become the permanent possession of the Palatine, and
Protestantism have maintained its hold on Southern Germany, had Henry
lived and reigned, and had his conduct as a king justified the hopes
and expectations that were created by his conduct as a prince.
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