THE HAGUE 4 November 1650

It was not an auspicious entry into the world for this posthumous child. His mother's chamber was swathed in black mourning, for only the previous week his father, Prince William II, had died of smallpox.

The young mother was distraught at her husband's loss. This, coming on top of the brutal public execution of her father, King Charles I, in London the previous year, and the establishment of the English Republic condemning her beloved brother Charles to a life of penurious exile, was more than the proud Stuart princess, Mary, could bear.

On top of all that, she was soon locked in conflict with her mother-in-law Amalia over the boy's name. Naturally, Mary wanted to call her son Charles after her father, but Amalia was insisting on the more traditional names of the boy's paternal family, William Henry, after his famous ancestor, the Protestant hero William the Silent.

Amalia won and Mary, in a sulk, refused to attend the baptism of her only child.

Although she loved her son, the snobbish Princess hated his country, the Dutch Republic, despising its dull burghers for their quiet respectability and obsession with trade and commerce. She adored her brother Charles. All her sights were set on his restoration to the English throne. Seizing any opportunity she could to be with Charles and her brothers, Mary was frequently absent, leaving William, the solitary, lonely child, home alone.