Mary, Princess Royal, at six years old - a portrait by Anthony van Dyck, circa 1637

 

Mary, Princess Royal (Mary Henrietta Stuart; 4 November 1631, St James's Palace, Westminster - 24 December 1660, Whitehall Palace, Westminster), British princess of the House of Stuart and, by marriage, Princess of Orange and Countess of Nassau. The eldest daughter of King Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta Maria, and sister of future kings, Charles II and James II, she was the first holder of the title Princess Royal. She was married to the future stadtholder of the Netherlands, William II of Orange, when she was nine years old, remaining in England with her parents until early 1642, when she and her mother left for the Netherlands. In November 1643, a second marriage ceremony between the twelve-year-old Mary and seventeen-year-old William took place in The Hague; the marriage was not consummated until the following year. In 1647, William inherited the titles of Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, Overijssel, and Groningen in the United Provinces of the Netherlands. But only three years later, he died of smallpox at the age of twenty-four and, eight days after that, on her own nineteenth birthday, Mary gave birth to their only child, a son, William III of Orange, who later became King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. She acted as regent for her minor son from 1651 to 1660. But she was not popular in the Netherlands and had a difficult relationship with her mother-in-law Amalia of Solms-Braunfels. So, after the restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660, she returned to London where, only three months later she fell ill with smallpox and died on Christmas Eve at the age of twenty-nine.