Bastard Prince

by Beverley A. Murphy

  As a landed magnate Richmond’s loss also caused other problems. Since there was no possibility that his wife might be pregnant, all his property immediately reverted to the king. Even so, it was not exactly a seamless transition. When the steward of Ruthin wrote to commiserate with the Duke of Norfolk on his loss, he pointed out that the deputy receiver there intended to take advantage of Richmond’s death by keeping all the revenues, rents and profits which he had collected. In Yorkshire, Richmond’s former tenants in Masham and Nidderdale reacted with dismay at the demand for ‘the God’s penny and a g0ressom due on the change of lord’ on top of a year’s rent, tithes and other payments which now all fell due at the same time.2 Their reaction contributed to the worrying anarchy in the north. Not only did they refuse to pay their rents, but they added their voices to the protests against the suppression of the monasteries.

  Henry soon moved to reassert his authority over Richmond’s former holdings. Within weeks, William Orrell, a page of the king’s chamber, had been appointed bailiff of the Richmond fee in Norfolk. The king’s officers were charged with collecting outstanding debts and fees, although it would be more than two years before the bailiff of Richmond’s Manor of Droitwich in Worcestershire paid up the £10 19s which was owing. It took Henry even longer to turn his attention to the Welsh Marches. Not until October 1537 were the Earl of Worcester and others sent to investigate Richmond’s holdings there; and it was not until March 1538 that Robert Wingfield was made auditor of the possessions of the Countess of Richmond, including those back in the king’s hands because of Richmond’s unexpected death.

  A number of large grants helped to minimise the disruption caused by Richmond’s death. Henry’s long-time friend and former brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was particularly fortunate with a significant spread of lands in the Midlands. The king’s cousin, Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, was given the disputed Manor of Canford and other lands in Dorset. In order to support his new dignity as Lord Admiral, Sir William Fitzwilliam was allowed land in Devon and elsewhere.

  These large grants were followed by a trickle of smaller grants. Men and woman from all levels of court society, from Henry’s final queen, Katherine Parr, who received the lordship and Manor of Thorpe Achurch in Northamptonshire, to John Cocke, one of the king’s footmen, who received a lease of lands in Overstone in Northampton, benefited from Richmond’s death. The Manor of Kingsbury, in Somerset, went to Roger Amyce, whose father-in-law had been Richmond’s cofferer. However, the Manor of Boston, in Lincolnshire, was perhaps a special case. In 1545 it paid £646 15s 4d for the right to become a corporate borough. Significantly, even though Jane’s pregnancy was known only months after Richmond’s death, there was no attempt to reserve any of his holdings for an expected prince, an indication that Henry did not envisage Richmond as his heir.

  With the dismantling of Richmond’s estates came the break up of his household. Among Cromwell’s papers is a note ‘to know what the King will do with the Duke of Richmond’s servants’. Many of the duke’s officers had been with him since his creation in 1525. Now they found themselves scrambling to find other positions. The £528 purse which Henry allowed them ‘at the defraying of that household’ would not go far, and as Henry was due to receive a year’s worth of rent and revenues from Richmond’s lands and had already taken £490 in ready money from the duke’s almoner it was only a token gesture, rather than a serious attempt to defray their hardship.

  The most fortunate stayed in royal service. Richard Cotton found himself serving his king in another role when he was called to help combat the Pilgrimage of Grace. Hugh Johns, Richmond’s yeoman of the wardrobe, was lucky enough to find alternative employment with the king. Some looked hopefully towards the household of the duke’s half-sister Mary, which the rumours had it ‘shall be shortly advanced and the number of persons thereof augmented’. Others were subsequently accepted into the household formed for the new Prince Edward, although it took Thomas Eynns three years to secure his position there and in the meantime he complained of his ‘great costs and charges . . . whereby I am more than half undone’. A few men looked to their friends and relations to secure continuing employment. Sir Thomas Darcy, a former gentleman waiter, was particularly fortunate when he moved effortlessly into the service of his rising relation, Edward Seymour.

  One of the most interesting choices of patron for Richmond’s servants after their lord’s death was Thomas Cromwell. Being old and infirm, Thomas Holland did not feel able to accept Cromwell’s offer of a post, but rather than waste the opportunity, he was quick to send up his son and heir instead. When the Duchess of Norfolk was looking to aid a brewer named Arnold, who obviously secured his place in Richmond’s household through his connections with the Howards, she confidently approached Cromwell for his help, as it was evidently common knowledge that he had taken on several of Richmond’s former servants. The fact that the Blount’s youngest son, Henry, was accepted into Cromwell’s service might reasonably have arisen out of an association with Richmond. Thomas Eynns spoke of Cromwell’s fondness for the duke as ‘doth plainly appear in the bounty and goodness that you did after his death most charitably extend for his sake only to divers and sundry his servants’.

  Those who had no powerful patron to assist them were not quite as fortunate. One of the most wretched was William Wood, sometime servant to the duke. Having been employed in Richmond’s stables at Sheriff Hutton on the basis of food and drink only, he had, by his own admission, loitered on in the duke’s household without any master. On Richmond’s return south he had followed the establishment to Wolsey’s residence of the More in Hertfordshire and then on to Windsor, surviving by attaching himself to anyone in Richmond’s service who would accept him. By July 1538, he was in trouble with the Council of the North for using seditious words and his career remained firmly in the doldrums.

  One of those most intimately affected by Richmond’s death was his widow, Mary Howard. Whereas before she could have looked forward to presenting the King of England with a grandson, now her future was uncertain. At first sight her prospects seemed promising. At seventeen she was still younger than many girls at their first marriage. She now had not only her father’s wealth and her mother’s royal connections to recommend her, but her rank and status as Duchess of Richmond and Somerset and her expected income as a widow, making her a most attractive prospect.

  Although the young couple had never lived together, decorum did require a decent period of mourning. The young Duchess of Richmond retired from the court to her father’s house at Kenninghall in Norfolk. In November 1536 the duke assured Cromwell, ‘it is not possible for a young woman to handle herself more discreetly than she hath done since her husband’s death’. As well as the three geldings with their bridles, saddles ‘and all other things belonging to them’ which brought her back to Norfolk, she had an unspecified amount of her husband’s plate and jewels. While these things were not without value, there could be no serious question of her remarriage until the question of her jointure had been settled.

  However, almost as soon as Richmond was in his grave, Henry began to express doubts about the validity of his son’s marriage to Mary Howard. Everyone was happy to agree that their union had never been consummated. What the king now began to question was whether sexual intercourse was a requirement in contracting a binding and lawful marriage. Rather than granting Mary’s jointure, Henry decided to refer the matter to the judges and lawyers. Anxious at both the possibility of doubt and the delay, Norfolk expressed his hope that a favourable decision would quickly be secured. The duke’s anxiety was increased by the knowledge that he was about to make an imminent departure to Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire on the king’s business. Since this meant leaving his rather headstrong daughter to her own devices he was keen to see the matter settled before he left.

  If Norfolk hoped that mention of his good service would force a speedy resolution, he was to be sorely disappointed. Despite a stream of let
ters he was unable to secure any sort of a decision. Cromwell replied with promises and platitudes, but little sign of any action. In May 1537, almost a year after Richmond’s death, Norfolk wrote somewhat testily from Sheriff Hutton: ‘good my lord make an end for my daughter’s cause, all learned men do say that I spoke with there is no doubt of her right’. Mary also believed that her marriage had been entirely valid. As such, her first instinct was to blame her father. Obviously, he had not presented her case properly to the king. In fact the duke’s many letters, several written in his own hand, makes it clear that his daughter’s suit was never far from his thoughts. Mary dismissed her father’s undoubted efforts as nothing but words. She was convinced the king could not know the true facts for ‘so just a Prince’ would never deny his son’s widow the justice that was allowed to the ‘worst gentlewoman in this realm’.

  To her father’s horror Mary suggested that she should go to London to press her suit in person. When that request was denied she did the next best thing and wrote to Cromwell pleading for him to intercede on her behalf. According to her father she had been ‘put in such comfort by learned men that her right is clearly good’, that she could not see any reason for the delay. What she blatantly failed to appreciate, and what her father was all too painfully aware of, was that the delay had little to do with the vagaries of matrimonial law and everything to do with the mood of the king.

  All the evidence supports the view that Mary was legally entitled to her jointure. When Cromwell asked the Archbishop of Canterbury for his opinion, Thomas Cranmer was embarrassingly direct:

  I assure your lordship that without further convocation of doctors I am fully persuaded that such marriages as be in lawful age, contracted per verba de presenti, are matrimony before God, and the same cause is (as I remember) plainly opined and declared in the king’s grace’s book of his own cause of matrimony.3

  Although even a contract made in the present tense could be dissolved by mutual consent, strictly speaking this was illegal. The Church courts strongly disapproved of such actions, preferring to back the validity of the marriage. In the eyes of both the law and the Church Mary and Richmond had been husband and wife. Ironically, it was probably the justice of Mary’s position that was causing the delay. The judges were reluctant to deliver a verdict that would upset the king, who was not happy to hear any decision which would require him to honour his financial obligation.

  As Cranmer had rather pointedly observed, Henry was no stranger to matrimonial law. This was no naïve misunderstanding. According to her mother, Mary was supposed to receive £1,000 a year from the king as her widow’s jointure.4 Henry can hardly have viewed the prospect of bestowing such a significant sum of money with very good grace. Not only was there no hope of grandchildren, but to add insult to injury Norfolk had been allowed to forgo the substantial dowry that the king could normally have expected for the marriage of his son. Also, while Mary and her father were always careful to stress the role of the king in arranging the marriage, it is evident that his treacherous queen, Anne Boleyn, had persuaded him into it. In the circumstances, he had every reason to want to be rid of the whole matter.

  If Mary’s marriage was invalid, she would lose more than her jointure. As Richmond’s widow ‘the right high and noble princess Mary Duchess of Richmond and Somerset and Countess of Nottingham’, was ranked next to Henry’s own niece, Margaret Douglas, and above her own mother, Elizabeth Stafford, Duchess of Norfolk. Any irregularity in the marriage would automatically return her to her former rank as ‘the Lady Mary Howard’, daughter to the Duke of Norfolk. Much as Henry clearly wanted to save himself unpleasant expense, he is unlikely to have been aware of this. If he succeeded in his challenge, the Howards would lose every right and benefit from what had once seemed such a prestigious match.

  In recent months Norfolk had worked hard to distance himself from the disgrace of his half-brother, Lord Thomas Howard, which was rapidly followed by the downfall of his niece, Anne Boleyn. Yet despite his sterling service during the Pilgrimage of Grace, when his need for Norfolk’s military experience had helped the king to put aside his resentment over Richmond’s funeral, the fortunes of the Howards remained at a decidedly low ebb. Norfolk’s duties in the north, albeit as the king’s lieutenant, effectively kept him from court. In his absence, men like Thomas Cromwell and Edward Seymour, now the king’s brother-in-law, had Henry’s ear. When Norfolk learnt that matters relating to Scotland were to be discussed, he begged to be allowed to return so that he might share the benefit of his experience. At the bottom of his letter he scrawled in his own hand ‘the loss of one of my fingers should not be so much to my sorrow as to be in fear not to see my master at this time’. However, even that did not work and he continued to be kept from the king. Until Norfolk could engineer his own return to favour, he was hardly in a strong position to push his daughter’s case.

  In the circumstances, David Starkey’s claim that Norfolk ‘gave [Mary] no backing in her efforts to get adequate maintenance from the King’, is perhaps a little harsh. It is never wise to lose sight of the fact that Norfolk was notoriously self-serving. He was certainly not going to risk anything which might prejudice his own return to favour. Yet, within those parameters, he made concerted efforts to bring the case to the king’s attention. On his return from the north, Norfolk wrote from Kenninghall asking permission to come to London with his daughter and a small entourage. When Cromwell fobbed him off with a vague answer Norfolk did not give up, but pressed Cromwell ‘to advertise me whether you thought I should displease his majesty with bringing her up or not’. Unfortunately, his efforts were frustrated when sickness swept across East Anglia. Kept at home by the risk of infection, he was reduced to sending up the treasurer of his household to speak to Cromwell on his daughter’s behalf.

  Despite his undoubted efforts and the justice of her case, Mary would not receive her jointure until the king decided to permit it. Regardless of appearances, Norfolk did have some advantages. As one of only two remaining dukes in England, he had a usefulness that could not easily be dispensed with. Thomas Cromwell could manoeuvre to keep him from the court, but he could not block his attendance when the king wished to consult him. His role as Earl Marshal at the funeral of Queen Jane or his selection as one of Prince Edward’s godfathers, had nothing to do with his personal relationship with the Seymours, but was a reflection of his rank and status as one of the greatest peers in the realm. Sooner or later his patience and good service would surely be rewarded.

  Norfolk’s efforts to restore the Howards to favour were not helped by his own dysfunctional family. His son and heir, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, found the meteoric rise of a gentry family like the Seymours impossible to bear. In the summer of 1537, the tension between the Earl of Surrey and Edward Seymour (created Earl of Hertford at his nephew’s christening in October 1537) erupted into open violence. Surrey tried to strike the king’s brother-in-law within the precepts of the court. The due punishment for such a crime was the loss of his right hand. Fortunately for Surrey, the king was indulgent enough towards the Duke of Richmond’s childhood friend to commute his sentence to a few months comfortable, but embarrassing, confinement at Windsor Castle.5 On his release the duke tried to keep his son more quietly in the country, but Surrey’s volatile temper would not be so easily contained.

  Then there were the Duchess of Norfolk’s attempts to tie her own financial difficulties to the question of her daughter’s jointure. After an acrimonious marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk had formally separated in 1534. Cromwell’s attempts to reunite the couple were hampered by her allegations of a history of maltreatment and abuse. Among other instances of violence Norfolk had, she claimed, had her bound ‘till blood came out of my finger ends’ and beaten ‘till I sp[a]t blood’. Norfolk refuted her claims as wilful slander, but his determination to keep his mistress of eleven years, Bess Holland, whom the duchess described as ‘that harlot which has put me to all this trouble’, at Kenninghall and
parade her openly at court enraged his estranged wife. The duchess also protested vehemently at the reduced circumstances in which her husband expected her to live. A gentlewoman could not live on £50 a quarter ‘and the one quarter and half the other is spent before it commeth in’. Hearing that Mary’s jointure had not yet been paid, she asked Cromwell to ensure that the king did not grant Mary her settlement until she first received hers.

  The Duchess of Norfolk might have believed that her marriage, purchased by her father at a cost of two thousand marks, which had endured for twenty-two years and produced five children, gave her case precedence over her daughter’s brief, childless union, which had come at no cost to the family, but society would not condone her behaviour. Convention expected a woman to turn a blind eye to a husband’s infidelity. Instead, the duchess was mortified that her children tolerated Bess Holland’s presence and was particularly distressed that Mary went about in her company. Her bitterness was perhaps all the sharper because they did not support her in her battles with their father. She roundly declared there was ‘never woman that bare so ungracious an eldest son, and so ungracious a daughter, and unnatural’. Yet the issue was rather more complicated than such high emotion allowed. Mary’s reliance on her father’s bounty made it difficult for her to side with a mother whose own behaviour was not above reproach.