If there had been opposition it would probably not have come from Mary. From an early age she had been taught that the throne of England was the right of the male heir. Her later insistence on her (rightful) title of princess should not be taken as evidence of ambition in this direction. Despite their differences, Mary always maintained her loyalty to Edward as her king and was careful to keep her distance from any sort of plot or political intrigue. This was most noticeable in 1549. During a summer of rebellion the govern-ment’s attempts to link Mary with the unrest were not successful. Shortly afterwards, when she was approached to lend her support to a plan to oust the increasingly unpopular Edward Seymour in order to make her regent, she refused to become involved. Katherine of Aragon’s daughter was well aware that certain aspects of government were outside the competence of a woman. She expected to be the consort of some foreign prince in a marriage that brought economic and political benefit to her country. The idea that she might rule at all, much less without a husband at her side, would have astonished her.
In 1553 Mary’s victory was assured because under the terms of the Act of Succession of 1543 and her father’s will she was the legal heir to the throne. However, she and her supporters were in no sense a government-in-waiting. Anyone with any real political ambition had already seen which way the land lay and thrown in their lot with the new regime under Edward. It may be a little cynical to argue that there were perhaps also those who supported Mary, gambling on the fact that she was too middleaged and too racked by health problems to live long or produce an heir. God willing they need only endure her for a short time before they might have Elizabeth. Perhaps it is rather less cynical to claim that there were those who would prefer any alternative to Jane Grey’s new husband Guilford, the youngest son of John Dudley, the unpopular Duke of Northumberland, as king. If Richmond had been the designated heir under the terms of his father’s last will, then that support would have flocked to him and he no doubt would have exploited it to its full advantage.
There were, of course, others who might have mounted a claim in reaction to the accession of this bonafide bastard. Elizabeth is an obvious candidate, but in 1553 she was still only twenty and a female to boot. In fact, this was a disability shared by all the near blood claimants. They were either, like Margaret Douglas, female, or, like her seven-year-old son, Henry, Lord Darnley, rather too young to stage a coup on their own behalf. There was also always the possibility that another great lord of the kingdom might choose to stand against Richmond. Although these were rather thinner on the ground than in times past – and the death of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk in 1545 removed one dangerous possibility – the combined ambitions of Edward and Thomas Seymour may well have been sufficient to cause him concern. But they would still have needed to muster sufficient support for a coup and there is no guarantee that this would have been forthcoming.
Any attempt to judge what type of monarch King Henry IX might have become must also be pure speculation. The simple answer is probably very much like his father. If part of the duty of a monarch was to look like a king, Richmond certainly met expectations. His wardrobe was positively splendid. A gown of black velvet embroidered with gold, lined with velvet and satin might be paired with matching doublet and hose and topped off with a bonnet of black velvet with a brooch of gold on the cap set with four rubies. The rings on his fingers, collars around his neck or ornamental garters, were all gold set with diamonds, rubies or pearls. His household glittered with gold and silver plate. A large number of pieces, like the silver salt shaped like a unicorn horn and set with pearls, were gifts from his father and Richmond had amassed enough plate from several years’ worth of New Year gifts to set a magnificent table.
Like Henry VIII at his accession Richmond was a fine athlete who loved nothing more than hunting and jousting. It is easy to imagine a sense of déjà vu as ambassadors and courtiers attempted to keep the king’s mind on business, although it is harder to see him as the patron of learning and scholars that William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, saw in his father. Given Richmond’s eager pursuit of the arts of war, it is much more possible to see him pursuing as vigorous a foreign policy as his father, keen to secure his own Flodden or Tournai. However, the direction of his campaigns may have been different. Richmond had a warm relationship with Henri, the former duc d’Orléans who now reigned as King of France, although England’s tempestuous relationship with Scotland was perhaps always likely to place more strain on Anglo-French relations than a boyhood friendship could hope to offset.
However, Richmond may also have emulated some of his father’s less attractive traits. His pursuit of lands and offices suggests an edge of fairly ruthless ambition. His willingness to promote and defend his officers indicates that he was generous to his loyal friends; however his silence over the downfall of Wolsey and Brereton is a worrying hint towards his readiness to put his own interests before anything else. His conscience in matters of religion appears to have been equally malleable. Although his religious education had more in common with Mary than Edward and Elizabeth, and his chapel was certainly traditional enough, he apparently watched the progress of the reformation without a murmur.
Yet Richmond was also universally remembered as charming, gracious and handsome. There were many who lived to mourn his passing. His mother Elizabeth survived him, living until she was about forty years old. Her growing brood of children was little compensation for the loss of her eldest son. If the Earl of Surrey’s poetry is a true reflection of his feelings then he too was deeply affected by the loss of his closest friend. A French poet, Nicholas de Bourbon, who had spent some time teaching in England, also wrote a few lines showing that the whole of England grieved for the loss of Richmond. Men like Richard Croke and the French princes spoke with genuine affection for the duke. That Henry VIII appears to have expunged his son from his memory was perhaps not an indication of any lack of feeling, but rather a sign that his grief was such that he could not bear to be reminded of him.
In historical terms Richmond’s memory has been overshadowed by the birth of Prince Edward in October 1537. The achievement of his mother, Elizabeth Blount, in presenting Henry with a son has been obscured by the meteoric rise and spectacular failure of Anne Boleyn. As such, neither have attracted the attention devoted to other aspects of Henry VIII’s reign. From the chronicler Hollinshed, who had promised to give an account of Richmond in his history of the dukes of the land only never to complete the work, to the modern accounts of Henry’s reign which omit all mention of the duke, Richmond has never been seen as a pivotal figure in Tudor history. Yet for Henry VIII he acquired usefulness almost beyond price.
Often his youth was his greatest asset, allowing a style of government – notably at Sheriff Hutton and with the secret council in Ireland – that would not have been tenable under an established magnate. His dual role as an independent magnate and acknowledged son of the king meant that he could embody royal approval in controversial matters, thus saving the king from muddying his own hands. Without the Duke of Richmond, Wolsey’s ploy of attempting to woo the daughter of Portugal from the dauphin of France, so that Mary might one day be Queen of France, could not have been put in hand. Richmond also served his father as a diplomat and courtier. He was also good for the king’s image. In simple terms, he allowed Henry to demonstrate good lordship by giving out extensive lands and offices without risking the danger of an over mighty subject. More significantly, his presence was Henry’s tangible assurance that he could have a son – reassurance for his subjects and an insurance policy that Henry took for granted would always be there.
Notes
Preface
1. Inventories of the Wardrobe Plate Chapel Stuff etc. of Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond. . . . Edited with a Memoir and Letters of the Duke of Richmond, ed. J.G. Nichols.
2. E. Cherbury, Lord Herbert, Life and Reign of King Henry the Eighth, p. 165.
3. E. Barnwell, Perrot Notes, Some Account of the Various Branches of the Pe
rrot Family (1867), p. 40.
4. D. Edwards, The Edwardes Legacy (Baltimore, 1992), p. 22.
5. E. Ives, Anne Boleyn, p. 250.
6. Writing in March 1997 Anthony Hoskins put forward a new theory which used revised ages for Henry and Catherine in an attempt to prove beyond any doubt that they were both Henry VIII’s children. A. Hoskins, ‘Mary Boleyn Carey’s Children – Offspring of King Henry VIII’, Genealogist’s Magazine, 25 (1997), n.9.
7. British Library (BL), Harleian MS 252, f. 26.
Chapter One
1. Public Record Office (PRO), E36/215, f. 250.
2. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. J.S. Brewer et al., p. 395.
3. For a full discussion of the problems Henry VII faced in securing his throne see S.B. Chimes, Henry VII (1987), pp. 68–94.
4. Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII, ed. J. Gairdner (2 vols, 1861, 1863), I, pp. 233–4.
5. One of the points that does not seem to have been a particular problem was Archbishop Warham’s concern over the validity of the six-year-old papal dispensation, which allowed for the fact that Katherine had had sexual intercourse with Arthur. D. Loades, The Politics of Marriage (Stroud, 1994), p .17.
6. N. Samman, ‘The Henrician Court During Cardinal Wolsey’s Ascendancy c. 1514–1529’ (unpublished Ph.D., University of Wales, 1988), p. 175.
7. Calendar of Letters, Dispatches and State Papers (CSP) Relating to Negotiations between England and Spain 1485–1558, ed. G.A. Bergenroth, et al. (1862–1954) Supplement, p. 285. G. Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (1971), pp. 110–12. W. Compton, History of the Comptons of Compton Wynyates, p. 15.
8. The Blounts of Kinlet were the descendants of Sir John Blount through his first marriage in 1347 to Isolda, the daughter and heir of Sir Thomas de Mountjoy. The Blounts, the Lords Mountjoy, were the descendants of his second marriage to Eleanor, the daughter of Lord Beauchamp of Somerset.
9. PRO, E36/215, f. 270. A. Somerset, Ladies in Waiting, p. 15.
10. Shropshire Record Office (SRO), 1878/3 29.
11. SRO 1878/3 27.
12. W.S. Childe-Pemberton, Elizabeth Blount and Henry VIII, p. 20.
13. BL, Cotton MS Titus A XIII, f. 187.
14. S.J. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, c. 1484–1545, p. 6.
15. BL, Additional MSS 28585, f. 43.
16. The report came from the Imperial agent James Banisius and is not corroborated by any other source. David Loades is probably correct when he suggests that if there was a child it was ‘almost certainly dead, and many weeks premature.’ D. Loades, The Politics of Marriage, p. 24.
17. BL, Cott. MS Caligula D VI, f. 155.
18. In 1514 Charles Brandon had already contracted four marriages. He had put aside the first wife, Anne Browne, when she was pregnant with their daughter, so he could marry her aunt Margaret Mortimer, a wealthy heiress. He then had that marriage annulled in order to remarry Anne and, after her death, had made plans to marry his eight-year-old ward. Despite rumours of his interest in Margaret of Savoy, in 1515 he actually married the king’s sister, Mary Tudor.
19. Or to be exact ‘una grandissima ribald et infame sopre tutte’, Letters and Papers, X, 450. E. Ives, Anne Boleyn, p. 34.
20. PRO, SP1/70, 61. SP1/10, 163.
21. For what little is known of Jane Poppingcourt’s career in England see Samman, ‘Henrician Court’, p. 147. W. Richardson, Mary Tudor, The White Queen, p. 14.
22. PRO, E36/215 f. 449.
23. E. Hall, Chronicle Containing the History of England, ed. H. Ellis (1809), p. 703.
24. Ibid., p. 595.
25. Wolsey’s two children by ‘Mistress Lark’ were a son, Thomas Winter, who received numerous clerical preferments and a daughter, Dorothy, who secured a place in the wealthy convent at Shaftesbury Abbey. P. Gwyn, The King’s Cardinal (1990), p. 351.
26. N. Samman, ‘Henrician Court’, p. 403.
27. G. Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, p. 132.
28. H.S. Burke, Historical Portrait of the Tudor Dynasty (4 vols, 1879–83), I, p. 178. Letters and Papers, III, ii, Revels Accounts, p. 1559.
29. PRO, Durham 3, Portf. 177, p. 55.
30. W.C. Richardson, ‘The Surveyor of the King’s Prerogative’, English Historical Review, (1941), p. 60.
31. Letters and Papers, III, ii, 2356. (18).
32. R. Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn, p. 49.
33. N. Samman, ‘Henrician Court,’ p. 186.
34. BL, Cott. Otho, CX, f. 234.
35. PRO, SP1/55 15.
36. PRO, SP1/55 14.
37. Inventory of the Wardrobe of Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, 1531 [17], Historical Manuscript Commision, Longleat Miscellaneous Manuscripts (microfilm, reel 2) 97. The young Lord Tailbois would also receive other items of his half-brother’s wardrobe in 1536. J.G. Nichols, Inventories of the Wardrobe, 1ff.
38. Alice Perrers was the infamous mistress of Edward III whose influence was matched only by her ambition.
39. E. Ives, Anne Boleyn, p. 20.
40. 14 & 15 Henry VIII. C.34.
41. BL, Add. MSS 46457, f. 56 ff.
42. Letters and Papers, IV, iii, 5750.
Chapter Two
1. S. Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England, p. 119.
2. BL, Cott. MS Tiberius E.VIII, f. 206. The earls who were chosen to accompany Fitzroy during this part of the ceremony were those who ranked first in the order of precedence. See H. Miller, Henry VIII and the English Nobility, p. 20.
3. BL, Egerton MS 2642, f. 7.
4. Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, the bastard son of Edward IV, acquired his title in the reign of Henry VIII, through his marriage to Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward Grey, Viscount Lisle.
5. John Beaufort was the eldest son of four illegitimate children born to John of Gaunt and his mistress Katherine Swynford. As the product of an adulterous affair the children were not automatically legitimated when their parents married in 1399. However, when Gaunt successfully petitioned the Pope for a dispensation their legitimacy was confirmed. C. Given-Wilson and A. Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England, pp. 147–53.
6. M. Jones and M. Underwood, The King’s Mother, pp. 71–2.
7. In Matilda’s defence, it must be said that Henry I created problems that any successor would be hard pressed to deal with. The celebrated peace of his reign belied tensions that were held in check through terror of the king. His personal government had been harsh and oppressive and it was inevitable that there would be a reaction on his death. For an account of Matilda’s life see M. Chibnall, The Empress Matilda.
8. In his examination of Buckingham’s rebellion against Richard III, Michael Hicks suggested that ‘while it is easy to deduce . . . that the new unnamed king proclaimed at Bodmin was Henry Tudor, it need not have been. It could, for example, have been Buckingham’, M. Hicks, Richard III, p. 158.
9. For a full account of the events which led to Buckingham’s downfall see J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 120–3.
10. Gilbert Tailbois was listed as a member of the king’s chamber in the subsidy records of 1527 and was still at court in April 1529 when his mother complained he should ‘go home and see good order kept in the county’. PRO, E179/69/2. PRO, SP1/53, f. 158.
11. Writing in 1973, Mortimer Levine proposed that ‘the king’s bitterness over the defeat of his French ambitions’ was the inspiration for Richmond’s elevation. M. Levine, Tudor Dynastic Problems, p. 54.
12. CSP Venetian, IV, 1053.
13. R. Wernham, Before the Armada, p. 111.
14. The marriage was supposed to take place when Mary was twelve years old in February 1528. Yet at eleven Mary was still considered ‘so thin, spare and small as to make it impossible to be married for the next three years’. This suggests a degree of physical immaturity, which would have further delayed the prospect of children. It was not difficult for Isabella and her dowry of one million ducats
to be a more tempting prospect.
15. Letters and Papers, IV, i, 1371.
16. PRO, SP1/35, pp. 185–92. That Richmond was termed ‘Lord Henry Fitzroy’ is evidence that the list was drawn up prior to 18 June 1525. Yet the contents can be identified as in use in his household at Sheriff Hutton.
17. J. Palsgrave, The Comedy of Acolastus, p. xxvii. His patron was, it seems, a distant relation.
18. Chronicle and Political Papers of Edward VI, ed. W.K. Jordan, p. 3.
19. BL, Harl. MS 304 125b. However, the register of the Order only records the elections of the Earl of Arundel and Lord Roos on St George’s Day 1525. J. Anstis, The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (2 vols, 1724), II, pp. 369–70.
20. C. Given-Wilson and A. Curteis, Royal Bastards of Medieval England, pp. 162–73.
21. ‘Even if the king could canvass enough support for such a move, there was a strong argument that it was prejudicial to the rights of the king’s lawful children. Not just those he had already, but those he might yet have – by his present wife or any subsequent wives. Therefore, it was beyond the competence of the king or the king and parliament to do so.’ H. Nenner, The Right to be King, p. 39. The birth of Edward in 1537 justified this caution.
22. CSP Venetian, III, 1052.
23. While the Dukedom of Somerset had most recently been held by Henry VII’s youngest son Edmund, who had died in childhood, it was almost certainly chosen for him because of the family connection.
24. The manors were: Englishcombe, Shepton Mallet, Midsomer Norton, Melton Falconbridge, Laverton, Farrington Gurney, Stoke under Hampton, Welton and West Harptree. G. Haslam, ‘An Administrative Study of the Duchy of Cornwall 1500–1650’ unpublished Ph.D thesis, Louisiana State University, 1970, pp. 123–5.
25. Sir John Arundel of Lanherne was also to be included, but cried off pleading lack of sufficient notice. It seems likely that Wolsey suggested his name, since Sir John’s second son was in the Cardinal’s service. Arundel was probably not included in the king’s original design. H. Miller, English Nobility p. 22.
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