Bastard Prince

Cover illustrations:
Portrait of Henry VIII
by Hans the Younger Holbein (1497/8–1543), Belvoir Castle Leicestershire/Bridgeman Art Library, London;
Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond in 1534/5,
by Lucas Hornebolte, The Royal Collection c.2003, Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II.

First published in 2001
This edition published in 2010

The History Press
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This ebook edition first published in 2011

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EPUB ISBN
978 0 7524 6889 1
MOBI ISBN
978 0 7524 6890 7

Original typesetting by The History Press

I would like to thank Professor David Loades for encouraging my conviction that Richmond's life merited further investigation. I am indebted to the British Academy, who funded much of the initial research. In compiling this study I have benefited from the expertise of many friends and colleagues, whose input has enriched the finished work. I am particularly grateful to Dr Alan Dyer, Dr Simon Harris, Dr S.J. Gunn and Dr Hazel Pierce for their contributions. Thanks are also due to all those archives and libraries whose staff and collections have provided invaluable assistance in my search for a true picture of the duke.

Finally, my debt is to those of my friends and family who have had to live with the ghost of a little known Tudor Prince. The many ways in which they have provided support and assistance are especially valued.

The marital misfortunes of Henry VIII are one of the most notorious episodes in English history. Even those with little or no interest in the history of Tudor times can name the king who had six wives. His pursuit of a legitimate son and heir was not the sole factor in the events of the Reformation which shook England and became the scandal of Europe in the sixteenth century. Henry's desire to father a male child and secure the future of his dynasty cannot be overestimated. Yet it was to take him twenty-eight years and three wives, before Jane Seymour was finally able to present the King of England with his prince.

The events of the preceding years, with Katherine of Aragon as the wronged wife and Anne Boleyn as the other woman, would not seem out of place in a modern soap opera. As such the popular perception of events is often at odds with historical fact. Henry VIII is berated for his repudiation of Katherine on a whim, without any appreciation that the couple lived as man and wife for almost twenty years. Anne Boleyn's reputation as a whore is not dimmed by the centuries, despite the fact that she was apparently Henry's ‘mistress' for five years before she actually had full sexual intercourse with him.

Any mention of the fact that for much of this time Henry VIII had a healthy, promising, albeit inconveniently illegitimate son, generally evokes one of two responses. Either there is the assumption that all monarchs had hordes of illicit offspring, which rendered bastard children insignificant in the broader fabric of political affairs. Or, more commonly, there is a profoundly sceptical enquiry as to the identity of the child.

This is not entirely unreasonable. The existence of the Duke of Richmond was no secret to his contemporaries. However, he has fared rather less well in attracting the attention of historians. The main printed source for his life remains John Gough Nichols'
Inventories
published in 1855.
¹
Richmond has occasionally benefited from the notoriety of other figures at the Tudor court, for example, featuring in the biographies of his childhood friend, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. On other occasions his envisaged role in Ireland has stirred some interest. However, even those with a well informed knowledge of Tudor history would be forgiven for thinking there were only three events of note in Richmond's life. His birth in 1519, his elevation to the peerage in 1525, followed by his death in 1536.

The true picture is rather more complex. In 1525 Henry VIII had been married for sixteen years, with only a nine-year-old daughter to his credit. When his illegitimate son was created Duke of Richmond and Somerset it prompted intense speculation that Henry VIII was intending to name him as his heir. In 1536 that speculation intensified when Anne Boleyn had been able to present the king with nothing more than two miscarriages and yet another daughter. In the meantime, Richmond's tenure as Lord Lieutenant of the North and his appointment as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland heralded new departures in Tudor local government. His contemporaries believed he would become King of Ireland. Those suggested as possible brides included Catherine de Medici, the future Queen of France. His unprecedented status as the duke of two counties made him the foremost peer of the realm. In almost every way Henry VIII treated him as his legitimate son and in almost every way that is the role Richmond fulfilled.

Since Richmond was only a child, some of the traditional areas of a biography are inevitably lost to us. There can be little examination of his ability as a soldier, nor is it feasible to build up a picture of a personal affinity in the same way that would be expected of an adult magnate. Yet there are compensations. We know far more of Richmond's childhood than we might have done had circumstances not required his dispatch to Sheriff Hutton. His youth also allows for the reconstruction of his character in a vivid manner which is often difficult for his fellow nobles. At the same time, because Richmond's activities often encroached on the traditional preserves of the adult world, those areas where one would usually look for traces of an established lord, such as litigation, diplomacy and patronage, are by no means lacking.

Much of Richmond's importance stems from the fact that while he lived he was the king's only son. He did not survive to see his fortunes eclipsed by the birth of the legitimate Prince Edward, who was born on 11 October 1537. Indeed, when Richmond died on 23 July 1536, Jane Seymour was not even pregnant. Examples of Henry's affection for his only living son abound and during the King's marriage to Katherine of Aragon, Richmond was widely considered to be:

very personable and of great expectation, insomuch that he was thought not only for ability of body but mind to be one of the rarest of his time, for which also he was much cherished by our King, as also because he had no issue male by his Queen, nor perchance expect any.
²

There can be no doubt that Richmond was Henry's son. In his case, the distinctive red hair and wilful Tudor personality were merely secondary considerations. The king's chief minister, Thomas Wolsey, stood as his godfather at his christening and he was openly acknowledged and proudly accepted by Henry VIII.

There have been several other candidates offered as possible natural children of Henry VIII. Ethelreda or Audrey Harrington, the daughter of Joan Dobson or Dingley, is believed to be an illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII. She married John Harrington and died in 1555. Mary Berkley, the wife of the courtier Sir Thomas Perrot, is also supposed to be the mother of two of Henry VIII's illegitimate issue: Thomas Stukely, born in 1525, who married Anne Curtis and Sir John Perrot, who was born in 1527.

In the case of Sir John Perrot it is his physical attributes that have cast him as an illegitimate son of the king. Writing in 1867 his biographer claimed:

If we compare his picture, his qualities, his gesture and voice with that of the King, whose memory yet remains among us, they will plead strongly that he was a surreptitious child of the blood royal.
³

Sir John Perrot went on to have a colourful career under the Tudors. Made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of King Edward VI, he was briefly imprisoned in the Fleet Prison in the reign of Mary, served Elizabeth in a number of posts, notably Lord Deputy of Ireland, only to die in 1592 in disgrace for attempting rebellion against Queen Elizabeth. However, he was never officially acknowledged as a son of Henry VIII.

The poet and musician Richard Edwards has also been cast as a natural son of the king. Apparently born in March 1525, the evidence for his paternity is the fact that he received an Oxford education which his family could have ill-afforded to provide. His biographer writing in 1992 is confident that:

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to account for facts concerning Richard's life beginning with his education at Oxford in any other way than as the son of Henry VIII who provided for his education and set the stage for the rest of Richard's life.
⁴

Richard Edwards' career was rather less dramatic. After receiving his Master of Arts from Oxford, he was ordained. After a brief spell as Theologian at Christ Church, Oxford, much of his career was spent as one of the gentlemen of the Chapel Royal. However, once again, Henry VIII never took the opportunity to recognise him as his son.

Henry VIII's most infamous alleged offspring are, of course, Mary Boleyn's children, Henry and Catherine Carey. At least here it is possible to be absolutely certain that Mary Boleyn was in fact Henry's mistress. Their affair began after her marriage to William Carey in February 1520. Speculation about the parentage of the children was first fuelled by attempts by Katherine of Aragon's supporters to slander the Boleyns with the suggestion that Henry Carey was in fact Henry VIII's bastard.
⁵
In 1535 John Hale, the vicar of Isleworth in Middlesex, said that he had been shown ‘young Master Carey saying he was the King's son.' Such a tantalising prospect has been grist to the mill of historical debate ever since. New theories continue to be advanced in an attempt to prove conclusively that both were indeed Henry's children.
⁶

In each of these cases it can be argued that the women concerned were already married, something which could not be said of Elizabeth Blount when she began her liaison with the king. However, if Henry VIII's morals would allow him to sleep with another man's wife, would his conscience truly prevent him from acknowledging the child? Given that Henry was not exactly overendowed with legitimate issue, it seems reasonable to assume that he needed all the children he could lay claim to. When a marriage betrothal was the accepted way to seal a diplomatic treaty even a natural daughter could be a useful tool. If the child were a son, any arguments against acknowledging him would surely have been outweighed, if not by Henry's pride in his achievement, then by his desperate need for other male relatives to help carry the burden of government.