Bastard Prince (24 page)

It is easy, with hindsight, to read too much into the many storms and tempests of Anne and Henry's marital relationship. Yet Anne was all too aware that she had created a dangerous precedent. Her concerns about the propriety of her ladies demonstrates her concern that she should be seen to act as befitted a Queen of England, presiding over a well-ordered household as her predecessor had done. Her insistence that their necklines should be demurely filled with ‘chests' – material inserts which covered any cleavage – was perhaps less a question of fashion than a natural jealousy that a rival might rise from their ranks. Many of those qualities which had made her an enticing mistress ensured she was unsuited to the role of the patient wife, not least because she loved Henry with a passion and could not ‘shut her eyes and endure, just like others who were worthier than she', when Henry as much as looked elsewhere.

For the moment this was all it was. Indeed, Anne was getting off lightly. Henry's relationship with Jane was chaste, in the true tradition of courtly love, something that cannot be said of many of Henry's liaisons during Katherine of Aragon's numerous pregnancies. It was Anne's fear that what she had done others might now emulate, and the circling of her enemies made this something more than a romantic diversion.

Anne was notoriously unpopular. Neither her shirts nor her smocks for the poor, nor her traditional gifts of Maundy money, (even though she increased the amount to considerably more than Katherine had been accustomed to bestow) was enough to redress her reputation. In the eyes of many she was a ‘goggleeyed whore', a she-devil who had stolen the king from his true and rightful wife. She was the architect of all Mary's misfortunes and she bore the brunt of public criticism regarding many of the most unpopular measures of the Reformation, not just the changes in religion, but the accompanying draconian measures against treason in word or deed. As good men like Sir Thomas More and John Fisher went to the scaffold and the country endured the perils of famine and the threat of hostilities with the emperor, it begged the question whether the new regime was actually the will of God after all. When Henry VIII's own fool, Will Somers, was bold enough to gauge the mood of the country and call Anne a ‘ribald' and her daughter a bastard, the queen's only real security was Henry's affection, the child she carried and the king's first wife.

When Katherine of Aragon died on 7 January 1536 Henry's immediate reaction was joy and deliverance, declaring ‘God be praised that we are free from all suspicion of war'. All now seemed set fair for the birth of his prince, whose mother would be indisputably the only queen in England. The prospect of invasion was converted into the possibility of reconciliation with Charles V. Ever willing to believe that God espoused all his causes, Henry no doubt took this timely blessing as a sign that all would, at last, be well. Anne's public reaction was equally joyous. ‘Now I am indeed a Queen' she declared. But even as she and Henry went to mass in great state and Elizabeth was shown off to the court by her proud father, she must have realised that she might be the victim of her own success. Now no one could require Henry to return to Katherine. If he ever chose to put her aside, he would be free to marry again and it would be much easier a second time.

On 24 January 1536, there was a further crisis. Henry was jousting in the tiltyard at Greenwich when he fell from his horse. Unlike the incident in 1524, this accident was gravely serious. The king did not recover consciousness for over two hours. It was an anxious time. Were Henry to die, the question of the succession, so long pondered, considered, but avoided, would be drawn dramatically into focus. If Anne's unborn child were the long desired male heir, England would have its king, only to be plunged into a long minority which would endanger the realm. If the pregnancy failed or the child was a girl, Elizabeth would be queen. However, even Anne's most ardent supporters cannot have viewed the accession of a two-year-old girl with any real enthusiasm.

Henry's other daughter was now a woman of nineteen. Her supposed illegitimacy was the least of her problems. It had not yet been enshrined in law and it would be a simple thing to argue that she had been born in good faith. She was popular with the English people and would be accepted across Europe as Henry's rightful successor. Except that all the dangers of a ruling queen, which had concerned men in 1525, still stood between her and the throne.

Richmond might seem to hold all the cards. The king's only son could ascend the throne without any danger of a minority and rule in succession to the father whom he so closely resembled, apart from the fact that he had no legal title to the throne. The law of the land still clearly stated that that the king's bastard issue had no rights in regard to the succession. Even if Henry revived sufficiently to murmur his consent, the problem of Richmond's illegitimacy would remain. With no clear candidate from among Henry's own children and a host of cousins and other nobles, such as Henry VIII's nephew James V, who might decide to try their luck, there was the all too real prospect of war and perhaps years of disorder. Luckily, Henry survived – this time. However, the incident was a worrying reminder, if any were needed, that Henry was not immortal. If the question of his successor could not be decisively settled, then England's future would be very bleak.

However, only days later, on 29 January 1536, Anne Boleyn miscarried for the second time. To make matters worse, the child would have been a son.
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Already badly scared by his recent brush with death, this time Henry's reaction bordered on hysterical. The king feared that his second marriage was no more blessed than his first. His anxiety swept him onwards:

Tellingly, Anne is said to have blamed Norfolk for her misfortune, claiming that he had broken the news of the king's accident too abruptly. With more passion than prudence, she also blamed the king, allegedly upbraiding him for his part in this tragedy by casting in his face how his attentions to Jane Seymour had distressed her. Emotions were clearly running high. Whether this episode would have been enough to seal Anne's fate, had the king been left to his own devices, is impossible to say. Her enemies regarded the high drama with glee. They had all the ammunition they needed and battle was joined.

The events of January 1536 set the tone for the months to follow. Henry's panic-stricken concerns about his second marriage were nurtured and fuelled. The tempting prospect of Jane Seymour was set before him as a viable, nubile and altogether more compliant alternative. With Katherine now dead his next union would be free of any impediment or doubt. Surely then there would be no reason for sons not to follow. By March 1536, Jane's elder brother, Sir Edward Seymour, was a member of the King's privy chamber, a sure sign that Henry's interest had been stirred. Since a new marriage would also allow Mary to be acknowledged as having been born in good faith, her supporters threw in their lot with the Seymours. However, Richmond's position was rather less clear cut.

His personal relationship with Anne may on occasion have been rather strained, with Anne making efforts to observe propriety through gritted teeth, but he had little to gain by her removal. With the king's freedom to marry again came the prospect of further issue. Although Edward Seymour had been Richmond's Master of the Horse at Sheriff Hutton, that appointment had come from the crown. Equally, when Richmond had appointed Seymour as steward of his Manor of Canford in Dorset, in 1528, it was at the king's command. Richmond may even have felt resentful, since he had intended to give the stewardship of all his lands in Dorset to his chamberlain, Sir William Parr. Since Richmond's interests were far more intimately associated with the Duke of Norfolk, who had little love for the ambitious Seymours, neither of them were likely to view this new development with any particular pleasure.

Unlike Norfolk, Richmond could at least rest assured that he was safe from any repercussions, should the Seymours succeed in securing Anne's downfall. Despite his links to the Howards, and thus by implication the Boleyns, he was no ordinary magnate. He remained close to his father and in March 1536, his particular usefulness to the king was demonstrated once again. During negotiations for a meeting between Henry VIII and James V at York, it was proposed that ‘the Duke of Richmond and the eldest son of the Duke of Norfolk and of the Marquis [probably Exeter] shall be made hostages for the security of the King of Scots'.
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While Mary and Elizabeth's supporters nailed their colours to the mast, Richmond's activities give little clue to his feelings. At a chapter of the Order of the Garter held in April 1536, he voted both for Anne's brother, Lord Rochford and for Sir Nicholas Carew, who was no supporter of the Boleyns. His actions probably reflected the mood of much of the court as they waited to see which way the die would fall.

Yet Richmond's own interests were too extensive for him to be completely unaffected by the events that now raged around him. As the net closed around Anne Boleyn, one of those arrested under suspicion of being her lover was William Brereton, who was Richmond's steward in the Marches of Wales. Since the self-confessed architect of Anne Boleyn's downfall was Thomas Cromwell, the selection of Brereton is unlikely to have been made at random. Brereton's activities in Wales had made him something of a thorn in Cromwell's side as he attempted to reform local government, so the downfall of Anne Boleyn provided a tailor-made opportunity to pluck him out.
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If the young duke was in any way concerned at these moves against one of his servants, he was cautious enough to keep his own counsel. Whatever his own feelings, Brereton's death presented no danger to him and he was wise enough not to intercede for his servant against the wishes of the king.

Richmond was not among the twenty-six peers who were summoned to give judgment at Anne Boleyn's trial. It was perhaps considered a little indelicate to allow a young man, who had not yet consummated his own marriage, to sit in judgment on his stepmother's sexual crimes. However, he would not have been ignorant of the proceedings. Norfolk, who had no intention of being dragged down by his niece, presided over the court as Lord High Steward and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, deputised for his father as Earl Marshal. However, Richmond was present at her execution. It was said that ‘a malign smile seemed to pass over the features of the young Duke of Richmond', but this report was not contemporary. Richmond's attendance was almost certainly the will of the king and intended, as at Tyburn in 1535, to make a political point. Richmond's personal feelings were not at issue.

The loss of Anne was probably no great blow to Richmond. If nothing else she was a rival for his father's time and affection. When the king decided he wanted Anne to have Margaret Beaufort's former Manor of Collyweston in Northamptonshire, which Richmond had enjoyed since 1525, the duke had written to Cromwell with perhaps a hint of disgruntled petulance ‘the which manor as I understand the king's Highness' pleasure is that the queen's grace shall have'. Indeed, the Imperial ambassador eagerly seized upon a rumour that Anne had intended to murder Richmond. With a certain gory enjoyment he recounted how on the evening of Anne's arrest, Richmond had gone to ask his father's blessing, before retiring for the night. At the sight of his son the king had been moved to tears and said:

Others, including the chronicler Charles Wriothesley, also picked up on this allegation. In fact, it seems to have been nothing but a ploy of the Seymour faction to manipulate Henry's ability to feel hard done by and play on his affection for his children to insure against any sudden changes of heart.

While Anne's anger and frustration against Mary sometimes spilled over into wild threats, there is nothing to suggest that Richmond was a particular target, although Anne may well have been fearful of the strength of Henry's feelings for his only son. Any satisfaction Richmond might have taken in Anne's demise would have been tempered by the knowledge that Henry and Jane Seymour were immediately betrothed. On 30 May they were married and once more there was the possibility of a legitimate heir to the English throne.

However, there were further repercussions of Anne's downfall; a move that could only be to Richmond's benefit. On 17 May 1536, Thomas Cranmer, in his capacity as Archbishop of Canterbury, declared the king's marriage to Anne Boleyn to be unlawful. In an echo of Henry's separation from Katherine, the grounds were confidently declared to be ‘entirely just, true, and lawful impediments', which had been unknown at the time of their marriage. The small detail that if Anne had never been Henry's lawful wife, she could hardly have committed adultery, was conveniently overlooked. This measure was directed at Elizabeth. With her parent's marriage decreed unlawful, she, like Mary before her, was now reduced from the state of Princess of England and heir apparent, to the Lady Elizabeth and the king's natural daughter.

A man who believed his wife had committed adultery would naturally have reason to be suspicious regarding the paternity of his children. Sir Thomas Burgh had secured an Act of Parliament to bastardise his offspring when he divorced his wife for this offence.
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However, as Henry never gave any indication that he doubted Elizabeth's paternity he must have had another reason to take such a drastic step. Whatever Anne had done or not done, the good faith of only one of the parents was sufficient to salvage the legitimacy of a child. Henry had obviously married Anne in good faith, yet now he was left with three illegitimate children and no legitimate issue at all.
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