Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset

• 1. Introduction

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  Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, died at seventeen in the summer of 1536. The burial that followed was as strange as his life had been remarkable. His body was placed in a straw-filled wagon. Only two attendants followed behind. His father-in-law had ordered the body wrapped in lead and transported in a closed cart. The servants chose otherwise. FitzRoy's surname, in Norman French, simply means "son of the king," and that was precisely what he was. He was the only child born out of wedlock whom Henry VIII of England ever publicly claimed. Eleven years earlier, the king had elevated this boy to a status that bordered on the royal. What drove a king to honour a bastard son so lavishly is one thread of this story. What that brief life revealed about a dynasty desperate for an heir is another.

• 2. Birth and Christening

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  Elizabeth Blount was Catherine of Aragon's lady-in-waiting when she became Henry VIII's mistress. Her pregnancy came at a particularly delicate moment. Queen Catherine was nearing the end of another confinement. That pregnancy ended in a stillborn daughter in November 1518. To keep the matter quiet, Blount was removed from court. She was taken to the Augustinian priory of St Laurence at Blackmore, near Ingatestone in Essex, and there she gave birth to a son. The boy's birthdate is usually recorded as the 15th of June 1519, though the exact date is uncertain.

  Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was the godfather and was known to be present at the christening, yet no record of the ceremony survives. The identity of a second godfather remains unknown. Wolsey had been away from London between the 9th and the 18th of June. The timing suggests the christening may have occurred before the 29th, when he finally reappeared at court. Some have wondered whether Henry VIII himself stood as godfather, though it was not standard practice for a father to take that role. Henry had made an exception before: in March 1516, he stood as godfather at the christening of his nephew Lord Henry Brandon.

  Henry VIII did not keep his son hidden indefinitely. He gave the boy the surname FitzRoy, making the paternity unmistakable to anyone who heard it. He openly acknowledged him and reportedly exhibited him to the court with pride. Years without a legitimate male heir may have felt, to Henry, like a public challenge to his manhood. By 1525, that son would be impossible to overlook.

• 3. The Hidden Years

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  John Palsgrave, FitzRoy's first documented tutor, was not impressed with the boy's prior education. Palsgrave complained that his pupil had been taught to recite prayers in what he called a "barbarous" Latin accent. He dismissed the earlier instructor as "no clerk." The complaint confirms that FitzRoy had received some kind of schooling before 1525, even if those early years left few records.

  Beverly Murphy, FitzRoy's biographer, points to a letter from a royal nurse. The letter suggests the boy spent at least part of his infancy in the royal nursery itself, and he was often at court after 1530. A surviving inventory of "Wardrobe stuff appointed for my lord Henry" hints that he was receiving royal treatment even before his public elevation. The familiar way that document refers to him as "My Lord Henry" suggests his existence was no secret among officers close to the king.

  In 1519, Princess Mary's household underwent a notable reorganisation. Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, replaced Lady Margaret Bryan as its Mistress. At least two of Mary's former carers left her service around the same time. Sixteenth-century royal households were in constant movement. FitzRoy was likely transferred from one establishment to another around London, much as his royal half-siblings were. Whether those departing carers moved into positions with FitzRoy remains uncertain.

  Elizabeth Blount, by then, had married Gilbert Tailboys, 1st Baron Tailboys of Kyme. FitzRoy may have spent periods in the north with his mother and her husband. Whatever his exact movements, by June 1525 the king had decided the time for quiet arrangements was over.

• 4. Bridewell, June 1525

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  At nine in the morning on the 18th of June 1525, a six-year-old boy stepped ashore at the Watergate of Bridewell Palace in London. He had come by barge from Durham Place, near Charing Cross, in the company of knights, squires, and other gentlemen. The rooms of the palace were richly decorated. Bishops had gathered alongside Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, the king's brother-in-law. The occasion was FitzRoy's formal entry into the English peerage.

  Sir Thomas More read the patents of nobility aloud as FitzRoy was made Earl of Nottingham. Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland, carried the sword of state. John de Vere, 14th Earl of Oxford, and William FitzAlan, 18th Earl of Arundel, were in attendance. Six-year-old Henry knelt before his father. It was the first time since the twelfth century that an illegitimate son had been raised to the English peerage. The precedent stretched back to Henry II, who had created his son William the Earl of Salisbury.

  Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset, led a second procession into the chamber. The Earl of Arundel bore the cap of estate with its circlet. The Earl of Oxford carried a rod of gold. The boy knelt again before his father, and when he rose he was Duke of Richmond and Somerset. No illegitimate child had been given a double dukedom before. Henry VIII had chosen the titles carefully. The Dukedom of Richmond linked FitzRoy to his grandfather Henry VII and his great-grandfather Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond. The Dukedom of Somerset echoed the Beaufort line. John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, had himself been a royal bastard who was later legitimised.

  Margaret Beaufort's estate provided the bulk of FitzRoy's new lands. His annuity was fixed at £4,845 in the first year. In all formal correspondence he was now the "right high and noble Prince Henry, Duke of Richmond and Somerset." Henry VIII followed the ceremony with what the sources describe as "great feasts and disguising." Gilbert Tailboys, 1st Baron Tailboys of Kyme, FitzRoy's stepfather, was present and would have carried a full account to Elizabeth Blount.

  Henry Courtenay was elevated from Earl of Devon to Marquess of Exeter that same morning. Sir Thomas Manners was made Earl of Rutland. Henry Clifford became the new Earl of Cumberland. The young Henry Brandon received the earldom of Lincoln, a title that had once belonged to the de la Pole family. Richard de la Pole, the last Yorkist claimant, had died fighting for the French at the Battle of Pavia in February 1525. The earldom of Nottingham that FitzRoy held that morning had a storied past. It had once belonged to his great-uncle Prince Richard of Shrewsbury, the second son of Edward IV.

  The Venetian ambassador wrote privately that Catherine of Aragon resented the earldom and dukedom conferred on the king's natural son. Three of her Spanish ladies had, it was said, encouraged her to press her objections. The king dismissed those ladies from court. Catherine, according to the ambassador, was obliged to submit and have patience. Her daughter Mary was nine years old. The question of England's succession remained unresolved.

• 5. Lord of the North

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  On the 7th of June 1525, FitzRoy was elected a Knight of the Garter; he was installed on the 25th of that month. Those same weeks brought a cascade of offices that would have overwhelmed an adult. FitzRoy was appointed Lord High Admiral of England and Lord President of the Council of the North. He was also made Warden of the Marches towards Scotland and Governor of Carlisle. At six years old, he held nominal authority over the governance of the whole of northern England.

  Thomas Magnus, Archdeacon of the East Riding, dominated the council and conducted its actual business. FitzRoy himself was raised at Sheriff Hutton Castle in Yorkshire, a household run with its own comptroller, Sir Thomas Tempest. His father took a particular interest in his upbringing. The boy was treated as a prince in all but name.

  In February 1527, a small but telling episode illustrated how seriously the court regarded FitzRoy's position. Thomas Magnus brought word that King James V of Scotland, FitzRoy's first cousin, had asked for hunting dogs. FitzRoy dispatched 20 hunting hounds and a huntsman to the Scottish king. The gift was made in FitzRoy's name, as though he were already a sovereign conducting diplomatic exchanges.

• 6. Ireland and France

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  FitzRoy was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland on the 22nd of June 1529, and there was even a plan to crown him King of that country. Henry VIII's counsellors saw a danger in that idea they could not accept. A separate Kingdom of Ireland would be governed by a ruler who was not King of England. That risked creating a rival power on England's western flank, not unlike Scotland in the north. The plan was set aside. After FitzRoy's death, the question was resolved through the Crown of Ireland Act 1542. The Act established that whoever was King of England would also be King of Ireland. Henry VIII became the first to hold that combined title.

  In October 1532, Henry VIII travelled to Calais to meet Francis I of France and brought FitzRoy with him. FitzRoy joined the French court and lived alongside the Dauphin Francis and his younger brother, the future Henry II of France. He remained there until August 1533, when he was recalled to England. FitzRoy was thirteen when he came home. Within a few months, he would be married.

• 7. Marriage and Succession

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  While Henry VIII was pursuing the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, a startling proposal circulated at court. Some advisors suggested FitzRoy should marry his own half-sister Mary. The intention was to strengthen FitzRoy's claim to the throne. The Pope, anxious to prevent Henry's break with Rome, was even prepared to grant a special dispensation for a marriage between half-siblings.

  On the 28th of November 1533, FitzRoy, aged fourteen, married Lady Mary Howard instead. She was the only daughter of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. FitzRoy found a close friend in his new brother-in-law, the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. The marriage itself, however, was never consummated.

  The Second Succession Act, which Parliament was then drafting, had a direct bearing on FitzRoy's potential future. It disinherited Princess Elizabeth as heir to the throne and permitted the king to designate his successor, whether legitimate or not. There is no evidence Henry VIII intended to name FitzRoy his heir, but the Act gave him the legal authority to do so. On the 8th of July 1536, the Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys wrote to Emperor Charles V. FitzRoy, Chapuys reported, was consumptive and had been diagnosed as incurable. He would survive less than three more weeks.

• 8. Death and the Tomb

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  FitzRoy died at St. James's Palace on the 23rd of July 1536. The chronicler Charles Wriothesley recorded that FitzRoy had become sickly some time before his death. His biographer Beverley A. Murphy notes that his public appearances in April and May of that year had attracted no comment on his health. Whatever the course of the illness, he was reported consumptive in early July. The disease was most likely tuberculosis, though other serious lung complaints have been suggested.

  Thetford Priory in Norfolk, the mausoleum of the Howard family, received his body for its first resting place. In February 1540, as the dissolution of the monasteries was sweeping through England, Thomas Howard petitioned the king not to close the Priory Church. He argued that his first wife Anne of York, FitzRoy's great-aunt, lay buried there alongside his son-in-law. The petition failed. The king ordered a brief suspension of the dissolution so that anyone who wished could rebury the remains of their relations. Howard moved FitzRoy's remains to the Church of St Michael the Archangel at Framlingham in Suffolk.

  At Framlingham, FitzRoy's coat of arms stands encircled by the collar of the Order of the Garter. The collar bears the Order's motto, "Honi soit qui mal y pense." Alongside it are the arms of the Howard family, FitzRoy's family by marriage. Around the sides of the tomb run carved friezes of Old Testament scenes. The north side shows the birth of Eve, the Garden of Eden given into Adam and Eve's charge, and the Temptation and Expulsion from Paradise. The west depicts the nursing of Cain and Abel, Cain and Abel making their offerings, and Cain killing Abel. The south carries Noah's Ark in the Flood, the drunkenness of Noah, Abraham and the Angels, and Lot escaping from Sodom and Gomorrah. On the east are Abraham with his son Isaac, Moses and the Law tables, and the Israelites sacrificing to the Golden Calf. One panel carries the outline of a small door, which was the private entrance used by noblemen from the nearby castle.

  Henry VIII outlived his acknowledged son by just over a decade, dying without having named him his heir. His legitimate successor was Edward VI, born shortly after FitzRoy's death. One later writer thought the question had been close. Had FitzRoy outlived Edward VI, this writer suspected, "we might presently have heard of a King Henry the Ninth." His wife, Mary Howard, was buried beside him in December 1557.