Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset | HearLore
Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset
Henry FitzRoy was born in June 1519, a child whose existence was kept so quiet that diplomatic dispatches from the time record nothing of his arrival. His mother, Elizabeth Blount, was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon, and the pregnancy was concealed to avoid scandal while the Queen was approaching her final confinement with a stillborn daughter. Blount was secretly moved to the Augustinian priory of St Laurence at Blackmore near Ingatestone in Essex, where the boy was born, likely before the 15th of June, though the exact date remains unknown. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the King's chief minister, was absent from London during the critical days of the birth and did not reappear at court until the 29th of June, suggesting the event was handled with extreme discretion. The infant was given the surname FitzRoy, which translates from Anglo-Norman as 'son of the king,' ensuring that all who heard the name understood his royal lineage. Henry VIII openly acknowledged the boy, perhaps driven by a deep-seated insecurity regarding his lack of a legitimate male heir, which he felt was a slur upon his manhood. At one point, the King proudly exhibited his newborn son to the court, a rare display of affection for a child born out of wedlock.
The Elevation of a Bastard
By 1525, the House of Tudor had ruled England for forty years, yet cracks were beginning to appear in the dynasty's foundation as Henry VIII, now thirty-four, still lacked a male heir with his forty-year-old wife. The King's only surviving legitimate child was Princess Mary, a girl of nine, while Henry FitzRoy, now six, stood as a sturdy alternative. On the 18th of June 1525, the six-year-old boy was brought to Bridewell Palace on the western edge of London, where honours were showered upon him in a ceremony of unprecedented scale. He travelled by barge from Wolsey's mansion of Durham Place down the River Thames, accompanied by a host of knights, squires, and gentlemen. At nine in the morning, his party arrived at the Watergate and entered the King's lodgings, where bishops, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, gathered to witness the spectacle. Henry knelt before his father as Sir Thomas More read out the patents of nobility, first creating him Earl of Nottingham, and then, moments later, Duke of Richmond and Somerset. This was the first time since the 12th century that an illegitimate son had been raised to the peerage, a move that granted him a double dukedom with lands worth £4,845 in annual revenue. The ceremony was a public relations display designed to demonstrate the King's virility and to secure a potential heir, yet it caused deep resentment among Queen Catherine and her Spanish ladies, who were subsequently dismissed from court.
Following his elevation, Henry FitzRoy was raised like a prince at Sheriff Hutton Castle in Yorkshire, where his father took a particular fondness for him and took great interest in his upbringing. Sir Thomas Tempest served as comptroller of his household, and the young Duke was entrusted with significant Crown Offices, including Lord High Admiral of England, Lord President of the Council of the North, and Warden of the Marches towards Scotland. Although he held these offices in name only, the power was actually in the hands of a council dominated by Thomas Magnus, Archdeacon of the East Riding. In February 1527, King James V of Scotland, FitzRoy's first cousin, asked for hunting dogs, and the young Duke sent his cousin twenty hunting hounds and a huntsman, demonstrating the diplomatic ties he maintained. By 1529, he was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and there was a plan to crown him king of that country, though counsellors feared that making a separate Kingdom of Ireland whose ruler was not that of England would create another threat similar to the Kingdom of Scotland. The boy lived in remarkable style and comfort, almost as if he were a prince of the blood, and his existence was hardly a secret among the officers close to the King, as evidenced by a surviving list of wardrobe stuff appointed for 'my lord Henry'.
A Life in France
In October 1532, Henry VIII travelled to Calais for a meeting with Francis I of France and took Richmond with him, integrating the young Duke into the highest levels of European diplomacy. As part of the negotiations, Richmond joined the French court and lived with the Dauphin Francis and his younger brother, the future King Henry II of France, until August 1533, when he was recalled to England. This period of his life provided him with a unique education and exposure to the courts of Europe, setting him apart from other English nobles. The time spent in France was not merely a diplomatic formality but a crucial period of development for a boy who was being groomed for a role that might one day place him on the throne. The presence of the young Duke at the French court was a statement of Henry VIII's confidence in his son's future, even as the political landscape of Europe shifted around them. The recall to England in 1533 marked the end of this chapter, but the experiences gained during his stay in France would have shaped his understanding of power and governance.
The Marriage That Wasn't
When Henry VIII began the process of having his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled, it was suggested that Richmond marry his own half-sister Mary in order to strengthen Richmond's claim to the throne. The Pope was even prepared to grant a special dispensation for their marriage, but the plan was abandoned. Instead, at age fourteen, on the 28th of November 1533, the Duke married Lady Mary Howard, the only daughter of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. The marriage was never consummated, leaving the union without issue and rendering the Duke's line extinct. He was on excellent terms with his brother-in-law, the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and the marriage was intended to cement political alliances rather than to produce heirs. The decision to marry Mary Howard instead of Princess Mary was a strategic move by the King to secure the loyalty of the powerful Howard family, yet it also ensured that FitzRoy's line would not continue. The marriage was a political arrangement that served the King's immediate needs but did not alter the fundamental reality that Henry FitzRoy was an illegitimate son with no legitimate children to carry on his name.
The Consumptive Heir
FitzRoy's promising career came to an abrupt end in July 1536, when he became sickly and was reported ill with consumption, usually identified as tuberculosis, though it may have been another serious lung complaint. According to the chronicler Charles Wriothesley, he became sickly some time before he died, although his biographer Beverley A. Murphy cites his documented public appearances and activities in April and May of that year, without exciting comment on his health. He died at St. James's Palace on the 23rd of July 1536, at the age of seventeen. The Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys wrote to Emperor Charles V on the 8th of July 1536 that Henry VIII had made a statute allowing him to nominate a successor, but thought the Duke of Richmond would not succeed to the throne by it, as he was consumptive and now diagnosed incurable. The Second Succession Act was going through Parliament which disinherited Henry's daughter Elizabeth as his heir and permitted the king to designate his successor, whether legitimate or not, yet there is no evidence that Henry intended to proclaim Richmond his heir. The death of the Duke left the King without a legitimate male heir, and the succession passed to his legitimate son, Edward VI, born shortly after FitzRoy's death.
The Tomb of the Lost Prince
FitzRoy's father-in-law gave orders that the body be wrapped in lead and then taken in a closed cart for secret interment, but his servants put the body in a straw-filled wagon, and the only mourners were two attendants who followed at a distance. FitzRoy was in the first instance buried at Thetford Priory, the burial place and mausoleum of members of the Howard family. In February 1540, when Thetford Priory was about to be closed, Howard petitioned the King not to close the Priory Church on the grounds that both his first wife Anne of York, FitzRoy's great-aunt, as well as FitzRoy himself were buried there. The request had no effect, and the King ordered that the current dissolution of the monasteries be briefly suspended, so that everyone who wished had time to rebury the remains of their relations. Howard moved his son-in-law's grave to the Church of St Michael the Archangel, Framlingham. FitzRoy's tomb has a mix of royal and religious iconography, with his personal coat of arms surrounded by the collar of the Order of the Garter and the Order's motto 'Honi soit qui mal y pense', and the coats of arms of the Howard family. The friezes show scenes from the Biblical Old Testament, including the birth of Eve, the Temptation, and the Expulsion from Paradise, as well as Noah's Ark in the Flood and the drunkenness of Noah. One of the scenes carved on the tomb is the outline of a small door which was the private entrance of noblemen from the Castle. His father outlived him by just over a decade, and was succeeded by his legitimate son, Edward VI, born shortly after FitzRoy's death. On her death in December 1557, his wife, Mary Howard, was buried along with FitzRoy.