In this final video of my series on Henry VIII’s alleged illegitimate children, I introduce you to the one son Henry VIII proudly acknowledged – Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset.
Who was this boy the king doted on and elevated to the highest ranks of nobility?
And could Fitzroy have ever been King Henry IX?
Join me as I unravel the story of the king’s only recognized illegitimate son and explore the fascinating possibilities had he lived longer. What role could he have played in England’s future?
Transcript:
I’m concluding my series on Henry VIII’s alleged illegitimate children by telling you about the illegitimate son that Henry VIII DID acknowledge as his son, a boy he was immensely proud of and pleased with – Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset.
Let me tell you a bit more about Henry Fitzroy…
Henry Fitzroy was born on or around 15th June 1519 at the Priory of St Lawrence, in Blackmore, Essex. His mother was Elizabeth, or Bessie, Blount, daughter of John Blount of Kinlet and Katherine Peshall, daughter and heir of Sir Hugh Peshall of Knightley. Bessie’s family were related to William Blount, 4th Lord Mountjoy, who had served Henry VII and had been made Master of the Mint after Henry VIII’s succession in 1509. They were also related to Sir Richard Croft, who’d served Henry VII’s eldest son, Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, in Ludlow as the steward of his household. Bessie’s father had served as an esquire of the body to Henry VII, and as a member of the King’s Spears to Henry VIII.
Historian Elizabeth Norton believes that Bessie was about 21 years of age at her son’s birth, while Beverley Murphy, author of “Bastard Prince, Henry VIII’s Lost Son”, puts her at about 19. Bessie had made her debut at court by March 1512, and she had become appointed as a maid-of-honour to Henry VIII’s first wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, by Michaelmas of that year.
Bessie was known for her beauty, being described as “the beauty of mistress piece of her time” and having the “rare ornaments of nature and education”, and Murphy states that she was also “renowned for her skill in music and dancing”. It is not known when she first caught the king’s eye, but at Christmas 1514, when four masked lords and ladies entered the queen’s chambers with torches and were recorded as dancing “a great season”, Bessie was the lady partnered with the king. However, that could mean absolutely nothing.
What we do know is that Bessie had become the king’s mistress by September 1518, when their son was conceived. And that ties in with Catherine of Aragon being pregnant. This was her sixth pregnancy and as she’d suffered three stillbirths previously, the king would not have wanted to risk the health of the baby by sleeping with his wife during her pregnancy. He slept with a mistress instead, and in 1518, that was Bessie. Sadly, Catherine gave birth prematurely in November 1518 to a stillborn son [edit: oops, daughter!], but Bessie was luckier. When her pregnancy became obvious, Henry VIII’s trusted advisor, Thomas Wolsey, arranged for her to go and stay in the prior’s house at the Priory of St Lawrence in Blackmore, where she gave birth to a healthy son.
Wolsey stood as the infant’s godfather at his christening and he named after the king and given the surname Fitzroy, which comes from the French “fils de roi”, or son of the king, and was a Norman-French surname given to monarchs’ illegitimate sons. Henry VIII spent some time in Essex that summer and so would have had plenty of opportunity to see his son, his only son at this point. He must have been delighted with this healthy baby boy. And it appears that he kept Bessie as a mistress, as she gave birth to a daughter sometime between July 1519 and June 1520, before she married Gilbert Tailboys in a marriage match arranged by Wolsey.
Henry VIII proudly acknowledged his illegitimate son. Although very little is known about Fitzroy’s early life and education, he was recording as keeping his household at Durham Place, which belonged to Wolsey, when he was raised to the peerage at the age of six.That year, he was elected to the Order of the Garter and on 18th June, he was created Earl of Nottingham by his father, Henry VIII, in a lavish ceremony at Bridewell Palace. As Beverley Murphy points out, “not since the 12th century, when Henry II had made William Longsword Earl of Salisbury, had a King of England raised his illegitimate son to the peerage.”
But there was more to come! The boy, flanked by the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, re-entered the chamber to be made Duke of Richmond and Somerset. This lavish ceremony was followed by feasting and disguisings as the king celebrated his son’s elevation.
Suzannah Lipscomb points out that there were only two other dukes in England at this time, those who’d accompanied him into the chamber, and so by giving him a double dukedom, Henry VIII was making his son the highest ranking peer in the country. Richmond was a title associated with the Tudors, with Henry VIII’s paternal grandfather, Edmund Tudor, having been Earl of Richmond, and John Beaufort, father of Henry VIII’s paternal grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, had been Earl of Somerset. John Beaufort was, of course, the illegitimate son of John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III.
The dukedom also made Fitzroy very wealthy as he was endowed with lands whose revenues amounted to £4,845 in the first year, which is the equivalent of nearly 2 million pounds in today’s money. It also meant that the boy would be self-sufficient and wouldn’t have to rely on money from his father.
He was also made warden-general of the marches toward Scotland, i.e. head of the council of the north, and then a month later, he was made Lord Admiral of England. Due to his northern appointment, he was set up in a ducal household in Yorkshire, residing at Sheriff Hutton and Pontefract. Beverley Murphy writes of how he was given an excellent education, under the tutelage of men like John Palsgrave, Richard Croke, and William Saunders, learning Latin, Greek, French and music, but that he preferred outdoor pursuits, just like his father, I think! Palgrave reported that in his early years, Fitzroy had a lisp, commenting that he hoped that the loss of his milk teeth would see it clear up. His father, the king, kept in contact with his son, writing to him and sending him gifts, such as a gold unicorn horn decorate with pearls and turquoise, and medical remedies to keep the boy in good health.
When Henry VIII raised Fitzroy to a double dukedom, was he considering legitimising his son at this point? It’s hard to know. Catherine’s last pregnancy had been in 1518 and the couple’s only child was a daughter, Mary, born in 1516. Their son, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, had died when he was just 52 days old in 1511. However, Mary, as the king’s legitimate child, was the one sent to Ludlow in the Welsh Marches to govern there as if she was Princess of Wales. Fitzroy may have been a double duke, but she was a princess.
In 1527, several potential brides were considered for Fitzroy, including the Infanta Maria of Portugal; the daughters of Isabella, Queen of Denmark, and even his half-sister, Princess Mary. However, these plans fell through when King Henry VIII became preoccupied with seeking an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
In 1529, Fitzroy was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, heading a council made up of the Archbishop of Durham as chancellor, Patrick Bermingham as Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and treasurer John Rawson, who would actually rule in his name. Henry VIII had actually been appointed in this position by his father when he was just three years old, so it had just been a titular position, but there was speculation that Henry VIII was grooming Fitzroy to be King of Ireland. In that same year, he was also summoned to Parliament.
From April 1530, when Fitzroy was ten, he moved to Windsor to be educated alongside Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the son of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk had taken over Fitzroy’s care following the fall of Cardinal Wolsey. In October 1532, Fitzroy accompanied his father, the king, and Anne Boleyn on their trip to Calais to meet Francis I of France. Afterwards, he and Henry Howard were sent to live at the French court, returning to England in August 1533.
On 26th November 1533, at Hampton Court Palace, Fitzroy married Mary Howard, sister of his friend, Henry Howard, and daughter of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Both were fourteen years old at the time. The wedding appears to have been a relatively quiet affair, with no mention of it by chroniclers Edward Hall and Charles Wriothesley, and only a brief reference by imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys in a letter to Charles V.
According Beverley Murphy, a papal dispensation was required for the marriage due to consanguinity, as both Fitzroy and Mary were related through Elizabeth Woodville and her sister Katherine, Duchess of Buckingham.
It’s unclear who first suggested the marriage between Fitzroy and Mary Howard. Norfolk himself mentioned in 1529 that Henry VIII had expressed a desire for one of his daughters to marry Fitzroy, and Mary later wrote to Thomas Cromwell that the marriage had been at the king’s command. However, Elizabeth Stafford, Duchess of Norfolk, blamed Anne Boleyn for the match, claiming it disrupted her family’s plans to marry Mary to the Earl of Derby.
Although married, Fitzroy and Mary never lived together, as the king instructed them not to consummate the marriage due to concerns about Fitzroy’s health and the potential risks of sexual activity at a young age. I expect the king was thinking of his brother, Arthur Tudor, who’d died at the age of 16.
In 1534, Fitzroy was made Lieutenant of the Order of the Garter and played host to French Admiral Philippe de Chabot in November 1534. He also hosted Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, in February 1535. Fitzroy witnessed the execution of three Carthusian monks on 4th May 1535 and was a member of the jury at Anne Boleyn’s trial on 15th May 1536. He attended her execution on 19th May 1536, following his father’s visit, during which Henry VIII tearfully claimed that Anne had attempted to poison Fitzroy and Princess Mary—though no evidence supports this accusation.
Fitzroy died on or around 22nd July 1536 at St James’s Palace, London, at the age of seventeen, likely from a pulmonary infection such as tuberculosis. Although he had been well enough to attend Anne Boleyn’s execution and Parliament in early June 1536, by 8th July he was reported as gravely ill by Eustace Chapuys, who described him as “consumptive, and incurable.”
Devastated by the loss of his only son, Henry VIII left the burial arrangements to Fitzroy’s father-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk. Fitzroy was buried at Thetford Priory in Norfolk, though his remains were later moved to St Michael’s Church, Framlingham, Suffolk, following the dissolution of the priory. His wife, Mary, never remarried and was buried alongside him after her death in 1557.
This has been a rather potted history of Henry Fitzroy, but if you want to know more about him then I’d highly recommend Beverley Murphy’s book “Bastard Prince”. Interestingly, in her book, Murphy writes that “The Act of Succession of 1536 raised the possibility that Richmond could have ascended the throne. The bastard status which, for so much of his life, had been a legal obstacle to his succession, was removed.” She feels that “it can safely be argued that if Richmond had lived on after his father, the history of England would have been very different”. He would have been 27 and Edward was only nine, so in his minority. Would Henry VIII, in his dying days, have considered Fitzroy a better bet for the security of England than a boy king, considering what happened when Edward IV died and left the throne to his young son? It’s hard to know. Could Fitzroy have become King Henry IX? What do you think? And what about if Edward had become king and Fitzroy was still alive in 1553? He might well have become king then if Edward had named him as his heir.
I’d love to know your thoughts.
