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| | | From: Greensleeves (Original Message) | Sent: 2/13/2008 10:42 AM |
Remembering that Henry Fitzroy, Henry VIIIs bastard with Bessie Blount, was created Duke of Richmond & Somerset at the same time as Thomas Boleyn was made Earl of Wiltshire & Ormonde made me wonder....Richmond & Somerset were Lancastrian titles, & Henry VII was Richmond before picking his crown out of the proverbial thornbush. By giving his father's title to his illegitimate son, what sort of message was Henry sending to both Catherine & the peers of the realm? Was he publicly upbraiding Catherine for her lack of a legitimate male heir? Could Mary have been set aside at some point in favor of her bastard brother, had Fitzroy lived long enough? Opinions? |
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I think he did make Fitzroy Duke of Richmond to give him a royal title in case he (Henry) did not have any male heirs. He was a staunch believer that women were not good rulers (ha! how Bess showed him) hence the many wives. I do think however, that if Richmond had lived he would have taken precedence over any of Henry's daughter in the line of succession. Tudorgal |
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What ever Henry VIII's process was, he wanted a son, and by conciously giving his bastard son a Lancastrian title, it was like a, not so much warning, but a ward to say, I have a son and not afraid to use him. It would not surprise me if he would use Henry Fitzroy as a listed heir, had he not suspiciously died...
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Fitzroy died of consumption, last I heard, like many of the Tudor males....how is that considered a suspicious death? |
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OK now there's a thunk....the Act of Succession of 1534 bastardized Mary & made Elizabeth the heir, but no mention was made of Fitzroy at that time. Henry maybe was still hoping to get his legitimate boy from Anne Boleyn? Fitzroy died a mere 2 months after Anne's execution, so he could have been ill by then, & seeing as the Suffolks' son Henry had died shortly after his mother of the consump as well in 1534 I think, Henry had to have seen it coming, much as he wanted to deny it....wasn't Henry VIIs death also attributed to that? Although consumption was such a catchall term for any respiratory ailment. There's that tale of how Henry told Fitzroy they were all well rid of Anne, especially him & Mary, as the "witch" was attempting to poison them. I'm thinking that if Henry could swallow Cromwell's trumped-up case against Anne, he could also have talked himself into believing Anne was really responsible for Fitzroy's death. It wasn't till 1543 that Henry put Mary & Elizabeth into the succession after Edward, who of course was no doubt the legit heir, well after Fitzroy's demise. But in 1529, Fitzroy was probably still healthy enough, & had he stayed that way, who knows? I think Henry was definitely sending Catherine a strong message with Fitzroy's investiture. Get out of my way, old woman, so I can get me a son on some younger hottie, or your daughter gets it!  |
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Oh, the last thing I read about Henry Fitzroy was that he was given the titles, he died suddenly and unexpectedly, without any reason, oh well, sying expectedly of consumption is not suspicious is it?  |
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And every one of those honors had to be a painful reminder to Katherine of Aragon of the fact that her sons had all died. I think that Fitzroy was certainly a 'card' in Henry's hand, to be played when it best benefited the powerful king. Would be nice to see a timeline of Henry Fitzroy's birth, honors & death against the timeline of Katherine's pregnancies. As to Fitzroy's death seeming suspicious to us, I'm quite sure that it was consumption/tuberculosis/something respiratory. Consumption was a horrible death, fatigue, coughing up blood, fever. The symptions would have well-known in Tudor times & the one suffering would have been quite obvious. It would not have been mistaken for anything else. Henry VIII entrusted Norfolk, Fitzroy's father-in-law with the funeral arrangements, and there were only 2 mourners and the whole burial rather secret. While it is suprising that Henry didn't have a big state funeral for his son, he was a bit busy at the time, what with chopping off one wife's head & marrying another one. Sadly, most sources state that at the time of Fitzroy's final illness, an act was going through Parliament to enable H8 to nominate Fitzroy as heir to the throne. This was probably an alternative he would use only until he was able to get his new queen, Jane Seymour, with child, presumably a son. Henry definitely did not plan to have either of his daughters reign as queen regnant, and hated to think of England becoming part of a dowry to a foreign prince. The only possiblity was to have a male heir, Richmond, until he could have a legitimate heir with Jane. Had Jane not had a son, I'm quite confident that Henry would have found a way to rid himself of her & find a new bride. I think the need for a son & her was a driving force in his life. |
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To Henry, leaving his throne to a daughter was unthinkable, a recipe for disaster. He was not alone in thinking this, England had never had a ruling Queen before. The only time the throne was left to a girl (Matilda) there followed 19 years of civil war. To Henry, it was no worse making his bastard his heir than his daughter. In fact, at one stage, did he not consider seeking a papal dispensation which would allow Fitzroy and Mary to marry, despite them being half brother and sister?  |
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Is there any other case in medieval or Renaissance times where suh a dispensation was granted? I don't think Catherine would have taken such a plan very quietly, for one, & it was considered incest (consanguinity) merely to have had "carnal knowledge" of a spouse's relative. Henry did apply for a dispensation to marry "a woman" (obviously Anne Boleyn) to whom he was "related" in some degree of consanguinity (by dallying with Mary Boleyn). Fitzroy wed Mary Howard, Norfolk's daughter, in 1534 while the Boleyn/Howard faction was still relatively powerful. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (notorious for being Henry's last victim) was Fitzroy's boon companion & in fact lived in Fitzroy's household after the marriage took place. Methinks that wedding was a way of showing the nobles just who was top dog around the palace (Norfolk liked to think he was). |
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