© Lucas Horenbout - Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset (1519-36)
At the age of seventeen, and seventeen years before his brother Edward VI succumbed to the same illness, Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond and Somerset and the only acknowledged son of King Henry VIII and one of his many mistresses, Elizabeth Blount, died on 23 July 1536. The youngling had never had any big health scares but, by the beginning of that month, there had been reports stating that the boy was “in a state of rapid consumption” which ultimately ended up claiming his life. This happened two months after his father’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, was sentenced to death and a third wife, Jane Seymour, quickly popped into the picture, marking 1536 as one of the most emotionally unstable years for the monarch.
As the only illegitimate son recognized by the King, Henry was born in Essex in 1519 from an affair between the King and one of Queen Katherine of Aragon’s ladies-in-waiting, Bessie Blount. His conception took place when Katherine was close to the confinement that would result in a stillborn baby girl in November 1518, so his mother was sent to the Augustinian priory of St Lawrence at Blackmore to avoid gossip and scandal at court. However, he became a really meaningful asset for his father because his existence proved to himself that he could indeed sire male children and thus the problem to have an heir had to be Katherine or, as he would say later on, their unlawful marriage angering God. He recognized the baby giving him the Fitzroy surname and had Cardinal Thomas Wolsey be one of the godfathers. The cardinal would come to care about his godson and, in a letter dated June 1525, he refers to him as “your entirely beloved sonne, the Lord Henry FitzRoy". Henry VIII also seemed to be fond of his son as he’s reported to have “loved him like his own soul” by a venetian ambassador, though that might've had something more to do with him proving he can have sons than with any other sentimental bluff, though we will never know for sure.
Biographer Beverly Murphy thinks that a letter from a royal nurse implies that baby Henry had been at the royal nursery and at court with assiduity. By this point, the only royal baby was Princess Mary and documents show some changes within her household. This could mean that her father put some of the people that had cared for her in Henry’s household after the birth. That indicates how important little Henry was for him.
Six years later, Henry VIII still lacked a male heir and his Queen was already too old to conceive. With no other close male relatives that could come in to save the day and only a nine-year-old princess to rely on, many started to speculate about Henry Fitzroy's future. In 1525, the child was given residence at Durham House in London and was raised and taught almost as a prince instead of a bastard son so I’d argue it’s safe to say Henry VIII might’ve had him as a backup plan in his mind in case all else came to fail. He made his son head of the council of the north, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (some even thought that the King was considering making him King of Ireland) and Lord Admiral of England (though obviously, the kid was in charge only figuratively while adults managed the lands). Henry was grooming him to potentially become the ruler of the north of the Kingdom.
As any royal children and as his sister, Princess Mary, had been used since she was born, Henry FitzRoy too became a political marriage bargain that his father toyed with internationally. Even though he was no prince, marrying the King’s son still had some weight and importance to it and Henry VIII knew that. Thomas Wolsey tried to pair him up with Charles V’s niece and even Catherine de Medici herself, amongst other high rank suitors.
On 18 June 1525, Henry Fitzroy was created the Earl of Nottingham and was attended by Henry Percy, the 5th Earl of Northumberland, John de Vere, the 14th Earl of Oxford, and William FitzAlan, the 18th Earl of Arundel. This was an historic fit, since no other illegitimate son had been raised to peerage since King Henry II had his son William created Earl of Salisbury in the 12th century. This was overcome when that same day the six-year-old Earl became also Duke of Richmond and Somerset. Some historians and Tudor enthusiasts argue that this was done as a preparation for a possible accession to the throne if Henry VIII died with no legitimate male issue to succeed him. The truth of the matter though was that this was a slap in the face to Queen Katherine, who struggled to give the crown a healthy boy and had to sit and watch how a bastard conceived by one of her ladies-in-waiting was being paraded around and doted upon by her husband and the whole court as if he was a royal prince destined to rule England above her own daughter Mary’s rights.
Truthfully, Henry FitzRoy being given the title of Duke changed everything. The title, that was made up by King Edward III for his son Edward, Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall (the tradition is alive and well, since nowadays Prince William is Duke of Cornwall as Prince of Wales and next in line to the throne of England), was made even more magnificent as Henry VIII had not only given Henry Fitzroy one Dukedom but two, endowing his son with as much nobility and respectability as humanly possible. From then on, royal correspondence addressed to Fitzroy was referred to the “right high and noble Prince Henry, Duke of Richmond and Somerset" which must’ve really hurt Katherine’s feelings.
From then on, as it’s seen above, the boy was raised as a prince.
In 1532, King Henry VIII travelled to Calais to meet the French monarch, Francis I, taking his son with him and leaving him there as part of the negotiations. Fitzroy would spend a year there alongside the dauphin Francis and the other French royal siblings. By this moment, his father had started what would be known as the King’s Great Matter, trying to divorce Katherine of Aragon through his alleging that their marriage hadn’t been valid or holy after supposedly reading a verse from Leviticus that affirmed no man who married his brother’s wife would have children, completely disregarding his daughter Mary. Thus, when talking about marrying off the boy, one possibility that was put on the table was him wedding his own half sister Mary in order to strengthen his claim to the throne (the Pope was on board with this, desperate to prevent that divorce from actually happening). Finally, on 28 November 1533, only a couple of months after his comeback from France and at the age of fourteen, Fitzroy married Lady Mary Howard, the daughter of the 3rd Duke of Norfolk and cousin of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s lover and future second wife (proving once more how much more he was eager to take Anne’s side rather than Katheine’s). The pair unfortunately wouldn’t be able to consummate the marriage.
Around the date of his death, Katherine of Aragon was already dead after being heartlessly discarded, Anne Boleyn was imprisoned at the Tower of London awaiting her own passing and the monarch was trying to pass an Act through Parliament that disowned his second daughter by Anne Boleyn, as he now believed their union to be made by witchcraft and that Anne Boleyn was an adulteress. This Act would also grant him the power to designate a successor, legitimate or not, which could indicate he was thinking of naming Henry Fitzroy as his heir, though there’s no evidence further than that to support this idea.
By 8th July, ambassador Eustace Chapuys informed Emperor Charles V about said Act but said it was unlikely Fitzroy would be the successor as he was incurably ill. Ironically, Henry VIII is reported to have told his son how relieved he was now that Anne Boleyn was dead, as he feared she would have poisoned him and Mary. Unfortunately, Henry Fitzroy would indeed die of tuberculosis or some other lung disease variant on 23th July 1536 at St. James 's Palace. His father in law took care of the body, making his servants put it in a straw-filled wagon and burying it in Thetford Priory, where the Howard family had their mausoleum. Some years later, in the midst of Henry VIII’s fight with the monasteries, the Priory would be closed and once again, Fitzroy’s father in law took care of him, petitioning the King to keep the Priory stating that his first wife was there as well as the boy Fitzroy. Henry refused but gave everyone time to rebury their loved ones before proceeding with the dissolution of monasteries and churches. Henry Fitzroy was then taken to his final resting place at Church of St Michael the Archangel, in Framlingham.
Not too long after Fitzroy’s demise, Henry VIII got what he so desperately wanted: a legitimate son to inherit the crown. His third wife, Jane Seymour, gave birth to the future Edward VI on 12th October 1537, only to succumb to postnatal complications on 24th October. Little Edward would be crowned on 20th February 1547 at the tender age of nine years old, already an orphan. By January 1553, he was already showing signs of tuberculosis, passing away on 6th July of that same year, quite like his brother Henry had died almost twenty years earlier.
Fitzroy’s tomb can be seen nowadays on the high altar in St Michael’s church near the ones of Mary FitzAlan and Margaret Audley; Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey; and Thomas Howard, the 3rd Duke of Norfolk. It’s not the one designed in 1539 as there’s been added some elements from the 1550’s and it has no effigies. Some researchers think that his grave was meant to be paired with Norfolk’s, with one having depictions of the Old Testament and the other showing scenes of the New Testament, though it’s not confirmed.
Whatever the case, Henry Fitzroy was a wave of hope to his father, who saw in him his capacity to conceive males and cared for him as a royal prince, though he didn’t give his death and burial the expected pomp. John Joachim, the French Ambassador, said of Richmond that he was ”handsome, urbane and learned young gentleman, very dear to the King on account of his figure, discretion and good manners… he is certainly a wonderful lad for his age”. Who knows what could have become of him had he gotten the grace to live a little bit longer, grow up into the man he was supposed to be, meet his brother Edward, enjoy his married life and work under his father’s wing. Would any of the later events change or even happen?
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