Henry Fitzroy, RIP

Henry VIII's illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy died on July 23, 1536. He was Henry's son by Elizabeth Blount, born in 1519 and Henry had bestowed many honors and much wealth upon him: the Order of the Garter; titles such as the Earl of Nottingham, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Admiral of England, Ireland, and Normandy, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland--these offices and titles made him very rich. His birth and survival was a sign to Henry that it was not his fault none of the sons borne by Katherine of Aragon survived.

In 1533 he married Mary Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk. Henry Fitzroy died just when Henry VIII was considering naming him his heir, in spite of his illegitimacy, since he had no other son to succeed him. Fitzroy witnessed the executions of the Carthusians and of Anne Boleyn; we have no information about what he thought of the religious changes going on around him.

As this site notes, however, those changes would soon affect him--or at least his mortal remains--because his had to be moved a few years later:

In early July, 1536, Richmond was reported to be ill with pains in his chest and a cough, which was diagnosed as consumption (usually identified as tuberculosis), he died at the age of seventeen at St. James's Palace on 23 July 1536.

His father-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk issued orders that the body be wrapped in lead and taken in a closed cart for secret interment, in the Cluniac priory of Thetford. The only mourners were two attendants who followed at a distance. His young widow Mary Howard was refused a pension by the King, as the couple were so young it is doubtful that the marriage had ever been consummated. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries his body was moved to Framlingham Church in Suffolk. His wife, Mary Howard, was also buried in his ornate tomb after her death in 1557.

The Howard family did not want to see their family members moved from their resting place, according to British History Online:

The Duke of Norfolk, the powerful patron of Thetford Priory, naturally looked with dismay upon the approaching destruction of this house and of the church, where not only his remote but more immediate ancestors had been honourably interred. His father, Sir Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey and duke of Norfolk, who died on 21 May, 1524, was buried before the high altar of the conventual church, where a costly monument to himself and Agnes his wife had been erected; whilst still more recently, in 1536, Henry Fitzroy, duke of Somerset, had been buried in the same place. As a means of preserving the church and establishment, the duke proposed to convert the priory into a church of secular canons, with a dean and chapter. In 1539 he petitioned the king to that effect, stating that there lay buried in that church the bodies of the Duke of Richmond, the king's natural son; the duke's late wife, Lady Anne, aunt to his highness; the late Duke of Norfolk and other of his ancestors; and that he was setting up tombs for himself and the duke of Richmond which would cost £400. He also promised to make it ' a very honest parish church.' At first the king gave ear to the proposal, and Thetford was included in a list with five others, of ' collegiate churches newly to be made and erected by the king.' Whereupon the duke had articles of a thorough scheme drawn up for insertion in the expected letters patent, whereby the monastery was to be translated into a dean and chapter. The dean was to be Prior William, (fn. 50) and the six prebendaries and eight secular canons were to be the monks of the former house, whose names are set forth in detail. The nomination of the dean was to rest with the duke and his heirs. The scheme included the appointment by the dean and chapter of a doctor or bachelor of divinity as preacher in the house, with a stipend of £20. (fn. 51).

But the capricious king changed his mind, and insisted on the absolute dissolution of the priory. The duke found that further resistance was hopeless, and on 16 February, 1540, Prior William and thirteen monks signed a deed of surrender. (fn. 52) Two months later the site and the whole possessions of the priory passed to the Duke of Norfolk for £1,000, and by the service of a knight's fee and an annual rental of £59 5s. 1d. The bones of Henry's natural son, and of the late Duke of Norfolk and others, together with their tombs, were removed to a newly erected chancel of the Suffolk church of Framingham, and the grand church of St. Mary of Thetford speedily went to decay.

More about the Howard family tombs here. St. Michael's in Framingham has more information about Henry Fitzroy on its "Historical Tombs" page, including this sad comment: "The responsibility for FitzRoy's burial was placed upon Norfolk by the King who seems to have lost interest in his son, once dead."

Image Credit for Thetford Priory ruins: Wikipedia Commons (licensed: CC BY-SA 3.0); Portrait miniature by Lucas Horenbout , public domain.

Recreating Howard/Tudor Tombs in Norfolk

Again, from The Daily Mail, comes this story about the tombs built for Thomas Howard and his son-in-law, Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond:

Technology used to understand distant planets has helped reconstruct two ornate Tudor tombs that were destroyed during King Henry VIII's anti-Catholic offensive.

The tombs were commissioned by Thomas Howard, the third Duke of Norfolk, in the 16th century for Thetford Priory in Norfolk and when the priory was dissolved in 1540, some parts of the tombs were salvaged while others were abandoned in the ruins until they were excavated in the 1930s.

The Space Research Centre, part of the Leicester Department of Physics and Astronomy used these artefacts, along with drawings and 3D computer scanning technology that is currently used to construct how planets would have looked, to virtually reassemble two of the Howard Tombs.

Thomas Howard, the Third Duke of Norfolk, was one of Henry VIII's most ambitious nobles: he was scheduled for execution on charges of treason when Henry VIII died. His son was executed on the same charges, but Howard survived through the reign of Edward VI and into the reign of Mary I.

As British History Online describes, Thetford Priory was a Cluniac House dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the last prior hoped for survival, based on the Howard connections, and Thomas Howard had the same hope, based on Tudor connections:

On 26 March, 1537, Prior William wrote to Cromwell, in answer to his application for the preferment of his servant, John Myllsent, to their farm of Lynford. They begged to be excused, as their founder (patron), the Duke of Norfolk, had the custody of their convent seal. (fn. 49)   

The Duke of Norfolk, the powerful patron of Thetford Priory, naturally looked with dismay upon the approaching destruction of this house and of the church, where not only his remote but more immediate ancestors had been honourably interred. His father, Sir Thomas Howard,earl of Surrey and duke of Norfolk, who died on 21 May, 1524, was buried before the high altar of the conventual church, where a costly monument to himself and Agnes his wife had been erected; whilst still more recently, in 1536, Henry Fitzroy, duke of Somerset, had been buried in the same place. As a means of preserving the church and establishment, the duke proposed to convert the priory into a church of secular canons, with a dean and chapter. In 1539 he petitioned the king to that effect, stating that there lay buried in that church the bodies of the Duke of Richmond, the king's natural son;the duke's late wife, Lady Anne, aunt to his highness; the late Duke of Norfolk and other of his ancestors; and that he was setting up tombs for himself and the duke of Richmond which would cost £400. He also promised to make it 'a very honest parish church.' At first the king gave ear to the proposal, and Thetford was included in a list with five others, of 'collegiate churches newly to be made and erected by the king.' Whereupon the duke had articles of a thorough scheme drawn up for insertion in the expected letters patent, whereby the monastery was to be translated into a dean and chapter.The dean was to be Prior William, (fn. 50)  and the six prebendaries and eight secular canons were to be the monks of the former house, whose names are set forth in detail. The nomination of the dean was to rest with the duke and his heirs. The scheme included the appointment by the dean and chapter of a doctor or bachelor of divinity as preacher in the house, with a stipend of £20. (fn. 51) .

But the capricious king changed his mind,and insisted on the absolute dissolution of thepriory. The duke found that further resistance was hopeless, and on 16 February, 1540, PriorWilliam and thirteen monks signed a deed ofsurrender. (fn. 52)  Two months later the site and the whole possessions of the priory passed to theDuke of Norfolk for £1,000, and by the service of a knight's fee and an annual rental of£59 5s. 1d. The bones of Henry's natural son,and of the late Duke of Norfolk and others, together with their tombs, were removed to anewly erected chancel of the Suffolk church of Framingham, and the grand church of St.Mary of Thetford speedily went to decay.

From: 'Houses of Cluniac monks: The priory of St Mary, Thetford', A History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 2 (1906), pp. 363-369.

As The Daily Mail article goes on to point out, quoting the leader of the project:

‘Our exhibition studies the catastrophic effects of the Dissolution of Thetford Priory and of Henry VIII's attempted destruction of Thomas Howard, third duke of Norfolk, on the ducal tomb-monuments at Thetford,’ said Dr Phillip Lindley, of the University of Leicester’s Department of the History of Art and Film.

‘Using 3D laser scanning and 3D prints, we have - virtually - dismantled the monuments at Framlingham and recombined them with the parts left at Thetford in 1540, to try to reconstruct the monuments as they were first intended, in a mixture of the virtual and the real.

‘The museum is a few hundred yards from the priory site where the tomb-monuments were first carved nearly five hundred years ago.'

The museum referred to is The Ancient House Museum in Thretford, Norfolk and this exhibition is part of the Representing Re-Formation project:

The Howard Tombs are key works in the development of sculpture in England and may well have been produced by sculptors from across the channel: certainly, they have been described as ‘outstanding examples of Franco-Italian sculptural influence’. Building on the foundations established by earlier scholars, we shall deploy conventional art-historical techniques – study of form, style and subject matter – supplementing them with a battery of approaches drawn from the humanities (specifically history and archaeology) and scientific techniques – such as 3-D scanning, XRF, and Raman spectroscopy, in a collaborative enterprise comprising researchers drawn from three universities and from English Heritage.

We aim to reconstruct the monuments’ original context at Thetford and to recover the Howards’ strategies to commemorate themselves and their predecessors during the reigns of the Tudor monarchs Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. We shall study how the monuments were constructed, which components are missing and why, and will use digital interpretive media to display and interpret these complex 3D historical objects for a range of audiences. Together with the other research groups and with the assistance of Jan Summerfield of English Heritage and Oliver Bone and his team from the Norfolk Museums Service, we will be organising an exhibition in the Ancient House Museum in Thetford.

A Tudor Biographer Reviewing Another Tudor Biographer's Book, Part II

Earlier this month, I posted on one Tudor era biographer reviewing another Tudor era biographer's work--in that case Linda Porter reviewing Anna Whitelock. This time, it's Anna Whitelock reviewing John Guy, who has written biographies of St. Thomas More and his daughter Margaret, Mary, Queen of Scots, and St. Thomas of Canterbury (St. Thomas a Becket). Anne Whitelock reviews John Guy's new study of Henry VIII's children for the BBC History Magazine:

Anna Whitelock considers a new look at Henry VIII's children, and how his marital troubles shaped their lives

Henry VIII was a king infamous above all else for his desire for a male heir. The story of Henry’s marital difficulties is well known – as are the children of this most dysfunctional family, who have been the focus of countless individual studies. However, they have not been considered together as often as might be expected. While Guy does not offer much that is significantly new in terms of the detail of the lives of Mary, Edward, Elizabeth and Henry Fitzroy – his first-born son and the illegitimate offspring of his affair with Elizabeth ‘Bessie’ Blount – it is a useful enterprise to bring the king’s children together in one accessible volume.

In doing so the book charts the impact of Henry’s marital difficulties on his offspring. Their formative years were played out in the shadow of high politics, and in vivid descriptions Guy documents how their lives, lifestyles, households, furnishings and education were directly affected by the vagaries of their father’s favour. As this account demonstrates, their childhood and adolescence amounted to an eventful, and traumatic, apprenticeship for rule. . . .

Rather than simply rehearsing the key events of each of the reigns, Guy’s focus is more on the sibling rivalries, conflicting faiths and competing ambitions that tore the family apart during the years that followed. It is a pacy and accessible narrative of the unfolding family drama, but one might have hoped for a little more detail about the personality and rule of each of the children. . . .

This may be a well-known story, but Guy presents it with typical narrative flair and attention to detail, producing a book with obvious appeal.

Read the rest here. This could become a regular series--stay tuned for A Tudor Biographer Reviewing Another Tudor Biographer's Book, Part III!

John Guy on Henry VIII's FOUR Children

According to the publisher, Oxford University Press:

Behind the facade of politics and pageantry at the Tudor court, there was a family drama.

Nothing drove Henry VIII, England’s wealthiest and most powerful king, more than producing a legitimate male heir and so perpetuating his dynasty. To that end, he married six wives, became the subject of the most notorious divorce case of the sixteenth century, and broke with the pope, all in an age of international competition and warfare, social unrest and growing religious intolerance and discord.

Henry fathered four living children, each by a different mother. Their interrelationships were often scarred by jealousy, mutual distrust, sibling rivalry, even hatred. Possessed of quick wits and strong wills, their characters were defined partly by the educations they received, and partly by events over which they had no control.

Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, although recognized as the king’s son, could never forget his illegitimacy. Edward died while still in his teens, desperately plotting to exclude his half-sisters from the throne. Mary’s world was shattered by her mother’s divorce and her own unhappy marriage. Elizabeth was the most successful, but also the luckiest. Even so, she lived with the knowledge that her father had ordered her mother’s execution, was often in fear of her own life, and could never marry the one man she truly loved.

Henry’s children idolized their father, even if they differed radically over how to perpetuate his legacy. To tell their stories, John Guy returns to the archives, drawing on a vast array of contemporary records, personal letters, and first-hand accounts.

Features:
*The intriguing family drama of England's most powerful king and his battle to perpetuate the Tudor dynasty
*A tale of six marriages, adultery, execution, and the most notorious divorce case of the sixteenth century
*A skilfully woven narrative based on original documents, personal letters, eyewitness accounts, and the handwritten letters of the four children themselves
*Shows how the childhood experiences and relationships of Henry's four children shaped their later lives - and the destiny of a nation

Note the inclusion of Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond! When Alison Weir wrote her book on the children of Henry VIII, she highlighted the heirs of Henry VIII at the end of his reign (Edward, Jane Grey, Mary, and Elizabeth). John Guy explains why he included the Duke of Richmond and comments on Mary's character in this interview:

What inspired you to write The Children of Henry VIII?

I got fed up with people from tv companies or guides in stately homes trying to tell me that Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn came to visit X or Y places as a family, with baby Elizabeth in one or other of their arms. The royal children were brought up in nurseries set apart from where their parents were living, often many miles apart. The children were together only on a handful of occasions in Henry’s entire reign, and each was rarely able to spend much time with Henry or their mother. I wanted to include Henry Fitzroy, the king’s illegitimate son, since he tends to be forgotten and yet he was an important part of the story in the earlier years. I also thought it could be illuminating to relate and position each of the children more precisely to one another, and that this might improve our understanding of the period as a whole, which turned out to be the case.

What do you think is one of the most common misconceptions about Henry’s daughter, Mary Tudor?

Mary was by nature generous, especially to her friends and supporters, but could also be generous to those who opposed her – after all, she had decided not to execute Lady Jane Grey until she learned of Wyatt’s rebellion and of Jane’s father’s role in it. She tended to give people the benefit of the doubt, but when I found how much she hated Elizabeth from the beginning and how this vendetta played out in Mary’s own reign, I was rather shocked. I was also surprised to discover the scale of Mary’s intransigence over religion in Edward’s reign – even when her cousin the Emperor Charles V told her to cease making her own houses symbols of resistance to Protestantism by having mass celebrated daily and inviting passers-by to attend, she wouldn’t stop. Charles thought it was enough that she had a licence to say [attend] mass herself – to satisfy her own conscience. He was too experienced a politician to think Mary should deliberately provoke the Duke of Northumberland. And he certainly didn’t want Mary to seek exile in his own dominions. I hadn’t realized just how intransigent Mary could be – something Philip was to discover fairly quickly when he married her.

Guy means that Mary should have stopped with just having Mass celebrated for her attendance--not that Mary "said" Mass! Leanda de Lisle writes of Guy's achievement in the April 2013 issue of the Literary Review:

John Guy is that rare cross: a scholar who also writes for the popular market. It shows here, as he sketches with verve and fluency the education and beliefs, as well as, briefly, the reigns of these last Tudors. But where he excels is in illuminating the relationships between the squabbling siblings. They say if you've got lemons make lemonade, and in Guy's hands the story of The Children of Henry VIII is fresh, sparkling and sharp.

De Lisle also comments that the "squabbling siblings" were "horrid to each other, but not horrid enough"! and suggests that Mary, having failed to bear a child by Philip of Spain to bump Elizabeth from the succession, should have used one of the plots against her (the Wyatt Rebellion Guy mentions above perhaps) as a reason to have Elizabeth executed. Philip of Spain prevented that action and surely lived to regret it as Elizabeth repaid him with war in the Spanish Netherlands and pirate raids on Spanish ships.