Bastard Prince (19 page)

Unusually, a significant number of replacements were paid for from Norfolk's own purse. Fifteen pieces of material were provided to make new hangings. For the bedchambers there were several wooden bedsteads, new curtains of red and yellow and coverings of cloth of gold, velvet and silk. Since Richmond was supposed to be financially independent it is not clear whether Norfolk expected to recoup his financial outlay from the duke's officers or whether he was anticipating a different sort of return on his investment.

The marriage of the Duke of Norfolk's only surviving daughter, Mary Howard, to the king's only son, has often been put down to Howard ambition. Yet from the outset Norfolk maintained that it was Henry's idea. In December 1529 he had told Chapuys ‘the King wishes the Duke to marry one of my daughters'. Norfolk and Mary would always maintain that Henry ordered the marriage. In fact, the true architect of the arrangement seems to have been Anne Boleyn.

The Duke's actions are evidence that he had other plans for his daughters. If he was lobbying for a match with the king's son, it might have seemed prudent to offer his eldest daughter, Katherine Howard, as the more glittering prize. Instead, within weeks of Norfolk's conversation with Chapuys, she was married to Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby. There is no doubt that this was entirely Norfolk's idea. The earl was a minor under the authority of the king and, on 21 February 1530, Norfolk was obliged to seek a pardon ‘for the abduction of Edward Earl of Derby and [his] marriage to Katherine daughter of the said Thomas without royal license.'

Of the family of five children born to Norfolk and his second wife, Elizabeth, a daughter of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, Mary Howard, born in 1519, is generally thought to be their only daughter. However, Katherine was at least twenty-two years old when a few weeks later, on 16 March 1530, Chapuys informed Charles V that Norfolk's eldest daughter, the wife of Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby, had died suddenly of the plague. Anxious not to lose this alliance Norfolk arranged for his half-sister Dorothy Howard to become Derby's second wife. Indeed, far from engineering the royal match it was believed Norfolk considered the Derby marriage to be so important that ‘had [he] not had a sister to offer, he would have proposed his other daughter, who has been promised to the Duke of Richmond.'

Even without the Derby match, it does not seem that Richmond was Norfolk's first choice as a husband for Mary. The duke was later to claim that the king's proposal had interrupted plans for Mary to marry Lord Bulbeck, the heir of the Earl of Oxford.

For her part, Mary's mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk, seems to have been positively unwilling that her daughter should marry Richmond. According to Chapuys she preferred the Derby match and had had her wishes rather forcefully overruled by Anne Boleyn.
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The Duchess of Norfolk had no doubt that Anne was the true author of events declaring ‘queen Anne got the marriage clear for my lord my husband, when she did favour my lord my husband' and Henry's subsequent reluctance to acknowledge the union strongly suggests that he was persuaded into it by Anne, who cannot have viewed the prospect of Richmond making a sparkling European marriage with any pleasure. Despite the Duchess of Norfolk's objections the arrangements were finalised by the spring of 1531, when Chapuys was content to refer to Richmond as Norfolk's son-inlaw. The child was now formally betrothed and as soon as he turned fourteen in June 1533 the union could be solemnised and Richmond would be safely married within England.

In the meantime, Richmond was often at court. As a duke he was not only entitled to food and lodgings at the king's expense, but a generous provision of candles, coal and other necessaries for the comforts of life. Yet while official business, or his father's pleasure, could find him at the royal palaces of Greenwich or Hampton Court, it was neither customary nor practical for both him and his household to be permanently resident at court. The grant made to Richmond in 1525 had included a suitable London residence. Coldharbour Mansion on the banks of the Thames had formerly belonged to his great-grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond. Unfortunately, after her death in 1509, the king had granted the property to George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, which allowed Talbot to enjoy the property rent free, for the term of his life; he did not die until July 1538.

On his return from the north, Richmond had spent some time at Wolsey's manor of The More in Hertfordshire. This was a pleasant enough property, which had been substantially extended and improved by the Cardinal as befitted one of his principal residences. It could boast a great chamber and a privy chamber, as well as a 300-foot gallery. Wolsey had even modernised the plumbing. After his fall, the property returned to the king's hands. Henry could simply have continued the arrangement on a more permanent basis. Instead, it seems he already had something more suitable in mind for his son.

Richmond was installed at Windsor Castle, which seems to have been his main residence while he completed his education. As part of a programme of general improvements to the castle a ‘new lodging called the prince's lodging' was subsequently built for his use on the western side of the north front. As at Sheriff Hutton he was joined in his studies by other youths, including Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, although it seems unlikely that their time was spent exclusively in the carefree round of sports, courtly love, dancing and tennis, later described in Surrey's poetry. Richmond still had a role to play in the wider world and he had to be well equipped to shoulder whatever duties his father chose to bestow.

Although there was a traditional belief that Richmond and Surrey went together to study at Cardinal College, Oxford, this has long since been disproved. The idea that Richmond studied under Richard Croke at King's College, Cambridge is also mistaken. The disorder of Richmond's schoolroom at Sheriff Hutton with its bawds and fools has sometimes been taken as an account of Richmond's activities at university. However, there is no indication that Richmond attended either university and his increased profile at court is evidence to the contrary.

Indeed, in April 1530 the pomp and ceremony of the court came to him. On 23 April, the king held a chapter of the Order of the Garter at Windsor Castle to mark St George's Day. While he was in Yorkshire, Richmond had been excused from participating in the business of the Order by the king's letters. Now he was expected to play his part. With Norfolk, Suffolk and other knights of the Order, he donned his robes to attend mass in the king's private chapel. After the formalities, Henry spent some time with his son. Richmond obviously impressed his sporting father with his skill with a bow, since Henry paid 20
s
out of his privy purse to his fletcher to purchase some new arrows for the duke.

Since he also paid out 40
s
in reward to Richmond's nurse, the king was clearly satisfied that his son was fit and well and being well cared for. The £20 annuity which was awarded in May 1530 in reward for her services probably marked Anne Partridge's retirement as Richmond's nurse. At eleven years old Richmond was perhaps judged not quite old enough to entirely dispense with a woman's care. In 1538 a widow, named Joan Brigman, would receive an annuity of five marks out of the manor of Cheshunt, ‘in consideration of her services to Henry, Duke of Richmond, in his childhood.'

The king clearly enjoyed a warm and loving relationship with his only son. Even amid the foreign ambassador's fascination for every detail of his affair with Anne Boleyn, this did not go entirely unnoticed. In 1530 the French ambassador was roused to comment that the king was very fond of his son. The following year the Venetian ambassador was of much the same opinion, going on to describe Richmond as ‘a youth of great promise so much does he resemble his father'. Richmond visited Henry at Hampton Court and in May 1531 the king was again with his son at Windsor. This time Henry paid out 20
s
to buy the young duke a lute. The amounts were not lavish. Anne Boleyn and Mary both did significantly better in financial terms, but neither of them had Richmond's independent income. Also the gifts reflect a genuine interest in the child's activities. Even when they were not together the king continued to think of his son. A gold collar, enamelled with white roses, was blithely recorded as being ‘sent from the King's highness for a token'.

Perhaps not surprisingly, relations between Anne Boleyn and the young duke do not appear to have been quite as warm. On his return from Yorkshire she presented Richmond with the gift of a bay horse and a saddle made of spruce leather, decorated with black velvet. If it was intended as a ploy to secure the boy's goodwill, the horse was rather ill chosen. Described as ‘very ill to ride, and of worse condition', Richmond did not risk his neck by keeping it, but passed it on to Gerald Fitzgerald, the Earl of Kildare.

Anne's relationship with Mary would seesaw between genuine attempts at reconciliation, in an attempt to negate her influence, and episodes of anger, frustration and fear at the danger she represented. With less reason for personal bitterness her relationship with Richmond was probably more formally correct. However, Henry's willingness to suspect in 1536 that Anne had conspired to poison Richmond hardly points at an affectionate relationship. They were no doubt a thorn in each other's sides. If she was a shadow on his favoured position as the king's only son, then he was a constant reminder to her of what Henry expected.

In general Richmond seems to have been healthier than many of his contemporaries. None of the surviving correspondence from his time at Sheriff Hutton mentions him contracting any illness at all. His enjoyment of hunting certainly indicates that he was usually fit and healthy. Richmond was also keen to follow in his father's footsteps at the tilt. Surrey's poetry later recalled the mock tournaments they had staged at Windsor. When Richmond fell ill in January 1532, the event was not widely reported and the cause of his sickness is not known. Henry sent one of his own physicians to attend upon the duke, but since the doctor's fee was only 40
s
the illness was probably neither too serious nor very prolonged. Nothing more is heard of this particular illness. Subsequent reports of his good health indicate that he recovered well and there is no reason to suspect any lasting effects. He was evidently quite fit by June 1532, since it was soon being reported that he was to be included in the king's train for his father's proposed meeting with Francis I.

Arrangements for this summit occupied much of the summer of 1532. It was agreed that Francis I would entertain the King of England at Boulogne, in return Henry VIII would receive the King of France at Calais. Despite strenuous efforts to keep the plans under wraps, by the end of July the Imperial ambassador reported that the six or eight ships being equipped under the guise of use against Scotland were in fact intended to carry the king to France.

Richmond's inclusion in a party that ultimately comprised almost every available nobleman in England, was not in itself particularly significant. However, rumours were soon circulating of a plan which would see Richmond being sent to reside at the French court, while Francis I's second son, Henri, duc d'Orléans, would come to England. Chapuys was quick to point out that this was ‘an unequal exchange' but the proposal, this time involving Richmond, Orléans and Surrey, was also picked up by the Venetian, Carlo Capello. From the outset it seems that Richmond's role in the proceedings was to be more than to provide a suitably noble escort to the king and his lady.

The issue of the English and French king's respective entourages was a delicate matter, not least because Henry intended to parade Anne Boleyn as if she were indeed Queen of England. Despite the fact that Henry was legally no closer to securing the annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, he had effectively separated from her on 14 July 1531 by the simple expedient of leaving her behind at Windsor. For some time now the English court had been accustomed to seeing Anne dressed and treated ‘more like a Queen than a simple maid'. Despite this, Anne was not only not the queen, but born merely the daughter of a knight, every peeress and princess in England and abroad felt that they outranked her.

The king's wish that the ladies of the French court would acknowledge Anne Boleyn was politely rebuffed. Francis I's suggestion that his own mistress should accompany him was not exactly what Henry had had in mind. The question of Anne's own train threatened to be equally problematic. A number of the English ladies, not least Henry's own sister, Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, refused to accompany her. In the end the issue was diplomatically avoided when it was decided that ladies would not take part in the actual summit. However, since Henry VIII was determined that Anne would accompany him to Calais, the problem of her status remained.

It was at least in part to address this issue that, on 1 September 1532, Anne Boleyn was created Marchioness of Pembroke, making her a peeress in her own right.
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The carefully orchestrated ceremony was held at Windsor, with Anne's cousin, the future Duchess of Richmond, thirteen-year-old Mary Howard, playing a prominent role. Although Mary's mother Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk, was pointedly absent, Mary carried Anne's mantle of crimson velvet, furred with ermines, and passed the gold coronet to the king. Anne's elevation to the peerage endowed the queen-in-waiting with rank, wealth and a degree of future security. Henry also bestowed on her land worth £1,000 per annum and even illegitimate issue could succeed to the lands and dignity she now held.

This compares more than favourably with the fortunes of Henry's other known mistresses, not least because she received her reward before she had bestowed her favours. However, it was obviously only an interim step. Richmond's titles included two dukedoms, an earldom and revenues in excess of £4,000 per annum. In comparison, as a marquess with an income of £1,000, any male issue produced by Anne Boleyn would have felt rather hard done by.