Bastard Prince (22 page)

That Richmond did not, after all, make a grand European alliance was more a reflection of the current political climate in England than his status as merely an illegitimate son. The negotiations of 1527 had proved there was scope for a suitable diplomatic alliance. A number of factors, not least Henry's preoccupation with his own matrimonial affairs and the resulting repercussions of that process, kept Richmond out of the international marriage market. In the circumstances, Henry may well have been more receptive to the idea of a domestic match than would otherwise have been the case. For Anne there were obvious benefits. Even as she acted the dutiful niece in sharing the benefits of her ascendancy with her uncle, she was securing her own position. Given Henry's obvious affection for his son, a marriage within England, to a member of her own family, was her best hope of limiting the political danger Richmond represented.
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However, the wisdom of this plan yet remained to be seen. Anne may well have needed all her charms to induce Henry to forgo the money Norfolk would usually have paid for such a match. Nevertheless, in many ways Mary was an eminently suitable bride. The daughter of a duke, she could also boast her own share of royal blood on her mother's side as granddaughter to Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who had been executed for his regal pretensions in 1521. If she was rather too intelligent for her own good, ‘too wise for a woman' as her father would put it, Richmond was not one to suffer fools gladly, and her skills in the more traditional graces required of a noble Tudor wife can only have been polished in the last few years at court in a post the envy of girls older than she.

Whatever Anne's attractions, Henry was unlikely to be persuaded to bestow his son on anyone he felt was unworthy to be the mother of his grandchildren. In 1529 it may have seemed like a good idea. By 1533 Anne must have realised that she had handed her uncle a loaded gun. Even if the marriage was not originally Norfolk's idea, the benefits of sharing a grandchild with the king must have seemed increasingly tempting. Rumours of conflict between him and Anne were already circulating by 1530. When the birth of Elizabeth was followed by the reduction in Mary's status, it would have taken a less politically astute man than Norfolk not to realise the potential value of his newly acquired son-in-law, if his niece did not produce an heir.

Richmond's own feelings towards his marriage are more difficult to assess. It was not a love match. The suggestion that he presented Mary with an anthology of poetry as a wedding present is as romantic as it is groundless.
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Yet the couple had a good deal of common ground to draw them together and it was in their own best interests to achieve at least civility, hopefully affection and maybe even love. While many such political matches, including the Earl of Surrey's union with Frances de Vere, did develop into successful relationships both the king and Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk were testimony to the hardship which invariably followed if they could not make it work.

Although Richmond and Mary were not permitted to live together, their paths would have crossed now that Richmond was back in England. According to Surrey's poetical description of life and courtly love at Windsor, they saw enough of what one would hope were their respective wives to compare notes on their attributes. Allegedly very beautiful, apparently very intelligent, Mary's wilful character and sharp tongue may have made her rather too like her cousin Anne Boleyn for most people's comfort, but Anne was also sufficiently witty, charming and gracious to capture the king's heart. There was no reason why Mary could not follow her example with his son.

Norfolk's burgeoning ambitions for his son-in-law were perhaps already apparent by the autumn of 1533. Even before Richmond had returned from France, rumours had begun to circulate that now he was to go to Ireland. On 3 September 1533 Chapuys reported ‘it is said the King will send him to Ireland as Governor'. Until now Richmond's role in Irish affairs had been purely symbolic. The sum total of his active involvement seems to have been the warrants issued in his name and the isolated incident in May 1530 when one of his servants received 5
s
in reward from the king, as he crossed over the water to Ireland.

Since Skeffington's appointment, the situation in Ireland had continued to deteriorate. He had arrived in Dublin on 24 August 1530, well armed with instructions, 200 marks and 200 troops. He was given authority to grant offices and call parliaments, but he was no great lord and his ability to control the Irish rested solely on his military prowess and his commission from the king. Despite his best efforts, he often lacked the support he needed, especially from the Earl of Kildare, who did everything he could to discredit him. Kildare also tried to curry favour with Richmond by presenting him with a bay horse, valued at £8. For good measure, a sorrel horse worth twenty nobles was also provided for Norfolk. Complaints regarding Skeffington's conduct reached the king's Privy Council in England and in another shift in policy he was replaced as deputy to the Duke of Richmond on 5 July 1532 by Kildare.

Unfortunately, rather than establishing order, Kildare's own disputes with his old enemy the Earl of Ossory merely added to the ongoing disturbances. As tensions increased the council summoned Kildare back to London to answer for his actions. His unwillingness to obey did not reassure them. It was therefore proposed that Richmond himself, in his capacity as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, should go in person to see order restored. Rumours reached Charles V that Henry was even intending to resurrect his plan to make Richmond King of Ireland.

In fact, the plan to send Richmond to Ireland was largely due to Cromwell and was intended to reinforce changes he was already making to the way Ireland was governed, although it is tempting to imagine that Anne Boleyn would have fully supported any plan that sent her step-son into almost certain danger. The Imperial ambassador was confident something was going to happen and reported that Richmond ‘is to leave soon for Wales, at the head of a force', although he was unable to discover if he was actually going across the water, or merely maintaining a military presence in Wales. In the end he did neither. The plan was commonly supposed to have been blocked by Norfolk. Certainly, when events in Ireland erupted into the Geraldine Rebellion of 1534, Cromwell was only too happy to blame him.

As had been the case with Wolsey, relations between Thomas Cromwell and the nobility were often strained. As the facilitator of the king's will, they had often needed his assistance. This was true even of the king's own children. Richmond regularly solicited Cromwell's support and assistance, thanking him ‘for your manifold and approved friendship in times past'. The secretary was also the principal architect of Mary Tudor's return to her father's good graces after the death of ‘that woman' Anne Boleyn in 1536. Yet Thomas Cromwell was not a knight or even a gentleman and many of the established nobility must have been put out as they resented this man's influence, as they had Wolsey's and were jealous of his relationship with the king.

Now the Imperial ambassador reported with some glee how the animosity, which Cromwell and Norfolk had previously been at some pains to disguise, now exploded into dispute:

Norfolk may well have been unwilling to endorse the plan, but he probably did not have to argue very hard to get Henry to agree. The situation in Ireland was too volatile to risk his son. Also, the Duke of Richmond would require an appropriately splendid retinue and a suitably magnificent household. Henry knew how incalculably expensive that policy might become, as the experience of Sheriff Hutton had shown.

In addition, as long as Anne had not produced a male heir, the king's son could be more usefully employed at court, even if only as a reassurance to his increasingly anxious subjects that the prospect of a prince was not an unattainable goal. Certainly, Norfolk could not have blocked the plan if the king had wholeheartedly supported it and although Cromwell could not blame Henry for the frustration of his plan, Henry was more than likely to blame Cromwell if order was not restored. By blaming Norfolk for interfering with his proposals, Cromwell perhaps hoped to line up a useful scapegoat to divert the king's wrath from himself and at the same time engineer the disgrace of one of his main rivals for the king's attention.

Although Richmond remained the Lord Lieutenant for the rest of his life, there is no evidence that he ever set foot in Ireland. The possibility of sending either Norfolk or Suffolk also came to nothing, mostly because neither of them wanted to go. In contrast, others, although certainly not Kildare, were eager to see Skeffington re-instated. In 1534 it was claimed he had ‘gained the esteem of all. If he had remained until now, he would have found no one to resist him'. Eventually, Skeffington was sent back as the king's commissioner, although in October 1535 it was still being hoped by some of the Irish chieftains that Richmond himself would be sent:

This was not to be. When Skeffington died on the last day of the year his post was given to the king's cousin, Leonard, Lord Grey, who had courted Richmond's mother. In yet another experiment in government it was perhaps hoped to marry Grey's military skills with his family connections in Ireland. If not an ideal solution, it was at least an attempt at a compromise between English and Irish overlords. However, after his death in July 1536 Richmond was not easily replaced. Not until the appointment of Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, in 1560 was there to be another Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

In January 1534, Henry VIII was once again confidently expecting his legitimate male heir. The news of Anne Boleyn's pregnancy, which was known by December 1533, must have given an added air of festivity to the traditional New Year celebrations. This year the customary exchange of gifts was something of a family affair for the duke. Richmond gave his father ‘a great spoon of gold' weighing more than 4 oz, which Henry promptly deposited in his jewel house. In return, the king gave him the usual collection of silver gilt so the duke could display the weight of his father's affection on his sideboard. Now that his wife's cousin was Queen of England she also gave him a formal gift. This time Anne's choice of a silver salt and a ring was rather more successful. Richmond particularly liked the ring, keeping it with him to wear. To round off proceedings, Richmond's new bride gave her father-in-law ‘a tablet of gold' and in return the king gave her something out ‘of his own store'.

However, Henry's mind quickly turned from the celebrations to more weighty matters. As Anne's pregnancy advanced, he took steps to set his realm in order. The spring session of parliament passed two more important pieces of clerical legislation on the road to the establishment of the Church of England. In addition, Katherine of Aragon was legally reduced to the position of Prince Arthur's widow, as Dowager Princess of Wales, and Henry's marriage to his wife of fourteen months was ratified in law.
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The pope's final decision on Henry's marriage to Katherine declared it ‘always hath and still doth stand firm and canonical', but it no longer mattered. The 1534 Succession Act vested the crown in the expected male heir – ‘the first son of your body between your Highness and your said lawful wife Queen Anne'.

Even if there were no sons between them, no one was to be left in any doubt that Henry's eldest daughter, the Lady Mary, was no longer the heir apparent:

What the act did not do – and Henry may or may not have been aware of this – was legally bastardise Mary. In fact, the act did not mention Mary's status at all. The general assumption may have been that if her parents' marriage was invalid Mary was illegitimate and therefore automatically excluded. Certainly Anne's aunt, Lady Shelton, took the position that ‘by statute she was declared a bastard and incapable'. In fact Henry could still argue that she was born in good faith. If the succession, or her marriage, or any other cause required it, Henry could still pass her off as his legitimate daughter.
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The act also included a proviso that ‘all the nobles of your Realm' as well as every other subject must swear to uphold its provisions. Whether this was supposed to include Richmond is not clear. Henry's other subjects were allowed to wait until they ‘shall be at their full ages', but if they were fourteen they would have been in wardship, not attending parliament or pursuing their own legal disputes through the king's courts more eagerly than many adults. The political advantage of Richmond's public endorsement of Elizabeth's position as heir apparent may have outweighed any legal niceties.

The Act of Succession made it quite clear that only the king's legitimate issue, those ‘lawfully begotten', could succeed to the throne. However, if the king was once more disappointed in his hopes for a prince, the teenage youth might increasingly seem a rather better prospect for the throne than Elizabeth. The dire warning included in the statute against breaking the provisions of the act stressed that ‘every such person and persons of what estate degree or condition they be of' would be guilty of high treason and condemned to death. The sentiment was obviously designed to check the enduring loyalty and popularity still enjoyed by Mary, whom many in their hearts still saw as the king's rightful heir. But it was equally relevant to Richmond and any of the nobility, many of whom had little love for Anne Boleyn, who might be prepared to support his claim to the throne.