The Other Tudors (13 page)

On 26 November 1533 a papal dispensation was sought in order that Richmond might marry ‘Lady Mary.’ It has been suggested that this dispensation had been requested so that Richmond could marry his half-sister, Princess Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon. In fact, it refers to his proposed marriage to Mary Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. A dispensation was necessary because Henry VIII had married Norfolk’s niece, Anne Boleyn, which meant that Mary Howard and Richmond were now more closely related.
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Richmond began to participate more in Court life. On 20 January 1534, he attended a Chapter of the Garter to elect James V of Scotland to a vacant place and in May he represented his father at the head of the Garter procession. Between 15 January and 30 March, Richmond attended Parliament on 32 of the 45 days that it was in session. However, between 12 June and 18 July 1536, he was absent, most probably ill.

Richmond was also interesting himself in his estates with increasing confidence. He wrote to Cromwell on 13 June 1535, a petition carried by William Byttilcome: ‘… being burgesse of the parliament of my said town … I and Sir Giles Strangeways with other of my council have seen and viewed a certain breech above my town of Poole called Northavyn point, and so perceive by the same that by reason of the sea it will be not in process of time greatly prejudice and hindrance to the king’s highness in his customs there, but also ensure and be to the great annoyance and decay of my said town by reason of the same.’
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Richmond had descended on Poole with his entourage of around 600 on something akin to a royal progress. He was met with cheering crowds, listened to loyal addresses and accepted gifts. He now clearly saw himself as a royal prince, a possible future king, and was acting accordingly.

A letter from Richmond at Sheffield to Cromwell, 4 July 1534, advising him ‘here in the country where I lie, I have no park nor game to show sport or pleasure to my friends when they shall resort unto me’, indicates that Richmond was now hoping for more than a suit of armour from his doting father. He sent a list of the royal parks in the area, and hinted rather heavily that he hoped the King would help him remedy the matter of his having nowhere to hunt with his friends. Richmond had a passion for hunting and was not above removing woodland to enlarge his deer parks or riding down crops during the chase. This was an attitude typical of the nobility of the day, considering no one’s rights or welfare but their own.
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His official duties increased in line with his new status. In November 1534, Richmond, as England’s Admiral, was called on to entertain the French Admiral of the Fleet. After New Year at Collyweston, Richmond was back in London adding his presence to the entertainments for Chapuys, the Imperial Ambassador, who had come to make sure the Princess Mary was well. She had earned Henry VIII’s displeasure through her refusal to sign his Act of Succession which would make her a bastard: she had lost her governess, the Countess of Salisbury (replaced by Lady Shelton), and had been so ill that it was feared she might die.

In 1535, Henry seems to have decided that Richmond should have a taste of responsibility. It was planned that he should lead an army to pacify Ireland and could then be officially titled King of Ireland. An army was assembled; the Duke of Norfolk, an experienced campaigner, joined Richmond, but they never sailed. At Christmas 1535, Richmond was with his father at Windsor.

Richmond had always enjoyed a tolerable relationship with Anne Boleyn, but all this was to change. With the arrest of Anne, rumours began to fly around Court, one of which was that she had practised witchcraft to ensnare the King. The rumours also stated that Anne had poisoned Catherine of Aragon, and that she had planned to do the same to Princess Mary and Richmond, in order to clear the path to the throne for her own child. Chapuys wrote to Charles V:

The evidence for poisoning seems to have been supported by Jane Parker, George Boleyn’s wife, who claimed that while Richmond and Surrey were in France, in July 1533, they both became ill after sharing a cup of wine. George Boleyn had been at the French Court with the Duke of Norfolk at that time and George had abandoned his belongings and headed for England as soon as the young men fell ill. The implied conclusion was that he had attempted to poison the chief rival to his sister’s children.

Richmond attended Anne Boleyn’s execution in 1536. He was accompanied, amongst others, by Surrey, Thomas Audley, the Lord Chancellor, Charles Brandon and Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s minister and the author of the whole fiasco. The Lord Mayor and aldermen also attended, as did ordinary members of the public. Richmond was 17 years old, and was probably already ill with the disease that killed him. He did, however, inherit some of Anne’s lands and those of her fellow victims, including property that Anne had snatched from the estate of the dead Catherine of Aragon. When George Boleyn was executed, his posts of Constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports went to Richmond.
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Through Henry’s marriage to Jane Seymour in 1536, all three children (Richmond, Mary and Elizabeth) were now equally illegitimate. A new Act was therefore passed: should Jane Seymour fail to produce a legitimate heir, the King was to nominate his successor from amongst his bastards. He would then be able to lawfully choose Richmond. This meant that the young Duke took on a higher profile; as Robert Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, remarked, ‘If all the children were bastards, it was advisable to prefer the male to the female for the succession to the crown.’
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When Parliament opened in June, Richmond was part of the procession, walking in front of the King carrying the Cap of Maintenance, made of crimson velvet lined with ermine, traditionally carried by the senior member of the House of Lords. Richmond had largely kept out of serious politics up until that point; he had the rank, the money, the education, but not the power. Now he was married to the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, England’s premier duke, and was being groomed for future kingship.

Despite his father’s deep affection, Richmond was still vulnerable to Henry’s current wave of paranoia. He had not gone to Ireland, yet his army still existed. Cromwell, who had engineered the downfall of Anne Boleyn, seems to have started to undermine Richmond as well, telling Henry that the young man was, ‘very likely to fall into inobedience and rebellion.’
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Actually, Cromwell was almost certainly trying to discredit the powerful Duke of Norfolk, Anne Boleyn’s uncle and Richmond’s father-in-law, so as to totally destroy his influence at Court. Discrediting Richmond was merely a means to this end.

Meanwhile, Richmond and his bride set up home at the newly renovated St James’s Palace, and things would have gone well if he had not developed a serious cough with chest pains. By the summer, Richmond was seriously ill, and unable to attend the closing of Parliament on 18 July. His physician, Dr William Buttes, was called in almost immediately, but too late. On 22 July 1536 Richmond died in great secrecy. So sudden was the event at St James’s Palace that some of his belongings, including his chapel furniture, were still at Tonge, a manor house near Sittingbourn, Kent, where it had been sent in anticipation of Richmond’s arrival.

When the King was told his son was dead, he was at Sittingbourn, daily expecting Richmond. What happened next is almost inexplicable. There was no autopsy, no public mourning or state funeral. Henry’s response to the death of his ‘worldly jewel’ was to take Jane Seymour to London and to call on his daughter, Mary, advising her that she might now move into Richmond’s apartment as ‘Second Lady of the Kingdom’. Norfolk was told to take care of Richmond’s remains. Mary Howard took as much of her gold and silver plate as she could carry (her only asset), returned to her father’s house and enquired after her widow’s pension. She was told there would not be one.

Rumour said that at first Richmond’s body was hastily buried at Thetford, in a stable yard, and moved later. Another version, probably correct, said his body was placed in a sealed coffin and transported in a cart covered with straw to rest in Thetford Priory, where others of the Howard family were buried. Here it lay for two years; when the Priory was dismantled during the Reformation, Richmond’s remains were moved and he lies in St Michael’s Church, in Framlingham, with his duchess, under a once-splendid monument, amongst his wife’s Howard relations.

Richmond is believed to have died of tuberculosis, although the secrecy and speed of his burial might be due to the fact that he died, or was suspected of having died of pneumonic plague. The main symptoms of this are fever, headache, weakness and rapidly developing pneumonia with shortness of breath, chest pain and coughing, all symptoms that Richmond showed before his death. The pneumonia progresses for two to four days with death from respiratory failure and shock. Richmond was only 17, ‘having pined inwardly in his body long before he died.’
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If the illness had been developing for some time, it was probably not plague, but his quick death may have convinced his attendants that it was.

When it came to the treatment of his corpse, the speed of his sickness and death may simply have overwhelmed the King. The death of his beloved son may have devastated his father. He had lost his only son who had died without heirs. Henry’s instructions to Norfolk may have been misinterpreted or confused by the chain of instruction, so that the body was roughly coffined and transported by Norfolk’s servants.

But why did his father ignore him so completely? This might support the theory that Henry believed that Richmond was part of a planned revolt against the Crown, rising from his powerbase in Lincolnshire. It would not be the first time an heir decided not to wait for his inheritance, and the affair could have been triggered by Jane Seymour’s pregnancy. A living, lawful male child would have put Richmond firmly out of contention for the throne. In fact, there was an uprising in Lincolnshire in September and October 1536, not long after Richmond’s death. Would he have supported this action, had he been alive? Did Henry believe his son had been actively involved in this disturbance? Certainly supporters of the revolt came from South Kyme, Tailboys lands, and the leaders included Bessie Blount’s son-in-law, Robert Dymoke, and Richmond’s servants, Sir John Russell and Sir William Parr.

Yet, when things calmed down, the King berated Norfolk for the nature of his son’s burial. Henry’s usual response to loss was to run from it and act as if he wasn’t involved. His defence mechanism had been activated and he thought he could trust Norfolk to do the right thing for his own son-in-law. As they had not communicated face-to-face, the King and Norfolk had each misinterpreted what was to be done. The King wanted the whole painful matter to be over quickly; Norfolk mistook speed for privacy and secrecy.

On 24 December 1540, Sir John Wallop wrote to King Henry. He had been at a banquet with the dauphin and the duc d’Orléans, King Henry’s godson. The dauphin Francois ‘began to speak of my lord of Richmond, lamenting his death greatly, and so did Monsieur d’Orléans likewise …’
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The French princes could still remember Richmond fondly, and Sir John was confident enough of the King’s feelings to pass the comment on to him. This tends to support the notion that it was sudden, overwhelming grief that kept Henry from mourning his son at the time, not fear of his betrayal. He could still listen, as a proud father, to compliments about his lost son.

In 1540, Bessie Blount died. Her husband, Lord Clinton, married again a year later, to Ursula, daughter of William, Lord Stourton, and they had two more daughters and three sons. Ursula died in 1551 and the following year Clinton married for the last time, to Elizabeth Fitzgerald, the daughter of the Earl of Kildare and widow of Sir Anthony Browne. Like Bessie Blount, Elizabeth was a renowned court beauty, and was the inspiration for the Earl of Surrey’s poetry, featuring as ‘fair Geraldine’. The couple had no more children, and Clinton died in 1585.