HARRY ESSEX

by Richard Banks       

Five hundred years after his birth few people know of the Essex boy who nearly became King of England. Had he succeeded to the throne, Elizabeth I, arguably this country's greatest monarch, would have remained a Princess, the crowned heads of the Stuart and Hanoverian dynasties would only have ventured into England on their holidays, and Queen Victoria would never have been born.[1]

      The child was born into the turbulent world of Tudor politics on the fifteenth of June 1519 in a small Augustine priory at Blackmore, Essex, some three miles east of Chipping Ongar. The Jericho priory, as it was known, was largely demolished nine years later, one of the ruins that Cromwell ‘knocked about a bit’ while dissolving the monasteries. Today only the church of St Lawrence remains, formerly the nave of the priory.

     The boy fared somewhat better. He was, to use recent parlance, a love child, the illegitimate son of Henry VIII and Elizabeth Blount, a maid of honour to Queen Catherine. Her liaison with the King began in 1514 when she was only twelve years old. An excellent singer and dancer, she accompanied Henry in a Christmas mummery. Another twelve year old, Elizabeth Bryan, may also have been a mistress of the King.

      Elizabeth Blount's affair with the King, which was to last longer than any of Henry’s other amours took place against the background of a royal marriage that had yet to produce a male heir. In 1516 after a string of miscarriages and still births, Catherine finally gave birth to a healthy child, but to Henry’s disappointment it was a girl, the future Mary I.

      Although the birth revived hope that Catherine might still have a male child, time was running out for a Queen who was six years older than her husband. When Henry and Catherine visited France, the French king, Francis I commented, ‘the King of England is young, but his wife is old and deformed.’ By contrast, Elizabeth was now only seventeen and perfectly able to provide the King with children. Within months of Catherine again becoming pregnant Elizabeth was also expecting the King’s child. The news so upset the Queen that she went into premature labour; a son was born but died a few days later. She was never to become pregnant again.

      Possibly at the insistence of the Queen, Elizabeth was sent from court to the Jericho Priory where a few months later, to the delight of the King, a male child was born. Henry immediately acknowledged the child as his own, naming him Henry after himself and Fitzroy meaning the son of a King or Prince. The King visited his son and mistress so often in 1519 that courtiers described his frequent absences as ‘having gone to Jericho’. In 1520 Elizabeth had another child, a girl, who Henry did not acknowledge. By 1522 the affair was over, Henry transferred his affections to Mary Boleyn, and Elizabeth was given the golden handshake of marriage to Gilbert Talboys, who was appointed Sheriff of Lincolnshire.

      While Elizabeth now moved into the wings of English history her son continued centre stage. High in his father’s favour, he was brought up with all the trappings of a Prince at Sheriff Hutton Castle in Yorkshire. At the age of six Fitzroy was created Duke of Richmond and Somerset, one of only three Dukes in England at that time. In the same year, he also became Earl of Nottingham, Lord High Admiral, Lord Protector of the Council of the North and Warden of the Northern Marches. Further proof of his father’s affection came a few years later when he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. A proposal that he be made King of that country was seriously considered but rejected on the grounds that a separate kingdom might one day prove as troublesome to England as her perennial bad neighbour, Scotland.

      In 1533, at the age of 14, Fitzroy's position in the English aristocracy was cemented when he was married to the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. Fearing that too much sexual activity had contributed to the death of Henry's brother, Arthur Prince of Wales, the king ordered the young couple not to consummate their marriage.

      In the same year, a Royal marriage ended and another began - although not in that order. Henry having married Ann then had his marriage to Catherine annulled by Archbishop Cranmer. A week after the annulment the already pregnant Ann was crowned Queen. Her coronation was to prove the high point of an ill-fated life. Three months later, to Henry’s displeasure, Ann was delivered of a baby girl, the future Elizabeth I. Already unpopular with those who still regarded Catherine as Queen, Ann now began to lose the affection of the King.

      Three years into an increasingly fractious marriage two events occurred that promised to secure her political survival - Ann became pregnant and Catherine died. Ironically, on the day that the former Queen was buried Ann miscarried a baby boy.

      Henry now moved to rid himself of Ann by having her executed on trumped-up charges of adultery. Ten days later he married Jane Seymour. Although he was still hopeful of fathering a legitimate male heir Henry, now 45, was by no means certain of success. To ensure an orderly succession an Act of Parliament was passed enabling the King to designate his successor from any of his legitimate or illegitimate children.

       The young man’s star was never higher and still rising when, to Henry’s horror, it's light was extinguished. On the twenty-third of July 1536, at the age of seventeen, Fitzroy died. The cause of death remains uncertain. Variously attributed to tuberculosis, a lung complaint or the sweating fever, it is possible that Fitzroy died of a genetic condition that may have caused the premature deaths of other Tudor royals. He was laid to rest in Framingham church in Suffolk where his ornate tomb can still be seen today.

      A year later Jane Seymour finally provided England with a legitimate male heir who in 1547 ascended the throne as Edward VI. Like Fitzroy, he was to die in his teens.

      While history is full of ‘what ifs’ it is more than possible that had Fitzroy survived into manhood he would have become King of England. In the sixteenth century, the accession of a woman to the throne was almost unthinkable. Only once before had it happened when Maud, the daughter and heir of Henry I, was usurped by her cousin, Stephen, plunging the country into ‘nineteen winters’ of civil war. While the birth of Prince Edward eased the prospect of a female accession, Henry was only too well aware that another boy was needed to secure the Tudor dynasty. Widowed by the death of Jane Seymour, twelve days after childbirth, Henry married a further three times without adding to his legitimate offspring. In 1544 Henry, now fifty-three and in declining health, settled the succession on Edward in an Act of Parliament that also declared Mary and Elizabeth to be second and third in line to the throne. Had Fitzroy lived, his name might well have preceded that of his half-sisters.     

      Perhaps the last word should go to Thomas Fuller, an English divine and historian, who in 1655 wrote, ‘had he [Fitzroy] survived King Edward the sixth we might presently have heard of a king Henry the Ninth, so great was his father’s affection and so unlimited his power to prefer him.’

 Copyright Richard Banks                  

 

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[1]      In 1817 Princess Charlotte, the only legitimate grandchild of George III, died in childbirth. In order to safeguard the succession the Duke of Kent, at the age of fifty-one, abandoned his mistress of twenty-seven years in order to marry Victoria of Saxe-Coburg. Victoria, the future Queen, was born in May 1819.