HARRY ESSEX
by Richard Banks
Five hundred years after his birth few people know of
the
The child
was born into the turbulent world of Tudor politics on the fifteenth of June
1519 in a small Augustine priory at Blackmore,
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,
Possibly
at the insistence of the Queen,
While
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
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
A year
later Jane Seymour finally provided
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
[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.
