Bastard Prince: Henry VIII's Lost Son by Beverley Murphy

Author:Beverley Murphy [Murphy, Beverley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Europe, Biography & Autobiography, Great Britain, Historical, History
ISBN: 9780752468891
Google: 7iw7AwAAQBAJ
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2001-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

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:

if it would please your highness to send your son, the duke of Richmond, to this poor country, I assure your grace that I and my brother and all my kinsmen, with all my friends, shall do him as lowly service, and as true as any man living, and I, my kinsmen, and all my friends, shall right gladly receive him to our foster son, after the custom of Ireland, and shall live and die in his right and service for ever.24

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