Dragon King: the Many Wives, Mistresses and Children of King Henry VIII (1491-1577)
- Thread starter Brita
- Start date
Yes, she was about 36. I know she was still young enough to have children but her last daughter OTL was born when she was only 26 and although she was widowed at the age of about 53, she and her husband had no other children. I don't know why she didn't conceive after 1550 (unless she suffered miscarriages or had children who died young) so that's why I made her first child by Henry a "surprise baby".
He'll get one. It's already written actually - I have a few posts about other characters ready.
I haven't written them yet. I think I can manage a Wiki Infobox but not sure I'll have time for a whole article, especially as it would be a bit of a repetition, given his own life's already covered in his wives' posts.
Arthur IV, Duke of Brittany and Richmond (1520-1525)
Arthur IV, Duke of Brittany and Richmond (1520-1525)
Meriadec Atkins played both young Henry VIII in the first episode of the series and Arthur IV of Brittany. His hair had been dyed red for the part of Henry.
Arthur was Claude of Brittany’s second surviving son and as such, he became heir apparent to the Duchy of Brittany from birth. It was the reason why his father created him Earl of Richmond, a tribute to his Breton ancestors who had held this title. He and his twin sister Margaret were born on 9 September 1520 and their mother died two months later in a shipwreck.
Following his mother’s death, Arthur became Duke of Brittany, the fourth of his name. He never ruled in his own right however, as he succumbed to croup on 18 November 1525 at the age of five.
Elizabeth I, Duchess of Brittany (1516-1583) and René I de Chalon, Prince of Orange (1519-1557)
Elizabeth I, Duchess of Brittany (1516-1583) and René I de Chalon, Prince of Orange (1519-1557)
Breton actress Guenola Pierzou played Elizabeth of Brittany in most of the series. An older Elizabeth was played by Armorican actress Loeiza Rozec.
German actor Heinrich Fraunberg zu Fraunberg was chosen to play René de Chalon, Christina of Denmark’s alleged lover.
His eldest legitimate child until Mary, Duchess of Pembroke, was legitimised, Elizabeth was Henry’s heir apparent from 1533 to 1537. In accordance with her mother’s marriage contract, she married firstly her cousin René de Rohan in 1531 but had only daughters. As a result, when her husband died in early 1542, leaving her pregnant with their fifth surviving daughter, she married secondly another cousin, René I de Chalon, Prince of Orange.
A distant cousin to Anne of Brittany, René had met Christina of Denmark while she resided in Brussels and the two had fallen in love but Christina’s father pressed her to marry the recently widowed Henry VIII instead.
However, when René’s cousin René de Rohan died and Elizabeth sent him a delegation, offering to marry him, René did not hesitate long: the Princess had inherited her paternal grandmother’s beautiful features and despite having some of her father’s volatile temper, she was also quick-witted and charming, which convinced René to marry her.
In 1544, René and his wife visited England. There, René and Christina were suspected of having become lovers. To this date, the exact nature of their relationship is still debated. Although Henry’s suspicions were strong – probably encouraged by his mistress Elena, 1st Marchioness Di Monferrato – Elizabeth refused to believe that her husband had been unfaithful and her determination eventually convinced her father to drop all charges against him and Christina.
René and Elizabeth left England soon after and never came back in Henry’s lifetime. They had seven surviving children, five boys and two girls. Their eldest surviving son René II succeeded as Prince of Orange, while their second one, Arthur V, became Duke of Brittany. Their third surviving son, François, was sent to the Breton colony of Armorica, which he ruled in his mother’s and later brother’s names.
René died in 1557. He had joined the Emperor in the Last Italian War the year before and was killed in battle. When Elizabeth was told of her husband’s death, she went into mourning until her own death twenty-six years later.
In her later years, Elizabeth welcomed Protestant refugees from France in Brittany. Being a devout Catholic herself, just like her husband had been, she encouraged them to settle in the Marquisate of Armorica, a Breton colony in the New World.
The French persecutions against the Protestants caused several rebellions to break out in the 1570s however, mostly in Normandy. These were subtly encouraged by England and Brittany and resulted in the annexation in 1579 of Western Normandy, as well as Maine and Anjou, by Brittany, which would become a Grand-Principality in 1598, fifteen years after Elizabeth’s death.
The partition of Normandy (1579). Western Normandy (in green) was annexed to Brittany. Eastern Normandy (in red) remained into French hands.
Duchess Elizabeth was survived by twelve of her children – five with René de Rohan and seven with René de Chalon – all born on a different month of the year, which earned them the nickname “Monthly Siblings”.
Children
1 Claude de Rohan (1532-1591)2 Anne de Rohan (1535-1587)
3 Renée de Rohan (1537-1564)
4 Henriette de Rohan (1539-1602)
5 Isabelle de Rohan (1542-1598)
6 Jeanne de Chalon (1543-1613)
7 René II de Chalon, Prince of Orange (1544-1597)
8 Arthur V, Duke of Brittany (1546-1596)
9 François de Chalon, Marquess of Armorica (1547-1615)
10 Philiberte de Chalon (1549-1621)
11 Henri de Chalon (1551-1603)
12 Guillaume de Chalon (1553-1622)
The Breton Clause
The Breton Clause
The Breton Clause is a joking allusion to the hereditary Breton Duchesses and Grand-Princesses’ habit of inserting a clause in their marriage contract specifying that in the case their husband was a foreign ruler, Brittany would pass to a younger child in order to prevent the annexation of the Duchy to another state.
The first Duchess to insert such a clause was Anne of Brittany (1477-1519) upon her marriage to Louis XII, King of France. A similar clause was made when Anne’s daughter and heiress Claude (1499-1520) married Henry VIII, King of England. Years later, Claude’s daughter Elizabeth I (1516-1583) re-used the Breton clause when her own eldest daughters married, to secure Brittany’s independence should her young sons die without issue.
Similar precautions would be taken in the following centuries when the Duke (later Grand-Prince) of Brittany’s heir apparent was a woman.
Just making fun of myself and my habit of bringing Anne of Brittany's marriage contract up over and over again
As it was shamefully ignored in OTL you are pretty right in bringing it up again and again.Just making fun of myself and my habit of bringing Anne of Brittany's marriage contract up over and over again
That is not true. The form of it was fully respected, but naturally the substance was a very different thing….
The form was betrayed the very moment they did not divide the heir to the Duchy from the heir to France.