I know, I took it for granted that alt hypothetical Jane would not be that Jane. Alas, I did not spell it out. There's a lot to take in and Mary's marriage status slipped my mind.
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Dragon King: the Many Wives, Mistresses and Children of King Henry VIII (1491-1577)
- Thread starter Brita
- Start date
Would Henry even accept such a compromise from his beloved wife Renata, even though she gave him four unquestionably male heirs? He's 58 years old when he married her, he must feel the spectrum of death upon him. As you said who knows if he would have anymore sons if he married again. The Pope threatening to make his children by Renata illegitimate would be a step too far for Henry I think. He'd never allow the Pope to bully him like this and threaten the succession of House Tudor and therefore the stability of England. I honestly thought he'd just break relations with Rome because of such posturing.
I see what you mean but the way I see things is that by 1560, Henry's 69, the Prince of Wales's dead, 15-year-old Maximilian-of-dubious-parentage is in the Church and the King's new heir is only 10 years old. If Henry were to break from Rome and die soon after, some of his Catholic sons-in-law may well try to seize the throne to the detriment of young Henry and his brothers.
But I guarantee you he's preparing a dirty trick to piss the Pope off.
There will be a few entries about other characters, including some of Henry's children, although I'm far from being settled on all their matches.
Has anyone been able to find a TTL equivalent to the 'divorced, beheading, died, divorced, beheaded, survived' mnemonic for OTL Henry's wives?
Update: by 1560 Henry is 69 with 9 wives, 7 mistresses and 85 children (not all surviving).
Honestly I'd be surprised if Henry didn't spend the rest of his life championing the Reformation considering how much the Pope just pissed him off.
Honestly I'd be surprised if Henry didn't spend the rest of his life championing the Reformation considering how much the Pope just pissed him off.
Indeed, he already had Protestant sympathies thanks to Renata's influence and he won't forgive the Pope or the most radical Catholics in England after that, esppecially now he has officially converted.
Lady Lucy Somerset (1524-1583)
Lady Lucy Somerset (1524-1583)
Henry’s mistress from 1559 to 1566
Dutch actress Mieke van Hoensbroeck had played Lady Lucy in the little-known 1854 play The King and Lady Lucy, one of the few literary works about the King’s mistress. Good critics of her performance convinced the producers to cast her in the role.
Dutch actress Mieke van Hoensbroeck had played Lady Lucy in the little-known 1854 play The King and Lady Lucy, one of the few literary works about the King’s mistress. Good critics of her performance convinced the producers to cast her in the role.
Lady Lucy Somerset, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Worcester and wife of the 4th Baron Latimer, succeeded the very Catholic Elena as Henry’s mistress. She had become one of Renata of Navarre’s ladies-in-waiting and she and her husband converted sometime around 1556.
Seven months after Elena died, Lucy became Henry’s mistress. Just like Queen Renata and Henry’s next wife, she was instrumental in the evolution of Henry’s religious policy, and Catholic circles used to call the three women the Unholy Trinity.
Henry had first intended to make her the governess of his children by Elena and Deianira but her relationship with the older ones, who were just as staunch Catholics as their mothers had been, was fraught with tension and the King did not insist. The young Marquess Di Monferrato chose Mary Howard, a sister of the late Queen Katheryn, instead. This was seen by many as an act of defiance toward his father, both because Katheryn, despite her eventual disgrace, had always been well-loved by the Paleologa and Di Monferrato children, and because her family was one of the most influential in the Catholic circles of England.
It was a shock to Lucy when she found that she was with child: her last daughter had been born in 1550 and she and her husband had thought she would never conceive again. Henry acknowledged their son, as well as their next three children, to Baron Latimer’s relief, as he had had mixed feelings at the prospect of being succeeded by another man’s son in his barony.
Lucy’s last pregnancy was very difficult and she eventually retired to her husband’s estates, ending her relationship with the King.
Children
1 Anthony FitzRoy (1560-1652)2 Lucy FitzRoy (1562-1589)
3 William FitzRoy (1563-1641)
4 Jane FitzRoy (1566-1613)
You mean the age gap? Quite awful when you think of it. Honestly, the oldest father I've heard of - not counting modern day cases - was Alain IX de Rohan who had a son by his third wife in 1456: he was 74 at the time.
Honestly I was referring to Henry somehow being virile and fit enough to sire children in his mid-seventies
They're illegitimate though. But Lucy's going to be Henry's last mistress.
I'm aware....and as Lucy's going to be his last mistress, Renata's decade-long marriage was his longest, and he has another decade left of life...how many more wives and kids are we seeing?