Henry VIII appointed his bastard son as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1529. Henry wished to name him King of Ireland but his counsellors strenuously objected and it took several months after being made Lord Lieutenant before he was made King of Ireland in actuality.
Fitzroy was 10 when made King so whilst he was King, the country was run by his father's advisors, notably William Skeffington who was given guardianship of the young King. When he turned 18 in 1537, Skeffington was made Private Secretary for a brief period before his death.
Henry had been provisionally betrothed to Mary Howard in 1533, but the offer of Madeleine of Valois' hand in marriage was too good for Skeffington and Henry VIII to refuse, and the pair were betrothed in 1533, then married when Henry reached majority.
A child was born in 1538, so the nascent Kingdom of Ireland had an heir. Two more children were born in the next five years. However when Henry dies in 1546, at the age of only 27, none of his children had yet reached majority and the question of succession would read it's ugly head.
Henry would be succeeded by Henry, his eldest son.
[2] The eldest of the two sons of Henry I of Ireland and his wife; Madeline of Valois, Henry was destined for the Irish Crown from birth, and from the death of his father, he would embrace this role.
During his short reign of nine years, Henry II sought to expand the power of the Irish court, and to do so, he sought allies in the form of the French, who he would seek to marry, namely himself to his first cousin; Louise of Valois, and his younger brother; Prince John of Ireland, to another cousin, Margaret of Savoy.
Henry II was a man of true piety, and it would be his choice to travel to Rome where he received the Golden Rose from his holiness, and it would be on the return journey from Rome, in 1555, where Henry II would fall ill at the age of 17.
For the entirety of his reign, Henry had simply been a rubber-stamp for the regency of Anthony St Leger, and upon his death, the Regent of Ireland would continue his rule.
[3] King John was 14 when his brother died, and would spend the first few years of his reign under the regency of Anthony St.Leger, who became known as King Anthony for his hypnotic hold on the King. Part of St.Leger's power was the new King's inclination for both sexes in the bedroom, which the regent immediately recognized. He installed his nephew, Matthew, as the King's confidant turned lover.
All that changed in early 1558, when the King's wife Margaret of Savoy arrived in Dunmore. The new Queen was a rather authoritative figure who saw the regent as the cap on her and her husband's power at court. When she birthed her first child, Madeline, the King asked what she wished: her answer was to send Anthony St.Leger from the court (she also tried unsuccessfully to send away Matthew). The King obliged, causing such a shock to St.Leger that gossipers at the time blamed the incident for his failing health and eventual death the next year.
The remaining years of John's reign were most well known for the power struggle between Margaret (who favored a Catholic, pro-French policy) and Matthew (a closet reformer who preferred and English alliance). As one sharp-witted courtier wrote, "King John has two Queens". This battle extended to the children's education as Margaret attempted to have the children brought up by Catholic priests, while Matthew favored secular tutors, writing to the King "do you want to teach the children you are damned to hell's fiery pits". The children (who grew up at the same court in Dublin) ended up receiving wildly varying educations depending on who had the King's favor each year. For example, the King's eldest daughter Madeline was sent away to be educated by the nuns on the request of her mother. Her sister Louise, only two years younger, instead received a humanist education resembling those of Henry VIII's children, as encouraged by her father's lover.
In the end, King John would be brought down by his love of sex, dying from complications of syphilis. In response to John's reign, his heir Prince Edward, decided to make Ireland a country with no state religion.
4) Edward was John's second son, with the eldest predeceasing his father by several years. This was still sufficient time for Edward, who had been brought up by his mother but then trained for courthood by his father's advisors. Edward had hated the manner in which religion had creates a rift between his parents, and caused him to doubt his own abilities - and therefore be signed a bill of religious freedom. Each Irish citizen would be free to practice their own religion, free from persecution - this brought conflict with the Pope, but Edward found support from his great aunt, Queen Elizabeth of England during the Irish Primacy Scandal of 1595. Because he did not outright reject Roman Catholicism, the Pope accepted the decision of the Irish state on the agreement that Edward would pay certain taxes to the Vatican. Edward reluctantly agreed, but claimed all land as royal land and then charged the Irish monasteries rent which he used to pay the taxes.
He married Countess Anna of Nassau, a daughter of William the Silent, Prince of Orange in 1583 and they had two children before Anna died in 1588 during childbirth with their third, a daughter.
He subsequently married Maria of Saxe-Weimar in 1590 and she provided him with several children.
In 1603 when Elizabeth of England died, he was briefly considered for the English throne and considered the lead claimant by Elizabeth herself, but there were objections from the English nobility to a bastard line claiming the Crown when a legitimate claimant existed in the King of Scotland.
At any rate, he died in 1605 after catching pneumonia whilst inspecting the construction of a cathedral in Dublin, intended as the Irish Notre Dame, and his eldest daughter, Princess Margaret, took the throne.
[5] The eldest child from Edward I’s marriage to Anna of Nassau, and the first Queen of Ireland. Of the seven daughters of Edward I, Margaret would be the most ardently catholic, opposing her mothers Protestantism and her fathers own ambivalence towards the matter.
Prior to her taking the throne, the Princess would marry Infante Ferdinand of Spain, and the year of her taking the crown of Ireland, she would give birth to her first son and heir; Prince Henry of Ireland.
The first major note of her reign was the completion of the Dublin Cathedral. A massive and baroque cathedral symbolising the piety and Catholicism of Ireland. Her second action would be forcing her younger half-sisters, “The Irish Quintet” to sign away all claim to the throne of Ireland. The younger ones would agree, and be placed in small manorial homes, while the elder of the daughters of Maria of Saxe-Weimar; Maria Anna of Ireland would attempt to fight for her “claim” to the throne. The rebellion of Maria Anna was short lived, and recognised by no other government. From 1610 to 1612, the Protestant revolt would flutter around the Irish countryside, until her capture at Derry. She would be hung in Dublin, alongside the other ringleaders of the revolt. With the settling of the revolt, the reign of Margaret and her husband, who would take the title of Prince-Consort, would be secure.
For the next few years, Ireland simply recovered from the deep split in her loyalties, and another Son and two daughters would be born to the union of Margaret and Ferdinand.
Upon the death of Margaret in 1623, the house of Fitzroy would end, and the House of Hapsburg would inherit the Irish Kingdom.
[6] The Eldest son of Margaret I and Prince-Consort Ferdinand of Ireland, Henry was born in 1605. During his mothers reign, the young prince was often at his mothers side, and became a similarly devout Catholic, perhaps even more so.
In 1619, at the age of fourteen, the Crown Prince of Ireland would marry his paternal cousin; Eleanor of Austria, daughter of his fathers sister. Upon his mothers death, Henry would be crowned in the Dublin Cathedral, started by his grandfather, and he would take the dynastic name “Hapsburg-Eire”.
Between 1627 and 1646, Henry III would have 17 children by his three wives, firstly Eleanor of Austria until her death in 1631, followed by Marie of France until her death in Childbirth in 1642, and then Charlotte de Montespard, who he would take as his Morganatic wife.
The rule of Henry III was a peaceful reign, with the centralisation of the Irish court, and the Colonisation of the Irish Virgin Islands, and upon his death in 1657, Henry III would be succeeded by John II.
[7] John II of Ireland was the third son of Henry III's large brood and spent much of his life never expecting to become King, he was made Duke of Ulster and was raised with the expectation of serving his eldest brother, Henry, Prince of Leinster, however when he and John's second brother Prince Adam died in a boating accident when John was 28 saw the third son thrust into the spotlight. Unmarried at that point his father arranged a marriage for his new heir, Princess Marie-Anne of Orleans, however no children were produced by this marriage.
When Henry III died, John II became a King without an heir.
While England and Scotland convulsed in the throws of the British Civil War between King Frederick Henry I, the Parliamentarians, and Scottish Dissidents, John II focused on continuing Ireland's colonial projects, and supported the arts and the promotion of native Irish culture, both at home, and in the court, he was the first Irish monarch to learn the Irish Language (the court having retained the Tudor English of the Fitzroy's), and began signing documents not as 'John' but as 'Sean'.
When Sean II's first wife died, the King tried again with a second wife, Zofia Opalińska, a Polish noblewoman, this marriage also failed to produce any children.
Giving up hope of having heirs of his own body, Sean II focused on his brothers, the majority of whom had been left as bachelors by their father due to a lack of prospects. While their Hapsburgs relatives on the continent showed signs of dying out, the next six men behind Sean II in line for the throne were married and had more success in bedroom than their brother, some sneeringly called Sean 'Dry-Seed'.
The British Civil War ground down to a brutal halt when Frederick Henry I was captured by Parliamentarians and ultimately executed, horrifying the monarchies of Europe, a collation was formed, led by Louis XIV, Sean II joined the powers of Europe in the first invasion of the British Isles since William the Conqueror. The Invasion phase of the British Civil War saw the end of the Parliamentarians as a military force, their leaders (such as Oliver Cromwell) were executed, and the Kingdom of Great Britain was divided back into the separate Kingdoms of England (under Henry IX) and Scotland (under Charles I).
Sean II then spent the remainder of his life focused on building a new royal palace, as Dublin Castle was seen by Sean as 'too modest', the
Caisleán Mhanderley (Manderley Castle) would be seen as an architectural wonder, seen by contemporaries as the nearest royal palace to rival Versailles.
Sean II witnessed the completion of Manderley Castle and lived in his finest work for six months before dying childess, passing the crown to his brother, Prince Albert Phillip of Ireland, otherwise known as Phillip I of Ireland
[8] Born in 1639, the eldest of the two sons of Henry III from his marriage to Marie de France. As a Prince, he was originally destined for a Ecclesiastical career, and from 1659 until 1690 he wore the Cardinal’s hat.
In 1690 however the Prince’s world was shaken. The death of his elder brother; Prince Edward, placed Albert Phillip as the heir to the Irish crown. Receiving permission from his Holiness, he would give up the Cardinals cap, and would take a wife with both his Brothers and Papal Blessing. He would marry Cecilia of Bavaria, and in 1693, the pair would welcome their first child, Mary.
Upon his brothers death in 1701, Prince Albert Phillip would return from his estates in Rome, which he had received as a gift from his Holiness for his service, and be crowned as Phillip I of Ireland. At his crowning, he was already 61, and was known to be gout ridden.
Unlike his brother, John II, Phillip was no lover of the Irish culture, seeing it as contradictory to Catholic belief, and he would establish the
Jure Successionis, placing the succession laws of Ireland in writing. The Statute stated that the Monarch of Ireland must be catholic, disregarding the sons of his fathers third and last marriage, as those individuals had been noted Protestants.
By 1719, Phillip I was Eighty years old, and dying slowly, when suddenly on the fifth of August, the King suddenly died. Rumours of murder and assassination filled the court, and the King was succeeded by Mary, Princess of Leinster.
[9] Mary was born in 1693, the eldest of three sisters, named after the Virgin Mary at her father's insistance and later used it as her regnal name, at her father's dying wishes. She was betrothed and later married to Antoine, Dauphin of France, later crowned Louis Antoine, King of France. Much like her early years on her father's estates in Italy, and her ten years in France, this meant that she spent much of her life outside of Ireland. Far from being a stranger in her own country, this made her a relative celebrity and she returned to Dublin with French fashion and cuisine to introduce to society. The major problem with Mary was her marriage - should any of her son's survive her husband, they would be made King of France, and should they survive her, it would result in a Franco-Gaelic union which many Irish nobles were not enamoured by. A movement developed that would allow the eldest child to accept France, whilst the next eldest would accept Ireland (as Hapsburg-Eire was a cadet branch, and Bourbon held seniority) but Mary resisted this, but agreed that whilst France practiced succession by the male line only, Ireland would practice male preference primogeniture and allow succession to fall on females. This was, it seemed, satisfactory for Mary's counsellors and the objections ceased.
Mary and Louis Antoine spent their time mostly separate once she became Queen, she would visit France annually but for the rest of the year, Louis Antoine would spend time with his mistresses and father, it was claimed, two dozen children between them, though he only recognised one, Antoine, Count of Paris, and attempted to convince his wife that Antoine should marry one of their youngest daughters. Mary fiercely resisted, and refused to see her husband for two years.
For her own part, Mary became enamoured with the Ambassador to Morocco and it was rumoured they developed a sexual relationship which may have resulted in a daughter. Ironically, it was rumoured that this daughter then married the Count of Paris, allowing her a presence at the French Court in the presence of her "mothers" semi estranged husband.
It was later recounted in a poem entitled "The Tale of the Two Bastards" which was subsequently adapted into a French language movie in 1995, directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet, with Keanu Reeves as the Count of Paris, and Vanessa Paradis as Mary FitzMary. Isabelle Huppert would play Queen Mary of Ireland.
After the minor scandals of her reign, Mary died aged 57 in 1750, to be succeeded by her grandnephew, Lord Alfred Fitzroy,
Duke of Waterford.