WI: Catherine Howard bore Henry VIII a son?

Mary was something of a mother figure for Prince Henry (more so than his own mother who's fate will be revealed in Pt. 2), his siblings in general are something of a soft spot for him that will cause problems in the near future.

This is understandable, although Thomas Howard, may not wish for their closeness, Mary and Henry may grow closer due to Mary being old enough to care for Henry and take him to church.

Regarding going to church with Edward, most likely every one would follow, a king to church no matter what their personal religion was, a second away from the king, could mean a life time, away in court.
 
Catherine Howard

If this son succeeds Edward VI, this means that Jane Grey never comes to the throne and does not marry Guilford Dudley.
 
Henry IX of England
Pt. 2

The beginning of Henry’s reign in 1553 signaled the seemingly final ascension of his uncle’s rise to total power, with the Duke of Norfolk’s young nephew on the throne the Lord Protector was able to rule England as a virtual dictator.

However discontent with Thomas Howard’s rule was growing, there were whispers about his treatment of Catherine Howard who had been forced to retire from court during the first year of Edward’s reign due to rumors of a possible affair with one (or possible both) of the Seymour brothers. Not to mention the continued suspicions that Henry IX wasn’t the son of Henry VIII, especially as his physical appearance favored his mother’s looks.

This was coupled with the beginning of a wet period in which continual rain and flooding resulted in famine and crop failure, and Norfolk’s Pro-Spanish policy meant that piracy of Spain’s lucrative trade routes was a non-starter.

On July of that year Norfolk’s popularity suffered a further hit when he arranged for the marriage of his grandson and namesake, Thomas Howard (the future 4th Duke of Norfolk) to Lady Jane Grey, a lady of the royal blood through Henry’s aunt, Mary Tudor.

During this the aging Stephen Gardiner was given leave to launch a new wave of persecution against the Protestant and Reform minded persons who had been given a degree of toleration due to Edward’s public support. The Winchesterian Persecutions, as they came to be known quickly became unpopular due to their scope, and the fact that many of the executions by burning were botched, dragging out the suffering of the condemned and causing popular support for Protestantism to grow. By June of 1554 Norfolk himself admitted that the persecutions were a mistake and ended them, stripping Gardiner of his offices and sending him to the Tower of London where he died a year later of pneumonia.

Further scandal rocked Norfolk’s unpopular Regency when in April of 1555 Lady Mary Tudor suffered a swelling in her stomach that many assumed to be pregnancy, as the immediate heir to her brother (and a devout Catholic) Norfolk used the scandal to demand Mary’s removal from the succession. This fell apart when after a medical examination it was determined that she was not pregnant but instead dying of a cancerous tumor on her liver that was descending her stomach. She died in agony in August of that year, unknowingly sealing Norfolk’s fate.

Henry at this point was fifteen and resented being under his ‘wicked and most foul’ uncle’s thumb, and very quietly slipped messages to the Lords of England through his circle of friends, most notably Lords Guildford and Robert Dudley, requesting an end to his uncle’s power.

The downfall of Norfolk occurred on 7 September when in the early morning in Whitehall Palace (where Norfolk and the Court were residing) when the slumbering Lord Protector was dragged out of his bed by a group of guards with his fully dressed nephew with them, Henry IX orders him brought to an antechamber where most of the royal court was present, including his grandson Thomas Howard. Henry declares to his uncle’s face that he is arrested and his office’s forfeit and ordered him sent to the Tower of London.

During this through London men serving under the Dudley’s seized key points of the city, diehard supporters of the Duke of Norfolk were either arrested or killed, and by the afternoon the regency of the Duke of Norfolk was over, at 15 the government of England was Henry’s.
 
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