Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [16]
On June 16, 1525, Henry’s bastard son, Henry Fitzroy, the product of a brief affair with one of the queen’s ladies, Elizabeth Blount, was recognized as the king’s son and showered with titles and honors. He was installed as a Knight of the Garter and created earl of Nottingham, duke of Richmond, and duke of Somerset. This unprecedented double dukedom was then followed by his appointments as lord high admiral and warden general of the Scottish Marches and, two years later, by his investiture as lord lieutenant of Ireland. Not since the twelfth century had a king of England raised an illegitimate son to the peerage, and never had any subject held such a collection of offices and titles. Fitzroy was now given a great household and sent to Sheriff Hutton Castle in Yorkshire as the head of the King’s Council of the North. Lorenzo Orio, the Venetian envoy, reported that “he is now next in rank to His Majesty, and might yet be easily by the King’s means exalted to higher things.”3 Katherine was indignant and feared that Mary might be excluded outright from her inheritance. “No bastard,” she complained, “ought to be exalted above the daughter of the Queen.”4
But Henry had not yet resolved to prefer one child to another, and preparations were being made to enhance Mary’s status. The nine-year-old was to be dispatched to the Welsh Marches, one of the most desolate and volatile areas of the kingdom, to preside over the Council of Wales and the Marches. While Henry stopped short of formally investing her with the title “princess of Wales” and thereby explicitly acknowledging her as his successor, Mary’s appointment represented the revival of an association of the king’s heir with the government of Wales that had begun under Edward, the firstborn son of Edward IV, and followed by Prince Arthur more than twenty years before.5
Though Katherine would mourn her daughter’s absence, she would take comfort from the fact that the princess’s status was at last being recognized.6 She was now following the path of the heir to the throne.
ON AUGUST 12, 1525, Mary left Wolsey’s manor, The More, near St. Albans, for the Marches, accompanied by a vast entourage dressed in her livery colors of blue and green. From Woburn, then to Reading, she reached Thornbury Castle in Gloucestershire on or about the twenty-fourth. Dozens of carts had been borrowed from local establishments to carry all the necessary household items and furnishings, ranging from “3 brass pots, one brazen pestle and mortar, a frying pan with a flesh hook and a chest with irons for keeping prisoners” to a throne for the Presence Chamber and all that was necessary to furnish the chapel at Thornbury, including standing candelabras, Mass books with golden covers, carved stands, kneeling cushions, and prayer stools.7
It was to be a court in miniature. Lord Ferrers and Lord Dudley headed the establishment as steward and chamberlain, respectively; Bishop John Voysey was appointed lord president of the Council, and Margaret Pole, the countess of Salisbury, who had been dismissed from Mary’s service in 1521 when her son the duke of Buckingham had been executed for treason, was reappointed lady mistress. Beneath these head officers were three hundred other servants, including Mary’s new schoolmaster, Richard Fetherstone.8
The king’s instructions detailed precisely the expectations and duties of the household and Council and made provision for Mary’s education, welfare, and pastimes. The main responsibility was placed with Margaret Pole, who was entrusted with “all such things as concern the person of the said princess, her noble education and training in all virtuous demeanour.” Mary was to be treated as “so great a princess doth appertain.” Ladies and gentlewomen were to remain in attendance of her and