Bastard Prince Read Free

and more seriously, Perkin Warbeck posing as Richard, Duke of York. In addition, the genuine offspring of the House of York, in particular the nephews of Edward IV and Richard III, had reason to feel they had a better claim than any Tudor.
    Henry VII made stalwart efforts to ensure the security of the succession. 3 During the negotiations for Katherine of Aragon’s marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, the continued existence of Edward, Earl of Warwick, raised sufficient concern to warrant his execution, even though he was safely captive in the Tower. The offspring of Edward IV’s sister, Elizabeth de la Pole, were treated as a serious threat. When the question of who might succeed Henry VII arose in 1503, when Prince Henry was still a child of twelve, Sir Hugh Conway reported:
    It happened the same time me to be among many great personages, the which fell in communication of the king’s grace, and of the world that should be after him if his grace happened to depart. Then, he said, that some of them spake of my lord of Buckingham, saying that he was a noble man and would be a royal ruler. Other there were that spake, he said, in like wise of your traitor, Edmund de la Pole, but none of them, he said, that spoke of my lord prince. 4
    The threat would not be extinguished easily. Henry VII secured the return from exile of Edmund de la Pole in 1506 and confined him in the Tower. However, his brother Richard remained at large and would be a thorn in Henry’s side for some years to come.
    In 1513, as Henry VIII prepared for war in France, Richard de la Pole persuaded the King of France, Louis XII, to recognise him as King Richard IV. Henry was sufficiently concerned by the danger that this represented to order the execution of Edmund before crossing the Channel. The Duke of Buckingham, whose own claim to the throne was derived from Edward III, profited little from this ominous example. Amid claims that he intended to usurp the throne, he was executed in his turn in 1521. Henry VIII was all too aware that the only way to secure the Tudor dynasty’s grip on the crown was to produce a viable male heir.
    That Henry VIII chose to make Katherine of Aragon his bride must be seen, at least in part, as a response to this pressing need. Although the couple had been betrothed since 1503, their union was by no means a foregone conclusion. The youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Katherine had come to England in 1501 to marry Henry’s elder brother Arthur, then Prince of Wales. After Arthur’s sudden death in 1502 Henry VII had decided that his interests would be best served by preserving this alliance. After some negotiation it was agreed that Katherine should marry the twelve-year-old Prince Henry as soon as he had completed his fourteenth year on 28 June 1506. Yet as that time approached, Henry VII became increasingly uncertain that this was the best possible match for his only remaining son and heir.
    In 1505 Prince Henry, at his father’s instigation, made a formal protest against the contract made during his minority. In 1506 Henry might describe his betrothed as ‘my most dear and well-beloved consort, the Princess, my wife’, but his father was looking at other possibilities. Once Henry VIII became king in 1509, several questions, not least the important matter of Katherine’s dowry and rival negotiations for a marriage to Eleanor, the daughter of Philip of Burgundy, were simply swept aside. 5 After seven years of dispute and delay Henry VIII married Katherine of Aragon just six weeks after his accession.
    At twenty-three Katherine was ‘the most beautiful creature in the world’, still blessed with the fresh complexion and long auburn hair that had entranced observers at her arrival in England. She was also of an age to bear children, something that could not be said of the eleven-year-old Eleanor. Henry’s excuse that the marriage was his father’s dying wish