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It took Henry VIII twenty-eight years, three wives, and a break with Rome before he secured a legitimate male heir. Yet for most of this time he already had a son - the illegitimate Henry Fitzroy, born in 1519 after the king's affair with a Shropshire gentlewoman, Elizabeth Blount. He was the only illegitimate offspring ever acknowledged by Henry VIII, and Cardinal Wolsey was one of his godparents. Created Duke of Richmond and Somerset, he was educated as befitted a Renaissance prince. The offices bestowed upon him included Lord Lieutenant of the North and Lord Admiral of England; indeed, rumours abounded that Henry intended to make him King of Ireland. Catherine de Medici, later Queen of France, was among those suggested as a possible bride.
Brought up in the same circles as his half sisters Mary and Elizabeth, the young Henry played an active role in the life of the court: entertaining ambassadors and attending Parliament. He was said to resemble his father in both looks and character, and he weathered the difficult years of the Reformation far better than either of his sisters. As the years passed with no sign of a legitimate male heir to the throne, many began to believe that Henry's bastard son would be the next king of England.
Today, however, Fitzroy is very much a forgotten Tudor prince. In the first book to examine his life in full, Beverley A. Murphy investigates just how close he came to being crowned Henry IX. She concludes with an intriguing epilogue which demonstrates just how different the history of England could have been, had Fitzroy survived his father.
