Free Bastard Prince by Beverley A. Murphy

restore his family to their former glory for twenty-nine years. Despite the apparent splendour with which his son, also Thomas Howard, would bear the title, when he succeeded to the dukedom on his father’s death in 1524, the house of Howard was built on fairly fragile foundations.
    However, Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham was a rather different proposition. His family had been Dukes of Buckingham for four generations. His father had been executed by Richard III, for a rebellion that may have more to do with his own ambition than his support for the Tudors. 8 As the nephew of King Edward IV’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville, and a direct descendant of King Edward III, Buckingham could boast an impressive royal pedigree. He was also a major landowner in his own right, with an impressive array of magnificent castles and an army of retainers. Perhaps most worryingly, he was the epitome of an over-mighty subject, with sufficient pride and ambition to give any monarch pause for thought.
    Certainly, Buckingham was killed as much for what he might do as for what he had actually done. The charges levied against him in May 1521 were treasonous. Chief among them was the allegation that he had spoken of how he would kill the king. It was also alleged that he had proclaimed the death of Henry’s infant son to be God’s vengeance, that he had dabbled in prophecies that Henry would never have a male heir and that, instead, he himself would become king. 9 If he had said and done what he is claimed to have said and done, then Buckingham deserved to die. If his downfall was a plot, perhaps led by Wolsey to remove a powerful rival, then Buckingham’s actions must have been sufficient to give colour to the charges. In the political climate of the time such behaviour was more than foolish, it was fatal.
    Buckingham’s conviction sealed his fate and his execution sent a chilling message through the ranks of the peerage. Significantly, from June 1525 the most senior noble in England was not Norfolk or Suffolk. The highest-ranking member of the peerage was Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset whose elevation to the peerage had been such a spectacular affair. The heralds’ reports all testify to the splendour and gravity of the occasion. The ceremonies were followed by ‘great feasts and disguisings’ as Henry VIII celebrated his son’s honours with customary extravagance. While we cannot be sure whether Elizabeth, now Lady Tailbois, returned to the court to witness the event, her husband was almost certainly able to give her an eyewitness account. 10
    As arrangements for Richmond’s new dignity had taken shape, Elizabeth and Gilbert had been honoured with a spate of further grants. In April 1525 Gilbert was made bailiff and keeper of Tattershall in Lincolnshire, now part of Richmond’s lands. His elevation to a knighthood also seems to be associated with his step-son’s new rank, as he now appeared as Sir Gilbert Tailbois for the first time. However, the exact significance behind all this display was more elusive. Both contemporary and subsequent observers have been forced to speculate on Henry’s motives for raising his bastard son to such unprecedented heights.
    Henry may have been prompted into action by a piece of good fortune. On 14 February 1525, Charles V had inflicted a shattering defeat on Francis I at Pavia. The French forces were decimated and many of their foremost military leaders were killed. To Henry’s great joy, one of the dead was the English exile, Richard de la Pole, which effectively extinguished any threat that family still represented to the security of the Tudor dynasty. While Richard was still at large and far from reconciled to the Tudors’ occupation of the throne, the policy of advancing his illegitimate son to almost regal honours might have seemed too dangerous a gauntlet to throw in the face of a disgruntled, rival claimant. At the very least,