That is one of the reasons why I killed Catherine of Austria actually.
The Prince of the Roses - A Tudor TL
- Thread starter BlueFlowwer
- Start date
The solution is to kill half of them and to ensure the rest marries not first or second cousins!
We are gonna see a few betrothals in the next chapter as well, so I better get started on making family trees.
Chapter 14 - 1528
New
Chapter 14 - 1528
The year of 1528 was one of marriages and betrothals for several ruling houses in Europe. Francis I of France had been a widower for almost two years since the death of Claude and while he was in no need of more heirs, as he had plenty to spare, a new bride would bring a potential alliance and a dowry to the French treasury. But the selection was somewhat sparse at this time. Isabella of Navarre was a contender, but aside from a weak claim to Navarre, she did not bring much else. Anne of Cleves was considered as well, but Francis soon decided to set his eyes on a more prestigious bride in the north-east of France: Poland and the court of Sigismund the Old. The king of Poland ruled over a powerful and rich kingdom, filled with renaissance arts and culture and even better, his eldest daughter had just turned fifteen years old. Hedwig Jagellion was the only surviving daughter of Sigismund’s first wife, Barbara Zápolya and since his second marriage to Bona Sforza, he had six more children, two sons and four daughters that still lived. Sigismund was not averse to marrying his daughter to the most prestigious monarch in Christendom and his ambitious wife agreed, even if she would have preferred to see her own Isabella married to France, a plan that had been ruined in 1520 when the dauphin was betrothed to Margaret of Denmark. Francis refused to budge on the dauphin’s marriage, but Bona still wished to see her children married into the Valois dynasty. And if the marriage between the king and Hedwig would work out, then perhaps one of Francis’s daughters would become the bride of her oldest son, Sigismund Augustus, now eight years old. Negotiations begun in January for a Valois-Jagellion match and in March the king announced to the court that he was to be married to Hedwig in the following summer. The princess would arrive in Paris in late July, when she was meet Francis in the Archbishop’s Palace located south of Notre-Dame cathedral, where they later married in a splendid ceremony days later.
“She is the most noble and elegant lady, tall and upright, pure, wise and she won the heart of all Parisians with a wave and a smile. The king was charmed by her, as she was so unlike the late queen.”
Hedwig or Edwige as she would be called in France, meet with the Dauphin later in the city of Orléans and the pair seemed to get well along. Francois had been mother-less for over two years now and Hedwig had been an elder sister all her life, so she swiftly endeared herself to the boy. She also met the Dauphine a week later at Blois and Hedwig would be just as delighted by her. “She is a very pretty girl, strong and spirited. One would think of her like a daughter of France itself rather than a Dane.” In the first months of her marriage Hedwig would discover another thing: her glamorous husband was a serial philander. In 1528 three mistresses competed for the position of maîtresse-en-titre at court, Françoise de Foix, Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly and Diane de Poitiers, also mockingly called The Three Graces by various courtier, in referenced to both their elegance and cultured nature, as well as their vicious sharpness towards each other. It was in this poisonous court the young new queen would find herself in as the first woman of France.
Diane de Poitiers, mistress to Francis I.
But it was not only marriage that Francis aimed for in 1528. The death of Charles III of Savoy in the year before had ensured that the new duke was a close friend of France and a path towards the rest of Italy had opened. Milan was still under French control and now it was time to take Naples once and for all.
England spent the first months celebrating as well: betrothals came to be made. At the new year’s festivities, the engagement between Prince Edward and the Infanta Isabel of Spain was announced, much to the great delight of Queen Catherine, whom now saw her life’s ambition come true. King Ferdinand had agreed to the match as he wished to gather more allies in Christendom, and queen Isabella saw the crown of England as being a worthy future for her eldest daughter. Princess Mary’s engagement to John of Denmark and Burgundy would be announced a few weeks later as the Anglo-Dutch alliance became born anew. With the young duke of York being pledged to the heiress Katherine Willoughby, the future of all of Henry VIII’s legitimate children seemed set. His mistress, Margaret Dymoke, had given him two illegitimate daughters in the past four years, Anne and Jane, and Elizabeth Fitzroy was nine years old now.
The alliances forged by marriages would be the last great work of Thomas Wolsey. The almighty cardinal never lived to see himself wearing the papal crown he deeply coveted. For in March the sweating sickness came back to England with vengeance. This outbreak would reach epidemic proportions in all corners of the kingdom and neither high or low would be spared. In the end of May all of London was in the throes of the plague, with very high mortality. Henry and Catherine fled from the city, while Mary and Hal were sent to Beaulieu Castle and Oatlands Palace respectively to be sequestered. Ned remained in Wales where his father had left strict instructions that he not stray from Ludlow and avoid all infected people. Henry, Edward and Mary all avoided the sickness, but Catherine, Hal and Wolsey all came down with the sweat, with various results. Catherine recovered steadily without much lasting effects, but Hal did not. The boy remained abed for several days with high fevers, headaches and delirium, much to the panic and fear of his attendants and parents. Henry was said to have wept when he heard the news and Catherine collapsed once more when she found it that her son might not survive.
“It was said that the queen prayed desperately for hours at her altar as the Duke of York laid deathly ill miles away from his parents. The king had forbidden her from leaving, otherwise Catherine would have ridden to Oatlands on a swift horse immediately. The life of the son she had born in the middle of a plague while sequestered in Nottingham a near decade ago might be book-ended by the sickness come again.” Catherine of Aragon - The Pomegranate Queen
Wolsey died in the late spring. The almighty cardinal perished sick and alone, in the end abandoned by the king he had served faithfully for over a decade. It was a rather sad ending for a man who was, during the height of his power, the most powerful man in all of England. While Henry proclaimed his grief over his good counselor publicly, his private words showed otherwise: “for I would have consigned Wolsey to death many times over if it would have kept my son strong and hearty”
Fortunately, Hal’s fever broke mere days after Wolsey died. Catherine once more collapsed at the news, this time in relief and Henry ensured that the doctors that had cared for his son would be paid richly for their service. Hal’s recovery would be very slow during the spring and later summer, with him being prone to headaches, fevers and fainting spells from thereon after. The king was deeply saddened by that, as his energetic mini-me would never return to his old self. To Catherine this brought back the saddest memories of her childhood in Castile, as her only brother had been frail all his life and she would dedicate much of her time in caring for Hal after the plague had passed at last later in autumn. But while Catherine worried over his health, Henry worried over the kingdom. Hal’s condition was deeply worrisome to the king, as he was the only spare to Ned at this time. Mary could of course inherit the throne, but no woman other than Empress Matilda had taken the crown and that had led to anarchy several centuries ago. Ned however remained a strong child, now at the age of twelve, but misfortune could strike once more, as the sweating sickness had shown. His match with the infanta Isabel was the most prestigious one in all of Christendom for the Tudors, but the bride to be were still only seven years old, and it would be almost a decade before she would be able to bear heirs to England. If Hal would die without children as well…what would happen to his dynasty? Catherine was almost in her midst forties now, way past childbearing age. Was the match with Spain worth waiting for? Or had he hitched his wagon to the wrong horse? But what other options were there? France had no princesses at Ned’s age as Madeleine of Valois was mere eight years old and Christine of Brabant was a toddler still. This trouble would keep the king up at nights for a long time.
As the plague abated later in the year, the court slowly returned to normality. Once loss of notice during the plague was the Lady Anne Boleyn, one of Catherine’s favourite ladies in waiting and a rising start at the Tudor court. Mere 21 years old at her death, she had dazzled the court with her spirited and charming manners and even the king had been drawn to her, even if she had refused his advantages. Her desired match to the Percy boy, heir to the Earldom of Northumberland had fallen aside a few years ago and while Catherine had planned another marriage for her with a favoured noble, nothing had been set in stone by the time the plague swept in.
As for Wolsey, his long service to Henry was rewarded with sheer greed after his death. The magnificent York Palace and Hampton Court Palace with everything inside them would be appropriated by the king who began to move his court into the estates and Wolsey’s coat of arms was removed and replaced with those of Henry and Catherine. No doubt the queen took some great pleasure in the downfall of the loathed cardinal, for the impressive collection of books, silver and gold plate and arts that he had accumulated for many years ended up in her hands in that autumn. The knot gardens at Hampton Court would be extended under Catherine’s watchful eyes as well, as she shared the passion for renaissance architecture and arts with her husband and even the loathed cardinal, one of the few things they had agreed on. Even better, the position as Lord Chancellor of England went to Sir Thomas More, one of her favorites and a man who she could place her full trust in. Unlike the domineering Wolsey, More encouraged her husband to take a more active part of the daily governance of the kingdom and also suggested that Prince Edward should start to take part in matters of state, not solely in Wales any more. More also aided the queen in creating a proper curriculum for all three children, as they were getting older now and would require further lessons. More also saw the danger in the succession the same way the king did and would himself prefer if the Infanta would be sent to England once she turned twelve years old and came of marriageable age in 1533. But that would still be years from now and Ned would be nearly eighteen then. Privately both More and Henry would have preferred that the prince would be wedded and bedded when he turned fourteen in two years’ time, but his match with the infanta would be impossible to be consummated for many years to come. Henry’s grandmother had given birth to her son at the age of 13, but her child-body had not been able to handle another child and that was the nightmare scenario that could not occur once more. King Ferdinand had made it clear that his daughter would not arrive on english shore until her sixteenth birthday, regardless of what the english wished. The dowry was well worth the wait, as Ferdinand had pledged 3,500 crusados in addition to a collection of gold plates, jewellery, rich fabrics and other precious objects from Spain and the rich Indies for the infanta’s dowry. Such a treasure would certainly be worth the wait and rejecting the king of Spain would be a very foolish move by the Tudors. Unless they could find a bride of suitable lineage and wealth for Ned elsewhere, a search that seemed doomed to fail already, then the prince would have to spend a few years as a bachelor until his Castilian bride arrived for their wedding in 1537, close to a decade from now. Hal and Katherine Willoughby would be married when they turned fourteen in 1533 and hopefully, they could provide a grandson for the king in a few years’ time.
In spite of the sorrows of the year of 1528, winter came once more in the middle of November, sinking the kingdom into silence, as the everyday sounds of the land became muffled by glistering white snow and glittering ice that coated the roofs of the cities and villages as the nineteenth year in the reign of Henry VIII of England moved, once more, into another one.
Author's Note: I am back! I wasn't sure what I wanted to happen in this chapter except for PLAGUE and who would survive and who would live, apart from Ned of course. Wolsey I planned to murder of course from the start at this time, so GOODBYE, you bastard. I was actually gonna introduce Ned's future wife in this chapter, or at the very least make stronger references to her, but I'm keeping you all a bit in the dark on who will be his Queen in the end for a bit longer.
The year of 1528 was one of marriages and betrothals for several ruling houses in Europe. Francis I of France had been a widower for almost two years since the death of Claude and while he was in no need of more heirs, as he had plenty to spare, a new bride would bring a potential alliance and a dowry to the French treasury. But the selection was somewhat sparse at this time. Isabella of Navarre was a contender, but aside from a weak claim to Navarre, she did not bring much else. Anne of Cleves was considered as well, but Francis soon decided to set his eyes on a more prestigious bride in the north-east of France: Poland and the court of Sigismund the Old. The king of Poland ruled over a powerful and rich kingdom, filled with renaissance arts and culture and even better, his eldest daughter had just turned fifteen years old. Hedwig Jagellion was the only surviving daughter of Sigismund’s first wife, Barbara Zápolya and since his second marriage to Bona Sforza, he had six more children, two sons and four daughters that still lived. Sigismund was not averse to marrying his daughter to the most prestigious monarch in Christendom and his ambitious wife agreed, even if she would have preferred to see her own Isabella married to France, a plan that had been ruined in 1520 when the dauphin was betrothed to Margaret of Denmark. Francis refused to budge on the dauphin’s marriage, but Bona still wished to see her children married into the Valois dynasty. And if the marriage between the king and Hedwig would work out, then perhaps one of Francis’s daughters would become the bride of her oldest son, Sigismund Augustus, now eight years old. Negotiations begun in January for a Valois-Jagellion match and in March the king announced to the court that he was to be married to Hedwig in the following summer. The princess would arrive in Paris in late July, when she was meet Francis in the Archbishop’s Palace located south of Notre-Dame cathedral, where they later married in a splendid ceremony days later.
“She is the most noble and elegant lady, tall and upright, pure, wise and she won the heart of all Parisians with a wave and a smile. The king was charmed by her, as she was so unlike the late queen.”
Hedwig or Edwige as she would be called in France, meet with the Dauphin later in the city of Orléans and the pair seemed to get well along. Francois had been mother-less for over two years now and Hedwig had been an elder sister all her life, so she swiftly endeared herself to the boy. She also met the Dauphine a week later at Blois and Hedwig would be just as delighted by her. “She is a very pretty girl, strong and spirited. One would think of her like a daughter of France itself rather than a Dane.” In the first months of her marriage Hedwig would discover another thing: her glamorous husband was a serial philander. In 1528 three mistresses competed for the position of maîtresse-en-titre at court, Françoise de Foix, Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly and Diane de Poitiers, also mockingly called The Three Graces by various courtier, in referenced to both their elegance and cultured nature, as well as their vicious sharpness towards each other. It was in this poisonous court the young new queen would find herself in as the first woman of France.
Diane de Poitiers, mistress to Francis I.
But it was not only marriage that Francis aimed for in 1528. The death of Charles III of Savoy in the year before had ensured that the new duke was a close friend of France and a path towards the rest of Italy had opened. Milan was still under French control and now it was time to take Naples once and for all.
England spent the first months celebrating as well: betrothals came to be made. At the new year’s festivities, the engagement between Prince Edward and the Infanta Isabel of Spain was announced, much to the great delight of Queen Catherine, whom now saw her life’s ambition come true. King Ferdinand had agreed to the match as he wished to gather more allies in Christendom, and queen Isabella saw the crown of England as being a worthy future for her eldest daughter. Princess Mary’s engagement to John of Denmark and Burgundy would be announced a few weeks later as the Anglo-Dutch alliance became born anew. With the young duke of York being pledged to the heiress Katherine Willoughby, the future of all of Henry VIII’s legitimate children seemed set. His mistress, Margaret Dymoke, had given him two illegitimate daughters in the past four years, Anne and Jane, and Elizabeth Fitzroy was nine years old now.
The alliances forged by marriages would be the last great work of Thomas Wolsey. The almighty cardinal never lived to see himself wearing the papal crown he deeply coveted. For in March the sweating sickness came back to England with vengeance. This outbreak would reach epidemic proportions in all corners of the kingdom and neither high or low would be spared. In the end of May all of London was in the throes of the plague, with very high mortality. Henry and Catherine fled from the city, while Mary and Hal were sent to Beaulieu Castle and Oatlands Palace respectively to be sequestered. Ned remained in Wales where his father had left strict instructions that he not stray from Ludlow and avoid all infected people. Henry, Edward and Mary all avoided the sickness, but Catherine, Hal and Wolsey all came down with the sweat, with various results. Catherine recovered steadily without much lasting effects, but Hal did not. The boy remained abed for several days with high fevers, headaches and delirium, much to the panic and fear of his attendants and parents. Henry was said to have wept when he heard the news and Catherine collapsed once more when she found it that her son might not survive.
“It was said that the queen prayed desperately for hours at her altar as the Duke of York laid deathly ill miles away from his parents. The king had forbidden her from leaving, otherwise Catherine would have ridden to Oatlands on a swift horse immediately. The life of the son she had born in the middle of a plague while sequestered in Nottingham a near decade ago might be book-ended by the sickness come again.” Catherine of Aragon - The Pomegranate Queen
Wolsey died in the late spring. The almighty cardinal perished sick and alone, in the end abandoned by the king he had served faithfully for over a decade. It was a rather sad ending for a man who was, during the height of his power, the most powerful man in all of England. While Henry proclaimed his grief over his good counselor publicly, his private words showed otherwise: “for I would have consigned Wolsey to death many times over if it would have kept my son strong and hearty”
Fortunately, Hal’s fever broke mere days after Wolsey died. Catherine once more collapsed at the news, this time in relief and Henry ensured that the doctors that had cared for his son would be paid richly for their service. Hal’s recovery would be very slow during the spring and later summer, with him being prone to headaches, fevers and fainting spells from thereon after. The king was deeply saddened by that, as his energetic mini-me would never return to his old self. To Catherine this brought back the saddest memories of her childhood in Castile, as her only brother had been frail all his life and she would dedicate much of her time in caring for Hal after the plague had passed at last later in autumn. But while Catherine worried over his health, Henry worried over the kingdom. Hal’s condition was deeply worrisome to the king, as he was the only spare to Ned at this time. Mary could of course inherit the throne, but no woman other than Empress Matilda had taken the crown and that had led to anarchy several centuries ago. Ned however remained a strong child, now at the age of twelve, but misfortune could strike once more, as the sweating sickness had shown. His match with the infanta Isabel was the most prestigious one in all of Christendom for the Tudors, but the bride to be were still only seven years old, and it would be almost a decade before she would be able to bear heirs to England. If Hal would die without children as well…what would happen to his dynasty? Catherine was almost in her midst forties now, way past childbearing age. Was the match with Spain worth waiting for? Or had he hitched his wagon to the wrong horse? But what other options were there? France had no princesses at Ned’s age as Madeleine of Valois was mere eight years old and Christine of Brabant was a toddler still. This trouble would keep the king up at nights for a long time.
As the plague abated later in the year, the court slowly returned to normality. Once loss of notice during the plague was the Lady Anne Boleyn, one of Catherine’s favourite ladies in waiting and a rising start at the Tudor court. Mere 21 years old at her death, she had dazzled the court with her spirited and charming manners and even the king had been drawn to her, even if she had refused his advantages. Her desired match to the Percy boy, heir to the Earldom of Northumberland had fallen aside a few years ago and while Catherine had planned another marriage for her with a favoured noble, nothing had been set in stone by the time the plague swept in.
As for Wolsey, his long service to Henry was rewarded with sheer greed after his death. The magnificent York Palace and Hampton Court Palace with everything inside them would be appropriated by the king who began to move his court into the estates and Wolsey’s coat of arms was removed and replaced with those of Henry and Catherine. No doubt the queen took some great pleasure in the downfall of the loathed cardinal, for the impressive collection of books, silver and gold plate and arts that he had accumulated for many years ended up in her hands in that autumn. The knot gardens at Hampton Court would be extended under Catherine’s watchful eyes as well, as she shared the passion for renaissance architecture and arts with her husband and even the loathed cardinal, one of the few things they had agreed on. Even better, the position as Lord Chancellor of England went to Sir Thomas More, one of her favorites and a man who she could place her full trust in. Unlike the domineering Wolsey, More encouraged her husband to take a more active part of the daily governance of the kingdom and also suggested that Prince Edward should start to take part in matters of state, not solely in Wales any more. More also aided the queen in creating a proper curriculum for all three children, as they were getting older now and would require further lessons. More also saw the danger in the succession the same way the king did and would himself prefer if the Infanta would be sent to England once she turned twelve years old and came of marriageable age in 1533. But that would still be years from now and Ned would be nearly eighteen then. Privately both More and Henry would have preferred that the prince would be wedded and bedded when he turned fourteen in two years’ time, but his match with the infanta would be impossible to be consummated for many years to come. Henry’s grandmother had given birth to her son at the age of 13, but her child-body had not been able to handle another child and that was the nightmare scenario that could not occur once more. King Ferdinand had made it clear that his daughter would not arrive on english shore until her sixteenth birthday, regardless of what the english wished. The dowry was well worth the wait, as Ferdinand had pledged 3,500 crusados in addition to a collection of gold plates, jewellery, rich fabrics and other precious objects from Spain and the rich Indies for the infanta’s dowry. Such a treasure would certainly be worth the wait and rejecting the king of Spain would be a very foolish move by the Tudors. Unless they could find a bride of suitable lineage and wealth for Ned elsewhere, a search that seemed doomed to fail already, then the prince would have to spend a few years as a bachelor until his Castilian bride arrived for their wedding in 1537, close to a decade from now. Hal and Katherine Willoughby would be married when they turned fourteen in 1533 and hopefully, they could provide a grandson for the king in a few years’ time.
In spite of the sorrows of the year of 1528, winter came once more in the middle of November, sinking the kingdom into silence, as the everyday sounds of the land became muffled by glistering white snow and glittering ice that coated the roofs of the cities and villages as the nineteenth year in the reign of Henry VIII of England moved, once more, into another one.
Author's Note: I am back! I wasn't sure what I wanted to happen in this chapter except for PLAGUE and who would survive and who would live, apart from Ned of course. Wolsey I planned to murder of course from the start at this time, so GOODBYE, you bastard. I was actually gonna introduce Ned's future wife in this chapter, or at the very least make stronger references to her, but I'm keeping you all a bit in the dark on who will be his Queen in the end for a bit longer.
It's going better to be honest!
I was on the fence whether or not Hal would live, so I decided to be merciful this time.
He's betrothed once more! Let's see if it sticks!
Ferdinand is not gonna be happy about Francis invading Naples and neither is the emperor!
Great to hear
Thanks for the mercy
i really hope so
Amen to that! Hope they can get a Pavia on francis