The Book of Ancient Bastards (35 page)

The Cheap Bastard’s Guide to Solidifying Your Hold on Power

( A.D. 1457–1509)

He was of a high mind, and loved his own will and his own way; as one that revered himself, and would reign indeed. Had he been a private man he would have been termed proud: But in a wise Prince, it was but keeping of distance; which indeed he did towards all; not admitting any near or full approach either to his power or to his secrets. For he was governed by none.
—Sir Francis Bacon

A distant cousin of the Lancastrian dynasty defeated by Edward IV, Henry Tudor was a young Welsh nobleman who bounced around Europe living mostly in exile until popping onto the scene in the early 1480s and challenging Richard III’s hold on the English throne.

Once he’d seized power, Henry VII proved a capable, if ruthless, ruler. Determined to end nearly a century of civil war, he settled the succession question for decades to come by marrying a princess of the opposing York family. Not fond of crowds, suspicious of the nobility, and so tight with money that his wallet squeaked on the rare occasions when he opened it, Henry VII ruled for a quarter of a century unloved by his indifferent subjects, and died virtually unmourned by them as well.

Inheriting a realm bankrupted by decades of civil war, Henry early on hit on a number of ways to make ends meet with the nobility footing the bill. He staffed his retinue with nearly twice the number of retainers as any previous English king, then set up royal visits to his most wealthy landowners (most of them dukes and earls, guys with lots of land and lots of money). A “royal visit” consisted of Henry and his entire court descending on a given lord’s country estate and staying there for from two weeks to a month, with the lord in question having the honor of feeding, housing, and entertaining the king and his retinue. This had the double effect of keeping his greatest nobles too poor to fund rebellions against him, and of saving the crown itself an awful lot of money!

Doubly a Bastard!

Henry Tudor’s blood connection to the royal House of Lancaster was twofold: on the one hand, his grandfather, Owain Tudor, a squire serving in the Lancaster household, secretly married Catherine of Valois, the widow of Henry V. She had four children by Tudor before the marriage was annulled (with the result that all four of their children were declared illegitimate) and Tudor was thrown into prison for a time. One of Owain’s sons by this liaison, Edmund Tudor, grew up to marry Lady Margaret Beaufort. For her part, Margaret was the great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, Edward III’s younger son, who was also father of the future king Henry IV. Her grandfather was the first of four illegitimate children John of Gaunt had with his then-mistress and future wife Katherine Swynford. Both of Henry Tudor’s blood claims to the throne of England came to him through illegitimate lines (although in the case of the Beauforts, that line was later declared legitimate by king and parliament), so this English king was quite literally doubly a bastard!

Another way in which Henry filled the kingdom’s coffers was through marrying his eldest son Arthur to a wealthy Spanish princess named Catherine of Aragon, who brought with her a peace treaty with Spain and an enormous dowry. When Arthur died suddenly shortly after the wedding, Henry, rather than return the girl and her dowry to her father, simply got a dispensation from the pope and prepared to marry her off to his second son, Henry. As we shall see in the final chapter, this move, a money-saving gesture, had far-reaching unintended consequences of its own!

Where to Begin?

( A.D. 1491–1547)

We thought that the clergy of our realm had been our subjects wholly, but now we have well perceived that they be but half our subjects, yea, and scarce our subjects: for all the prelates at their consecration make an oath to the Pope, clean contrary to the oath that they make to us, so that they seem to be his subjects, and not ours.
—King Henry VIII of England

It is fitting that we close out our study of ancient bastards with a quick look at this last of the truly medieval monarchs. After Henry, no king of England would ever have so much license to do as he pleased.

The second son of Henry VII, young Henry didn’t become heir to the throne until the age of ten. He succeeded his father at age eighteen, and inherited a well-ordered realm with a full treasury, thanks to his penny-pinching, reclusive father’s programs as king. When he died thirty-eight years later, Henry would leave a vastly different England to his own heirs: a bankrupt treasury, a different official state religion, and (the last thing he wanted) a simmering succession crisis.

How he got there is an interesting story that could fill dozens of volumes (and has). For starters, chalk it up to the parsimony of his father: Henry VII had married his son Arthur to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of the king of Spain, in return for a huge amount of gold and silver. When Arthur died four months after the marriage, Henry refused to return Catherine or the money. The crisis was resolved when Henry VIII took the throne, got the pope’s blessing to marry his brother’s widow, and did so that same year.

The problem was that Catherine couldn’t give him a male heir. Only one of their children lived to adulthood: Mary (the future “Bloody Mary”). So Henry decided to divorce her and marry someone else who could give him the heir he desperately wanted.

The only problem was that there was a different pope by this time, a pope who owed his throne to the most powerful king in Europe: Charles V Hapsburg, king of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor. And Charles V just happened to be the beloved nephew of the woman that Henry now wished to set aside.

So the pope said no. And Henry, who had actually been named “Defender of the Faith” for writing a tract excoriating the new Protestant sects in Germany, did the unthinkable: he broke with the Catholic Church, founded the Church of England, with himself as its head, dissolved the monasteries in England (pocketing both their property and their wealth), and began marrying a series of women intended to give him a male heir.

Purposeful bastard.

Bastard and His Wives

In the end, Henry had six wives (and an untold number of mistresses, including the sister of one of these wives). Two of his wives were beheaded for “treason” (adultery committed by a queen was considered treason at the time, and they were accused adulterers), and one died giving him the only legitimate male child who lived past infancy (his successor, Edward VI). Only two of them, Anne of Cleves, whom he divorced, and Catherine Parr, his last queen, outlived him.

By the time of Henry’s death, even the notion of monarchy was changing. The question of male heirs became ever-more irrelevant. In fact, Henry did sire arguably the greatest monarch ever to rule England, an effective, diligent, intelligent ruler who outfoxed every opponent and made England a player on the modern stage in ways of which Henry could have only dreamed.

It’s unlikely that this royal bastard even considered the possibility that the heir he so desired would actually be a woman, and a great one.

Elizabeth I—in many ways an even bigger (and more effective) bastard than her old man.

How’s that for a “modern” notion?

A

Acre, Battle of, 178–80

Adalgis, 146

Aelfgifu, 156, 157

Aemilianus, Scipio, 51, 52

Aethelgifu, 156

Agincourt, Battle of, 217

Agnes of Merania, 189

Agrippa, Marcus, 104

Agrippina, 109–10, 114–15

Akhenaton, 6–8

Alcibiades, 27–28

Alcmeonid family, 22, 28

Alexander the Great, 37–43, 54–55

Alexander VI, Pope, 223–24

Alfred the Great, 156

Alhambra Decree, 220

Alienus, Aulus Caecina, 121

Alleghieri, Dante, 199

Alys of France, 171

Amenhotep III, 6

Amenhotep IV, 6–8

Amyntas IV, 35

Anna, 155

Anne of Cleves, 231

“Antiochus Epimanes,” 49

“Antiochus Epiphanes,” 49

Antiochus III, 48–49

Antiochus IV, 48–49, 58

Antiochus VIII, 53

Antiochus IX, 53

Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, 133–34.
See also
Elagabalus

Antonius, Antyllus, 102

Antonius, Marcus, 60, 86–87, 98–102

Aper, Arrius, 137, 138

Appian, 53, 56, 65, 76

Aquillius, Manius, 56

Aristagoras, 24–26

Arnulf, King, 150

Arsinoe, 46–47

Arsuf, Battle of, 180

Arthur, son of Henry VII, 228, 230

Augusta, 131

Augustus, Aurelius Commodus Antoninus, 125.
See also
Commodus

Augustus, Philip, 172, 179, 183–84, 186, 188–90

Augustus, Tiberius Caesar, 104–11

Aurelius, Marcus, 125

B

Bacon, Sir Francis, 227

Balas, Alexander, 53

Bardas, 152–53

Basil I, 152–53

Basil II, 154–55

Bassianus, Varius Avitus, 133.
See also
Elagabalus

Bathsheba, 15

Battle of Acre, 178–80

Battle of Agincourt, 217

Battle of Arsuf, 180

Battle of Bedriacum, 120–21

Battle of Bosworth Field, 226

Battle of Bouvines, 191

Battle of Hastings, 161

Battle of Lewes, 195

Battle of Nancy, 222

Battle of the Milvian Bridge, 140

Beaufort, Margaret, 228

Bedriacum, Battle of, 120–21

Belisaurius, 144, 145

Belshazzar, 16, 17

Benedict IX, Pope, 158–60, 181, 199

Berengaria, 179

Blagdon, Francis, 210

Blanche of Bourbon, 206

“Bloody Mary,” 230

Bolingbroke, Henry, 214–15

Boniface VIII, Pope, 198, 199

Borgia, Cesare, 223, 224

Borgia, Lucrezia, 223, 224

Borgia, Rodrigo, 223

Borja, Rodrigo, 223

Bosworth Field, Battle of, 226

Bouvines, Battle of, 191

Browning, Robert, 150

Brutus, Lucius Junius, 61, 62

Brutus, Marcus Junius, 62, 95–98

C

“Cadaver Synod,” 151

Caepoinis, Servilia, 96

Caesar, Augustus, 102, 104, 106.
See also
Octavian, Gaius Julius Caesar

Caesar, Gaius Julius, 59, 62, 68, 86, 91–99, 101, 105, 112, 114

Caesar, Julia, 101

Caesar, Tiberius Augustus, 106–7

Caesarion, 59, 102

Caligula, 107, 110–12, 143

Cambyses, King, 18, 19, 20, 21

Caracalla, 131–32

Carinus, 135–36

Carloman, 146–47

Carus, 137, 139

Cassius, Gaius, 97–98

Catherine of Aragon, 230–31

Catiline, Lucius Sergius, 71–73, 99

Cato the Elder, 93

Cato the Younger, 93–94

Cattanei, Vanozza dei, 223

Cerda, Charles de la, 210

Cethegus, Cornelius, 76–78

Charlemagne, 146–47

Charles IV of France, 222

Charles VI of France, 216–17

Charles VII of France, 221

Charles the Bad, of Navarre, 209–11

Charles the Terrible, 221–22

Chlorus, Constantius, 141

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 72–73, 86–88, 90, 99, 102

Cinna, Lucius Cornelius, 74–75

Claudius, 112–14

Cleisthenes, 28

Clement V, Pope, 198–200

Cleopatra II, 51

Cleopatra VII, 58–60

Cleopatra Thea, 53–54

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, 100, 102

Commodus, 110, 125–26, 130, 143

Conrad, 166

Constantia, 141

Constantine the Great, 140–42

Constantine VI, Emperor, 149

Constantine VIII, 154

Constantius II, 142–43

Conti, Lotario dei, 181

Crassus, Marcus Licinius, 82–83

Crispus, 141

Critias, 29–31

The Critias
, 29

Crusades, 168–70, 181

Curio, Gaius Scribonius, 100

Curthose, Robert, 162

Cyclops
, 34

Cyrus the Great, 17

D

Dandolo, Enrico, 169–70

Dante, 199

Darius I, King, 23, 25

Darius I, King of Persia, 18–19

David, King, 14, 15

Demetrius II, 53

DeMille, Cecil B., 2

DeMolay, Jacques, 198, 200

Desiderius, King, 146, 147, 159

Despenser, Edward le, 203

Despenser, Hugh le, 202

“Devil’s Brood,” 171, 173, 183–85

Dio, Cassius, 100, 120, 128, 129, 133

Diocles, Gaius Aurelius Valerius, 137

Diocletian, 135–39

Dionysius I, 32–34

Dives, Marcus Licinius Crassus, 82–
83

Dolabella, Gnaeus Cornelius, 88,
89

Domitian, 123–24, 143

Domus Aureum, 115

Drusilla, Livia, 104–5, 111

Drusus, 104–5, 109

Dunstan, Abbot, 156, 157

E

Eadwig, 156–57

Edmund I, 156

Edward I, King, 193–96, 201

Edward II, King, 201–4

Edward III, King, 204, 214, 228

Edward IV, King, 225

Edward V, King, 225

Edward VI, King, 231

Edward of Westminster, 225

Edward the Black, 205, 214

Edward the Confessor, 161

Einhard, 146

Elagabalus, 110, 133–34

Eleanor of Aquitaine, 171–74, 178, 183

Elizabeth I, 231

Elizabeth II, 206

F

Fausta, 141

Felix, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, 69–70

First Crusade, 168

Formosus, 150–51

Fourth Crusade, 169–70, 181

Froissart, Jean, 205, 207, 209, 214

Fulvia, 100

G

Galba, Servius Sulpicius, 117–19, 121

Galeazzo, Gian, 207–8

Galerius, 138

Gaveston, Piers, 202, 203

Geoffrey II of Brittany, 183–84

Gerald of Wales, 178, 179, 183, 188

Gerberga, 147

Germanicus, Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus, 109, 114.
See also
Nero

Geta, 131–32

Godwinson, Harold, 161

“Golden House,” 115

Gouth, Raymond Bertrand de, 199

Gratianus, Johannes, 159

Green, Peter, 45

Gregory VI, Pope, 159

Gregory VII, Pope, 165–66

Gryffudd, Llewellyn Ap, 195

H

“Hammer of the Scots,” 194, 196

Hammurabi, 4–5

Hammurabi’s Code, 4–5

Hannibal of Carthage, 64–65

Hapsburg, Charles V, 231

Hastings, Battle of, 161

Helena, 141

Henry III, Emperor, 159

Henry IV, Emperor, 165–66

Henry VI, Emperor, 190

Henry II, King, 171–73, 178, 183

Henry III, King, 175, 192–93, 202

Henry IV, King, 214–15, 228

Henry V, King, 215–18, 221, 228

Henry VII, King, 227–30

Henry VIII, King, 136, 230–32

Henry the Lion, 190

Henry the Young King, 175–77

Herleva, 161

Herodian, 134

Herodotus, 19, 20, 24

Hezekiah, King, 12–13

Hippias, 22–23, 26, 28

Histiaeus, 25

The Historia Augusta
, 136

Hood, Robin, 185

Hortensius, 94

Hruodgaus, 146

Hyparchus, 22

I

Innocent III, Pope, 181–82, 190–
91

“Ionian Revolt,” 19, 23–24, 26

Irene, Empress, 148–49

Isabella of Angouleme, 193, 202,
203

Isabella of Castile, 219

J

John I of England, 171–73, 175, 185–87, 189–90, 192

John of Gaunt, 205, 214–15,
228

John the Good, 209–10

Julian, 143

Julianus, Didius, 127–28

Justinian, 144–45

K

Keraunos, Ptolemy, 45–47

Knights Templar, 197–200

L

Lackland, John, 185

Lactantius, 137

Laodice, 49

Lentulus, Publius Cornelius, 99

Leo IV, Emperor, 148

Leopold V, Archduke, 179

Lewes, Battle of, 195

Licinianus, 141

Licinius, 141

The Lion in Winter
, 179

Livy, 48, 61, 62

Lombards, 146–47

Long, Huey, 165

Longinus, Gaius Cassius, 97–98

Longshanks, Edward, 193–96, 201

Louis VII of France, 171–73, 188

Louis XI of France, 221–22

Lucan, 93

Lucretia, 62

Lusignans, 193

Lysandra, 45–46

Lysimachus, 45–46

M

Maccabee, Judah, 50

Macedonian Dynasty, 152–53

Macro, 107

Magna Carta, 187, 193

Magnus, Gnaeus Pompeius, 84–85

Manlius, 72, 73

Marcelinus, Ammianus, 143

Marcia, 126

Marius, Gaius, 66–68, 89

“Marius’s Mules,” 67

Marshall, William, 175, 176

Martial, 119

Maslow, Abraham, 194

Maud of Saint-Valery, 186

Maxentius, 141

Maximian, 141

McLynn, Frank, 190

Medici, Giovanni de’, 223

Messalina, 113

Michael III, 152–53

Milvian Bridge, Battle of, 140

Mithridates VI of Pontus, 55–57

Montfort, Simon de, 194

Mortimer, Geoffrey, 203

Mortimer, Roger, 203–4

N

Nabonidus, King, 16–17

Nancy, Battle of, 222

Narses, 144, 145

Nero, 109, 114–17, 119, 121, 126

Neville, Anne, 225

Norwich, John Julius, 148, 154, 169

Numerian, 137–38

O

Octavia, 100

Octavian, Gaius Julius Caesar, 60, 86–87, 98–106.
See also
Caesar, Augustus

Odo of Bayeux, 163–64

Olmedo, Sebastián de, 219

Olympias of Macedonia, 37, 39–41

Olympic Games, 40, 116

Otho, Marcus Salvius, 119–20

Otto IV of Germany, 190–91

P

Padilla, Maria de, 206

Parr, Catherine, 231

Pastor, Ludwig, 212

Paterculus, Velleius, 55

Pedro of Castile, 205–6

Pepin, King, 146

Percy, Henry, 217

Perdiccas II, 35

Pericles, 28

Pertinax, 127, 128

Peter of Wakefield, 186

Petrarch, 208

Philip II Augustus of France, 172, 179, 183–84, 186, 188–90

Philip II of Macedonia, 35–39, 43

Philip IV the Fair, 197–200

Philip VI of France, 209

Philip of Macedon, 216

Philip of Swabia, 190

Philip the Good, 221

Philoxenus, 33–34

Pindarus, 98

Pisistratus, 22

Pius, Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus, 132.
See also
Caracalla

Plantagenet, Geoffrey, 183–84

Plantagenet, Henry, 171–73

Plantagenet, John, 185–87

Plantagenet, Matilda, 190

Plantagenet, Richard, 178–80

Plato, 29, 32

Plautianus, Gaius Fulvius, 131

Pliny the Younger, 124

Plutarch, 39, 74, 86, 94, 98, 99

Polycrates, 20–21

Pompey the Great, 72, 84–85, 94, 96

Popilius, 48–49

Postumus, Agrippa, 105

Prignano, Bartolomeo, 212–13

“Prince of Wales,” 195, 201

Ptolemy I Soter, 42–43, 45, 59

Ptolemy V, 51

Ptolemy VI, 53

Ptolemy VII, 51

Ptolemy VIII, 51–52

Ptolemy Keraunos (Thunderbolt), 45–47

Ptolemy Memphitis, 52

Pulcher, Publius Clodius, 79–81

Pulgar, Hernando de, 220

R

Ralph of Diceto, 175

Ramesses II, 9–11

Richard II, King, 214–15

Richard III, King, 225–26

Richard III
, 225, 226

Richard I the Lion-Hearted, 171, 173, 177–80, 185–86, 188–89

Richard of Gloucester, 225–26

Robert I of Normandy, 161, 168

Rome, burning, 114, 115

Rufus, Quintus Curtius, 37

Runciman, Steven, 170

S

Sabinus, Flavius, 122

Saladin, 179–80

Sargon II, 12

Sargon of Akkad, 1–3

Savoyards, 192–93

Sejanus, Lucius Aelius, 106–9

Seleucus, 45–46, 53

Seleucus IV, 48–49

Seleucus V, 53–54

Seneca, 114

Sennacherib, King Of Assyria, 12–13

Severus, Septimius, 128–32

Shakespeare, William, 4, 60, 97, 216, 225–26

Siculus, 32, 42

Socrates, 27, 29

Solomon, King, 14–15

“Spider King,” 221–22

Stephen VI, Pope, 150–51, 181

Stone of Scone, 196

Suetonius, 110, 112–13, 118, 120, 122–23

Suidas, 22, 23

Sulla, Lucius Cornelius, 69–70

Sulpicianus, 128

Swynford, Katherine, 228

Sylvester III, Pope, 159

“Synod Horrenda,” 151

T

Tacitus, 104, 106, 108, 114–15, 117, 121, 124

Tarquinius, Sextus, 62–63

Tarquinius Superbus, Lucius, 61–63

Templars, 197–200

Theodora, 144, 145

Theophano, 154

Theramenes, 29–31

Thucydides, 27

Thurinus, Gaius Octavius, 102.
See also
Octavian, Gaius Julius Caesar

Tiberius, 104–11

Torquemada, Juan de, 220

Torquemada, Tomas de, 219–20

Tudor, Edmund, 228

Tudor, Henry, 226–28

Tudor, Owain, 228

Tullia, 61

Tzimiskes, John, 154

U

Urban VI, Pope, 212–13

Uticensis, Marcus Porcius Cato, 93–94

V

Valens, Fabius, 121

Valois, Catherine de, 217,
228