“How fair, how beautiful and great a prince”: Royal Children in the Tudor Chronicles

Abstract

When considering the Tudor dynasty and how it was depicted in sixteenth and early seventeenth-century chronicles, one the most compelling issues is that of succession. Carole Levin and Andrea Nichols consider the importance of the pregnancies, births of heirs to the throne and other royal children, and the difference in depiction between male and female heirs as is seen in English histories printed during or shortly after the Tudor era. The chapter focuses on the Tudor dynasty, starting with the seven children of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York; continuing with the pregnancies, miscarriages, and childhoods of the heirs born by the first three wives of Henry VIII; and ending with the two phantom pregnancies of Mary Tudor. There is an examination of the narratives of the children in a number of chronicles, including Holinshed’s Chronicles and Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, and works by Edward Hall, John Stow, Richard Grafton, William Martyn, Richard Baker, Polydore Vergil, and Giovanni Biondi. The chapter especially highlights the political, religious, and gender issues that intertwined with the topic of producing a healthy royal heir. Moreover, the chapter illuminates how various authors handled the complicated task of relating such sensitive issues as pregnancy, miscarriage, stillbirth, the death of an heir, and the significance of the gender of a royal child.