September 28, 1663: Birth of Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton

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1st Duke of Grafton, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Barbara Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, Duke of Monmouth, Glorious Revolution of 1688, Henry FitzRoy, Isabella Bennet, James Scott, John Churchill, King Charles II of England, King James II-VII of England, Monmouth Rebellion, Scotland and Ireland, William III of Orange

Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton, KG (September 28, 1663 – October 9, 1690) was an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland and his mistress Barbara Villiers. A military commander, Henry FitzRoy was appointed colonel of the Grenadier Guards in 1681 and Vice-Admiral of England from 1682 to 1689. He was killed in the storming of Cork during the Williamite–Jacobite War in 1690.

Early life and military career

Born to Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine in 1663, Henry FitzRoy was an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England, the second by Barbara Villiers. His mother was the daughter of William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison, and Mary Bayning (1623-1672), heiress to a fortune of £180,000. Viscount Grandison was a colonel of one of King Charles I’s regiments who was killed in action during the Civil War.

William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison, was born in 1614, eldest son of Sir Edward Villiers (1585-1626) and Barbara St. John (ca 1592-1672). His father was the older half-brother of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, favourite of both James I-VI of England, Scotland and Ireland and Charles I, a relationship from which he greatly benefitted.

On August 1, 1672, at the age of nine, a marriage was arranged for Henry FitzRoy to the five-year-old Isabella Bennet, the only daughter of Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, a Royalist commander, by his wife, Elisabeth of Nassau (1633–1718). Elisabeth was a daughter of Louis of Nassau-Beverweerd and thus a granddaughter of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, and a great-granddaughter of Prince Willem I the Silent, Prince of Orange.

In 1675 Charles II created Henry, Duke of Grafton. A wedding ceremony between Henry FitzRoy and Isabella Bennet took place on November 7, 1679. At the time of his marriage, Henry FitzRoy was created Baron Sudbury, Viscount Ipswich, and Earl of Euston. After their wedding the couple lived at Euston Hall. Isabella and her husband had one son, Charles FitzRoy, who succeeded his parents as 2nd Duke of Grafton and 3rd Earl of Arlington.

King Charles II made his son a Knight of the Garter in 1680. He was appointed colonel of the Grenadier Guards in 1681.

FitzRoy was brought up as a sailor and saw military action at the siege of Luxembourg in 1684. In that year, he received a warrant to supersede Sir Robert Holmes as Governor of the Isle of Wight, when the latter was charged with making false musters. However, Holmes was acquitted by court-martial and retained the governorship.

In 1686 Henry FitzRoy killed John Talbot, brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, in a duel. FitzRoy was appointed Vice-Admiral of the Narrow Seas from 1685 to 1687. At King James II-VII’s coronation, Grafton was Lord High Constable. During the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth he commanded the royal troops in Somerset.

Originally called James Crofts or James Fitzroy, the Duke of Monmouth was Henry Fitzroy’s half-brother, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland with his mistress Lucy Walter.

Monmouth led the unsuccessful Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, an attempt to depose his uncle King James II-VII. After one of his officers declared Monmouth the legitimate king, (alleging his mother was legally married to Charles II) in the town of Taunton in Somerset, Monmouth attempted to capitalise on his Protestantism and his position as the son of Charles II, in opposition to James, who was a Roman Catholic. The rebellion failed, and Monmouth was beheaded for treason on July 15, 1685.

Henry FitzRoy acted with John Churchill, and joined his cousin and his wife’s kinsman, Prince Willem III of Orange to overthrow the King in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1st Prince of Mindelheim, 1st Count of Nellenburg, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, KG, PC (1650 – 1722 O.S.) played a defining role in defeating both the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 that helped secure James on the throne, but he was also a key player in the military conspiracy that led to James being deposed during the Glorious Revolution.

Death

Henry FitzRoy died in Ireland on October 9, 1690 aged 27, of a wound received at the storming of Cork while leading King William III’s forces. His body was returned to England for burial.

On October 14, 1697 his widow married Sir Thomas Hanmer, a young Buckinghamshire baronet, who became Speaker of the House of Commons and an authority on the works of William Shakespeare. The Dowager Duchess of Grafton died in 1723.

Legacy

The Duke of Grafton owned land in what was then countryside near Dublin, Ireland, which later became part of the city. A country lane on this land eventually developed into Grafton Street, one of Dublin’s main streets. Grafton Alley in Cork, close to where he was shot, also bears his name.

The Princes in the Tower

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Charles II of England, Duke of Buckingham, Henry Stafford, Henry Tudor, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Richard Duke of York, Richard III, The Princes in the Tower

This is one of the great mysteries of history. Many people know the story, even those who may not follow royalty or even history in general. It is a classic tale of tragedy. Two young boys, one the age of 12, and a King, the other 10, his brother a royal duke,  are sent to the Tower of London by their uncle who usurps the throne. Then the Princes were never heard from again. What happened to them? Were they killed? Did they get taken away to live their lives in obscurity? Nobody knows.

After Richard III took the throne in June of 1483 the two princes were seen less and less within the Tower, and by the end of the summer of they had disappeared from public view altogether. The consensus among historians is that the princes were murdered.

Here are the five major suspects:

1. King Richard III

2. Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham; friend and Ally of Richard III

3. James Tyrrell, servant of King Richard III

4. Lady Margaret Beaufort;

5. Henry Tudor,son of Lady Margaret and later King Henry VII.

When I look at the list I question some of them. Let’s take Richard III himself. Legend has it that the two princes were smothered to death with their pillows. This was first mentioned in the writings by Sir Thomas Moore. Moore has Tyrell doing the killings. I have a hard time thinking that Richard III did the dirty deed himself and it seems that other historians who are evaluating him agree on that point.

I often thought that Henry Tudor would also be a logical choice. After taking the throne from Richard III he did do away with some of the Plantagenet heirs that had a better claim to the throne than he. Most notable was Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick who was the a potential claimant to the English throne during the reigns of both Richard III and Henry VII.* From the time Henry VII took the throne the Earl of Warwick was also imprisoned within the Tower of London where he remained a constant threat to Henry’s claim on the throne.

In 1499 a man named Perkin Warbeck pretended to be Prince Richard, Duke of York one of the young Princes in the Tower. He conspired with the Earl of Warwick to escape from the Tower. Many historians claim that the real motive for the execution was the upcoming marriage of Henry VII’s eldest son, Arthur, Prince of Wales, who was about to marry Infanta Catherine of Aragon. It seems that her parents, King Fernando II-V and Isabel I of Spain did not want the marriage to go through while there remained a threat to Henry’s throne.

I write of this to show that there is historical precedence of Henry VII killing those who had a better blood claim to the throne that he. The problem with this theory is that it is well-known that the two princes disappeared by the end of the summer and this was a couple of years prior to Henry Tudor becoming King of England. So unless they princes were housed someplace else after being held in the Tower I do not see how Henry Tudor can be guilty of their death.

In 1674 during the reign of King Charles II of England and Scotland bones were discovered in by workmen rebuilding a stairway in the Tower. They were presumed to the the bones of the young princes and they were ceremoniously interred in Westminster Abbey, in an urn bearing the names of Edward and Richard. It has never been proven that those bones belonged to the young princes. Since DNA testing has been done to the bones of Richard III, I think now is the right time to perform DNA testing on the bones discovered in 1674.

If the bone are that of the two young princes, then the mystery of their whereabouts will be answered. If, however, they prove to not be the bones of the young princes the mystery will remain. How they were killed and who killed them will always be a mystery.