sunnykerr

Well, it does mean that son gets stuff, when he grows up.

And he can be a Fitzroy (the usual last name given, in England, to royal bastards), he can have a title (like a baron, a count or whatever; not a duke or a prince) and he can probably have land.

When he's older, too, his father could arrange a nice marriage for him with a wealthy lady and set him up for life.

Once Francis dies, I'm not sure what that means for his son, who would presumably still be very young. It may be that the son has to disappear for his own safety.

There You'll Be

The son is still a baby.

If I'm not mistaken, no, I can't remember his name.

I do know it's a family name, and I was pretty sure it was Francis as well, but now I can't remember, it's been so long.

They usually just call him the son.

sunnykerr

But the son isn't an ordinary baby, hence titles and protection.

I'm not 100% positive of how it worked in real life... I would assume they'd wait a little bit to see if the baby survived, since even rich babies had a high rate of mortality back then.

But I think they started getting titles pretty darn young.

Of course, on a TV show, everything's always sped up to a certain degree, so maybe this baby got his titles right out of the womb.

There You'll Be

Hm, you are right.

Mary was the one who gave her okay, and pushed Francis to do it.

So I see what you're saying. It gives him protection and rights, but it doesn't give him a place in line for the throne.

sunnykerr

I've been reading on Charles II of England, who had no legitimate heirs and, like, a solid dozen illegitimate children he acknowledged (meaning he may have had even more, but not acknowledged).

When he died, the Crown went to his brother, because he had no legitimate heirs.

In the meantime, his sons and daughters were dukes and duchesses, with the land and money to go with that.

So they were set for life. That's the crucial thing.

But, yeah, you're right, it doesn't put them in the line for the throne.

And maybe they could do that differently on the show.

They can do whatever they want.

But, in real life, Francis was succeeded by his brother.

So, if the show wants to follow history, whatever children he has can't be legitimate. And his illegitimate children cannot be in the line of succession.

There You'll Be

Cool! Thanks for letting me know all that about him and his legitimate, but not heir to the throne children.

Now all of that on Reign makes sense,.

Mary was going to marry Bash, if the Pope said he was a legitimate heir to the throne.

That didn't happen, and she married Francis.

Francis has 2 young brothers, and Bash is his half brother.

Thanks Sunny!!

sunnykerr

Yeah, Mary is a royal princess by birth.

So her job would have been to marry the royal heir.

Sucks for Bash, I guess, but that's the way it happened at the time.

It's even a little strange that she'd even bother to ask the Pope, since Bash wasn't even the child of the king's wife.

But, of course, if the Pope had decided that Bash was the rightful heir, nothing anybody else could have said about it would have made any difference...

Until another Pope came along and said the opposite.

It was a weirdly subjective time to be alive, back then.

There You'll Be

She didn't ask-Bash's mom did.

Sounds like it was very subjective to live back then.

And, obviously, the men had the freedom and power.

sunnykerr

Seriously, Diane de Poitiers was that stupid in this show?

Well, she deserved to die then, didn't she?



As if her son could be a legitimate heir without her having been married to his father.

That never happens in history.

Children are retroactively legitimized (king marries their mother after their birth), but you can't do that with a dead man.

So, yeah, I'm sorry to hear that the Diane on the show was kind of a moron.

There You'll Be

Yes, she was that stupid.

Though Henry was still alive at the time.

And Henry dragged Bash in to watch the wedding consumation so he knew he couldn't have Mary.

And that his "legitimate" son did have Mary.

Then he married Bash off to Kenna, who was also Henry's mistress.

Yeah-they really didn't write her well. And I'm glad Catherine killed her.

I dreamed about that last night-about people watching the Royal Consumation of Marriage, and I have no idea why.

sunnykerr

Well, it's less stupid if Henry was alive when that all happened.

Marginally less stupid.

Bash was never going to be the legitimate heir so long as his father was not married to his mother.

But, if Henry was still alive, there was always the slim chance that he would marry his mother and legitimize his birth.

A super slim chance, something that barely ever happened in the history of the world.

But it makes so much more sense this way then it did when I thought this had happened after Henry was dead.

As for Bash witnessing the wedding night...

That was custom. I mean, not so much the part where Bash was both the groom's illegitimate half-brother and the bride's ex-boyfriend.

But when royals got married, they had witnesses to the consumation.

There You'll Be

Yeah, I just felt she was stupid to do it behind Henry's back.

And I felt bad for Bash, cause he was dragged into the bedroom, by the neck, to really, it seemed, embarrass all of them as well as teach them all a lesson.

The Ladies in Waiting were outside the room, watching through a carved wall. Or, so it was at a little distant.

It would suck to have to do all that with people watching-from the marriage on.

sunnykerr

Well, if Henry grabbed Bash by the neck to drag him in there, that was Henry being a bully.

The consummation was always witnessed, though usually it would have been more like the ladies and probably only by the ladies, since the bedroom was a female realm for the most part.

But I'm sure there were all sorts of different experiences of it.

Just, you know, I don't think there's a record of anyone being physically dragged into that room to witness that.

And he married Bash off to his mistress?

That's creepy.

There You'll Be

Henry was a real bastard. Seriously.

He abused everyone.

And yeah, that, to me, was to humiliate Bash, prove a point, and pretty much just say nah nah nah nah nah.

Yeah, it was just the ladies watching, until Henry dragged Bash past them and into the bedroom.

sunnykerr

Now you make me want to look into what the real-life Henry II was like.

Right now, I'm watching a biography of his father, Francis I.

He was apparently the nicest king of all time.

So I wonder what happened with Henry.