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ruled as Queen of Castile in Spain, did nothing to reassure. Even more worrying was the complex issue of female inheritance. After she married, a woman’s lands and possessions belonged to her husband and no one could agree exactly how this would work if part of that inheritance were a kingdom. The English looked nervously to the example of other small countries, like Burgundy, whose independence had been lost when they had been left in the hands of a woman.
    England’s one experiment with a ruling queen was not an experience anyone was eager to repeat. At his death in 1135 King Henry I’s only legitimate issue was his daughter, Matilda. 7 During his lifetime Henry I had made his barons swear to accept her as the heir to his kingdom, but his authority could not reach beyond the grave. After his death the barons chose her cousin, Stephen, Count of Boulogne, as a more acceptable male alternative. This, ultimately, plunged England into nine years of civil war, which decimated the land. When Stephen was imprisoned for seven months in 1141, Matilda briefly occupied the throne. It was not exactly a precedent. Stephen remained the anointed king and Matilda’s ‘extremely arrogant demeanor, instead of the modest gait and bearing proper to the gentle sex’ helped ensure she was not crowned queen. Matilda eventually secured a victory of sorts when Stephen recognised her son Henry as his heir, but she never ruled as queen of England as her father had intended.
    All things being equal, Henry VII’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, had had the better claim to the crown in 1485. However, such things were not equal. A king needed to be able to defend his crown, if need be, on the field of battle. It was quite possible that England might prefer to see a member of the peerage take the throne, rather than accept Mary as their queen. In 1519 the Venetian ambassador had seen nothing wrong in speculating on the chances of the Dukes of Suffolk, Norfolk or Buckingham, ruling the kingdom if Henry died without a legitimate son to succeed him. Shortly afterwards Henry himself wrote in great secrecy to Wolsey, requiring him to ‘make good watch’ on a number of the nobility. If this letter is rather too ‘cloak and dagger’ to be absolutely sure that Henry’s concerns centred on the succession, the fate of one of those named, Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, certainly seems to indicate that the king was increasingly anxious about the future of his dynasty.
    At this time there were only three dukes in England. Two of them had been Henry’s own creations. Charles Brandon was created Duke of Suffolk in 1514 for his part in the French War. He had begun his career as a mere esquire, owing everything he was now to Henry VIII, ‘my sovereign lord and master who has brought me up out of nothing’. Since men had been amazed at his elevation to the peerage, they would perhaps have been reluctant to accept him as their king. His marriage to Henry’s sister, Mary Tudor, in 1515, had brought him closer to the throne, but it could not overcome the disability of his birth. Mary continued to be known as ‘The French Queen’ by right of her first husband King Louis XII of France. As the contemporary inscription on their portrait openly acknowledged ‘cloth of gold’ (Mary) outranked ‘cloth of frieze’ (Brandon). Given his relatively humble origins the duke was perhaps fortunate he was not cast as canvas.
    As part of the same ceremony in 1514, Thomas Howard, with rather more justice, had become Duke of Norfolk, in recognition for his victory at the Battle of Flodden. He had spent much of his adult life trying to recover the dukedom that had been bestowed on his father by Richard III in 1483. Unfortunately, the family had enjoyed the title for just two years before it was forfeited for fighting on the losing side at Bosworth in 1485. Thomas Howard had struggled to