Bridewell Palace, described as an old royal palace, appears as the setting for a public display of royal favor toward Henry FitzRoy, the king’s six-year-old son by Elizabeth Blount.

The Procession and Henry FitzRoy’s Elevation

In July 1525, Margaret Pole’s steward reported that a great procession had gone to Bridewell Palace, where Henry FitzRoy was made both Duke of Richmond and Duke of Somerset. Thomas More read the letters patent. The account presents Bridewell as the ceremonial backdrop to an exceptional elevation: the king’s young son received two dukedoms at once, an honor that Margaret privately understood as painful for Queen Katherine to witness.

A Ceremony of Dynastic Replacement

The elevation at Bridewell also carries a darker meaning in Margaret Pole’s account: she presents the king’s creation of a new duke as replacing a cousin whom Henry VIII had killed. The palace thus frames more than a promotion. In the same ceremony that magnifies Henry FitzRoy’s place in the dynasty, Margaret sees the cost of royal favor and the vulnerability of those whose claims or lives stand in its way.

A Palace Seen from a Distance

Bridewell Palace enters the narrative through news carried from London to Margaret Pole at Bisham Manor: her steward returns and reports the royal procession and ceremony. Margaret is not presented as an eyewitness, so the palace is defined by the account that reaches her rather than by a description of its rooms or grounds. This distance makes Bridewell a point of contact between the royal court and her household, where a public act of dynastic favor becomes private news.

Ceremony and the Written Grant

The report links Bridewell Palace’s procession to the formal act that made Henry FitzRoy a duke: Thomas More read the letters patent there, publicly voicing the grant. The scene therefore joins court spectacle to written authority. The procession announced the king’s favor, while the patent gave that favor an official form; Bridewell is remembered as the place where the two met.