That’s exactly what I think. It seems from his actions that he was a member of the family however recognizing him might have just gone one bit to far because he was on such thin ground anyways.
Henry VII’s attitude towards legitimacy (and thereby succession) was very complicated. His own claim to the throne was hugely shaky, and depended on an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt who was later declared legitimate by letters patent but *specifically* excluded from the succession to the throne, and of course his marriage to Elizabeth of York was designed to bolster his and his descendants’ legitimacy by absorbing her Yorkist claims. But at the same time he was very careful after seizing the throne to declare himself king by right of conquest from the day *before* the Battle of Bosworth. So he simultaneously invoked legal and ancestral legitimacy and *de facto* legitimacy. Given how conflicted he was, I suspect that recognising an illegitimate son (as of course Henry VIII would go on to do) was just an unnecessary complication and a can of worms best left unopened, especially with two legitimate sons (at first).
That’s exactly what I think. It seems from his actions that he was a member of the family however recognizing him might have just gone one bit to far because he was on such thin ground anyways.
Henry VII’s attitude towards legitimacy (and thereby succession) was very complicated. His own claim to the throne was hugely shaky, and depended on an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt who was later declared legitimate by letters patent but *specifically* excluded from the succession to the throne, and of course his marriage to Elizabeth of York was designed to bolster his and his descendants’ legitimacy by absorbing her Yorkist claims. But at the same time he was very careful after seizing the throne to declare himself king by right of conquest from the day *before* the Battle of Bosworth. So he simultaneously invoked legal and ancestral legitimacy and *de facto* legitimacy. Given how conflicted he was, I suspect that recognising an illegitimate son (as of course Henry VIII would go on to do) was just an unnecessary complication and a can of worms best left unopened, especially with two legitimate sons (at first).