ABSTRACT
Royal children extended the immediate royal family, an important consideration as Henry VIII had no younger brothers that he could look to. Henry ordered clothes for Princess Mary, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Edward from the great wardrobe fitfully, with the scale and the regularity of the orders reflecting their current standing with him. Like their father, they also received deliveries of silk and linen from the silk house at Whitehall, as did Lady Margaret Douglas, the king's niece and her husband, Lord Lennox. Their clothing was intended to reflect their status, as the king's children, as his representatives and as the head of their own households. Henry's reign produces more evidence of non-consummation or disputed consummation. Henry Fitzroy was the only illegitimate son that Henry VIII acknowledged. His mother was Elizabeth Blount, who after his birth married Sir Gilbert Tailboys and later Lord Clinton.
