The King [Henry VIII] came to London for the festival of the Corpus Domini, and on the following Sunday, the 18th [of June], created a natural son of his, aged seven years, by name Henry [FitzRoy], Earl of Nottingham and Viceroy, and subsequently Duke of Richmond and Donisan [Somerset], conferring on him, in conclusion, the highest grade in the kingdom, so that now he is next in rank to his Majesty. After this the King created his nephew Earl of Exeter [Henry Brandon, who was actually created Earl of Lincoln, not Exeter], making two of his cousins, one a marquis [Henry Courtenay, made Marquess of Exeter], the other an earl [Thomas Manners, made Earl of Rutland]; and of four [actually three] other gentlemen two [one] were made earls [Henry Clifford, made Earl of Cumberland], and two viscounts [Thomas Boleyn, made Viscount Rochford, and Robert Radclyffe, made Viscount Fitzwalter], with great ceremony and festivity. [...] It seems that the Queen [Katharine of Aragon] resents the earldom and dukedom conferred on the King's natural son and remains dissatisfied, at the instigation, it is said, of three of her Spanish ladies, her chief counsellors; so the King has dismissed them the Court, —a strong measure, but the Queen was obliged to submit and to have patience.
On the ceremony at Bridewell Palace at 18 June 1525, in which Henry VIII conferred titles upon his son Henry FitzRoy (as well as six other boys and men), and Katharine of Aragon's displeasure at Henry FitzRoy's elevation.
From a translation of a letter by Lorenzo Ohio, written in London on 29th June 1525, in Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 3, 1520-1526, edited by Rawdon Brown, published 1869.
