A persistent myth about Francis in fiction is that not only did he not get along with his wife Anne and had a horrible marriage with her - which is in itself not at all supported by the evidence - but that he equally did not have a good relationship with her family, the FitzHughs. Non-fiction discussing Francis almost never mentions his in-laws in connection with him, so that these portrayals stand largely unchallenged.
Sadly, as with so many questions about Francis`s life, we do not know very much about his feelings about his in-laws and their relationship. What little there is does, however, not suggest that the portrayal wide-spread in fiction has any grounding in historical fact.
As I have mentioned recently in a post about Anne FitzHugh, Francis was, by necessity, closely connected with the FitzHughs growing up after his parents` death. His younger sisters Joan and Frideswide were apparently raised by the FitzHughs together with Anne and her siblings. He himself definitely lived with them in 1470 and presumably all during Warwick`s rebellion and Henry VI`s readaption, and possibly as early as 1469, when Warwick`s immediate family was in Calais to see his daughter Isabel married to George of Clarence.
What Francis thought of these developments and of his time with the family is naturally unknowable, but whatever it was, he did not let it stand in the way of at least polite relations, such as when he together with his wife, mother-in-law Alice and brother-in-law Richard joined the Corpus Christi Guilt in York in 1473.
There is some other evidence that Francis was on good terms with his in-laws. Some of the only mentions we have of them are only conventional - for example, Francis calling his sister-in-law Elizabeth`s husband (Sir William Parr) his "broder Parr" in a letter to William Stonor - but others suggest a somewhat closer relationship. Notably, said letter was written in the manor of Tanfield, which belonged to his mother-in-law Alice and where the letter, in which Francis`s regret he could not return south to be "with the king [Edward IV]" yet, suggests he had been staying for a while. This seems to indicate that he and Alice FitzHugh had at least a cordial enough relationship for prolonged visits to each other, be they personal or for business.
This is equally suggested by the fact that the two shared associates and men working for them. One such man was Richard Rugge, who was, as J.M.Williams points out, Francis`s known associate and deputy as chief butler in Richard III`s reign and is known to have served Alice FitzHugh in 1481.
Another indication of such a good working, and possibly even friendly, relationship with a member of his wife`s family is Francis including his brother-in-law George as one of his feofees for several of his estates. The other men he chose, such as Edward and Geoffrey Franke, show the selection was at least partially based on his trust in the men and included mainly those he worked together with a lot and who were close to him, which suggests that his relationship to George was at least a fruitful one.
Slightly more conclusive evidence survives for the connection between Francis and his wife`s oldest brother, Richard FitzHugh. The two are known to have fought together under Francis`s friend Richard of Gloucester in the skirmishes with the Scots from 1480 to 1482, and both were knighted by the duke, though it was Francis, not Richard who was the duke`s first cousin once removed, who received a special honour. Whether this caused resentment or whether Richard FitzHugh understood or simply not cared, we do not know. Of their work together their, no evidence survives.
We do know, however, that Richard was one of Francis`s sponsors when he was made a viscount in January 1483 (the other one being Francis`s cousin, Lord Morley), which shows support of him. We do know that during Richard III`s reign, Francis and his oldest brother-in-law often spent time together at court functions, but again, no evidence survives as to their interactions with one another. However, after Richard III`s death, another very telling connection between them survives. Richard FitzHugh had accepted Henry VII as his new king after Bosworth, but was suspected of being involved in Francis`s rebellion - being ideally placed as he had been given control over some northern lands and manors closely associated with Richard III - and having aided and abetted him. In consequence, as Joe Anne Ricca points out in "Francis, Viscount Lovell. Time Reveals All Things", he lost his offices in May 1486, though he was eventually restored to them and showed no more sign of rebelling until his death one and a half years later.
The fact that Richard FitzHugh was willing to help Francis in his rebellion in 1486 shows not only an at least latent discontent with the new reign but also that the two men must have had trust between them. Francis would have had to be very careful at this time, as he would have had to fear being sold out to the new king, which would have ended in certain death for him. For Richard FitzHugh the involvement in the rebellion could have ended far worse than in the temporary loss of office he experienced. That Francis chose to involve him in the rebellion and that Richard chose to become involved shows that the two men must have had a fairly good relationship.
In the end, what little evidence we have about Francis`s relationships to various members of the FitzHugh family does not all support the claim that there was bad blood between them. On the contrary, lots of hints seem to point to an at least cordial relationship with his brothers-in-law and his mother-in-law, and perhaps a downright friendly one.
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