Henry VIII is not alone amongst the kings of England in fathering bastard children, He is, however, one of the few monarchs who did not advertise the fact. Apart from legitimate heirs, Mary I, Elizabeth I and Edward VI, he also sired Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond (the only bastard whom Henry acknowledged), Sir Henry Carey, Thomas Stukeley, Sir John Perrot and Etheldreda Malte. Richmond, even though he was acknowledged by his father and in line for the throne before Edward VI was born, was actually a fairly dull young man.

By contrast his half-brothers were anything but dull. Henry Carey was an acknowledged rough diamond, a successful soldier, totally loyal to his half-sister and cousin, Elizabeth I (his mother, Mary, was Anne Boleyn’s sister). Thomas Stukeley was a liar, counterfeiter, pirate, a spy and a triple-agent, explorer, soldier, traitor and hero. He died at the Battle of Alcazar in 1578, in the service of the King of Portugal; Sir John Perrot was another renowned soldier. He who was made Governor of Ireland by a grateful Elizabeth I but ended up dying in the Tower having been found guilty of treason (whilst in a temper he referred to the Queen as a ‘base bastard piss-kytching’).

And then there was Henry’s bastard daughter, Etheldreda. The irony is that his other two bastard daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, both became queen, whilst Etheldreda married and lived quietly, apart, that is, from her attending the Princess Elizabeth during her time in the Tower under the reign of Mary I. I would like to tell you that she closely resembled her half sisters, but sadly Etheldreda’s portrait disappeared when it was sold at auction in 1942 to an unknown buyer.

If Henry VIII only acknowledged one bastard son, Henry VII didn’t even do that. During the reigns of Edward IV (who had one bastard son and one daughter) and Richard III ( who had two bastard sons and one daughter) young Henry Tudor, then Earl of Richmond, was forced into exile in France. Here he formed a romantic liaison so that when he returned to England in 1485 his bastard son, Sir Roland de Velville, came with him. Roland was never formally acknowledged, but his tomb monument stated that he was ‘…a man of kingly line and an earl’s blood…’. Once he was king, Henry VII made sure he never got into this situation again and rather than take noble mistresses, as his son would later do, Henry VII enjoyed his extra-marital affairs with astonishingly well-paid dancing girls.

Henry Tudor, of course, owed his very claim to the throne to a family of bastards, the Beauforts. The third son of Edward III, John, Duke of Lancaster, had a mistress, Catherine Swynford, who bore him three sons and a daughter. The eldest son, John, became Earl of Somerset and his grand-daughter, Margaret Beaufort, married Henry Tudor and gave him a right to claim the throne through her descent from Edward III and John, Duke of Lancaster. Strangely, when Lancaster was an old man he finally married Catherine Swynford and Richard II legitimised their children; there was one catch, however, and that was that they and their descendents were forbidden from using their bloodline to claim the throne. Not that a little thing like that would have stopped the Tudors.

For sheer numbers of royal bastards, Charles II and William IV must share the honours as neither King made the slightest attempt to hide their growing illegitimate families. When he was Duke of Clarence, William IV formed a relationship with the actress, Dorothy Jordan, and fathered ten children; George, Henry, Sophia, Mary, Frederick, Elizabeth, Adolphus, Augusta, Augustus and Amelia. Peter Pindar famously noted that while William was always in debt, Dorothy was a well-paid and popular actress:

As Jordan’s high and mighty squire

Her playhouse profits deigns to skim;

Some folk audaciously inquire

If he keep her or she keeps him.

The children were given the formal surname of FitzClarence (also sometimes unkindly known as the FitzJordans) and lived as a happy family until the death of William’s niece, Princess Charlotte, only child of George IV. Then began a royal scramble to have all the available princes married and producing possible heirs. As soon as marriage was suggested, William abandoned Dorothy, taking the children with him; understanding and dignified to the last, she retired quietly until, driven by debts run up by her profligate son-in-law, she went to live in lodgings on the French coast where she died virtually alone, in acute poverty, several years later.

On the other hand, Charles II shared his favours rather more widely, producing children with a number of ladies, from duchesses to actresses; Lucy Walters (James Crofts, Duke of Monmouth), Elizabeth Kiligrew (Charlotte, Countess of Yarmouth), Catherine Pegge (Charles FitzCharles, Earl of Plymouth and Catherine FitzCharles), Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland (Anne, Countess of Sussex, Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Southampton, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, Charlotte, Countess of Lichfield and George Fitzroy, Duke of Northumberland), Nell Gwynn (Charles Beauclerk, Duke of St Albans and James Beauclerk), Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond) and Moll Davies (Mary, Countess of Derwentwater).

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