I’m kicking off a new series on King Henry VIII, the second Tudor monarch who ruled from 1509 until his death in 1547. He’s a figure that fascinates and divides opinion, often seen as either a tyrant or a complex ruler who achieved much during his reign.
In my latest video, I’m looking at a woman who was believed, by some, to have been Henry VIII’s illegitimate daughter…
Want to join me for a deeper dive? I’m hosting a members-only livestream here on YouTube this Sunday, 28th July, at 10pm UK time / 5pm New York time. Let’s chat Tudor history and share our views on this iconic king. You can become a channel member by clicking on “join” on my channel homepage or going to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCioSUqeGrdFq6DEVK3-DXGQ/join
Transcript:
Today, I’m starting a new series of videos on Henry VIII, the second Tudor monarch and a man who ruled from 1509 until his death in 1547.
He’s a fascinating historical character and one who divides opinion, with some seeing him as nothing more than a tyrant or monster, and others seeing him as more complex, and having achieved much during his reign.
By the way, if you’d like to spend an hour with me talking about Henry VIII, I’m doing a members-only livestream here on YouTube this Sunday, 28th July, at 10pm UK time / 5pm New York time. It’ll be great to talk Tudor and to share our views on this iconic king.
I’m kicking off my series on Henry VIII by looking at people who were believed by some to be Henry VIII’s illegitimate children.
Henry VIII had three legitimate children – Mary, Elizabeth and Edward – and one acknowledged illegitimate child, a son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, but others were rumoured to be the king’s offspring.
One of these was Ethelreda Malte, whose life is a fascinating blend of fact, conjecture, and Tudor intrigue.
Ethelreda, also referred to as Audrey or Ester, is believed to have been born in the late 1520s or early 1530s, possibly on June 23rd, which is the feast day of St. Ethelreda, an Anglo-Saxon saint and daughter of King Anna or Onna of East Anglia. This timeline aligns with her marriage to John Harington of Stepney between September 1546 and November 1547. Royal records describe her as the “bastard daughter of the said John Malte by Joan Dyngley alias Dobson.”
Despite being referred to as the illegitimate daughter of John Malte, a tailor of Henry VIII’s Great Wardrobe, there are significant suggestions that she might have been Henry VIII’s own child. According to Ethelreda’s husband’s son, Sir John Harington, in his “Nugae Antiquae”, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, King Henry VIII granted significant estates to John Malte and Ethelreda, who Harington describes as the king’s natural daughter, by Joanna Dyngley, alias Dobson, put under Malte’s care. Harington writes that “the king, having special love and regard for her, granted these estates for her use and benefit; but she always passed for Malte’s natural daughter” and that shortly after being granted the estates, she married Harington senior, “a confidential servant of the king”.
Alison Weir, in her biography of Mary Boleyn, “Mary Boleyn: The Great and Infamous wh*re”, cites a 1656 letter from Jonathan Lesley, Deputy Clerk, who wrote, “the great King Henry the VIIIth matched his darling daughter to John Harington, and though a bastard, dowered her with the rich lands of Bath Priory.” This information was, according to Lesley, sourced from Sir Andrew Markham, a descendant of Harington’s second wife. Although these rumours suggest Henry VIII’s paternity, there is no conclusive evidence to prove Ethelreda was his daughter. Henry VIII never formally acknowledged her, possibly because acknowledging an illegitimate daughter was less consequential in that era.
The substantial grants made by Henry VIII to John Malte and Ethelreda included lands and manors worth thousands of pounds, a fortune by contemporary standards. For example:
In May 1541, John Malte received a grant of lordships and manors in Berkshire along with the tithes and advowsons of several vicarages and churches in Berkshire.
In July 1544, Malte and Ethelreda were granted over 1800 pounds for manors and lands leased in Somerset, previously owned by Glastonbury Abbey.
By September 1546, further grants included over 1300 pounds for the lordship and manor of Kevelston and other properties in Somerset, for the benefit of John and Ethelreda.
If we consider that 1000 pounds in the 1540s is equivalent to over 400,000 pounds today, these lavish gifts raise questions about why a tailor and his illegitimate daughter would receive such generosity from the king. Was the king simply rewarding and helping a man who’d served him faithfully since 1527, or does it hint at a deeper connection?
Additional evidence supporting Ethelreda’s royal paternity includes her alleged close relationship with Queen Elizabeth I. Both Ethelreda and her husband John Harington attended Elizabeth during her imprisonment in the Tower of London in 1554. Harington wrote of their emotional bond with Elizabeth, how they shed tears together, indicating a significant connection. However, while Alison Weir finds this evidence compelling, it doesn’t definitively prove Ethelreda was Henry VIII’s daughter.
Ethelreda’s mother is identified in royal grants as Joan Dyngley alias Dobson. Some speculate she might have been a royal laundress, with potential access to the king’s private quarters, making a romantic liaison plausible. However, historian Amy Licence, in her book “The Six Wives and Many Mistresses of Henry VIII”, notes that a woman named Anne Harris was the chief napery laundress listed in the 1526 Eltham Ordnances, although she would have had assistants. Queen Catherine would have had a laundress too, but Licence writes that “it is far more likely that any laundress the king would attempt to seduce would be the one washing his shirts and underclothing, who therefore had access to his privy chambers and knew the intimate secrets of his body.”
Ethelreda would have been conceived during the king’s courtship of Anne Boleyn, when he’d stopped sleeping with Catherine and before he’d consummated his relationship with Anne. Licence states, “If we reject the premise that Henry was chaste for seven years, then he had to be sleeping with someone. Given his romantic devotion to Anne and his intention to make her his wife, it is likely that he did exactly what many noblemen of his day did and sought physical relationships on a one-off basis with women of the lower classes.” So perhaps a laundress.
Others like Philippa Jones, author of “The Other Tudors: Henry VIII’s Mistresses and Bastards”, suggest that Ethelreda’s mother was more likely to have been a higher born woman, like Joan Moore, daughter of Sir John Moore of Dunkelyn, Worcestershire, who married first Michael Ashfield, then James Dingley, and finally Thomas Parker of Notgrove, Gloucestershire. Jones believes that the name Dobson was an error in transcription for Dunkelyn. However, as author Kate Emerson points out in the notes of her novel “Royal Inheritance”, John Malte’s will left a bequest to “Awdrey Malte, my bastard daughter, begotten on the body of Joanne Dingley, now wife of one Dobson,” so Jones’s theory doesn’t really make sense.
Ethelreda’s advantageous marriage to John Harington, a man with fluctuating fortunes, suggests her well-provided dowry played a crucial role. Harington, who served Henry VIII and later Thomas Seymour, faced imprisonment twice, first following Seymour’s fall and then again in 1554 after Wyatt’s Rebellion, which is when he and Ethelreda served Elizabeth in the Tower, but he remained a significant figure. Ethelreda bore him a daughter, Esther or Hester, before her death in 1559. Their daughter is last mentioned in the records in 1568. Harington went on to marry Isabell Markham, another of Elizabeth I’s ladies.
Whether Ethelreda was truly the illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII remains unanswered. While the king’s financial generosity and Ethelreda’s privileged status suggest a possible paternal link, concrete evidence is lacking. Was she Henry VIII’s daughter or simply the beneficiary of royal favour toward a loyal servant and his family? The enigma of Ethelreda Malte continues to intrigue historians and enthusiasts alike.
