We’ve all heard of Bessie Blount, King Henry VIII’s mistress who gave him a son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset. But did she also give him a daughter?
In today’s episode of my series on King Henry VIII, I delve into this intriguing mystery.
Join me as I explore the fascinating theory proposed by historian Elizabeth Norton.
Could Elizabeth Tailboys be another of Henry’s illegitimate children?
Transcript:
Was Bessie Blount’s daughter fathered by the king?
We’ve all heard of Bessie Blount, the king’s mistress who gave Henry VIII a son, but did she give him a daughter too?
That’s what I’m exploring today in my series on King Henry VIII…
In June 1519, Elizabeth Blount, a maid of honour to Queen Catherine of Aragon, gave birth to a son, who was recognised as the king’s illegitimate son, named after the king and given the surname “Fitzroy”, a Norman-French surname meaning “son of the King” which was traditionally given to kings’ illegitimate sons.
He was the king’s only son at this point, as his son by Catherine, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, had died in 1511 after just 52 days of life, so the king was over the moon at his birth, and happy to recognise him and entrust his care and upbringing to the boy’s godfather, Thomas Wolsey.
But what happened to Fitzroy’s mother, Elizabeth or Bessie Blount?
Well, she was married off to Gilbert Tailboys, who was the son and heir of George, Lord Tailboys of Kyme. George was suffering from severe mental health issues by 1517, so Gilbert was taken into Wolsey’s household. It was a good match for Bessie, with Gilbert being heir to substantial lands, and is thought to have been arranged by the king. However, as historian Elizabeth Norton noted in her biography of Bessie and in an article she wrote for my website, The Anne Boleyn Files, the marriage is not mentioned in the records until June 1522, when Bessie is recorded as Gilbert’s wife when the king granted them a manor in Warwickshire, probably as a wedding present.
Why is that at all important?
Well, because Elizabeth Norton found that an Inquisition Post Mortem for Bessie’s youngest son, Robert, in June 1542, described his older sister, Elizabeth, as being 22 years of age, meaning that she must have been born between July 1519 and June 1520. As Norton points out, with Fitzroy having been born in June 1519, Elizabeth couldn’t have been born until at least April 1520, but, at the latest June 1520 to make her 22 in June 1542. That means that she was conceived within months of Fitzroy’s birth.
Bessie’s next child, George, is described as 16 in an Inquisition Post Mortem for his grandfather in March 1539, so must have been born between April 1522 and March 1523, so two years after Elizabeth.
I have to agree with Elizabeth Norton that this timing suggests that Elizabeth was fathered by the king, while George was fathered by Gilbert.
And Norton supports her theory with further evidence, and a huge thank you to her for sharing it in an online article for my site – I’ll link to it so you can read it in Elizabeth Norton’s words, but here are the main points:
- Norton writes of how “Henry VIII took an interest in Elizabeth Tailboys [Bessie’s daughter] above and beyond that which would be expected of the child of a former mistress.” For example, in 1541, on his progress to the North with Catherine Howard, he spent a night at the home of Elizabeth and her first husband, Thomas Wymbish, at Nocton. He had also arranged Elizabeth’s marriage to Wymbish, who had been a royal ward and who was a wealthy man, breaking Wymbish’s betrothal to Dorothy Hussey.
- The king took steps to safeguard Elizabeth’s title and inheritance, the Tailboys barony and estates, which she’d inherited after the deaths of her younger brothers. When her husband petitioned for the right to describe himself as Lord Tailboys in right of his wife, the king denied his petition, ensuring that Elizabeth was financially secure. That’s just one example, and Norton cites others.
- Then, in 1550, Edward VI’s reign, there are records of the privy council becoming involved in what was described as a “domestic quarrel” between Elizabeth and Wymbish. Norton points out that it was highly unusual for the king’s council to become involved in such a dispute, AND, the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Lord Admiral and the king’s Master of the Horse were all involved in discussing it further. Odd, but as Norton writes, “it would be less surprising if she was commonly, if privately, known to be the king’s half-sister, rather than merely the daughter of a long-deceased former royal mistress.”
- Elizabeth’s second husband was Ambrose Dudley, son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who had been Lord President of the Council in Edward VI’s reign and who had supported putting Lady Jane Grey on the throne. When he was imprisoned following the fall of Queen Jane, Elizabeth petitioned King Philip of Spain for the release of her husband, and then thanked him after Ambrose’s release. Elizabeth Norton describes how Philip “took a personal interest in Elizabeth”, that that “is clear from this correspondence”, but why would he be interested in helping “the wife of an imprisoned traitor”?
- Then there’s the fact that evidence points to Elizabeth not being entirely accepted by the Tailboys family. She was treated with hostility by her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth, Lady Tailboys, and there were even court cases between Elizabeth and the Tailboys family, showing, as Norton points out, that “the Tailboys family grouped together in an attempt to limit Elizabeth’s rights to the Tailboys estates”. They would certainly do that if they knew she wasn’t actually a Tailboys, wouldn’t they?
- Norton also points out that records show that the king stayed spent time in Essex in August and September 1519, the summer Elizabeth must have been conceived, and the properties he stayed in were between 6 and 13 miles away from Blackmore, where Bessie and her infant son were staying, an easy horse ride. It is not inconceivable that the king would have wanted to see his son and perhaps took the opportunity to sleep with Bessie.
- Finally, in the 17th century, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who had access to sources that are now no longer extant, wrote of the king’s relationship with Bessie, writing of Fitzroy: “the child, proving so equally like to both his parents, that he became the first emblem of their mutual affection”. Elizabeth Norton writes of how “first” could, of course, mean “foremost”, in that Fitzroy was the principal emblem of the couple’s love, but that “it is possible that ‘first’ should be given its more literal meaning and that Lord Herbert was aware of evidence that Henry Fitzroy was only the first child of his parents, implying that there were at least rumours of another.”
Elizabeth Norton concludes:
“Based on the evidence of Henry’s interest in Elizabeth Tailboys, the likely time that she was conceived and Henry’s presence in the area at that time, it seems highly probable that she was the king’s child. Her gender simply meant that she was of little significance to the king and he had no reason to acknowledge her as he did her elder brother, particularly following the bastardising of the daughters from his first and second marriages.”
Norton has clearly done extensive research on the Blount and Tailboys families, and I find her theory compelling, particularly the fact that Elizabeth Tailboys must have been conceived shortly after Fitzroy’s birth and very likely before Bessie’s marriage to Gilbert, and that her next child wasn’t born until 1522/1523. That alone, to me, points to the king being Elizabeth’s father.
Please do read Elizabeth Norton’s guest article on the subject, and I’d also highly recommend her biography of Bessie Blount, it’s an excellent read.
Here’s a link to Norton’s article:
https://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/was-elizabeth-tailboys-the-daughter-of-henry-viii-guest-post-by-elizabeth-norton/
