by Roger Powell
ROYAL
BASTARDS
About the Authors
Peter Beauclerk-Dewar is a direct decendent of the bastard offspring of Charles II and Nell Gwyn. He is a heraldic consultant to Christies, has previously been an editor for Burke’s Peerage & Gentry, and is a fellow of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. He also a JP and a trustee of the Institute of Heraldic & Genealogical Studies at the University of Kent. He lives in London.
Roger Powell has been a professional genealogist for over 40 years. He was until his recent retirement a senior editor at Burke’s Peerage and Gentry and Director of Debretts Ancestory Research. He was also a research assistant at the Royal College of Heralds. He is also related to the Duke of Monmouth, another bastard son of Charles II. He lives in Northamptonshire.
ROYAL
BASTARDS
Illegitimate childern of the British Family
PETER BEAUCLERK-DEWAR
& ROGER POWELL
This edition first published 2008
The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port
Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG
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This ebook edition first published in 2012
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© Peter Beauclerk-Dewar and Roger Powell, 2006, 2008, 2012
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Contents
Foreword by HRH The Duke of Gloucester, KG, GCVO
Introduction by Peter Beauclerk-Dewar
Section I: Tudor Bastards (1485–1603)
I
The Bastards of Edward IV (1442–83)
II
The Bastards of Richard III (1452–85)
III
The Bastards of Henry VIII (1491–1547)
Section II: Stuart Bastards (1603–1714)
IV
The Bastards of Charles II (1630–1685)
V
The Bastards of James II (1633–1701)
VI
The Bastards of Charles Stuart (1720–88)
Section III: Hanoverian Bastards (1714–1901)
VII
The Bastards of George I (1660–1727)
VIII
The Bastards of George II (1683–1760)
IX
The Bastards of Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of King George II (1707–51)
X
The Bastards of George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV (1762–1830)
XI
The Bastards of William, Duke of Clarence, later King William IV (1765–1837)
Section IV: Royal Loose Ends
XII
Tudor Loose Ends
XIII
Stuart Loose Ends
XIV
Hanoverian Loose Ends
XV
Victorian Loose Ends
XVI
Windsor Loose Ends
Epilogue
Appendix I: Bastardy
Appendix II: The Arms Of Royal Bastards
Bibliography
Foreword
By HRH The Duke of Gloucester, KG, GCVO
Monarchy is by definition a family affair. The principle of heredity prevents conflict in the selection process. Illegitimacy confuses this event and causes uncertainty as occurred in the case of Edward V disqualified by his uncle Richard III.
Monarchs and their families are governed by the same laws of physics and biology as everyone else, but what sets them apart is the notice taken of what they do and what they might do next.
This intense and prolonged scrutiny can be clouded by the human desire to be ‘in the know’ and not to be thought unaware of what is happening. For this reason royal gossip and speculation has always been magnified compared to other gossip. In the distant past bastard children were acknowledged and promoted as an extension of royal power. Queen Victoria, influenced by Prince Albert was determined to change this attitude, leading, some would say, to a more hypocritical age.
It is easy to disapprove of the reckless way that Charles II shamed his barren wife by producing so many illegitimate children by so many different mothers. However it is difficult to regret it if you discover, as I did, that you are descended from several of them!
It was George III, who against all advice, insisted on the passing of the Royal Marriage Act, to give him greater control of his dynasty, and its potential for marriages of foreign policy advantage. He created the successions crisis of 1817, when Princess Charlotte died and in spite of having 14 children there was no eligible grand child to take the throne, for all his male children had chosen brides for themselves and married morganatically. The Duke of Kent rose to the challenge and produced Queen Victoria in time to solve the problem.
Bastard has come to be a term of abuse, as if anyone, who suffered the uncertainties of illegitimacy, was bound to have warped their morals and behaviour.
Peter Beauclerk-Dewar and Roger S. Powell have covered five centuries of alleged bastards, including those acknowledged by the father, as well as those merely speculated, and tried to examine the claims and counter claims dispassionately. Some were ignored by their putative fathers, others supported openly or discretely. If all of them were touched by a sense of importance and destiny, I would like to believe it would encourage them to feel that they should contribute to the nation’s good rather than claim its benefits for themselves.
Introduction To First Edition
The word bastard, described by the Oxford Dictionary as ‘one begotten and born out of wedlock’, is no longer fashionable, now that nearly fifty per cent of all children in this country are born outside marriage. Moreover, it is claimed that the true fathers of many supposedly legitimate children are not in fact so, even though it has always probably been thus, for it is said that it is indeed a wise man who knows his own father. However, the advent of DNA has certainly injected rather more certainty into identifying paternity with all the embarrassments that this might cause.
As part of the research for this book, we have been able to identify the genetic ‘y’ chromosome of the Stuart Kings which is, of course, unique to the male line.
We have been able to do this by identifying the same ‘y’ chromosome in the DNA samples provided by four quite separate lines of male descendants of Stuart kings. This will now provide a benchmark against which other claimants can be measured, for all male line descendants of Stuart kings should all have this unique ‘y’ chromosome. But what it does do is to scotch, once and for all, the assertion that Colonel Robert Sidney was the father of the Duke of Monmouth, rather than King Charles II, as some had claimed.
Until recently, Burke’s Peerage & Baronetage and Burke’s Landed Gentry always drew a veil over illegitimacy and it is only in recent years that natural children have been included, other than, of course, those Royal Bastards who were ennobled and thus qualified for inclusion on those grounds.
Nevertheless the stigma attached to bastardy has always seemed rather unfair whereby the child is blamed for the sins of its parents. Yet in p
revious generations the stigma was all too real and the accident of birth could have far reaching effects upon the child as the laws of inheritance and succession to titles, names, estates and arms often precluded bastards. Yet conversely in the case of Royal Bastards, they were often given special titles, privileges and positions and the possibility of really lucrative marriage contracts, as we shall see.
It is amusing to find that, even today, the Royal Archives Security scanning system rejected our e-mail attachment of this text ‘because it violates our acceptable use policy on profanity’ following inclusion of the word ‘bastard’ in the title of the book.
Cecil Humphery Smith, the Principal and Founder of the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies in Canterbury, considers attitudes towards bastards in his thought-provoking article (see page 259). In 1979 he published a number of articles in The Coat of Arms entitled ‘The armorial bearings of the illegitimate issue of the Kings of England’ and he has now consolidated and expanded these thoughts into an article (see page 270). Indeed, we acknowledge his contribution towards the heraldry contained in this volume.
Moreover, in keeping with changing public attitudes, the law relating to illegitimacy has also changed over the years, and from 1926 in England, those parents who subsequently marry, thereby legitimate any children they may have had beforehand, provided that they had been free to marry at the time of their child’s birth. Under the European Human Rights Convention, bastards now enjoy most of the same rights as those children born in wedlock, except in the cases of succession to titles and arms. Indeed the present government has recently enacted leglisation whereby live-in couples and same sex couples will receive most of the same rights as their married counterparts and any illegitimate children involved will be treated the same as their legitimate counterparts. However, this will not affect the laws of arms and titles.
Whilst most of the royal bastards mentioned in this book may well have been conceived in love or lust, the king who was most prolific in fathering bastards was King Henry I, known as King Henry Beauclerk (1070–1135). He realised that by utilising a bevy of mistresses, he would be able to produce twenty or more royal bastards, as he did, who could then be married off to the leading families in Europe, thus promoting and strengthening his foreign policy. So because his wife could only provide one baby per nine months at best, he néeded to resort to outsourcing!
We start this volume with Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle (1462/4–1542), (see page 18), the son of King Edward IV, but we have not attempted to include earlier Royal Bastards because these have already been covered in The Royal Bastards of Medieval England 1066–1486 by Chris Given Wilson & Alice Curteis and elsewhere.
For many years, Roger Powell, a Deputy Editor of Burke’s Peerage and of Burke’s Landed Gentry of Scotland, has undertaken new research into the various Stuart bastards and as a result has cast new light upon conventional wisdom by disposing of a number of myths. He has also assisted in identifying and assembling many of the illustrations in this book, which has helped to bring this motley collection to life. It is intriguing to see how many of the subjects share that distinct Stuart resemblance. As we have both had many years involvement with Burke’s publications, we are delighted that Burke’s Peerage & Gentry are the publishers of this work and we thank Dr. Gordon Prestoungrange, Baron of Prestoungrange, for having made it possible and John Unwin for its design.
Of these definite Royal Bastards under review over five centuries, a total of forty-four in number, fifteen were sired by Charles II (by seven mothers) and six were by his brother James II (from two mothers), both of whose DNA ‘y’ chromosome has now been established. Moreover William IV (as Duke of Clarence) also had eleven bastards, ten being out of Mrs Jordan. The sheer variety of these forty-four official Royal Bastards, about whose origins there would seem to be little doubt, is impressive. Twenty-three of them are men whereas twenty-one are women. Many of them served in the army, some with much distinction, and a few served in the Royal Navy, whereas others joined the Church as clerics or nuns. In terms of age, the eldest died at the age of 89, whereas the youngest died at a few months, and the average lifespan was forty-five years. Of these many families, there would now seem to be only the four ducal families of Buccleuch, Grafton, St Albans and Richmond that are still represented today in the male line.
Of these forty-four Royal Bastards, ten became Dukes, two became Earls, one a viscount, several became Barons, nine were given the precedence of children of a Marquess and eight were appointed Knights of the Garter. Ten daughters made prestigious marriages with peers, but ten received little or nothing atall. Most were married and together they produced hoards of children which will ensure that there continues to be many thousands of descendants of Royal Bastards. In the St Albans family alone (see page 75), it is claimed that there are some two thousand living descendants of King Charles II and Nell Gwyn which range from dukes to dustmen (and of which both Samantha Cameron, (wife of David, the leader of the Conservative Party) and I are two) and this is probably true of many other families of Royal Bastards too.
Over the centuries, most kings have had one or more mistresses (see page 254) and many begat children by them, most of whom, at least until Queen Victoria’s accession in 1837, were officially recognised. This has extended up to and including the twentieth century, although the details of any illegitimate progeny that Kings Edward VII and VIII are alleged to have had, are still largely shrouded in secrecy and gossip, never having been officially recognised. However, in the final section Royal Loose Ends (see page 167) we examine some of the fables about the alleged progeny of more recent monarchs, numbering twenty-two. But here we have also been able to lay to rest, once and for all, a number of tantalising ghosts and ‘might-have-beens’.
Of course, it has long been suggested that a number of the children born to those Royal mistresses had had Royal fathers, even though officially their fathers were recorded as the husbands of the mistresses concerned, and certainly there have been many precedents for this over the centuries. All the Royal Bastards included in this book in Sections 1 to 3 have either been officially recognised by their Royal fathers or were incontrovertibly theirs. This work draws from much new research and is therefore the most comprehensive book upon the subject ever written.
Although we have also drawn heavily on a number of published reference works such as the Dictionary of National Biography and The Complete Peerage, we have also consulted many biographies and unpublished papers, including the surviving papers of the Benedictine Congregation in France and the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, all of which are listed in the comprehensive Bibliography.
In the aftermath of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, we are taking a sympathetic look at these forty-four Royal Bastards, all of whom are the illegitimate offspring of English monarchs or their heirs apparent. Some have distinguished themselves whereas others have contributed little. Among their descendants are their Royal Highnesses Princes William and Harry who have five illegitimate Stuart descents through their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, – three from Charles II (two through the Richmonds (see page 88), one through the Graftons (see page 60) and one from James II by Arabella Churchill. Moreover, through the late HRH Princess Alice, her son the Duke of Gloucester and his children all descend from Charles II through Lucy Walter and the Buccleuchs (see page 36), as does Sarah Duchess of York and her two daughters, TRH Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York, who have five quite separate illegitimate Stuart descents. Camilla Parker Bowles, now HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, also boasts a Stuart descent from Louise de Keroualle and Charles II. Thus much Stuart blood has already been introduced into the House of Windsor.
Of course, it is worth considering that had Lucy Walter married King Charles II, as many claimed she did, then the course of British history would have been very different, and the present King would be the present Duke of Buccleuch. However, we do not believe that this is regarded as a live issue by any of those involved, and in any ca
se whatever proof there is alleged to have been is said to have been destroyed several generations ago. But at least we do now know for certain that the Dukes of Buccleuch do descend paternally from King Charles II, as most of us had always thought.
Even in a short work such as this, there are many people to thank. Firstly we are deeply grateful to Her Majesty The Queen for her gracious permission to carry out researches in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle and for the use of both written and visual material relating largely to the FitzClarences. We also thank Miss Pamela Clark, the Registrar and Miss Allison Derrett, Assistant Registrar, for all their help and we are also most grateful to HRH The Duke of Gloucester for agreeing to write the Foreword (see page 7).
As with many things, good ideas often grow from very small beginnings and I am also grateful to Peter Pininski for his contribution about Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of Albany; to Thomas Woodcock, Norroy & Ulster King of Arms; Elizabeth Roads, Carrick Pursuivant of Arms and Lyon Clerk at the Court of the Lord Lyon, King of Arms; and to all our correspondants, including The Duke of Richmond and Gordon (with four dukedoms to his name), The Duke of St Albans and his heir Charles Beauclerk (Earl of Burford), Earl of Dalkeith (now Duke of Buccleuch with two dukedoms to his name), Earl of Euston (heir to the Duke of Grafton), Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, the late Stephen Dobson, Gordon Fergusson, Robert Innes-Smith, Mrs. Carol Mitchell, Tim Seely, Major Bruce Shand and Mrs. Michael Worthington and many others besides. We thank them all for their help and encouragement in turning this idea into reality, for it is certainly a colourful footnote to mainstream history.