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It seems like the notion of producing and giving birth to an illegitimate child to the King was becoming a trend in the early 1520s as, alike Bessie Blount and Jane Pollard, Henry’s next mistress might have decided to take a page out of their book and produce a bastard son with the handsome, womanizing King Henry VIII.
You would think that women would refrain from getting pregnant or take extreme measures to ensure that this was not a possibility considering the fact that the whole of England would have known how devastating the birth of Henry Fitzroy was for poor Queen Catherine of Aragon and how cautious she was becoming of women who were becoming close to her royal husband but no.
I mean, for married women, I suppose they had it easier because, especially if they were sleeping with her husband at the same time as they were sleeping with the King, it might have proved more difficult for them to determine which of the two men they were sexually intimate with was the father of their child. And, in any case, they could always pass the child off as their husband’s, something that Henry liked about taking married women as his mistresses because there was no possibility of a scandal like he had experienced with Bessie Blount.
Of course, he still loved his bastard son, regardless of the scandal his birth had caused but he was not going to take that chance again by recognizing anymore of his bastard children, no matter who their mother was or how much affection was held between the King and his mistress.
Meaning that this next mistress, Agnes Blewitt, might have been dealt the same cards as Jane Pollard as her son, who is believed to be the illegitimate son of Henry VIII, was never officially recognised by the King.
But was she actually his mistress or is this just another silly rumor spread by the court or by the lower classes of Tudor society to try and poke fun at the King’s unquenchable lust for seducing women into his bed?
Let us examine the ‘evidence’ put before us, shall we?
. . .
Unlike the other alleged mistresses of Henry VIII, Agnes Beaupenny Blewitt Edwardes was not a lady born into a well-known family of the higher classes of society nor was she a courtier. In fact, Agnes Blewitt, born circa.1509 which made her at least eighteen-years his junior, was born in Somerset to most likely low-standing parents, perhaps civil servants or just plain peasants, which meant that she was very much Henry’s social inferior.
Though this does not mean that the idea of Henry taking her as a mistress is completely out of the question because Henry might have had brief affairs with low-born women—excuse the bluntness but a good-looking woman is a good-looking woman in the eyes of the King who might have held the King’s attentions long enough for a casual fling and to perhaps conceive a child. I mean, he did pick low-born men for his ministers, so anything is possible, I guess?
Also, she probably wouldn’t have demanded much for ‘payment’ in return for sleeping with the King considering the fact that the court wouldn’t have believed a low-standing woman’s claim that she had slept with the King because it wouldn’t have been taken seriously because in their minds, the King would have preferred high standing women who had the social skills as well as the ability to entertain the King at court through things like dancing or singing—but the fact still remains that Agnes living so far from court at the time she was believed to have been his mistress, having living in Somerset with her husband William Thomas Edwardes, also a man many years her senior as he was born in 1500 meaning that he would have been at least nine years her senior, meant that she was too far out of reach for the King to be able to visit for the purpose of sexual intimacy. And, with her not being a high-standing woman with no reason to visit the court, it is unlikely that she would have had the opportunity to meet the King.
Of course, we could be wrong, and she might have been brought to the court to perhaps visit a friend of high-standing or her husband visited the King for some unknown purpose. We simply do not know.
The possibilities are endless, but the evidence points against the claim that she was the King’s mistress.
. . .
Nonetheless, the claim that her son, Reverend Richard Edwardes, was the illegitimate son of Henry VIII still remains a matter of debate for historians across the country as the reasons for and against the validity of the claim still divide historians even to this day.
But most historians believe that the ‘evidence’ put forth by history do not support the ‘proven’ validity of the claim that Edwardes was Henry’s unrecognized bastard son.
Even historical author, Kelly Hart, remains unconvinced that Edwardes was one of Henry’s many well-hidden and unrecognized by their ‘father’ illegitimate children as she explores in detail in her book ‘The Mistresses of Henry VIII’:
“There are also suggestions that Richards Edwardes was Henry’s son. The evidence rests on him receiving an Oxford education that his family could not have afforded. There are many possible explanations for this: he could have had a benefactor, a scholarship, or perhaps his mother was the mistress of a rich man. Richard or his family may have impressed someone influential. Perhaps it was his father who paid – but there were many men who could have afforded to pay this and there is no reason to assume that it was Henry VIII. Richard Edwardes has many descendants who believe he was Henry’s son. This rumor seems to have originated from the Edwardes family themselves and not from contemporary source. Much of our (more dubious) information comes from family histories.
Edwardes was a poet, musician and composer who spent some time at Elizabeth’s court. He married Helene Griffith, which does not seem to have been an advantageous marriage. They had one son, William, who continued the Edwardes line by having sixteen children. Richard Edwardes died in 1566, three years after his marriage, and there is no evidence that links him to Henry VIII during their lifetime. Nevertheless, the rumours persist.” {1}.
As you can see, Kelly Hart definitely did not believe that Edwardes was Henry’s bastard son, alike other historians and authors alike, but there is one puzzling piece of information that leads me to believe that something might have been happening between Agnes and the royal family; Agnes was said to have been permitted to display the royal Tudor rose on her coat of arms.
Hmm, not something you hear about every day, is it?
A low-standing woman being officially allowed to have displayed the royal Tudor rose in her own coat of arms?
I have never heard anything like it, and this is what leads me to believe that, even if Agnes had not been Henry’s mistress and her son was actually fathered by her husband, something must have been going on behind closed doors for her to have been allowed to do this.
I cannot imagine the royal family having allowed basically a peasant woman to do this without her having some ties to the royal family or a secret that was being used against the royal family’s will.
This is a puzzling piece of information and I doubt we will ever know the meaning behind it, but even if the claim of her producing a royal bastard child, Edwardes himself never made any comment or claim of his own in relation to this, certainly meaning that it might have just been a rumour.
Oh well, at least she got some fame, I guess?
Who’s next?
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
References:
1. Kelly Hart (2015). The Mistresses of Henry VIII, pp. 77-78.
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