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To cut right to the point, the only reason why this next mistress is an alleged mistress and not a confirmed one is through her son. To give you some context, our next mistress is Jane Pollard and her claim to fame as one of Henry’s alleged mistresses is through her son Thomas Stukeley who was another claimant to being Henry VIII’s son from this period although, as history has already told us, Henry’s only acknowledged illegitimate child was with Bessie Blount; Henry Fitzroy.
Now, before we go into the specifics of why Thomas Stukeley’s claim to being Henry VIII’s illegitimate son by his mother was a strong one, we will dive a little deeper into his mother, Jane Pollard whose son’s claims to being the King’s son ultimately meant that she was claiming to be one of the King’s dozen mistresses during his twenty-four years of marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
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Jane (or Joan) Pollard was born circa.1500 in Devon as the second daughter to Sir Lewis Pollard, a Judge of the Common Pleas—a judge responsible to taking care of pleas that were a common reoccurrence in the eyes of the Law—and his wife Anne/Agnes Hext (a woman who appears to not come from the higher parts of society as she has no title nor does her parents), suggesting that Jane’s parents married for love, something rare in the Tudor era.
Nothing else is known about Jane’s life before her son made the claim of being one of the King’s many bastards other than her marriage to Sir Hugh Stukeley in 1520 (also from Devon) who was a knight of the body to the King and also a man four years her senior. Their marriage produced possibly twelve children in total over their thirty-year marriage including Elizabeth, Anne, Mary, Agnes, Audrey, Katherine, Lewis, George, Thomas, Hugh, Amias and Nicholas. And it was Jane’s third son, Thomas, who would raise suspicion about the legitimacy of her other children in future years.
So now, let us get into the details of Thomas’ claim.
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Thomas Stukeley was born between the years of 1520 and 1530 as his mother’s multiple births makes it difficult for historians to pinpoint an accurate year of birth but I believe it would lean more towards the late 1520s considering he was her third son and probably her fourth or fifth child.
His birth nor his childhood was the reason behind his claim to being Henry’s illegitimate child nor did Jane herself make any indication of this. In fact, it was Thomas’ bold statement of it later in life that made people begin to question whether he was Henry’s son, and this is quite a lot of things that happened in Thomas’ life that could hint towards his royal parentage.
The first thing was his lively, exciting CV for someone who appears to have not been a member of the higher classes of society. In 1547, towards the end of Henry VIII’s reign, Thomas was made a standard bearer to the King, quite a good accomplishment for someone who was trying to make a name for himself. But it was only after Henry VIII’s death and the succession of his only legitimate male heir—Prince Edward, now King Edward VI—to the throne that Thomas began to show that he was a little bit of a cheeky one and a bad boy at the very most and this showed through his change in career path.
No accurate timeline can be produced but it is believed that no long after Henry’s death that Thomas entered into his career path as a double agent, fraudster (or forger), and pirate. Quite an exciting career change, no?
Almost seems like every little boy’s adventurous dream to become a pirate like all the villains in fairy tales.
No, quite the opposite as the facts shows that being a pirate and a double agent in these times was one of the easiest ways to both damage your reputation and get you arrested with the death warrant pending. But Thomas, as it appears, seemed to use his claims of being Henry VIII’s son to his advantage as records show that all three of Henry’s children and future rulers a.k.a. Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I did not prosecute Thomas despite there being heavy amounts of evidence pointing against him. This leads to the question of whether all three monarchs of England might have had conclusive proof that Thomas was the bastard son of their father.
And to top it off, Thomas was seen as the spitting image of Henry, raising eyebrows more and confirming, in his mind, that Thomas was the bastard son of England’s former tyrant King.
Meaning that, at some point during her marriage to Sir Hugh Stukeley and his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the King took Jane Pollard as his mistress without anyone noticing and passed off her illegitimate son with the King as her husband’s. At least Henry had learned from his earlier mistake with Bessie Blount, right?
. . .
Nonetheless, regardless of all this ‘evidence’, I am still not yet convinced that Henry fathered an illegitimate child with Jane Pollard or that she ever had a romantic interaction with the King as it seems very unlikely if Thomas’ birth is considered to be from 1523 onwards since he would have been introduced to Anne Boleyn at this time.
But who knows with a King whose lust for women was stronger than anything and his secret affairs and bastard children are still being discovered and investigated to this very day?
All I can say is that Thomas’ use of his illegitimacy claim worked in his favor as it most certainly seemed to save him from being arrested and possibly being executed in the eyes of the law. It just shows how a claim, however unfounded, can be taken seriously by not only the royal court but by a monarch themselves.
Hmm… who’s next?
Find out next week but until then…
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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