British Royals With Rumored Illegitimate Children

Today, it may seem as if members of the British royal family have no privacy at all. They may have a portfolio of castles, designer clothes, and other glamorous possessions, sure, but few other people are subject to the kind of intense public scrutiny that King Charles III and his family experience. Even the seemingly private matter of childbirth is up for public consumption here. Royal birth announcements can be written up in fancy type and placed on a stand right in front of waiting reporters, photographers, and other onlookers, while some new royal moms are expected to haul themselves out of bed and smile nicely for the press while cradling a newborn.

With all that hubbub, it may seem impossible for anything to get past the public, especially where babies are concerned. But that hasn't always been the case. Historically, kings, queens, and other British royals had the benefit of less media in their faces. Moreover, if you go far enough back in history, you'll find that it was practically expected of some rulers — who typically married for political and not romantic reasons — to have multiple mistresses and illegitimate children.

Considering this, it's no surprise that there are many rumors of concealed illegitimate children attached to members of Britain's royal family. Even modern rulers might have a surprise or two in their pasts, though many of these tales remain solidly in the realm of speculation.

Going by the numbers, the 12th-century English ruler Henry I could have the most illegitimate children of all British monarchs. According to historians, he had more than 20 acknowledged illegitimate children, who sometimes proved to be useful allies when given decent titles, strategic posts, and key marriages. He only ever produced one legitimate daughter, Empress Matilda, who tried and failed to claim the throne in the wake of her father's death.

However, medieval records being so unclear, it's not always obvious who was fathered by Henry I and with what consorts. Some have argued that the children of a Welsh princess named Nesta were fathered by the English king, though other sources point out that she likely had children by three other men (including her husband, a castle constable). This and other purported children could have been the result of wishful thinking, however, as some may have wanted there to be a more clear connection (and political alliance) between the king and other political figures in the realm.

In general, it appears that Henry I wasn't shy about hooking up with the wives, daughters, or other female relatives of his high-ranking subjects. Ultimately, he may have simply made a move on whoever was nearby and convenient, at least stepping up in multiple cases to make the resulting children nobles of various ranks. Still, given his pattern of behavior, it's reasonable to think that there were far more than 20 little Henrys toddling about the kingdom in his wake.

As the younger brother of kings Edward VIII and George VI, and uncle to Elizabeth II, Prince George, Duke of Kent was close to the highest echelons of royal power and a fixture of the British social circuit. He was also apparently quite scandalous, not only allegedly carrying on affairs with men and women, but purportedly acquiring and then kicking a drug habit. George also served in the Royal Navy, worked in the Foreign and Home Offices, and served in the Royal Air Force. It came to an abrupt end on August 25, 1942, when the 39-year-old George and 14 others died in an airplane crash.

The Duke's glamorous, sometimes sordid lifestyle generated many rumors, including at least two different stories of secret children. Some claimed that he was the father of American diplomat Michael Temple Canfield, whose alleged mother was American socialite Kiki Preston. Canfield married Lee Bouvier, sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, though their marriage was later annulled.

Perhaps even more colorful is the rumor that the Duke of Kent fathered a child with none other than romance novelist Dame Barbara Cartland. She reportedly claimed to have had an encounter with the 25-year-old Duke that produced her daughter, Raine. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking on Cartland's part, as her marriage to her first husband — the legally recognized father of Raine — ended poorly. Raine went on to become a socialite and, most notoriously, the stepmother of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Being the current monarch of the United Kingdom doesn't offer much protection from scandal, as King Charles III can tell you. Even as the Prince of Wales, a title that he held for more than 60 years, he faced all manner of ups and downs in the British press. For many, Charles has made it through the most dramatic period of life as a royal, including the public failure of his marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales. Besides being king, he's also been married to Camilla Parker Bowles since 2005 and made her Queen Consort upon his own accession. Yet, rumors still dog him. One man, Simon Charles Dorante-Day, claims that he is the secret love child of Charles and Camilla, conceived long before the two had settled into married life.

According to Dorante-Day, he is the product of a 1965 union between a teenage Charles and Camilla. As he told the Australian tabloid New Idea, his grandmother claimed that he was the pair's child. He states that Camilla is absent from the public record for enough time to have concealed a pregnancy and claims to remember meeting with a mysterious woman who looked like Camilla.

Too bad Dorante-Day hasn't produced any evidence to back up his claims, while the king isn't agreeing to a DNA test with someone who may just be a random pretender. Moreover, the timelines don't quite add up, as the royal pair don't appear to have started their relationship until the 1980s.

Like many medieval rulers, Richard III had multiple illegitimate children. His eldest known son, typically referred to as John of Gloucester, was made a captain and perhaps even knighted in September 1483, though it's difficult to pick the details out from a patchy historical record. However, John of Gloucester is specifically referred to in one instance as the king's "base son," while a later grant written in Richard's voice speaks of "our dear bastard son" (via the Richard III Society). Not long after, an illegitimate daughter, Katherine Plantagenet, pops up in documents, though it's not clear exactly how old she was at the time.

Though Richard III doesn't appear to have produced any more illegitimate children after his marriage to Anne Neville in 1472, there remains one more possible child that came into being before their union. Often referred to as Richard Plantagenet, or sometimes Richard of Eastwell, the only record that appears to refer to him is a simple line noting his 1550 burial in Eastwell. Some accounts claim that the line also includes a special mark denoting a noble, but that appears to be a story crafted in the 18th century. Other 1700s-era details include the legend that Richard III acknowledged his other illegitimate son just before his own doom at the Battle of Bosworth and that Richard Plantagenet lived out his life as a simple stonemason. However, fascinating as such a rumor may be, no one's found definitive proof of a long-lost son of Richard III.

Like so many other British kings, James II wasn't too worried about monogamy. He produced children with multiple mistresses, as usual. Meanwhile, his Catholic faith made enough people nervous that he was forced off the throne in favor of his legitimate Protestant daughter, Mary. With her Dutch husband, William, Mary co-ruled England from 1689 until her death in 1694.

The bevy of James' illegitimate children isn't terribly exciting, compared to other rulers. What is interesting, however, are the tales of one woman who was presented as another of the king's progeny after her death. That would be Jane Stuart, a Quaker woman who was supposedly born in Paris in 1654 while the future king was in exile from the anti-monarchist government of Oliver Cromwell. As the story goes, she was a lady in waiting to the queen, though she's missing from the record. The rest of her life reads like a soap opera, with a tragically killed lover, a period of poverty, and persecution for her newfound Quaker beliefs. It's said that she eventually became a simple laborer in the English countryside who couldn't help but leave some clues as to her origins, like the ability to read the Bible in Greek.

Cool story, but the details don't quite line up. James II acknowledged his other illegitimate children, so why not Jane? It's also telling that her story doesn't have much substantiation in records but instead has moved through history in the form of whispered rumors.

Historian A.N. Wilson admitted that his theory of an illegitimate Queen Victoria could be wrong in part because he spotted a resemblance between Victoria and George III. But could George, who infamously saw the loss of valuable overseas colonies in the American Revolution and suffered from debilitating bouts of mental instability, have secret children of his own? So said Father Robert Carroon, an archivist who, in 1993, confidently told The New York Times that George III had four children with a mistress named Hannah Lightfoot. Carroon even claimed to have met a probable descendant who held an uncanny resemblance to the long-dead king.

But a closer look at the story of Hannah Lightfoot casts doubt on the whole notion. Genealogist Anthony J. Camp notes that Hannah Lightfoot appears to have been a real Quaker woman and there were contemporary rumors of a mysterious "Fair Quaker" in the king's company. One woman, Lavinia Ryves, even claimed that the king had married Lightfoot years earlier and so invalidated his marriage to Queen Charlotte. That made their 15 children illegitimate and left the throne open to the true heir — conveniently, Lavinia herself.

However, there's no real evidence connecting Lightfoot and George III. It doesn't help that, at the time he would have supposedly met her, George was a notoriously shy young man who lived in the shadow of his powerful, bickering family. Moreover, Lavinia and her mother, Olive Serres, presented more compelling evidence that they were con artists than long-lost relatives.

As much as Queen Victoria may have wanted to uphold an image as a loving mother and doting wife, the reality is that her family had quite a few scandalous members. There was the heir, who earned the nicknames of the Playboy Prince and Dirty Bertie before he became Edward VII. And it would be hard to forget Victoria's predecessor and uncle, William IV, who conceived 10 children with a mistress but produced no living heirs with his royal wife.

Victoria probably also lost sleep over her daughter Louise, who grew up to be a popular princess. That wasn't so bad, but the rumors that she had secretly carried an illegitimate child likely didn't ease her oftentimes conservative mother's mind. Supposedly, the princess conceived a child in the 1860s with her brother Leopold's tutor, a man named Walter Stirling. As historian Lucinda Hawksley told Today (via The Independent), Stirling lasted a mere four months with the royal family but was given a regular payout even after he was fired. 

Around the same time, a boy named Henry was born and swiftly adopted into the family of someone very close to the Queen — royal gynecologist Sir Charles Locock. Henry's descendants claim a physical resemblance to Victoria's family, but DNA tests haven't happened yet to provide clear evidence either way. And, as Hawksley told the CBC, Louise's documents in the Royal Archives are closed, hinting that there may be something in there that could illuminate the rumors.