23. Bessie Blount was Henry VIII’s first known mistress — and the mother of his son.
Bessie Blount was Henry VIII’s first documented mistress. Their affair was inconsequential in itself. But, before Jane Seymour, Bessie was the only woman to bear the King, a living son. Bessie arrived at court when she was a teenager in 1515 and caught Henry’s eye. How soon after their affair began cannot be said with certainty. But by 1518, she was pregnant. Bessie was taken from the court by Thomas Wolsey and gave birth in an Augustan priory to Henry Fitzroy, the King’s only acknowledged, illegitimate child. Henry fully acknowledged the child, making him Duke of Somerset and Richmond. As for Bessie, she was quietly moved on and was married to Gilbert Tailboys in 1522.
