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The list of the 14 illegitimate children of King Charles II, per Wikipedia:
By Lucy Walter (c. 1630 – 1658), a Welsh noblewoman:
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James Crofts, later Scott (1649–1685), created Duke of Monmouth (1663) in England and Duke of Buccleuch (1663) in Scotland. Monmouth was born nine months after Walter and Charles II first met, and was acknowledged as his son by Charles II, but James II suggested that he was the son of another of her lovers, Colonel Robert Sidney, rather than Charles. (Also see: "The Monmouth Rebellion", in which James tried to seize the throne by force after the death of King Charles II on February 6, 1685.) Lucy Walter had a daughter, Mary Crofts, born after James in 1651, but Charles II was not the father, since he and Walter parted in September 1649.
By Elizabeth Killigrew (1622–1680), daughter of Sir Robert Killigrew, who married Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon, in 1660:
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Charlotte Jemima Henrietta Maria FitzRoy (1650–1684), married firstly James Howard, and secondly William Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth
By Catherine Pegge, daughter of Thomas Pegge, a Royalist soldier, and his wife, Catherine Kniveton, daughter of Sir Gilbert Kniveton, Baronet:
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Charles FitzCharles (1657–1680), known as "Don Carlo", created Earl of Plymouth (1675)
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Catherine FitzCharles (born 1658; she either died young or became a nun at Dunkirk)
By Barbara Villiers (1641–1709), the only child of William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison, and wife of Roger Palmer, 1st Earl of Castlemaine, created Duchess of Cleveland in her own right:
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Lady Anne Palmer (Fitzroy) (1661–1722), married Thomas Lennard, 1st Earl of Sussex. She may have been the daughter of Roger Palmer, but Charles accepted her.
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Charles Fitzroy (1662–1730), created Duke of Southampton (1675) and became 2nd Duke of Cleveland (1709)
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Henry Fitzroy (1663–1690), created Earl of Euston (1672) and Duke of Grafton (1675)
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Charlotte Fitzroy (1664–1717), married Edward Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield
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George Fitzroy (1665–1716), created Earl of Northumberland (1674), and then elevated to Duke of Northumberland (1678)
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(Barbara (Benedicta) Fitzroy (1672–1737) – She was probably the child of John Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough, who was another of Cleveland's many lovers, and was never acknowledged by Charles as his own daughter.)
By Nell Gwyn (1650–1687), an actress:
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Charles Beauclerk (1670–1726), created Earl of Burford (1676) and Duke of St. Albans (1684)
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James Beauclerk, Lord Burford (1671–1680), died young of unknown causes, possibly infection
By Louise Renée de Penancoet de Kérouaille (1649–1734), daughter of Guillaume de Penancoët, Seigneur de Kéroualle (d. 1690), created Duchess of Portsmouth in her own right (1673):
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Charles Lennox (1672–1723), created Duke of Richmond (1675) in England and Duke of Lennox (1675) in Scotland
By Mary 'Moll' Davis, courtesan and actress of repute:
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Lady Mary Tudor (1673–1726), married Edward Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Derwentwater; after Edward's death, she married Henry Graham (of Levens), and upon his death she married James Rooke.
Other probable mistresses of King Charles II include:
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Christabella Wyndham, daughter of Hugh Pyne of Cathanger, a Somerset landowner, barrister and Puritan; and wife of Edmund Wyndham, a Royalist career soldier and Member of Parliament. Christabella served as Charles II's wet nurse from his birth, and later became Charles's first mistress when the prince was 14. By 18, Prince Charles had "at least 17 different lovers".
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Hortense Mancini, daughter of Baron Lorenzo Mancini, an Italian aristocrat. Charles II proposed to Hortense in 1659, but his offer was rejected by Hortense's uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, who believed the exiled king to have little in the way of prospects. Charles later became King, but refused a re-offer of marriage to Lady Mancini. On 1 March 1661, 14-year-old Hortense was married to one of the richest men in Europe, Armand Charles de La Porte de La Meilleraye, and the two were created Duke and Duchess of Mazarin in the peerage of France by King Louis XIV.
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Winifred Wells – one of Queen Catherine's Maids of Honour
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Jane Roberts – the daughter of a clergyman
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Mrs. Knight – a famous singer
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Elizabeth Berkeley, née Bagot, Dowager Countess of Falmouth – the widow of Charles Berkeley, 1st Earl of Falmouth
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Elizabeth Jones, Lady Ranelagh (???–1758), daughter of Richard Jones, 1st Earl of Ranelagh; she married John Fitzgerald, 18th Earl of Kildare, in 1684, after her rumored liaison with Charles II. She then became known as "Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Countess of Kildare".
Letters claiming that Marguerite or Margaret de Carteret bore Charles a son named James de la Cloche in 1646 are dismissed by historians as forgeries.
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This is a good question! There were actually rumors through much of Charles's reign that the Duke of Monmouth was going to be legitimized and made his heir. Monmouth was an attractive prospect for it due to his age, his good looks, his noble titles, and his intimacy with his father - he was also a Protestant, which was hugely important to the Anglican community, as the proper heir presumptive was James, Duke of York, who was widely suspected/known to be Catholic. Whenever it was implied that something was going on in the royal family dynamics - when he supported the divorce of John and Anne Manners, Earl and Countess of Rutland, which seemed like it could be a precedent for his own divorce; when the Duke of York married the Italian Catholic Mary of Modena; when Parliament tried to force Charles to exclude his brother from the line of succession - the rumors flared up again. And Monmouth was pretty convinced of them himself. At one point, he made an appearance in Liverpool where he actually made a show of touching people with scrofula, the disease which was supposedly cured by the king's touch, and the persistent rumor that his mother had married Charles and so he was the legitimate heir already was one he supported. All of this resulted in the Monmouth Rebellion a few months after Charles's death, as Monmouth attempted to take the throne he believed ought to have been his.
But Charles never supported Monmouth's ambitions. He always maintained that he would stay married to Catherine of Braganza even though she was evidently not going to have a child, and that the Duke of York would be his successor. So. Why?
Something that's difficult for us to compute today is the idea of there being anything mystical about kingship. We have so, so many stories where being king is solely about wielding the ultimate power in the land, and where it can be stolen or given away solely on the basis of force, and most people today are naturally cynical of idea of spirituality/divinity having any real place in determining a country's leader. The popular, othering impression of historical monarchies also tends to be that passing the throne to a ~*~son and heir~*~ was more important than anything else. However, in both cases, the popular thought is wrong.
The importance of bloodline to royalty cannot be overstated. Royalty typically married royalty, or at least the quasi-royalty of the sovereign dukes of places like Savoy and Parma (like Mary of Modena). It was not typical but they did sometimes stoop to marry their own noble subjects, and almost never members of the gentry (like Anne Hyde, the Duke of York's first wife). I've described European royalty in past answers as very nearly their own ethnic group, because there was almost no marriage in or out, although they did tend to marry widely within the class in general, despite stereotypes. This helped keep them separate from their subjects - unreachable, except through servitude and/or illicit sexual relationships. Legitimizing a son who'd been birthed and partially raised by a very low-born woman could seem like a fairy tale or a case of the royal blood "winning out", as it likely did to Monmouth and his supporters, but it could also seem like defiling and degrading the very concept of kingship. Charles had most likely been traumatized by the execution of his father on the orders of Parliament and his own impoverished exile, so he was not likely to take any actions that could lead anyone to think that a king could be just some guy.
I've also written a few times about father -> son inheritance of kingship. The fact is that it was often an enormous propaganda boost, a sign that god blessed your reign by ensuring that it passed directly to your son, but it was by no means the be all, end all. It was perfectly acceptable for the king's brother or nephew to inherit his throne, if he didn't have any children. It was not a crisis for Charles to be succeeded by his brother rather than his son. There was absolutely no need to legitimize Monmouth or any other children of his, when he had a brother and two nieces.
(For more on Charles II, I strongly recommend Royal Survivor: The Life of Charles II by Stephen Coote. It's been some time since I read it all the way through, but I think it's a good look at him.)
Wow this is a amazing write up I really like how it add some nice context to European history I didn't fully understand. Thanks !
Also how did monogratic marriages (like the son of the winter king ) work in that grand context?
Thank you for your insightful answer! Follow-up question: If Charles II's brother had died, would this mean that the Duke of Monmouth - who was executed in 1685 - would've had a better chance of being legitimized and made King? Or was Monmouth too ambitious in thinking he could ascend the throne and gain political support as an illegitimate son?
For reference, James II's heir - James, Prince of Wales - would not be born until 1688.
I'm aware that this might constitute a "what if" question, but I am mostly curious to know if Monmouth actually had any legal standing, or if he was trying to invent one specifically in order to be placed in the line of succession (i.e. rumors of his parents having married).
Ah, but James already had an heir! He had two daughters, Mary and Anne, who succeeded him - Mary as a subordinated co-ruler with William of Orange as Mary II and William III, and Anne as queen regnant on her own. If James had died while Charles was still alive, Mary would have simply been seen as the new heir presumptive. Baby James just knocked them down one step in the line of succession.
If all of James's family had died ... we can't know. It's possible that Parliament would have figured out a way to legitimize Monmouth, but it's also possible that they would have brought Charles's sister, Henrietta Anne, back from France, or (if this was after her death in 1670) one of her children.
Follow-up question, two months later: Did any of King Charles II's illegitimate children, sons especially - i.e. Monmouth's half-brothers and sisters - also support the Monmouth Rebellion? Or did they distance themselves from Monmouth's coup instead?
Can you point me to your past answers that describe the royalty as almost their own ethnic group? That's a fascinating thought, I'd love to read more on that idea.
I have to warn you that it's not a good answer! It's just a response to a question in the SASQ thread about whether there were any royalty who were "not a foreigner but actually spanish" ca. 1700.
Not OP but thank you for the great answer! In a weird way this ties into House of the Dragon lol
I remember reading a comment under a meme about Rhaenyra being an heir to the throne of Westeros and someone made the comparison that it a woman on the throne in England would have been as unprecedented and as unacceptable as legitimizing a bastard for the throne in England.
It would lead to all sorts of destabilizing and snowballing effects as bastards across the realm attempted to contest succession among their legitimate brothers. I didn’t know what to make of it but wished someone on r/askhistorians could verify it for me!
I don't think that's true at all, tbh. The situation with Rhaenyra is based on the actual situation with Matilda in 12th century England, which I discussed previously here - there's no record of anyone having a problem with Matilda being named her father's heir until after her cousin Stephen usurped the throne and needed to retroactively justify it. While she ultimately wasn't successful, trying to make an illegitimate son king would have been on another order of scandal entirely.
Oh wow so the optics would have been even worse is what you’re saying?
The optics of legitimizing an illegitimate son to inherit the throne would have been worse than naming a daughter as an heir (in high medieval England specifically, since by the early modern period it was unexceptional for a woman to become queen in her own right), yes.
Unless you happen to be William the Conqueror (also "William the Bastard").
Yes and no! Sara McDougall, in Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy 800-1230, describes William of Normandy and Tancred of Lecce specifically as having "successfully established themselves as kings" - they both seized power militarily because they were not accepted as heirs to the realms they eventually took. William invaded England while claiming that he had the right to inherit it because of his aunt, Emma of Normandy, second wife of Cnut; Tancred's predecessor, William II of Sicily, had had him swear fealty to his named heir, Constance, and he seized power in a coup after William died, not unlike the situation before the Anarchy in England. Neither of them was near to being named by the king as the king's heir and crowned after his death, although William was accepted unproblematically as his father's heir for his duchy. That actually highlights how unorthodox it would be for a king to say, "The son I had with the chambermaid is going to rule you after I'm gone, deal with it."
However, McDougall points out that the actual meaning of "bastardus" in the sources of the time are ambiguous. Basically her thesis is that in the period, a) the real issue with a royal bastard was typically the status of the mother as significantly beneath that of the father, often not even of noble birth, rather than the lack of a church marriage, and b) in many cases there may have actually been a marriage early in the father-king's life, before he became king, but because the wife was of too low a status once he became king he would remarry and any children from that first marriage were considered informally illegitimate and unable to inherit the throne. (As a result of this logic, McDougall does take the tack that William's illegitimacy didn't matter as much as his mother's lack of social status, but since kings had children who were called bastards with women of significantly lower rank and did not get the children they had with royal or top-of-the-line noble women called bastards in the main, it's largely an academic distinction rather than one that upends how we should understand the way they looked at the succession. In the case of Henry II and his daughter Matilda, the basis for the premise of House of the Dragon, she was his only remaining legitimate child and therefore also his offspring with the most impressively bloodlined woman; she was born after he became king and married the way a princess would, in comparison to his earlier children.) Which is all a far cry from the early modern situation where Monmouth believed that if he could prove a real marriage between Charles II and his very low-status mother, he would be the legitimate heir to the throne!
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