Elizabeth ("Bessie") Blount was the first in a series of lovers of the King of England Henry VIII. More beautiful than Anne Boleyn – so wrote John Barlow, Archdeacon of Worcester – or than any of the other wives and mistresses of the sovereign, the girl had charm, kindness, joie de vivre. As maid of honour to Queen Catherine of Aragon, she soon caught the eye of the king, and their relationship was the only one officially recognized, and was the longer lasting.
Born in around 1500 at Kinlet in Shropshire, Elizabeth Blount was the daughter of Sir John Blount, a minor yet loyal servant of the monarch, and of Katherine Peshall Blount. The role of “maid of honour” was highly prized, bringing an income of 100 shillings (five pounds sterling) per year. The qualities required were beauty, grace, fine manners, the ability to play a musical instrument, sew, embroider, sing and dance in public. In addition to the remuneration the girls took part in the entertainments of the court, attended banquets and tournaments, and thus had opportunity to meet suitable marriage partners. Once married they would become ladies-in-waiting to the queen, with more demanding duties: besides providing company for the queen, they would also minister to her private needs, preparing her bath, her bed, helping her dress and take care of her personal toilet.
In that period masked balls were much in vogue at court and took place on various occasions such as a visit by a foreign dignitary, weddings, seasonal festivals. Balls were an opportunity for elegant costumes, poetry recitals, dances, songs, allegorical portrayals. Then the dances began. Bessie Blount participated for the first time in 1514, for the celebration of ‘Twelfth Night’ – the eve of Epiphany – and danced at length with King Henry. At that time he was twenty-three years old, she was fourteen, but such an age gap was not then considered improper for a relationship. Their liaison became known, when, in the July of that year, the sovereign made a gift of the exceptional sum of 146 pounds sterling to her father, Sir John.
And since Bessie was strikingly beautiful, danced in a captivating manner, had a lovely voice and was cheerful, amusing, generous and willing, the relationship became official and, in comparison with those which followed, long-lasting.
In June 1519, after secretly moving from the court to St. Lawrence Priory at Blackmore, in the pleasant countryside of Essex, Bessie gave birth to a lovely boy who was baptized Henry Fitzroy – fils du roi, son of the king. The king recognized him as his own and showered him with honours: he named him Earl of Nottingham, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, granted him lands and an annual income of 4.845 pounds sterling, and appointed as his godfather and tutor the all-powerful Lord Chancellor of England, Cardinal Wolsey.
But the boy, raised as a prince – rumors spread concerning him succeeding his father, if there should be no other sons, hence legitimate, from the king’s numerous spouses – died at the age of seventeen, in July 1536, apparently of tuberculosis. Some historians suggest instead that he was one of the many victims of an outbreak of plague in London, in that his father ordered a ‘quick and private’ funeral and the wooden coffin, covered with layers of straw, was taken discreetly to Thetford Priory in Norfolk, where the young man was buried.
During Bessie Blount’s pregnancy the king had begun a relationship with Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn. After Henry Fitzroy’s birth he got rid of Bessie by arranging for her a favourable marriage with Gilbert Tailboys, first Baron of Kyme. His relations with Bessie remained excellent, to the extent that he gifted her lands worth two hundred pounds sterling per year, for life. And while official histories have tended to undervalue her person, popular tradition held her to be important because she was the living proof that the sovereign could produce male offspring. From which came the famous expression ‘Blesse’ee, Bessie Blount’ that circulated at that time.
On Tailboy’s death in 1530, Bessie Blount married Edward Fiennes of Clinton, ninth Baron Clinton and Saye. Having returned to court as a lady-in-waiting to the fourth of the king’s spouses, Anne of Cleves, Bessie died, perhaps in childbirth, in January 1540.
Translated by Colin Sowden.