Episode 288: Bessie Blount and Henry Fitzroy

Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors

Heather Teysko

History

4.6 • 624 Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, let's talk about two people who played very important roles in the life and court of Henry VIII: Bessie Blount, who gave Henry his first surviving son, and that son, Henry Fitzroy. Neither would live beyond the reign of Henry, so their impact was limited, but they still are incredibly important characters that deserve an episode. Thanks as always for your support, friend. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, friend and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a part of the Agora Podcast Network and the original Tudor History podcast, telling stories of Tudor England since 2009. I am your host, Heather.
0:23.1	I am so delighted, as always, that you are here with me spending this time together.
0:28.1	Over the next 20-ish minutes, we are going to talk about Bessie Blunt and Henry Fitzroy,
0:35.0	the mistress and son, illegitimate son of Henry the 8th. So that is our topic for today.
0:43.2	And one quick announcement, and yes, I'm being very vague about this, that's on purpose. But let's just
0:48.6	say that if you love Anne Boleyn and you recognize May as Anne Boleyn Month, because that is when she was executed, of course,
0:56.5	and you love solving a good mystery. You're going to want to stick around for what I have
1:01.1	planned in early May. It's going to be a mix of mystery and learning a totally free event to
1:07.3	celebrate Anne Boleyn, and that's all I'm going to tell you right now. However, if you are signed up to my newsletter at Englandcast.com slash newsletter, you will be
1:16.6	one of the first people to get all of the details. Again, it's a totally free special event
1:22.4	celebrating Anne Boleyn and honoring her life right around the time of the anniversary of her
1:27.3	execution.
1:28.4	So make sure you are on my newsletter list if you aren't already,
1:31.9	Englandcast.com slash newsletter for that.
1:34.6	All right, let's dig in and talk about Bessie Blunt and Henry Fitzroy, shall we?
1:42.3	When we talk about the women in Henry the Eighth's life, it's usually the
1:46.1	queens who dominate the conversation. Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine, Catherine, all of the six.
1:53.4	But before the annulments and the executions, before Henry broke with Rome and upended the religious
1:59.8	landscape of England, there was another woman
2:02.4	who played a quiet but significant role in his personal history. And her name was Bessie Blunt.
2:08.8	She wasn't a queen. She wasn't even a part of the powerful aristocracy. But she holds a unique
2:14.6	place in Tudor history because she gave Henry something that none of his wives up until that point had managed to deliver a healthy son.
	...

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