Tea at Trianon: Natural Children of James V King of Scots

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, April 17, 2015

Natural Children of James V King of Scots

From Unusual Historicals:

His two legitimate sons, James Stewart and Robert Stewart, were born about a year apart and died about a month apart, just after Robert was born, about mid-year in 1541 and just about a year before King James himself died, leaving Mary Queen at the age of six days.

King James no doubt had never expected succession to come down to an infant girl, for although he had only three legitimate heirs, he fathered at least nine children out of wedlock, three of those before he was twenty. Seven of those children were sons.

It is these illegitimate children I write about today.

As with so many Scottish kings, James was crowned while still an infant, at the age of one, just after the death of his father, James IV, in 1513. The tale is told that young James V was encouraged in his debauchery by one of his regents, but to be fair, illegitimate children had long been a royal prerogative, in England and Scotland. Young James came by it honestly. His own father had seven children out of wedlock by four different mistresses.

But James, who became king in his own right at age 16, was able to best his father. And although the identities of some of the mothers of his children are lost to history, some of his mistresses were the daughters of Scottish nobles. Their children were treated accordingly. This meant that several of them played prominent roles in Scottish history and proved problematic to their half sister, Queen Mary.

Five of the illegitimate sons of King James V were named “Priors” as children. This meant they held the five richest livings in the Scottish Church—Holyrood, Kelso, Melrose, Coldingham, and St Andrews. (This did not happen, of course, without the approval of the Pope. James apparently wrote asking his permission for three of his illegitimate sons to receive ecclesiastical positions before 1532, when the boys were still babes.)

I’ve listed the children below. Don’t worry if you get confused. Three are named James, their father’s name; two are named Robert. (Read more.)