MARY BOLEYN : ALISON WEIR BOOK EXCERPT : ABOUT ELIZABETH BLOUNT

Elizabeth Blount was Henry's first mistress, during some of his marriage to his Queen, Katherine of Aragon, who had many pregnancies but not a living male heir. Elizabeth gave birth to a son - who lived - but could not be heir. Henry recognized him though and gave him the name Henry Fitzroy (Fitzroy means of the King).

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"Elizabeth Blount certainly resided for a time at Jericho (a monastery), for around June 1519 - and possibly on June 18, if her child was ennobled on his sixth birthday in 1525 - she gave birth there to a son, "a goodly man child of beauty like to the father and mother." The infant was given his father's Christian name and the old Norman - French surname of Fitzroy... The tragedy was that this son was born out of wedlock. By then Queen Katherine's catastrophic obstetric career had ended In failure. Of her six pregnancies, only one daughter, the Princess Mary, born in 1516, had survived. For a king who needed a son to succeed him, this was a dynastic disaster, for there was a widespread conviction that women were not meant to wield sovereign power, that it was against all laws both natural and divine. The birth of a living son to his mistress was a triumphant vindication for Henry. It proved that he could father boys, and that the fault did not lie with him... It probably signaled the end of his affair with Elizabeth Blount. In accordance with the convention that it was unsafe and ungodly to have sex during pregnancy, he had probably stopped sleeping with her months before, an there is no evidence that they resumed having relations after the birth... "(Circa early 1500's.)