Elizabeth Blount

Elizabeth Blount

Elizabeth Blount was a mistress of King Henry VIII of England. She bore the King an illegitimate son named Henry FitzRoy. After the child’s birth, the affair ended for unknown reasons. In 1522, Blount entered an arranged marriage with Gilbert Tailboys. She had three further children, two sons, George and Robert, and one daughter, Elizabeth.

About Elizabeth Blount in brief

Summary Elizabeth BlountElizabeth Blount was a mistress of King Henry VIII of England. She bore the King an illegitimate son named Henry FitzRoy. After the child’s birth, the affair ended for unknown reasons. In 1522, Blount entered an arranged marriage with Gilbert Tailboys, 1st Baron Tailboys of Kyme. She had three further children, two sons, George and Robert, and one daughter, Elizabeth. She later married a younger man whose Lincolnshire lands adjoined hers, Edward Clinton or Fiennes, 9th Baron Clinton, and this union produced three daughters.

For a short while, she was a lady-in-waiting to Henry’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. She left the Queen’s service around the time the royal marriage was dissolved and did not serve Anne’s successor, Catherine Howard. Blount returned to her husband’s estates, where she died shortly afterwards. It has traditionally been asserted that the cause of her death was consumption. She was never formally recognised as the King’s mistress and the position of public maîtresse-en-titre was never offered to anyone but Anne Boleyn.