Royal bastard
A book published in February 2011 claimed that Albert II of Belgium has an illegitimate half-sister named Ingeborg Verdun, the daughter of King Leopold III and Austrian-Belgian ice skater Liselotte Landbeck.
[4] Older illegitimate children founded important family branches, as reported in the Trophées de Brabant: tome 1:[5][6] In the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy then Kingdom, descendants of kings were called aethelings, whether legitimate or not.
Papal legates visited the great hall of Offa of Mercia in 786 and decreed that an English king "must not be begotten in adultery or incest" and that "he who was not born of a legitimate marriage" could not succeed to the throne.
[7] Two Anglo-Saxon kings of England had sons who faced opposition to their succession seemingly based on the status of their mother.
Leading figures in the kingdom refused to accept the succession of Æthelstan, eldest son of Edward the Elder.
Edward the Martyr, eldest son of Edgar the Peaceful, likewise faced opposition due to the nature of his birth.
A contemporary charter calls the king's later spouse his 'lawful wife' and seems to afford her son, Edmund, a higher status than his elder half-brother, Edward.
Later chroniclers are contradictory, one making Edward an illegitimate child born to a nun, another calling his mother a noblewoman wed to his father.
[citation needed] "It might be permissible to wonder how it was that Henry I managed to keep track of all his illegitimate children, but there is no doubt that he did so," wrote historian Given-Wilson.
Edward IV had at least five illegitimate children, including Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle (later Lord Deputy of Calais) by his mistress Elizabeth Lucy.
Richard III acceded to the throne after the children of Edward IV were declared by Parliament to be the product of an invalid marriage.
Richard III had at least two illegitimate children: John of Gloucester (Captain of Calais for a time) and Katherine, second wife of William Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke.
As he had many mistresses, historians put forward six other likely instances including the mercenary Thomas Stukley, the poet Richard Edwardes and two of Mary Boleyn's children.
By Lucy Walter (c.1630–1658): By Elizabeth Boyle, Viscountess Shannon (1622–1680): By Catherine Pegge By Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland (1641–1709) By Nell Gwyn (1650–1687): By Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth (1649–1734) By Moll Davis, courtesan and actress of repute:[16] James II and VII had 13 illegitimate children.
The king's efforts to legitimize his illegitimate children showed his, "Olympian disdain for public opinion," according to one modern author.
[21] The edict of Marly, issued in July 1714, granted two of Louis' sons by Montespan the right to succeed to the French throne.
He thus founded the House of Braganza that in 1640 would successfully claim the Portuguese crown on the basis of this descent, and rule into the 20th century.
King Carlos I of Portugal allegedly had an illegitimate daughter who became one of the most famous and controversial royal bastards in the history of European royalty: Maria Pia of Saxe-Coburg and Braganza.
[29][30][31][32] Empress Catherine the Great (reigned 1762 to 1796) had an illegitimate child in 1762, Alexei Grigorievich Bobrinksy, who was born a few months before she took the throne.
Urraca herself, as queen regnant, would have two recognized illegitimate children by nobleman Pedro González de Lara, her main supporter against her former husband Alfonso the Battler.
He devoted his life to the service of his half-brother, King Philip II of Spain, and is best known for his role as the admiral of the Holy Alliance fleet at the Battle of Lepanto.
