Royal Mistresses and Bastards: Fact and Fiction 1714-1936
by Anthony J Camp, MBE, BAHons, HonFSG, FUGA
The Website of the Book


446 pages, 295 X 210 mm (A4), paperback. ISBN 978-0-9503308-2-2.
Published by the author in a limited edition for private circulation, 2007.

A very few copies are available from: 
or
Family History Bookshop
61 Great Whyte, Ramsey, Huntingdon, Cambs. PE26 1HU
Tel: 0845 5190 228

This major new reference work takes some twenty-nine members of the Royal Family, both male and female, from George I to Edward VIII and deals critically and in great detail with their alleged affairs and offspring. Over four hundred relationships are considered (and listed on this website).

It investigates all the claims that have come to the author's attention in over fifty years of research, backed up with very wide reading in biographies, memoirs, newspapers, satirical prints, diaries, probate records and a vast range of other contemporary records in the British Isles and overseas. The research has also taken advantage of the many computerised indexes to records that have become available in recent years but have been little used by other biographers. The resulting work adds very considerably to the existing knowledge of a great number of people on the fringes of history, corrects many accounts and provides, for the first time, a firm source-based reference work by an authority in the genealogical field against which future claims may be considered. The 29 members of the Royal Family considered are:
  1. George I (1660-1727)
  2. Sophia Dorothea of Celle (1666-1726)
  3. George II (1683-1760)
  4. Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-1751)
  5. Princess Amelia (1711-1786)
  6. William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (1721-1765)
  7. George III (1738-1820)
  8. Edward Augustus, Duke of York (1739-1767)
  9. William Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1743-1805)
  10. William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester (1776-1834)
  11. Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland (1745-1790)
  12. George IV (1762-1830)
  13. Queen Caroline (1768-1821)
  14. Frederick, Duke of York (1763-1827)
  15. William IV (1765-1837)
  16. Edward, Duke of Kent (1767-1820)
  17. Princess Augusta (1768-1840)
  18. Princess Elizabeth (1770-1840)
  19. Ernest, Duke of Cumberland (1771-1851)
  20. Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843)
  21. Princess Sophia (1777-1848)
  22. Princess Amelia (1783-1810)
  23. George, 2nd Duke of Cambridge (1819-1904)
  24. Queen Victoria (1819-1901)
  25. Edward VII (1841-1910)
  26. Princess Louise (1848-1939)
  27. Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence (1864-1892)
  28. George V (1865-1936)
  29. Edward VIII later Duke of Windsor (1894-1972).
The book includes new material, for example, on the families of Ramus and Ritso, of Hannah Lightfoot, Thomas Dunckerley, Charles Marsack, George Rex, John Mackelcan, Robert Lathrop Murray, Revd William Groves, Louisa Maria Lacoast, Mrs Olive Serres, Sarah Mills, Hannah Sophia Hodges, the Comte de Castelnau, Charles Hesse, John Molloy, Mrs Fitzherbert, Randolph Payne, Mrs Jordan, Mary Anne Clarke, Brent Spencer, George FitzErnest and many others. It throws new light also on the Vandiest children of the Duke of York, on the mother of William Henry Courtney, on the background of Mrs FitzGeorge, on William Austin and Edwardina Kent the 'children' of Queen Caroline, and identifies George IV's supposed child 'William Francis'. It destroys numerous claims. Those investigated in some depth include the suggestions that Count Blomberg was a son of George III, that Thomas Garth was the son of Princess Sophia, that Edward Scheener was a half-brother of Queen Victoria, that Olga de Meyer was a daughter of Edward VII, that Henry Locock was the son of Princess Louise, that Clarence Haddon was a son of the Duke of Clarence, and that Lord Furness and David Chisholm were the sons of Edward VIII. There are even notes on Mehmet and Mustafa, the servants said to have been kept by George I for 'abominable purposes', and on the questions that have been raised about the births of Queen Victoria and of the Prince Consort. The author has tried to take a detached view in every case and is not related to any of the persons mentioned.

A feature of the book is that all the references to sources are embedded in the text, but there is an extensive bibliography and list of abbreviations, and an index of about 2,500 surnames.

Anthony J. Camp, June 2008; amended 18 December 2010, 19 July 2012.