For those of you who don’t know, there is a fantastic community on Instagram known as the #HistoryGirls (sorry guys!). It’s a community of female history bloggers looking at all aspects of history. These are all very talented women so go give them a follow!
The #HistoryGirls hashtag on Instagram was started by blogger Hisdoryan (https://hisdoryan.co.uk/history-girls) and it has really taken off as a great community for like-minded history geeks.
Some of my favourite #HistoryGirls blogs are below:
Today I’m shedding a light on what is fast becoming one of my favourite history blogs – Hisdoryan. I wrote a guest piece for the lovely Claire on Mary Boleyn – you can read it here: http://hisdoryan.co.uk/mary-boleyn.
However, this week Claire looks at Bessie Blount, probably the lesser known of the pair, but their relationship was actually better-known at the time, as Bessie gave Henry VIII the thing he most wanted – a son, Henry Fitzroy.
You can read Claire’s take on Bessie here – http://hisdoryan.co.uk/bessie-blount but I have also posted her ratings below, as I find this part of her Royal Mistresses series so fascinating!
Power **
Poor Bessie. You think after giving Henry VIII his heart’s desire she could have whatever she wanted. However, despite having the king’s son the only thing she was rewarded with was a marginally advantageous marriage. This was the same reward as other mistresses – like Mary Boleyn – received. Bessie did get a certain degree of respect and recognition as mother of the king’s son, which earns her one more star than Mary B.
Beauty ***
While Bessie is described as beautiful by a handful of sources, most people seemed to comment on her personality. Basically she seemed to have been a really fun person to have been around, and we all know how Henry VIII preferred having fun to doing any actual ruling.
Longevity ***
We’re looking at a potential 4 to 5 year long relationship here. This was very long by Henry’s standards!
Scandal *
If a monarch was to have a child out of wedlock now it would be scandalous, but back then having illegitimate offspring – much like having a mistress – was almost the norm for male monarchs.
Overall Mistress Rating **
I think the fact that Bessie Blount has ended up with the same score as fellow mistress of Henry VIII Mary Boleyn is very interesting. Even though Bessie gave Henry a much longed for son, it didn’t leave her much better off in the scheme of things. I think this is indicative of the way Henry treated his mistresses generally, and also perhaps of the types of personalities he liked – women who conformed to the subservient norms of Tudor society, and who did what they were told when their king told them to do it. It really makes the actions and personality of his future queen Anne Boleyn stand out in stark contrast.
Today on the Hisdoryan blog (http://hisdoryan.co.uk/) has been published a guest post by yours truly!
The post is on one of Henry VIII’s mistresses, the other Boleyn girl, Mary Boleyn. Click on the following link to read it – http://hisdoryan.co.uk/mary-boleyn.
The wonderful Claire Miles (aka Hisdoryan) has done a series on royal mistresses, and rates them all according to various criteria like power, beauty, longevity, and scandal. Ratings for Mary Boleyn from Hisdoryan’s blog as below:
Power *
One thing Mary Boleyn did not have was power. If it wasn’t for rise of her sister Anne, she would probably have become another footnote in history.
Beauty **
Of course there’s lots written about Anne Boleyn and her striking appearance – but the little that is written about Mary suggests she was the prettier of the two sisters by the standards of the time. However, there is some debate amongst historians about what she actually looked like. Some say she fitted the curvy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed ideals of beauty of the time. Others examine the one surviving portrait of her and say she was a brunette!
Longevity **
Mary and Henry’s relationship lasted for approximately three years. That may not seem like long in the scheme of things, but it was longer that some of Henry’s marriages!
We must also remember that Mary packed giving birth to two children into these three years too. And these children were both possible illegitimate offspring of Henry. She may not have been in Henry’s bed long, but she was certainly busy!
Scandal *
Mary Boleyn probably didn’t know the meaning of the word scandal – unlike her sister…
Overall Mistress Rating **
Poor Mary. Another woman that was a candidate for the footnotes of history – all because she conformed to the womanly ideals of the time in terms of subservience to men, and didn’t go about shouting about her affair and trying to make the most of it.
Tudor Blogger 