Elizabeth Blount was born into a family of golden locks and ancient lineage, the daughter of Sir John Blount and Katherine Peshall of Kinlet in Shropshire. Her parents were a match of remarkable antiquity, united in a childhood marriage in 1491 when John was merely seven years old and Katherine was a young heiress. The Blounts were landed gentry, but their true historical weight would not be felt until Elizabeth gave birth to Henry FitzRoy, the only acknowledged illegitimate child of Henry VIII. Her grandfather, Sir Thomas Blount, had been knighted by Henry VII at the battle of Stoke in 1487, and her mother's father, Sir Hugh Peshall, was a soldier of the highest distinction who served as Knight of the Body to Henry VII. The family home, Kinlet, was a place of deep historical resonance, situated near the Clee Hills and surrounded by park and woodland of wide extent. It was here, in the heart of the Severn valley, that Elizabeth spent her childhood, playing under the same oaks that had witnessed the royal processions of the Tudor era. The Blounts were among the first to pay their respects to Katherine of Aragon when she resided at Ludlow Castle, establishing a connection to the royal family that would eventually lead Elizabeth to the King's court. By the spring of 1512, Elizabeth had arrived at court as a maid-of-honour to Katherine of Aragon, bringing with her a reputation for beauty and a talent for dancing and singing that would soon capture the attention of the King.
The King's Dancing Partner
The relationship between Elizabeth Blount and Henry VIII began in 1514 or 1515, a connection that lasted for approximately eight years and stood in stark contrast to the King's other affairs, which were typically short-lived and unacknowledged. Elizabeth was a talented dancer and singer, excelling in all goodly pastimes, and became the King's preferred dancing partner. Her beauty, described as blond and set off to perfection by blue and white costumes, was the theme of general admiration at Christmas festivities held at Greenwich. In 1514, she appeared alongside other ladies in a Christmas mummery, dressed in gowns of white satin and mantles of blue velvet, a sight that captivated the court. The Queen herself, though recently confined of a still-born male child, would have deigned to express her approval of her Chamberlain, Lord Mountjoy, on his young kinswoman's looks and deportment. The affair resulted in a pregnancy, and on the 15th of June 1519, Blount bore the King an illegitimate son who was named Henry FitzRoy. This child, later created Duke of Richmond and Somerset and Earl of Nottingham, was the only illegitimate son of Henry VIII whom the King acknowledged as his own. The birth of FitzRoy served as evidence of Henry's ability to sire a living, albeit illegitimate, son, further stirring Henry's skepticism and apprehensions about the validity of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. The affair ended soon after the child's birth, possibly because the resulting child was more of a happy accident than an attempted career move, and the King began an affair with Mary Boleyn shortly thereafter.