I am so sorry . What I was referring to were the present day Dukes of Buccleuch , Richmond + Lennox , Bedford and any others I might have missed . I was hoping that you could tell me if any other King of England had as many illegitimate titled offspring living today . Thanks , R.S.

On Tuesday, February 15, 2022 at 7:29:44 AM UTC-5, Riley S wrote:
> I am so sorry . What I was referring to were the present day Dukes of Buccleuch , Richmond + Lennox , Bedford and any others I might have missed . I was hoping that you could tell me if any other King of England had as many illegitimate titled offspring living today . Thanks , R.S.

I'm not sure I understand the query totally? For instance, it is a safe bet that nearly *all* titled individuals in England today are illegitamate descendants from King John's children Richard FitzRoy and Joan of Wales.

--Joe C

On 15/02/2022 12:34, joseph cook wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 15, 2022 at 7:29:44 AM UTC-5, Riley S wrote:
>> I am so sorry . What I was referring to were the present day Dukes of Buccleuch , Richmond + Lennox , Bedford and any others I might have missed . I was hoping that you could tell me if any other King of England had as many illegitimate titled offspring living today . Thanks , R.S.
>
> I'm not sure I understand the query totally? For instance, it is a safe bet that nearly *all* titled individuals in England today are illegitamate descendants from King John's children Richard FitzRoy and Joan of Wales.

Including life peers?

On Tuesday, February 15, 2022 at 4:29:44 AM UTC-8, Riley S wrote:
> I am so sorry . What I was referring to were the present day Dukes of Buccleuch ,
> Richmond + Lennox , Bedford and any others I might have missed . I was hoping
> that you could tell me if any other King of England had as many illegitimate titled
> offspring living today . Thanks , R.S.

If you are referring specifically to titled lines of descent, where the bastard son of a king ended up with a title that has been inherited to the present, then there aren't any that come to mind, though the so-called Dukedom of Berwick and the Dukes of Beaufort are in the general ballpark. Berwick is viewed in England as forfeit at the time of the fall of James II, but continued to be recognized by the French and Spanish and persists to the present in that form, though with different inheritance rules (it would persist, but be held by someone else, under English rules). Beaufort title has not been continuous, but it derives directly from Dukes of Somerset who in turn came from a royal bastard, albeit a bastard brother of a king rather than a son of one. This all has to do with the unique combination factors, with Charles II having so many out-of-wedlock children, living at a time when it was culturally and politically appropriate not only to recognize them but to give them titles like candy on Halloween, plus being recent enough that several of those lines haven't died out yet.

Most medieval royals didn't give titles to their bastards (or engineer marriages so they would get them), and those who did receive titles saw their titled lines end within a very short generation span (e.g. Robert of Gloucester, Richard of Cornwall, William Longespee, Arthur Plantagenet, and the Earl of Richmond all left very short lines or none at all). James II would probably have given his brother a run for his money had the political circumstances been different. By the time you get into the Hanoverians, they tended to treat their many daliances much more privately, with the sole exception of the FitzClarences. Only one of them was ennobled (where in similar circumstances Charles II would have done the lot) - that line, just ended 20 years ago, and if you count the titles that bastard daughters married into, the Earls of Erroll and Viscounts Falkland both persist.

taf