Great Bastards of History

True and Riveting Accounts of the Most Famous Illegitimate Children Who Went on to Achieve Greatness

Jur'e Fiorillo

• Publisher: Fair Winds Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9781592334018
• eBook ISBN:
  9781616734589
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

For much of history and across most of the world, being born out of wedlock—a love child, a bastard—was a serious impediment to success. Illegitimate offspring were subject to neglect, abandonment, disinheritance, and social exclusion, and often found the usual routes to education, wealth, and status blocked. Surmounting these obstacles required tremendous fortitude and persistence.

Great Bastards of History brings together the captivating and stirring stories of fifteen remarkable and influential people who overcame the disadvantages of illegitimate birth to rise to positions of power. As well as providing insights into the personalities of many world-changing figures, it highlights the extraordinary courage, drive, and resolve that ordinary individuals can summon when faced with extreme adversity. Among its subjects are powerful political players including Alexander Hamilton, the abandoned son who became a founding father of the United States, and cultural figureheads such as Leonardo da Vinci, who, despite being denied entrance to trade guilds and universities, was proclaimed one of the greatest men of his day in courts throughout Europe. Equally affecting are some of the less well-known but no less fascinating figures, such as James Smithson, the disinherited son of an English duke, whose bequest to a country he never visited founded the largest museum in the world, the Smithsonian Institution.

Deftly blending biography and history, political intrigue, melodrama, and psychological analysis, this is a collection that will uplift, entertain, and inform, while yielding fresh perspectives on some of the most significant events from our past.

CHAPTER 1
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

A LUCKY BASTARD
1028?–1087

HE WAS FRENCH, SPOKE BARELY A WORD OF ENGLISH, HAD ONLY A DUBIOUS CLAIM TO THE THRONE, AND WAS A BASTARD BESIDES. YET THE WARRIOR DUKE OF NORMANDY MADE HIMSELF ONE OF ENGLAND’S MOST SIGNIFICANT KINGS IN A YEAR EVERY ENGLISH SCHOOLCHILD IS TAUGHT TO REMEMBER—1066.

HE NEEDED A WIND FROM THE SOUTH. IN THE SUMMER OF 1066, WILLIAM, Duke of Normandy, the illegitimate son of a rogue duke and a leather-tanner’s daughter, had assembled an invasion fleet at the English Channel port of Saint-Valéry, poised to launch an attack on England to press his claim to the English throne. A southerly wind would allow the flotilla to unload his ten thousand warriors and three thousand horses on the beaches of Sussex and push on toward London. But for almost a month, a stiff and steady wind had been blowing from the north, keeping the would-be invaders in port. Now it was September. Opportunity might be slipping away unless the fickle Channel weather changed.

Across the Channel, a rival claimant, Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, had already proclaimed himself king. Harold, a member of a family that controlled vast areas of England, was a large, burly man and a born leader. He had mobilized and trained a powerful army and had chosen strong positions in anticipation of a possible attack. He had been a longtime chief advisor to the English king, as had his father before him. William the Bastard would clearly have a difficult struggle after he landed—if the wind shifted and allowed him to land at all.

“The king is dead!” The famous Bayeux Tapestry depicts Duke William of Normandy, left, notified of the death of King Edward “the Confessor,” opening his path to the English throne. The Tapestry is 230 feet (70 m) long and depicts the events leading up to and during the Norman invasion of England.

Both armies were becoming restless and eating through their supplies. Forage for William’s three thousand horses was becoming a problem, not to mention that the cavalry was producing a mountain of manure.

Neither leader had a clear title to the English crown. Now a third candidate with an even more dubious claim appeared. Harald Hardråde of Norway had landed a large army near York in northern England. He had allied himself with Harold Godwinson’s younger brother Tostig, who had his own aspirations plus his own army. Hardråde argued that much of the population of northern England were Norsemen, and their allegiance was to him, not to the Anglo-Saxons of Wessex. The Norse had a right to the kingship.

To emphasize his rights and power, he torched the English-garrisoned town of Scarborough, near York. Harold Godwinson, ever ready for battle, turned his waiting force around, took two-thirds of his infantry, and in a series of day-and-night forced marches still regarded as a military miracle, confronted Hardråde and Tostig at Stamford Bridge outside York. Harold’s surprise appearance completely overwhelmed the Norwegian force. Hardråde and Tostig were killed in the battle, and the remaining invaders fled to their ships as fast as their legs would carry them. Then he turned his army about to deal with those pesky people from Normandy.

In his absence a significant change had occurred in the south. The northerly Channel gusts that had immobilized William for a month gave way to a more welcoming southerly wind as summer slipped into fall. William did not waste a minute. On September 26, 1066, he ordered the invasion fleet into the Channel. His army stormed ashore unopposed and began expanding their foothold toward the town of Hastings, on the road to London. Two days later, Harold’s weary forces appeared, igniting what has been called one of the pivotal battles of history. William emerged triumphant, thanks to the wind shift and Harold’s distraction upcountry. Because of his questionable birth, the Duke of Normandy had been disparaged and jeered as “William the Bastard.” After the breaks began coming William’s way in 1066, the American historian John Dillingham declared the sobriquet should be amended to “William, the Lucky Bastard.”

A FAIRY-TALE ROMANCE, SORT OF

One day in 1025 or 1026, according to legend, Duke Robert I of Normandy looked over his castle wall at Falaise and spied a beauteous young woman at the pond below. Next day he saw her laughing and dancing with other villagers and was completely captivated. Herleve was the daughter of the local tanner. Soon, “he had his way with her, as dukes will,” one historian wrote, and she gave birth to a son legendarily on a bed of bulrushes after dreaming that her intestines had been spread all over Normandy and England. (William’s later opponents were to taunt him about the allegedly abhorrent and supposedly persistent smells of a tannery, sometimes greeting his public appearances with a path strewn with smelly hides. William did not take such insults lightly. When villagers in Alençon thus greeted him, he ordered their hands and feet cut off.)

William’s father, Robert the Duke of Normandy, pictured here, died when his son was only nine. His father never married his mother, the daughter of a local tanner. Title page from ‘La Terrible et Merveilleuse Vie de Robert le Diable,’ published by Claude Bihart in 1563 (engraving) (b/w photo), French School, (16th century) / Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France / Lauros / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library

William was brought up in the ducal palace as the duke’s heir despite his illegitimacy, to the dismay of court purists. He was a bright and strong-willed boy, and Robert encouraged his possible leadership qualities. Then in 1035 Robert abruptly volunteered for the Crusades and went off to the Holy Land. Word eventually filtered back that the duke had died in Nicaea, en route home. Determined to maintain the ducal lineage, the Norman court proclaimed the boy the new Duke of Normandy.

The next few years were hardly serene for the young duke. After Robert’s death, Normandy fell into chaos. Nobles across the Norman lands organized personal armies and built their own fortified castles. There were a series of peasant uprisings and internal rebellions, some of them promulgated by the duke’s own jealous relatives objecting or claiming to object to a mere child being elevated to the dukedom, and a bastard at that. Plots were directed at young William’s life. One night he was awakened and told he must flee, his life was in danger. He was placed half dressed on a horse and escaped. Many of his most loyal supporters were killed, including his guardian, his tutor, and his steward. When the plot was thwarted and the uprising put down, he was brought back and restored to his role as duke-in-training, and he took to it with a vengeance. His father would have wanted it that way; although some describe Robert as easygoing and amiable, he was also known as “Robert the Devil.”

Bastardy was not the stain it was to become in terms of moral attitude or inheritance, and anyway bastardy ran in the family. His rivals saw riches to be gained and ducal prerogatives to be claimed. Nonetheless, being an illegitimate heir was a drawback to being accepted.

William quickly demonstrated that he would not be a mere figurehead manipulated by others. At age twelve, he was giving commands to the army. Knighted at fifteen, he began a campaign to neutralize internal opposition and expand Normandy’s borders. At eighteen, he commanded his first major battle at Val-ès-Dunes; his internal enemies had joined forces in the western part of the dukedom, with some support from neighboring Brittany and Flanders. Backed by King Henry I of France, William met them at the River Orne and overwhelmed them. The opposition continued; his uncle, William, Count of Arques, had always objected to his brother’s illegitimate son as duke. He lined up Anjou, which had become the Normans’ chief commercial rival, Flanders, and even Henry of France, William’s one-time benefactor, who had turned against him. All these enemies then teamed up against William, but in 1054 he defeated their combined armies with a great victory at Mortemer. He was not yet thirty years old.

AFTER DUKE ROBERT’S DEATH, THERE WERE A SERIES OF PEASANT UPRISINGS AND INTERNAL REBELLIONS, SOME OF THEM PROMULGATED BY THE DUKE’S OWN JEALOUS RELATIVES OBJECTING OR CLAIMING TO OBJECT TO A MERE CHILD BEING ELEVATED TO THE DUKEDOM, AND A BASTARD AT THAT.

While solidifying his rule in Normandy, William also began to look abroad. He took on the Muslims in Spain, recapturing Tarragona, and even invaded Sicily and the southern part of Italy. By the year 1060, however, he was turning more attention toward England, less than fifty miles from Normandy across the English Channel. Because of the proximity, England and Normandy had close trade ties—London was actually closer than Paris—and there were dynastic ties as well. King Edward of England, known as “Edward the Confessor,” was more than sixty years old. England was a rich and prosperous country, and Edward had no legitimate heirs. He had never openly nominated a successor.

Edward has been compared to a rich old miser, playing off one child against another with tantalizing but vague hints about riches he might, just might, bequeath them in his will if they measured up. One after another, he teased the young wannabe kings with dreams of a glorious if distant future. William and Harold were two of the most likely candidates. But were any outright promises actually made? That question has been argued for nine hundred years. Thousands of lives were lost in 1066 in an effort to resolve it.

King Edward, right, bids Godspeed to Harold, a claimant to the throne, before his upcoming visit to Normandy in 1064 in a scene from the Bayeux Tapestry.
Getty Images

A VISIT TO RELATIVES

In 1062, William considered Normandy secure and prospering and the overseas adventures under control. His erstwhile enemies had either pledged fealty to him or were sulking in their castles. He heard fewer taunts of “William the Bastard.” It seemed an appropriate time to pay a family courtesy call on Edward the Confessor. They were relatives, after a fashion—Edward’s wife, Edith of Normandy, was William’s great-aunt by marriage. Amid the feasting and family celebrating, the old king was greatly impressed with the young man’s leadership qualities and grasp of monarchial duties. Edward was a dictatorial martinet very conscious of royal prerogatives. He had peremptorily sent off his first wife of twenty years to a nunnery when she failed to produce an heir, and he “indicated” that he might look favorably on William as a successor and potential king of a combined England and Normandy. At least that was how William and his entourage told the story afterward.

Then in 1064 Harold arrived in Normandy. According to one version, he had been commissioned by Edward to size up William’s kingly potential and to sound him out on a possible political alliance or a kind of co-kingship under one flag. A second version explains Harold came on his own initiative, hoping to negotiate the release of his brother and nephew held as hostages in Normandy. A simpler version says he was just out fishing when he ran into a storm—even though he had shown no interest in fishing before. In any event, the quirky Channel winds drove Harold’s boat ashore at Ponthieu, very much in William’s sphere of influence. Harold was arrested as a pirate, which frequently happened to shipwrecked sailors. William had just emphatically subdued a rebellious Count Guy of Ponthieu in battle. So when William learned of Harold’s imprisonment, he urged Count Guy in no uncertain words to release him. That would surely win him brownie points at the London court. The count immediately freed Harold and personally escorted him to William’s palace at Rouen.

The two young leaders apparently hit it off famously. Both were sophisticated, ambitious, and skilled in political and court maneuvering. Their talents complemented one another: William was more decisive and forthright, Harold more the patient negotiator. Not surprisingly—it is also agreed—the topic of succession to the English throne came up; Edward had now worn the crown nearly twenty-four years.

Harold apparently implied that he was not interested in being king, but wanted to see that Edward’s successor would respect the Godwin family’s vast holdings and privileges. It seemed the commoner and William the Bastard might be an ideal one-two punch. William asked Harold to support him for the throne and to swear that he would do so. Harold was to place his hands on the table and take an oath pledging his support. Harold was either William’s guest or his hostage, depending on one’s viewpoint, but he may have considered the oath a harmless gesture that he could not politely refuse. Unknown to Harold, William had craftily placed under the table some holy saints’ relics, making the simple ceremony a sacred event—which was to reverberate later. Harold then returned to England, where the two would meet in the future.

As in most Christianized countries in medieval times, the anniversary of Christ’s birth was both a solemn and a celebratory occasion. The royal court in England in 1065 scheduled a Christmas festival of religious ceremony interspersed with feasting, singing, and dramatics before the king’s throne. Yuletide 1065 was to be an especially joyous celebration, too; on December 28, Edward was to consecrate Westminster Abbey, the magnificent new church he had built on the banks of the Thames. On Christmas Eve, the king felt ill and retired, but next day, feebly wearing his crown and dressed in his royal robes, he valiantly attended Christmas Mass. There he suddenly slumped in his chair, felled by the first of a series of strokes. He lingered into January. Harold remained at his bedside, and Edward, according to the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and some witnesses, “entrusted the realm,” “granted the kingdom,” and “commended all the kingdom to [Harold’s] protection.” Two days later, the royal funeral was held in the new Westminster Abbey. The following day, wasting no time, Harold Godwinson had himself crowned king.

“LONG LIVE KING HAROLD”

The customary assembly of high-ranking nobles and earls, court officials, bishops, and church leaders, called a witan, had gathered for the funeral and promptly endorsed the choice. Their decision was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Edward’s reported deathbed statements cemented it. Some of the witan approved Harold only reluctantly. He was a commoner, after all, and simply being the late king’s brother-in-law didn’t seem a strong qualification. The only candidate with royal blood was Edgar, the great-grandson of King Ethelred II, who had died fifty years before. But Edgar was only fifteen years old. His father had died when he was nine, and he had not even been named an earl because he showed so little promise. William of Normandy and Harald Hardråde were ruled out. The witan did not want a foreigner as king.

And what of Harold’s oath to support William’s candidacy? In the words of one historian, Harold “cocked a snook” at William—a derisive gesture roughly translated as “Go to hell.” (Harold’s defenders argue that the oath was meaningless, having been obtained under duress when Harold was a prisoner or hostage. Indeed, some historians theorize that Harold actually supported William’s cause, but couldn’t sway the rest of the witan.) Harold did not bother to notify William of the king’s death. A two-sentence message from a Norman returning from a London visit brought the bulletin on January 10 as William was preparing for a hunt. “King Edward is dead. Harold is raised to the kingdom,” he was bluntly told. William put down his bow, canceled the hunt, and returned to his palace. He sat there alone, his cloak drawn across his face, and spoke to no one. The news was not only a devastating disappointment, but it was also an unforgivable embarrassment. He had always assumed the supposed promise would be fulfilled, and he would become king of England on Edward’s death; he had so informed many people, including the leaders of neighboring realms and even the pope. He recovered within a few days and now began to spread different news. He was planning to invade England, he let them know. He would overwhelm the Saxons and Norsemen and claim the throne for Normandy.

HAROLD DID NOT BOTHER TO NOTIFY WILLIAM OF THE KING’S DEATH. A TWO-SENTENCE MESSAGE FROM A NORMAN RETURNING FROM A LONDON VISIT BROUGHT THE BULLETIN ON JANUARY 10 AS WILLIAM WAS PREPARING FOR A HUNT. “KING EDWARD IS DEAD. HAROLD IS RAISED TO THE KINGDOM.”

He instantly began preparing. Normandy, with its long coastline, had a seafaring tradition and a shipbuilding industry. The builders had mostly produced small fishing vessels. William directed them to convert to larger transports capable of carrying large numbers of fighting men and horses.

All along the Normandy coast that spring could be heard the rap-rap of hammers and the rasp of saws as the dukedom mobilized a fleet for the coming assault. Weather permitting, it would be launched ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: William the Conqueror
• Chapter 2: Leonardo Da Vinci
• Chapter 3: Francisco Pizarro
• Chapter 4: Elizabeth I
• Chapter 5: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth
• Chapter 6: Alexander Hamilton
• Chapter 7: James Smithson
• Chapter 8: Bernardo O’Higgins
• Chapter 9: Alexandre Dumas Fils
• Chapter 10: Henry Stanley
• Chapter 11: Jack London
• Chapter 12: Lawrence of Arabia
• Chapter 13: Billie Holiday
• Chapter 14: Eva Perón
• Chapter 15: Fidel Castro
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Index
• Copyright Page