by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2024

Charles FitzCharles, 1st Earl of Plymouth; Credit – Wikipedia

Despite fathering many illegitimate children with his mistresses, King Charles II of England had no children with his wife Catherine of Braganza. Charles II is an ancestor through his mistresses of many British aristocrats and of several women who married into the British Royal Family. Lucy Walter and Charles II are ancestors of Sarah, Duchess of York and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester. Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland and Charles II are ancestors of Diana, Princess of Wales and Sarah, Duchess of York. Louise Renée de Penancoet de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth and Charles II are ancestors of Diana, Princess of Wales, Queen Camilla, and Sarah, Duchess of York.

Born in 1657, in Bruges, now in Belgium, then part of the Spanish Netherlands, Charles FitzCharles, 1st Earl of Plymouth was the illegitimate son of King Charles II of England and one of his mistresses, Catherine Pegge (1635 – 1678). His surname FitzCharles comes from the Anglo-Norman Fitz, meaning son of, and so FitzCharles means son of Charles. His paternal grandparents were King Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria of France (the daughter of King Henri IV of France and his second wife Marie de’ Medici). Charles’ maternal grandparents were Thomas Pegge of Yeldersley, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, and Catherine Kniveton, daughter of Sir Gilbert Kniveton, Baronet.

In 1642, the English Civil War broke out between King Charles I and the Parliamentarian and Puritan forces. When the situation deteriorated in the spring of 1646, the future King Charles II, then Prince of Wales, was sent out of England. The execution of King Charles I on January 30, 1649, made his son Charles the de jure King of England. Until the Restoration in 1660, when the Stuart monarchy in the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland was restored and King Charles II returned to England, he lived in exile in various places. From 1656 – 1658, Bruges was the base for Charles II and his court in exile.

Catherine Pegge’s father Thomas Pegge was the squire of Yeldersley Hall in Yeldersley, Derbyshire, England, and a staunch royalist. Thomas and his family were exiled to Bruges during the English Civil War following his capture while serving in the Royalist Army. During the Pegge family’s exile in Bruges, Catherine and Charles met and had two illegitimate children.

Charles FitzCharles, 1st Earl of Plymouth had one full sister, Catherine FitzCharles, born in 1658. Very little is known about Catherine. Although some think she became a nun and died in 1759 when she was 101, she probably died young. Catherine seems to be confused with Cecilia FitzRoy (1670 – 1759), another illegitimate child of King Charles II who did become a nun.

In 1660, Charles’ mother Catherine Pegge married Sir Edward Greene, Baronet of of Sampford. Catherine and Edward had one daughter, Charles’ half-sister Justinia Greene (1667 – 1717) who became a nun at the Convent of English Benedictines in Pontoise, France. This was the first of the English convents in exile, founded specifically for English women who, until then, had no choice but to join existing communities on the Continent and often did not speak their language.

In 1672, Charles FitzCharles made his first appearance in England. His mother wanted to remind King Charles II of their son’s existence and the need to make provisions for his education and future. King Charles II appointed Sydney Lodge as his tutor and Robert Cheeke as his governor. Charles progressed so quickly with his education that King Charles II considered sending him to Cambridge University but then changed his mind. In 1675, eighteen-year-old Charles was created Earl of Plymouth.

King Charles II took great care in selecting a wife for Charles. At St. Mary’s Church in Wimbledon, Surrey, England, on September 19, 1678, Charles married Lady Bridget Osborne, the daughter of Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, the Lord High Treasurer for King Charles II. Their marriage was childless.

The city of Tangier, now in Morocco, had become part of the Portuguese colonial empire in 1471. When King Charles II married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza he received Tangier as part of Catherine’s dowry. Sultan Moulay Ismail of Morocco unsuccessfully attempted to seize Tangier during the Great Siege of Tangier (March 25 – October 27, 1680). King Charles II allowed his son Charles FitzRoy to serve in Tangier. The King’s Own Royal Regiment was re-formed on July 13, 1680, as the 2nd Tangier, or Earl of Plymouth’s Regiment of Foot, with Charles FitzCharles as the founding Colonel. However, the decision to send him to Tangier was to have a fateful consequence. On October 17, 1680, 23-year-old Charles FitzCharles, Earl of Plymouth died from dysentery, a common killer of soldiers for centuries due to poor hygienic conditions in army camps.

Charles’ body was returned to England where he was buried in Westminster Abbey. In 1684, due to the cost of maintaining an army presence, Tangier was evacuated by the English. Charles’ widow Bridget, only sixteen when he died, remained unmarried until 1705 when she married Philip Bisse, a Church of England minister, and later a bishop.

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Works Cited

• Beauclerk-Dewar, Peter & Powell, Roger. (2006). Right Royal Bastards – The Fruits of Passion. Burke’s Peerage & Gentry LLC.
• Flantzer, Susan. (2016). King Charles II of England. Unofficial Royalty. https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/king-charles-ii-of-england/
• Fraser, Antonia. (2002). King Charles II. Phoenix.
• Weir, Alison. (2008). Britain’s Royal Families – The Complete Genealogy. Vintage Books.
• Wikimedia Foundation. (2023). Catherine Pegge. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Pegge
• Wikimedia Foundation. (2023). Charles FitzCharles, 1st Earl of Plymouth. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_FitzCharles,_1st_Earl_of_Plymouth