Charlotte FitzRoy (Charlotte Paston, Countess of Yarmouth), Illegitimate Daughter of King Charles II of England

by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2024

Charlotte Fitzroy; Credit – https://gw.geneanet.org

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.

(Not to be confused with her half-sister Lady Charlotte Fitzroy, Charlotte Lee, Countess of Lichfield, illegitimate daughter of King Charles II and his mistress Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland.)

Born in 1650 in Paris, France, Charlotte Jemima Henrietta Maria FitzRoy was the illegitimate daughter of the future King Charles II of England and Elizabeth Killigrew. Her surname FitzRoy comes from the Anglo-Norman Fitz, meaning “son of” and Roy, meaning “king”, implying the original bearer of the surname was a child of a king. Charlotte’s 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). Her maternal grandparents were Sir Robert Killigrew, the Vice Chamberlain to Queen Henrietta Maria, and Mary Woodhouse.

On October 24, 1638, at the King’s Chapel in the Palace of Whitehall in London, Charlotte’s mother Elizabeth Killigrew married Francis Boyle, the fourth surviving son of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork. For his military services in support of King Charles II, Francis was created Viscount Shannon in 1660.

Elizabeth and Francis had five children, Charlotte’s half-siblings. Her half-siblings Francis, Charles, and Elizabeth probably died young.

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 and eventually settled in France, where his mother Queen Henrietta Maria already lived in exile with his sister Princess Henriette and where his young first cousin King Louis XIV was on the French throne. The execution of King Charles I on January 30, 1649, made his son Charles the de jure King of England. Elizabeth Killigrew joined the royalist court-in-exile of Queen Henrietta Maria in France where she became one of the many mistresses of the queen’s son, the future King Charles II.

At the time of Charlotte FitzRoy’s birth in 1650, Elizabeth Killigrew was twenty-eight years old and the future King Charles II was only twenty. Elizabeth was the only mistress of Charles II who was older than him. King Charles II never publicly acknowledged Charlotte as his child. The reason for this may have been her mother’s desire to hide her affair. Charlotte was legally the daughter of her mother’s husband Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon.

When she was thirteen years old, Charlotte married James Howard, the son of Thomas Howard (son of Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk) and Werburga van der Kerchove. James was a playwright, and two of his comedies, All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple and The English Monsieur starred Nell Gwynn, a mistress of King Charles II. James Howard died in July 1669, aged about 29.

Charlotte and James had one daughter:

  • Stuarta Werburge Howard (1668 – 1706), unmarried, was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Mary II

Oxnead Hall, the home of Charlotte and her second husband after 1683; Credit – By Glen Denny, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79121974

In 1671, Charlotte married for a second time to William Paston, the son of Robert Paston, 1st Earl of Yarmouth. In 1683, William became the 2nd Earl of Yarmouth upon the death of his father. Charlotte was then Countess of Yarmouth. William inherited Oxnead Hall in Oxnead, Norfolk, England which became the home of Charlotte and William. William’s sons, brothers, and their male heirs predeceased him and his titles became extinct when he died in 1732. The Paston family is famous for the Paston Letters, a collection of letters between members of the Paston family and others written between 1422 and 1509. The letters are an important primary source of information about life in England during the Wars of the Roses and the early Tudor period.

Charlotte and William had four children:

Charlotte died suddenly, aged thirty-four, on July 28, 1684, at her home in London and was buried at Westminster Abbey in London, England.

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Works Cited

  • Beauclerk-Dewar, Peter & Powell, Roger. (2006). Right Royal Bastards – The Fruits of Passion. Burke’s Peerage & Gentry LLC.
  • Elizabeth Boyle, Lady Shannon. geni_family_tree. (2022). https://www.geni.com/people/Elizabeth-Boyle-Lady-Shannon/6000000000769939241
  • 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). Charlotte Paston, Countess of Yarmouth. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Paston,_Countess_of_Yarmouth
  • Wikimedia Foundation. (2023). Elizabeth Killigrew, Viscountess Shannon. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Killigrew,_Viscountess_Shannon
  • Wikimedia Foundation. (2023a). William Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Paston,_2nd_Earl_of_Yarmouth