If Julie de Laurent was the mistress of Edward, that too was a long-term relationship. I forget how many years past twenty it is said to have lasted. Edward and Julie lived outside England during most of that time, as he was in military service and posted abroad. He is said to have had a child with Julie while in Canada, and given the boy to be raised by Robert Woods, his employee, and the boy was also named Robert Woods. I read this in the couple of books on the subject, some years ago, and the Mormons have good records, easily available at my local Mormon church, where I spent hours looking at old records. The books stated that Queen Victoria did not wish knowledge of her father's other children to be known, and suppressed this. Whether or not this is true or a rumor, who of us can tell?
The Mormon records showed that Robert Woods of Kent (a person of the time period) married Lady Charlotte Grey, daughter of the well known parliamentarian, Earl Grey, for whom the tea "Earl Grey" is named (one of my favorite teas).
Edward and Julie are thought to have had more children born in other spots than Canada. Then they lived for a while in England but found it expensive and retired to Belgium, where it was less expensive, but he was summoned to England to try for an heir to the throne, and left his longtime mistress, who disappeared from history at this point. He only lived about a year and a half after marrying Victoria's mother; perhaps he was heartbroken? We cannot know.
I am a descendant of the Woods family of Kent so that's why I was looking at the genealogy records, wondering if I might be a descendant of Robert Woods. But the time period is not quite right, and the name Robert Woods occurs a thousand times in the records, so I gave up on this as futile.
Julie's mother was a Colonna.
This story doesn't add up and in actuality isn't correct - even if we allow for the possibility of Robert Woods having been Edward's child.
To start, the Mormons may keep really good records, but the church wasn't founded until 1820 so I would question the validity of any records they have that predate then.
To continue, as per the peerage.com, Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey did not have a daughter named Charlotte. Nor did any of the 6 daughters he did have marry someone named Robert Woods. Given as the peerage does make note of Charles Grey's illegitimate daughter, I would think that had he had a child named Charlotte it would be noted.
Robert Woods, had he been Edward's child, would not have been "of Kent" owing to his illegitimacy. We see this in the naming schemes used by the other illegitimate children of Princes at the time; William's children were the FitzClarences, Augustus' children were the d'Estes. There is no "of x" with illegitimate children unless they're given titles themselves or marry someone who holds titles.
There is also no reason to believe that the birth of an illegitimate child would have been covered up in the first place - and if Robert Woods was in fact Edward's child that's what happened, not retroactively as is often implied. Robert Woods, Jr is reported to have been born in Quebec in 1871 to Robert Woods, Sr, who had been a servant who accompanied Edward to Canada. Woods, Jr later married the daughter of a military clerk, Charlotte Gray, with whom he had 11 children, before dying in 1847. Consequently, he was born 28 years before Victoria, with absolutely no reason to take measures to cover up the origins of his birth. The FitzClarences and d'Estes were both born around this time without any cover up, so there's no reason to think that Edward's child would have been covered up at this point either, 28 years before the birth of his legitimate daughter, and 46 years before she came to the throne.
It should also be noted that the peerage does recognize the birth of one illegitimate child to Edward, Adelaide Victoria Augusta Dubus, born in 1789 and died in 1790. That seems more like the child whose existence Victoria would have hidden, had she even known about it in the first place.
It's also commonly accepted that Edward died of pneumonia and not a broken heart.
