Patrick Hepburn - Hepburn The Womaniser

Hepburn The Womaniser

In his time, Hepburn was notorious for his philandering. The contemporary chronicler Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie wrote that Hepburn "ever was a master of whores all of his days and committed whoredom and adultery both with maidens and men's wives". By at least five different mistresses he produced at least thirteen illegitimate children. He had four sons and one daughter by Isabel Liddell, namely Patrick, Adam, George, John and Jane; by another mistress, Marion Strang, he had one son, whose name was William; with Janet Urquhart, he fathered another three sons and one daughter, Patrick, David, Thomas, and Joanna; with Elizabeth Innes, he sired a son named Alexander; and by a mistress whose name has not survived he had a further two daughters. Bishop Hepburn eventually had ten of his bastards legitimised, and indeed it is largely down to his efforts to achieve legitimisation that the names of many of these children have been recorded in the Register of the Great Seal.