Thanks for your question, Mike, and for being a Regency Reader!
This is one of those questions where there isn’t an absolute answer. It really would’ve depended on the individual family.
In the case of your family, there were three legitimate sons who would have been the line of succession to inherit the title and entailed estate (presuming there was one), but the illegitimate son may have also inherited unentailed properties, money, or other valuables. Regina Jeffers breaks down inheritance and illegitimate sons with some real life examples here: Inheritance and Illegitimate Heirs + “The Earl Claims His Comfort” + Excerpt
There is significant evidence in the historical record that aristocratic families, in particular, openly acknowledged their illegitimate offspring in the late Georgian and Regency eras (Bergstrom, 1994). It was an open secret that aristocratic men typically had a mistress or mistresses. As such, it would not have been beyond the pale for families to acknowledge, if not embrace, the illegitimate children particularly if it were sired by the male head of household.
Where they were raised would have depended, too, on the people involved. In the case where known aristocrats like the Duke of Clarence were in faux marriages with their mistresses, the children would have been in the home with them. In the case of the Earl of Pembroke & Montgomery, his son stayed with his mother. The Duchess of Devonshire’s illegitimate daughter was raised by her father’s family, while the Duke of Devonshire’s illegitimate daughter was raised in the Devonshire household. Dido Elizabeth Belle was taken back to England with her father and then given to his brother the Earl of Mansfield to raise. In most of these cases, the illegitimate children were given different surnames, either to obscure the family connection or in deference to the marriage and legitimate offspring. However, it would have been an open secret and clear to most with a modicum of understanding of the peerage and practices of the gentry.
In all of those cases, the children were generously provided for and often made good marriages or found gainful employment.
Conversely, there may have other illegitimate children that were not acknowledged or provided for. It is harder to provide real accounts of those situations, but given the upwards of 10% estimated illegitimate children born in the era, its more likely than not that many children grew up not knowing who their father was and struggling alongside their single mother. This would have been more likely to be the case for middle and lower class families, where the rules of morality were more strictly enforced by their peers. It was also more strictly enforced by the parish church, who would go after named fathers in order to avoid having to support children (Reid, 2006). In many cases, the father would be forced to marry the mother.
I hope this helps give you a little insight into what commonly occurred in the era.
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Bergstrom, T. (1994). Primogeniture, monogamy, and reproductive success in a stratified society.
Gillis, John R. For Better, for Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present. New York, Oxford: OUP, 1985.
Reid, A., Davies, R., Garrett, E. & Blaikie, A. (2006). Vulnerability among illegitimate children in nineteenth century Scotland. Annales de démographie historique,
Read more:
https://notchesblog.com/2022/09/22/illegitimacy-family-and-stigma-in-england-1660-1834/
https://www.quillsandquartos.com/post/illegitimacy-in-regency-england
https://www.cam.ac.uk/unmarried_mothers
