On May 11, 1812, a disgruntled citizen strode into the lobby of the House of Commons. He’d been there before, largely pottering, and had returned after a morning of errands in London.
He waited until the arrival of the Prime Minister. When Spencer Perceval was led into the lobby, the citizen pulled his pistol from a customised inside coat pocket and shot him dead. Perceval remains the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated.
The assassin was the bankrupt son of wealthy Cambridgeshire parents, by now a trader in Liverpool bearing a grudge against the government after he was imprisoned while working in Russia.
Is England’s World Cup star descended from Perceval’s assassin?
Perceval was killed by John Bellingham, whose grievance with the government played out within the walls of the Houses of Parliament with bloody consequences 214 years ago.
He was convicted and hanged within a week but his name is on the lips of social media users again in 2026 thanks to an extraordinary claim that England and Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham and his brother, Jobe, are descendants of the Prime Minister’s assassin.
But is it true?
The Bellinghams’ father, Mark Bellingham, paired his career in the police with an exceptional goalscoring record as a non-league footballer, initially in Essex but primarily around the West Midlands.
Mark is the son of William Bellingham. He was a military man and educator credited by Jude as the patriotic influence behind the 23-year-old’s proud love for his country.
“He was an Englishman through and through,” Jude said of his grandfather after scoring against Croatia at the World Cup in June. William passed away before his grandson’s senior England debut in November 2020.
In a profile in The Telegraph, Dominic King wrote: “William knew that travel broadens horizons. He taught in Singapore and spent six years working for Guinness in Nigeria, after that stint in the Forces. It is why he would impart wisdom and encourage pupils to reach for the stars.”
The video of William’s 1987 appearance on Mastermind was unearthed by social media users in July; for his specialist subject, he tackled 67 years’ worth of Nigerian history.
Clearly, William Bellingham was a man of the world, beloved by his family and his students alike. But is he actually related to John Bellingham?
That is the suggestion made by the reliably charming blue-ticker Daniel Hannan, whose existence had mercifully been forgotten for many years until he posted about the Bellingham lineage on X, where all the most lovable folk still hang out.
“I believe that this impressive chap was first cousin to the father of the Tory minister (and now peer) Henry Bellingham,” said Hannan, referring to William’s Mastermind clip.
“Which means that Jude, like Henry, is a direct descendant of John Bellingham.”
There’s no faulting that if it were true that Henry Bellingham’s father was William’s cousin, it would indeed mean that Jude – and Mark and Jobe – are descended from arguably Britain’s most famous assassin.
However, in the wake of Hannan’s punt, some genealogy enthusiasts have produced contradictory evidence. It is variously claimed that Henry Bellingham is in fact not related to John Bellingham, and that William Bellingham and Henry Bellingham’s father could not have been cousins.
It’s a funny old game, Saint.
