A WHO’S WHO OF TUDOR WOMEN: E-G
compiled by
Kathy Lynn Emerson
to update and correct
her very out-of-date
WIVES AND
DAUGHTERS, THE WOMEN OF SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND (1984)
NOTE: this document exists
only in electronic format
and is ©2008-10 Kathy Lynn
Emerson (all rights reserved)
DORCAS ECCLESTON (1537-September 1, 1599)
ANNE EDGECUMBE (d. 1613+)
CATHERINE EDGECUMBE
MARGARET EDGECUMBE (1560-April 24,1648)
WINIFRED EDGECUMBE
SARAH EDMONDES
FRANCES EDMONDS (c.1512-c.1601)
Frances Edmonds was the daughter of Andrew Edmonds of Cressing Temple, Essex (c. 1484-June 23, 1523) and Elizabeth Bledlow (c.1490-October 25,1556). She was a stepdaughter of John, Lord Williams of Thame and half sister of Marjorie Williams, Lady Norris. She is said to have been a maid of honor to Elizabeth Tudor before Elizabeth became queen, but she had married John D’Oyly of Greenland House, Hambledon, Buckinghamshire (c.1508-c.1569) by 1538, making this doubtful. She probably met Elizabeth when she was on her way to Woodstock in 1554 and stopped at Rycote, home of Lady Norris, for a night. Frances's children were Robert of Chiselhampton (c.1539-1577), John (c.1541-March 1603), Dorothy, Phyllis, Francis, Thomas (1548-1603), and Henry. In 1560, she and two of her half sisters were official mourners at the funeral of Amye Robsart, Lady Dudley.
ALICE EGERTON
see ALICE SPENCER
DOROTHY EGERTON (1565-April 4,1639)
Dorothy Egerton was the only legitimate child of Sir Richard Egerton of Ridley, Cheshire (d. November 1579) by his wife Mary Grosvenor (d. March 26, 1599). Dorothy married first, in 1577, Richard Brereton of Tatton and Worsley, Lancashire (d. December 18, 1598), by whom she had one child who died young. Her second husband was a widower with children, Sir Peter Legh of Lyme, Cheshire (d.1636), She was buried in Eccles Church with her second husband. Portraits: A. L. Rowse in Sex and Society in Shakepeare’s Age describes two portraits of Dorothy at Lyme: In one “the younger-looking face is sad and numb; she is all in black, no jewelry, hand on the Book. The second shows a middle-aged lady bedizened with jewelry, chains of pearls down to her waist, jewels and ornaments in her hat, beneath which is a very wide-awake face; and, in place of the Bible, one of her special breed of monkeys.”
FRANCES EGERTON
see FRANCES STANLEY
MARGARET EGERTON
see MARGARET BASSETT
MARY EGERTON
see MARY GROSVENOR
MRS. EGLIONBY
see ELIZABETH AGLIONBY
ELIZABETH I (September 7,1533-March 24,1603)
Elizabeth Tudor was the daughter of Henry VIII (June 28,1491-January 28,1547) and Anne Boleyn (c.1507-May 19,1536) and England’s queen from 1558 until 1603. There are too many biographies of her available for me to need to say much about her here. In my personal opinion, however, she was indeed “the virgin queen.” There was very little privacy to allow her to be otherwise. In addition, what happened to her mother and her stepmother, Catherine Howard, would surely have left her with a deep-rooted fear of sexual intimacy. Biographies: too many to name. Portraits: ditto
ALICE ELKIN
see ALICE WILKES
ALICE ELMES
MARGARET ELYOT
see MARGARET à BARROW
KATHERINE EMMES (1570/1-December 1590)
Katherine Emmes was the daughter of William Emmes of St. Dunstan in the West, London (d.1583), a cordwainer, and an unnamed Dutch woman. At fifteen, in September 1586, she married Philip Stubbes the Puritan pamphleteer (c.1555-c.1610). After they married, they moved from St. Mary at Hill, London, to Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, where Katherine died a few weeks after giving birth to a son, John, who was baptized on November 17, 1590. Stubbs’s next work was a life of his wife titled A Christal Glasse for Christian Women (1591), in which he idealized her as “a perfect paterne of true Christianitie.” This pamphlet proved even more popular than his earlier work, Anatomie of Abuses (1583).
MARIA ENRÍQUEZ de TOLEDO y GUZMÁN (d.1583)
DOROTHY ERSKINE
ELIZABETH ERSKINE
see ELIZABETH PIERREPOINT
WINIFRED ESSEX (1515-1540+)
ELIZABETH EUSTACE
ELIZABETH FANE
see ELIZABETH BRYDGES
FLORENCE FARINGDON
see FLORENCE WADHAM
ANNE FARRANT
see ANNE BOWER
AGNES FERMOR (d.1617)
Agnes Fermor was the eldest of the eight daughters of Sir George Fermor of Easton Neston, Northamptonshire (1550-1612) and Mary Curzon (d.1628). In 1595, Agnes married Sir Richard Wenman of Thame Park, Oxfordshire (1573-1640), by whom she had Thomas (1596-1665), Philip (d.1696), and four daughters. She was a recusant and hid the Jesuit priest, John Gerard, in her house. Her correspondence with her cousin, Elizabeth Vaux, led to a short confinement at the time of the Gunpowder Plot. She translated the thirteenth century works of Johannes Zonaras (originally in Greek) from the French translation of Jan de Maumont into English. She was buried at Twyford, Buckinghamshire on July 4, 1617. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Wenman [née Fermor], Agnes.”
ANNE FERNLEYor FERNELEY (1521-November 23,1596)
Anne Fernley was the daughter of William Fernley of West Criting, Suffolk (1490-1556) and Agnes Daundy (1480?-June 1572). Anne was married first, in 1536, to London merchant William Read (Reade; Rede) (1505-1543), by whom she had two sons, Richard and William (1538-1621), and second, in 1544, to Thomas Gresham (1519-November 21,1579). She was a milliner and was making caps for Queen Elizabeth as late as 1569. The Greshams had only one child, Richard (March 1547-1564), although Thomas also had a natural daughter. At the time of their marriage, Thomas resided primarily in Antwerp and continued to do so until 1551. He was knighted in 1559. He left Antwerp for good in March 1567 and in 1568 began building the Royal Exchange, the first “shopping mall” in England. By that time, his health was already failing. He was going blind and a poorly set broken leg caused him a great deal of pain. His relationship with Anne was acrimonious. They quarreled in particular over his tendency, after their son’s death, to lavish money on charity. It did not help matters when, in June, 1569, the Greshams were put in charge of the Lady Mary Grey. She was under house arrest for marrying without the queen’s permission. Gresham was already asking to be relieved of the responsibility by 1570. One of the excuses he gave was that his wife wished to go to Norfolk to visit her mother, who was ninety and not likely to live much longer. Genealogies, however, tend to give Agnes (or Anne) Daundy's birthdate as 1496, making her closer to seventy than ninety, but that was still a very great age in those days. In spite of Gresham’s many pleas, the Lady Mary remained his guest until May 1572. On January 23, 1571, Queen Elizabeth dined at Gresham House in Bishopsgate Street and toured the Royal Exchange, officially giving it its name. The Lady Mary was confined to her rooms while the queen was in the house. In early September, 1571, after the death of the Lady Mary’s husband, she was moved to the Greshams’ country house at Osterley in Middlesex. As her keepers, the Greshams went with her. By January, Sir Thomas’s letters were begging that the Lady Mary be removed from his keeping for the “quietness” of his wife and in March 1572 he referred to “my wife’s suit for the removing of my Lady Mary Grey.” He characterized his wife’s plight as “the bondage and heart sorrow she has had for these three years.” After the Lady Mary finally left the Greshams, taking with her what Sir Thomas called “all her books and rubbish,” they entertained the queen twice more. In August 1573, Queen Elizabeth visited them at Mayfield, Sussex. In May 1578 she was their guest at Osterley Park. The next year, after Gresham died of apoplexy, Anne inherited Gresham House and the rents from the shops in the Royal Exchange, giving her an income of £2,388 10s 6½d per annum. Not satisfied with that, however, she fought the other bequests in her husband’s will and kept that income also. After seventeen years as a very wealthy widow, she died at Osterley House. At that point, part of Sir Thomas's estate went to found Gresham College.
ELEANOR FETTIPLACE
see ELEANOR POOLE
JACQUINETTA FIELD
see JACQUINETTA VAUTROLLIER
FIENNES DE CLINTON
see CLINTON
ANNE FIENNES
see ANNE SACKVILLE
MARGARET FIENNES or FYNES (d.1611)
Margaret Fiennes was the daughter of Thomas Fiennes, 9th baron Dacre (1516-x.June 29,1541) and Mary Neville (c.1520-1578+). After her father’s execution, the title was in abeyance. Margaret married one Sampson Lennard (d.1615) in 1564 and gave birth to Henry (1570-1616), Gregory, Ann, Mary, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Frances Lennard. Margaret’s brother was restored as 10th baron Dacre in 1558, but the title lapsed once again upon his death in 1594. In 1604, James I created Margaret baroness Dacre in her own right and the title descended to her eldest son, Henry, as 12th baron. Portrait: by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger c. 1595-1600.
MARY FIENNES (d. by 1530)
Mary Fiennes was the daughter of Thomas Fiennes, 8th Baron Dacre of the South (c.1472-September 9,1534) and Anne Bourchier (d. after September 29, 1530). She accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1514 and was one of those ladies allowed to remain when most of Mary’s English household was dismissed by the French king. After her return to England, she married Sir Henry Norris (c.1491-x.1536). Their children were Sir William (1523-1591), Edward (1524-1599), Henry (1525-June 1601), and Mary (d.1570).
MARY FIENNES
see MARY NEVILLE
KATHERINE FILLOL or FILLIOL (1499-before 1535)
Katherine Fillol was the daughter of Sir William Fillol of Woodlands in Horton, Dorset (1543- July 9, 1527) and Dorothy Ifield. In about 1522, she married Edward Seymour (1502-x.January 22,1552) and had two children, John (1524-December 19,1552) and Edward (1525?-May 6,1593). In a will made in 1519, Katherine’s father named her as his executor. In a second will, however, made in May 1527, he changed the provisions, so that Katherine was to receive nothing but a pension of £40 a year and that only as long as she lived “in some honest house of religion of women.” By that time, she was apparently residing in a convent, having been repudiated by her husband, who claimed that Katherine’s oldest son had been conceived while he was out of the country. The family took care to keep details quiet, but there has been considerable speculation among scholars that Katherine’s lover was her father-in-law, Sir John Seymour. After William Fillol’s death, Edward Seymour and Sir Edward Willoughby, husband of Katherine’s sister Anne, had the will overturned by an act of Parliament (1530). Divorce being almost impossible, Katherine’s estranged husband then had to wait until she died to remarry. In 1539 he obtained permission from Parliament to alter the normal rules of inheritance and cut both sons from his first marriage out of the succession so that his titles would pass to the eldest son of his second marriage. He does not, however, seem to have cut the boys off completely. Both of them were prisoners in the Tower with him at the time of his execution and the older son died there later that same year.
ELIZABETH FINCH
see ELIZABETH HENEAGE
ANNE FITTON (October 1574-July 1618)
MARY FITTON (1578-1641)
JANE FITZALAN (1536-July 7, 1578)
Jane Fitzalan was the daughter of Henry Fitzalan, 12th earl of Arundel (April 23,1512-February 24,1580) and Katherine Grey (d. December 19, 1542). Joan was given an education equal to any boy’s and was an avid translator of Greek and Latin. In 1550, she married John, Baron Lumley of Lumley Castle, Durham (1534-April 11,1609). In 1553, she rode in the third chariot of state in Queen Mary’s coronation procession. She was chief mourner at her sister’s funeral (see next entry) on September 1, 1557 and was called upon to nurse her father at Nonsuch Palace in Surrey after Arundel’s second wife died on October 30th of that same year. He’d lost his son and heir, Jane’s brother, the year before. Jane was among Queen Elizabeth’s ladies of honor on the 1558/9 list. Joan had two sons and one daughter but they all died young. She died at Arundel Place in London. In 1596, her husband erected a tomb to her at Cheam, Surrey. The Fitzalans were collectors and upon the earl’s death, Lord Lumley inherited the finest library in England. Upon his death, it passed to the Crown and became the core of the present day British Library. Included in it are manuscripts by both Joan and her sister. Joan translated Isocrates’ Archidamus from Greek into Latin and made a prose translation from Greek into English of Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulus. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Lumley [née Fitzalan] Jane.” NOTE: the DNB gives Jane’s birthdate as 1537. Portrait: 1563 by Steven van der Meulen.
MARY FITZALAN (1540-August 25, 1557)
Mary was the younger daughter of Henry Fitzalan, 12th earl of Arundel (April 23,1512-February 24,1580) and Katherine Grey (d. December 19,1542). Like her sister (above), she was well-educated and several of the translations she made from Greek into Latin have been preserved. In March 1555 she married Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk (March 10,1538-June 2,1572). His biographer, Neville Williams, speculates that Mary remained at Arundel Place for another year, continuing her studies, before the marriage was consummated. Mary had a son, Philip (June 28,1557-November 19,1595) but only survived his birth by eight weeks. She was buried in St. Clements on September 1, 1557. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Howard [née Fitzalan], Mary.” Portraits: 1555 by Hans Eworth; a second at Arundel castle.
MARY FITZALAN
see MARY ARUNDELL
ALICE FITZGERALD (c.1508-c. May 1540)
ELEANOR FITZGERALD (c.1482-1541+)
ELEANOR FITZGERALD
ELIZABETH FITZGERALD (1527-March 1589)
Elizabeth Fitzgerald was the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, 9th earl of Kildare (1487-September 2,1534) and Elizabeth Grey (c.1497-1548+), an Englishwoman. After her father’s death while a prisoner in the Tower of London, Elizabeth was raised at the English court. She and a sister came to England with their mother in 1533. In 1537, the same year her half brother and her five FitzGerald uncles were executed at Tyburn for treason and rebellion, she was sent to Mary Tudor’s household at Hunsdon. Shortly after that, when she was ten or eleven, she was the subject of a poem by Henry Howard, earl of Surrey. Surrey’s biographer, Jessie Childs (Henry VIII’s Last Victim) suggests that Surrey’s intent was to improve her chances of making a good marriage by praising not only her noble heritage but her beauty and virtues. In the poem she is called “the Lady Geraldine” and subsequent generations invented all sorts of romantic tales about her. The truth was, she was an impoverished noblewoman dependent upon the Tudors. Other sources date the poem in November 1541 and say Elizabeth was a maid of honor to Catherine Howard at the time, but there is no evidence to support this. She may, however, have been at court while Catherine was queen. In December 1542, she became the second wife of Sir Anthony Browne (June 27,1500-May 6,1548), Henry VIII’s Master of Horse. Browne was a wealthy and influential man. Later his daughter, Mabel, married Elizabeth’s brother, Gerald, 11th earl of Kildare. After Sir Anthony’s death, the widowed Lady Browne was part of the household at Chelsea Manor shared by Katherine Parr, the Queen Dowager, by then married to Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour, and Elizabeth Tudor. Later, when Princess Elizabeth was being questioned about her relationship with the Lord Admiral, her custodian, Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, remembered that Lady Browne had gotten along well with the princess and sent for her to spy on the girl. Lady Browne was not successful as a spy, perhaps by intent, and later became a close friend of Elizabeth Tudor’s when she became queen. On October 1,1552, Lady Browne remarried, taking as her second husband Edward Fiennes de Clinton, Lord Clinton (1512-1585), who had succeeded Seymour as Lord Admiral. In 1553, both of them were involved in the plot to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne instead of Mary Tudor, but Elizabeth was able to regain Queen Mary’s trust. She may have been part of Elizabeth Tudor's household at Hatfield in 1557-8. She definitely provided a place, a few days before Mary’s death, for the count of Feria to meet with the princess. Lady Clinton was at court as a lady in waiting from the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign. In 1561, she was among those who tried to warn Lady Catherine Grey to confess her secret marriage to the queen before she found out from someone else. Later that same year, Lady Clinton was in some sort of trouble with the queen herself and accused of “frailty” and “forgetfulness of her duty.” It is not clear what occasioned such criticism, but since the charges were made by Archbishop Parker, who also declared she should be “chastised in Bridewell” for her offense, David Starkey concludes that Parker thought she was a strumpet. In 1569, records show that she exercised the Lord Admiral’s right to seize a ship that had been illegally taken by Martin Frobisher. Frobisher was arrested for piracy; Lady Clinton kept the ship and its cargo. In 1572, Clinton was created earl of Lincoln, making Elizabeth a countess. She had two children by Browne, both of whom died young, and no children by Clinton. She is buried in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle with her second husband. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under "Clinton, Elizabeth Fiennes de." Portrait: by Steven van der Meulen, 1560; a second portrait by an unknown artist, c.1575, is in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. She gave a miniature of herself to Elizabeth Brooke, Marchioness of Northampton which was willed back to her on Lady Northampton's death in 1565.
ELIZABETH FITZGERALD (d. 1547+)
This Elizabeth Fitzgerald was a relative of Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Countess of Lincoln, but her parentage is uncertain, as is the name of her husband, or even if she married. Since Garrett was a common substitution for FitzGerald. Elizabeth may well have been the Lady Garrett (Garet/Gard) in the household of Elizabeth Tudor in 1536. Although some sources indicate that “Elizabeth Garret” was still a member of that household in 1546, it seems more likely that she had moved on to the household of Queen Katherine Parr. Katherine’s biographer, Susan James, indicates that Elizabeth Garrett was there from 1543-1547 and that she was a close friend of the queen’s stepdaughter, Margaret Neville. Less certain is whether she is the Elizabeth Garrett mentioned in the will of Lord Clinton in 1585, identified as one of Queen Elizabeth’s handmaidens. An Elizabeth Garrett is listed as a maid of honor in 1572. If Garrett was our Elizabeth's married name, then the Elizabeth Garrett of 1572 and 1585 could be her daughter. There is also a Lettice Garrett listed as a maid of honor in 1599.
ELIZABETH FITZGERALD
see ELIZABETH GREY
FRANCES FITZGERALD
see FRANCES HOWARD
JOAN FITZGERALD (c.1509-January 2, 1565)
KATHERINE FITZGERALD (d. 1604)
MABEL FITZGERALD
see MABEL BROWNE
MARGARET FITZGERALD (c. 1467-August 9, 1542)
MARY FITZGERALD (d.c.1596)
FRANCES FITZLEWIS (d.1523+)
MARY FITZROY
see MARY HOWARD
AGNES FITZWILLIAM
ANNE FITZWILLIAM
MABEL FITZWILLIAM
ALICE FLEMING
JOAN FLETCHER (d.1559+)
ELLEN FLODDER (x. 1616)
JANE FLUDD
ELEANOR FOGGE
see ELEANOR BROWNE
MARGARET (or ANNE) FOLIOT (d.1546+)
ISABEL FOLJAMBE
ANNE FORMAN
see ANNE BAKER
ANNE FORTESCUE
see ANNE REDE
DOROTHY FOSSER (d.c.1556/7)
JANE FOSTER
see JANE WADHAM
DOROTHY FOUNTAIN (d.1547+)
ALICE FOWLER
AGNES FOXE
see AGNES RANDALL
MRS. ELIZABETH FRANCIS (1538-x.1579) (maiden name unknown)
JOCOSA FRANKLAND
MARY FRITH (1584-1659)
Known as “Moll Cutpurse,” Mary Frith was a master criminal. Possibly the daughter of a shoemaker, her activities as a robber, forger, and gang leader made her wealthy enough to have a fine house in Fleet Street. She was celebrated in song and story. She was found not guilty of burglary charges in 1610 but punished for dressing in male attire in 1612. She was required to do penance at Paul’s Cross and spent time in Newgate Prison afterward. She married Lewknor Markham on March 23, 1614 but continued to be known as Mary Frith. Biographies: There is a lengthy account of her life and crimes in Alan Hayes’s Untam'd Desire: Sex in Elizabethan England; Oxford DNB entry under "Frith [married name Markham], Mary." Portraits: a woodcut included in some 1639 editions of Nathan Field’s Amends for Ladies.
DOROTHY FROBISHER
see DOROTHY WENTWORTH
FAITH FULFORD (d. before 1604)
ANNE GAINSFORD or GAYNSFORD (c.1495-c.1590)
Anne Gainsford was a member of Anne Boleyn’s household as early as 1528. She was in possession of her mistress’s copy of William Tyndale’s The Obedience of the Christian Man, a book deemed heretical by Cardinal Wolsey, when Anne Boleyn’s equerry, George Zouche, who was courting Anne Gainsford, filched it. Having begun to read, he refused to return it, and he was caught by the dean of the Chapel Royal, who reported the matter to Wolsey. Anne Gainsford herself recounted this incident to George Wyatt, who wrote the first biography of Anne Boleyn c.1590 and the same story was told by John Lowthe, archdeacon of Nottingham, to John Foxe. Lowthe had spent the early part of his career in the Zouche household. Around the time Anne Boleyn became queen, Anne Gainsford married George Zouche, who became a gentleman pensioner to the king. Later, Anne Zouche was obliged to testify against Queen Anne. John Foxe further identifies Anne Gainsford as the daughter of John Gainsford of Crowhurst, Surrey. John Gainsford (c.1469-October 28, 1540) had six wives. Anne was the daughter of the second, Anne Hawte (b.c.1473). She had one sister, Mary, whose birth date is estimated at 1495, and Anne was likely born within a year or two either way. George Zouche was Sir George Zouche of Codnor (c.1494-1557), but genealogies say he married Anne Gainsford c.1510 and go on to list eight children and a second marriage, c. 1526, to Helen Lane, that produced eleven more. Obviously, this does not fit with the known facts about Anne Gainsford Zouche the waiting gentlewoman. It is possible that Helen was the first wife and Anne the second, but that does not quite fit, either. Mary S. Lovell in her biography of Bess of Hardwick (Bess was raised in Lady Zouche's household at Codnor Castle) says that Anne Gainsford was a lady in waiting to Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour before her marriage.
ELIZABETH GALE (d. 1559)
THOMASINE GALLE
see THOMASINE BONAVENTURE
BARBARA GAMAGE (1562-May 1621)
Barbara Gamage was the daugher of John Gamage of Coity or Coety, Glamorganshire (d. September 8, 1584) and Gwenllian (or Catherine) Powell. At the time of her father’s death she was living in London at the home of her uncle, Sir Edward Stradling, who became her guardian. There was fierce competition for her hand in marriage, but on September 23, 1584, she married Robert Sidney (1563-1626), younger brother of Sir Philip Sidney. By one account, they wed only two hours before the arrival of a royal decree forbidding the match. However it began, the marriage was a successful one. Sidney wrote over three hundred letters to his wife between 1588 and 1621, revealing that they had a most affectionate relationship. The collection was published in 2005 as Domestic Policies and Family Absence: The Correspondence (1588-1621) of Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester and Barbara Gamage Sidney. Barbara probably accompanied her husband to the Netherlands in 1585-6. She was with him in Flushing in 1590, 1592, and 1597-8, when he was governor there. One of his letters, written in 1596 from the Netherlands, urges her to join him there and suggests that she leave their daughters with Lady Huntingdon and Lady Warwick. Sidney was created earl of Leicester in 1618. In all, Barbara had eleven children: William (c.1585-1613), Mary (October 18, 1587-c.1652), Katherine (b.1588), Henry, Philip, Elizabeth (b.1592), Robert (1595-1677), Barbara (b.1599), Dorothy, Philippa, and Bridget. She was buried at Penshurst, Kent on May 26, 1621. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Sidney [née Gamage], Barbara.” NOTE: the DNB gives Barbara’s birthdate as c.1559. Portraits: by Marcus Gheeraerts c. 1595; by Marcus Gheerearts with her children, c.1596. The group portrait shows Robert (seated) William (with the red hat), Barbara, Mary, Katherine, Elizabeth, and Philippa, but authorities differ on which girl is which. Barbara may be pregnant, possibly with her daughter Bridget, in this portrait.
MARGARET GAMAGE (1515-May 1, 1581)
Margaret Gamage was the daughter of Sir Thomas Gamage (c.1484-1515+) and Margaret St. John (b.c.1486). In 1536, she married William Howard (1510-January 21,1573), who was created Baron Howard of Effingham in 1554. Their children, according to a variety of lists, were Charles (1536-December 14, 1624), Mary (d.August 21,1600), William (c.1540-1609), Margaret (b.c.1544), Douglas (1545-December 11, 1608), Katherine (c.1546-c.1601), Edward (b.c. 1550), Henry (b.c.1552), Frances (c.1554-May 14,1598), possibly a twin for Frances named Martha, Thomas (b.c.1556), Dorothy (b.c.1558), Anne (b.c.1560), Elizabeth (b.c.1562), and Richard (b.c.1564). Margaret was one of Queen Catherine Howard’s ladies. When Catherine was arrested, both Margaret and her husband were tried and found guilty of concealing her unchastity. They were later pardoned. Howard was Lord Chamberlain under both Mary and Elizabeth and Margaret was listed among the ladies of honor in 1558/9. In 1578/9, she took delivery of New Year’s gifts for the queen. Her name is sometimes written as “Lady Haward.” Portraits: there was a portrait of Margaret Gamage, Lady Howard in the Pembroke collection in 1561.
ELLEN GARDINER
ELIZABETH GARRETT
see ELIZABETH FITZGERALD
ELIZABETH GARTON (d.c.1623)
Elizabeth Garton was the daughter of Francis Garton of Billingshurst, Sussex, a prosperous landowner in Kent and Sussex who had connections to the Ironmongers’ Company in London. She married Clement Draper (c.1541-1620), a merchant who, through no fault of his own, spent a period from the early 1580s until at least 1593 in the King’s Bench prison for debt. During this time, for 4s. a day, prisoners could obtain permission to “go abroad.” Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter, also named Elizabeth, as a result of one of these furloughs. She was christened in the parish of All Hallow’s the Less on December 7, 1583. At least two other children, Sara and Vincent, followed. Deborah E. Harkness’s The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution contains the story of Elizabeth Garton and Clement Draper. Apparently Elizabeth was skilled at making medicines, including chemical medicines. Harkness gives considerable detail on the scientific experiments and teachings of both husband and wife.
AGNES GASCOIGNE (1459-August 1504)
ELIZABETH GASCOIGNE
see ELIZABETH BACON
DOROTHY GATES (1512-1582)
Dorothy Gates was the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Gates of High Roding, Essex (1484-1526) and Elizabeth Clopton. In 1524 she married Thomas Josselyn of Hide Hall, Hertfordshire (1506-October 24,1562) and by him had the following children: Mary (c.1525-1561+), Richard (c.1526/7-September 1575), Thomas (c.1528-1561+), John (c.1529-December 28, 1603), Leonard (1530-before 1561), Jane (c.1532-before 1602), Henry (c.1538-1587), and possibly Edward (1548-1627). Having had her family, Dorothy Josselyn was at court in the household of Queen Catherine Howard in 1540-2 and surviving correspondence with her brother, Sir John Gates (x.1553), indicates that the queen was not that easy to get along with. “I fear I shall scant content her Grace,” Dorothy wrote on one occasion. N. P. Sil’s Tudor Placemen and Statesmen quotes further correspondence between Dorothy and her brother and Sil identifies her as “probably a supplier of dresses” to Queen Katherine Parr. Dorothy regularly wrote letters asking for favors from Sir John, who was influential during the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII and the reign of Edward VI. In 1542, she needed his help when her husband was implicated in a case of forgery. With the execution of Sir John and the beginning of Mary Tudor’s reign, there is less of Dorothy in the records. She made her will in 1579 but lived for several more years. She was dead by February 11, 1582, but was not buried at Sawbridge, Hertfordshire until July 2.
ELIZABETH GAWDY
CATHERINE GEDDING (d. 1557)
SARA GHEERAERTS (1575-c.1605)
Sara Gheeraerts was the daughter of Marcus Gheeraerts the elder (c.1520-c.1590) by his second wife, Susanna de Critz. Sara was the niece of artist John de Critz. Her aunt, Magdelena, married Marcus Gheeraerts the younger (c.1561-1636), Sara’s half brother, who became an even more famous artist than his father. Sara married yet another artist, Isaac Oliver (d. 1617), in February of 1602, and was once thought to be the subject of a portrait of his wife. Based on the clothing the subject wears, experts now think it more likely the portrait was painted c. 1615, making its subject Oliver's third wife, Elizabeth Harding. Sara had died by 1606 when Oliver's marriage to Elizabeth took place.
MARGARET GIGS or GIGGS (1509-July 6,1570)
Margaret Gigs’s parents are unknown, other than that her father was a Norfolk gentleman. She was the ward/adopted daughter of Sir Thomas More (1487-1535) and raised and educated with his daughters. Her scholarship was said to surpass even that of Margaret More and she was especially skilled in algebra and in medical lore. In 1526, she married Dr. John Clement (c.1500-1572), who was also a member of the More household. They had eleven children, including Winifred (1527-July 17,1553), Thomas, Bridget, Helen, Dorothy, and Margaret (1540-1612). In 1535, Margaret Clement accompanied Margaret More to Tower Wharf to receive her father’s blessing and following his execution helped her retrieve his body and bury him. In October 1549, seeking religious freedom, Margaret, her husband, and their children went into exile in Louvain. They returned to England in 1554 but left again in early 1563. Margaret died in Mechlin and was buried in the church of St. Rumbald. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under "Clement [Clements; née Giggs], Margaret." Portraits: Holbein sketch c.1527 (mislabeled “Mistress Iak”); More family portraits.
ISABEL GIL de AVILES (d.1588+)
KATHERINE GILBERT
ELIZABETH GOLDING
see ELIZABETH ROYDON
MARGERY GOLDING (1525-December 2, 1568)
Margery Golding was the daughter of John Golding of Paul’s Hall, Belchamp St. Paul, Essex (c.1498-November 28,1547) and Elizabeth Tonge, Towe, or Tough (d. November 27,1527). On August 2, 1548 she became the second wife of John de Vere, 16th earl of Oxford (1512-August 3,1562). He was a widower with one daughter, Katherine. Later, when she was Lady Windsor, Katherine claimed that the marriage was bigamous because her father had been betrothed to her lady in waiting, Dorothy Fosser of Haverhill, Suffolk. Although Oxford’s history with the ladies was somewhat scandalous (see the entry for Joan Jockey), and the banns for his marriage to Dorothy Fosser had been read twice, his wedding to Margery was apparently legal. The case was thrown out of court. Margery had two children by Oxford, Edward, 17 th earl (April 12, 1550-June 24, 1604) and Mary (1554-June 24, 1624). Margery was at court as a lady in waiting to the queen from 1559 to 1561 and entertained Queen Elizabeth at Castle Hedingham, Essex in 1561. Shortly after her husband’s death, she married Sir Charles Tyrrel (d.1570), one of the queen’s gentleman pensioners and Margery’s reputed lover. Biography: There is no study of Margery Golding, but her son’s biographers tend to speculate about her. Apparently her son never mentioned her in any of his surviving letters. Then again, after his father’s death, his wardship was sold and he probably did not see a great deal of her. Portrait: there is no known portrait, but there is a brass depicting Margery, countess of Oxford on her mother’s tomb in Belchamp St. Paul.
MARGARET GOLDSMITH (before 1491-1555+)
JEANNE de GONTAUT (c.1520-September 26, 1586)
DOROTHY GOODRICH
see DOROTHY BADBY
MARY GOOGE
CATHERINE GORDON (c.1474-October 1537)
Lady Catherine Gordon was the daughter of George Gordon, 2nd earl of Huntley (d.1502) by his third wife, Elizabeth Hay. She was not, as so many accounts claim, the daughter of Huntley’s second wife, Princess Annabella (daughter of King James I of Scotland). Huntley divorced Annabella in 1471. Lady Catherine was, however, married to Perkin Warbeck (x.1499) by command of James IV of Scotland as part of the attempt to overthrow Henry VII. Warbeck was an imposter, claiming to be Richard, the younger son of Edward IV, and to have a better claim to the English throne than Henry did. Lady Catherine ended up as a prisoner of the English king. She was placed in Elizabeth of York’s household, where she became a favored lady-in-waiting. She was an honored guest at the wedding of Margaret Tudor to King James in 1503, and when Henry VIII became king she received several grants of land in Berkshire. In 1510 she married James Strangeways (c.1470-1515), a gentleman usher of the king’s chamber. After Strangeways’s death she married Matthew Craddock (d.1531), a Welshman. According to David Loades's biography of Mary Tudor, Catherine Gordon was head of the princess's privy chamber until around 1530. He last husband was Christopher Ashton or Assheton (1493-1557+), a gentleman of the bedchamber. Ashton had at least two children, but they were from an earlier marriage. Although some accounts say that Catherine and her children were captured by Henry VII in the fortress of St. Michael after he routed Warbeck’s army at Exeter, neither the place of her capture nor the existence of those children is likely. If she had any children by any of her husbands, their names and fates have not been preserved.She was buried at Fyfield, Berkshire. A tomb with her effigy was also erected in the church at Swansea.
HELENA GORGES
see HELENA VON SNAKENBORG
ELIZABETH GREEN or GRENE (d.1527)
MAUD GREEN (1492-December 1, 1531)
Matilda Green, always known as Maud, was the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Thomas Green of Boughton and Green’s Norton, Northamptonshire (d.1506) and Jane or Joan Fogge. She was a ward of the crown before she married Sir Thomas Parr (d.November 1517) of Kendal, Westmorland in 1508. They had three children, Katherine (c.1512-September 5,1548), William (August 14, 1513-October 28,1571) and Anne (c.1515-February 20,1552). She was at court as a lady of the privy chamber to Catherine of Aragon. She was actively involved in arranging marriages for her two oldest children, and saw to it that all three were well educated along the same lines as Sir Thomas More’s daughters. Some accounts say her daughter Katherine, later Henry VIII’s sixth queen, was raised with the Queen Catherine’s daughter, Mary Tudor, but one of Katherine Parr’s most recent biographers, Susan E. James, disputes this. Maud Parr was buried with her husband in Blackfriars, London, where they had a house.
HONOR GRENVILLE (c.1494-April 1566)
Honor Grenville was the daughter of Sir Thomas Grenville of Stow (d.1514) and Isabella Gilbert (d.c.1502). In 1515 she married Sir John Bassett of Umberleigh (1462-January 31, 1528) and by him had three sons: John (1518-1541), George (c.1525-1580), and James (1527-1558), and four daughters: Philippa (c.1516-1582), Catherine (c.1517-1558+), Anne (c.1521-before June 7, 1557), and Mary (c.1522-May 1598). After his death she married Arthur Plantagenet, viscount Lisle (c.1464-1542), an illegitimate son of Edward IV. He was a widower with three daughters, Frances, Elizabeth, and Bridget. The eldest, Frances, married Honor's son John in 1538. In 1532, Honor Lisle was one of the "six beautiful ladies" who accompanied Anne Boleyn to Calais to meet King Francis I and in June 1533 the entire family settled there when Lisle was appointed Lord Deputy. The correspondence between Calais and England, much of it Lady Lisle's, has been preserved and edited in six volumes by M. St. Clare Byrne as The Lisle Letters. In 1540, Lisle was arrested and charged with treason. Honor and her daughters Philippa and Mary were held under house arrest, in part because Mary had been hiding a secret betrothal to a Frenchman, something for which she needed the king's permission. Lisle's complicity in the schemes of his chaplain, Gregory Botolph, could not be proven and in March 1542, he was told he would be set free. Unfortunately, the shock of this news was too much for him and he died that same night. Honor returned to England and lived in obscurity in the West Country until her death. Biography: M. St. Clare Byrne's The Lisle Letters. Portrait: Monumental brass of Sir John Bassett and his two wives, Church of St. Mary, Atherington, Devonshire.
MARY GRENVILLE
ANNE GRESHAM
see ANNE FERNLEY
ANNE GRESHAM (c.1549-1594)
CECILY GRESHAM (February 12, 1525-January 10, 1608/9)
Cecily Gresham was the daughter of Sir John Gresham (1492-October 23, 1556) and his first wife, Mary Ipswell (d. before 1553), and a cousin Sir Thomas Gresham of Royal Exchange fame. She married a Spanish merchant living in London, variously called Jermyn Cyoll, Germain Cioll, Germayne Sciol, and Jarman Sewel or Sewell (d.1587+), but she had a successful career of her own as a moneylender. After 1558, Cyoll and his wife lived in Crosby Place, the London mansion formerly occupied by Sir Thomas More. Cecily was known for her charitable works in the parish, including giving bread to the poor every Sunday.
ANNE GREVILLE
see ANNE REDE
JOAN GREVILLE
THOMASINE GREVILLE
LADY ANNE GREY
The name Lady Anne Grey is a source of considerable confusion in sixteenth-century England. Several reputable accounts make reference to Anne Grey, eighth daughter of the first Marquis of Dorset. There was no such person. See the entry under ANNE JERNINGHAM.
ANNE GREY
see ANNE BARLEE; ANNE BRANDON
ANNE GREY (c.1490-c.1545)
Anne Grey was the daughter of George Grey, 2nd earl of Kent (before 1454-December 25,1503) and Catherine Herbert (c.1464-December 1500+). By 1509, she was the second wife of John, Baron Hussey of Sleaford, Lincolnshire (1466-xJune 29,1537). Their children were Sir Giles, Elizabeth (c.1510-January 23, 1554), Bridget (c.1514-January 12,1601), Anne, Dorothy, and Mary. Lady Hussey supported Catherine of Aragon in the matter of King Henry’s divorce and was implicated in the matter of Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, in 1533. She refused to take the oath to support royal supremacy. When she visited Catherine’s daughter, then known as the Lady Mary, on June 5, 1536, she persisted in referring to her by the title of princess, which had been forbidden by the Act of Succession in 1534. Shortly thereafter, she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, where she was reported to be "very sick" at the beginning of July. On August 3, she was examined by Sir Edmund Walsingham and claimed that she had erred "by inadvertence" when she called for "drink for the Princess" and later told someone that "the Princess" had gone walking. She was released and was back at Sleaford by October. When the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace began, Lord Hussey fled, leaving Lady Hussey behind. When some 500 rebels descended upon Sleaford on October 7th and threatened to burn it down, she promised she would bring her husband back to join them. Hussey, when questioned about this later, said she'd been a fool to make such a promise. In spite of his best efforts the authorities did not believe him innocent of involvement in the uprising. It didn't help that Lady Hussey, in his absence, had also provided the rebels with meat, drink, and money. He was sent to the Tower after the uprising failed. While he awaited trial, she set up housekeeping at Limehouse and was allowed to visit him. On one such visit, he repeated details of an examination of Lord Darcy that he had been permitted to sit in on. Lady Hussey passed this information on to her servant, Catherine Cresswell, who told her husband, Percival Cresswell, who repeated some of Darcy's responses to others, prompting a new investigation by the authorities into who had leaked sensitive information. There is no record, however, of Lady Hussey being questioned, let alone arrested. After Hussey was attainted and executed, his lands and goods were seized and his title forfeit, leaving the family in poverty. The aristocratic widows of traitors were usually provided with a pension.
ANNE GREY (1514-January 1548)
Anne Grey was the youngest daughter of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquis of Dorset (1477-1530) and Margaret Wotton (1487-1541). She married Sir Henry Willoughby of Wollaton (1510-August 27, 1549) and by him had Thomas (1540-1559), Margaret (1544-1578+), and Francis (1546-1596). As far as I can tell, she did nothing significant other than marry and have children, but I include her here because of the confusion over the many Lady Anne Greys. This one was definitely too young to have been in the household of Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, in 1517!
CATHERINE GREY (August 1540-January 27, 1568)
Lady Catherine Grey was the middle daughter of Henry Grey, 3rd marquis of Dorset and duke of Suffolk (January 12,1517-February 23,1554) and Frances Brandon (July 16,1517-November 20,1559). By the time she was eight, Catherine was studying Greek, although she was not as clever as her older sister, Lady Jane Grey. In May and June of 1549, riots and rebellion came close to Bradgate Manor in Leicestershire, the Grey family seat, while the family was in residence there. On November 26 of that year, during a stay at Tilty in Essex, all three girls were taken to visit Mary Tudor, the king's sister, at Beaulieu. In February the family was at Dorset House on the Strand. On May 25, 1553, at age twelve, Catherine was married to Henry Herbert (1534-1559), the earl of Pembroke’s heir. Although the marriage was not to be consummated, Catherine was sent to live in Pembroke's London residence, Baynard's Castle. When the plan to put Catherine’s sister, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne of England in place of Mary Tudor failed, Catherine’s marriage was annulled. Her sister and father were executed after Wyatt's rebellion a few months later. In April 1554, with her mother and younger sister, Catherine was living at Beaumanor, near Bradgate, but in July her mother was called to court to join the queen's Privy Chamber and her surviving daughters went with her. Under both Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, Catherine lived at court, possibly as a maid of honor, although she had her own room, personal servants, and both dogs and monkeys as pets. She was considered by many to be heiress presumptive and as such was not, by law, allowed to marry without the queen's permission. Catherine spent the summer of 1558, when there was sickness (probably influenza) at court, at Hanworth in Middlesex with the Seymour family. It is at that time that her romance with Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford (1539-April 6,1621) is said to have begun. In November or December 1560, Catherine secretly married him. When the marriage was discovered the following summer, both parties were imprisoned in the tower. There Catherine gave birth to her son Edward (September 24,1561-1639). Sympathetic jailers allowed the young couple to meet and the result was a second son, Thomas (February 10,1563-1619). Because of the threat of plague in London, Catherine and her younger son were removed from the Tower and sent to her uncle, Lord John Grey, at Pirgo in Essex, arriving there on September 3, 1563. With them were the baby's nurse, three ladies-in-waiting, and two manservants. Edward and their older son were sent to Edward's mother, the duchess of Somerset, at Hanworth. Catherine never saw either of them again. She was moved to Sir William Petre’s house of Ingatestone, Essex in the autumn of 1564. That same year, Hertford was removed from Hanworth and placed with Sir John Mason. When Mason died in April 1566, Hertford remained with his widow in London for a time, then was transferred to the keeping of Sir Richard Spencer. Three-year-old Lord Beauchamp remained with his grandmother. In May 1566, Catherine was moved a few miles east of Ingatestone Hall to Gosfield Hall, the house of Sir John Wentworth, when Sir William Petre fell ill. Wentworth was 76 and his wife was 71, but their plea that they were too old to act as warders was ignored. Wentworth died in late September 1567, after which Catherine and her son were moved to Sir Owen Hopton’s house, Cockfield Hall, in Yoxford, Suffolk. It was there she died, probably of tuberculosis, although the theory has been advanced that she starved herself to death. Her younger son was then sent to join his brother. Catherine was buried at Yoxford, but in 1621, following Hertford's death, Catherine's grandson, the surviving male heir, had her body moved to Salisbury Cathedral and buried with her husband. Biographies: Hester W. Chapman’s Two Tudor Portraits and Leanda De Lisle's The Sisters Who Would Be Queen; Oxford DNB entry under "Seymour [née Grey], Katherine." Portraits: There are three possible portraits, a miniature of her as a child, c.1549-50; a portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts; and a portrait with her son, c.1561-2. There are at least seven extant copies of the latter, which were painted for propaganda purposes. Some have been misidentified as other Tudor women by biographers. Catherine's effigy, together with Edward's, is in Salisbury Cathedral.
CECILY GREY
CECILY GREY (c.1497-April 28, 1554)
ELIZABETH GREY (c.1497-1548+)
Elizabeth Grey was the daughter of Thomas Grey, 1st marquis of Dorset (c.1455-1501) and Cecily Bonville (d.1530). She was one of the ladies who accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1514 and one of the few allowed to stay with her. She was one of Catherine of Aragon’s attendants at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. In around 1522, she married Gerald Fitzgerald, 9th earl of Kildare (1487-September 2,1534). She returned with him to Ireland in 1523 and they seem to have had a successful partnership. Letters she wrote back to England are still extant, indicating she took an interest in the political situation in Ireland. In 1531, a private act of Parliament assured Elizabeth an income of £200 per annum (Irish pounds) for life, as well as the manor of Portlester should she decide to remain in Ireland after her husband's death. Their children were Gerald (February 25, 1525-November 16, 1585), Elizabeth (1527-March 1589), Edward (1528-1597), and Margaret. At least one genealogy also lists a Thomas and the Oxford DNB entry for Elizabeth's stepdaughter gives that stepdaughter three half sisters. By 1533, when the king sent for Kildare, he was apparently already gravely ill as the result of a bullet wound. Elizabeth went to England instead, arriving in October, but the king insisted on Kildare’s presence. He arrived and was imprisoned in July 1534. As he was clearly dying, Elizabeth was allowed to visit him. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Kildare’s brothers and his sons by his first marriage rebelled against English rule. Elizabeth’s brother, Lord Leonard Grey, was sent to put down the rebellion. In her widowhood, Elizabeth lived at Lord Leonard’s home, Beaumanor, Leicestershire, with her son Edward, who was smuggled out of Ireland in July 1536 and brought to her there. In a letter to Lord Cromwell, she describes him as "an innocent" and asks for custody of the boy so that he can be "brought up in virtue." Her oldest son fled to France in 1540 but was eventually brought to England by Lady Kildare’s chaplain in 1549. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Fitzgerald [née Grey], Elizabeth.”
ELIZABETH GREY (c.1510-c.1564)
Elizabeth Grey was the daughter of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquis of Dorset (June 22,1477-October 10,1530) and Margaret Wotton (1487-1541). On April 22, 1538, she married Thomas, baron Audley of Walden (1488-April 30, 1544). They had two daughters, Margaret (1539-January 10,1564) and Mary. In her widowhood, Elizabeth lived at Audley End, near Saffron Walden. Her daughter Margaret, who had become duchess of Norfolk by her marriage, came to her there to give birth to each of her children. According to the catalog of an exhibit of works by Hans Holbein, Elizabeth married again, in 1549, to Sir George Norton, and died before her daughter, but other sources, including Neville Williams's biography of Thomas, 4th duke of Norfolk, say she looked after her grandchildren following her daughter's death until Norfolk remarried in 1567. Portraits: Holbein sketch at Windsor, c.1540; miniature (watercolor on vellum) c.1540.
ELIZABETH GREY
see ELIZABETH TALBOT
FRANCES GREY
see FRANCES BRANDON
HONORA GREY (1540-1560+)
Honora Grey was the only daughter of William, 13th baron Grey de Wilton (1509-December 15,1562) and Mary Somerset. She was one of Elizabeth Tudor’s attendants before Elizabeth became queen and one of the six gentlewomen praised in a sonnet by John Harington. Harington compares her to "Tysbe." Honora did not go on to serve Elizabeth after she became queen. Around 1560 and before 1562 she married Henry Denny of Cheshunt (1540-March 24,1574). Some online genealogies say she was Denny’s first wife, died in 1560, and was buried in Waltham Abbey, but also give this couple a son and three daughters.
JANE GREY (1537-February 12,1554)
Lady Jane Grey was the oldest daughter of Henry Grey, 3rd marquis of Dorset and duke of Suffolk (January 12,1517-February 23,1554) and Frances Brandon (July 16,1517-November 20,1559). As such she had a claim to the throne. This was exploited by her parents and the duke of Northumberland, who married her to Northumberland’s son, Lord Guildford Dudley (c.1534-1554) in 1553 and attempted to place her on the throne after the death of King Edward VI. She was imprisoned by Mary Tudor and might have been spared had not a second rebellion erupted in 1554 in which her father played a leading role. Jane was executed. Biographies: Hester W. Chapman and David Mathews have each written older biographies of Lady Jane Grey. More recent ones are Leanda De Lisle's The Sisters Who Would Be Queen and Eric Ives's Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery. The Oxford DNB entry is under "Grey [married name Dudley], Lady Jane." Take all fictional treatments with a large grain of salt. Portraits: One portrait long thought to be Lady Jane Grey is now known to be Katherine Parr. Others are still only tentatively identified, including one which may be Jane Dormer or Jane Guildford. Another is more likely to be Jane Carlisle. The one below is in the National Portrait Gallery and is still believed to be Lady Jane Grey.
Dorcas Eccleston (Egleston, Ecclestone) was the daughter of John Eccleston and his wife Margery (d. 1571). Eccleston is variously described as a gentleman of Lancashire and as a London grocer. It is possible he was both. Dorcas married Sir Richard Martin (1533/4-1617) who was Lord Mayor of London twice and served as master of the mint. They had five sons, including John and Richard (d.1616), and a daughter, Dorcas. Dorcas was the translator of a French catchism, a religious radical involved in illegal printing of religious works, and a supporter of French and Scottish ministers in London. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Martin [née Eccleston], Dorcas.” Portrait: with her husband on a silver medal, 1562.
Anne Edgecumbe was the daughter of Sir Richard Edgecumbe (d.1562) and Elizabeth Tregian. In 1580, she married Hugh Dowriche (1552/3-1598), rector of Lapford and later of Honiton. Their children were Elkana, Walter, Mary (b.1587), Elizabeth, Anne (b.1589), and Hugh (b.1594). Her The French Historie (1589) was dedicated to her brother, Piers. She also contributed verses to The Jaylor’s Conversion (1596), written by her husband. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Dowriche [née Edgecumbe], Anne.”
see CATHERINE ST. JOHN
Margaret Edgecumbe was the daughter of Piers Edgecumbe of Mount Edgecumbe, Cornwall (c.1536-January 4,1607) and Margaret Luttrell or Lutterell. At eighteen she became a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth and was highly regarded by Her Majesty. In 1583, when Margaret married Sir Edward Denny (1544 or 1547-February 11 or 12, 1599/1600), the queen granted them a twenty-one-year lease on Rectory Manor House, where Margaret lived after she was widowed and where she once entertained King Charles I. After 1642, she shared her home with her grandson’s widow and seven great grandchildren. Margaret and Edward Denny had seven sons and three daughters: Arthur (1584-July 4,1619), Francis, Henry (1595-1658), Anthony (d. yng.), Anthony (1592-1662), Thomas, Charles (d. December 29,1635), Elizabeth (b.1586), Honora (d.yng.), and Marie (d. November 29,1678). Portraits: portrait; effigy erected in 1600 in the Church of the Holy Cross and St. Lawrence, Waltham Abbey, Essex. 
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see WINIFRED ESSEX
see SARAH HARINGTON.jpg)
see ALICE ST. JOHN
Maria Enríquez de Toledo y Guzmán was the daughter of Diego Enríquez de Guzmán (or de Velasco), 3rd count of Alba de Liste, and his first wife, Aldonza Leonor Alvarez de Toledo y Zuniga. On April 27, 1529, she married her cousin, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd duke of Alba (October 29, 1509-December 11, 1582). They had four children, Garcia (1530-1548), Beatriz (b.1534), Fadrique (1537-1583), and Diego (1542-1583). In On November 12, 1543, Maria and her husband were present at Salamanca at the marriage of Philip of Spain and his first wife, Mary of Portugal. In 1554, she traveled with her husband to England for Philip's marriage to Mary Tudor. Philip had instructed members of his entourage not to bring their wives, but several of them ignored him. Doña Heironima de Navarra and Doña Francisca de Cordova were not received by Queen Mary, but the duchess of Alba, as the highest ranking Spanish lady in England, was invited to court right after the wedding. Reportedly, neither lady would allow the other to take a lower seat with the end result that they both ended up sitting on the floor. There was no lodging available for the duchess at court, but she was housed outside the palace at royal expense. She did not have any direct influence with the English queen, but that did not stop Jane Guildford, duchess of Northumberland, from appealing to her on behalf of her imprisoned husband and sons. She must at least have been sympathetic, for Northumberland's widow remembered both the duke and duchess of Alba in her will in January 1555. Aside from her role as the duke's wife and the mother of his children, Maria was also a benefactress of the Carmelite order. In 1582, she requested the presence of Teresa of Avila at the convent she'd founded at Alba de Tormes, near Salamanca. Teresa endured terrible conditions on the journey and died. After she was buried at Alba, a series of miracles occurred. Maria's sister, Doña Bernardine de Toledo y Enríquez, who had been ill with a fever for some two months, touched one of Teresa's garments and immediately recovered her health.
see DOROTHY SMITH
Winifred Essex was the daughter of William Essex (1490-1548) and Elizabeth Rogers and the second wife of Sir Richard Edgecumbe (c.1499-February 1, 1562). They married in c.1531. She may have been at court as a lady of the Privy Chamber to Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard, or that may have been Catherine St. John, widow of her father-in-law, Sir Piers Edgecumbe. Winifred is now generally accepted to have been the mother of all of Sir Richard's children, including Elizabeth (b.c.1532), Piers (c.1536-January 4, 1607), Catherine, Anne(d.1613+).
see ELIZABETH PEPPARD.jpg)
Anne Fitton was the daughter of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, Cheshire (1548-1606) and Alice Holcroft (d.1627). On April 30, 1587, when she was thirteen and her bridegroom only sixteen, she married John Newdigate (1571-1610). They lived at her father’s expense for the next seven years, Anne with her parents and John at Oxford, at least for part of that time. Around 1595, they set up housekeeping at Arbury, Warwickshire and had a number of children, five of whom survived—Mary (1598-1643), John (1600-1642), Richard (1602-1678), Lettice (1604-1625), and Anne (1607-1637). Much of Lady Newdigate’s correspondence with the gentry and nobility of her day has survived. Perhaps due to her connections, she was able to persuade Sir Robert Cecil to grant her the guardianship of her son when her husband died. Although she had offers of marriage, Lady Newdigate preferred to handle estate matters herself. She was successful in this, and in arranging good marriages for her children. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Newdigate [née Fitton], Anne.”
Mary Fitton was the daughter of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, Cheshire (1548-1606) and Alice Holcroft (d.1627). She was at court as a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth by early 1598. Sir William Knollys (1545-1632) fell in love with her, but he could not marry her because his wife was still alive. Mary was absent from court and staying in her father’s London house because of ill heath in January 1600 but was back at court by early summer. On June 16, she took the role of “Affection” in a masque to celebrate the marriage of Anne Russell, another maid of honor, performing with seven other ladies. The story goes that when she asked the queen to be her partner in the dancing afterward, Elizabeth asked her what she portrayed. When Mary answered, “Affection,” the queen responded, “Affection! Affection is false.” But she rose and danced. By that time, Mary was involved in an affair with William Herbert (1580-1630), heir to the earl of Pembroke. She would dress up as a boy to sneak out and meet him. In January 1601, it became obvious that she was pregnant. She was taken into custody and Lady Hawkins sent for to guard her. Her lover, who had by then succeeded to his father’s title, admitted that the child was his but refused to marry her. He had been committed to the Fleet by the beginning of March. Mary gave birth to a son who lived only a short time. Some sources say he was stillborn. Mary, who had been promised marriage, retired to the country that autumn and there took up with Sir Richard Leveson (c.1570-August 2,1605), commander of the Lion’s Whelp. Unfortunately, he was married, although his wife was insane. Mary lived with him at Perton, Staffordshire and there gave birth to two children, Anne (1603-1625+) and William (d. 1608). Leveson’s will was designed to provide for Mary’s daughter, known as Anne Fitton, and resulted in a number of lawsuits with the Leveson family. Mary continued to live at Perton and married one of Leveson’s captains, William Polewhele (d.1610), by whom she had a son, William (1606-1654) and a daughter, Frances (1609-1609). She was pregnant with a third child, Mary (1610-1667) when he died. In about 1612, Mary wed John Lougher (d. January 8,1636), by whom she had at least three children: Elizabeth (d.1640+), John (d. before 1641), and Lettis (d.1678). Mary’s scandalous reputation is probably why her name was put forward as a candidate to be Shakespeare’s “dark lady of the sonnets” in 1884. Portraits, however, show Mary to have red or brown hair, light eyes, and pale skin. Violet Wilson in Queen Elizabeth's Maids of Honor and Ladies of the Privy Chamber gives the date of Mary's death as 1647. Biograpies: Oxford DNB entry under “Fitton [married names Polewhele, Lougher], Mary.” Portraits: c.1595 by George Gower at Arbury Hall, Warwickshire; many others claim to be Mary but are questionable, including one c. 1595 by Marcus Gheeraerts which is more likely a sister of Sir Henry Lee.
Alice Fitzgerald was the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, 9the earl of Kildare (1487-September 2, 1534) and Elizabeth Zouche (d. October 6, 1517). In December 1526, Alice accompanied her father to the English court and they later stayed at the duke of Norfolk’s house at Newington. Inquires were being made into his conduct as lord deputy. While in England, Alice married her cousin, James Fleming, 9th Baron Slane (1507/8-before November 4, 1573; alternate dates 1511-1577). She returned to Ireland without her father in August 1528. Later charges of treason against the earl indicated that on July 8, 1528, he sent her home with orders to stir up trouble for the new lord deputy. Apparently she did so, for she had to be pardoned for “treasons and conspiracies with Irish rebels” in June 1529. Her husband was known as “Black James” and was one of the heroes of the battle of Bellahoe (1539). Alice was not the Lady Slane still found in records for July 1561. That was probably Slane’s second wife, Ellis (or Elizabeth) Plunkett, married at some point after 1540 and still alive in 1580 when Queen Elizabeth imprisoned her in the Tower of London for “disobedience.” Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Fleming, Alice [née Lady Alice Fitzgerald].”
Eleanor Fitzgerald was the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, 8th earl of Kildare (1456?-1513) and Alison Eustace or Fitzeustace (d.1495). She married Donough MacCarthy Reagh of Carbery and as his widow, Lady Eleanor MacCarthy, sheltered her nephew, Gerald Fitzgerald, future earl of Kildare, who had escaped from Kilbrittain Castle with the aid of a priest. Five of her brothers and another nephew were executed in England on February 3, 1537. In order to protect young Gerald, who was only twelve years old, Eleanor married Manus O’Donnell (c.1500-February 9, 1564), around June 1538, making that protection an article of their marriage settlement. For a time, O’Donnell led the Geraldine league in defense of Fitzgerald rights in Ireland, but by 1540 he was in secret negotiations with England and Eleanor, fearing betrayal, spirited Gerald away to France. One of the livelier accounts has her telling O’Donnell she’d never have married him if not for her need to protect Gerald and calling him a “clownish curmudgeon.” Manus submitted to the English in 1541. Although another account has O’Donnell, while imprisoned in Lifford Castle from 1548-1554, writing love poetry to his estranged wife, it seems likely that Eleanor had died by then. According to the Oxford DNB, O’Donnell married four times and another of his wives, Margaret MacDonald, died in 1544. Since Manus married Eleanor before that date, it seems logical to assume that she died at some point between 1540 and 1544. However, other sources indicate an annulment by mutual consent, which would allow remarriage and leave Eleanor's date of death in doubt. O’Donnell had numerous children, but probably none by Eleanor.
see ELEANOR BUTLER.jpg)
Joan Fitzgerald was the daughter of James Fitzgerald, 10th earl of Desmond (d.1529) and Amy O’Brien (1497-before 1537). She married three times, first, before December 21, 1532, to James Butler, 10th earl of Ormond (c.1496-October 28, 1546). Ormond, nicknamed “the lame,” went to supper at Ely House in Holborn, London on October 17, 1546. Subsequently he, his steward, and sixteen of his servants died, presumably of poison. Joan had seven sons by Ormond: Thomas, 11th earl (1532-November 22,1614), John (d. May 10, 1570), Edward, Sir Edmund (c.1537-1602), James, Piers, and Walter. She wished to marry her cousin, Gerald Fitzgerald (c.1529-1583), heir to the earl of Desmond, although he was twenty years her junior, but since such a marriage would have united the Irish factions she was induced instead to wed Sir Francis Bryan (d. February 2, 1550), an Englishman. Bryan was appointed as Lord Marshall and the couple arrived in Ireland in November 1548. When Bryan lay dying at Clonmel, Joan was out hunting with Cousin Gerald, who succeeded to the title of earl of Desmond in 1554. Their subsequent marriage brought a measure of peace to Ireland and Joan even carried on a friendly correspondence with Queen Elizabeth. Eventually, however, annoyed by the dominant role his wife’s appeared to play in their marriage, Desmond broke his truce with her son. Joan spent nearly two weeks riding back and forth between hostile camps before peace was restored. From 1562-1564, Desmond was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Joan set herself the task of persuading Queen Elizabeth to release him, but by the time she was successful, she was on her deathbed. She was buried in the friary at Askeaton.
Katherine Fitzgerald was the daughter of Sir John Fitzgerald (d.1524) and Ellen FitzGibbon. In 1529, she married Thomas Fitzgerald, 11the earl of Desmond (1454-1534). They had one child, named Katherine after her mother. Katherine Fitzgerald’s claim to fame is as the “old countess of Desmond,” and she was reported by both Sir Walter Raleigh and Fynes Moryson as being 140 years old when she died. She was not. She did, however, live to be somewhere between ninety and ninety-five. Thanks to Sir Walter Raleigh, who knew her personally, and Moryson, she became the subject of legend, but all that is really known about her life is that she never remarried and that she lived out her life at Inchiquin Castle in Cork. One story gives her daughter’s age in 1604 as ninety, but it also has Lady Desmond traveling to London to present a petition to King James. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Fitzgerald, Katherine.” Portraits: late sixteenth century; likeness painted in the eighteenth century; engraving of 1806 from an earlier portrait. 
Margaret Fitzgerald was the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, 8th earl of Kildare (1456?-1513) and Alison Eustace or Fitzeustace (d.November 22,1495). In about 1485, she married Piers Butler, 8th earl of Ormond and 1st earl of Ossory (c.1467-August 26, 1539). She played an active role in legal matters concerning her family and the Ormond estate and was sole executor of her husband’s will. In the seventeenth century, Margaret and her husband were credited with having brought civilization to Tipperary and Kilkenny. Margaret in particular was a patron of both schools and craftsmen. Her children were: James (c.1496-October 28, 1546), Richard, Thomas, Edmund (d.1551), Margaret (b.c.1491), Catherine (d.March 17, 1552/3), Joan, Eleanor, and Helen or Ellen. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Butler [née Fitzgerald], Margaret.” Portrait: effigy on her tomb in St. Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny. 
Mary Fitzgerald was the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, 9the earl of Kildare (1487-September 2, 1534) and Elizabeth Zouche (d. October 6, 1517). Before 1526, she married Brian O’Connor (d.1559+) by whom she had nine sons, including Conn, Rory, Donagh (d.1558), Cormac (d.1573+), Calvagh, and Cathal (1540-1596), and two daughters, one of them named Margaret. Her husband was a rebel, espousing the Geraldine cause. Her father died a prisoner in England and her brother Thomas and five of her uncles were executed in England on February 3, 1537. In 1539, Mary gave shelter to her young half brother, Gerald, later earl of Kildare, before sending him to their aunt, Eleanor Fitzgerald, for safety. Mary's husband was imprisoned in the Marshalsea in London from 1548-1554. Their daughter Margaret went to England and helped negotiate his release. He returned to England, with Gerald Fitzgerald, and at that time Gerald was restored as earl of Kildare. Little is known of Mary’s widowhood, but in 1582 her son Cathal killed a man and was forced to flee Ireland. He went first to Scotland and then to Spain, where he took the name Don Carlos. At some point, Mary joined him there. In November 1596, Cathal attempted to return to Ireland with his mother, wife, and family. He drowned when shipwrecked en route. One presumes that the other members of his family also perished, although the records do not bother to say.
Frances Fitzlewis was the daughter of Sir Richard Fitzlewis of Ingrave, Essex (c.1446-1528) and Elizabeth Shelton (d.1523). Her godmother was Elizabeth Green or Grene, Abbess of Barking from 1500 to 1528. Frances married first a man named Fyndorne and then Sir William West of Amberden Hall. As Lady West, she sued for the return of jewelry bequeathed to her by her mother but left in the custody of Abbess Green, who had apparently failed to return it.
see AGNES SIDNEY
see ANNE PAKENHAM
see MABEL CLIFFORD
see ALICE FITZGERALD
Joan Fletcher was a nun at Rosedale Priory, Yorkshire. On August 13, 1524, she was elected prioress of the neighboring priory of Basedale or Baysdale. In 1527, she resigned before she could be removed from that office and ran away from the priory. At some point, she supposedly had a child. When she repented and wished to return to the religious life, she was ordered by Archbishop Lee to do penance at Rosedale, then under the leadership of Mary Marshall as prioress, but by September 1, 1534, she was back at Basedale because she was setting a bad example for the eight nuns at Rosedale. Prioress Elizabeth Raighton was ordered to treat her kindly but not to allow her to go outside the precincts. Joan remained one of the ten nuns at Basedale until the priory was dissolved in 1539. According to Geoffrey Baskerville's English Monks and the Suppression of the Monasteries, Joan received a pension and was still living twenty years later.
According to J. Thomas Kelly’s Thorns on the Tudor Rose, one Ellen Pendleton, alias Flodder, was the leader of a band of outlaws operating in Norfolk, Kent, Lincolnshire, and Leicestershire in the reign of James I. On June 11, 1615, she and some confederates set the town of Wymondham, Norfolk on fire. Three hundred houses were destroyed. A local woman, Margaret Bix, alias Elvyn, under sentence of death, confessed that she knew about the fire and claimed that it was set by Ellen Pendleton by lighting a match and placing it in a stable. Later studies of the “great fire of 1615” indicate that there were actually two separate fires. The usual way of giving names in court documents was to list a woman under her married name. Her maiden name, if it was given at all, was written “alias surname.” Of course the name after the alias could in fact be an assumed name, but since two men named Flodder were arrested with Ellen and Margaret, John (x.December 2,1615) and William, the logical conclusion is that they were her brothers. John Flodder was condemned to die. William Flodder was not. The Flodders were said to be Scots pretending to be Egyptians (Gypsies) and they allegedly promised to take Margaret Bix away with them to Scotland and procure a pardon from the Pope for her part in starting the fire. “Others” were executed with John Flodder, but Ellen’s execution was stayed because she was pregnant. During her imprisonment, she gave false evidence to the King’s Council, which cost her any hope of a pardon.
see JANE SANDES
Margaret Foliot was the daughter of Nicholas Foliot or Folyotte of Pirton, Worcestershire and Elizabeth Washbourne. She married Sir Walter Stonor (1477-October 8, 1550) and was the mother of John (1499-1512) and Elizabeth (d.1560). She has been identified by Alison Weir and others as the Mistress Stonor who was assigned to wait upon Queen Anne Boleyn in the Tower of London in 1536 and as the most likely candidate to be "Mother Stonor," who was "mother" or mistress of the maids of honor to Henry VIII's next four queens. Those who held this post over the years are often difficult to identify, as most are referred to only by their married surnames. Kat Astley (see KATHERINE CHAMPERNOWNE) is said to have been the first Mother of Maids under Queen Elizabeth, replaced by Mrs. Aglionby (see ELIZABETH AGLIONBY) by 1562/3. She was apparently the mother of maids for the next two decades, but had been replaced by 1588/9 by a Mrs. Jones. So far I have not been able to identify Mrs. Jones. She was succeeded by Elizabeth Wingfield (see ELIZABETH LECHE). Another unidentified gentlewoman named Lucy Hyde was mother of maids at the end of Elizabeth's reign. As for "Mrs. Stonor," I have a small quibble with Margaret Foliot. She'd have been Lady Stonor, not Mistress Stonor. An alternative candidate is her sister-in-law, Isabel Agard. She was the wife of John Stonor (1480-1550). They had two children, Francis (1520-1564) and Henry.
see ISABEL WRAY
Dorothy Fosser or Foster came from Haverhill, Suffolk. She was the goddaughter of Dorothy Neville, countess of Oxford and had served as both the countess’s maid and as a lady in waiting to Katherine de Vere, the countess’s daughter. John de Vere, 16th earl of Oxford (1512-August 3, 1562), was a notorious womanizer. Dorothy became romantically involved with the earl and after his wife’s death in about January 1548, their relationship came to the attention of the duke of Somerset, Lord Protector for Edward VI. A June 27, 1548 letter from Sir Thomas Darcy to (probably) William Cecil, the Duke of Somerset’s secretary, indicates that Oxford had already been questioned about his courtship of this “gentlewoman with whom he is in love” and that the banns for their marriage had been called two out of the required three times, but not before witnesses. Somerset apparently favored a marriage between Oxford and one of Lord Wentworth’s daughters, since Wentworth and Somerset were kinsmen. Darcy further reported that “Mrs. Dorothy” had left Castle Hedingham and was living in Sir Edward Green’s house, Stampford Hall. Less than a week later, however, Dorothy was at Haverhill, expecting to marry the earl in her parish church. Instead, on Thursday, August 2, Oxford married another gentlewoman, Margery Golding, in the Goldings’ house in Belchamp St. Paul. Had Somerset remained Lord Protector, Oxford might have faced serious penalties for this irregular marriage. He did pay Dorothy £10 per annum for breach of contract. She later married one of Oxford’s clerks, John Anson (c.1525-1585+). In 1556/7, they were living in Felsted, Essex. After her father’s death, Katherine de Vere tried to have his marriage to Margery Golding declared bigamous on the grounds that Oxford had been betrothed to Dorothy. The suit was unsuccessful.
Not a great deal is known about Dorothy Fountain. She has been identified by Susan James in Catherine Parr as nurse first to Margaret Neville, daughter of Lord Latimer and the queen’s stepdaughter, and later as nurse to Edward Herbert, Anne Parr’s son, when he lived at Chelsea Manor in 1547. From 1543 until Margaret Neville’s death in 1546, Dorothy was at court as Margaret’s servant. In 1547, she was listed as one of the queen’s chamberers. She married William Savage, another of the queen's household, at around that time but they both disappear from the records after the death of the queen dowager in 1548.
see ALICE HARRIS
Elizabeth Francis, wife of Christopher Francis, was charged at the Chelmsford summer assizes of 1566 with bewitching the infant child of William Auger. She was from Hatfield Peverell and to try to save herself she made a confession which was promptly put into a chapbook and became a bestseller. She said she had learned the art of witchcraft from her grandmother, Mother Eve, at the age of twelve and had been given a cat named Sathan to help her seduce one Andrew Byles. When he refused to marry her, she caused his death. Then Sathan found her another lover, her husband, and they had a daughter, but when the child was eighteen months old, Elizabeth ordered Sathan to kill her. Elizabeth also confessed to ordering Sathan to make Christopher lame. Then, after she’d had the cat for fifteen or sixteen years, Elizabeth grew tired of Sathan and gave him to a neighbor, Agnes Waterhouse, who was also charged with witchcraft in 1566. Elizabeth claimed she was innocent of the specific charge against her. She was sentenced to a year in jail. For bewitching Mary Cocke, she was sentenced to another year and four appearances in the pillory. In 1579, she went on trial again, this time for bewitching Anne Poole, who had died on November 1, 1578. This time Elizabeth was found guilty and hanged.
see JOCOSA TRAPPES
Faith Fulford was probably the daughter of Sir John Fulford of Fulford (b.1504) and Dorothy Bourchier (b.1502). She married John Davys (1550-December 29,1605), a navigator and explorer, at Stoke Gabriel near Dartmouth on September 29, 1582. They had five children: Gilbert (b.1583), Elizabeth (d.yng.), Arthur (b.1586), John (1587-1587), and Philip. During one of her husband’s long absences at sea, Faith took a lover by the name of Milborne, a counterfeiter. When Davys returned to England in June 1593, Milborne made false charges against him that led to his arrest. Davys was free by the following March. Unfortunately, details of what happened next are lacking. Since Davys was planning to remarry in 1604, however, Faith must have died at some point before that. Divorce would have been possible but unlikely, and usually did not permit remarriage.
Elizabeth Gale was the daughter of Thomas Gale (d.1540) and Elizabeth Wilkinson (d. 1546). Gale was a London merchant (a member of the Haberdasher’s Company). Elizabeth married Nicholas Wilford (d. 1551) of the Merchant Taylor’s Company. Their children were Thomas, William, Robert, Edmond, Elizabeth, Anne, Parnell, another Elizabeth, Grace, Martha, and Joyce. After Wilford’s death in an epidemic of the sweat, Elizabeth was active as an importer of cloth. She was also the only woman to invest in the Muscovy Company in her own right (without a spouse) and one of only two women out of the 201 founding members of that company in 1555. At the time of her death, her estate was valued in excess of £1000. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Wilford [née Gale], Elizabeth.”
see ELLEN TUDOR
Agnes Gascoigne was the daughter of Sir William Gascoigne of Gawthorp, Yorkshire (1426-1463) and Joan Neville of Oversley. She married Sir Robert Plumpton of Plumpton Hall, Yorkshire (1453-1525) on January 13, 1478. She probably had twelve children—Elizabeth, Clare, Magdalen, Dorothy, William (1485-July 11, 1547), Margaret, Jane, Anne, Eleanor, Marmaduke, Nigel, and Robert—although some genealogies give the youngest to Plumpton’s second wife, Isabel Neville. Agnes is known to us because of the collection known as the “Plumpton Correspondence,” containing some 250 Plumpton family letters written between 1461 and 1552. Much of the correspondence concerned a dispute over property ownership. When, at the end of 1502, Sir Robert was deprived of lands he’d held for the last twenty years, he wrote to Agnes, ordering her to “see that the manor and place of Plumpton be securely and steadfastly kept.” In accordance with his wishes, she played an active role in the defense of the land, aided by her son William. On July 16, 1503, King Henry VII, to whom Plumpton had been appointed a knight of the body in February, issued an injunction against the rival claimant. Agnes spent most of her life at Plumpton Hall, near Knaresborough in the West Riding, but she did visit London twice, the second time in February 1504. Several letters she wrote to her husband are included in the Plumpton Correspondence. It was Isabel, the second Lady Plumpton, however, not Agnes, who shared her husband’s imprisonment in the Counter in 1510. A second Agnes Gascoigne (d. July 1529) was abbess of Elstow Abbey.
see ELIZABETH HARRIS
Catherine Gedding was the daughter of Thomas Gedding. She married John Hall of Northall, Shropshire and was the mother of Edward Hall (c.1499-1547), the historian. Several of his books were prohibited by the state under Mary Tudor. Catherine was famous in her own right as a reformer. She was imprisoned in Newgate for her faith in 1555 and several co-religionists who became martyrs wrote letters to her before their deaths. 
Doña Isabel Gil de Aviles was a Spanish lady married to an English merchant named Simon Borman. Borman, a Catholic who had been in the Spanish trade, was nevertheless trusted, along with John Naunton, with housing a Portuguese prisoner of war, Francisco de Valverde, and a Spaniard, Pedro de Santa Cruz. Doña Isabel was apparently extremely anti-semitic and had made a point of spying on, and even pretending to befriend, members of the Marrano (Jews who had supposedly converted to Christianity) community in London. She believed they were conspiring against Spain and when the prisoners were released in the spring of 1588 and were about to return home, she reportedly said to Santa Cruz, "May you have a bad journey and may the curse of God fall upon you if you reach Spain in safety and do not denounce Jeronimo Pardo and Bernaldo Luis, for they are traitors and have sold Spain." According to the account in Lucien Wolf's "Jews in Elizabethan England" (The Jewish Historical Society of England, Vol. XI, p. 6), Santa Cruz and Valverde sent this information to the Spanish ambassador in Paris who sent the letter on to King Philip. By the time the two former prisoners returned home, Pardo and Luis were in prison.
see KATHERINE CHAMPERNOWNE
Margaret Goldsmith was installed as prioress of the Benedictine nunnery of St. Mary Wallingwells, near Worksop, Northamptonshire, on January 22, 1521. She paid £66 13s. 4d. for exemption from the 1536 act to dissolve religious houses. Wallingwells had an annual income of only £58 2s. 10d. In June 1537, she attempted to reach a private agreement with a wealthy layman to lease all the nunnery’s possessions for twenty-one years in return for the use of the convent buildings, thinking this would allow her and the eight nuns at Wallingwells to outlast King Henry VIII’s attempt to dissolve religious houses. As J. J. Scarisbrick’s The Reformation and the English People points out, it was remarkable that this was even attempted. The attempt failed, of course, and Margaret surrendered the nunnery to the Crown on December 14, 1539. She received a pension of £6. Her subprioress, Anne Roden, and one of the nuns, Elizabeth Kirkby, received 53s. 4d. each, and the remaining six nuns, including Agnes Fynes, Ellen Pye, and Alice Coventry, received 40s. each.
Jeanne de Gontaut was the daughter of Raymond de Gontaut and Françoise de Bonnafos and the wife of Antoine de Noailles (September 4, 1504-March 11, 1562), French Ambassador to England from 1553-1556. Their marriage contract was signed on May 31, 1540, after four years of courtship. Jeanne’s father had other plans for her, but twelve lettres de cachet from King Francis I finally persuaded him to agree to the match. They had eight children, including Marie (b.1543),Françoise (b.1548), Marthe (b. 1552), Henri (b. July 5, 1554), and another Françoise (b.1556). Jeanne had little to do with her husband’s career, but she was in England with him and while there paid several visits to Queen Mary. The queen was godmother to Jeanne’s first son, Henri, naming him after Henry VIII. She appointed the countess of Surrey to act as her proxy and chose the godfathers—the earl of Arundel and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. The christening took place on July 22, 1554. Jeanne was pregnant again at the time she and her husband left England in June 1556. A number of her letters are still extant. After her husband’s death, Jeanne became a lady-in-waiting to Catherine de’ Medici. Biography: R. J. Kalas, “The noble widow’s place in the patriarchal household: the life and career of Jeanne de Gontaut,” Sixteenth-Century Journal, 24 (1993).
see MARY DARRELL
Elizabeth Green was elected abbess of Barking in 1499 by thirty-three nuns. In 1520, her sister, Beatrice Tynggelden/Tingleden was living as a lay sister at Barking when she made her will. Elizabeth was the godmother of Frances Fitzlewis, Lady West, who sued her for the return of jewelry bequeathed to Frances by her mother, Elizabeth Shelton (d.1523) but left in the custody of Abbess Green, who had apparently failed to return it. .jpg)
see MARY ST. LEGER
Anne Gresham was the illegitimate daughter of Sir Thomas Gresham (c.1518-November 21, 1579). There are contradictory stories about her origins, although everyone agrees that her mother was married off to Thomas Dutton, Gresham’s factor in Antwerp and Hamburg, since Gresham himself was already married to Anne Fernley (1521-November 23, 1596). Gresham lived primarily in Anthwerp until 1551 and did not leave there for good until March 1567. Some accounts have Anne raised by her father and his wife. Others say she grew up in the Dutton household. No one is clear about her mother’s identity except that she was a servant, possibly a “Netherlander,” in Gresham’s household. Her name is given as Anne in some accounts, Winifred in others, and simply “Mistress Dutton” in others. Like Gresham, Dutton lived mostly abroad during Anne’s childhood, but he did have a house at Isleworth, on or near Gresham’s estate at Osterley. Diarmaid MacCulloch, in his essay “A First Stirring of Suffolk Architecture” in East Anglia’s History, says that Sir Nathaniel Bacon (c.1546-November 1622) fell in love with Anne Gresham and that by late July 1569 she had been naturalized, they’d been issued a special license to marry without banns, and had married. Other sources, however, give the date of their marriage as June 29, 1569. Lisa Jardine and Alan Stewart in Hostage to Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon say that Nathaniel then sent his bride to his stepmother, Anne Cooke Bacon, to be schooled with Nathaniel’s half brothers, Anthony and Francis Bacon, at Gorhambury. The book gives documentary evidence for this. Nathaniel certainly had occasion to meet Anne Gresham. His mother, Jane Fernley (d. 1552), and Thomas Gresham’s wife were sisters. By Nathaniel Bacon, Anne was the mother of Anne (1573-1622), Elizabeth (c.1575-1632), Nicholas (d. yng), and Winifred (1578-1614+). Her sudden death shortly after her eldest daughter Anne’s marriage to John Townshend in December 1593 created problems over the marriage settlement, since it was likely the widower would remarry. Should he then have a son, Anne Bacon Townshend would lose most of her rich inheritance.
see JOAN BROMLEY
see THOMASINE PETRE
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see CECILY BONVILLE
Cecily Grey was the daughter of Thomas Grey, 1st marquis of Dorset (1451-1501) and Cecily Bonville (c.1460/1-May 12, 1529). Some sources give her a birth date as early as 1488. She married John Sutton, 3rd baron Dudley (1496-April 18, 1553). Their children were Edward, 4th baron (1506-July 19, 1586), Henry (1515-1556), and possibly John and Mary (b.1537). In February 1537, Lady Dudley wrote to Lord Cromwell to complain of the poverty she and her husband had to endure. She claimed she and one of her daughters and their woman and man had only £20 a year to live on and had to rely on Agnes Oulton, the prioress of Nuneaton for meat and drink. She was apparently living at the priory at that time. Nuneaton was dissolved on September 12, 1539.