A WHO’S WHO OF TUDOR WOMEN: Stafford-T
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her very out-of-date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)
ANNE STAFFORD (c.1483-1544+)
Lady Anne Stafford was the daughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd duke of Buckingham (1455-November 2,1483) and Katherine Woodville (1457/8-May 18,1497). She married Sir Walter Herbert (d. September 16, 1507) on February 15, 1500 and after his death lived for a time in the household of her brother, Edward, 3rd duke of Buckingham (February 3,1478-May 17,1521), at Thornbury. According to Buckingham’s biographer, Barbara J. Harris, he took a paternalistic interest in both his sisters and arranged both of Anne’s marriages. She wed for the second time in December 1509, taking as her husband George, 3rd baron Hastings (1486/7-March 24,1544). It was as Lady Hastings that she was at court as one of Queen Catherine of Aragon’s ladies. By May of 1510, she was at the center of a scandal. Her own sister, Elizabeth, Lady Fitzwalter, informed their brother that Anne’s behavior was bringing shame on the Stafford family. Buckingham subsequently caught Sir William Compton (d. 1528) in Anne’s chamber. After a heated exchange during which Buckingham is reported to have told the pair that "women of the Stafford family are no game for Comptons, no, nor for Tudors, either," the duke saw to it that Anne’s husband spirited his wife away from court, initially transporting her to a convent some sixty miles distant. Speculation ran high that Compton had been soliciting Anne’s favors on behalf of King Henry VIII, and that Anne was the king’s mistress, but whatever the truth of that relationship, William Compton himself seems to have developed a strong bond of affection with Lady Hastings. Records of the Court of Arches (an ecclesiastical court) from 1527, seventeen years later, indicate that Compton was obliged to take the sacrament to prove he had not committed adultery with Anne during his wife’s lifetime. In his will, made in March 1522, he left Anne a life interest in property in Leicestershire and founded a chantry where prayers would be said daily for her soul. The latter provision was one usually made only for one’s self and close family members. Whatever the relationship with Compton, Anne seems to have developed a strong and loving relationship with her husband, as evidenced by letters he wrote to her, and she was named as one of the executors in his will. They lived primarily at Asby-de-la-Zouche, Huntingdonshire and at Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. Anne was present at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. She may have been at court when her brother was executed for treason in 1521. She became countess of Huntingdon in 1529 when Hastings was elevated in the peerage and from the late 1530s was part of the household of Henry VIII's daughter, Mary Tudor. Anne had eight children, five sons and three daughters: including Francis (1514-June 20,1561), Edward (1520-March 5,1573), Thomas, William, Henry, Catherine (b.1516), Mary (d.1533?) and Dorothy (b.c.1520). Anne was buried at Stoke Poges. Portrait: 1535 by Ambrosius Benson.
CECILY STAFFORD
DOROTHY STAFFORD (October 1,1526-September 22, 1604)
Dorothy Stafford was the youngest daughter of Henry Stafford, Baron Stafford (September 18,1501-April 30,1563) and Ursula Pole (1504-August 12,1570). She lived in the household of her aunt, Elizabeth Stafford, duchess of Norfolk (1499-November 30, 1558) as a child, as did her sisters Susanna and Jane. In 1545, Dorothy married Mary Boleyn’s widower, Sir William Stafford of Grafton and Chibsey, Staffordshire (d. May 1556) and had six children by him, Elizabeth (c.1546-February 6, 1598/9), Dorothy (b.1548), Sir Edward of Grafton (c.1552-1604), Ursula (b.c.1553), William (1554-1612), and Sir John of Marlwood Park (January 1556-1624). In March 1554, the family went into exile, settling in Geneva. John Calvin was godfather to their youngest son. After her husband's death, Dorothy left Geneva for Basel, where she remained until January of 1559. Over Calvin's objections, she took her children with her. Under Elizabeth Tudor, Dorothy was at court and became quite influential there. In 1575 she was appointed Mistress of Robes, a position she held until the queen’s death in 1603. When two maids of honor, Elizabeth Brydges and Elizabeth Russell, were banished from the Coffer Chamber for three days, they stayed with Lady Stafford. Dorothy was buried in St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under "Stafford [née Stafford], Dorothy." Portraits: effigy in St. Margaret's.
DOUGLAS STAFFORD
see DOUGLAS HOWARD
ELIZABETH STAFFORD (d. May 1532)
Elizabeth Stafford was the daughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd duke of Buckingham (1455-November 2,1483) and Katherine Woodville (1457/8-May 18, 1497) and the sister of Edward, 3rd duke of Buckingham (February 3,1478-May 17,1521). She was at court as one of Elizabeth of York's ladies by 1494. On July 23,1505 she married Robert Radcliffe, Lord Fitzwalter (1483-November 27,1542), who was created earl of Sussex in 1529. It was as Lady Fitzwalter, however, that she was at the court of Henry VIII. She did not stay long. In May of 1510, after she informed her brother that their younger and newly married sister, Anne, was being courted by the king (a bit of gossip that led to Anne being spirited away to a nunnery), the king himself forced Queen Catherine of Aragon to dismiss Elizabeth Fitzwalter from her service. She was, however, in attendance at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. Her children were Henry, 2nd earl of Sussex (c.1506-February 17,1557), Sir Humprey (c.1509-August 13,1566), Thomas (1511-1539), and George Radcliffe. She was buried at Boreham, Essex on May 11, 1532.
ELIZABETH STAFFORD (1499-November 30,1558)
This second Elizabeth Stafford was the daughter of Edward, 3rd duke of Buckingham (February 3,1478-May 17,1521) and Eleanor Percy (1470-1530). Robert Hutchinson's House of Treason gives alternate life dates as 1493-September 4, 1558. Elizabeth was to have married one of her father's wards, Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland, at Christmas 1512, but shortly before that she acquired a new suitor in the person of the recently widowed Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey (1473-August 25,1554). Buckingham offered his other daughters to Sussex, but the earl was determined to have Elizabeth, described by Jessie Childs in Henry VIII's Last Victim: The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey as "passably pretty, with soft features, light colouring and a distinguished forehead." Early in 1513, Elizabeth married Surrey, bringing with her a dowry of 2,000 marks. They had five children: Henry (1517-x.January 19,1547), Mary (1519-December 9,1557), Charles (d.yng), Thomas (1528-1582), and a fifth child who died young and may have been named Muriel. Elizabeth was often at court and became close friends with Catherine of Aragon. She carried Princess Mary to the font at the princess's christening in 1516 and was a patron of the poet John Skelton, who describes Elizabeth and her ladies making a chapelet in the poem "A Goodly Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell." When the earl of Surrey was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1520, he was ordered to take his entire family with him. There they were exposed to war, disease, crowded conditions, and severe shortages of just about everything. To make matters worse, during their sojourn in Ireland, Elizabeth's father was accused of treason and beheaded. In 1524, with the death of her father-in-law, Elizabeth became duchess of Norfolk. She continued to serve as a lady-in-waiting to the queen, at court for months at a time, but with the king's growing determination to obtain a divorce, her role changed. By 1530, Elizabeth was spying on her own husband, on the lookout for any information that would help Queen Catherine. By then, there were also problems in Elizabeth's marriage. In 1526, Norfolk took Bess Holland, daughter of his chief steward, as his mistress, a long-term relationship which he did not trouble to keep secret from his wife. Elizabeth continued to be vocal in her support of Catherine of Aragon. Norfolk, and most of the Howard family, favored the king's plan to marry Anne Boleyn, whose mother was a Howard. Elizabeth went so far as to refuse to bear Anne's train at her investiture as Marchioness of Pembroke and was conspicuously absent from both Anne's coronation and the christening of Princess Elizabeth. In May1533, Norfolk wrote to Elizabeth's brother, Henry Stafford, asking him to take her in. Stafford refused, expressing the fear that "her accustomed wild language" would place him and his family in danger if he did so. The matter came to a head on Tuesday of Passion Week 1534. Norfolk arrived at Kenninghall, his principal residence, to find his wife in a rage because he was still keeping Bess Holland as his mistress. Norfolk's response was to lock Elizabeth in her chamber, then banish her to Redbourne, a manor in Hertfordshire. Elizabeth referred to this as imprisonment, even though she had twenty servants and an allowance of three hundred marks per annum. Legally Norfolk was within his rights to do as he wished with her. She tried three times for a reconciliation, but to no avail. Norfolk was not about to forgive some of the claims she had made, including one that he had assaulted her when she was pregnant with their daughter in 1519. Some of the charges may indeed have been "false and abominable lies," but Norfolk was known to have a temper, too. In 1541, Elizabeth was still trying to regain freedom of movement, as well as a bigger allowance. Her children, to her distress, sided with their father. Indeed, most people did. Wives were expected to put up with their husbands' infidelities, not make a fuss about them. Upon Mary Tudor's accession, Elizabeth returned to court and there was reunited with her husband, who had been in the Tower of London since 1547. He died at Kenninghall the following August. Although both Elizabeth and Norfolk appear in effigy on the same monument in Framlingham, completed in 1559, only he is buried there. She was interred in the Howard Chapel in St. Mary's Church, Lambeth, in December 1558. The epitaph written by her brother lauds her kindness and says she was to him "a mother, sister, a friend most dear." Biography: "Marriage Sixteenth-Century Style: Elizabeth Stafford and the Third Duke of Norfolk" by Barbara J. Harris in Journal of Social History, 15/3 (1982); Oxford DNB entry under "Howard [née Stafford], Elizabeth." NOTE: the DNB gives her date of birth as 1497. Portraits: artist unknown, Arundel Castle.
ELIZABETH STAFFORD (c.1546-February 6, 1598/9)
Elizabeth Stafford was the daughter of Sir William Stafford (d. May 1556) and Dorothy Stafford (October 1, 1526-September 22, 1604). She was in exile during Mary Tudor's reign with her parents and returned to England in 1559. On November 28, 1568 she became a chamberer to Queen Elizabeth at £20 per annum. In 1573, she married Sir William Drury of Hawstead (May 30,1550-January 18,1590), by whom she had Sir Robert (January 30, 1575-1615), Frances (June 13, 1576-1642), Elizabeth (January 4, 1577/8-February 26, 1653/4), Charles (d.1600), Susanna, Diana (d.1638), and Dorothea (d.yng). Both Elizabeth and her daughters received gifts of clothing from Queen Elizabeth and the queen visited Hawstead in 1587. After her husband was killed in France by Sir John Borough in a duel over precedence, Elizabeth was left deeply in debt. Her husband owed £6000. The Drury estate was seized by the Crown in 1591. In 1590, Elizabeth married Sir John Scott of Nettlestead, Kent (d.1616). Portraits: there are three, one with one of her children and one attributed to William Seger c. 1595; effigy on her tomb in Nettlestead, Kent.
ELIZABETH STAFFORD
MARGARET STAFFORD (c.1511-x.May 25, 1537)
Margaret Stafford was an illegitimate child, probably the daughter of Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham (February 3, 1478-May 17,1521), although his brother, Henry Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire (1479-March 6, 1523) has also been suggested as her father. If she was Buckingham’s child, she may be the illegitimate daughter he sought to marry to Thomas FitzGerald (x.February 3,1537), son of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare (d.1534). Buckingham reportedly spent £430 in this effort but arrangements were incomplete at his death. The most likely mother for his illegitimate children, especially one named Margaret, is Margaret Geddynge, who was a gentlewoman and a member of the duke’s household as early as 1499/1500. She was one of the duchess’s ladies in waiting and in charge of the nursery at Thornbury. She was given a gift of £13 6s. 8d. for New Year’s 1519. In 1520, she had apparently quarreled with the duchess and was discharged from her service, but by March 1521 she was back. At the time of Buckingham’s death, Margaret Geddynge held the farm of demesne lands in Eastington and Gilkerton, Gloucestershire. After the duke’s execution for treason, the matrimonial choices for an illegitimate daughter would have been limited, so it seems logical that she might have married William Cheney or Cheyne of London (c.1509-c.1534), about whom little more than his name is known. What is more surprising is that Sir John Bulmer of Wilton, Yorkshire (c.1490-August 25,1537) then “bought” her from Cheney, apparently with Margaret’s approval. As his mistress she bore him three daughters, Martha, sometimes called Mary (b.c.1531 in Wilton), Frances (b.c.1533), and Anne (b.c.1535). After her husband died, she married Bulmer. Dates for their marriage vary from 1534 to early 1536, and for either a letter from Bulmer’s son, Ralph (c.1510-1558), casts doubts on its validity, since Ralph seems to indicate that his mother was still living as late as November 1, 1536. In any case, 1536 was a busy year. Bulmer’s first wife’s nephew, Sir Francis Bigod, was one of the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Margaret, who is described by P.R.D. Davison in his history of the Bulmer family, Saxon Survivors? as “devastatingly attractive” but possessed of “a violent temper,” urged her husband to join with Bigod and was heard loudly supporting a plan to capture and execute the duke of Norfolk. Norfolk was the abusive husband of Elizabeth Stafford, who was probably Margaret’s half sister. On May 7th, both Bulmer and Margaret were indicted for treason, but they were pardoned. In January 1536/37, Margaret gave birth to a son, John (d. February 6, 1608), at Lastingham. Two months later, she and Bulmer were ordered to appear in London. Suspecting that to obey would place their lives in jeopardy, Margaret tried to convince Bulmer to flee the country. Instead, he attempted to revive the Pilgrimage of Grace by planning an Easter uprising. By April 8, Margaret was under arrest in London. By April 21, both she and Bulmer were in the Tower. Although Bulmer insisted they were legally married, Margaret is referred to in documents as the “untrue” wife of John Bulmer and was blamed for the plot. On May 16, she, Bulmer, his brother (another Ralph), and several others were tried and convicted of treason. Both Bulmer and Margaret pleaded guilty. She was burned to death at Smithfield. Bulmer was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. Biography: two chapters in Sharon Jansen’s Dangerous Talk and Strange Behavior.
MARY STAFFORD
see MARY BOLEYN
URSULA STAFFORD
ANN STANHOPE (1497-April 16, 1587)
Anne Stanhope was the daughter of Sir Edward Stanhope of Rampton, Northamptonshire (d. 1511) and Elizabeth Bourchier (before 1473-1557), sister of the earl of Bath and a descendant of King Edward III. Anne came to court in 1511 as a maid of honor. In 1529, Sir Edward Seymour (1502-x.January 22,1552) fell in love with her and repudiated his wife in order to marry her, which he did before March 9, 1535. They had ten children: Edward (October 12,1537-1539), Anne (1538-1588), Edward (1539-April 6,1621), Margaret (b.1540), Henry (b.1540), Jane (1541-1561), Mary (d.1619/20), Katherine, a third Edward (1547-1574), and Elizabeth (1550-1602). Anne had apartments at court and for a time her sister-in-law, Jane Seymour, met King Henry there. When Jane became queen, her brother was elevated in the peerage so that Anne became, in rapid succession, viscountess Beauchamp and countess of Hertford. Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, wrote a sonnet about her called “a lady who refused to dance with him,” which portrayed her as haughty and cold. The king visited Wulfhall, the Seymour country seat, in 1539. Anne managed to stay on good terms with both Princess Mary and Queen Katherine Parr but her religious leanings were Protestant. She sent aid to Anne Askew in 1545. Upon King Henry’s death in 1547, Anne’s husband became Lord Protector for his nephew, Edward VI and was elevated in the peerage to duke of Somerset. Anne quarreled with Katherine Parr and after her death claimed the manor of Hanworth for herself. As early as 1547, Anne was urging her husband to arrest his brother, Thomas Seymour, who had been married to Katherine Parr, on charges of treason. Meanwhile, Anne herself was scheming to marry her son Edward to Lady Jane Grey and her daughter Jane to King Edward. In October 1549, Somerset was removed from power and held in the Tower of London. In an effort at reconciliation, Anne and the earl of Warwick’s wife, Jane Guildford, arranged a marriage between Anne’s daughter, Anne Seymour and Warwick’s eldest son, John Dudley, who became earl of Warwick when his father was elevated in the peerage to duke of Northumberland. Somerset was arrested again on October 16, 1551, accused of plotting against Northumberland. This time he was executed. Anne was also arrested and remained a prisoner in the Tower of London until May 30,1553, even though she was never charged with any crime. A contemporary attack in print on the duchess referred to her as "that imperious and insolent woman . . . whose ambitious wit and mischievous persuasions led him [Somerset] and directed him also in the weighty affairs and government of the realm to the great harm and dishonor of the same." Under Mary Tudor, three of Anne's daughters were at court. Her oldest son, Edward, was restored in blood. Anne was granted a number of Northumberland’s confiscated properties and Hanworth, Middlesex, where she chose to live. It was at Hanworth that a romance secretly blossomed between Anne’s son Edward and Lady Catherine Grey, younger sister of Lady Jane Grey. When the young couple eloped in 1560 and were subsequently confined in the Tower of London, Anne was careful to distance herself from them. The next year, Anne married Francis Newdigate (c.1500-January 26,1581/2), who had been Somerset’s steward. When her son was released from the Tower, Anne was given custody of him and also of the older of the two sons he had with Lady Catherine Grey. Anne tried to advance Lady Catherine’s claim to the throne by backing John Hales’s Discourse on the Succession but met with little success. She was buried in Westminster Abbey. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under "Seymour [née Stanhope], Anne." NOTE: the DNB gives her birthdate as c.1510, Edward Seymour's as c.1500, and Francis Newdigate's as 1519. Portraits: effigy on her tomb; portrait said to be Anne Stanhope and her son Edward is Catherine Grey; engraving based on 1540s portrait is shown below.
ALICE STANLEY
see ALICE SPENCER
ANNE STANLEY
see ANNE HASTINGS; ANNE SPENCER
ANNE STANLEY (d. September 22, 1602)
Anne Stanley was the daughter of Edward Stanley, 3rd earl of Derby (May 10, 1508-October 24, 1572) and Dorothy Howard (d. before 1547). On February 10, 1549, she married Charles, 8th baron Stourton (c.1521-March 1556/7). She was probably the Lady Stourton at court in 1558/9, although she was a prominent recusant, as were all her children. With Stourton she had John, 9th baron (c.1552-October 13, 1588), Edward, 10th baron (c.1555-May 7, 1633), Charles, Anne, Mary, and Catherine. Her second husband was Sir John Arundell of Lanherne (c. 1530-November 17, 1590). Their children were Dorothy (c.1560-1613), Elizabeth, Cecily, Margaret, Gertrude (b.1574), and John (d.1633). Although Lady Stourton lived a Chideock Castle in Dorset after her second husband’s death, she maintained contact with Catholics in London, including Father John Cornelius, who had been the Arundells’ family priest since 1583. In 1594, an informant’s report led to Cornelius’s arrest and that of all those who had harbored him. The men were executed, but Lady Stourton was only detained briefly and then released. In 1601, she was indicted at the Dorset assizes. She petitioned the queen and Elizabeth Tudor ordered the case against Lady Stourton dismissed. Two of her daughters, Dorothy and Gertrude Arundell, were co-founders of the English Benedictine convent in Brussels.
ANNE STANLEY (1580-October 11, 1647)
Anne Stanley was the daughter of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th earl of Derby (1559-April 16, 1594) and Alice Spencer (May 4, 1559-January 16, 1637). She married first, in 1608, Grey Brydges, 5th baron Chandos (1579-August 10, 1621), by whom she four children, Elizabeth (d.1679), George (d.1672), William, and Robert, and second Mervyn Touchet, 2nd earl of Castlehaven (x.1631). Castlehaven created a scandal by inducing one Giles Brodway to rape Anne while he held her hands and one foot. Castlehaven was tried for rape and sodomy and executed. Even though Anne’s participation in a criminal act had been unwilling, she required to be pardoned for it.
ELIZABETH STANLEY (d.1590)
Elizabeth Stanley was the daughter of Edward Stanley, 3rd earl of Derby (May 10, 1508-October 24, 1572) and Dorothy Howard (d. by 1547). She married Henry Parker, 9th baron Morley (January 1533-October 22, 1577) before 1555. She was a lady of honor in 1558/9 and Queen Elizabeth visited her house in Allington Morley, Great Hallighbury, in 1561. But Lady Morley was also a recusant. In 1570, her husband left England in secret and went into exile. He wanted his wife and children—Edward (1555-April 11,1618), Alice, Anne, and Mary—to join him abroad, but the English government refused permission for them to leave. On Palm Sunday 1574, she and her son Edward were two of those taken into custody when fifty-three people were rounded up at illegal Catholic services in London. Twenty-three of them had been meeting in her house near Aldgate. In 1576, Lady Morley was reunited with her husband in Maestricht.
ELIZABETH STANLEY (1587-1633)
Elizabeth Stanley was the youngest daughter of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th earl of Derby (1559-April 16, 1594) and Alice Spencer (May 4, 1559-January 16, 1637). She married Henry Hastings (1586-1643), later earl of Huntingdon, on January 15, 1601. They had five children: Ferdinando (January 18, 1608-1655), Alice (d.1667), Elizabeth, Henry (1610-1666), and Mary (1612-1660). A patron of the arts, she was also a writer herself. A series of devotions she wrote is still extant. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Hastings [née Stanley], Elizabeth.” Portraits: miniature by Nicholas Hilliard c. 1601-10; portrait by Paul Van Somer, c. 1614.
ELIZABETH STANLEY
FRANCES STANLEY (May 1583-March 11, 1636)
Frances Stanley was the daughter of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th earl of Derby (1559-April 16, 1594) and Alice Spencer (May 4, 1559-January 16, 1637). She married her stepbrother, John Egerton (1579-December 4, 1649) around 1602. In 1617, Egerton was created earl of Bridgewater. They had fifteen children, eleven daughters and four sons, many of whom died in childhood. Those who survived to adulthood included Frances (1603-1664), Arabella (d.1669), Elizabeth (d.1688), Mary (d.1659), Penelope, Katherine, Magdalen, Alice (d.1689), and John (1523-October 26, 1696). Like her mother and sisters, Frances was a patron of the arts. She was also a book collector. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Egerton [née Stanley], Frances.” Portraits: two portraits and one engraving.
HELEN or ELLEN STANLEY
see HELEN or ELLEN PRESTON
MARGARET STANLEY
see MARGARET CLIFFORD
MARY STANLEY
see MARY BRANDON
URSULA STANLEY (c.1568-1636)
ELIZABETH STAPLETON
see ELIZABETH PIERREPOINT
JUDITH STAUNTON (d. March 1614)
ELIZABETH STEYNING
FRANCES STEYNING
ANNE STOKES
see ANNE CAREW
FRANCES STOKES
see FRANCES BRANDON
CECILY STONOR
see CECILY CHAMBERLAYNE
ELIZABETH STONOR (d.August 25,1560)
Elizabeth Stonor was the daughter of Sir Walter Stonor of Stonor, Oxfordshire (1477-October 8, 1550), Lord Lieutenant of the Tower, and Anne (or Margaret) Foliot. Although accounts of her first husband, Sir William Compton of Compton Wynyates (d.1528), tend to overlook Elizabeth, his second wife, as his widow she had to apply for a license in 1529 in order to marry Walter Walshe (d.1538), a page of the privy chamber. Her attempts to collect her jointure from her first marriage continued into her second widowhood. With Walshe she had at least three children, Walter, Margaret, and Frances. In about 1540, she married Sir Philip Hoby of Bisham Abbey (1505-May 29, 1558). She was part of Queen Katherine Parr's inner circle. She was buried in Wreysbury, Buckinghamshire. Portrait: Holbein's drawing of "Lady Hobeii" was done about 1539 and is in the Royal Library at Windsor.
ISABEL STONOR
MRS. STONOR
see MARGARET (or ANNE) FOLIOT
ANNE STOURTON
see ANNE STANLEY
URSULA STOURTON (1518-September 4, 1551)
Ursula Stourton was the daughter of William 7th baron Stourton (1484-September 16, 1548) and Elizabeth Dudley (1488-1560). She was a maid of honor under Anne of Cleves. She married Edward Fiennes de Clinton, Lord Clinton (1512-January 16,1585) before June 15, 1541 and by him had Henry, 2nd earl of Lincoln (c.1540-September 26, 1616), Edward (c.1545-before September 20,1575), Anne (c.1546-1585), Thomas (b.c.1548), and Frances (1551-September 12,1623).
KATHERINE STRADLING (February 12,1512/13-April 24,1585)
Katherine Stradling was the daughter of Sir Edward Stradling of St. Donat’s, Glamorganshire (c.1474-1535) and Elizabeth Arundell (c.1484-1513). She was in the service of Mary Arundell, countess of Sussex, at the same time as Anne Bassett and the subject of a heated correspondence with Anne’s mother, Lady Lisle, because Anne passed on to Katherine some pearls Anne's mother had sent to her. Katherine went on to be named one of the English maids of honor assigned to Anne of Cleves at the beginning of 1540, but soon after that married Sir Thomas Palmer of Parham, Sussex (1498-April 15,1582). Their daughter Margaret was christened on August 23,1540. Their other children were Catherine (b.1542), Robert (b.1543), William (July 14, 1544-December 24,1586), and Thomas (b.c.1548).
CATHERINE STRANGEWAYS
see CATHERINE GORDON
FRIDESWIDE STRELLEY
see FRIDESWIDE KNIGHT
ARBELLA or ARABELLA STUART (by November 10,1575-September 25, 1615)
Arbella Stuart was the daughter of Charles Stuart, earl of Lennox (1556-April 1576) and Elizabeth Cavendish (March 3,1555-January 21,1582). She was raised by her grandmother, Bess of Hardwick who, along with Arbella’s other grandmother, Margaret Douglas, taught her to think of herself as the future queen of England. She did have an excellent claim to the throne, but not as good as that of her cousin, James VI of Scotland. She was at the center of several plots during the reign of Elizabeth Tudor and under James I ended up under arrest for marrying without royal permission. Her husband was William Seymour (1587-1660), grandson of Lady Catherine Grey, who had his own claim to the throne. They wed in secret on June 22, 1610. When the marriage was revealed, Seymour was sent to the Tower of London while Arbella was placed in the custody of Sir Thomas Parry at Lambeth. In March 1611, Arbella was sent north to be confined in the care of the Bishop of Durham. With the assistance of her aunt, Mary Cavendish, countess of Shrewsbury, Arbella attempted an escape disguised as a man, planning to meet her husband and go with him to France. They left England on separate ships but Arbella’s vessel was captured by a naval pinnace sent to bring her back. This time she was sent to the Tower. Although she was never tried, she had little hope of release and in 1615 she starved herself to death. Biographies: There are several but the most recent are David N. Durant's Arbella Stuart: A Rival to the Queen and Sarah Gristwood's Arbella: England's Lost Queen; Oxford DNB entry under "Stuart [married name Seymour], Lady Arabella." Portraits: several portraits of Arbella Stuart are at Hardwick Hall; a number of other portraits are said to be Arbella but are probably not. The earliest was painted in 1577; in 1589 at 13, called "Countess of Lennox" and attributed to Rowland Lockey; in 1592 by Nicholas Hilliard; c.1604-5, possibly by Marcus Gheeraerts (three copies exist); 1605, probably by Robert Peake (shown); c.1619 engraving, probably based on a lost portrait c.1608-9.
ELIZABETH STUART
FRANCES STUART
see FRANCES HOWARD
MARGARET STUART
see MARGARET DOUGLAS
KATHERINE STUBBES
see KATHERINE EMMES
CECILY SUTTON
MARY SUTTON
THEODOSIA SUTTON
ELLEN SYBSON
ALATHEA or ALETHEIA TALBOT (1584-May 24,1654)
Althea Talbot was the daughter of Gilbert Talbot, 7th earl of Shrewsbury (November 20,1553-May 8,1616) and Mary Cavendish (January 1556/7-April 1632) and eventually inherited a vast estate in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire. She married Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel (July 7,1586-October 4,1646) on September 30, 1606 and was the mother of James (1607-1624), Henry (August 15,1608-April 17,1652), William (November 30, 1612-1680), Charles, Catherine, Gilbert, Thomas, Theophilus, and Anne (c.1614-1658). She was interested in science and had some of her own works published. Her husband was an art collector. They lived all over Europe and after a stint in Venice, Alathea brought a gondola back with her to use on the Thames. During the Civil War both Alathea and her husband remained on the Continent, but they were not together and were also separated from their children. Arundel died in Padua. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under "Howard, Aletheia." NOTE: the DNB gives her father's year of birth as 1552 and her husband's as 1585. Portraits: miniature as a child; by Daniel Mytens c.1618; group painted by Peter Paul Rubens in 1620; engraving 1646; others.
ANNE TALBOT
ANNE TALBOT (c.1524-February 3, 1585)
Anne Talbot was the daughter of Francis Talbot, 5th Earl of Shrewsbury (1500-September 25,1560) and Mary Dacre (1502-March 29, 1538). In 1542, she married John Bray, 2nd Baron Bray (c.1527-November 18, 1557). Although some sources say he was executed for his part in the Dudley Conspiracy, this is not the case. Bray seems rather to have been in the wrong places with the wrong people at the wrong time. He was first arrested on July 15,1553, during Wyatt’s rebellion, on suspicion of being involved in that plot, but he was released later the same day. On January 5, 1556, in the parish of St. Andrew in the ward of Baynard’s Castle, he made the mistake of saying that if his neighbor of Hatfield might once reign, he would have his lands and debts given to him again, which he both wished for and trusted he would see. In other words, he hoped Queen Mary would die so that Elizabeth Tudor could ascend to the throne. This was sufficient cause to arrest him when rumors of the Dudley Conspiracy came to light and he was in custody by May 5, 1556. As soon as Lady Bray heard of her husband’s arrest, she went at once to London, as did her mother-in-law, Jane Hallighwell. Neither woman managed to arrange a meeting with the queen, but they sent tokens to influential courtiers, including Susan Clarenceaux, the queen’s chief gentlewoman. Hearing of Lady Bray’s campaign to free her husband, Queen Mary is reported to have said that “God sent often times to good women evil husbands.” She may have been thinking of her own husband, for word had come to her on June 16 that King Philip would not be returning to England as planned. Receiving that news, the queen had shut herself away, refusing to see any petitioners. Meanwhile, Lord Bray was confined first in the Fleet and later in the Tower and according to gossip was deprived of basic necessities while his wife was offered “no gentleness.” Throughout his imprisonment, Bray maintained that he was innocent of treason and the eventual charge against him was only “infraction of true obedience” for his “false and contemptuous words.” He remained in custody until the first week of April 1557 and was then released. He was pardoned on May 13, 1557. When King Philip raised an army to fight the French, he joined up, as did many who had formerly been rebels, and he fought at Saint Quentin on August 10, where he was wounded. It was as a result of these wounds that he died on November 18, 1557 in his house in Blackfriars. His wife was not with him, although his mother was, and she was the one he named executrix of his will, which was proved on November 20, 1557. His mother arranged for his burial at Chelsea, where his father and grandfather rested. It is difficult to tell if there was a rift between husband and wife at this time. Spouses did not customarily attend funerals. In this case, however, neither did any of Anne’s relatives, the Talbots. The chief mourner was George, Lord Cobham, Bray’s brother-in-law. Anne had no children by John Bray and the title went into abeyance after his death. She remarried four years later, taking as her second husband Thomas, 1st Baron Wharton (1495 or 1501-August 23, 1568). She does not seem to have had any children by her second husband, either. She could not have been the Lady Wharton at court when Queen Mary died. This was probably her second husband's first wife.
ELIZABETH TALBOT (before February 10, 1582-December 7, 1651)
Elizabeth Talbot was the daughter of Gilbert Talbot, 7th earl of Shrewbury (November 20, 1553-May 8,1616) and Mary Cavendish (January 1556/7-April 1632). Elizabeth was highly educated. She compiled A choice Manuall, or Rare and Select Secrets in Physick and Chyrurgery and A True Gentlewoman’s Delight, Wherein is contained all manner of Cookery. These works went through numerous editions in the seventeenth century, each with a portrait of its author. In 1601, Elizabeth married Henry Grey, Lord Ruthin (c.1583-1639), heir to the earldom of Kent. They had no children. In 1602, Elizabeth’s cousin, Arbella Stuart, was committed to her care at Sheriff Hutton. Arbella was still with the Greys when Queen Elizabeth died. Together they moved to Wrest Park, where Arbella remained until June 1604. Grey succeeded to the earldom in 1623, making Elizabeth a countess. Elizabeth was often at court under James I, performing in masques and participating in state ceremonies. The Greys also spent a great deal of their time at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, which became a mecca for poets, including John Selden, a poet. Elizabeth received a number of dedications, including Selden’s Table Talk. Selden remained in Elizabeth’s household after her husband’s death and was the beneficiary in her will, prompting John Aubrey’s claim in Brief Lives (written between 1669 and 1696) that they were secretly married. There is no confirmation of this, nor of Elizabeth’s supposed liaison with Sir Edward Herbert (1591-1657), a judge. She died in her home, Friary House, Whitefriars, London and was buried at Flitton, Bedfordshire. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Grey, Elizabeth.” Portraits: c.1618, by Paul van Somer; c.1637 etching by W. Hollar.
ELIZABETH TALBOT
see ELIZABETH HARDWICK
MARY TALBOT (c.1504-April 16, 1572)
MARY TALBOT
see MARY CAVENDISH
ELIZABETH TALBOYS
see ELIZABETH BLOUNT
MARGARET TALBOYS
see MARGARET SKIPWITH
ELIZABETH TANFIELD (1585-October 1639)
Elizabeth Tanfield was the only child of Sir Lawrence Tanfield (c.1551-1625) and Elizabeth Symonds (d.1629). She was born at Burford Priory in Oxfordshire and tutored by John Davies of Hereford, a noted poet. She spoke French, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, and Transylvanian, as well as Latin, and translated the epistles of Seneca and Abraham and Ortelius’s Le Miroir du Monde. In October 1602, she married Sir Henry Cary or Carey, later Viscount Falkland (c.1576-September 25,1633) but as he was a soldier in the Netherlands, she was left to her own devices and by 1604 had written two plays, one set in Sicily, which is now lost, and The Tragedie of Miriam, the faire Queene of Jewry, which became the first original play by an Englishwoman ever to be published when in came out in 1613/14. It was written in verse. In 1627, she wrote a third play, The History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II, which was not published until 1680. Elizabeth’s marriage to Sir Henry Cary produced eleven children: Catherine (b.1609), Lucius, 2nd Viscount Falkland (1610-1643), Lawrence or Lorenzo (1613-1643), Anne (b.1614), Edward (b.1616), Elizabeth (b.1617), Lucy (b.1619), Victoria (b.1620), Mary (b.1622), Patrick (1624-1657), and another son in some genealogies as Henry and in others as Placid. In September 1625, when Elizabeth's husband learned of her plan to convert to Catholicism, he disowned her, cut off all financial support, and took her children away from her. They were partially reconciled by the time he died of gangrene from a wound in his leg and she was at his side in his final days. After his death, however, she actively worked to convert her children to Catholicism, even going so far as to hide some of them from her eldest son, who was their guardian. Three of her daughters eventually entered convents and two of her sons also took holy orders. She wrote a series of verses on the lives of saints. She also received a number of dedications from other writers, including Michael Drayton, John Davies of Hereford, and John Marston. Biography: The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry with The Lady Falkland: Her Life by One of Her Daughters edited by Barry Weller and Margaret W. Ferguson; Oxford DNB entry under "Cary [née Tanfield], Elizabeth." Portraits: painting by Paul Van Somer c.1620; engraving based on Van Somer's work; effigy in Burford Church on the Tanfield tomb.
ALICE TANKERFELDE (x.March 31,1534)
Alice Tankerfelde’s origins are not known, but she gained notoriety for two things, her involvement in two murders and her escape from the Tower of London. Alice was married to John Wolff or Wolfe, a merchant of the Steelyard. On July 16, 1533, “by the Devil’s instigation,” Alice participated in the murder of two foreign merchants, Jerome de George and Charles Benche. She was part of a conspiracy to murder and rob these “strangers.” Her co-conspirators were her husband, a London gentleman named John Westall, and two yeomen, Robert Garrard and John Litchfield. Alice pretended to be a whore and lured the two foreigners into a house in Durham Rents in the Savoy section of London, where they “kept company” all afternoon. She kept them with her until after ten o’clock that night. Alice and Westall pretended they would escort the two to their lodging in St. Benet Gracechurch, at the house of Florentine merchant John Gerrald, and boarded a boat at Strand Stairs, but Litchfield and Garrard were the watermen and Wolff was hiding in the stern beneath some leather ordinarily used to cover the cushions on the boat. He waited until the boat was in the middle of the Thames, then rose up “and most maliciously struck the said Charles behind him in the back with his dagger to the heart.” Charles Benche died immediately of “several deadly wounds.” Then all four men attacked Jerome de George. He died of a broken neck. With their victims dead, the murderers stripped them of their clothes and all their valuables, tied the bodies back to back, weighted them with stones, and threw them overboard. Still not satisfied, Alice, Wolff, Westfall, and another gentleman named Stanley, broke into John Gerrald’s house to rob the dead men’s chamber. When the crime was discovered, Wolff escaped to Ireland, but Alice was arrested. Because of the location of the murder, she was tried by the Admiralty Court and sentenced to be hanged on the pirates’ gallows at Wapping Stairs. This was not a traditional hanging. She’d be left hanging in chains as the tide came in and drowned her. To make certain the tide was high enough, she’d be left there until three tides had flowed over her. Until the day of her execution, she was held in the Tower of London, in Coldharbor Tower, near the center of the complex. It boasted a gatehouse to the Inmost Ward and had a porter’s lodge within or nearby. The cylindrical towers were where prisoners were kept. Alice was held there at the same time as Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, imprisoned for heresy, and it is has been suggested by Barton’s biographer that the two women might have been confined together. Documents relating to both cases were apparently kept in the same file by Lord Cromwell. In prison, Alice was supposed to have been kept shackled, but the Lord Lieutenant’s daughters, probably the two youngest, Alice (b.1517) and Eleanor (b.1521) Walsingham, took pity on her and the shackles were removed. By late March, Alice had apparently charmed many of those charged with keeping her. One William Denys, a servant of Lord Lieutenant Sir Edmund Walsingham, was a frequent visitor and “showed her a secret way how she might be conveyed out of the Tower.” After Denys was dismissed for fraternizing with a prisoner, another of the Lord Lieutenant’s servants, John Bawde, began to pay visits. It has been suggested that Alice had already met him, in 1532, when her husband was in the Tower for another offense. When she “heard there was no remedy with her but death” she begged Bawde to help her escape. Bawde agreed. He bought two hair ropes for 13d., made a ladder of cords, and carried this into the Tower concealed beneath his cloak. To Alice he gave a key he had filed down so that it would open the back of the outer prison door, that is the door that gave access to St. Thomas’s Tower. This tower, over what is now known as Traitor’s Gate, is lower than the main towers of the Tower of London. The moat, at this point, was narrow, and at low tide was often dry. There are reports of a later escape attempt (1547) through the garderobe in St. Thomas’s Tower, where it was possible to climb down to the moat and simply walk away. Details of Alice's escape survive in Alice’s confession and in a letter written by John Grenville to Lord Lisle on Saturday, March 28, 1534. The confession states that the door to the inner ward was “shut and hasped with a bone put through the staple, which door she saith she did shake and so the bone fell out.” She then made her way to the outer ward and used the key Bawde had given her. They met on the leads of St. Thomas’s Tower at about ten at night. Grenville’s hearsay account is a little different. He says “On Friday about ij (two) of the clock in the morning one Bawde, sometimes the Lieutenant his servant, with counterfeit keys opened the prison door where Wolfe his wife was, and conveyed her out of the Tower with ij ropes tied to the embattlements: and after he had conveyed her down, went down himself to her and so together until they came to Tower Hill or thereabout, whereas stood certain watchmen of London.” The confession reads: Bawde “cast the said ropes double upon a hook of iron being fastened upon the same Tower wall, and so slid down.” On the wharf below, they hid on a lighter for an hour. Then Bawde found a boat and rowed them to the water-stairs at the end of the Tower causeway. They were walking up Tower Hill toward a Mrs. Jenyn’s house, where Bawde had left two horses, when they encountered the Watch. By Grenville’s account, Alice was “apparelled like a man” and for this reason the Watch was suspicious and took both Alice and Bawde into custody and took them to the Lord Lieutenant. He also writes that, on Tuesday, “Wolfe and his wife shall hang upon Thames at low water mark in chains. And Bawde is in Little Ease, and after he hath been in the Rack shall be hanged.” Bawde was actually held in the Counter, one of London’s prisons, until he could be identified. As for Wolff, if he truly escaped to Ireland, it is unlikely he was executed with his wife.
DOROTHY TASBURGH
REBECCA TAYLOR (1563+-1611+)
LAVINA TEERLINCK
see LAVINA BENING
JOAN TEMMES or TEMMSE (d.1553+)
ANNE
TEMPEST (c.1497-1536+) Anne Tempest,
daughter of Sir John Tempest of Great Houghton, Yorkshire, married Sir Edward
Boleyn (c.1496-before 1536) in 1515 or 1516, thus making her
Queen Anne Boleyn’s aunt. As Lady Boleyn, she was at
the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. I had identified Anne Tempest as the Lady Boleyn charged with spying on her niece in the Tower of London in 1536, to report every word she said to the authorities. Alison Weir's The Lady in the Tower, however, identifies this Lady Boleyn as Elizabeth Wood, wife of Sir James Boleyn (1494-December 5, 1561). Other than that she was the daughter of John Wood of East Marsham, Norfolk and had no children by Sir James, I can discover nothing about this Elizabeth Boleyn. Anne Tempest had four daughters by Sir Edward. Mary, Ursula, Elizabeth, and Anne were all born between 1516 and 1522. The date of death given here is a guess, based upon Anne having been the Lady Boleyn in the Tower.
DOUSABELLA TEMPEST (c.1472-c.1499)
ANNE THROCKMORTON
see ANNE CAREW; ANNE LUCAS
ELIZABETH THROCKMORTON
see ELIZABETH HUSSEY
ELIZABETH THROCKMORTON (April 16, 1565-1647)
Elizabeth Throckmorton was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton (1515-1571) and Anne Carew (d. 1587). She lived with her mother until she went to court as a maid of honor in November 1584. In June 1591, she secretly wed Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-October 28, 1618). A son, Damerei (March 29,1592-October 1592), was born at Mile End. Elizabeth returned to court four weeks later, but the marriage could not be kept secret and the queen imprisoned both husband and wife for daring to marry without permission. Elizabeth was released after several months, on December 22,1592, but never returned to court. She lived at Mile End or at Sherborne and bore two more children, Walter (1593-1617/18) and Carew (1605-1666). By the time Carew was born, Raleigh had been convicted of treason and was being held in the Tower of London, where he remained until 1616. At Elizabeth’s urging, he had backed a conspiracy to put Lady Arbella Stuart on the throne. Elizabeth eventually moved into the Tower with him and her son was born there in February of 1605. Thanks largely to Elizabeth's efforts, King James paid her £8000 in cash and an annuity of £400 for Sherborne in 1608. She was less successful in obtaining repayment of a loan of £500 (Elizabeth's marriage portion) that her mother made to the earl of Huntingdon when Elizabeth was still a child. In 1616, Raleigh was released to lead an expedition to Guiana. When this was a spectacular failure, he was returned to the Tower and executed under his original conviction for treason. Elizabeth is said to have had his head embalmed and to have kept it with her in a red leather bag until her death. Biography: Bess by Anna Beer. Portraits: as a young woman, c. 1591; in middle age, c. 1603; in widowhood with her son Carew, c. 1619; others not authenticated.
MERIAL THROCKMORTON (d. 1615)
ROSE THROCKMORTON
see ROSE LOCKE
MARY THURSBY or THORESBY
see MARY NEVILLE
JOAN THYNNE
MARIA THYNNE
ISABEL TIPPING
TOMASINA or THOMASINA (d.1603+)
Tomasina was also known as Mrs. Tomyson, or Tomasin de Paris, although at least one of her contemporaries referred to her as Italian. She was a dwarf (probably really a midget) who was at the court of Elizabeth Tudor from 1577 until 1603. She was always clothed in the latest fashions at the queen's expense and given many personal gifts besides. In 1579, her sister, Prudence de Paris, possibly at court on a visit, was given a gown of violet cloth. Tomasina could apparently read and write because one of the queen's gifts to her was a "penner" and ink horn. In 1580, together with John and Mary Scudamore, she paid a visit to Dr. John Dee, the queen's astrologer, at Richmond. Portrait: a female dwarf is shown in the portrait at Penshurst of Queen Elizabeth dancing. Since no other female dwarfs were known to have been at Elizabeth's court, it is likely this was meant to represent Tomasina.
SUSAN TONGE
see SUSAN WHITE
ANNE TOUCHET
see ANNE STANLEY
MARIA TOUCHET (c.1578-1611)
ANNE TOWNSHEND
KATHERINE TOWSE
MARY TRACY (May 18,1581-December 25,1671)
JANE TRANSFEILD
JOCOSA TRAPPES (1531-1587)
ELIZABETH TRENTHAM (c.1559-December 1612)
CLEMENCE TRESHAM (d. September 6, 1567)
LETTICE TRESHAM
see LETTICE PENYSTON
MERIAL TRESHAM
ELIZABETH TREVANION (d.1641)
ELIZABETH TREWINARD (d.1582+)
Elizabeth Trewinard (Trewinnard/Trewennard) was the second daughter of James Trewinard of St. Erith, Cornwall (1490-1523) and Philippa Carminow (d. August 9, 1563). She married Sir John Killigrew of Arwennack, Cornwall (d.1577). Their children were Sir John (d.1584), Peter, Thomas, Sir Henry (c.1530-1603), Sir William (d.1622), Jane, Grace, Alice, Anne, and Margaret. In the 1540s, Pendennis Castle was built on John Killigrew’s land and he became the first hereditary captain of the new fortification, which commanded shipping in the Falmouth area. He used his position to prey on the cargoes of vessels that came within his grasp. In 1556, he and his oldest son were arrested for treason but under Elizabeth Tudor their fortunes changed. In 1567, Arwennack House was rebuilt into a fortified stronghold where stolen merchandise was regularly hidden. Neville Williams calls Elizabeth “a tough and unprincipled businesswoman” who managed Arwennack and oversaw the burial of treasure in the garden, but she was not, technically, a pirate. There has been considerable confusion about the Killigrew women, thanks to the Tudor tendency to refer only to “Lady Killigrew.” At one point there where two Lady Killigrews, Elizabeth and her daughter-in-law, Mary Wolverston, and a Mrs. Killigrew (grandson John’s wife, Dorothy Monk) at the same time. By that time, Elizabeth would have been “old Lady Killigrew” and a widow. When she heard a rumor of treasure on board the Marie of San Sebastian, at anchor in Falmouth harbor in 1582, Elizabeth sent her servants to seize the ship and search the cargo. None of the Killigrew women actually went on the raid, but all three were among those who received stolen goods. She was apparently arrested, since Williams reports that two of her sons, Sir Henry and Sir William, then at court, had to pay substantial bribes to secure her release.
LADY TROY
see BLANCHE MILBORNE
ELLEN, ELYN, or HELEN TUDOR (c.1459-1488+)
KATHERINE TUDOR
KATHERINE TUDOR (KATHERINE OF BERAIN) (c.1540-August 27, 1591)
Katherine of Berain was the daughter of Tudor ap Robert Fychan of Berain, Denbighshire (d.1564) and Jane Velville. Her grandfather, Sir Rowland Velville (1474-1535), claimed to be the illegitimate son of Henry VII by a Breton lady, born while Henry Tudor was in exile in Brittany. Katherine married four times, first in 1558 to John Salisbury, Salusbury, or Salesbury of Llewenny, Denbighshire (c.1542-1566), by whom she had two sons, Thomas (1561-x.September 20,1586) and Sir John (1566-1612). Katherine was courted by Sir Richard Clough (d.1570), a merchant, during his brief visit to Wales in April 1567. She married him and returned with him to the Low Countries, via London, in May. They had two daughters, Anne (b.1568) and Mary (b.1570). During this period they were in Antwerp and in Spain and made several visits to Wales. In January 1569 they were in Flanders when they heard that English merchants in Antwerp were being arrested. They fled but were captured in Dieppe and held there until Sir William Cecil negotiated their release. Clough died in Hamburg the next year and was buried there, all but his heart, which his wife brought back to Wales with her and buried at Whitechurch, his parish church in Denbigh. Her third husband, married in 1573, was a widower, Maurice Wynn of Gwydir (d.August 10,1580), by whom she had Edward and Jane. In The Expansion of Elizabethan England, A. L. Rowse gives an account of her arrangements for her children's marriages and her stormy relationship with her stepson, Sir John Wynn. In 1584, Katherine married Edward Thelwell of Plas-y-Ward, Denbighshire (d. July 29, 1610). She was buried on September 1, 1591 at Llanefydd. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under "Katheryn of Berain [called Mam Cymru]." Portrait: c.1568 by Adriaen van Cronenburgh.
MARGARET TUDOR (November 29,1489-October 18,1541)
The oldest daughter of Henry VII (1457-1509) and Elizabeth of York (1465-1503), Margaret was married off to James IV of Scotland (1473-1513) in 1503. William Dunbar wrote a poem, “The Thistle and the Rose,” in honor of the occasion. Newly a widow in 1513, she was willing to marry Louis XII of France, but he wanted her sister. Shortly after that marriage was contracted, Margaret chose her own second husband, Archibald Douglas, earl of Angus (1489-1557), by whom she had a daughter, Margaret (October 8,1516-March 7,1578), who was born in England after Margaret escaped house arrest in Scotland. In May of that year, Queen Margaret was reunited with her brother and a tournament was held in her honor at Greenwich, but their relationship was a prickly one. She did not remain at the English court, nor did she remain married to the earl of Angus. Biographies: Three biographies consider Margaret jointly with her sister Mary, Hester W. Chapman’s The Thistle and the Rose, Nancy Lenz Harvey’s The Rose and the Thorn and Maria Perry’s The Sisters of Henry VIII, while Patricia Hill Buchanan’s Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots deals with Margaret alone. Oxford DNB entry under "Margaret [Margaret Tudor]." Portraits: a full length study by Daniel Mytens in the Royal Collection at Holyrood, which is a copy of a lost portrait painted c.1515-17; a double portrait with John Stewart, duke of Albany; several head-and-shoulders portraits at various points in her life.
MARY TUDOR (March 18,1495-June 25,1533)
Younger sister of Henry VIII and Margaret Tudor (above), the Lady Mary was for some years betrothed to Charles of Castile (later Charles V). She repudiated that marriage in order to wed Louis XII of France (1462-1515). She was eighteen. He was fifty-two. She is said to have been in love with Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk (1485-August 22,1545), before she left England and to have made her brother promise that she could choose a second husband for herself when Louis died. She may have helped this outcome along by encouraging the French king to stay up late and join in the revels celebrating their marriage. Widowed, she married Suffolk in Paris sometime before February 20, 1515. They were remarried at Greenwich, with her brother’s blessing, on May 13, 1515. They had three children, Henry (March 11,1516-1534), Frances (July 16,1517-November 20,1559), and Eleanor (1519-September 27,1547). Biographies: In addition to the joint biographies listed in the entry for Mary’s sister Margaret, there is Walter C. Richardson’s The White Queen. Oxford DNB entry under "Mary [1496-1533], queen of France." Portraits: There are several sketches by unknown artists, plus a portrait of Mary as a young girl, a double portrait with the duke of Suffolk, possibly at the time of their marriage, and a portrait c. 1530 by Johannes Corves.
ANNE TURNER
see ANNE NORTON
JANE TURNER
MARY TURVILLE
see MARY BLACKENEY
ELIZABETH TWYSDEN
see ELIZABETH ROYDON
MARGARET TYLER (d. 1578+)
AGNES TYLNEY or TILNEY (1477-May 1545)
Agnes Tylney was the daughter of Hugh Tylney of Boston and Eleanor Tailboys (or Talbot). She married Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey (1443-May 21,1524) as his second wife on August 17, 1497. Their children were Dorothy, Thomas (d.1537), William (1510-January 21,1573), Anne, Katherine, Elizabeth, Richard (d.1517), and two sons and four daughters who died young. Agnes waited on Catherine of Aragon during Catherine's marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales in 1501-2. In 1503, she went with Princess Margaret to Scotland for Margaret’s marriage to James IV. In 1514, she accompanied Princess Mary to France for her wedding to King Louis XII. By then Agnes's husband had been elevated in the peerage to duke of Norfolk. In 1516, Agnes was one of Mary Tudor’s godparents. As a widow, the dowager duchess of Norfolk lived mostly at Horsham and at Lambeth. Her household always included a number of young relatives. In 1529, she emerged to give evidence that Catherine of Aragon had been Prince Arthur’s wife and later she took part in the coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn, daughter of one of her Howard stepchildren. Agnes was godmother to Princess Elizabeth. When King Henry VIII began to court Catherine Howard, one of the young girls who had been brought up at Horsham, Agnes said nothing to discourage the match. When Catherine’s past misconduct was revealed, therefore, Agnes was held accountable and arrested in 1542. She was released the following May. She was buried May 31,1545 at Thetford Abbey. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under "Howard [née Tilney], Agnes." Portrait: an engraving done long after her death.
ANNE TYRRELL
MARGARET TYRRELL (x.1540) (maiden name unknown)
BRIDGET TYRWHITT
see BRIDGET MANNERS; BRIDGET WILTSHIRE
ELIZABETH TYRWHITT
see ELIZABETH OXENBRIDGE (2 entries)
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Emerson (all rights reserved)
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see CECILY BONVILLE.jpg)
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see ELIZABETH CAVE
see URSULA POLE.jpg)
see ELIZABETH de VERE
Ursula Stanley was the illegitimate but acknowledged daughter of Henry Stanley, 4th earl of Derby (September 1531-September 25,1593) by his longtime mistress, Jane Halsall (c.1536?c.1550?-c.1591?) of Knowsley, Lancashire. In 1586, Ursula married Sir John Salisbury or Salusbury of Sterney, Derbyshire and Lleweni, Denbighshire (1566/7-July 24,1612). They had seven sons and three daughters, including Henry (d.1632), John, and Arabella. Her happy marriage was the subject of a book of poems, “The Phoenix and the Turtle,” commissioned by her husband in 1601. Contributors included Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. One story, without much foundation, has the earl of Derby hiring Shakespeare as a tutor for his two illegitimate daughters, Ursula and her sister Dorothy. Although he was at one time a wealthy man, Salisbury died deeply in debt.
Judith Staunton of Longbridge, Warwickshire was an heiress in her own right when she married Hamnet Sadler (c.1562-1624), a baker of Stratford, in about 1579. Among their fourteen children, seven of whom died young, were John (1580-1580), Jane (b.1581), Margaret (b.1583), Thomas (1585-1585) and Judith (b. April 1596). Although the family was prosperous to begin with, after their house was destroyed by fire on September 21, 1594, their fortunes declined. For more details see Germaine Greer’s Shakespeare’s Wife. The Sadlers were friends with William and Anne Shakespeare and stood as godparents to their twins.
see ELIZABETH HARRIS
see FRANCES de VERE.jpg)
see ISABEL AGARD.jpg)
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see ELIZABETH CAVENDISH
see CECILY GREY
see MARY HOWARD
see THEODOSIA HARINGTON
see ELLEN TUDOR.jpg)
see ANNE HASTINGS
Mary Talbot was the daughter of George Talbot, 4th earl of Shrewsbury (1468-July 26,1538) and Anne Hastings (c.1471-1510). She was betrothed to Henry Percy, later 6th earl of Northumberland (1502-January 30,1537) in 1516 and married him in January 1524. Their longstanding betrothal was used to prevent Percy from marrying Anne Boleyn, with whom he had unwisely fallen in love. The marriage was not a happy one. In 1528, her husband, who had succeeded to the title of earl of Northumberland, was complaining about Mary’s “malicious arts” and “imaginations of untruth.” Mary’s father, meanwhile, was concerned that Northumberland might be abusing his wife, even poisoning her. Northumberland refused to let any of Talbot’s servants see or talk to Mary. Eventually, she left him and went home to her family. She gave birth to a stillborn child in April 1529. Whether she ever returned to her husband is unclear but in 1532, Mary accused him of having had a pre-contract with Anne Boleyn that would render their marriage null and void. This effort to obtain an annulment failed. By 1534, Mary was living with her father. In 1536, Shrewsbury claimed that Northumberland had not paid Mary the 200 marks a year he had promised her when they separated. Northumberland countered with the charge that Shrewsbury had never handed over Mary’s dowry. This particular debate ended with Northumberland’s death. Having no sons to inherit, he willed his lands and title to the Crown. Mary lived into the reign of Elizabeth. She was buried in Sheffield Church.
see DOROTHY KYTSON
Rebecca Taylor was the only daughter of Robert Taylor (d. December 31,1596), alderman of London, and Elizabeth Hatton (d. June 2, 1603). On February 5, 1582, she married Sir William Romney (c.1555-April 25,1611), a haberdasher and member of the Merchant Adventurers who was later Governor of the East India Company, at St. Magnus the Martyr, London. They had six sons and two daughters—Isaac, Susan (d.1659), Joseph (d.1645), Jeremy, Elizabeth, Daniel, Ezekiel, and William—plus other children who died young. Romney’s wealth at his death is estimated at around £15,000. Rebecca willed four exhibitions of £12 each to the Haberdashers’ Company, two at Emmanuel College and two at Sidney-Sussex College. She also left £6 a year to two freemen of the company and £3 a year to four poor widows.
Joan (or Jane) Temmes was the daughter of William Temmes of Steple Ashton, Wiltshire and Jane Baynard (d. before March 9, 1533/4). She was abbess of Lacock from 1516 until it was surrendered on January 21, 1539. Between 1536 and 1539, Joan leased out the abbey's demesne land to members of her own family—her brothers Robert, Christopher, and Thomas, her brother-in-law, Robert Bath, and her cousin, Sir Edward Baynton, whose sister, Elizabeth Baynton, was one of the fifteen nuns and three novices at Lacock. Joan was granted a generous pension of £40, which she was still collecting in 1553.
Dousabella Tempest was the daughter of Sir Richard Tempest of Giggleswick and Stainforth, in Ribbesdale, West Riding, Yorkshire (c.1408-February 1488/9) and Mabel Strickland. She was the first wife of Thomas, 1st baron Darcy of Templehurst (c.1467-x. June 30, 1538). She gave him two sons, Sir George Darcy of Aston (d.1558), Sir Arthur Darcy (d.1561) and died c.1499. I include her in this listing because she has a somewhat unique name for the era. She was apparently named for a grandmother, whose given name is recorded as Douce. In this age of reprints and Google Books, the reader should also be aware that the information given with the letter from "D. Darcy" included in Mary Anne Everett Green's Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies and dated 1537, is incorrect. This letter, written to the author's husband "from Gaitforth, the 13th day of January" does not give a year. Ms. Green, writing in the nineteenth century, identified her as Dousabella and as Darcy's second wife. Unfortunately, this does not fit with the facts as we now know them. There are two possibilities. Either the letter was written by Dousabella at a much earlier date, or the D. Darcy in question is Dorothy Melton, the wife of Dousabella's son, George Darcy. Although Darcy apparently remarried around 1500, some genealogies still give Dousabella's date of death as between 1503 and 1520. .jpg)
Merial or Murial Throckmorton was the daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton, Warwickshire (d.1581) and Murial Berkeley. In 1566 she married her father’s ward, Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall (1543/4-September 11, 1605), who had succeeded his grandfather to a very large fortune in 1559. They had eleven children, three of whom died young, including Francis (1567-December 23, 1605), Thomas (d.1574), Lewis (1578-1639), William (d.1639), Frances, Elizabeth (1573-1648), Catherine (1576-1623), Mary (d.1664), Anne (d.1629), and Bridget. The Treshams were recusants and Sir Thomas was more than once imprisoned for his faith. In April 1582, he was released from the Fleet after twenty months of close confinement there and put under house arrest in a house in the parish of Hoxton, just outside London, one right next to a more comfortable house that Tresham himself owned. He entered into a bond of £2000 not to go out of the house that was his prison, but his wife could visit him there. During at least part of this time, Lady Thresham lived in Tuthill Street in Westminster. On August 27, 1584, the authorities raided Sir Thomas’s house in Hoxton. Present at the time were Tresham, his wife, his daughters Frances, Catherine, and Elizabeth, his son Lewis, and a number of servants. Many more details are given in Godfrey Anstruther’s Vaux of Harrowden but in essence the persecution continued. Tresham was still confined to Hoxton when, on March 21, 1590, Merial wrote to Lord Burghley asking that he might be moved to Banbury, nearer to Rushton, for his health.
see JOAN HAYWARD
see MARIA TOUCHET
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Maria Touchet was the daughter of George Touchet, earl of Castlehaven (c.1550-February 20, 1617) and Lucy Mervyn (d.c.1611). In May 1594, after a brief stint at the court of Queen Elizabeth, Maria married Thomas Thynne (1578-1639) in a clandestine wedding in an inn at Beaconsfield. They were sixteen. They kept the marriage secret, since their families were bitter enemies and the story, when it came out, is said to have inspired Shakespeare to write Romeo and Juliet. The Thynnes attempted to have the marriage annulled but were unsuccessful. In November 1605, Thomas inherited Longleat, Wiltshire and Maria lived there, managing the estate, until his death. They had three children, John (1604-d. yng), another son, and Thomas (b.1611). Maria died in childbirth. Biography:Alison D. Wall, Two Elizabethan Women; Oxford DNB entry under “Thynne [née Touchet], Maria.” Portrait: by Mytens, 1611 (when pregnant).
see ANNE BACON
see KATHERINE BANKS
Mary Tracy was the daughter of Sir John Tracy of Toddington, Gloucestershire (d.1591) and Ann Throckmorton (d. May 21,1581). In 1600 she married William Hoby of Hailes Gloucestershire (d.c.1602), by whom she had two sons, Philip (d.1617) and William (d.1623). In November 1607 she married Sir Horace or Horatio Vere (1565-1635), a soldier, and followed him to the Netherlands in 1608. On July 24, 1624, he was created baron Vere of Tilbury. They bought an estate at Clapham, near Hackney. By then they had five daughters, the two eldest born in the Netherlands: Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, Anne (1617/18-1665), and Dorothy. Vere suffered a stroke while at dinner with a friend and died within two hours. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on May 8, 1635. Lady Vere was a patron of puritan ministers and had a wide correspondence. For a time she served as parliamentarian governor of two of Charles I’s children, Elizabeth and Henry. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Vere [née Tracy; other married name Hoby], Mary.” Portrait: engraving by F. H. Van Hove.
see JANE GROVE
Jocosa or Joyce Trappes was the daughter of Robert Trappes (d.1560), a London goldsmith, and Joan Cryspe. On August 15, 1549, she married Henry Saxey, clothworker, in Banstead, Surrey. They had a son, William (d. August 22, 1581). In 1568, she founded four scholarships at Lincoln College, Oxford. After Saxey’s death, she married William Frankland (d.1577), another clothworker. Frankland left her the manor of Thele, Stanstead St. Margaret’s, Hertfordshire, and rights to Rye House in Stanstead Abbots, Hertfordshire. Since her son and both husbands had predeceased her, Jocosa Trappes left her fortune to charity. An estimate of her gifts to various educational institutions during her lifetime and after her death puts the total contribution at £4840. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Frankland [née Trappes; other married name Saxey], Joyce.” Portraits: three c. 1586.
Elizabeth Trentham was the daughter of Sir Thomas Trentham of Rochester, Staffordshire (April 21, 1538-May 1587) and Jane Sneyd (d.1612+). She was a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth in 1588/9. In September 1591 she became the second wife of Edward de Vere, earl of Oxford (April 12,1550-June 24, 1604). She was the mother of his son Henry (February 24, 1593-June 1625). In 1601, she accused Arthur Mills, one of Oxford’s servants, of stealing a casket from her. He was tried and acquitted of the charge. Although some sources credit Elizabeth with saving Oxford’s estates from bankruptcy, in 1609 she was forced to sell her home and live with her son because she had no money to maintain her own establishment. Things appear to have improved, however, as she entertained King James and his retiniue at Havering-atte-Bower in mid-1612. Her will, dated February 15, 1612, left bequests to her mother, two sisters, a brother, her son, and St. Augustine’s Church. She was buried at Hackney, Middlesex on January 3, 1613, with her husband.
Clemence or Clementia Tresham was the daughter of John Tresham of Rushton (d.c.1521) and Isabel Harrington (d.c.1558). She was a nun at Syon Abbey, Isleworth until the dissolution. Expelled from the religious life, she returned to Rushton and remained there for the rest of her life. Portraits: marble effigy in nun’s habit on her tomb in the church of St. Peter’s (no longer extant).
see MERIAL THROCKMORTON
Elizabeth Trevanion was the daughter of Hugh Trevanion of Correheigh, Cornwall (c.1530-1575) and Sybilla Morgan (1533-1579+). In July 1580, she married Sir Henry Widdrington of Widdrington Castle, Northumberland (d.1593) and on August 20, 1593, in Berwick-upon-Tweed, married Sir Robert Carey (1560-April 12,1639). Their mothers were sisters. Queen Elizabeth did not approve of the match and the couple were out of favor, but under James I their fortunes improved. Carey was created earl of Monmouth for his services in Prince Charles’s household. Elizabeth served as the future king’s governess from 1605-1611 and is credited with curing him of his lameness by limiting the treatments suggested by his doctors. Her own children were Henry (1596-1661), Thomas (b.1597), Philadelphia, and Katherine.
Ellen Tudor was the illegitimate daughter of Jasper Tudor, duke of Bedford (c.1431-December 21, 1495) and a woman possibly named Mevanvy. She married William Gardiner (c.1450-1485), a skinner, according to the Oxford DNB. Other sources call him a cloth merchant, still others a grocer, and some say he hired out as a mercenary and was one of the men who killed Richard III on the battlefield at Bosworth in 1485. These same sources say he was afterward knighted on the battlefield by Henry VII, Jasper Tudor’s nephew, and after that married Jasper’s illegitimate daughter. This makes a good story, but is largely untrue. Neither is it true that William and Ellen were the parents of Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester (d.1555), or Richard (1486-1546), William (1488-1549) or Alice (d.1588) Gardiner. William and Ellen were married well before the Battle of Bosworth, which took place in the same year William died (the date of his will is September 25). Their only confirmed child was Thomas (c.1479-1506), Pryor of Tynemouth. After William Gardiner’s death, perhaps c. 1493, Ellen married another London skinner, William Sybson or Sibson (d.1501+).
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see JANE AUDER
Margaret Tyler was a servant in the household of Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk during his marriage to his second wife, Margaret Audley, who died in January 1564. She was obviously an educated woman, because she translated The Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood, a chivalric romance, into English from the Spanish of Diego Ortúñez de Calahorra. It was published in 1578. Unfortunately, nothing else is known about her.
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see ANNE BROWNE
Margaret Tyrrell, said to be the wife of William Tyrrell, a gentleman of Essex, made the mistake of expressing the opinion that Prince Edward was not the rightful heir to the throne. She was examined to Thomas Cromwell on November 24, 1537 and was in the Tower of London by December 5 of that year. She was held there without being charged with treason or tried, but on July 24, 1540, Parliament passed an act of attainder against her. She was scheduled to be executed—hanged, drawn and quartered—on July 30, 1540. Most sources say she was executed, but a book published in 1904, Lives of the English Martyrs declared blessed by Pope Leo XIII, states that the sentence was not carried out. Her husband, who may have been the son of Sir James Tyrrell of Gipping (x. May 6, 1502), was also arrested for speaking his mind. For saying that the king's assassins would "attain paradise" and other remarks made in 1536 and in 1539, he was tried and convicted of treason in 1541 but he was pardoned in March 1543. 