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her very out-of-date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 ©2008-13 Kathy Lynn
Emerson (all rights reserved)
CECILY DABRIDGECOURT
(1506-September 20, 1558)
Cecily Dabridgecourt was the daughter of John Dabridgecourt or Daubridgecourt
of Langdon Hall and Solihull, Warwickshire (1483-July
16, 1543) and his first wife Maria Mynors
(1485-1512). She was one of Princess Mary's attendants in Wales in 1525, before
her marriage to Sir Rhys/Rice Mansell of Oxwich, Glamorganshire (January 25, 1487-April 10, 1559).
She was his third wife and they married on June 19, 1527. Their children were
Edward (c.1527-August 5, 1595), Philip (1531-before 1559), Anthony
(1535-1601+), Mary (1536-1564), Katherine, Elizabeth (d.1549+), and three sons
who died young. In a letter to Lord Cromwell, Princess Mary refers to Cecily as
"one of my gentlewomen, whom, for her long and acceptable service to me
done, I much esteem and favor." On August 3, 1535, Cecily herself wrote to
Cromwell, begging him to intercede with the king so that her husband, who was
serving in Ireland, might return to England where, she writes, "Most of
his living is encumbered with jointures and other charges, so that if God
should take him, I, with my poor children, were clearly undone; for in these
parts I am a stranger." She was writing from Beaupré
and signed herself "Cecil Maunsell." In
1540, Margam Abbey became the family seat. They also
had a town house in Clerkenwell. When Mary became
queen, Cecily was a Lady of the Privy Chamber as "Lady Manxwell"
and her daughter Mary was a maid of honor. Cecily was buried in St.
Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield. Portraits: effigy in Margam
Abbey, Glamorganshire with three children.
CHRISTIAN
DABRIDGECOURT
(d.1562+)
Christian or Christiana Dabridgecourt was the
daughter of John Dabridgecourt of Langdon Hall,
Warwickshire (1483-July 16, 1543) and his second wife Elizabeth Wigston (d.1543+). She married Anthony Forster of
Newark-upon-Trent, Nottinghamshire (d. March 1559) as his second wife. His
will, dated February 23, 1558, left her lands in Nottinghamshire, £200, and
specified valuables, as well as the lease of St. Leonard's hospital, Newark,
for as long as she chose to live there. He also made provision that his two
daughters by his first wife and his daughter with Christian be raised by her
and married at eighteen or earlier, and gave instructions for a tomb to be
erected to himself and his first wife in the church of Mary Magdalene, Newark.
By 1562, Christian married Sir Robert Constable (c.1522-November 12, 1591), a
soldier. Their son Henry (1562-October 9, 1613) was a poet and religious exile.
ANNE DACRE
see ANNE BOURCHIER
ANNE DACRE
(c.1500-1547/48)
Anne Dacre was the daughter of Thomas Dacre, 2nd baron Dacre of the
North (November 25, 1467-October 24, 1525) and Elizabeth Greystoke
(July 10, 1471-August 14, 1516). On September 28, 1515, she married Christopher
Conyers, 2nd baron Conyers of Hornby (c.1491-June 14, 1538). On February 2,
1539, her brother, William, 3rd baron Dacre, wrote to
Lord Cromwell to ask him to befriend Anne, who needed his aid for herself and
her young children. Lady Conyers herself then wrote to Lord Cromwell from
Skelton Castle on July 10, 1539. Her eldest son John (1524-June 30, 1557) was
still a minor and so had become a ward of the Crown, but he was already
betrothed to Maud Clifford, daughter of the earl of Cumberland. Although her
husband had tried to make arrangements for the rest of his family before his
death, he had left behind enormous debts and she was faced with raising
Elizabeth, Jane (c.1522-December 4, 1558), and Leonard (c.1529-1577) and
arranging marriages for them without any income. She asked Cromwell for her
dower rights and begged to be allowed to stay where she was and "be your
farmer of my said son's lands." In a second letter, written on October 17,
1539, she restates her case, telling Lord Cromwell that since her husband died
she has had "nothing to live upon, but as we have borrowed amongst our
poor friends, and daily sundry of the creditors of my said lord my husband
calls upon me for such debts as he was indebted unto them; the which I shall
never be able to pay, unless I may be therein relieved and holpen
by the profits of such of my said husband’s lands as he devised and assigned to
that purpose, and for the preferment of his children." She asks again for
her "dower and living" but when or if she received them is not
recorded. Anne wrote her will on December 16, 1547 and it was proved on April
1, 1548. She asked to be buried with her husband in the Church of All Saints in
Skelton and, among other bequests, left her daughter Jane all her clothes
except one gown of tawny velvet with one kirtle of tawny damask, which she left
to her other daughter.
ANNE DACRE
(March 1,1557-April 13,1630)
Anne Dacre was the oldest daughter of Thomas, 4th baron Dacre (c.1526-July 25,1566) and Elizabeth Leyburne (d.September 4,1567).
Her mother remarried on January 29, 1567. After the death of her only brother,
George, 5th baron, at Thetford, Norfolk on May 17, 1569 in a fall from a wooden
vaulting horse, she and her sisters became considerable heiresses. They were
brought up by their stepfather, Thomas, 4th duke of Norfolk and by their
grandmother, Helen Preston, dowager Lady Mounteagle.
In September 1571, when Anne was fourteen, she was married to her stepbrother,
Philip Howard (June 28, 1557-November 19,1595). He should have succeeded his
father to the dukedom, but Thomas Howard was executed for treason in 1572 and
the title was forfeit. Norfolk requested that “Meggy
and Nan”—his daughter, Margaret Howard, and Anne—be given into the care of the Frances
Sidney, countess of Sussex. Philip Howard was taken into the household of
William Cecil, Lord Burghley, then attended St. John’s College, Cambridge, and
then went to court. While he lived at Howard House in Charterhouse Square, Anne
lived with his maternal grandfather, the earl of Arundel. She was chief mourner
at the funeral of his daughter, Lady Lumley, in 1578, and depicted as such,
styled countess of Surrey, in a contemporary manuscript. In 1581, Philip
succeeded to his maternal grandfather’s title as earl of Arundel and shortly
thereafter he and Anne began to live together, part of the time at Arundel
Castle. When Anne openly converted to Catholicism, which was against the law,
the queen committed her to the custody of Sir Thomas Sherley
at Wiston House. There she gave birth to her first
child, Elizabeth (1583-1598). She was successful in convincing her husband to
convert to Catholicism as well, a step he took on September 30, 1584. As a
result, he was made a prisoner in his own house by order of the queen. He was
released in April 1584 and Anne was allowed to leave Wiston
in September. In April 1585, however, Philip made secret plans to flee the
country. Contrary winds delayed his escape and when he finally set sail, his
ship was boarded and he was returned to shore. He was confined in the Beauchamp
Tower, charged with trying to escape the realm. His brother William and sister
Margaret and his uncle, Henry Howard, were also arrested. Shortly after he was
imprisoned, Anne gave birth to their son and heir, Thomas (1586-1646). Anne and
her two children were reduced to living in one wing of Arundel House on a
pension of £8 a week. Anne managed, however, to scrape together £30 to bribe
Cecily Hopton, one of the daughters of the Lord
Lieutenant, to provide her husband with access to a priest, William Bennett,
who was also imprisoned in the Tower of London. Bennett secretly said mass in
Philip’s cell until, in the autumn of 1588, they were discovered and Bennett
was transferred to another prison. Philip was soon after charged with treason
because the mass was for the success of the Armada, and as a result spent the
rest of his life in the Tower. Anne remained free and continued to practice her
faith. From 1589 until 1595, Robert Southwell
secretly lived in Anne’s household as her priest. Under James I, Anne regained
possession of some of her properties, including Shifnal
Manor, Shropshire, where she died. She spent her last
years writing a memoir with the help of a live-in biographer. He finished it
five years after her death. The Life of the Right Honorable Lady Anne Countesse of Arundell and Surrey
was edited by the Duke of Norfolk in 1837. She also wrote at least one poem, in
1595, on the death of her husband. Written on the cover of a letter, it begins:
"In sad and ashy weeds I sigh,/I groan, I pine, I mourn;/My oaten yellow
reeds/I all to jet and ebon turn./My wat'ry eyes,
like winter's skies,/My furrowed cheeks o'erflow./
All heavens know why men mourn as I,/And who can blame my woe." Biography:
Oxford DNB entry under "Howard [née Dacre],
Anne." Portraits: a stained glass window in Arundel Cathedral, West
Sussex; drawing by Lucas Vorsterman, 1626, in the
British Museum; engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar, 1627;
portrait sent to Philip II of Spain (no longer extant). She was described in
life as being "taller of stature than the common sort" and
"somewhat corpulant" in her last years.
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ELIZABETH
DACRE (1565-1639)
Elizabeth Dacre was one of the three daughters of
Thomas, 4th baron Dacre (d. July 25, 1566) and
Elizabeth Leyburne (d. September 4, 1567). Upon her
mother’s remarriage to the 4th duke of Norfolk, she was betrothed to the duke’s
younger son, Lord William Howard (1563-1640). They married in 1577. They lived
primarily at Naworth Castle and had little to do with
the court. Their children were Philip (b.1581), William, Charles, Thomas, Mary,
Elizabeth (March 1, 1587-1637), Francis (1588-1660), John, Robert, Anne, and
Margaret (December 19, 1593-March 3, 1620/21). Portrait: a portrait called
“Lady Elizabeth Dacre, 1577” was at Gilling Castle in 1878 and was said to resemble one at Naworth called Queen Elizabeth, except that it showed the sitter
with a candle and crucifix.
ELIZABETH
DACRE
see ELIZABETH GREYSTOKE; ELIZABETH LEYBURNE; ELIZABETH TALBOT
JANE DACRE
see JANE CARLISLE
MABEL DACRE
see MABEL PARR
MABEL DACRE (c.1490-c.1533)
Mabel, sometimes called Margaret, Dacre was the
daughter of Thomas, 2nd baron Dacre of Gillesland (November 25, 1467-October 24, 1525) and
Elizabeth Greystoke (July 10, 1471-August 14, 1516).
In about 1520, she married Henry, 7th baron Scrope of
Bolton (c.1480-December 1532). Their children were John, 8th baron (c.1510-June
22, 1549), Anne, Joan, Elizabeth, and Anne. Mabel was at court as one of
Catherine of Aragon’s ladies at the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII.
Neville Williams, in Henry VIII and His Court, calls her the “sickly
Lady Scrope.”
MAGDALEN DACRE (1538-April 8, 1608)
Magdalen Dacre was the daughter of William Dacre, 3rd baron Dacre
of Gilsland (April 29,1500-November 18,1563) and
Elizabeth Talbot (d.1559) and born at Naworth Castle,
Cumberland. At thirteen, she was a gentlewoman to Anne Sapcote,
countess of Bedford and at sixteen joined Queen Mary’s household. She was one
of Mary’s bridesmaids when she married Philip II of Spain. Magdalen
was reportedly very religious, spending much of her time in prayer and wearing
a coarse linen smock under her court clothes. According to a story repeated in
E. S. Turner’s The Court of St. James and elsewhere, she was a blonde, a
head taller than any other maid of honor, and very attractive, and she caught
the attention of Queen Mary’s husband, Philip of Spain. The story goes that
Philip opened a window to a room where Magdalen was
washing her face (or in some versions, brushing her hair) and, supposedly in
jest, caught hold of her. Magdalen beat him off with
a nearby staff and neither she nor her mistress found the incident amusing. On
July 15, 1558, Magdalen was married at St. James’s
palace to Anthony Browne, Viscount Montagu (November 29, 1528-October 19,1592).
Magdalen raised two stepchildren and had ten children
of her own: Philip (b.1559), Henry (c.1562-1628), George, Anthony, Jane, Mary,
Elizabeth, Mabel, Thomas, and William. Magdalen and
her husband were recusants during the reign of Elizabeth and her husband was
questioned when Magdalen’s brother, Leonard, took
part in the Northern Rebellion of 1569, but in general they were left alone by
the government, even though they had resident chaplains who celebrated mass for
as many as 120 people on special occasions. Magdalen
was only once accused of recusancy, her house was
searched only twice, and only once was one of her priests taken and imprisoned.
She was willing to allow a printing press on her premises, but would not aid
treasonous plots, not even those of another brother, Francis. Her chaplain at Cowdray was Thomas More, grandson of the martyr. When Queen
Elizabeth visited Cowdray for a week in 1591, the
priests were hidden and George Browne was knighted. Magdalen
lived at Battle Abbey after her husband's death. In 1597, when a messenger
brought a letter there to be passed on to the earl of Essex, Magdalen turned the messenger over to the magistrate and
also reported the incident to Lord Buckhurst, a privy councilor, sending her
niece along as a witness. At the same time, a house at the edge of Battle manor
contained a subterranean passage by which priests were smuggled into England. Magdalen died at Battle, Sussex and was buried in Midhurst
Church with her husband. They were later moved to Eastbourne.
She left a will proved April 24, 1608. Biography: written in Latin by Richard
Smith, Bishop of Chalcedon (1627); A.C. Southern, ed.
An Elizabethan Recusant House: the Life of the Lady Magdalen,
Viscountess Montague; Roger B. Manning, Religion
and Society in Elizabethan Sussex; Oxford DNB entry under "Browne [née
Dacre], Magdalen."
Portrait: alabaster tomb in Eastbourne Church with
figures of Sir Anthony Browne and both of his wives.

MARY DACRE (July 4, 1563-April 7, 1578)
Mary Dacre was the daughter of Thomas Dacre, 4th baron Dacre of Gillisland (c.1526-July 25, 1566) and Elizabeth Leyburne (d. September 4, 1567). During her mother's short
remarriage to the duke of Norfolk, Mary was betrothed to one of the duke's
sons, Thomas Howard, later earl of Suffolk (1561-1626), and married him by May
9, 1577. Charlotte Merton, in The Women who served Queen Mary and Queen
Elizabeth, advances the theory that Mary Dacre
was the "Ladie M. Howarde"
Sir John Harington referred to, in 1606, when he related the following story in
a letter to Robert Markham. A lady at court appeared in "a rich border
powdered wyth golde and pearle, and a velvet suite belonging thereto." The
queen, annoyed that "it exeeded her own"
clothing, got hold of the outfit and put it on. The "kirtle and border was
far too shorte for her Majesties height; and she askede every one, How they likede
her new-fancied suit? At lengthe she asked the owner
herself, If it was not made too short and ill-becoming? Which the poor Ladie did presentlie consente to. Why then if it became not me, as being too
short, I am minded it shall never become thee, as being too fine; so it fitteth neither well. This sharp rebuke abashed the Ladie, and she never adorned her herewith any more. I
believe the vestment was laid up till after the Queenes
death." Attempts to identify M. Howarde, usually
connect the story to one of the Mary Howards who were maids of honor to
Elizabeth during her long reign (see MARY HOWARD), but Merton argues that since
Harington says he was "a boye" at the time
of the incident, it could logically have taken place in about 1577, when Mary Dacre, Lady Thomas Howard, might have been expected to
appear at court for the first time. Merton suggests inexperience as the reason
Mary might have dressed in clothing both above her station and likely to
infuriate the queen. Although Mary had been raised in the household of the duke
of Norfolk from about age three until about age nine, he was executed for
treason in 1572, after which it might not have been considered essential to
educate her in the ways of the royal court. Mary died at Saffron Walden before
her fifteenth birthday. She had no children.
ANNE DACRES (d. August 1563)
Anne Dacres was the daughter of Henry Dacres or Dakers of London and
Mayfield, Stafforshire (c.1458-c.1538), merchant taylor and sheriff of London, and his wife Elizabeth (d.
April 23, 1530). His will was written January 15, 1537 and proved June 14,
1539. He was buried in St. Dunstan's in the West. Anne married first Robert Fairethwatt or Fairethwaite of
London, another merchant taylor, by whom she had two
children, Martin and Elizabeth. After his death, she married Sir John Packington of London and Hampton Lovett, Worcestershire (d.
August 21, 1551), by whom she had Bridget, Ursula, and a son who died young.
Sir John wrote his will on August 16, 1551 and it was proved October 30, 1551.
To "Anne, my loving wife" he left the lease on the parsonage of Chaddersley Corbet, rents from
the farm of Harbington, half of all corn, malt, and
grains, half his household stuff, half his horses, geldings, mares and cattles, £200, half of all his plate, and his great chain
of gold. He also left bequests to her children, Martin Fairthwaite
and Elizabeth Tichborne (she was married by then to
Nicholas Tichborne of Roydon,
Essex). For this reason, some genealogies mistakenly give Anne an additional
husband named Tychbourne. Anne made her will on
November 24, 1559. It included several endowments: lands to the value of £16
16s. 9d./year to the Clothworker's Company to
distribute to the poor of St. Dunstan's parish and pay for sermons; enough to
fund £7 13s. 4d./year for the care of the poor in St. Botolph's
parish and £3/year for the education of poor children. Lands belonging to her
in Islington went to build almshouses near White Friars church in Fleet Street.
Augustus J. C. Hare in Walks in London Vol. I (1878) says she is
"often supposed to have written 'The Whole Duty of Man'" but I have
not found a source for this. Anne’s small monument in St. Botolph's
Aldersgate (Dame Anne Packington)
is the oldest monument in the church. Why it shows only three figures is
unclear. She was buried there on August 22, 1563.

MARGARET
DAKINS (February 1571-September 1633)
Margaret
Dakins was the daughter of Arthur Dakins
of Linton, Yorkshire (c.1517-July 13, 1592) and Thomasine Gye
(d. November 13, 1613), but she was brought up in the Puritan household of the
earl of Huntingdon at Ashby-de-la-Zouch,
Leicestershire. Her first husband was another of Huntingdon’s charges, Walter
Devereux (1569-September 8, 1591), but he was killed in battle in France early
in their marriage. By November 1591, even before Walter’s body had been
returned to England for burial, she was being courted by two men. She married
one, Thomas Sidney (1569-July 26,1595) on December 22, 1591 and, after his
death, reluctantly agreed to wed the other, Thomas Posthumous Hoby (1566-December 30, 1640). She married Hoby at his mother’s house in Blackfriars
on August 9,1596. They lived at Hackness, Yorkshire,
which Hoby’s powerful relations, the Cecils, had secured for her. It had been purchased at the
time of her first marriage as a home for the young couple, but there were
difficulties over the financing and the new earl of Huntingdon was claiming the
property belonged to him. Margaret kept a diary of her religious observances
and recorded some of the cures she used to treat her retainers. The diary
covers the period from August 9, 1599 to July 21, 1605. Margaret’s piety was
highly respected, but the same characteristics in her husband provoked an
incident on August 27,1600 which ended in the courts. A band of hunters,
dissatisfied with the way the Hobys kept open house,
vandalized Hackness. The case was finally decided in Hoby’s favor by the Privy Council in 1602, but his refusal
to unlock his wine cellar was regarded as just as rude as breaking four
quarrels of glass and roistering while the Hobys were
at prayers. Margaret was buried at Hackness on
September 6,1633. Her husband erected an alabaster monument to her there. The
value of her estate has been estimated at £1500. Biography: Dorothy M. Meads,
ed., The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599-1605
(1930); Joanna Moody, ed., The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady: The
Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599-1605 (1998);
Oxford DNB entry under "Hoby [née Dakins], Margaret."
DOROTHY
DALE (1560-1618)
Dorothy Dale was the daughter and heir of Valentine Dale (c.1520-November 17,
1589) and Elizabeth Sherer (d. October 1590), who was
the widow of one Forth when she married Dale. In around 1580, Dorothy married
Sir John North (1551-June 5, 1597). Their children were Dudley, 3rd Baron North
(1582-1666), Elizabeth (c.1583-c.1616), Roger (1588-1652/3), Sir John, Gilbert,
and Mary. She erected a monument to her husband in St. Gregory by Paul's,
London. Portrait: c.1605, attributed to John de Critz.

MARY
DALE (d. November
1601)
Mary Dale was the daughter of William Dale, a Bristol merchant. She married
three times, but the name of her first husband is unknown. Her second husband
was Thomas Avery (d. 1576), to whom she was married by 1554. In 1578, she wed
Sir Thomas Ramsey (1510/11-1590), who was lord mayor of London that year and
one of the richest men in London. His house in Lombard Street was one of the
finest in the city. He was buried in St. Mary Woolnoth,
where there is a memorial to him and his first wife. By the time of her death,
Mary owned her own coach. Since there were no children from Ramsay’s first
marriage and Mary had no children from any of hers, she was very active in
charitable works. She left £1000 to her native city, Bristol, and was a
benefactress of Christ's Hospital in London. The total value of charities
established by both husband and wife from 1583 until Mary’s death is reckoned
at £14,318. After Mary’s death, she was twice honored in print. The first was
Nicholas Bourne’s 1602 An Epitaph upon the Decease of the Worshipful Lady
Ramsay and in 1606 she was presented as what the Oxford DNB calls “the
model of virtuous civic womanhood” in Thomas Heywood’s play If You Know Not
Me You Know Nobody, Part II. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Ramsey [née
Dale; other married name Avery], Mary.” Portraits: oil painting at Christ’s
Hospital; line engraving.

MARY DALE
see MARY SOMERSET
ELIZABETH
DALKELD
see ELIZABETH PENNINGTON
KATHERINE
DALLAM (1516-1563)
Katherine Dallam was the daughter of Thomas Dallam (d.1497+), a skinner. Her
first husband was Richard Collyer or Collier
(d.1533), a wealthy adventurer and mercer born in Horsham, Sussex. They had two
children, George and Dorothy, and lived in The Key, a property located on the
south side of Cheapside, almost opposite Mercers' Hall in the parish of St. Pancras, Soper Lane. Collyer purchased this property in 1520 for £100. By 1532,
he also owned another house in Cheapside and property in Kent, Surrey, and
Sussex. After his death and before November 1535, Katherine married Robert Packington or Pakington
(1496-November 13, 1536), another mercer. Packington
was an evangelical and during the 1530s was secretly smuggling English-language
Bibles into England. This may have led to his death. At 4 AM on Monday,
November 13, 1536, Packington, who was probably
living at The Key, was on his way to mass at the Mercer's Chapel of St. Thomas
of Acre Church. Near the end of Soper Lane, about to
cross Cheapside, he was shot dead by an assailant who was never identified.
Both the fact that he’d been shot by a hand gun, when guns were still somewhat
rare, and the failure of authorities to make any arrest led to all manner of
speculation. The best guess is that he was killed because of his smuggling
activities. The Oxford DNB gives Packington two sons
and a daughter by his first wife. Anne F. Sutton, in The Mercery
of London confuses Katherine with this first wife, Agnes Baldwin. Another
source says Packington and Katherine's children were
Thomas (d. June 2, 1571), John, Elizabeth, Anne, and Margaret, but some of
those may belong to Agnes. What is clear is that, on August 21, 1539, Katherine
married for a third time. Her new husband was Michael Dormer (d.1545), yet
another mercer. He is said to have been wealthier than either of her previous
husbands. They appear to have remained at The Key, but by 1540, both George and
Dorothy Collyer had died. Under the terms of Collyer's will, the property was supposed to be sold to
provide an endowment to establish a school at Horsham. An agreement was worked
out whereby Katherine and her husband stayed on at The Key as company tenants
and, in August 1540, Dormer paid £8 6s 8d for a house and garden near Horsham
for the school, which opened in 1541 and remained in operation until 1893.
Michael Dormer was Lord Mayor of London in 1541-2. Katherine does not seem to
have had any children by this third marriage. Dormer, however, had five sons
and a daughter by his first wife. Upon his death, Katherine inherited his
dwellings in St. Laurence Jewry and at Kimble, Buckinghamshire for life.
According to his will, proved October 2, 1545, she was "to take her pastime
therein, to make merry with my friends and hers." Dormer also left several
sets of instructions for her. She was to pay 53s 4d to the Mercers to support a
morrow mass priest during the lifetime of Ambrose Barker, grocer. After his
death, the reversion of certain lands were to pass to the Mercers to support
the same priest. She was also to give the Mercers £6 13s 4d each year for a
dinner "to be kept at their pleasure."
CATHERINE
DAMMARTIN (d. February 15, 1553)
Catherine Dammartin was a former nun from Metz when
she married Pietre Martiri Vermigli of Florence (September 8, 1499-November 12, 1562)
in Strasbourg in 1545. Known as Peter Martyr, her husband was a radical
religious reformer. They traveled to England where, in January 1551, he was
appointed first canon of Christ Church, Oxford. Catherine thus became the first
woman resident in an Oxford college. The Oxford DNB entry for Richard Cox,
later bishop of Ely, gives this distinction to Cox's first wife, who resided at
Christ Church and was "joined by Mrs. Vermigli."
When the windows of their rooms were repeatedly smashed by protestors, the Vermiglis moved their lodgings into the cloisters. A
contemporary, George Abbot, described Catherine as "reasonably corpulent,
but of most matronlike modesty" and skilled at
cutting "plumstones into curious faces."
When Catherine died, she became the first clerical wife buried in an English
cathedral. She was interred in Christ Church Cathedral near the former shrine
to St. Frideswide. Only a few months later, however,
Mary Tudor became queen and Peter Martyr fled from England with other Marian
exiles. It is difficult to separate the truth of what happened next from later
Protestant propaganda, but it appears that sometime in 1557, Catherine was
tried posthumously for heresy. The case could not be made, partly because she
does not appear to have spoken English and those who had met her could not
understand German. The intention, had she been convicted, was to burn her
remains. This was not done, but her bones were exhumed, some say on orders from
Cardinal Pole himself, and Richard Martial/Marshall, dean of Christ Church, was
ordered to dispose of them. The story goes that the bones were flung on a dungheap in the stable. In 1558, when Elizabeth Tudor
became queen, these bones were somehow identified and at some point were
reinterred in the cathedral. The story reported in a 1562 publication and
repeated by John Foxe in his Book of Martyrs was that her bones were
deliberately mixed with those of St. Frideswide so
that neither would ever be dishonored again.
MARGARET
DANE
see MARGARET KEMPE
ANNE DANET, DANNET, DANNATT or DANNETT
see ANNE BROWNE; ANNE ELMBRIDGE
ELIZABETH
DANET, DANNET, DANNATT or DANNETT
see ELIZABETH LENTON
ELIZABETH
DANET, DANNET, DANNATT or DANNETT (d.1564)
Elizabeth
Danet was the daughter of Gerard or Gerald Danet of Danet's Hall, Bromkinsthorpe, Leicestershire (c.1466-May 3, 1520)and his
second wife, Mary Belknap (1472-c.1558). I question the date of birth given in
"Early Dannett Pedigree" online, as August
10, 1507 would make her only ten when she participated in revels at court in
1517. She was one of Queen Catherine of Aragon's "women" by March
1521, when she received a "reward" from the king of £20. Elizabeths younger sister, Mary Danet,
was also at court. Elizabeth Danet's marriage
contract with Sir John Arundell of Lanherne (c.1500-November 7, 1557) bears the date July 10,
1525. She was his second wife. They had twelve children, including John
(c.1530-November 17, 1590), Cecily (c.1526-c.1578), Thomas, Marie, George,
Elizabeth, and Edward (d.1586). Arundell was in
prison from 1549 until June 1552. After his death, his widow was granted the
administration of his possessions, including his library. Elizabeth was buried
in St. Mawgan's church, where there is a memorial
brass. She left a ring worth 20s. to her sister, Mary Medley, which calls into
questions the date of death given for Mary (below).
MARY DANET, DANNET, DANNATT or DANNETT
see MARY BELKNAP
MARY DANET, DANNET, DANNATT or DANNETT (d. before 1562?)
Mary Dannett was the daughter of Gerard or Gerald Danet of Danet's Hall, Bromkinsthorpe, Leicestershire (c.1466-May 3, 1520) and his
second wife, Mary Belknap (1472-c.1558). She is recorded as being in the
household of Mary Tudor (later Queen Mary) in 1526. Mary Danet
married George Medley (d.1562), half brother of Lady Jane Grey's father. They
lived at Tilty, Essex and had three sons and two
daughters. Portrait: brass in St. Mary the Virgin, Tilty,
Essex

MARY
DANIEL (d. October 7, 1598)
Mary Daniel or Danyell was the mistress of Sir Edward Darrell of Littlecote, Wiltshire (1520-1549) at the time of his death.
Although he had a legitimate heir, William (June 23, 1539-October 1, 1589),
Darrell left Littlecote House and other property (he
owned twenty-five manors ) in trust for Mary and she served as administrator of
his estate. Mary styled herself Lady Darrell. On her memorial brass, she claimed
that Sir Edward was her first husband and that they had a daughter, Eleanor
Darrell. Although some online sources say Mary was also the mother of Darrell's
illegitimate son Thomas, his name is not listed with her other children.
According to the rest of the inscription, Mary's second husband was Philip Maunsell or Mansel (1531-before
1559), by whom she had a son, Rice (Rhys) Maunsell,
and her third husband, married c. 1560, was Henry Fortescue
of Faulkbourne, Essex (1514-1576). She was his second
wife. They had one son, Dudley Fortescue. From 1561,
as Mary Fortescue, Mary was harassed by lawsuits
brought by William Darrell as he attempted to claim income from the properties
his father had put in trust for her. Portrait: memorial brass at Faulkborne.

MARGARET
DANIELL
(d.1561+) (maiden name unknown)
Margaret was
married three times, first to a man named Godwin of Chippenham,
Wiltshire, then to Richard Hitchcock, and finally to Geoffrey Daniell, a lawyer of the Inner Temple, London. In 1531, as
a widow, Margaret Hitchcock sold wool worth £36 to Nicholas Taylor, a
Gloucestershire clothier. Taylor was to pay the money to one Thomas Wilkes
"to the use of" Margaret's children. By 1537, Margaret had married
Geoffrey Daniell and together they brought suit
against Wilkes in the Court of Requests. Taylor said he’d given the money to
Wilkes. In 1538, after Thomas Wilkes's death, his brother, John Wilkes, deposed
that this was so. But Thomas Wilkes's widow, Edith, and his son, another John
Wilkes, denied all knowledge of the transaction. The outcome is unknown.
Meanwhile, Daniell went on to become surveyor to Anne
of Cleves (1540) and Kathryn Parr (by 1545) and later was a steward in the
service of Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudeley (by 1548). He
acquired St. Margaret's, Marlborough, Wiltshire by 1543. He made his will on
July 9, 1558, leaving his widow her jointure, £100, and 400 sheep, plus all the
goods in their dwelling house at St. Margaret's. The will was proved February
4, 1561. They do not seem to have had any children.
THOMASIN DANIELL
see THOMASIN BARDFIELD
JANE
DANIELS
see
JANE REHORA
ANNE
DANVERS
see ANNE PURY; ANNE STRADLING
ANNE
DANVERS (d.1558)
Anne Danvers was the daughter of William Danvers of Culworth,
Northamptonshire, Calthorpe,
Oxfordshire, and Chamberhouse
at Crookham, Berkshire (c.1432-April 1504) and Anne Pury (d.1530). She married Richard Verney
of Compton Verney, Warwickshire (c.1464-September 28,
1527) and was the mother of Anne (d.1523), Thomas, John, and George
(c.1506-before 1540). Portraits: Anne is featured in two memorials in stained
glass, formerly in the church in Compton Verney, the
first in memory of her husband and executed c.1527 and the second commemorating
her own death in 1558.
.jpg)

ELIZABETH
DANVERS
(1506-1522+)
Elizabeth Danvers was the daughter of John Danvers of Chamberhouse
(c.1478-October 30, 1508) and Margaret Hampden. In 1518, William Boughton was granted the wardships
of Elizabeth and her sisters Mary and Dorothy. Another sister, Anne, was
already married. By February 1522, Elizabeth was married to Thomas Cave of Stanford,
Northamptonshire (d. September 4, 1558). Their
children were John, Richard (c.1527-1566), Ambrose (d.yng),
Roger (c.1536-July 26, 1586), Edward, Anthony, Amy, Mary, Margaret, Elizabeth
(c.1532-1562+), Margery, Barbara (d.yng), Alice, and
Susan. Portrait: tomb effigy in St. Nicholas Church, Stanford-on-Avon.

ELIZABETH
DANVERS
see ELIZABETH NEVILLE
LUCY
DANVERS (d.1621)
Lucy Danvers was the daughter of Sir John Danvers of Dauntsey
(1540-December 19, 1543) and Elizabeth Neville (d.1630). She inherited property
through her grandfather, making her a good catch for Sir Henry Baynton of Bromham, Wiltshire
(1571-1616). They married c. 1599 and lived primarily at Bromham
and at Bromhill House and had two children, Edward
and Elizabeth (1606-1638). In her will, Lucy left money for a minister to say
the service in Foxham Chapel in Bromhill
parish and items of clothing such as an ash color velvet gown and a satin
waistcoat. She was buried in Westminster Abbey on June 14, 1621.
MAGDALEN DANVERS
see MAGDALEN NEWPORT
SYBIL
DANVERS
see SYBIL FOWLER
CAMILLA
DARCY
see CAMILLA GUICCIARDINI
CATHERINE
DARCY
see CATHERINE LEIGH; CATHERINE PAKINGTON
CATHERINE
DARCY (d.1592+)
Catherine Darcy was the daughter of Sir Henry Darcy of Brimham,
Yorkshire (d.1592) and his second wife, Catherine Fermor.
In June 1591, she married Gervase Clifton of Leighton
Bromswold (c.1570-1618). In that same year, John Dowland wrote four musical pieces for her. The Cliftons had a son, who died young, and a daughter,
Catherine (c.1592-1637).
DOROTHY
DARCY
see DOROTHY MELTON
DOUSABELLA DARCY
see DOUSABELLA TEMPEST
EDITH
DARCY
see EDITH SANDYS
ELIZABETH
DARCY
see ELIZABETH de VERE; ELIZABETH WENTWORTH
ELIZABETH
DARCY (1501-1536+)
Elizabeth Darcy was the daughter of Thomas, baron Darcy of Templehurst
(1467-x. June 30, 1537) and Edith Sandys (1475-August
22, 1529). By April 1521, possibly on April 26, 1514, she married, as his first
wife, Sir Marmaduke Constable of Nuneaton,
Warwickshire (d. April 21, 1560). They had two sons and eight daughters,
including the heir, Robert (1530-1591), Marmaduke,
Jane, Catherine, Margery, Dorothy, Isabel, Margaret, and Frances. Elizabeth and
her husband were estranged by 1534 and in 1536, when both his father and hers
were involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace, she wrote a letter to Thomas Cromwell
complaining of her ill-treatment by her husband. At that time, Constable was
facing the probable forfeiture of his father's lands and consequent loss of his
own inheritance. She died before 1539.
ELIZABETH
DARCY
(c.1584-March 9, 1650/1)
Elizabeth Darcy was the daughter of Thomas Darcy, 3rd baron Darcy of
Cliche (July 5, 1565-February 1640) and Mary Kytson (1566-June 28, 1644). On May 14, 1602 she married
Thomas Savage (c.1586-November 20, 1635) of Melford
Hall, Suffolk. He was created Viscount Savage in 1626. Following his death and
that of her father, Elizabeth was created Countess Rivers for life in her own
right on April 21, 1641. She was a lady of the bedchamber to Queen Henrietta
Maria and because she was a Catholic, became a target when Parliament called
for action against all recusants. Her homes at St. Osyth
and Long Melford were destroyed by mobs, for a loss
estimated at £100,000. Although Parliament ordered restitution, her troubles
continued and in May 1643 she requested permission to leave England for France,
but does not appear to have gone. By her death, she was said to be bankrupt.
Elizabeth and Thomas Savage had eleven sons and eight daughters, including
Anne, John (c.1602-1654), Jane (1607-1633), Thomas (1611-1682), Dorothy
(c.1611-1691), Charles, Elizabeth, Catherine, Henrietta Maria, Francis,
William, James, and Richard. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Savage [née
Darcy], Elizabeth.” Portrait: c.1640 by P. Leley.
ISABEL
DARCY
see ISABEL WRAY
KATHERINE
DARCY
see KATHERINE NEVILLE
MARY
DARCY (d. by July
1561)
Mary Darcy was the daughter of Thomas Darcy of Danbury, Essex, but exactly who
he was is uncertain. Mary was not the daughter of Thomas, 1st baron Darcy of Cliche (1506-June 28, 1558) and Elizabeth de Vere. By 1531, Mary was married Robert Leche
(Leeche/Leech), an alderman of Norwich (d.1544+) but
during that marriage was the mistress of Richard Southwell
of Wood Rising, Norfolk (d. January 11, 1565), who was married to Thomasine
Darcy, sister of the 1st baron of Cliche. Mary had
four children by Southwell before Thomasine died and Southwell was able to marry her—Richard (by 1531-1600),
Dorothy, Mary (d.1622), and Thomas. Accounts that identify Mary's husband as
Robert Leche of Colchester, Essex, who made his will
in 1559, are incorrect, as is the claim that when Thomasine died, Southwell accused him of making a bigamous marriage with
Mary, since his (Leche's) first wife still lived. In
1544, Thomas Lewyn, clerk, acting for Southwell, had license to alienate Widford
Manor in Hertfordshire to the use of Mary Leech, wife of Robert Leech. In 1558,
she is listed as Mary Darcy alias Leech of Horsham St. Faith, Norfolk. After
their marriage, which took place no earlier than 1559, they had one additional
child, Catherine.
MARY
DARCY
see MARY KYTSON
ELIZABETH
DARRELL (d.c.1556)
Elizabeth
Darrell was probably the daughter of Sir Edward Darrell of Littlecote,
Wiltshire (1466-March 9, 1530) and either his first wife, Jane Croft (d. before
1493), or his third, Alice Flyte, to whom he was
married on April 3, 1512. He left his unmarried daughter Elizabeth 300 marks in
his will. His other two daughters received 100 marks each. It makes more sense
that Elizabeth was the youngest, born c. 1513. She was one of Catherine of
Aragon's gentlewomen and among the mourners at her funeral. She asked to join
the household of Queen Jane Seymour but went instead to the household of
Gertrude Blount, marchioness of Exeter, although she is not listed among the
"gentlewomen" in November 1538, when the marchioness and others were
arrested on suspicion of treason. Apparently, she was forced to give evidence
against the marchioness. In her interrogation on November 6, she confessed that
she had heard that the king had sent Peter Mewtas
into France to kill Cardinal Pole with a handgun. Elizabeth was the mistress of
Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) the poet and diplomat, said to be the Phyllis of his
poem If waker care, if sudden pale colour. Exactly when they met and how long they were
involved in a romantic relationship is unclear. Some suggest that the affair
began as early as June 1532. Wyatt was out of the country a good deal as an
ambassador. They could not marry because Wyatt already had a wife, Elizabeth
Brooke, from whom he had long been separated. In 1537 an attempt was made by
the Brooke family to force a reconciliation between husband and wife, but Wyatt
refused to take her back. Elizabeth Darrell was openly living with Wyatt, as
his mistress, at Allington Castle in Kent, in January
of 1541, when Wyatt was arrested. Because she was pregnant at the time, she was
allowed to remain in one of Wyatt’s confiscated houses. There was another
attempt made at that time to force him to take back his wife, but following his
release from the Tower, he returned to his mistress. Wyatt made provision in
his will for Elizabeth and the son born in 1541, leaving her properties in
Dorset with the right of reversion to her son, Francis, and Montacute
and Tintinhull in Somerset, to revert to his son Sir
Thomas on Elizabeth's death. She gave birth posthumously to a second son,
Henry, who died young. Wyatt was reputed to have another illegitimate child, a
daughter named Frances who married Thomas Lee (Leigh) of St. Bees and Calder
Abbey, Cumberland by 1553. She does not appear to be Elizabeth's daughter.
Elizabeth apparently got along well with Wyatt’s legitimate son, Thomas Wyatt
the younger, which is probably what gave rise to the identification of her as
his mistress rather than his father’s. There is also a story that credits her
with a third son, Edward (c.1540-1590), who was involved with the rebels led by
Sir Thomas the Younger in 1554 and sentenced to be executed, even though he was
only thirteen or fourteen at the time. This Edward is variously identified as a
natural son of Sir Thomas the Younger and as the son of Sir Thomas the Elder.
If he was thirteen or fourteen, however, he would have been born before Sir
Thomas the Elder died and one would have expected him to be named in Sir
Thomas’s will. It seems more likely he was the natural son the younger Thomas.
He was pardoned on April 29, 1554. Elizabeth's son Francis went by the name Francis
Darrell. Sir Thomas the Younger transferred Tarrant, Kent to him in 1542 (or,
according to other sources, to Elizabeth in 1544). With the attainder of Sir
Thomas the Younger in 1554, those properties held by Elizabeth that would have
gone to him on her death, went to the Crown instead. She was in possession of Tintinhull in 1547 but it was occupied by the Crown's
tenant, Sir William Petre, in 1556, and papers
relating to the lease suggest that Elizabeth was by then deceased. The
parsonage at Stoke, Somerset was leased to Elizabeth in 1548 and around 1554,
at about the same time Queen Mary seems to have paid Elizabeth a legacy left to
her by Queen Catherine of Aragon, Elizabeth married Robert Strode or Strowde. In 1560, he was living in the provost's house at
Stoke.
MARY
DARRELL
see MARY DANIEL; MARY RADCLIFFE
MARY
DARRELL
(c.1545-1594+)
Mary Darrell was the daughter of Thomas Darrell of Scotney,
Kent and Mary Roydon (c.1525-1591+). In 1563, the Darrells approached John Lennard
of Chevening, near Tunbridge
Wells, about making a match between Mary and his son, Sampson (1545-September
20, 1615). Mary seemed agreeable and Lennard approved
of her and a pre-contract was arranged. By Bartholomewtide,
however, Lennard had heard rumors that Mary was to
wed someone else. When he questioned the Darrells
about this, they denied it. They admitted that she had another suitor, one Barnabe Googe of Gooche (June 11, 1540-February 7, 1593/4), who had been
writing poems to her, but insisted that there was no “secret enticement.” The
case was submitted to arbitration by Archbishop Parker of Canterbury. He
removed Mary from her parents’ house and made her a ward of the court while the
matter was decided. To the dismay of both the Darrells
and the Lennards, the archbishop decided in favor of
Master Googe, to whom Mary was wed on February 5,
1564. They had eight children: Matthew (c.1566-c.1624), Thomas (b.c.1568), Barnabe, William, Henry, Robert, Mary, and Francis.
Additional details on Mary and the Lennards are given
in Germaine Greer’s Shakespeare’s Wife.
ANNE DASTON (1580-1605)
Anne Daston was the eldest daughter of Richard Daston of Dumbleton. She married
John Savage of Nobury, Worcestershire. She died
giving birth to his son. Portrait: brass in St. Katherine’s Church, Wormlington, Gloucestershire.

CATHERINE
DASTON (1590-1674)
Catherine Daston was the daughter of Richard Daston and Anne Savage. She married her first cousin, Sir
Giles Savage of Elmley Castle, Worcestershire on
April 22, 1623 in Worminton, Gloucestershire. They
had five children, four sons, who appear on the Savage monument in St. Mary's
Church, Elmley, and a posthumous daughter who died as
an infant and who is shown on the monument in her mother's arms. Also on the monument
is Sir Giles's father, William Savage, who died in 1616. Although represented
on this c.1631 structure, Catherine herself lived to be eighty-four and was
buried in Malvern Priory.

.jpg)
ELIZABETH
DAUBENEY
see ELIZABETH ARUNDELL
KATHERINE
DAUBENEY
see KATHERINE HOWARD
ELIZABETH
DAUNCEY
see
ELIZABETH MORE
JANE
DAVENANT
see JANE SHEPPARD
ELIZABETH
DAVIES
see ELIZABETH TOUCHET
CATHERINE
DAVISON
see CATHERINE SPELMAN
ALICE
DAVY (d.1519+)
Alice Davy was a nurse to Margaret Tudor in May 1490. Hester W. Chapman in The
Thistle and the Rose: The Sisters of Henry VIII says that Margaret's head
nurses, Alice Davy and Alice Bywimble, had been
pensioned off by November 1494. Later, Alice was a gentlewoman to Queen
Catherine of Aragon. On January 5, 1519, she was granted an annuity of £10.
FAITH
DAVYS
see FAITH FULFORD
MARGARET
DAWES
see MARGARET FINCH
ISABEL DAWTREY
see ISABEL SHIRLEY
ALICE
DAY
see ALICE le HUNTE
PRUDENTIA DEACON
(c.1580-December 21, 1645)
Prudentia Deacon was the daughter of John Deacon of
Middlesex. She was in the household of Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich in England
but on July 11, 1606 she was in Brussels, where she was received into the Abbey
of the Glorious Assumption of Our Lady along with four other Englishwomen. One
of the others was a Mrs. Morgan, who had previously been in the service of the
countess of Sussex. Prudentia was professed as a nun
on April 29, 1608, when she was said to be thirty-two, but if the age given at
her death is correct, she was only twenty-seven or twenty-eight. In 1623 she
was sent to a new convent at Cambrai. She served as
prioress at Cambrai and worked on translations there.
Biography: Oxford DNB entry under "Deacon, Prudentia."
_____ DE
BRUXIA (d. 1533+) (maiden name unknown)
This is one of my mystery ladies, and yet what is known about her is
intriguing. She was the wife of an Italian musician at the court of Henry VIII
and herself served in the household of Princess Mary from at least 1525-33. She
is listed only as the wife of Peter de Bruxia
(d.1536+), without a first name. Was she Italian like her husband? Probably
not, although there was probably a Spaniard, Mary Vittorio, in the same royal
household. More likely, since de Bruxia was in
England before 1512, she was an English girl. What makes matters more difficult
is the huge number of names/spellings used in referring to her husband. He
signed himself Giovanni Pietro de Bustis
but surviving records call him John Peter, John Piero,
and Zuan Piero de Brescia,
de Bruxia, de Brecia, de Briscia, and de Brisia. In 1512,
King Henry granted him an annuity of £40 for life. At that time he was the
premier court lutenist and he remained in royal service
until 1536, but by 1517 he had been eclipsed by a younger lute player, probably
Philip van Wilder. In 1525 and 1533, Mrs. Peter de Bruxia
is listed among the ladies and gentlewomen in the household of Princess Mary
and her husband is also to be found there, although as one of the gentlemen
waiters rather than as a musician. He likely served in both capacities.
JANE DEE
see JANE FROMOND; JANE WILD
ÉTIENNETTE DE LA BAUME (d. 1521)
Étiennette de la Baume was the daughter of Marc de la
Baume, seigneur of Châteauvillain and Count of Montrevel. A Flemish woman who was a maid of honor at the
court of Margaret of Austria, Archduchess of Savoy and Regent of the
Netherlands, she enjoyed the attentions of King Henry VIII during his visit to
Lille in 1513. In August 1514, when she was about to marry Ferdinand de
Neufchatel, seigneur de Marnay and Montaigu (1452-1522), as his third wife, she wrote to the
king, sending him "a bird and some roots of great value" and
reminding him that he had promised to give her ten thousand crowns as a wedding
present. It is unclear whether or not Henry sent her the gift. Neither is it
clear whether she was briefly his mistress or simply someone he flirted with
during his time in Lille. Alison Weir (Mary Boleyn) suggests that this
letter from Étiennette indicates that King Henry
installed her in a house in Marnay and that she was
still living there a year later. The wedding took place on October 18, 1514.
She had no children.
ELIZABETH
DE LA BERE
see ELIZABETH MORS
JANE DELAHAYE
see JANE ASHLEY
ELIZABETH
DE LA POLE
see ELIZABETH PLANTAGENET
MARGARET
DE LA POLE
see MARGARET SCROPE
CECILY
DELVES
(c.1470-1517+)
Cecily Delves was the daughter of Sir Henry Delves of Doddington,
Cheshire (one source says Shropshire) (c.1454-c.1484)
and Elen (Eleanor/Helena/Elena/Hellina)
Swinnerton or Swynnerton
(c.1453-1489?). Her mother rapidly remarried, to Humphrey Peshall
of Horsley (d. June 3, 1489), by whom she had three sons (John, Richard and
William) and a daughter, Isabella. Cecily married William Mytton
of Shrewsbury (1465-July 16, 1513). They had two children, Helen or Eleanor
(1498-1517+) and Richard (1500/1-November 28, 1591). William owned 200 houses
at the time of his death, in Habberley, Shrewsbury,
and elsewhere. The family seat was at Halston, near Olwestry. The heir, Richard, became the ward of the 10th
earl of Arundel, but Mytton had purchased the right
to arrange his marriage and Cecily was the one who negotiated the marriage
settlement for her son on September 29, 1517. He was to marry Anne, daughter of
Sir Edward Grey of Enville, Staffordshire. As part of
the arrangement, Cecily received a payment of £200.
ELIZABETH
DENKARING (d.c.1539/40)
Elizabeth Denkaring was the daughter and heir of
Philip Denkaring and Elizabeth Finch. Her first
husband was Thomas Tamworth of Essex and Lincolnshire (d. January 1533), by
whom she had a son, John Tamworth (c.1524-April 19, 1569). Her second husband
(as his second wife) was Sir William Musgrave of Hartley, Westmorland and Edenhall, Cumberland (d.1544). They had no children. In
January 1537, after Musgrave took a stand against the rebels, they were living
in St. Botolph's without Aldersgate,
London. When Musgrave returned home from court, looking "pensive,"
Elizabeth feared he had "fallen in displeasure" with the king. He had
not, but her prediction that he would never be able to live in Westmorland
again proved true. She appears to have remained in London until her death.
HONORA DENNY
see HONORA GREY
JOAN
DENNY
see
JOAN CHAMPERNOWNE
JOYCE DENNY (July 24, 1506-January 1560/1)
Joyce Denny was the daughter of Sir Edmund Denny of Cheshunt,
Hertfordshire (c.1461-December 22, 1520) and, going by dates, Mary Troutbeck (c.1461-June 29, 1507), his second wife. Many
sources say her mother was Mary Coke, Denny’s third wife, but the birthdates
given for Joyce (July 29, 1495 is sometimes given in place of 1506) are both
before Mary Troutbeck’s date of death. Joyce married
first Sir William Walsingham (d. March 1534), a
London lawyer, by whom she had Elizabeth (d. July 21, 1596), Barbara, Eleanor,
Christiana, Mary (c.1527-March 16, 1576), Sir Francis (c.1532-April 6, 1590),
and possibly another son named Thomas who died young. In c. 1536, she married
Sir John Carey of Plashy, Hertfordshire and Thremhall Priory, Essex (1495-September 9, 1552). Her son
Francis’s biographer, Robert Hutchinson, speculates that this marriage, for
which he gives a date of 1538, was arranged by her family, since they owned
property in Hertfordshire. Her Carey children were Wymond
(March 6, 1538-August 3, 1612), Sir Edward (c.1540-July 18, 1618), and possibly
a third son named Adolphus, who probably died young.
Joyce died at Thremhall Priory. One genealogy says
she died between November 10, 1560 and January 30, 1560/1. Other accounts give
her date of death as April 6, 1559/60/61, but this was the date of her funeral,
described in the diary of Henry Machyn. She was
buried next to her first husband in St. Mary Aldermanbury
Church in London.
MARGARET
DENNY
see
MARGARET EDGECUMBE
MARTHA
DENNY
(1505-January 9,1571/2)
Martha
Denny was the daughter of Sir Edmund Denny of Cheshunt,
Hertfordshire (c.1461-Decembe 22, 1520) and Mary Troutbeck
(c.1461-June 29,1509). She married Sir Wymond Carew
of Antony, Cornwall and St. Giles in the Fields, Middlesex (c.1493-August
22,1549) by July 1519 and they had nineteen children, including Thomas
(1527-February 12,1564/5), Roger, George John, Matthew (1531-1618), Anthony,
Harvey, Prudence (d.1586+), and Temperance (c.1537-October 9,1577). During her
husband’s lifetime, the Carews lived in grand style
at Bletchingley, Surrey, where he held the position
of Anne of Cleves’s receiver, and had their own houses at Pyshoo,
Hertfordshire and Hackney, Middlesex. When he died, Martha was left owing
almost £8000 and in 1554 lost Hackney and other lands to the Crown. She
petitioned the exchequer for relief, more than once, but Hackney was not
returned to her and the debts were not fully discharged until 1611. Martha
ended up living in London where, on September 8, 1562, she was arrested for
attending mass. She was tried and convicted a month later and when she did not
pay a fine of 100 marks, she was put in prison for six months. She was arrested
a second time on the same charge on April 4, 1568. This time she received a
pardon from Queen Elizabeth. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Carew [née
Denny], Martha.”
ALICE
DENT
see ALICE GRANT
ANNE
DENTON
see ANNE WILLISTON
ELIZABETH
DENTON
see
ELIZABETH JERNINGHAM
MAGDALEN DENTON
see MAGDALEN BROME
MARGARET
DENTON
see MARGARET MORDAUNT
MARGERY
DENTON (d.1593+)
(maiden name unknown)
Margery, whose surname is unknown, married first William Denton of Southwark, Surrey and Stedham,
Sussex (by 1523-July 28, 1565), steward to Sir Anthony Browne and to Anthony
Browne, viscount Montagu. They had three sons and two daughters. Denton left a
will that mentioned the viscount and viscountess
Montagu as well as members of his own family. Her second husband was Thomas
Martin of Winterbourne Martin, Dorset, Steeple Morden,
Cambridgeshire, and London (1520/21-1592/3), as his
second wife. They had one daughter. In his will, made July 8, 1590 and proved
August 7, 1593, Thomas left Margery a portrait of Queen Mary. He left most of
his property, plus portraits of himself and his first wife, Mary Roys, to his son Thomas, who later brought action in
Chancery against Margery and her daughter over the administration of the
personal estate of the elder Thomas.
MARY
DENTON
see
MARY MARTYN
ELIZABETH
DENYS
see ELIZABETH DONNE; ELIZABETH STATHAM
MARY
DENYS or DENNYS
see MARY ROOS
MARY
DENYS (1517-1593)
Mary Denys was the daughter of Sir William Denys of Dyrham,
Gloucestershire (1470-June 22, 1533) and Anne Berkeley (1474-1519). She was a
nun at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, a small house of Augustinian
canonesses with fifteen professed nuns and three novices. In late 1535, this
"a faire yong woman of Laycok"
was appointed prioress of Kingston St. Michael, a Benedictine house, also in Wilsthire. In August 1535, there had been only three nuns at
the priory. Two were guilty of incontinence and one, who was under twenty-four
years of age, did not want to remain a nun. The latter was discharged. The next
year, under Mary Denys, the report was better: there were four "religious
of honest conversation, all desirous of remaining in religion," together
with a clerk, four women servants, one waiting servant, and four farm laborers.
When the priory was dissolved, Mary Denys received a pension of £5 a year. She
was living in Bristol at the time of her death.
CATHERINE
DEPDEN
see CATHERINE TRENTHAM
MARY DEREHAM (d.1646/7)
Mary Dereham was the daughter of Baldwin Dereham of Hammersmith (c.1531-1610) and Margaret Hethe. She married Hugh Hammersley
(March 1564/5-October 19, 1636), a haberdasher and member of the Russia Company
who was Lord Mayor of London in 1624. They had one son, Francis (1613-1665). In
his will, Hugh left £50 to buy bread for the poor, but only £35 was left over
after his debts were paid. Mary made up the difference in 1640. Portrait: effigy
on monument with husband in St. Andrew Undershaft, London.

THOMASIN DERHAM (c.1525-1596)
Thomasin Derham (Dearham/Dereham) was the daughter
of Thomas Derham of Crimplesham,
Norfolk and Ellen Touchet (Audley).
Her first husband, married in 1546, was John Throckmorton (c.1516-c.1554).
Several online genealogies identify John and Thomasin
as the parents of George (c.1547-1513), Hugh, Thomas, and Raphael, but
according to her will, she had only one son by her first husband and that was
Robert Throckmorton (d.1596). Some sources say John was of Wardington,
Buckinghamshire while others give Werrington, Northamptonshire. Thomasin
married second John Rippes of West Walton, Norfolk,
by whom she had a son, John, and a daughter, Thomazin.
Her third husband was John Heath of Kepyer, Durham
(d.1590). She was his second wife and had no children by him, although she
refers to several members of the Heath family as her sons and daughters in her
will, which was written on October 14, 1596. She calls herself "Thomazin Heathe of Acklife, widow," and leaves, among other bequests,
"a gold ring with a death's head, for a remembrance of my good will"
to her sister, Jane Baker, and her workday wearing apparel to whatever two maidservants
were in her service at the time of her death.
ANNE
DERING
see
ANNE VAUGHAN
OLD
COUNTESS OF DESMOND
see KATHERINE FITZGERALD
ANNE
DEVEREUX (d.1554+)
Anne Devereux was the daughter of John Devereux, 2nd baron Ferrers
of Chartley (d.1501) and Cecilia Bourchier
(d.c.1493). She was in Mary Tudor’s entourage when Mary went to France in 1514
to marry King Louis. On October 1, 1514, Sir Walter Devereux, her brother,
received £25 for a "gown of tynsel for Mistress
Anne Devereux, sent over with the French Queen." Anne should not be
confused with the Anne Devereux who married Henry Clifford. That Anne was the
daughter of Sir Richard Devereux. This Anne Devereux married David/Davy Owen of
Midhurst and Cowdray, Sussex (1459-1535), as his
third wife, sometime before 1525. They had three children, Elizabeth (d.1551),
Harry (d. before 1535), and John (c.1525-1559). Owen was buried in Easebourne Priory, Sussex on or about September 27, 1535,
although his will was not proved until 1542, causing some to date his death in
that year. In December 1535, however, Anne Owen, widow of David Owen,
petitioned the king for custody of their ten year old son, John, and for
£4,800, jewels, and plate, and other items. In the petition she states that her
dowry was £1000 in angelettes and royals, plus
clothing, and that she had spent £113 19s. 8d. on clothes for her son Harry,
now deceased, while he was in royal service. She was his heir. She further asks
for all the timber, iron, lead, and glass from the house of Cowtherey,
which her husband gave to her for her lifetime, so that she could build a new
house at Bodyngton, and for a casket Owen had until
his death. It is unclear how her petition fared, but by 1538 she had remarried,
taking as her second husband Nicholas Gaynesford of Ditchling, Sussex (d.c.1548). They had no children. Anne
took a third husband soon after Gaynesford died,
choosing John Harman of Naunton Hall, Rendlesham, Suffolk (d.1558+), a gentleman usher and member
of parliament. She was his third wife. They had no children.
DOROTHY
DEVEREUX
(1564-August 3, 1619)
Dorothy
Devereux was the daughter of Walter Devereux, earl of Essex (September 16,
1539-September 22, 1576) and Laetitia Knollys (1543-December 25, 1634). After her father died,
she became the ward of the earl of Huntingdon. He hoped to marry her to his
wife's nephew, Philip Sidney, even offering to provide an additional dowry if
the match were made, but Dorothy's stepfather, Robert Dudley, earl of
Leicester, (Lady Huntingdon's brother and therefore also Sidney's uncle),
proposed a match with the king of Scotland instead. In March 1583, the Spanish
ambassador, Inigo de Mendoza, reported that Leicester
had assured James VI that the English crown would be his after Elizabeth
Tudor's death if he married Dorothy Devereux and promised to remain a
protestant. When the queen heard of the proposed match, however, she forbade
it. Leicester then claimed he'd planned to marry Dorothy to a private
gentleman. In July, Dorothy took matters into her own hands by eloping with Sir
Thomas Perrott (September 1553-February 1594). The
groom was imprisoned in the Fleet for a month and Dorothy's dowry of £2000 was
not paid. In 1587, when she was at North Hall, country seat of the earl of
Warwick, during a royal visit, she was ordered to keep to her room. This decree
so angered Dorothy's brother, Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, that he quarreled
with the queen, then sent his servants to pack Dorothy's things and rode off
with her. They were ordered to return by a royal messenger. After Perrott's death, Dorothy married Henry Percy, earl of
Northumberland (April 1564-November 5, 1632). They were often at odds and
separated in October 1599, when Dorothy wrote to her brother that "It was
his lordship's pleasure upon no cause given by me to have me keep house by
myself." She did so in a house in Putney, leaving two young daughters
behind. Several months later, the girls were sent to her, but with no increase
in the allowance Northumberland was giving his wife. In December 1601, after
her brother's failed rebellion, Dorothy and her husband again began living
together, primarily at Syon. She had inherited the
lease on it from her first husband and, in 1604, King James granted it to
Northumberland. In London, they stayed at Essex House, which belonged to
Dorothy’s mother, Lettice. Dorothy had six children,
Penelope (1588-1620+) and Robert (1592-d.yng.) Perrott
and Dorothy (1598-1659), Lucy (1599-November 5, 1660), Algernon (September
29,1602-October 18, 1668), and Henry (1604-March 11, 1705) Percy. Lita-Rose Betcherman's biography
of Dorothy’s two younger daughters, Court Lady and Country Wife,
contains many details of their mother's life, especially after their father's
arrest in 1606 for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot. According to Betcherman, Dorothy suffered from depression even before
Northumberland's imprisonment. On July 16, 1606, she waylaid King James on his
way to chapel to plead for her husband's release from the Tower of London. She
was not successful in freeing him, but she continued to be welcome at court
herself, since Queen Anne was fond of her. In the summer of 1607, the queen
visited Dorothy at Syon. Dorothy saw her husband
regularly during the first ten years of his imprisonment, stopping her visits
only after she learned of his infatuation with the newly incarcerated Countess
of Somerset, Frances Howard. She did not, however, pay much attention to his
wishes. She resumed marriage negotiations for his eldest daughter after
Northumberland had rejected the match. The wedding, in early 1616, was kept
secret from the earl until the following year. Dorothy also supported their
younger daughter's betrothal to a man Northumberland refused to consider as a
son-in-law. He went so far as to force the girl to stay with him in the Tower
when she came for a visit. He sent her away again, infuriated to discover that
she'd been meeting her future husband in the Tower through the connivance of
the Countess of Somerset. Intimidated by her husband's reaction, Dorothy
refused to take young Lucy in at Essex House and the girl had to go to her
sister instead. That summer (of 1617), mother and daughter were reconciled and
stayed at Syon together. In late August, Lucy's
sister joined them and gave birth to her first child there in September. On
November 6, 1617, Lucy Percy married her choice, Sir James Hay. Dorothy, out of
deference to her imprisoned husband, did not attend the wedding. In August
1619, while staying at Syon with Lucy for company,
Dorothy died quite suddenly of a fever. In spite of their many differences,
Northumberland was deeply upset by the news of his wife's death. He remembered
only that she'd never given up her efforts to win his freedom and had to be
reminded by friends of how bitterly they had always quarreled. He insisted upon
giving her an elaborate funeral. Her body was carried by barge from Syon to Petworth House in Sussex,
where she was buried in the family crypt. Portraits: a double portrait of
Dorothy and Penelope Devereux painted in 1581 is at Longleat;
portrait mislabeled "Lettice Knollys"
at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland.

FRANCES
DEVEREUX
see
FRANCES HOWARD; FRANCES WALSINGHAM
JANE
DEVEREUX
see JANE VERDON
LETTICE DEVEREUX
see LETTICE KNOLLYS
MARGARET
DEVEREUX
see MARGARET
DAKINS; MARGARET GARNEYS
MARY
DEVEREUX
see MARY GREY
PENELOPE
DEVEREUX
(1562-1607)
Penelope
Devereux was the daughter of Walter Devereux, earl of Essex (September
19,1539-September 22,1576) and Laetitia Knollys (1543-December 25,1634). Like her younger sister,
she became a ward of the earl of Huntingdon after her father’s death, but in
Penelope’s case, Lady Huntingdon (née Katherine Dudley) took her to court in
1581 to find her a husband. Sir Philip Sidney was suggested, but he had no
prospects. Instead she was married to Robert, 2nd baron Rich
(December1559-March 24,1619) on November 1, 1581. Sidney’s infatuation with
Penelope, the “Stella” of his sonnets, developed after her marriage and their
composition probably took place during the summer of 1582 when he was away from
court. On his deathbed, Sidney is said to have called Penelope “a vanity
wherein I had taken delight,” but it is unknown if the two had an affair. As
Lady Rich, Penelope was a lady of the privy chamber to Queen Elizabeth. As
early as 1589 she began a secret correspondence with the king of Scotland. When
her brother, Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, fell out of royal favor, Penelope
aggravated matters with a saucy letter to the queen. Penelope’s marriage was
an unhappy one. It was not until she had borne her husband several children,
however, that she began an affair with Charles Blount, 8th baron Mountjoy (1563-April 3, 1606). She then had a number of
children by Mountjoy. There is considerable confusion
about the paternity of many of them. Rich was probably the father of Lettice (d.1619+), Essex, Robert (March 18, 1587-April
19,1658), a daughter, possibly named Elizabeth, born November 26, 1588 who died
young, and Henry (May 19, 1590-1649). Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy
was probably the father of Penelope (March 1592-October 26, 1613), Mountjoy (1597-1666), Scipio (b.December
1597), St. John, Charles (d.1645), and Isabel. In 1595 Penelope worked out a
settlement with Rich and in 1601 they were formally divorced. However, under
the Anglican church, remarriage was forbidden while a former spouse still
lived. 1601 was also a significant year in Penelope’s life for another reason.
Her brother the earl of Essex attempted to take over the government and was
executed for treason. Even though Penelope had twice been put under restraint
in the past for defending her brother and even though Essex blamed her for
inciting him to rebellion, she was not severely punished. Penelope maintained
that she had been more like a slave than a sister to Essex and had done what he
told her to out of love for him. She was released into Lord Rich’s care. When
James became king in 1603, Penelope was appointed a lady of the bedchamber to
Queen Anne and given precedence at court over all other baronesses and over the
daughters of all but four of the earls (Oxford, Arundel, Northumberland, and
Shrewsbury). She forfeited her place, however, by marrying her long-time lover
on December 26, 1605. He died the following spring. Seven books were dedicated
to Lady Rich between 1594 and 1606. Penelope converted to Roman Catholicism
late in life. Her former husband, Lord Rich, was at her side when she died.
Biographies: Sylvia Freedman, Poor Penelope; Sally Varlow,
The Lady Penelope; Oxford DNB entry under "Rich [née Devereux],
Penelope." Portraits: double portrait with her sister Dorothy, 1581; portait said to be Penelope at Lambeth
Palace; miniature.
.jpg)
.jpg)
MRS. DEWSE (d.1590+) (given and maiden names unknown)
Mrs. Dewse was the wife of William Dewse, keeper of Newgate Prison
from 1580-1594, and the mother of his children. There are two letters in the Landsdowne ms. relating to the
claims made by a man named Finkel against Dewse, one to the recorder of London and the other to Lord
Burghley. They complain of the "vile practices" of the keeper. By
1590, Dewse had been accused by one Humphrey Gunston of a number of abuses and misdemeanors and Dewse had accused Gunston of
slander. Gunston's claims were supported by two
justices of the peace, Justice Young and Sir Rowland Heyward (who had been Lord
Mayor in 1570 and would complete the 1590-91 term when the incumbent died in
office), and the underkeeper at Newgate,
Nicholas Sye. As a result, Dewse
was about to be charged and bound over for trial, a circumstance that Mrs. Dewse knew would be disastrous for her and her children. She
therefore resorted to witchcraft to save her family. She consulted a London
conjurer, Robert Birche, telling him that she wanted
him to make wax images of Young, Heyward, and Sye,
"thieves and villains," according to Mrs. Dewse,
so that she could stick pins in them and that, failing that, she wanted a spell
to make them perish from the "damp" (typhus). Birche
reported her to the authorities and then proceeded to entrap her by getting her
to make the images herself. She had no idea she was being set up. Not only did
she pay him in money but she also sent him a sugar loaf and some lemons as a
gift. When the sheriff (the two London sheriffs that year were Nicholas Mosley
and Robert Broke) searched her house he found two pictures hidden in "a
secret place" in her cupboard "with pins sticked
in them." She was not, however, taken into custody until she expanded her
plans to include threats against the sheriff himself, the recorder, the lord
chamberlain (for not reading her husband's petitions) and the lord chancellor.
As is so often the case, the records do not tell us what ultimately happened to
her, but as Deborah Willis points out in Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting
and Maternal Power in Early Modern England, from which most of the above
information comes, unless one of her victims actually died, Mrs. Dewse's punishment was likely no more than a year's
imprisonment and four appearances in the stocks. Interestingly, the previous
keeper of Newgate, one Crowder, had also been removed
from office, following the complaint that he took bribes and that he and his
wife were "most horribl blasphemers and
swearers." In April 1594 the council solicited the mayor and aldermen of
London to appoint Richard Hutchman keeper of Newgate to replace "Dios, deceased." The name Dewse is variously spelled Dews, Deyos,
Dyos, Dios, Devyes, Devies, Duce, and Dewce in
documents of the time.
ABIGAIL DIGBY
see ABIGAIL HEVENINGHAM
ANNE DIGBY (d.1539+)
Anne Digby was the daughter of Sir John Digby of Kettleby (d.1533) and
Katherine Giffin. She married Sir William Skeffington (1460-December 21, 1535), Lord Deputy of
Ireland from 1529-1535, as his second wife and was the mother of John, Thomas,
Catherine, Isabel, and Anne. The Oxford DNB also identifies Leonard Skeffington, later Lord Lieutenant of the Tower of London,
as Anne’s son, but most genealogies indicate he was the son of the first Lady Skeffington, Margaret Digby,
daughter of Sir Everard Digby
of Tilton, Leicestershire. Lady Skeffington wrote two
letters to announce the death of her husband, both still extant, from Dublin on
January 26, 1536, one to Secretary Thomas Cromwell and the other to Queen Anne
Boleyn. In the letter to Cromwell, she attached a list of requests. They
included, among other things, the fees and stipends due her late husband,
license to convey back to England her husband’s horses and other moveable
goods, and travel expenses. The letter to the queen asked her to persuade the
king to support her petition to Cromwell. In another letter to Cromwell, dated
Dublin, February 18, 1536, she complains of Lord Leonard Grey, who had replaced
her husband as Lord Deputy, claiming that he would not let her take her own
belongings out of the castle at Maynooth and had
prevented the ship due to take her home from leaving Ireland. A third letter,
dated August 1, 1536, still from Dublin, informs Cromwell that Lord Leonard has
released her belongings, but complains that she still cannot afford the journey
home unless the wages due her late husband are paid to her. She eventually returned
to England. On April 27, 1539, she again wrote to Lord Cromwell, this time from
Colliweston, to say that "I have been so straitly ordered with my husband's children, that I have no
house of my late husband's to put my head in; neither have I any house of any
other man but only from year to year." She also had to write to Cromwell
to ask that the sentence of outlawry be lifted from her and others who had been
sureties to the king for her late husband. In that letter, she complains not
only of being improverished, but also of age and
sickness.
ELEANOR DIGBY
see ELEANOR ROPER
KATHERINE
DIGBY (d. before 1570)
Katherine Digby was the daughter of Sir Thomas Digby and Dorothy Oxenbridge. Her
father was knighted by Henry VII at Bosworth Field. Her mother remarried after
his death, taking as her second husband Eustace Braham. Katherine married Simon
Wheeler of Kenilworth, Warwickshire. After his death, she wed John Fisher of
Olney, Buckinghamshire (d. March 8, 1570/1), bringing him the manor of Packington, Warwickshire from the estate of her first
husband. At the dissolution of the monasteries, Fisher bought Great Packington church for £626. He was a gentleman pensioner to
King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. John and
Katherine were the parents of Sir Clement Fisher (d. October 23, 1619).
Portrait: effigy in Great Packington church,
transferred to a newer building in 1789.

LETTICE DIGBY
see LETTICE FITZGERALD
ANNE
DIGHTON
see ANNE HARDY
ELIZABETH
DIGNELEY (1502-before 1558)
Elizabeth Digneley was the daughter of Thomas Digneley or Dingley of Stanford Dingley, Berkshire and Middle Aston, Oxfordshire
(d.1502) and Philippa Harpsfield.
Her father died when she was two months old. By 1518, she had married George
Barrett of Belhus in Aveley,
Essex and been widowed. They had five children, including, Edward (d.1558+). At
some point before that, but after she was a widow, she brought suit in Chancery
against her great uncle, Francis Digneley
(c.1465-1538/9) for possession of the deeds to her inheritance, lands in
Hampshire and several adjoining counties. By 1530, she married a close friend
of her first husband, John Baker of London and Sissinghurst,
Kent (c.1489-December 23, 1558), attorney general from 1536-1540 and chancellor
of the Exchequier from 1540 until his death, by whom
she had six children, including Richard (c.1530-1594), John (c.1531-c.1605),
and three daughters. One daughter, Cecily (1535-October 1, 1615), married Thomas
Sackville, later earl of Dorset. The eldest, Elizabeth, (d. November 17, 1583)
was the first wife of Thomas Scott of Scot's Hall, Smeeth,
Kent (d.1594). The other, Mary, married John Tuften.
Elizabeth was buried in the church at Cranbrook,
Kent, at some point before Baker made his will on October 16, 1558.
JANE DINGLEY
see JANE MOORE
MARY DIXWELL (d. by 1595?)
Mary Dixwell was one of three daughters of Humphrey Dixwell of Churchover,
Warwickshire (d.1572+) and Ellen or Eleanor Low or Lowe (given as Anna Loe on one site). She married Robert Price of Washingley (d.1595), who erected a tomb in Holy Trinity
Church in Churchover to himself and his wife and her
parents. Portrait: tomb effigy, Churchover.

JOANNA
DOBSON
see JOANNA DYNGLEY
CHRISTIAN
DODDINGTON
see CHRISTIAN or CHRISTIANA WALSINGHAM
DOROTHY
DODDRIDGE or DODDERIDGE
see
DOROTHY BAMPFIELD
DOROTHY
DONE
see DOROTHY
WILBRAHAM
LEONORE DONHAULT
see LEONORE VIERENDEELS
ANNE
DONNE
(c.1471-c.1507)
Anne Donne was the elder daughter of Sir John Donne of Kidwilly,
Carmarthenshire (d. January 1503) and Elizabeth Hastings (c.1450-1508). She was
painted as a child in the Donne Triptych, with her mother. She married Sir
William Rede of Boarstall,
Buckinghamshire (1467-c.1527) and had by him three children, Leonard (d. before
1552), Elizabeth (d.1508+) and Mary (d.1508+). It was Rede’s
second wife, Anne Warham, who was a member of Mary
Tudor’s household (both as princess and queen) and Anne Warham,
not Anne Donne, who was the mother of the Anne Rede
who married Giles Greville, Sir Adrian Fortescue, and Thomas Parry.

ANNE
DONNE
see ANNE MORE
ELIZABETH
DONNE
(c.1498-1561+)
Elizabeth Donne was the daughter of Sir Angel Donne or Dun of London
(c.1473-December 1506), an alderman and a merchant of the staple, and his first
wife, Anne Hawardene. Her first husband, as his
second wife, was Sir Thomas Mirfyn or Murfyn of London (d.1523), who had been Lord Mayor in 1518.
They had three daughters, Margaret, Frances, and Mary (d.1542). Mirfyn left them very well off. Frances had a dowry that
included houses in St. Helens Bishopsgate and Stepney. Elizabeth married second, by a license dated July
14, 1524, Sir Thomas Denys of Holcombe Burnell and Bicton, Devonshire, (1480-February 18, 1560/1), by whom she
had five sons, George, Robert (1530-1593), Edward, Walter, and Gabriel, and
three daughters, including Anne and Margaret. Denys served as chamberlain of
the household of Cardinal Wolsey, comptroller of the household of Princess
Mary, and chancellor to the household of Anne of Cleves and had close ties to
Thomas Cromwell through the marriage Frances Mirfyn
to Richard Cromwell (alias Williams). It has been suggested that Elizabeth was
also part of Anne of Cleves' household, but the issue is confused by the fact
that the wife of Anthony Denny, Joan Champernowne,
was certainly there. Elizabeth was named executor of the will her husband made
on December 13, 1558.
ELIZABETH
DONNE
see ELIZABETH HASTINGS
MARGARET
DONNINGTON (1510-January 20,1562)
Margaret Donnington was the only daughter of John Donnington of Stoke Newington, Middlesex (d.1544) and
Elizabeth Pye. She married three times, each time
improving her lot. Her first husband was Sir Thomas Kytson
of London and Hengrave, Suffolk (1485-September 11,
1540), a widower with one daughter (Elizabeth), who built Hengrave
Hall between 1525 and 1538. King Henry VIII often visited them there. Kytson also had houses in Milk Street, London, Stoke
Newington, Westley, and Risby,
Suffolk, and Torbrian, Devonshire. Kytson and Margaret were the parents of Frances
(c.1527-c.1586), Katherine (d. before November 8, 1586), Dorothy (1531-May 2,
1577), Anne, and Thomas (October 9, 1540-January 28, 1603), the latter born
posthumously. By a marriage settlement dated November 10, 1541, Margaret took a
second husband, Sir Richard Long of Shengay, Cambridgeshire (c.1494-September 30, 1546), a courtier. She
had four children by him, Jane (c.1541-c.1562), Mary (b.c.1543), Henry (March
31,1543/4-April 15,1573), and Catherine (c.1546-c.1568). Margaret was sole
executrix of Long's will, made September 27, 1546. At that point, Henry was
only two years nine months old and became a royal ward. He was still a minor
when Queen Elizabeth visited his inheritance, Filliot's
Hall, Essex, in 1561. Margaret's third husband was John Bourchier,
earl of Bath (1489-February 10, 1561), as his third wife. They were married on
December 11, 1548 and together they had two more daughters, Susanna and
Bridget. Margaret married her eldest daughter, Frances Kytson,
to her stepson, John Bourchier, Lord Fitzwarine. Margaret's monument in Hengrave
Church is to herself and all three husbands. I have encountered a bit of a
mystery in reading The English Noble Household 1450-1600 by Kate Mertes. She lists three manuscripts as the day books of
Lady Margaret Long of Hengrave Hall, one for 1541-2,
one for 1563-4, and one for 1571-2, the latter including what she calls the
accounts of Thomas Kytson, Margaret's ward. The Lady
Margaret Long of 1541-2 is obviously Margaret Donnington,
but Thomas Kytson was her son, not her ward, but in
1563-4 and 1571-2, Margaret was already deceased. One fact Mertes
gleans is probably still valid: that Margaret and her daughters employed about
five maids during the period 1541-64. The Elizabeth Kytson
who oversaw the later accounts, however, is not the daughter by a previous
marriage that Mertes suggests, but rather Elizabeth
Cornwallis, who married Thomas Kytson in 1561.
AGNES
DORMER
see AGNES WOODVILLE
ANNE
DORMER (1525-1603)
Anne
Dormer was the daughter of William Dormer of Wing and Eythrope,
Buckinghamshire (1503-May 17,1575) and Mary Sidney (d.1542). In May 1558 she
married Sir Walter Hungerford of Farleigh (c.1526-1596). They had four
children, Lucy (1560-1598), Edmund (b.1562), Susan (b.1564), and Jane (b.1566)
but in 1570, Hungerford sued Anne for divorce, claiming that she had committed
adultery with William "Wild" Darrell of Littlecote,
Wiltshire (June 23, 1539-October 1, 1589) between 1560 and 1568 and had had a
child by him. Sir Walter also accused her of trying to poison him in 1564.
Surviving letters from Anne to her "good Will" give some foundation
to the charges, since she vowed she would marry him should her husband die, but
Anne was acquitted and awarded costs (£250) in the law suit. Hungerford refused
to pay or to support his wife while they were separated (he did agree to take
her back) and spent three years in Fleet Prison as a result. In a letter
written in 1570 to "Doll" (Dorothy) Essex, her sister Jane's lady in
waiting, Anne complained that she had not seen her children in over a year. She
also wrote to her sister at this time. In 1571, Anne received a license to
travel to Louvain to visit her dying grandmother (Jane Newdigate,
Lady Dormer, who died on July 7). In August of that year Anne's sister (Jane
Dormer, duchess of Feria), asked that the license be extended from six months
to two years. Anne took over her grandmother's household in Louvain after Lady
Dormer's death and remained there. In 1573, she was granted a pension of 1,100 livres a year by the king of Spain and in 1583 he granted
her a further pension of fifty escudos a month. Anne became friends with
Margaret of Parma as well as with the other English exiles living in Flanders.
After her only son died (the date of his death varies, depending on the source,
from 1583 to 1587), Anne claimed that Hungerford was attempting to defraud
their daughters of their portion. In his 1595 will, Hungerford left two farms
to Margery Bright, his mistress for some years and the mother of four children
by him, the last born after Hungerford's death. Upon hearing a rumor that Anne
was dead, Hungerford married Margery shortly before he died with the result
that both Anne and Margery sued to establish the right to inherit as
Hungerford's widow. There was never any question but that the victory would go
to Anne. During that same period, Anne involved herself in politics in
Flanders, urging her sister, the widowed duchess of Feria, to leave Spain and
travel to Brussels. She wrote a number of letters on the subject and seems to
have been convinced that the duchess's journey would alarm Queen Elizabeth and
turn the tide in King Philip's favor in the ongoing war in the Netherlands.
Anne's nephew, Don Lorenzo, 2nd duke of Feria, took steps to thwart
this intrigue and Anne seems to have given up the plan around 1599. As far as
is known, Anne never returned to England. She died in Louvain.
CATHERINE
DORMER (1549-March
23, 1614/15)
Catherine Dormer was the daughter of Sir William Dormer of Wing and Eythrope, Buckinghamshire (1503-May 17, 1575) and Dorothy
Catesby (c.1527-September 30, 1613). Her father left her £1500 at her marriage
or age twenty-four.She married Sir John St. John of Bletsoe, Bedfordshire (1544-October 13, 1596). They had two
children, Oliver, who died young, and Anne. She was buried in St. Michael's Chapel,
Westminster Abbey. Portrait: effigy on tomb.
DOROTHY
DORMER
see
DOROTHY CATESBY
JANE
DORMER
see
JANE NEWDIGATE
JANE
DORMER (January
6,1538-January 13, 1612)
Jane
Dormer was the daughter of William Dormer of Wing and Eythrope,
Buckinghamshire (1503-May 17,1575) and Mary Sidney (d.1542). She was a favorite
maid of honor to Queen Mary, having entered the queen’s service before the
death of Mary's brother, King Edward VI. Jane’s hand in marriage was sought by
the earl of Devon, the duke of Norfolk, and Charles Howard, later earl of
Nottingham, but she accepted the proposal of Don Gomez de Figueroa, count of
Feria (d. September 7, 1571). They were waiting for the return to England of
Philip II to marry when Queen Mary died. Jane herself had been ill in October
of 1558 but she returned to her dying mistress’s bedside in November and was
entrusted with the errand of journeying to Hatfield to deliver Mary’s jewels to
her sister and heir, Elizabeth Tudor. After Mary’s death, Jane lived with her
grandmother, Jane Newdigate, Lady Dormer (d.July 7,1571) at the Savoy Palace. She had some questions
to answer about jewels missing from Queen Mary's coffers. Queen Elizabeth
appointed Catherine Carey Knollys, Marjorie Williams
Norris, and Blanche Parry to question her. Her explanations appear to have
satisfied them. Jane Dormer married the count of Feria on December 29 and left
England in July 1559. Her party included her grandmother and six gentlewomen.
Jane’s son Lorenzo (September 28, 1559-1607) was born at Mechlin,
at the court of Margaret of Parma. At Amboise, France the following spring,
Jane began a friendship with Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots, that lasted until
the queen’s execution. Upon reaching Spain, Feria and Jane settled at Zafra in Estremadura and Feria was created duke of Feria in
1567. Jane proved so adept at running his estates after Feria’s death that
Philip II considered naming her Regent of the Netherlands. Instead, she devoted
her time to helping other English Catholics, although she also obtained the
release of Protestant Englishmen imprisoned at Seville. In 1603, an Englishman
named Henry Clifford entered her service and wrote her biography, possibly from
her dictation, but it was not published until 1887. After 1609, Jane was in
poor health and spent the last year of her life bedridden. She died in Madrid.
She was buried in the habit of a Franciscan tertiary. Biography: Oxford DNB
entry under "Suarez de Figueroa [née Dormer], Jane;" Chapter Four of
Albert J. Loomie's The Spanish Elizabethans.
Portraits: c.1563 by Sanches-Coello; one painted c.
1560-9 by Antonio Mor may be Jane. It may also be an
unknown Englishwoman, a Netherlandish aristocrat, or
one of the duke of Alva’s concubines. Margaret of Parma, once identified as the
sitter, has been ruled out as the subject.
.jpg)
KATHERINE
DORMER
see KATHERINE DALLAM
MARGARET
DORMER (1553-April
26, 1637)
Margaret Dormer was the daughter of William Dormer of Wing and Eythrope, Buckinghamshire (1503-May 17, 1575) and his
second wife, Dorothy Catesby (c.1527-September 30, 1613). Her father left her £1500
at her marriage or age twenty-four. In
a marriage contract dated October 26, 1578, she married Sir Henry Constable of
Burton Constable, Holderness and Halsham, Yorkshire (c.1551-December 15, 1607)
and as Lady Constable was a notable recusant who spent time in prison in 1592,
1593, 1595, and 1607. On March 6, 1582, she was to appear before the
Commissioners for Jesuits and seminary priests but the Privy Council
intervened. In November 1593, she was seriously ill when action against her was
planned and she was again spared. In 1596, her husband kept her safe by
promising to persuade her to convert. She did not. She
raised her children—Catherine (c.1579-1626), Dorothy (1580-March 26, 1632),
Henry (c.1582-1645), Margaret (c.1582-February 27, 1662/3), John (b.c. 1589), and Mary (c.1586-April 17, 1669+)—as pious
Roman Catholics.

ELIZABETH
DOUGLAS
see ELIZABETH TOUCHET
MARGARET
DOUGLAS (October
8, 1515-March 7, 1578)
Margaret
Douglas was the daughter of Margaret Tudor (1489-1541) by her second husband,
Archibald Douglas, 6th earl of Angus (1489-1557). She was thus half sister of
James V of Scotland and granddaughter of Henry VII of England. Her mother was
fleeing from Scotland, seeking shelter with her brother, Henry VIII, when
Margaret was born at Harbottle, on the English side of the border. At barely
fifteen, she was appointed chief lady in waiting to her cousin, Princess Mary.
Three years later, she was at court as one of Anne Boleyn's ladies. Margaret
was in and out of trouble all her life. She formed two unacceptable romantic
alliances with English suitors and was confined for a time after each incident.
She may actually have married Thomas Howard (1512-October 29, 1537), one of the
duke of Norfolk's half-brothers. Thomas died in the Tower of London, where he
had been imprisoned for his liaison with Margaret. Margaret remained close to
Thomas Howard's niece, Mary Howard, duchess of Richmond, who had been married
to Henry FitzRoy. Their "circle" had a literary bent and they all
wrote poetry, although only the sonnets of Mary's brother, the earl of Surrey,
achieved renown. During Catherine Howard's time as queen, Margaret was
romantically involved with the queen's brother, Charles Howard. On July 6,
1544, Margaret married Matthew Stuart, earl of Lennox (1516-1571). They had
four sons and four daughters but only two sons survived to adulthood, Henry,
Lord Darnley (1545-1567) and Charles, earl of Lennox (1556-1577). Shortly
before Henry VIII’s death, Margaret quarreled with him over a matter of
religion (she remained a devout Catholic all her life) and was disinherited.
She was high in favor under Queen Mary, but under Queen Elizabeth she was under
arrest on three separate occasions, once on suspicion of witchcraft and
treason, once because her son, Lord Darnley, had married the queen of Scots,
and once because she conspired to marry her other son, Charles, to Elizabeth
Cavendish. Biography: Kimberley Schutte, A Biography of Margaret Douglas;
Oxford DNB entry under "Douglas, Lady Margaret." Portraits: tomb
effigy; included in the Darnley Centograph of 1567/8 by Livinus de Vogelaare;
two portraits, one full length and painted in 1572 are not authenticated.
Alison Weir suggests that the alleged Holbein portrait of Mary Boleyn may
actually be Margaret Douglas.
.jpg)
MAGDALEN
DOWNES (d.1552+)
Magdalen Downes was a novice in the Benedictine priory of Ankerwick in
Buckinghamshire by 1519. In that year, Bishop Atwater found two cases of
apostasy in the priory. Two nuns had left the monastery. One had married, but
since marriage was forbidden to professed nuns, she was declared to be living
in sin in the house of a relative. Magdalen went on to become the last prioress
of Ankerwick, succeeding Alice Worcester when Alice resigned in 1526. After
Ankerwick was dissolved, Magdalen achieved notoriety by becoming the only
former nun in Buckinghamshire to marry. According to a footnote to the article
on Ankerwick Priory in British History Online, there were only a few nuns in
all of England who married after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Several
came from Elstow in Bedfordshire and fourteen from Lincolnshire (eight of them
Gilbertine nuns).
MARGARET
DOWNES
see
MARGARET NEVILLE
ANNE
DOWRICHE
see
ANNE EDGECUMBE
ELIZABETH
D’OYLEY
(1592-1612+)
Elizabeth D’Oyley (sometimes written Doyle) was the daughter of Edmund D’Oyley
of Shottisham, Norfolk (d.1612+) and Catherine Neville (b.1570). In 1607 or
1608, she married Robert Buxton of Tibbenham, Norfolk (d. January 17, 1610/11).
His surname is given incorrectly as Barston in the Visitation of Essex. They had
one child, a son, John (c.1609-1660). His wardship was granted to Elizabeth and
her father. She married second William Perte or Pert of Arnolds, Mountnessing,
Essex (d.1637?). By his first wife, Isabel Conyers, he had a daughter, Margaret
(c.1610-1686). He had no children by Elizabeth D’Oyley. The inscription (added
later) on the portrait by Robert Peake c.1608, is misleading. It seems to
identify the sitter as a Conyers co-heiress and the mother of Margaret Buxton.
In fact, it was Margaret Perte, Elizabeth's stepdaughter, who was the
co-heiress. Margaret Perte became Margaret Buxton by her marriage to
Elizabeth’s son, John.

FRANCES
D’OYLY
see
FRANCES EDMONDS
ELIZABETH
DRAKE
see ELIZABETH SYDENHAM
ANNE
DRAPER (August
1560-March 29, 1641)
Anne Draper was the daughter of John Draper (d. 1576), a wealthy London brewer,
and Margery Wilkes (d.1600/01). After her father’s death, his clerk, Thomas Hobson,
wanted to marry her, but Anne’s mother refused and dismissed him. He took her
to court. She claimed he’d “shamefully, wickedly, and horribly” tried to marry
Anne. Exactly what this entailed is not spelled out, but it was obviously more
than Margery Draper was willing to allow. On June 4, 1579, Anne married Eustace
Bedingfield (d. May 19, 1599). They had several children, including two named
Anne, one who died in 1581 and one who survived her mother. Anne Draper’s
inheritance from her father included a piece of property in Clerkenwell. By
1605, she had leased this to Aaron Holland, who built the Red Bull theater on
the property. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Bedingfield [née Draper],
Anne.” Portrait: memorial brass 1641, All Saints, Darsham, Suffolk.
ELIZABETH
DRAPER (d. April
27, 1605)
Elizabeth Draper was the daughter of Robert Draper of Camberwell and Elizabeth
Fyfield. She married first, on June 17, 1550, John Bowyer of Shepton Beauchamp,
Somerset and Lincoln's Inn (d. October 10, 1570), as his second wife. Bowyer's
commonplace book describes Elizabeth's wedding ring in detail and also records
the apparel purchased for the occasion. The entries include four ells of tawney
taffeta at 11s. 6d. an ell for a Venice gown, seven yards of crimson silk
camlet at 7s. 6d. a yard for a kirtle, and eight yards of black russet at 4s.
6d. a yard for a Dutch gown. Smaller amounts of fabric purchased included tawny
velvet, crimson satin, tawny satin, black velvet, tawny damask, and scarlet for
a petticoat. The couple had eight sons and three daughters, including Edmond
(May 12, 1552-c.1626), Elizabeth (June 10, 1553-1590+), John, Matthew, Luke
(1563-5), Benjamin, and Gregory. On September 9, 1572, Elizabeth remarried,
taking as her husband William Forster (d. before 1605), by whom she had a son
and a daughter. As a widow for the second time she lived beside the Free
School. Portrait: memorial brass in Camberwell.

ELIZABETH
DRAPER
see
ELIZABETH GARTON
ELIZABETH
DRAYCOTT
see ELIZABETH FITZHERBERT
WELTHIAN
DRELNE
see WELTHIAN YARDE
ANN
DRURY or DREWRIE
(x. May 13,1573) (maiden name unknown)
According to John Bellamy, in Strange, Inhuman Deaths: Murder in Tudor
England, Ann Drury was a "sinister widow . . . notorious for her
palmistry and 'surgery.'" With her friend, Ann Saunders, Ann Drury plotted
the murder of Ann's husband, George Saunders. Bellamy gives a full account of
the case in Chapter 6 of his book, based on contemporary pamphlet written about
the crime and later accounts in the chronicles of Stow and Holinshed. From
evidence in her speech from the gallows, it would seem that Ann Drury was once
in the service of Henry Stanley, Lord Strange, who had succeeded his father as
earl of Derby the previous year and was present at her execution. She asked his
forgiveness and insisted that she was not responsible for his separation from
his wife (see MARGARET CLIFFORD). Bellamy interprets this statement as
indicating one of two things. Either Ann had been sexually involved with the
earl or she had practiced palmistry while a member of his household. Ann also
denied from the scaffold that she had ever used witchcraft or sorcery, poisoned
her own husband, or accused any merchants' wives of unchaste living. She had
confessed, however, to having instructed George Browne how to kill George
Saunders in March 1573, and to paying him when he reported to her that he’d
done the deed. Browne, when apprehended, claimed that Ann Drury had also
promised him that she would arrange his marriage to the newly made widow.
Browne pled guilty to murder and was executed. Mrs. Drury, when questioned,
also confessed and was imprisoned, along with her servant, Roger Clement. It
was Clement who implicated Mrs. Saunders. The two women were tried in May at
the Guildhall, charged with being accessories both before and after the murder.
On May 6, both were convicted and sentenced to be hanged at Smithfield a week
later. While in Newgate awaiting execution, a defrocked clergyman named Mell
offered to provide a dowry for Ann Drury's daughter if Ann would exonerate Mrs.
Saunders, with whom Mell had fallen in love after seeing her at her trial. He
hoped to obtain a pardon for Ann Saunders and then marry her. This plan failed
and both women were hanged. The play, A Warning to Fair Women (1599),
was based on this case. Exactly who Ann Drury was is not clear. Her husband's
name is not given, nor is her daughter's, but if she was part of the household
of Lord and Lady Strange at some point, then she may have been of gentle birth.
ANNE
DRURY
see
ANNE BACON; ANNE JERNINGHAM
ANNE
DRURY (d.
September 5, 1561)
Anne Drury was the eldest of six daughters of Sir William Drury of Hawstead,
Suffolk (d. January 11, 1557/8) and his second wife, Elizabeth Soothill (d. May
19, 1575). By 1540, she married Sir Christopher Heydon or Hayden of
Baconsthorpe, Norfolk (1518/19-December 10, 1579). They had three sons and five
daughters, including William (d.1592), Henry, and Christopher. Portrait: memorial
brass in Baconsthorpe Church.

CATHERINE
DRURY
see CATHERINE FINCH
ELIZABETH
DRURY
see
ELIZABETH CALTHORPE; ELIZABETH SOTEHILL; ELIZABETH STAFFORD
ELIZABETH
DRURY (January 4,
1577/8-February 26, 1653/4)
Elizabeth Drury was the second
daughter, third of six children, of William Drury of Hawstead, Suffolk (May 20,
1550-January 8, 1589/90) and Elizabeth Stafford (c.1546-February 6, 1598/9).
She married William Cecil, 3rd baron Burghley and later (1623) 2nd earl
of Exeter (1566-1640) and was the mother of Elizabeth (1595-1672, Richard
(d.yng), Diana (c.1596-April 27, 1654), and Anne (c.1596-1676). The family
lived primarily at Burghley House near Stamford, Lincolnshire and in Exeter
House on the Strand. Her will was proved April 20, 1654. She was buried in St.
James, Clerkenwell. Portraits: by William Larkin, c.1614-18; attributed to Paul
van Somer, 1618, English School, 1654.

FRANCES
DRURY (June 13,
1576-1642)
Frances Drury was the daughter of Sir William Drury of Hawstead (May 30,
1550-January 18, 1590) and Elizabeth Stafford (c.1546-February 6, 1598/9). She
married first, in 1596, Sir Nicholas Clifford of Bobbing, Kent (1572-1599) and
second, in 1600, Sir William Wray of Glentworth, Lincolnshire (1557-August 13,
1617). Her children were Frances Clifford (d. 1658) and Christopher
(1601-February 8, 1646), George, Charles, and Frances Wray. Her will was
written on May 27, 1637 and proved in 1642. She was buried in Ashby Church,
Lincolnshire. Portrait: c.1590 miniature by Nicholas Hilliard may be Frances
Drury; effigy on Wray tomb.

KATHERINE
DRURY (d.1599+)
Katherine Drury
was the daughter of William Drury of Besthorpe,
Norfolk (d.1552) and his second wife, Dorothy Brampton. She married John
Chamberlain of Ellingham. Her brother Roger (d.1599), left her £6 in his will,
apparently because "her bad husband" did not provide for her.
MARGARET
DRURY
see MARGARET WENTWORTH
MARY
DRURY
see MARY SOUTHWELL
SUSANNA
DRURY
(1584-September 29, 1606)
Susanna Drury was the daughter of Sir William Drury of Hawstead (May 30,
1550-January 18, 1590) and Elizabeth Stafford (c.1546-February 6, 1598/9). Suffolk
Manorial Families by Joseph James Muskett includes a transcript of a
memorandum stating the terms of her will, made on September 20, 1606. In this
document, she is identified as being "of Glentworth" in Lincolnshire
and as "being sicke in bodye but of sound and perfect memorye." She
directed her words to her sister, Frances, wife of Sir William Wray and made
Wray and Lord Burghley, husband of her sister Elizabeth, her executors. She
made bequests of money and clothing to various relatives and servants. The will
was proved at London on November 14, 1606. Muskett then adds the story, quoted
from an 1831 issue of Gentleman's Magazine, of how Susanna Drury died.
She was visiting Lady Wray at Glentworth and went riding but, not being a
proficient horsewoman, was "fastened to her saddle with straps that she
might not be dismounted." Unfortunately, the horse ran away with her and
she dashed her head against the branches of a tree, sustaining injuries that
proved fatal. She was buried in Ashby Church and an effigy was erected there in
her memory. She is shown with two greyhounds. The Latin inscription reads "Unhappy
only in her death, she burst the portals on the feast day of St. Michael, 1606,
and joined the choirs of the blessed, having numbered but two and twenty
years." Portrait: effigy in Ashby, Lincolnshire.

URSULA
DRURY
(1492-1522/3)
Ursula Drury was the daughter of Sir Robert Drury of Hawstead, Suffolk (d.
February 8,1535) and Anne Calthorpe. On July 5, 1515, she married Sir Giles
Alington of Horseheath, Cambridgeshire (June 1499-August 22, 1586). She had a
son, Robert (1520-May 22, 1552) and a daughter, Margaret. Zillah Dovey, in An
Elizabethan Progress, gives her date of death as 1552, but since Alington
remarried in 1524, this is obviously incorrect. Portrait: memorial brass in
Hawstead Church.

JANE
DUCKETT
see JANE PACKINGTON
ALICE
DUDLEY
see ALICE LEIGH
AMYE
DUDLEY
see
AMYE ROBSART
ANNE
DUDLEY
see
ANNE RUSSELL; ANNE SEYMOUR; ANNE WHORWOOD
CECILY
DUDLEY
see CECILY GREY
ELIZABETH
DUDLEY
see ELIZABETH GARDINER; ELIZABETH GREY; ELIZABETH SOUTHWELL; ELIZABETH STUCLEY;
ELIZABETH TALBOYS
ELIZABETH
DUDLEY (1488-1560)
Elizabeth Dudley was the daughter of Edmund Dudley (1462-x.1510) and Anne
Windsor. She was betrothed to Peter Stourton, one of the sons of Edward, 6th
baron Stourton, but when he died, she married his younger brother, William, 7th
baron Stourton (1484-September 16, 1548), who succeeded to the title in 1535.
They were married in about 1516. Their children were Ursula (1518-September 4,
1551), Charles, 8th baron (c.1521-x.March 6, 1556/7), Francis, Dorothy, Andrew,
Arthur (c.1524-1558), William (c.1526-November 22, 1581), George, Giles, John,
and another Francis. In spite of their numerous children, the marriage was not
a happy one and the couple separated. Stourton lived with his mistress, Agnes
Rhys, while Elizabeth, at least part of the time, lived in the home of William
Hartgill, her husband's steward, at Kilmington, on the border of Wiltshire and
Somerset and two miles from Stourton House. It was there, shortly after her
husband's death, that her son Charles confronted her with the demand that she
vow never to remarry. What he really wanted was to gain control of her widow's
third of the estate. He wanted her to accept an annuity of 100 marks and live
with him in lieu of the jointure she was entitled to, or live at Stourton
Caundle manor with an annuity of 200 marks. Either way, she would lose her
annuity if she remarried. Elizabeth objected. Hartgill supported her rights.
But Charles removed her from Kilmington against her will and took her to
Stourton House. This was not the only bone of contention between Lord Stourton
and the Hartgills and the feud between them raged on until January 1557, when
Stourton and his men murdered William Hartgill and his son John. For this
crime, Charles was executed. By the mid-1550s, however, Elizabeth had escaped
his control and married Edward Ludlow of Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire. Elizabeth
was the half sister of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, and therefore aunt
of Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth's favorite. For this reason, even though she
was seventy years old by then, was probably the Lady Stourton at court in
1558/9. The alternative is her Catholic daughter-in-law, Anne Stanley (d.1602),
Charles's widow.
FRANCES
DUDLEY
see FRANCES
PICKERING
JANE
DUDLEY
see
JANE GUILDFORD
KATHERINE
DUDLEY (November
1545-August 4, 1620)
Katherine
Dudley was the daughter of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland (1504-x.August
22, 1553) and Jane Guildford (1509-January 15, 1555). Although the Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography gives her birthdate as c.1538, there is a
record of a christening on November 30, 1545 that several authorities believe
was Katherine's. The godparents were Francis van der Delft, Imperial Ambassador
to England, Princess Mary, and Catherine Willoughby, duchess of Suffolk, who
hosted a reception at Suffolk Place, Southwark. Assuming this birthdate to be
correct, Katherine was seven when she was married to eighteen-year-old Henry
Hastings (1535-December 14, 1594) on May 24, 1553 at Durham House in the
Strand. Three months later, her father was arrested and executed for treason.
It would have been easy for her father-in-law, the earl of Huntingdon, to have
her marriage annulled. Instead he took her to Ashby-de-la-Zouche to be raised
with his own family. She first came to court in 1562 or 1563 and because her
brother, Robert Dudley, was the queen’s favorite, she was made a lady of the
privy chamber. In 1564, however, when a book on the succession urged acceptance
of her husband’s claim to the throne, Katherine was given “a privy nippe” by
the queen. His assurance that the book was “foolishly written” did not mend the
rift and for a time Katherine left the court. In 1576 she and her husband
became legal guardians of the earl of Essex’s children. She was already
fostering and training several young gentlewomen but had no children of her
own. After her husband’s death, she returned to court and was considered one of
the queen’s closest friends during the last years of her reign. Biography:
Oxford DNB entry under "Hastings [née Dudley], Katherine." Portrait:
In 1599, Frances Powlett, an Essex gentlewoman, widowed and a recusant, owned a
portrait of Katherine Dudley.
LETTICE
DUDLEY
see
LETTICE KNOLLYS
MARGARET
DUDLEY
see
MARGARET AUDLEY
MARY or
MARGARET DUDLEY
see MARY or MARGARET CAVENDISH
MARY
DUDLEY
(1531-August 9, 1586)
Mary
Dudley was the daughter of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland (1504-x.August
22,1553) and Jane Guildford (1509-January 15, 1555). She was educated with her
brothers, having among her tutors Roger Ascham and John Dee. She wrote poetry
as a young woman. On March 29, 1551, she was married to Sir Henry Sidney (June
20, 1529-May 5, 1586). When her father attempted to put Lady Jane Grey on the
throne instead of Mary Tudor, Mary Sidney was sent to fetch Lady Jane to Syon
House where she was told of her great good fortune. Mary remained with Queen
Jane throughout her brief reign. After the failure of the coup, Mary was
allowed to return to her husband, who was pardoned for his role in the attempt
on July 21. Sir Henry’s father obtained for them the confiscated Dudley
property of Penshurst and there the couple made their home. Mary’s son, Philip
Sidney, was born November 30, 1554. His godfather was King Philip II. Mary’s
other children were Margaret (1556-1558), Elizabeth (October 1560-February
1567), Mary (1561-1621), Robert (November 19,1563-1626), Ambrosia (1565-1575),
and Thomas (March 25,1569-July 26,1595). Under Elizabeth I, Mary Sidney was at
court as one of her ladies and nursed the queen through her bout of smallpox in
October 1562. Mary subsequently caught the disease herself and was left
horribly scarred by it. Thereafter, it is said, she always wore a mask in
public. When her husband was Lord Deputy of Ireland, Mary was with him briefly,
but soon returned to England. She had rooms at court but spent most of her time
at her house near Paul’s Wharf in London or at Ludlow Castle. Biography: Oxford
DNB entry under "Sidney [née Dudley], Mary." Portraits: Two portraits
identified as Mary Dudley Sidney exist, one by Hans Eworth at Wilton House and
the other by Willaim Scrots at Petworth.
.jpg)
THEODOSIA
DUDLEY
see THEODOSIA HARINGTON
AGNES
DUFFORD or DUFFIELD
(1479-1549)
Agnes Dufford or Duffield was the daughter of William Duffield. She married
first William Pykerell and second, in 1513, Peter Cheke (1477-January 30,
1529/30). Both were bedells at Cambridge University. Agnes was a vintner in St.
Mary’s Parish, Cambridge, in her own right, and she continued to run her wine
shop in her second widowhood. She had one son, John Pykerell (1498/9-1539) by
her first marriage and one son and five daughters by Cheke, including Anne
(1512-1557), John (June 16, 1514-September 13, 1557), and Mary (c.1520-February
22, 1543/4). John became a royal tutor. Mary married William Cecil, later Lord
Burghley, and Agnes’s grandson, Thomas Cecil, inherited that title in 1598.
DEBORAH
DUNCH (1586-c.1659)
Deborah Dunch was
the daughter of Walter Dunch of Avebury, Wiltshire (1552-1594) and Deborah
Pilkington (1564-1594+), the daughter of an Anglican bishop. She was christened
on April 3, 1586 at St. Giles’s Church in Avebury. On January 20, 1606, at St.
Mary Aldermary, London, she married Henry Moody of Garsdon Manor, Wiltshire
(c.1582-April 23, 1629). He was later knighted and still later (1622), created
a baronet by King James I and VI. They had two children, Henry (February 7,
1607-1650+) and Catherine (1608-1627+). After ten years of widowhood, Lady
Moody made the decision to leave England for the colony of Massachusetts Bay in
New England. She settled first in Salem, where she had a small house, but was
in Lynn by 1640, where she was granted 400 acres. In 1641, she purchased
another house and 900 acres of land in neighboring Swampscott. By 1643,
however, her religious beliefs, particularly her denial that the baptism of
infants was ordained by God, caused her to be fined, excommunicated, and
evicted from Massachusetts Bay. John Winthrop said of her that she was "a
wise and anciently religious woman" but he did not want her to stay in his
colony. With other like-minded individuals, she went first to Providence, then
to New Haven, and finally into Dutch territory, where she received a patent in
1645 for 7000 acres that included the present day Gravesend (Brooklyn) and
Coney Island, New York. The home she built there was the sturdiest in the
settlement and the only one to survive an Indian attack. It went on to become
the site of the first Quaker meeting in 1657. Deborah died at some point
between December 1654 and May 1659. For more details of her life see Carole
Chandler Waldrup, Colonial Women
(1999).
MARY
DUNCH
see MARY BARNES; MARY CROMWELL
BENEDICTA
DUNHAM
see BENEDICTA FOLJAMBE
CATHERINE
DUNN (d. before
1544)
Catherine Dunn was the daughter of Lewis Dunn or Dunne of Badland. As a child
of eleven, she was betrothed to Edmund Vaughan, age nine. When Edmund came of
age, "there was a divorce lawfully between them according to the
Ecclesiastical Laws." Catherine later married Richard Blyke
(Bleak/Bleck/Blike) of Radnorshire (d.1557), a servant of Bishop Rowland Lee,
bringing lands and tenements in Radnor to the marriage. They had one daughter,
Dorothy. Some five years after Catherine died, her cousin, Peter Dunn of
Berkshire, challenged Blyke's right to keep Catherine's Radnor properties. He
brought suit in Chancery claiming that he was her heir because she had never
been legally married to Blyke and their daughter was illegitimate. His argument
was that Edmund Vaughan had still been living at the time they were wed.
Needless to say, Blyke fought the suit and defended his late wife and their
daughter's legitimacy.
ELEANOR
DUTTON
(c.1484-June 1522+)
Eleanor Dutton was the daughter of Peter or Piers Dutton of Hatton, Cheshire
(c.1465-before 1502) and Elizabeth Fouleshurst. She married Randall Brereton of
Malpas, Cheshire (1467-June 1530) c.1502. Their children were Randall (d.1533),
Richard (d.c.1556), John (c.1542), Thomas (d.1511), Peter, Roger, William
(c.1507-x. May 17, 1536), Robert (d.1566+), Urian (c.1510-March 19, 1578),
Eleanor, Jane, Anne, and Elizabeth (c.1505-November 30, 1545+). Portrait:
effigy at Malpas.

JANE
DUTTON
see JANE ASTON
JACQUINETTA
DUTWITE
(c.1550-1611)
Jacquinetta, Jacqueline, or Jaklin Dutwite was the daughter of James Dutwite
(d.1591), resident in the immigrant enclave of St. Martin le Grand at the time
of his death. She was probably born in France. She married Thomas Vautrollier
(d. July 1587), a Huguenot refugee from Troyes, in the French province of
Champagne. He had set up as a printer in London by 1558. He received letters of
denization on March 9, 1562 and was admitted to the Stationer’s Company in
1564. He lived and worked in the Blackfriars section of London and records
there list the births of Simon, Thomas (d.1608), Daniel, and Manassie
(Manassas) Vautrollier between 1570 and 1587. The Vautrolliers also had a son
named James. In 1580 and 1586, while Vautrollier was in Edinburgh, his wife ran
the business in London. After he died, it would not have been unusual for her
to take over as printer. Many wives of printers did just that. She was allowed
to finish an impression he had begun and print one book, but then an order was
issued, dated March 4,1588, by the Court of Assistants. It reads, with spelling
modernized, "Mrs. Vautrollier, late wife of Thomas Vautrollier, deceased,
shall not hereafter print any manner of book or books whatsoever, as well by
reason that her husband was no printer at the time of his decease, as also by
the decrees set down in the Star Chamber she is debarred from the same."
Alice Clark, in her Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century,
suggests that this was because the business had already been transferred to a
daughter, also named Jacquinetta. According to her, this explains why records
show Jacquinetta Vautrollier printing several more books in 1588, although
these may also have been projects left unfinished at Vautrollier's death.
Richard Field (November 1561-November 1624), admitted to the Stationer's
Company on February 6, 1587, married Jaklin Vautrollier on January 12, 1589.
Although some sources call her Vautrollier's daughter, she was more likely to
have been his widow. Some sources also say Field was Vautrollier's apprentice.
Technically, he was apprenticed to George Bishop, but he served the first six
of seven years of his apprenticeship in Vautrollier's printing shop. A son,
Richard Field, was born to Jacquinetta in 1590. In about 1600, Field moved from
Blackfriars to the parish of St. Michael in Wood Street at the sign of the
Splayed Eagle. He was a prominent member of the Stationer’s Company.
Jacquinetta was probably the "Field's wife" who was buried in
Blackfriars on March 9, 1611. After Field's death his widow, Jane, by whom he had
three sons and two daughters, was permitted to continue printing books but
after a short time sold out to one of Field’s apprentices.
JOAN
DUWES (d.1538)
(maiden name unknown)
Although she is listed as a member of Mary Tudor's household in 1533, little is
known about Joan Duwes other than that she was the wife of Giles Duwes or Dewes
(d. April 12, 1535) a lute player, French tutor, and author of An
Introduction for to Lerne to Rede, to Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly
(c.1533), and other works. Duwes was employed from the 1490s to teach the
children of Henry VII. He also tutored Henry VIII's daughter, Mary Tudor, and
Henry Courtenay, who was later marquess of Exeter. Duwes and his wife had four
children, three of them named after the royal children: Henry, Arthur,
Gwylliam, and Margaret. From April 1506, Duwes was also the royal librarian.
Young Arthur Duwes entered the royal household as a lute player in 1515 and
later taught the king's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, how to play that
instrument. Duwes frequently appears in records as "Master Giles
Luter." In 1533, Joan Duwes was appointed as one of Princess Mary's
gentlewomen, although it must be noted that, at that time, Anne Boleyn was
queen and Mary was out of favor and considered illegitimate. Duwes made his
will on December 20, 1534, mentioning his wife "Jhone," but leaving
his musical instruments to his sons Arthur and Gwylliam. Princess Mary's Privy
Purse expenses for January 1538 include the gift of a frontlet to
"Mistress Colson sometime Mistress Giles," which seems to indicate
that Joan remarried.
FRANCES
DYER (d. before
1603)
Frances Dyer was the daughter of Thomas Dyer of Weston, Somerset (d. June 14,
1565) and Frances Darcy. She married, as his second wife, Sir John Stawell of
Cothelstone, Somerset (d. 1603), who had divorced his first wife after a long
court battle and a large bribe not to contest his new marriage (see MARY
PORTMAN). Their pre-nuptial settlement is dated April 10, 1572. They had one
son, a second Sir John Stawell (d.1603/4). Portrait: effigy on tomb at
Cothelstone.
.jpg)
MARGARET
DYER
see
MARGARET à BARROW
JANE
DYLLYCOTES
(d.1605)
Jane Dyllycotes's parentage is unknown. She is recorded in most places simply
as a French woman or a Huguenot. A manuscript cited by Alexander Balloch
Grosart in Occasional Issues of Unique or Very Rare Books calls her Jane
Jerrard (Gerard?) and says she was born in Anjou, but gives no source for this
information. What we do know is that on March 20, 1582, she married Richard
Barnes, bishop of Durham (d. August 24, 1587) at Durham Castle. She was his
second wife. On September 30, 1597, she took as her second husband cleric
Leonard Pilkington (1527-August 1599), whose brother had been Barnes's
predecessor as bishop of Durham. She had no children by either husband. She was
buried June 20, 1605 in Durham, near the burial place of Bishop Barnes.
MARGARET
DYMOKE
(c.1490-1550)
Margaret
Dymoke was the daughter of Sir Robert Dymoke of Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire
(c.1461-April 15,1545) and Jane (or Anne) Sparrow. She married Sir Richard
Vernon of Haddon, Derbyshire (1477-1517) in about 1507 and was the mother of a
son, George (1508-1567) and a daughter, Elizabeth. When she was left a wealthy
widow, Cardinal Wolsey advocated a match with Sir William Tyrwhitt, but
Margaret accepted Sir William Coffyn of Porthledge, Devon (c.1492-December 8,
1538). Margaret attended Catherine of Aragon at the Field of Cloth of Gold in
1520 and was at court with her second husband, who was master of horse to both
Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour. Margaret was one of the gentlewomen sent to wait
(and spy) upon Anne Boleyn in the Tower. Some accounts give the name as
“Mistress Cosyns” but this is a mistake for Coffyn. In Jane Seymour’s
household, Margaret was a lady of the bedchamber. She wrote to Lord Cromwell
from Standon, Hertfordshire to announce her second husband had died, "full
of God’s marks over all his body." She was his sole executor and inherited
all his leases and goods. In 1539, she married Sir Richard Manners of Garendon,
Leicestershire (1490-February 9, 1551), by whom she may have had a son, John.
During this marriage she lived primarily at Haddon Hall. Biography: Oxford DNB
entry under "Coffin, Sir William." NOTE: the DNB gives her mother's
name as Anne Sparrow. Portrait: effigy at St. Bartholomew Church, Tong,
Shropshire.

MARGARET
DYMOKE
see MARGARET WOGON
MARY
DYMOKE or DYMOCK
see
MARY HUSSEY
JOANNA
DYNGLEY (d.1547+)
Nothing is known about Joanna Dyngley's parents, although a John Dyngley
received an annuity of ten marks on May 29, 1516, "in token of the king's
regard." It is extremely tempting to wonder if Joan has been mistread as
John, but the date seems much too early. Joan or Joanna Dyngley is said to have
been a royal laundress. Her natural or "base" daughter, Ethelreda or
Audrey Malte (d.c.1556), was raised as the child of John Malte, Henry VIII’s
tailor, but was rumored to be Henry’s bastard. Joanna was married to a Mr.
Dobson by the time Malte made his will on September 10, 1546. It refers to her
as "Joane Dingley, now wife of one Dobson" and as "Joane
Dyngley, otherwise Joane Dobson." He left her £20. Joanna does not seem to
have played any part in her daughter's life and the identity of Mr. Dobson
remains elusive. The notoriously speculative The Other Tudors: Henry VIII’s
Mistresses and Bastards by Philippa Jones, offers an interesting if
unsupportable theory about Joanna's identity, complete with a solution to
another minor mystery—the identity of the mistress who so infuriated Anne
Boleyn that she tried to send her away from court. Jones's candidate is Jane or
Joan Moore (d.1558+), daughter of Sir John Moore of Douklin, Douklen, Dunclent,
or Dunkelyn, Worcestershire (d.1535) and Eleanor Milbourne. This Jane Moore was
married three times. Her first husband was Michael Ashfield of Northlatche
Manor, Gloucestershire. Her second was a man named James Dingley. Jones
suggests that Dingley had recently died when his widow began an affair with the
king c.1534 and suggests that Jane was the unnamed mistress the king refused to
send away from court in that year, a woman sympathetic to Princess Mary. Jones
then gives Eltheleda's birth date as June 23, 1535 and goes on to say that, by
1546, Jane Moore had married Thomas Parker of Notgrove, Gloucestershire
(d.1558). They had three sons, Edmund, Thomas, and Michael, and a daughter.
Where did the name Dobson come from in Malte’s will? Jones explains this away
as a mistake by the person who copied the will, misreading "alias
Dobson" as a reference to a husband when it was, in fact, a reference to
the Moore family's lands.
EDITH
DYNHAM or DINHAM
(c.1448-1514)
Edith Dynham or Dinham was the daughter of John Dynham of Hartland, Devonshire
(d.1458) and Joan Arches or Archer (c.1410-1497). She was the third wife of
Thomas Fowler of Foxley, Buckinghamshire (c.1435-c.1510), who was an esquire of
the body to King Edward IV and supported Richard III. He was pardoned in 1485.
In spite of her husband's Yorkist sympathies, Edith later served as a waiting
gentlewoman to Margaret Beaufort, countess of Richmond and Derby, the mother of
Henry VII. She was one of those given "manteletts and kercheffes" for
Henry’s funeral in 1509. The countess died soon afterward, on June 29, 1509.
Edith
and
her husband were buried in Christ Church, Cambridge. Portrait: brass armorial
effigy.
ELIZABETH
DYNHAM
(1449-October 19, 1516)
Elizabeth Dynham was the daughter of John Dynham or Dinham of Devon and Cornwall
(1405/6-January 25, 1458) and Joan Arches (d.1497) and one of the co-heirs of
her brother, John, 1st Lord Dynham (d.1501). She was married three times, first
to Fulke Bourchier, 2nd baron Fitzwarine (October 25, 1445-September 18, 1479),
by whom she had four children, John, 1st earl of Bath (July 20, 1470-April 30,
1539), Joan, Elizabeth (1474-1557), and William. Her second husband was Sir
John Sapcote of Elton, Huntingdonshire (d. January 5, 1501), by whom she had
one son, Richard (1483-July 9, 1542). Her third husband was Sir Thomas Brandon
(1470-January 27, 1510). She was probably not married to Brandon long, as he
mentions her in his will only in connection with a bequest to the Augustinian
Friars in London for a "perpetual memory to be had of the Lord Marquess
Berkley and the Lady Marquess, late my wife [his first wife, Anne Fiennes, who
died in 1497], my Lady my wife [Elizabeth Dynham], [and] my brother Sir Robert
Brandon." The will was written January 11, 1509/10 and proved May 11,
1510. There are no other bequests to Elizabeth, although he leaves gowns to two
sisters and two nieces and a house in Southwark and land in Norfolk and Suffolk
to the widowed "Lady Jane Gylford” (Joan Vaux). His nephew, Charles
Brandon, was his principal heir. The logical conclusion is that Elizabeth was
already well provided for in their marriage contract, having no doubt inherited
considerable estates from her two previous husbands. She was, through Fulke
Bourchier, the grandmother of Anne Stanhope, duchess of Somerset and, through
Sir John Sapcote, the great-great grandmother of Anne Sapcote, countess of
Bedford. Elizabeth was buried in the Greyfriars, London
ELIZABETH
DYNHAM
see ELIZABETH WILLOUGHBY
JANE
DYNHAM
see JANE or JOAN ORMOND
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