A WHO’S WHO OF TUDOR WOMEN: G

compiled by

Kathy Lynn Emerson

to update and correct

her very out-of-date

WIVES AND DAUGHTERS, THE WOMEN OF SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND (1984)

NOTE: this document exists only in electronic format

and is ©2008-11 Kathy Lynn Emerson (all rights reserved)

 

ALYS GAGE (c.1504-March 31, 1540)
Alys Gage was the daughter of Sir John Gage of Firle Place (October 28, 1479-April 18, 1556) and Philippa Guildford (c.1480-before 1556). In 1525/6 she became the first wife of Sir Anthony Browne (1500-April 28, 1548). Their children were Anthony (November 29, 1526-October 19, 1592), Mary (c.1527-1592+), Mabel (c.1528-August 25, 1610), Lucy, William, Henry, Francis, Thomas, George, and a second Henry. Lady Browne was one of the gentlewomen who met Anne of Cleves when she arrived in England in January 1540. She is reported to have remarked that Anne was “far discrepant from the King’s Highness’s appetite.” Alys is said to have inspired such devotion in her oldest son that when his father took a mistress after her death, Anthony the younger reportedly told him that he’d rather lose half his inheritance to a stepmother than see him so dishonor his mother’s memory. Portrait: effigy at Battle Abbey.

PHILIPPPA GAGE
see PHILIPPA GUILDFORD

ANNE GAINSFORD or GAYNSFORD (c.1495-c.1590)
This Anne Gainsford was said by John Foxe, author of The Book of Martyrs. to be the daughter of John Gainsford of Crowhurst, Surrey. John Gainsford (c.1469-October 28, 1540) had six wives. Anne was the daughter of the second, Anne Hawte, and had one sister, Mary, whose birth date is given in genealogies as c.1495. If this is accurate, Anne was likely born within a year or two either way. Foxe further states, giving his source as John Lowthe, archdeacon of Nottingham, who had spent the early part of his career in the Zouche household, that Anne Gainsford, as yet unmarried, was a member of Anne Boleyn's household as early as 1528. She was in possession of her mistress's copy of William Tyndale's The Obedience of the Christian Man, a book deemed heretical by Cardinal Wolsey, when Anne Boleyn's equerry, George Zouche, who was courting Anne Gainsford, filched it. Having begun to read, he refused to return it, and he was caught by the dean of the Chapel Royal, who reported the matter to Wolsey. According to George Wyatt, who wrote the first biography of Anne Boleyn c.1590, Anne Gainsford herself recounted this incident to him. The story goes that around the time Anne Boleyn became queen, Anne Gainsford married George Zouche, who then became a gentleman pensioner to the king. Later, as Anne Zouche, Anne was obliged to testify against Queen Anne. George Zouche is identified as Sir George Zouche of Codnor (c.1494-1557). There is a great deal of confusion created by online genealogies. Some have George Zouche married to Anne Gainsford well before 1528 and taking a second wife in 1526. Others date their children’s births from 1523-1535 and have George remarry in 1536. It seems more likely that Anne was the second wife. Mary S. Lovell in her biography of Bess of Hardwick (Bess was raised in Lady Zouche's household at Codnor Castle) says that Anne Gainsford was a lady in waiting to both Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour before her marriage. This would place their marriage in 1536 or later. However, S. T. Bindoff, ed, in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1509-1558, in the entry for John Zouche (August 27, 1534-June 19, 1586), states that he was the first son of George and Anne. I tend to accept this as correct, and this probably makes Anne the mother of Eleanor (b.c.1537), Anthony, Henry, Sydney (d.1611+), Nicholas, Mary, David, Edmund, Gervaise, Thomas, and Bridget. Portrait: If the Holbein sketch of M. Souch at Windsor is not Mary Zouche, then it is probably Anne Gainsford.


MARY GAINSFORD (c.1495-before April 1556)
Mary Gainsford was the daughter of Sir John Gainsford of Crowhurst, Surrey (c.1464-October 28, 1540) and his second of six wives, Anne Hawte (b.c.1473). She married first Sir William Courtenay of Powderham, Devon (d. November 24, 1535) by whom she was the mother of Gertrude (1521-April 30, 1566), Philip, John, Katherine, Elizabeth, James, and Thomas. Her second husband, to whom she was married by 1537, was Sir Anthony Kingston (d. April 14, 1556). They had no children and were estranged by 1552. Kingston openly kept a mistress while Mary resided at Cudleigh, Devon. She appears to have died before Kingston was arrested and charged with treason for his part in the Stafford Plot. He died at Cirenchester en route to his trial.

ELIZABETH GALE (d. 1559)
Elizabeth Gale was the daughter of Thomas Gale (d.1540) and Elizabeth Wilkinson (d. 1546). Gale was a London merchant (a member of the Haberdasher’s Company). Elizabeth married Nicholas Wilford (d. 1551) of the Merchant Taylor’s Company. Their children were Thomas, William, Robert, Edmond, Elizabeth, Anne, Parnell, another Elizabeth, Grace, Martha, and Joyce. After Wilford’s death in an epidemic of the sweat, Elizabeth was active as an importer of cloth. She was also the only woman to invest in the Muscovy Company in her own right (without a spouse) and one of only two women out of the 201 founding members of that company in 1555. At the time of her death, her estate was valued in excess of £1000. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Wilford [née Gale], Elizabeth.”

THOMASINE GALLE

see THOMASINE BONAVENTURE

BARBARA GAMAGE (1562-May 1621)

Barbara Gamage was the daugher of John Gamage of Coity or Coety, Glamorganshire (d. September 8, 1584) and Gwenllian (or Catherine) Powell. At the time of her father’s death she was living in London at the home of her uncle, Sir Edward Stradling, who became her guardian. There was fierce competition for her hand in marriage, but on September 23, 1584, she married Robert Sidney (1563-1626), younger brother of Sir Philip Sidney. By one account, they wed only two hours before the arrival of a royal decree forbidding the match. However it began, the marriage was a successful one. Sidney wrote over three hundred letters to his wife between 1588 and 1621, revealing that they had a most affectionate relationship. The collection was published in 2005 as Domestic Policies and Family Absence: The Correspondence (1588-1621) of Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester and Barbara Gamage Sidney. Barbara probably accompanied her husband to the Netherlands in 1585-6. She was with him in Flushing in 1590, 1592, and 1597-8, when he was governor there. One of his letters, written in 1596 from the Netherlands, urges her to join him there and suggests that she leave their daughters with Lady Huntingdon and Lady Warwick. Sidney was created earl of Leicester in 1618. In all, Barbara had eleven children: William (c.1585-1613), Mary (October 18, 1587-c.1652), Katherine (b.1588), Henry, Philip, Elizabeth (b.1592), Robert (1595-1677), Barbara (b.1599), Dorothy, Philippa, and Bridget. She was buried at Penshurst, Kent on May 26, 1621. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Sidney [née Gamage], Barbara.” NOTE: the DNB gives Barbara’s birthdate as c.1559. Portraits: by Marcus Gheeraerts c. 1595; by Marcus Gheerearts with her children, c.1596. The group portrait shows Robert (seated) William (with the red hat), Barbara, Mary, Katherine, Elizabeth, and Philippa, but authorities differ on which girl is which. Barbara may be pregnant, possibly with her daughter Bridget, in this portrait.


MARGARET GAMAGE (1515-May 1, 1581)

Margaret Gamage was the daughter of Sir Thomas Gamage (c.1484-1515+) and Margaret St. John (b.c.1486). She was a maid of honor to Queen Anne Boleyn. She married William Howard (1510-January 21,1573), who was created Baron Howard of Effingham in 1554. According to one source, to celebrate their wedding, on June 29, 1533 in the chapel at Whitehall, King Henry VIII mounted a small battle on the Thames for entertainment. One man drowned and two more broke their legs while jousting. Since other sources give April 23, 1535 as the date of death of Katherine Broughton, first wife of William Howard, the 1533 date seems to be an error for 1535. According to Eric Ives in his biography of Anne Boleyn, it was during the late summer progress of 1535 that Lady Howard, one of Anne ladies who had not gone with the reduced court, was a ringleader in a demonstration at Greenwich in support of Mary Tudor. He says the matter was hushed up but that Lady Howard was sent to the Tower. This is highly speculative. The only evidence is a report by the Bishop of Tarbes to the Bailly of Troyes in October of 1535, which states that "citizens' wives and others, unknown to their husbands" protested Princess Mary's removal from Greenwich and some were placed in the Tower. A handwritten note in the margin says only "Millor de Rochesfort et Millord de Guillaume." Margaret was again at court at Easter 1536, when Lady Margaret Douglas confided in her that she had secretly agreed to marry Lord Thomas Howard. In November, Lady Margaret was sent to Syon and Lord Thomas to the Tower. Nothing appears to have been done to Lady William. Later, she was one of Queen Catherine Howard's ladies. When Catherine was arrested, both Margaret and her husband were arrested for misprision of treason. They were tried and found guilty of concealing her unchastity and later pardoned. Howard was Lord Chamberlain under both Mary and Elizabeth and Margaret was listed among the ladies of honor in 1558/9. In 1578/9, she took delivery of New Year's gifts for the queen. Her name is sometimes written as "Lady Haward." The Howard children, according to a variety of lists, were Charles (1536-December 14, 1624), Mary (d.August 21, 1600), William (c.1540-1609), Margaret (b.c.1544), Douglas (1545-December 11, 1608), Katherine (c.1546-1598), Edward (b.c. 1550), Henry (b.c.1552), Frances (c.1554-May 14, 1598), possibly a twin for Frances named Martha, Thomas (b.c.1556), Dorothy (b.c.1558), Anne (b.c.1560), Elizabeth (b.c.1562), and Richard (b.c.1564). Portraits: there was a portrait of Margaret Gamage, Lady Howard in the Pembroke collection in 1561.

ELLEN GARDINER
see ELLEN TUDOR

ELIZABETH GARDINER (d.1586+)
Elizabeth Gardiner was the daughter of William Gardiner of London and Grove Place, Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire (d. August 19, 1541), a wealthy grocer, and his second wife, Cecily. Upon the death of her brother William (1522-1558), according to his will, Elizabeth's care until her marriage was entrusted to another brother, John (c.1525-November 11, 1586). John himself did not marry until 1562. Elizabeth married John Dudley of Stoke Newington, Middlesex (d. December 29, 1580), a distant relative of the earl of Leicester and a former servant of the duke of Northumberland. They had one child, Anne (February 12, 1574/5-1590+). In a will made in 1580, John Gardiner left his sister Elizabeth his house and shop in Bridge Row.

ANNE GARGRAVE
see ANNE COTTON

ELIZABETH GARNEYS
see ELIZABETH SULYARD

JANE or JOAN GARNEYS (d. March 27, 1552) (maiden name unknown)
Lady Garneys was the wife of Sir Christopher Garneys/Garnish (c.1466-October 25, 1534), one of Henry VIII’s gentleman ushers from 1509 and knight porter of Calais from 1526-1534. They were married between 1490 and 1514, when "Sir Christopher Garneys of Kenton, Suffolk and Jane, his wife," were granted the manor of Wellington. They had no children, but Lady Garneys’ will, dated August 27, 1550 and proved May 12, 1552, names Arthur Dymoke as her son. The identity of his father is a mystery. According to Sir Thomas Palmer, who replaced Garneys as knight porter, Sir Christopher married a wealthy widow. Lady Garneys remained in Calais after her husband’s death and became friends with Honor Grenville, Lady Lisle, wife of the Lord Deputy. It was to Lady Garneys’ house in Greenwich that Honor first went when she was released from imprisonment in Calais and returned to England in 1542. By 1550, the reversion of the manor of Wellington was settled on Michael Garneys, Sir Christopher’s nephew and heir but later the same year he sold the reversion to Arthur Dymoke, probably the Arthur Dymoke who died in 1558. Lady Garneys was buried in Greenwich.

MARGARET GARNEYS (d. 1599)
Margaret Garneys was, according to the Oxford DNB entry for her first husband, the daughter of John Garneys of Kenton, Suffolk, but other accounts give her parents as Robert Garneys of Kenton (1478-1558 or c.1491-1556) and Anne Bacon (d.1557). She married Walter Devereux, viscount Hereford (c.1489-September 27, 1558) at some point after his first wife’s death on February 22, 1537/8. Although some genealogies give a 1539 date for their wedding, it is possible that Margaret was the Mistress Garneys who was a maid of honor to Queen Catherine Howard in 1540-1. Margaret was the mother of a son, Edward Devereux, and possibly a daughter, Katherine, although the latter is assigned by other genealogies to Devereux’s first wife, Mary Grey. Margaret took as her second husband William Willoughby, 1st baron Willoughby of Parham (c.1515-July 30, 1570), marrying him at some point after August 20, 1559. She had no children by Willoughby. She was buried July 21, 1599 at Stowe by Chartley, Staffordshire. Portrait: effigy on her husband’s tomb at Stowe by Chartley, Staffordshire.


ELIZABETH GARRETT

see ELIZABETH FITZGERALD

ELIZABETH GARTON (d.c.1623)

Elizabeth Garton was the daughter of Francis Garton of Billingshurst, Sussex, a prosperous landowner in Kent and Sussex who had connections to the Ironmongers’ Company in London. She married Clement Draper (c.1541-1620), a merchant who, through no fault of his own, spent a period from the early 1580s until at least 1593 in the King’s Bench prison for debt. During this time, for 4s. a day, prisoners could obtain permission to “go abroad.” Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter, also named Elizabeth, as a result of one of these furloughs. She was christened in the parish of All Hallow’s the Less on December 7, 1583. At least two other children, Sara and Vincent, followed. Deborah E. Harkness’s The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution contains the story of Elizabeth Garton and Clement Draper. Apparently Elizabeth was skilled at making both botanical and chemical medicines. Harkness gives considerable detail on the scientific experiments and teachings of both husband and wife.

AGNES GASCOIGNE (1459-August 1504)
Agnes Gascoigne was the daughter of Sir William Gascoigne of Gawthorp, Yorkshire (1426-1463) and Joan Neville of Oversley. She married Sir Robert Plumpton of Plumpton Hall, Yorkshire (1453-1525) on January 13, 1478. She probably had twelve children—Elizabeth, Clare, Magdalen, Dorothy, William (1485-July 11, 1547), Margaret, Jane, Anne, Eleanor, Marmaduke, Nigel, and Robert—although some genealogies give the youngest to Plumpton’s second wife, Isabel Neville. Agnes is known to us because of the collection known as the “Plumpton Correspondence,” containing some 250 Plumpton family letters written between 1461 and 1552. Much of the correspondence concerned a dispute over property ownership. When, at the end of 1502, Sir Robert was deprived of lands he’d held for the last twenty years, he wrote to Agnes, ordering her to “see that the manor and place of Plumpton be securely and steadfastly kept.” In accordance with his wishes, she played an active role in the defense of the land, aided by her son William. On July 16, 1503, King Henry VII, to whom Plumpton had been appointed a knight of the body in February, issued an injunction against the rival claimant. Agnes spent most of her life at Plumpton Hall, near Knaresborough in the West Riding, but she did visit London twice, the second time in February 1504. Several letters she wrote to her husband are included in the Plumpton Correspondence. It was Isabel, the second Lady Plumpton, however, not Agnes, who shared her husband’s imprisonment in the Counter in 1510. A second Agnes Gascoigne (d. July 1529) was abbess of Elstow Abbey.

ELIZABETH GASCOIGNE (c.1479-1559)
Elizabeth Gascoigne was the daughter of William Gascoigne of Gawthorpe (c.1443-March 12, 1487) and Margaret Percy. She married Sir George Talboys or Tailboys of Kyme, Lincolnshire (1467-1538) and was the mother of Gilbert, 1st baron Talboys (d.1530), John, Walter, William, Cecily, Elizabeth, Margaret, Maud, Dorothy, and Anne (c.1510-1577+). Her husband suffered from bouts of insanity as early as May 15, 1499, when Henry VII issued an order that he should be permitted to be under his own guardianship and that of his wife rather than be made a ward of the Crown. Talboys appears to have had lucid intervals. On January 18, 1513, he made a will in which he made Elizabeth his executrix, with others, and gave her the manors of Goltho, Thorpe, and Wainfleet, along with her jointure. He left their daughters five hundred marks each for marriage portions. Also in 1513, he granted Thomas Wolsey, then Dean of Lincoln, the right to manage his lands. In 1516, a commission was sent to investigate his sanity. They found he was neither a fool nor an idiot. At some point after 1523, probably in 1528, Elizabeth exchanged letters with Wolsey, by then Cardinal Wolsey, because her son, who had already been given numerous grants by Henry VIII upon his marriage to Elizabeth Blount, the mother of King Henry’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, was also to receive some of his father's properties. She writes from Goltho on the 11th day of June, complaining that "since the first visitation of my husband, I have lived, as God knoweth, with little comfort . . . and now, my husband being aged, . . . have not that should be necessary, and be compelled to break up house and scatter our children and servants—as surely, of necessity, my husband and I must do in [case] my said son should obtain this his said demand." In another letter, written from Goltho on April 1, 1529, she again complains of her son's efforts to seize Talboys properties, this time to her "cousin," Thomas Heneage, one of Cardinal Wolsey’s gentleman ushers. She sends him six fat oxen to present to Wolsey for Easter, no doubt in hope of winning Wolsey over to her side in the family dispute. During the years 1533-44, Elizabeth sued her brother for one of her daughter's dowries. According the Barbara J. Harris in "Sisterhood, Friendship and the Power of English Aristocratic Women" in Women and Politics in Early Modern England 1450-1700, edited by James Daybell, she claimed the money was part of her own unpaid marriage portion and that her father-in-law, Sir Robert Tailboys (Talboys), had bequeathed the unpaid part of her dowry to her daughter. This was not substantiated by his will. Elizabeth was buried in Lincoln Cathedral.

ELIZABETH GASCOIGNE

see ELIZABETH BACON; ELIZABETH PENNINGTON

MARGARET GASCOIGNE
see MARGARET CHOLMELEY; MARGARET SCARGILL

ANNE GATENBY (d.1600+)
Anne Gatenby was from Gatenby Yorkshire. She married Thomas Warcop (d. May 4, 1597), locksmith, escape artist, and recusant. He escaped from prison in 1585 but was hanged after he was caught in another raid in 1597. Anne was also arrested and was still in prison in 1600.

DOROTHY GATES (1512-1582)

Dorothy Gates was the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Gates of Great Garnetts, High Easter, Essex (1484-1526) and Elizabeth Clopton. In 1524 she married Sir Thomas Josselyn of Hyde Hall, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire and High Roding, Essex (1506/7-October 24,1562) and by him had the following children: Mary (c.1525-1561+), Richard (c.1526/7-September 1575), Thomas (c.1528-1561+), John (c.1529-December 28, 1603), Leonard (1530-before 1561), Jane (c.1532-before 1602), Henry (c.1538-1587), and Edward (1548-1627). Dorothy Josselyn may be the Mrs. Joscelyn who rode in the funeral procession of Queen Jane Seymour in 1537. She was definitely at court in the household of Queen Catherine Howard in 1540-2 and surviving correspondence with her brother, Sir John Gates (x.1553), indicates that the queen was not that easy to get along with. "I fear I shall scant content her Grace," Dorothy wrote on one occasion. N. P. Sil's Tudor Placemen and Statesmen quotes further correspondence between Dorothy and her brother and Sil identifies her as "probably a supplier of dresses" to Queen Katherine Parr. That she earned money with needlework seems confirmed by the same 1541 letter quoted above, in which she asks her brother to make her excuse to Mr. Denny "that I have sent his shirts no sooner" and refers to "the queen's work." In a letter to Gates in 1542, Dorothy's husband writes: "My wife sends you a simple bracelet, being sorry that she cannot send one of gold as easily as one of silk," implying that Dorothy did, in fact, work with silk. Dorothy regularly wrote other letters asking for favors from Sir John, who was influential during the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII and during the reign of Edward VI. In 1542, she also needed his help when her husband lost his post as keeper of Stansted Mountfitchet Park. This dispute pitted her against the 16th earl of Oxford. Gates did not have enough influence to force his brother-in-law's reinstatement. Barbara J. Harris, in English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550, identifies Thomas Josselin as an Essex landowner and says that Dorothy "managed her brother's affairs in Essex, while he acted as her advocate at court" and that Dorothy appears "more assertive and shrewder about business than her spouse." According to her, Dorothy was mainly interested in acquiring land and wardships. In 1544, she also helped her brother recruit soldiers for the war with France. At the time, she was pregnant. With the execution of Sir John and the beginning of Mary Tudor's reign, there is less of Dorothy in the records. Josselyn wrote his will October 1, 1562 and it was proved October 18, 1564. He left Dorothy, "my well beloved wife" "pearls and stones and all my jewles," plate, all the "household stuff" at Newhall, Essex, where they were living, all goods and chattels, and the lease of Brounso End. Dorothy and his son John were named co-excutors. She made her will June 10, 1579. It was not proved until February 18, 1582/3. She was buried at Sawbridge, Hertfordshire on July 2, 1582.

ELIZABETH GAWDY
see ELIZABETH CONINGSBY; ELIZABETH HARRIS

ANNE GAYNESFORD
see ANNE DEVEREUX

CATHERINE GEDDING (d. 1557)
Catherine Gedding was the daughter and coheir of Thomas Gedding of Norfolk and was herself said to be from Lackford, Suffolk. She married John Hall of Northall, Shropshire (d. February 22, 1528), a grocer and merchant of the staple. and was the mother of Edward Hall (1496/7-1547), the historian, and William (d.1548+). Several of Edward's books were prohibited by the state under Mary Tudor. Catherine was famous in her own right as a reformer. She was imprisoned in Newgate for her faith in 1555 and several co-religionists who became martyrs wrote letters to her before their deaths. Joan Trelake (d. February 8, 1573), widow of Sir Ralph Warren, was named supervisor of Catherine's will.

MARGARET GEDDYNGE (d.1521+)
Margaret Geddynge or Gedding may have been the daughter of Nicholas Gedding, receiver general to the 2nd duke of Buckingham in 1473 and a subreceiver for Norfolk for the dowager duchess in 1495. Margaret was a waiting woman to Eleanor Percy, Duchess of Buckingham and mistress of the nursery at Thornbury in 1499/1500. In 1502/3 she received an annuity of £6 13s. 4d. from the duke and received gifts from the wardrobe accounts and, in 1519, a New Year's gift of £13 6s. 8d. "and to her myder (mother?), 40s." In late 1518, she was paid £15 "toward the burying of my said cousin," Elizabeth Kynvett, a fellow waiting gentlewoman at Thornbury. In 1520, she was discharged from the duchess's service. In November 1520, her name comes up in connection with Charles Knyvett, another of the duke's household, and it is possible that one or both of them were involved in a conspiracy that eventually led to the duke's arrest and execution for treason. The duke received a message from her on January 4, 1521 and by March 26, she was back in his household. At the time of the duke's execution, Margaret held the farm of demesne lands in Eastington and Gilkerton (Alkerton), Gloucestershire. It has been suggested that Margaret Geddynge was Buckingham's mistress and the mother of one or more of his illegitimate children. There were three of them he acknowledged, a daughter, Margaret (c.1511-x. May 25, 1537), and two sons, Henry and George.

HESTER GENTILLI
see HESTER DE PEIGNE

SARA GHEERAERTS (1575-c.1605)

Sara Gheeraerts was the daughter of Marcus Gheeraerts the elder (c.1520-c.1590) by his second wife, Susanna de Critz. Sara was the niece of artist John de Critz. Her aunt, Magdelena, married Marcus Gheeraerts the younger (c.1561-1636), Sara’s half brother, who became an even more famous artist than his father. Sara married yet another artist, Isaac Oliver (d. 1617), in February of 1602, and was once thought to be the subject of a portrait of his wife. Based on the clothing the subject wears, experts now think it more likely the portrait was painted c. 1615, making its subject Oliver's third wife, Elizabeth Harding. Sara had died by 1606 when Oliver's marriage to Elizabeth took place.

ELIZABETH GIBBS (d. August 30, 1518)
Elizabeth Gibbs was a nun at the Bridgettine abbey of Syon in Isleworth. In 1492, she brought one of the monastery’s legal claims before Margaret Beaufort and she was able to win royal support for some of her other causes. From 1497 until 1518, she was abbess of Syon. During her tenure she did much to advance learning in the abbey. Among other things, she asked a Carthusian at Sheen, William Darker, to make an English translation of Thomas à Kempis's Musica ecclesiastica. She often gave away the prayer beads associated with the nunnery—two black, two white and one red, to be said with a special prayer. The pardon evoked with these beads could be obtained anywhere one prayed, making them very popular. Woodcuts of St. Bridget were also used by early printers to promote the monastery and although this practice did not begin until the year after Elizabeth's death, it seems likely she had a hand in establishing it. It is the opinion of Rebecca King, in Reading Familes: Women's Literate Practice in Late Medieval England , that Elizabeth was "a remarkable administrator who worked ceaselessly for the monastery."

AVISE GIBSON
see AVISE MORTELMAN

ELIZABETH GIFFARD (d. before 1557)
Elizabeth Giffard was the daughter of Sir Thomas Giffard of Chillington, Staffordshire (d. May 27, 1560) and Dorothy Montgomery (d. by 1529). In 1531, she married Sir John Port (before 1510-July 6, 1557) and was the mother of Walter (d. yng), Thomas (d. yng.), Elizabeth, Dorothy (d. September 2, 1607), and Margaret (d.1613). Portrait: memorial brass in Etwall, Derbyshire.


FRANCES GIFFARD (1522-December 1574)
Frances Giffard married Sir John Talbot of Albrighton and Grafton, Worcestershire (1519-June 6, 1555) in 1540 and had by him one child, a daughter named Jane (c.1541-1565). Frances was accused of mishandling Jane’s inheritance by Francis Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury but he could not prove that she had deprived her daughter of 1000 marks of her father’s goods, promised to her for a dowry. Frances’s brother took her side in the dispute. When Jane was married to Sir George Bowes (1527-1580) in 1558, a marriage arranged by Shrewsbury, Bowes complained of the smallness of her dowry, so there may have been some truth to the claim. Jane’s branch of the Talbot family descended from Sir Gilbert Talbot (d.1517), an uncle of the 4th earl, and this was, according to G. W. Bernard’s The Power of the Tudor Nobility: A Study of the Fourth and Fifth Earls of Shrewsbury, a rare instance where the earl interfered in the affairs of the cadet branch of the family.

MARY GIFFARD (d. 1609)
Mary Giffard was the daughter of Sir John Giffard of Itchell, Hampshire and Weston-under-Edge, Gloucestershire (d. May 1, 1563) and Elizabeth Throckmorton (d.1563+). In about 1572, she married Sir Richard Baker of Sissinghurst and Cranbrook, Kent (c.1530-1594), as his second wife. They had two daughters, Chrysogena (d. September 1616), who was named after Mary's sister and Cecily (d. December 21, 1619). Early in 1595, apparently after telling Queen Elizabeth that he had no intention of remarrying after the death of his first wife, Richard Fletcher, bishop of London (1544/5-1596) wed the widowed Lady Baker. The two probably first met during the years 1572-1574, when Fletcher was in Cranbrook assisting his father, who was vicar there. The queen was furious when she heard of the marriage and Fletcher was suspended on February 23, 1595. On April 15, after the queen was told that Mary had spoken insolently about her, Fletcher was replaced as almoner for Maundy Thursday services. He was restored to his duties, however, by mid-July. According to the Oxford DNB entry on Fletcher, Mary had a "dubious reputation" and "scurrilous verses and anecdotes" were circulated about her. During the short time Mary was married to Fletcher they lived in his private residence in Chelsea with some of his eight children by his first wife. Fletcher died deep in debt. The following year, 1597, Mary took a third husband, Sir Stephen Thornehurst/Thornhurst of Agnes Court, Kent (1550-October 1616), Keeper of Foorde Palace. She was his second wife. He had at least one son by his first wife. Mary was buried on April 26, 1609 in St. Mathew's Chapel at Canterbury. The monument to her and her third husband does not mention her marriage to the Bishop of London.

FRIDESMUND GIFFORD (d. April 8, 1581)
Fridesmund (Fridismund/Fredesmund) Gifford was the daughter of Ralph Gifford of Steeple Claydon, Buckinghamshire (d.1555/6) and Mary Chamberlain. In 1559 or 1560, she married Richard Barnes (d. August 24, 1587), who on July 12, 1561 becmae prebendary of York. In 1567 he was bishop of Nottingham, in 1570 bishop of Carlisle, and in 1577 bishop of Durham. They had nine children: Emmanuel, Walter, Elizabeth, John, Barnabe (1571-1609), Mary, Timothy, Margaret, and Anne. They had a luxurious life style, spending upwards of £1000 on repairs at Auckland, Stockton, and Durham Castle, all used as residences. Fridesmund was buried at Auckland, where her memorial brass proclaims, in Latin, that she was chaste, faithful, and victorious. Portrait: memorial brass.

PHILIPPA GIFFORD
see PHILIPPA TRAPPES

MARGARET GIGS or GIGGS (1509-July 6,1570)

Margaret Gigs’s parents are unknown, other than that her father was a Norfolk gentleman and her mother may have been Margaret More's nurse. She was the ward/adopted daughter of Sir Thomas More (1487-1535) and raised and educated with his daughters. Her scholarship was said to surpass even that of Margaret More and she was especially skilled in algebra and in medical lore. In 1526, she married Dr. John Clement (c.1500-1572), who was also a member of the More household. They had eleven children, including Winifred (1527-July 17,1553), Thomas, Bridget, Helen, Dorothy, and Margaret (1540-1612). In 1535, Margaret Clement accompanied Margaret More to Tower Wharf to receive her father’s blessing and following his execution helped her retrieve his body and bury him. In October 1549, seeking religious freedom, Margaret, her husband, and their children went into exile in Louvain. They returned to England in 1554 but left again in early 1563. Margaret died in Mechlin and was buried in the church of St. Rumbald. Biography: Oxford DNB entry under "Clement [Clements; née Giggs], Margaret." Portraits: Holbein sketch c.1527 (mislabeled “Mistress Iak”); More family portraits.


ISABEL GIL de AVILES (d.1588+)
Doña Isabel Gil de Aviles was a Spanish lady married to an English merchant named Simon Borman. Borman, a Catholic who had been in the Spanish trade, was nevertheless trusted, along with John Naunton, with housing a Portuguese prisoner of war, Francisco de Valverde, and a Spaniard, Pedro de Santa Cruz. Doña Isabel was apparently extremely anti-semitic and had made a point of spying on, and even pretending to befriend, members of the Marrano (Jews who had supposedly converted to Christianity) community in London. She believed they were conspiring against Spain and when the prisoners were released in the spring of 1588 and were about to return home, she reportedly said to Santa Cruz, "May you have a bad journey and may the curse of God fall upon you if you reach Spain in safety and do not denounce Jeronimo Pardo and Bernaldo Luis, for they are traitors and have sold Spain." According to the account in Lucien Wolf's "Jews in Elizabethan England" (The Jewish Historical Society of England, Vol. XI, p. 6), Santa Cruz and Valverde sent this information to the Spanish ambassador in Paris who sent the letter on to King Philip. By the time the two former prisoners returned home, Pardo and Luis were in prison.

ISABEL GILBERT
see ISABEL REYNARD

KATHERINE GILBERT
see KATHERINE CHAMPERNOWNE

EULALIA GLANFIELD (x.1591)
According to John Bellamy's Strange, Unnatural Deaths: Murder in Tudor England, Eulalia Glanfield was the notorious Mrs. Page, daughter of a merchant of Tavistock, Devon, who murdered her husband. Eulalia expected to marry George Strangwich or Strangwidge, who took over her father's business when he retired. Instead, her parents forced her to wed Thomas Page, a widower from Plymouth. During the next year, Eulalia tried several times to poison Mr. Page but he survived. Next, she and Strangwich, persuaded two of her servants, Priddis and Stone, to kill Page for money. On February 11, 1591. Eulalia had just given birth to a premature child and kept to her chamber. This was apparently the second child she had lost. Page was in his own room and it was there that the murderers assaulted him and broke his neck. Once he was dead, Mrs. Page sent Priddis to summon her father and also sent for Page's sister, Mrs. Harris. She pretended that her husband had died of the disease known as “the Pull,” but Mrs. Harris was suspicious and sent for the authorities, who arrested Priddis. Eventually, the whole story came out and Priddis, Stone, Strangwich, and Mrs. Page were all executed.

MARGERY GLYNTON (d.1556+) (maiden name unknown)
Margery Glynton was the second wife of Edward Glynton or Glympton of Oxford (d.1556). Her husband was a wealthy man who owned several houses in Oxford and a farm. They lived in a house just outside the north gate of the city. She appears to have been married before, as Glynton's will (written June 7, 1554 and proved October 16, 1556) mentions her daughters as well as his. In this will, Margery's three stepdaughters inherited their father's property in Oxford and the eldest, Elizabeth, was named executor. Margery was instructed, upon his death, to "take her raiment" and go directly to the farm she was to inherit and not to "meddle" with anything at the house where they had been dwelling.

MARY GODOLPHIN
see MARY GRIFFTH

AGNES GODSALVE
see AGNES WIDMERPOLE

ELIZABETH GOLDING

see ELIZABETH ROYDON

MARGERY GOLDING (1525-December 2, 1568)

Margery Golding was the daughter of John Golding of Halstead and Paul's Hall, Belchamp St. Paul, Essex (c.1498-November 28,1547), and his first wife, Elizabeth Tonge, Towe, or Tough (d. November 27, 1527). On August 2, 1548 she became the second wife of John de Vere, 16th earl of Oxford (1512-August 3, 1562). He was a widower with one daughter, Katherine. Later, when she was Lady Windsor, Katherine claimed that the marriage was bigamous because her father had been betrothed to her lady in waiting, Dorothy Fosser of Haverhill, Suffolk. Although Oxford's history with the ladies was somewhat scandalous (see the entry for Joan Jockey), and the banns for his marriage to Dorothy Fosser had been read twice, his wedding to Margery was apparently legal. The case was thrown out of court. Margery had two children by Oxford, Edward, 17th earl (April 12, 1550-June 24, 1604) and Mary (1554-June 24, 1624). Margery was at court as a lady in waiting to the queen from 1559 to 1561 and entertained Queen Elizabeth at Castle Hedingham, Essex in 1561. Shortly after her husband's death, she married Sir Charles Tyrrell (d.1570), one of the queen's gentleman pensioners and Margery's reputed lover. A letter is extant from Margery to Sir William Cecil, dated October 11, 1563, in which she thanks him for his care of her son (Oxford was his ward). She was also writing to request his help in obtaining the grain her household at Colne Priory had been promised as rent. Th text can be found at Oxford-Shakespeare.com, as can the text of another letter to Cecil dated May 5, 1565. In that one, she asks that she receive a portion of her son's inheritance to oversee. Her request was denied. Also at this URL is a list of her jointure lands, valued at £444 15s in 1564. They included eighteen manors and two tenements in Chambridgeshire, Cheshire, Essex, Northamptonshire, and Warwickshire. Biography: There is no study of Margery Golding, but her son's biographers tend to speculate about her. Apparently her son never mentioned her in any of his surviving letters. Then again, after his father's death, his wardship was sold and he probably did not see a great deal of her. Portrait: there is no known portrait, but there is a brass depicting Margery, countess of Oxford on her mother's tomb in Belchamp St. Paul.

MARGARET GOLDSMITH (before 1491-1555+)
Margaret Goldsmith was installed as prioress of the Benedictine nunnery of St. Mary Wallingwells, near Worksop, Northamptonshire, on January 22, 1521. She paid £66 13s. 4d. for exemption from the 1536 act to dissolve religious houses. Wallingwells had an annual income of only £58 2s. 10d. In June 1537, she attempted to reach a private agreement with a wealthy layman to lease all the nunnery’s possessions for twenty-one years in return for the use of the convent buildings, thinking this would allow her and the eight nuns at Wallingwells to outlast King Henry VIII’s attempt to dissolve religious houses. As J. J. Scarisbrick’s The Reformation and the English People points out, it was remarkable that this was even attempted. The attempt failed, of course, and Margaret surrendered the nunnery to the Crown on December 14, 1539. She received a pension of £6. Her subprioress, Anne Roden, and one of the nuns, Elizabeth Kirkby, received 53s. 4d. each, and the remaining six nuns, including Agnes Fynes, Ellen Pye, and Alice Coventry, received 40s. each.

JOAN GOLDSTON (d.1579) (maiden name unknown)
Joan was the widow of a man named Chambers when she married Richard Goldston (d.1575), a Gloucester carpenter whose first wife had died in 1558. She had a son, Roger Chambers (d. before 1579), from her first marriage. When she died, Joan left £13 for the repair of Maisemore Bridge and £20 to provide coal and wood for fuel for St. Bartholomew's Hospital. She was buried in the churchyard of St. Owen's church. Portrait: unknown date; unknown artist.


THOMASINE GONSON (1564-1605+)
Thomasine Gonson was one of fourteen children of Benjamin Gonson (c.1525-1577), Treasurer of the Navy, and Ursula Hussey (c.1528-1586). She was the only one born in the Queen's house at Deptford and baptized in the local church there. Her siblings were all born in the parish of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, where the family lived in Tower Street. One of them, Katherine (b.1549), married John Hawkins on January 20, 1567. Thomasine married first, between 1578 and 1582, Edward Fenton (d.1603), a soldier and sea captain. They had no children. Her second husband was Christopher Browne of Saye's Court, Deptford (d.1645), by whom was the mother of Sir Richard Browne, 1st Baronet of Deptford (May 6, 1605-February 12, 1683). Portrait: 1590 by Hieronimo Custodis.


JEANNE de GONTAUT (c.1520-September 26, 1586)
Jeanne de Gontaut was the daughter of Raymond de Gontaut and Françoise de Bonnafos and the wife of Antoine de Noailles (September 4, 1504-March 11, 1562), French Ambassador to England from 1553-1556. Their marriage contract was signed on May 31, 1540, after four years of courtship. Jeanne’s father had other plans for her, but twelve lettres de cachet from King Francis I finally persuaded him to agree to the match. They had eight children, including Marie (b.1543),Françoise (b.1548), Marthe (b. 1552), Henri (b. July 5, 1554), and another Françoise (b.1556). Jeanne had little to do with her husband’s career, but she was in England with him and while there paid several visits to Queen Mary. The queen was godmother to Jeanne’s first son, Henri, naming him after Henry VIII. She appointed the countess of Surrey to act as her proxy and chose the godfathers—the earl of Arundel and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. The christening took place on July 22, 1554. Jeanne was pregnant again at the time she and her husband left England in June 1556. A number of her letters are still extant. After her husband’s death, Jeanne became a lady-in-waiting to Catherine de’ Medici. Biography: R. J. Kalas, “The noble widow’s place in the patriarchal household: the life and career of Jeanne de Gontaut,” Sixteenth-Century Journal, 24 (1993).

ANNE GOODIER (c.1531-1560+)
Anne Goodier (Goodere/Goodyere) was the daughter of Thomas Goodier of Hadley, Hertfordshire and Margaret Sanders. Her first husband was John Cock or Coke of Broxbourne, Kent (d. September 6, 1557). They married by 1538 and had three sons, including Henry, and two daughters and she was pregnant when he died. Cock was a wealthy lawyer with a house in St. John's Street, London in 1554. At his death, he owned five manors and other lands in Hertfordshire, land at Clavering, Essex, and a manor in Anglesey. He made his will on July 4, 1553, leaving 1/3 of all his freehold property to his wife for life plus his leasehold land in Wormley and elsewhere. The will was proved in May 1558. By April 1, 1560, Anne had married Sir George Penruddocke of Ivy Church and Compton Chamberlayne, Wiltshire (d. July 8, 1581) as his second wife. Portrait: 1551, possibly by Hans Eworth


DOROTHY GOODRICH

see DOROTHY BADBY

ALICE GOODRIDGE
see ALICE WRIGHT

ELLYN GOODWIN
see ELLYN BLOUNT

MARY GOOGE
see MARY DARRELL

CATHERINE GORDON (c.1474-October 14, 1537)

Lady Catherine Gordon was the daughter of George Gordon, 2nd earl of Huntley (d.1502) by his third wife, Elizabeth Hay. She was not, as so many accounts claim, the daughter of Huntley's second wife, Princess Annabella (daughter of King James I of Scotland). Huntley divorced Annabella in 1471. Lady Catherine was, however, in about January 1496, married to Perkin Warbeck (x. November 23, 1499) by command of James IV of Scotland as part of the attempt to overthrow Henry VII. Warbeck was an imposter, claiming to be Richard, the younger son of Edward IV, and to have a better claim to the English throne than Henry did. Lady Catherine ended up as a prisoner of the English king in 1497. There is mention of her having children, at least one a son. Neither their names nor their fates are known, although a Welsh chronicle does claim that one Richard Perkins was her son by Richard of York. Catherine had no children with her when she was placed in Elizabeth of York's household. There she became a favored lady-in-waiting. She was an honored guest at the wedding of Margaret Tudor to King James in 1503 and, shortly before Henry VIII became king, she received several grants of land in Berkshire. She is probably the "Lady Katherine" who received a reward of £40 in July 1509 and definitely the "Lady Kath. Gourdon" paid a half year's wages of £33 6s. 8d. in June 1510, indicating that she was one of Catherine of Aragon's ladies in 1509-1510. In 1510 (Wendy Moorhen estimates between February and June 1511 but no later than November 1512) she married James Strangeways (c.1470-1516), a gentleman usher of the king's chamber. In his will, written on November 30, 1516 and proved January 9, 1517, he left most of his estate to his "dear beloved wife." In July 1517, Catherine married Matthew Craddock (by 1460-1531), a Welshman. According to David Loades's biography of Mary Tudor, Catherine Gordon was chief lady of the princess's privy chamber from August 1525 until around 1530. Matthew Craddock made his will in January 1529 and added a codicil on June 14, 1531. He was buried in St. Anne's Chapel in the parish church of Swansea, where his tomb bore his effigy and Catherine's. It was badly damaged during World War II. He named Catherine his executor and left her, among other things, the 500 marks promised her upon their marriage. Catherine's last husband was Christopher Ashton or Assheton (1493-1561+), a gentleman usher of the chamber. They married before January 1536. Ashton had at least two young children from an earlier marriage. In her will, made on April 12, 1537, Catherine made no reference to her first husband or to any children. She called herself the "sometime wife" of James Strangeways and characterized Craddock as her "dear and well beloved husband" and Ashton as "beloved husband." She left clothing to her "cousin" Margaret Kyme (daughter of Cecily Plantagenet), to her servant, Philippa Huls, and to her "sister" Alice Smyth, possibly either Craddock's sister or Ashton's. Catherine spent the last six years of her life in Fyfield, Berkshire, where she was frequently seen riding her horse around the parish. She was buried at Fyfield, Berkshire, althought the tomb with her effigy was in Swansea. Biography: Wendy E. A. Moorhen, "Four Weddings and a Conspiracy," Parts 1-3, The Ricardian (2002).

MARGERY GORE
see MARGERY PERCY

DOUGLAS GORGES
see DOUGLAS HOWARD

HELENA GORGES

see HELENA VON SNAKENBORG

MARY GORGES
see MARY SOUTHWELL

ANNE GOULDSMITH (d. before March 31, 1604)
Anne Gouldsmith was the daughter of Francis Gouldsmith of Crayford, Kent. In about 1576, she married William Lewin (d. April 5, 1598) and was the mother of at least ten children, including Thomas, Justinian (1586-June 28, 1620), Anne (d.1645), Catherine, Judith (1590-1625), and John. Gabriel Harvey celebrated her beauty in his dedication to her husband of Ciceronianus (1577). She was executor of Lewin’s will. Portrait: marble effigy at Herden, Kent.

ALICE GRANT (d. May 1614)
Alice Grant was the daughter of Christopher Grant of Manchester. Her first husband was John Dent, alderman of London, by whom she had two daughters, one of them named Elizabeth. In 1596 she married Sir Julius Adelmare (1558-August 18, 1636), better known as Sir Julius Caesar. Their children were John (b. 1597), Thomas (b.1600), and Robert (b.1602). They entertained the queen at Mitcham, Surrey on September 12, 1598. She was buried in St. Helen's, Bishopsgate. Portrait: painted during one of her pregnancies.


ISABELLA GRAUNT (1474-1558)
Isabella Graunt was the fourth daughter of Walter Graunt of Snitterfield, Warwickshire and Elizabeth Ruding. She married Sir John Spencer of Hodnell, Warwickshire (c.1470-April 14, 1522). Their children William (c.1496-June 22, 1532), Jane, Dorothy, Anthony, and Isabel. Portrait: tomb effigy at Great Brington, Northamptonshire.


ELIZABETH GREEN or GRENE (d.1527)
Elizabeth Green was elected abbess of Barking in 1499 by thirty-three nuns. In 1520, her sister, Beatrice Tynggelden/Tingleden was living as a lay sister at Barking when she made her will. Elizabeth was the godmother of Frances Fitzlewis, Lady West, who sued her for the return of jewelry bequeathed to Frances by her mother, Elizabeth Shelton (d.1523) but left in the custody of Abbess Green, who had apparently failed to return it.

MAUD GREEN (1492-December 1, 1531)

Matilda Green, always known as Maud, was the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Thomas Green of Boughton and Green’s Norton, Northamptonshire (d.1506) and Jane or Joan Fogge. She was a ward of the crown before she married Sir Thomas Parr (d.November 1517) of Kendal, Westmorland in 1508. They had three children, Katherine (c.1512-September 5,1548), William (August 14, 1513-October 28,1571) and Anne (c.1515-February 20,1552). She was at court as a lady of the privy chamber to Catherine of Aragon. She was actively involved in arranging marriages for her two oldest children, and saw to it that all three were well educated along the same lines as Sir Thomas More’s daughters. Some accounts say her daughter Katherine, later Henry VIII’s sixth queen, was raised with the Queen Catherine’s daughter, Mary Tudor, but one of Katherine Parr’s most recent biographers, Susan E. James, disputes this. Maud Parr was buried with her husband in Blackfriars, London, where they had a house. In her will, written on May 20, 1529 and proved December 14, 1531, she presents herself as deeply in debt from arranging her son's marriage to Anne Bourchier and her daughter's marriage to Lord Burgh's son. She enumerated numerous bequests of jewelry and household goods and left £40 each to two cousins, Alice Cruse and Elizabeth Odell.

EDITH GREENE
see EDITH LATIMER

ELIZABETH GRENVILLE
see ELIZABETH WILLOUGHBY

HONOR GRENVILLE (c.1494-April 1566)

Honor Grenville was the daughter of Sir Thomas Grenville of Stow (d.1514) and Isabella Gilbert (d.c.1502). In 1515 she married Sir John Bassett of Umberleigh (1462-January 31, 1528) and by him had three sons: John (1518-1541), George (c.1525-1580), and James (1527-1558), and four daughters: Philippa (c.1516-1582), Catherine (c.1517-1558+), Anne (c.1521-before June 7, 1557), and Mary (c.1522-May 1598). After his death she married Arthur Plantagenet, viscount Lisle (c.1464-1542), an illegitimate son of Edward IV. He was a widower with three daughters, Frances, Elizabeth, and Bridget. The eldest, Frances, married Honor's son John in 1538. In 1532, Honor Lisle was one of the "six beautiful ladies" who accompanied Anne Boleyn to Calais to meet King Francis I and in June 1533 the entire family settled there when Lisle was appointed Lord Deputy. The correspondence between Calais and England, much of it Lady Lisle's, has been preserved and edited in six volumes by M. St. Clare Byrne as The Lisle Letters. In 1540, Lisle was arrested and charged with treason. Honor and her daughters Philippa and Mary were held under house arrest, in part because Mary had been hiding a secret betrothal to a Frenchman, something for which she needed the king's permission. Lisle's complicity in the schemes of his chaplain, Gregory Botolph, could not be proven and in March 1542, he was told he would be set free. Unfortunately, the shock of this news was too much for him and he died that same night. Honor returned to England and lived in obscurity in the West Country until her death. Some accounts had her running mad with grief, but in 1547, she is recorded as selling property at Frithelstoke, so do doubt she was managing her own affairs. She was buried in Illogan Church on April 30, 1566. Biography: M. St. Clare Byrne's The Lisle Letters; A. L. Rowse's "Honor Grenville, Lady Lisle, and her Circle," in Court and Country: Studies in Tudor Social History. Portrait: Monumental brass of Sir John Bassett and his two wives, Church of St. Mary, Atherington, Devonshire.


MARY GRENVILLE
see MARY ST. LEGER

ANNE GRESHAM

see ANNE FERNLEY

ANNE GRESHAM (c.1549-1594)
Anne Gresham was the illegitimate daughter of Sir Thomas Gresham (c.1518-November 21, 1579). There are contradictory stories about her origins, although everyone agrees that her mother was married off to Thomas Dutton, Gresham’s factor in Antwerp and Hamburg, since Gresham himself was already married to Anne Fernley (1521-November 23, 1596). Gresham lived primarily in Anthwerp until 1551 and did not leave there for good until March 1567. Some accounts have Anne raised by her father and his wife. Others say she grew up in the Dutton household. No one is clear about her mother’s identity except that she was a servant, possibly a “Netherlander,” in Gresham’s household. Her name is given as Anne in some accounts, Winifred in others, and simply “Mistress Dutton” in others. Like Gresham, Dutton lived mostly abroad during Anne’s childhood, but he did have a house at Isleworth, on or near Gresham’s estate at Osterley. Diarmaid MacCulloch, in his essay “A First Stirring of Suffolk Architecture” in East Anglia’s History, says that Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1546-November 1622) fell in love with Anne Gresham and that by late July 1569 she had been naturalized, they’d been issued a special license to marry without banns, and had married. Other sources, however, give the date of their marriage as June 29, 1569. Lisa Jardine and Alan Stewart in Hostage to Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon say that Nathaniel then sent his bride to his stepmother, Anne Cooke Bacon, to be schooled with Nathaniel’s half brothers, Anthony and Francis Bacon, at Gorhambury. The book gives documentary evidence for this. Nathaniel certainly had occasion to meet Anne Gresham. His mother, Jane Fernley (d. 1552), and Thomas Gresham’s wife were sisters. By Nathaniel Bacon, Anne was the mother of Anne (1573-1622), Elizabeth (1575-1632), Nicholas (d. yng), and Winifred (1578-1614+). Her sudden death shortly after her eldest daughter Anne’s marriage to John Townshend in December 1593 created problems over the marriage settlement, since it was likely the widower would remarry. Should he then have a son, Anne Bacon Townshend stood to lose most of her rich inheritance.

CECILY GRESHAM (February 12, 1525-January 10, 1608/9)

Cecily Gresham was the daughter of Sir John Gresham (1492-October 23, 1556) and his first wife, Mary Ipswell (d. before 1553), and a cousin Sir Thomas Gresham of Royal Exchange fame. She married a Spanish merchant living in London, variously called Jermyn Cyoll, Germain Cioll, Germayne Sciol, and Jarman Sewel or Sewell (d.1587+), but she had a successful career of her own as a moneylender. After 1558, Cyoll and his wife lived in Crosby Place, the London mansion formerly occupied by Sir Thomas More. Cecily was known for her charitable works in the parish, including giving bread to the poor every Sunday.

CHRISTIAN GRESHAM (d. before 1566)
Christian or Christiana Gresham was the daughter of Sir Richard Gresham (c.1485-1549), a mercer and stapler who was Lord Mayor of London in 1537/8, and his first wife, Audrey Lynne (d. December 28, 1522). Her father had remarried by 1532 to a widow, Isabella Taverson (née Worpfall; d. April 1, 1565), who brought daughters of her own into the household in Milk Street. Christian married Sir John Thynne of Longleat (1512/13-May 21, 1580), steward to the duke of Somerset, in January 1549. After their father's death, Christian's unmarried sister Elizabeth lived part of the time with their stepmother and part with the Thynnes in their London home. She died there on March 26, 1552 and, because they "hath been very good unto me this four years," she left them all her possessions. In June 1558, in a letter to Sir John, Christian was invited by their neighbor, Sir William Sharington of Lacock, Wiltshire (about fifteen miles from Longleat) to visit him there. He referred to her as his "gossip." Sir John and Christian Thynne were the parents of John (c.1551-November 21, 1604), Dorothy (d.1592), Anne, Francis, Thomas, Elizabeth, Catherine, Frances, and Maria.

ISABEL GRESHAM
see ISABEL WARSOP

ANNE GREVILLE

see ANNE REDE

JANE GREVILLE
see JANE or JOAN ORMOND

JOAN GREVILLE
see JOAN BROMLEY

THOMASINE GREVILLE
see THOMASINE PETRE

LADY ANNE GREY

The name Lady Anne Grey is a source of considerable confusion in sixteenth-century England. Several reputable accounts make reference to Anne Grey, eighth daughter of the first Marquis of Dorset. There was no such person. See the entry under ANNE JERNINGHAM.

ANNE GREY

see ANNE BARLEE; ANNE BRANDON; ANNE WOODVILLE

ANNE GREY (1493-1543)

Anne Grey was the daughter of George Grey, 2nd earl of Kent (before 1454-December 25,1503) and Katherine Herbert (c.1464-c.1504). By 1509, she was the second wife of John, Baron Hussey of Sleaford, Lincolnshire (1466-xJune 29,1537). Their children were Sir Giles, Thomas (d. bet. 1572 and 1576), Elizabeth (c.1510-January 23, 1554), Bridget (c.1514-January 12,1601), Agnes or Anne (d.1572+), Dorothy, and Mary. Lady Hussey supported Catherine of Aragon in the matter of King Henry’s divorce and was implicated in the matter of Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, in 1533, when she was listed as one of the princess's ladies in waiting. That household was dissolved at the end of October that same year. Anne refused to take the oath to support royal supremacy. When she visited Catherine’s daughter, then known as the Lady Mary, on June 5, 1536, she persisted in referring to her by the title of princess, which had been forbidden by the Act of Succession in 1534. Shortly thereafter, she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, where she was reported to be "very sick" at the beginning of July. On August 3, she was examined by Sir Edmund Walsingham and claimed that she had erred "by inadvertence" when she called for "drink for the Princess" and later told someone that "the Princess" had gone walking. She was released and was back at Sleaford by October. When the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace began, Lord Hussey fled, leaving Lady Hussey behind. When some 500 rebels descended upon Sleaford on October 7th and threatened to burn it down, she promised she would bring her husband back to join them. Hussey, when questioned about this later, said she'd been a fool to make such a promise. In spite of his best efforts the authorities did not believe him innocent of involvement in the uprising. It didn't help that Lady Hussey, in his absence, had also provided the rebels with meat, drink, and money. He was sent to the Tower after the uprising failed. While he awaited trial, she set up housekeeping at Limehouse and was allowed to visit him. On one such visit, he repeated details of an examination of Lord Darcy that he had been permitted to sit in on. Lady Hussey passed this information on to her servant, Catherine Cresswell, who told her husband, Percival Cresswell, who repeated some of Darcy's responses to others, prompting a new investigation by the authorities into who had leaked sensitive information. There is no record, however, of Lady Hussey being questioned, let alone arrested. After Hussey was attainted and executed, his lands and goods were seized and his title forfeit, leaving the family in poverty. The aristocratic widows of traitors were usually provided with a pension, but she was turned out of Sleaford and went to Ufford, Northamptonshire,where she was living on May 27, 1539. She made her will on March 1, 1543 and died by April 14, although the will was not probated until February 11, 1545/6.

ANNE GREY (1514-January 1548)

Anne Grey was the youngest daughter of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquis of Dorset (1477-1530) and Margaret Wotton (1487-1541). She married Sir Henry Willoughby of Wollaton (1510-August 27, 1549) and by him had Thomas (1540-1559), Margaret (1544-1578+), and Francis (1546-1596). As far as I can tell, she did nothing significant other than marry and have children, but I include her here because of the confusion over the many Lady Anne Greys. This one was definitely too young to have been in the household of Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, in 1517!

CATHERINE GREY (August 1540-January 27, 1568)

Lady Catherine Grey was the middle daughter of Henry Grey, 3rd marquis of Dorset and duke of Suffolk (January 12,1517-February 23,1554) and Frances Brandon (July 16,1517-November 20,1559). By the time she was eight, Catherine was studying Greek, although she was not as clever as her older sister, Lady Jane Grey. In May and June of 1549, riots and rebellion came close to Bradgate Manor in Leicestershire, the Grey family seat, while the family was in residence there. On November 26 of that year, during a stay at Tilty in Essex, all three girls were taken to visit Mary Tudor, the king's sister, at Beaulieu. In February the family was at Dorset House on the Strand. On May 25, 1553, at age twelve, Catherine was married to Henry Herbert (1534-1559), the earl of Pembroke’s heir. Although the marriage was not to be consummated, Catherine was sent to live in Pembroke's London residence, Baynard's Castle. When the plan to put Catherine’s sister, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne of England in place of Mary Tudor failed, Catherine’s marriage was annulled. Her sister and father were executed after Wyatt's rebellion a few months later. In April 1554, with her mother and younger sister, Catherine was living at Beaumanor, near Bradgate, but in July her mother was called to court to join the queen's Privy Chamber and her surviving daughters went with her. Under both Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, Catherine lived at court, possibly as a maid of honor, although she had her own room, personal servants, and both dogs and monkeys as pets. She was considered by many to be heiress presumptive and as such was not, by law, allowed to marry without the queen's permission. Catherine spent the summer of 1558, when there was sickness (probably influenza) at court, at Hanworth in Middlesex with the Seymour family. It is at that time that her romance with Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford (1539-April 6,1621) is said to have begun. In November or December 1560, Catherine secretly married him. When the marriage was discovered the following summer, both parties were imprisoned in the tower. There Catherine gave birth to her son Edward (September 24,1561-1639). Sympathetic jailers allowed the young couple to meet and the result was a second son, Thomas (February 10,1563-1619). Because of the threat of plague in London, Catherine and her younger son were removed from the Tower and sent to her uncle, Lord John Grey, at Pirgo in Essex, arriving there on September 3, 1563. With them were the baby's nurse, three ladies-in-waiting, and two manservants. Edward and their older son were sent to Edward's mother, the duchess of Somerset, at Hanworth. Catherine never saw either of them again. She was moved to Sir William Petre’s house of Ingatestone, Essex in the autumn of 1564. That same year, Hertford was removed from Hanworth and placed with Sir John Mason. When Mason died in April 1566, Hertford remained with his widow in London for a time, then was transferred to the keeping of Sir Richard Spencer. Three-year-old Lord Beauchamp remained with his grandmother. In May 1566, Catherine was moved a few miles east of Ingatestone Hall to Gosfield Hall, the house of Sir John Wentworth, when Sir William Petre fell ill. Wentworth was 76 and his wife was 71, but their plea that they were too old to act as warders was ignored. Wentworth died in late September 1567, after which Catherine and her son were moved to Sir Owen Hopton’s house, Cockfield Hall, in Yoxford, Suffolk. It was there she died, probably of tuberculosis, although the theory has been advanced that she starved herself to death. Her younger son was then sent to join his brother. Catherine was buried at Yoxford, but in 1621, following Hertford's death, Catherine's grandson, the surviving male heir, had her body moved to Salisbury Cathedral and buried with her husband. Biographies: Hester W. Chapman’s Two Tudor Portraits and Leanda De Lisle's The Sisters Who Would Be Queen; Oxford DNB entry under "Seymour [née Grey], Katherine." Portraits: There are three possible portraits, a miniature of her as a child, c.1549-50; a portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts; and a portrait with her son, c.1561-2. There are at least seven extant copies of the latter, which were painted for propaganda purposes. Some have been misidentified as other Tudor women by biographers. Catherine's effigy, together with Edward's, is in Salisbury Cathedral, although the date of her death on that monument is mistakenly given as 1563.


CECILY GREY
see CECILY BONVILLE

CECILY GREY (c.1497-April 28, 1554)
Cecily Grey was the daughter of Thomas Grey, 1st marquis of Dorset (1451-1501) and Cecily Bonville (1460-May 12, 1529). Some sources give her a birth date as early as 1488. She married John Sutton, 3rd baron Dudley (1496-April 18, 1553). Their children were Edward, 4th baron (1506-July 19, 1586), Henry (1515-1556), and possibly John and Mary (b.1537). In February 1537, Lady Dudley wrote to Lord Cromwell to complain of the poverty she and her husband had to endure. She claimed she and one of her daughters and their woman and man had only £20 a year to live on and had to rely on Agnes Oulton, the prioress of Nuneaton for meat and drink. She was apparently living at the priory at that time. Nuneaton was dissolved on September 12, 1539.

DOROTHY GREY
see DOROTHY ZOUCHE

DOROTHY GREY (c.1480-1553)
Dorothy Grey was the daughter of Thomas Grey, 1st marquess of Dorset (1451-1501) and Cecily Bonville (1460-May 12, 1529). Around 1509, she married Robert, 2nd baron Willoughby de Broke (1472-November 10, 1521). They had children Elizabeth (d. before April 4, 1552), Anne (c.1516-December 24, 1581/2), Anthony, Henry, George, and William. Later, after June 9, 1521, she became the fourth wife of William Blount, 4th baron Mountjoy (1479-November 8, 1534). Her daughter Anne married Blount’s son Charles, 5th baron Mountjoy. By Blount she was the mother of John, Dorothy, and Mary (d. before October 1555).

ELEANOR GREY
see ELEANOR SUTTON

ELEANOR or JOAN GREY
see ELEANOR or JOAN WOODVILLE

ELIZABETH GREY (c.1482-c.1525)
Elizabeth Grey was the daughter of Edward Grey (1442-1492), who was created Viscount Lisle in 1483, and Elizabeth Talbot, baroness Lisle in her own right (1452-September 8, 1487). Around 1500, she married Edmund Dudley (c.1462-x. August 17, 1510), by whom she was the mother of Jerome (d.c.1555), John (1502-x. August 22, 1553), Andrew (c.1507-1559), and possibly Simon and Elizabeth. After her first husband’s execution for treason, she married Sir Arthur Plantagenet (c.1464-March 3, 1542), an illegitimate son of King Edward IV, on November 12, 1511. He was granted the title Viscount Lisle in 1523. They had three daughters, Frances (c.1516-1550+), Elizabeth (c.1521-1569), and Bridget (c.1525-c.1560).

ELIZABETH GREY (c.1497-1548+)

Elizabeth Grey was the daughter of Thomas Grey, 1st marquis of Dorset (1451-1501) and Cecily Bonville (1460-May 12, 1529). She was one of the ladies who accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1514 and one of the few allowed to stay with her. According to Alison Weir (Mary Boleyn), she remained in France for a time in Queen Claude's household. She was one of Catherine of Aragon’s attendants at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. In around 1522, she married Gerald Fitzgerald, 9th earl of Kildare (1487-September 2,1534). She returned with him to Ireland in 1523 and they seem to have had a successful partnership. According to Mary Anne Everett Green, the earl was famed for his manly beauty and he and Elizabeth were sincerely attached to each other. Letters she wrote back to England are still extant, indicating she took an interest in the political situation in Ireland. In 1531, a private act of Parliament assured Elizabeth an income of £200 per annum (Irish pounds) for life, as well as the manor of Portlester should she decide to remain in Ireland after her husband’s death. Their children were Gerald (February 25, 1525-November 16, 1585), Elizabeth (1527-March 1589), Edward (1528-1597), and Margaret. The Oxford DNB entry for Elizabeth's stepdaughter gives that stepdaughter three half sisters but does not name them. By 1533, when the king sent for Kildare, he was apparently already gravely ill as the result of a bullet wound. Elizabeth went to England instead, arriving in October, but the king insisted on Kildare's presence. He arrived and was imprisoned in July 1534. As he was clearly dying, she was allowed to visit him. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Kildare's brothers and his sons by his first marriage rebelled against English rule. Elizabeth's brother, Lord Leonard Grey, was sent to put down the rebellion. In her widowhood, Elizabeth lived at Lord Leonard's home, Beaumanor, Leicestershire, with her son Edward, who was smuggled out of Ireland in July 1536 and brought to her there. In a letter to Lord Cromwell, she describes him as "an innocent" and asks for custody of the boy so that he can be "brought up in virtue." Earlier in that year, Elizabeth was named as one of the people involved in a plot against Queen Anne Boleyn, but the only mention of this is in a letter from the Spanish ambassador and should be taken with a grain of salt. Her oldest son fled to France in 1540 but was eventually brought to England by Lady Kildare's chaplain in 1549. In a letter written to him on January 26, 1548/9, she advises him to show himself "repentant for your former proceedings and desirious to be received to the king's majesty's most gracious favor." Biography: Oxford DNB entry under “Fitzgerald [née Grey], Elizabeth.”

ELIZABETH GREY (1505-1519)
Elizabeth Grey was the daughter of John Grey, viscount Lisle (April 1480-September 9, 1505) and Muriel Howard (1485-December 14, 1512). After the death of her stepfather, Sir Thomas Knyvett, in August 1512, she became the ward of Charles Brandon. In 1513, she was betrothed to Brandon and he was created Viscount Lisle. When he married Mary Tudor, widowed Queen of France and sister of Henry VIII, he surrendered the title. Elizabeth’s wardship passed to Katherine Plantagenet, countess of Devon, who married Elizabeth to her son, Henry Courtenay (1496-1538). Elizabeth died before the marriage could be consummated.

ELIZABETH GREY (d. December 29, 1559)
Elizabeth Grey was the daughter of Edmund, 9th baron Grey de Wilton (c.1468-May 5, 1511) and Florence Hastings (c.1473-1511+). She was one of two young women named Elizabeth Grey to accompany Princess Mary Tudor to France in 1514 for Mary’s marriage to King Louis, although Alison Weir in Mary Boleyn suggests that it was her mother, "the young dowager Lady Grey de Wilton," who went with Mary and remained in France after most of the English attendants were sent home. After her return to England, Elizabeth she married Sir John Brydges (March 9, 1491/2-April 13, 1557), who was created baron Chandos of Sudeley in 1554. Their children were Edmund (d. March 11, 1573), Charles, Henry, Mary (c.1519-November 15, 1606), Catherine (d.1566), and Frances (c.1536-August 20, 1559). See MARY BRYDGES for Elizabeth’s involvement in her daughter’s difficulties in 1559. Elizabeth was buried in Jesus Chapel, afterward St. Faith’s, in St. Paul’s Cathedral. At the time of her death, she was a senior attendant at court.

ELIZABETH GREY (c.1510-c.1564)

Elizabeth Grey was the daughter of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquis of Dorset (June 22,1477-October 10,1530) and Margaret Wotton (1487-1541). On April 22, 1538, she married Thomas, baron Audley of Walden (1488-April 30, 1544). They had two daughters, Margaret (1539-January 10,1564) and Mary. In her widowhood, Elizabeth lived at Audley End, near Saffron Walden. Her daughter Margaret, who had become duchess of Norfolk by her marriage, came to her there to give birth to each of her children. According to the catalog of an exhibit of works by Hans Holbein, Elizabeth married again, in 1549, to Sir George Norton, and died before her daughter, but other sources, including Neville Williams's biography of Thomas, 4th duke of Norfolk, say she looked after her grandchildren following her daughter's death until Norfolk remarried in 1567. Portraits: Holbein sketch at Windsor, c.1540; miniature (watercolor on vellum) c.1540.


ELIZABETH GREY

see ELIZABETH TALBOT; ELIZABETH WOODVILLE

FLORENCE GREY
see FLORENCE HASTINGS

FRANCES GREY

see FRANCES BRANDON

FRANCES GREY (d.1591+)
Frances Grey was the daughter of Lord John Grey of Pyrgo, Essex (d.1569) and Mary Browne. She married William Cooke (1537-May 14, 1589) and was the mother of Francis, Anne, Mildred, William, Frances, William, Anthony, Thomas, John, and Edward. She was at court as a Lady of the Privy Chamber at the same time as Mary Hill and the two women quarreled over precedence in 1591. Frances claimed that the daughter of a younger son of a marquess had precedence over the widow of a knight. The decision went against her, although Frances was acknowledged to have had precedence during her father’s lifetime.

HONORA GREY (1540-1560+)

Honora Grey was the only daughter of William, 13th baron Grey de Wilton (1509-December 15,1562) and Mary Somerset. She was one of Elizabeth Tudor’s attendants before Elizabeth became queen and one of the six gentlewomen praised in a sonnet by John Harington. Harington compares her to "Tysbe." Honora did not go on to serve Elizabeth after she became queen. Around 1560 and before 1562 she married Henry Denny of Cheshunt (1540-March 24,1574). Some online genealogies say she was Denny’s first wife, died in 1560, and was buried in Waltham Abbey, but also give this couple a son and three daughters.

JANE GREY (1537-February 12,1554)

Lady Jane Grey was the oldest daughter of Henry Grey, 3rd marquis of Dorset and duke of Suffolk (January 12,1517-February 23,1554) and Frances Brandon (July 16,1517-November 20,1559). As such she had a claim to the throne. This was exploited by her parents and the duke of Northumberland, who married her to Northumberland’s son, Lord Guildford Dudley (c.1534-1554) in 1553 and attempted to place her on the throne after the death of King Edward VI. She was imprisoned by Mary Tudor and might have been spared had not a second rebellion erupted in 1554 in which her father played a leading role. Jane was executed. Biographies: Hester W. Chapman and David Mathews have each written older biographies of Lady Jane Grey. More recent ones are Leanda De Lisle's The Sisters Who Would Be Queen and Eric Ives's Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery. The Oxford DNB entry is under "Grey [married name Dudley], Lady Jane." Take all fictional treatments with a large grain of salt. Portraits: One portrait long thought to be Lady Jane Grey is now known to be Katherine Parr. Others are still only tentatively identified, including one which may be Jane Dormer or Jane Guildford. Another is more likely to be Jane Carlisle. The one below is in the National Portrait Gallery and is still believed to be Lady Jane Grey.


JANE SYBILLA GREY
see JANE SYBILLA MORISON

KATHERINE GREY
see KATHERINE SCALES

KATHERINE GREY (1512-1542)
Katherine Grey was the daughter of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset (1477-1530) and Margaret Wotton (1487-1541). She married Henry Fitzalan, Lord Maltravers, heir to the earl of Arundel (April 23, 1512-February 24, 1580) in 1532. Her brother was to have wed his sister, but the match was called off when Henry Grey married Lady Frances Brandon instead. As Lady Maltravers, Katherine was listed as a member of the household of Princess Mary Tudor in October 1533. She had three children by Maltravers, Joan (1536-July 7, 1576), Henry (1538-June 30, 1556), and Mary (1540-August 25, 1557).

MARGARET GREY

see MARGARET FINCH; MARGARET SUTTON; MARGARET WOTTON

MARGARET GREY (d.1601)
Margaret Grey, also called Margaret Lenton, was the illegitimate daughter of Lord Thomas Grey (x.1554), third son of the marquess of Dorset. By a license dated October 13, 1565, she married Sir John Astley, Master of the Queen’s Jewel House (c.1507-August 1, 1596). They had three sons, Sir John, William, and Francis, and three daughters. In a letter dated November 12, 1590, Margaret complains to her cousin, Vincent Skinner, that she can no longer use Astley’s lodgings in the Tower of London because of a new ban by the Privy Council on the residence of women there. As executrix of her husband’s will, Margaret had the responsibility to procure a discharge for the Crown Jewels. In 1593, Edmund Southerne dedicated his A Treatise concerning the right use and ordering of Bees to her. A poem, "The Wizard: A Kentish Tale" commemorated her death.

MARY GREY (1493-February 22, 1537/8)
Mary Grey was the daughter of Thomas Grey, 1st marquis of Dorset (1451-1501) and Cecily Bonville (1460-May 12, 1529). She was the first wife of Walter Devereux, later 1st viscount Hereford (c.1489-September 27, 1558) and the mother of Sir Richard (d. October 13, 1547), Henry (c.1515-before October 13, 1547), Sir William (c.1525-before November 2, 1579), Anne, and possibly Katherine. Portrait: tomb effigy at Stowe by Chartley, Staffordshire.


MARY GREY (1545-April 20, 1578)

Lady Mary Grey was the youngest daughter of Henry Grey, 3rd marquis of Dorset and duke of Suffolk (January 12,1517-February 23,1554) and Frances Brandon (July 16,1517-November 20,1559). When her sisters were married on May 25, 1553, the Lady Mary was betrothed to Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, a man much older than she. The betrothal was called off when Queen Mary prevented Lady Jane Grey from claiming the throne. Mary Grey was at court with her mother and sister Catherine from July 1554 until May 1555 and then left with her mother when Frances remarried. She was a maid of honor under Queen Elizabeth and, like her sister Catherine, fell out of favor for marrying without the queen's permission. Lady Mary was reportedly only a little over four feet tall with red hair, freckles, and enough of a physical deformity to be nicknamed “Crouchback Mary.” On July 16, 1565, at Whitehall Palace, she married Thomas Keyes of St. Radigund's, Kent (d. September 8, 1571), the queen's Sergeant Porter. Keyes was 6’6” tall, a widower twice Mary's age who had several children by his first wife. The wedding was secret but not clandestine. The date was chosen because most of the court would be at another wedding, that of Henry Knollys and Margaret Cave, at Durham House. As many as eleven people witnessed the ceremony, including Keyes's brother, Edward, and one of Keyes's sons. When the queen heard about the marriage, on August 21st, she sent Keyes to Fleet Prison in London and dispatched the Lady Mary to Chequers, the Buckinghamshire house of Sir William Hawtrey. She was allowed only one groom and one waiting woman. On August 7, 1567, she was transferred to the care of her step-grandmother, Catherine Willoughby, dowager duchess of Suffolk, who was then at her house in the Minories in London. The duchess was shocked to find that Mary had few possessions and that what she had was in very poor condition. Mary's husband, meanwhile, was rleased from prison after three years but was forbidden to see her. In June 1569, the Lady Mary was moved to the London house of Sir Thomas Gresham in Bishopsgate, where she spent much of her time locked in a room with her books. She remained there until May of 1572, when she was at last set free. Keyes had died and Mary was no longer considered a threat. Initially, she went to stay with her late mother’s second husband, Adrian Stokes, at Beaumanor in Leicestershire. By February 1573, she had purchased a house in St. Botolph's-Without-Aldgate, London. She wanted to raise her husband's children, but she was denied permission to do so. She did remain on friendly terms with them. In 1577, she spent Christmas at Hampton Court. She made her will on April 17, 1578 and died three days later in her London house. In her library were copies of the Bible, John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Latimer's Sermons, books by Whitgift, Luther, Cartwright, and Knox, D. Cradocke's The Ship of Assured Safety, The Book of Common Prayer, a Psalter, and a book of Psalms. She was buried on May 14 in Westminster Abbey on the queen's orders and shared her mother's tomb. She has no marker or monument of her own. Biographies: Leanda De Lisle's The Sisters Who Would Be Queen; Oxford DNB entry under "Keys [née Grey], Mary." Portraits: Only one seems to exist, shown below. It is dated 1571 and she wears her wedding ring.


MARY GREY
see MARY BROWNE; MARY COTTON

MURIEL GREY
see MURIEL HOWARD

SUSAN GREY

see SUSAN BERTIE

URSULA GREY (d.1579+)
Ursula Grey, prophetess, was the daughter of a jailer who kept the distinguished prisoners at Wishbech Castle, which was used between 1579 and 1599 for priests and Jesuits. She was a teacher among the puritans until the Jesuits converted her. I am hoping to find more information on her, but at present this single paragraph worth of information, taken from Patrick Collinson’s The Elizabethan Puritan Movement is all I’ve found.

BEATRIX GREYSTOCK
see BEATRIX HATCLIFFE

ELIZABETH GREYSTOKE (July 10, 1471-August 14, 1516)
Elizabeth Greystoke was the daughter of Robert Greystoke (d. June 17, 1483) and Elizabeth Grey and the granddaughter and sole heiress of Ralph, Lord Greystoke (1414-1487). She became a royal ward and Henry VII granted her marriage to John de Vere, earl of Oxford, who sold it to Henry, Lord Clifford. In 1488, she was abducted by (or eloped with, depending on the account) Thomas, 2nd baron Dacre of the North (November 25, 1467-October 24, 1525), who married her. The king did not impose any penalty on Dacre for this, but later he was obliged to sign recognizances over other matters (see MABEL PARR) and was deeply in debt to the Crown by the time Henry VIII became king in 1509. Elizabeth's children by Dacre were Mabel (c.1490-c.1533), William (d. November 18, 1563), Anne (c.1500-before 1548), Jane, Humphrey, and Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH GRIFFITH
see ELIZABETH SKEFFINGTON

KATHERINE GRIFFITH
see KATHERINE HOWARD

MARY GRIFFITH (1519-March 31, 1588)
Mary Griffith was the daughter of Sir Griffith Rhys of Carmarthen, Wales (d.1521) and Catherine St. John (c.1490-December 1553). She married Sir John Luttrell of Dunster Castle, Somerset (1519-July 10, 1551) in 1535. At the time of Luttrell's death of the sweating sickness, he had been attempting to divorce his wife on grounds of adultery, but others apparently did not believe the charges. She received a legacy in his mother's will and was buried with the Luttrells in East Quantockshead. By Luttrell she had three daughters, Catherine (1537-1603+), Dorothy (1539-1595+), and Mary (1540-1595+), all of whom became wards of the Crown upon their father's death while their mother went to live at Kilton. Her second husband was James Godolphin of Gwinear, Cornwall. They married in 1552. In 1553, Mary's mother, by then Lady Edgecumbe, left her daughter all her household goods at Dunster.

ELIZABETH GRIMSTON

see ELIZABETH BERNYE

MARY GROSVENOR (d.March 26, 1599)

Mary Grosvenor was the eleventh child of Richard Grosvenor of Eaton, Cheshire (c.1477-July 27,1542) and Catherine Cotton. She married first Thomas Legh of Adlington, Cheshire (1527-May, 17,1548), by whom she had a son, Thomas Legh (1547-1601) and then Sir Richard Egerton of Ridley (d.November 1579), and was the mother of his only legitimate child, Dorothy (1565-1639). She lived at Adlington during her son's minority. As the widowed Lady Egerton, she was a well-known recusant, imprisoned at least once in Manchester for her religious beliefs. Her sufferings for her faith are often mentioned but in fact she was spared some of the worst treatment because her second husband's illegitimate son, Thomas Egerton, was an important figure in the government of Queen Elizabeth. Her will, dated October 18, 1597, names him as one of her executors and refers to him as her son. Portraits: effigy on her monument in Astbury Church.

JANE GROVE (after 1530-June 1601)
Jane Grove was the daughter of John Grove of Woolley Fiennes and White Waltham, Berkshire and a daughter of Peter Cowdrey of Heriot, Hampshire. Around 1558 she married John Transfield (d. November 1561), owner of the Boar’s Head Inn just outside Aldgate in Whitechapel. By 1557, the inn was also in use as a playhouse. Jane had two daughters, Frances and Anne (b. July 1561) by Transfield and inherited the inn and two garden plots when he died. Two months later, in January 1562, she married Edmund Poley (d. August 1587). Their children were Henry (December 1562-March 1596), Isabel (June 1564-1577), John (b. October 1565), and Elizabeth (December 1566-May 1602), and possibly Ralph (d.1577) and Edward. On her own for the second time, Jane turned the garden plots into tenements and rented them out, bringing in an income of around £109 per annum and involving her in several lawsuits over the succeeding years. Then she leased the inn to Oliver Woodliffe, on November 28, 1594, for £40 a year, reserving rent-free lodgings on the premises for herself and her son Henry. Woodliffe, apparently with Jane’s blessing, promptly turned the Boar’s Head into a full-time playhouse. For more information see Herbert Berry and Cyril Walter Hodges, The Boar’s Head Playhouse.

CATHERINE GRUYTERE
see CATHERINE TISHEM

INEZ GUEVARA
see INEZ de ALBERNOS

CAMILLA GUICCIARDINI (1561/2-1606)
Camilla Guicciardini was the daughter of a Florentine merchant based in London, Vincent Guicciardini (d.1581) and his wife, Lucretia Bruschetto/Bryskett (1539/40-1608). The family lived in Seething Lane, London. In his will, Camilla's father left her £900 toward her marriage and 1000 marks each to her sisters Elizabeth and Mary. Their mother was to enjoy all the lands he had bought in England and it is clear the family intended to stay. Camilla, Elizabeth, and Mary had to have their mother's approval to marry and collect their dowries. They all married Englishmen. Camilla's first husband was Thomas Darcy of Tolleshunt Darcy, Essex (d.1593). They had three sons, one of them named Thomas, all of whom died before their father, and five daughters—Margaret (1585-January 21, 1646), Mary (1587-August 22, 1660), Elizabeth, Bridget, and Frances (1591-August 2, 1663). Darcy left Tolleshunt Darcy Hall and its lands and contents to his wife. Her second husband was Frances Harvey of Cressing Temple, Witham, Essex (1534-1602), one of Queen Elizabeth's gentlemen pensioners. They had a daughter named Elizabeth. Harvey named Camilla his executor and left £2000 in gold to their daughter.

ELIZABETH GUILDFORD (d.1568+)
Elizabeth Guildford was the daughter of Sir John Guildford of Hempsted, Kent (1508-July 5, 1565) and Barbara West (d.1549). She was in the household of Anne of Cleves when Anne made her will in 1557 and was left £40. On October 1, 1561, she married William Cromer of Tunstall, Borden, and Edenbridge, Kent (c.1531-May 12, 1598), by whom she had at least two children, Barbara and Dorothy (1568-July 29, 1618).

ELIZABETH GUILDFORD
see ELIZABETH SHELLEY; ELIZABETH SOMERSET

JANE GUILDFORD (1509-January 15, 1555)

Jane Guildford was the daughter of Sir Edward Guildford of Rolvenden and Halden, Kent (1474-June 1534) and Eleanor West, the daughter of Thomas, 8th baron de la Warr. In late 1525 or early 1526, she married her father’s ward, John Dudley (1504-x.August 22,1553). They had thirteen children: Henry (1526-1544), Thomas, (d.yng), John (by 1528-October 21,1554), Ambrose (1531-February 21,1590), a second Henry (1531-August 27,1557), Mary (1531-August 1586), Robert (June 24,1532-September 4,1588), Guildford (1534-1554), Katherine (November 1545-August 4,1620), and four others—Charles, Margaret, Frances, and Temperance—who died under the age of ten. Jane was successively Lady Dudley, viscountess Lisle, countess of Warwick, and duchess of Northumberland. Although she did not take an active role in her husband’s political career, she was at court as a lady of the Privy Chamber to Anne of Cleves and Katherine Parr and during the reign of Edward VI. In 1549 she helped bring about a reconciliation between her husband and the Duke of Somerset. Somerset’s daughter, Anne Seymour, married Jane’s son, John, at Sheen on June 3, 1550. At Jane’s request, Dr. John Dee undertook the writing of two treatises published in 1553 and dedicated to her. After the failure of Northumberland’s attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne of England in place of Mary Tudor and Northumberland's execution, Jane went to live with her daughter, Mary Sidney, at Penshurst, Kent, until Queen Mary granted her the use of her Chelsea dower house. Lady Jane Grey’s husband, Jane’s son Guildford, was executed in 1554. Lady Northumberland's other sons remained prisoners in the Tower. The duchess was pardoned on May 2, 1554. That summer she was much at court, petitioning for the release of her sons. The eldest, John, was freed in early October 1554. Already mortally ill, he died at Penshurst on October 21. Ambrose, Robert, and Henry were released by early 1555, before their mother's death at Chelsea. Jane collected jeweled clocks, watches, and dials. Jane left a detailed will. She specified that there was to be no autopsy after her death and asked for a simple funeral. To her daughter Mary she left 200 marks, two gowns, her horse and saddle and a clock that had once belonged to Sir Edward Guildford. To her daughter Katherine she left 400 marks, two gowns, a kirtle and sleeves, and land that was to remain hers even if her marriage to Lord Hastings was annulled. Her bequests to her surviving sons had to be left in trust to Sir Henry Sidney, her daughter Mary's husband, because they were still attainted traitors and could not inherit. The will was witnessed by E. Dudley, Anne York, Henry Sidney, and William Bowden. In spite of her wishes, she was given an elaborate funeral, including an effigy in wax, and was buried in the church at Chelsea. The inscription on her monument says she died on the twenty-second of January, but other authorities give the fifteenth as the day of her death. Portraits: brass of Jane and her five daughters in Old Chelsea Church; Jane may be the subject of a portrait by Hans Eworth c.1550-1557 but another possibility for the sitter's identity is Jane Dormer.


JOAN GUILDFORD

see JOAN VAUX

MARGARET GUILDFORD
see MARGARET BRYAN

MARY GUILDFORD

see MARY WOTTON

PHILIPPA GUILDFORD (c.1480-before 1556)
Philippa Guildford was the daughter of Sir Richard Guildford of Cranbrook and Rolvenden, Kent (1450-September 28, 1506) and Anne Pympe. By a marriage settlement dated April 14, 1502 she married Sir John Gage of Firle Place, West Firle, Sussex (October 28, 1479-April 18, 1556) and was the mother of Alys (c.1504-March 31, 1540), Edward, James, Robert (c.1518-October 20, 1587), William, Elizabeth (d.1557), Cecily, and one other daughter. Her dowry was 300 marks and a rent of 100 marks out of Guildford Marsh in Sussex. Portrait: monument in West Firle church (not erected until 1595).


MARIE de GUISE (November 20,1515-June 11, 1560)

Marie de Guise was the daughter of Claude, duc de Guise (1496-1550) and Antoinette de Bourbon (1493-1583). She married Louis d’Orleans, duc de Longueville (1510-June 9,1537) on August 4,1534. When both Henry VIII of England and James V of Scotland (1513-1542) expressed an interest in marrying her, she is said to have remarked, considering the match with Henry, that although she was a big woman, her neck was small. She married James by proxy on May 9,1538. Mary had four sons who died young, Francois d'Orleans (October 30, 1535-September 1551) and Louis d'Orleans (August 4, 1537-December 1537) by her first husband and James (May 22,1540-April 1541) and Robert (April 24, 1541-April 1541) by the second. Her daughter, Mary, was born on December 8,1542, six days before King James died. When English troops tried to capture Mary in 1547 and force a marriage with the young English king, Edward VI, Marie sent her daughter to France, where she was married to the Dauphin. Two years later, Marie visited her daughter there. On her return trip, she was entertained at the English court and, save for the elopement of one of her women with an English merchant, the visit passed without incident. From 1554 until her death, Marie served as Regent of Scotland. She died in Edinburgh Castle but was buried in the convent of St. Pierre in Rheims, where her sister was abbess. Biographies: Mary of Guise by Rosalind K. Marshall; Mary of Guise in Scotland 1548-1560: A Political Career by Pamela E. Ritchie; Oxford DNB entry under "Mary [Mary of Guise]." Portraits: at least two with James V and at least one alone.


SYLVESTRA GUISE (d.1565)

Sylvestra Guise was the daughter of John Guise or Gyse of Elmore, Gloucestershire (c.1485-December 20, 1556) and Tacy Grey (c.1490?-November 1558). She married Sir John Butler or Boteler of Hawksbury, Gloucestershire (d.1552). Hawksbury had been granted to him at the Dissolution of the Monasteries and was left to Sylvestra when he died. It was there and in her London house that conspirators against the Crown met to make plans in 1555. Sylvestra reportedly said on one occasion that she “would the King and Queen were in the sea in a bottomless vessel.” This was enough to cause her to be arrested. She was indicted in London on June 27,1556 and in Gloucester on September 12, 1556. She was not tried, however, and on May 6, 1557, she was pardoned. She had at least two children, John (b. 1534) and Catherine.

ANNE GUNTER (c.1584-1606+)
Anne Gunter was the youngest child of Brian Gunter of "Hopgrass," Hungerford, Berkshire (c.1540-1628) and Anne Harvey (d. April 1617), one of two sons and three daughters. She was baptized on May 20, 1584 in Hungerford, Berkshire. In 1604, this young woman, who was about twenty and who lived with her family in The Rectory in North Moreton, Berkshire, some twelve miles from Oxford, began to suffer from a number of strange ailments. She foamed at the mouth, temporarily lost the ability to see and hear, and vomited pins. Her story is a complicated one, and the subject of contemporary pamphlets and at least two books in this century. The short version is that her father, who had long been engaged in a feud with another village family, the Gregorys, seized on his daughter's ailment, which may have been a form of epilepsy (called the falling sickness) or hysteria (the mother) to persuade her to bring charges of witchcraft against three local women, Elizabeth Gregory, wife of Walter, Agnes Pepwell, a reputed witch, and Mary Pepwell, illegitimate daughter of Agnes. The Pepwells were related to the Gregorys. Gunter went so far as to make his daughter drink a combination of sack and saller oil to induce symptoms and a neighbor named Alice Kirfoote (née Keyes; d.1617) taught her how to appear to vomit pins. At one point, Anne was sent to stay with her sister Susan (c.1574-1650), whose husband, Thomas Holland (c.1550-1612), was a professor of divinity at Oxford. It seems, however, that there were doubts about Anne’s story from the first. Agnes Pepwell fled before she could be arrested but when Mary Pepwell and Elizabeth Gregory were put on trial, on March 1, 1605, they were acquitted. Three days later, physicians examined Anne and declared that she was a fraud. She was sent to Henry Cotton, Bishop of Salisbury. On August 27, 1605, King James, who had a personal interest in witchcraft, interviewed both Anne and her father. He then sent Anne to Samuel Harsnett, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Harsnett had previously exposed a fraudulent exorcist. King James met three more times with Anne, the last on October 10, 1605. Before that, in mid-September, he is said to have suggested that one Asheley, a servant of the archbishop, should woo Anne in an attempt to get the truth out of her. This apparently had one positive effect. Her symptoms disappeared. Soon after, promised she would not be prosecuted, she confessed that her father had been the one behind the scheme. Gunter was brought before the Star Chamber on February 24, 1606 on charges of fraud and held in prison while the case continued. It was resolved sometime in 1608, but the outcome is not recorded. Gunter returned to North Moreton. When he was about eighty, in 1620, he took part in a riot there. Of Anne Gunter, however, nothing more is known. Biographies: William W. Coventry, Demonic Possession On Trial; J. S. Sharpe, The Bewitching of Anne Gunter: A Horrible and True Story of Deception.

MARY GUNTER
see MARY CRESSWELL

SUSAN GUNTER (c.1574-1650)
Susan Gunter was the daughter of Brian Gunter of Hungerford, Berkshire (c.1540-1628) and Anne Harvey (d.1616). On July 22, 1593, Susan married Thomas Holland of Ludlow, Shropshire (c.1550-March 1612), a professor of divinity at Oxford. They had at least five children, including Anne, Brian, William, and Elizabeth. In 1604, when Susan's sister, Anne Gunter (see her entry) claimed to have been bewitched, she was sent to live for a time with the Hollands at their lodgings at Exeter College, Oxford. This bewitchment eventually turned out to be a fraud, perpetrated by Susan and Anne's father. Susan was executor of her husband's will. In 1620, Brian Gunter was accused of two attacks on the local clergyman and his family in North Moreton, where Brian lived. On June 22, according to the complaint, Brian led a party that included Susan and her son William and assaulted Gilbert Bradshaw with pike staves, pitchforks and other weapons. A second attack, in July, in which Brian and William are named but not Susan, targeted the vicar's wife. Susan was executor of her father's will. On March 4, 1650, she was buried in the Church of St. Peter the Bailey on the outskirts of Oxford.

SAGE GWYN
see SAGE HYGONS

MARGERY GWYNNETH or GUINET (d. September 16, 1544)
Margery Gwynneth/Gwyneth, or Guinet had a brother, John, still living in 1549 but their parentage is unknown. She was the first wife of Stephen Vaughan of St. Mary Bow, Cheapside (d. December 25, 1549), a member of the Merchant Adventurers who was the royal financial agent in the Netherlands. They had three children, Anne (c.1535-c.1595), Jane, and Stephen (c.1537-1549+). The following information comes from Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII. In May 1533, Queen Anne Boleyn needed a new royal silkwoman and Vaughan campaigned to have his wife appointed to the position, writing to Lord Cromwell that "no woman can better trim her grace." She did not get the appointment. In a second letter, Vaughan wrote: "She devised certain works for the Queen which were neither seen, nor was she thanked for them. Please remember her with her Grace. In her faculty she can serve her better than any other in the realm." Ironically, it appears to have been the woman Vaughan would later take as his second wife (see MARGERY BRINKLOW) who ended up providing silks to Queen Anne. In 1538, Nicholas Bristow, clerk of the wardrobe of robes, drew up a set of instructions for recording the delivery of bolts of silk to the Whitehall silk house. #10 was that "no stuff is to be delivered by . . . Mrs. Vaughan . . . without a bill signed by [Sir Anthony] Denny [keeper of Whitehall Palace] or his deputy." The household accounts of Anne of Cleves include a reference to Margery Vaughan, silk woman, providing goods worth £203 3s 2d in connection with making saddles. Queen Katherine Parr's accounts for 1543-4 indicate that Mistress Vaughan's bill for silk goods was £336 10s 3d. When Margery fell ill, her husband was in the Netherlands and was not able to return home in time to see her again. He arrived in London ten days after her death and was required by the king to return to Antwerp almost immediately. On December 9, 1544, two months after his wife died, Vaughan wrote to Sir William Paget that the queen had owed him about £360 "for labour and stuff of his wife’s, wherein she spent her life" since Katherine first became queen in 1543. On January 7, 1546, he wrote again to ask for payment, this time stating that his wife "died and lost her life with painful serving." Margery Gwynneth Vaughan was replaced as royal silkwoman by Mistress Shakerley, probably the wife of Rowland Shakerley, a mercer.

ELIZABETH GYLLYOTT (d. 1553+)

Elizabeth Gyllyott is a true footnote to history. Most likely a member of the Gyllyott (Gyiliot, Gyllyiott, Giliot, Gillet, Gillett) family of Thorpe and Featherstone, Yorkshire, by 1552, she was married to William Huggons (Huggins, Hogan) (by1524-1588+), who was a servant of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, although he is also referred to as a London merchant. Elizabeth herself had been part of the household of the duchess of Somerset, but that household had recently been broken up. Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset was executed on January 22, 1552. Toward the end of the following August, when Elizabeth was apparently a guest at Rochford in Essex, the home of Sir William Stafford (or possibly a waiting woman to Stafford's second wife, Dorothy), she talked at supper one night of the plan then current to marry Lord Guildford Dudley to Lady Margaret Clifford, who stood to inherit the throne after the Grey sisters. “Have at the Crown with your leave!” she said, and made a “stout gesture.” The next day, she was overheard to say that Northumberland was “better worthy to die” than Somerset and further stated that King Edward VI was an “unnatural nephew” for ordering Somerset’s execution and that she wished she had “the jerking of him.” Sir William reported these comments to the Privy Council and both Elizabeth and her husband were promptly arrested. In the documents relating to her examination, she is referred to as “Mrs. Elizabethe Huggons” and “William Huggones wiffe sometime called Gyllyott.” On September 8, 1552, they were questioned in the Tower of London by Robert Bowes, master of the rolls, and Sir Arthur Darcy, Lieutenant of the Tower. Elizabeth denied ever saying any of those things, although she did admit to talking of the deaths of Somerset and his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour of Sudeley, while at Rochford. I have not found a record of any trial, but one source states that Elizabeth remained a prisoner in the Tower until June 16,1553. During Elizabeth Tudor's reign, a Mrs. Huggons and a William Huggons appear on the gift lists for 1561/2, 1577/8, and 1588/9 and "Mrs. Huggons, widow" is listed in 1599/1600, along with another William Huggons, possibly her son. The gifts were always sweet-bags, ornately embroidered bags holding comfits or perfumes. There are also records of a Mrs. Huggons at court in 1558-9, 1567-8, and 1577-8. In 1567-8, there is also a "Mrs. Huggons of Norfolk." From 1561, William Huggons was keeper of the gardens at Hampton Court. A century later, another William Huggons held the same keepership, suggesting that it descended through the family. An Elizabeth Huggons was in Queen Elizabeth's Privy Chamber from the 1580s. William Huggons was Keeper of the Stillhouse at Hampton Court and an esquire of the body. In 1603, people referred to "the Huggons lodgings" at Hampton Court.

SUSANNA GYLMYN or GILMAN

see SUSANNA HORENBOULT

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