A WHO’S WHO OF TUDOR WOMEN: A-Bourchier

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her very out-of-date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 ©2008-9 Kathy Lynn Emerson (all rights reserved)

 

MARGARET à BARROW, ARBARROW, or ABOROUGH (1500-1560)

The daughter of Sir Maurice à Barrow of North Barrow, Somerset (although other sources identify her father as John Aborough of North Charford, Hampshire and/or Downton, Wiltshire), Margaret studied with Sir Thomas More’s daughters in 1510/11. She married first (between 1510 and 1522) Sir Thomas Elyot (c.1490-March 26,1546) and after his death wed Sir James Dyer (1512-1582). She was renowned for her learning. She was buried August 26, 1560 at Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire, near her second husband, by whom she had no issue. Portraits: drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger labeled “The Lady Eliot.”

 

JOAN ACWORTH, ACKWORTH, or AKWORTH (1519-December 1590)

The daughter of George Acworth of Luton, Bedfordshire (d.May 17,1530) and Margaret Wilberforce (d.1539), Joan married William Bulmer (1512-1555/6) at an early age, then left his house to go into service with the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk (Agnes Tylney). In that household she was involved in a love affair with Edward Waldegrave (1514-August 13, 1584) at the same time Catherine Howard was involved with music master Francis Dereham. When Catherine married King Henry VIII, Joan was at court as a chamberer and was called upon to testify against the queen when the truth about her early life came out in 1541. Both Joan and Edward Waldegrave were arrested and held for several months. At the time of Catherine Howard’s trial and execution in 1542, Joan Bulmer was listed as a widow, but in fact her husband was still alive. She could not marry Waldegrave until June 1556. Her children with Waldegrave were Anne (b. c. 1544), Mary, Bridget, Edward, and Margaret.

 

MARGARET ALLDE (maiden name unknown)

Margaret was the widow of a printer, John Allde (d. 1584). She continued his business at the Long Shop in the Poultry, next to St. Mildred’s church and across from the stocks used for prisoners from the Counter, for twenty-one years after his death. This was a fairly common practice among widows of members of the Stationer’s Company, although few kept at it so long or took as many apprentices as Margaret Allde did. She is recorded as taking apprentices in 1593, 1594, and 1600. Her son Edward (d. 1628) was also a printer, joining the Stationer’s Company in 1584. His premises were at the Sign of the Gilded Cup without Cripplegate. When he died, his widow, Elizabeth (d. 1636) carried on the business until 1633, when it passed to her son-in-law (alternately identified as her son by a previous marriage), Richard Oulton or Olton.

 

ANNE OF CLEVES (September 22, 1515-July 16, 1557)

The daughter of John, duke of Cleves (d. 1539) and Mary of Berg and Juliers (d. 1543), Anne of Cleves married Henry VIII of England (1491-1547) on January 6, 1540 but was persuaded to accept an annulment granted on July 9 of that same year. She retired to Richmond and Bletchingley, properties granted to her in a generous settlement, and was thereafter treated as the king’s sister. A false rumor, circulated in 1541, claimed she’d given birth to a child. She was present at ceremonial occasions during the reign of Mary I and when she died at Chelsea she was buried in Westminster Abbey. Portraits: two by Hans Holbein the Younger, one a miniature, and one by Barthel de Bruyn the Elder. Biographies: Mary Saaler, Anne of Cleves: Fourth Wife of Henry VIII; chapters in Antonia Fraser, The Wives of Henry VIII, Alison Weir, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and other collective biographies of Henry VIII and/or his wives.

 

MARGARET ARDEN (d.1583+)

The daughter of Edward Arden of Park Hall, Warwickshire (1542-1583) and Mary Throckmorton, she married John Somerville (1560-1583) of Edstone (Edreston), Warwickshire. In 1583, convinced that it was his duty as a Catholic to kill Queen Elizabeth, Somerville set out to do so, telling anyone who would listen of his plans. When arrested, he implicated Margaret, her parents, and the family priest, Hugh Hall, who lived with the Somervilles in the guise of their gardener. All five were sentenced to death but Hall and the women were pardoned. Margaret had two daughters by Somerville, Elizabeth (who married Thomas Warwick) and Alice.

 

MARY ARDEN (c. 1537-1608)

Mary Arden was the youngest daughter of Robert Arden (d. 1556/7) of Wilmcote, Warwickshire by his first wife, Mary Webb (1512-before 1550). Shortly after inheriting ten marks and a property called Asbyes upon her father’s death, Mary married John Shakespeare (d. 1601). Although she was the mother of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), little is known of Mary’s life in Stratford. Her inheritance was sold during the 1570s to keep the family out of debt. She had seven children besides William: Joan (b. 1558), Margaret (1562-3), Gilbert (1566-1612), Joan (b. 1569), Anne (1571-9), Richard (1574-1613), and Edmund (1580-1607). Mary Arden Shakespeare was buried on September 9, 1608.

 

JULIANA ARTHUR (d. 1592)

Juliana or Julian Arthur was the daughter of William Arthur, Esq. of Clapham, which some sources place in Somerset and others in Surrey. She married Robert Hicks or Hickes (c.1524-1557/8), an ironmonger who also carried on business as a silk merchant at the sign of the White Boar at Soper Lane End in Cheapside near the Great Conduit. He was also a merchant of Bristol. Her second husband was Anthony Penn or Penne (d.1577) and it was as Mrs. Penn that she was well known as a London moneylender. She had three sons, Sir Michael Hicks (October 21,1543-1612), Francis Hicks (aka Clement Hicks) (d.1627), and Sir Baptist Hicks (1551-October 18,1629), who was created viscount Campden under the Stuarts. Juliana may be the Mrs. Penne, a gentlewoman, who gave Queen Elizabeth silk knit hose at New Year’s in 1561/2 (or that may have been Sybil Pagenham). Juliana had estates in the West Country. For more information see R. G. Lang, “Social Origins and Aspirations of Jacobean London Merchants,” Economic History Review, February 1974. In 1590, she may have rented lodgings in St. Peter's Hill at £25 a quarter to Thomas Churchyard and other writers.

 

JANE ARUNDELL (by 1506-1577)

Jane Arundell was the daughter of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, Cornwall (1474-1545) and his first wife, Eleanor Grey (d. before 1507). She was at least thirty when she went to court as one of Queen Jane Seymour’s maids of honor. Her younger half sister, Mary Arundell, was also one of Queen Jane’s maids of honor and after the queen’s death, Mary having married the earl of Sussex, Jane became part of their household. 

 

MARY ARUNDELL (c.1517-October 30, 1557)

The daughter of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, Cornwall (1474-1545) and his second wife, Catherine Grenville, Mary Arundell was a maid of honor to Queen Jane Seymour before she married Robert Radcliffe, earl of Sussex (1483-November 27,1542), on January 14, 1537, as his third wife. She remained at court as one of Queen Jane’s ladies until the queen’s death and returned as one of the Great Ladies of the Household to Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard. She had at least one son by Sussex, born in March, 1538, but he seems to have died young. After the earl’s death, Mary married (on December 19, 1545), Henry Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (1512-February 24,1580), as his second wife. Mary was famous as a translator of Greek and Latin epigrams and the writings of Emperor Severus. She was probably responsible for the education given to her two stepdaughters. A glimpse of her domestic life and some of her correspondence can be found in M. St. Clare Byrne’s edition of The Lisle Letters. She died at Arundel House on the Strand and was buried in St. Clement Danes but was later removed to Arundel.

 

ANNE ASHBY (b.c.1497)

The daughter of George Ashby (d. March 14,1515) of Harefield, Middlesex, clerk to the signet for the king and master of the swans in the Thames, and Rose Eden, Anne Ashby became the second wife of Francis Lovell (d.1552) in about 1525. Anne is probably the subject of the painting by Hans Holbein the Younger of a woman with a squirrel and a starling. A red squirrel eating a nut is the badge of the Lovell family. She and Lovell had one child, Thomas (April 9,1526-March 23,1567). For more details see David J. King’s article, “Who was Holbein’s Lady with a squirrel and starling?” (Apollo, May, 2004)

 

JANE OR JOAN ASTLEY, ASHLEY, OR ASTELEY (c.1517-c.1551?)

Jane’s parentage is unknown but she had a brother named John Asteley who was a mercer in London. She was a maid of honor to Queen Jane Seymour, and then married Peter Mewtas (Meautas, Meautys, de Meautis) (d.1562) in 1537 (before October 9). In 1540 and 1541, Jane Mewtas was apparently in the household of Prince Edward. Henry VIII's household accounts list the expense of 10s for "a dozen handkerchiefs garnished with gold" in each of those years. Peter Mewtas was knighted in 1544. Their children were Cecily (a maid of honor), Frances, Henry, Thomas, and Hercules (d. 1587). Sir Peter Mewtas married his second wife, also named Jane, by 1552. The will of Jane, Lady Mewtas in 1577, leaves items to Hercules Mewtas, identified as her son, but it was common in the sixteenth century to refer to a stepson as a son. Hercules is generally believed to have been Jane Asteley's son, born around 1548. Portrait: drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger (c.1536) labeled “Lady Meutas.”  

 

ELIZABETH ASKE (1505-1568)

Elizabeth Aske was the daughter of Roger Aske of Aske Hall, Yorkshire (c. 1491-1512) and Margaret Wycliffe. After her father’s death her guardian was Ralph Bowes. Elizabeth married his son, Richard Bowes (c. 1497-1558) in 1521 and bore him fifteen children, including George (1527-1580), Robert (1535-1597), and Marjorie (c. 1530-1560). The latter married reformer John Knox in July 1553. In June 1556, Elizabeth left her husband and accompanied her daughter into exile on the Continent, then to Scotland, where Marjorie died. There were some who accused Elizabeth of having more than a “spiritual” relationship with her son-in-law.

 

ANNE ASKEW (1521-July 16, 1546)

 Anne Askew was the daughter of William Askew of Stallingborough, Lincolnshire (1497-1541) and Elizabeth Wrottesley. She is unlikely ever to have been a maid of honor to Queen Katherine Parr, as some accounts claim. Anne married in 1536. Katherine did not become queen until 1543. Anne’s husband, Thomas Kyme of Kelsey, had been betrothed to Anne’s sister, Martha. After Martha’s death, the younger sister was substituted for the older one. After giving birth to two children, Anne’s Zwinglian convictions led to disputes with the clergymen of Lincoln and eventually to her eviction from Kyme’s house in December, 1544. Anne borrowed money from her brother and set out for London with a maidservant. She was arrested there for heresy but acquitted in June, 1545. Arrested a second time in 1546, she was tortured and finally burnt at the stake. Portraits: the portrait by Hans Eworth labeled “Anne Ayscough” was not painted until 1560 and is probably Anne Clinton Askew. Biography: see portions of Derek Wilson’s Tudor Tapestry.

 

MARGARET AUDLEY (1539-January 10, 1564)

Margaret Audley was one of the wealthiest young women in England when she was married at thirteen to Lord Henry Dudley (1531-August 27,1557), younger son of the duke of Northumberland. The only child of Thomas Audley, 1st baron Audley (1488-April 30,1544) and Elizabeth Grey (c.1510-c.1564), she had inherited lands worth £1000 per annum, including Cree Church Place in London and Audley End on the outskirts of Saffron Walden. These were confiscated when the duke was found guilty of treason and executed. Henry Dudley was restored in blood on July 5,1556 and his wife's lands were returned, but he died in France after the Battle of St. Quentin the following year. Early in 1558, Margaret was betrothed to Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk (March 10,1538-June 2,1572), but they were obliged to wait for a papal dispensation to wed since his first wife had been Margaret’s first cousin. They were still waiting when Queen Mary died and Queen Elizabeth succeeded, restoring Protestantism to England. They wed quietly, without the dispensation, during the first days of the new reign and Parliament ratified the marriage in March, 1559. After participating in the coronation, Margaret and her new husband retired to Kenninghall and did not return to London until the following autumn. The marriage appears to have been a love match and produced four children, Elizabeth (1560-d. yng), Thomas (1561-1626), Margaret (1562-1591), and William (December, 1563-1640). So great was Margaret’s desire to rejoin her husband for Christmas that she left Audley End when she was still weak from childbirth. She caught a chill on the journey and died at Norwich on January 10, 1564. Portraits: by Hans Eworth, 1562, a companion piece to one of her husband.

 

MARGARET BABTHORPE (d. 1628)

According to one account, Margaret Babthorpe was an ardent recusant, imprisoned for her faith. She was the daughter of Sir William Babthorpe (1528-1581) and Barbara Constable and married Sir Henry Cholmondeley (some versions of her life say it was Sir Francis Cholmley of Whitby, Yorkshire, who died between 1614 and 1617). The story goes that after 1603, both she and her husband converted to Protestantism and embraced their new faith with as much zeal as they had previously shown for Catholicism. By Cholmondeley her children included Richard (1580-1632), Mary (m. Henry Fairfax) and Margaret (m. Timothy Comyn). She is said by some sources to have taken a second husband, Thomas Meynell of Hawnby. For more information on the Babthorpe family, see the entry under Grace Birnand.

 

ELIZABETH BACON (d.1569)

The daughter of John Bacon of London, she married William Breton of St. Giles without Cripplegate, London (d.January 12, 1558/9) in about 1550 and was the mother of Richard, Nicholas (1545-1626), Thamar, Anne, and Mary. Breton left his wife an inheritance on the condition that she not remarry. She seems, however, to have married not once but twice more, the first time to one Edward Boyes. In about 1566 she wed George Gascoigne (1525-1577), a debt-ridden poet. In 1568 the couple was being investigated for misuse of the Breton children’s inheritance, but apparently no wrongdoing could be proven. Elizabeth’s son, Nicholas Breton, was also a poet.

 

MARGARET BACON (d.1545+)

The daughter of John Bacon of Cambridgeshire, Margaret was in the household of Princess Mary Tudor in the 1530s. She had been married since about 1505 to Sir William Butts (c.1485-November 22,1545), one of the royal physicians. They had at least three children, Sir William (c.1506-1583), Thomas, and Edmund. Margaret survived her husband. Portraits: drawing and portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger in which the sitter is said to be age fifty-seven.

 

DOROTHY BADBY (d.April 16, 1594)

Dorothy Badby was the daughter of William Badby of Essex and was a maid of honor to Catherine of Aragon before she married Sir George Blage or Blagge (1512-June 17,1551) of Stanmore, Middlesex in 1530. After his death, she married Richard Goodrich or Goodrick (d. 1562), a lawyer and M.P., but there was a scandal involved with this match. In order to remarry in 1552, Goodrich divorced an earlier wife, Mary, daughter of John Blagge of London. After Mary Tudor took the throne and restored Catholicism to England in 1553, Mary Blagge Badby sued in the ecclesiastical courts for restitution of her conjugal rights. Queen Mary's death and the subsequent change in religion restored the status of Dorothy's marriage to Goodrich. Following Goodrich's death, Dorothy married Sir Ambrose Jermyn (1503-1577). She had three children by Blagge, Judith (1541-1614), Hester, and Henry (d.1586), and two by Goodrich, Richard and Elizabeth. Judith, Henry, and Richard married children of Sir Ambrose Jermyn by his first wife.

ANNE BAKER (b. 1581)

The daughter of John Baker (b.c.1560) and Dorothy Munnings (c,1560-1600) of Kent, Anne Baker (also called Jane) married Simon Forman (1552-1611), physician and astrologer, on July 22, 1599. Their son Clement was born in 1606. After Forman’s death, Anne was obliged to testify at the trial of Anne Norton and give up her husband’s notes on his clients. For more details see A. L. Rowse, Sex and Society in Shakespeare’s Age and Judith Cook, Dr. Simon Forman.

 

DOROTHY BAMPFIELD (d.1615)

I include Dorothy Bampfield here mostly because I love the representation of her on her tomb. She was the daughter of Sir Amias Bampfield (1550-1625) of North Molton, Devonshire and Elizabeth Clifford (d. 1565) and married first Edward Hancock of Combe Martin. Her second husband was Sir John Doddridge/Dodderidge/Dodderridge (1555-1628), judge in the Court of the King's Bench and it is as Lady Dodderidge that she is immortalized in the Lady Dodderidge Chapel in Exeter Cathedral. She had one son by each husband.


ANNE BARLEE (d.1558)

This entry is taken from W. H. Challen's "Lady Anne Grey" in the January 1963 Notes and Queries, in which he sorts out the marriages of Anne Jerningham and Anne Barlee, both of whom were entitled to use the name Lady Anne Grey. Anne Barlee (Barley, Barlow, Barlie, Barliegh) was the daughter of William Barlee (c.1451-1521) of Albury, Herfordshire and Elizabeth Darcy. She was married three times and in each case was her husband’s second wife. Her first husband was Sir Robert Sheffield (d. 1519). Her second was Sir John Grey, son of the 1st Marquis of Dorset. His date of death is unknown, but his will, dated March 3, 1523, names Anne as his executor. Her third husband was Sir Richard Clement of Ightham Mote, Kent (d.1538). His first wife died in 1528, so their marriage must be dated after that. In spite of her clear identification in the will of the second Marquis of Dorset, which calls her “my sister Lady Anne Grey, wife to my brother John Lord Grey and now wife to Richard Clemente,” she is called the daughter of the first Marquis of Dorset in Collins’s Peerage and this mistake has been repeated in many places since. Anne Barlee’s will is dated October 1, 1557 and was proved May 7, 1558. She asked to be buried at Albury with a tomb of marble or white alabaster.

DOROTHY BARLEE (d.c.1559)

Dorothy Barley was the daughter of William Barlee (Barley, Barlow, Barlie, Barliegh) of Albury, Hertfordshire (c.1451-1521) and Elizabeth Darcy. She became a nun and eventually was elected abbess of Barking in Essex. She used her influence to make the surrender of the nunnery as painless as possible. She was a personal friend of Sir William Petre, who received the deed of surrender. She had been godmother to his daughter in 1535 and his sister-in-law was one of her nuns. Dorothy’s pension was a generous one of £133 13s. 4d., one of the two largest awarded to the head of a nunnery.

FRANCES BARLOW (c.1551-May 8, 1629)

One of five sisters all married to bishops, Frances Barlow was the daughter of William Barlow (c.1500-August 13,1568), Bishop of Chichester, and Agatha Wellesborne (c.1515-June 18, 1595). She married first Matthew Parker (September 1,1551-December 1573), son of Archbishop Parker. She is listed as being part of the Parker household in 1566. After his death she wed Tobie Matthew (1546-1628), Archbishop of York, by whom she had three sons and two daughters. When Archbishop Matthew died, she donated his library of over 3000 books to the Cathedral at York. Their eldest son, Sir Tobie (1577-1655), fell out with his parents in 1604 when he announced that he intended to go to Rome. Fearing he would be seduced by Catholicism, Frances offered to settle her fortune on him if he would change his mind. He refused, and her worst fear came to pass. Although the younger Tobie Matthew was reconciled with his father in 1623, Frances never forgave him for becoming a Roman Catholic. After her death, Sir Tobie wrote that “she went out of the world calling for her silkes and toyes and trinketts, more like an ignorant childe or foure yeares than like a talking scripturist of almost fourscore.” Fuller’s Church History, however, memorializes her as a “prudent and provident matron.”

 

ELIZABETH BARTON (1506-x.April 20,1534)

Elizabeth Barton, known as the Nun of Kent, was born at Adlington and was a servant to one Thomas Cobb, a steward employed by William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury. She fell ill in 1525 and when she recovered she believed she could talk to angels. A monk, Edward Bocking, was sent to investigate. Either he believed her trances to be genuine, or he saw an opportunity to exploit the situation. He arranged for Elizabeth to be admitted to the convent of St. Sepulcher at Canterbury as a postulant in 1526. She took her final vows the following year. At St. Sepulcher both her fame and the wealth of the convent increased. When Henry VIII began to contemplate divorcing Catherine of Aragon, Bocking used Elizabeth to stir up trouble. Granted an audience with the king, she warned him against putting his wife aside. When he did not heed her advice, she began to say, in public, that if the king married Anne Boleyn, he would die within a month. She was arrested in July, 1533 on a charge of treason and taken to the Tower of London. All copies of an account of her early life and of writings about her by her admirers, as well as 700 copies of a newly printed volume of her prophecies called The Nun's Book, were seized and destroyed. Under the questioning of Thomas Cranmer, Elizabeth broke down, no longer sure of the validity of her visions. On November 23, 1533, she made a public confession at Paul's Cross. Denounced as a harlot as well as a fraud, she was attainted for high treason and executed at Tyburn. Biography: Alan Neame, The Holy Maid of Kent.

 

EMILIA BASSANO (1569-1645)

The argument that Emilia Bassano is the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets was first advanced by Dr. A. L. Rowse in several of his books (Shakespeare the Man, 1973; Sex and Society in Shakespeare's Age, 1974; Shakespeare the Elizabethan, 1977). Other scholars, notably Susanne Woods in Lanyer: A Renaissance Woman Poet, disagree with Rowse's theory. Personally, I think Rowse's reasoning makes sense, so I include his conclusions in what follows. Emilia Bassano was the illegitimate daughter of Baptista Bassano (d. April 10, 1576), a court musician, and Margaret Johnson (d. 1587). She entered the service of Susan Bertie, countess of Kent, and it is possible that is how she met Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon (1524-1596). She became his mistress. Her son, Henry (1592-1633), probably Hunsdon's child, was born after she married Alphonso Lanier (1573-1613), another musician, at St. Botolph Aldgate on October 10, 1592. Rowse dates Emilia's involvement with Shakespeare, and with the earl of Southampton, just after this. Rowse maintains that this same Emilia, from 1597 until 1600, also had a sexual relationship with Simon Forman the astrologer. Forman's records tell us that Emilia had several miscarriages and parish records reveal a daughter, Odillia (1598-99). Sometime in the early 1600s, Emilia spent time at Cookham, home of Margaret Russell, countess of Cumberland. Whether she was there as a servant or a guest is unclear. In 1609, Shakespeare's sonnets were published for the first time. By then, Emilia had apparently developed Puritan leanings. In 1611 there appeared in print a feminist, religious poem consisting of 230 eight-line stanzas, prefaced by eleven metrical addresses to various great ladies, titled Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. The author was identified as the wife of Alphonso Lanier. The text of this poem can be found online. Biography: an article in Margaret Hannay, ed., Silent but for the Word and two essays in David Lasocki and Roger Prior, The Bassanos: Venetian Musicians and Instrument Makers in England 1551-1665. Portraits: two copies of a portrait miniature by Nicholas Hilliard in 1593, formerly identified as "Mrs. Holland," may portray Emilia Bassano.

 

ANNE BASSETT (c.1521-before June 7,1557)

Anne Bassett was the third daughter of Sir John Bassett (1462-January 21,1528) and his second wife, Honor Grenville (c.1494-April,1566). Her stepfather, Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, was Lord Deputy of Calais and Anne was sent to a French family to be educated. In 1537 she obtained a post at court as one of Queen Jane Seymour’s six maids of honor, having been told in 1536 that, at fifteen, she was too young for the post. At the queen’s death, she was placed in the household of her cousin, Mary Arundell, countess of Sussex to await the king’s next marriage. Later she resided with Peter Mewtas and his wife (Jane Asteley) and then with a distant cousin, Anthony Denny, and his wife (Joan Champernowne). The king took a particular interest in her, at one point giving her a gift of a horse and saddle. Upon his marriage to Anne of Cleves, Anne Bassett resumed her position as a maid of honor and she also held this post under Catherine Howard. After that queen’s disgrace, Anne was particularly provided for because at the time her stepfather, mother, and two sisters were being held in connection with a treasonous plot to turn Calais over to England’s enemies. This does not seem to have affected the king’s feelings for Anne. At a banquet held a short time later, she was one of three ladies to whom he paid particular attention and there was speculation that Anne Bassett might be wife number six. When King Henry chose Katherine Parr instead, Anne resumed her role as maid of honor. She left court during the reign of Edward VI with an annuity of forty marks for her service to Katherine Parr but returned as a lady of the privy chamber in 1553 when Mary Tudor took the throne. On June 11, 1554, Anne married Walter Hungerford of Farleigh (c.1526-1596) in the queen’s chapel at Richmond. The queen granted Anne a number of Hungerford properties lost when Walter's father was attainted in 1540. Walter was knighted later that year. They had two sons who died young. Biography: Anne’s story is told and some of her correspondence reprinted in M. St. Clare Byrne’s The Lisle Letters.

 

CATHERINE BASSETT (c.1517-1558+)

The second daughter of Sir John Bassett (1462-January 21,1528) and his second wife, Honor Grenville (c.1494-April,1566), Catherine was in competition with her younger sister, Anne Bassett, for one opening among Jane Seymour’s maids of honor. When Anne was chosen instead, Catherine joined the household of Eleanor Paston, countess of Rutland. There was some talk of placing her with Catherine Willoughby, duchess of Suffolk or Ann Stanhope, countess of Hertford, but Catherine apparently preferred Lady Rutland. Efforts continued to be made to win a position for her as a maid of honor but it was not until Anne of Cleves was no longer queen that Catherine was placed in her household. It was there, in 1541, that she got into trouble for wondering aloud how many wives the king would have. On December 8, 1547 she married Henry Ashley of Hever, Kent (d. 1588). They had a son named Henry the following year. After that, nothing is heard of Catherine Bassett. She was still alive in 1558 and had died before 1588, but exactly when or where is unknown. Biography: More details are given in M. St. Clare Byrne’s The Lisle Letters.

 

MARGARET BASSETT (d. 1534)

Margaret Bassett, daughter of Ralph Bassett and Eleanor Egerton, first married, in about 1498, an important Leicestershire sergeant-at-law named Thomas Kebell (c.1439-1500), as his third wife. The match was arranged by her grandmother, Joan Biron, after the death of William Bassett, Ralph Bassett’s father, in November, 1497. After Kebell’s death, because the widow was a wealthy heiress, she was abducted, on the first of February, 1502, from Blore Hall in Staffordshire, by a band a men brandishing swords. There were, by various accounts, either a hundred or a hundred and twenty in the band and it was led by Roger Vernon, son of Sir Henry Vernon of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. Roger wanted to marry Margaret, even though she was already planning to wed Ralph Egerton of Ridley (c.1468-March 9, 1528). Blore Hall was the home of Margaret’s uncle, William Bassett, and Egerton and his father, Hugh Egerton (c. 1425-1505) were present, possibly to celebrate the betrothal. There was an additional connection. Margaret’s mother, Eleanor, was Ralph Egerton’s half sister. After the abduction, Vernon and Margaret were hastily married in Derby, much against the bride’s will, and afterward she was sent to Vernon’s uncles at Netherseal in Leicestershire and then into the Welsh Marches, where Sir Richard de la Bere kept her confined at his manor house in Clehonger. Margaret’s mother, Eleanor, accompanied by Eleanor's father and brother, set off in pursuit of the abductors. They were outnumbered and unable to rescue Margaret, but Margaret later managed to escape on her own and reach safety in London. The case ended up before the court of the Star Chamber, where changes and counter-charges kept the litigation active for the next seven years. Vernon was fined, but in December, 1509, all those involved in the abduction were pardoned by the king. Margaret did eventually marry Ralph Egerton, who was knighted in 1515. Margaret had a son by Kebell and three children (Richard, Ralph, and Elizabeth) by Egerton.

 

MARY BASSETT (c.1522-May,1598)

The youngest daughter of Sir John Bassett (1462-January 21,1528) and his second wife, Honor Grenville (c.1494-April,1566), Mary was regarded as the prettiest of the sisters. An attempt was made in 1538 to find her a position in the household of Elizabeth Tudor but this came to nothing. Mary was educated in France and there fell in love and secretly betrothed herself to a Frenchman, Gabriel de Montmorency, Seigneur de Bours. When her stepfather, Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, Lord Deputy of Calais, was arrested in 1540 on suspicion of treason, all the family papers were seized by English officials. Mary attempted to destroy her love letters by throwing them down the jakes but this only made her look more suspicious. It was, in fact, a crime to contract a marriage to a foreigner without permission. Mary's mother was confined to the house of Francis Hall in Calais but it is unclear where, or for how long, Mary and her oldest sister, Philippa (c.1516-1582) were held. She is next heard of on June 8, 1557, when she married John Wollacombe of Overcombe, Devon. They had five sons and two daughters: Honor (1558-1559), John (b.1559), Thomas (b.1561), Priamus (b.1563), Honor (b.1566) William (b.1570) and Henry (b.1571). Mary was buried on May 21, 1598 at Roborough, near Plymouth. Biography: More details are given in M. St. Clare Byrne’s The Lisle Letters.

 

MARGARET BAYNHAM (d. 1558/9) (maiden name unknown)

Mrs. Margaret Baynham was a stapler who traded in wool, wine, and herring, shipping up to thirty large sacks of wool a year from Calais. She also kept a boarding house there and farmed 100 acres. She was a widow when she married Robert Baynham (d. 1536), who was mayor of Calais in 1535-6. They had a son, Bartholomew, and a daughter, Anne (1523-1559). Letters from Mrs. Baynham to business contacts in England are quoted in Barbara Winchester’s Tudor Family Portrait. Mrs. Baynham had a sister, Elizabeth, who was married three times, first to John Bisley or Bysley, second to Henry Plankney (d. 1535), mayor of Calais in 1511, as his second wife, and third, in 1535, to Adam Copcott. Records show that one of Plankney’s wives was the sister of Dr. John London (c.1486-1543), so it is possible that London was the maiden name of both Elizabeth and Margaret.

 

MARY BAYNTON (b. 1515)

Mary Baynton was the daughter of Thomas Baynton of Bridlington, Yorkshire. In the latter part of 1533, she was found wandering into houses in Boston, telling people she was Princess Mary. She claimed that her father, Henry VIII, had turned her out, forcing her to beg for alms in order to survive. The three gentlemen who examined her concluded that she was not part of any conspiracy and she was probably returned to her father, although there is no extant record of what happened to her after she was questioned.

 

MARGARET BEAUFORT(May 31, 1443-June 29,1509)

Margaret Beaufort was the daughter of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset (1403-1444) and Margaret Beauchamp and married Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond (1430-1456) in 1455. She gave birth to the future Henry VII when she was fourteen. He was her only child, although she married twice more, to Henry Stafford (d. 1471) and then to Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby (1435-1504). Margaret was separated from her son when he was still quite young but she played an active role in asserting his claim to the throne. She is the one who negotiated with Elizabeth Woodville to secure the hand of Elizabeth of York in marriage, contingent upon Henry's invasion of England and defeat of Richard III, who had usurped the throne from Elizabeth's brothers. Once Henry Tudor was on the throne, Margaret remained influential. She was responsible for drawing up the rules by which the nursery was governed, and she was widely known as a patron of the arts. She herself translated "The Mirror of Gold of the Sinful Soul," published in 1507, and commissioned many other translations. She founded two colleges, Christ's and St. John's and may also have served on the Council of the North. Her primary residence when not at court was at Collyweston. Portraits: several portraits by unknown artists exist, as well as an effigy on her tomb in Westminster Abbey. Biographies: Of Virtue Rare: Margaret Beaufort, Matriarch of the House of Tudor by Linda Simon; The King's Mother Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby by Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood.

 

MARY BEAUMONT(1569-April 19,1632)

Mary Beaumont was created countess of Buckingham in her own right on July 1, 1618. Her father, Anthony Beaumont of Glenfield, Leicestershire, was not even a knight. Her mother was Anne Armstrong of Corby, Lincolnshire. As a young woman, Mary was a waiting gentlewoman in the household of Lady Beaumont of Cole Orton, but by her first marriage, to Sir George Villiers, (d.1606) of Brooksby, Leicestershire, she had four successful children: John, Viscount Purbeck (1591-1657); George, duke of Buckingham (1591-1628), the king's favorite; Christopher, earl of Anglesey (1593-1630), and Susan, countess of Denbigh (d.1651+). Mary lived at Goodby with her children after Villiers's death but married twice more, first on June 19, 1606 to eighty-year-old Sir William Rayner of Orton Longueville, Hertfordshire (d.October 1606), and second to Sir Thomas Compton (d.April 1626). The last marriage was unhappy, as Sir Thomas was impoverished and rarely sober. The countess was buried in Westminster Abbey.

ANNE BELLAMY (b. 1563)

Anne Bellamy was a member of a notoriously recusant family living in Middlesex. She was the daughter of Richard and Catherine Bellamy of Uxenden Hall near Harrow-on-the-Hill. There is some confusion between generations, since both her mother and her grandmother were named Catherine. As near as I can make out, her grandmother, Catherine Page Bellamy, was arrested in 1583 and died in prison in 1586. Three of this Catherine’s sons (Anne’s uncles) also died in prison: Jerome, executed in 1586; Bartholomew; and Robert (b. 1541), who was in prison in 1586 but still alive in 1593. Anne’s father, although indicted in 1583, was not held. Her mother, the second Catherine, was apparently indicted for being a recusant in 1587 but does not seem to have been jailed at that time. Anne herself was arrested and charged with being a recusant on January 26,1592, when she was twenty-nine. While a prisoner, she is said to have abandoned her virtue to the royal torturer, Richard Topcliffe. Other accounts say he raped her. Whatever happened, in May she provided evidence against the priest, Richard Southwell, that led to Southwell’s capture and eventual execution and the arrest of the rest of Anne’s family—her father, mother, two sisters, and two brothers. Bellamy and his wife were held at the Gatehouse, Anne’s sisters Audrey Wilford (b. 1573), a widow, and Mary (b. 1564/5), in the Clink, and her brothers Faith (b. 1566) and Thomas (b. 1572), both of whom had also been indicted in 1587, in St. Catherine’s. Anne was married in July to Nicholas Jones, underkeeper of the Gatehouse at Westminster, sometimes said to be Topcliffe’s servant. She gave birth to a child that Christmas, reportedly at Topcliffe’s house in Lincolnshire. Meanwhile, Anne’s father had refused to give her a marriage portion. By one account, he spent the next ten years in prison, but other sources place him in exile in Belgium in 1594, where he eventually died. Anne’s mother and two brothers conformed sometime in 1594 and were released but her sisters refused to give up their religion. Anne’s mother was still alive, widowed, in 1609, but no other details on the fates of individual members of the Bellamy family seem to have survived.

 

ELIZABETH BENNETT (maiden name unknown) (x. 1582)

In 1582, Mrs. Elizabeth Bennett, wife of a husbandman, John Bennett of St. Osyth, Essex, employed as a spinner by a local clothmaker, was accused of killing three people by witchcraft. She confessed to having two familiar spirits, Black Suckin and Red Liard and was executed by hanging.

 

LAVINA BENING, BENNICK or BENNINCK (c.1515-1576)

The daughter of Simon Bening or Bennick of Bruges (c.1483-1561), an illuminator, and Catherine Stroo, Lavina  was born in Ghent. In 1545, she married George Teerlinc, Teerlinck, or Terling and as Lavina Teerlinc became well known as a limner and miniature painter. She was sponsored at court in 1546 by Anne Parr, the queen’s sister, and was later granted £40 per annum by Mary Tudor as a “paintrix.” She was at court until at least 1562, when she presented Elizabeth Tudor with “the Queen’s personne and other personages, in a box finely painted” as a New Year’s gift. Works believed to have been painted by Lavina Terling are the miniatures of the queen’s Maundy Thursday ceremony (c.1560) and a portrait of Lady Catherine Grey that is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. She had a son, Marcus Teerlinc. She died in London.

 

MARY BERKELEY (c.1500-1586)

Mary Berkeley was the daughter of James Berkeley (c. 1466-1515+) and Susan Fitzalan. There is no documentation to support the story that she was at court as a lady in waiting and yet the rumor persists that she might have borne not one, but two sons to Henry VIII in the period 1525-1530. The first, Thomas Stucley or Stukeley (c.1525-1578) was actually the son of Sir Hugh Stukeley of Affeton, a knight of the body to Henry VIII, and Jane Pollard. Mary wed Thomas Perrot of Haroldston, Pembrokeshire (d. 1531). Some sources say he was knighted when they married. Mary’s son, Sir John Perrot (c.1527-September 1592) bore such a strong resemblance to Henry VIII that he was widely believed to be the king’s illegitimate son, but again there seems little evidence of this. He was certainly never acknowledged. Suggested dates for his birth range from November 1528 to sometime in 1530 and one source calls him Mary’s third son. After her first husband's death, Mary married, c. 1532, Sir Thomas Jones (c.1492-before June 26, 1559). Her children with Jones were Catherine, James, and Henry.

 

ELIZABETH BERNYE (1563-1603)

Elizabeth was the daughter of Martin Bernye of Gunton, Norfolk. She married Christopher Grimston or Grymeston and they had a son, Bernye Grimston. For his benefit, Elizabeth wrote a guidebook published after her death as “Miscelanea: Meditations: Memoratives.” It was a collection of brief essays on religious topics, together with poems and moral maxims. One of the later is “A fair woman is a paradise to the eye, a purgatory to the purse, and a hell to the soul.”

 

SUSAN BERTIE (1554-1596+)

The daughter of Catherine Willoughby, duchess of Suffolk (March 22,1521-September 19,1580) by her second husband, Richard Bertie (December 25,1517-April 9,1582), Susan Bertie spent her early years in exile in Poland with her brother Peregrine and her parents. The family returned to England in 1559. Susan was educated at Grimsthorpe with her brother and ten children of honor (nine boys and one other girl). In 1570, Susan married Reginald Grey (d. March 17,1573), who was restored as earl of Kent through her mother’s influence. After his death, Susan spent several years at the court of Queen Elizabeth. She remarried in 1582. Her second husband was Sir John Wingfield (d. 1596) and she accompanied him to the Low Countries in 1585. Their son Peregrine was born in Holland in 1589. As countess of Kent she was a patron of the arts. See the entry for Emilia Bassano. Portrait: by the Master of the Countess of Warwick in 1567 when she was thirteen.


 

GRACE BIRNAND (1563-1635)

Grace Birnand was the only child of William Birnand, recorder of York, and Grace Ingleby. A staunch Catholic, she married Ralph Babthorpe (c.1555-1618; brother of Margaret Babthorpe) in 1578. In 1592, a new campaign was begun against recusant wives of gentlemen who had conformed. In April of that year, Grace appeared in court, together with Lady Constable, Mrs. Metham, Mrs. Ingleby, Mrs. Lawson, and Mrs. Hungate. All had previously been placed with Protestant families in an attempt to convert them, but this ploy had failed. Now they were remanded to Sheriff Hutton Castle, a prison. In 1593, the authorities received a petition from several husbands, including Ralph Babthorpe, on behalf of their imprisoned wives, who had been held for the last eighteen months. At first there was resistance to releasing the women, but the first of them (Mrs. Metham) was freed that November and the others followed in 1594. As a result of the persecution suffered by her family for their religious beliefs, Grace and her husband finally left England for the Continent in 1613, settling in St. Omer. After she was widowed, Grace and her granddaughter, Grace Constable, entered St. Monica's, an Augustinian convent in Louvain, and took the veil in 1623. Grace's children were Sir William (1580-1635; also forced into exile on the continent), Robert (a Benedictine monk), Ralph and Thomas (Jesuit priests), Katherine, Elizabeth, and Barbara (a Jesuit nun)


MARGARET BLACKBORNE or BLAKBORN (maiden name unknown) (d.1562+)

Margaret Blackborne was a gentlewoman in the service of Marie de Salinas, Lady Willoughby d'Eresby in the 1520s. She had charge of the Willoughby children, two sons who died young and a daughter, Catherine. By 1548, Margaret was governess to Catherine Willoughby's younger son, Charles Brandon (1538-1551), by Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. In the 1540s, along with the duchess, she embraced the New Religion. In 1553, the duchess of Suffolk granted her the wardship of one Agnes Woodall or Woodhull, which Lady Suffolk had herself held until then. In 1555, Margaret accompanied the duchess and her second husband, Richard Bertie, into exile and as a result lost her property in England. They resided in Wesel, then relocated to Weinheim Castle in April 1556. When the Berties returned to England in 1559, Margaret once again served as governess, this time to the Bertie children, Susan and Peregrine. One of her sons, Anthony, was one of the ten children of honor being educated with them in 1562. Although Blackborne seems to be Margaret's married name and records indicate that she had more than one son, I have as yet found no information on either her husband or her parentage.


MARY BLAKENEY or BLACKENEY (c.1540-1600+)

One of the countless women who made a career of marriage and of arranging marriages between their children and stepchildren, Mary Blakeney was one of the few such mothers to be taken to a court of law over the matter at a later date. The daughter of John Blakeney of Sparham, Norfolk, she wed three times, first to Geoffrey Turville of New Park Hall, by whom she had a daughter, second to William St. Barbe of Broadlands, Hampshire (d.1588), by whom she had a daughter, Ursula (1587-1670), and third, c.1589, to Sir Edward Verney (1535-January 11,1600) of Penley, Hertfordshire and Claydon, Buckinghamshire. She had a son by Verney, Sir Edmund (April 7,1596-October 23,1642), but Verney's heir was an older boy, Sir Francis (1584-September 6,1615). Mary persuaded her husband to divide some property settled on Francis by his uncle with young Edmund and married Francis to her daughter in 1599. As soon as he came of age, however, Sir Francis petitioned the House of Commons to overturn these arrangements. He lost the case, but rather than let his stepmother's plan succeed, he sold his estates in 1607 and by 1608 had left England. He never returned to his homeland or to the wife forced upon him.


ELIZABETH BLOUNT (c.1500-1540)

Better known a Bess Blount, she was the daughter of Sir John Blount (1484-1531) of Kinlet, Shropshire, and Katherine Peshall (1483-1540). Most sources agree that she was at court as a “damsel of the most serene queen” Catherine of Aragon by 1513. The most complete account of her life, in her son's biography by Beverly Murphy, suggests that she first arrived at court in March of 1512 when she was about twelve years old, perhaps not yet with a formal place in the queen's household. Twelve was the minimum age, at that time, that a girl could be accepted for a court position. It was sixteen under Jane Seymour. Elizabeth's father, however, might have brought her with him to court at an earlier date. He was an esquire of the body to Henry VII and became one of the King's Spears under Henry VIII in 1509. She is believed to have been blonde with blue eyes and fair skin, the Tudor ideal of beauty. On May 8, 1513, she was paid 100s, recorded in the King's Book of Payments, half the annual amount paid to a maid of honor to the queen. From Michaelmas 1513, she received full wages of 200s per annum. Just when she became Henry VIII’s mistress is uncertain. Some sources suggest that Bessie was replaced in a masque at Yuletide 1514 because the queen knew of the affair. Others believe that Bessie's intimacy with the king did not begin much before July 1515, when her father was granted a two-year advance on his wages as a Spear. Dr. Murphy's theory is that Henry did not become involved with Bess Blount until around April 1518 and that the affair lasted only until November. After Bessie's son, Henry Fitzroy (June 18,1519-July 22,1536), was conceived, Bessie was lodged in a manor house belong to the Priory of St. Lawrence at Blackmore, near Chelmsford, Essex to await the birth. She did not return to court afterward. Soon after her son was born, she was married to Gilbert Tailbois or Talboys (d.1530). A daughter, Elizabeth (d.1563), was born c.1520, although other sources give the date of the wedding as 1522. Soon after, an Act of Parliament granted Bess her father-in-law’s lands for life (he had been declared insane). In June 1529, even though his father was still living, Bess's husband was called to take his place in Parliament as Baron Tailbois of Kyme. They had two other children, George, 2nd baron (1523-September 1540) and Robert, 3rd baron (1524-March 12,1541). During Bess’s widowhood, Lord Leonard Grey proposed marriage but she chose Edward Fiennes de Clinton (1512-January 16,1583) as her second husband, marrying him in 1534. They had three daughters, Bridget, Catherine (d.1621), and Margaret. She was at court as Lady Clinton when Anne of Cleves was queen. Biography: See Beverly Murphy’s Bastard Prince, a biography of Bess’s son, Henry Fitzroy, for more information. Portraits: funeral brass (British Museum)

 

GERTRUDE BLOUNT (d. September 25, 1558)

Gertrude Blount was the daughter of William Blount, 4th baron Mountjoy (1479-November 8, 1534) and Elizabeth Say (1477-July 1506). On October 25,1519, with the king among the guests, Gertrude married Henry Courtenay (1496-December 9, 1538), who was created marquis of Exeter in 1525. She had one son, Edward Courtenay, earl of Devon (1526-September 18, 1556). She spent most of her life on the brink of being charged with treason because of her husband’s claim to the throne and her own devout Catholicism. She has been described as both a “pathetic, ailing, devout, rather silly woman, with the credulous faith of the women of her kind” who “sought consolation in the compromising visions and prophesies of the ridiculous Nun of Kent” (A. L. Rowse) and as an “energetic, high-spirited woman” who was the first to speak openly to Eustace Chapuys, the Imperial Ambassador, of rebellion (Garrett Mattingly). In 1532, she was forbidden to visit King Henry VIII’s daughter, Mary Tudor, for fear she would encourage Mary’s defiance of her father.After she was named in the indictment against Elizabeth Barton (the Nun of Kent), Gertrude admitted she had gone to see her once, in disguise, and had later received her in her home at Horsley. Gertrude wrote an abject letter of apology to the king and was pardoned. In 1535, Gertrude was visiting Chapuys in disguise and had promised him the support of her Blount connections in any attempt to make Mary queen. In 1537, at the same time she was carrying Prince Edward to his christening, she was also establishing contact with her husband’s cousin, Cardinal Pole. In the fall of 1538, her plotting came to light. Gertrude, her husband and son, and the entire Pole family save for the Cardinal, who was not in England, were arrested in November. Incriminating letters were found in a coffer belonging to Gertrude. Exeter was executed. Gertrude and her son were attainted in July 1539, but eventually she was pardoned. She was released in 1540. Her son remained in the Tower until Mary Tudor became queen in 1553. Under Mary, Gertrude was a lady of the bedchamber and was granted all of her husband’s impounded goods as well as several estates. Her son, who was created earl of Devon, was considered for a time to be a candidate to marry the queen. When Mary expressed a preference for Philip of Spain, Devon aligned himself with the rebels of 1554 and was returned to the Tower for a time before being transferred to Framlingham Castle and then released. When he went abroad, his mother gave up her post at court. He was soon writing to her to ask her help in defending him from rumors that he was again involved in treason. He never returned to England, however, dying in Padua in 1556. Gertrude did not survive the reign of Queen Mary, dying just two months before her former mistress. A monument in Gertrude’s memory was erected in Wimborne Minster, Dorset.

CECILIA or CECILY BODENHAM (before 1504-1539+)

Cecilia or Cecily Bodenham was the daughter of Roger Bodenham (d.1514) of Rotherwas, Herefordshire and Joane Bromwich. She became a nun and was prioress at Kingston St. Michael. In 1534, she borrowed money to secure her election as abbess of Wilton, where the post had been vacant for more than a year. £100 was paid to Lord Cromwell to secure her election and she took over in May. During her tenure, she leased Fuggleston Manor, held by the abbey, to Henry Bodenham, doubtless a relative, but when she surrendered the abbey on March 25, 1539, she claimed to be “without father, brother, or any assured friend” and was granted a house at Fovant, together with orchards, gardens, and meadows, as well as an annuity of £100. She lived there with ten of the thirty-three nuns who had been at Wilton before the dissolution.

ALICE BOLEYN (d. November 1, 1538)

Alice Boleyn was the daughter of Sir William Boleyn (d.1505) and Margaret Butler (d.1515+), daughter of the earl of Ormonde, and married Sir Robert Clare or Clere (c.1453-1529) in 1506, by whom she had five sons, including Sir Thomas (d.1544), Sir John (c.1511-1557), and Richard. In 1520 she was at the Field of Cloth of Gold. Around 1528, Thomas Cromwell defended her in an action for debt. In 1533, Princess Elizabeth was given a household at Hatfield with her half sister Mary as a lady in waiting. Lady Clare, who was Anne Boleyn’s aunt, was made governess to the Lady Mary, as the king’s out-of-favor elder daughter was then known. She is reputed to have befriended Mary. Her sister, Anne, was in charge of the joint household.

AMATA BOLEYN (c.1485-1543+)

Amata Boleyn, sometimes called Jane, was the daughter of Sir William Boleyn (d.1505) and Margaret Butler (d.1515+), daughter of the earl of Ormonde, and married Sir Philip Calthorpe (1480-April 7,1549), by whom she had one daughter, Elizabeth (1521-May 26,1578). In 1521, when Mary Tudor was five years old, Lady Calthorpe replaced Lady Bryan as her governess. In 1525, when Mary set up her household at Ludlow as Princess of Wales, Calthorpe was her vice-chamberlain and his wife was one of her gentlewomen. She sent Mary a New Year’s gift in 1542/3.

ANNE BOLEYN (November 18, 1476-December 1556)

Anne Boleyn was the daughter of Sir William Boleyn (d.1505) and Margaret Butler (d.1515+), daughter of the earl of Ormonde. She married Sir John Shelton of Shelton, Norfolk (c.1472-December 21,1539) and was the mother of Sir John (1500-November 1558), Sir Ralph (1509+-September 26,1561), Anne (1505+-December 1563), Gabrielle, a nun at Barking (1505+-October 1558), Elizabeth (1505+-1561+), Margaret (1500+-before September 11,1583), Thomas, Mary (1512-January 8,1571), Emma (1505+-1556+), and Amy (1505+-November 1579). In 1533, she was put in charge of both King Henry VIII's daughters, the baby Elizabeth and Mary, now declared illegitimate. She was specifically instructed by her niece, Queen Anne Boleyn, to teach the Lady Mary Tudor her place. In February of 1534, she was reprimanded for showing too much sympathy for her charge. According to Eustache Chapuys, the Imperial Ambassador, she said that "even if the princess were only the bastard of a poor gentleman, she deserved honor and good treatment for her goodness and virtues." On the other hand, Lady Shelton was said to have boxed Mary’s ears and on one occasion in March of 1534, when Mary refused to climb into a litter with Lady Shelton because that would have meant following behind Elizabeth, a matter of precedence, Lady Shelton ordered one of gentlemen of the household to pick Mary up and force her into the litter. In September of 1534, when Mary was ill, Lady Shelton sent for an apothecary. Unfortunately, the pills he provided made matters worse and for some time afterward, Lady Shelton feared she would be accused of trying to poison her charge. In February 1535, Chapuys reported that she had been reduced to tears by the possibility that something might happen to Mary and she would be blamed for not being vigilant enough. In January 1536, Lady Shelton was the one who told Mary that her mother, Catherine of Aragon, was dead. Some sources say she showed little sympathy in doing so. After Catherine's death, Queen Anne sent orders to Lady Shelton that she should no longer try to pressure Mary into submitting to the king. Some sources paint Lady Shelton as Mary's tormentor, who changed her attitude only after she was told by Dr. Butts that there were rumors in London that she was poisoning Mary. It has also been said that after she learned from her daughter, Margaret (Madge) Shelton, who was a maid of honor to Queen Anne and possibly King Henry's mistress, that the queen was losing her influence with the king, Lady Shelton began to accept bribes from Chapuys to let his servants in to visit Mary. After Jane Seymour became queen, Lady Shelton retired, but one of her sons joined Mary’s household and was still in Mary’s service when Mary succeeded her brother Edward to the throne in 1553, a small indication that Lady Shelton was not entirely a villain. Some sources give Lady Shelton a second husband, Sir Thomas Calthorpe (1507-1559). Lady Shelton's will, dated December 19,1556, was proved on January 8, 1557.

ANNE BOLEYN (1507-x.May 19,1536)

This second Anne Boleyn was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, later earl of Wiltshire (1477-1539) and Elizabeth Howard (1476-April 3, 1538). She was a maid of honor to Catherine of Aragon when she caught King Henry VIII’s eye and married the king in 1533 after he divorced his first wife. She had one child, Elizabeth Tudor, and several miscarriages. Charged with adultery and incest, she was executed so that King Henry could take a third wife, Jane Seymour. Many aspects of Anne Boleyn’s life, starting with the date of her birth, are subject to debate. Biographies: Mary Louise Bruce’s Anne Boleyn, E. W. Ives’s The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, and Retha Warnicke’s The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn. Portraits: There are a number of portraits said to be of Anne Boleyn, including one showing her as the queen on a playing card.


MARY BOLEYN (1504-July 19, 1543)

Mary Boleyn was Queen Anne Boleyn's sister, the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, earl of Wiltshire (1477-1539) and Elizabeth Howard (1476-April 3, 1538). Because of her father's career as an ambassador to foreign courts, Mary accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1513 and was allowed to remain when most of the entourage was sent home by King Louis XII. When Mary Tudor, widowed, returned to England, Mary Boleyn entered the service of the new queen, Claude. By the time she was fifteen, she had briefly been the mistress of King Francis I. She returned to England sometime in 1519 or 1520 and was married to WIlliam Carey soon afterward. Dates vary for this wedding, some sources giving February 4, 1520 and others January 21, 1521. There is, in fact, considerable debate over almost all the dates in her life, starting with the birth order of the Boleyn siblings. One source gives her birth date as c.1499 while another has her marrying Carey at age 12. There were two Carey children, Henry and Catherine, but both the birth dates and the paternity of both are at the center of more controversy. There is no doubt that Mary Boleyn was the mistress of Henry VIII, but exactly when and whether she bore him one or more children is not clear. Dates for Catherine's birth range from 1522 to 1529. The reasoning in a recent article, backed up by the records kept by Catherine's husband, seems most logical to me. See Sally Varlow's "Sir Francis Knollys's Latin dictionary: new evidence for Katherine Carey," in Historical Research 80 (209) pp. 315-323). This argues for a birthdate between March 1523 and April 1525. This would make Catherine the older child and the most likely to be the king's. Dates for Henry Carey's birth range from 1524 to 1526 with March 4, 1526 as the leading contender. On June 22,1528, Carey died of the sweating sickness. Mary may or may not have been pregnant. If she was, the child did not long survive. Carey's death left Mary in debt and she was reduced to sell her her jewles, but by then her sister Anne had caught the king's interest. She secured for Mary an annuity of 100 pounds and took the wardship of young Henry Carey for herself. When Thomas Boleyn was created earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde on December 9, 1529, Mary became Lady Mary Rochford and dropped her husband's surname. She received an annuity of £100 and took a place at her sister's court in mid-1531. She remained with Anne until 1534 when, after six years as a widow, she secretly married Sir William Stafford (d. May 5, 1556). When Queen Anne realized Mary was pregnant, she banished her from court. Mary and Stafford lived at Rochford, Essex. They may have had two children, Edward (1535-1545) and Anne. When Henry VIII decided to divorce Anne Boleyn, he unearthed his prior relationship with Mary as grounds for a nullity. She escaped the worst of the family disgrace by continuing to live quietly in the country. Biography: The first biography devoted entirely to Mary Boleyn, by Josephine Wilkinson, is due out in 2009. Mary's story is also told in considerable detail, with excerpts from letters from and about her, in Marie Louise Bruce's Anne Boleyn. More recent biographies of Anne speculate, but do not add much substance. Two novels with radically different interpretations of her life are Karen Harper's Passion's Reign (reissued as The Last Boleyn) and Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl. Two films have been based on the latter but both book and films ignore Mary's time at the French court and contain a number of mistakes, such as confusing the duke of Northumberland (John Dudley of Lady Jane Grey fame) with the earls of Northumberland (the Percy family). Portrait: by Hans Holbein at Hever Castle.


THOMASINE BONAVENTURE (1450-1512?)

Thomasine Bonaventure was born at Week St. Mary, near Bude, Cornwall. Not a great deal is known about her family except that her brother was a priest. There are, however, several versions of how she came to marry a series of wealthy London merchants. The most prevalent is that a London man, traveling in Cornwall, came upon a shepherdess tending her flock and was so taken with her that he took her to London with him. To care for his wife. The Week St. Mary website identifies him as Richard Brimsby and goes on to say that he married Thomasine after his wife died, then died himself, three years later, of the plague. According to the website, she then married Henry Gall of St. Lawrence, Milk Street, a merchant adventurer, who died five years after their marriage. More scholarly accounts agree that Thomasine moved to London as a young woman but give Henry Galle (d. 1467), a merchant tailor, as her first husband and say she was an upper servant in his household who married him after his wife died. She was certainly married to Galle, for at his death she received a jointure of half his property and also £100 worth of cloth from his shop, the terms of his apprentices, and £100 in cash. She also appears to have taken over the business for a time before marrying another merchant tailor, Thomas Barnaby, who died less than a year later. Her third (or fourth) husband, John Percyvale (d.1503/4), was also a tailor. Percyvale was Lord Mayor of London in 1498. After his death, Thomasine took over his business and continued the training of his apprentices. By this time she was so wealthy that she attracted the attention of the king, Henry VII and ended up having to pay a fine of £1000 in order to receive his pardon for trumped up charges against her. She may have returned to Week St. Mary in her last years to engage in charitable works. She certainly spent a good deal of her money there, for she repaired highways, built a bridge at Week Ford, endowed maidens, built and endowed a chantry and a college, and endowed a free school in her will. She also left food and other provisions to prisoners in London and Cornwall. The Week St. Mary website quotes letters she supposedly wrote home, including one to her mother, though this seems at odds with the shepherdess story. And while the website agrees that her will was made in 1512, it claims she did not die until 1539 at the advanced age of eighty-nine. She had no children. More details may be found in Matthew Davies’s “Dame Thomasine Percyvale, ‘The Maid of Week’ (d.1512),” in Medieval London Widows, 1300-1500 (edited by Caroline M. Barron and Anne F. Sutton).

DOROTHY BONHAM (d.March 15,1641)

Three things connected with Dorothy Bonham have survived the centuries—her portraits at Ightham Mote in Kent, a reputation for fine needlework, and a ghost story. Her memorial in the village church in Ightham refers to her as "Dorcas," the needlewoman in Acts IX,39, and identifies her as a woman “whose art disclosed that Plot,” meaning that she depicted events surrounding the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 in her embroidery. In 1872, however, when there was an unexplained draft in the tower at Ingtham Mote and workmen brought in to remedy the problem discovered a small, sealed-up space containing a woman’s skeleton seated on a chair, a misinterpretation of those words soon had people identifying her as the skeleton. She was said to have sent an anonymous letter to her cousin, Lord Mounteagle, warning him not to attend Parliament on the 5th of November, 1605. The letter was intercepted and the plot thwarted and when Dorothy’s role in betraying the conspiracy was revealed, she was seized and walled up in the tower at Ingtham Mote. It never happened. Dorothy was the daughter of Charles Bonham of Mallyng, Kent. She married Sir William Selby (c.1556-1638). They did not even live at Ightham Mote until after 1612, when he inherited it from his uncle. The rumor that Dorothy Bonham haunts Ightham Mote, however, persists to this day. Portraits: There are two portraits of Dorothy in the Great Hall at Ightham Mote, one as a young woman (below) and one in middle age. She is also represented by a sculpture on her monument in Ightham Church.


ANNE BOURCHIER (1517-January 28, 1571)

The daughter of Henry Bourchier, 2nd earl of Essex (1471-March 30,1540) and Mary Say (1479-June 5,1535+), Anne Bourchier was married on February 9, 1527, when she was barely ten, to thirteen-year-old William Parr (August 14, 1513-October 28, 1571). Twelve years passed before the couple lived together as husband and wife. They were totally unsuited to each other. She was poorly educated and most comfortable living in the country. Her first recorded appearance at court was at a banquet on November 22, 1539. Her husband, in contrast, was a career courtier, and engaged in at least one tempestuous affair, with maid of honor Dorothy Bray, c. 1541. That same year, Anne surprised everyone by running off with John Lyngfield, alias Huntley or Hunt, prior of St. James, Tandridge, Surrey. Parr secured a legal separation on grounds of her adultery and secured a bill in Parliament on March 13, 1543 to bar any child Anne bore from succeeding to her inheritance. Some records give Anne a son by Lyngfield and a daughter (Marie, who married one Thomas York) by an unknown father, while others say she and Lyngfield/Huntley had several children of whom only Mary lived to marry. Details are lacking. The tale that Parr tried to convince King Henry to execute Anne for adultery and that she was saved by Parr's sister, who was about to marry the king, is highly unlikely to have happened. Adultery was not normally punished by death. Even when a queen was judged to have committed adultery, the actual crime was treason. It is unclear what happened to John Lyngfield, but Anne apparently spent the next few years in impoverished exile at Little Wakering, a manor in Essex. On March 31, 1551 a bill passed in Parliament declaring the marriage of Anne and Parr null and void. By that time, Parr was marquis of Northampton and “married” to Elizabeth Brooke and Edward VI was on the throne. This bill was reversed on October 24, 1553, when Mary Tudor became queen. At that time, Parr was in prison for treason, having conspired to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne instead of Mary. Two months earlier, Anne had gone to court to lobby for Parr's release and pardon, which would enable him (them) to keep their estates. That same December, Anne was granted an annuity of £100. Parr was released but left in poverty. It is unclear if Anne remained at court after that, but when Queen Elizabeth succeeded her sister, Anne retired quietly to Benington, Hertfordshire and there lived out the rest of her life.

MARGARET BOURCHIER (1468-1551/2)

The daughter of Humphrey Bourchier (d. 1471) and Elizabeth Tylney (d. April 4,1497), Margaret was brought up with her half brothers and half sisters, including Elizabeth Howard (Anne Boleyn’s mother). Margaret married Sir Thomas Bryan (c.1464-1517) of Ashridge, Hertfordshire. She was a lady in waiting to Catherine of Aragon from 1509 to 1516 while her husband was vice chamberlain of the queen’s household. She apparently brought their daughters Margaret (d. by 1527) and Elizabeth Bryan (c.1495-1546) and her son Francis (1490-1550) with her to court. She also had charge of the upbringing of Lettice Penyston. After the birth of Mary Tudor, Margaret was put in charge of the nursery at Ditton Park, Buckinghamshire and at Hanworth. She remained with the princess for five years and when she left was given an annuity of £50 for life. In 1533 she was called back to care for Elizabeth Tudor at Hatfield and in 1537, after the birth of Prince Edward, was put in charge of a combined household at Havering-atte-Bower. Her reports to Thomas Cromwell are still extant. In her personal life, there is some confusion. Apparently she was married three times in all. The other two husbands were David Zouche, Soche, or Souch (b. 1471) and John Sands or Sandys. It is not clear, however, in what order she married them. She had children only by Sir Thomas Bryan.




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