Mary Tudor, first queen regnant of England was not known (in her later years) to be a beautiful women, and from what I’ve read, neither were the ladies she surrounded herself with. It was common practice during the reign of Henry VIII to ensure that his queen consorts had only the most beautiful women around them. Near the end of Mary’s life she definitely a sight – distended belly from whatever ailed her, skeletal frame, thinning hair and bad breath. That is the consensus from all the books I’ve read.

This is part one of a two-part series because I was able to find such a large list of ladies thanks to Kathy Lynn Emerson and her website, “A Who’s Who of Tudor Women” – Emerson has been kind enough to share all her findings with the world and allowing us to share pieces as long as we give her credit where credit is due. Please, if you have a moment, go check out her amazing site!

As you’ll notice, many of these women do not have portraits available? Is that because they were so unattractive? I’m only kidding, but I have heard this several times. I’ll need to do more research on the topic.

These names took quite awhile to compile so I hope you enjoy the post!

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This list includes women and girls who served Mary when she was princess and when she was queen.

Cecily Arundell

Cecily Arundell was the daughter of Sir John Arundell and his second wife, Elizabeth Danet. She was most-likely named for her great-grandmother, Cecily Bonville, marchioness of Dorset. Cecily was in the service of Queen Mary I in 1557 and is probably the Arundell referred to in a poem about eight of Mary’s ladies written by “RE” c.1553.

She was maid of honor to Queen Jane and a gentlewoman in the household of Queen Mary I. Cecily never married and was a faithful servant to her queen, a friend to poor and rich and was bent to virtuous life.

Jane Arundell

Jane Arundell was the daughter of Sir John Arundell and his first wife, Eleanor Grey. She was at least thirty years old when she went to court as one of Queen Jane’s maids of honor in 1536.

Although there was talk of a marriage with Thomas Cromwell’s son Gregory in October 1536, Jane Arundell never wed. Her younger half-sister, Mary Arundell, was also one of Queen Jane’s maids of honor until she wed the Earl of Sussex. After the queen’s death, Jane became part of their household. Later she was a gentlewoman in Queen Mary’s household before retiring to Lanherne.

Frances Aylmer

Frances Aylmer was a lady of the privy chamber to Princess Mary Tudor from at least 1525 until 1533 and returned to her service in 1536. She served as Mary’s proxy when Mary was godmother to one of the children of Lord William Howard. In mid-July 1533, Thomas Cromwell wrote to Lord Hussey, Chamberlain of Mary’s household, ordering him to have Mary’s jewels and plate inventoried and placed in the custody of Frances Aylmer. This did not happen. The Countess of Salisbury (Margaret Pole), who was Lady Mistress of the household, refused to comply unless she received written orders from the king himself.

Margaret Bacon

The daughter of John Bacon, Margaret was in the household of Princess Mary Tudor in the 1530s. She had been married since about 1505 to Sir William Butts, one of the royal physicians. They had at least three children, Sir William, Thomas, and Edmund. Margaret survived her husband. Margaret is said to be age fifty-seven in the below portrait.

Anne Bassett

Anne Bassett was the third daughter of Sir John Bassett and his second wife, Honor Grenville. 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. 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.

Frances Baynham

Frances Baynham was the daughter of Sir George Baynham and Bridget Kingston. She has been identified as one of Mary Tudor’s ladies in 1536, although she would have been very young at that date. She also married young, wedding Sir Henry Jerningham  between 1536 and 1543, after which she continued to serve Mary as Frances Jerningham, both before and after Mary became queen in 1553.

Amata/Amy Boleyn

Amata or Amy Boleyn, sometimes called Jane, was the daughter of Sir William Boleyn and Margaret Butler, daughter of the Earl of Ormond, and married Sir Philip Calthorpe of on November 4, 1518. They had one daughter, Elizabeth. In mid-October 1521, when Mary Tudor was five years old, Lady Calthorpe replaced Lady Bryan as her governess and Sir Philip was put in charge of the household at joint wages of £40 per annum. 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.

Margaret Bourchier

The daughter of Humphrey Bourchier and Elizabeth Tylney. Margaret was brought up with her half brothers and half sisters, including Elizabeth Howard (Anne Boleyn’s mother). Margaret married Sir Thomas Bryan 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 and Elizabeth Bryan and her son Francis 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.

Eleanor Browne

Eleanor Browne was the only child and heiress of Robert Browne and Mary (or Margaret) Mallet. Browne’s will, however, gives his wife’s name as Anne.

Eleanor married first Thomas Fogge, sergeant porter of Calais, by whom she had two daughters, Anne and Alice, and second Sir William Kempe. Their children were Emeline, Thomas, John, Edward, Anthony, Francis, George, Cecily, Faith, Mary, and Margaret. As Eleanor Kempe, Eleanor served in Katherine Parr’s household from 1543-1547 and was one of the longest-serving and most loyal of Mary Tudor’s ladies. She was part of Mary’s household by 1547 and was still there in 1558 when the queen died.

Mabel Browne

Mabel Browne was the daughter of Sir Anthony Browne and Alys Gage. Her father’s half-brother, William FitzWilliam, Earl of Southampton, left her an annuity of £100 in his will, dated September 10, 1542. Mabel Browne was probably named after Southampton’s wife, Mabel Clifford. She was in Mary Tudor’s household before 1552, possibly as a maid of honor. Her marriage to the brother of her stepmother, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, on May 28, 1554 made her countess of Kildare.

Catherine Brydges

Catherine Brydges was the daughter of John Brydges, 1st baron Chandos and Elizabeth Grey. She was a gentlewoman of the privy chamber to Queen Mary. In early 1556, she married Edward Sutton, Baron Dudley and soon after found herself being questioned about her brother-in-law, Sir Henry Dudley, the conspirator. Her husband was imprisoned for debt in June 1558, by which time Catherine had given birth to their only child, Anne.

Anne Conyers

Anne Conyers was the eldest of the three daughters of John, 3rd Baron Conyers and Maud Clifford, younger sister of the 2nd Earl of Cumberland. After her father died, Queen Mary summoned Anne to court. When she did not come at once, the queen sent a letter rebuking her for her hesitance to leave her mother and sisters. Shortly thereafter, Anne became a maid of honor, probably replacing Magdalen Dacre. She married Anthony Kempe of Slindon at some point during the next ten years.

Although she had a son by Kempe, all the sons and daughters mentioned in Kempe’s will except Mary, wife of Humphrey Walrond, were under age and unmarried in 1597 and were the children of his second marriage, made on November 19, 1569 to Margery Gage. The Conyers title went to the son of Anne’s sister, Elizabeth.

Magdalen Dacre

Magdalen Dacre was born at Naworth Castle to William Dacre, 3^rd Baron Dacre of Gilsland and Elizabeth Talbot.

At thirteen, she was a gentlewoman to Anne Sapcote, Countess of Bedford and at sixteen joined Queen Mary’s household. She was one of Mary’s bridesmaids when she married Philip II of Spain.

Magdalen was reportedly very religious, spending much of her time in prayer and wearing a coarse linen smock under her court clothes. According to a story repeated in E. S. Turner’s The Court of St. James and elsewhere, she was a blonde, a head taller than any other maid of honor, and very attractive, and she caught the attention of Queen Mary’s husband, Philip of Spain. The story goes that Philip opened a window to a room where Magdalen was washing her face (or in some versions, brushing her hair) and, supposedly in jest, caught hold of her. Magdalen beat him off with a nearby staff and neither she nor her mistress found the incident amusing.

Mary Danet

Mary Dannett was the daughter of Gerald Danet and his second wife, Mary Belknap. She is recorded as being in the household of Mary Tudor (later Queen Mary) in 1526. Mary Danet married George Medley, half-brother of Lady Jane Grey’s father. They lived at Tilty, Essex and had three sons and two daughters, including Elizabeth.

Jane Dormer

Jane Dormer was the daughter of William Dormer and Mary Sidney. She was a favorite maid of honor to Queen Mary, having entered the queen’s service before the death of Mary’s brother, King Edward VI.

Jane’s hand in marriage was sought by the earl of Devon, the Duke of Norfolk, and Charles Howard, later Earl of Nottingham, but she accepted the proposal of Don Gomez de Figueroa, Count of Feria. They were waiting for the return to England of Philip II to marry when Queen Mary died. Jane herself had been ill in October of 1558 but she returned to her dying mistress’s bedside in November and was entrusted with the errand of journeying to Hatfield to deliver Mary’s jewels to her sister and heir, Elizabeth Tudor.

After Mary’s death, Jane lived with her grandmother, Jane Newdigate, Lady Dormer at the Savoy Palace. She had some questions to answer about jewels missing from Queen Mary’s coffers. Queen Elizabeth appointed Catherine (Carey) Knollys, Marjorie (Williams) Norris, and Blanche Parry to question her. Her explanations appear to have satisfied them. Jane Dormer married the Count of Feria on December 29th and left England in July 1559.

Margaret Douglas

Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Margaret Tudor (sister to Henry VIII) by her second husband, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus. She was thus half-sister of James V of Scotland and granddaughter of Henry VII of England.

Her mother was fleeing from Scotland, seeking shelter with her brother, Henry VIII, when Margaret was born at Harbottle, on the English side of the border.

At barely fifteen, she was appointed Chief Lady-in-Waiting to her cousin, Princess Mary. Three years later, she was at court as one of Anne Boleyn’s ladies.

Margaret was in and out of trouble all her life. She formed two unacceptable romantic alliances with English suitors and was confined for a time after each incident. She may actually have married Thomas Howard (1512-October 29, 1537), one of the duke of Norfolk’s half-brothers. Thomas died in the Tower of London, where he had been imprisoned for his liaison with Margaret. Margaret remained close to Thomas Howard’s niece, Mary Howard, Duchess of Richmond, who had been married to Henry FitzRoy. Their “circle” had a literary bent and they all wrote poetry, although only the sonnets of Mary’s brother, the Earl of Surrey, achieved renown.

During Catherine Howard’s time as queen, Margaret was romantically involved with the queen’s brother, Charles Howard. On July 6, 1544, Margaret married Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox. They had four sons and four daughters but only two sons survived to adulthood, Henry, Lord Darnley and Charles, Earl of Lennox. Shortly before Henry VIII’s death, Margaret quarreled with him over a matter of religion (she remained a devout Catholic all her life) and was disinherited.

She was high in favor under Queen Mary, but under Queen Elizabeth she was under arrest on three separate occasions, once on suspicion of witchcraft and treason, once because her son, Lord Darnley, had married Mary, Queen of Scots, and once because she conspired to marry her other son, Charles, to Elizabeth Cavendish.

Anne Elmbridge

Anne Elmbridge was the daughter of Thomas Elmbridge (also spelled Ellenbridge, Elynbrugge, Elingbridge, and Ellingbridge) and Joan Overton. Anne married Sir John Dannet (Dannett, etc), possibly as early as 1520, and they took livery of her lands in Surrey and Worcestershire in 1525. In 1522, she was listed as a patroness of Chaldon church. On August 18, 1525, the list of attendants to accompany Princess Mary to Wales included the names “Mrs. Anne Dannet” (or Darrell or Darnell) and “Mrs. Dannet.” Mrs. was the abbreviation for mistress and did not necessarily denote marital status, but it is possible that “Mrs. Anne Dannet” was Anne Elmbridge Dannet. The household was dispersed a few years later. Anne and John were the parents of Leonard (d.1582), Sir John (d.c.1607), Gerard, Thomas, Jane, and Mary. Anne was buried in Thornfrith, Merstham, Surrey on May 30, 1577.

Joan Fermor

Joan Fermor was the daughter of Sir Richard Fermor and Anne Browne (d.1551+). At some point before 1536, she was a maid of honor to Princess Mary. In that year, she married Robert Wilford, a merchant tailor and London alderman. She had at least one child, a daughter, by her first husband.

On December 3, 1545, she married Sir John Mordaun, son and heir of the 1st Baron Mordaunt, as his second wife. At an unspecified date after that, Sir John’s son and heir, Lewis Mordaunt, who was only around seven years old when his father remarried, compromised his step-sister, Joan’s daughter. Joan insisted that they marry and her husband supported her in this, but Lord Mordaunt, the boy’s grandfather, objected. He took Lewis in and disinherited his own son when Sir John threatened to bar Lewis from succeeding to his mother’s lands. They were apparently reconciled before Mordaunt died on August 18, 1562. Lewis married someone else the following year. Joan married Sir Thomas Kempe of Ollantigh, Wye, Kent by a settlement dated December 20, 1571, as his third wife. They had no children. They were recusants and in 1578 the couple was noted for not receiving communion. In 1583, he was charged with absenting himself from church.

Mary Fitzherbert

Mary Fitzherbert was a member of the household of Mary Tudor in the Marches of Wales in 1525-7. The household accounts for July to December 1526 include quarterly payments of her wages, which amounted to £10 a year. Listed with her are Anne Rede, Mary Victoria (Mary Vittorio), and Mary Danet (Dannett). Possibly they were all maids of honor. On May 28, 1532, Mary Fitzherbert, still in Princess Mary’s service, was given a gown of tawny lucca velvet and a kirtle of crimson satin against her marriage, but her husband’s name is not given.

Katherine Grey

Katherine Grey was the daughter of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset and Margaret Wotton. She married Henry Fitzalan, Lord Maltravers, heir to the earl of Arundel 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, Henry, and Mary.

Catherine Grey

Lady Catherine Grey was the middle daughter of Henry Grey, 3rd Marquis of Dorset and Duke of Suffolk and Frances Brandon. 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, 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 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 Anne Stanhope, 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.

Dorothy Grosvenor

Dorothy Grosvenor was one of the sixteen children of Richard Grosvenor and Catherine Cotton. She married first Richard Wilbraham or Wilbram of Woodhey, Cheshire, who was a member of the household of Princess Mary from 1525, first as clerk of the kitchen and later as a gentleman usher. When Mary became queen he was made master of the jewel house.

According to his entry in the History of Parliament, in February 1558, he had a premonition about his own death and secured the wardship of his four-year old son Thomas for his wife, her father, and two other men of his own choosing. There is a problem with this statement, however, since Richard Grosvenor had died in 1542. One of two explanations is possible. Either father is a mistake for brother, or it was Richard Grosvenor the younger who fathered Dorothy. Since young Thomas was not born until 1554, it is possible that Dorothy could have been born c.1530 and be the daughter of the younger Richard. He married Katherine Dutton but I have no date for that marriage. One argument that Dorothy became a mother at forty-three rather than in her teens comes from the record of gifts before 1553 from Princess Mary to both Wilbraham and his wife. In his will, written on July 25, 1558, Wilbraham named Dorothy one of his executors, along with his sister, Elizabeth Whitmore, and two cousins. By Wilbraham, Dorothy also had a daughter, Elizabeth. Dorothy remarried, taking as her second husband Henry Savile of London, Barrowby, Lincolnshire, and Lupset, Yorkshire. She was his third wife and they had no children. He was a member of the Council of the North.

Sybil Hampden

Better known as Mrs. Penne, Sybil or Sibell Hampden was the daughter of William Hampden and Audrey Hampden (daughter of Richard Hampden of Kimbell).

She married David Penne and had two sons, John and William. In October 1538 she became the chief nurse in the household of the future Edward VI and remained in that post until 1544. The prince was very fond of her and, as king, gave her the manor of Beaumond and the rectory of Little Missenden in Buckinghamshire.

In 1553 she reappears in the household of Queen Mary, Edward’s sister, and she continued to live in rooms at Hampton Court during the reign of Elizabeth Tudor, although she had a house, called Penn’s Place, nearby. She was stricken with smallpox at the same time Queen Elizabeth caught the disease, but Sybil Penne died of it.

Barbara Hawke

All the Queen’s Women: The Changing Place and Perception of Aristocratic Women in Elizabethan England 1558-1620 (1987) by Joan Barbara Greenbaum Goldsmith lists Barbara Hawke Bruselles as part of the household of Elizabeth Tudor before 1558 and again from 1558-1569+ but it is in the household of Mary Tudor that I find early mention of Barbara Hawke. She is listed as a gentlewoman of the chamber for the period 1536-47, before Mary became queen, and appears again in 1553-8 as a Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber to Queen Mary. The surname Bruselles does not appear in these early records. Queen Elizabeth gave Barbara russet colored material for gowns in 1565 and again in 1569. Jane Brussells, listed as a chamberer in the household of Queen Elizabeth in 1586, is Barbara’s daughter.

Dorothy Howard

Dorothy Howard was the daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd duke of Norfolk and Agnes Tylney. With her mother, she was with Princess Mary at Richmond in 1520 when most of the court went to France for the meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I at the Field of Cloth of Gold. Sometime after the death of his first wife, Katherine Howard, in 1530, Dorothy married Edward Stanley, 3rd earl of Derby. As Lady Derby she accompanied Anne Boleyn to France before Anne’s marriage to Henry VIII. She was also in Anne’s coronation procession and in the funeral procession of Jane Seymour. Her children were Henry, Thomas, Elizabeth, Mary, Anne, and Jane.

Elizabeth Howard

Elizabeth Howard was the daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd duke of Norfolk and Agnes Tylney. In 1520, during the Field of Cloth of Gold, she was at Richmond with her mother, two of her sisters, and four-year-old Princess Mary. In 1523, she was one of the “bevy of ladies” with Elizabeth Stafford, Countess of Surrey, as described in the poem A Goodly Garland or Chaplet of Laurel by John Skelton. She married Henry Radcliffe. He became Lord Fitzwalter in 1529 (and earl of Sussex in 1542). Elizabeth is a leading candidate to be “The Lady Ratclif” of the Holbein sketch, although the identity of the sitter is by no means certain. Elizabeth’s children by Radcliffe were Thomas, 3rd earl (1526-June 9, 1583), Henry, 4th earl (c.1530-December 14, 1593), and Robert. In 1532, she was one of six ladies who accompanied Anne Boleyn to Calais. Portrait: drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger.

Katherine Howard 

Katherine Howard was the daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd duke of Norfolk and Agnes Tylney. In 1520, during the Field of Cloth of Gold, she was at Richmond with her mother, two of her sisters, and four-year-old Princess Mary.

At the age of six she was betrothed to Rhys ap Griffith of Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire and married him when she was fourteen. Their children, who followed the Welsh practice of using their father’s first name as their last name (ap Rhys or Rice) were Thomas, Griffith, Agnes, Mary, and one other daughter.

Sir Rhys was arrested on October 2, 1531 and accused of plotting to kill the king. He was beheaded. The attainder of November 1531 safeguarded Katherine’s jointure and she continued to receive about £196/year. Her second husband, married in 1532, was Henry Daubeney, earl of Bridgewater. She was his second wife. He’d had no children by his first marriage and this second union also proved childless (although TudorPlace.com.ar gives them three unnamed children). Barbara J. Harris in “Sisterhood, Friendship and the Power of English Aristocratic Women 1450-1550,” in Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1540-1700, edited by James Daybell, reports that Lady Daubeney sent all three of her daughters to her mother to raise. Daubeney was reportedly in poor health by 1534 and trying to get rid of his wife. They were already living apart. He may have thought he could get an annulment and marry again in the hope of a son to inherit or they may simply have been incompatible.

In any case, in 1535, he offered her all her own lands and £100/year. In the winter of 1535/6, however, she wrote to Lord Cromwell that her only income came from Queen Anne, her niece. She also claimed that efforts had been made to discredit her with the queen. Daubeney, meanwhile, was pleading financial hardship. By March 1536, however, the queen’s father, the earl of Wiltshire, had loaned him £400. It is not clear if Queen Anne’s generosity extended to having her aunt at court, but we next hear of her nearly two years after Anne’s execution. On April 7, 1538, Katherine was chief mourner at the funeral of her half-sister Elizabeth, Lady Wiltshire. In 1540 there were rumors that Katherine and her husband might reconcile. Reconciled or not, she was at court when another niece, Catherine Howard, was queen, and when Catherine was arrested, so was Katherine. She was indicted for misprision of treason along with her mother, her brother William, and William’s wife (Margaret Gamage). Katherine was buried in the Howard Chapel in Lambeth on May 11, 1554.

Mary Holland

Mary Holland was the daughter of Sir Richard Holland and Eleanor Harbottle. Some sources say Holland was Eleanor Harbottle’s first husband, married in 1524, but this is incorrect. She was married first to Sir Thomas Percy, by whom she had several children, including two future earls of Northumberland. Holland had also been married before. Mary Holland had only one full sibling, a brother named Richard. It has been suggested that Mary Holland might be the Mrs. Holland who was one of Queen Mary’s attendants in 1555/6 and this is certainly possible, although unproven.

Mary married Arthur Pole of Lordlington. His entry in the Oxford DNB says they wed before September 1562. Other sources say the wedding took place between September 15, 1562 and January 27, 1563. Either way, they were not to have much of a life together. Arthur had already been in the Fleet in April 1561 and he was imprisoned again in late 1562. Condemned on a charge of treason in February 1563, he spent the rest of his life in the Tower of London, dying there sometime between January 1570 and August 12, 1570.

Anne Jerningham

Anne Jerningham was the daughter of Sir John Jerningham and Bridget Drury. She married Sir Thomas Cornwallis, who was arrested briefly for recusancy in 1570 and was a gentlewoman of the privy chamber to Queen Mary in 1555. Her children were Elizabeth, Alice, Mary, Sir William, and Sir Charles Cornwallis.

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