The King has proclaimed that all who claim to do services on Coronation day shall be in the White Hall at Westminster Palace, 20 June next, and has authorised the Earl of Surrey, Treasurer of England, the Earl of Oxford, Sir John Fyneux, Chief Judge, Sir Thomas Englefeld, and others to determine claims. He has ordered 26 honorable persons to repair to the Tower of London on 22 June, to serve him at dinner, where those who are to be made knights shall bear dishes “in token that that they shall never bear none after that day”; and on 23 June, at the Tower, they are to be made Knights of the Bath; “whose names follow in order as they were made,” viz., Richard (sic) Radclyff lord Fitzwater, the lord Scroop of Bolton, the lord Fitzhugh, the lord Mountjoye, the lord Dawbeney, the lord Brooke, Sir Henry Clyfford, Sir Maurice Berkeley, Sir Thomas Knyvet, Sir Andrew Wyndesore, Sir Thomas Parr, Sir Thomas Boleyne, Sir Richard Wentworth, Sir Henry Owtrede, Sir Francis Cheyny, Sir Henry Wyotte, Sir George Hastynges, Sir Thomas Metham, Sir Thomas Bedyngfeld, Sir John Shelton, Sir Giles Alyngton, Sir John Trevanyon, Sir William Crowmer, Sir John Heydon, Sir Godarde Oxenbrige and Sir Henry Sacheverell.
‘Henry VIII: June 1509, 16-30 ‘, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 1, 1509-1514, ed. J S Brewer (London, 1920), pp. 36-55. British History Onlinehttp://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol1/pp36-55 [accessed 8 July 2023].
Sir Thomas Parr was knighted and Sir Thomas Boleyn followed behind him…wonder if the order in which they were knighted means anything…
A rare portrait of Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII and an accomplished woman in her own right, shattered records yesterday (June 5) to become the most expensive Tudor painting of all time. Selling to a U.K. collector at Sotheby’s Old Master & 19th Century Paintings Evening Auction, the work realized $4.4 million, more than four times its initial high estimate.
The Jersey portrait is one of only two surviving contemporary portraits of Queen Katherine Parr, the other being the slightly earlier, related full-length in the National Portrait Gallery previously mentioned. In both, the Queen’s jewellery is of further significance in identifying the sitter. In the 1960s both paintings were identified as likenesses of Lady Jane Grey by Strong, largely on the basis of comparison with an engraving in Henry Holland’s Herwologia Anglica of 1620, and a portrait at Seaton Delaval – which appears to be a derivation of the present work, on canvas, dating to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and erroneously called ‘Lady Jane’.4Throughout the nineteenth century and until Strong’s publication, the Jersey portrait was in fact also erroneously identified as Queen Mary I. Both portraits were correctly reidentified in 1996 by Susan James (see Literature) on account of the jewellery the sitter is shown wearing, specifically the distinctive crown-headed brooch which appears on her bodice (fig. 2). This brooch, which may have been made for Katherine by her favourite goldsmith, the Dutch jeweller Peter Richardson, is traceable through three Tudor lists of jewels dating to before, during, and after Katherine’s time as Queen, one of which is entitled: ‘The Quene’s Jewells in a cofer having written upon it, “the Quene’s Juelles”’ [sic], and for all of which there is good evidence pointing to Katherine Parr’s ownership (the earliest list of 1542 is an inventory of the jewels belonging to Catherine Howard, which subsequently passed to her successor).5
The last list, from 1550, describes the brooch as ‘one ouche or flower with a crown containing two diamonds, one ruby, one emerald; the crown being garnished with diamonds, three pearls pendant.’6 Interestingly, overpaint in the full-length portrait at the National Portrait Gallery now means that the square-cut emerald there appears red, but the brooch’s true character is plainly obvious in the present painting, where all the precious stones are clearly distinguished from one another. The accuracy of the depiction of the brooch – thus underlining the portrait’s royal status and sovereignty of the sitter – is further corroborated by its description in the jewel list of Elizabeth I, to whom the brooch passed with the rest of the royal jewellery in 1587, which specifies that the crown is ‘garnished with XV small diamonds’7 – all fifteen stones are clearly discernible here. At Elizabeth’s death the brooch passed to Anne of Denmark, queen of James I; it is found in her jewellery inventory of 1606, but an annotation recounts that in 1609, having lost the two triangular-cut diamonds, the brooch was broken up for ‘the making of Gold plate’.8
In the full-length portrait, and in a slightly later half-length portrait from the late sixteenth century, previously attributed to William Scrots (also in the National Portrait Gallery; fig. 3),9Katherine wears a pendant – probably another brooch adapted to be worn on a necklace – which may be identified as that described in the 1542 list of Catherine Howard’s jewels: ‘oone other Ooche of Golde wherein is averey feir large ruby and a rounde diamond with a verey feir peerle hangyng at the same [sic].’10 The pendant in the present portrait, by contrast, would appear also to include an emerald; nor does the sitter wear the girdle of antique cameos that appears in the full-length painting, and which is also identifiable in the 1542 list. Instead, here Katherine’s waist is encircled by a belt of large pearls and diamonds in gold settings, with pomanders and small antique urn-shaped pendants, which, together with the matching adornment to the line of her bodice across the chest and the pattern of her necklace, bears a remarkable similarity to that in a portrait of Elizabeth I, when Princess, in the Royal Collection, at Windsor.11The portrait of Princess Elizabeth and the Jersey portrait of Katherine also share similar embroidery in the sleeves and both sitters wear almost identical diamond rings, which display the latest styles in diamond cutting – the table-cut and pointed cut – which were symbolic of fidelity, though the pattern of their display follows that in the the portrait of Katherine in the National Portrait Gallery. Unlike either of these other two portraits, however, the jewels in Katherine’s cuffs, and the pomanders on her girdle, in the Jersey portrait are all inscribed multiple times with the words ‘LAVS DEVS’ (‘praise God’).
To Queen Katherine Parr, the king’s letter congratulatory, upon her marriage with the Lord Admiral
We thank you heartily, not only for the gentle acceptation of our suit moved unto you, but also for the loving accomplishing of the same, wherein you have declared, not only a desire to gratify us, but also moved us to declare the good will, likewise, that we bear to you in all your requests. Wherefore, ye shall not need to fear any grief to come or to suspect lack of aide in need, seeing that he, being mine uncle, is of so good a nature that he will not be troublesome by any means unto you, and I of such mind, that, for divers just causes, I must favour you.
But even as without cause you merely require help against him whom you have put in trust with the carriage of these letters, so may I merely return the same request unto you, to provide that he may live with you also without grief, which hath given him wholly unto you; and I will so provide for you both, that if hereafter any grief befall, I shall be a sufficient succour in your godly and praiseworthy enterprises.
Fare ye well, with much increase of honour and virtue in Christ.
From St James, the 25th day of June
Edward
Letters of the Kings of England: Now First Collected from the Originals in Royal Archives, and from Other Authentic Sources, Private as Well as Public · Volume 2 By James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps · 1846
Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondence By Katherine Parr, editor Janel Mueller · 2011, pg 147
The letter was addressed in two different hands: “The Lady Mary to the Lord Admiral, 4th June.” “From the Lady Mary’s Grace“
Addressed to: “To my Lord Admiral”
My lord,
After my hearty commendations, these shall be to declare to you, according to your accustomed gentleness, I have received six warrants from you by your servant, this bearer: for the which, I do give you my hearty thanks. By whom also I have also received your letter, wherein, as me thinketh, I perceive strange news concerning a suit you have in hand to the Queen for marriage. For the sooner obtaining whereof, you seem to think that my letters might do you pleasure.
My lord, in this case I trust your wisdom doth consider that, if it were for my nearest kinsman and dearest friend alive, of all other creatures in the world, it standeth least with my poor honor to be a meddler in this matter, considering whose wife her grace was of late. And besides that, if she be minded to grant your suit, my letters shall do you but small pleasure. On the other side, if the remembrance of the King’s majesty, my father (whose soul God pardons), will not suffer her to grant your suit, I am nothing able to persuade her to forget the loss of him, who is at yet very ripe in my own remembrance.
Wherefore I shall most earnestly require you, the premises considered to think none unkindness in me, though I refuse to be a meddler any ways in this matter. Assuring you that, wooing matters set apart (wherein I, being a maid, am nothing cunning), if other ways it still lie in my little power to do you pleasure, I shall be as glad to do it as you to require it: both for his blood’s sake, that you be of, and also for the gentleness which I have always found in you. As knoweth almighty God, to whose tuition I commit you. From Wanstead this Saturday at night, being the fourth of June.
The poet Edmund Spenser writes to Helena, Marchioness of Northampton dedicating his poem “Daphnaïda: An Elegy upon the Death of the Noble and Vertuous Douglas Howard, Daughter and Heire of Henry Lord Howard, Viscount Byndon, and Wife of Arthure Gorges Esquier” to her.
Queen Katherine Parr | Letter signed, announcing her marriage to Henry VIII, 20 July 1543 Sotheby’s“To our right dear and entirely beloved brother, the Lord Parr, Lord Warden of the Marches,” Sotheby’s
Right dear and well-beloved brother, we great you well. Letting you wit that when it hath pleased almighty God of His goodness to incline the King’s majesty in such wise towards me, as it hath pleased his highness to take me of all others, most unworthy, to his wife, which is, as of reason it ought to be, the greatest joy and comfort that could happen to me in this world:
To the intent, you being my natural brother, may rejoice with me in the goodness of God and of his majesty, as the person who by nature hath most cause of the same, I thought meet to give your this advertisement. And to require you to let me sometime hear of your health as friendly as you would have done, if God and his majesty had not called me to this honor: which, I assure you, shall be much to my comfort. Given at my lord’s manor of Oatlands, the twentieth of July, the thirty-fifth year of his majesty’s most noble reign.
Kateryn, the quene
Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondences, editor Janel Mueller. University of Chicago, 2011. pg 46.
Letter signed (“Kateryn the queen”), to her brother William Parr,
ANNOUNCING HER MARRIAGE TO KING HENRY VIII, explaining that “It hath pleased Almighty god of his goodness to incline the Kinges ma[jes]tes harte in suche wise towards me”, celebrating an event which is “the greatest Joye and comfort that could happen to me in this world”, and inviting her brother to “rejoyse with me in the goodness of god and of his Ma[jes]te”, 1 page, oblong folio, Oatlands, 20 July 1543, integral address leaf (“To our right der and entirely beloved Brother the Lord Parre Lord Warden of the Marches…”), docketed, fragile at folds, crude repair to marginal tear, spotting
HENRY VIII’S FINAL QUEEN ANNOUNCES HER MARRIAGE TO THE KING. This remarkable letter was written just days after the marriage between the aging Henry VIII and his final Queen. The wedding ceremony had taken place on 12 July in the Queen’s Closet at Hampton Court Palace, attended by only 18 people. The couple immediately started on the court’s summer progress and this letter was written from the first stop on their journey, Oatlands Palace in Surrey.
Description of Lot from Sotheby’s
The letter is up for auction. I noticed that this is not her handwriting and her signature is not followed by her maiden initials KP. Did the initials come later in her reign as queen?
16 APRIL 1614: THE DEATH of Jane Wentworth, Lady Cheyne of Toddington. She was one of seventeen children, the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Wentworth, Baron Wentworth of Nettlestead and Margaret Fortescue, a distant cousin of Sir Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire (father of Queen Anne) and Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal (father of Queen Katherine). By her father, Lady Cheyne was a cousin to the Seymours, whose mother was Margery Wentworth (aunt to Jane’s father).
Portrait of a Lady of the Wentworth Family (Probably Jane Cheyne) 1563 Artist: Hans Eworth Netherlandish, active England 1545–73/74 Inscribed: AETATIS 24 / 1563 / HE (on tablet at upper right), coat of arms of the Wentworth (upper left) Art Institute Chicago
She was married to Sir Henry Cheyne (Cheyney or Cheney) of Shurland who was created Baron Cheney of Toddington by Queen Elizabeth. He was “the extravagant Lord Cheney” who tore down his ancestral home, Peivre, and built a mansion. Henry was born on 31 May 1540 to Sir Thomas Cheyne of Blackfriars and Shurland and his second wife, Anne Broughton. Lord Cheyne’s father fought in France in 1544 while Queen Katherine Parr was Regent of the realm. After the death of Henry VIII, Thomas was the one who made arrangements for the coronation of Edward VI, son and heir of King Henry VIII and his third queen, Jane Seymour. Ironically, he ended up being part of the proceedings against Lord Seymour of Sudeley, uncle to Edward VI and the fourth husband of the late dowager queen, Katherine Parr. Thomas’ wife, Anne Broughton, was the daughter of Sir John of Toddington and the future Lady Anne (Sapcote) Russell, Countess of Bedford who had served as a lady to the late queen Katherine. She brought Toddington to the Cheyne family.
Queen Elizabeth was received at Toddington twice.
Lady Cheney is recorded in a lawsuit against Robert Pearce to recover the deeds and for an adjunction. The lawsuit seems to pertain to Toddington Manor, lands in the parish of Chalegrave and the manor of Chalgrave, late the estate of her husband, Lord Cheyne.
Lord Cheyne died on 3 September 1587. His remains were buried in Toddington Church where there are three mutilated tombs to the Cheyne family. Lady Cheyne erected a tomb for him. The effigy is in highly decorated armor. The head is on a cushion and on a mat rolled up, continued the whole length.
Through Lady Cheyne, Toddington passed to her great nephew, Thomas Wentworth, 4th Baron of Nettlested
Upon her death, Lady Cheyne was also buried in the Church. The effigy is still there, but is much worn away; the head which rested on a pillow is badly damaged. In pointed frontlet, veil, and wimple, and mantle faced with ermine. The arms of Wentworth and twenty-three quarterings are present. The head of the tomb is preserved and is inscribed:
“Here lyth Da Jane late wife of Sr Henrie Cheyne, Knight Ld Cheyne of Todington and eldest daughter of Sr Thomas Wentworth, Knight, Lo. Wentworth and Lord Chamberlaine to king Edward the sixt, who deceased the 16 daie of April A D 1614”
“Here lies my bodie in corrvptions bed, my sovle by faith and hope to heaven is led. Imprisoned by life, death set me free, then welcome death, step to æternity”
Three Branches of the Family of Wentworth I. Wentworth of Nettlestead, Suffolk. II. Wentworth of Gosfield, Essex. III. Wentworth of Lillingstone Lovell, Oxfordshire By William Loftie Rutton · 1891.
Calendars of the Proceedings in Chancery, in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth To which are Prefixed Examples of Earlier Proceedings in that Court, Namely, from the Reign of Richard the Second to that of Queen Elizabeth, Inclusive · Volume 1 By Great Britain. Court of Chancery · 1827
I found that the ancestor of US President George Washington, Lawrence Washington (c.1500-1584), father to Robert (c.1554-1619), on 26 July 1529, was a bailiff at Warton (in the Barony of Kendal) to Sir William Parr, Baron Parr of Horton, uncle to Queen Catherine. Lawrence was the son of John and Margaret Washington. By his mother, he was a nephew of Sir Thomas Kytson of Hengrave, son of Robert of Warton Hall. His cousin, Lady Katherine Spencer, married into the Spencer family and is an ancestor to the current Prince of Wales and his brother, Harry, Duke of Sussex.
By 1529/30, Washington married the wealthy widow, Elizabeth Gough (unknown maiden name).
By 1529, the future queen Katherine Parr had just married her first husband, Sir Edward Borough (or Burgh). Borough was the eldest son and heir of Sir Thomas, 1st (or 3rd) Baron Borough of Gainsborough and Agnes Tyrwhitt, kin to Elizabeth Tyrwhitt who was related to Parr by marriage and close to Parr during her tenure as queen and dowager queen. Elizabeth was responsible for writing an account of the last few days of the dowager queen. Upon Edward Borough’s death in 1533, his brother, William, became heir to his father. William, the future 2nd (or 4th) Baron, had married Katherine Clinton, daughter of Mistress Bessie Blount, so there is no doubt that the future Queen was associated with the future Lady Borough. Katherine Parr’s mother, Maud, would have known Bessie Blount from the early years of the reign of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. Both were ladies to Queen Katherine. The families were also already connected through Bessie’s son by the king, Henry Firzroy. William Parr, later Baron Parr of Horton was the head of the household for the young boy. His nephew, also named William, was brought up alongside Fitzroy, the Earl of Surrey, and even Edward Seymour who was master of the horse. Lady Borough’s father, the Earl of Lincoln, remarried in 1552 to Parr’s cousin and lady in waiting, Elizabeth FitzGerald (1527-1590). Entries on Ancestry try to tie President Washington to Bessie through her granddaughter, Elizabeth Borough, but she is recorded as marrying a common man with the surname, Rider.
It is suggested that Lord Parr convinced Lawrence Washington to move from Wharton to Northampton where he was to become a wealthy wool merchant. At the dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry VIII, Washington profited by buying the properties he held as tenant of St.Andrew’s Priory, Northampton. In 1532 and 1545, Washington became Mayor of Northampton. In 1538 (some sources state c.1543), he remarried to another wealthy widow, Amy Tomson, daughter of Robert Pargitar. The estate of Sulgrave was brought to the marriage and was held by the family for a small fee. He eventually bought Sulgrave in 1539 from the crown and started the building of the Manor which was completed by 1560.
The Washingtons. Volume 3, Royal Descents of the Presidential Branch · Volume 3 By Justin Glenn · 2014
Sulgrave Manor: An Illustrated Survey of the Northamptonshire Home of George Washington’s Ancestors. By Gerald Michel Veit · 1953
Margaret Tudor Arrives in York in 1503 Margaret Tudor enters York, 1503. During her journey to Scotland to marry James IV of Scotland. MT: Queen Consort of Scotland, Countess of Angus, Lady Methven, daughter of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. Photo credit Lebrecht History / Bridgeman Images
8 APRIL 1516: QUEEN MARGARET commenced her progress under Thomas Dacre, 2nd Baron Dacre, son of Humphrey Dacre, 1st Baron Dacre of Gilsland and Mabel Parr, great-aunt of the future queen consort Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII of England, brother of Queen Margaret. Margaret had been a guest, or prisoner for many months. The [4th] Lord Ogle and a few other nobles from Northumberland were also with the dowager queen.
Margaret arrives in Newcastle, is greeted by the Lord Mayor and Sir Thomas Parr, father of the future queen Katherine. The Queen’s daughter, Margaret Douglas, was with her and at the time was six months old. Her Upon her arrival, she meet Sir Thomas Parr, equerry to Queen Katherine of Aragon who had sent her favorite white palfrey with her very own easy pillion.
By the time they reached York, ‘her Grace rode upon a white palfrey behind Sir Thomas Parr, he riding bare head…and when the said Queen was anent the said Mayor [of York], the said Sir Thomas Parr advanced the Queen’s horse towards the said Mayor, saying to her grace — here is the Mayor of the city.’
By the time they reached London, almost a month later, Margaret was still clearly impressed by Parr. ‘Her grace did ride behind Sir Thomas Parr through Cheapside about six o’clock, and so to Baynard’s Castle…’
Sources
Agnes Strickland. Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses: Margaret Tudor. Magdalene of France. Mary of Lorraine, 1850. Google eBook
Sarah Gristwood. The Tudors in Love: Passion and Politics in the Age of England’s Most Famous Dynasty, 2022. Google eBook (preview)
Helena, Marchioness of Northampton c.1603 by Robert Peake, the elder. She’s wearing coronation robes for the coronation of James I. Inscription, top left reads: “Helena, Relict of WillmParr Marquis of Northampton, and wife to Sir Thos Gorge of Longford near Salisbury, Daughter of Wafancus Knacenburg of Sweden. She was Chife Mourner at the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth April 28, 1603.” (Wikipedia)
Helena Parr, marchioness of Northampton (1548-1635), a courtier, was born in 1548 in Sweden, the daughter of Ulf Henriksson (d. 1560×68), a nobleman of Östergötland, and his wife, Agneta Knuttson (d. after 1568). Helena (Elin) had two brothers and several sisters. Her father was a supporter of Gustav Vasa, king of Sweden, and came from the old noble family of Bååt, while her mother was a descendant of the jarls or earls of Orkney. The name Snakenborg was taken from her mother’s family, which was originally from Mecklenburg.
Helena was one of six young Swedish girls appointed from 1564 to 1566 as maids of honour to Princess Cecilia, margravine of Baden, daughter of Gustav Vasa. Late in 1564, when she was fifteen, they embarked on a voyage to England. It was rumoured that Cecilia decided to visit England to revive the suit of her brother Erik XIV to marry Elizabeth I, but it is not clear that this was the case. Taking a roundabout route over land and travelling through Poland and Germany, in order to steer clear of hostile countries, the party was so hampered by bad weather that almost a year passed before it reached its destination.
‘A Young Lady Aged 21, Possibly Helena Snakenborg, Later Marchioness of Northampton’ 1569. (Tate Museum)
On its arrival in England many prominent members of the nobility received the party. Helena was by all accounts a beautiful woman, having large brown eyes, red hair, and a perfect pink and white complexion. She caught the attention of William Parr, marquess of Northampton (1513-1571), nobleman and courtier, the third and only surviving son of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal, Westmorland, and his wife, Maud. He soon endeavored to court her. Northampton presented her with many extravagant gifts such as clothes and jewels, and ‘being an impressionable and romantic young girl, Helena was swept off her feet by the experienced older man’ (James, 395). Cecilia built up large debts due to a lavish lifestyle and left England in April 1566 in order to escape her creditors. She wanted to take Helena back to Sweden with her; however, her young maid, enjoying life in her new country and becoming close to the marquess, was keen to remain. This wish was granted through Elizabeth’s influence.
Northampton hoped to marry Helena but felt prevented from doing so because, although divorced in 1551, his first wife, Lady Anne Bourchier, was still alive. Elizabeth was fond of Helena and appointed her a maid of honour from about 1567, before promoting her to gentlewoman of her privy chamber-a highly respected position at the heart of the court in which she was among the queen’s most intimate servants and controlled access by the press of courtiers. She was entitled to many privileges, such as her own lodgings at court, servants, and a horse. However, she was not a waged member of the privy chamber and it is not known how regularly she attended court. Bourchier died on 26 January 1571 and Northampton and Helena were finally able to marry in May. The wedding took place in Elizabeth’s presence in the queen’s closet at Whitehall Palace. The bride was twenty-two and the groom fifty-seven. They seemed happy together and divided their time between their houses in Guildford, Surrey, and at Stanstead Hall, Essex. The marriage came to a sudden end within a few months when the marquess died on 28 October in Thomas Fisher’s house in Warwick. There were no children. The marchioness received a substantial dower of £368 per annum, drawn from her husband’s estates in Cumberland. This may have been exchanged for lands worth £400 per annum in Huntingdonshire.
It was not too long before Helena captivated another admirer, Thomas Gorges [see below]. The queen was originally in favour of his approaches to Helena but changed her mind and refused to consent to a marriage, perhaps as a result of her notorious sexual jealousy regarding gentlewomen of her privy chamber or because she had strong views on unequal marriages; Helena was a marchioness and Gorges only a gentleman. The couple wed in secret about 1576. When Elizabeth learned of their deceit, Helena was banned from court, although she was later reinstated, possibly with the help of her influential friend Thomas Radcliffe, third earl of Sussex, the lord chamberlain. The queen warmed to her again and with wholly uncharacteristic generosity granted her manors in Huntingdonshire and Wiltshire.
The couple’s first child was born in June 1578 and named Elizabeth (1578-1659) after the queen, who was her godmother. Their first son, Francis (d. in or before 1599), was probably born in 1579. Gorges was persuaded by his wife to make his property of Longford, Wiltshire, bought after 1573, more appealing by rebuilding it. The mansion had been damaged by fire when he acquired it and a replacement was completed at great expense by 1591, under the final supervision of John Thorpe, since the entrance on its north-east front bears that date. Longford was the model for the ‘Castle of Amphialeus’ in Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. Gorges was knighted in 1586. During this time Helena settled down to raise her family. She had two more daughters, Frances (1580-1649) and Bridget (1584-c.1634), and four more sons, all of whom were knighted: Edward Gorges, first Baron Gorges of Dundalk (b. 1582/3, d. in or before 1652); Theobald (1583-1647); Robert (1588-1648); and Thomas (b. 1589, d. after 1624).
Queen Elizabeth I’s Funeral Procession. Part of The Funeral Procession of Queen Elizabeth From a Drawing of the Time, Supposed to be by the Hand of William Camden (Society of Antiquaries, 1791). Folding panorama nearly 29 feet long. Zoom in for Helena, Marchioness of Northampton. Look and Learn / Peter Jackson Collection
The marchioness was still valued highly by Elizabeth and often acted as her deputy at the baptism of the children of distinguished noblemen, particularly towards the end of the reign, when the queen’s health was deteriorating. Helena must have been distressed when Elizabeth, whose friendship and guidance she had known ever since her arrival in England, died in March 1603 and she was the chief mourner in the funeral procession as senior peeress because Arabella Stuart refused to undertake the role. The accession of James VI to the English throne paved the way for the removal of many of Elizabeth’s old courtiers and Gorges was demoted. Helena did not retain all her privileges but was probably glad to escape the rivalry that existed among the gentlewomen of the privy chamber to Anne of Denmark. After Gorges died on 30 March 1610 at the age of seventy-four, Helena increasingly retreated from public life, although she remained a devoted member of the Church of England.
Helena, Marchioness of Northampton and Sir Thomas Gorges in Salisbury Cathedral.
Helena died on 10 April 1635 at Redlynch, Somerset, the residence of her son Sir Robert Gorges, and was buried on 14 May in Salisbury Cathedral. She had no fewer than ninety-two direct descendants at the time. She granted over £1700 in annuities and bequests in her will.
Sir Thomas Gorges (1536-1610), courtier, was born in Wraxall, Somerset, the fifth son of Sir Edward Gorges, landowner, of Wraxall, and his wife, Mary, daughter of Sir Anthony Poyntz of Iron Acton, Gloucestershire, and his wife, Elizabeth. He was a member of the royal household, groom of the privy chamber from 31 December 1571, JP for Huntingdon and Wiltshire from about 1579, special ambassador to Sweden in 1582, and MP for Longford, Wiltshire, in 1586, as well as keeper of many important royal estates. Gorges acted as Elizabeth’s ‘high grade messenger’ (HoP, Commons, 1558-1603, 2.208). He was one of the wealthiest gentlemen in Wiltshire. Gorges, like his wife, was buried in Salisbury Cathedral.
Sources
C. A. Bradford, Helena, marchioness of Northampton (1936) · S. E. James, Kateryn Parr: the making of a queen (1999), 394-7 · HoP, Commons, 1558-1603, 2.208 · will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/167, sig. 41 · TNA: PRO, PROB 11/116, sig. 64 · administration, TNA: PRO, PROB 6/2, fol. 22r · GEC, Peerage, 4.16 Paul Harrington, ‘Gorges , Helena, Lady Gorges [other married name Helena Parr, marchioness of Northampton] (1548-1635)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/69751
Further reading
Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I Sandra Byrd
Tate Gallery Report, 1960-61, pp.16-17 Gunnar Sjogren, ‘Portrait of a young lady, 1569; an identification’, Burlington Magazine, October 1980, pp.698-700
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