Mary Fiennes, Baroness Dacre
Mary Neville | |
|---|---|
| Baroness Dacre | |
 Mary Neville by Hans Eworth, 1555-1558, with an inset portrait of her first husband Thomas Fiennes dated a year before his death. | |
| Born | 1524 |
| Died | 1576 (aged 51–52) |
| Noble family | Neville (by birth) Fiennes (by marriage) |
| Spouse(s) |
|
| Issue | Thomas Fiennes Gregory Fiennes, 10th Baron Dacre Margaret Fiennes, 11th Baroness Dacre |
| Father | George Neville, 5th Baron Bergavenny |
| Mother | Lady Mary Stafford |
Mary Fiennes, Baroness Dacre (1524 – after 1565) was the daughter of George Neville, 5th Baron Bergavenny by his third wife, Lady Mary Stafford, youngest daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham.[1]
Life
[edit]In 1536 she married Thomas Fiennes, 9th Baron Dacre (c. 1515–1541). Both Lord and Lady Dacre were among the party appointed to meet Anne of Cleves and welcome her to England.[1][2] In 1558, Mary Neville Fiennes, Lady Dacre, assisted at the funeral of Mary I.[2]
By her first husband, Lady Dacre was the mother of:[3]
- Thomas Fiennes (1538–1553)[3]
- Gregory Fiennes, 10th Baron Dacre (1539–1594)[1]
- Margaret Fiennes, 11th Baroness Dacre (1540–1611)[1]
Lord Dacre was convicted of the murder of a gamekeeper and hanged as a common criminal at Tyburn in 1541. The family was stripped of its lands and titles by Henry VIII.[1]
In the following years, Mary battled to have the properties restored on behalf of her children,[3] and on her ascension in 1558 Elizabeth restored the title of Baron Dacre to Mary's second son Gregory, her eldest son Thomas having died at age 15 on 25 August 1553.[1]
Lady Dacre married twice after her first husband's death and had several other children about whom little is known. Her second marriage was to John Wooton or Wotton of St. Clere's manor in North Tuddenham, Norfolk,[4][1] (a relative of the Le Strange family of Hunstanton), whom she wed some time before 18 May 1546.[3] After his death, she married Francis Thursby of Congham in Norfolk.[4][1] He was the son of Thomas Thursby (d.1543) of Ashwicken, and the grandson of Thomas Thursby (d.1510), thrice Mayor of King's Lynn, and is reported to have had six additional children.[4]
Lady Dacre took part in the funeral procession of Mary I on 14 December 1558.[5][non-primary source needed]
A petition made by her son Gregory, Lord Dacre, to Queen Elizabeth I in 1559, mentions that Lady Dacre had in 1559 three living sons and three daughters by her third husband, Francis Thursby of Congham. The author references an MS. petition by her son Gregory, Lord Dacre to Queen Elizabeth I in 1559.[6][self-published source]
Mary's death date is unclear, with sources giving the earliest possible date as 18 December 1565 and the latest as sometime in 1576.[7]
Ancestry
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cokayne, George E. (George Edward) (1916). The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom: Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. Vol. IV. London: The St. Catherine Press. pp. 10–11.
- ^ a b Levin, Carole; Bertolet, Anna Riehl; Carney, Jo Eldridge (2016). A Biographical Encyclopedia of Early Modern Englishwomen: Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts, 1500-1650. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-315-44071-2.
- ^ a b c d James, Susan E. (2017). The Feminine Dynamic in English Art, 1485-16603. Routledge. pp. 155–160. ISBN 978-1-351-54460-3.
- ^ a b c Edwards 2013, p. 20.
- ^ Thomas Hearne, De rebus Britannicis collectanea, vol. 5 (London, 1774), p. 317
- ^ Barrett-Lennard, Thomas (1908). An Account of the Families of Lennard and Barrett. privately printed. p. 207.
- ^ Edwards 2013, p. 19.
- ^ a b c d e f Cokayne, George Edward (1887). The Complete Peerage (Edition 1, Volume 1).
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cokayne, George Edward (1889). The Complete Peerage (Edition 1, Volume 2).
- ^ Cokayne, George Edward (1887). The Complete Peerage (Edition 1, Volume 1).
- ^ a b Roger Virgoe[, ed. (1995), The Will of Hugh atte Fenne, 1476, Norwich: Norfolk Record Society, ISBN 0951160060, retrieved 3 March 2017
- ^ a b Cokayne, George Edward (1887). The Complete Peerage (Edition 1, Volume 1).
- ^ a b Cokayne, George Edward (1887). The Complete Peerage (Edition 1, Volume 1).
- ^ a b c Cokayne, George Edward (1895). The Complete Peerage (Edition 1, Volume 6).
References
[edit]- Edwards, J. Stephan (Autumn 2013). "A Life Framed in Portraits: An Early Portrait of Mary Nevill Fiennes, Lady Dacre" (PDF). The British Art Journal. 14 (2): 14–20. JSTOR 43492086. Retrieved 7 May 2025.
- Honig, Elizabeth: "In Memory: Lady Dacre and Pairing by Hans Eworth" in Renaissance Bodies: The Human Figure in English Culture c. 1540-1660 edited by Lucy Gent and Nigel Llewellyn, Reaktion Books, 1990, ISBN 0-948462-08-6