Anne Zouche

ANNE GAINSFORD or GAYNSFORD (d. before 1548)

This Anne Gainsford was said by John Foxe, author of The Book of Martyrs, to be the daughter of John Gainsford of Crowhurst, Surrey. John Gainsford, also of Guildford, Surrey (1467-October 28, 1540) had six wives. Anne was the daughter of the second, Anne Hawte or Haute (1473-1508), Anne was likely born between 1495 and 1501. Foxe further states, giving his source as John Lowthe, archdeacon of Nottingham, who had spent the early part of his career in the Zouche household, that Anne Gainsford, as yet unmarried, was a member of Anne Boleyn's household as early as 1528. She was in possession of her mistress's copy of William Tyndale's The Obedience of the Christian Man, a book deemed heretical by Cardinal Wolsey, when Anne Boleyn's equerry, George Zouche, who was courting Anne Gainsford, filched it. Having begun to read, he refused to return it, and he was caught by the dean of the Chapel Royal, who reported the matter to Wolsey. According to George Wyatt, who wrote the first biography of Anne Boleyn c.1590, Anne Gainsford herself recounted this incident to him, but there is some doubt about that claim, given the probable date of her death. The story goes that around the time Anne Boleyn became queen, Anne Gainsford married George Zouche, who then became a gentleman pensioner to the king. Later, as Anne Zouche, Anne was obliged to testify against Queen Anne. George Zouche is Sir George Zouche of Codnor (c.1494-1557) but there is a great deal of confusion created by online genealogies. Some have George Zouche married to Anne Gainsford well before 1528 and taking a second wife in 1526. Others date their children’s births from 1523-1535 and have George remarry in 1536. Mary S. Lovell in her biography of Bess of Hardwick (Bess was raised in Lady Zouche's household at Codnor Castle) says that Anne Gainsford was a lady in waiting to both Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour before her marriage. This would place their marriage in 1536 or later. However, S. T. Bindoff, ed, in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1509-1558, in the entry for John Zouche (August 27, 1534-June 19, 1586), states that he was the first son of George and Anne. The correct chronology appears to be that Anne and George married c.1533. Their first child was John, but after that matters are once again confused, with Anne listed as the mother of seven additional children (including William, George, Lucy, Anne, Margaret, and Francis), and George's second wife, Helena Lane (d.1560) credited with eleven more. Anne had died by July 16, 1548, when George made his will. In it he names his wife Ellen, three sons and four daughters. According to a family tree drawn in 1550 and showing all eleven children of the second marriage, the Eleanor and Bridget mentioned in the will belong to Helena, thus moving the date Anne died even earlier.

Portrait: If the Holbein sketch of M. Souch at Windsor is not Mary Zouche, then it is probably Anne Gainsford.

from A Who's Who of Tudor Women text ©2008-15 Kathy Lynn Emerson (all rights reserved)

http://www.kateemersonhistoricals.com/TudorWomenG.htm