Bridget St. Loe

John Scutt married three times because his wife by 1545 was Bridget Malte (d. November 30,1557), younger daughter of the king's tailor, John Malte, and she was not Margaret's mother. Bridget has been described as “a verye lustye yonge woman.” She and Scutt had a son, Anthony (1545-January 7,1588) and, according to John Malte's 1546 will, Anthony had a brother, Edward Scutt, but he is not identified as Bridget's child.

After the death of Henry VIII he retired to the manor of Stanton Drew, Somerset, where he was the tenant of Sir John St. Loe. The next part of the story comes primarily from Mary S. Lovell's Bess of Hardwick. Scutt had a reputation for mistreating his wife and when he suddenly died, there were whispers of poison. The whispers grew louder when Bridget remarried a fortnight after her husband’s death, taking as her second husband Edward St. Loe (c.1520-1578), one of Sir John’s sons. Before Edward married her, he had arranged for his brother, Sir William St. Loe, to purchase the wardship of Anthony Scutt. He’d also asked William not to agree to their father’s suggestion that he (William) marry Margaret Scutt. Later it came out that Bridget was three months pregnant with St. Loe’s child at the time of the marriage. Two months after the marriage, she was dead. Six months after that, Edward St. Loe married his stepdaughter by marriage, Margaret Scutt.

Links

1. http://www.kateemersonhistoricals.com/TudorWomenSa-Sn.htm