Elizabeth Brooke, Marchioness of Northampton

en.Wikipedia, Elisabeth Brooke, Marchioness of Northampton.

"Elisabeth Brooke (25 June 1526 – 2 April 1565) was an English courtier and noblewoman. She was the eldest daughter of George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham of Kent and Anne, his wife. She was the niece of Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder, the courtier-poet credited with bringing the sonnet form into the English language, and Elizabeth Brooke who was associated with Henry VIII of England.[1] Elisabeth openly lived in adultery with William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton and bigamously married him. At times, she was accepted at court as the Marchioness of Northampton. She was the sister-in-law of Katherine Parr, King Henry VIII's sixth queen. Her first cousin, Thomas Wyatt the Younger, was the leader of a rebellion against Queen Mary I known as Wyatt's Rebellion. The whole family was implicated. She became one of the most influential courtiers again during the reign of Elizabeth I.

"Elisabeth was described as vivacious, kind and one of the most beautiful women at court. Her relationship with William Parr, Katherine Parr’s brother, would shape the politics of England for many years to come. As the Marchioness of Northampton, Elisabeth performed much of a queen’s role during the reign of Edward VI, as she was the wife of the second most important man at court.

At the court of Henry

Elisabeth Brooke was around fourteen years old when she arrived at court as a maid-of-honour to Queen Katherine Howard. Her aunt and namesake, Elizabeth Brooke, was notorious as her husband, Sir Thomas Wyatt, had left her after he discovered her adultery. The day after Katherine Howard was condemned to death for adultery, the Imperial ambassador wrote that Henry was paying particular attention to the elder Elizabeth Brooke, and that 'she had wit enough to do as badly as the others if she wished.' She was thought to be a possible candidate for wife number six.[2] Elisabeth’s father was George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham of Kent.

Her lover, William Parr, had been a close friend of Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond. Elisabeth became involved with Parr around the time that the King chose William’s sister, Katherine, to be his sixth wife, and the relationship quickly became common knowledge. As the brother-in-law of the King, he was in favour at court. His first wife, Anne, had left him and had an illegitimate child by another man in 1541. William then began an affair with Elisabeth's maternal aunt, Dorothy Bray.[3][4]

Despite the annulment of four of King Henry's marriages, divorce was still not possible for the average person. A man could divorce a wife if she was found to be adulteress, as William Parr's first wife Anne Bourchier was found, and he did legally cast her aside through an act of parliament in 1543;[5] The act declared Anne's children to be bastards.[6] However, the law prevented him from remarrying.

Reign of Edward

After Henry’s death, William applied to the new king, Edward VI, for a divorce and permission to remarry, but Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, the Lord Protector, turned down the request. Elisabeth was sent to live in Chelsea with Katherine Parr, whose household also included Princess Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey. In the meantime, Katherine Parr had married the Protector’s brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, and she died in September 1548, reducing Northampton's influence.

Francis Van der Delft, the Imperial ambassador, wrote to the Emperor in February 1548 that Parr ‘was obliged by the command of the Council to put her away and never speak to her again on pain of death…he is only spoken of secretly and does not show himself at court’.[7] In 1549 a political coup ousted Somerset and replaced him with Northampton’s close friend, John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, and on 31 March 1551, a private bill was passed in Parliament annulling Parr’s marriage to Anne Bourchier and accepting Elisabeth Brooke as his legal wife. The couple set up home together at Winchester House, Southwark.

In June 1550, the French Duc de Vendôme was spending time at the English court and although she was now married to Northampton, Vendôme took an interest in her and gave her a present when he returned to France, a chain worth 200 crowns.[8] Their expenditure records show the Northamptons’ love of socialising and sports; their gambling at cards, bear baiting and more cultured events such as plays and musical performances.

Reign of Mary and Elizabeth

The accession of Mary I in 1553 led to Northampton being ordered to return to his first wife.[4] Both Elisabeth and her father, Lord Cobham, had supported Lady Jane Grey's claim to the throne. There is some suggestion that she continued to plot against Mary and in favour of Elizabeth.[4] When Mary I died and Elizabeth became queen of England, Northampton's titles were restored, and his divorce and remarriage were accepted. The Marchioness became so close to Elizabeth I that her influence was said to rival Robert Dudley’s.[9] Elisabeth’s importance is shown by the number of surviving letters discussing her illness at this time. She was courted by the Swedish and Spanish ambassadors in the hope that she would support them.

By 1564, Elisabeth was suffering from breast cancer, and desperate to be cured. With her brother and sister-in-law, she traveled to the Netherlands, looking for a treatment to alleviate her condition. She had doctors from all over Europe looking for a cure and exploiting her false hope in a cure. Queen Elizabeth arranged for the personal physician of the King of Bohemia to attend Elisabeth in England. One doctor’s servant, Griffith, who was meant to be helping the dying woman, attempted to seduce her, earning him and the doctor a place each in prison in January 1565.

Elisabeth died, aged around 39, on 2 April 1565, heavily in debt. The Queen was devastated. Five years later, Northampton married a sixteen-year-old Swedish woman, Helena Snakenborg who apparently looked very like his beloved Elisabeth. In January 1571, Anne Bourchier died, leaving his union with Helena beyond doubt. Parr died soon after.

References

1. Hart, Kelly (1 June 2009). The Mistresses of Henry VIII (First ed.). The History Press. pp. 175–178. ISBN 978-0-7524-4835-0.
2. The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart, p.197
3. Gareth Russell (4 April 2017). Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII. Simon and Schuster. pp. 216–. ISBN 978-1-5011-0863-1.
4. Helen Graham-Matheson (Fall 2013). "Elisabeth Parr's Renaissance at the Mid-Tudor Court". Early Modern Women (Vol. 8): 289–299.
5. Nicolas, Sir Nicholas Harris, Barrister at Law (1836). A Treatise on the Law of Adulterine Bastardy with a report of the Banbury Case, and of all other cases bearing upon the subject. London: William Pickering. pp.59–60
6. The Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of Henry VIII, Vol. 18, Part 1, Item 66, Part III, cap. xliii, dated 22 January 1543
7. Collection of State Papers: Spanish, IX, pp.253-4.
8. Collection of State Papers Relating to Affairs in the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, London, 1740, ed. Samuel Haynes, p.62.
9. CSP: Spanish, Elizabeth I, i, 1558-67, p.381; Collection of State Papers…Left by William Cecil, Lord Burghley ed. Samuel Haynes, London, 1740; CSP: Foreign, Elizabeth I (1562), 543.

Elizabeth Brooke, June 12,1526-April 2,1565, was the daughter of George Brooke, 9th baron Cobham (1497-September 29,1558) and Anne Bray (c.1500-November 1,1558). She is known to have been at court in 1543 and to have captured the heart of the queen’s brother, William Parr, marquis of Northampton (August 14,1513-October 18,1571), but it seems reasonable that she might have been there earlier, perhaps in attendance at the banquet held by King Henry for a number of ladies after Catherine Howard was arrested. See the argument in the entry above for that logic. In 1543, Elizabeth’s desire to marry Northampton was thwarted by the fact that he already had a wife, one he had repudiated for adultery many years before. Elizabeth and Northampton went through a private form of marriage in 1547 and began living together, but when this became known they were ordered to separate by the duke of Somerset, Lord Protector for King Edward VI. Elizabeth was sent to live with Katherine Parr, now the wife of Sir Thomas Seymour. She remained in that household until April, 1548, when her marriage to Northampton was declared valid. This was later ratified by an Act of Parliament on March 31, 1552. The Northamptons took up residence in Winchester House in Southwark and Lady Northampton spent much of her time at court. She is said to have inspired the young Sir Thomas Hoby to begin his translation of Castiglione’s The Courtier, although she did not travel to France with Hoby when he went there in Northampton’s entourage in 1551. Together with Frances Brandon and Jane Guildford, the duchesses of Suffolk and Northumberland, she was involved in the matchmaking that preceded Northumberland’s attempt to place Lady Suffolk’s daughter, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne of England instead of Mary Tudor. Some sources even credit her with the suggestion that Lady Jane marry one of Northumberland’s sons. Elizabeth may have accompanied Lady Jane to the Tower to await her coronation after the death of King Edward VI. Upon Northumberland’s defeat, Northampton was arrested, tried, sentenced to death, and then pardoned at the end of December, but all was not well. Bishop Gardiner, released from the Tower by Mary Tudor and restored to his former post as Lord Chancellor, had ordered Elizabeth out of Winchester House. Northampton had been deprived of his titles, his lands, his Order of the Garter and, by the repeal of the act of 1552 (on October 24, 1553), his second wife. Forced to borrow money on which to live, Elizabeth probably went to live with her mother, Lady Cobham, or her brother, William, in Kent. When Parr was released from the Tower, he stayed at the house of Sir Edward Warner in Carter Lane. Sir Edward was married to Elizabeth’s aunt, the former Lady Wyatt. It was her son, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Elizabeth’s cousin, who led a rebellion against Queen Mary. Parr was arrested once again, as were three of Elizabeth’s brothers (William, George, and Thomas Brooke). Parr was released for the second time on March 24, 1554 and restored in blood on the 5th of May. Although their marriage remained invalid, Elizabeth returned to Parr after his release and in March 1555 they were joint godparents to Elizabeth Cavendish. They existed in considerable poverty for the remainder of Queen Mary’s reign. In 1557 they were living in Blackfriars when the French ambassador, the bishop of Acqs, asked Elizabeth to deliver a message to the queen’s sister at Hatfield. It was a warning not to flee to France to avoid being forced to marry Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy. In the last months of Mary’s reign, in what was probably an influenza epidemic, Elizabeth Brooke’s mother, father, and maternal grandmother died and Parr was seriously ill. With Mary’s death, however, Elizabeth’s fortunes took a turn for the better. The new queen made a point of stopping to speak to Northampton as her procession through London passed his widow. On January 13, 1559, she restored him as marquis of Northampton. Elizabeth Brooke became one of the queen’s closest women friends and her word that the queen was not Robert Dudley’s lover was enough for the Spanish ambassador, Don Guzman de Silva. It was also de Silva who recorded that when Lady Northampton fell ill, the queen came from St. James to dine with her and spend the day. In August 1562, Lady Northampton was reportedly near death from jaundice and high fever and given up for lost in mid-September, but by October 12th she had recovered. In 1564, however, she developed breast cancer. She made a trip to Antwerp in hope of a cure, accompanied by her brother William and his wife, but the effort was futile. In November of that year the personal physician of Maximilian, king of Bohemia, came to England to examine her. He could do nothing, either, nor could a series of quacks. In January 1565, the queen’s physician, Dr. Julio, took over her treatment. Unfortunately, his man, Griffith, made sexual advances toward Elizabeth, who was still, apparently, “one of the most beautiful women of her time,” and the queen had both men thrown into the Marshalsea. When Elizabeth died, the queen paid for her funeral. Biography: for more on Elizabeth Brooke, see Susan E. James’s Kateryn Parr: The Making of a Queen.

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