Elizabeth Stapleton

"Elizabeth Pierrepont married Sir Thomas Erskine, 1st Earl of Kellie, forbear of the Earls of Kellie". However -this seems to be a more modern invention. Read below.

From http://roglo.eu/roglo?lang=en;i=5044996

Elizabeth Pierrepoint was the daughter of Sir Henry Pierrepoint (1545-1615) of Holme Pierrepoint, Nottinghamshire, and Frances Cavendish (June 18, 1548-1632), the granddaughter of Bess of Hardwick, and the godchild of Mary, queen of Scots.

As a child of four she joined the household of the captive Mary, who was in the keeping of Bess of Hardwick and her fourth husband, the earl of Shrewsbury. Queen Mary called the child Mignonne and was very fond of her. So was her grandmother, who called her Bessie.

Bessie remained in the queen of Scots's household even after Mary was removed from Shrewsbury's keeping. When Bessie was seventeen (c.1585), her grandmother was promoting a marriage for her with one of the earl of Northumberland's sons, but nothing came of it. Beginning in January 1586, letters were being smuggled in and out of Chartley, where the queen of Scots was at that time imprisoned, in watertight containers inside beer barrels.

Mary's secretary, Claude Nau, also used this method to send messages to Bessie after she had left Queen Mary's service, possibly to wait upon Queen Elizabeth. According to one account, Bessie's father approved of the match with Nau, but Bessie refused him. Rosalind K. Marshall, in Queen Mary's Women, however, says the Pierreponts were horrified when they heard of Nau's interest and, in July 1586, asked that their daughter be sent home, and that Mary then claimed she had been trying to persuade Queen Elizabeth to take Bessie into her household. It is not clear if Bessie went to court or not.

In writing about young Bessie, Mary implied that she looked upon the girl like a daughter, but that she also saw "too much of her grandmother's nature in her behavior every way, notwithstanding all my pains for the contrary, and therefore now would be sorry to have her bestowed upon any man I wish good unto."

A recent biography of Bess of Hardwick by Mary S. Lovell states that Bessie did not marry until 1604, when she was thirty-five, and identifies her husband as Thomas Erskine (1566-1639), who was created viscount Fenton in 1606 and earl of Kellie in 1619. Erskine records agree that his second wife was Elizabeth Pierrepoint, daughter of Sir Henry of Holme Pierrepoint, and further that she died on April 27, 1621, after which Erskine married a third time.

However, earlier biographers give Bessie a different husband, Richard Stapleton of Templehurst (d.c.1614), six children (Gilbert, Epiphanius, Sir Robert, Jane, Elizabeth, and Grace), and a death date of November 27, 1648. This is supported by Stapleton genealogies.

It is possible Bessie married Stapleton and then Erskine, if c.1614 is a mistake for 1604, but that does not account for the difference in death dates.

Sources

1. http://www.rotherhamweb.co.uk/genealogy/stapletonc.htm

Links

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bess_of_Hardwick

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