Margaret AUDLEY
(D. Norfolk)
Born: ABT 1535/6 / 1540
Died: 9 Jan 1563/64, Norwich
Buried: Norwich, St. John The Baptist
Father: Thomas AUDLEY (1º B. Audley of Walden)
Mother: Elizabeth GREY (B. Audley of Walden)
Married 1: Henry DUDLEY
Married 2: Thomas HOWARD (4° D. Norfolk) ABT 10 Dec 1558
Children:
1. Thomas HOWARD (1º E. Suffolk)
5. Jane HOWARD
6. Henry HOWARD
Margaret Audley (D. Norfolk)
by Hans Eworth, 1562
a companion piece to one of her husband.
Daughter of Thomas Audley, 1st baron Audley of Walden, and Elizabeth Grey; Margaret and her sister Mary remained co-heirs, until Mary herself died under age and unmarried. Margaret inherited lands worth £1000 per annum, including Cree Church Place in London and Audley End on the outskirts of Saffron Walden.
One of the wealthiest young women in England when she was married at thirteen to Henry Dudley, the son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Her lands were confiscated when Northumberland was found guilty of treason and executed. Henry Dudley was restored in blood on 5 Jul 1556 and subsequently began proceedings with his wife in chancery to gain possession of land in Hertfordshire, claimed by Thomas Castell, Esq., of London.
Shortly after his wife's lands were returned, Henry Dudley died in France after the Battle of Saint Quentin. Early in 1558, Margaret was betrothed to Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk, but they were obliged to wait for a papal dispensation to wed since his first wife, Mary Fitzalan, had been Margaret’s first cousin.
In the spring of 1558 Norfolk
sent Nicholas Mynne, an East
At Elizabeth's Coronation, in the long procession from the Tower to Westminster on the Saturday 14 Jan, with many halts for formal speeches and informal acclaim, Margaret, the new Duchess of Norfolk, rode side by side with the Countess of Lennox. These two were the principal ladies of honour and, as such, their white palfreys with gorgeous red side-saddles trotted immediately behind Lord Robert Dudley, the Master of the Horse, who followed the Queen's chariot. On Coronation Day itself Norfolk walked in the great procession from Westminster Hall to the Abbey in front of the Queen, bearing St Edward's Crown. A few paces behind was his Duchess, who carried Elizabeth's train. A splendid blue carpet had been provided at a cost of £145 to cover the route from the upper end of the Hall to the choir door of the Abbey, but 'as Her Majesty passed the cloth was cut by those who could get it'; the intrepid souvenir-hunters who braved the cold early morning air to get their fill of pageantry, nearly tripped up Duchess Margaret as she walked behind her sovereign.
After participating in the coronation, Margaret and her new husband retired to Kenninghall and did not return to London until the following autumn. Duchess Margaret took a personal interest in the church and felt it needed embellishing. As a result the Duke provided a number of stained-glass windows depicting the arms of the Howard and Audley families. A few years later he began rebuilding the tower, but never completed the work. It remains a squat structure, 'its head being shortened by the misfortune of its founder'.
The marriage appears to have been a love match and produced four children, Elizabeth, Thomas, Margaret, and William. Some sources included other two, Jane and Henry. Elizabeth Grey lived at Audley End in her widowhood, near Saffron Walden. Her daughter Margaret came to her there to give birth to each of her children.
Norfolk and his duchess returned to London in the autumn of 1559 to find the Queen seemingly infatuated with Robert Dudley. Idle gossips elaborated stories to the discredit of both and even so staid a man as Bishop John Jewel told a friend that Elizabeth would reject the suits for her hand being made by foreign princes as she was 'probably thinking of an alliance nearer home'. At first sight everything had pointed to friendship between Norfolk and Dudley. From Elizabeth's accession the Earl Marshal and the Master of the Horse were together a great deal, presiding at state occasions and welcoming foreign envoys in the Queen's name. Both were elected to the Garter on the same day. There was a family connection, too, for Duchess Margaret was the widow of Lord Henry Dudley, Robert's brother, and Robert's own wife Amy Robsart had come from Wymondham, a few miles from Kenninghall. But wives counted for little when their husbands' dispositions were so different. Norfolk soon came to regard Dudley with the same haughty disdain with which his own father had in his day regarded John Dudley, Lord Robert's father.
So great was Margaret’s desire to rejoin her husband for Christmas in 1563 that she left Audley End to Norwich on a litter, when she was still weak from childbirth of her second son, William. She caught a chill on the journey and died at Norwich on 10 Jan 1564. Norfolk's second wife also died young and was buried at St. John the Baptist's church at Norwich. The Dowager Countess of Surrey acted as chief mourner at her funeral. In his bereavement Norfolk was given leave of absence from court and lived quietly with his children in the country. For a few years, Elizabeth Grey looked after her grandchildren following her daughter's death until Norfolk remarried in 1567.
Sources:
Beer, Barrett L.:
Northumberland - The Political Career of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke
of Northumberland
(The Kent
State University Press - 1973 – Kent)
Dictionary
of National Biography. Vol. X. Sidney Lee, ed.
Williams, Neville:
Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk
(Barrie and Rockliff – 1964 - London)
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