Margaret NEVILLE

(C. Rutland)

Born: ABT 1527

Died: 13 Oct 1559

Buried: St Leonard's, Shoreditch, Middlesex, England

Father: Ralph NEVILLE (4º E. Westmoreland)

Mother: Catherine STAFFORD (C. Westmoreland)

Married: Henry MANNERS (2º E. Rutland) 3 Jul 1536, Holywell, Shoreditch

Children:

1. Edward MANNERS (3° E. Rutland)

2. John MANNERS (4° E. Rutland)

3. Elizabeth MANNERS

Fourth daughter of Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmoreland, and Catherine Stafford, daughter of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Two of her brothers, Cuthbert and Sir Christopher Neville, would be future leaders of the Northern rebellion of 1569, demonstrating the importance of her northern lineage.

She married, on 3 Jul 1536, Henry Manners, Lord Ros, heir of the Earl of Rutland. Her husband Henry, was about nine-years-old at the time of the dynastic triple marriage. In the same ceremony her sister Dorothy married John De Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, and her brother Henry married Anne Manners, also daughter of Rutland. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey escorted Lady Margaret from the church to the reception at the Earl of Rutland’s mansion in Shoreditch after the ceremony, and Henry VIII attended the festivities with her new queen, Jane Seymour, just 6 weeks after beheading Anne Boleyn.

In Jan 1540, Lady Markham, a neighbor of the Manners family, sent Lady Margaret a gift for the birth of her first child. This child may not have survived, because the heir of Henry and Margaret, Edward, was born in 1549. His second surviving son, John, would also become Earl of Rutland upon the death of his brother with no male heirs. Henry and Margaret also had a daughter, Elizabeth, who would marry William Courtenay.

The Countess of Rutland died at Holywell, London, 13 Oct 1559, and had a splendid funeral at St. Leonard's, Shoreditch. Strype tells us, her corpse was carried, Oct 21, 1559, from the house which had been the nunnery of Haliwell, with thirty clerks and priest singing; about threescore poor men and women in black gowns; mourners, to the number of an hundred; two heralds of arms, Garter and York; then came the corpse; afore a great banner of arms; and about her four goodly banner rolls of divers arms. Mr. Bacon preached. After was dispersed a great dole of money, being 2 d. apiece for each. And so all departed to the place to dinner. About the valance was written:

 “Sic transit Gloria mundi.”

Margaret Neville, her mother Catherine Stafford; her mother-in-law, Eleanor Paston; her sister-in-law Anne Manners, and her niece Catherine, all share a monument erected in 1591, at St.Leonards, founded by Lady Adeline Neville at the direction of her sister Catherine Constable in Feb 1591.

“This monument is erected in memory that within this church do lie buried the bodies of the Right Honorable and Noble Ladies, Lady Katherine Stafford, daughter to Edward, duke of Buckingham, and wife to Ralph, earl of Westmorland, who died 1553. Lady Alianore, daughter to Sir William Paston, knight, and wife to the Right Honorable Lord Thomas, earl of Rutland, buried 1551. Lady Margaret Nevill, daughter to Ralph, earl of Westmorland, and wife to Henry, earl of Rutland, who d. 1560. And the lady Katherine Nevill, wife to Sir John Constable of Holderness, knight, and daughter to Henry, earl of Westmorland. And Lady Anne Manners, daughter to Thomas, earl of Rutland. Which Katherine died the seven and twentieth day of March, anno domini 1591”

After the death of Margaret Neville, the 2nd Earl of Rutland married Bridget Hussey.

Sources:

Childs, Jessie: Henry VIII´s Last Victim: The life and times of Herny Howard, Earl of Surrey -

Green, Nina: The Fall of the House of Oxford - Originally published in Brief Chronicles Vol. 1 (2009), pages 41–95 https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/fall-house-oxford/

Harris, Barbara J. : English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550 (2002) Oxford University Press
Nelson, Alan H. (2003). Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Liverpool University Press

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