Mary
ARUNDELL
(C.
Sussex / C. Arundel)
Died: 20
Oct 1557, Arundel House, Strand, London
Buried:
28 Oct 1557
Father:
John ARUNDELL of Laherne (Sir)
Mother:
Catherine GRENVILLE
Married
1:
Robert RADCLIFFE (1° E. Sussex)
14 Jan 1536/7
Children:
1.
Henry RADCLIFFE (b. Mar 1538 - d. young)
2.
John RADCLIFFE (Sir)
Married
2:
Henry FITZALAN (18° E. Arundel)
19 Dec 1545
Mary
Arundell was the only child of Sir
John Arundell of Lanherne, Cornwall, by his second wife, Catherine
Grenville, a daughter of Sir Thomas Grenville (d.1513).
She came
to court in 1536, maid of honor to
Queen Jane Seymour
before she married the
Earl of Sussex,
1537, as his third wife. She remained at court as one of
Jane’s
ladies until the
Queen’s
death. On 12 Nov 1537 Mary was in the first Chariot at Queen
Jane’s Funeral Procession, with
Eleanor Paston, Countess of Rutland;
Frances Brandon, Marchioness of Dorset;
Mabel Clifford, Countess of Southampton;
Cecily Daubeney, Countess of
Bath; Lady Margaret Douglas
and Elizabeth Scrope, Countess of
Oxford.
|
Mary
returned as one of the Great Ladies of the Household to
Anne of Cleves
and
Catherine Howard.
She was a gentlewoman of the King's daughter,
Princess Mary. She had two sons by
Sussex, the king's godson, probably named Henry, and John.
Mary's
half brother, Sir Thomas Arundell of Wardour
Castle, is said to have arranged her first marriage to
Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex,
and at the same time to have entered into negotiations with
Thomas Cromwell, who wished to
marry his son, Gregory, to Sir Thomas
Arundell's sister, Jane Arundell (d. 1577). In the end,
Jane did not marry, but served as a gentlewoman in the household of
Queen Mary, and eventually returned to
Lanherne, her father, Sir John Arundell, having provided for her
financially.
The Hans Holbein the Younger drawing at Windsor inscribed “The Lady
Ratclif” have many likely candidates: Isabel Harvey, wife of Humprey
Radcliffe,
Sussex's younger son;
Elizabeth Howard, Lady Fitzwalter; Margaret Stanley, Countess of Sussex;
or Mary Arundell, Countess of Sussex.
After the
Sussex’s
death Mary married, on 19 Dec 1545,
Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel,
as his second wife. There was no issue from the marriage, from which however
Mary Arundell became stepmother to her husband's three children: Joan;
Henry, lord Maltravers; and
Mary.
|
Lady Radcliffe
(possibly Isabel Harvey)
By Hans
Holbein
|
Mary
is said by some to have been famous as a translator of Greek and Latin epigrams
and the writings of Emperor Severus, but they appear to have confused her
with her stepdaughter. It is now known that these four collections of sententiae
from Greek and English sources (BL, Royal MSS 12 A.i–iv) were translated into
Latin, not by Mary Arundell, but by
Mary Fitzalan, later the first
wife of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of
Norfolk, and dedicated as New Year's gifts to her father, Mary
Arundell's second husband,
Henry Fitzalan, 18th Earl of Arundel.
Two were written before Mary Fitzalan's marriage and two afterwards, the
final one having been co-translated with her stepbrother, John Radcliffe,
Mary Arundell's only surviving son from her first marriage to
Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex.
A glimpse of her domestic
life and some of her correspondence can be found in M. St. Clare Byrne’s edition
of The Lisle Letters.
She died at Arundel House (aka
Bath Place) on the Strand and was buried in St. Clement Danes, 1557, but she was
later removed to Arundel for reburial. A lead coffin, said to contain her
remains, was found at Arundel Castle in 1847, and is now buried beneath the
floor of the Fitzalan chapel there.
Sources:
Cokayne, G.E.;
Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard
de Walden, editors. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great
Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed.. 13 volumes
in 14. 1910-1959. Reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton
Publishing, 2000, volume I, pg 252.
Pine, L. G.. The
New Extinct Peerage 1884-1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and
Suspended Peerages With Genealogies and Arms. London, U.K.: Heraldry Today,
1972. pg 9.
Mosley, Charles,
editor. Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes.
Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke’s Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003,
volume I, page 1442.
Joseph Sympson.
Two scenes depicting the State Opening of Parliament in the Reign of Henry VIII
(fictional), 18th Century. NPG Online.
G.E. Cokayne;
with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord
Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland,
Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13
volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton
Publishing, 2000), volume I, page 250.
Chisholm, Hugh,
ed. (1911). “Arundel, Earls of“. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2 (11th ed.).
Cambridge University Press. pp. 706–709.
Hodgson-Wright,
Stephanie (2004). Howard , Mary, duchess of Norfolk (1539/40–1557). Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography.
