Margaret and Mary Shelton
Margaret (Madge) Shelton and Mary Shelton (1510/15 – 1570/71)[1] were two sisters in Tudor England, one of whom may have been a mistress of King Henry VIII. Recent research has indicated that they were the same person.[2][3]
Family[edit]
Both Margaret and Mary were daughters of Sir John Shelton and his wife Anne, the sister of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, the father of King Henry VIII's second Queen consort, Anne Boleyn. Margaret and Mary were thus first cousins of the Queen.[4]
Mary Shelton (1510/15 – 1570/71) was the youngest of Sir John Shelton's daughters. She was an attendant of her cousin, Queen Anne Boleyn, who is said to have chided her "for writing ‘ydill poesies’ in her prayerbook".[5]
Mary was part of a social group which included the poets Sir Thomas Clere (d. 14 April 1545), Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and Thomas Wyatt,[6] with all of whom she was romantically linked. In an epitaph he composed at the death of Sir Thomas Clere, Surrey identified Mary as Clere's "beloved".[7] Mary's two closest friends were Lady Margaret Douglas, a niece of King Henry VIII, and Mary Howard, Duchess of Richmond, wife of the King's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond.[8] Shelton was the main editor of and a main contributor to[9] the famous Devonshire MS, where members of their circle wrote poems they enjoyed or had composed.[10]
King's mistress[edit]
One of the Shelton sisters is believed to have been King Henry's mistress for a six-month period beginning in February 1535, according to statements made by the Imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys.[11] According to biographer Antonia Fraser, this was Margaret.[12][13] However recent research has suggested that it was Mary who was Henry's mistress, and who was rumoured to have been selected to become his fourth wife. Supposedly, this confusion arose from the label "Marg Shelton", in which the "y" resembled a "g", a common confusion in sixteenth-century writing. Some historians, including the two who have full chapters on Mistress Shelton in their books, Paul G. Remley and Kelly Hart, argue that Margaret and Mary were the same person, and not two separate individuals.[14] According to Heale, "Rumour twice linked Mary amorously with Henry VIII".[15]
By 1546 Mary had married her cousin[16] Sir Anthony Heveningham (1507–1557).[17] by whom she had five children, including Arthur Heveningham, and her youngest daughter, Abigail (wife of Sir George Digby of Coleshill, Warwickshire), who was in attendance on Queen Elizabeth in 1588.[18]
In 1546 there was suspicion of conspiracy between Mary and Surrey, which was noted for investigation by the Privy Council.[19]
Mary married Philip Appleyard (b. c.1528) in 1558.[20]
She was buried in Heveningham church, Suffolk, on 8 January 1571.[21] A probable portrait of Mary by Hans Holbein is in the collection at Windsor Castle.[22]
Mary Shelton is one of the main subjects of The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart, and Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts by Paul G. Remley.
In Fiction[edit]
She appears in The Lady in the Tower by Jean Plaidy.
The character of Madge Sheldon, played by Laura Jane Laughlin in the Showtime series The Tudors is loosely inspired by the two sisters.
Mary Shelton appears in the series of books "The Lady Grace Mysteries" as a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth I.
Footnotes[edit]
- ^ Heale 2004.
- ^ Hart, The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart pp 120-128
- ^ Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts by Paul G. Remley
- ^ Richardson 2004, p. 179; Weir 1991, p. 277.
- ^ Herman 1994, p. 65; Heale 2004.
- ^ Herman 1994, p. 40.
- ^ Heale 2004.
- ^ Hart, The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart pp 120-128
- ^ Hart, The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart pp 120-128
- ^ Hart, The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart pp 120-128
- ^ CSP Spanish, V, pt.2, p.126
- ^ Weir 1991, p. 277.
- ^ Antonia Fraser The Six Wives of Henry VIII
- ^ Hart, The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart pp 120-128
- ^ Heale 2004.
- ^ Hart, The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart pp 120-128
- ^ Heale 2004.
- ^ Heale 2004.
- ^ Heale 2004.
- ^ Heale 2004.
- ^ Heale 2004.
- ^ Heale 2004.
References[edit]
- Bindoff, S.T. (1982). The House of Commons 1509-1558. Vol. III. London: Secker & Warburg.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Block, Joseph S. (2006). Shelton family (per. 1504–1558), gentry. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 March 2011.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Heale, Elizabeth (2004). Shelton, Mary (married names Mary Heveningham, Lady Heveningham; Mary Appleyard) (1510x15–1570/71), contributor to manuscript miscellany. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 March 2011.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Herman, Peter C., ed. (1994). Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts. University of Illinois Press. pp. 40–77. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
{{cite book}}:|first=has generic name (help); Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Ives, E.W. (2004). Anne (Anne Boleyn) (c.1500–1536), queen of England, second consort of Henry VIII. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 March 2011.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Richardson, Douglas (2004). Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company Inc. Retrieved 17 March 2011.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Weir, Alison (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Grove Weidenfeld.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Calendar of State Papers, Spanish
- Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII
See also[edit]
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