Lady Anne Hungerford (née Dormer) (1525–1603) was an English courtier during the reign of Queen Mary I of England and poetess.[1]
Anne was daughter of Sir William Dormer and Mary, daughter of Sir William Sidney,[2] and the sister of Jane Dormer a lady in waiting of Queen Mary and later wife of the Duke of Feria.[3][4] Both Anne and Jane were prominent recusants.[1]
Around 1558 Queen Mary gave her permission for Sir Walter Hungerford of Farleigh to marry Anne (his second wife).[5] They had four children, a son, Edmund (d. 1587), and three daughters. [6]
In 1570 Anne was charged with trying to poison Sir Walter in 1564, (something his mother had accused his father of doing to her) and with committing adultery between 1560 and 1568 with William Darrell of Littlecote.[6]
Lady Anne was acquitted, and Sir Walter, refusing to pay the heavy costs, was committed to the Fleet Prison. By October 1571, Lady Anne was living with the English Roman Catholics at Louvain, and in 1581, when at Namur, she begged Francis Walsingham to protect her children from her husband's endeavours to disinherit them. Sir Walter left his property to his brother Sir Edward Hungerford, with remainder to his male heirs by a mistress, Margery Brighte, with whom he went through the ceremony of marriage in the last year of his life, although Lady Anne was still alive. After his death Lady Anne recovered "reasonable dower" from her brother-in-law, Sir Edward, and died at Louvain in 1603.[6]