Margaret (Madge) Shelton and Mary Shelton (1510x15–1570/71)[1] were two sisters in Tudor England, one of whom may have been a mistress of King Henry VIII.
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, Anne Boleyn. Margaret and Mary were thus first cousins of the Queen.[2]
Mary Shelton (1510x15–1570/71) 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".[3]
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,[4] 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".[5] 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. Shelton was the main editor of and a main contributor to the famous Devonshire MS, where members of their circle wrote poems they enjoyed or had composed.
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.[6] According to Fraser, this was Margaret.[7][8] However recent research has suggested that it was Mary who was Henry's mistress, and who was rumoured 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 argue that Margaret and Mary were the same person, and not two separate individuals.[9] According to Heale, "Rumour twice linked Mary amorously with Henry VIII".[10]
By 1546 Mary had married her cousin Sir Anthony Heveningham (1507–1557).[11] 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.[12]
In 1546 there was suspicion of conspiracy between Mary and Surrey, which was noted for investigation by the Privy Council.[13]
In 1558 Mary married Philip Appleyard (b. c.1528).[14]
Mary was buried in Heveningham church, Suffolk, on 8 January 1571.[15] A probable portrait of Mary by Hans Holbein is in the collection at Windsor Castle.[16]
Mary Shelton is one of the main subjects of The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart, Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts by Paul G. Remley.
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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.