Margery Wentworth

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Margery Wentworth, also known as Margaret Wentworth (c. 1478 – c. October 1550) was the wife of Sir John Seymour and the mother of Queen Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII of England. She was the grandmother of King Edward VI of England.

Family

Margery was born in about 1478, the daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth and Anne Say, daughter of Sir John Say and Elizabeth Cheney.

Margery's first cousins, courtiers Elizabeth and Edmund Howard, were parents to an earlier and later royal wife than her daughter: Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, respectively.[1]

Elizabeth Cheney's first husband was Frederick Tylney, father of Elizabeth Tilney, Countess of Surrey. This made Anne Say although not of peerage-level nobility herself, the half-sister of a Countess.[2] Wentworth was also a descendant of King Edward III, this remote royal ancestry is partly why Henry VIII found Jane Seymour (her daughter) marriageable:[3] the percentage of Margery's (English) "royal blood" was 2.4658442%.[4]

Margery's father, Henry Wentworth, rose to be a critical component of Yorkshire and Suffolk politics: in 1489, during the Yorkshire uprising against Henry VII who had championed unity and married the female main claimant heir of increasingly irrelevant, dying dynasty, he left his home and was named the steward of Knaresborough, earning him the privilege to keep the peace in the name of the first Earl of Surrey. After this, he was awarded the title of the Sheriff of Yorkshire.[5]

Surname

The name Seymour comes from the Old English word "sae," which translates into sea, and "mere," meaning lake or pond. In the Anglo-Saxon community, "Seymour" originated in the Yorkshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk regions.[6]

The Seymour family that arrived in England with William the Conqueror are directly John Seymour, Margery's husband.[7]

Early life

She was given a place in the household of her aunt, the Countess of Surrey, where she met the poet John Skelton, whose muse she became.[8] She was considered a great beauty by Skelton and others. In poetry dedicated to her he praised her demeanor. Skelton's poem, 'Garland of Laurel,' in which ten women in addition to the Countess weave a crown of laurel for Skelton himself, portrays Margery as a shy, kind girl, and compares her to primrose and columbine. The other nine women from the poem are: Elizabeth Howard, Muriel Howard, Lady Anne Dacre of the South, Margaret Tynley, Jane Blenner-Haiset, Isabel Pennell, Margaret Hussey, Gertrude Statham, and Isabel Knyght.[9]

Marriage and children

On October 22, 1494, Margery was wedded to her husband, John Seymour. On the same day, her father, Henry remarried Lady Elizabeth Scrope.[10] It is presumed that Margery and John had a good relationship in their marriage.[11] After her husband's death, instead of remarrying, she took a larger role in her children's education while running the Wolfhall house. Notably, her eldest daughter, Jane, was not schooled in a formal setting; Margery instead had her disciplined in more traditional roles that she deemed suitable.[12]

She married Sir John Seymour of Wulfhall in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire, and they had a total of nine children together.

Her son Edward, a soldier and royal servant, would become the Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector. He was the eldest surviving child of the Seymour's.[13]

Death

She died of natural causes in October 1550, in the presence of her family.

References

  1. ↑ Hart, Kelly (June 1, 2009). The Mistresses of Henry VIII (First ed.). The History Press. p. 142. ISBN 0-7524-4835-8. 
  2. ↑ Tucker, M.J. The Ladies in Skelton’s ‘Garland of Laurel.’ Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Winter, 1969), pp.333-345
  3. ↑ Margery Wentworth (mother of Queen Jane Seymour) - Ancestors. RoyaList. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 March 2013.
  4. ↑ Margery Wentworth (mother of Queen Jane Seymour) - Biography. RoyaList. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 March 2013.
  5. ↑ Tucker, M.J. The Ladies in Skelton’s ‘Garland of Laurel.’ Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Winter, 1969), pp.333-345
  6. ↑ Last name: Seymour. The Internet Surname Database. Name Origin Research, n.d. Web. 12 March 2013.
  7. ↑ Last name: Seymour. The Internet Surname Database. Name Origin Research, n.d. Web. 12 March 2013.
  8. ↑ Norton, Elizabeth (2009). Jane Seymour: Henry VIII's True Love (hardback). Chalford: Amberley Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 9781848681026. 
  9. ↑ Tucker, M.J. The Ladies in Skelton’s ‘Garland of Laurel.’ Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Winter, 1969), pp.333-345.
  10. ↑ Tucker, M.J. The Ladies in Skelton’s ‘Garland of Laurel.’ Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Winter, 1969), pp.333-345
  11. ↑ Norton, Elizabeth. Jane Seymour Henry VIII’s True Love. Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2009. Print.
  12. ↑ Norton, Elizabeth. Jane Seymour Henry VIII’s True Love. Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2009. Print.
  13. ↑ Beer, Barrett L. Edward Seymour. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 2004-13.

External links

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