Agnes "Annes" Bulkely

Agnes Needham, daughter of Thomas Needham & Anne Talbot, was born circa 1547 at of Shavington, Shropshire, England.1 Agnes Needham left a will on 12 March 1622.4 She was buried on 23 January 1623 at Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, England.4 Her estate was probated on 14 March 1623.4

She married Lawrence Cranage, Gent. after 1573; They had 1 daughter (Dorothy, wife of Richard Mackworth, Esq.).1,2,3,4

biography

From http://www.kateemersonhistoricals.com/TudorWomenN.htm

AGNES NEEDHAM (c.1546-January 1623)

Agnes Needham was the daughter of Thomas Needham of Cranage, Cheshire and Shenton, Shropshire (c.1505-1570? or 1510-1556). Her mother was either Anne Talbot or Agnes Hope. She married Sir Richard Bulkeley, constable of Beaumaris Castle (c.1513-September 7, 1572) as his second wife. The History of Parliament gives them four sons and two daughters and assigns six sons and three daughters to Sir Richard's first wife. Others sources list Elizabeth, Mary, Arthur, Tristam, George, Edward, Lancelot, Grissel, Agnes, and Phoebe as Agnes's children. Early in 1572, Sir Richard was taken ill. When he died later that year, his oldest son, another Richard (c.1533-1621) took charge of the household. Apparently Richard and Agnes had long been at odds as had her children and Richard and his siblings. Things came to a head over a rivalry for the hand in marriage of a wealthy local heiress, Jane Coeden. Richard instructed his younger brother John to propose to Jane, but at Agnes’s urging, Richard’s stepbrother, Arthur, had already proposed and been accepted. It was at this point that Richard accused his stepmother of poisoning her husband. Poison was found in a chest in her room, under a pair of velvet slippers. Agnes was also accused of committing adultery with William Kenrick, “a young gallant” who "did use to walk under the said Agnes her window in the night time, play upon an instrument and make love to her when Sir Richard was away from home in the Parliament" in 1571. A Beaumaris jury acquitted her of murder, although litigation dragged on for three full years before the charges were dropped. Agnes was found guilty of adultery in the Court of Arches. Arthur Bulkeley married Jane Coeden. Agnes married Lawrence Cranage, Esquire, as his second wife. Cranage had a son by his first wife who was a London grocer and a daughter, Dorothy, by Agnes. Cranage predeceased his second wife. Agnes’s will was made on March 12, 1622 and proved March 14, 1623 in Canterbury. She was buried, at her request, in Holmes Chapel in Chester on January 24, 1623.

notes

Several sources indicate that Thomas Needham also married Agnes Hope, and that they had a daughter, Agnes.

However, his father's 1556 Will mentioned a covenant with Anne Hope (not Anne Needham), by which he left £100 to Anne Hope's daughter, Annes Needham, who was Thomas' daughter.

It seems that Annes was an illegitimate daughter of Thomas Needham and Anne Hope, and that she went by the name of Annes Needham.

Second wife of Sir Richard Bulkeley (1524-1573)

From http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2003-02/...

Perhaps I should note my source. J.P. Earwaker, _History of the Ancient
Parish of Sandbach, Co. Chester_, p. 177 (extracts from parish register of Holmes Chapel):

1622[-3]. Dame Aggnes Buckleaf [Buckley] late wyffe of Lawrence Cranage whas Buried the xxiiijth of Januarie.

footnote f says: "Dame Agnes Buckley, or Bulkeley, was the daughter of Thomas Needham, of Cranage and Shavington, Esq. (see that pedigree under Cranage). She became the second wife of Sir Richard Bulkeley, of Beaumaris and Cheadle, Knt., by whom she had eight sons and two daughters (see _East Cheshire_, vol. i. p. 182). After her husband's death in 1573, she married, secondly, Lawrence Cranage, Esq., who predeceased her. In her will, made 12th March, 1621-22, and proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 14th March, 1622-23 (25 Swann), she desired 'to be buried in Holmes Chapel in the county of Chester where divers of my ancestors lie buried.' She speaks of her son (really her stepson) John Cranage, then of London, grocer, her daughter Eaton, her son George Bulkeley, and her daughters Anges and Phoebe [Bulkeley]. In Harl. MS. 2153 f. 194b will be found a copy of the confirmation of a coat of arms and a crest, made to the above-named John Cranage, of London, grocer, by Sir Richard St. George, Norroy King of Arms, dated 22nd August, 1606. from the pedigree there given and one in Harl. MS. 1535 f. 97, it appears that Dames Agnes Bulkeley had by Lawrence Cranage an only daughter and heir, Dorothy."

The bio. of her first husband, Sir Richard Bulkeley, in _History of Parliament: House of Commons_ mentions that she was suspected of adultery and of poisoning her first husband, but found not guilty. The sketch does not mention her second marriage to Lawrence Cranage.

From http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2006-11/...

I also was able to check the _HOP_ biography of Richard Bulkeley, first husband of Dame Agnes Buckleaf. Agnes was his second wife, and mother of four sons and two daughters by him, rather than eight sons and two daughters (as per the Sandbach history). This eases the chronology a bit and means that her only daughter (Dorothy Cranage) by her second husband needn't have been born immediately after the death of Bulkeley (who died in 1572). Agnes was an interesting woman, accused of adultery in the last years of her first husband's life, and tried for poisoning him (poison was found hidden in her chest beneath her slippers, but she was acquitted by the jury).

• http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p2987.htm#...
• [S5] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, p. 205.
• [S5] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, p. 707.
• [S16] Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd Edition, Vol. I, p. 348.
• [S16] Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd Edition, Vol. I, p. 442.
• [S4] Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, Vol. II, p. 10.
• [S4] Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, Vol. II, p. 159.
• [S4] Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, Vol. IV, p. 207.
• http://www.members.shaw.ca/jmream/needham.html
• http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/bu...