Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby

Margaret Stanley, Countess of Derby

Margaret Stanley, Countess of Derby (née Clifford; 1540 – 28 September 1596) was the only surviving daughter of Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland and Lady Eleanor Brandon. Her maternal grandparents were Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk and Mary Tudor, former queen consort of France. Mary was the third daughter of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York.

According to the will of Henry VIII, Margaret was in line to inherit the throne of England. Upon the death of her mother she became seventh in line. However, both her cousins Jane Grey and Mary Grey died without issue, and their sister, her other cousin, Catherine Grey, died without the legitimacy of her two sons ever being proven (this was later established but only after the death of Elizabeth I). Margaret quickly moved up to becoming the first in line to the throne, but died prior to the death of Elizabeth I.

In 1552 John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland suggested a marriage of his youngest son Guildford to Margaret, yet, although the proposal had the warm support of Edward VI, her father was against it.[1] A year later, in June 1553, the Imperial ambassador Jehan Scheyfve reported that Northumberland's brother Andrew Dudley would marry Margaret.[2] The Dudleys were imprisoned when Mary I gained the throne and Margaret married Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby on 7 February 1554. They had something of a stormy relationship. Margaret wrote that there were several "breaches and reconciliations", but that her husband finally left her leaving serious debt.[3]

They had four children:[4]

• Hon. Edward Stanley. Died young.[4]
• Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby (c. 1559 – 16 April 1594).[4]
• William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby (c. 1561 – 29 September 1642).[4]
• Hon. Francis Stanley (b. 1562). Died young.[4]

In 1579 she was arrested after she had been heard discussing a proposed marriage of Queen Elizabeth to the Duke d'Alençon. She was opposed to it as it threatened her own possible accession to the crown. She was then accused of using sorcery to predict when Elizabeth would die, and even of planning to poison Elizabeth.[3] Simply predicting the death of a monarch was a capital offence at the time. The countess was put under house arrest. She wrote to Francis Walsingham insisting on her innocence. She claimed that the accused sorcerer, William Randall, was in fact her physician, who was staying with her because he could cure "sickness and weakness in my body". Randall was subsequently executed. No charges were brought against the countess, but she was banished from court. She wrote repeatedly to the queen complaining that she was in a "black dungeon of sorrow and despair....overwhelmed with heaviness through the loss of your majesty's favor and gracious countenance." She continued to be plagued by demands from creditors.[3]

She died in 1596 without having recovered royal favour, and having outlived her eldest son, Ferdinando. Her granddaughter, Lady Anne Stanley, Ferdinando's oldest daughter, took her place as heiress presumptive. This proved meaningless as Anne was never allowed to succeed Queen regnant Elizabeth I of England. Anne, her two younger sisters, and their children were passed over for James VI of Scotland, who had a better claim by birth; he was the great-grandson of Henry VIII's elder sister Margaret, while Margaret's descent was from the younger sister Mary.[citation needed]

There is a discrepancy as to who the sitter is in the Hans Eworth portrait which is featured. The coat of arms in the top left corner, which may have been added later, are the impaled arms (those of a husband and wife) of Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland, and his wife Lady Eleanor, daughter of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France. As a result the painting has been frequently exhibited in the past as a portrait of Lady Eleanor, regardless of the fact that she died in 1547, well before the date of this portrait. It is, however, a rule of heraldry that impaled arms are not used by the children of a marriage, as they would have their own. Hence the later addition and erroneous use of the arms here suggests that the identity of the portrait was already unclear only two or three generations after it was painted, a situation by no means unusual amid the frequent early deaths, multiple marriages, and shifting alliances and fortunes of the most powerful families of the Tudor era. Later the portrait was thought to represent the only child of Eleanor and Henry to survive infancy, Margaret. Unfortunately the inscription on the right which might have provided a check (Margaret would have been aged 25–28 at the time of this portrait) has been truncated; although the Roman numerals of the year can apply only to 1565-8, the age of the sitter cannot be ascertained with any useful accuracy.

The National Portrait Gallery has an online sketch of this portrait identified as Lady Eleanor, but the portrait remains in dispute.[5][6]

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Stanley,_Countess_of_Derby

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• Margaret Clifford1
• F, #86874, d. 29 September 1596
• Father Sir Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland, 12th Lord Clifford, Sheriff of Westmoreland, Constable & Steward of the Castle Knaresborough1 b. c 1517, d. 2 Jan 1570
• Mother Eleanor Brandon1 b. bt 1518 - 1521, d. 27 Sep 1547
• Margaret Clifford married Sir Henry Stanley, 4th Earl Derby, son of Sir Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl Derby and Dorothy Howard, on 7 February 1555 at Royal Chapel, Whitehall, London, Middlesex, England.1 Margaret Clifford left a will on 20 September 1596.1 She died on 29 September 1596 at Cleveland Row, Middlesex, England.1 She was buried on 22 October 1596 at Westminster Abbey, London, Middlesex, England.1 Her estate was probated on 15 November 1596.1
• Family Sir Henry Stanley, 4th Earl Derby b. Sep 1531, d. 25 Sep 1593
• Citations
• [S11568] The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, by George Edward Cokayne, Vol. IV, p. 211-2.
• From: http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p2891.htm#... ____________________
• Lady Margaret Clifford1
• F, #102974, b. 1540, d. 29 September 1596
• Last Edited=23 Feb 2011
• Consanguinity Index=0.55%
• Lady Margaret Clifford was born in 1540. She was the daughter of Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland and Lady Eleanor Brandon.1,3 She married Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby, son of Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby and Lady Dorothy Howard, on 7 February 1555.1 She died on 29 September 1596.1
• From 7 February 1555, her married name became Stanley. As a result of her marriage, Lady Margaret Clifford was styled as Countess of Derby on 24 October 1572.
• Children of Lady Margaret Clifford and Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby
  • Edward Stanley1
  • Francis Stanley3
  • Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby+1 b. 1559, d. 16 Apr 1594
  • William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby+3 b. 1561, d. 29 Sep 1642
• Citations
• [S37] BP2003 volume 1, page 1101. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S37]
• [S3409] Caroline Maubois, "re: Penancoet Family," e-mail message to Darryl Roger Lundy, 2 December 2008. Hereinafter cited as "re: Penancoet Family."
• [S37] BP2003. [S37]
• From: http://www.thepeerage.com/p10298.htm#i102974 ____________________
• Margaret CLIFFORD (C. Derby)
• Born: 1540
• Died: 29 Sep 1596, Cleveland Row, London, Middlesex, England
• Buried: 22 Oct 1596, Westminster Abbey, London, Middlessex, England
• Notes: See her Biogrqphy.
• Father: Henry CLIFFORD (2º E. Cumberland)
• Mother: Eleanor BRANDON (C. Cumberland)
• Married: Henry STANLEY (4º E. Derby) 7 Feb 1555, Royal Chapel, Whitehall, London, Middlessex, England
• Children:
  • 1. Edward STANLEY
  • 2. Ferdinando STANLEY (5º E. Derby)
  • 3. William STANLEY (6º E. Derby)
  • 4. Francis STANLEY
• From: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/CLIFFORD.htm#Margaret CLIFFORD (C. Derby)
• Daughter of Henry Clifford, 2nd E. of Cumberland and Eleanor Brandon, and as the great-granddaughter of Henry VII was next in line to inherit the throne of England after the three Grey sisters under the terms of Henry VIII’s will.
• The Duke of Northumberland proposed to marry her to either his son, Guildford, or his brother, Sir Andrew Dudley, but Cumberland refused the match and took no part in the attempt to make Lady Jane Grey queen. Margaret married Henry Stanley, Lord Strange (Sep 1531-Sep 25,1593) at Westminster on 7 Feb 1555. Queen Mary gave her the confiscated Dudley jewels and robes as a wedding gift.
• By 1557, Margaret was openly asserting that Lady Jane’s treason had excluded her sisters, Catherine and Mary Grey, from the succession, thus making Margaret heiress presumptive of the throne. She excluded Elizabeth Tudor because she was not a Catholic. Lady Strange was, but that did little to increase support for her claim. The “poor esteem” in which Lord and Lady Strange were held kept Felipe II from backing them.
• Early in Elizabeth Tudor’s reign, the poet John Harington chose Margaret as his ideal of a royal lady. Robert Greene dedicated The Mirror of Modesty to her, and Thomas Lupton’s dedication to A Thousand Notable Things and Sundry Sortes called her “the affable Lady Margaret”, but she was not generally regarded as a likeable woman. She was a spendthrift. In 1558, she was reduced to borrowing £300 from Mrs. Calfhell, her lady-in-waiting. Margaret quarreled with her father-in-law, Edward, third Earl of Derby, over money matters.
• In 1565, Margaret was at court as the Queen’s trainbearer and she was a lady of the Privy Chamber from 1568-1570.
• By 1566, the family finances were stretched by the weddings of two of Lord Strange's sisters. Each received a dowry of £1500. At about the same time, Henry Stanley was forced to sell land to pay her creditors. She owed another £1500. Eventually the couple separated, the final rift coming when he broke up the household at Gaddesden. Margaret also claimed that he'd offered one of her ladies £200 to spy on her. Lord Strange consoled himself with a mistress, Jane Halsall, by whom he eventually had four acknowledged children.
• Lady Strange developed a dangerous interest in alchemy, to which she had been introduced by her father. An interest in the occult, although widespread among Elizabethans, could be a dangerous hobby; an interest in fortune-telling especially so for one in Margaret's position on the periphery of the sticcession dispute. From 1572, Margaret was countess of Derby. She consulted with wizards "with a vain credulity, and out of I know not what ambitious hope”, according to William Camden, and lost the Queen’s favor. In 1578 she was accused of employing a "magician", actually a well-known physician named Dr. Randall, to cast spells to discover how long Queen Elizabeth would live. According to one source, Randall was hanged and Margaret was banished from court and spent the rest of her life, eighteen years, in the custody of her kinsman, Thomas Seckford (d.1587), Master of Requests, to whom she was related through his mother, Margaret (d. 1557), the daughter of Sir John Wingfield (d. 1509) of Letheringham, and aunt of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Later she had a series of keepers, although she was allowed to live in her own house at Isleworth.
• According to a book on the Stanley family, her debts continued to mount. In 1579, the Privy Council ordered the Lord Mayor of London to pressure her creditors to stop hounding her. In May 1580, Margaret's husband petitioned to be allowed to sell lands to pay debts. In Jun 1581, the Privy Council appointed a commission to find ways to reduce the Derbys' debts. In Dec 1581, the Privy Council was after the Earl to pay Margaret her pension. In 1582, Queen Elizabeth finally approved the sale of Derby lands. Margaret proceeded to sell off land in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and Staffordshire valued at £88 8s.4d/year. With a twenty year purchase, that meant she probably received £1,768 6s.10d. In 1584-93, her husband and sons borrowed at least £8,732 13s.4d. against Derby holdings and sold other land for £3800. Not only had Margaret's debts mounted, but the Earl had incurred other debts in the course of undertaking diplomatic missions for the Crown. Before their separation, Margaret gave Lord Strange four sons, Edward and Francis, who died young, Ferdinando, 5th Earl of Derby, and William, 6th Earl of Derby.
• In spite of chronic reumatism and toothache, her husband infidelities and their acrimonious financial disputes, the Countess of Derby lived on into the mid-1590´s. The historian William Camden said of her that "through an idle mixture of curiosity and ambition, supported by sanguine hopes and a credulous fancy, she much used the conversations of necromancers and figure flingers". She seems to have been rather a frivolous and silly woman.
• From: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/MargaretClifford(CDerby).htm _____________________
• Lady Margaret Clifford Stanley
• Birth: 1540
• Death: Sep. 28, 1596
• Family links:
• Parents:
• Henry Clifford (1517 - 1570)
• Eleanor Brandon Clifford (1519 - 1547)
• Spouse:
• Henry Stanley (1531 - 1593)
• Children:
  • Ferdinando Stanley (1559 - 1594)*
  • William Stanley (1561 - 1642)*
• Siblings:
• Charles Clifford*
• Henry Clifford*
• Margaret Clifford Stanley (1540 - 1596)
• Frances Clifford Wharton (1555 - 1592)**
• Mary Clifford (1556 - 1559)**
• Eleanor Clifford (1557 - 1575)**
• George Clifford (1558 - 1605)**
• Francis Clifford (1559 - 1641)**
• *Calculated relationship
• **Half-sibling
• Inscription:
• Margareta filia Henrici Clifford Comitis Cumbriae, vxor Henrici Comitis Derbiae iacet in hoc facello. Obijt 1596 & nullo tumulo honoratur.
• Burial: Westminster Abbey, Westminster, City of Westminster, Greater London, England
• Plot: Chapel of Saint Edmund
• Find A Grave Memorial# 82821
• From: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=82821315 _________________________
• Links
• https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Stanley,_Henry_(DNB00)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Clifford,_2nd_Earl_of_Cumberland
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Clifford,_Countess_of_Cumberland
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stanley,_4th_Earl_of_Derby
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinando_Stanley,_5th_Earl_of_Derby
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stanley,_6th_Earl_of_Derby
• https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Clifford,_Henry_de_(d.1570)_(DNB00)
• https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Stanley,_Ferdinando_(DNB00)
• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/2WDH-KND
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Clifford-71
• https://thehistoryjar.com/2017/03/09/lady-margaret-stanley-countess...
• https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Margaret_Stanley,_Countess_of_...

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