Mary Baynton (born approximately 1515) was a woman from England, who claimed to be the Princess Mary, daughter of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. She made the claim in Boston, Lincolnshire, and it appears that the claims were taken seriously in the turbulent times. However, after investigation, she was dismissed as a lunatic and subsequently ignored.
Mary Baynton was born in approximately 1515, daughter of Thomas Baynton who lived in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire. In September 1533, when Mary was 18, she publicly announced to the town of Boston, Lincolnshire, that she was Princess Mary, eldest daughter of Henry VIII. Princess Mary had been declared illegitimate and removed from the line of succession a few months earlier when Henry had repudiated the authority of the Pope. Amongst the confusion caused by these political events, Baynton's claims were considered seriously, with some individual even offering to fund her travel to Spain to win support to be recognised as heir to the throne. [1]
Baynton was arrested and investigated by officials, who dismissed her as a 'self-deluded lunatic'. She has been investigated by several historians, however it is uncertain what happened to her. [2] [3] [4] [5] It appears she was left alone, and settled down to a quiet life. [1]
The House of Tudor was an English and Welsh dynasty that held the throne of England from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd, a Welsh noble family, and Catherine of Valois. The Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and the Lordship of Ireland for 118 years with five monarchs: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the Scottish House of Stuart. The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, descended through his mother from the House of Beaufort, a legitimised branch of the English royal House of Lancaster, a cadet house of the Plantagenets. The Tudor family rose to power and started the Tudor period in the wake of the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), which left the main House of Lancaster extinct in the male line.
Mary Tudor was an English princess who was briefly Queen of France as the third wife of King Louis XII. Louis was more than 30 years her senior. Mary was the fifth child of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and the youngest to survive infancy.
Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, was the only surviving daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, by his wife Isabel Neville. As a result of Margaret's marriage to Richard Pole, she was also known as Margaret Pole. She was one of just two women in 16th-century England to be a peeress in her own right without a husband in the House of Lords.
Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, was the daughter of the Scottish queen dowager Margaret Tudor and her second husband Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, and thus the granddaughter of Henry VII of England. She was the grandmother of James VI and I.
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, was a prominent English politician and nobleman of the Tudor era. He was an uncle of two of the wives of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both of whom were beheaded, and played a major role in the machinations affecting these royal marriages. After falling from favour in 1546, he was stripped of his dukedom and imprisoned in the Tower of London, avoiding execution when Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547.
Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk was an English military leader and courtier. Through his third wife, Mary Tudor, he was brother-in-law to King Henry VIII.
Elizabeth Blount, commonly known during her lifetime as Bessie Blount, was a mistress of Henry VIII of England.
In common parlance, the wives of Henry VIII were the six queens consort of King Henry VIII of England between 1509 and his death in 1547. In legal terms, Henry had only three wives, because three of his marriages were annulled by the Church of England. He was never granted an annulment by the Pope, as he desired, however, for Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. Annulments declare that a true marriage never took place, unlike a divorce, in which a married couple end their union. Along with his six wives, Henry took several mistresses.
Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk, was an English noblewoman. She was the second child and eldest daughter of King Henry VIII's younger sister, Princess Mary, and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. She was the mother of Lady Jane Grey, de facto Queen of England and Ireland for nine days, as well as Lady Katherine Grey and Lady Mary Grey.
Cecily of York, also known as Cecelia, was the third daughter of King Edward IV of England and his queen consort Elizabeth Woodville.
Henry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of Exeter, 2nd Earl of Devon, KG, PC, feudal baron of Okehampton, feudal baron of Plympton, of Tiverton Castle, Okehampton Castle and Colcombe Castle all in Devon, was a grandson of King Edward IV, nephew of the queen consort, Elizabeth of York and a first cousin of King Henry VIII. Henry Courtenay was a close friend of Henry VIII, having "been brought up of a child with his grace in his chamber".
Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal in Westmorland, England, was a courtier and is best known as the father of Queen Catherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII.
John Hussey, 1st Baron Hussey of Sleaford was Chief Butler of England from 1521 until his death. He was a member of the House of Lords, and a Chamberlain to King Henry VIII's daughter, Mary I of England.
Elizabeth Holland, commonly known as Bess Holland, was an English courtier. She was the mistress of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk and maid-of-honour to his niece, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England.
Mary Boleyn, also known as Lady Mary, was the sister of English queen consort Anne Boleyn, whose family enjoyed considerable influence during the reign of King Henry VIII.
Elizabeth Tilney, Countess of Surrey was an English heiress who became the first wife of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. She served successively as a lady-in-waiting to two Queen consorts, namely Elizabeth Woodville, wife of King Edward IV, and later as Lady of the Bedchamber to that Queen's daughter, Elizabeth of York, the wife of King Henry VII. She stood as joint godmother to Princess Margaret Tudor at her baptism.
Sir Edward Bayntun, of Bromham, Wiltshire, was a gentleman at the court of Henry VIII of England. He was vice-chamberlain to Anne Boleyn, the King's second wife, and was the brother-in-law of Queen Catherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife.
Mary Scrope was an English courtier. She was the granddaughter of Henry Scrope, 4th Baron Scrope of Bolton, and the sister of Elizabeth Scrope, wife of John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, and Margaret Scrope, wife of Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk. She is said to have been in the service at court of King Henry VIII's first four wives. As the wife of Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower of London, she was in attendance on Anne Boleyn during the Queen's brief imprisonment in the Tower in May 1536, and both she and her husband were among those who walked with the Queen to the scaffold. By her first husband, Edward Jerningham, she was the mother of Sir Henry Jerningham, whose support helped to place Queen Mary I on the throne of England in 1553, and who became one of Queen Mary's most favoured courtiers.
Isabel Leigh, Lady Stumpe was a lady-in-waiting during the reign of her younger half-sister, Catherine Howard, fifth wife and Queen Consort to Henry VIII.
Sir Edward Burgh was the eldest son and heir to Sir Thomas Burgh, 1st Baron Burgh and his wife Agnes Tyrwhit. He is known for being the first husband of Catherine Parr, later queen of England. 18th-century historians have mistaken him for his grandfather, the elderly, Edward Burgh, 2nd Baron Burgh.