Agnes Howard, Duchess of Norfolk facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Agnes Tilney
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| Duchess of Norfolk | |
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| Born | c. 1477 |
| Died | May 1545 |
| Spouse(s) | Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk |
| Issue | William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham Lord Thomas Howard Lord Richard Howard Lady Dorothy Howard, Countess of Derby Lady Anne Howard, Countess of Oxford Lady Katherine Howard, Countess of Bridgewater Lady Elizabeth Howard |
| Father | Hugh Tilney |
| Mother | Eleanor, daughter of Walter Tailboys |
Agnes Howard (née Tilney) (c. 1477 – May 1545) was the second wife of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Two of King Henry VIII's queens were her step-granddaughters, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Catherine Howard was placed in the Dowager Duchess's care after her mother's death.
Agnes' brother, Sir Philip Tilney of Shelley (d.1533), was the paternal grandfather of Edmund Tilney (1535/6–1610), Master of the Revels to Queen Elizabeth and King James. Edmund Tilney's mother, Malyn, was implicated in the scandal surrounding the downfall of Queen Katherine Howard.
Contents
Marriage
Agnes Tilney, born around 1477, was the daughter of Hugh Tilney of Skirbeck and Boston, Lincolnshire, by Eleanor, daughter of Walter Tailboys and Alice Stafford Cheyney. Her brother, Sir Philip Tilney of Shelley (d.1533), was in the service of Thomas Howard, then Earl of Surrey, the husband of Agnes' cousin, Elizabeth Tilney. Surrey's first wife died on 4 April 1497, and he and Agnes were married four months later by dispensation dated 17 August 1497. Agnes brought Surrey little by way of dowry.
The marriage coincided with a change in Surrey's fortunes. As a supporter of Richard III, for whom he fought at Bosworth in 1485, Surrey was not in high favour during the early years of the reign of Henry VII. However, in 1499 he was recalled to court, and in the following year he accompanied the King on a state visit to France. In 1501 he was sworn of the Privy Council, and on 16 June of that year was named Lord Treasurer. In the same year he was involved in successful diplomatic negotiations with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella for a marriage between the Spanish Infanta, Catherine of Aragon, and Henry VII's eldest son Arthur, Prince of Wales. When Prince Arthur died on 2 April 1502, Surrey supervised the funeral.
In 1503 he escorted the King's daughter, Margaret Tudor, to Scotland for her wedding to King James IV. Agnes Howard, and her step-daughter Muriel, Lady Gray, clipped the Scottish king's beard on 9 August 1503, and he gave her a length of cloth-of-gold.
On 21 April 1509 Henry VII died. Surrey was an executor of the late King's will, and served as Earl Marshal at the coronation of Henry VIII. When a Scottish army invaded after Henry VIII had departed for Calais on 30 June 1513, Surrey crushed the Scottish forces at Flodden on 9 September. The victory brought Surrey popular renown and royal rewards. On 1 February 1514 he was created Duke of Norfolk, and his son Thomas was made Earl of Surrey. Both were granted lands and annuities, and the Howard arms were augmented in honour of Flodden.
Norfolk's leading position among the nobility was reflected in the Duchess's role at court. She was godmother to Princess Mary, and attended the Princess during a visit to France in 1520. Katherine of Aragon, the wife of Henry VIII, gave her a pendant shaped like the letter "A" set with diamonds and pearls as a New Year's day gift.
By the spring of 1522 Norfolk was almost 80 years of age and in failing health. He retired to his ducal castle at Framlingham in Suffolk where he died on 21 May 1524. His funeral and burial on 22 June at Thetford Priory were said to have been 'spectacular and enormously expensive', befitting the richest and most powerful peer in England.
Dowager Duchess
The Dowager Duchess remained in favour after her husband's death. Ordinances issued at Eltham in 1526 indicate that she was accorded first place in the Queen's household after the King's sister Mary Tudor.
On 23 May 1533 Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared Henry VIII's marriage to his first Queen, Katherine of Aragon, a nullity. On or about 25 January 1533 the King had already married the Dowager Duchess's step-granddaughter Anne Boleyn in a secret ceremony. Anne was crowned Queen on 1 June 1533. The Dowager Duchess bore Anne's train in the coronation procession, and was godmother at the christening of Anne's daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Anne's two subsequent miscarriages caused the King misgivings about the marriage, but Anne's downfall ultimately came about as a result of her conflict with the King's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, over the distribution of the spoils from the dissolution of the monasteries. Anne was charged with high treason, and on 19 May 1536 was executed at Tower Green.
The King then took Jane Seymour as his third wife. Two years after her death, at Cromwell's instigation the King wed Anne of Cleves on 6 January 1540. The marriage was annulled by Act of Parliament on 12 July 1540. By then Catherine Howard, another of the Dowager Duchess's step-granddaughters, had already caught the King's eye. Henry and Catherine were married at a private ceremony at Oatlands on 28 July 1540. Despite the fact that Henry was much in love with her, referring to her as his "rose without a thorn", the marriage quickly came to a disastrous end.
Death
The Dowager Duchess died in May 1545 and on 13 October was interred at St. Mary's Church in Lambeth, Surrey, where four of her sons who had died young--John, Charles, Henry, and Richard--were buried. Her husband's tomb at Thetford St. Mary's Priory Church was removed by his son after the dissolution of that house in 1537, and may have been moved to Lambeth, but no trace of his or Agnes's tomb were to be found when John Aubrey visited there in the 1690s. The church itself was substantially rebuilt.
Issue
- William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham
- Lord Thomas Howard (1511–1537)
- John Howard (d. 23 March 1503)
- Charles Howard (d. 3 May 1512)
- Henry Howard (d. 22 February 1513)
- Lord Richard Howard (d.1517)
- Lady Dorothy Howard, married Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby
- Lady Anne Howard, married John de Vere, 14th Earl of Oxford
- Lady Katherine Howard (d.1554), married firstly Rhys ap Gruffydd, and secondly Henry Daubeney, 1st Earl of Bridgewater (d.1548).
- Lady Elizabeth Howard (d. 1536), married Henry Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Sussex.
