Katherine (Audley) Plowden (abt. 1607 - aft. 1675)

Born about 1607 in England

Ancestors

Wife of Francis Plowden — married 1625 (to 10 Sep 1661) in England

Died after 1675 after about age 68 in Ghent, Belgium

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Biography

Katherine was the daughter of Thomas Audley and Katherine Knatchbull (Written as Haesbol by the Nuns of Ghent)^[1]

According to records at Ghent she was born in 1607 which would have made her a very young mother. (c13 years old)

1612 Beneficiary in the will of father Thomas Audley. She was a minor entrusted to the care of her mother

She married firstly Richard Butler Esq of Callan, co Kilkenny, Ireland the eldest son of Piers Butler

She married secondly Francis Plowden of Plowden Shropshire.

She was the mother of Catherina Butler by her first marriage and Elizabeth Plowden by her second

She was the sister-in-law of Margaret Plowden.

By now a widow, she was clothed 26 Dec 1665, aged 60 at Ghent as Benedictine choir nun.

She professed 27 Jan 1667, her name in religion Scholastica.

She died in 1675^[2]

Research Notes

"Westcourt Castle [co. Kilkenny]. . . was the old manor house of Callan. It passed from the descendants of Earl Marshall to the Earl of Ormond in 1391; from the Ormond [Butler] family to Lord Desart, about 1700. . .^[3]

"Mr. Thomas Shelly believes that this castle of Westcourt was the strong Butler castle of Callan, mentioned in connection with the siege of Callan by the Cromwellians in 1650."

Who Were the Nuns? https://wwtn.history.qmul.ac.uk/ftrees/Knatchbull.pdf

The Nuns site has the following interpretation which I believe to be incorrect. Catherine Southwell was her grandmother

Her mother's name is derived from the examination record and has been garbled by the clerk. She was Catherine Southwell of Woodrising (see Stirnet, using various Visitations). Catherine Plowden married twice.

Sources

1. ↑ The history of Audley End. To which are appended notices of the town and parish of Saffron Walden in the county of Essex by Braybrooke, Richard Griffin, Baron, 1783-1858 Publication date 1836 Page 24 Audley Pedigree
2. ↑ Records of the Chicheley Plowdens A. D. 1590-1913; with four alphabetical indices, four pedigree sheets, and a portrait of Edmund, the great Elizabethan lawyer by Plowden, Walter Francis Courtenay Chicheley, 1852- Publication date 1914 Page 10
3. ↑ The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory by Carrigan, William Publication date 1905 Page 307

See also

• The testamentary records of the Butler families in Ireland (genealogical abstracts) Edited by the Rev. Wallace Clare. Publication date 1932 Page 50
• Who were the Nuns? Catherina Plowden, in religion Scholastica. Sources: Ghent Annals: 42; RAG K2293: 30r-v, 52r-v.