Elizabeth (FitzGerald) Clinton (abt. 1527 - abt. 1590)

Born about 1527 in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland

Ancestors

Wife of Anthony Browne KG — married about 1542 (to 6 May 1548) in England [uncertain]

Wife of Edward Clinton KG PC — married Oct 1552 in England

Died about Mar 1590 at about age 63 in West Horsley, Surrey, England

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Elizabeth FitzGerald was a member of the aristocracy in British Isles.

Biography

Elizabeth FitzGerald, known in famous sonnets as "The Fair Geraldine", was born ca.1527, daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, the formidable 9th Earl of Kildare, and Elizabeth Grey.

She "was still an infant when she was taken by her mother to England. She was brought up at Hunsden, with the royal Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, daughters of Henry VIII. When about 13 she was there seen by the Earl of Surrey, who immortalized her in several sonnets as Fair Geraldine. There is no reason to suppose that the friendship which existed between them in the following years was anything but Platonic."^[1]

In 1543, when 15 years old, Elizabeth was married to Sir Anthony Browne KG,^[2] a 60-year-old widower. Richardson states they had 2 sons -- Edward and Thomas Browne -- but as no further mention is made of them, it is presumed that neither reached maturity. She received Sir Anthony's West Horsley (Surrey) Manor as her home for life.^[3]

After Sir Anthony's death in 1548, Elizabeth married 2) Edward, Earl of Lincoln, as his 3rd wife. He was Lord High Admiral of England. They lived at West Horsley Manor until her death.

Elizabeth died in March 1590 and was buried beside her 2nd husband at Saint George's chapel in Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England.

"The [West Horsley] manor [had] passed into the possession of Henry, Marquis of Exeter, who was seised of it at his attainder in 1539 [by King Henry VIII]. His estates were forfeited to the king, who in 1547 granted West Horsley to Sir Anthony Browne KG. His widow, daughter of the Earl of Kildare, Surrey's 'Fair Geraldine,' married Lord Clinton, afterwards Earl of Lincoln, and held West Horsley for life. She and her husband resided here till her death, which took place after 8 December 1589".^[4]

Excerpt from her profile in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, edited for context and clarity:^[5]

• Elizabeth FitzGerald, (c.1527–1589), the ‘Fair Geraldine’, was 2nd daughter among the 5 children of Gerald FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Kildare, and his 2nd wife, Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset. Elizabeth, a first cousin once-removed of Henry VIII,^[6] was born in Ireland but was taken to England in October 1533, with her sisters, Margaret and Cecily, by her mother, who hoped to use her family connections to prevent her husband's recall from the lord deputyship.

• Her father died in the Tower of London in September 1534 and her rebellious stepbrother, Thomas FitzGerald ("Silken Thomas"), was executed at Tyburn in February 1537, along with 5 of their paternal uncles. The family, impoverished by forfeiture, went to live at Beaumanoir in Leicestershire, the home of Elizabeth's uncle, Lord Leonard Grey, who was serving as Lord Deputy of Ireland.

• In 1538 Elizabeth became maid of honour to Princess Mary at Hunsdon, and in 1540 she joined the household of the newly married queen, Katherine Howard, at Hampton Court. The queen's cousin, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, whose father, the Duke of Norfolk, had earlier befriended Elizabeth's father, had already been struck by her beauty which he celebrated in a poem titled A description and praise of his love Geraldine. This was the only poem in a series of songes and sonettes, written in similar vein and first published in 1557, that was explicitly addressed to Elizabeth: however, it was commonly assumed that all had been inspired by the ‘Fair Geraldine’. Late in the century, Thomas Nash published a romance, The Unfortunate Traveller, or the life of Jack Wilton (1594), which described Surrey in Italy visiting the celebrated alchemist Cornelius Agrippa, who revealed Elizabeth's image to him in a magic mirror, and defying all present at a tournament in Florence to show such beauty as hers.

• Drayton used these stories in his ‘heroical epistle’ of The Lady Geraldine to the Earl of Surrey (1598) and Sir Walter Scott followed suit in his Lay of the last minstrel. In fact, when Surrey first noticed Elizabeth she was not more than 10 years old; he was already married to Lady Francis, daughter of John Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford, and his fidelity to her has never been questioned. His affection for Lady Elizabeth appears to have been a chivalric conceit, perhaps prompted by the contrast between her beauty and the pathos of her situation.

• In 1543, two years after the execution of Catherine Howard (and of Leonard Grey), Elizabeth married Sir Anthony Browne KG, master of the horse, a widower of 60. The wedding was attended by Henry VIII and his daughter Mary, and the sermon was preached by the Bishop of London, Nicholas Ridley. Elizabeth bore Anthony two children, both of whom died young. Surrey was executed in 1547 and Elizabeth's husband died in 1548.

• After Henry VIII's death in 1547, the Fitzgerald influence at court was significant. Elizabeth's mother was instrumental in fulfilling Protector Somerset's wish to have Kildare's heir, her son Gerald, removed from his dangerous Continental associations and brought back to England in 1549. Elizabeth was a lady in waiting to King Edward's sister Mary, as was her step-daughter, Mabel Browne, and her brother Edward was a gentleman pensioner at court.

• In 1552, the widowed Elizabeth married Edward Fiennes de Clinton, Lord Admiral of England, who was 12 years her senior and had been twice widowed. Her brother Gerald was restored to part of his paternal estates by King Edward in the same year and to the Earldom of Kildare (as 11th Earl) by Queen Mary in 1554. Shortly afterwards he married Mabel Browne.

• Elizabeth's 2nd marriage was childless. She became Countess of Lincoln in 1572 on her husband's elevation to the peerage. On his death in January 1585, she acted as executrix of his will and erected a table monument to him in St George's Chapel, Windsor, which bore both their effigies. When she died, without issue, in March 1590 (new style) she was buried with him beneath the monument. Her portrait, in the manner of Holbein, is at Woburn Abbey.

Sources

1. ↑ "A Compendium of Irish Biography" by Alfred Webb (1878), p.185:
   • https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hwkpgr;view=1up;seq=195
2. ↑ Benolte, Thomas; Philipot, John; & Owen, George. The Visitations of the County of Sussex: 1530 and 1633-4. London: The Harleian Society, 1905. Vol LIII, p 83.
3. ↑ Plantagenet Ancestry:..., by Daniel Richardson, 2d Ed., pg. 182
4. ↑ 'Parishes: West Horsley', in A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 3, ed. H E Malden (London, 1911), pp. 353-357.
5. ↑ Author: Judy Barry (2009)
   • https://www.dib.ie/biography/fitzgerald-elizabeth-a3141
6. ↑ Their common ancestor was Elizabeth Woodville, who married 1) John Grey (Elizabeth's great-grandfather) and 2) King Edward IV (who was Henry VIII's grandfather).

See also:

• Dictionary of Irish Biography profile for Elizabeth FitzGerald (author Judy Barry):
  • https://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a3141

• "The Earls of Kildare and Their Ancestors From 1057 to 1773" by Charles William Fitzgerald Duke of Leinster, published by Hodges, Smith & Co., Dublin, 1858 p 126 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101072878489;view=1up;seq=136

• http://www.thepeerage.com/p2885.htm#i28841