Mary (Woodhouse) Stafford (1579 - 1656)

Born 1579 in Waxham, Norfolk, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Biography

Mary Woodhouse became a courtier in early Stuart England. She was known successively as Lady Killigrew and Lady Stafford, the names of her two husbands: Sir Robert Killigrew and Sir Thomas Stafford.

Research Notes

Sources are confused on the parentage of Mary Woodhouse. Some have her as the daughter of Henry Woodhouse of Kimberly, Norfolk. The Woodhouses of Kimberly are the older of two Woodhouse families in Norfolk, but they do not seem to include a Henry Woodhouse at the correct time period.^[1]

It is thus more likely that she was the daughter of Henry Woodhouse of Hickling and Waxham, and his wife Anne Bacon Woodhouse, daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon.^[2] The Bacons had an existing connection to the Killigrew family: Anne Bacon Woodhouse's stepmother, Anne Cooke Bacon, had a sister Katherine Cooke who married Henry Killigrew. Thus Mary's first husband Robert Killigrew was her mother's nephew, son of Henry Killigrew's brother William Killigrew.^[3]

Lady Killigrew

Her mother Anne Bacon Woodhouse died in 1580,^[4] which places Mary Woodhouse's birth before that date.

Her mother's half-brother, Francis Bacon, was familiar with King James VI of Scotland, before he inherited the throne of England, and it is possible that, due to the influence of Francis, or perhaps of their uncle, the courtier Henry Killigrew, Mary Woodhouse became a Maid of Honor to his queen, Anne of Denmark in 1604.^[5]

Also about 1604, she married Sir Robert Killigrew,^{[6] [7]}, son of courtier Sir William Killigrew and that time MP for Newport: They had a numerous family, many of whom became notable:^[3]Pedigree]

1. (Sir) William Killigrew (1606–1695) - son and heir
2. Anne Killigrew (1607–1641)
3. Robert Killigrew (1611-1???)
4. Thomas Killigrew (1612–1683)
5. Henry Killigrew (1613–1700)
6. Elizabeth Killigrew (c.1615-c.1619)
7. Catherine Killigrew (1618–1689) - m. Sir Thomas Stanley
8. Elizabeth Killigrew (1622–1681) - Viscountess Shannon - m. Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon. Was a mistress of Charles II and bore him a daughter: Charlotte FitzRoy, Countess of Yarmouth
9. Mary Killigrew (1623–1677) - m. Sir John James

Lady Mary Killigrew appears to have been quite successful at court, where she had an extensive acquaintance, including, besides her brother Francis Bacon, later Lord Chancellor, her sister Anne, whose third husband was Sir Julius Caesar, Master of the Rolls, and her aunt Elizabeth, whose third husband was Sir William Periam, Justice of the Common Pleas and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Like Dame Elizabeth, Mary Killigrew was apparently a connoisseur of music and musical instruments, and she made the acquaintance (perhaps the very close acquaintance) of many musicians at court. When Queen Anne died in 1619, Lady Killigrew was part of the funeral procession with the ladies of her privy chamber.^[5]

Sir Robert Killigrew died in 1633; his Will was proved 12 May. He left his widow Mary his seat at Kempton Park, as long as she remained unmarried.^[6]

Lady Stafford

The widowed Lady Killigrew was over fifty years of age, but by no means ready to live unmarried. She had lovers and admirers at court, and perhaps the most desperate of them was 60 year old courtier Sir Thomas Stafford, a gentleman usher of the privy chamber to Queen Anne and her successor Queen Henrietta Maria. He was the illegitimate son of Lord George Carew, Earl of Totnes. They married some time after 1633. There were no children of the union, considering their ages.

In 1642, at the outbreak of the Civil War, Sir Thomas was appointed treasurer of the Queen's Household in Holland, where she went to raise support for the king's armies. Lady Stafford did not accompany him, nor does she appear to have had a place in the queen's service. (Her daughter Anne Killigrew Kirke was appointed dresser to the queen in 1637. ^[5]) The Staffords seem to have lived in retirement until Sir Thomas's death between 1653 and 1655. In his 1653 Will, he left the house in the Savoy that he had inherited from his father to Mary Stafford, ‘in whose kind society I acknowledge that I have lived most contentedly happy’. ^[8]

Lady Mary Stafford died the next year, in 1656. In her Will, she declared her wish to be buried, not with her husband in his father's tomb,^[9] but in the chapel of the house on the Savoy.^[10]

"The Countess of Warwick remarks of her in her autobiography (Percy Soc. 1848, p. 9), ‘she was a cunning old woman who had been herself too much, and was too long versed in amours.’" ^[7]

Sources

1. ↑ The Visitation of Norfolk. Water Rye, ed. p. 321. Norfolk
2. ↑ The Visitations of Suffolk, 1612. Exeter: W. Pollard, 1882. p. 109-110. Bacon of Redgrave
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Vivian, J L Vivian, J.L., ed., The Visitations of Cornwall, 1530, 1573, 1620. (Exeter: William Pollard,1887), pp. 268 & 270. Killigrew Pedigree
4. ↑ (306) Bacon of Redgrave Hall, Gorhambury House, Gillingham Hall, Raveningham Hall and Shrubland Hall - part 3 Landed Families
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2} Wikipedia: Mary Woodhouse. Mary This identification is not certain.
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} History of Parliament Online: Killigrew, Sir Robert (c. 1580-1633)Sir Robert
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 31: Killigrew, Robert by Thomas Seccombe Robert Killigrew
8. ↑ History of Parliament Online: Stafford, Sir Thomas (1577-1655) Sir Thomas Stafford
9. ↑ Dugdale, William. The Antiquities of Warwickshire London: Thomas Warren, 1656. p. 518.Tomb
10. ↑ Will of Dame Mary Stafford, Widow of Savoy, Middlesex: PROB 11/260/571.

• http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/woodhouse-henry-1545-1624
• wikipedia:Robert_Killigrew