Eleanor Beaufort Explained

Eleanor Beaufort
Countess of Ormond Countess of Wiltshire
Birth Date:	1431
Death Date:	16 August
Noble Family:	Beaufort (by birth) Butler (by marriage) Spencer (by marriage)
Issue:	Margaret Spencer Catherine Spencer
Father:	Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset
Mother:	Eleanor Beauchamp

Lady Eleanor Beaufort, Countess of Ormond and Wiltshire (1431 – 16 August 1501) was the daughter of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset (1406-1455), KG, and was a sister of the 3rd and 4th Dukes of Somerset.

Origins

She was the daughter of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, KG (1406–1455), by his wife, Lady Eleanor Beauchamp. Eleanor Beauchamp was the daughter of Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, by his first wife, Elizabeth de Berkeley (herself daughter and heiress of Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley, by his wife, Margaret de Lisle, 3rd Baroness Lisle); she was also an elder half-sister of Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick, and Anne Neville, 16th Countess of Warwick.

Marriages and children

Eleanor Beaufort married twice. Her first marriage was in circa April 1458^[1] to James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond, 1st Earl of Wiltshire (d. 1461). Butler was Lieutenant of Ireland in 1453; when civil conflict broke out, the lieutenant fought on the Lancastrian side. He was present at the First Battle of St. Albans in 1455, Mortimer's Cross in 1461, and at the Battle of Towton. Butler also held the post of councilor to the Lancastrian Prince of Wales. After Towton, he was a proscribed as a traitor and was captured in the same year at Cockermouth and executed there in 1461.

Her second marriage was to Sir Robert Spencer^[2] of Spencer Combe in the parish of Crediton, Devon,^[3] by whom she had two daughters and co-heiresses:

• Margaret Spencer (or Eleanor Spencer;^[4] 1472–1536); wife of Thomas Carey of Chilton Foliot, Wiltshire, second son of Sir William Carey (1437-1471) of Cockington, Devon.^[5] She had two sons:
  • Sir John Carey (1491–1552) of Plashey, eldest son, ancestor to the Carey Viscounts Falkland.^[6]
  • William Carey, her second son, the first husband of Anne Boleyn's sister Mary Boleyn and ancestor to the Carey Barons Hunsdon, Barons Carey of Leppington, Earls of Monmouth, Viscounts Rochford and Earls of Dover.^[7]
• Catherine Spencer (1477–1542); wife of Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland, and mother to Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, an early love interest of Anne Boleyn.

Sources

• The royal descent of Nelson and Wellington, from Edward the first, George Russell French, 1853, p. 28
• The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII, Retha Marvine Warnicke, 1984, p. 36
• The Baronetage of England: containing a genealogical and historical account of all the English, Edward Kimber, 1771, p. 221

Notes and References

1. Weir, Alison. Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy (London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999), page 106
2. Reference:C 146/1170 Description:Receipt from Robert Spencer, knight, and Eleanor his wife, Countess of Wiltshire, late the wife of James Earl of Wiltshire, to Thomas, Earl of Ormond, William Husee, the King's Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, John Cheyne, William Hody, and John Biconell, knights, William Martyn, William Froste, and Thomas Cary, for 40 marcs, paid in the church of St. Paul at the Rood of the north door, part of a yearly rent of 80 marcs payable out of certain manors, &c.: [Middx.]. Note:Fragment of sealDate: London at the Rood of the north door in St. Paul's, 3 June, A.D. 1498Held by: The National Archives, KewLegal status: Public Record
3. [Tristram Risdon|Risdon, Tristram]
4. Vivian, p.150, pedigree of Cary
5. Vivian, p.150, pedigree of Cary
6. [John Lambrick Vivian|Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L.]
7. Vivian, pp.150, 154-6, pedigree of Cary