Katherine Vaux and Her Children
In the course of my research for The Stolen Crown, I came across Margaret of Anjou's faithful lady-in-waiting, Katherine Vaux. Her story spans six decades and six kings.
When Margaret of Anjou was taken into custody after the Battle
of Tewkesbury, Katherine Vaux, along with the Countess of Devon and Margaret's
daughter-in-law Anne Neville (future queen to Richard III), were with her. The
death of Edward of Lancaster at the battle meant that Margaret had lost her only
son and Anne her first husband. Katherine too was widowed: her husband, William
Vaux, fell at Tewkesbury.
Born in Provence as Katherine Peniston, Katherine was the daughter of Gregory
Peniston of Piedmont, said by some to have been an English exile. Katherine may
have accompanied Margaret when she came to England in 1445 as its new queen.
Under her maiden name, she is listed as one of the queen's damsels in the
1452-53 household records, which also list as one of Margaret's ladies a certain
"Dame Isabel Grey," who depending on which historian one reads might or might
not be Elizabeth Woodville. Margaret's jewel accounts for the same period show
that Katherine received a gift of a "chopin," a drinking vessel.
On December 22, 1456, Katherine and three other people were granted letters of
denization, a process that made them English subjects but that did not give them
all of the rights of an English citizen. By this time, Katherine had married
William Vaux, who was born in 1437. Vaux owned the manor of Great Harrowden in
Northamptonshire. A loyal Lancastrian, he was attainted in 1461 and shared Queen
Margaret's exile abroad before returning to England to meet his death at
Tewkesbury.
Despite their political difficulties, William and Katherine had found time to
start a family: they had two children, Nicholas (born in around 1460) and Joan
(also called Jane). Nicholas is said to have been raised in Margaret Beaufort's
household, and Joan might have been there as well.
Following the defeat at Tewkesbury, the widowed Katherine appears to have shared
Margaret's imprisonment and to have accompanied her back to France in 1476 when
she was returned to that country as part of the Treaty of Picquigny. In 1478,
Edward IV granted her a life interest in the manors of Stanton in
Buckinghamshire and Markham (Marcham) in Berkshire, which she had held jointly
with her husband and should have received upon his death.
Margaret of Anjou died in 1482. Katherine was one of the witnesses to her will,
made on August 2, 1482. She returned to England, where Richard III later granted
her an annuity of 20 marks. Perhaps this kind gift was made at the request of
Queen Anne, who would have known Katherine from Anne's days as Margaret of
Anjou's daughter-in-law.
It was the defeat of Richard III, however, that signaled a new life for
Katherine and her two children. Henry VII's 1485 Parliament reversed the
attainder of William Vaux, allowing Nicholas to inherit his father's lands.
Nicholas was also given the stewardships of Olney and Newport Pagnell in
Buckinghamshire. It was the beginning of a long career in Tudor service for
Nicholas.
Katherine Vaux was present at Prince Arthur's christening in 1486, and Nicholas
was knighted the following year after the Battle of Stoke, where he fought for
Henry VII. Katherine attended Elizabeth of York's coronation ceremonies in 1487,
where Nicholas was one of the men who bore a canopy over the queen's litter as
she proceeded to Westminster. A "Dame Johanna Gilforde" was also present at the
coronation: this was probably Katherine's daughter Joan, who had married Richard
Guildford. Guildford had participated in the October 1483 rebellion
against Richard III and had fled abroad to join Henry Tudor in exile.
Katherine Vaux was still alive on June 28, 1509, when the new king, Henry VIII,
granted her an annuity of 20 marks. She had lived to see six kings on the throne
of England: Henry VI, Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, Henry VII, and Henry
VIII. Katherine was buried in the London Blackfriars.
Katherine's son Nicholas had a distinguished career. He was
made Baron Vaux of Harrowden in 1523, but did not have much time to enjoy his
new status, for he died about three weeks later on May 14, 1523, having married
twice and had a number of children. His heir, Thomas Vaux, was painted by Hans
Holbein. Thomas Vaux was a poet as well as a courtier: George Puttenham in
The Arte of English Poesie wrote that
"his commendation lyeth chiefly in the facillitie of his meetre, and the
aptnesse of his descriptions such as he taketh upon him to make, namely in
sundry of his Songs, wherein he sheweth the counterfait action very lively &
pleasantly."
Like her mother, Joan Guildford served in a queen's household, in this case
Elizabeth of York's. There she became particularly close to Elizabeth's daughter
Mary. Joan accompanied Mary to her marriage to Louis XII in 1514. Unfortunately,
Louis XII found the influx of English ladies, and the overbearing Joan in
particular, too much to bear, and sent most of them home. Mary sent off
indignant letters to her brother Henry VIII and to Thomas Wolsey begging for the
recall of her "Mother Guildford," but to no avail; later, Louis XII informed an
English ambassasor that he did not want "when he would be merry with his wife to
have any strange woman with her." Joan returned to England and was given an
annuity of twenty pounds by Henry VIII, who later raised the sum to sixty
pounds.
Joan married twice. Her first husband, Richard Guildford, was prominent in Henry
VII's administration, although he eventually had to leave office, perhaps at the
instigation of Henry's unpopular ministers, Sir Richard Empson and Edmund
Dudley. He died in Jerusalem in 1506. Joan's son with Richard, Henry Guildford,
was a favorite of Henry VIII and remained in favor despite the mutual dislike
between him and Anne Boleyn; he died in 1532. Joan's second husband was Anthony
Poyntz, whose mother, Margaret, was the illegitimate daughter of Anthony
Woodville. Poyntz died in 1533; Joan outlived him. She died in 1538. Though in a
letter dated 1535, she had described herself dolefully as a "poor widow," this
should not be taken literally: at the time of her death, her money, plate, and
jewels totalled 12,000 marks.
Joan made a rather better impression on Erasmus than she had on Louis XII: on
May 15, 1519, the humanist wrote a letter to Joan's son Henry Guildford in which
he sent his compliments to Joan, with whom Erasmus had conversed on "one or two
occasions."
Sources:
Godfrey Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden. Newport, Mon.:
R. H. Jones, Ltd., 1953.
Calendar of Patent Rolls.
The Complete Peerage.
Sean Cunningham, ‘Guildford, Sir Richard (c.1450–1506)’, Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11723, accessed 12 July 2009]
Keith Dockray, ‘Guildford, Sir Henry (1489–1532)’, Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11721, accessed 12 July 2009]
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Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/18049, accessed 12 July 2009]
Kathy Lynn Emerson, Wives and Daughters: The
Women of Sixteenth Century England.
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of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28162, accessed 12 July 2009]
Mary Anne Everett Green, Lives of the
Princesses of England.
Barbara J. Harris, English Arisstocratic
Women: 1450-1550.
Michael Jones and Malcolm Underwood, The
King's Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby.
John Leland, De rebus Britannicis collectanea.
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of
the Reign of Henry VIII.
A. R. Myers, "The Household of Queen Margaret of Anjou, 1452-3,"
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library.
A. R. Myers, "The Jewels of Queen Margaret of Anjou."
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library.
Maria Perry, The Sisters of Henry VIII.
'Parishes: Great Harrowden', A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 4
(1937), pp. 178-185. URL:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66344 Date accessed: 12 July
2009.
Mary Anne Everett Wood, Letters of Royal and
Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain.
H. R. Woudhuysen, ‘Vaux, Thomas, second Baron Vaux (1509–1556)’, Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn,
Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28163, accessed 12 July 2009]
Copyright © 2009 Susan Higginbotham