This article is an expanded and revised version of a paper given at the Sixteenth Century Conference, October 1993. It has benefitted considerably from the careful comments of Fr. Albert J. Loomie, S.J.

¹ B.L., Harliean MSS, 249 f. 109.

² C.U.L. Hengrave MSS 88/3/18; John, Rokewood Gage, History and Antiguities of Hengrave, (1822) p. 187.Google Scholar Thomas Kitson stated that he had just (December 11, 1578) conferred with the Earl about posting bond so the young man could sue out his livery from the Court of Wards. He was born in 1557 [G.E.C. Cokayne, sub Bath, p. 17] so he was twenty one in December 1578. Mary's birthdate is not known. Mary was the sixth and last child of Sir Thomas Cornwallis. The fifth child was baptized in August 1552, so Mary could have been as old as 24, and her name indicates a birth date sometime after Mary I succeeded to the throne, Richard, G. Neville, ed., The Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis: 1613-1644, (London, 1842), xxxv.Google Scholar

³ C.U.L. Hengrave MSS, 1(2) p. 392; she called herself the Countess of Bath in her will as well PROB 11/151 f. 435r-436v.

⁴ There is no indication when this marriage was initially proposed, and a letter written by her sister in 1594 indicates that the Earl may have abused his wife. B.L Add. MSS. 70518; H.M.C. 13th R, App. 2, p. 19.

⁵ Alan, Simpson, Wealth of the Gentry: 1540-1660 (Chicago, 1963), p 142.Google Scholar For basic information of Sir Thomas and Sir William Cornwallis, see Bindoff, S. T. ed., The History of Parliament 1509-1558, 1, pp. 708–9,Google Scholar Hassler, P. ed., The History of Parliament 1558-1603, 1, p. 659.Google Scholar The best printed information on the Cornwallis family genealogy is in Richard, G. Neville, ed., The Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis: 1613-1644, pp. xxxii–xxxv.Google Scholar

⁶ For a complete discussion of Sir Thomas, see Patrick, McGrath and Joy, Rowe, ‘The Recusancy of Sir Thomas Cornwallis’, Publications of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, 18 (1958), pp. 226–271;Google Scholar Catholic Record Society, 13, p. 97,Google Scholar note 87; 22, p. 120; B.L. microfilm, Hatfield MSS 2/22; William, R. Trimble, The Catholic Laity in Elizabethan England 1558-1603, (Cambridge, Mass. 1964), pp. 15, 128, 139.Google Scholar

⁷ H.M.C, Salisbury MSS, 3, p. 376 (B.L., microfilm, Hatfield MSS 17/53). Sir William Cornwallis wrote to Lord Burghley in November 1588 to deny the ‘idleness' of his life and noted the six years he had spent seeking the Queen's ‘good opinion’ and office; and, P.R.O. SP12/263, no. 75, f. 153, Sir William Cornwallis to Sir Robert Cecil, May 1597.

⁸ G.I.O., Duncan, The High Court of Delegates, (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 209 ff.Google Scholar for a discussion of these extant records; Lawrence, Stone, The Road to Divorce: England 1530-1987, (Oxford, 1990), p. 33 Google Scholar for a discussion of the Court of Arches records.

⁹ C.U.L. Hengrave MSS 88/3/18 printed in John, Rokewood Gage, History and Antiquities of Hengrave, (1822) pp. 187–8.Google Scholar

¹⁰ B.L. Harl., 249 f. 107-110.

¹¹ DNB; Nicholas, Harris Nicholas, ed., Poetical Rhapsody, (William Pickering, Chancery Lane, 1826), pp. 202–204,Google Scholar 391ff. contains the first complete publication of Davison's account.

¹² Kent Record Office, U/269/39. Davison's account remained unfinished and was not published until the nineteenth century, but parts of it could have circulated and given rise to this account written at about the same time. The renewed interest in the case in 1601 remains a mystery, but was due perhaps to Sir Thomas Kitson's will in that year which left £300 to Mary because ‘partly by my procurement there was a marriage had and solemnized … which afterward did prove most unfortunate and to her great hindrance …’ PROB 11/101 f. 138 and C.U.L. Hengrave MSS 89/1/233/2 (draft). In 1604 Sir Thomas Cornwallis left Mary 500 marks to begin a suit to be restored to her husband or for recovery of dower in his lands, PROB 11/105 f. 85v. Both men refer to her as the Countess of Bath.

¹³ C.U.L. Hengrave MSS 88/3/18; Gage, History of Hengrave, p. 187. Lawrence, Stone, The Crisis ofthe Aristocracy 1558-1641, (Oxford, 1965), pp. 655–6Google Scholar erroneously says Kitson was the grandfather.The grandfather was the second Earl of Bath.

¹⁴ The date was December 15, 1578, as noted in Sir Thomas's account book, Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich, HA411/1/2/ f. 32. This source was previously in the possession of Lord Iveagh (Cornwallis MSS, 1/2) and I am grateful for his permission to read the manuscript at his estate.

¹⁵ This lack of documentation is frustrating because Sir Thomas said later that Mary had ten witnesses who had deposed at the Court of Arches, but they were not allowed to do so at the Court of Delegates. H.M.C. Salisbury MSS, 11, p. 223 and B.L., microfilm, Hatfield MSS, 182/48. They were probably excluded because most of them were Cornwallis's servants and recusants. See also Helmholz, R.H., Marriage Litigation in Medieval England, (Cambridge, 1974) pp. 25–111;Google Scholar Oscar, D. Watkins, Holy Matrimony: A Treatise on the Divine Laws of Marriage, (London, 1895) pp. 130–135;Google Scholar Stone, The Road to Divorce, pp. 51-120; Dibden, L. and Healey, C.C., English Church Law and Divorce, (London, 1912).Google Scholar

¹⁶ There is no evidence that impotence was cited, although that would have been a valid reason for dissolving the marriage. Watkins, Holy Matrimony, pp. 130-135.

¹⁷ C.U.L., Hengrave MSS, 17/19/140.

¹⁸ Several canonical violations did occur, but since the records are gone we cannot know the basis of the decision. See Aveling, H.. ‘The Marriages of Catholic Recusants 1559-1642,’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol 14, (1963), pp. 66–93 CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a complete discussion of reasons for dissolving unsatisfactory Catholic marriages.

¹⁹ H.M.C. 5th R. p. 138, Dr. W. Lewyn to Lord Cobham 19 May 1596 in answer to Cobham's inquiryabout dissolving his ward's marriage. Age could be another factor, but the Earl was well beyond theminimum age of consent, See above n. 12.

²⁰ She was one of the four daughters of Sir Thomas, Kitson, London merchant, Gage, History of Hengrave, pp. 16, 108–9.Google Scholar

²¹ G.E.C. Cokayne, Complete Peerage, sub Latimer.

²² Her mother was horrified by this marriage, Gage, History of Hengrave, p. 132. By this time, Frances had also come to the aid of her younger sister Anne, who had run away from her husband, William Spring, and who had a child by another man. In that case Frances insisted the men in the family provide a house for Anne, P.R.O. C4/154.

²³ B.L., microfilm, Hatfield MSS 202/155; P.R.O. SP12/113 f.113–4; McGrath and Rowe, ‘The Recusancy of Sir Thomas Cornwallis,’ Publications of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, 18, (1958), pp. 226–271.Google Scholar

²⁴ P.R.O. SP15/25 f. 268-284; Diarmaid, MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors: Politics and Religion in an English County 1500-1600 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 193–5.Google Scholar

²⁵ P.R.O. SP12/7 f. 54 where Sir Thomas thanks Burghley for help with Leicester in 1560 and also SP 12/13 f. 46; B.L. Lands. 9 f. 6; 33 f. 194; Sir Thomas Cornwallis to Francis Yaxley in the same vein P.R.O. SP12/11 f. 3.

²⁶ Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich, HA411/1/2 ff. 33, 35; Sir Thomas Cornwallis to Sir Robert Cecil 10 June 1601, H.M.C. Salisbury MSS, 11, p. 22; B.L., microfilm, Hatfield MSS 182/48.

²⁷ Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich, HA411/1/2 ff. 33, 35.

²⁸ H.M.C. Salisbury MSS, 11, p. 223; B.L., microfilm, Hatfield MSS, 182/48. There is also a reference to Leicester's change in attitude in B.L. Lansd., 33, no 80, f. 194, Cornwallis to Burghley 18 August 1581, which says ‘I marveyll what change of life and manners that noble man saw in me in so short a tyme, who within five monethes before pronounced a contrary sentence of me … but his Lordship's displeasure now shewed to me is not for me selfe, but … for one whom in trueth I am more careful than me selfe.’

²⁹ Bossy, J.A., ‘English Catholics and the French Marriage 1577-81,’ Recusant History, 5, (1959),pp. 2–16;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Ward, B.M., The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford: 1550-1604, (London, 1928), pp. 143, 206–213.Google Scholar The reports of the Spanish Ambassador, Mendoza, also have valuable information on the Catholics at court and the marriage negotiations, see especially Calendar of State Papers, Simancas, 1580-1586, 3, pp. 1-3. 6-7, 14-15, 24-29, 97-99, 243–246.Google Scholar

³⁰ Peck, D. C., ed., Leicester's Commonwealth: The Copy of a Letter Written by a Master of Art of Cambridge 1584 and Related Documents, (Athens, Ohio, 1985), pp. 13–19.Google Scholar

³¹ William Comwallis to Burghley, November, 1588 in H.M.C. Salisbury MSS, 3, p. 376; B.L., micro-film, Hatfield MSS 17/53, and Mary Queen of Scots to De Mauvissier, M., September, 1583 ‘Je vous envoye deux autres alphabets, I'un pour le gentilhomme Comwallis’, H.M.C. Salisbury MSS, 3, p. 13.Google Scholar

³² B.L. Harl. 249 f. 108.

³³ Ward, The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, p. 213; Bossy, J.A., ‘English Catholics and the French Marriage 1577-81,’ Recusant History, 5, (1959), p. 2;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and also Hassell-Smith, A. ed., Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, 1, (Norfolk Record Series 1978–9) p. 114,Google Scholar n.211 (p. 299), Edmund Bacon to Mr. Nathaniel Bacon 13 May 1574. This Francis Southwell seems to be the second son of Sir Robert Southwell the Master of Requests, Dashwood, G.H. ed., The Visitation of Norfolk in the year 1563 by William Harvey, (Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society 1, 1878), pp. 124–126.Google Scholar On the Southwells see DNB; Bindoff ed., History of Parliament, 3, pp. 356-7.

³⁴ H.M.C. Hastings MSS, 2, p. 29; Chambers, E. K., Sir Henry Lee: An Elizabethan Portrait, (Oxford, 1936) pp. 151-2, 154-6, 159.Google Scholar

³⁵ H.M.C. Salisbury MSS, 11, p. 223; B.L., microfilm, Hatfield MSS 182/48.

³⁶ B.L., microfilm, Hatfield MSS 17/60 ‘for I fynde my sone and his wyffe so addityd to live aboute this cytye’.