Maria de Salinas
María de Salinas, Lady Willoughby de Eresby , (* approx. 1490; † between May 7 and 20, 1539) was a Spanish nobleman and a close confidante and lady-in-waiting of Queen Catherine of Aragón . When she married the English heir to the throne Arthur in 1501 , Maria came with her to England and stayed there for the rest of her life. She is best known for the fact that in 1536, contrary to royal orders, she rushed to the terminally ill Catherine of Aragon, who then died in her arms.
She is the mother of Katherine Willoughby, 12th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby .
Life
Origin and arrival in England
It is not known when María de Salinas was born. It is also disputed who her parents were. She was either the daughter of Juan de Salines and Inez Albornos, in which case she would have had a brother named Alphonse and a sister named Inez. Or she was the daughter of Juan's brother, Martín de Salinas, and Josepha Gonzáles de Salas, who were employees and allegedly relatives of the royal family of Castile . Their ancestors may have been conversos , Jews who converted to Christianity.
It is also unclear when exactly María came to England. She is not mentioned in the household list of Catherine of Aragon in 1500, but could have been one of the Spanish ladies who were added to the household in March 1501 to enlarge it. In that case, she would have accompanied the princess to England later that year for her wedding to Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales (German: Prince of Wales). The historian Retha Warnicke thinks it unlikely that María was later accepted into Katharina's household, as the prince died in 1502 and the young widow found herself in great financial difficulties afterwards. Biographers Catherine of Aragon, however, suspect her arrival between 1502 and 1509, when she appeared in the funeral procession at the funeral of King Henry VII .
Lady-in-waiting Catherine
The lady-in-waiting and her mistress were very close, it was said that Maria was loved more by Katharina "than any other mortal" and had always given her consolation "in the hours of need" during the seven years of her widowhood. María's influence on her was so great that the Spanish ambassador complained about it. After Katharina married Arthur's younger brother Heinrich in 1509 and became Queen of England, he wrote: “The few Spaniards who are still in their household prefer to be friends of the English and neglect their duties as subjects of the king from Spain. Doña María de Salinas exerts the worst influence on the Queen. "
The ambassador accused María of influencing the queen to his disadvantage because she supported her relative Juan Adursa, a trader in Flanders, in his efforts to become treasurer of the Prince of Castile at his court. He claimed that his friend Juan Manual, a Castilian exile and archenemy of the King of Spain, influenced the Queen through him and María in such a way that he could not take advantage of the fact that the English Queen was a Spanish woman.
María encouraged the queen to adapt quickly to the customs of her new home in order to gain the love of the king. The two women did not make the mistake of keeping to themselves as many foreign princesses and their entourage did; they learned to speak English, wore English clothing, and even their names Catalina and María had been Anglicized to Catherine and Mary .
Lady Willoughby
Like her mistress before, María also married into an English family. After she was officially naturalized in May 1516, she married William Willoughby, 10th Baron Willoughby de Eresby , on June 5 in Greenwich , as his second wife. The king found it “very desirable that Spanish and English families should be united by family ties”, he gave the couple the Grimsthorpe estate in Lincolnshire on the occasion of the wedding, gave them a gift of 6 shillings and 8 pence and the Queen gave María one Dowry from 1,100 marks. Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk , for whose little daughter Mary María had been godmother in 1511, served as an entrant for her Wittum .
The Willoughbys were very popular with the royal couple, and in 1522 the king even named one of his warships Mary Willoby . The new baroness soon became the mother of three children, two sons and a daughter. Her older son was named Henry after his godfather, the king, and her younger son was possibly named after the French King Francis. However, the two boys died very early, only their daughter Katherine, for whom the queen was godmother and namesake, survived.
María continued to serve as Katharina's lady-in-waiting as a married woman and accompanied her to the field of the golden cloth in France in 1520 on the occasion of the monumental peace meeting of the English and French kings.
Widowhood and inheritance disputes
María's husband died after only ten years of marriage in October 1526 and an inheritance dispute broke out immediately. William Willoughby's first marriage to Mary Hussey had remained childless, which is why he first named his younger brother, Sir Christopher Willoughby, his heir and transferred some lands to him. Sir Christopher's attempts to cheat him out of some properties in Suffolk, however, angered him, so that upon his marriage to María he promised María the lands that were supposed to go to Sir Christopher as part of her wittum. In his will he completely ignored his brother and left everything to his daughter Katherine, who was also the heir to the Barony of Willoughby de Eresby under current law .
Immediately after Lord Willoughby's death, however, Sir Christopher asserted his claim to the barony and the lands belonging to it by forcibly occupying the Eresby estate with his servants and some local gentlemen, where the documents were found which confirmed his niece's claim. Lady Willoughby countered by taking up residence at Parham Estate and bringing the family heirlooms under her control.
This was followed by a protracted legal dispute, some of which lasted until 1565 and was fought before the Star Chamber Court and the Compensation Court of Chancery . Catherine of Aragon supported her lady-in-waiting in this legal battle to the best of her ability, she sent letters to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey to keep Sir Christopher away from Parham, but in the long run she was powerless because her own star was on the decline.
Lady Willoughby also lost the guardianship of her daughter, who by law fell to the Crown after the death of her father and was then bought by Charles Brandon. From then on, Katherine lived with the family of her new guardian, who betrothed her to his son.
Presumably, however, this engagement found María's approval. She had longstanding ties to Brandon, and since he, as her daughter's potential father-in-law, had a keen interest in preserving Katherine's inheritance and was also a member of the Star Chamber Court, she found an influential ally in him. He sued Sir Christopher for Lady Willoughby and when he married Katherine himself after the death of his wife in 1533, he then used his friendship with the king to obtain a final settlement in his new wife's inheritance dispute. In a parliamentary act of 1536, María and her daughter finally received nine properties in Lincolnshire and the barony of Willoughby de Eresby.
Death of Catherine of Aragon
María was a devoted friend and servant of Catherine to the end. She remained in her service and supported her through the long years of the divorce process and the ex-queen's subsequent banishment from the court. Lady Willoughby accompanied Catherine to the papal tribunal in June 1529, which was to decide on the legality of their marriage and demonstratively stayed away from the coronation of the new queen four years later. When her household was reduced to a few people in 1533, María had to leave her mistress, but even after that she continued to write letters to Katharina and served her as mediator to the Spanish ambassador Eustace Chapuys and Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex . Although this was extremely dangerous, she also passed on news of her daughter Princess Maria, who was forbidden to communicate with her mother.
Towards the end of 1535, Catherine was dying in her exile at Kimbolton Castle. “I heard that my mistress is very seriously ill again,” wrote María to Minister Cromwell, urging him repeatedly for permission to visit “before God takes her, because it cannot be otherwise.” Since Cromwell did not help her and knowing that otherwise she would never see Katharina again, Lady Willoughby rode to Kimbolton without permission. On New Year's morning in 1536, around six o'clock, she stood in front of the castle door and asked to be admitted because the weather was so bad and she had fallen from her horse a mile away. Couldn't she come in and, in view of her fall, sit a little by the fire? She really wanted to see Katharina too. The guard, Sir Edmund Bedingfield, who closely monitored access to Katharina, took pity, but asked for permission to visit. Lady Willoughby announced that she would present the permit the next morning, and Sir Edmund relented. "We have not seen her since then, nor her permission to come here," he later complained, for Lady Willoughby had been smuggled to Katharina immediately upon her arrival.
She stayed until Katharina died in her arms six days later. She and her daughter were also present at her funeral.
death
María de Salinas died between May 7 and May 20, 1539. It is not known where she found her final resting place, but after her death the legend spread that she was buried with Catherine of Aragon in Peterborough Abbey.
progeny
- Katherine Willoughby, 12th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby , (1519 / 20–1580)
- Henry Willoughby, died early
- Francis Willoughby, died early
literature
- Brian Harrison HCG Matthew: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, from the earliest times to the year 2000 , Oxford University Press 2004, Volume 59, p. 419
- David Starkey: Six wives: The Queens of Henry VIII , New York, HarperCollins Publishers 2003
- Georgina Bertie: Five Generations of a Loyal House , London, Rivingtons 1854
- Melissa Franklin-Harkrider: Women, Reform and Community in Early Modern England, Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk, and Lincolnshire's Godly Aristocracy, 1519-1580 . Woodbridge, Rochester, NY, Boydell 2008
Web links
- Family of William Willoughby , family tree and picture
- Discussion of Marías origin on Rootsweb (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Melissa Franklin-Harkrider: Women, Reform and Community in Early Modern England, Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk, and Lincolnshire's Godly Aristocracy, 1519-1580. Woodbridge, Rochester, NY, Boydell 2008, pp. 29f
- ^ Brian Harrison, HCG Matthew: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, from the earliest times to the year 2000, Oxford University Press 2004, Volume 59, p. 419
- ↑ The question of when María came to England is made even more difficult by the fact that she can be confused with María de Rojas, daughter of the Count of Salines, who was Catherine's lady-in-waiting during her marriage to Prince Arthur, but returned to Spain before 1509 went to get married there.
- ↑ Letter of December 6, 1514, Ambassador Luis Caroz De Villaragut to Juan De Eztuniga "The few Spaniards who are still in her household prefer to be friends of the English, and neglect their duties as subjects of the King of Spain. The worst influence on the Queen is exercised by Doña Maria de Salinas, whom she loves more than any other mortal. "
- ↑ David Starkey. Six Wives, Harper Collins, 2003, p. 154
- ↑ naturalization
- ↑ David Starkey: Henry: Virtuous Prince. Harper Perennial, London 2009, p. 328
- ↑ Gift of money and transfer of goods on the occasion of the wedding
- ^ A b Brian Harrison HCG Matthew: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, from the earliest times to the year 2000, Oxford University Press 2004, Volume 59, p. 419
- ↑ Harkrider, p. 34f
- ↑ Harkrider, pp. 30f
- ↑ Starkey, Six Wives, pp. 545–
- ↑ Harkrider, p 31
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Salinas, María de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Willoughby de Eresby, María de Salinas Lady (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Spanish nobles in England |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1490 |
| DATE OF DEATH | between May 7, 1539 and May 20, 1539 |