Maria Thynne

Maria, Lady Thynne (birth name: Maria (also Mary ) Tuchet or Touchet , * around 1578, † 1611 ) was an English noblewoman. She is not to be confused with Marie Touchet , the lover of the French King Charles IX.

origin

Maria Thynne was born Maria Tuchet (or Touchet) as the second daughter of George Tuchet, 11th Baron Audley and his first wife Lucy Marvin. In her family it was called the mall .

Life

In 1594 she briefly belonged to Queen Elizabeth I's court . In May 1594 she secretly married the young student Thomas Thynne , who was in love with her in an inn in Beaconsfield and who, accompanied by her relative John Marvyn, had met her on the trip to London. Thynne was the eldest son and heir to John and Joan Thynne , who were wealthy landowners in south-west England but were deeply enemies with Mary's grandfather, Sir James Marvin. The young couple therefore initially kept their marriage a secret, but when Thomas Thynne's parents found out about the marriage the next year, Thynne and his parents fell out. His parents refused the marriage and tried years of litigation to have it annulled. Because of the secret marriage, Maria had not received a dowry, which further exasperated Thynnes. It was not until 1601 that John Thynne recognized his son's marriage, while his wife Joan continued to refuse marriage until her death in 1612. When her husband died in 1604, Joan Thynne tried to withhold his inheritance from her son.

Maria wrote a vicious letter to her mother-in-law, and the few letters that have survived to her husband, who was often a politician in London, are lively and instructive. She was worried about his health, told him about the family quarrel and did not make serious allegations that she was pregnant again.

Eventually her husband, who had since been knighted, inherited his father's estates including Longleat House . During his frequent absences, Maria managed the land, including forestry and livestock. She hired servants and negotiated with tenants and followers. She accepted the leases and reported to her husband about late payers. 1609 and 1610 she took over the financial management of the purchase of the Manors of Warminster by her brother Mervyn Tuchet .

progeny

She had three sons and a daughter from her marriage, including:

• John (* 1604), died early
• James (1605-1670)
• Thomas (around 1610–1669)

She died, as she had feared, in childbed after the birth of her son Thomas. In an ultimately conciliatory gesture, her mother-in-law looked after the toddler after her death. After her death, her husband married Catherine Howard for the second time.

literature

• Alison D. Wall (Ed.): Two Elizabethan women. Correspondence of Joan and Maria Thynne, 1575-1611 . Wiltshire Record Society, Devizes 1983. ISBN 0-901333-15-8
• Alison Wall: Thynne, Maria, Lady Thynne (c.1578-1611). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Web links

• Maria Tuchet on thepeerage.com , accessed September 26, 2015.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alison Wall: Thynne, Joan, Lady Thynne (bap. 1558, d. 1612). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004