Elizabeth Holland
She was the mistress of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk and maid-of-honour to his niece, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England.
[6] It is also inscribed by Anne Boleyn in English, Be daly prove you shall me fynde To be to yu bothe lovynge and kynde, and while her lover King Henry VIII gallantly replied in French, Si silon mon affection la sufvenance sera en voz prieres ne seray yers oblie car vostre suis Henry R. a jammays, which in English would be If you remember my love in your prayers as strongly as I adore you, I shall hardly be forgotten, for I am yours.
Historian Sylvia Barbara Soberton writes:One of the most interesting aspects of Anne’s last days is the question of the identity of the four women who accompanied her to the scaffold on 19 May 1536.
A book of hours belonging to Anne Boleyn and currently preserved in the British Library contains the names of Elizabeth and Henry Reppes.
This overlooked connection between the Queen and her maid raises the possibility that Bessie Holland accompanied Anne to the scaffold and perhaps received this book as a gift.
After the Duke of Norfolk's fall the commissioners had seized rings, brooches, strings of pearls, silver spoons, ivory tables, and other treasures from her lodgings at Kenninghall, where she had at her disposal an outer chamber, a bedchamber, and an adjoining garret.
Kate Emerson writes:Jeffrey Miles or Myles of Stoke Nayland, Suffolk, is identified as her husband by Gerard Brenan and Edward Phillips Stratham in The House of Howard (1908), but a hundred years later, the Oxford DNB states that her husband was Henry Reppes of Mendham (1509-February 10, 1558), that she married him in 1547, and that she died in childbirth in 1547/8.
Thomas Holland of Swynested was first Comptroller of the Household, and afterwards Treasurer to the Duke of Richmond, the husband of Mary and the son-in-law of Norfolk.
Holland was Secretary to the most worthy and mighty prince, Thomas Duke of Norfolk, grandfather to the present Duke, and served him in that calling, and Clerk of the Counsail in the warrs both in France, England, and Scotland, and when he was committed to the Tower, and his son of Surrey beheaded in the last year of King Henry the VIIIth, and being most worthily delivered thence by Q. Mary, I served him in that callinge till his death, and was with him against Sir Tho.
His son and heir Thomas Holland of Estovening (b.1512[20]) married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Smyth of Walpole in Norfolk, sister of Jane.
They had Sir Gregory Woolmer (d.1618/9), Jasper, Samuel, Susan, Sarah, Beatrix, Anne and Mary who married Bolle.
[16][22][20][24][27][28][25][21] Despite a relationship of fifteen years duration with the Duke, when he and his son, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, were arrested in December 1546, Elizabeth Holland gave information which helped to seal their fates.
[33] Margaret was the sister of Bess Holland's mother or stepmother Jane, and her sister-in-law Elizabeth, making the two families related through several connections.
Harry Reppes married Elizabeth Holland of Mendham, who died in childbed, the Caesarean operation being performed.
Lowe thinks it impossible and, fearing foul play, asks Andros or his friends about Mendham or Harleston to make cautious enquiry.
One William Rochester of Mendham or Harleston has been tampering with the witnesses; he is "truly the falsest and craftiest man in the country," for "a forty shilling" he will confess all, if well handled.
She owned four pairs of billiments, upper and nether, of goldsmith's work for her French hoods, and a velvet-covered prayer book with gold mounts.
[37] An inventory of her clothes includes French-style gowns of black velvet, satin, and damask, some with "placards" (stomachers) of the same fabric.
