She was the daughter of Agatha (born Wellsborne) and William Barlow, Bishop of Chichester.
Her father was said to have been the first bishop to marry and her mother was a religious woman and it was a rumour that she was once a nun.
Children of clergy were a novelty and they would have been called "priest's bastards" by conservative commentators.
[2] After her first husband's death she married Tobias Matthew, the Archbishop of York.
Amongst his possessions were 600 books and they were valued then at £300 and Frances give them all to York Minster.