Jane Whorwood

Her father was Scots courtier William Ryder, surveyor of the royal stables, and her mother was Elizabeth de Boussy, a laundress to Anne of Denmark, queen consort of James I of England.

Jane Whorwood and their children Brome and Diana resided in his family property, Holton House in the outskirts of Oxford city where the Royal court was established.

The sum came from Royalist merchant Sir Paul Pindar, located in London, and was delivered into Oxford, concealed inside barrels of soap.

It was also Lilly who, in 1648, the year prior to Charles I's execution, provided her with the contact of a locksmith from whom to obtain files and aqua fortis to be used on the window bars of the king's chamber at Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight.

Charles was, however, unsuccessful in his attempt, leaving Whorwood to wait several weeks aboard a ship she had helped to obtain with the aim of sailing him to Holland.

[7] The king wrote to their accomplice William Hopkins in the same year: "You may freely trust Whorwood with anything that concerns my service, for I have had perfect trial of her friendship to me.

Whorwood underwent a brief period of imprisonment herself in 1651, under the Commonwealth, along with a fine for having defrauded the Parliamentary Committee for the Advance of Money in her efforts to finance the Royalists.

Then devoted to his mistress Katherine Allen, Brome subjected Whorwood to verbal abuse, serious injuries and a period of confinement in the tower of Holton House, which the three of them shared.

Brome, who became MP for the House of Commons in 1661, one year after Charles II's Restoration to the throne, refused to comply with court and Crown orders to provide his wife with payments.

Holton locals defended Whorwood in court on multiple occasions, testifying as to the abusive treatment and the extent of the violence she suffered while with her husband.

On the subject of her own efforts to support the Royalists, wholly unrecognised during the Restoration period and overlooked thereafter, Jane Whorwood wrote, in 1648: "My travels, the variety of accidents (and especially dangers) more become a Romance than a letter."