Mary FitzRoy, Duchess of Richmond and Somerset

Mary was born in 1519, being the third of five children of Thomas Howard, then Earl of Surrey, and his wife Lady Elizabeth Stafford.

When in 1529 Cardinal Wolsey, who was charged with FitzRoy's care, fell from grace the mantle passed to Thomas Howard.

At the same time the idea arose, allegedly from either the King or Anne Boleyn,[1] that FitzRoy should marry Norfolk's daughter.

The match was a triumph for the Boleyn family as the Duchess was a former member of Queen Anne's household, and a staunch advocate of reform.

It was also a very advantageous match for the Duchess as with no legitimate male heir to the throne, the Duke was seen at the time as a likely future king.

[1] The King gave his approval for the match, but her brother, Henry, Earl of Surrey, objected strongly, as did the Duchess herself; and the marriage did not take place.

[8] Mary and her brother fell out, and she later testified at the trial for treason in which both Surrey and her father were sentenced to death.

[9][10][11] Although her father was the premier Roman Catholic nobleman of England, and Mary herself was raised in the traditional faith as a child, she was sympathetic to reformist ideas, and engaged the Protestant martyrologist John Foxe as tutor for her brother's five children: Thomas, Jane, Henry, Katherine and Margaret.