Richard Southwell (courtier)

He was born at Windham Manor in Norfolk, the son of Francis Southwell, an auditor of the exchequer, and Dorothy (née Tendring).

His paternal grandparents were Richard Southwell (d. 1514), Marshal of the Exchequer, and his wife Amy, the coheiress and eldest of the four daughters of Edmund Witchingham of Conningsby, Lincolnshire.

He later married Mary, the daughter of Thomas Darcy of Danbury, and the widow of Robert Leeche of Norwich, Norfolk.

[8] In lieu of money he gave King Henry VIII his Essex manors of Coggeshall and Filolls Hall.

He was a witness in the trial of Sir Thomas More, where he claimed not to have heard the details of the damning conversation between Richard Rich and the accused.

[12] Southwell was a principal accuser of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who was arrested in December 1546 on charges (very likely trumped up) of threatening the succession of Prince Edward by displaying the lions of England in his personal coat of arms.

Southwell was described as the driving force behind the plan to marry Elizabeth I of England to Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon.