7

ELIZABETH NORBURY

An important influence in Eleanor’s life after her marriage must have been her new mother-in-law. As we have seen, Ralph Boteler married twice. However, his second marriage, to Alice Lovell, née Deincourt,¹ did not take place until 8 January 1462/3, by which time Ralph’s son Thomas was already dead. Eleanor apparently knew the second Lady Sudeley, but it was Ralph’s first wife, Elizabeth, who was Thomas’ mother and Eleanor’s mother-in-law, and under whose care Eleanor lived between the ages of 13 and 16.

The first Lady Sudeley’s name is often given as Elizabeth Hende.² Like Alice Deincourt (Lovell), however, Elizabeth had been married previously. Hende was therefore not her maiden name, but the surname of her first husband, the wealthy John Hende II, a draper of London from 1367, and at various times also sheriff, alderman and mayor.³ Elizabeth already had two sons, born of her first marriage, when she married her second husband, Ralph Boteler. These were John Hende III (‘the elder’), and John Hende IV (‘the younger’). The name of the latter certainly occurs in association with that of his stepfather, Lord Sudeley, and Eleanor must have known these elder half-brothers of her husband, who formed part of their stepfather’s entourage.

The first Lady Sudeley’s maiden name was Norbury. Her ancestors had once borne the surname Bulkeley, but, having for several generations held the manor of Norbury in Cheshire, they had eventually assumed the name of this estate. It had been Elizabeth’s great grandfather, Roger, who had effected this change in the family surname. However, the arms granted to his Bulkeley forebears: ‘sable, a chevron between three bulls’ heads cabossed argent’,⁴ continued to be borne by Elizabeth’s father, Sir John Norbury I, albeit with a fleur de lis sable on the chevron for difference.

Sir John Norbury inherited no manors to go with his coat of arms. He was thus obliged to make his own way in the world, which he did very successfully, becoming a wealthy man in the process.⁵ The career of Sir John Norbury is well documented. He is first encountered as an esquire in the service of the house of Lancaster, where he was attached to John of Gaunt’s son, the future King Henry IV. When Henry was banished by his cousin Richard II, John Norbury accompanied him into exile in France, returning to England with Henry in 1399. Shortly before his abdication, Richard II was obliged to appoint Norbury Treasurer of England, a post that the latter retained throughout the reign of Henry IV. It brought Norbury into close contact with the rich businessmen in the city of London whose loans (together with loans from Sir John himself) financed the government of Henry IV. Prominent among the London businessmen with whom he had dealings was John Hende II, a rich widower to whom, in about 1408, Sir John Norbury was able to arrange the marriage of his young daughter, Elizabeth.⁶

Elizabeth Norbury had at least one sister, and also two half-brothers, for her father had also married twice. His first wife (who must have been the mother of both Elizabeth and her sister, Joan) was called Petronilla. Her surname is not recorded, although it may possibly have been Bostock.⁷ Petronilla was still living in August 1401, when she and her husband were granted the manor of Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, by the king. By 1412, however, Sir John Norbury had married Lord Sudeley’s sister, Elizabeth Boteler, and they already had two sons. Probably Petronilla died in about 1404 and Sir John’s marriage with the widowed Elizabeth Boteler (Lady Say) took place in about 1405.⁸

The Norbury Family.

It was in about 1408 that Sir John Norbury’s daughter Elizabeth (then probably approximately 15 years of age) married the much older but very wealthy widower, John Hende II, draper and former mayor of London, who was about 58 at the time. Hende’s previous wife, Katharine Baynarde, had left him no sons.⁹ Elizabeth, however, bore him two sons, in 1409 and 1412 respectively. As we have seen, both were christened ‘John’ after their father, and were later known as ‘John the Elder’ and ‘John the Younger’.

John Hende II died in 1418, leaving £1,000 to Elizabeth and £1,500 to each of his sons. About a year later the widowed Elizabeth married Ralph Boteler, who, on the death of his elder brother, had recently inherited the title of Lord of Sudeley. Ralph was already a connection of Elizabeth Norbury by marriage, since in about 1405 her widowed father had married Ralph’s sister, Elizabeth Boteler, by whom he had two young sons: Elizabeth’s half-brothers. The elder of these half-brothers, Henry, was the godson of King Henry IV, after whom he was named.¹⁰

Sir John Norbury seems to have died about four years before his daughter’s marriage to his brother-in-law. He was buried in the church of the Grey Friars in London, beside his first wife, Petronilla. The epitaph upon his tomb described him as ‘a brave knight, and a hardworking and honest man’.¹¹

It was probably within a year or two of her second marriage that Elizabeth Norbury gave Ralph Boteler a son and heir, the future Sir Thomas Boteler. Elizabeth’s Norbury arms can still be clearly seen, impaled by the arms of Boteler of Sudeley, on the Sudeley pedigree roll that was later made to celebrate Sir Thomas Boteler’s marriage to Lady Eleanor Talbot.¹²

Although Elizabeth’s marriage to Ralph Boteler lasted for more than forty years, Thomas was to be their only surviving child. If any other children were born they must have died young, but it seems quite likely that there were none, as Lord Sudeley spent the greater part of the 1430s and 1440s serving in France.

Although they were neighbours in England, it was possibly in France that Ralph first made the acquaintance of Eleanor’s father, John Talbot. Lady Sudeley, meanwhile, probably remained in England, overseeing the management of the Sudeley estates and the upbringing of her three sons. When he returned to England, Lord Sudeley looked after the interests of his two Hende stepsons. We have already noticed that the name of the younger John Hende is not infrequently coupled with that of Lord Sudeley in surviving documents. Conversely (and curiously) there is scarcely any mention of the name of Lord Sudeley’s own only son and heir. Possible reasons for this will be examined below.

Elizabeth Norbury was to outlive both her eldest and her youngest sons. John Hende ‘the elder’ died in 1461, and Sir Thomas Boteler died in 1459/60. Elizabeth herself died in 1462. Following her demise, on 6 October of that year the chancery issued writs of diem clausit extremum to the escheators of the counties of Essex and Kent, where Elizabeth had held lands in her own right.¹³

The arms of Eleanor’s parents-in-law, Boteler of Sudley impaling Norbury, redrawn from New York Library, Spencer MS 193.

Her middle son, John Hende ‘the younger’, outlived his mother, dying childless in 1464. Only Elizabeth’s eldest son left descendants – via his daughter, Joan (or Jane). In Elizabeth’s inquisitions post-mortem this granddaughter was recognised as her heir. Elizabeth was remembered, however, by her daughter-in-law, Eleanor, for under the terms of the endowment which Eleanor established at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, matins of the dead and requiem mass were to be offered there for Eleanor’s deceased relatives, amongst whom her mother-in-law, Lady Sudeley, was specifically included.¹⁴ In the surviving indentures, however, Elizabeth Norbury’s own name is not recorded. She is referred to only as the mother of Sir Thomas Boteler.¹⁵