Anne (Dudley) Sutton

Anne (Dudley) Sutton (1589-1615) was a companion of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia She was a daughter of Edward Sutton, 5th Baron Dudley and Theodosia Harington.

Harington / Dudley family connections

She was known as "Mrs Anne Dudley" before her marriage.

She was a member of the household of Princess Elizabeth at Coombe Abbey with other young women including her cousin Elizabeth Dudley, Anne Livingstone, Frances Bourchier, and Philadelphia Carey. After Elizabeth married Frederick V of the Palatinate she went with her to Heidelberg.[1]

In 1612 an emblem published in Henry Peacham's Minerva Brittana alluded to her steadfast qualities as alike to Diana the huntress, with a picture of Diana and Actaeon, a verse, and an anagram on her in Italian "e l'nuda Diana".[2] The intended allusion is to her labour and skills as a household administrator. The concept was derived from an emblem devised by Laurens van Haecht Goidtsenhoven.[3]

Anne with seven other ladies put their names in a hat to award kisses to winners at a tournament for Prince Henry in April 1612. The others included the Countess of Essex, Lady Cranbourne, Lady Windsor, and Lady Stanhope.[4]

As a New Year gift in January 1613 and on the occasion of the marriage of Princess Elizabeth, Dudley received from Frederick V of the Palatinate a chain of pearls and a diamond worth 1,000 marks, (£666-13s-8d).[5] John Chamberlain noted this gift as a single item, a chain of pearls and diamonds worth £500.[6]

At the christening of Henry Frederick, Hereditary Prince of the Palatinate in March 1614 she received jewels worth £200.[7]

Anne married Hans Meinhard von Schönberg, the Palatine Ambassador to England, and resident diplomat at Heidelberg, in London on 22 March 1615.[8] They were betrothed before 5 April 1614.[9] This was publicly known in June 1614.[10] In July it was known abroad they were in love.[11] It had been said in London in December 1613 that Schönberg had come to England in part to entreat King James and Anne of Denmark not to recall Dudley from Heidelberg.[12]

She quarrelled with Elizabeth Apsley, a maid of honour and a distant cousin of Lucy Hutchinson.[13]

James VI and I wrote to ask if a maid of honour could be a married woman in German custom, and what royal jewels were in her care. Elizabeth, the Electress, replied that Dudley only kept some silver plate, and also that her husband, Frederick V and his council had favoured the marriage.[14]

Her son was Frederick Schomberg, 1st Duke of Schomberg.[15] Anne died of a fever after giving birth to Frederick.[16]

In her 1644 will her sister, Mary (Dudley) Sutton, Countess of Home, left her nephew, Frederick Schomberg, a purse of gold coins.[17]

References
  1. Mary Anne Everett Green, Elizabeth of Bohemia (London, 1909), pp. 9, 18, 44, 48, 96.
  2. Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna (London, 1612), p. 175.
  3. Judith Dundas, 'Imitation and Originality in Peacham's Emblems' in Bart Westerweel, Symbola et Emblemata, vol. 8, 'Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Field of the Emblem' (Leiden, 1997), pp. 114-8.
  4. A. B. Hinds, HMC Report on the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Downshire, vol. 3 (London, 1938) p. 276 (The index suggests Theodosia Dudley rather than her daughter).
  5. A. B. Hinds, HMC Report on the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Downshire, vol. 4 (London, 1940), p.2.
  6. Norman Egbert McClure, Letters of John Chamberlain, vol. 1 (1931), p. 413.
  7. A. B. Hinds, HMC Report on the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Downshire, vol. 4 (London, 1940), p.337.
  8. Nadine Akkerman, The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2015), p. 152.
  9. Nadine Akkerman, The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2015), p. 151.
  10. Folkestone Williams & Thomas Birch, The Court and Times of James the First, vol. 1 (London, 1848), p. 325.
  11. A. B. Hinds, HMC Report on the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Downshire, vol. 4 (London, 1940), p. 445 & footnote.
  12. The Court and Times of James the First, vol. 1 (London, 1848), p. 283.
  13. Mary Anne Everett Green, Elizabeth of Bohemia (London, 1909), pp. 418-9.
  14. Mary Anne Everett Green, Elizabeth of Bohemia (London, 1909), p. 107.
  15. Nadine Akkerman, The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart Queen of Bohemia, vol. 2 (Oxford, 2011), p. 1119.
  16. HMC Downshire, vol. 5 (London, 1988), p. 379 nos. 784, 786, 787.
  17. See the Countess of Home's will, "Will of Maria Soton, Countess of Home", The National Archives Prob/11/272/611 ff. 403-6, and National Library of Scotland MS. 14547.
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