Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk

Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk, later Duchess of York and Duchess of Norfolk (10 December 1472 – c. 19 November 1481) was the child bride of Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, one of the Princes in the Tower. She died at the age of eight.

Anne de Mowbray
Duchess of York; Duchess of Norfolk
The marriage of Lady Anne Mowbray with Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, by James Northcote
Duchess of Norfolk
PredecessorJohn Mowbray, 4th Duke, 7th Earl
Born10 December 1472
Framlingham Castle, Suffolk
Diedc. 19 November 1481 (aged 8)
Greenwich, London
Burial
Westminster Abbey
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1478)​
HouseYork (by marriage)[1]
FatherJohn Mowbray, 4th Duke of Norfolk
MotherElizabeth Talbot

Heiress

She was born at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk, the only (surviving) child of John de Mowbray, 4th Duke of Norfolk and Lady Elizabeth Talbot. Her maternal grandparents were John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and his second wife Lady Margaret Beauchamp. The death of her father in 1476 left Anne a wealthy heiress.

Marriage

On 15 January 1478, aged 5, she was married in St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, to Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, the 4-year-old younger son of King Edward IV and his queen, Elizabeth Woodville.[1]

Death and heirs

Anne died at Greenwich in London, nearly two years before her husband disappeared into the Tower of London with his older brother, Edward V. Upon her death, her heirs normally would have been her cousins, William, Viscount Berkeley and John, Lord Howard, but by an act of Parliament in January 1483 the rights were given to her husband Richard, with reversion to his descendants, and, failing that, to the descendants of his father Edward IV.[2]

Burial

Anne was buried in a lead coffin in the Chapel of St. Erasmus of Formia in Westminster Abbey.[3] When that chapel was demolished in about 1502 to make way for the Henry VII Lady Chapel, Anne's coffin was moved to a vault under the Abbey of the Minoresses of St. Clare without Aldgate, run by nuns of the Order of Poor Clares Franciscans. Her coffin eventually disappeared.

In December 1964, construction workers in Stepney accidentally dug into the vault and found Anne's coffin. It was opened, and her remains were analysed by scientists and then entombed in Westminster Abbey in May 1965.[4] Her red hair was still on her skull and her shroud was still wrapped around her. Westminster Abbey is the presumed resting place of her husband, Richard Duke of York, and his brother Edward V, in the Henry VII Chapel.

Family

Ancestors

Family tree

Notes
  1. Watson, Bruce; White, William (2016). Contributions by Barney Sloane, Dorothy M Thorn and Geoffrey Wheeler. "ANNE MOWBRAY, DUCHESS OF YORK: A 15th-CENTURY CHILD BURIAL FROM THE ABBEY OF ST CLARE, IN THE LONDON BOROUGH OF TOWER HAMLETS" (PDF). Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society. 2. London and Middlesex Archaeological Society. 67: 229. ISBN 978-0-903290-72-2.
  2. Ross, Charles (1997). Edward IV (second ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p. 248. ISBN 0-300-07372-0. OCLC 38886953.
  3. "Anne Mowbray, Duchess of York". Westminster Abbey. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
  4. "Anne Mowbray, Duchess of York". Retrieved on 3 March 2017.

References

Sources
  • M. A. Rushton, The Teeth of Anne Mowbray, British Dental Journal, issued 19 October 1965
  • Stepney Child Burial, Joint press release from the London Museum and Westminster Abbey, issued 15 January 1965
  • Roger Warwick, Skeletal Remains of a Medieval Child, London Archaeologist, Vol. 5 No. 7, issued summer 1986
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