View source for Mary Mildmay Fane, Countess of Westmorland

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2019}}
[[File:Mary Fane, wife to Francis, Earl of Westmorland, daughter and Heir to Sir Anthony Mildmay, Kt of Apethorp in County Northampton.jpg|thumb|Mary, Countess of Westmorland]]
'''Mary Fane, Countess of Westmorland''' ({{nee}} Mildmay; c. 1582 – 9 April 1640) continued her mother [[Grace Mildmay]]'s interest in physic and was a significant author of spiritual guidance and writer of letters.
==Family background==
[[File:Overmantle at Apethorpe.jpg|thumb|right|Marble overmantle in the gallery at [[Apethorpe Palace|Apethorpe]]]]
Mary was the daughter and eventual sole heiress of Sir [[Anthony Mildmay]] (d. 1617), of [[Apethorpe Palace]], Northamptonshire, and  [[Grace Mildmay|Grace Sherington]] (1552–1620), who was daughter and co-heir of Sir Henry Sherington (''alias'' Sharington) (c. 1518-1581) of [[Lacock Abbey]], Wiltshire. Mary built an imposing monument to her parents at Apethorpe Church in 1621, the sculpture attributed to [[Maximilian Colt]].<ref>Linda Pollock, ''With Faith and Physic: The Life a Tudor Gentlewoman, Lady Grace Mildmay'' (London, 1993), p. 21.</ref>
On 15 February 1598/99, Mary married [[Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland|Francis Fane]], and he became the Earl of Westmorland. They lived at Apethorpe and in London, at the Old Savoy.<ref>Linda Pollock, ''With Faith and Physic'' (London, 1993), p. 16.</ref>
==Writing and Letters==
Mary Mildmay Fane collated and transcribed her mother's medical works,<ref>Linda Pollock, ''With Faith and Physic'' (London, 1993), pp. 98, 110.</ref> a bequest of over 2,000 sheets of paper.<ref>Kate Chedgzoy, 'Did Children Have a Renaissance?', ''Early Modern Women'', vol. 8 (Fall 2013), p. 267.</ref>  Grace had dedicated her volume of 'Spiritual Meditations' to Mary, writing of scripture as a gift to "Mary, the Lady Fane, wife of the Honourable Knight, Sir Francis Fane". Mary later passed this blessing to her newly married daughter Grace, Countess of Home, in a letter of January 1627.<ref>Linda Pollock, ''With Faith and Physic'', (London, 1993), pp. 11-2, 15-8, 70: NRAS 217, 5:304 (Moray Papers), "[G]od blesses you both with the dew of heaven & the fattnes of the earth, this was your good grandmothers prayer upon me & mine, which bequeathe she had out of Jacobs will".</ref>
Mary wrote a 'Book of Advices to the Children' for her sons Francis and Mildmay.<ref>Femke Molekamp, ''Women and the Bible in Early Modern England'' (Oxford, 2013), pp. 94-98.</ref> She also wrote letters of advice to Francis.<ref>Susan E. Hrach, "Maternal Admonition as Devotional Practice: Letters of Mary Fane, Countess of Westmorland", ''ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles Notes and Reviews'', 24 (2011), pp. 63-74.</ref> Other surviving letters include a group of business letters sent to [[Emmanuel College, Cambridge]], six letters to her daughter Grace Fane, Countess of Home, concerning her health and hopes of pregnancy, and a number of letters of petition to [[Viscount Dorchester]] and others.<ref>''Notes & Queries'' 4th S II (11 July 1868), pp. 25-8: ''Calendar State Papers Domestic: Charles I'': NRAS 217 (Moray Papers).</ref> Her handwriting includes a distinctive ampersand, which also appears in her daughter's writings.<ref>Marion O'Connor, 'Entertainments and poems by Lady Rachel Fane', ''Collections'', 17 (2016), pp. 158–159.</ref>
[[File:Letter from the Countess of Westmorland to Grace Countess of Home.jpg|thumb|right|Detail of a letter from the Countess of Westmorland to her daughter Grace, Countess of Home, with [[Substitution cipher|cipher code]]]]
After her daughter, Grace, Countess of Home died in 1633, as her executrix, the Countess of Westmorland disputed her property with the [[Mary Sutton, Countess of Home|Mary, the dowager Countess of Home]]. She obtained the favour of Charles I, who wrote to the [[Court of Session]] in Edinburgh on her behalf on 5 May 1634.<ref>''Earl of Stirling's Register of Royal Letters Relative to the Affairs of Scotland'', vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1885), p. 737.</ref> On December 1635 she wrote to [[Francis Windebank|Secretary Windebank]] thanking him for royal letters sent in her favour and asking him to prevent the king taking the side of her adversary, the Countess of Home, who was then in London. Westmorland explained that Home had the advantage of continual residence and acquaintance in Edinburgh. She asked him to keep her business secret.<ref>''Calendar State Papers Domestic, Charles I: 1635'', vol. 8, p. 610: TNA SP14/305 f.210.</ref>
On 6 May 1639 Mary wrote a letter to Secretary Windebank advising against sending an army to Scotland in the first [[Bishop's War]].<ref>Conrad Russell, ''Fall of the British Monarchies, 1537-1642'', (Oxford, 1991), 81.</ref> The letter has sometimes been attributed to her daughter-in-law, Mary Vere.<ref>Jacqueline Eales, 'Anne and Thomas Fairfax, and the Vere connection' in Andrew Hopper & Philip Major, ''England's Fortress: New Perspectives on Thomas, 3rd Lord Fairfax'', (Farnham, 2014), 161 (attributes the letter to Mary Vere).</ref> A later reader endorsed it as, "A very sencible and Prophetick letter". She wrote that the Scots were better prepared and better suited for war;<blockquote>"The Scots have many spies which flock about the King; and they cannot but know how the state of this kingdom stands, and be encouraged, knowing how uncertainly a war will be maintained, which is to be maintained out of prerogative, imposition, and voluntary contributions. They know our divisions, and the state of their own combination; and that they have a party amongst us, and that we have none amongst them, and they are a people that can live of nothing, and we, that can want nothing  without discontentment and mutiny, and our men and horses so unused to war, that if his majesty attempt any thing before they be better exercised, the dishonour is likely to be increased ...<br>They say the women in Scotland are the chief stirrers of this war. I think it not so shameful for women of England to wish well to the peace of these nations, whether it be by word or writing; yet I pray you, when you read this letter, to burn it, that it might not rise up in any body's judgement but yours, against me, to tax my zeal with ignorance, who would willingly sacrifice my own life to the quenching of this fire  "<ref>[[Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke|Philip Yorke]], ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=KzEF0wNWIHAC&pg=PA128 Miscellaneous State papers from 1501 to 1726]'', (London, 1778), pp. 128-130: W. Douglas Hamilton, ''Calendar State Papers Domestic, Charles I, 1639'' (London, 1873), pp. 123-4: Gerald W. Morton in Helen Ostovich, Elizabeth Sauer, Melissa Smith, ''Reading Early Modern Women: An Anthology of Texts in Manuscript and Print'' (Routledge, 2004), pp. 191-4: TNA SP16/420 f202: Spelling modernised here.</ref></blockquote>
Writing to her daughter Rachel Fane on 9 January 1640, Mary, now dowager countess, called herself an old hen, her daughter Katherine a chick, and praised Mary Vere; "the olde hen left at home, with her best chick, my daughter of Westmorland hath proved a good Christmas woman & has made on, & allowed of much mirth".<ref>Marion O'Connor, 'Rachel Fane's May Masque at Apethorpe, 1627', ''English Literary Renaissance'', vol. 36, No. 1 (Winter 2006), pp. 90-113, 97-8.</ref>
Mary died at Stevenage on 9 April 1640 and was buried at Apethorpe.<ref>Herald's funeral certificates The National Archives TNA SP16/360/10.</ref>
==Family and Children==
Mary and Francis had seven sons and six daughters:<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Collins  | first1 = Arthur  | last2 = Brydges  | first2 = Egerton   | year = 1812  | title = Collins's Peerage of England; Genealogical, Biographical, and Historical | location = London | volume = 3  | publisher = F. C. and J. Rivington, Otridge and son |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NRQwAAAAYAAJ |pages=294,295}}</ref>
===Sons===
*[[Mildmay Fane, 2nd Earl of Westmorland]] (24 January 1602 – 12 February 1666), a poet and Member of Parliament.
*Thomas Fane, died in infancy
*[[Francis Fane (Royalist)|Francis Fane]]  (c. 1611–1681?) of Fulbeck. He was a Royalist governor of [[Doncaster]], and afterwards of [[Lincoln Castle]]. He was the great-grandfather of [[Thomas Fane, 8th Earl of Westmorland]].
*Anthony Fane (1613–1643), a colonel in the Parliamentary army, who was injured at the siege of [[Farnham Castle]] on 9 December 1642 and died at his home in [[Kingston upon Thames]] early the following year.<ref>{{cite book |title=The History of Surrey |volume=3, Part 1 |url={{Google books|_zdNAAAAYAAJ|page=34|plainurl=true}} |first=Edward Wedlake |last=Brayley |authorlink=Edward Wedlake Brayley |publisher=R.B. Ede |year=1844 |page=34}}</ref>
*Colonel [[George Fane]] (c. 1616 – April 1663), a Royalist officer and later Member of Parliament.
*William Fane
*Robert Fane
===Daughters===
*Grace Fane (1604-1633), who married [[James Home, 2nd Earl of Home]] (died 1633).
*Mary Fane (1606-1634) married, after 18 May 1625, Dutton Gerard, 3rd Baron Gerard (1613-1640), grandson of [[Thomas Gerard, 1st Baron Gerard]]
*Elizabeth Fane (b. 1608), who married John Cope, and secondly William Cope, by whom she was grandmother of [[John Cope (British Army officer)|Sir John Cope]]
*[[Rachel Bourchier, Countess of Bath|Rachel Fane (1614-1681)]], who married of [[Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath]] (1593-1654), of [[Tawstock|Tawstock Court]], Devon.
*Frances Fane. Died unmarried, some time before 9 April 1640.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/domestic/chas1/1640/pp1-52|title = Charles I - volume 450: April 1-19, 1640 &#124; British History Online}}</ref>
*Catherine Fane.
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
==External links==
* [https://vanishedcomforts.org/2018/11/06/physic-and-lace-bonnets/ 'Physic & Lace Bonnets': Examining a letter from the Countess of Westmorland to her daughter Grace, Countess of Home]
* [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384533509_Letters_from_Mary_Countess_of_Westmorland_to_Grace_Fane_Countess_of_Home Letters from the Countess of Westmorland to her daughter Grace, Countess of Home, in Scotland]
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Westmorland, Mary Mildmay Fane, Countess of}}
[[Category:1580s births]]
[[Category:1640 deaths]]
[[Category:17th-century English women writers]]
[[Category:17th-century English writers]]
[[Category:Mildmay family|Mary]]
[[Category:British spiritual writers]]
[[Category:British letter writers]]
[[Category:Women letter writers]]
[[Category:English countesses]]
[[Category:Wives of knights]]