Elizabeth Leigh

When Elizabeth Leigh was born in 1525 in Cheshire, England, her father, Geroge, was 26, and her mother, Joan, was 28. She married Alexander Barlow in 1546 in Lancashire, Lancashire, England. They had six children in 10 years. She died on December 26, 1583, in Didsbury, Lancashire, England, at the age of 58.

Elizabeth Leigh was the daughter of George Leigh and Joan Larke.  Apparently Joan had been the wife of the infamous Henry Wolsley  of Henry the Eighth's time, the cardinal who had supported Henry in his quest to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.  Wolsey instigated the reformation and schism that forced Catholicism from England and the beginning of the Anglican church in England so that Henry could marry Anne.  Now Wolsey, as a cardinal, should not have been married so this was a clandestine "marriage".  They had two  children.  As Wolsey, a commoner, rose to prominence he had to ditch the wife and children so, with Henry's assistance he organised a payoff for her.  She got to marry a knight, George Leigh, and they were given a very lovely property, Adlington Hall in Cheshire.  Later she married William Paulet, the 1st Marquess of Winchester.

Alexander Barlow

Alexander Barlow was born in 1521 in Lancashire, Lancashire. He married Elizabeth Leigh in 1546 in Lancashire, Lancashire. They had six children in 10 years. He died on August 26, 1584, in Didsbury, Lancashire, at the age of 63. Apparently his family rose to prominence after Alexander's sister, Margaret, married Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl Derby.  He was the member of parliament for Wigan in 1547 (aged 26 years). Alexander was an ardent Catholic but largely escaped persecution until after his sister's death, when he was imprisoned. Imprisoned for Catholic faith 1584,became ill and was removed to the house of a friend where he died.

Adlington Hall (from Wikipedia)

The story (from Wikipedia);

Joan Larke (c.1490- after 1529), was the mistress of the powerful English statesman and churchman, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, and the mother of his two illegitimate children.

Biography; From A History of Parliament Online

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/barlow-alexander-1525-84

Notes on the Barlows

Roman Catholicism in Oxfordshire from the late Elizabethan Period from 1580 to 1640. PhD thesis presented to the University of Bristol 1970.  Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Alan Davidson

b. by 1525, o.s. of Ellis Barlow of Barlow by Anne, da. of Otis Reddish of Reddish. m. by 1558, Elizabeth, da. and coh. of George Legh of Manchester, 1s. 5da.1

Member, 3rd Earl of Derby’s council in 1546; commr. for local disputes 1553, 1555; trustee, Manchester g.s. 1556-81.2

Although the Barlows had been settled in Lancashire since about 1200, they had not been very prominent in the county. However, Alexander Barlow’s sister Margaret married Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby, and this alliance presumably explains his Membership for Wigan in six Parliaments. He was a member of Derby’s council in 1546 and as ‘my right well beloved servant’ an executor of his will in 1572.3

Barlow farmed the tithe-corns of Chorlton and Barlow as early as 1546, paying an annual rent of 10s. to Manchester College. He obtained an increased interest in the tithes in 1551 and later entered into partnership over them with his kinsman and neighbour Edmund Trafford. This association with Trafford is of interest, since Trafford was a Protestant and a notorious persecutor of recusants, whereas Barlow was an equally determined Catholic. Both were overseers of the will of Barlow’s uncle John Reddish in 1569 and Barlow was involved in the arrangements for the marriage of Trafford’s son, also Edmund, in 1573. Not long before his death, however, Barlow brought a suit concerning Barlow Moor against Trafford in the duchy court. Besides being able to live on largely amicable terms with his Protestant neighbour, Barlow no doubt enjoyed the protection of his brother-in-law until the earl’s. death.4

On 5 Feb. 1558 Barlow wrote to Cuthbert Scott, bishop of Chester, offering the bishop obedience, reverence and honour. Living as he did only five miles from Manchester, Barlow was a friend of Lawrence Vaux, the last Catholic warden of Manchester College, who entrusted the leases and charters of the college to Barlow before his flight to Ireland. Barlow brought a case against Warden Thomas Herle in 1566, and in 1567 Herle in his turn petitioned Sir Ralph Sadler against Barlow, complaining that he could get no justice in Lancashire.5

Despite the efforts of Herle and the proximity of Trafford, Barlow seems to have escaped molestation until 1583 when he was imprisoned shortly after his wife’s death. On 7 Aug. 1584 he was required as a recusant either to equip a light horseman or to pay £24; ten years earlier his contribution to the general levy of arms in Lancashire had been one light horseman, one caliver and one morice. He died either in prison or in a nearby house on parole and was buried at Didsbury on 26 Aug. 1584. He had conveyed his estates in trust to his son-in-law Edward Scarisbrick and five others in 1576: there had been a previous settlement (or mortgage) in 1555. His son Alexander had apparently conformed but was to die ‘a true and perfect recusant Catholic’. One of Barlow’s daughters, Jane, became a Bridgettine nun abroad, and three of his grandsons Benedictines, one of them, Ambrose, being executed in 1641.6

From Wikipedia

Wolsey's mistress

Joan was born in about 1490 in Yarmouth, Norfolk, the daughter of Peter Larke, variously named a Thetford innkeeper or a gentleman of Huntingdonshire.[1] Her brother Thomas Larke was chaplain to Thomas Wolsey. In about 1509, when Wolsey served as almoner of the new king Henry VIII of England, Joan became his mistress, living with him in Bridewell. She bore him two illegitimate children:

• Thomas Wynter (b.c.1510), married and sired children.

• Dorothy Clancey (b. 29 September 1512)

Her son was sent to live with a family in Willesden, and her daughter, Dorothy, was adopted by John Clancey, and later placed in the Shaftesbury Nunnery, where she became a nun. She received a pension from Thomas Cromwell when her religious house was later dissolved.

Sometime after Wolsey's arrest and death in November 1530, Thomas Wynter went to study at the University of Padua, at the King's expense. When he returned to England penniless in about 1535, he was financially assisted by Queen Anne Boleyn, Wolsey's former adversary.[2]

Marriages and children

As Wolsey continued to rise swiftly and prominently in the Church and government, eventually becoming Bishop of Lincoln, Archbishop of York, a cardinal, and Lord Chancellor of England, Joan became an embarrassment to him. In 1519, he arranged her marriage to George Legh, of Adlington Hall, Cheshire, and provided her dowry. Wolsey would later assist the Leghs in a property dispute.[3]

Together Joan and George had four children:

• Thomas Legh (1527–1599), married Maria Grosvenor, by whom he had one son, Thomas (1547–1601)

• Elizabeth Legh (1525–1583)

• Mary Legh

• Margaret/Ellen Legh

Sometime after Legh's death in 1529, Joan married secondly, George Paulet, brother of William Paulet, 1st Marquess of Winchester.

Joan Larke died on an unknown date.

References

1.  Kathy Lynn Emerson, A Who's Who of Tudor Woman, retrieved on 25-11-09

2. Alison Weir, The Six Wives of Henry The Eighth