Portrait by Hans Eworth of either Lady Eleanor or her daughter, Lady Margaret.
When one typically considers Henry VIII’s royal nieces, a trickle of noteworthy names come to mind. Perhaps Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox springs to mind, who experienced a number of spells in the Tower of London as a result of her ill-fated romances or subversions against her cousin, Elizabeth I. Alternatively, one may muse over Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, an ambitious social climber and mother to the Grey sisters, who all befell rather unfortunate ends. However, one that does not typically spur to mind is Eleanor Brandon, Countess of Cumberland. In this blog, I will be exploring the life of Henry VIII’s lesser-known niece, who very much deserves to have her legacy solidified in the long line of unsung Tudor heroines.
Eleanor Brandon was the third child and second daughter to Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Whilst her precise date of birth remains unclear, Anne Clifford, a descendant of Eleanor’s, documented that Eleanor was between twenty-seven and twenty-eight upon her death in 1547, placing her birth between c.1519-1521. Suffolk’s biographer, Steven Gunn, suggested that Eleanor may have been the conciliatory namesake of Eleanor, Queen of Portugal and France, Charles V’s elder sister. If Eleanor was indeed born during these years, it would have aligned with the period in which Suffolk accompanied Henry VIII to negotiations with Charles at his home in Southwark, Suffolk Place.
Eleanor was likely to have been raised alongside her elder sister, Frances, where they would have entertained an pristine education from the confines of their home. They would have learnt different languages from an early age, including French and Latin, as well as how to sing and play instruments, such as the virginals. Perhaps their mother took a leading role in conducting the education of her daughters, but by the time Eleanor was on the brink of sixteenth-century standards of womanhood, her mother passed away at the age of thirty-seven. While Mary’s death likely took a harrowing toll on Eleanor, she took a backseat role at her mother’s funeral whilst her senior sister, Frances, acted as chief mourner.
Mary’s death also found Eleanor in the midst of marriage negotiations. Regardless of her position as junior sister, any dynastic marriage to one of the king’s nieces was a grand and luxurious proposition for any ambitious courtier. In 153, Eleanor was wed to Henry Clifford, eldest son of Henry, 1st Earl of Cumberland and Lady Margaret Percy. It is implied that in arranging such a opulently beneficial match for his son, Cumberland ‘strained his finances’ to arrange it. Following the final indentures in June 1535, the wedding was celebrated in the presence of Eleanor’s royal uncle, Henry VIII, at Suffolk Place. Fortunately for Suffolk, the marriage contract provided for a reduction in the dowry payable to Clifford in the event of Eleanor inheriting a fraction of Brandon’s estates in the occasion of his death, which shortly became a reality upon the premature death of Eleanor’s only brother, Henry Brandon, Earl of Lincoln, in March 1534.
In anticipation for his daughter-in-law’s arrival, which was delayed a number of months, Cumberland built a set of towers and a ‘great gallery’ in Skipton Castle, nestled in North Yorkshire, for her ‘magnificent entertainment.’ Nevertheless, Eleanor and Henry spent a large fraction of their earlier marital time in the Clifford residence of Brougham Castle in Penrith, Cumbria.
In February 1536, Eleanor was once again in the south to act as Chief Mourner at the funeral of Katherine of Aragon at Peterborough Cathedral. It is not known whether Eleanor harboured any sentimental feelings towards Katherine, or her replacement Anne Boleyn for that matter, but it would make sense that one of Henry’s more lesser-ranking nieces were to be present to pay respects to the Dowager Princess of Wales rather than the likes of Frances or Margaret Douglas.
Eleanor shortly returned to the north where she soon found herself stuck in the midst of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Whist staying with her son and sister-in-law in the confines of Bolton Priory, they evaded seizure after the commons threatened to capture them and ‘violate and enforce them with knaves unto my Lord’s great discomfort’ if Skipton Castle was not borne to them. Fortunately for Eleanor, they were led over the moors at night to Skipton by a vicar, groom and boy. Suffolk seems to have held his daughter in high regard, worriedly writing to Cumberland in November 1536 that he understood his daughter to have been ‘in some daunger by reason of the rebels in your partes: I hartely pray you my lord in eschewing any further danger […] ye will send her unto me […] and here I trust she shall be out of danger.’
Following the events Eleanor witnessed in 1536, she rarely made another court appearance, contrary to Frances who was present at the funeral of Jane Seymour and arrival of Anna of Cleves to English shores. Whilst Eleanor’s husband made trips to London, Eleanor often remained with her father-in-law in the north. It is speculated that ill-health restricted Eleanor from attending such events. Writing to Cumberland, Suffolk wrote that his ‘daughter Clifforde cann never have her good health at Riche Abbey, […] your sonne my lord Clifford and my said daughter may have your castle at Brome Brougham as they have had afore tyme where they may be and contynue for such season […] for the more confirmation of both their healths, wherein you shall doe me and them great pleasure.’
Regardless of Eleanor often being restricted in the north, the Cumberland marriage seems to have been a successful alliance for the Brandons. Suffolk often looked after Cumberland’s London business and once attempted to satisfy him over a debt that was owed by his previous servant, Thomas Wentworth. Additionally, according to Gunn, Suffolk once complained that Cumberland’s financial provision for Henry Clifford’s stay at court was inadequate and that he and his daughter were living in an ‘unhealthy country house.’ Before his death in 1545, it seems that Suffolk retained close contact with his daughter’s marital family and held them in high regard.
Unfortunately, only one of Eleanor’s children survived infancy. Whilst she produced two sons, Henry and Charles, her daughter Margaret, perhaps named such as a namesake to her mother-in-law, was the only child to survive. Aside from the strenuous grief these deaths undoubtedly caused, Eleanor was left fatherless in 1545. Following Suffolk’s death, she was left two-hundred pounds worth of plate, and with the death of her father-in-law in 1542, she inherited the title Countess of Cumberland.
In the final year of her life, Eleanor seems to have attended court, serving as one of the ‘ladies ordinary’ alongside Frances. Although her religious convictions remain unclear, Anne Askew was reported by Robert Parsons in 1604 to have found means ‘to enter with the principall of the land, namely with queene Catherine Parre herselfe, and with his neeces the daughters of the duke of Suffolke.’ Seemingly, this implies that Eleanor was approached by the Protestant radical but turned her religious convictions down. The only letter surviving Eleanors, likely in the final months of her life, reveals that she was shortly back in the north where she once again experienced health problems that her late father had emphasised. In her final letter to her husband, she wrote that:
Dere hart,
After my moste hartye commendatyons, thys shalbe to sertify yow that sense yowr departure frome me, I have byn very seke & att thys present my watter ys very redd, wherby I suppos I have the jaundes and the aygew both, for I have none abyde to meate & I have suche payns in my syde & towardes my bak as I had att Brauham [Bourgham], wher ytt be gane with me furst. Wher for I desyre yow to help me to a physyssyon and that thys berer may brynge hyim with hyim, for now in the begynning I trust I may have gud remedy, & the longer ytt ys delayed the worse ytt wylbe. Also my sister Powys [Anne Grey, Eleanor’s elder half-sister] ys comyd to me and ys very desyrous to se yow, whiche I trust shalbe the sooner at this tyme, and thus Jesu send hus both healthe. Att my lodge at Carleton, the xiiiith day of February [presumably February 14th, 1547].
And, dere hart, I pray yow send for Doctor Stephyns, for he knowyth best my complexon for such cawsys.
By yowr assuryd loufyng wyff,
Elenor Cumbarland.
Anne Clifford documented that Eleanor passed away towards the end of November 1547 at Bourgham Castle, nine months after this letter. However, another report documented her death on September 27th. Regardless, it can be conclusively asserted that by the end of 1547, Eleanor was dead. According to Clifford, Cumberland was grief-stricken at his wife’s death, falling into an ‘extream sickness, of which he was at length laid out for a dead man, […] some of his men that were then very carefull about him perceiveing some little signs of life in him, […] after he was laid into his bed again, he was fain for 4 or 5 weeks after to such the milk out of a woman’s breast […], and live on that 3 or 4 months longer.’
The woman that this supposed breastmilk came from remains unknown.
Overall, it seems that Eleanor and Cumberland enjoyed a loving relationship. Seven years following Eleanor’s death, he remarried to Anne, daughter of the third Baron Dacre of Gilsand, who bore Cumberland two sons who survived to adulthood, George and Francis. After almost marrying into the ill-fated Dudley affinity, Margaret Clifford married Henry Stanley, Lord Strange, in the presence of Mary I in 1555. Margaret enjoyed little favour from her royal cousins after she was accused by Elizabeth I of employing sorcery to predict the date of Elizabeth I’s death and choice of heir. Margaret died in 1596.
Unfortunately, only one reputed portrait of Eleanor exists. Housed in the Tate Britain is a portrait by Hans Eworth that is frequently exhibited as Eleanor. Although this painting was created between c.1565-68, somewhat twenty years after her death, the coat of arms housed in the left corner are those of Eleanor and her husband. Whilst this portrait could be a depiction of her daughter, Maragret, it is also a common rule of heraldry that such arms are not employed by children of that marriage, due to the fact that they would have had their own. Nevertheless, this is not to assert that the coats of arms were not a later addition to Eworth’s painting. The woman, who is sumptuously adorned with rich fabrics and fine jewellery, reveals a woman donning fashion more suitable to the time it was painted, rather than during Eleanor’s lifetime two decades before. Therefore, it is likely that this painting depicts Margaret Clifford, rather than her mother with the coats of arms being added at a later date.
From her short tenure at the Tudor court, exposing her to tempestuous religious tensions to her close spell with northern rebels during the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, Eleanor Clifford, Countess of Cumberland certainly lived a life significantly more noteworthy than she has been credited for. Often overshadowed for her more noteworthy elder sister, Frances, Eleanor has left her mark on a plethora of historical sites scattered through northern England. Although Eleanor went through life under the restrictions of bouts of ill-health that left her in a bubble of constant domesticity, this royal niece is most certainly due deeper ventures of research into her life and the tumultuous times she found herself in.
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