Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk

Anne de Mowbray
Duchess of York; Duchess of Norfolk
The marriage of Lady Anne Mowbray with Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.
Duchess of Norfolk
Predecessor	John Mowbray, 4th Duke, 7th Earl
Born	(1472-12-10)10 December 1472 Framlingham Castle, Suffolk
Died	c. 19 November 1481 (aged 8) Greenwich, London
Burial	Westminster Abbey
Spouse	Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York (m. 1478–81; her death)
House	York (by marriage)
Father	John Mowbray, 4th Duke of Norfolk
Mother	Elizabeth Talbot

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, 1st Duke of York, one of the Princes in the Tower. She died at the age of eight.

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, 1st Duke of York, the 4-year-old younger son of Edward IV and his queen Elizabeth Woodville.

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.^[1] This action may be a motivation for Lord Howard's support of the accession of Richard III. He was created Duke of Norfolk and given his half of the Mowbray estates after Richard's coronation.

Burial

Anne was entombed in a lead coffin in the Chapel of St. Erasmus of Formiae in Westminster Abbey. 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, run by nuns of the Order of Poor Ladies. 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 analyzed by scientists and then entombed in Westminster Abbey in May 1965. Her red hair was still on her skull and her shroud still wrapped around her. Westminster Abbey is the purported resting place of her husband, Richard Duke of York.

Ancestors

See also

• Dukes of Norfolk family tree

Notes

References

•  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1894). "Mowbray, John (1415-1461)". Dictionary of National Biography. 39. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 225. 
• P. M. Kendall, The World of Anne Mowbray, Observer Colour Magazine, issued 23 May 1965
• Moorhen, Wendy (2005). "Anne Mowbray: In Life and Death" (PDF). The Ricardian Bulletin (Spring). Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 November 2010. 

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