Ethel(d)reda Malte (sometimes referred to as Audrey; ) was an

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of the

Tudor period The Tudor period occurred between 1485 and 1603 in England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period during the reign of Elizabeth I until 1603. The Tudor period coincides with the dynasty of the House of Tudor in England that began wit ...

who was reputed to be an

illegitimate Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, ''illegitimacy'', also known as '' ...

daughter of King Henry VIII. She was the wife of poet and writer John Harington, prior to Isabella Markham. Contemporary reports claim she was fathered by Henry VIII. Almost nothing is known about her mother, a woman identified as Joan Dingley, alias Dobson; under the circumstances, Joan would have been a member of the lesser

nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The character ...

, not well-connected at

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...

. One theory is she was a laundress. Though he never

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ly acknowledged Etheldreda, Henry VIII did give his

tailor A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...

, John Malte, land and properties, including St Catherine's Court, when Malte recognised her as his illegitimate daughter. When he died in 1547, her

putative father __NOTOC__ A putative father, with some variation in specific language, generally means a man whose legal relationship to a child has not been established but who is alleged to be or claims that he may be the biological father of a child who is born ...

(Malte) left her money in his will and, in 1548, the reasonably well-endowed heiress became the first wife of John Harington, an eligible court official who served Lord High Admiral Thomas Seymour (evidently her previous engagement to an illegitimate grandson of Sir Richard Southwell had been cancelled). Etheldreda brought to the marriage properties previously owned by

Shaftesbury Abbey Shaftesbury Abbey was an abbey that housed nuns in Shaftesbury, Dorset. It was founded in about 888, and dissolved in 1539 during the English Reformation by the order of Thomas Cromwell, minister to King Henry VIII. At the time it was the second ...

. Sometime in 1550, she had a daughter: Hester (or Esther) Harington. On 18 March 1554, Etheldreda Malte was among the six ladies who accompanied the future queen

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to the

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, where her rumoured half-sister was imprisoned under suspicion of causing rebellion. Etheldreda was present at the coronation of Elizabeth I on 15 January 1559 and she died that same month. Her husband remarried within two months of her death. She may have died at St Catherine's Court, her

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near Bath, and perhaps lies buried in the church next door, but this is conjectural, as the church records for the period have been lost.

Fictional portrayals

Audrey is the protagonist of ''Royal Inheritance'', a historical novel by Kate Emerson.

Notes

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Malte, Ethelreda 1527 births 1550s deaths 16th-century English women English ladies-in-waiting Illegitimate children of Henry VIII of England House of Tudor Court of Henry VIII