Susanna Temple, Lady Lister (formerly Thornhurst; 1600-1669) was an English courtier. A daughter of

Alexander Temple Sir Alexander Temple (bapt. 9 February 1582 OS (1583 NS) – 1629) was an English landowner and Member of Parliament. He was born at Stowe House in 1583 and knighted in 1603. During his life he held many public offices, including Justice of the ...

Etchingham Etchingham is a village and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex in southern England. The village is located approximately southeast of Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent and northwest of Hastings, on the A265, half a mile west o ...

and Mary Penistone, or Mary Sommer, she is said to have been a

maid of honour A maid of honour is a junior attendant of a queen in royal households. The position was and is junior to the lady-in-waiting. The equivalent title and office has historically been used in most European royal courts. Role Traditionally, a queen r ...

Anne of Denmark Anne of Denmark (; 12 December 1574 – 2 March 1619) was the wife of King James VI and I; as such, she was Queen of Scotland The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional fo ...

. However, she is not known to be named in any records of the court. Gheeraerts Susanna Temple, later Lady Lister

Her portrait was painted by Cornelius Johnson in 1620. She is depicted wearing a drop earring, including a

martlet A martlet in English heraldry is a mythical bird without feet that never roosts from the moment of its drop-birth until its death fall; martlets are proposed to be continuously on the wing. It is a compelling allegory for continuous effort, expre ...

, the bird is part of the Temple coat of arms. Another portrait was painted in 1621 by an artist working in the manner of

Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger Marcus Gheeraerts (also written as Gerards or Geerards; 1561/62 – 19 January 1636) was a Flemish artist working at the Tudor court, described as "the most important artist of quality to work in England in large-scale between Eworth and van ...

. There is also a miniature in the manner of

Nicholas Hilliard Nicholas Hilliard () was an English goldsmith and limner best known for his portrait miniatures of members of the courts of Elizabeth I and James I of England. He mostly painted small oval miniatures, but also some larger cabinet miniatures, ...

, with her hair down. She married Sir Gifford Thornhurst of Agney Court, Kent (d. 1627), the son of

William Thornhurst William Thornhurst (1575-1606) was an English landowner. He was the son of Stephen Thornhurst, keeper of Ford Park (died 1616) and his first wife. His second wife, Dorothy (1565-1620), was a daughter of Roger Drew of Denchworth. Her first husband w ...

(d. 1606) and Anne Howard, a daughter of Thomas Howard, Viscount Bindon. Their daughter Frances, born after the death of Gifford in 1627, and named after one of his sisters, was the mother of

Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Princess of Mindelheim, Countess of Nellenburg (née Jenyns, spelt Jennings in most modern references; 5 June 1660 (Old Style) – 18 October 1744), was an English courtier who rose to be one of th ...

. In 1626 her sister-in-law Grace Thornhurst (d. 1636) married the poet

Mildmay Fane Mildmay Fane (c. October 1689 – 11 September 1715) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons for 8 months in 1715, before his early death. Fane was the fifth son of Vere Fane, 4th Earl of Westmorland and his wife Rachel, daught ...

. Her brother-in-law, Thomas Thornhurst wrote a description of

Lanzarote Lanzarote (, , ) is a Spanish island, the easternmost of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately off the north coast of Africa and from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering , Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the i ...

. As a widow she was involved in litigation over a debt to Sir John Lambe. Her second husband was Sir Martin Lister of

Thorpe Arnold Thorpe Arnold is a farming village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Waltham on the Wolds and Thorpe Arnold in the district of Melton, which is approximately northeast of Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, England. In 1931 the par ...

, nephew of

Matthew Lister Matthew Lister (born 1992) is a British slalom canoeist who competed at the international level from 2008 to 2015, predominantly in the C2 class with Rhys Davies. He won two bronze medals in the C2 team event at the ICF Canoe Sl ...

, one of Anne of Denmark's physicians, and friend of

Mary Sidney Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (born Sidney, 27 October 1561 – 25 September 1621) was among the first Englishwomen to gain notice for her poetry and her literary patronage. By the age of 39, she was listed with her brother Philip Sidney ...

. Their son

Martin Lister Martin Lister FRS (12 April 1639 – 2 February 1712) was an English naturalist and physician. His daughters Anne and Susanna were two of his illustrators and engravers. J. D. Woodley, ‘Lister , Susanna (bap. 1670, d. 1738)’, Oxford Dict ...

became physician to Queen Anne. Some of her letters to Martin at college in Oxford survive.Anna Marie Roos, ''The Correspondence of Dr Martin Lister: 1662–1677'', vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), p. 141. She died in 1669.

External links

Portrait of Susanna Temple, Later Lady Lister, Tate

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Temple, Susanna 1600 births 1669 deaths British maids of honour Household of Anne of Denmark People from Etchingham Wives of knights Date of birth unknown Date of death unknown