Anne Dudley, Countess Of Warwick (died 1588)

Anne Dudley (née Seymour) Countess of Warwick (1538–1588) was a writer during the sixteenth century in England, along with her sisters Lady Margaret Seymour and Lady Jane Seymour.Jane Stevenson: "Seymour, Lady Jane (1541–1561)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004
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She was the eldest daughter of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, who from 1547–1549 was the Lord Protector of England during the minority of her cousin, Edward VI. Being educated by the French humanist and poet, Nicholas Denisot, Anne Seymour with her sisters Margaret and Jane composed 103 Latin distichs for the tomb of Marguerite de Navarre, which were published in France as '' Hecatodistichon''. The first edition of March 1550 was followed by a second in 1551, containing significant alterations.

Marriages

On 3 June 1550 Anne Seymour was married to John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, son and heir of the Duke of Northumberland. King Edward VI was present at the festivities. The match was intended as an expression of renewed amity between the young people's fathers, who were political rivals, but the peace would not last.

After the Lady Jane Grey episode in 1553, Anne's husband, now Earl of Warwick, was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where she was allowed to visit him. He died of an illness in October 1554, days after his release.

Anne Seymour's second husband was Sir Edward Unton KB (1534–1582), a Member of Parliament.Adams p. 41 Their sons included Edward Unton MPRoyal Berkshire History: Faringdon Monument to Sir Edward Unton & the Countess of Warwick
/ref> and Sir Henry Unton (1558–1596), who became a diplomat. From 1566, the Countess suffered from recurring bouts of madness, and in 1582 was declared a lunatic. Some of the interests in her lands were assigned to Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, her former brother-in-law. She was placed in the custody of her son, Henry Unton.Victoria County History: Staffordshire: Volume 5 - Penkridge.
/ref> Anne Seymour died in February 1588 and was buried at Faringdon in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire).

Ancestry

Notes

References

*Adams, Simon: ''Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester'' Cambridge UP 1995
*Hosington, Brenda M. "England's First Female-Authored Encomium: The Seymour Sisters' ''Hecatodistichon'' (1550) to Marguerite de Navarre. Text, Translation, Notes, and Commentary," ''Studies in Philology'' 93 (1996), 117-163 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4174542
*Ives, Eric: ''Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery'' Wiley-Blackwell 2009;

{{DEFAULTSORT:Warwick, Anne Seymour, Countess of
1538 births
1588 deaths
16th-century English women writers
16th-century English writers
16th-century English nobility
16th-century writers in Latin
Daughters of English dukes
Year of birth unknown
Place of birth unknown
People from Faringdon
People from Warwick
Anne
Writers from Wiltshire
English countesses
Neo-Latin poets
Wives of knights
Children of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset