I have spoken before about Anne FitzHugh Lovell, Francis`s wife, how little is known about her and how all of the few primary sources which mention her mention her in connection with her husband, which is perhaps why even the very few works of non-fiction mentioning her have almost never paid any heed to her relationship with anyone but him.
What little evidence there is, however, not only suggests she was on very good terms with most of her family, both close and extended, but that both her sisters, Alice and Elizabeth, seemed to favour her. When Elizabeth had her first child, after having married Sir William Parr in around 1474, she chose to name the baby Anne. Since she called all her other children with William Parr after close relatives - her three sons were called after her husband`s father, her husband and his brother - and there was no other Anne in either her or William`s closest family, it stands to reason Elizabeth named her first daughter after her sister Anne Lovell, chosing her as namesake over her other sister and her mother. Perhaps Anne, who was around 16 when the child was born, also stood as godmother to her niece, but this is sheerest speculation and we don`t know.
Elizabeth named her first two children with her second husband Sir Nicholas after his mother, Katherine, and her mother and/or older sister Alice. However, her youngest, she also chose to name Anne. Why she decided to do so, rather than name the child, for example, after Sir Nicholas`s sister Joan, is less certain. Her daughter Anne Parr was still alive, so it is unlikely it was done in her memory. Possibly this youngest daughter was her older half-sister`s godchild, or perhaps Elizabeth named her, too, after Anne Lovell. Anne Vaux was born after 1495, the latest date we know Anne Lovell was still alive, so it is possible Elizabeth had her soon after Anne`s death and chose to honour her like this.
Whyever she named her youngest daughter, the fact she chose Anne Lovell to be the namesake for her first, above all other female relatives, indicates the two were close. In the light of this, it is interesting to note that Alice, like Elizabeth, equally chose to name her first child and daughter Anne. Born in 1468 to Alice and her husband Sir John Fiennes, this child was only eight years younger than her namesake aunt, but like Elizabeth and her two husbands, Alice and Sir John named their children after close family members and had no other very close relatives of that name. It seems, therefore, that Alice, too, was close to Anne Lovell.
Notably, it seems that Anne was not only close to her sisters, but potentially also to her sisters-in-law. Like Elizabeth and Alice FitzHugh, Frideswide Lovell also named her first daughter Anne. Neither she nor her husband Edward Norris had any close relatives named Anne, but in their case, the baby might also have been named after Richard III`s queen, in gratitude to the king for the generous grants he made her. Since the birth year of the baby is not known for certain, it can`t be said if Anne Norris, too, was named after Anne Lovell.
Perhaps most curious is that Anne appears to have been close to her husband`s nephews as well. One of them, Francis`s sister Joan`s younger son, also chose to name one of his many daughters Anne. While neither he nor his wife had any siblings, parents or grandparents of that name, too little is known about them to say if there was not perhaps another candidate after whom the child was called, or if she was perhaps named after a saint. It is, however, telling, that George also chose to name a daughter Frideswide, after his maternal aunt, and a son Francis after his uncle, before the name became hugely popular later that century. This and that the babies so named were born within comparatively short time of each other could well suggest that he, too, wanted to honour Anne Lovell by naming a child after her.
While in the case of Frideswide and George Stapleton, it is speculation whether their daughters were named after Anne Lovell, it is pretty certain for Anne Parr, Anne Vaux and Anne Fiennes. This indicates that Anne Lovell was favoured by their mothers, and probably close to them.
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