In or around 14th February 1465, the third daughter and fourth child of Henry FitzHugh, Baron FitzHugh and Alice Neville, Baroness FitzHugh, Anne FitzHugh, was married to Francis Lovell, Baron Lovell.
Their marriage lasted for 22 years, until Francis vanished after the Battle of Stoke on 16th June 1487. Anne was around 27 at that point.
Sadly, not much evidence survives about her and her marriage to Francis, though what little there is suggests that unlike what is often suggested in fiction, she was a confident woman who had at least a cordial and respectful relationship to her husband.
Anne was probably born in 1460, around a year after her oldest brother Richard. Apart from him, she had two older sisters and four younger brothers. Through her mother, she was related with some of the highest and mightiest in the realm - Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, was her uncle, and when Anne was around a year old, her first cousin once removed, Edward of March, became king as Edward IV.
As mentioned above, when Anne was four or just turned five, she was married to her uncle of Warwick`s new ward, Francis Lovell, who had recently become Baron Lovell after his father`s death. Around four years older than her, he was eight at the time.
We do not know much of Anne`s childhood. In the summer of 1466, her father spent several months in Middleham with her uncle of Warwick. It is possible that Anne and her mother and siblings joined him there - after all, it was her mother who was Warwick`s sister, and since Anne was already married to his ward, there may have been an effort made to get the children to know each other, as sometimes happened with such matched. There is no certainty about this, however.
We do know, though, that by 1470, when Warwick was in open rebellion for the first time, Anne`s father supported him, rising up against his wife`s cousin Edward IV himself. Like Warwick, he was defeated and pardoned. At that time, Anne`s husband was living with her family - he, like Anne herself, then ten years old, was included in the pardon Edward IV issued to the entire family and all those living with them. Interestingly, the pardon also included her husband`s younger sisters, Joan and Frideswide, suggesting that after their mother`s death in summer 1466, Anne`s mother had started taking care of them and Anne grew up with them.
Sadly, we do not know anything about their relationship nonetheless. After her uncle of Warwick was defeated again, and killed, in 1471 and Edward IV retook the throne, Anne`s husband was given into the wardship of Edward IV`s sister Elizabeth and her husband John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, and probably moved into their household. Shortly afterwards, in 1472, Anne`s father Henry died, and her brother Richard became Baron FitzHugh. Anne was twelve, Richard was thirteen.
Anne seems to have continued living with her mother and brother for a while afterwards, and it is possible that when, in the same year, Edward IV took her husband`s wardship from his sister for himself, Francis also moved in with them again. Certainly, we know that he spent some time with them. In summer 1473, he and Anne together with her mother and brother joined the Corpus Christi Guild in York, of which the king`s mother Cecily was also a member, and which Francis`s friend Richard of Gloucester and his wife would also join four years later.
There is no telling when Anne started living with her husband as man and wife, though it is possible that it was in around 1476 and they moved to his ancestral home of Minster Lovell Hall then. In 1477, they had apparently started establishing themselves there, for a letter from Elizabeth Stonor to her husband from that time survives from March 1477, in she reports that like he had instructed her to, she had made presents to Lord and Lady Lovell, which, from the context, clearly were to win their favour. That Anne was given her own present suggests she had some influence over her husband and/or that her being given a present would please Francis. It also suggests that they had been living there for a while for their favour to mean something, yet not longer than perhaps around a year, for otherwise the Stonors would be rather late in trying to secure it.
This would mean that perhaps Francis and Anne moved there and started living together as man and wife when she was around 16 and he around 20.
Sadly, we know nothing of her movements until 1483. A letter from Francis to William Stonor survives from June 1482, which he wrote from one Alice FitzHugh`s manors in the north. It is possible that Anne was there together with him, but since the letter makes no mention of her or of why Francis went to be with Richard, we cannot say.
Anne was presumable present when her husband was made a viscount by Edward IV on 4th January 1483, her brother Richard being one of his sponsors, but again there is no mention of her. We do know, however, that when her first cousin once removed Richard was crowned king some months later after Edward IV`s sudden death in April 1483 and the following sudden succession crisis in June 1483, she was present in his wife the queen Anne`s train, and given gifts of two dresses like her mother Alice and sister Elizabeth.
Like them, she also seems to have been one of the queen`s ladies-in-waiting, though she is mentioned less often than them in many accounts. Her husband`s position high in favour of the new king meant he was almost always at court, though if Anne often joined him there, or if she was with the queen when she was not at court, or if she was often absent from court altogether, we simply don`t know.
We have a few mentions of her by Francis dating from 1483 to 1485. As was traditional, Francis had her included in a request for annual prayers for the good of their souls he arranged in February 1483. On 10th March 1484, he made provisions for her in the event of his death, such as seeing to it she would be given the manor of Thorpe Waterville. In June 1485, probably anticipating the possibility of his death in the upcoming battle, he charged her with having prayers said for him for thirty years after his death by "two good priests" in the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge.
Francis did not die at Bosworth, but his fortunes took a sharp turn for the worse with Richard III`s death there, and Anne`s own position took a sharp drop from the wife of the king`s best friend and one of the highest and mightiest men in the realm to a traitor`s wife. If she resented her husband not accepting the new king, we again don`t know, but there is some evidence against it, as detailed below.
There is no telling if Anne ever saw her husband Francis again after Bosworth Field, though her brother Richard, who had sworn alliance to the new king after his victory, may have secretly helped Francis in his rebellion.
Anne could have tried to use her relation to the new queen Elizabeth of York to secure a better position for herself, and distanced herself from her husband. Instead, she chose to associate with Edward Franke, one of Francis`s associates, to try and find Francis, which, given that Franke was an outlaw, was treason. We know of this from a letter of her mother`s to John Paston, a letter in which it is also mentioned that despite Franke`s best efforts, Francis`s whereabout and fate remained unknown to him and therefore Anne.
Anne would have known she was risking a lot by associating with him, and while women were not, at that time, executed for treason, it could have made her situation far worse. Anna, whose grandmother was the first woman to have been attainted in England, would have known this - the best she could have hoped for would have been house arrest. This suggests she had at least a strong interest in Francis`s fate, if not affection for him.
So does, in my opinon, her decision not to ever marry again and take a religious vow before she was thirty. In December 1489, Henry VII granted her an annuity of 20 pounds, and in the grant, she is refered to as "our sister in God", meaning she had either taken a vow or joined a convent. This was quite a common course for noble widows, but again suggests she knew her mind well and had by the age of twenty-eight or twenty-nine already decided she did not want to marry another time and with that, gave up the chance to have children as well. Admittedly, as a traitor`s widow, which she seemed to think she was at that point - her value in the marriage market was significantly lower than it would have been as the widow of one of the king`s men, but she was still of high birth and a relative of the queen. Not to mention that she could have chosen to marry for her own pleasure.
This would seem to suggest that she either had had a horrible marriage and didn`t want a repetition of that - which evidence, see above, does not support at all - or that she simply did not want to be anyone but Francis`s wife. Again, it could suggest affection, although it is less definite than the above point of her committing treason to find out what had happened to her husband. Maybe Anna was simply pious and while not having minded being married, prefered life as a lay sister or in a convent.
What her actions from 1488 definitely show is that she was fearless, and that she knew her own mind very well.
Sadly, the only mention of her after that is in her husband`s second attainder of 1495, in which her rights were protected, though as was usual, this was only theoretical. It shows she was still alive at the age of 35. We know no more of the rest of her life, nor even if she was a lay sister or had entered a convent.
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