Joan Lovell Stapleton and Frideswide Lovell Norris

As with so many people in Francis`s life, little is known about Francis`s sisters, Joan Lovell Stapleton and Frideswide Lovell Norris. As was sadly so often the case with women and in fact even often younger sons, few records were kept in which they are mentioned or information got about them. This means that we have only few facts about them. Those that there are, however, indicate that the siblings were reasonably close.

Joan Lovell was the older of the two sisters. She appears to have been very close to Francis in age, and may in fact even have been his twin. The two would have spent the early years of their childhood together, presumably being cared for by the same people. This could easily have formed a bond between them, but of course we cannot know that, as very little about their childhood is known. One thing we do know is that the two appeared to share a dislike for their father, though the reasons are uncertain. What other opinions, tastes, feelings and habits they shared can only be speculated about.

Frideswide Lovell, their younger sister, almost certainly shared nothing with them in the first years of their lives, for she appears to have been significantly younger. Though there is no certainty about her exact year of birth, it was not before 1463 and evidence such as her uncle William Beaumont`s IPM  suggests it was probably 1464.

Francis, therefore, would not have had much time to become close to her before their father died and he was removed from his mother`s household to be brought up as the Earl of Warwick`s ward. In accordance to customs and because they were not heiresses and therefore of less interest to the king, Joan and Frideswide probably stayed in their mother`s household. However, after their mother`s death less than two years later, they appear to have been brought up in the household of the FitzHughs` , Francis`s parents-in-law.

How much they saw of each other in that time, as the significantly older Joan would naturally have received a different sort of education and different rights and duties than the toddler Frideswide, and how much they saw of their brother in that time, we don`t know. By 1470, however, Francis was also in the FitzHugh household, and if they so wished, the siblings could have seen a lot of one another.

Francis stayed in the FitzHugh household until summer 1471, when his wardship was granted to Edward IV`s sister Elizabeth and her husband, John, Duke of Suffolk. As J.M.William`s points out in her article "The Political Career of Francis Viscount Lovell (1456 - ?)", it appears that his sisters stayed with the FitzHughs and did not join him in the Suffolk household. Francis himself stayed there only a year; in 1472, when he was 16, Edward IV took his wardship for himself, by which time Francis may have returned to the FitzHugh household.

It is likely that Joan, then fifteen or sixteen, married between that time and the next summer. Despite the fact that it is often claimed she only married in 1476, there is no evidence for this, and it appears to be based on nothing but the birth date of her first son and child. In fact, it is more likely that she was married by summer 1473 already, for she did not become a member of the Corpus Christi Guild in York as her brother and the rest of the FitzHugh family did. Neither did Frideswide, and the youngest FitzHugh son, both of whom appear to have been too young, but Joan`s absence is most easily explained by her no longer being a member of the FitzHugh household.

Joan`s husband was Brian Stapleton of Carlton, a man around two to five years older than her. What either of them thought of this match is once more unknown. The couple had two sons together. Their first, named Brian after his father, was born in 1477. The second, who received the somewhat surprising name George, was born in 1479. There are some indications in later sources that the couple also had a daughter named Joan, born after George, but if so, she must have died in infancy, as there is no mention of her, or of any sister of Brian`s and George`s to be found, in any primary source.

Between 1479 and 1483, Joan died of causes unknown. She was 26 at the most, 22 at the least. Her husband survived her and on 4th January 1485 he was granted a license to marry again. He died in March 1486, potentially while being involved in his brother-in-law Francis`s rebellion.

Francis`s younger sister, Frideswide, may have married in 1480, when she was around 16. Her husband, Edward Norris, was around a year younger than her. They may also have married before that year, as no documentation about their marriage survives, but by then they were definitely married, for their first child was born in 1481. Interestingly, he was named John. Whether that means Frideswide, who cannot have remembered her father, did not share her older siblings` dislike of him and wanted to honour him, or if, as is often assumed, he was named after her husband`s grandfather John, whose memory was honoured in the Norris family, we do not know.

Only a year later, the couple had their second son, named Henry, presumably after Henry FitzHugh, in whose household Frideswide had grown up. This son would later become (in)famous for being one of Anne Boleyn`s supposed lovers and was one of the five men executed for this.

The couple also had two daughters, but their birth years are uncertain. It seems, even though it is by no means certain, that there was a gap of almost three years between Henry`s birth and that of their first daughter. Why this was, we of course can`t know. They may have had difficulties conceiving, a miscarriage or stillbirth we no longer know about or chosen not to try for another child for reasons of health or personal preference. It is also possible that in 1483, the year in which Richard of Gloucester became king, the couple was divided over political opinions and needed some time to overcome those differences. Edward`s father William, who had originally supported the Lancastrian cause, had accepted Edward IV as king, but rebelled against Richard in autumn 1483. Edward Norris may have supported this, though he never acted against Richard, while Frideswide seemed to support Richard.

Frideswide definitely was favoured by Richard, receiving a "reward" of 50 marks in 1483, as well as an annuity of 100 marks in August 1484, and another annuity of 100 marks from the same venue in January 1485. Around this time, Frideswide gave birth to a daughter called Anne, presumably either after the queen as a sign of gratitude to the king for his generosity to her, or after her brother`s wife, Anne Lovell. It therefore appears that these grants may have been made when Frideswide became certain she was pregnant with her third child, and after she had delivered the baby, but it is by no means certain.

It is also possible that these grants were simply a friendly gesture by Richard to his closest friend`s sister, after her father-in-law`s actions had caused him to be attainted and made the family much poorer and taken her children`s inheritance. This may be supported by the fact that these grants went directly to Frideswide and not to the entire family or even her husband, perhaps to free them from any treasonous stigma. Notably, Frideswide was called "Lovell" and not by her marital name in those grants, and her relation to Francis was noted every time.

It is also notable, as Monika Simon points out in her thesis on the Lovell family, that the bulk of the estates held by Frideswide`s father-in-law and forfeit by his attainder went to Francis, and that there may have been some arrangement to let his sister and brother-in-law receive some of the income to be got by them.

After Richard`s defeat at the Battle of Bosworth, William Norris`s attainder was overturned, and Frideswide`s children returned to their inheritance, though she lost the royal favour she had enjoyed in the years Richard had been king. A year or so later, Frideswide had another daughter, called  Margaret after Edward`s sister or perhaps after Henry VII`s mother. Her husband fought on the king`s side at the Battle of Stoke in 1487 and was knighted for it. Apparently, he died only months afterwards, at the age of 22, leaving Frideswide a widow with four young children at the age of 23.

She does not appear to have remarried, and died between 1487 and December 1507, when her uncle William Beaumont died, at which time she was said to be deceased. It is often assumed that she died only months before that, but there is no evidence either for or against this.

It seems, however, that she and her sister-in-law Anne Lovell were close to her sister Joan`s children. Joan`s second son, George, who became father to 14 or 15 children, named one of his daughters after Frideswide, and another Anne, which, given his and his wife`s families, was almost certainly after his aunt-by-marriage or his cousin Anne Norris. He also named one of his sons Francis, before the name became popular, suggesting that he either had fond memories of his uncle or wished to honour his aunts` memories by naming the boy after someone who had mattered to them.

None of the Lovell siblings became very old. Only Frideswide possibly made it past her 31st birthday, but she was definitely no older than 43 when she died. Francis vanished before his 31st birthday and probably died before it as well, and Joan was in her early to mid-twenties at her death. Frideswide`s and especially Joan`s children, however, lived to an old age - the oldest being George Stapleton, who died at the age of 85.

Both Joan and Frideswide have descendants alive today.