Frideswide Lovell Norris

As I have mentioned before, Francis had two sisters. One of them, Joan, was probably his twin sister. Very little is known about her, except the most basic facts of her life, such her approximate birth and death year, the year she married, whom she married, and when she had her children

A little bit more is known about her and Francis`s younger sister, Frideswide. Apparently significantly younger than her siblings, she was not born before 1463, and most likely in 1464. Therefore, she was still only a baby when her father died on 9th January 1465, and a toddler when her mother died a bit over a year later, on 5th August 1466. She appears to have spent her childhood and adolescence in the household of her brother`s parents-in-law. In 1470, when she was around 6 years old, the first contemporary mention of her is found in the pardon Edward IV`s government issued for Henry FitzHugh and all those in his household after Henry`s rebellion. Though only a child, Frideswide was mentioned as she was, together with her sister, her brother Francis`s co-heir. If Francis himself was even involved in the rebellion is doubtful, as he was just shy of his 14th birthday, but the pardon cleared him of any legal difficulties that could have arisen later from being in Henry`s household at the time he rebelled.

What Frideswide`s education looked like, we naturally do not know. Nor do we know where she stayed until she married in around 1480, whether she lived with Francis`s guardians until then, lived with her brother Francis and his wife Anne after they had started living together as man and wife in around 1476, or lived with her sister Joan after she married in around 1473. Perhaps she stayed with all of them at different times, but it is sheerest speculation.

When Frideswide was around 16, she married the 15-year-old Edward Norris, the oldest son of William Norris of Yattendon and his first wife Joan/Jane de Vere. Edward was the nephew of the Lancastrian Earl of Oxford, who was a close friend of the Lancastrian Viscount Beaumont, Frideswide`s uncle. This, however, was most likely not the cause of the connection, as neither Edward nor Frideswide can ever have seen much of their respective uncles before 1485. Why the marriage was arranged, and if it was done by Francis, by William Norris, by the king or even by one of Francis`s FitzHugh relations, we no longer know.

How the two felt about being married, we also don`t know, but they did their duty and in 1481, the teenage couple became parents for the first time, when Frideswide gave birth to a son they called John. If they named their son after Frideswide`s father, whom she cannot have remembered and perhaps therefore did not think of with as much repulsion as the rest of her family did, or after Edward`s grandfather or paternal uncle, who were both named John as well, or after John of Suffolk, or even an unknown godfather is sheerest guesswork.

Only a year after the birth of their first son, Frideswide gave birth again, to a second son. He was named Henry, most likely after Henry FitzHugh, as there were no other men named Henry in either her nor her husband`s close family. This could suggest that though she was only around eight years old when Henry FitzHugh died, Frideswide remembered him fondly. Henry Norris grew up to become (in)famous for being one of Anne Boleyn`s supposed lovers and was one of the five men executed for this.

Perhaps because they already had two sons and considered their duty done, perhaps for other reasons, the couple did not have another child for several years. In 1483, Frideswide received a "reward" of 50 marks from Richard III after he was crowned king. Perhaps it was this, her support and closeness to her brother`s close friend, that caused a rift between her and her husband, and the couple was divided over political opinions which they needed some time to overcome. 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.

However, there is evidence from 1484 which throws a rather different light on Frideswide`s marriage and her relationship to Richard. While her "reward" from 1483 could well have been simply a gesture of friendship by the new king towards his closest friend`s sister, their interactions clearly did not stop there. In August 1484, Richard granted her an annuity of 100 marks, a rather large sum. While this has traditionally been assumed to have been because of her father-in-law`s rebellion, leaving her husband disinherited, this does not seem to have been the cause. None of William`s other children, nor his wife, was granted anything by Richard.

Naturally, it could be that Richard chose to favour Francis`s sister over the rest of her marital family, but this is contradicted by two facts: one, that the grant was for unspecified "services" to the king, not, as that to other traitor`s relatives, as a compensation, a generous gift by the king. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, is that a second grant of an annuity of 100 marks was made from the same venue, dating from 10th January 1485. This grant was not a confirmation of the first, but was added to it, meaning that Frideswide received 200 marks yearly from Richard, a sizable sum, more than the Countess of Oxford, or even his own mother-in-law, received.

The key to this may lie in the fact that the second grant was dated back nine months, and appears to have been made just after Frideswide gave birth to her third child, a daughter called Anne. Very notably, the grants to her, for unspecified services to the king, have the same wording as one to Katherine Haute, a woman often assumed to have been the mother of Richard`s illegitimate daughter Katherine, Richard made years earlier.

Equally notable is that Richard made grants to Francis on the same days as he made those to Frideswide, as a compensation for equally unspecified services, and that Frideswide appeared to have lived with her brother while pregnant.

That Henry Norris, in later years, appeared to not treat Anne as his sister, and that William Norris, Edward`s father, later favoured Frideswide`s sons, even apparently helping them become established at court, but not Anne, might also point towards the idea that there was at least a question mark over Anne`s paternity, and that she may have been Richard`s.

If so, Frideswide was in a bad position after Richard`s defeat and death at Bosworth only eight and a half months after her daughter`s birth. It seems, though, that she and her husband Edward made the best of it, and even reconcilliated. In around 1486, Frideswide gave birth to her last child, a girl called Margaret, presumably after Edward`s sister. From surviving documents, Margaret seemed much closer to her brother Henry and her grandfather William, again showing up a difference to Anne.

In 1487, Frideswide`s husband, as well as her father-in-law, joined Henry VII`s forces against her brother Francis and the Yorkist rebels, and defeated them at the Battle of Stoke. Edward was knighted for his services. It can only be speculated about what Frideswide thought about this, and what her feelings were about her husband fighting against her brother.

Edward, sadly, did not get to enjoy his knighthood for long, dying later in 1487, of causes unknown. He was only 22 years old, and left Frideswide a 23-year-old widow.

Very little is known about the rest of her life. She appeared to have helped taking care of her sister Joan`s children, and her younger son George eventually even named a child after her. Frideswide did not remarry, and died before 1507, when she is said to be deceased in her uncle William Beaumont`s IPM. When exactly she died, and what of, is sadly unknown.

Of her children, only Henry and Anne had issue, but through them, she has descendants alive even today.