Dorothy Kitson later, Dorothy, Lady Pakington, was the daughter of Sir Thomas Kitson, a wealthy London merchant and the builder of Hengrave Hall in Suffolk. Her first husband was Sir Thomas Pakington, by whom she was the mother of Queen Elizabeth I's favourite, Sir John "Lusty" Pakington. After Sir Thomas Pakington's death she married Thomas Tasburgh. She was one of the few women in Tudor England to nominate burgesses to Parliament and to make her last will while her husband, Thomas Tasburgh, was still living. Her three nieces are referred to in the poems of Edmund Spenser.
Family
Dorothy Kitson was the daughter of Sir Thomas Kitson by his second wife, Margaret Donnington, the only child of John Donnington of Stoke Newington, a member of the Worshipful Company of Salters, and Elizabeth Pye. By her father's first marriage to a wife whose name is unknown she had a half sister, Elizabeth Kitson, who was the first wife of Edmund Croftes of Westow Hall in Little Saxham, Suffolk. By her father's second marriage she had a brother and three sisters:
Dorothy Kitson required a dispensation to marry her first husband, Sir Thomas Pakington of Hampton Lovett, Worcestershire, the son of Robert Pakington and Agnes Baldwin. The dispensation was granted 20 September 1546. Sir Thomas Pakington inherited the lordship of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, from his maternal grandfather, John Baldwin, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. The nomination of Members of Parliament for the borough of Aylesbury was thus in Sir Thomas Pakington's control during his lifetime, and after his death Lady Dorothy, as his widow, 'exercised the full powers of lordship herself' by nominating Thomas Lichfield and George Burden to Parliament on 4 May 1572. As Carter points out, although Lady Dorothy's nomination was not unique, 'returns of MPs by widows were extremely rare in early modern England', and were of concern to the authorities, who were torn between their reluctance to allow widows to exercise this property right, and their reluctance to restrict property rights in any way, even in the case of widows. Lady Dorothy's eldest son, Sir John Pakington, was for a time a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, who invited him to court after he had been presented to her during her visit to Worcester in 1572. In addition to being one of the few widows to nominate Members of Parliament, Lady Dorothy was also among the few women of the Tudor period to make a last will and testament while her husband was still living. Having obtained the consent of her second husband, Thomas Tasburgh, before taking this unusual step, she made her will on 30 April 1577. It was proved on 21 June 1577. Lady Dorothy is buried in the parish church at Hawridge, where there is a monumental brass to her memory.
Marriages and issue
Dorothy Kitson married firstly Sir Thomas Pakington of Hampton Lovett, Worcestershire. He was the son of Robert Pakington, a London merchant who was shot to death on the morning of Monday 13 November 1536 while on his way to church. His murderer was never found. An account of his death, which was later interpreted as martyrdom, is given in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments. Dorothy Kitson and Sir Thomas Pakington had four sons, Sir John Pakington, Henry, Robert and Thomas, who married Anne, the daughter of Sir William Pelham, and three daughters: Mary, who married, as his first wife, Sir Walter Long of Draycot, Wiltshire; Katherine, who married firstly John Davis, esquire, secondly Sir Jasper More, and thirdly a knight surnamed Mompesson; and Margaret, who married Thomas Lichfield, esquire, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Queen Elizabeth. She married secondly Thomas Tasburgh of Hawridge, Buckinghamshire, a lawyer and Teller of the Exchequer, by whom she had no issue.
