Elizabeth Tyrwhitt


Elizabeth Tyrwhitt, was an English gentlewoman, courtier, and writer.

Origins

Born in her father's house at Brede, she was one of five children of Sir Goddard Oxenbridge and his second wife Anne, widow of John Windsor and daughter of Sir Thomas Fiennes, of Claverham in Arlington.

Life

Accepted into the court of King Henry VIII, by 1537 she was a gentlewoman of the privy chamber and shortly after was married to a fellow-courtier. After serving in the households of Queen Jane Seymour and Queen Catherine Howard, she became lady-in-waiting and a close friend to Queen Catherine Parr.
The two were related by marriage and shared Protestant sympathies. However, suspected of links to the executed Anne Askew, with other members of Catherine's household in 1546 she was arrested by the King. After his death, she remained in service with Catherine and her fourth husband, Thomas Seymour, being at the bedside when Catherine died in 1549.
In the scandal which followed over Seymour's relationship with the future Queen Elizabeth I of England, she gave evidence over possibly inappropriate behaviour and was briefly placed in charge of the princess in place of the suspect Catherine Astley.
Thereafter she lived a private life, dying at her home in Clerkenwell. Her will was proved on 28 April 1578 and she was buried in the church of St Mary the Virgin at Leighton Bromswold, where her effigy may be seen together with those of her husband and daughter.

Writings

She composed a work called Morning and Evening Praiers, with Divers Psalmes Himnes and Meditations, published in 1574. A copy now in the British Library had belonged to Queen Elizabeth I and includes prayers written by Catherine Parr.

Family

Between March 1538 and August 1539 she married, as his second wife, the courtier Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, of Leighton Bromswold.. They had one daughter Catherine, who married Sir Henry Darcy of Brimham in Yorkshire.