Isabel of Cambridge, Countess of Essex


Isabel of Cambridge, Countess of Essex was the only daughter of Richard, 3rd Earl of Cambridge and Anne Mortimer. She was the sister of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and like him a great-grandchild of Edward III of England.

Early life

Isabel of York, the only daughter of Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, and Lady Anne de Mortimer, was born about 1409. Through her father, she was the granddaughter of King Edward III's fourth surviving son, Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, and his first wife, Isabella of Castile. Through her mother, Anne Mortimer, Isabel was the granddaughter of Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March and Lady Alianore Holland and the great great granddaughter of King Edward III's second surviving son, Lionel of Antwerp.
Isabel's father, Richard, Earl of Cambridge, was beheaded on 5 August 1415 for his part in the Southampton Plot against King Henry V, and although the Earl's title was forfeited, he was not attainted, and Isabel's brother, Richard, then aged four, was his father's heir. Moreover, within a few months of his father's death, Richard's childless uncle, Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, was slain at the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October 1415, and Isabel's brother was eventually his uncle's heir as well.

Marriages and issue

In 1412, at three years of age, Isabel was betrothed to Sir Thomas Grey, son and heir of Sir Thomas Grey of Heaton in Norham, Northumberland, and his wife, Alice Neville, the daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland. The marriage took place on 18 February 1413. They had one son, also called Thomas Grey. The elder Sir Thomas Grey was an associate of Isabel's father who also lost his life in the Southampton Plot.
She married secondly, before 25 April 1426, the marriage being later validated by papal dispensation, Henry Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex, by whom she had at least eleven children:
Henry Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex, died on 4 April 1483. Isabel remained a widow and died on 2 October 1484. A manuscript calendar records her death on VI Non Oct in 1484. Both were buried at Beeleigh Abbey near Maldon, Essex, but later reburied at Little Easton, Essex.

Ancestry

Footnotes