{{Short description|English benefactor of York Minster (1550 – 1629)}} {{Improve categories|date=October 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Frances Matthew | image = | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = Frances Barlow | birth_date = 1550 | birth_place = | death_date = 1629 | death_place = | death_cause = | other_names = Frances Parker | known_for = Founding a library collection | education = | spouse = {{plainlist| * Matthew Parker (married 1569–1575); * Tobias Matthew, Archbishop of York (married 1576) }} | children = 5, including Tobias (1577–1655)<ref name="Alumni Cantabrigiense" /><br />Mary (1579–1583)<br />Samuel (1583–1601)<ref name="Alumni Cantabrigiense">{{Cite book |title=Alumni Cantabrigienses : a Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Volume 1 Part 3. From the Earliest Times to 1751. |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-03609-2 |location=Cambridge |pages=162 |oclc=889946716}}</ref><br />Mary Ann (1599–1666) |father = William Barlow, Bishop of Chichester |mother = Agatha Wellsborne | relatives = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }} '''Frances Matthew''', born '''Frances Barlow''', also known as '''Frances Parker''' (1550 – 1629), was an English benefactor of York Minster. Her father, her first father-in-law, her second husband and her sister's husbands were bishops.
==Life== She was the daughter of Agatha (born Wellsborne) and William Barlow, Bishop of Chichester. Her father was said to have been the first bishop to marry and her mother was a religious woman and it was a rumour that she was once a nun. Children of clergy were a novelty and they would have been called "priest's bastards" by conservative commentators.<ref name=essay>{{Cite web |title=History of Art Portal |url=https://hoaportal.york.ac.uk/hoaportal/yml1414essay.jsp?id=52 |access-date=2022-10-18 |website=hoaportal.york.ac.uk}}</ref>
She married Matthew Parker who was the son of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury on 29 December 1569. Her father had been one of the four consecrators and the principal consecrator of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1559. Her husband died in 1575 leaving her pregnant. The child was born and was also called Matthew but he died too within months.<ref name=essay/>
After her first husband's death she married Tobias Matthew, the Archbishop of York.<ref name=EB1911hubby>{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Matthew, Tobias|volume=17|page=896}}</ref> Their son, Tobie Matthew was an MP and later a convert to Roman Catholicism.
Her husband, Tobias, left his fortune not to his sons or the church but to his wife. Amongst his possessions were 600 books and they were valued then at £300 and Frances give them all to York Minster.<ref name=bux/> These books are the basis of the library (now at Old Palace, York). Frances had been his wife for over fifty years and she died the following year and she was buried in York Minster's lady chapel.<ref name=bux>{{Cite ODNB |title=The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=2004-09-23 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/72735 |pages=ref:odnb/72735 |editor-last=Matthew |editor-first=H. C. G. |place=Oxford |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/72735 |access-date=2022-10-17 |editor2-last=Harrison |editor2-first=B.|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Matthew, Frances}} Category:1550 births Category:1629 deaths Category:17th-century English people Category:17th-century philanthropists