{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Isabel Leigh, Lady Stumpe''' ({{circa}} 1496 – 16 February 1573) was a lady-in-waiting during the reign of her younger half-sister, Katherine Howard, fifth wife and Queen Consort to Henry VIII.
== Early life == Isabel was the first child of Joyce Culpeper and Sir Ralph Leigh. She had two younger sisters and two younger brothers: *Margaret Leigh (born {{circa}} 1500); married a man surnamed Rice. *Joyce Leigh (born {{circa}} 1504); married John Stanney. May have had issue. *John Leigh (born {{circa}} 1502); married Elizabeth, surname unknown. Had issue. *Ralph Leigh (born {{circa}} 1498; died {{circa}} 1561); married Margaret Ireland. Had issue.
Her father Sir Ralph Leigh died c. 1509/1510 and Isabel's mother remarried to Lord Edmund Howard c. 1513/1515. They had six children.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Culpepper Family Tree no. 8495|url=http://gen.culpepper.com/ss/p8495.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090408064137/http://gen.culpepper.com/ss/p8495.htm|archive-date=8 April 2009|website=The Culpepper Family History Site|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> *Margaret Howard ({{circa}} 1515 – 10 October 1572); married Sir Thomas Arundell of Wardour Castle, son of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne by his wife Lady Eleanor Grey, the daughter of Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset. * Mary Howard (born after 1515); married Edmund Trafford. * Henry Howard (born after 1515); married Anne Howard. * Charles Howard (born after 1515). * George Howard ({{circa}} 1519 – 1580). * Katherine Howard ({{circa}} 1524 – 13 February 1542); married Henry VIII of England.
== Marriage and issue == Isabel Leigh married Sir Edward Bayntun or Baynton of Bromham, Wiltshire, on 18 January 1531.<ref name="Edward Baynton">{{cite web|title=BAYNTON, Sir Edward (by 1495-1544), of Bromham, Wilts.|url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/baynton-sir-edward-1495-1544|access-date=12 December 2023|archive-date=18 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230718035354/https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/baynton-sir-edward-1495-1544|url-status=dead}}</ref> They had three children. *Henry Baynton (b. c. 1536). Married Anne Cavendish. Had issue. *Francis Baynton (b. 1537) *Anne Baynton (d. young)
After Edward's death in 1544, Isabel married Sir James Stumpe of Malmesbury, Wiltshire.<ref name=":0" /> James had been her step-daughter Bridget's husband, and Isabel and James married after Bridget died in 1545. James died in 1563.<ref>{{cite web|title=STUMPE, Sir James (by 1519-63), of Malmesbury and Bromham, Wilts.|url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/stumpe-sir-james-1519-63|access-date=12 December 2023|archive-date=6 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806160820/http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/stumpe-sir-james-1519-63|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Isabel married Thomas Stafford about 1565.<ref name="Isabel Tree">{{cite web|url=http://histfam.familysearch.org/getperson.php?personID%3DI43965%26tree%3DDodge |accessdate=January 12, 2011 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303231926/http://histfam.familysearch.org/getperson.php?personID=I43965&tree=Dodge |title=Biography |publisher=family search.org|archivedate=March 3, 2016 }}</ref>
==Royal connections== The leases of many manors such as Paddington, Temple Rockley, and Chisbury were given to Edward Baynton during his marriage to Isabel.<ref name="Baynton">{{cite web|url=http://www.bayntun-history.com/SirEdwardBayntun1480.htm|title=Bayntun History :: Sir Edward Bayntun 1480|work=bayntun-history.com|access-date=12 November 2010|archive-date=12 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412211422/http://www.bayntun-history.com/SirEdwardBayntun1480.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> Some leases were given to Isabel after Edward Baynton's death, and they passed on to their son Henry.<ref name="Baynton"/>
On New Year's Day 1534, Isabel made a gift of a shirt to the King, embroidered with gold thread, following a gesture that had first been made by Edward's first wife Elizabeth.<ref name="Baynton"/> Isobel continued to take part in the New Year's Day gift exchange at court. In 1539 she received a silver gilt "cruse" (a cup with a cover), made by the goldsmith Morgan Wolf, and gave Henry another shirt, of Holland linen embroidered with black silk.<ref>Maria Hayward, "Gift Giving at the Court of Henry VIII", ''Antiquaries Journal'', 85 (2005), pp. 147, 165, 171 fn. 88.</ref>
Isabel Baynton became one of Katherine Howard's Ladies of the Privy Chamber upon her marriage to Henry VIII.<ref name="Baynton"/> Her husband Edward Baynton was Vice-Chamberlain of the Household to all of Henry VIII's later queens,<ref name="Edward Baynton"/> including Katherine Howard. When Queen Katherine was banished from court in 1541, Isabel was one of the four ladies-in-waiting she was allowed to take with her.<ref name="Baynton"/><ref>''State Papers of Henry the Eighth'', vol. 1 (London, 1830), pp. 691–693.</ref> An account of the jewels that was taken following the Queen's arrest noted that she had given a "girdle of goldsmith's work" to the Lady Baynton.<ref name="Baynton"/><ref>Barbara Harris, ''English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550: Marriage and Family, Property and Careers'' (Oxford, 2002), p. 225.</ref><ref>Nicola Tallis, ''All The Queen's Jewels, 1445–1548: Power, Majesty and Display'' (Routledge, 2023), pp. 200–201.</ref>
For a short time, from April 1539, Isabel and Edward Baynton served as guardians in charge of the households of Mary I of England, and Elizabeth I.<ref>David Loades, ''Mary Tudor: A Life'' (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 115–117.</ref><ref name="Baynton"/>
==Later life and death== In 1550, Isabel obtained a lease for the dissolved monastery at Edington, Wiltshire with Edward Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings of Loughborough.<ref name="Baynton"/> An interest in the manor of Faulston near Salisbury was declined by Isabel, but after her death in February 1573 the interest was taken up by her son Henry.<ref name="Baynton"/>
== References == {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leigh, Isabel}} Category:1490s births Category:1573 deaths Category:16th-century English ladies-in-waiting Category:Household of Catherine Howard Category:Wives of knights