Isabella Markham

{{short description|16th-century English lady-in-waiting}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}} '''Isabella Markham''' (28 March 1527 – 20 May 1579), was an English courtier, a Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber of Queen Elizabeth I of England and a personal favourite of the queen. Isabella Markham was muse to the court official and poet John Harington (c.1529 - 1582), who wrote sonnets and poems addressed to her, before and after they married. Thomas Palfreyman dedicated his ''Divine Meditations'' to her in 1572.<ref>Kathy Lynn Emerson, ''A Who's Who of Tudor Women'' sourced from Ruth Hughey's biography ''John Harington of Stepney: Tudor Gentleman, His Life and Works''. Retrieved 6 October 2010.</ref><ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Palfreyman, Thomas}}</ref>

==Family== Isabella Markham was born on 28 March 1527<ref>Emerson, as sourced from Ruth Hughey</ref> in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire, England, the daughter of Sir John Markham of Cotham (before 1486- 1559) and his third wife, Anne Strelley.<ref>Emerson</ref> She had two brothers: Thomas, who married Mary Griffin, by whom he had issue, including Sir Griffin Markham; and William, whose wife was Mary Montagu. Her elder sister, Frances was the first wife of Henry Babington, whose son (by his second wife Mary Darcy) Anthony Babington would be executed for having organised an assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth.<ref>''Nottingham:history and archeology|The Scent of Sherwood Forest: Ollerton (2)'', by J. Rodgers, 1908</ref>

The Markhams were an ancient family, who traced their agnatic line of descent from Claron, who had held the manor of West Markham at the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066. Claron's descendants assumed the name of de Marcham which was anglicised into Markham, and had often distinguished themselves in English history throughout the centuries since their ancestor Claron had served Edward the Confessor.<ref>John Henry Hobart Lyon, British Museum ''A Study of the Newe Metamorphosis Written by J.M. Gent, 1600'', Bibiolife Reproduction Series, 2009, Google Books, retrieved 13 October 2010 pp. 122–123</ref>

==In the household of Elizabeth I== She joined the household of Lady Elizabeth Tudor as one of her ladies-in-waiting sometime before 1549.<ref>Note: John Harington's earliest sonnets were written for Markham in 1549; the poet noted in one of his later sonnets (written in 1564) that he had first seen her at Elizabeth's window when she had already entered her household.</ref> When the princess was arrested in March 1554 by the orders of her half-sister, Queen Mary I, for suspected treason, Markham, described as having been a favoured lady-in-waiting,<ref>John Henry Hobart Lyon, p.124</ref> accompanied the princess to the Tower of London,<ref>Edward Verrall Lucas, ''Fireside and Sunshine'' (2009, original publication: 1906), General Books, p. 100, retrieved from Google Books 12 October 2010</ref> where her father had served as Lieutenant from 1549 to 31 October 1551.<ref>Officers of State during the period covered|British History Online, retrieved 13 October 2010</ref> While there she encountered her long-standing admirer, the poet John Harington,<ref>http://www.somegreymatter.com/haringtonportait.htm{{Dead link|date=March 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} as sourced from Ian Grimble, ''The Harington Family''</ref> who was imprisoned as the result of a letter which linked him to Thomas Wyatt's conspiracy against Queen Mary.<ref>Note: Isabella Markham had entered Elizabeth's service before 1549, as evidenced by the date of Harington's first sonnet to her, so they would have already known one another at the time they were both in the Tower which was 1554.</ref> He was married to another of Elizabeth's attendants, Ethelreda Malte, a rumoured illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII,<ref>Ian Grimble, ''The Harington Family'', p.90</ref> who had also joined the princess in the Tower. He had been enamoured of Markham sometime before 1549 (this is the date of his first sonnet to her), when he had later reminisced that he had "firste thought her fayre as she stode at the Princesse's windowe in goodlye attyre, and talkede to dyvers in the Courte-Yard".<ref>''Nugae Antiquae'', pp. 326–327</ref> As Harington had previously been imprisoned in the Tower from early 1549 to the spring of 1550 for complicity in the treason of Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, and his involvement in the plot to bring about a marriage between King Edward VI and Lady Jane Grey,<ref>Dictionary of National Biography</ref> The object of his love was in fact the daughter of his former jailer. Sir John Markham served as Lieutenant of the Tower during the period of Harington's incarceration.<ref>Officers of State during the period covered: ''The Diary of Henry Machyn: Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London (1550–1563)'', J. G. Nichols (editor), 1848, pp.XIV-XIX|British History Online, retrieved 13 October 2010</ref><ref>Emerson</ref>

Elizabeth was moved to Woodstock Palace in May and placed under house arrest, and it is not known if Markham went with her; however, upon Elizabeth's return to her residence at Hatfield House in October 1555, Markham was installed once more in the princess's household as one of her six gentlewomen. Harington, having already secured his own freedom in January 1555, paid frequent visits to Hatfield, where he encountered Markham. He was described as having already been very much in love with her in the early years of Mary I's reign.<ref>Carole Levin, ''Sister-Subject/Sister-Queen: Elizabeth I among her Siblings'' (2006), University of Nebraska, Lincoln, p.86</ref>

Upon Elizabeth's ascension to the throne in 1558 as Elizabeth I, Markham was appointed a Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, a post she held for the rest of her life.<ref>Emerson</ref>

==Poet's muse== Markham, who was described as having possessed "great beauty"<ref>''Nottingham:history and archeology|The Scent of Sherwood Forest: Ollerton (2)'', by J. Rodgers, 1908</ref> inspired Harington to write letters and pay homage to her in poems and sonnets, usually addressing her as "Sweete Isabella Markham".<ref>Rodgers</ref> He had started composing the sonnets as early as 1549 when she was 22 years old. One of these reads in part as follows:

"John Haryngton to Isabella Markham, 1549

Question. Alas! I love you overwell, Myne owne sweete deere delygte! Yet, for respects I feare to tell What moves my trobled spryghte: What workes my woe, what breeds my smarte, What wounds myn harte and mynde; Reason restrayns me to emparte Such perylls as I fynde." <ref>John Harington, Henry Harington, Thomas Park, ''Nugae Antiquae: being a miscellaneous collection of Original Papers, in prose and verse; written During the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I, and James I, Volume 2'', (1804), pp. 326–327, Google Books, retrieved 6 October 2010</ref>

==Marriage== [[File:Sir John Harington by Hieronimo Custodis.jpg|thumb|right|Portrait of Isabella Markham's eldest son, Sir John Harington, author, godson of Queen Elizabeth I, and a prominent figure at her court]] Sometime in 1559, after the death of his first wife, which occurred before 1 April,<ref>Their marriage occurred in 1559 sometime after 1 April 1559, but the exact date is not known</ref> Markham married Harington, who had inherited considerable property from the childless Ethelreda. The match met with the Queen's approval as both Isabella Markham and John Harington were held in high favour.<ref>Rodgers</ref> This was made manifest when Elizabeth stood as godmother to Markham's first child, John<ref>Emerson</ref> on 4 August 1561, with Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, acting as the infant's godfathers. The baptism took place at the Church of All Hallows, London Wall.

Together Markham and her husband had three children:

*Sir John Harington (before 4 August 1561 – 20 November 1612), author, courtier, and inventor of the flush toilet. He married Mary Rogers (1565–1634), daughter of Sir George Rogers and Jane Winter, by whom he had nine children. * Elizabeth Harington (born c.1560) * Francis Harington (1564 – 22 January 1639), married Jane Baylie

Thomas Palfreyman dedicated his ''Divine Meditations'' to Markham in 1572.

She was still in the Queen's service when she died on 20 May 1579 at the age of 52.<ref>Emerson</ref> She was buried in St. Gregory's by St. Paul's in London; her husband was later buried beside her.

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Sources== * Ian Grimble, ''The Harington Family'' (1958), St Martin's Press, New York

{{DEFAULTSORT:Markham, Isabella}} Category:16th-century English ladies-in-waiting Category:1527 births Category:1579 deaths Category:People from Ollerton Category:Court of Elizabeth I