Jane Neville, Countess of Westmorland

Jane Neville (née Howard), Countess of Westmoreland (1533/1537 – buried ^[1] 30 June 1593), daughter of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and Frances de Vere.

Her maternal grandparents were John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford and Lady Dorothy Neville. Dorothy was a daughter of Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland and Catherine Stafford. Catherine was a daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Lady Alianore (Eleanor) Percy.

Jane married her first cousin Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland on 28 August 1564. They were parents to five children:

1. Lady Margaret Neville. Married Sir Nicholas Pudsey.
2. Lady Anne Neville Married David Ingleby.
3. Thomas Neville Westmoreland.
4. Lady Catherine Neville. Married Sir Thomas Grey of Chillingham.
5. Lady Eleanor Neville.

In the events that preceded the Northern Rebellion, she had more to do with raising the troops than her husband did. She was well educated but perhaps not the most clever of women when it came to understanding political machinations. She was first to urge the rebels to rise up against Elizabeth I of England and yet she expected Elizabeth to pardon her when they failed.

She hoped to arrange the marriage of her brother, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, to Mary I of Scotland and put them both on England's throne. He was executed for treason in 1572 and she lived under house arrest for the rest of her life.

References

• Yorkshire Archaeological Society. The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal. Leeds: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1893. (p. 138) googlebooks Retrieved February 16, 2008
• Emerson, P. H. The English Emersons; A Genealogical Historical Sketch of the Family from the Earliest Times to the End of the Seventeenth Century, Including Various Modern Pedigrees, with an Appendix of Authorities. London: D. Nutt, 1898. (p. 73) googlebooks Retrieved February 16, 2008

Note

1. ^ Peter Henry Emerson in his The English Emersons; A Genealogical Historical Sketch quotes Francis Bloomfield and Charles Parkin from The History and Antiquities of the County of Norfolk [1]