Mary Fiennes, Baroness Dacre

Mary Nevill by Hans Eworth, 1555-1558, with an inset portrait of her first husband Thomas Fiennes dated a year before his death.

Mary Nevill and her son Gregory Fiennes by Hans Eworth, 1559

Mary Fiennes, Baroness Dacre (1524–1576; née Mary Nevill) was the daughter of George Nevill, 5th Baron Bergavenny by his third wife, Mary, daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham.

She married Thomas Fiennes, 9th Baron Dacre (c. 1515-1541), who was convicted of the murder of a gamekeeper and hanged as a common criminal at Tyburn in 1541. The family was stripped of its lands and titles by Henry VIII.

In the following years, Mary battled to have the properties restored on behalf of her children, and on her ascension in 1558 Elizabeth restored the title of Baron Dacre to Mary's second son Gregory, her eldest son Thomas having died of the plague at age 15.

By her first husband, Mary Fiennes was the mother of:

• Thomas Fiennes (1538–1553)
• Gregory Fiennes, 10th Baron Dacre (1539–1594)
• Margaret Fiennes, 11th Baroness Dacre (1540–1611)

Mary Nevill married twice after her first husband's death and had several other children about whom little is known.

Mary Nevill is the sitter in two significant portraits by Hans Eworth.

Ancestry

References

• Honig, Elizabeth: "In Memory: Lady Dacre and Pairing by Hans Eworth" in Renaissance Bodies: The Human Figure in English Culture c. 1540-1660 edited by Lucy Gent and Nigel Llewellyn, Reaktion Books, 1990, ISBN 0-948462-08-6

External links

• Mary Neville Baroness Dacre at TudorPlace.com^{[unreliable source?]}