Mary Fitton
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| Mary Fitton | |
 Portrait of Mary Fitton circa 1595
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| Born | June 1578 Gawsworth, Cheshire |
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| Died | 1647 |
| Spouse | Captain Wiliam Polwhele |
| Parents | Sir Edward Fitton Alice Halcroft |
Mary Fitton (June 1578 - 1647), original spelling being Fytton; is considered by some to be the "Dark Lady" of William Shakespeare's sonnets. She was the daughter of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, Cheshire, and was baptized on June 24 1578. Her elder sister, Anne, married John Newdigate in 1587, at the age of fourteen. She also had two brothers, though not much is known about them.
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[edit] Life at court
About 1595 Mary Fitton became a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth. Her father recommended her to the care of Sir William Knollys, comtroller of the Queen's household. Sir William promised, "I will be as careful of her well doing as if I were her own true father."[1] But Knollys, though fifty and already married, soon became suitor to Mary Fitton, in hope of the speedy death of the actual Lady Knollys. He wrote of his passion to her sister and even named Mary's niece, who he was sponsoring as godfather, "Mary". His infatuation was well known and mocked in court -- Shakespeare used the derision in Twelfth Night in Malvolio (Mary's nickname was "Mal").[2]
There is no hint in her authenticated biography that she was acquainted with Shakespeare. William Kempe, who was a clown in Shakespeare's company, dedicated his Nine Daies Wonder to Mistress Anne (perhaps an error for Mary) Fitton, Maid of Honor to Elizabeth; and there is a sonnet addressed to her in an anonymous volume, A Womans Woorth defended against all the Men in the World.
In 1599, Mary had to quit the court because of a mixture of physical and mental illnesses that Elizabethans called "the mother" or "suffocation of the mother" (a form of hysteria). When she returned to court, she refused Knollys.
In June 1600 Mary led a dance in the masque celebrating the fashionable wedding of Lady Anne Russell, granddaughter of the Earl of Bedford, with Henry Somerset, later created Marquess of Worcester, at Lord Cobham's residence in Blackfriars.[3] Led by Mary, the maids performed an allegorical dance and afterwards chose substitutes from the audience. Mary boldly chose the queen, telling her that she represented Affection (which then meant passionate love), to which the queen replied "Affection? Affection's false."
William Herbert, later Earl of Pembroke, is known to have been present at this affair. Mary was a couple of years older than he, but she pursued him ardently. She became his mistress, and was soon pregnant. In February 1601 Pembroke was sent to the Fleet Prison after admitting paternity but refusing to marry his mistress. Mary Fitton was placed with Lady Margaret Hawkins, the widow of Sir John Hopkins for her confinement. In March 1601 she gave birth to a baby boy who died immediately (perhaps from syphilis, which it is believed Pembroke may have suffered from).
Both Mary and Pembroke were dismissed from court.
[edit] Life after Court
Mary did not seem as abashed by the business as her father, who considered it to be social ruin. Knollys tried to woo her once again, but Mary was firm. She had an affair with the married Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Leveson, who left her £100 after his death in 1605 (his wife had to be committed to the care of her father).
After this she had an affair with Captain Wiliam Polwhele and bore a son that was presumably his. Her mother was scandalized, writing to her married daughter, "such shame as never had a Cheshire woman, worse now than ever. Write no more to me of her."[4] Even after marriage to the father of her child, her mother referred to him as "a very knave". When Polwhele died in 1610, Mary had a son and daughter to take care of.
She married again, to a Pembrokeshire captain named Lougher. He died in 1636. She died in 1647 and was buried in Gawsworth, leaving a little Welsh property to her daughter who had married and had children herself.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Haynes, Alan: Sex in Elizabethan England 1997:44.
- ^ "Malvolio" also simply means "I mean ill"; he is a malcontent figure.
- ^ Noted in J.G. Waller, "The lords of Cobham, their monuments and the church" Archaeologia Cantiana (The Kent Archaeological Society) 1878:157.
- ^ Haynes, Alan. Sex in Elizabethan England 1997:49.
[edit] References
- Haynes, Alan. Sex in Elizabethan England. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 1997. ISBN 0-905-778-359
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mary Fitton |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mary Polwhele |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | possible Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 1578 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gawsworth, Cheshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1647 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
