Let’s talk about Elizabeth Stafford, a formidable figure in Tudor history. The Duchess of Norfolk lived a life marked by passion, defiance, and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds. As we unravel her story, from her early years intertwined with the Tudor court’s intrigues to her tumultuous marriage with Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, we explore the complexities of her character and the era she lived in.
This episode is on Elizabeth Stafford the wife of the Duke of Norfolk. We’ve been talking about all of these various families, the Staffords, the Poles, I thought that it was time that Elizabeth Stafford got her own episode. She is well known for the lovers of Tudor drama because she had an absolutely horrific marriage with the Duke of Norfolk.
I actually did an episode for Valentine’s Day, it was kind of tongue-in-cheek called Tudor Bad Romances. It was about some of the worst marriages in the Tudor period and I don’t think there’s one that’s much worse than Elizabeth Stafford and her marriage to the Duke of Norfolk.
It was abusive, it was terrible all of that but what I will also say is that there is more to Elizabeth Stafford than simply her marriage. If you were somebody who had been in that position where your whole legacy seems to just be the fact that your husband was absolutely terrible, I think that if that were me I would certainly want to be remembered for something else other than the fact that I just had had a terrible husband.
So we are going to talk about Elizabeth Stafford and what made her interesting and not just the fact that she was in a bad marriage but really how she advocated for herself and how she tried to get out of the marriage. The options for a woman at this period were very limited but she used the resources that she had and she did what she could to advocate for herself as much as possible and so we’re going to talk about that.
In the lush tapestry of Tudor England where lineage and marriage held the nobility together, Elizabeth Stafford emerged as a thread of particular interest. She was born in 1497 to Edward Stafford and his wife Eleanor Percy. She was cradled in nobility –the Staffords and the Percies. Her bloodline was impeccable tracing back to English royalty.
Her father was a direct descendant of Edward III which gave her a status that was recognized and respected among the Tudor court. Yet despite her noble blood, Elizabeth’s life was not one of mere ceremonial appearances and silent embroidery. She was to learn that her lineage was less a comfort and more a tool in the hands of those who wove the fabric of power.
The expectations set upon her were those common to women of her rank. She would be a pawn on the chessboard of alliance-making, a piece to be moved at the bequest of the King and her own ambitious family. In this milieu of calculated matrimonial strategy, Elizabeth was betrothed to Thomas Howard, the future 3rd Duke of Norfolk, a man who would rise to become one of the most powerful peers in the realm.
Howard was a formidable match for the young Elizabeth. Their marriage in the early 16th century was emblematic of the alliances that bound the noble houses of England together. It was a union that promised stability and power, one that would tie the Staffords to the ascendant Howard clan.
Thomas Howard at the time of their marriage, was a widower and a father. His first wife Anne of York, related to Elizabeth of York had left him a single parent, a state which did not sit well with the social expectations of the time. As such his marriage to Elizabeth wasn’t merely a personal choice but a necessary step to ensure the continuation of his household and the care of his children, for Elizabeth the marriage was a step into the dance of court politics where she would need to navigate her role as wife, stepmother, noblewoman and eventually mother to her own children.
The expectations of a noble marriage in the 16th century were as rigid as they were clear. A woman of Elizabeth’s standing was anticipated to be virtuous, she was going to manage a household efficiently and she would also provide heirs. The production of offspring particularly male was a particular obsession of the period, a non-negotiable demand placed upon the shoulders of noble wives.
Elizabeth in this regard was no exception. Her worth, her very purpose within the marriage was measured by her ability to bear children and to do so in a manner that would sustain and enhance the Howard legacy. But the expectations extended beyond the walls of her own rooms, Elizabeth was expected to serve as a model of piety and decorum, to be a hostess and a patroness, to entertain and network, to wield her influence in a manner that befitted her husband’s stature.
Her behavior was to reflect the dignity of her blood and marriage, and any failure to uphold these standards could result in personal disgrace and political fallout. The early life and marriage of Elizabeth Stafford were not merely the personal milestones of a noblewoman of the Tudor era, they were events that carried the weight of political alliances, social expectations, and the relentless pursuit of power within the tumultuous world of the Tudor court. Elizabeth as we shall see, would come to navigate these treacherous waters with a combination of resilience and defiance that would set her apart from her contemporaries.
So their union, once a symbol of political alliance and personal ambition, soon became fraught with contention. The dynamics of their relationship bore the hallmarks of a Tudor power struggle not merely between houses, but within the very chambers they shared.
Thomas Howard whose ambitions were as high as the heavens, often found himself at court leaving Elizabeth to govern their estates. She was adept, her intellect sharp and she managed their affairs with an adept hand. Yet for all her capability, she remained in the shadow of her husband’s towering ambition.
In this era, power within a marriage was a one-sided affair with the scales heavily tipped in the favor of the husband. Elizabeth’s opinions and desires were secondary to the will of her husband and the demands of his status, the fissures in their marriage, widened into chasms with a public scandal involving Thomas Howard and his mistress Bess Holland.
Bess was a lady-in-waiting to Howard’s own niece, the ill-fated Anne Boleyn. She was of lower birth but she managed to capture the Duke with her youth and her vivacity. This affair was not conducted in the clandestine shadows as was customary for noble affairs but instead, it was flaunted before the court and most insultingly before Elizabeth herself.
Her response to the blatant infidelity was a rare mix of forbearance and defiance, a testament to her character in an age when women were expected to just turn a blind eye to their husband’s indiscretions. Elizabeth refused to be silenced or to accept her husband’s betrayal with quiet dignity. She voiced her grievances, appealed to her family even sought redress from King Henry VIII himself.
Her actions were bold, breaching the conventional expectations of a noblewoman’s passive acceptance of her husband’s extramarital endeavors. The impact of the public scandal on their children was profound. The Howard name synonymous with power and influence was now marred by whispers and mockery. The children were torn between their parental loyalties and they bore the brunt of court gossip and the instability of their parents union.
For Thomas Howard, the Scandal was a blemish on his reputation yet remarkably, it did little to hinder his ascent. The Duke was a man of his time after all, and male infidelity however public was often overlooked when weighed against political utility. The infidelity and subsequent scandal highlighted the gender disparities of the period. Howard’s career though momentarily shadowed by the affair, continued to rise. His status insulated him from the lasting consequences that a woman in Elizabeth’s position would have faced.
Her plight on the other hand was a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities that women of the era faced, vulnerabilities that were compounded by their proximity to power. So the marriage of Elizabeth Stafford and Thomas Howard which had once been slight of noble alliance, became a theater of war where battles were personal, the wounds were deep, and the scars were lasting.
It was within this turbulent matrimony that Elizabeth carved out her own narrative, one that spoke of resistance, dignity, and the relentless struggle for respect and acknowledgement in the face of betrayal and humiliation. But even before this, let’s talk about what her life would have been like as Duchess.
She held a position of considerable distinction. Her role was more than mere ornamentation, it was a post of considerable influence and responsibility. She was the matron of a great house, she oversaw vast estates and a retinue of servants. She ensured the prosperity and maintenance of the Howard name, yet Elizabeth’s life at court was not confined to the domestic sphere.
She was a patroness, a role that allowed her to wield her influence in more subtle yet profound ways. Through her patronage, she supported religious houses and scholars, particularly those whose views aligned with her own. Her religious affiliations were conservative, adhering to the traditional Catholic faith in a time when the religious change was sweeping through the hallways of power. Her support for the Catholic cause was a silent rebellion against the emerging Protestant Reformation, championed by the likes of her own niece Anne Boleyn and then later the King’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell.
Her religious convictions did not waver even as the Reformation took hold and this steadfastness placed her at odds with the shifting ideologies of the court. Her patronage of Catholic institutions was not merely a reflection of piety but a political statement, a subtle yet clear defiance of the Henrician Reformation that sought to dissolve the monasteries that she held dear.
At court, her interactions with other figures were complex. She was a contemporary of the queen, she was a cousin to some of the queens. She shared whispered conversations with Katherine of Aragon, later she found herself in an uncomfortable kinship with Anne Boleyn.
Her relationship with Anne was fraught with tension, a natural outcome given her conservative leanings and Anne’s reformist zeal. Her interaction with Cardinal Wolsey was another affair altogether. Wolsey, ever the King’s ear, was a figure of immense power and Elizabeth recognizing the value of such an alliance sought his intervention during her marital problems.
The Cardinal’s response or lack thereof, spoke volumes of the limitations of her influence when pitted against her husband’s dominion. Her life at court was a delicate dance one where she had to navigate the treacherous waters of court politics while maintaining her dignity and her status.
She was witness to the tumultuous events that defined the era – the King’s Great Matter, the fall of queens, and the rise and fall of courtiers. Through it all, she remained a figure of resilience, a testament to the dual nature of her existence. She was both a participant and an observer, an influencer and the influenced.
So as the marital disputes between Elizabeth and her husband spilled from the private chambers into the public arena of the courts, it became a spectacle for all of Tudor society to witness and her legal battles were waged with a fervor that matched the intensity of her personal grievances.
Armed with the might of her noble birth and the righteousness of her cause, she sought restitution and separation from a husband who had publicly dishonored her. Her petitions to court were an audacious move in an era when women were expected to suffer in silence. Yet Elizabeth would not be silenced. Her pleas were documents of defiance detailing the wrongs that she had suffered and demanding justice from a legal system that was overwhelmingly skewed in favor of the patriarchal society that it served.
So just to go back and recap, Elizabeth Stafford had been the daughter of the Duke of Buckingham who of course would be executed for treason and we’ve talked about that. Elizabeth had been betrothed to Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland. He was a year younger than Elizabeth and Buckingham had actually bought his wardship to give the couple some time to get to know each other before the marriage and it appears as if it was a really good match.
The two really loved each other but then when Elizabeth was just 15, right before that marriage was meant to happen, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and a recent widower, persuaded Buckingham that he should actually be the one to marry Elizabeth. Apparently Buckingham tried to get him to settle for one of Elizabeth’s sisters but that wouldn’t work and for a decade and a half they did seem like they were happy.
They had children and Elizabeth came to court and served Katherine of Aragon but then in 1527 the great scandal started. Norfolk took Bess Holland as a mistress. Now Bess Holland had served in his household as well as Anne Boleyn’s household. It’s possible that she was the governess of the children and Norfolk brazenly just paraded Bess Holland around.
Like I said, this is right at the time when Henry VIII’s marital doubts were rising, when Anne Boleyn was rising and Elizabeth’s own loyalties were with Queen Katherine. Norfolk was busy coaching Anne and giving her advice on how to keep the King interested and Elizabeth actually served as a go-between for letters between Katherine and Chapuys and she also came out publicly on the side of Katherine of Aragon.
Norfolk sent her away from court and thus best Holland was able to become a lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn, of course, this would have made the Duchess very, very angry and Elizabeth did not hide it. She actually refused to attend Anne’s coronation and she also argued against her daughter Mary marrying Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, the King’s illegitimate son in 1534.
The Duke and Duchess formally separated and this is where things got really really messy for Elizabeth. We’ve talked about in other episodes specifically with Bess of Hardwick, with Alice Spencer that when women married, everything they owned went to their husband if they brought any land and things like that.
But generally, a woman would still be protected by property that was put aside or wealth plate whatever that was, put aside that was called the jointure and that became hers. The husband still manages it but he had to promise to keep it safe and it would belong to the wife. If she was widowed it would be the piece that go to her.
Of course, there was nothing in the law about a separation or divorce, so Elizabeth was saying “Look I want my jointure,” and the Duke of Norfolk was saying like “No, it’s all mine,” and the Duke of Norfolk said he didn’t owe her anything. Within a few years, Elizabeth’s relationship with her children was strained and she saw her position grow increasingly desolate.
She started writing a relentless amount of letters to Thomas Cromwell who was by that point, the King’s Chief Minister. She chronicled all of her grievances, all of her indignities, suffered at Norfolk’s hands including the seizure of her possessions and her jewelry. These letters are very poignant, very impassioned, and they are a testament to the adversities faced by Tudor women of rank.
Her letters say things like:
“My lord, seeing I have been his wife twenty-five years, and have borne him five children, and (he) can lay nothing to my charge, other than the fact that I would not suffer the bawd and the harlots that bound me to be still in the house. They bound me, and pinnacled me, and sat on my breast till I spit blood, which I have been worse for ever since, and all for speaking against the woman in the court, Bessy Holland; therefore he put me out at the doors, and keeps the bawd and the harlots still in his house. Surely, my lord, I am fully determined that I will never make suit to him to come in his company whilst I live, seeing that the King’s grace and you can make no end. I will never make suit to none creature more, nor I myself to my lord my husband, nor I will never come at him during my life. It is four years come the Tuesday in the Passion-week that he came riding all night, and locked me up in a chamber, and took away all my jewels and all my apparel, and never gave me but fifty pounds a quarter, which is three hundred marks a year, and therewith I keep twenty persons, and I lie in a hard county.
My lord, if it would please you to be so good lord to me to move the King’s grace to speak to my lord my husband, that I might have my whole jointure and to dwell on it, I were greatly bounded to your lordship.”
So imagine that, he apparently sat on her until she spit blood. He locked her in a room and took her jewelry. Not at all a good marriage and her efforts while they are monumental were of course met with the harsh reality of her time. A woman even a Duchess held little sway over her own destiny when it came into conflict with the ambitions of her husband.
When the separation came as was evidenced, it was both a victory and a defeat. She had escaped the indignities of her husband’s infidelity and the tumult of their public discord but she was also cast aside, a Duchess in title but not in standing. Elizabeth’s days of living apart from her husband were marked by solitude, both physical and emotional.
She lived in her own estate. She managed her own affairs and she lived with the stigma of separation, a mark of social and personal failure in the eyes of her contemporaries. In the waning chapters of Elizabeth Stafford’s life, the tumult that had so characterized her early years ebbed into a period of quiet and somber solitude.
Thomas Howard and his son were imprisoned towards the end of Henry VIII’s reign, this is when Elizabeth’s estrangement from her husband reached its apex. Howard’s incarceration in the Tower’s subsequent political disgrace, marked a shift in Elizabeth’s own narrative. She was no longer the embattled wife of a powerful Duke, instead she found herself in an unusual position of relative autonomy, albeit within the constraints of Tudor widowhood.
Interestingly both Bess Holland and Elizabeth gave testimony against Thomas Howard. Of course, his son the Duke of Surrey was executed the day before Henry VIII had died and the only reason that the Duke Norfolk himself escaped the executioner’s block was that Henry VIII died.
He was kept in the Tower of London throughout the minority reign of Edward VI and then was released in 1553 at the start of the reign of Mary I who also was a Catholic like him. It seems that actually Bess Holland even though she did testify against, Thomas Howard did give him money while he was in prison.
There’s a receipt for 100 pounds from Mrs. Holland by the hands of Mr. Henry to be paid unto my Lord of Norfolk his Grace. It appears that Bess Holland stayed somewhat loyal to Howard and might not have had much of a choice about giving evidence against him.
Bess Holland did marry in 1547 but died in childbirth shortly afterward. Even though Thomas Howard was released in 1553, he was quite old and the time in the Tower had cost him his health. He died in August of 1554. His Duchess was not named in his will.
By 1557, she officiated as godmother at the baptism of her great-grandson Philip Howard, holding the child over a gold baptismal font which was kept in the treasury and normally used only for the baptism of royal children. She herself died in 1558 at Lambeth. She was buried in the Howard Chapel in the Church of St. Mary-at-Lambeth.
Her brother actually wrote her epitaph which was brief but emotional. It says:
Thou wast to me, both far and near,
A mother, sister, a friend most dear.
So there we have it. Elizabeth Stafford a woman who did what she could to find her agency. She didn’t just sit and accept what was a terrible situation. She complained and these complaints are not just accounts of personal grief but they are often seen as challenges to the patriarchal norms of the 16th century.
In a time and a society when women’s voices were often suppressed or ignored, her willingness to document and distribute her side of the story was a bold act of agency. She can be remembered throughout history as a symbol of the struggle for women’s autonomy in an age dominated by male power. She occupies a unique place in the Tudor period marked by her defiance and the articulation of her plate.
So Elizabeth Stafford’s place in Tudor history is enshrined not just by her birth and her marriage but by her indelible contributions to our understanding of the period. Her written complaints are historical artifacts of inestimable value. Her life a chronicle of the personal within the political, and her legacy is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of societal constraints.
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.