Bridget Annesley ( fl. 1610-1630) was a courtier to

Anne of Denmark Anne of Denmark (; 12 December 1574 – 2 March 1619) was the wife of King James VI and I; as such, she was Queen of Scotland from their marriage on 20 August 1589 and Queen of England and Ireland from the union of the Scottish and En ...

, wife of

James VI and I James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...

. Bridget Annesley was a daughter of Robert Annesley of Rathverd or Rathuard and

Newport Pagnell Newport Pagnell is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The Office for National Statistics records Newport Pagnell as part of the Milton Keynes urban area. It is separated ...

, an undertaker of the

plantations A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...

Munster Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following th ...

, and Beatrix Cornwall, a daughter of John Cornwall of Moor Park, Hertfordshire. The surname "Annesley" was sometimes written "Anslow" or "Anslowe". Bridget Annesley became one of the servants of Anne of Denmark, called maids of honour or "

chamberer A chamberer was a female attendant of an English queen, queen consort, or princess. There were similar positions in aristocratic households. Chamberers at court At court, the position was similar to a male groom of the privy chamber. The names of ...

s", a lady of the bedchamber in 1609. She may have got this appointment through her mother's parents, who lived near the

Earl of Bedford Earl of Bedford is a title that has been created three times in the Peerage of England and is currently a subsidiary title of the Dukes of Bedford. The first creation came in 1138 in favour of Hugh de Beaumont. He appears to have been degraded f ...

and the Countess of Bedford's house at

The More ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...

. The Countess of Bedford was influential with the queen. Another link was that the manor of Newport Pagnell belonged to the queen. Anne of Denmark gave clothes to Bridget Annesley. On 6 January 1610, she received a night gown of carnation and white taffeta, and on 8 December 1610 a dove-coloured taffeta gown with stripes of black and white made for the queen two years previously. Annesley was given mourning clothes on the death of Prince Henry in 1612. In 1614 she was bought a bay ambling gelding horse for £18 to replace her lame grey gelding. She was known as "the queen's servant Mrs Anslow" in 1616, when her brother Francis Annesley (d. 1660) was promoted to be a joint-secretary of Ireland. Bridget Annesley may have helped her brother gain the favour of the king's new favourite George Villiers, who could assist his friends in careers and appointments. When the queen died in 1619 the other chamberers were; Elizabeth Murray (probably the Countess of Annandale), Marie Mayerne sister of

Théodore de Mayerne Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne (28 September 1573 – 22 March 1655) was a Genevan-born physician who treated kings of France and England and advanced the theories of Paracelsus. The Young Doctor Mayerne was born in a Huguenot family in ...

who married Gian Francesco Biondi in 1622;

Elizabeth Devick Elizabeth Devick or De Vic () was a servant of Anne of Denmark. She was a member of the household of Magdalen Wood, the wife of the English diplomat Thomas Edmondes. In May 1615 Edmondes gave her £100 after the death of his wife, for her long s ...

, a former attendant of Lady Edmondes; and Mary Gargrave as Maid of Honour, the daughter of Sir Cotton Gargrave and Anne Waterton, and Elizabeth Foukes who was probably a niece of

John Finet Sir John Finet or Finett (1571–1641) was the English Master of the Ceremonies in the Stuart court. Early life Finet was a son of Robert Finet (d. 1582) of Soulton, near Dover, Kent. His mother was Alice, daughter and coheiress of John Wenlock, ...

. Bridget walked in the funeral procession with the ladies of the Privy Chamber, listed as "Mrs Anslow". In 1627, Bridget Annesley petitioned for payment of back wages amounting to £866. Connections made in the queen's household were strengthened in 1637 when her niece Beatrice Annesley, Francis Annesley's daughter, married James Zouch, the son of

Dorothea Silking Dorothy Silking (fl. 1608-1640), was a Danish courtier, one of the chamberers in the household of Anne of Denmark. Career Records of the royal household refer to her as "Mistress Dorothy", or "Dorothy Silkin" or "Silken", or "Selken". She was from ...

, her Danish colleague in the queen's bedchamber, and Sir Edward Zouch of

Woking Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in northwest Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'' and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement o ...

.Brayley & Britton, ''A Topographical History of Surrey'', vol. 2 part 1 (Dorking & London, 1842), p. 9: Francis Annesley & Patrick Little, 'Providence and Posterity: A Letter from Lord Mountnorris to His Daughter, 1642', ''Irish Historical Studies'', 32:128 (November 2001), pp. 556-7. The dates of Bridget Annesley's birth and death are unknown.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Annesley, Bridget British maids of honour Ladies of the Bedchamber 17th-century English women 17th-century English nobility

Bridget Bridget is an Irish female name derived from the Gaelic noun ''brígh'', meaning "power, strength, vigor, virtue". An alternate meaning of the name is "exalted one". Its popularity, especially in Ireland, is largely related to the popularity of ...

Household of Anne of Denmark