Monday, June 15, 2009

Question from Elizabeth M - Morley relationship to Henry VIII

I have read that Lady Jane Rochford's father, Lord Morley, was a distant cousin of Henry VIII. Does anyone know the familial connection?

1 comment:

Foose said...

According to Collins's Peerage of England, Henry Parker married "Alice, daughter of John St. John of Bletshoe [sic], Knt., by whom he became allied to King Henry VIII himself; his Lady being grand-daughter to Sir Oliver St. John, Knt., by his wife, Margaret, the daughter and heir of Sir John Beauchamp, of Bletso, Knt., which Lady Margaret being afterwards the wife of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, had by him an only daughter, who was mother to King Henry VII."

Boiled down, it means that Henry Parker's wife was a half-niece to Margaret Beaufort, Henry's grandmother, making Parker a kind of first cousin once removed by marriage or, in the style of the day, Henry VIII's "uncle," although I doubt he presumed to be called that.