Eleanor Beaufort

Origins

Marriages and children

• Firstly in about April 1458 she married James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, Lieutenant of Ireland in 1453. When civil conflict broke out, the lieutenant fought on the Lancastrian side. He was present at the first battle of St. Albans in 1455, Mortimer's Cross in 1461 and at the Battle of Towton. Ormond also held the post of councillor to the Lancastrian Prince of Wales. After Towton, he was a proscribed as a traitor and was captured in the same year at Cockermouth and executed there in 1461.
• Secondly she married Sir Robert Spencer of Spencer Combe in the parish of Crediton, Devon, by whom she had two daughters and co-heiresses:
• * Margaret Spencer, wife of Thomas Carey of Chilton Foliot, Wiltshire, second son of Sir William Carey of Cockington, Devon. She had two sons:
• **Sir John Carey of Plashey, eldest son, ancestor to the Carey Viscounts Falkland.
• **William Carey, her 2nd son, the first husband of Anne Boleyn's sister Mary Boleyn and ancestor to the Carey Barons Hunsdon, Barons Carey of Leppington, Earls of Monmouth, Viscounts Rochford and Earls of Dover.
• *Catherine Spencer, wife of Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland and mother to Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, an early love interest of Anne Boleyn.

  Ancestry