Anna Sommerset

- 1596    Has more than 100 ancestors and more than 100 descendants in this family tree.

• Name	Anna Sommerset
  Gender	Female
  Death	17 Oct 1596	Namur, België
  Siblings	3 Siblings
  + 1. Earl William Somerset,   b. Abt 1527   d. 21 Feb 1589  (Age 62 years) ▻ Christian North,  m. Bef 1550 ;   Theophila Newton + 2. Lucy Somerset   d. 23 Feb 1583 ▻ Baron John Neville + 3. Anna Sommerset   d. 17 Oct 1596, Namur, België ▻ Thomas Percy,  m. 12 Jun 1558 + 4. Jane Somerset,   b. 1530, Raglan, Monmouthshire, England d. 16 Oct 1597  (Age 67 years) ▻ Edward Mansel,  m. Abt 1547
  Person ID	I169496	Geneagraphie
  Last Modified	9 Oct 2000

  
  

  Father	Earl Henry Somerset,   b. 1499   d. 26 Nov 1549 (Age 50 years)
  Mother	Elizabeth Browne   d. Yes, date unknown
  Family ID	F13767	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Thomas Percy,   b. 1528   d. 22 Aug 1572, York (Age 44 years)
  Marriage	12 Jun 1558
  Children	1. Elisabeth Percy,   b. 1559   d. Yes, date unknown   2. Thomas Percy,   b. 1560   d. 1560 (Age 0 years)   3. Mary Percy,   b. 1562-1563   d. 1580, Brussel, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest, België (Age 17 years) + 4. Lucy Percy   d. Yes, date unknown   5. Jane Percy   d. Yes, date unknown + 6. Jehan Percy,   b. 11 Jun 1570, Old Aberdeen d. Yes, date unknown
  Family ID	F68705	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	9 Oct 2000

  
  

• Event Map	Click to hide
  		Death - 17 Oct 1596 - Namur, België  = Link to Google Earth
  Pin Legend	: Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  
  

• Notes

  Three weeks after the birth of her sixth child in Aberdeen on 11 June 1570, she had left Scotland where here husband had been imprisoned. She took her child with her. Its name and sex are unknown. It was either a fifth daughter or a second son. Regarding the sex of the sixth and youngest child of Thomas Percy, research would have to be done in archives in Brussels. When the countess of Northumberland was in exile in the Spanish Netherlands, she wrote numerous letters to the Spanish authorities. Some of these letters still exist. They are kept in the "Archives des Pays-Bas" in Brussels. As a result of these letters, the Spanish authorities gave the countess a (small) allowance for herself and her household. Apparently, she had come from Scotland to Flanders with a group of people, including her newborn baby, and a priest, a certain William (Guillelmus) Percy, who later became a canon in Veurne (in West-Flanders) and who died in this Flemish town. The letters of the countess to the Spanish authorities might reveal the identity and sex of her child. It could have been a girl. It could have died young. I would like to know what became of it. If it was a girl, did she marry and have children? And, yes, it could also have been a boy. "Cruel Henry" wanted the earldom of his brother, even if the brother had a male heir. Because of his treason, his brother lost his earldom and it also would be lost to a son. Queen Elizabeth had promised during the 1569 rebellion to Henry Percy that if he remained loyal, he would inherit the earldom. The Queen wrote him that she approved of his constancy and forwardness, "although the same be against your brother of Northumberland;" and assured him, that she "will have regard to have the continuance of such a house, in the parson and blood of so faithfull a servant, as we trust to find you." Maybe "Simple Tom" knew this, maybe he knew his earldom was lost to him as well as to his son. You will object that the Queen could have created a new earldom of Northumberland for Henry Percy. But if she did not know about the birth of a son to the 7th earl, she did not see the need to do so. And if she did not know, it was not in the interest of Henry Percy to inform her, for he fell under suspicion of being disloyal soon afterwards and was committed to the Tower. Henry was already in the Tower at the time his brother was beheaded (22 August 1572) for his name appears on a list of prisoners on 14 July 1572 and he remained there untill 12 July 1573 when "at the humble suit of his wife, being with child, her Majesty, for more ease, permits him to come to London; and that he should not departe above one or two miles from thence, till her Highness pleasure were known." (Note that the conception of the child took place in the Tower!) The Flemish Percys claim to descend from a certain (John) Percy. They say that this John Percy is the second son of Thomas, 7th earl of Northumberland. They refer to a document from 1620 mentioning their "noble English descent". They moved in circles of exiled English families in Flanders: Some of the Flemish Percys married with girls from these families (e.g. the "Pipe of Spernore" family). But, as you say, their descent . We know there was a John Percy, born ca 1459, a bastard of Thomas Percy, Lord Egremont. He fled to the Netherlands in 1589 after a Yorkist revolt (in which his cousin, Henry Percy, 4th earl, was killed). He is a likely candidate to have left descendents in Flanders. It is true that the name John was not common in the Percy family. But was it uncommon in the Somerset family ? Anne Somerset, countess of Northumberland, was the granddaughter of Lucy Neville, daughter of John Neville (who also happened to be earl of Northumberland for a while) and the Somerset family descends from John of Gaunt. Why did she not call her second son or ? She had already had a son named Thomas and for that reason might not have wanted to use this name again. And she disliked her brother-in-law Henry Percy () who did not take the side of the 1569 uprising. I am aware that this is "speculation", but I would like to find out the identity of the mysterious sixth child, born in Aberdeen on 11 June 1570. It was definitely not Mary Percy who founded the English benedictine abbey in Brussels. I have no reason to doubt the statements on Mary Percy's epitaph in Brussels. "Here lies Lady Mary Percy ("domina Maria Percy" in Latin).... Because of her faith she suffered imprisonment in England for a long time...." If she suffered imprisonment in England, she could not have been the child which Anne Somerset had taken to Flanders in 1570. And there is also Gallia Christiana Vol V (pp 59-60) stating that "she fled her paternal home because of her Catholic faith." If she was with her uncle, then his house (in Petworth, Alnwick, Topcliffe,…) would also have been 'her paternal home': her father had previously owned these castles. She might have looked on her uncle as an usurper who lived in "her paternal home". British genealogists (and Schwennicke) are wrong too when they state that Anne, Countess of Northumberland, died in 1591. I found at least four sources claiming that she died at Namur in the Spanish Netherlands on 17 October 1596 : Felix Victor Goethals, "Dictionnaire généalogique et héraldique des familles nobles du Royaume de Belgique", 1852; Baron de Ryckman de Betz, "Armorial Général de la Noblesse Belge"; Bede Camm, "Lives of the English Martyrs declared blessed in 1886 and 1895", 1914; Sir Cuthbert Sharp, "The Rising in the North; The 1569 Rebellion", 1840). These sources are based on the registration of her death in the Southern Netherlands. I think they are correct. The suggestion that the Countess died in 1591 comes from a letter which the English Catholic exile Charles Paget wrote to London from Antwerp at the end of September 1591. The letter was a ruse to get Jane Percy, Anne Somerset's "youngest" daughter, over to Flanders.