Talk:Margaret Bryan

Improvements

I have completed my improvements and updated this page as of today. Would appreciate feedback.
--JohnTheSupercargo (talk) 09:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm serving notice to previous contributors here and to "the management" that I'm taking on the task of improving this page as a project to learn how to code for Wikipedia. All advice welcomed!
--JohnTheSupercargo (talk) 07:55, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Alterations

I see I've been making some common mistakes, so here's an attempt to put that right. Below are some passages from the article as it read 29th March 2009 with a brief explanation of what I've done with them and why.

1. The quote below was in the second paragraph of the article.

Margaret's great-grandmother, i.e. father's father's mother, was Anne Plantagenet, therefore Margaret could boast royal Plantagenet bloodlines for herself; a fact which may have helped secure her posts with King Henry VIII, a distant cousin.

It seemed unnecessarily complex, and inappropriate at this point. I have relocated it to a new section which I've called Family Connections, and tried to simplify the language.

I also wonder how significant this family connection actually was. Isn't is an axiom that half the population of England can trace their ancestry back to Edward III?!

2. The next quote was in the second to last paragraph of the article

Sir Francis Bryan was a known womanizer who lost an eye in a joust in 1526. He was nicknamed 'the Vicar of Hell' and managed to play the game of factions successfully. ... Her daughter, Elizabeth Carew, was the wife of Henry VIII's close friend Sir Nicholas Carew, who helped him organize Henry's liaisons with women, and whose house was used to keep Jane Seymour over the period of Anne Boleyn's execution. In 1514, Elizabeth Carew herself was rumoured to have been involved with Henry VIII, although it may be his brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, 1st duke of Suffolk who was the object of her affection. The King made huge presents to her over the years, including royal jewels.

I removed almost all of this because it did not seem to me to be pertinent to Margaret Bryan. Sir Francis Bryan, Elizabeth Carew and Sir Nicholas Carew all have their own pages on Wikipedia which this article connects to. I think it is enough to mention them and provide the links.

3. The article as it stood on 29th March also contained several statements about Margaret Bryan's familial relationships with some of Henry VIII's wives.

Margaret's mother married for the second time Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfok, and was the half-sister of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk and Elizabeth Boleyn, mother of Queen Anne ... Margaret's mother, Elizabeth, married Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk after the death of her first husband ... She and Howard had nine children, including Lady Elizabeth Howard, mother of Anne Boleyn ... Consequently, Margaret's mother was the great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth I, making Margaret a somewhat distant cousin ... Margaret Bryan was the aunt of Anne Boleyn and the second cousin of Jane Seymour ...

This seemed repetitive and unnecessarily complex. Rather than try to explain the family connection I have chosen simply to call her a cousin to Anne Boleyn and a member of the wider circle of kin and dependents around the Howard family. As Peterkingiron points out in the discussion below "then (as now), the term 'cousin' is used loosely of a distant relation."

4. And I almost forgot the line that caused me to choose this article for my learning project! When I first met this article, it concluded with the following statement:

Nicknamed "Muggie" by the four-year-old Princess Elizabeth, Margaret was young Elizabeth's first governess.

"Muggie" seemed anything but likely to me, but I went looking for some sort of corroboration. All I found was the fictional reference that I used to start the In Fiction section.
--JohnTheSupercargo (talk) 12:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Relationship to Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I

"Margaret's mother, Elizabeth, married Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk after the death of her first husband, and became the Duchess of Norfolk. She and Howard had nine children, including Lady Elizabeth Howard, mother of Anne Boleyn, the future queen of England. Consequently, Margaret's mother was the great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth I, making Margaret a somewhat distant cousin."

Just to clarify, wouldn't that make Margaret half-sister to Anne Boleyn's mother, and therefore half-aunt to Anne Boleyn and half-great-aunt to Elizabeth I rather than a distant cousin?

Yes. They may also have been cousins through a different line but your explanation is correct. Boleyn (talk) 16:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

You are probably right, but then (as now), the term 'cousin' is used loosely of a distant relation. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:29, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

"Baroness Bryan"

On the one hand we apparently have the ONDB, saying she was created Baroness Bryan. On the other hand we have every peerage work ever written, completely failing to mention this supposed creation. I think it's clear which perspective is more reliable... And even the sources that say she was created a peeress seem to acknowledge that there are no official records of the creation. I'm sorry, but even in Tudor times that's completely implausible - monarchs don't issue letters patent, which then pass the Great Seal (it would have had to have been a creation by letters patent, since it was impossible to raise a woman to the Peerage by writ of summons), raising a person and their heirs to the Peerage without this set of circumstances being recorded in any official documents. In any event, if she'd been created Baroness Bryan her son would have succeeded as 2nd Baron Bryan, which it would appear he didn't. It seems that this supposed creation relies entirely on Lady Bryan's say so, which is hardly the most reliable of sources. Proteus (Talk) 19:52, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

This matter is adequately dealt with the in article. It seems she asserted that her appointment as Lady Governess also made here a baroness. I assume her appointment was by Letters Patent, which were used for many official appointments. Her claim to be a baroness would have affected precedence at court, implying (at least) acquiescence by other courtiers and perhaps by the king himself. In terms of later understanding, the creation may be doubtful, but she apparently managed to maintain her position. ODNB is a recent work of high academic repute, where appropriate on fresh research into original sources. Its author will undoubtedly have considered all previous writing on her; assertions contrary to earlier publications will not have been made other than deliberately. The article cites Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, which is a calendar of the State Papers etc of the period, and hence close to the original source. If there was doubt, I would have expected the ODNB author to have gone back to the original sources. The assertion is, as you say, an odd one, but that does not mean that it did not happen. Any appointment would not have been to her and "the heirs of her body". The best solution seems to be (exceptionally) to treat it as having been accepted as a barony for life, exceptional - indeed possibly unique - though this is. The modern views on what constitutes as hereditary peerage were probably worked out by the Lords Committee of Privelidges in the 18th and 19th centuries in response to peerage claims. I suspect that elements of anachronism (or misinterpretation) arose in interpreting what had happened long before. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:02, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I note that in view of Proteus's change all reference of ODNB has been removed. On reflection, I think that the present lead with "Lady Bryan" is probably best, being WP:NPOV and leaving the contentious question to be dealt with later in the article. Nevertheless, I must express hesitation in this, as Proteus's step of ignoring the best WP:RS is itslef a variety of WP:OR. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:58, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Henry Fitzroy

Is there an actual source that says she was Governess to Henry Fitzroy? The sources I’m finding say she “might” have been. Seems like this article was also copied from Tudor Place which has NO sources. Lady Meg (talk) 02:45, 10 March 2023 (UTC)