LADY JANE OF WESTMORELAND.
(Vol. i., p. 103.; Vol. ii., p. 485.)
Jane, Countess of Henry Neville, fifth Earl of Westmoreland, was daughter of Sir Roger Cholmley, of Kinthorpe and Roxby, co. York. (Vis. York. Harl. MS. 1487. fol. 354.) She is often confused with his other wife, Anne Manners, and also with her own sister, Margaret Gascoigne, both in the Neville and Cholmley pedigrees as printed. (Burke's Extinct Baronetage, art. Cholmley, and Extinct Peerage, art. Neville.) But while the Manners pedigree in Collins's Peerage (by Longmate, vol. i. p. 433.), as cited by Q. D., removes the former difficulty, that of Gascoigne is disposed of by the Cholmley pedigree in Harl. MS. above quoted, as well as by that (though otherwise very incorrect) in Charlton's Whitby, book iii. pp. 290, 291. 313., and by the Gascoigne pedigree in Whitaker's Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 77. Thus we possess legal and cotemporary evidence who Jane, Countess of Henry, fifth Earl of Westmoreland, really was, without any authentic obstacle or unremoveable contradiction to its reception, viz. that she was a Cholmley.
But I conceive your correspondent's identification is totally erroneous. It is true he only puts an hypothesis on the subject; but this hypothesis has no solid foundation. In the first place, Henry, fifth Earl of Westmoreland, died in 1549; and all authorities seem to agree that his first wife was Anne Manners, and his second Cholmley's daughter. Thus, if either of his countesses were living in 1585, it must have been the latter, by which means all chance of appropriation is removed from Manners to Cholmley. But I shall now give reasons for contending that neither of these ladies was your correspondent's Countess of Westmoreland, by referring him (2ndly) to Longmate's Collins's Peerage, vol. i. p. 96., where he will find that Jane, daughter of Henry Howard, the talented and accomplished Earl of Surry, married Charles Neville, sixth Earl of Westmoreland. He has evidently passed her over, through seeing her called Anne in the Neville pedigrees: "Anne" and "Jane" being often mutually misread in old writing, from the cross upon the initial letter of the last name.
I offer it to your correspondent's consideration, whether his "Jane, Countess of Westmoreland," was not wife of the said Charles Neville, sixth Earl of Westmoreland, who was attainted 18 Eliz. (1575-6). His date is evidently most favourable to this view. It is true the attainder stands in the way; but if even this affords an obstacle, the next candidate for appropriation would be Jane Cholmley. Assuming, however, that your correspondent allows this lady as a candidate for the appropriation, her pedigree corroborates the claim. I have found, by long and minute observation, that hereditary talent, &c. usually descends by the mesmeric
tie of affection and favoritism, from fathers to the eldest daughter, and from mothers to the eldest son; and the pedigree of Jane, Countess of Charles, sixth Earl of Westmoreland, stands thus:—
Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham; great,
good, and accomplished, and fell a victim to envy.
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