Norfolk Dukes--

Henry Howard

6th Duke of Norfolk

(1628-1684)

Duke of Norfolk 1677

1st Earl of Norwich 1672

Earl Marshal of England 1672.

Son of: Henry Howard, 22nd Earl of Arundel & Lady Elizabeth Stuart.

Husband of:

1. Lady Anne Somerset, daughter of Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester & Elizabeth Dormer, mar 1652

2. Jane Bickerton, mar 1676/77

Jane Bickerton

Duchess of Norfolk

His lover was:

Jane Bickerton, Duchess of Norfolk (1643-1693)

British actress

Daughter of: Robert Bickerton, Gentleman of the King's Wine Cellar & Anne (Amy) Hester.

Wife of:
1) Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk, mar 1674
2) Thomas Maxwell, Quartermaster-General to the Army, mar 1684.

" . . . Jane (Bickerton) had long been the mistress of Henry Howard, sixth Duke of Norfolk, before she became his second wife in 1678. . . . " (Wilson: 129)

"It is in this state that Howard met the beautiful 23-year-old Jane Bickerton, daughter of a deceased clerk who had seen to the King's wine cellar.  Exactly how they met is not clear.  Howard's ONDB bio states she was an actress but provides no details on her career.  Their affair produced a son George, born in 1668 but was interrupted the following year when Henry was created Baron Howard of Castle Rising in Marche, and appointed Ambassador to Morocco, where he spent July 1669 to October 1670.  On his return to England, he saw his career flourish--he was created Earl of Norwich in 1672--and his affair with the lovely Jane was resumed. . . He continued his affair with Jane, but didn't marry her.  Another child, daughter Catherine, was born a short time later, and a third, son James followed in 1673.  One bastard son by a mistress was fairly typical for a nobleman, and tolerated within the family, but Howard here was going beyond the norm with Jane.  He was forming a second family with her, which did not engender a positive reaction at all from his siblings." (Royal Descent)

Charles Howard
11th Duke of Norfolk

Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk (1746-1815)

Son of: Charles Howard, 10th Duke of Norfolk, & Catherine Brockholes.[Ref1:52]

Husband of:
1. Marion Coppinger.
Lover in 1767.
2. Frances Scudamore.
Lover in 1771

His lover was:

Mary Ann Gibbon.

Lover in 1795-1815.

"The Scudamores had a strain of hereditary madness, which shortly after the wedding made its appearance in the Duchess and she had to be shut away as insane in the Scudamore family home of Holme Lacy, near Hereford, until her death there on 22 October 1820, where she is buried. As she outlived him, it was impossible for the Duke to remarry or to have a legitimate son to succeed him, so he consoled himself with a series of mistresses, one of whom eventually became his 'official mistress,' Mary Ann Gibbon, grandau. of the Dean of Carlisle, and a cousin of the historian Edward Gibbon, a freemason. Another was Charlotte Tidswell, who, when she was cast off by The Duke became a small-part member of The Drury Lane Theatre Cimpany, and the mistress of Moses Kean, uncle of the actor Edmund Kean )1789-1833), who may have been a freemason, whom she adopted as an infant." (Freemasons and the Royal Society)