OUR January lecture saw the return of our webmaster John Matthews who gave us a well-researched and detailed talk on the life of Martha Penyston, curiously entitled ‘Dainty and fair, but was she virtuous?’ She was baptised in 1594, daughter of Sir Thomas Temple and married Sir Thomas Penyston at Stowe, Buckinghamshire in 1611. She was fair and well featured, her mother Hester keeping a written record.
The Temple family went into sheep farming and the villagers moved away. The Stowe church then became their private place. One of the Temple family didn’t like the parish church, which spoiled the view, so planted trees all around it; now run by the National Trust.
In 1590 Mary Somer had married Thomas Penyston at St Bride’s, Fleet Street, and lived in Rochester, raising four children. When Thomas died she was left a very rich woman. At this time tricksters took widows and their money, so she needed another husband – Sir Alexander Temple came on the scene and they married in 1602.
They lived in the house of Sir Thomas Penyston, inherited by his son, also Thomas. Sir Alexander Temple bought a wardship for him and influenced his marriage to Martha, paying for his baronetcy as part of the marriage settlement. He needed to match her dowry, the Manor of Barton, which his father bought, close to his brother at Stowe. So he bought a property in Chadwell and swapped it with his brother and came to live in Chadwell place, which still exists.
Martha’s husband was one of the retinues of Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset, a gambler, wastrel and womaniser, married to Lady Anne Clifford, a rich young lady, who continued to keep hold of her money. They lived in Tottenham – now Bruce Castle, Haringey, a museum. Lady Anne kept a diary, naming Lady Penyston as a frequent visitor to Richard Napier, astrologer and medicine man. She had consulted him after her marriage re her health and wrote that her Lord had taken her as his mistress. Martha visited him at his lodging in the Strand in 1619 for the last time. She was taken ill in January 1620 and died of smallpox at Stow on the 14th, aged 25.
There is a memorial to Martha in the Penyston chapel at Stowe. The inscription on the east side describes her as a virtuous lady, daughter of Sir Thomas Temple. However, the west side included the words “removed to heaven, so to draw up her lover’s eyes to the divine beauty of that Deitie wherein she may love all that her and not sinne”. It is unknown who put it there, maybe her father who was a hard line Puritan. At the end of this intriguing talk John asked for a show of hands as to whether she was virtuous or not, and the ayes had it by far.
Our next meeting is at 8pm on Friday 21st February at St John’s Church hall, Victoria Avenue, Grays, when our speaker will be Susan Yates, our chairman, whose talk is entitled “Hidden Gem”. Visitors are always welcome.
