Elizabeth Fitzalan

  General Notes:

Lady Elizabeth Fitzalan, Duchess of Norfolk (1366 \endash 8 July 1425) was an English noblewoman and the wife of Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk. Through her eldest daughter, Margaret, she was an ancestress of Queens consort Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, and the Howard Dukes of Norfolk.

ELIZABETH FITZ-ALAN: Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of Richard Fitz-Alan the 11th Earl of Arundel and his wife Elizabeth de Bohun. Both the Fitz-Alan and Bohun family lines were among the highest in the peerage of medieval England. Elizabeth Fitz-Alan had a double line of direct descent from the Plantagenet Kings of England. Through her mother's Bohun line she was a direct descendant of King Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, and through her Fitz-Alan ancestry a direct descendant of King Henry III and Eleanor of Provence. She was also related by cousinship to both King Henry IV and to his first wife Mary Bohun. Elizabeth was born before 1372, (in 1415 she was given as aged 40 or more), and a best estimate would be closer to 1367. By December of 1378 she would be married to her first husband William de Montagu, son of the Earl of Salisbury. This marriage for Elizabeth would certainly have been in her childhood. William de Montagu was killed in a tilting match at Windsor in 1382. Elizabeth Fitz-Alan would marry as her 2nd husband Thomas Mowbray, the Earl of Nottingham and later the Duke of Norfolk, in July of 1384. This marriage would last for 15 years until Thomas Mowbray's death in Venice on September 22, 1399. Elizabeth would have 2 sons and 2 daughters during her marriage with Thomas Mowbray. The sons were Thomas Mowbray 1385-1405 and John Mowbray 1390-1432, (both of these sons would assume the title Earl of Nottingham), the 2 daughters were Margaret who married Sir Robert Howard, and Isabel who married Henry Ferrers. In 1397 Thomas Mowbray was among those who accused and condemed Elizabeth's father Richard Fitz-Alan, the Earl of Arundel. Richard Fitz-Alan was found guilty of treason and be-headed at Cheapside on September 21, 1397. One apocryphal rumor even had Thomas Mowbray as the actual executioner of his father-in-law Richard Fitz-Alan. The now twice widowed Duchess of Norfolk would next marry Sir Robert Goushill as previously discussed in length. After the death of Sir Robert Goushill at Shrewsbury in 1403, she would marry Sir Gerald Usflete of Yorkshire as her fourth husband before April 18, 1411. Sir Gerald Usflete was the steward of the Duchy of Lancaster in Lincolnshire. Elizabeth Fitz-Alan would become a co-heiress of her brother Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, in 1415. (Thomas had died sans progeny on October 13, 1415, and his sisters had become his heirs). Sir Gerald Usflete died by Feb. 1420/21, having written his will on September 13, 1420. No children were born to Elizabeth Fitz-Alan and Gerald Usflete.

Elizabeth Fitz-Alan would live on after the death of her fourth husband Gerald Usflete until her own death on July 8, 1425. It is believed that she returned to Hoveringham in her final years. Born in the reign of King Edward III, she would live through the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, and into the reign of Henry VI. Through blood and marriage, Elizabeth Fitz-Alan would be closely touched by nearly all of the events in this period of turbulence, violence, and political turmoil in English history.

Elizabeth married Sir Robert Goushill. (Sir Robert Goushill was born in 1350 in Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire and died on 21 Jul 1403 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire.)