Grace [Mildmay, a famous 16th century herbalist] was a pious Protestant, but her sister Olive was not. She fell in love with Shrewsbury’s brother John Talbot, to the disapproval of her father. Undaunted, she pursued the relationship.
John Aubrey described what happened: “Discoursing with him one night from the battlements of the Abbey Church, said she, ‘I will leap down to you.’ Her sweetheart replied he would catch her then; but he did not believe she would have done it. She leap’t down, and the wind, which was then high, came under her coats and did something to break her fall. Mr. Talbot caught her in his arms, but she struck him dead: she cried out for help, and he was with great difficulty brought to life again.
Her father told her that since she had made such a leap she should e’er marry him.”
Source:
Lisle, Leanda De. "Hope and Fear" After Elizabeth: The Rise of James of Scotland and the Struggle for the Throne of England. New York: Ballantine, 2005. 171. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Cited by Linda Pollock, With Faith and Physic: The Life of a Tudor Gentlewoman, Lady Grace Mildmay 1552-1620, p. 70, and John Britton (ed.), Aubrey’s Natural History of Wiltshire, 1969.
Further Reading:
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