Anne (Killigrew) Kirke

British, died 1641

BiographyAnne Killigrew, the eldest of seven daughters among twelve children of Sir Robert (1579-1633) and Lady Mary (Woodhouse) Killigrew, was baptized on September 7, 1607 at Hanworth, Middlesex. Her father took interest in his daughters' educations, and raised them in a stimulating intellectual environment, with the poets John Donne (1572-1631) and Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), the musician and painter Nicholas Lanier (1588-1666), and the philosopher and statesman Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) figuring among the family's intimates. She descended from a long line of royalists and courtiers, and it was reportedly Charles I (1600-49) who orchestrated her match with George Kirke, a Groom to the Royal Bedchamber whose service to Charles pre-dated his accession to the throne in 1625. The king attended the Kirkes' wedding on January 4, 1627, and made them a gift of the manor of Sheriff Hutton, Yorkshire, with other lands--one in a long series of grants and sinecures that the couple gained through royal favor. Most of Anne Kirke's family acquired important positions within the royal household. Her father was appointed vice-chamberlain to Queen Henrietta Maria (1609-69) in 1630, her husband was made Gentleman of the Robes to the King in July 1631, and Anne became a maid-of-honour to the queen shortly thereafter. In January 1633 she performed the part of Camena in The Shepherd's Paradise, a pastoral play by Walter Montagu (c.1603-77), intended to entertain the French-born queen and improve her command of English. Anne Kirke gave birth to at least two children, Charles (1633-1663) and George (b. 1636). She seems to have escaped the sexual notoreity that attached to many women of the court, although in August 1636 she was charged with inducing an abortion by taking the herb savin in order to "clear herself of the fame of incontinency. The culmination of her royal service came in April 1637 with her appointment as Dresser to the Queen. She died by drowning on July 6, 1641, when the royal barge capsized near London Bridge. She was buried three days later in Westminster Abbey and was deeply mourned at court; Henrietta Maria had "taken very heavily the news, and, they say, shed tears for her." Numerous elegies were subsequently published in her honor. On February 26, 1646 her widowed husband married Mary Townshend (1626-1702), an admired beauty, who was given away by Charles I. George Kirke died in May 1675.

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