Mary (Dudley) Sutton, Countess of Home (1586–1644), was a landowner, living in England and Scotland.
Early years and marriage
Mary (Dudley) Sutton, born 2 October 1586, was the eldest daughter of Edward Sutton, 5th Baron Dudley (d. 1643) and his wife Theodosia Harington (d. 1649), youngest daughter of Sir James Harington. The title "Dudley" and surname "Sutton" were interchangeable.Henry Sydney Grazebrook, 'An Account of the Barons of Dudley', Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 9 (1880), p. 113Little is known about her childhood, and there were problems in the family because her father had abandoned her mother for Elizabeth Tomlinson. In 1597 her younger brother Ferdinando and her sister Anne were lodged in Clerkenwell, as wards of their aunt Elizabeth Harington and uncle Edward Montagu of Boughton.Acts of the Privy Council, vol. 27, pp. 325-8: ‘DUDLEY, alias SUTTON, Edward (1567-1643), of Dudley Castle, Staffs.' The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981. Lord Dudley was ordered to pay her £20 yearly by the Privy Council, but refused to pay.Lamar M. Hill, 'The Privy Council and Private Morality', Charles Carlton, State Sovereigns & Society in Early Modern England (Stroud: Sutton, 1998), 212.
Later, Lady Anne Clifford described Mary as her childhood companion, "my old companion" and "my old acquaintance", and said their mothers had been friends.Jessica L. Malay, Anne Clifford's Autobiographical Writing, 1590-1676 (Manchester, 2018), pp. 39, 80, 86. After the Union of the Crowns in 1603, her mother Theodosia Harington seems to have been an important member of Princess Elizabeth's household and before their marriage in London, Frederick V of the Palatinate gave her a valuable gift of silver plate.Nadine Akkerman, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Hearts (Oxford, 2022), p. 72.
Her sister Anne Dudley (d. 1615) married Hans Meinhard von Schönberg and was the mother of Friedrich Hermann von Schönberg. Anne Dudley bequeathed to Lady Home, "a little ring made in the fashion of a heart enameled black with a little diamond".Will of Maria Soton, Countess of Home. Anne Dudley was a lady in waiting to Princess Elizabeth (known as Mistress Dudley), as was her cousin Elizabeth Dudley, Countess of Löwenstein, daughter of her uncle John Dudley, both appointed to the royal household because of their Harington family connection. It is likely that the Countess of Home would later be an advocate for the cause of the Elizabeth of Bohemia in England and Scotland.Nadine Akkerman, The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart Queen of Bohemia, vol. 2 (Oxford, 2011), p. 1119.
Her youngest sister, Margaret Dudley (1597-1674) married Miles Hobart of Plumstead (born 1602) in 1627 at St Ann Blackfriars, London. He was a son of Thomas Hobart of Plumstead and Willoughby Hopton, a daughter of Arthur Hopton of Blythburgh and Witham. According to Lady Home's lawyer, they lived 7 miles inland from Yarmouth. In later years Theodosia Dudley moved to Norfolk to be near her daughter at Beeston.Visitation of Norfolk in 1563, vol. 2 (Norwich, 1895), pp. 74, 111: Sir Thomas Hope's Diary (Edinburgh, 1843), p. 195.
On 11 July 1605 Mary married the wealthy Scottish widower Alexander Home, 1st Earl of Home (died 1619), a marriage perhaps arranged by James VI and I and intended to effect the Anglicization of Scottish aristocracy. The newly created title of Earl of Home was counted in 1605 as a title in the English peerage.Keith Brown, 'The Scottish Aristocracy, Anglicisation and the Court, 1603-1638', The Historical Journal, 36:3 (September 1993), pp. 543-576, 546, 551-2. The wedding was celebrated by Peter Alibond, vicar of St Michael's, Chenies, at Bedford House in the Strand in the presence of her cousin Lucy Russell (née Harington), Countess of Bedford, with Bedford's usher John Stewart, Winifred Barnes, Captain Thomas Tyrie, and James Congleton.British Library, Stowe MS 574 f.66v King James gave her an annual pension of £300, which she resigned in 1617.Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1894), p. 530, 712-3. The Countess of Home frequently travelled to London. In June 1616 Anne Clifford recorded meeting her at the house of her cousin Lucy, Countess of Bedford.K. Acheson, Ann Clifford: The Memoir of 1603 and the Diary of 1616-1619 (Broadview, Toronto, 2007), pp. 91-3, 165, 167.
Celebrating an Anglo-Scottish marriage The couple had a historical connection; her grandfather Edward Sutton, 4th Baron Dudley had been the keeper of Hume Castle in the Scottish borders which had been captured from Alexander Home's grandmother, Mariotta Haliburton in 1548.Grafton's Chronicle: A Chronicle at Large, 1569, vol. 2 (London, 1809), p. 503. This link was celebrated at King James's arrival at Dunglass Castle on 13 May 1617.Roger Green, 'The King Returns: The Muses Welcome', Steven J. Reid & David McOmish, Neo-Latin Literature and Literary Culture in Early Modern Scotland (Brill, 2017), pp. 129-130, 134-5. The poet David Hume of Godscroft wrote a Latin verse to be said on this occasion which contrasted Mary's rebuilding of the earl's houses with the destruction wrought by her grandfather during the war of the Rough Wooing. He refers to the improving work of her English hand;Mentiar; aut nullis horrendam ducimus Anglam,Judice te; vultum respice, sive animum.Nec fera miscemus, truculento, proelia, Marte:Sed colimus, casti, foedera sancta, thori.Hinc surgunt mihi structa palatia, diruit AnglaQuae quondam, melior iam struit Angla manus:Hinc quam fausta tibi procederet UNIO, si sicExemplo, saperes Insula tota, meo.The Muses Welcome to the High and Mightie Prince James (Edinburgh, 1618).Either I'm a liar, or we think that an Englishwoman is not terrible in any respect, as you judge: just consider her countenance or her mind. Nor shall we join battles in cruel war, but rather we are observing the sacred laws of a chaste marriage. Hence a castle, built for me, which an English hand had once demolished, a better English hand is now rebuilding. Hence this union will go prosperously for you and your entire island, if you grow wise after my example.Text translated for The Philological Museum by Dana F. Sutton
Life as a widow Alexander, Earl of Home died on 5 April 1619 in London in a house in Channel Row. Anne Clifford and the Countess of Bedford visited Lady Home there on 19 April.Jessica L. Malay, Anne Clifford's Autobiographical Writing, 1590-1676 (Manchester, 2018), pp. 80-1. Lady Home was left wealthy, and it was rumoured the king gave her £1200 in June,Thomas Birch & Folkestone Williams, Court and Times of James the First, vol. 2 (London, 1849), p. 172. but she had to defend her young son's rights as Earl of Home as owner of large estates in Berwickshire and the Scottish Borders, with the help of his guardians and curators, and leading members of the Home family.
In August 1621, when she decided to visit the court in London with her son James, Earl of Home, she appointed David Home of Wedderburn to be their factor in Scotland while they were away. She dated the document at "Fleuris", perhaps Floors Castle or their property Fleurs near Coldingham. Wedderburn was frequently deputed to manage her Scottish affairs.HMC Colonel David Milne Home of Wedderburn Colonel David Milne Home of Wedderburn Castle (London, 1902), pp. 87–89 nos. 198 & 204, 198 no. 432.
Abraham Hume, a recent graduate of St Andrews University, was her chaplain around the year 1630, and he is said to have composed "remarks" objecting to London life and public affairs based on his experience of the Caroline court with his patron. Hume was subsequently chaplain to her son-in-law, John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale, then called Lord Maitland, and accompanied him on a Grand Tour.Edmund Calamy, An Abridgement Of Mr. Baxter's History Of His Life And Times, vol. 2 (London, 1713), pp. 511-2.
Thomas Hope of Craighall The Countess of Home employed the lawyer Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall and he recorded some details of her business in his diary. On Tuesday 1 April 1634 she came to his lodging in Edinburgh with her family, the Earl of Lauderdale, John, Lord Maitland, James, Lord Doune and his wife, her daughter Margaret Lady Doune. They offered him 2,000 merks as an inducement in a legal process.David Matthew, Scotland under Charles I (London, 1955), p. 73. Hope noted that she spoke to him first apart from the others, but offered £2,000 Scots as if she were unfamiliar with Scottish money.A Diary of the Public Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, 1633–1645: From the Original, in the Library at Pinkie House (Bannatyne Club: Edinburgh, 1843), p. 10.
Coldingham Priory and the Hirsel She disputed the ownership of lands of Coldingham Priory, and particularly the Northfield of Coldingham and the teinds of Auldcambus and Fast Castle, with Francis and John Stewart, sons of Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell before the Privy Council of Scotland in 1620 and the issue continued in following years with interventions from James I and Charles I.The Melros Papers vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1837), pp. 370-2, 550-1: The Earl of Stirling's register of royal letters, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1885), pp. 123, 329, 392: James Maidment, Letters and Papers of James the Sixth, pp. 324-8.
The house and estate at the Hirsel was part of the lands of Coldstream Priory. William Ker, a younger brother of John Ker of Littledean, wrote to Francis Stewart, son of the Earl of Bothwell about the Priory lands in July 1632. According to Ker, Coldstream had been obtained by the crown lawyer Thomas Hamilton, Earl of Haddington. He worked to Lady Home's benefit regarding the teinds of the Hirsel estate during her son's minority. Ker described their interaction as collusion. He hoped that Sir Robert Ker could agree with the young Earl of Home about details of the Hirsel estate.James Maidment, Analecta Scotica (Edinburgh, 1837), pp. 66-9.
Cockburnspath On 14 August 1634, she contracted with John Arnot, the postmaster of Cockburnspath near Dunglass castle that he would repair and rebuild the teind barn and barnyard of Cockburnspath and keep it in good order and have the use of it for 20 merks yearly, allowing her servants to use the barn to stack her teinds. Lady Home paid the minister's stipend at Cockburnspath, in 1638 the minister was George Sydserf.Hirsel Documents, NRAS 859 box 17 bundle 2.
A loan for the Scottish army In May 1644, the Countess of Home was able to lend £7,300 sterling towards the expenses of the Scottish Covenant army in Ireland. The merchant financier Robert Inglis accepted the loan and its equivalent in gold was sent to Carrickfergus Castle. The soldier Sir John Ruthven was involved in this transaction.Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding, 1 (London, 1889), pp. 4–5, 10: TNA SP 46/106 ff. 99-104: Daniel Wilson, Memorials of Edinburgh, 2 (Edinburgh, 1848), p. 74: Robert Chambers, Traditions of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1869), p. 327.
Many sundry particular things
Mary maintained houses in London and in Edinburgh, employing Nicholas Stone and Isaac de Caus to work on her house in Aldersgate, which was later known as Lauderdale House.W. G Spiers, 'Account Book of Nicolas Stone', 7th Volume of the Walpole Society (Oxford, 1919), p. 117. This house was used by the Spanish ambassador Carlos Coloma in October 1635.John Bruce, Calendar State Papers, Domestic, 1635 (London, 1865), no. 29. She built a summerhouse at Twickenham Park and decorated it with blue gilt leather recycled from her Scottish houses. At Highgate she extended an existing house, obtained from the queen's silkman William Geere, which survives and is known as Lauderdale House.Osmund Airy, The Lauderdale papers, vol. 2 (London, 1885), p. 203