Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/359

Rh No sooner was he dead than the Earl of Northumberland hastened to buy the wardship of the little heiress, Mary Fitz, then nine years and one week old. At the time the Crown became the guardian of orphans whose lands were held in capite or direct from the Crown, and was wont to sell the wardships to the highest bidders. The guardian had complete control, to the exclusion of the mother, over the ward, and he could marry the ward as he liked, this also being generally an affair of money. As soon as Mary Fitz was twelve, the Earl, as she was a desirable heiress, disposed of her to his brother, Sir Allan Percy, aged thirty-one; she did not, however, live with her husband, but was placed under the charge of Lady Hatton. Sir Allan died in November, 1611, three years after, and then it was said:—"Sir Allan Percy is gone the way of all flesh, dying, his lady the way of all quicke flesh, having stolen out of my Lady Eliz. Hatton's house in London, in the edge of an evening, and coupled herself in marriage with Mr. Darcy, my lord Darcye's eldest son." This was on December 18th, 1611, just about a month after the death of husband number one. He was of her own age, and no doubt she found him to her liking; however, he lived only a few months after his marriage, and Lady Mary was again a widow, and was imposed (161 2), hardly by her own choice, on Sir Charles Howard, fourth son of Thomas, Earl of Suffolk. So she had number three when scarcely sixteen. Sir Charles died in 1622; consequently they were together for ten years. She had two daughters by Sir Charles Howard, and a son, George Howard,