Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/390

 quired within its walls (cf. University and College Documents, iii. 483–526; and  Architectural Hist. of Cambridge, ii. 687 sq.).

Mildmay otherwise showed his interest in education by acting as an original governor of Chelmsford School, founded in 1550–1; by giving an annuity of 52s. to Christ's Hospital (10 April 1556); and by bestowing 20l. a year on Christ's College, Cambridge (10 March 1568–1569), to be expended on a Greek lectureship, six scholarships and a preachership to be filled by a fellow of the college. He also contributed stone for completing the tower of Great St. Mary's Church, Cambridge, and he helped to found the free-school at Middleton, Lancashire.

There are three portraits of Mildmay at Emmanuel College—one with his wife. A fourth painting is at Moulsham Hall, near Chelmsford, and a fifth at Knole Park, Sevenoaks (, Pictures at Knole, 1795, p. 124). There are engravings by J. Faber and E. Harding, and an unsigned plate is known.

Mildmay married Mary, daughter of William Walsingham, by Joyce, daughter of Edmund Denny, baron of exchequer, and sister of Sir Francis Walsingham. She died 16 March 1576. His children were Sir Anthony (see below); Humphrey of Danbury Place, Essex, father of Sir [q. v.]; Winifred, wife of Sir William Fitzwilliam of Gains Park, Essex; Martha, wife of Sir William Brouncker; and Christian, wife successively of Charles Barrett of Aveley in Essex, and Sir John Leveson of Kent, knight.

The eldest son, (d. 1617), who inherited the family estate of Apethorpe, delivered an oration with much success at Peterhouse, Cambridge, when the queen visited the college 9 Aug. 1564 ( Progresses, i. 173). He entered Gray's Inn in 1579 (Reg. ed Foster, p. 55). He was knighted in 1596, when he was appointed ambassador to Henry IV. ‘I always knew him,’ wrote Chamberlain soon after Mildmay had settled in Paris, ‘to be paucorum hominum, yet he hath ever showed himself an honourable fast frend where he found vertue and desert’ (, Letters, p. 2). The French king complained of Mildmay's ungenial manner and of the coldness with which he listened to the praises of the Earl of Essex. At an interview in March 1597 Henry ordered him out of his chamber and threatened to strike him (, Memoirs, ii. 305). He returned home later in the year, and declined an invitation to resume the post in 1598. He died on 11 Sept. 1617, and was buried at Apethorpe, where an elaborate monument was erected to his memory (, Northamptonshire, ii. 425). A portrait is at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. By his marriage in 1567 with Grace (d. 27 July 1620), daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry Sherington of Lacock, in Wiltshire (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1581–90, p. 35), he left an only child, Mary, who married Francis Fane, first earl of Westmorland, and was mother of, second earl of Westmorland [q. v.] 

MILDRYTH or MILDRYTH (d. 700?), saint and abbess, younger sister of St. [q. v.], was destined by her mother, Eormenburga or Domneva, to a conventual life; for Eormenburga was then abbess of a nunnery which she had built at Minstre or Minster in the Isle of Thanet, on land given to her by Egbert, king of Kent, as a wergild for her two brothers, St. Ethelbert and St. Ethelred, slain at Eastry with his consent by his counsellor Thunor ( ap. Decem Scriptores, col. 1906;, Historia Regum, ap. Opp. ii. 3–10). Mildred, who was a girl of excellent disposition, was therefore sent to the nunnery of Chelles, about twelve miles to the east of Paris, to be instructed in ecclesiastical learning. While she was there a kinsman of the abbess Wilcoma wished to marry her; the abbess favoured his suit, and persecuted Mildred for refusing him; she shut Mildred into a hot oven, and kept her there for three hours, but Mildred came out unhurt. On another day the abbess beat her and tore out her hair. Mildred sent her mother a tress of her torn-out hair and a little psalter that she had written for her, with a request that her mother would help her. Eormenburga sent for her, but the abbess would not let her go. However, she escaped, and taking with her some precious relics that she had bought sailed for England. She landed at Ebbsfleet, and the stone on which she stepped on landing was impressed by her foot, and many were healed there. Along with seventy other virgins she became a nun of her mother's house, being blessed by Archbishop (d. 663?) [q. v.], or by his successor Theodore , and succeeded her mother in the rule of the house. She is supposed to have