Excerpt from The Court Album: Twelve Portraits of the Female Aristocracy Sussex, through the Lady Frances Ratcliff, daughter of the third Lord Fitzwalter, and second Earl of Sussex, son of the Earl of Sussex, the great royal matchmaker of his day, who negotiated the marriage of Philip of Spain with Queen Mary, and was only prevented by the coyness and coquetry of Queen Elizabeth from wedding her, in the first instance, to the Archduke of Austria, and in the second to the Duke of Anjou. Morant tells us that in the reign of Henry VIII. There was a Sir nvilliam Mildmay, who married Margaret, the daughter of Sir George Hervey, constable of the Tower, and had by her four sons. From these four sons the family of Mildmay spread itself into numerous other branches, insomuch that about the end of King James the First's reign, these nine families (which he enumerates) were possessed of very large and considerable estates in Essex. The honours and estates of Mildmay, nevertheless, in 17 88 came by will through Jane Mildmay, then Lady St. John, grand-niece of Carew Hervey Mildmay, Esq., of Marks, in the county of Essex, the fourth descendant of the second of these four sons, - into the ancient family of St. John, whose lineage dates from a Sir William de St. John, the quartermaster-general, or supervisor of the waggon train, of William the Conqueror's invading army, who assumed the name of Mildmay by injunction of testator. Of this great heiress, the present Baronet is the grandson. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.