Mary Talbot , dau. and coheir. Jacqueline Eales, `Armine , Mary, Lady Armine (1594-1676)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/648, accessed 24 Sept 2005] Armine [nâee Talbot; other married name Holcroft], Mary, Lady Armine (1594-1676), benefactor, was born at Overton, Huntingdonshire, the daughter of Elizabeth Reyner and Henry Talbot, fourth son of George Talbot, sixth earl of Shrewsbury. She married first Thomas Holcroft and second, on 28 August 1628, Sir William Armine (1593-1651) of Osgodby, Lincolnshire, to whom she was the second wife. She had one son, who predeceased her. Through the activities of her second husband and of her nephew, William Pierrepoint, as MPs in the Long Parliament, Lady Armine was closely associated with the parliamentarian cause. She inherited considerable properties in Huntingdon, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire and was able to use her wealth to support a range of charitable and religious projects. Samuel Clarke records that when `above eighteen hundred ministers' were ejected in 1662, he was present when Lady Armine gave Edmund Calamy £500 `to be distributed among the most … necessitous families of them' (Clarke, pt 2, 194). She made annual contributions to the conversion of `the poor Indians in America', of which she received a `yearly account to her great refreshment and joy' (J. D., 24–5). She gave books, money, and advice to individuals in order to draw them to a religious life, and during her lifetime she founded almshouses at Monk Bretton, Yorkshire, and Cromford, Derbyshire. In her will and a series of codicils she directed that a third almshouse should be built at Orton Longueville, Huntingdonshire, and provided money to be distributed to a number of poor elderly widows or widowers at Barton, Cromford, and Orton. She also left £40 to be used for charitable uses for ninety-nine years. Lady Armine desired to be buried at the church of Orton Longueville by `my honoured mother and my deare sonn' in the burial place of her ancestors (will, fol. 163v). At her death on 6 March 1676 Lady Armine left the majority of her estate to her nephews, William and Gervase Pierrepoint, sons of the earl and the countess of Kingston. William was appointed to act as her executor. Lady Armine made bequests to numerous other members of the Pierrepoint family, to her doctor, John Micklethwaite, to her chaplain, and to her household servants. She also remembered Sir William Armine's surviving children, Sir Michael Armine, Lady Styles, and Lady Barnardiston, and other members of her husband's family, although Sir Michael predeceased her in 1668, when the baronetcy became extinct. At her funeral she was described as well educated in French and Latin and `considerably skill'd in Divinity and History' (J. D., 22). The author of her funeral sermon (J. D.) was most probably her household chaplain, Mr Dan. He was writing within a tradition of the exemplification of godly laymen and women and he used the example of Lady Armine to demonstrate that women could excel in living a religious life within the protestant faith. He described her constant devotion `in a dayly reading of Scripture and other choice books' and her exercise of prayer twice daily (ibid., 26). He also praised her for her constant religious faith and for endeavouring to encourage it in others. Similarly Richard Baxter, whom she had consulted about her charitable works, praised her for her `prudence, sobriety and gravity' (ibid., sig. a3r). Jacqueline Eales Sources J. D., A sermon preached at the funeral of that incomparable lady, the honourable, the Ladie Mary Armyne (1676) ¨ S. Clark [S. Clarke], The lives of sundry eminent persons in this later age (1683), pt 2, 192–6 ¨ will, PRO, PROB 11/347 [fols. 163v–166v] ¨ DNB ¨ IGI Likenesses C. Jansen, portrait; at Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, in 1885 ¨ F. H. Van Hove, line engraving, BM, NPG; repro. in Clarke, Lives of sundry eminent persons, 192 Ã Oxford University Press 2004–5 All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press Jacqueline Eales, `Armine , Mary, Lady Armine (1594-1676)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/648, accessed 24 Sept 2005] Mary Armine (1594-1676): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/648
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| Born: Overton, Hunts., , England 1594 | Baptised:
| | Died: 6th Mar 1676 | Buried:
| | Family: Talbot of Malahide |
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