Mary Shakespeare Mary Shakespeare Mary Shakespeare, née Arden, (c. 1537–1608) was the mother of William Shakespeare. She was the daughter of Wilmcote gentleman farmer Robert Arden, a cadet of the Arden family prominent in Warwickshire since before the Norman Conquest. She was the youngest of eight daughters, and when her father died in 1556 she inherited land at Snitterfield and Wilmcote from her father as a dowry. The house was left to her stepmother Agnes Hill. Richard Shakespeare, the father of John Shakespeare, was a tenant farmer on land owned by her father in Snitterfield. As the daughter of Richard's landlord, she
Mary, Countess of Falmouth and Dorset Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset in June 1674. Mary, Countess of Falmouth and Dorset Mary, Countess of Falmouth and Dorset (1645 – 1679) was a British courtier. She was one of the Windsor Beauties painted by Sir Peter Lely. Her portrait by Lely was erroneously named "Elizabeth, Countess of Falmouth" and also as "Countess of Ossory" in some portrait prints and books in the 18th and 19th centuries, many of which were later reprinted, compounding the error. Her father was Col. Henry Bagot, and mother was Dorothea Arden. She married Charles Berkeley, 1st Earl of Falmouth in 1663. He