Edward Downes after his health declined following a hip replacement. Lady Downes was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer that metastasised to her liver, and given only weeks to live. Lady Downes wrote a letter to family explaining that she had decided against treatment and that: Sir Edward, aged 85, and Lady Downes, aged 74, ended their lives by assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Zürich, Switzerland, on 10 July 2009. Although Joan did not want the children present, Dignitas encouraged it and "Ted and Joanie" were reported to be pleased when the time came. Their children issued a statement speaking of
Joan Vaux (lady-in-waiting) was Sir Richard Guildford, by whom she had her only child, Sir Henry Guildford. Her second husband was Anthony Poyntz. When King Henry VIII was attempting to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn, Joan gave a deposition, concerning whether or not Catherine's marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, had been consummated, in which she confirmed that Prince Arthur and Catherine had lain together "as man and wife all alone five or six nights after the said marriage". Joan was born in about 1463, the daughter of Sir William Vaux and Katherine Penyston. She