Elizabeth Tilney, Countess of Surrey

Elizabeth Tilney
Countess of Surrey
Detail of a stained glass window at Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, Suffolk depicting Elizabeth Tilney
Spouse(s)	Sir Humphrey Bourchier Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey
Issue John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners Margaret Bourchier Anne Bourchier, Baroness Dacre Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk Lord Edward Howard Lord Edmund Howard Elizabeth Howard Muriel Howard Sir John Howard Henry Howard Charles Howard Henry Howard (second of that name) Richard Howard
Father	Sir Frederick Tilney
Mother	Elizabeth Cheney
Born	Before 1445 Ashwellthorpe Manor, Norfolk
Died	4 April 1497 England
Buried	Convent of the Minoresses, outside Aldgate, London
Occupation	Lady-in-waiting Lady of the Bedchamber

Elizabeth Tilney, Countess of Surrey (before 1445 – 4 April 1497) was an English heiress and lady-in-waiting to two queens. She became the first wife of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey.

She served as a lady-in-waiting to Queen consort Elizabeth Woodville, and later as Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen's daughter, Elizabeth of York, consort of King Henry VII of England. She stood as joint godmother to Princess Margaret Tudor at her baptism.

She was the mother of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Through her daughter Elizabeth she was the maternal grandmother of Anne Boleyn, and through another son, Edmund, the paternal grandmother of Catherine Howard, both queens consort of King Henry VIII. Elizabeth's great-granddaughter was Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Elizabeth was commemorated as the "Countess of Surrey" in John Skelton's poem, The Garlande of Laurell, following his visit to the Howard residence of Sheriff Hutton Castle.

Elizabeth Tilney was born at Ashwellthorpe Hall sometime before 1445, the only child of Sir Frederick Tilney, of Ashwellthorpe, Norfolk, and Boston, Lincolnshire, and Elizabeth Cheney (1422–1473) of Fen Ditton, Cambridgeshire. Sir Frederick Tilney died before 1447, and before 1449 Elizabeth's mother married as her second husband Sir John Say of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, Speaker of the House of Commons, by whom she had three sons, Sir William, Sir Thomas and Leonard, and four daughters, Anne (wife of Sir Henry Wentworth of Nettlestead, Suffolk), Elizabeth (wife of Thomas Sampson), Katherine (wife of Thomas Bassingbourne), and Mary (wife of Sir Philip Calthorpe). A fifth daughter died as a young child. Henry VIII's third queen consort, Jane Seymour, was the granddaughter of Henry Wentworth and Anne Say, and thus a second cousin to Henry VIII's second and fifth queens consort, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard.