Mary Scrope

Mary Scrope (died 25 August 1548) was the granddaughter of Henry Scrope, 4th Baron Scrope of Bolton, and the sister of Elizabeth Scrope (d.1537), wife of John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, and Margaret Scrope (d.1515), wife of Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk. She is said to have been in the service at court of King Henry VIII's first four wives. As the wife of Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower of London, she was in attendance on Anne Boleyn during the Queen's brief imprisonment in the Tower in May 1536, and both she and her husband were among those who walked with the Queen to the scaffold. By her first husband, Edward Jerningham, she was the mother of Sir Henry Jerningham, whose support helped to place Queen Mary I on the throne of England in 1553, and who became one of Queen Mary's most favoured courtiers.

Mary Scrope was one of the nine daughters of Richard Scrope (d.1485) of Upsall, Yorkshire, the second son of Henry Scrope, 4th Baron Scrope of Bolton (4 June 1418 – 14 January 1459). Her mother was Eleanor Washbourne (d.1505/6), the daughter of Norman Washbourne (1433-1482). She was the sister of Elizabeth Scrope (d.1537), who married firstly William Beaumont, 2nd Viscount Beaumont, and secondly, John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, and of Margaret Scrope (d.1515), who married Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk. She was the niece of John Scrope, 5th Baron Scrope of Bolton.