Dorothea Silking

Dorothea Silking (fl. 1608-1640), was a Danish courtier in the household of Anne of Denmark.

Records of the royal household refer to her as "Mistress Dorothy", or "Dorothy Silkin" or "Silken", or "Selken". She was from Güstrow.[1] Her name appears as "Dorothea Silking, of an ancient family in the kingdom of Denmark" on her daughter's monument at Ketton church, Kedington, Suffolk.[2]

Dorothea's work for Anna of Denmark included looking after her silver plate and jewelry. She was probably a successor of Margaret Hartsyde who was accused of stealing the queen's jewels and trying to sell them back to George Heriot. The queen gave Dorothea and her sister Jyngell Silking gifts of clothes as a mark of favour.[3] An inventory of the jewels of Anna of Denmark mentions that "Mrs Dorothy" returned a bracelet to the queen's cabinet in 1607.[4]

In October 1609 Dorothea attempted to open a coal mine on a royal manor, a right she had presumably been given by the queen, and wrote to the Earl of Salisbury about permissions and patents, signing her name "Dorothy Selkane".[5]

"Dorthee" and "Engella Seelken" were naturalized as English citizens in July 1610 at the same time as other members of the queen's household, including; Katherine Benneken from Garlstorf, the queen's doctor Martin Schöner from Głogów, the apothecary John Wolfgang Rumler from Augsburg and his wife Anna de l'Obel from Middelburg, a daughter of Matthias de l'Obel.[6]

She married Edward Zouch of Woking in 1612, and was usually known as "Lady Zouch". In 1635 Reverend George Garrard, who had been at court in the household of Prince Henry, recalled that Silking was "a Dane, one that served Queen Anne in her bedchamber. I knew her well, a homely woman, but being very rich Zouch married her for her wealth".[7]

The jeweller George Heriot recorded in his accounts for 1613 that the "Lady Sutch" owed him £81 which "she affirmes her Majesty is pleased to paye".[8]

At the funeral of Anne of Denmark in 1619, "Lady Zouch" walked in procession, listed with the ladies of the Privy Chamber.[9]

When an inventory of the late queen's silver plate at Denmark House was taken in 1621, the Zouches were asked to supply a shortfall worth £492-19 shillings, including a gold casting bottle engraved with the arms of Queen Elizabeth. Edward Zouch successfully claimed that a warrant signed by Dorothea Silking was a forgery, because she could not write her name, and they were not liable.[10]

Edward Zouch died in 1634, and the year after their 17 year-old daughter Sophia was married to Viscount Wimbledon, a 63 year-old war veteran, the age difference attracted comment from Sir John Finet.[11]

Her son James Zouch married Beatrice Annesley (1619-1668), daughter of Francis Annesley, then Lord Mountnorris. In 1638 Mountnorris advised James Zouch, after consulting his steward Andrew Conradus, that in view of his debts he ought to live more economically with his mother and just four or five servants for £100 a year.[12]

After the death of James Zouch in 1643, Beatrice Zouch married Sir John Lloyd of Woking and the Forest (d. 1664) while their son was still an infant, and then Sir Thomas Smith of Hill Hall, Essex (d. 1668), according to a law case heard before the Lord Chancellor in 1669. The mother and son in this case were noted to be related to Arthur Annesley, 1st Earl of Anglesey. The case was brought by a creditor of Sir Edward Zouch called Gilpen, against Dorothea's grandson as his heir.[13]

The exact dates of Dorothea's birth and death are unknown.

Family

Dorothea's children included;

References
  1. William Shaw, Letters of Denization and Naturalization, Huguenot Society, vol. 18 (Lymington, 1911), p. 16.
  2. Charles Dalton, Life and times of General Sir Edward Cecil, viscount Wimbledon, 1605-1631 (London, 1885), p. 374.
  3. Jemma Field, 'The Wardrobe Goods of Anna of Denmark', Costume 51:1 (2017), pp. 20-1.
  4. Diana Scarisbrick, 'Anne of Denmark's Jewellery Inventory', Archaeologia, vol. CIX (1991), pp. 193–237, at p. 196.
  5. Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar State Papers Domestic: James I: 1603-1610, vol. 1 (London, 1857), pp. 552, 605: TNA SP14/48/159-160, SP14/53/185: Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House: Volume 21, 1609-1612, ed. G Dyfnallt Owen (London, 1970), 11 Sept 1609: Alice Clark, The Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1919), p. 25.
  6. William Arthur Shaw, Letters of denization and acts of naturalization for aliens in England and Ireland (Lymington, 1911), pp. 15-6.
  7. William Knowler, Strafford Letters, vol. 1 (London, 1739) p. 468: Charles Dalton, Life and times of General Sir Edward Cecil, viscount Wimbledon, 1605-1631 (London, 1885), p. 354.
  8. Archibald Constable, Memoirs of George Heriot (Edinburgh, 1822), p. 219.
  9. John Nichols, Progresses of James First, vol. 3 (London, 1828), p. 541.
  10. A. J. Collins, Jewels and Plate of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1955), pp. 149, 306.
  11. HMC 6th Report (Earl of Denbigh), p. 283.
  12. John Trevor Cliffe, The World of the Country House in Seventeenth-century England (Yale, 1999), p. 93.
  13. Cases Argued and Decreed in the High Court of Chancery, 1660-1697 (New York, 1828), p. 80-1: Cases argued and decreed in the High Court of Chancery from the 12th year of King Charles II to the 31st (London, 1697), pp. 80-2, these notes have "Dame Dorothy" for "Beatrice": Francis Annesley & Patrick Little, 'Providence and Posterity: A Letter from Lord Mountnorris to His Daughter, 1642', Irish Historical Studies, 32:128 (November 2001), pp. 556-566: Papers relating to the case are held by TNA CS108/107.
  14. Brayley & Britton, A Topographical History of Surrey, vol. 2 part 1 (Dorking & London, 1842), p. 9.
  15. Francis Annesley & Patrick Little, 'Providence and Posterity: A Letter from Lord Mountnorris to His Daughter, 1642', Irish Historical Studies, 32:128 (November 2001), pp. 556-7.
  16. Charles Dalton, Life and times of General Sir Edward Cecil, viscount Wimbledon, 1605-1631 (London, 1885), p. 342-3, 374, 404.
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