In 1491 she married Sir Richard P., nephew of Henry VIII, by whom she had five children. Widowed and invested with the title of Countess of Salisbury, she was a lady of the court of Queen Catherine of Aragon and governess to Princess Mary. The open letter *Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione* by her son, Cardinal Reginald, and the two legations of the same provoked the King’s anger against her, and in 1539 she was imprisoned. For her fidelity to Rome, she languished for two years in the Tower’s dungeons and, without trial or defense, was beheaded on 27 May 1541. Leo XIII declared her Blessed on 2 Feb. 1886.
BIBL.: B. Camm, *Lives of the English Martyrs*, I, London 1904, pp. 502 sg.; G. Constant, *La Réforme en Angleterre*, I, Paris 1930, pp. 161-63.