One ‘virago of quality’, the rich Lady Tresham, went to Newgate in 1630 for saying in open court that a thief had more friends there than an honest body. Another time the justices forced her to take back Helen Haddocke whom she had had as a servant for year and then turned loose without wages or apparel “for no cause shewne”. At the next session she was again sent to prison for abusing the court and telling Justice Long that “Your authoritie set aside, you are a scurvy companion.”
From: Bridenbaugh, C. Vexed and Troubled Englishmen 1590-1642, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1968, p. 181
It seems likely she’s related to the Sir Thomas Tresham who was executed for his role in the Gumpowder plot. His family debts were largely cleared by a Lady Tresham, but she died in 1615, so this must be the next generation.
And this piece of parliamentary history – in which an attempt is being made to trample all over the privileges of the Spanish ambassador – suggests that she was Spanish. It seems an odd period for an English aristocrat to marry a Spaniard, but the family was Catholic…
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