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Lady Alice Spencer
Born May 4, 1559 Althorp, Northampton, England
Died Jan 16, 1637 Harefield, Middlesex, London, England
SPOUSE CHILDREN
Ferdinando Stanley

m. 1579/80

b. 1559?
London, England
d. Apr 16, 1594
Ormskirk, Lancashire, England
Anne

b. 1580

d. Oct 11, 1647
Alice Frances

b. May 1583

d. Mar 11, 1635/6
England
Elizabeth

b. 1587?

d. 1633
Sir Thomas Egerton

m. Oct 20, 1600

b. 1540?
Doddleston, Chester, England
d. Mar 15, 1617
Alice was known as the Dowager Countess of Derby, long after the Earl of Derby died in 1594, and after she became the Baroness of Ellesmere in 1600.
After Lady Alice Spencer Stanley was widowed by the death of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby, in 1594, Thomas Egerton purchased the house in Harefield for her in 1601. She lived there after Thomas died. She is buried nearby in the Church of St Mary the Virgin.
Her daughter Anne became the Countess of Castlehaven. Because her father died in 1594, Anne, as specified in Henry VIII's will, was supposed to become Queen, succeeding Elizabeth I, in 1603. James VI of Scotland, a descendant of Henry VII, eventually succeeded Queen Elizabeth.
Her daughter Frances married her stepson, Sir John Egerton, in 1602 and they had 11 surviving children.
Portrait of (probably) Lady Alice Spencer Stanley painted about 1610. This painting is in the Weiss Gallery in London.
Lady Alice was a well-known patron of the arts... Excerpt describing masques relating to the family from the book Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642.
Sources:
Baker, George B., "Brackley chart", History of the County of Northamptonshire, London, 1822-1841, v.1:564.
Culver, Francis B., "Egerton Family", Maryland Hist. Mag., v.35:292-302, 1940.
Schelling, Felix E., "The English Masque", Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642, Houghton Mifflin & Company, New York NY, 1908, pp. 133-134.
Weiss Gallery, London, England, website, Portrait of a Lady, probably Alice Spencer (1559-1637).