Maragret Calthorpe

  General Notes:

Margaret Calthorpe became abbess of Brosyard in Suffolk, a nunnery of minoresses of the Order of St. Clare, by 1500. She wrote to Thomas Cromwell in May 1529 concerning an annuity "which this thirty-four years wrongfully hath been withholden from me." She offers him twenty nobles if he will obtain the amount in arrears, as well as the current payments. She describes herself as being "in that poverty I am not able to wage any law with him, or give any money to the maintenance of my quarrel." She asks him to take the matter to Cardinal Wolsey, if he thinks that best. She does not say who it is that owes her the annuity, although it seems most likely that it was her father’s heir and her brother, Sir Philip Calthorpe.