#i was looking for something on Cecily!

[wonder-worker]

“Women's efforts to provide for their younger sons and daughters often brought them into conflict with their oldest sons. As heirs, eldest sons frequently resented provisions for their siblings that reduced or burdened their inheritances. Mothers' efforts to provide for their younger children were particularly threatening to their eldest sons when they were heiresses and had power to dispose of their own property, but men's provisions for their widows also caused trouble between women and their sons. Indeed, husbands' provisions for their widows usually represented a much heavier burden on the family's estates than their bequests to their younger children. Furthermore, widows' dowers and jointures often interfered with the heir's power over his inheritance for years... Disputes about the provision for widows and women's efforts to secure the welfare of their daughters and younger sons often became intertwined when women served as their husbands' executors.

All of these factors played a part in the bitter quarrel between Cecily, dowager marchioness of Dorset, and her eldest son Thomas, the second marquess. In 1504, Lady Cecily, who was her father, William Lord Bonville's, sole heir and the executor of her husband's estate, announced her intention of marrying Lord Henry Stafford,  the duke of Buckingham's younger brother. Stafford, who paid 2,000 to Henry VII for permission to marry her, obviously expected the match to be a profitable one. The young marquess was understandably concerned about the effect the marriage would have on his inheritance, given the legal rights his mother's new husband would acquire over her and her property. The dispute escalated until Henry VII intervened. The settlement they signed after appearing before the king's council permitted Cecily to continue as her first husband's executor despite her remarriage. Under the terms of his will, she would receive the income from the estates he wanted set aside to pay his debts. However, she would not receive her dower until the debts were paid and she had turned the property over to her son. In addition, the council severely limited Cecily's power to dispose of her own inheritance: after her death, she had to bequeath all of it to Thomas; until then she could grant only lands worth up to 1,000 marks a year, and then only for a limited period of years. The obvious intention was to prevent the marchioness from permanently endowing her new husband at the expense of her eldest son. Her rights as an heiress were severely limited in his favor and, in a larger sense, in favor of the institution of primogeniture.

  By 1522, Lady Cecily and her son were openly feuding once again, this time about provision for her younger children. As a result of Cardinal Wolsey's mediation, they signed another elaborate agreement. Each of them promised to contribute to the dowries of the marquess's four sisters, while in addition Cecily agreed to create annuities from her estates for three of her younger sons.”

- Barbara J. Harris, “Property, Power, and Personal Relations: Elite Mothers and Sons in Yorkist and Early Tudor England"