♀Margaret Forster

Margaret Forster was a daughter of Sir Humphrey Forster of Aldermaston, a Berkshire knight, and the wife of Anthony Elmes of Bolney, in the parish of Harpsden near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. She was the eleventh great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son John Elmes (1561–1607/8). When Sir Humphrey made his will in September 1556 she was already “my doughter Margaret Elmes”, and he left her twenty pounds’ worth of household goods “in suche household stuff as she shall chose”.

Two sons are known, both most likely Margaret’s: Anthony, the eldest son and heir, later styled esquire, and John, baptized at Harpsden on 10 April 1561. Anthony is said to have died without a will, before 26 April 1574, when his widow Margaret was charged with accounting for his estate.

Notes

Her parentage and marriage

Sir Humphrey Forster’s will, made in September 1556 and proved on 29 September, names “my doughter Margaret Elmes”. The 1566 heralds’ visitation^W of Berkshire, as printed in Robert Battle and Henry B. Hoff’s study of the Elmes family in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (2022), calls her “Margarett seconde doughter maried to Anthony Elmes of Bowlnehaye in com Oxon esquire”. The same article gives her mother as Elizabeth Sandys, from the heralds’ visitations.

Her sons

Margaret is the only wife known for Anthony Elmes, and the 2022 article takes her to be the mother of both his sons; no record names her as their mother. The name Forster, which her son John gave to one of his own sons, fits that descent.

Her widowhood

The administration of Anthony’s estate on 26 April 1574, in the court of the Archdeacon of Oxford, is known from an index cited in the 2022 article, which is also the source for his dying without a will.