Antigone of Gloucester

Antigone of Gloucester (bef. 1424 – aft. 1450) was an English noblewoman and the illegitimate daughter of Humphrey of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Gloucester (1390–1447). She was the granddaughter of King Henry IV. She has been thought to have been born between 1425 and 1428 but as her first child, Richard Grey, 3rd Earl of Tankerville, was born in November 1436 it is likely that she was born by 1424 at the very latest and possibly earlier. Her date of death is not known, but it was later than 1451.

Parentage According to Douglas Richardson's Magna Carta Ancestry, both Antigone and her brother Arthur were illegitimate children of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, by "[an] unknown mistress or mistresses".

Cathy Hartley, in her biography of Eleanor Cobham, states that: "She became Humphrey's mistress and bore him two children." In Duke Humphrey: a sidelight on Lancastrian England, Davis & Lucy argue that Eleanor had to watch Humphrey lavish attention on Antigone: "Eleanor had to watch all this attention given to another woman's child; a bitter thing for a woman with no child of her own."

Weis, et al. claim that "It is often suggested, but without proof, that Eleanor was mother before mar. of Humprey's 2 illegit. chn.: Arthur and Antigone. No proof of their maternity." Gary Boyd Roberts wrote that Eleanor Cobham was "probably the mother of Antigone". Vickers' biography of Humphrey claims that by Humphrey's return to England in 1425: "she (Eleanor) had gained a complete ascendency over her royal lover, to whom she had probably borne two children by this time." He added "She (Eleanor) left no legitimate issue, but she 'may' have been the mother of the two children who called Humphrey father."

Marriages Antigone married first Henry Grey, 2nd Earl of Tankerville, 7th Earl of Powis (1419–1450). After the death of Henry Grey in 1450, she remarried to Jean d'Amancy (also known as John d'Amancier), Councillor of the Duke of Orléans, Esquire of the Horse to King Charles VII of France.

Children Antigone had three known children with her husband Henry: Richard Grey, 3rd Earl of Tankerville (5 November 1436 – 1466), married Margaret Touchet, daughter of James Touchet, 5th Baron Audley. They had one son, John Grey (died 1497), usually considered the first of the Barons Grey of Powis, who married to Anne Herbert, daughter of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, and Anne Devereux. They also had one daughter, Elizabeth Grey, who married Sir John Ludlow, KB, of Hodnet, Shropshire, in 1465. Humphrey Grey, married Eleanor Touchet, daughter of James Touchet, 5th Baron Audley. (In Gascony at least, Antigone had cousins, the de Monterrand lords of Lesparre. In England, her illegitimate cousins such as Richard Bedford, who was made an honorary member of the guild of merchant taylors, are harder to track and their lines may have died out. )