Bridget Gibbon

~ COLLATERAL, NOT A DIRECT ANCESTRESS (corrected 24 Jul 2026; she was previously entered as Jane's mother and is not). BRIDGET GIBBON (Guybon), dau. of Sir Anthony Gibbon of Lynn, Norfolk: the SECOND wife of Aubrey de Vere, married after 11 Jul 1562 (the burial date of his first wife at Castle Hedingham). All five of Aubrey's children, including our Jane, were already living in July 1562 when the 16th Earl of Oxford made his will naming them (PROB 11/46/247), so Bridget mothered none of them and was at most a stepmother to Jane. The Visitation of Essex (p.47) shows only this wife and hangs all the issue beneath her, which is the ordinary visitation error; Victorian Burke's then printed 'Bridget, dau. of Sir Anthony Gibbon' as Jane's mother, and that is where the error entered the printed record. NB an earlier note in this file guessed that the Victorians' 'Bridget' was a conflation with Jane's SISTER Bridgett: that guess is WITHDRAWN. Bridget Gibbon was a real woman and a real wife; she was simply the wrong wife. Source: ESSEX RECORD OFFICE D/AMR 3/281/1 (will of Aubrey Vere, 18 Jan 1579/80, transcript and apparatus by Nina Green, oxford-shakespeare.com), citing Markham, The Fighting Veres (1888) p.383. Kept in the tree as a documented step-relation; retained here so the correction is visible rather than silently deleted. Corrected 24 Jul 2026. ||SPRING-GIBBON LINK DOCUMENTED 7 Aug 2026 (1612 Visitation of Suffolk, 'Springe of Pakenham')|| The Visitation records that BRIDGET SPRING, daughter of Thomas Spring the Rich Clothier of Lavenham, married a GIBBON OF NORFOLK. This is very likely the tie behind this marriage: Bridget Gibbon (this record), dau. of Sir Anthony Gibbon of Lynn, Norfolk, was of that same Norfolk Gibbon family - so when Aubrey de Vere took a Spring of Lavenham as his 1st wife and a Gibbon of Norfolk as his 2nd, he was marrying twice into one already-intermarried Spring-Gibbon kin-group. The mechanism the earlier note guessed at is now documented.