page_title: Ralph Sadler
section_title: The return of Matthew Barre
hierarchical_section_title: Ralph Sadler / Marriage and issue / The return of Matthew Barre
caption_attribution_description: St Mary, Standon, Herts
context_page_description: Sir Ralph Sadler or Sadlier PC, Knight banneret was an English statesman, who served Henry VIII as Privy Councillor, Secretary of State and ambassador to Scotland. Sadlier went on to serve Edward VI. Having signed the device settling the crown on Jane Grey in 1553, he was obliged to retire to his estates during the reign of Mary I. Sadlier was restored to royal favour during the reign of Elizabeth I, serving as a Privy Councillor and once again participating in Anglo-Scottish diplomacy. He was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in May 1568.
context_section_description: More than eleven years after Ralph and Ellen had married, Matthew Barre returned alive and well from Ireland and was overheard in a London tavern claiming to be the lawful husband of Sadler's wife. Ralph and his wife had seven surviving children, and he was now a very wealthy and influential person at court whose reputation was at stake. Sadler, a man devoted to his wife and children, was informed of the matter in October 1545 while on a diplomatic mission in Scotland. "Master Sadler took his matter very heavily," the Lord Chancellor, Wriothesley reported to Secretary Paget.
  Ellen Mitchell and Matthew Barre had been legally married in 1526, in Dunmow in Essex. They had two daughters before Barre abandoned them and went to Ireland. Ellen stayed in Dunmow for about a year trying to find out where he had gone. She then became a servant of the prioress at the nunnery of Clerkenwell. Determined to find Matthew, she visited his birthplace and with his brothers made further enquiries, but without success. Despairing of an answer she returned to Clerkenwell. Not long afterwards a man belonging to the city of Salisbury positively assured her that her husband was dead. Recommended by the Prioress of Clerkenwell, Ellen entered the service of Thomas Cromwell's mother-in-law, Mercy Pryor, and was dwelling in his house when Ralph Sadler became enamoured of her. Ralph Sadler and Ellen married believing that Matthew Barre was dead.
  A version of Ellen's story was given by an Elizabethan writer, Nicolas Sander, and cast doubt on her character. Sander claimed that Ellen was related to Thomas Cromwell, and that she had worked for him as a laundress. The 17th-century historian Gilbert Burnet considered that Sander's story was a fiction. Sander was a Jesuit, a Catholic recusant writing with an agenda. He took delight in attempting to discredit leading public figures in England. There was no scandal surrounding the marriage between Ellen and Ralph when it took place.
  An investigation found that Ellen's first marriage was valid, and Sadler was therefore obliged to have his children legitimised by a private Act of Parliament. In 1546, this Act of Parliament 37 Hen. VIII, c.30 was passed on his behalf. The Act set aside Ellen's marriage to Matthew Barre and made her marriage to Ralph Sadler a true and proper union. Sadler managed to prevent the publication of the Act and its details never appeared among the statutes of the period. The only known contemporary reference to the Act appears in a transcript entitled The Unprecedented Case of Sir Ralph Sadleir in the Library of the Inner Temple. Matthew Barre disappeared from the scene.
  This episode damaged Sadler's reputation, but not irretrievably. His marriage to Ellen was saved and the couple lived on, without further incident, for many years.
caption: St. Mary's Church, Standon, Hertfordshire, where Sadler is buried
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