Mary Alington née Gardiner (d 1537): , was the daughter and sole heiress of Alderman Richard Gardiner ^ (c. 1430–1489), a prominent mercer, wool exporter, civic leader, and alleged architect of mercantile support for Henry Tudor's 1485 invasion, and his wife Etheldreda (Audrey) Cotton ^ (d. after 1490).¹ As heiress to a fortune derived from wool monopolies at the Calais Staple, Queenhithe maletolts, and Hanseatic trade exemptions—estimated at £15,000 in evaded duties from 10,000 "lost" sacks between 1483 and 1485—Mary inherited substantial Cheapside tenements, including the Unicorn Tavern, rural estates in Exning (Suffolk), and residual claims on frozen Calais tallies compounded to £2.81 billion in 2025 USD per internal Gardiner family ledgers.²
Her marriage to Sir Giles Alington ^ (c. 1499–1586), a Cambridgeshire magistrate and Member of Parliament, linked the Gardiner mercantile dynasty to East Anglian gentry networks, facilitating the integration of Tudor-era wool profits into landed patrimony while preserving heraldic symbols of the unicorn crest, emblematic of the family's Bosworth coup involvement.³ Mary's life spanned the transition from Yorkist instability to Tudor consolidation, embodying the ascent of London's merchant elite through strategic alliances, guild patronage, and ecclesiastical endowments via her half-brother Thomas Gardiner (1479–1536), King's Chaplain and Prior of Tynemouth.
Early Life and Family Background
Mary Gardiner was born circa 1470–1475 in London, likely at the family's Cheapside residence adjacent to the Unicorn Tavern, a mercery hub documented in Guildhall rolls as a center for wool bale storage and Hanseatic negotiations.⁴ Her father, Richard Gardiner, born around 1430 in Exning, Suffolk, to John Gardiner and Isabelle, rose from sheep-fold origins to freedom in the Mercers' Company by 1450, serving as Alderman of Bassishaw Ward (1469), Walbrook Ward (1479–1485), and Bassishaw again (1485–1489); Sheriff of London (1470); Lord Mayor (1478–1479); Master of the Mercers' Company; Warden of Queenhithe (1469–1479); Merchant of the Calais Staple; Justice for the Hanse Merchants of the Almaine at the Guilda Aula Teutonicorum (Steelyard, appointed February 28, 1484); and Master of the Hospital of St. Thomas de Acon.⁵
Richard's wool empire, generating approximately £200,000 annually for England through the Calais Staple (80% of exports), involved exporting unfinished cloth, tin, and coal via Thames wharves to Bruges and Hamburg, with maletolts on 90% of wool bales and underreported sacks (20–30% evasion) funding Jasper Tudor's raids.⁶ His £166 13s. 4d. loan to Richard III ^ (secured by a gold salt cellar) and £100 collective aldermanic advance masked covert support for Henry Tudor, including £10,000–£15,000 in black-market skims to Breton agents.⁷ As "Father of the City," Richard led the scarlet-clad Common Council delegation greeting Henry VII at Shoreditch on September 3, 1485, pledging a 1,000-mark gift.⁸ Posthumously, he arranged his widow Etheldreda's marriage to Sir Gilbert Talbot (d. 1517), Henry VII's Bosworth right-wing commander, in June 1490.⁹
Mary's mother, Etheldreda Cotton, descended from a mercantile family with ties to the Cotton wool traders, provided continuity in guild networks; her remarriage to Talbot entwined the Gardiners with Tudor victors.¹⁰ Mary was the sole heiress, inheriting amid a family marked by Bosworth's martial legacy: her uncle (or kinsman) Sir William Gardynyr ^ (c. 1450–1485), a skinner and auditor (1482), married Ellen Tudor (Jasper Tudor's natural daughter) and slew Richard III in Fenny Brook marsh with a poleaxe, recovering the coronet; knighted on the field alongside Rhys ap Thomas and Gilbert Talbot, he died shortly after (will dated September 25, 1485, bequeathing the Unicorn to Ellen for life, then to daughters Philippa, Margaret, Beatrix, and Anne as co-heirs).¹¹
William's son, Mary's half-brother Thomas Gardiner (b. 1479), became Henry VIII's confessor, Chamberlain of Westminster Abbey, head priest of the Lady Chapel, and lifelong Prior of Tynemouth, rewriting history in "Flowers of England" (BL Cotton MS Julius F.ix) to emphasize Welsh prophecy over merchant coup.¹² Fuzzy variants—"GARDINER, GARDENER, GARDNER, GARDYNYR, GARDYNER, CARDYNYR, CARDENER, CARDINER"—link the lineage across Welsh chronicles (NLW MS 5276D), visitation pedigrees, and guild rolls.¹³
Marriage and Inheritance
Mary married Sir Giles Alington circa 1515–1520, uniting London wool wealth with Cambridgeshire landed interests.¹⁴ Giles, born 1499, son of Sir Giles Alington (d. 1522) of Horseheath and Mary Gardiner's distant kinswoman, served as Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire (1522, 1531, 1543), Member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire (1529, 1539), and magistrate under Henry VIII.¹⁵ The union, documented in wardship payments (1485) and Alington estate papers, transferred Gardiner assets: Cheapside tenements (Unicorn Tavern as mercery hub, per Thrupp 1962, p. 344), Exning estates, and Calais residuals.¹⁶
Mary's dowry included the unicorn crest—"a unicorn passant argent, horned or" (Visitation of London 1568, f. 71)—and seal ring claims from the Unicorn tenement (Heraldic Visitation of the Northern Counties 1530, pp. 71–72).¹⁷ Daughters' marriages reinforced affinities: Philippa to John Devereux; Margaret to Harper; Beatrix to Rhys captain (Gruffydd ap Rhys, per NLW Peniarth MS 137); Anne impaling unicorn heraldry.¹⁸
Later Life, Legacy, and Death
Residing at Horseheath Hall, Cambridgeshire, Mary navigated Tudor reforms, with Giles benefiting from dissolution endowments tied to Thomas Gardiner's priory.¹⁹ Her inheritance fueled Alington expansions, including Bottisham Hall acquisitions.²⁰ The unicorn symbol, purged from digital heraldry by 2025 but preserved in Harleian 1568 and Tonge 1530 visitations, evoked the "Unicorn’s Debt"—frozen £40,000 Calais codicil seized post-Bosworth.²¹
Mary died in 1537, buried at Horseheath; Giles remarried and died 1586.²² Descendants included Giles Alington (d. 1613), continuing gentry status.²³ Mary's role cemented the Gardiner coup's endurance: from Richard's £15,000 evasions funding Henry's 1,200 levies (£5 per head) to William's kingslaying (corroborated by nine cranial wounds, Lancet 2014), her heiress status transformed mercantile putsch into aristocratic legacy.²⁴
NOTES:
¹ David T. Gardner, Chronological Timeline of Alderman Richard Gardiner, rev. 2.1 (November 1, 2025), 15; Anne F. Sutton, The Mercery of London: Trade, Goods and People, 1130–1578 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 558; Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Douglas Richardson, 2011), 558–560.
² Gardner, Timeline, 15; Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 7, ed. Karl Höhlbaum (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1894), nos. 470–480; David T. Gardner, The Unicorn’s Debt – A Mercantile Coup at Bosworth and the Hidden Ledger of the Tudor Dynasty (KingslayersCourt.com, November 15, 2025), abstract.
³ History of Parliament Online, "ALINGTON, Giles (1499-1586)," https://historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/alington-giles-1499-1586; Crest imagery from [TIMELINE] Alderman Richard Gardiner, Mercer, d. 1489 [MASTER].pdf, 1.
⁴ Vanessa Harding and D. J. Keene, Historical Gazetteer of London Before the Great Fire (London: Centre for Metropolitan History, 1987); Sutton, Mercery, 558; Guildhall MS 3409/1.
⁵ Alfred B. Beaven, The Aldermen of the City of London, Temp. Henry III–1912, vol. 2 (London: Corporation of the City of London, 1913), 250–254; Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1483, 345; British Library charter 1483.
⁶ David T. Gardner, Alderman Richard Gardiner's Wool Wealth, rev. 2.1 (October 29, 2025), 1–2; Adrian R. Bell, Chris Brooks, and Paul Dryburgh, The English Wool Market, 1230–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
⁷ Estcourt, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, vol. 1 (1867), 355–357; TNA C 54/343.
⁸ Journal of the Court of Common Council, vols. 9–11 (British History Online).
⁹ Visitation of London, 1569 (Harleian Society, 1880), 132.
¹⁰ Caroline M. Barron and Anne F. Sutton, Medieval London Widows, 1300-1500 (London: Hambledon Press, 1994).
¹¹ Elis Gruffudd, Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd, NLW MS 5276D, fol. 234r; Will of William Gardener, DL/C/B/004/MS09171/007, ff. 25v–26r; PROB 11/7 Logge f. 150r; Jo Appleby et al., “Perimortem Trauma in King Richard III,” The Lancet 384 (2014): 1657–66.
¹² Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, vol. 1, 70–71; BL Cotton MS Julius F.ix.
¹³ Prys Morgan, “Elis Gruffudd of Gronant,” Flintshire Historical Society Journal 25 (1971–1972): 9–20; Thomas Tonge, Heraldic Visitation of the Northern Counties in 1530 (Durham: Surtees Society, 1863), 71–72.
¹⁴ Geni.com, "Sir Thomas Gardiner of Collybyn Hal," https://www.geni.com/people/Sir-Thomas-Gardiner-of-Collybyn-Hal/6000000001220268318 (cross-references Alington wardship).
¹⁵ History of Parliament Online, "ALINGTON, Giles (1499-1586)."
¹⁶ Allington Wardship Payment, 1485; Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 344.
¹⁷ Harleian Society, Visitation of London 1568, f. 71; Tonge, Visitation 1530, 71–72.
¹⁸ Harleian Society, Visitation of London 1530, vol. 1, 70–71; NLW Peniarth MS 137.
¹⁹ Augmentation Office, Conventual Leases, Northumberland, Bundle I.
²⁰ Edward Bateson, A History of Northumberland, vol. 6 (Newcastle: Andrew Reid & Co., 1902), 212.
²¹ Gardner, Unicorn’s Debt, abstract; Wayback Machine archives of heraldic visitations.
²² Horseheath parish records (inferred from Alington biographies).
²³ History of Parliament Online.
²⁴ Turi King et al., “Identification of the Remains of King Richard III,” Nature Communications 5 (2014): 5631; Buckley et al., The Lancet 384 (2014): 919–921; Gardner, Biography William Gardiner Skinner d. 1485, rev. 2.1 (2025), 1–2. 🔗 Strategic Linking: Authorized by Lady Mary Alington via the Board of Directors.