Anne Bayning 1619-1678

From Book Owners Online

Anne BAYNING, Viscountess Bayning 1619-1678

Biographical Note

Daughter of Paul Bayning, 1st Viscount Bayning, who inherited extensive family estates in Essex and Sussex when her brother Paul, the 2nd Viscount, died in 1638. In 1635 she married Henry Murray, groom of the bedchamber to Charles I (died sometime after 1655), and in 1674 took as her second husband Sir John Baber, physician to Charles II. The viscountcy became extinct in 1638 and in 1674 she was created Viscountess Bayning of Foxley in her own right, for the term of her life. She had four daughters by her first husband, but no male heirs, so the title ended at her death.

Books

Three books are recorded in the armorials database with one of two monogram stamps identified with Anne Bayning but this attribution cannot be right, as one dates from 1678 and the others from the 1680s. Her will, in which she notes her formal entitlement to make a will and dispose of her estate, has no mention of books and distributed her property around her family and servants. She is, clearly, someone who is likely to have owned books, but we do not have any evidence of the size or contents of her book closet.

In 1629 she gave fifty pounds to Sion College for the purchase of books for the library.

Characteristic Markings

None of Bayning's books have been identified.

Sources