[An excerpt from an e-mail responding to the site's brief biography of Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, which failed to point out that women in previous times had also been peers in their own right, though of course by virtue of inheritance or position, rather than in recognition of their services to the country.]
While rare, women did on occasion become peers in their own right, for example, Priscilla, Baroness Willoughby de Eresby; Susan Longueville, 13th Baroness Grey de Ruthyn (d. 1676), Amelia Osborne, de jure 12th Baroness Darcy de Knayth (1754-1784), and even Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth I, was made Marquess of Pembroke in her own right.
Last modified 2 March 2010