I ‘ve already posted this on my Facebook page, but I thought you might enjoy seeing it here if you don’t frequent Facebook. These signatures of Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, and her second husband, Adrian Stokes, are from a 1559 deed they signed. They can be found in John Nichols’ The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, which was published in four volumes over the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and which can be found online here.
I love Mr. Adrian’s A! It’s interesting to see that the husband signed above his wife, even when she was so much higher in rank. There survives a similar deed with the signatures of Robert Dudley & Amy Robsart from 1557 or so. Sadly, nowadays such things are no longer printed in books!