Parke woman, possibly Jane Ludwell Parke (Mrs. Daniel Parke, 1670-1708)

Daniel Parke was the son of Daniel Parke and Rebecca Evelyn Parke. He married Jane Ludwell in ca. 1685. Jane Ludwell was the daughter of Philip Ludwell and Lucy Higginson Ludwell. His two legitimate daughters who survived to adulthood were France Parke (Mrs. John Custis) and Lucy Parke (Mrs. William Byrd II). He left his family in Virginia behind and sought a career in England. He served as aide-de-camp to the Duke of Marlborough and was appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands, where he moved in 1706. In 1692, Daniel Parke sent his English cousin, John Evelyn, a portrait of himself and a “gentlewoman” from Virginia. The gentlewoman may have been his wife; however, he was a renowned rake so it is not certain.

Reference: “I hope you took Care of the Pictures according to yr Promimss,” Daniel Parke to John Evelyn, 13 July 1692 and “The two copies inclose a Picture of my Coz. Parke and a gentlewoman very ill done,” John Evelyn to John Evelyn, 26 October 1692.

See: Ruth Bourne, “John Evelyn, the Diarist, and His Cousin, Daniel Parke II,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 78, 1 (1970), 18, 20.