The tribulations suffered by the aging Sir John Denham following his second marriage in 1665 to the young and beautiful Lady Mary Brooke were the subject of scandalized gossip amongst his contemporaries. Little is known about his first wife Anne Cotton of Whittington, Gloucestershire, whom he married in 1634 when he was only 19. Denham benefited considerably from this marriage for, with her sister Appolina, Anne was heir to the estates of a prosperous Gloucestershire gentry family that included the manor of Horsenden, Buckinghamshire, as well as the manor of Whittington and the estate of Gubshill, near Tewkesbury. At a division of the estates between the sisters, Horsenden was assigned to Anne and Whittington to Appolina, but, at some point in or soon after 1642, Anne also inherited Whittington, together with its manor house now known as Whittington Court.