Lettice Knollys was the daughter of Catherine Carey – meaning that she was probably the granddaughter of Henry VIII as her grandmother was Mary Boleyn. She was born on the 8th November 1543. She married three times; first to Sir Walter Devereux who became the First Earl of Essex; second to Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester and thirdly to Sir Christopher Blount.
During the reign of Mary Tudor Lettice’s mother and father travelled to continental Europe because they were sincere protestants. Elizabeth sent her cousin Catherine a letter signed “broken hearted” when she learned of her departure. We do not know if Lettice travelled with her parents. Two years after Elizabeth became queen Lettice married Walter Devereux, then Viscount Hereford. They had five children:
Penelope was born in 1563 and Dorothy in 1564. Lettice went on to have three sons: Robert, Walter and Francis. Today’s post is about Dorothy and tomorrow I shall be posting about Penelope because of the portrait pictured at the start of the post which I love and is believed to be of Penelope and Dorothy. It can be found at Longleat House.
Dorothy was married first, in 1583, to Sir Thomas Perrot – which makes it all a bit family orientated as Sir Thomas’s father John claimed to be one of Henry VIII’s illegitimate children (click on the link to open a pervious post about Sir John Perrot in a new window.) Sir John was not one of Elizabeth I’s most favourite people even though he did claim close kinship with her. He found himself in the Tower on charges of treason during her reign. It is perhaps because of Sir John that Dorothy failed to ask Elizabeth I for permission to marry, which as one of her ladies-in-waiting she should have done and preferred, instead to elope with Penelope’s help. Alternatively it might perhaps of been that Dorothy’s hand was being settled by Robert Dudley who in 1582 had tried to arrange her marriage to his nephew Sir Philip Sidney. Either way, Elizabeth was not amused and probably even less so when she learned of the circumstances of the wedding.
The marriage took place at Sir Henry Coke’s house in Broxbourne. Coke was one of Dorothy’s guardians. He did not connive at the wedding. For most of the service Sir Henry’s servants were trying to break down the chapel door whilst the vicar was assaulted for arguing that the correct procedures had not been followed. He was eventually told that John Alymer the Bishop of London had granted a licence. This information would get him into trouble with Elizabeth. The historian Robert Lacey places the blame for this highly irregular marriage on the inadequacies of Lettice’s and Walter’s marriage rather than Dorothy accepting her allotted role of chattel being sold to the most powerful bidder.
Dorothy was banished from court and Thomas found himself in the Fleet Prison. There was also the small matter of William Cecil trying to have the marriage annulled. However, despite the chapel door being battered there were six witnesses and a proper priest on hand. In 1587 Dorothy’s brother Robert used his growing influence with the queen to try and return Dorothy to court during a visit by Elizabeth to one of Robert’s homes. This was not particularly successful as the queen was unamused to find Dorothy in residence. Dorothy had to stay in her room. Unfortunately Sir Walter Raleigh, who was also a guest, became involved and there was rather a loud argument resulting in Dorothy leaving in the middle of the night. It was only after Sir Thomas’s death that Dorothy was allowed back to court. By then she was the mother of four daughters: Penelope, Dorothy, Elizabeth and Ann
Dorothy then married the 9th Earl of Northumberland – Henry Percy- the so-called Wizard Earl. This particular earl would find himself involved in the Gun Powder Plot in 1605. He and his wife were not happily married despite the fact that Elizabeth I had approved of Dorothy’s second marriage. The pair separated in 1599. It is perhaps not totally surprising given that the earl had selected his wife based on her potential to have sons. Dorothy did have sons with the earl but they both died young. The couple had only one surviving child, a daughter called…Dorothy.
The separation was not permanent. Realistically the earl needed an heir and Dorothy could not really afford more scandal. Lucy Percy was born circa 1600 and the all important heir to the earldom of Northumberland followed in 1602. A second son arrived in 1604.
In 1605 when Northumberland was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot and sentenced to life in the Tower, Dorothy showed herself to be a loyal wife. She visited her spouse most days. For Dorothy the years of the earl’s imprisonment meant that she was responsible for running the earldom whilst Percy was in charge in name only. Like her first cousin twice removed (I think I’m right given that Catherine Carey and Elizabeth I were officially cousins; Elizabeth and Lettice were first cousins once removed thus Dorothy must have been twice removed) Dorothy was a woman with a brain. Unlike Elizabeth, Dorothy was not always able to act independently and much of her marital difficulty appears to have stemmed from this.
Dorothy died in 1619, two year’s before her husband’s eventual release from the Tower. She is buried in the Percy family vault at Petworth.
In popular history Douglas get barely a mention. She might as well be invisible. Douglas’ son Robert, the illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, would claim that his mother was secretly married to his father in May 1603 – Elizabeth I being safely dead. The case was heard in 1605 in the Court of the Star Chamber. Unfortunately all the witnesses were dead and she couldn’t remember the name of the cleric who married them. Douglas made a deposition to the effect that they had been married until Leicester tired of her and turned his attentions to Lettice Knollys. But who was Douglas?
By the 10 Nov 1558 it was clear that Elizabeth would be queen and when a week later her sister Mary died, Elizabeth became the first English monarch to bear that name. The following day the Great Seal was surrendered into her hands and she made Robert Dudley her master of horse which meant that he was the only man in the kingdom legally allowed to lay hands on her for the purposes of helping her on and off her horse. Now, an unmarried queen was an asset in diplomatic terms but fears for the nation and the queen’s health were compounded by the fact that Elizabeth had known “Sweet Robin” Dudley since she was a child and rather like a child allowed out of school for the summer Elizabeth rather enjoyed the freedom that being queen now gave her. It wasn’t long before there was speculation about Elizabeth and her Master of Horse. It wasn’t much longer until there were rumours that Elizabeth was pregnant or had even had a child by Dudley. Nicholas Throckmorton the English Ambassador in Paris wrote home expressing the view that these rumours needed to be scotched.
Robert Devereux was the son of the Queen Elizabeth’s favourite – the dashing one that managed to get himself executed for treason in 1601. Grandpapa on his mother’s side was Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster. Obviously having been attainted for treason the entire Devereux family, including young Robert who was ten at the time of his father’s misdeeds, were tainted as being of bad blood and all property returned to the Crown.
the grand tour. Whilst he was securing a gentleman’s education Frances Howard took up with the king’s favourite Robert Carr and married him instead having divorced Robert for impotency in 1613 (and I should imagine that no 20 year-old wants that particular label)- France’s marriage would end in murder, a visit to the Tower and a Jacobean scandal that historians are still writing about but that’s beside the point. The marriage ended amidst much hilarity and popular balladry. Robert insisted that even if he was impotent so far as Frances was concerned he was more than capable with other ladies of his acquaintance. To add insult to injury, Frances who had been carrying on with Robert Carr, was declared to be a maiden – the mirth this enjoindered can only be imagined.
There are three earls of Essex during the Tudor/Stuart period – the title was not used after the third earl’s death in 1646 until the Restoration. The First Earl of Essex was Walter Devereux – he is associated with Tudor rule in Ireland and is more famously Lettice Knollys’ husband. Lettice was the daughter of Catherine Carey – making her the grand-daughter of Mary Boleyn. Historians speculate whether Catherine was the daughter of Henry VIII – Lettice certainly looked rather a lot like her cousin Queen Elizabeth I. In fact Lettice managed to get into rather a lot of trouble with her cousin after the first earl of Essex’s death when she secretly married Elizabeth’s long time squeeze, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
The second Earl of Essex was Robert Devereux. He was Walter and Lettice’s fifth child and after Robert Dudley’s death became a favourite with the aging Elizabeth I. Like his father he was associated with Ireland. His campaign was not a rip-roaring success from Elizabeth’s point of view. Handsome but petulant the earl rebelled in 1600 having already sailed pretty close to the wind when he returned from Ireland and burst in on Elizabeth having been expressly forbidden from crossing the Irish Sea and winning no friends when he saw the queen without all her finery. He was executed for treason on 25th February 1601 – leaving a young son, also called Robert, who would eventually become the third earl.
1565 was a trying year for Elizabeth I. She was all to aware of the dangers of having an heir to the throne waiting in the background – after all she had been in that position seven years previously. Now as queen she was determined not to name her successor despite the fact that there had already been a succession crisis during the seven days when her privy councillors had feared for her life in 1561 when she had small pox. At that time Cecil had favoured Henry VIII’s will which would have seen the crown handed to Lady Katherine Grey the sister of Lady Jane Grey. There had been a couple of voices in favour of Margaret, Lady Lennox who was the grand-daughter of Henry VII by Margaret Tudor’s second marriage to Archibald Douglas, the earl of Angus. Other men mentioned Henry Hastings the Earl of Huntingdon. He was descended from the Duke of Clarence – so Plantagenet but most important of all he was male! Elizabeth herself had unexpectedly regained consciousness and given the regency into the hands of Robert Dudley.
I’ve been reading Margaret Irwin’s book about Sir Walter Raleigh entitled The Great Lucifer. It was first published in 1960. One of the first things that made me sit up and take notice was the reference to Sir John Perrot as Elizabeth I’s illegitimate half-brother (p17) which of course has nothing to do with Raleigh but is too good a diversion to miss.