Laetitia Knollys, Countess of Essex and Leicester (November 1543[1] - 25 December 1634), normally referred to as Lettice Knollys, was born in Rotherfield Greys, Oxfordshire. She was the mother of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth I's famous courtier, she was also the mother of the remarkable Penelope, Lady Rich. In her second marriage, Lettice Knollys was wife to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth's great favourite. Being a relative of Elizabeth on her mother's side, the Queen came to hate her greatly due to this marriage. After the death of the Earl of Leicester, Lettice married Sir Christopher Blount. As Dowager Countess, she continued to be styled Lady Leicester. Her father was Sir Francis Knollys, a gentleman pensioner of Henry VIII. Her mother was Lady Catherine Carey, the daughter of Lady Mary Boleyn. Catherine thus was the first cousin, and Lettice the first cousin once removed, of Elizabeth I of England who was the daughter of Mary's younger sister Anne Boleyn. Lettice grew up on her father's country estate at Greys Court in Rotherfield Greys and at his town house in nearby Reading. Sir Francis was an early Puritan, a fact that forced him and his family to flee to Switzerland, probably Basel, during the reign of Mary I of England. Upon the accession of Elizabeth, on November 17, 1558, the Knollys family returned to England. Francis was made Treasurer of the Household, Catherine became Chief Lady of the Bedchamber to the new queen, while her daughter Lettice was appointed Lady-in-Waiting. Around 1560, Lettice married Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford. Walter was raised to the earldom of Essex in 1572. The couple lived at the Devereux family seat of Chartley in Staffordshire, where Lettice bore her first two children: daughters Penelope (born 1563) and Dorothy Devereux (born 1564). Lettice sometimes returned to court. It was there in the summer of 1565 that she flirted with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the great favourite of Queen Elizabeth. The Queen found out at once, and succumbed to a prolonged fit of jealousy.[2] Lettice went back to Staffordshire, where she gave birth to her first son, Robert. Walter (born 1569) and Francis (born 1572) followed. Francis died as an infant. In 1573, Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex joined the first Ulster Project, the attempted plantation of dispossessed Englishmen in Ireland. In this time, Lettice resumed her love-affair with the Earl of Leicester, and when Earl Walter returned to England in December 1575, there was a scandal.[3] He returned to Ireland in August and died in September 1576 of dysentery. Widowed, Lettice married Leicester on 21 September 1578[4] with only six other people present in Wanstead, their new home near London. When Elizabeth learned of this many months later, she banished Lettice permanently from court. The Queen termed Lettice "that She-Wolf" among other things in 1583 before ambassadors.[5] She never forgave Lettice, nor could she ever get over the marriage of her favourite. The only child that was born to this marriage was Robert, Baron Denbigh, the "Noble Impe." This son was born in 1581,[6] but died at the age of three in 1584. Though Lettice was banished from court, she resided with her husband in London and Wanstead. It was said (by the French Ambassador Mauvissiere) that if Leicester introduced someone to his wife, this was a mark of particular favour; this was, however, a veiled way to say that Lady Leicester was practically banished from social life.[7] In 1586, Leicester was made Governor-General of the United Provinces and wanted Lettice to follow him to that country. When Elizabeth heard of this plan, she forbade Lettice to leave England. Leicester eventually resigned the position in 1587. Leicester died shortly after the defeat of the Spanish Armada on 4 September 1588. It was said sixty years later that Lettice had had him poisoned, because he had found out about her lover, Sir Christopher Blount, but this is clearly nonsense: it is not even known if she was with him when he died, although, on evidence, it seems rather probable.[8] Ten months later Lettice married Sir Christopher Blount, thirteen years[9] her junior, a trusted official and friend of the late Earl of Leicester - his Gentleman of the Horse. Hence the later rumours. Lady Leicester (she continued to be styled thus) and Sir Christopher had a lot to do repaying the Earl of Leicester's huge debts, and they were engaged in numerous law-suits and the like proceedings because of this.[10] Save for one brief meeting in 1598, engineered by her son, Essex (the Queen's new favourite), who hoped to reconcile his mother and the Queen, Lettice's banishment from court held.[11] Essex and Blount, who by now had become the Earl's right hand, attempted to redeem the failure of the elder Essex in Ireland, but entered into an ignominious truce with the Irish rebels, returning home in disgrace. In 1601 Essex led an ill-conceived and unsuccessful rebellion against the Queen. The result was his, and Blount's, arrest and execution. Lettice lived on, raising her grandchildren and doing good deeds for the poor in the neighbourhood of her home Drayton Bassett (next to Chartley).[12] It was certainly a personal triumph for her, when her grandson was restored in blood and became the third Earl of Essex when the new King James I stopped at Chartley on his way to London in 1603.[13] Lettice lived to be ninety-one, dying on 25 December 1634. She is buried beside "the best and dearest of husbands"[14], Robert Dudley, in the Beauchamp Chapel of the Collegiate Church of St Mary in Warwick, near the tomb of their son, the little Baron Denbigh. Lettice is an ancestor of many notables, including Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Diana, Princess of Wales and Sarah, Duchess of York.

Following on from her previous posts on Mary Boleyn's Birth and her childhood and education, Sarah Bryson considers Mary's personality and appearance...

This is the first color version of this portrait that I have found. It clearly shows her (possibly Tudor) red hair and the dark brown eyes so characteristic of the Boleyn family. It is not impossible from this portrait to imagine that she is the daughter of Henry VIII. Catherine is very pregnant in this portrait, probably with one of her two youngest daughters.

I decided to write this article because there is so much false information out there about the restoration work at St Peter ad Vincula Chapel in the 19th

Heartless propaganda made people believe that Anne Boleyn was a witch - a woman who manipulated the king and put spells on him to reach her goals. She was obviously a very intelligent woman, but her story shows that the skills she gained were not enough to survive.

One of the most famous biopics of the last two decades, Elizabeth (1998) sprang fully formed into the nascent online historical costuming community and set off intense debates about the sacrificing…

"The Boleyns: A Scandalous Family" follows the rise and fall of a Tudor family dynasty whose hunger for power proved to be their undoing.

There's something about tragic figures in history that catches our interest and contributes to our desire to learn as much as we can about their life and the

A conversation between daughter and mother Have long had a passion and interest for Tudor history, particularly, around Elizabeth I. However, thanks to Hilary Mantel I have more recently, become a…

Well, what an exciting few days we've had on the forum here at The Anne Boleyn Files. Just a week ago, Anne Boleyn Files member, Emma, posted a photo of an

The birth dates of the children born to Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife Elizabeth Howard have caused considerable controversy among historians over the centuries. It is a fact that Elizabeth was delivered of two surviving daughters (Mary and Anne) and three sons (Thomas, Henry and George), only one of whom (George) survived to adulthood. Everything else is uncertain. Even the date of Thomas’s marriage to Elizabeth is not known. Only in 1538 were parish registers systematically introduced in which all weddings, baptisms and funerals were recorded.

This miniature shows Essex in his teens--a handsome, winsome boy. He was the stepson of Elizabeth I's great love, Robert Dudley. Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (10 November 1565[1] – 25 February 1601), is the best-known of the many holders of the title "Earl of Essex." He was a military hero and royal favourite of Elizabeth I, but following a poor campaign against Irish rebels during the Nine Years' War in 1599, he failed in a coup d'état against the queen and was executed for treason. Essex was born on 10 November 1565 at Netherwood near Bromyard, in Herefordshire, the son of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex and Lettice Knollys. His maternal great-grandmother Mary Boleyn was a sister of Anne Boleyn, mother of Queen Elizabeth I, making him a cousin of the Queen, and there were rumours that his grandmother, Catherine Carey, a close friend of Queen Elizabeth's, was Henry VIII's illegitimate daughter.[3] He was brought up on his father's estates at Chartley Castle, Staffordshire and at Lamphey, Pembrokeshire in Wales and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge.[4] His father died in 1576, The new Earl of Essex became a ward of Lord Burghley. On 21 September 1578 his mother married Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth I's long-standing favourite and Robert Devereux's godfather.[5] Essex performed military service under his stepfather in the Netherlands, before making an impact at court and winning the Queen's favour. In 1590 he married Frances Walsingham, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham and widow of Sir Philip Sidney, by whom he was to have several children, three of whom survived into adulthood. Sidney, Leicester's nephew, died at the Battle of Zutphen in which Essex also distinguished himself. Essex first came to court in 1584, and by 1587 had become a favourite of the Queen, who relished his lively mind and eloquence, as well as his skills as a showman and in courtly love. In June 1587 he replaced the Earl of Leicester as Master of the Horse.[6] He underestimated the Queen, however, and his later behaviour towards her lacked due respect and showed disdain for the influence of her principal secretary, Sir Robert Cecil. On one occasion during a heated Privy Council debate on the problems in Ireland, the Queen reportedly cuffed an insolent Essex round the ear, prompting him to draw his sword on her. After Leicester's death in 1588, the Queen transferred to Essex the royal monopoly on sweet wines, which the late Earl had held; by this Essex could profit from collecting taxes. In 1589, he took part in Sir Francis Drake's English Armada, which sailed to Iberia in an unsuccessful attempt to press home the English advantage following the defeat of the Spanish Armada; the Queen had ordered him not to take part in the expedition, but he only returned upon the failure to take Lisbon. In 1591, he was given command of a force sent to the assistance of King Henry IV of France. In 1596, he distinguished himself by the capture of Cadiz. During the Islands Voyage expedition to the Azores in 1597, with Sir Walter Raleigh as his second in command, he defied the Queen's orders, pursuing the treasure fleet without first defeating the Spanish battle fleet. Essex's greatest failure was as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a post which he talked himself into in 1599. The Nine Years War (1595–1603) was in its middle stages, and no English commander had been successful. More military force was required to defeat the Irish chieftains, led by Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone, and supplied from Spain and Scotland. Essex led the largest expeditionary force ever sent to Ireland — 16,000 troops — with orders to put an end to the rebellion. He departed London to the cheers of the Queen's subjects, and it was expected that the rebellion would be crushed instantly. But the limits of Crown resources and of the Irish campaigning season dictated another course. Essex had declared to the Privy Council that he would confront O'Neill in Ulster. But instead, Essex led his army into southern Ireland, fought a series of inconclusive engagements, wasted his funds, and dispersed his army into garrisons. The Irish forces then won several victories. Instead of facing O'Neill in battle, Essex had to make a truce with the rebel leader that was considered humiliating to the Crown and to the detriment of English authority. In all of his campaigns, Essex secured the loyalties of his officers by conferring knighthoods, an honour which the Queen herself dispensed sparingly. By the end of his time in Ireland, more than half the knights in England owed their rank to Essex. The rebels were said to have joked that "he never drew sword but to make knights." But his practice of conferring knighthoods could in time enable Essex to challenge the powerful factions at Cecil's command. He was the second Chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin, serving from 1598 to 1601. Relying on his general warrant to return to England, given under the great seal, Essex sailed from Ireland on 24 September 1599, and reached London four days later. The Queen had expressly forbidden his return and was surprised when he presented himself in her bedchamber one morning at Nonsuch Palace, before she was properly wigged or gowned. On that day, the Privy Council met three times, and it seemed his disobedience might go unpunished, although the Queen did confine him to his rooms with the comment that "an unruly beast must be stopped of his provender." Essex by Isaac Oliver, c. 1597 Essex appeared before the full Council on 29 September, when he was compelled to stand before the Council during a five hour interrogation. The Council — his uncle William Knollys included — took a quarter of an hour to compile a report, which declared that his truce with O'Neill was indefensible and his flight from Ireland tantamount to a desertion of duty. He was committed to custody in his own York House on 1 October, and he blamed Cecil and Raleigh for the queen's hostility. Raleigh advised Cecil to see to it that Essex did not recover power, and Essex appeared to heed advice to retire from public life, despite his popularity with the public. During his confinement at York House, Essex probably communicated with King James VI of Scotland through Lord Mountjoy, although any plans he may have had at that time to help the Scots king capture the English throne came to nothing. In October, Mountjoy was appointed to replace him in Ireland, and matters seemed to look up for the Earl. In November, the queen was reported to have said that the truce with O'Neill was "so seasonably made… as great good… has grown by it." Others in the Council were willing to justify Essex's return to Ireland, on the grounds of the urgent necessity of a briefing by the commander-in-chief. Cecil kept up the pressure and, on 5 June 1600, Essex was tried before a commission of 18 men. He had to hear the charges and evidence on his knees. Essex was convicted, was deprived of public office, and was returned to virtual confinement. In August, his freedom was granted, but the source of his basic income—the sweet wines monopoly—was not renewed. His situation had become desperate,and he shifted "from sorrow and repentance to rage and rebellion." In early 1601, he began to fortify York House and gather his followers. On the morning of 8 February, he marched out of York House with a party of nobles and gentlemen (some later involved in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot) and entered the city of London in an attempt to force an audience with the Queen. Cecil immediately had him proclaimed a traitor. Finding no support among the Londoners, Essex retreated from the city, and surrendered after the Crown forces besieged York House. On 19 February 1601, Essex was tried before his peers on charges of treason. Part of the evidence showed that he was in favour of toleration of religious dissent. In his own evidence, he countered the charge of dealing with Catholics, swearing that "papists have been hired and suborned to witness against me." Essex also asserted that Cecil had stated that none in the world but the Infanta of Spain had right to the Crown of England, whereupon Cecil (who had been following the trial at a doorway concealed behind some tapestry) stepped out to make a dramatic denial, going down on his knees to give thanks to God for the opportunity. The witness whom Essex expected to confirm this allegation, his uncle William Knollys, was called and admitted there had once been read in Cecil's presence a book treating such matters (possibly either The book of succession supposedly by an otherwise unknown R. Doleman but probably really by Robert Persons or A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England explicitly mentioned to be by Parsons, in which a Catholic successor friendly to Spain was favored). Essex, however, denied he had heard Cecil make the statement. Thanking God again, Cecil expressed his gratitude that Essex was exposed as a traitor while he himself was found an honest man. Essex was found guilty and, on 25 February 1601, was beheaded on Tower Green, becoming the last person to be beheaded in the Tower of London. (It was reported to have taken three strokes by the executioner to complete the beheading.) At Sir Walter Raleigh's own treason trial later on, in 1603, it was alleged that Raleigh had said to a co-conspirator, "Do not, as my Lord Essex did, take heed of a preacher. By his persuasion he confessed, and made himself guilty." In that same trial, Raleigh also denied that he had stood at a window during the execution of Essex's sentence, disdainfully puffing out tobacco smoke in sight of the condemned man. Some days before the execution, Captain Thomas Lee was apprehended as he kept watch on the door to the Queen's chambers. His plan had been to confine her until she signed a warrant for the release of Essex. Capt. Lee, who had served in Ireland with the Earl, and who acted as go-between with the Ulster rebels, was tried and put to death the next day. Devereux's conviction for treason meant that the earldom of Essex was forfeit, and his son did not inherit the title. However, after the Queen's death, King James I reinstated the earldom in favour of the disinherited son, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex.

Lady Jane Parker was born in Norfolk around 1505 to Henry Parker, 10th Baron Morley and Alice St John. Her family was wealthy, well-connected, and respected by their peers. As a noblewoman, we can …

by An Ard Rí and Susan Flantzer © Unofficial Royalty 2012 The Tudors ruled England from 1485 until 1603, held the Lordship of Ireland from 1485 until 1541, and held the Kingdom of Ireland from 154…

Let’s take a look at the women who surrounded Queen Elizabeth and see what their lives were like. As we know already when you were a Lady-in-Waiting or Maid-of-Honour to the Queen that it mea…

What did Anne Boleyn look like? According to the distinguished historian Eric Ives, the Anne depicted on the reconstructed commemorative medal pictured below is "as close to the real Anne Boleyn as we shall ever be able to get."...

St. Mary, Norfolk. Anne Boleyn, the sister of Thomas Boleyn, Queen Anne Boleyn's father, married Sir John Shelton. Queen Anne may have been named after this aunt and/or after a maternal Aunt, Princess Anne of York, the first wife of her mother's brother, Thomas Howard.

19th July is a very busy day in terms on "on this day in Tudor history" events, so I thought I'd give you brief details on four of the events, along with

One of the most famous biopics of the last two decades, Elizabeth (1998) sprang fully formed into the nascent online historical costuming community and set off intense debates about the sacrificing…