Lettice Knollys
Lettice Knollys was born on November 8, 1543. See ranking, bio blurb, and everyone else born that day.
About Lettice Knollys
Lettice Knollys ( NOHLZ, sometimes latinized as Laetitia; 8 November 1543 – 25 December 1634) was an English noblewoman and mother to the courtiers Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and Penelope, Lady Rich. She was Countess of Essex during her first marriage to Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex and became Countess of Leicester after her second marriage to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. She was also the granddaughter of Mary Boleyn, a mistress of Henry VIII and sister to his second wife, Anne Boleyn. With her marriage to her cousin Elizabeth I's favourite, she incurred the Queen's unrelenting displeasure. A great-niece of Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, and close to Elizabeth since childhood, Lettice Knollys was introduced early into court life. At 17 she married Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford, who in 1572 became Earl of Essex. After her husband went to Ireland in 1573, she possibly became involved with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth's longtime favourite. There was plenty of scandalous talk, not least when Essex died in Ireland of dysentery in 1576. On 20 September 1578, Lettice Knollys was married to Leicester in private by his chaplain Humphrey Tyndall. When the Queen was told of the marriage, she banished the Countess permanently from court, effectively curtailing her social life. The couple's only child, Robert Dudley, Lord Denbigh, died at the age of three, to the great grief of his parents and ending all prospects for the continuance of the House of Dudley. Lettice Knollys' union with Leicester was nevertheless a happy one, as was her third marriage to the much younger Sir Christopher Blount, whom she unexpectedly married in 1589 only six months after the Earl's death. She continued to style herself Lady Leicester. The Countess was left rich under Leicester's will; yet the discharge of his overwhelming debts diminished her wealth. Between 1604 and 1605, she successfully defended her widow's rights in court when her possessions and her good name were threatened by the Earl's illegitimate son, also named Robert Dudley, who claimed that he was his father's legitimate heir, thus implicitly declaring her marriage bigamous. Lettice was always close to her large family circle. Helpless at the political eclipse of her eldest son, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, she lost both him and her third husband when they were executed for treason by Elizabeth in 1601. From the 1590s she lived chiefly in the Staffordshire countryside, where, in reasonably good health until the end, she died at the impressive age of 91 on Christmas Day 1634.