Lady Katherine Knollys

by Sarah-Beth Watkins

  Katherine’s Children

  Of Katherine’s surviving children, Lettice Knollys was the most notorious. Lettice (also called Letitia) accompanied her mother as one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies but left court after her marriage to Walter Devereux, the 1st Earl of Essex, in 1560. Her marriage made her Countess Essex. Lettice had five children with Walter, one of whom died young. Her surviving children were Penelope, Dorothy, Robert and Walter junior.

  Rumours surrounded Lettice when she attended court. She was an attractive woman with the red hair of her ancestors and smooth, pale skin. Gossipmongers suggested she was having an affair with Sir Robert Dudley, the Queen’s favourite whom she had known for many years. Lettice was said to have flirted with him whilst heavily pregnant, sparking talk that the child could be his. Her husband was infuriated by the rumours which caused them much marital stress. When Walter died in Ireland, they were even more rumours and this time they were of poison. Had Walter’s demise been hastened by Lettice’s lover?

  Lettice waited two years before she married Dudley, the exact amount of time that was appropriate for mourning before she became Countess Leicester. They were married in secret on 21st September 1578 at Dudley’s house in Wanstead accompanied by only a few people including her father, Francis. Lettice wore a loose gown to cover up the fact that she was with child. Dudley was known to renege on marriage promises and so Francis may well have been there to make sure that the ceremony was conducted properly and the marriage was witnessed.

  But of course Elizabeth found out. It is not certain who broke the news to her but she was furious that she had been so deceived. Lettice had her ears boxed and was banished from court with Elizabeth claiming that she would never be in the company of that ‘she-wolf’ again. Although Dudley returned to her favour, she would never forgive Lettice for her transgression of stealing her favourite away from her.

  Lettice had several failed pregnancies with Dudley and a son who was nicknamed the ‘noble imp’ who was born in 1581 but his life was cut short, dying at just three years of age, much to his parent’s distress.

  When Dudley died unexpectedly, Lettice married the much younger Christopher Blount. It was a strange choice. Blount was a Catholic whereas Lettice had been reared in a Protestant family. He had for a time been her husband’s master of horse but was knighted after his involvement in the fight for Dutch independence. They married in haste and this sparked rumours that Lettice had poisoned Dudley after he found out she was having an affair. It seems that vicious talk always surrounded Lettice. Elizabeth must have gloated at the way in which Lettice was constantly slandered.

  Yet still she enraged her. Lettice was known to travel about with a huge entourage as if she were queen. She dressed her footmen in black velvet embroidered with silver bears, had her carriage pulled by four white horses and was followed by carriages of her ladies and servants. And Elizabeth still refused to have her back at court.

  Lettice’s son, Robert, from her first marriage, was however enjoying basking in the glory of Elizabeth’s attention. He became one of Elizabeth’s favourites after his step-father Dudley’s death and he hoped to see his mother return to court. Lettice never gave up trying to win back Elizabeth’s favour. She tried on several occasions to see her but was always left waiting while Elizabeth found an excuse to be elsewhere. Robert intervened and Elizabeth at last allowed Lettice an audience where she was allowed to kiss the queen’s hand and breast and Elizabeth returned the embrace albeit with a frosty countenance.

  But Robert’s relationship with the Queen would take a deadly turn. In 1599, Robert was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and charged with the task of subduing a rebellion led by the Earl of Tyrone. Robert ended up making a truce with the rebels and returned to England to Elizabeth’s fury. He was stripped of his offices and placed under house arrest. Robert tried to appease the queen but she further insulted him when she took away his rights to his income from sweet wine. Robert was in dire circumstances and he was an angry man. He began plotting his own rebellion to seize control of London, the court and the queen. In 1601, he was joined by his step-father, Sir Christopher Blount, as they marched on the city but the rising fizzled out and they were both arrested and executed for high treason. In a matter of weeks Lettice lost both her husband and her son.

  Lettice continued on to live a long life, dying in her nineties. She had requested that she be buried with Sir Robert Dudley and she was duly interred in the Beauchamp Chapel of St Mary’s Collegiate Church in Warwick.

  Katherine and Francis were also parents to:

  Sir Henry Knollys, the couple’s first born son was a member of parliament representing Reading (1562 and 1571) and then Oxfordshire (1572). He was married to Margaret Cave (1549–1600), daughter of Sir Ambrose Cave and Margaret Willington. They had two daughters; Elizabeth who married Sir Henry Willoughby of Risley and Lettice who married William Paget, 4th Baron Paget.

  He served as an Esquire of the Body to Elizabeth I and fought against the Northern rebels. On 16 January 1570, the Queen wrote to the Earl of Sussex and Sir Ralph Sadler asking that Knollys be awarded the rebels’ lands and goods ‘whom you know what reason we have to regard, in respect of his kindred to us’. But Henry was unlucky as the property had already been granted to Sadler’s son.

  In 1578, Henry joined Sir Humphrey Gilbert in a venture to set up a new colony in North America. Many of the ships that were to leave England were crewed by pardoned pirates. Henry seemed to get a taste for the pirate life and rejecting the venture, joined John Callis on a privateering expedition to the Spanish Coast. He was recalled to England after a foray to Portugal in 1582 and later left for the Netherlands where he joined in the fight for Dutch independence. It was here that he died after making his will that dealt mainly with the payment of his debts and the sale of his house in Greenwich.

  Little is known of Mary Knollys although we do know that she married Edward Stalker.

  Sir William Knollys, who became the 1st Earl of Banbury, was married first to Dorothy Bray, daughter of Edmund Bray, 1st Baron Bray, who was 20 years older than him and after her death he married Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk and his second wife, Catherine Knyvett.

  Like his father and brothers, William was an MP. He represented Stafford in 1571, Tregony in 1572 and Oxfordshire on four occasions up until 1601. He became warden of Wallingford Castle and was also once keeper of the Marshalsea. He was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire. He was a Captain in the fight for Dutch independence and was knighted for his actions by Sir Robert Dudley.

  One story about William was that he followed his heart and it made him the butt of court jokes. He had fallen for Mary Fitton, the daughter of a family friend and made a fool of himself trying to attract her attention. His nickname was ‘Party Beard’ because his beard contained three colours; white, yellow and black and a song of the times went:

  Party Beard, party beard…

  …the white hind was crossed:

  Brave Pembroke struck her down

  And took her from the clown

  Mary was pregnant with the Earl of Pembroke’s illegitimate child but William still pursued her, much to the court’s amusement. Later he became the 1st Baron Knollys and in 1616, the 1st Viscount Wallingford followed by his Earldom in 1626.

  Edward Knollys was a Member of Parliament, representing Oxford in 1571 and 1572. He served in Ireland and died there.

  Maud Knollys like her sister, Mary, remains a mystery.

  Elizabeth Knollys attended on Queen Elizabeth I as a maid and then as a lady of the privy chamber, receiving a yearly salary of £33 6s 8d. She married Sir Thomas Leighton of Feckenham, Worcester, son of John Leighton of Watlesburgh and Joyce Sutton in 1578. Her husband served as Governor of Jersey and Guernsey but Elizabeth spent most of her time at court.

  It is said that Sir Walter Raleigh was enamoured by her and wrote her a poem which she found in her pocket. It read ‘Lady, farewell, whom I in silence serve!/Would G
od thou knews’t the depth of my desire!/Then might I hope, though naught I can deserve,/Some drop of grace should quench my scalding fire…/

  She had three children: Thomas, Elizabeth and Anne.

  Sir Robert Knollys was a Member of Parliament representing Reading, Berkshire (1572–1589) and Breconshire (1589–1604). He married Catherine Vaughan, daughter of Sir Rowland Vaughan, of Porthamel with whom he had two daughters, Lettice and Frances.

  Robert was keeper of Syon House from 1584-7 as well as being keeper of Crown lands in the surrounding area. He was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and an Esquire of the Body. In the 1580s, Blanche Parry, one of Elizabeth’s chief women, challenged his right to his Breconshire estate (accessed through his wife) and stated that he had gained it through ‘wicked, ungodly and abominable practices’. He still remained in Elizabeth’s favour however and continued to be active at court and in parliament on the accession of James I.

  Robert tried different ways of making money throughout his life, like applying for a licence to dye and transport silks but he was constantly in debt. After a fall at William’s house from which he never recovered, he died owing more than £500.

  Richard Knollys was a Member of Parliament representing first Wallingford (1584) and possibly Northampton (1588). He married Joan Heigham, daughter of John Heigham, of Gifford’s Hall, Wickhambrook, Suffolk.

  Sir Francis Knollys ‘the Younger’ was also a Member of Parliament, representing first Oxford (1572–1588) and then Berkshire (1597, 1625) and Reading. He married Lettice Barrett, daughter of John Barrett, of Hanham in 1588. They had three sons and six daughters.

  Francis was a privateer serving as a rear admiral in the Caribbean with Sir Francis Drake. He also joined the fight for Dutch independence and was knighted in the field at Flushing in 1587.

  At his death in 1648 he was described as being ‘the ancientist Parliament man in England’ after serving for 73 years. He was buried in the church of St Lawrence in Reading.

  Anne Knollys married Thomas West, 2nd Baron De La Warr. They had six sons and eights daughters including Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, after whom the state of Delaware is named.

  Sir Thomas Knollys married Odelia de Morana, daughter of John de Morada, Marquess of Bergen with whom he had a daughter, Penelope. He became Governor of Ostend in 1586 and served in the fight for Dutch independence also known as the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648).

  Katherine Knollys married into an Irish family. Her husband Gerald FitzGerald, Baron of Offaly, was the son of Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare and Mabel Browne. After his death she married Sir Phillip Boteler or Butler, of Watton Woodhall. She was the mother of Lettice Digby, 1st Baroness Offaly by her first husband and four sons by her second including Sir John Boteler and Sir Robert Boteler.

  Francis went on after Katherine’s death to have a long and illustrious career at court and in 1593 he received the Order of the Garter. He mourned Katherine for many years but his children and grandchildren kept him busy, bringing him great delight, troubles to remedy and never a dull moment. He died in the summer of 1596 leaving a will in which he said ‘forasmuch as my goods are not sufficient to supply the wants and necessities of my children’, there should be no ‘costly pomp of ceremonies or great gifts of blacks for mourning at my burial, whereby my children might anyways be hindered’.

  Because of Mary Boleyn, Henry VIII’s bloodline has continued on through the centuries. Katherine and her brother Henry’s descendants include Charles Darwin, Sir Winston Churchill, P G Wodehouse, Lord Nelson, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall, Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, Queen Elizabeth II and Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge.

  References

  Chapter One - Mother Mary

  1. Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 2: 1509-1519, 508

  2. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII

  3. Sim, Alison: The Tudor Housewife

  4. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII

  5. The Love Letters of Henry VIII (ed. Jasper Ridley, 1988)

  6. Ibid

  Chapter Two - Aunty Anne

  1. The Love Letters of Henry VIII (ed. Jasper Ridley, 1988)

  2. Quoted in The Anne Boleyn Papers (Elizabeth Norton)

  3. Ibid

  4. Erickson, The First Elizabeth

  5. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 6, 1533

  6. Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 4, pt2

  7. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 7, 1534

  8. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10, 1536

  Chapter Three - Growing Up with Elizabeth and Mary

  1. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 11, 1536

  2. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 11, 1536

  3. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 11, 1536

  Chapter Four - Maid of Honour

  1. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 14 Part 2: August-December 1539

  2. Hall, The Triumphant Reign of King Henry Eighth

  3. Ibid

  4. Ibid

  5. Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell

  6. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I

  7. Ibid

  8. www.theanneboleynfiles.com

  9. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I

  10. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 15, 1540

  11. Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies

  12. Quoted in Weir, The Six Wives of Henry VIII

  13. Ibid

  Chapter Five - The Two Henrys

  1. Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 4: 1527-1533

  2. Hart, Mistresses of Henry VIII

  3. Starkey, The Young Elizabeth

  4. Hearne, Sylloge

  5. Starkey, The Young Elizabeth

  6. Foxe, Acts and Monuments

  Chapter Six - Bloody Mary and the Exiles

  1. Foxe, Acts and Monuments

  2. Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 11

  3. Hearne, Sylloge

  4. Foxe, Actes and Monuments

  5. Harrison, G. B., ed. The Letters of Queen Elizabeth I

  6. Starkey, The Young Elizabeth

  7. Gee, H and Hardy W J (eds), Documents Illustrative of English Church History

  8. Green, Letters of Illustrious Ladies

  9. Garrett, The Marian Exiles

  Chapter Seven - Queen Elizabeth’s Lady

  1. Elizabeth I: Collected Works

  2. Read, Mr Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth

  3. Bundesen, unpublished thesis

  4. Somerset, Elizabeth I

  5. Ibid

  6. Knollys, Papers, 65

  7. Calendar of State Papers, Scotland

  8. Ibid

  9. Ibid

  10. Ibid

  11. Ibid

  12. Ibid

  13. Weir, Mary Boleyn

  Bibliography

  Primary Sources

  Cecil Papers

  Foxe, John: History of the Acts and Monuments of the Church (Fox’s Book of Martyrs), London, 1563

  Hall, Edward: The Triumphant Reign of King Henry Eighth, London, 1547

  Letters of the Queens of England 1100-1547, ed. Anne Crawford, Stroud, 1994

  Newton, Thomas: Epitaphe upon the worthy and Honorable Lady, the Lady Knowles, London, 1569

  Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII Merriman, RB (ed), Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Oxford, 1902

  Papers relating to Mary Queen of Scots, ed. William Knollys, Philobiblon Society

  Miscellanies, 14-15, 1872-6

  Calendar of State Papers, Domesti
c (Edward, Mary and Elizabeth)

  Calendar of State Papers, Foreign

  Calendar of State Papers, France

  Calendar of State Papers, Ireland

  Calendar of State Papers, Scotland

  Calendar of State Papers, Venice

  Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I, London, 1816

  The Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry the Eighth from November MDXIX to December MDXXXII, ed. Sir Nicholas Harris, London, 1827

  The Love Letters of Henry VIII, ed. Jasper Ridley, 1988

  Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain, Mary Anne Everett Wood, London, 1846

  Secondary Sources

  Ackroyd, Peter: Tudors, London, 2012

  Ashdown, Dulcie M: Ladies-in-Waiting, London, 1976

  Bernard, GW: Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions, Yale, 2010

  Bernard, GW: The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Making of the English Church, London, 2007

  Borman, Tracy: Elizabeth’s Women, London, 2009

  British History Online, www.british-history.ac.uk

  Bundesen, Kristin: ‘No other faction but my own: dynastic politics and Elizabeth I’s Carey Cousins‘, unpublished thesis, 2008

  Denny, Joanna: Anne Boleyn, London, 2004

  Denny, Joanna: Katherine Howard, London, 2005

  Dewhurst, John: ‘The Alleged Miscarriages of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn’, Medical History, 1984, 28, p49-56 Dunn, Jane: Elizabeth & Mary, London, 2003