Lettice Knollys: Elizabeth's Love Rival

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and i'm dr cat today i want to take a look at the life of latisse knowles spelt like this but pronounced latisse an anglicized form of letitia and nols like beyonce which is quite fitting because as we are going to find out people liking it and thus putting a ring on it would prove to be pretty defining for this early modern lady but of course her life was more than just a marriage let's take a look [Music] leticia knowles was born on the 8th of november 1543 to sir francis knowles and his wife catherine catherine was the daughter of mary berlin and sister at her birth she was given the name of her mother's husband william carey so she was catherine carey and it's very possible that he was her biological father however as the precise span of mary's relationship with henry viii is unknown it has been speculated that he may have been catherine's real father with this in mind letice is the first cousin once removed of elizabeth but she may also have been her niece during the reign of mary the first francis and catherine went into self-imposed exile on the continent latisse may have been one of the children that went with them but it's equally possible that she was left at hatfield with elizabeth elizabeth's accession to the throne in 1558 made england safer for the knolls family and offered significant opportunities for them to reside in positions close to power her father was made queen elizabeth's vice chamberlain her mother was made one of the four wage ladies of the queen's bedchamber and letice also entered the royal household as a gentlewoman of the privy chamber latif was married to walter devereaux second by count hereford probably in late 1560. it may be that the expectations of marriage principally the bearing of children were incompatible with her role in the privy chamber because her payments were ceased in the following year she took up residence at her husband's family seat of charley in staffordshire she would however visit the royal court she did so in september 1565 because a report reached diego guzman de silva the spanish ambassador that elizabeth's favorite robert dudley earl of leicester had been flirting with letice in an apparent attempt to make the queen jealous despite their future entanglement at the time of this alleged flirtation letice was very pregnant her son robert devereaux would be born on the 10th of november robert dudley was named as his godfather from may 1572 latisse was known as the countess of essex as her husband had been created earl of essex in the middle of the next year 1573 her husband who had been staying at court obtained the queen's permission for a plantation in ulster he set off a few months later and was away for a couple of years returning in november 1575. in december 1575 there were reports or gossip doing the rounds in london that the earl of essex had upon his return discovered his wife had borne two children while he was away both allegedly fathered by robert dudley earl of leicester however the evidence for these claims does not surpass the level of gossip walter devereaux would return to ireland the following summer he contracted dysentery while there and died in dublin on the 22nd of september 1576. there were more rumors that he had actually been poisoned perhaps on the orders of dudley who was worried apparently about the potential revenge that a cockholded husband might seek to enact against him simon adams suggests that as quote essex's references to his wife in his will are perfunctory they may well have been estranged in the years immediately prior to his death however he also points out that where she was living and her possible contacts with lester are not easy to establish i'm not sure if an estranged wife would attend her husband's funeral but letice did just that on the 26th of november although perhaps her actions in this regard are about appearances rather than affection in short and extramarital affair may well have occurred between robert and latest but we have yet to uncover incontrovertible proof of it from early in 1577 latitude was seeking to assert her dower rights as a widow her joint sure was she complained in her letters to william cecil to meega and did not sufficiently provide for her state she would soon get her way around the end of 1577 or the start of 1578 she would be informed that her jointure had been increased almost exactly two years after walter deveraux's death on the 21st of september 1578 letice remarried her husband was her son's godfather robert dudley it was long thought this marriage was precipitated by a pregnancy which is possible of course but if there was a pregnancy at this time there is no record of a birth occurring at a relevant time this has led some to believe that latisse either deceived robert dudley into a marriage through a feigned pregnancy or that there was a real pregnancy that ended tragically in a miscarriage however it may simply be that the couple were very keen to marry so much so that they could scarcely wait for the customary two years of mourning to pass following the death of her first husband robert dudley was apparently concerned about how elizabeth would react to news of his nuptials and not without cause so he hoped to keep it secret from her for as long as possible the couple's first child robert dudley baron denby was born on the 6th of june 1581. to avoid confusion between dudley's we'll use leicester for the dad and den be for the son as latisse and les's marriage had been somewhat private although not secret it was deemed necessary to depose a selection of witnesses before a notary just before the birth on the 13th of march 1581 in order to establish the existence of the marriage and thus the legitimacy of the child from these witness depositions we learned that lester had discussed his plans to marry the widowed latisse at least a year before it actually took place that the marriage was officiated by humphrey tindall leicester's chaplain and that it was witnessed by leticia's father and brother francis and richard knowles leicester's brother ambrose dudley earl of warwick and fellow nobles henry herbert second earl of pembroke and roger north second baron north unsurprisingly considering the number of witnesses the marriage did not remain secret for long the french ambassador heard about it at the start of november 1578. it is not clear when elizabeth learnt of the marriage or how she did so but although she would allow lester to return to her presence as if she had forgiven him she would never fully accept the marriage and would not extend the same grace to her kinswoman latisse who was not to be welcomed into her sight additionally over the next decade the queen would react poorly towards any hint at the couple's closeness and it does seem that despite the pressure of royal displeasure they were happily married lester was a solicitor's brother-in-law and a loving stepfather after all this blended family had been in each other's orbit for many years in historical fiction latisse is often presented as a grasping schemer frequently rubbing her marriage in a heartbroken elizabeth's face but i think that that is because elizabeth and lester are the love story so it's all too easy to figure latisse as the other woman an interloper in terms of leticia's true character i think the evidence runs somewhat counter to this common fictional narrative because despite being entitled to be known as the countess of leicester that was not how latin styled herself in the aftermath of her marriage keeping the essex styling instead she wasted a number of years to take up permanent residence at leicester house as was her marital right and when she did so seemingly in around 1583 elizabeth once more voiced her anger towards lester about his marriage for he opened the same more plainly than ever before latisse it seems would be accused of much indeed i wonder if she could do anything right in the eyes of the queen and many commentators in june 1583 elizabeth was reported to have erupted at news of a plan to marry leticia's daughter dorothy to james vi of scots the queen was apparently horrified at the thought of him being married to the daughter of such a she-wolf in 1584 she and lester were said to be planning to marry their son denby to our bella stewart on whom i have already made a video that i will leave linked in the card but suffice to say that arbella had the level of royal blood flowing through her veins that would make any such marriage being planned without the queen's consent dangerously close to treason as it was little lord denby his father's only legitimate son was just three years old when he died on the 19th of july 1584. lester was no doubt bereft but when making the decision to absent himself from court and the company of the queen he said he was going quote to comfort my sorrowful wife for the loss of my little son whom god has lately taken from us i think it is a mark of his care for her and the comfort he derived from her that it was to his wife he went in this moment of profound loss of course he may have hoped to make another legitimate son with her in 1584 latest was 41 so pregnancy would not have been impossible but as it was she would have no more children the year following their son's death in the summer of 1585 they retreated together to kenilworth which apparently enraged elizabeth her ire was further fueled by gossip that reached her of leticia's apparent plans to join her husband as he was leading the english intervention to support the netherlands allegedly it was her intention to go there quote with such a train of ladies and gentle women and such rich coaches litters and side saddles as her majesty had none and that there should be such a court of ladies as should far pass her majesty's court here when latis heard of these tales and the queen's reaction to them she was said to be greatly troubled there was it seems no such plan latisse had work to do in england as she was the wife of a man with estates to oversee and lands to manage with her husband abroad she was left in charge lester drew up documents to ensure that that was the case leicester was back in england at the end of 1586 but was sent back to the netherlands the next june her son robert devereaux earl of essex reported on his mother's grief at her husband's departure describing her as being in mourning for him she got him back later that year but their reunion would not last long this time either robert dudley earl of leicester died at oxfordshire on the 4th of september 1588. for more evidence of the affection and trust that existed between them we can look to his will he named her as the executrix and asserted within it that she should be well provided for despite i believe his best intentions he did not leave her with an uncomplicated inheritance in october 1588 the month after leicester's death there was already a legal challenge to her having inherited drayton bassette as part of her jointure lester having a surviving but illegitimate son also complicated things however it was his debts that threw a real spanner in the works for his widow her joint chair took a real beating to settle them and she would end up selling leicester house to her son who would rename it essex house there was no two-year mourning period before her next marriage because letice married sir christopher blount in july 1589 apparently seeking the protection offered by her husband against the dangers that may ensnare her in her widowhood once again there were rumors that another husband had been poisoned this time she was the focus of the blame so the story went latisse and blount had begun an affair while lester was still alive and to avoid him murdering them she killed him logical if leicester had been the cause of the rift between letice and elizabeth his death did not mend bridges elizabeth aya was seemingly fixed despite the fact that many members of leticia's family were at the heart of the elizabethan court and that leticia's son robert devereaux earl of essex had seemingly replaced his godfather and stepfather as the queen's favorite it seems that latisse was distressed at the estrangement and keen to regain her queen's favor she had retired to that contested property in drayton bassett and would from there write to her son in the second half of the 1590s her letters to him make clear her angst at one point she writes that she will not return to court until elizabeth will reconcile with her in another she reports that she has information from friends that the queen might be at last ready to make peace she wonders in her letter to her son whether a trip to london might be worth her while she was in her son's essex house in london between january and march 1598. elizabeth studiously avoided latisse only dane to meet with her before the latter returned to drayton bassett apparently hands were kissed but nothing really changed the following year 1599 saw her son in hot water robert devereaux had cajoled his way into the role of lord lieutenant of ireland during an established period of war he failed to defeat his queen's irish enemies he would instead make peace without her consent and as if to enrage her further he then went about knighting people he was back in england in september 1599 and decided to burst in on elizabeth in her chamber before she was dressed a total breach of protocol and her privacy for this and his spectacularly mismanaged military campaign he was placed under house arrest in disgrace letice returned to london to plead for her son she even tried to sweeten the deal with the gift of a gown that had cost her a hundred pounds elizabeth would receive neither gift nor gift giver however it is said that the appeal was scuppered not simply because of the animosity between latisse and elizabeth but because leticia's daughter and robert devereaux's sister penelope baroness rich is said to have written such an arrogant letter that it ultimately ruined the appeal to the queen leticia's son would get his freedom at least for a short while in 1600 but elizabeth did not return his monopoly on sweet wines to him thus depriving him of his full capacity to live in the estate that so befitted an earl such as himself in february 1601 robert seemingly saw the line and then decided to blow through it and to take his stepfather sir christopher blount with him the essex revolt was an unmitigated failure from which there could be no coming back an armed band had marched through london with the aim of forcing their way into an audience with the queen allegedly to separate her from her wicked counselors i.e robert cecil but one might assume that they weren't intending to ask politely and await the queen's pleasure despite his failures in ireland devereaux was young dashing and male it's possible to see how his thrusting ambition might have been read as an outright threat by an aging pregnant queen as it was the revolt never gained the numbers it was presumably expecting as it moved through the capital robert devereaux was executed on the 25th of february 1601 sir christopher blount on the 18th of march 1601 latisse was now the mother and wife or widow of a tainted and executed traitors elizabeth's own death in 1603 however meant a new monarch and thus the potential to make new bonds leticia's daughter pelopy she of the earlier apparently arrogant letter to elizabeth managed to ingratiate herself with the new queen consort anne of denmark and latisse was able to benefit from this for example robert dudley had fathered a child by douglas sheffield also named robert dudley he is that legitimate son that i mentioned briefly earlier but he had started to claim that he was not legitimate as had been thought but that his parents had been secretly married this would have made latisse's marriage bigamous leaving her with no right to her jointure her return to royal favor was no doubt helpful in getting the legal system to find in her favor letice who had buried husbands and children lost to natural causes and the executioner's axe would however know yet more loss she is known to have been close to her daughters pilpy and dorothy and she would come to know the unfathomable pain of outliving them as well penelope died in 1607 dorothy in 1619 latisse would live to the age of 91 and it seems she enjoyed good health until almost the end of her life she was reported to be able to walk a mile a day in 1632 which was two years before her death she died on christmas day 1634 she was laid to rest beside her second husband robert dudley earl of leicester it is so odd to me that in the story of letice and robert she is the craven interloper the ambitious temptress who wooed him away from his true love the queen who in so doing broke the sweet elizabeth's heart why would elizabeth have married him if he'd been free should he have stayed unmarried indefinitely after his first wife's death why are elizabeth and dudley presented us the love story has latisse drawn the short straw when it comes to historical legacy so what do you think as always i'm looking forward to reading your conversations in the comments section underneath this video or you can find me over on social media i'll leave links to my instagram and twitter in the description box follow me there and we can continue this conversation i do hope you enjoyed this video and found it useful if you did why not share it with some friends why not let me know you liked it by hitting the thumbs up please subscribe to the channel and maybe just check that you are subscribed if you think you are make sure you haven't been mysteriously unsubscribed by youtube while you're there checking subscribing maybe re-subscribing why not hit the bell icon beside the subscribe button so that youtube tells you when i've next uploaded i hope you can have a great day whatever you're doing and i look forward to speaking to all in my next video take care of yourselves bye bye for now [Music] you

Channel: Reading the Past

Views: 95,963

Keywords: Lettice Knollys, Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, Robert Devereux, Leicester, Essex, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance

Id: vjWz3Fcn22I

Length: 24min 42sec (1482 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 09 2021