Katherine (Carey) Knollys's entry in _New Oxford Dictionary

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Tony Hoskins

Katherine (Carey) Knollys's entry in _New Oxford Dictionary

Legg inn av Tony Hoskins » 07 jul 2007 17:57:30

G.W. Bernard, author of _The King's Reformation: Henry VIII and the
remaking of the English Church (Yale University Press, New Haven and
London, 2005), and professor of early modern history at the University
of Southampton (UK), was kind enough to send me this entry from the _New
Oxford DNB_ (which I had not seen.)

Tony Hoskins
Santa Rosa, California

------

_New Oxford Dictionary of National Biography_

Knollys [née Carey], Katherine, Lady Knollys (c.1523 1569), courtier,
was
undoubtedly the daughter of Mary Boleyn [see Stafford, Mary,
(c.1499 1543)], but although she and her brother Henry Carey (later
first
Baron Hunsdon) were recognized as the children of Mary's first husband
William Carey (c.1500 1528), their mother's affair with Henry VIII,
between
about 1522 and 1525, has always raised questions about the paternity of
her
children. Henry Carey's date of birth (4 March 1526) suggests that his
conception may have postdated the affair; but Katherine was probably
the
elder of the two and the king's daughter. Her surviving portrait, which
was
painted early in 1562 and records her age as thirty-eight, suggests a
birth
date of 1523/4, and this is in keeping with the known facts of her
early
adulthood. In November 1539 she was appointed a maid of honour to Anne
of
Cleves, and on 26 April 1540 she married Francis Knollys (1511/12
1596).
According to a note in Francis's Latin dictionary their first child,
Henry,
was born the Tuesday before Easter Day [12 April] 1541 . Since maids
to an
adult queen were usually aged sixteen or more, and marriage at thirteen
or
less did not usually involve cohabitation, this evidence, too,
suggests
that Katherine was older than her brother and born before 1525.

In 1540 an act of parliament assured the newly-weds of their right to
inherit the Knollys family manor of Rotherfield Greys, Oxfordshire. In
the
following thirteen years, while Francis rose steadily at court (he was
knighted in 1547), Katherine bore the first ten of their sixteen
children
and evidently maintained a close friendship one probably begun in
childhood with Princess Elizabeth, who sent her a farewell letter
signed
cor rotto ( broken heart ) when she and her husband went abroad. Their
departure, among the more prominent Marian exiles, has traditionally
been
dated to 1553 but is more likely to have occurred in spring 1556,
possibly
as a result of the discovery of the Dudley conspiracy. The following
winter
Sir Francis, at least, was recorded in Basel, and by June 1557
Katherine and
five of their children were with him in Frankfurt am Main. The date of
their
return to England is uncertain. The initial privy seal warrant of 3
January
1559 appointing Katherine one of the four waged ladies of the
bedchamber
may have anticipated her arrival, but they were certainly back by 14
January. Although the cor rotto letter may be the only firm surviving
evidence of Katherine's earlier relations with Elizabeth, from 1559 it
was
often noted that Katherine was, in the words of Thomas Newton's verse
epitaph on her, In favour with our noble queen, above the common sort
,
possibly reflecting the inadmissible fact that they were half-sisters.

Lady Knollys retained her post in the bedchamber until she died,
despite the
needs of her many children and Elizabeth's demanding nature, which
made
Katherine often weep for unkindness (Knollys, Papers , 65). There
were
compensations. Her children, notably Lettice Dudley, gained places in
the
household, and her eldest son's wedding in 1565 was honoured with a
court
tournament. But the queen remained exigent. When Katherine died at
Hampton
Court Palace Sir Francis was at Bolton Castle supervising the captivity
of
Mary, queen of Scots. He had repeatedly asked both Elizabeth and Sir
William Cecil to let him return, and he fumed at the queen's
ungrateful
denial of my coming to the court this Christmas (ibid., 60),
particularly
as Katherine had been ill with a fever. A letter from Cecil assuring
him
that Katherine was well amended prompted Sir Francis to write to her
at
the end of December, pouring out his frustrations and suggesting they
retire from court and live a country poor life (ibid., 65). But
Katherine's recovery was short-lived, for she died barely a fortnight
later, on 15 January 1569, lying in a princes court very often
visited
by her majesty's own comfortable presence (Salisbury MSS, 1.400). The
queen was so grief-stricken that she became forgetful of her own
health
(ibid.), and she spent L640 2s. 11d. on a lavish funeral ceremony for
Katherine, complete with interment in Westminster Abbey. It was
considerably more than Elizabeth paid towards the exequies of the
duchess
of Suffolk (d. 1559) and the countess of Lennox (d. 1578), two cousins
who
shared her descent from Henry VII; and Katherine's funeral furniture
was
valuable enough to cause a dispute between the abbey and the college
of
heralds.

Sally Varlow
Sources LP Henry VIII, 3, 4, 8, 14, 15, 17 ; Sir Francis' Latin
dictionary,
1555 62, priv. coll. ; S. Varlow, Sir Francis Knolly's Latin
dictionary ,
HJ, 80; Calendar of the manuscripts of the most hon. the
marquis of Salisbury, 1, HMC, 9 (1883); W. Knollys, Papers relating
to
Mary, Queen of Scots , Philobiblon Society Miscellanies, 14 (1872 6),
14 69;
W. Dugdale, The baronage of England, 2 (1676), 397, 413 ff. ;
A. Hoskins, Mary Boleyn's Carey children and offspring of Henry VIII ,
The
Genealogist, 25 (March 1997), 345 52; F. J. Malpas, Sir Francis
Knollys
and family , 1993, Berkshire County Library; C. Merton, The women who
served Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth: ladies, gentlewomen and maids of
the
privy chamber, 1553 1603 , PhD diss., U. Cam., 1992; Westminster Abbey
Muniment Room, London, 6414, 6415, 6416, 6417; index of monuments and
inscriptions ? T. Newton, An epitaphe upon the worthy and honorable
lady,
the Lady Knowles (1569); P. Croft and K. Hearn, Only matrimony maketh
children to be certain: two Elizabethan pregnancy portraits , British
Art
Journal, 3 (2002), 19; CSP dom.

Likenesses S. van der Meulen, oils on panel, 1562 (Katherine
Knollys?),
Yale U. CBA; repro. in Croft and Hearn, Only matrimony; marble and
alabaster effigy on family tomb, 1605, St Nicholas's Church,
Rotherfield
Greys, Oxfordshire; repro. in Croft and Hearn.

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