| Katherine Carey | |
|---|---|
| Lady Knollys | |
| Portrait thought to be Lady Knollys, by Steven van der Meulen, 1562 | |
| Spouse(s) | Sir Francis Knollys |
| Issue | |
| Lettice Knollys Mary Knollys Henry Knollys, MP Elizabeth Knollys William Knollys, 1st Earl of Banbury Edward Knollys, MP Sir Robert Knollys, MP Richard Knollys, MP Sir Thomas Knollys Sir Francis Knollys, MP Anne Knollys Catherine Knollys Maude Knollys Dudley Knollys |
|
| Noble family | Boleyn |
| Father | Sir William Carey (although Katherine was rumored to be the child of Henry VIII) |
| Mother | Mary Boleyn |
| Born | c.1524 England |
| Died | 15 January 1569 Hampton Court Palace |
| Burial | St Edmund's Chapel, Westminster Abbey |
Katherine Carey, often spelt Catherine Carey, after her marriage Katherine Knollys and later Lady Knollys, pronounced "NOL-les" (c. 1524 – 15 January 1569), was chief Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I, who was her first cousin.
Katherine's mother was Mary Boleyn, a mistress of Henry VIII before he courted and later married her sister Anne Boleyn, Henry's second Queen consort.
Katherine's husband was Sir Francis Knollys, with whom she had 14 children.
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Katherine Carey was born in about 1524, the daughter of Sir William Carey of Aldenham in Hertfordshire, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and Esquire of the Body to Henry VIII, and his wife Mary Boleyn, who had once been a mistress of the king. She was Elizabeth I's first cousin. Some contemporaries also asserted that Katherine was an illegitimate child of the King and so was Elizabeth's half sister. This was never acknowledged by the King. [1]
Katherine was said to be a witness to the execution of her aunt, Anne Boleyn, in 1536.[2] But according to the biographer of Mary Boleyn, Alison Weir, claims that a young Catherine stayed overnight to entertain and distract her aunt Anne in the Tower the morning before the execution originated in the Victorian era.
Katherine went on to become Maid of Honour to both Queens Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard. On 26April 1540 she married Sir Francis Knollys.[3] Her husband was named a Knight of the Garter in 1593, although he had already been knighted in 1547. He was also Treasurer of the Royal Household. From the time of her marriage, Katherine became known as Mistress Knollys, and from 1547 as Lady Knollys. When not in London, the couple lived at Reading in Berkshire and Rotherfield Greys in Oxfordshire, although, as staunch Protestants, they fled to Germany during the reign of Queen Mary I.
Princess Elizabeth wrote to her cousin there and Katherine was appointed Chief Lady of the Bedchamber after she became Queen Elizabeth I. For the first ten years of the reign, Lady Katherine combined the most senior post among the ladies-in-waiting with motherhood to more than a dozen children. [4] Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth never recognized Katherine as her half-sister, and it was certainly not a relationship that Katherine or Sir Francis ever openly claimed. At court, Katherine was acknowledged as the queen's favourite among her first cousins, and Elizabeth's lack of other female relatives to whom she felt close may be adequate to explain this favoured position. [5]
She died on 15 January 1569 at Hampton Court Palace, being outlived by her husband and children, and was buried the following April in St Edmund's Chapel in Westminster Abbey. There is a small commemorative plaque in the abbey, although her chief monument is at Rotherfield Greys in Oxfordshire.
Katherine's epitaph reads:
The Right Honourable Lady Katherine Knollys, chief Lady of the Queen's Majesty's Bedchamber, and Wife to Sir Francis Knollys, Knight, Treasurer of Her Highnesses Houshold, departed this Life the Fifteenth of January, 1568, at Hampton-Court, and was honourably buried in the Floor of this Chapel. This Lady Knollys, and the Lord Hunsdon her Brother, were the Children of William Caree, Esq; and of the Lady Mary his Wife, one of the Daughters and Heirs to Thomas Bulleyne, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde; which Lady Mary was Sister to Anne Queen of England, Wife to K. Henry the Eighth, Father and Mother to Elizabeth Queen of England.[6]
Sir Francis and Lady Knollys produced a surprising number of offspring who survived to maturity. Of the children listed, only the last, Dudley, is known to have died in infancy[7]:
She should not be confused with her niece, Katherine Carey, who became Countess of Nottingham.
The possibility that Katherine, and perhaps her brother Henry, were illegitimate children of King Henry VIII, appears in many works of fiction, including Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl. Katherine Carey is also a character in Gregory's The Boleyn Inheritance, where she is sent to the royal court during the time of Queens Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard, and in The Virgin's Lover, where, as the mother of the seventeen-year-old Laetitia Knollys, she is among Queen Elizabeth I's closest companions.