Elizabethan courtier who was the muse of many artists of her day, notably as Philip Sidney's inspiration for Astrophil and Stella and John Dowland's My Lady Riches Galliard. Others dedicated their artistic expressions to her, including Richard Barnfield's first work The Affectionate Shepherd and Charles Tessier's Le Premier Livre de Chansons. In 1601 Penelope and her young son Mountjoy were implicated in the Earl of Essex's Rebellion but Queen Elizabeth took no action against them in their exile. At the Stuart ascendance Penelope was once again welcomed at court and served as Anne of Denmark's Lady of the Bedchamber. She danced as the nymph Ocyte in Ben Jonson's Masque of Blackness in 1605, but that same year her divorce from Robert Rich and the subsequent marriage to her paramour Charles Blount in a private ceremony conducted by William Laud in defiance of canon law and without royal consent, led to their final estrangement from court by King James. The marriage was annulled and both were dead within months. William Laud, once Blount's private chaplain, was later promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury and arranged the marriage of his protégé Stephen Goffe with Penelope's granddaughter by the Earl of Devonshire.
Penelope Devereux was a great-granddaughter of King Henry VIII by 'the other Boleyn girl'.
Penelope Devereux was a great-granddaughter of King Henry VIII by 'the other Boleyn girl'.
Elizabethan courtier who was the muse of many artists of her day, notably as Philip Sidney's inspiration for Astrophil and Stella and John Dowland's My Lady Riches Galliard. Others dedicated their artistic expressions to her, including Richard Barnfield's first work The Affectionate Shepherd and Charles Tessier's Le Premier Livre de Chansons. In 1601 Penelope and her young son Mountjoy were implicated in the Earl of Essex's Rebellion but Queen Elizabeth took no action against them in their exile. At the Stuart ascendance Penelope was once again welcomed at court and served as Anne of Denmark's Lady of the Bedchamber. She danced as the nymph Ocyte in Ben Jonson's Masque of Blackness in 1605, but that same year her divorce from Robert Rich and the subsequent marriage to her paramour Charles Blount in a private ceremony conducted by William Laud in defiance of canon law and without royal consent, led to their final estrangement from court by King James. The marriage was annulled and both were dead within months. William Laud, once Blount's private chaplain, was later promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury and arranged the marriage of his protégé Stephen Goffe with Penelope's granddaughter by the Earl of Devonshire.
Penelope Devereux was a great-granddaughter of King Henry VIII by 'the other Boleyn girl'.
Penelope Devereux was a great-granddaughter of King Henry VIII by 'the other Boleyn girl'.
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