Arms of Carey: Argent, on a bend sable three roses of the field[1]
Catherine Carey, after her marriage Catherine Knollys and later known as both Lady Knollys and Dame Catherine Knollys,[2] (c. 1524 – 15 January 1569), was chief Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I, who was her first cousin.
Catherine was said to be a witness to the execution of her aunt, Anne Boleyn, in 1536;[9] however, claims that she had stayed overnight to entertain and distract her aunt Anne in the Tower of London before the latter's execution have been dismissed.[9]
As Catherine and her husband were staunch Protestants, they fled to Germany in spring 1556 during the reign of Queen Mary I.[3] Princess Elizabeth wrote to her cousin whilst she lived on the continent, and Catherine is known to have resided in Basel and Frankfurt am Main whilst on the continent.[3]
Catherine was appointed Chief Lady of the Bedchamber after Elizabeth became queen. For the first ten years of the reign, Lady Catherine combined the most senior post among the ladies-in-waiting with motherhood to more than a dozen children.[6] Elizabeth never recognized Catherine as her half-sister, and it was certainly not a relationship that Catherine or Sir Francis ever openly claimed. At court, Catherine 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.[6]
She died on 15 January 1569 at Hampton Court Palace, being outlived by her husband and children. At the time of her death, her husband was in charge of the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots.[12]
Catherine was buried the following April in St Edmund's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, with the grieving Queen herself paying £640 2s. 11d. for the interment.[3][13] There is a small commemorative plaque in the abbey, although her chief monument is at Rotherfield Greys in Oxfordshire.
Catherine's epitaph reads:
The Right Honourable Lady Catherine 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.[14]
Sir Francis and Lady Knollys produced sixteen children:[6]
Mary Knollys (c. 1541 – 1593). She married Edward Stalker.
Sir Henry Knollys (c. 1542 – 1582). He was a member of parliament representing first Shoreham, Kent (1563) and then Oxfordshire. Esquire of the Body to Elizabeth I. He was married to Margaret Cave (1549–1600), daughter of Sir Ambrose Cave and Margaret Willington. Their daughter Lettice Knollys (1583–1655) married before 19 June 1602 William Paget, 4th Baron Paget.
Edward Knollys (1546–1580). He was a member of Parliament.
Sir Robert Knollys (1547–1626). Member of Parliament representing Reading, Berkshire (1572–1589), Brecknockshire (1589–1604), Abingdon, Oxfordshire (1604, 1624–1625) and finally Berkshire (1626). He married Catherine Vaughan, daughter of Sir Rowland Vaughan, of Porthamel.
Richard Knollys (1548 – 21 August 1596). Member of Parliament representing first Wallingford (1584) and then Northampton (1588). Married Joan Heigham, daughter of John Heigham, of Gifford's Hall, Wickhambrook, Suffolk.
Sir Thomas Knollys (died 1596). Known for service in the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). Governor of Ostend in 1586. Married Ottilia de Merode, daughter of Jean IX de Merode, Sire de Petershem and Margareta van Pallant.
Sir Francis Knollys "the Younger" (c. 1552 – 1648). Member of Parliament representing first Oxford (1572–1588) and then Berkshire (1597, 1625). Married Lettice Barrett, daughter of John Barrett, of Hanham. Father-in-law of John Hampden.
The possibility that Catherine, and perhaps her brother Henry, were illegitimate children of Henry VIII, appears in many works of fiction, including Wendy J. Dunn's The Light in the Labyrinth and Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl. 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 Lettice Knollys, she is among Elizabeth I's closest companions. In Henry VIII's Wives by Alison Prince, the book's narrator has a friend, Catherine "Kitty" Carey, whose father died of sweating sickness and whose mother is Mary Boleyn. In this book, Catherine was thought to be the king's daughter.
Catherine is the featured subject in the novel Cor Rotto: A Novel of Catherine Carey by Adrienne Dillard and in The Lady Carey by Anne R. Bailey.
^Doran, John (1835). "The history and antiquities of ... Reading in Berkshire". John Doran. Retrieved 30 October 2018. Queen Elizabeth, by her charter, gave 50 oaks out of the park, to the corporation of Reading, and granted the rest of the estate to Sir Francis and Dame Catherine Knollys.....
^Campbell, H. (28 February 2018). CampbellTree. Harold Campbell - Lulu. p. 202. ISBN9781387631230. Retrieved 30 October 2018. Lady Elizabeth Knollys ... was born on 15 June 1549 in Rotherfield Peppard Court, Oxfordshire, England
