Katherine Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon

Katherine Hastings (née Dudley), Countess of Huntingdon (c. 1538[1] or 1543–1545[2] – 14 August 1620) was an English noblewoman.

This article is about Katherine Hastings née Dudley. For her mother-in-law Catherine Pole, see Catherine Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon.

Katherine Hastings
Countess of Huntingdon
Bornc. 1538 or 1543–1545
England
Died14 August 1620 (aged 75-82)
Chelsea, London, England
BuriedChelsea Old Church
Noble familyDudley
Spouse(s)Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon
FatherJohn Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland
MotherJane Guildford

She was the youngest surviving daughter of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland and his wife, Jane Guildford, and a sister of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth I's favourite.[1]

Marriage

Katherine Dudley was betrothed or married on 25 May 1553 at a very young age to Henry Hastings, the heir of Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon.[2] From her mother's will it appears that she was still under 12 years of age in January 1555,[2] and a clause regarding her marriage implies that the match could still be dissolved: "if it so chance that my Lord Hastings do refuse her or she him".[2]

By the spring of 1559 Katherine Hastings was definitely married,[2] and on the death of her father-in-law in 1560 became Countess of Huntingdon. She remained childless, though she may have suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 1566.[1]

Career as an educator

For many years she lived with her husband in the English Midlands and Yorkshire, where she dedicated herself to the education of young women of the nobility and gentry.[1] Among her pupils were the diarist Margaret Hoby, memoirist Dionys Fitzherbert,[3] and her brother Robert's stepdaughters, the sisters Penelope and Dorothy Devereux.[4] Like her husband, the Countess was a convinced Protestant with Puritan leanings.[1]

Courtier

After the Earl of Huntingdon died at York in December 1595,[5] she lived at court and became one of the closest friends of the old Queen.[1] When young, she had suffered from Elizabeth's distrust of her husband's loyalty, which was nourished by his descent from the House of Plantagenet.[1] She was in debt by £2400 and asked the Queen to help realise her jointure property in March 1597.[6] She was attending the queen privately twice a day in February 1598. Her differences with the new earl, George Hastings, 4th Earl of Huntingdon, over her jointure and her husband's debts were settled on 15 February, and he would have the Savoy House.[7]

Death

Katherine, Countess of Huntingdon died at Chelsea, London on 14 August 1620, and was buried in her mother's tomb at Chelsea Old Church.[1]

Ancestry

Citations
  1. Cross 2008
  2. Adams 1995 p. 44
  3. Hodgkin, Katharine (2010). Women, Madness and Sin in Early Modern England: Autobiographical Writings of Dionys Fitzherbert. Burlington VT: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754630180.
  4. Freedman 1983 p. 31
  5. Michael Brennan, Noel Kinnamon, Margaret Hannay, The Letters of Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney (Philadelphia, 2013), pp. 119-21.
  6. Michael Brennan, Noel Kinnamon, Margaret Hannay, The Letters of Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney (Philadelphia, 2013), pp. 174, 184, 187 fn. 301.
  7. Michael Brennan, Noel Kinnamon, Margaret Hannay, The Letters of Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney (Philadelphia, 2013), pp. 284, 294.

References
  • Adams, Simon (ed.) (1995): Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586 Cambridge University Press; ISBN 0-521-55156-0
  • Adams, Simon (2002): Leicester and the Court: Essays in Elizabethan Politics Manchester University Press; ISBN 0-7190-5325-0
  • Cross, Claire (2008): "Hastings, Katherine, countess of Huntingdon (c.1538–1620)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. Jan 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 04-04-2010
  • Freedman, Sylvia (1983): Poor Penelope: Lady Penelope Rich. An Elizabethan Woman The Kensal Press; ISBN 0-946041-20-2
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