Could she be the infamous Lady de Winter featured within
Alexander Dumas famous novel The Three Musketeers?
NO!
Lucy [nee Percy] Countess of Carlisle.
Contrary to much talk of Lucy Hay
[Countess of Carlisle] as the inspiration for Alexander Dumas’s Lady de Winter - English
royal court timelines quash that as nonsense. Which implies the myth is
entirely accountable to fanciful notions of subsequent authors who have misconstrued scripts for masques performed within the inner court of Queen Henrietta
of England.
Lord Hay was a prominent courtier at
King James I’s court, where as a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, later Master
of the Robes, in 1613 he gained the position of Master of the Great Wardrobe. He
was therefore in a key position of influence and understanding of court
politics. In 1616, Hay was appointed to the court of Louis XIII to negotiate a
marriage betwixt Princess Christina to Charles Prince of Wales. He was never sent to France as an
ambassador, merely as an envoy on one mission. The role of ambassador/king's right hand man lay firmly within the Duke of Buckingham’s hands, and all
before Buckingham met Lucy.
The truth being Lucy never actually
set foot on French soil. Buckingham nor Hay knew her then, and Buckingham first
set eyes on her the day of her marriage to Hay, which rather blows Alexander
Dumas theory of Lucy as the infamous Lady de Winter out of the window. But not
quite, for she wrote a masque which for some reason James I cancelled. It
was after his death when later Lucy was installed in the court of Charles I and
Queen Henrietta Maria, that Lucy regularly wrote or adapted scripts for court
masques, one or two set within the French Court of Louis, all based on Queen Henrietta’s
mischievous tales and that of Lucy’s sister, Lady Dorothy. Thereafter
Lucy’s time within Henrietta’s court is traceable and in reality she left it
but once, but I’ll come to that later.
However, Dorothy [nee Percy], who married Robert Sydney 2nd Earl of Leicester, did indeed venture to Louis' court as the wife of Leicester, who set up his
embassy in France in May 1636. He remained there till May 1641, returning to
England for five months in April 1639.
Lady Dorothy [nee Percy] Countess of Leicester.
On 6 November 1617 Lucy married James
Hay, she was just 17. Lucy thus enjoyed the company of the most powerful men at
court. King James I, his son Charles Prince of Wales, later King Charles I. Hence
James I and his most treasured favourite, the Earl of Buckingham, were all present
at her marriage feast. Buckingham’s eyes wandered to Lucy and the rest is
history. Two years later Lucy became Buckingham’s mistress though Buckingham
did marry Lady Katherine Manners in 1620. The fact Buckingham was also the lover
of James I, Hay was so reliant on Buckingham’s favour he posed no objection to
Lucy as Buckingham’s mistress. Both men colluded, not unlike the ménage à trois that later existed
between Admiral Lord Nelson, Lord Hamilton, and Emma Lady Hamilton.
Hence Lucy, with both men of high
status within the court political system she became (installed as) Queen
Henrietta Maria’s Lady of the Bedchamber, and with that appointment Lucy gained
access to power of influence and knowledge of intimacies exchanged between King
Charles and Henrietta. And of course, Buckingham, as he had with Charles I’s
father, was Charles favoured courtier. Lucy did though, gain enemies too,
namely the Villiers family who despised her.
By 1622 Lucy became elevated to rank
of countess on her husband’s appointment as Earl of Carlisle. But by the year
of 1627, he opposed the war policy of the Stuart Crown against France and he
and Buckingham were then at serious odds, and Buckingham (whether out of spite
or what) he refused to support the Earl of Carlisle in his bid to obtain the
post of Lord Chamberlain. The in-fighting between the two courtiers came to an
end with the assassination of Buckingham in 1628. No longer was the duke able
to prevent rivalry between his sister, Lady Denbigh, and Lady Carlisle. The
Villiers with the death of Buckingham were out to wreak revenge on Lucy, thus
Lady Denbigh regained her former position at the queen’s court, and Lucy was up
against it, so was her husband. In the end Lucy was banished from court until
1630 (long story to do with the Earl of Holland) and Lucy’s courtly career hung
in the balance. Although Lucy regained a little favour from Queen Henrietta, she
never triumphed as she had hoped, and by 1637 she withdrew from court of her
own volition.
It could never be said Carlisle had
had a hand in Buckingham’s assassination. After all, In May 1628 Lord Carlisle
was on a mission to form a middle European alliance with the Dutch Republic,
Lorraine, Savoy and Venice. Whilst Carlisle was in Venice, there the news of Buckingham’s
assassination reached him on 22 August 1628. But, on 3 September, Lord Henry
Percy [Lucy’s brother] dispatched a letter:
“...the desirer and plotter of your [Carlisle’s] ruin and destruction is possessed with a death, not unfit for him, because [it was] correspondent to his life, which was granted by all men to be dishonourable and odious...”.
It does beg the question who had the greatest cause to be rid of Buckingham?
“...the desirer and plotter of your [Carlisle’s] ruin and destruction is possessed with a death, not unfit for him, because [it was] correspondent to his life, which was granted by all men to be dishonourable and odious...”.
It does beg the question who had the greatest cause to be rid of Buckingham?
After Carlisle’s death Lucy struck
up a close relationship with Lord Wentworth, then from 1640 she became close to
the Earl of Strafford, and as Lord Deputy of Ireland, Stafford protected her
interests in Ireland which she inherited from her husband. The really
intriguing aspect is her sister Lady Dorothy Percy who married Robert Sidney/Sydney
2nd Earl of Leicester, was mother to the notorious Col Algernon Sydney
and Col Robert Sydney (both accused of being lovers of Lucy Walter, who was
also their cousin! Another Lucy story, and of Lucy Walter’s English family lineage
to the Howard Family, Duke’s of Norfolk [Catherine Howard] which absolutely
blows all the guff about Lucy Walter as of “Low Birth” quote Evelyn - James II’s
crony.
