1. Mary Fitton was an Elizabethan gentlewoman who became a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth.
17 Facts About Mary Fitton
1. 2.
Mary Fitton is noted for her scandalous affairs with William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Leveson, and others.
3.
Mary Fitton is considered by some to be the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets.
4.
Mary Fitton had at least three siblings: her elder sister Anne, who married John Newdigate in 1587 at the age of twelve, and two brothers.
5.
Mary Fitton became a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth in about 1595.
6.
Mary Fitton's father recommended her to the care of Sir William Knollys, Comptroller of the Queen's household.
7.
Mary Fitton wrote of his passion to her sister and even named Mary's niece, whom he was sponsoring as godfather, "Mary".
8.
Mary Fitton's infatuation was well known and mocked in court.
9.
Mary Fitton was suffering from a mixture of physical and mental symptoms that Elizabethans called "suffocation of the mother", probably a form of hysteria.
10.
Mary Fitton was placed with Lady Margaret Hawkins, the widow of Sir John Hopkins, for her confinement.
11.
Mary Fitton did not seem as abashed by the business as her father, who considered it to be social ruin.
12.
Mary Fitton had an affair with the married Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Leveson, bearing him two daughters.
13.
Mary Fitton married again, to a Pembrokeshire captain named John Lougher.
14.
Mary Fitton died in 1647 and was buried in Gawsworth, leaving a little Welsh property to her daughter who had married and had children herself.
15.
Mary Fitton's ghost is reputed to haunt Gawsworth Old Hall.
16.
Herbert is one of the main candidates for the identity of the Fair Youth, a character who betrays the poet by having an affair with the Dark Lady, hence the claim that Mary Fitton might be the lady.
17.
Mary Fitton had some literary connections; William Kempe, who was a clown in Shakespeare's company, dedicated his Nine Daies Wonder to "Mistress Anne Fitton", Maid of Honor to Elizabeth.