The Follower of Essex

Abstract

In his Diary for 1594 Lord Burghley entered under the date 6 October, somewhat ominously, ‘the Earl of Southampton at full age’.¹ Now the young man would be called to account, made to pay for going back on his word to marry the great man’s granddaughter. Instead, the Earl’s name was being bandied about as one of the most eligible young peers at Court. There was the Countess of Rutland’s daughter, Lady Bridget Manners, to marry. Her waiting woman reported to the Countess, ‘if your ladyship ask Mr. Manners’s advice, he will speak straight of my lord of Bedford, or my lord of Southampton, which is exceeding unlikely. If they were in her choice [Lady Bridget’s], she saith she would choose my lord Wharton [a widower with all his children] before them, for they be so young and fantastical and would be so carried away that … she doubteth their carriage of themselves.’²