Elizabeth Somerset, Countess of Worcester (1502–1565)

• 1. Introduction

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  Elizabeth Somerset, Countess of Worcester, sat to the left of Anne Boleyn at the queen's coronation feast, close enough to hold a cloth before the queen's face when she needed to spit. That proximity was not incidental. It placed Elizabeth at the center of the most dangerous moment in Anne Boleyn's life and made her the woman John Hussee, agent of the Lord Deputy of Calais, would later identify as "the first ground" of the charges that sent Anne to her death.

  Elizabeth was also said to have been a mistress of King Henry VIII himself. She came from a family wound tightly into the machinery of the Tudor court. Her father was Sir Anthony Browne, a trusted courtier of Henry VIII. Her half-brother, Sir William Fitzwilliam, 1st Earl of Southampton, later became very active in the very Boleyn inquiries her accusations helped to ignite.

  Who was this woman who shared secrets with a queen and then testified against her? How did a debt of one hundred pounds and a pregnancy weave into the downfall of Anne Boleyn? And what became of the countess who named names and outlived nearly everyone involved?

• 2. Family and Court

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  Elizabeth's mother, Lucy, was the daughter of John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu, and Isobel Ingaldesthorpe. When Lucy died, her will dated 1531 left Elizabeth a pair of "bedys of gold with tenne gawdies," a small bequest that nonetheless marks Elizabeth as someone her mother thought of with care.

  The family's reach across the Tudor court ran in multiple directions. Around 1508, Elizabeth's sister Anne Browne married Sir Charles Brandon, who later became Duke of Suffolk. That match made Elizabeth the aunt of Lady Anne Brandon and Lady Mary Brandon. It was a network of kinship that placed the Browne family close to some of the most powerful figures in Henry VIII's orbit.

  Elizabeth herself married Henry Somerset, 2nd Earl of Worcester, the son of Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester, and Elizabeth Somerset, Baroness Herbert. Henry's first wife, Lady Margaret, had died without children. Elizabeth married Henry before 1527, and she was officially recognized as Countess of Worcester on the 15th of April 1526. The Somerset earldom was distinguished, and the title gave Elizabeth standing at court that matched her family connections.

• 3. Close to the Queen

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  As one of Anne Boleyn's ladies in her privy chamber, Elizabeth Somerset occupied a position of genuine intimacy. Her duties included holding a fine cloth before the queen's face when Anne wished to spit at the royal table. That detail is not trivial. It shows how physically close these women were to the queen and how completely their days overlapped.

  There is documentation that Elizabeth secretly borrowed one hundred pounds from Anne Boleyn, a sum that suggests the two operated within a relationship of real trust. Elizabeth had not repaid the debt by the time Anne was imprisoned in the Tower of London. There is also a record, dated the 4th of February 1530, of a payment from the king's personal purse to a midwife for the Countess of Worcester. Historians believe this payment was most likely arranged by Anne herself.

  G. W. Bernard, the author of Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions, observed that as Anne's lady in waiting, Elizabeth "would have been aware of it, indeed might have been complicit" with any adulterous acts attributed to the queen. That closeness, paradoxically, was precisely what gave her testimony its weight when things turned.

• 4. The Accusations

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  In 1536, Elizabeth testified against Anne Boleyn. She claimed Anne had engaged in numerous adulterous acts with a handful of men: Henry Norris, Mark Smeaton, and George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford, who was also the queen's own brother.

  The accusations are recorded in a poem by Lancelot de Carle titled A letter containing the criminal charges laid against Queen Anne Boleyn of England. The poem describes a confrontation between a king's privy counsellor and his sister. The counsellor observes his sister behaving promiscuously and warns her against it. She responds by redirecting blame toward someone else. "But you see a small fault in me, while overlooking a much higher fault that is much more damaging," the translated text reads. She then names Anne Boleyn, pointing her brother toward Mark Smeaton and George Boleyn as the queen's partners. On the charge of incest, the translated poem renders her words starkly: "I must not forget to tell you what seems to me to be the worst thing, which is that often her brother has carnal knowledge of her in bed."

  Many historical accounts conclude that the charge of incest between Anne and George Boleyn was fabricated. John Hussee identified Elizabeth Somerset as the privy counsellor's sister in the poem. He acknowledged a few other accusers, naming "Nan Cobham, with one maid more," but singled Elizabeth out as "the principal" and "the first ground" when it came to raising charges against Anne.

• 5. Spring of 1536

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  While the investigation into Anne Boleyn built toward its fatal conclusion, Elizabeth Somerset was pregnant. She was expecting another child in the spring of 1536, and the pregnancy was difficult.

  Anne Boleyn, by then locked in the Tower of London and facing execution, learned of Elizabeth's difficulties. She "much lamented my lady of Worcester," the record states, "because that her child did not stir in her body." The queen who was about to be put to death worried about the child of the woman who had helped to condemn her.

  Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter that year. She named the girl Anne. Whether that name was chosen in honor of the queen she had helped to destroy is not documented as a certainty, but the choice was noted by those who recorded it. The daughter, Lady Anne Somerset, went on to marry Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland.

• 6. Later Life and Legacy

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  Elizabeth, Countess of Worcester, lived three decades beyond Anne Boleyn's execution. On the 15th of January 1559, she attended the coronation of Elizabeth I. She wore a gown of silver tissue and robes of office, garments she later bequeathed to her daughter Anne in her will.

  She and Henry Somerset had a large family. Four sons and four daughters survived to adulthood on record, though it is said two more children lived past infancy, bringing a possible total to ten. Among them were William Somerset, who became the 3rd Earl of Worcester; Lady Lucy Somerset, who married John Neville, 4th Baron Latimer; and Francis Somerset, who died on the 10th of September 1547, in battle.

  Elizabeth died in 1565. Her will was dated on the 20th of April of that year, and it was probated on the 23rd of October, placing her death somewhere in those months. She is buried in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales. The gown of silver tissue she wore to a queen's coronation, then passed to the daughter she named after a queen she helped to bring down, is one of the stranger inheritances in the Tudor record.