ABSTRACT
Sometime in the 1610s and early 1620s, the widowed Lady Mary Wroth (1586 or 1587-c. 1653) gave birth to two illegitimate children, William and Katherine. The children carried the last name Herbert after their father, William Herbert, earl of Pembroke (the very same earl we encountered in chapter one, impregnating the maid of honor Mary Fitton in 1601). William Herbert (1580-1630) was Mary’s first cousin and an influential and powerful person at the Jacobean court. He was also married to the very wealthy Mary Talbot, daughter and coheir to the earl of Shrewsbury. This chapter will focus on the illicit affair between these two cousins.
