1565–c. 1647
Elizabeth “Bess” Throckmorton was born into a well-connected English gentry family and entered the service of Elizabeth I as a gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber. Her position gave her unusual proximity to the queen but also subjected her private life to royal discipline. In the early 1590s she secretly married Walter Raleigh, one of Elizabeth’s favourites, after becoming pregnant.
The queen reacted angrily when the marriage was discovered, and both Bess and Raleigh were imprisoned in the Tower of London before beginning years of fluctuating favour. Bess managed family finances and property during Raleigh’s long absences and later imprisonments. After James VI and I came to the English throne, she fought to protect her family’s interests through Raleigh’s conviction, expeditions and eventual execution in 1618.
Bess Throckmorton appears directly in Tony Riches’s Raleigh – Tudor Adventurer and is the central figure of Bess – Tudor Gentlewoman, which shifts the familiar Raleigh story toward the wife who endured the consequences of royal disfavour and dynastic change. Rosemary Sutcliff’s Lady in Waiting makes Elizabeth “Bess” Throckmorton its central historical figure, following her service at Elizabeth I’s court and her dangerous love affair and secret marriage with Walter Raleigh.
