Catherine Carey

Catherine Carey was an English courtier, the daughter of Mary Boleyn and Sir William Carey and therefore a first cousin of Elizabeth I. She married the Protestant courtier Sir Francis Knollys and spent part of Mary I’s reign in continental exile with her family.

After Elizabeth’s accession Catherine became one of the queen’s trusted women and served as Chief Lady of the Bedchamber. Claims that Henry VIII rather than William Carey was her biological father have been repeatedly discussed but remain unproven.

In Alison Weir’s The Boleyn Secret, Katherine Carey witnesses Anne Boleyn’s execution and grows up beside Anne’s daughter Elizabeth, forming a friendship tested by the Tudor succession and Mary I’s persecution of Protestants.