Frances Stewart (), Duchess of Lennox and Richmond, Countess of Hertford (27 July 1578 – 8 October 1639) was the daughter of a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk. An orphan of small fortune, she rose to be the only duchess at the court of James I of England. She married the son of a London alderman who died in 1599, leaving her a wealthy widow at a young age. She became, for 20 years, the third wife of the ageing Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, nephew of Jane Seymour, third queen consort of Henry VIII. Within months of Edward's death she married a cousin of James I, Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox and 1st Duke of Richmond. One of the great beauties of the Jacobean court, she was also the patron of Captain John Smith of the Virginia Colony.
Life
Frances Howard was the daughter of Thomas Howard, 1st Viscount Howard of Bindon (c. 1520–1582) and his wife Mabel Burton, daughter of Nicholas Burton. Lord Howard was the third and youngest son of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, by his second wife Elizabeth Stafford, daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham.
Orphaned at a young age, Frances Howard "was married off" to Henry Pranell, the son of a rich wine merchant and alderman and a patron of the Virginia Company, in early 1592. The marriage displeased Lord Burghley, who had other plans for the descendant of two Dukes than marriage with a vintner. Pranell was moved to write a letter of apology to Burghley:
Pranell died in 1599, leaving his wife a wealthy widow at the age of 20 or 21. "A woman of enormous social ambition", she abandoned a suitor, Sir George Rodney, and secretly married the widowed Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford (1537–1621) on 27 May 1601. Hertford was some forty years older than his third wife, and was the son of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector in the reign of Edward VI, and the nephew of King Edward's mother, queen Jane Seymour. The marriage was performed clandestinely by Thomas Montfort without banns or license, for which Monfort was suspended for three years by Archbishop John Whitgift.
When the secret marriage became public, the distraught Rodney shut himself up in a chamber at an inn, wrote a "large paper of well-composed verses" to the Countess in his own blood, and "ran himself upon his sword."
Anne of Denmark
After the Union of the Crowns, she became a lady of the bedchamber to Anne of Denmark, the wife of King James. The queen wore a miniature portrait of Lady Hertford, and visited them at Elvetham in September 1603.
In November 1603 Frances, Countess of Hertford wrote to Earl's steward James Kirkton about purchases to be made as Christmas and New Year's Day gifts. She wanted to give an emboidered night cap to Sir George Hinds. It had to be worked in black silk, gold, and silver thread, "very fair, and not grossly wrought". Mrs Price in the Strand had the best selection. Her sister Mary would be able to help him choose one that she could pass off as her own work, or made in her household. Her husband was at Winchester with the court, and Frances also wanted gifts for Anne of Denmark's ladies. Lady Hertford appeared as Vesta in the queen's masque The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses in January 1604.
Duchess
Hertford died in 1621, and some two months later his widow married Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox in the peerage of Scotland. Stewart was the cousin of King James, a Privy Councillor, and Steward of the Royal Household.