Anne Dowriche of Anne du Bourg, a counselor in the Parliament of Paris who opposed using capital punishment for crimes of heresy. The third major event of the poem is a retelling of the bloody St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, an attack against Huguenots which began in Paris in 1572 and spread throughout France. Dowriche imagines the queen of France, the devoutly Catholic Catherine de Medici, fiercely proposing the infamous St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. While St. Bartholomew’s Massacre was a real series of events, Dowriche invented the detail that Catherine de Medici proposed the killings. Though Catherine de Medici is a villainous character
Anne Stafford, Countess of Huntingdon Anne Stafford, Countess of Huntingdon Anne Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon ("née" Lady Anne Stafford) (c. 1483–1544) was the daughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Lady Katherine Woodville. She was the wife of Sir Walter Herbert, and George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, and served in the household of King Henry VIII's daughter, Princess Mary, the future Queen Mary I. Born around 1483, Lady Anne Stafford was the daughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Katherine Woodville Anne Stafford had two brothers, Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, and Henry Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire; and