Catherine Carey Francis and Lady Knollys produced a number of offspring who survived to maturity. Of the children listed, only the last, Dudley, is known to have died in infancy: The possibility that Catherine, and perhaps her brother Henry, were illegitimate children of Henry VIII, appears in many works of fiction, including Philippa Gregory's "The Other Boleyn Girl". Catherine Carey is also a character in Gregory's "The Boleyn Inheritance", where she is sent to the royal court during the time of Queens Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard, and in "The Virgin's Lover", where, as the mother of the seventeen-year-old Lettice Knollys,
Frances Carr, Countess of Somerset Frances Carr, Countess of Somerset Frances Carr, Countess of Somerset (31 May 1590 – 23 August 1632), born Frances Howard, was an English noblewoman who was the central figure in a famous scandal and murder during the reign of King James I. She was found guilty but spared execution, and was eventually pardoned by the King and released from the Tower of London in early 1622. She was born Frances Howard, the daughter of Lord Thomas Howard (later 1st Earl of Suffolk), and his wife, the former Catherine Knyvet. Frances' father was the second son of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke