Last night I watched Josh Widdicombe on Who Do You Think You Are? It turned out that he’s descended from both King Edward I of England and King Philip III of France. He may also be descended from Henry VIII and there were knights of the realm on route too.
Who knows, I may be descended from kings too, but I haven’t got back that far yet in my family tree. I have discovered that the elder brother of my 10th great-grandfather was the Elizabethan spy, Sir Anthony Standen. An ancestor of Josh Widdecombe’s, Lettice Knollys, got on the wrong side of Queen Elizabeth I by marrying her favourite, and one time suitor, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. Goodness knows why she got shirty about it, she’d already declined his marriage proposal.
We all know the long saga of Queen Elizabeth I and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. Mary was the focus of all the catholic plots to replace Elizabeth with a catholic monarch. Sir Anthony Standen was eventually, in January 1596 made a knight of the realm by Queen Elizabeth I for his role in providing detailed intelligence to Francis Walsingham on the Spanish Armada. Eight years seems rather a long time to wait for such well deserved recognition, but better late than never. The circumstances of Elizabeth making Standen a knight are related in The Golden Lads by Daphne du Maurier.
It was actually the second time that Standen had been knighted. He had accompanied Lord Darnley, as master of horse, to Edinburgh when Darnley married Mary Queen of Scots. When Darnley and his uncle murdered her secretary David Rizzio, Standen saved Mary’s life. Since she was pregnant at the time, he also saved King James I of England. Mary made him a knight in 1566. I know of no other who has been made a knight by both Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots.