 In March or April 1589 the Countess married Sir Christopher Blount, a relatively poor Catholic soldier 12 years her junior, who had been the Earl of Leicester's Gentleman of the Horse and a trusted friend of his. The marriage was a great surprise and the Earl of Essex complained that it was an "unhappy choice". In the face of tittle-tattle that had reached even France, Lady Leicester — she continued to be styled thus — explained her choice with being a defenceless widow; like her marriage to Leicester, the union proved to be a "genuinely happy" one. Some 60 years later it was claimed in a satirical poem that she had poisoned the Earl of Leicester on his deathbed, thereby forestalling her own murder at his hands, because he had found out about her supposed lover, Sir Christopher Blount.
