The countess who raised a poet: Susan Bertie helped shape Aemilia Lanyer while dodging royal side-eye and surviving two widowhoods. Quick story, big ripples. Born in 1554 to Katherine Willoughby and Richard Bertie, Susan Bertie’s childhood began in Marian exile and continued in a Protestant household at Grimsthorpe under Miles Coverdale. At sixteen she married Reginald Grey, recognized as Earl of Kent in 1572; widowed in 1573, she later married soldier Sir John Wingfield, lived in the Low Countries, and returned after his death at Cadiz in 1596. Remembered as Aemilia Lanyer’s “Mistress of my youth,” Susan’s quiet patronage shaped an early woman poet.

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