When was the third wife to William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke born?
Mary Sidney Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (née Sidney; 27 October 1561 – 25 September 1621) was one of the first English women to achieve a major reputation for her poetry and literary patronage. By the age of 39, she was listed with her brother Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare, as one of the notable authors of her time in the verse miscellany by John Bodenham, "Belvedere". The influence of her "Antonius" is widely recognized: it stimulated a revived interest in the soliloquy based on classical models, and was a likely source (among others) for both the 1594 closet drama "Cleopatra" by Samuel Daniel and Shakespeare’s "Antony and Cleopatra" (1607). Sidney was also known for her translation of Petrarch's "Triumph of Death", but it is her lyric translation of the Psalms that has secured her poetic reputation.
Frances Scudamore Frances Scudamore, Duchess of Beaufort (1711–1750) was a noblewoman and heiress of questionable reputation. The only child of James Scudamore, 3rd Viscount Scudamore, she was his sole heir upon his death in 1716. Her mother, Frances "née" Digby, had introduced the family to Alexander Pope. Frances married, on 28 June 1729, Henry Somerset, 3rd Duke of Beaufort, who the following year took the surname Scudamore by Act of Parliament. The marriage was not a happy one, leading the Duchess to have an affair with William Talbot, 2nd Baron Talbot. In 1742, the Duke filed for divorce due to this affair; the Duchess countersued, claiming that the Duke was impotent. When the Duke disproved her claim before court-appointed examiners, the divorce was granted in March 1743, followed by the Duke suing Lord Talbot for damages.