the Earl of Essex. He sent one to James VI of Scotland (later James I of England), and the poet Henry Constable wrote a sonnet about the portrait. Essex gave the second miniature to the French ambassador for Henry IV. A miniature in the Royal Collection (above) may be one of these. Anne of Denmark asked for portraits of the Earl of Essex and Lady Rich in December 1595. Charles Tessier dedicated his book of part-songs in French and Italian, Le premier livre de chansons, to "Madame Riche", commending (in Italian) her musical judgement, and John Dowland composed "My Lady Rich's Galliard" in her honour. Affair and charge of treason Penelope's arranged marriage to Rich had been unhappy, and by 1595 she began a secret affair with Charles Blount, Baron Mountjoy. Lord Rich took no action during the lifetime of Penelope's brother, the powerful Earl of Essex, who became the ageing Queen's favourite in the years after the death of Leicester in 1588. But Penelope was tainted by association with her brother's plotting. Essex shocked many people, after the failure of his rebellion, by denouncing her as a traitor, and after his execution for treason in 1601, Lord Rich had Penelope and her children by Mountjoy cast out. Mountjoy, like Penelope, had been implicated in the Essex rebellion, but the Queen, who wished to show as much clemency as possible to the rebels, took no action against either of them. Lady Rich moved in with her lover, and the couple began a very public relationship. Mountjoy was created Earl of Devonshire on the accession of James I, and Lady Rich was in high favour at court. She was among the ladies who rode north to Berwick-upon-Tweed to meet Anne of Denmark in May 1603 and escorted the new queen on her entry to London. She served Anne as a Lady of the Bedchamber. She was one of the ladies in waiting "taken out" from the audience to dance during The Masque of Indian and China Knights at Hampton Court on 1 January 1604. She danced as the nymph Ocyte in Ben Jonson's Masque of Blackness on Twelfth Night 1605. In 1605, Rich sued for a divorce, and Penelope wanted to marry Blount and legitimise their children. In the divorce proceedings, she publicly admitted to adultery. The divorce was granted, but the requests to remarry and legitimise her children were refused.