On 26 December 1605, an intimate ceremony took place at Wanstead Hall, Essex, the home of Charles Blount, 1st Earl of Devonshire: the exchanging of marriage vows between the Earl and his long-time lover and recently legally-separated, Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich.

On the evening of Thursday 03 April 1606, Blount took his final breath, with his loving Penelope by his side, the one woman to whom he had been "faithful and constant" all those years.

On 25 February 1601, 35 year-old Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was taken to a scaffold that had been erected within the Tower of London, and executed after being found guilty of high treason for his primary role in the failed 'Essex's Rebellion' earlier in the month.

On This Day (26 Dec) in 1605, Penelope Devereux and Charles Blount, 1st Earl of Devonshire, 'married' in a clandestine ceremony

In the early hours of 05 November 1605, a search was completed of a vault, underneath the House of Lords within the Palace of Westminster.