Mary Sidney Herbert (1561 - 1621)

Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (née Sidney; 27 October 1561 – 25 September 1621) was one of the first English women to gain 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 among the notable authors of her time in the verse miscellany, Belvidere, by John Bodenham.