Cecil, Anne (1556–1589)
Cecil, Anne (1556–1589)
English poet. Name variations: Anne Cecil de Vere; Countess of Oxford. Born 1556; died 1588; dau. of William Cecil, Baron Burghley, and Mildred Cooke Cecil (1526–1589, translator); sister of Robert Cecil, 1st Lord of Salisbury (1563–1612); Elizabeth Cecil (b. 1589); m. Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford; children: 5, including Susan de Vere (d. around 1628), Elizabeth de Vere (1584–1626), Bridget de Vere (1584–c. 1631).
May have written 4 epitaphs in sonnet form published as "Four Epitaphs made by the Countess of Oxenford, after the death of younge Sonne, the Lord Bulbecke" in John Soowthern's Pandora, the Musyque of the Beautie of his Mistresse Diana (1584), though sonnets may have been the work of Soowthern because of similarity of rhyme scheme and meter to his other poems. Sometimes identified with Shakespeare's Ophelia in Hamlet.