Jean Ker, Countess of Roxburghe

She was born Jean Drummond, the daughter of Patrick Drummond, 3rd Lord Drummond, and his first wife, Elizabeth Lindsay.

Drummond was a gentlewoman in the household of Anne of Denmark, described as her "familiar servitrix", and had care over the infant Prince Charles at Dunfermline Palace in 1602.[1] She was with Anna of Denmark at Stirling Castle on 10 May 1603 when she quarrelled with the Earl of Mar over the custody of Prince Henry and had a miscarriage.[2]

In 1603, on the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England (as James I), she accompanied Anne of Denmark to Stirling Castle to take custody of her son, Prince Henry, and then to London. When the court was at Winchester in September 1603 the queen ordered fabrics for new clothes for Drummond and other women who had made the journey from Scotland, including Anne Livingstone, Margaret Stewart, and Margaret Hartsyde.[3] In the years before her marriage, Anna of Denmark also gave her gifts of her old clothes.[4]

In November 1603 the Spanish ambassador, the Count of Villamediana, invited the Duke of Lennox and the Earl of Mar to dinner. According to Arbella Stuart, he asked them "to bring the Scottish ladies for he was desirous to see some natural beauties." These included "my Cousin Drummond" and Anne Hay with Elizabeth Carey, and they were given presents of gold chains and Spanish leather gloves.[5]

In 1607/08, a marriage was arranged between her and Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll, but amounted to nothing. In May 1608 she wrote to the king's advocate in Scotland Thomas Hamilton about the queen's business and the case of the queen's servant Margaret Hartsyde who was on trial in Edinburgh for stealing the queen's jewels.[6]

In December 1608 the disgraced Lord Balmerino believed that Drummond was acting in his favour.[7]

In June 1609 Drummond and Lady Fleetwood stayed at the bedside of her kinsman and servant of the queen David Abercromby who was dying and he declared his will to them.[8] Cecily Bulstrode and Bridget Markham, two of the queen's ladies in waiting, also died in the summer of 1609. At the end of November 1610 one of Drummond's maids died from the plague in her lodgings at Greenwich Palace and the queen returned to Whitehall for fear of infection.[9]

Drummond held a position of responsibility in the queen's household, and wrote signed financial documents, including on 24 July 1609 a warrant to Thomas Knyvet to pay £500 to the queen's jeweller George Heriot,[10] and in 1612 a warrant for lifetime payments to the queen's four French musicians, the lutenists; Louis Richart, Camille Prevost, Claude Olivier, and Peter de la Mere.[11]

As a close companion of the queen, Jean Drummond was able to intercede with her for the benefit of others. Arbella Stuart wrote to her with thanks for the queen's favour and the hearing of her suit, which Drummond had presented to the queen in a good light. Arbella hoped that Jean would move the queen to ensure the king would "weigh my cause aright". Drummond wrote to Arbella that Anna of Denmark said she "had eaten of the forbidden tree." Arbella Stuart sent Drummond, who was Mistress of the Robes, gloves which she had embroidered herself, to be given to the queen.[12]

Spanish diplomats also saw Jean Drummond as a route to influence the queen, and she was recommended by the ambassador Juan de Tassis and received a Spanish pension.[13] In 1611 the Spanish ambassador Alonso de Velasco wrote that a Catholic priest was concealed at the court of Anne of Denmark, posing as Drummond's servant.[14]

In November 1611 Drummond compared the queen's reputation to be content among "harmless pictures in a paltry gallery" with the Earl of Salisbury's "great employments in fair rooms".[15] Her remark draws attention to Anne of Denmark's collection, and contrasts the smaller and more private spaces housing the queen's pictures with the halls and presence chambers where public statecraft was enacted.[16]

She married Robert Ker, 1st Lord Roxburghe (later created Earl of Roxburghe), on 3 February 1614; the wedding was celebrated at Somerset House and attended by the king and queen. There was a masque Hymen's Triumph written by Samuel Daniel.[17] John Chamberlain heard that the queen would pay for the festivities, but no more than £500 for a marriage bed because "her maid Drummond is rich enough otherwise, as well in wealth as in virtue and favour."[18]

An Italian poet at the court of Denmark, Antonio Galli or Gatti wrote sonnets in her praise.[19] Anne of Denmark had a version of her portrait at Oatlands.[20]

After her marriage she continued to sign letters as "Jane Drummond".[21] Mary Seton, the former maid of Mary, Queen of Scots, wrote to her in September 1614.[22]

She was with the queen during her illness at Greenwich Palace in May 1615. She wrote to her husband on 10 May 1615 that he was to thank the king for the letter, and that the physician Theodore de Mayerne was writing to the king with details of the queen's sickness. Anne's foot was swollen and she had been sitting a chair all day long.[23]

In July 1615 she was bought a white gelding horse for £16-10s in place of her old grey horse which was blind and lame. In March 1616 King James gave her £3000 in recognition of her long service to the queen.[24] In January 1617 she was godmother to Elizabeth Gordon, daughter of Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun and Louisa Gordon whose mother Geneviève Petau de Maulette is said to have taught French to Elizabeth of Bohemia. The other godparents were the Earl of Hertford and Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford.[25]

An account of her and her husband's expenses from 1619 to 1630 runs to 550 pages, and mentions her residence at East Roxburgh, a townhouse in Edinburgh's Canongate, and Broxmouth near Dunbar.[29]

She gave clothes to her friend Margaret Seton, Lady Dudhope, a daughter of David Seton of Parbroath, and visited her at Dudhope in Dundee. Her husband John Scrimgeour, Constable of Dundee ordered a pair of pistols for Lord Roxburghe from a gunsmith in Dundee and the countess gave him a tip of £3. Her step-daughter Isobel Ker was married to Margaret Seton's son, James Scrimgeour, later 2nd Viscount Dudhope.[30]

The household book records spices and food seasonings such as cinnamon, mace, ginger, and sugar almonds bought in Edinburgh and sent to East Roxburgh, as were materials and ribbons for clothing. She bought textiles for clothes for herself, her husband, her nieces and nephews, and servants. On 21 July 1619 she gave six shillings to a boy walking on stilts on Soutra Hill who said he was going all the way to London.[31]

In a letter of May 1622 she mentions her fear of sailing across the River Forth from Leith, which she had never done before, to attend a christening in Fife.[32] However, an earlier journey to Dudhope Castle in 1619 involving crossing the Forth is detailed in the account book. In July 1623 she travelled with the Viscount Lauderdale to Drummond Castle in Strathearn to stay for a month with her brother John Drummond, 2nd Earl of Perth.[33]

In 1630, the by-now Charles I had wished to appoint the countess as governess to his son, the Prince of Wales (later Charles II) but this was objected to on the grounds of her religion and the Countess of Dorset was appointed instead. A year later however, Lady Roxburghe was appointed governess to Princess Mary and later to Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth in 1641.

In 1642, the countess accompanied Princess Mary to The Hague after the latter's marriage to Prince William of Orange.[34] On the voyage back from the Netherlands a ship of the royal fleet sank in bad weather. A silk dress belonging to the countess was discovered in 2014 in the wreck off the Dutch island of Texel.[35]

On her return to England, the countess was replaced as the governess to Mary Princess Royal by Lady Stanhope. She resumed her governess-ship to Henry and Elizabeth in 1642, and hosted Lilias Drummond, a daughter of the Earl of Perth, at her house in London, who married James Murray, 2nd Earl of Tullibardine in May 1643.[36] The older sister of Lilias, also Jean Drummond, and later Countess of Wigtown, was a nurse to royal children, as was another Jean Drummond, the widow of Secretary Murray and mother of Anne, Lady Halkett.[37]

She died on 7 October 1643 and was buried in Holyrood Abbey.

Her husband's 1650 will mentions a chain of diamonds and rubies, with a "picture case" or locket containing the miniature portrait of Anne of Denmark, set with diamonds, the central larger stone was heart shaped. He owned a "valentine set with diamonds" with a crown and the picture of Charles I of England as Duke of York.[38] These jewels had probably been gifts to his wife from the queen.

Her first son died in 1616. A daughter was christened at Greenwich in April 1616, Anna of Denmark and Lucy, Countess of Bedford were godparents.[39]

Her son Henry Kerr married Margaret Hay, a daughter of the Earl of Erroll. Henry Kerr joined the supporters of the Scottish covenant who opposed the king. On 20 May 1639, Jean Roxburghe wrote from Whitehall to Walter Balcanquhall, Dean of Durham, expressing her disappointment over this defection.[40] Henry Kerr died in 1643, leaving four daughters, Jean, Margaret, and Sophia (born after his death).[41] His widow, Margaret Hay married the Earl of Cassilis.

• Payne, Helen – Ker/Kerr; née Drummond, Jane/Jean, countess of Roxburghe (b. in or before 1585, d. 1643), courtier – ODNB