Douglas Sheffield

Douglas Sheffield (also spelt Douglass), Baroness Sheffield, maiden name Douglas Howard (1542/1543 – 1608), was an English noblewoman and the mother of the explorer and cartographer Sir Robert Dudley, illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. Seventeen years after Leicester's death she claimed in litigation that she had secretly been his wife, even though she had herself remarried while Leicester was still alive.

Douglas Howard was the eldest daughter of William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham, by his second wife, Margaret Gamage. Douglas Howard was probably named in honour of her godmother Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. One of her brothers was Lord Admiral Charles Howard of Effingham.

Douglas Howard was at court by about 1559, probably as a maid of honour. In 1560 she married a rich peer, John Sheffield, 2nd Baron Sheffield. They had a son and a daughter: Edmund Sheffield, 1st Earl of Mulgrave, who was born in 1565, and Elizabeth Sheffield, who later married Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormonde, and died in November 1600.

Not long after the death of John, Lord Sheffield, in December 1568, his widow began an affair with Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth's favourite, At some point in the following years, Leicester wrote her a remarkable letter, pondering on the history of their love, and explaining to her the reasons why he could not marry, not even to beget a legitimate heir; it would result in his "utter overthrow":