Few people were brave enough to defy Queen Elizabeth I—and not only did Lettice Knollys do it, she also lived to tell the tale.

A woman in power is always a threat, but that went double in Elizabethan England. So when beautiful, wealthy, and educated Lettice Knollys managed to snag the hand of Queen Elizabeth’s favorite courtier—and rumored lover—Robert Dudley, the Queen took her down an infamous peg. Knollys’s tragic life did the rest.