Portrait of the Countess of Northumberland (d.1637)

Portrait of the Countess of Northumberland (d.1637). After Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), attributed to Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680).

Listed in the 1704 Hamilton Inventory as "the Countess of Northumberland, grandmother of the present Dutchess of Somerset", but that Duchess was Elizabeth Percy, whose grandmother was Elizabeth Howard, not Anne Cecil whose portrait this is said to be.
It is not surprising that the marriage of Lady Anne Cecil, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury, to Algernon Percy was strongly disapproved of by the bridegroom's father, the 9th Earl of Northumberland.
Imprisoned in the Tower for many years, he blamed his troubles, after being accused of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot, on Lady Anne's grandfather, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who was much involved in the discovery and frustration of the Plot.