The illegitimate daughter of an Italian royal musician, Baptista Bassano, and Margaret Johnson; mistress of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hunsdon and, when pregnant, married off to Alphonso Lanier, another royal musician. A.L. Rowse suggested she was Shakespeare’s mistress; in 1597–1600, was involved with the astrologer Simon Forman, who described her as ‘high-minded …very brave in youth… many false conceptions…for lucre’s sake will be a good fellow’. She worked her aristocratic connections: her 1611 volume has ten dedications to the Queen and aristocratic ladies, notably to Margaret, the Dowager Countess of Cumberland, the real object of the exercise. Of the title poem, Salve Deus Rex ludaeorum, ostensibly celebrating Christ, about half actually celebrates Biblical heroines and contemporary ladies, notably the Countess, once apologizing for digressing from her praise to that of Christ.
A.L. Rowse (ed. and intro.), The Poems of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady: ‘Salve Deus Rex ludaeorum’ (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978).