Emilia Lanier

Emilia Lanier (1569–1645), née Bassano, was the first English woman to assert herself as a professional poet through her single volume of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611).

Born Aemilia Bassano, she was a member of the minor gentry through her father's appointment as a royal musician, and was apparently educated in the household by Susan Bertie, Countess of Kent. She was for several years the mistress of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, first cousin of Elizabeth I of England. In 1592 she became pregnant by Hunsdon, but married her first cousin, court musician Alfonso Lanier; this marriage was reportedly unhappy.