Need help building a character [H/A]

[CaraGreenleaf]

So, I'm playing with creating a persona to pair off with someone else's. Unfortunately I am having a terrible time finding anymore information that what I've already got on this woman. Any assistance would be astoundingly helpful!

The woman's name is Katherine Constable (also spelled Catherine). She is the first wife of Dr. Jonathan Dee, the Queen's closest advisor. Unfortunately, other than the dates of their marriage, this is all the information I have on this woman. Any one who has any access to portraits or other information, please please please please please help!!

Thanks in advance!!

[McGuinness]

I tried looking for some stuff (i love researching real people for characters) but haven't found anything on her. Wikipedia has this on his personal life:

Dee was married twice and had eight children. Details of his first marriage are sketchy, but is likely to have been from 1565 to his wife's death in around 1576. From 1577 to 1601 Dee kept a meticulous diary.[9] In 1578 he married the twenty-three year old Jane Fromond (Dee was fifty-one at the time). She was to be the wife that Kelley claimed Uriel had demanded that he and Dee share, and although Dee complied for a while this eventually caused the two men to part company.[9] Jane died during the plague in Manchester in 1605, along with a number of his children: Theodore is known to have died in Manchester, but although no records exist for his daughters Madinia, Frances and Margaret after this time, Dee had by this time ceased keeping his diary.[8] His eldest son was Arthur Dee, about whom Dee wrote a letter to his headmaster at Westminster School which echoes the worries of boarding school parents in every century; Arthur was also an alchemist and hermetic author.[8] The antiquary John Aubrey[39] gives the following description of Dee: "He was tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artist's gown, with hanging sleeves, and a slit.... A very fair, clear sanguine complexion... a long beard as white as milk. A very handsome man."[38]

The only information on a Catherine Constable I found was some on Catherine Neville Constable, a daughter of the 5th Earl of Westmoreland who married a Jonathan Constable. That info is on kateemersonhistoricals.com and says:

Catherine Neville was the daughter of Henry Neville, 5th earl of Westmorland (1525-February 10,1564) and Anne Manners (1527-June 27,1549+). She married Sir John Constable of Holderness (June 10, 1527-May 25, 1579) as his second wife and had by him one son, John (b.c.1564). She was the Lady Constable who was a recusant and who spent time in prison at Sheriff Hutton in 1582-84. Portrait: A second version of this portrait is incorrectly called Bess of Hardwick. Her age is also incorrectly inscribed, since it is given as 60 in 1590.

[Anna Iram]

I tried to find what I could for you too. Not much out there.....


Taken from: Not certain of how accurate this is.

http://www.controverscial.com/Dr.%20John%20Dee.htm

"In 1665(note: typo. This is meant to be 1565) Dee married his first wife Katherine Constable, however there is very little known about her except that she died childless of unknown causes in 1575.  During which time in 1568 he wrote and had published 'Propaedeumata Aphoristica', a work that mixed Physics, Mathematics, Astrology and Magic.  He presented it to Queen Elizabeth, a frequent visitor to his home, and to whom he gave lessons in mathematics and astrology to enable her to understand it.  Then in 1570, Dee edited what would become his most famous addition to the annuls of English academia, an English translation of Euclid's 'Elements', to which he wrote a famous preface justifying the study of mathematics."

[Queen Maggie]

When I play an actual person from history, I start with the known facts, such as you've had little luck with (very often the case with women) But then I start researching what the average woman's life was like in that specific era: here, for instance, I'd suggest starting with a book like Alison Sim's "the Tudor Housewife"
http://www.amazon.com/Tudor-Housewife-Alison-Sim/dp/0773522336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260550967&sr=8-1
Her books are quite readable, even for someone who isn't a 'scholarly historian' and are accurate, as far as they go. Check out her references, and see if they have anything to help.

Consider books of housekeeping, books of herbary, books of manners,and books that people were reading then. Get a feel for how she would have spent her days, depending on whether she was at court, at home, with or without her husband around.... This will give you far more about your character than simply knowing her dates, and how many children she bore.