The 16th Earl's second marriage is recorded in the parish register of St Andrew in the village of Belchamp St Paul's, Essex, under the year 1548:

Despite the routine character of the entry, the marriage was so desperately irregular that it would prompt doubts and suspicions as to the legitimacy of the 17th Earl.

The circumstances of the marriage were the subject of depositions taken on 19 and 20 January 1585 before Sir John Popham, Queen Elizabeth's attorney general, and Thomas Egerton, her solicitor general. Twenty questions (interrogatories) were put to each of five examinants on behalf of Richard Masterson, gentleman, complaining against Hugh Key concerning property in Ashton, county of Chester, leased by the 16th Earl to Hugh and to Hugh's mother Margaret Key for the duration of either of their lives, or for eighty years (if either should live so long). After the 16th Earl's death in 1562, the 17th Earl sold the reversion of this property to Christopher Hatton, who provided a lease to Masterson, who entered the property while Key was still in occupancy. Key held that any contract issued by the 17th Earl was flawed as he was not a legitimate heir.

The five examinants were Rooke Green Esq., of Little Sampford, Essex, then about 62 years of age, son of Sir Edward Green of Sampford Hall; John Anson, clerk, 60 years of age and above, parson of Weston Turvill, Buckinghamshire; Richard Enowes of Earls Colne, Essex, about 92 years of age (hence born about 1493), sometime servant of the 16th Earl; Thomas Knollis of Cottingham, Northamptonshire, aged 58 years and above; and William Walforth of Finchingfield, Essex, yeoman, 60 years of age and above, the 16th Earl's servant for twenty years, and his gamekeeper at Hedingham Park. All five confessed ignorance concerning the Ashton property, but more or less extensive knowledge concerning the 16th Earl's marriages. All defended the legitimacy of the 17th Earl, and must thus be considered sympathetic witnesses.

The deponents agreed that the 16th Earl had married Dorothy Neville in or about 1536. Rooke Green ‘knoweth well that they lyved long after the same marriage in good lyking together, and came often together to this Examinantes fathers house [in Little Sampford]’ (A.6).