Poet Edmund Spenser represented her as "Amaryllis" in his eclogue Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595) and dedicated his poem The Teares of the Muses (1591) to her.

[citation needed] In about 1579 Alice married her first husband, Ferdinando Stanley, heir to the Earldom of Derby, and a claimant to the English throne.

For a month after his death, his company of players performed at their home of Lathom House, Lancashire as The Countess of Derby's Men.

[5] Lady Alice had Haydon Hall in Eastcote built in 1630 after she became concerned that Lord Castlehaven would attempt to claim her estate in the event of her death.

Poet Edmund Spenser was a distant relative of hers; in his pastoral poem, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, he represented her as "Amaryllis", whereas her sisters, Anne and Elizabeth were "Charillis" and "Phyllis", and Alice's husband was "Amyntas".

[9] She also acted as a patroness in the political sphere: it was through her influence that Geoffrey Osbaldeston, another distant relative of hers, obtained a judicial post in Ireland.