Frances Cecil, Countess of Exeter (died 1663)

Frances Cecil, Countess of Exeter (née Brydges, other married name was Smith; 1580–1663) was an English noblewoman.

Cecil was born in 1580, daughter of William Brydges, 4th Baron Chandos (d. 1602), and his wife, Mary (d. 1624).

Poet Ben Jonson praised the marriage in his Gipsies Metamorphos'd (1621), writing "An old man's wife is the light of his life".

Widowed again, Frances devoted herself to getting her daughter, Margaret, a husband, settling on MP Thomas Carey.

Thomas Cecil reserved a space for her in his monument at Westminster Abbey, but Frances chose instead to have her grave in the floor of Winchester Cathedral.