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Perdita woman: Lady Elizabeth Ashburnham (later Richardson), |
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Biography Elizabeth Richardson was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Beaumont and Catherine Farnham of Stoughton, Leicestershire. Her first husband was John Ashburnham , whom she married on 27 November 1594, and by whom she had ten children, six of them surviving to adulthood. Knighted on 14 March 1604, her profligate husband died imprisoned for debt in the Fleet on 29 June 1620. In her manuscript, entitled "Instructions to my children, or any other Christian" (Folger MS V.a.511), Richardson heads her fifth prayer "A prayer for my parents and kinsfolks my husband and my self, my children, my substance, my household and the whole church of God" (fols 73r-74r). In this prayer Richardson prays that God might give her husband ""a discreet and careful mind, in disposing of his estate, that in all things he may take the best and fittest course for our good, that by thy blessing we may have happy and prosperous success in all he undertakes, so as we may live in quiet and contentment, and may be able in a competent sort, to provide for all that depend upon us"". In 1606, the date she began writing her first volume of motherly advice writing Richardson seems to have been expressing some anxiety about his ability to provide for his family. Her four surviving daughters, to whom she addressed her manuscript of prayers in 1625 (East Sussex Record Office MS ASH 3501 and printed and expanded in 1645 in her one printed volume ""A Ladies Legacie to her Daughters. In three Books. Composed of Prayers and Meditations, fitted for severall times, and upon severall occasions. As also severall Prayers for each day in the Weeke""), were Elizabeth (d.1644), Frances (b.1599), Anne (d.1628), and Katherine (b.1614). Elizabeth married Sir Frederick Cornwallis about 1630; Frances married Frederick Turville; Anne married Sir Edward Dering as his second wife on 1 January 1625; and Katherine married John Sherlock on 14 July 1634. Richardson's two sons, John (1603-71) and William (d.1679) had illustrious careers at court; their wives are addressed in the introductory epistle of the 1645 printed volume. John's first wife, one of Richardson's dedicatees, was Frances Holland (1613-49) and his second was Elizabeth Kenn, the Dowager Lady Poulett (1593-1663); William married Jane (d.1671 or 1672) , widow of James Ley, Earl of Marlborough. Richardson's other children lived just a few days or months: John (1596), Anne (1597) and Edward (1606) , while Mary lived to be 19 years of age (1600-19). Richardson married her second husband (as his second wife), Sir Thomas Richardson (1569-1635), on 14 December 1626, and was created Baroness of Cramond on 29 February 1628 through his influence, which apparently elicited ""many gibes and pasquinades...for the amusement of Westminster Hall."" ( Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices of England, vol. 2, p. 15 ). A letter to the Duke of Buckingham of August 1627 indicates that she enjoyed the society of his wife , as well as that of Lady Carlisle and the Queen; she also waited on the married Queen of Bohemia in the Hague that year. On 9 September 1629 she was granted an annual pension of £300 for the duration of her life. She died at Covent Garden, and was buried with her first husband on 3 April 1651 at St Andrew's, Holborn. (For biographical information see The Visitations of the County of Sussex, Made and taken in the years 1530 By Thomas Benolte, Clarenceux King of Arms; And 1634 By John Philipot, Somerset Herald..., ed. W. Bruce Bannerman, Harleian Society 53 (London, 1950), pp. 16-18; East Sussex Record Office, Ashburnham Parish Registers, PAR 233/1/1/1 and early twentieth-century pedigree by Lady Catherine Ashburnham, MS ASH 116; George Edward Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, III (London, 1910), pp. 488-91 and 453; E.K. Elliott (ed.), Leicestershire Parish Registers. Marriages., X (London, 1913), p. 110; William A. Shaw, The Knights of England, II (London, 1906), p. 129; G.E.C, Complete Baronetage, II (Gloucester, 1983; first pub. 1900-09 in 6 vols.), pp. 6-7; The Visitation of the County of Leicester in the Year 1619..., ed. John Fetherston, Harleian Society 2 (London, 1870), pp. 60-61 and 169-72; Dictionary of National Biography, I (Oxford, 1917), pp. 635-6; XVI (Oxford, 1917), pp. 1133-34; John Campbell, The Lives of the Chief Justices of England, 3rd. ed., II (London, 1874), p. 15; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic...1627-8 (London, 1858), p. 326; Acts of the Privy Council of England. 1627 Sept-1628 June (London, 1940), p. 5; Guildhall Library, St. Andrew's, Holborn parish registers; will proved 7 April 1651, Public Record Office, PROB 11/216/63). |
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Huntington
Library: Hastings Literature Box 1, Folder 6 East Sussex Record
Office: ASH 3501 Huntington
Library: MS HM 15369 Folger
Library: MS V.a.511 East Sussex Record
Office: ASH 3501 Huntington
Library: MS EL 6871 Huntington
Library: Hastings Religious Box 2, Folder 8 Folger
Library: MS V.a.511 |