Elizabeth Cromwell

Elizabeth Cromwell (née Bourchier; 1598 – 1665) was the wife of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the mother of Richard Cromwell, the second Lord Protector.

Family and marriage Elizabeth was the daughter of Sir James Bourchier of Felsted in Essex, a wealthy London leather merchant, and his wife Frances Crane, daughter of Thomas Crane of Newton Tony in Wiltshire. In 1610, Sir James Bourchier obtained a grant of arms (Sable, three ounces in passant in pale or spotted); the only occasion when the arms of the Bourchiers were quartered with those of the Protector was at his funeral, where they appeared on the escutcheons.

Elizabeth, the eldest of twelve children, was born in 1598. On 22 August 1620 at St Giles, Cripplegate, London, she married Oliver Cromwell.

Throughout the marriage, Oliver wrote Elizabeth solicitous love letters while away on his military campaigns. Some of these letters were later published in an anthology of love letters edited by Antonia Fraser in 1976. The marriage produced nine children, eight of whom reached adulthood.

Like her husband, Elizabeth was attacked in royalist propaganda and accused of personal vices. In these texts, Elizabeth was often a contemptuously styled "Joan" (at the time, seen as a name with low associations). She was accused of drunkenness and adultery, which John Heneage Jesse concluded were "venomous absurdities" and "unworthy of notice". As the charges appear to have been unfounded, the libels fell harmless.

Elizabeth is said to have had a defect in one of her eyes.

Elizabeth is known to have been introduced to Charles I who was then a prisoner at Hampton Court. Since she was still on good terms with her husband, Ashburnham presented her to the King with the ladies of Henry Ireton and Edward Whalley, and she was afterward entertained.

Protectress (1653–1658)

After Oliver Cromwell was proclaimed Lord Protector in December 1653, Elizabeth became Her Highness the Lady Protector. Martyn Bennett suggests that she "was apparently never comfortable with being the wife of the head of state".

"May 16, 1660. Amongst the goods that were pretended to be Mrs. Cromwell's, at the fruiterer's warehouse, are discovered some pictures, and other things belonging to his Majesty: the remainder lay attached in the custody of Lieut. Col. Cox." Granger believed that Elizabeth resided for some time in Switzerland after her family's downfall, but this is still unsupported. She did retire for a short period in Wales, where she remained until the excitement surrounding the Restoration subsided. She then moved to the house of her son-in-law, John Claypole, at Northborough in Northamptonshire, where she remained until she died in November 1665 and was buried in Northborough church on 19 November.

Children Elizabeth died in 1665 and was survived by five of her nine children, as well as many grandchildren. Robert Cromwell (baptised 13 October 1621– May 1639), died while away at school. Oliver Cromwell (baptised 6 February 1623 – 1644), who became a cornet in Lord St. John's troop in the army of the Earl of Essex, and died of smallpox. Bridget Cromwell (baptised 4 August 1624 – 1681), married firstly Henry Ireton (on 15 June 1646), and secondly Charles Fleetwood (in 1652). She had one son and three daughters by her first husband. Richard Cromwell (4 October 1626 – 12 July 1712). In 1658 he succeeded his father as Lord Protector, but the Protectorate collapsed one year later. In May 1649 he married Dorothy Maijor, daughter of Richard Maijor. Richard and Dorothy had nine children with four reaching adulthood. Henry Cromwell (20 January 1628 – 23 March 1674) Served as Lord Deputy of Ireland. He married Elizabeth Russell, with whom he had seven children. Elizabeth Cromwell (baptised 2 July 1629 – August 1658), married John Claypole, with whom she had four children. Elizabeth was known as "Bettie" and was said to have been her father's favourite child. James Cromwell (born and died in 1632). Mary Cromwell (baptised 9 February 1637 – 19 November 1713), married Thomas Belasyse, 1st Earl Fauconberg. Frances Cromwell (6 December 1638 – 27 January 1721), married firstly Robert Rich, and secondly Sir John Russell, 3rd Baronet.

Portrait gallery

Cultural depictions During her lifetime, Elizabeth was the subject of several satirical pamphlets. A pasquinade entitled The Cuckoo's Nest at Westminster (1648) included ludicrous dialogue between the Protectress and Lady Fairfax. This broadside, printed before Cromwell's inauguration in the Protectorship, exhibits how early and how generally the Lord Protector's public views of personal aggrandizement were challenged by some contemporaries. Henry Neville's scurrilous pamphlet News from the New Exchange (1650) accused Elizabeth of intemperance and a love of intrigue. A seventeenth century satirical pamphlet cookbook, The Court and Kitchen of Elizabeth, Commonly Called Joan Cromwell, the Wife of the Late Usurper, portrayed her insultingly as a parsimonious housekeeper "a hundred times fitter for a barn than a palace".

A miniature of Elizabeth was painted by Samuel Cooper, who described her as "neither uncomely or undignified in person." Other writers portrayed her as unattractive, including Abraham Cowley who, in his play The Cutter of Colman Street (1661), put the following passage into the mouth of Cutter: "He [Worm] would have been my lady Protectress's poet: he writ once a copy in praise of her beauty; but her Highness gave for it but an old half-crown piece in gold, which she had hoarded up before these troubles, and that discouraged him from any further applications to court." Cowley's reference to the hoarding of the half-crown piece also alluded to her supposed thriftiness.

Elizabeth Cromwell is a character in Aphra Behn's 1681 comedic play, The Roundheads or, The Good Old Cause.

William Fisk depicted Elizabeth and her children supposedly begging Oliver Cromwell to spare the king's life, in his sentimental painting Cromwell's Family Interceding for the Life of Charles I (1840).

In the 1970 film Cromwell, Elizabeth Cromwell was played by Zena Walker (with the part of Oliver Cromwell played by Irish actor Richard Harris).