Elizabeth Cromwell - Family and Marriage

Family and Marriage

The Protectress was the daughter of Sir James Bourchier, Knt. of Felsted in Essex, who was a wealthy London leather merchant and his wife Frances Crane, daughter of Thomas Crane of Newton Tony, Wiltshire. She was born on an unknown date in 1598. Elizabeth was the eldest of twelve children.

Harris speaks of the Bourchiers as "an ancient family;" but Noble, who was better informed, is of a different opinion. It was only in 1610, he tells us, that Sir James obtained a grant of arms (Sable, three ounces in passant in pale or spotted) and he adds that the only occasion when the arms of the Bourchiers were quartered with those of the Protector was at his funeral, when they appeared on the escutcheons.

On 22 August 1620 at St.Giles, Cripplegate, London she married Oliver Cromwell. The marriage produced nine children, eight of whom reached adulthood. The marriage to Elizabeth was very advantageous for Cromwell, as her father brought him into contact with the wealthy merchant community of London, and due to the extensive lands Sir James owned in Essex, this family association would later guarantee him much support from the influential families of the local puritan gentry. At the time of his marriage, however, Cromwell had not yet become an ardent puritan. Their marriage was happy, and they were devoted to one another. This can be attested by the solicitous love letters Cromwell wrote to Elizabeth while away on his military campaigns. Some of these were published in an anthology of love letters written by Antonia Fraser in 1976.

The abuse that was heaped on her husband has naturally been shared by Elizabeth. The Cavaliers styled her contemptuously Joan, and accused her of every manner of vice, among which drunkenness and adultery were the most prominent. As the charges, however, appear to have been without foundation, the libels fell probably harmless.

She is known to have been introduced to Charles I, at the time that the unfortunate monarch was a prisoner at Hampton Court, and on good terms with her husband: Ashburnham took her by the hand and presented her to the King, by whom, together with the ladies of Ireton and Whalley, she was afterwards entertained.