Elizabeth Richardson, 1st Lady Cramond

Elizabeth Richardson, 1st Lady Cramond (1576/77 – 1651) was an English writer and peeress.George Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 1887–98]

Born Elizabeth Beaumont, she was the eldest child of Sir Thomas Beaumont (the brother of Huntingdon Beaumont) and his wife, Catherine.George Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 1887–98] [Monument, St Botolph church, Aldersgate, London] On 27 November 1594, she married John Ashburnham (knighted in 1604) at Stoughton, Leicestershire and they had ten children.George Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 1887–98] [Parish register, Stoughton, Leicestershire] Sir John's death in 1620 left the family in financial difficulty, but Lady Ashburnham was considerably influential at court due to Mary Villiers, Countess of Buckingham (mother of King James's favourite, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham) being her cousin. She procured a baronetcy for her son-in-law, Edward Dering, in 1627 and a letter to Buckingham that year, indicates she enjoyed the company of his wife, Katherine, of Lady Carlisle and of The Queen. [Court of Chancery, Privy Seals, 1627, Public Record Office] [Calendar of state papers, domestic series, 1627-8]

On 14 December 1626 Lady Ashburnham married, as his second wife, Sir Thomas Richardson (later Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales) at St Giles in the Fields.George Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 1887–98] Through his influence, she was created Lady Cramond in the Peerage of Scotland, on 29 February 1628 (with a special remainder to her stepson, Thomas and the issue of his body), an event which elicited 'many gibes and pasquinades...for the amusement of Westminster Hall'.George Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 1887–98] [John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell, "The lives of the chief justices of England", 3rd edition, 4 volumes, 1874] . On 9 September 1629, she was granted an annual pension of £300 for the duration of her life. [Patent rolls, 1629, Public Record Office]

In 1645, Lady Cramond's collection of prayers, "A Ladies Legacie to her Daughters", was printed, the first and second of three parts having been written in 1625 and 1635 respectively. [E. Richardson, "A ladies legacie to her daughters", 1645] She had given a copy of the manuscript to her eldest daughter, Lady Cornwallis, in 1635, yet a manuscript headed "Instructions for my children or any other Christian" is dated 1606, indicating she had began writing motherly advice many years previous. [F. W. Steer, "The Ashburnham archives: a catalogue", 1958] [Folger Shakespeare Library, manuscript V.a.511] Lady Cramond died in 1651 and was buried next to her first husband on 3 April that year, at St Andrew's church, Holborn. [Parish register, St Andrew's church, Holborn, London] Her stepson having died in her lifetime, her title passed to his son, Thomas.

Notes and references

*Victoria E. Burke, "Richardson , Elizabeth, suo jure baroness of [sic] Cramond (1576/7–1651)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/46468 accessed 18 November 2007]