Elizabeth Brooke (January 1601 – 22 July 1683), also known as Lady Brooke or Dame Elizabeth Brooke, was an English religious writer, part of whose writing of Christian precepts survives,J. Humphreys, 'Brooke, Lady Elizabeth (1601-1683), Dictionary of National Biography (1885-1900), Vol. 6. and was matriarch of a landed manorial family in East Suffolk, East Anglia, during the English Civil War and Restoration periods.

An extended account of her religious thought and practice, written by her minister at Yoxford, Suffolk at the time of her funeral, was printed together with some of her own precepts. Her stance and practice was, like that of her brother Lord Colepeper, politically loyal to the Crown, and her allegiance was therefore to the established Church, but she and her husband, Sir Robert Brooke, lived and worked in close connection with the more Puritan or Presbyterian spirit among the gentry and magistracy of the neighbourhood, and supported a moderate and inclusive policy towards ministers inclined to Nonconformism within the church at large.

Origins Elizabeth Brooke was born Elizabeth Colepeper in 1601 at Great Wigsell in the parish of Salehurst in East Sussex, Subscription or UK public library membership required the only daughter of Thomas Colepeper (MP for Winchelsea in 1597 and for Rye in 1601) by his first wife Anne Slaney (died 1602). Anne was daughter of Sir Stephen Slaney, citizen and Skinner, Alderman of London 1584-1608 and Lord Mayor of London 1595-96, who died in 1608,A.B. Beavan, The Aldermen of the City London, temp. Henry III.-1908, 2 vols (The City Corporation, London 1913), II, p. 42 (Internet Archive). and his wife Margaret Fesaunt (died 1619).N. Parkhurst, The Faithful and Diligent Christian Described and Identified, or, A sermon with some additions preached at the funeral of the Lady Elizabeth Brooke (Samuel Sprint and John Harding, London 1684), (eebo/tcp II), p. 41. Elizabeth's full brothers from this marriage were Slaney Colepeper (died 1618) and John, the latter of whom was afterwards created Lord Colepeper of Thoresway.Parkhurst, Faithful and Diligent Christian, 42.Will of Dame Margaret Slanye, Widow of St Swithin's, City of London (P.C.C. 1619, Parker quire). "Unto Slanye Colepepper, one of the sons of my daughter Anne Culpepper deceased", etc.

Following Anne Colepeper's death in 1602 Thomas remarried to Mary, daughter of Roger Beeston, Merchant Taylor of London (died 1600) and widow of Francis Gibbon of Benenden, Kent, by whom he had a further son and three daughters.R.C.G., 'Colepeper, Thomas (c.1561-1613), of Wigsell, Suss.', in P.W. Hasler (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603 (from Boydell and Brewer 1981), History of Parliament Online. Elizabeth's upbringing was entrusted to her maternal grandmother Dame Margaret Slaney, and Thomas Colepeper died in 1613 leaving provision for a dowry of £700 for her.Parkhurst, Faithful and Diligent Christian, 43.Will of Thomas Culpeper of Wigsell (P.C.C. 1613, Capell quire). Dame Margaret Slaney lived down to 1619 and, having made bequests of £1000 to each of the three children of her daughter Anne Colepeper, by her codicil made after the death of Thomas Colepeper (whom, she felt, had insufficiently advanced them) added a further £1000 for each of the sons and an additional £1500 for Elizabeth, to be paid to her on her marriage or at age 21. Dame Margaret further disposed that, if her granddaughters Elizabeth and Katherine should be unmarried at the time of her decease, then their upbringing and care should be in the hands of her daughter Dame Mary Weld.Will and Codicil of Dame Margaret Slanye (P.C.C. 1619).For Dame Mary Weld, see I.W. Archer, 'Weld [née Slaney], Mary, Lady Weld (bap. 1560?, d. 1623)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).

Marriage

In 1620 Elizabeth married Sir Robert Brooke, son of a prominent London citizen and Grocer, Alderman (1590-1599) and Sheriff of London (1591-92).Beavan, Aldermen of London, II, p. 44 (Internet Archive). A great-grandson of Reginald Brooke of Aspall (younger brother of Edward Brooke, 6th Baron Cobham),'Visitation of Suffolk, 1612: Brooke of Aspall', in W.C. Metcalfe, The Visitations of Suffolk made by Hervey, Clarenceux, 1561, Cooke, Clarenceux, 1577, and Raven, Richmond Herald, 1612, with notes and an appendix (Editor, Exeter 1882), pp. 118-19 (Internet Archive). Robert was educated at Emmanuel College, CambridgeJ.A. Venn and J. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses (Cambridge University Press, 1922), p. 227 (Internet Archive). and at Grays Inn,J. Foster (ed.), The Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn, 1521-1889 (Hansard, London 1889), p. 82 (HathiTrust). and was a notable patron of devout clergy. He had first been married, in October 1597, to Joan, a daughter of Sir Humphrey Weld, Sheriff of London in 1599-1600, also a leading City Grocer.Beavan, Aldermen of London, II, p. 46 (Internet Archive). At the time of Robert Brooke's first marriage, Brooke's father, who died in 1600,Will of Robert Brooke, Alderman of London (P.C.C. 1601, Woodhall quire). had purchased for him the manor and mansion of Cockfield Hall at Yoxford, Suffolk, from Sir Arthur Hopton, son of Sir Owen Hopton, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, whose country seat this had been. During his first marriage, which was childless, Brooke had completely rebuilt Cockfield Hall, and at her death aged 38 in 1618 Joan Brooke was buried in Yoxford church.Monumental Inscription, Yoxford Church, Suffolk: "Hic Iacet Sepulta Domina Iohanna Brooke Uxor Roberti Brooke Militis: Quae Fuit Primogenita Filiarum Humfridi Weld Militis. Vixit Annos Triginta Octo Et Obiit xxij Die Maij Ano Dni 1618".

Joan was a daughter of Sir Humphrey Weld's first marriage, to Anne Wheler. After Dame Anne's death, Sir Humphrey had remarried to Mary Slaney, Elizabeth Colepeper's maternal aunt.Will of Stephen Slany, Alderman of Saint Swithin, City of London (P.C.C. 1609, Dorset quire). Alderman Sir Humphrey Weld died in 1610,Will of Sir Humphrey Weld, Alderman of the City of London (P.C.C. 1610, Wingfield quire). and Dame Mary, who had remained childless, became his wealthy and devout widow. After Elizabeth's marriage to Robert Brooke in 1620, for two years the pair lived in London as boarders with Dame Mary Weld.Parkhurst, Faithful and Diligent Christian, 45. Dame Mary died in 1622 or 1623, making generous further legacies to Elizabeth her niece, and mentioning Robert and Elizabeth's daughter Mary Brooke.Will of Dame Mary Weld, Widow of London (P.C.C. 1623, Swann quire).

At about this time John Colepeper sold his family home of Wigsell to Cheney Colepeper, and it was afterwards demolished and rebuilt. Sir Robert, meanwhile, bought a residence at Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire, so that Dame Elizabeth could live within reach of her friends in London, before moving more permanently to Yoxford in Suffolk. During this time her house was frequented by the puritan Dr. Richard Sibbes (died 1635), Master of Katharine Hall, University of Cambridge, and Preacher to Grays Inn, who used to say that he went to other places mostly to satisfy others, but to the Brooke house to please himself. Among the manuscripts of her writings left at her death was included a quarto volume called a Body of Divinity, concerned with Christian Belief and Practice, dated A.D. 1631.'The Life and Death of the Lady Elizabeth Brooke', in N. Parkhurst, The Faithful and Diligent Christian Described and Identified (Samuel Sprint and John Harding, London 1684), pp. 41-81, at pp. 45-46 (eebo/tcp II).

The Brookes at Yoxford

By the time the house at Abbots Langley was sold in July 1637,Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich: "Release by Sir Robert Brooke and Elizabeth, his wife, to John Heydon, Lincoln Inn, Esq., and Johan, his wife, of his messuage and property at Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire" (5 July 1637), ref. HA30/369/158 (Discovery Catalogue). the seven children of Sir Robert and Dame Elizabeth had been born, and the eldest, Mary, was 16 years old. They were, however, no strangers to Yoxford. Through the 1620s Sir Robert had represented Dunwich in parliament three times,J.P. Ferris, 'Brooke, Sir Robert (1573-1646), of Cockfield Hall, Yoxford, Suff. and Walbrook, London', in A. Thrush and J.P. Ferris, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629 (from Cambridge University Press 2010), History of Parliament. and his controversies with the townsfolk of Walberswick (which lay within his manor of Westwood at BlythburghT. Gardner, An Historical Account of Dunwich, Antiently a City, Now a Borough (Author, London 1754), pp. 167-76 (Google)) had developed to a sustained level.P.M. Warner, Bloody Marsh: A Seventeenth-Century Village in Crisis (Windgather Press, 2000).

The years leading up to and through the English Civil War were those in which Dame Elizabeth's brother John Colepeper emerged as a prominent figure in the Royalist party. Having been knighted for military service and for his usefulness as an advisor, he sat in Parliament for Rye in 1640 and was elected for Kent in the Long Parliament. He worked for the impeachment of Sir Robert Berkeley and voted for the attainder of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, and had a place on the committee of defence in 1641. However, John found himself in opposition to the proposed ecclesiastical reforms, more on account of their revolutionary than their religious tendency, and joined the Royalist party in January 1642.P.C. Yorke, 'Colepeper, John Colepeper, 1st Baron', in H. Chesney (ed.), Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), VI, pp. 675-76.

He became Chancellor of the Exchequer from January 1642 to February 1643. He disapproved of the King's attempt to arrest John Pym and other members in that year, but, having presented the King's peace proposals to the Commons in August 1642, he took part in Prince Rupert's charge at Edgehill. He was appointed Master of the Rolls (for the king) in January 1643, a position which he retained in principle until his death, although displaced by the parliamentarian William Lenthall from November 1643 until May 1659. Colepeper thereafter emerged as a military adviser, who was disliked by Prince Rupert for his desire to seek peace by compromise, especially after he was raised to the peerage as Baron Colepeper of Thoresway in October 1644.P.C. Yorke, 'Colepeper, John Colepeper, 1st Baron', in H. Chesney (ed.), Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), VI, pp. 675-76. With the Royalist defeat in March 1646 Colepeper escaped to France where he joined Henrietta Maria and Lord Jermyn. He became a supporter of Prince Charles in exile.See O. Ogle, W.D. Macray and H.O. Coxe (eds), Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers Preserved in the Bodleian Library (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1869-), Vols I: To January 1649; II: 1649-1654 (Google); III: 1655-1657; F.J. Routledge and C. Firth (eds), IV: 1657-1660; V: 1660-1726, with index to vols IV and V (Internet Archive). Search term: Culpeper.

Sir Robert Brooke had suffered a temporary setback in his quarrel with the commoners of Walberswick in 1642, who had brought a lawsuit against him, but had begun the work of reinforcing his own interests against them.T. Gardner, An Historical Account of Dunwich, Antiently a City, Now a Borough (Author, London 1754), p. 172 (Google). Together with other local gentry, he was created an Elder of the Halesworth Congregational classis in 1645.J. Browne, History of Congregationalism and Memorials of the Churches in Norfolk and Suffolk (Jarrold and Sons, London 1877), p. 609 (Google). On 10 July 1646 he died, aged 74, and was buried in Yoxford church.

Widowhood in Yoxford Commonwealth and Restoration