A Woman’s lot — Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow

Elizabeth Champernowne c.1555 -? Wife of Sir Edward Seymour of Berry Pomeroy.

Researching supporting characters is often just as fascinating as discovering the main protagonists for my novels. Take Elizabeth Champernowne, Sir Arthur Champernowne’s only daughter, for example. She became ‘Bess’ in my Dartington novels.

Sir Arthur Champernowne’s move to Dartington Hall in the mid 1550s signalled how ambitious he was.It was a property built for royalty. John Holand, who was King Richard II’s half-brother, built the impressive 14th-century manor house high above the river Dart in Devon. Sir Arthur updated the crumbling hall, added elegant square-headed windows (later removed and replaced again) and transformed Dartington into a fashionable Elizabethan mansion.

Until she died in 1565, Sir Arthur’s sister, Kat Ashley, remained the queen’s trusted confidante. Through Kat’s influence, like other members of the Champernowne family, Arthur thrived when Elizabeth became queen. He held the position of Vice Admiral of the Fleet of the West and was a proponent of English help for the oppressed French Huguenots.

Sir Arthur clearly saw the marriage of his only daughter as an opportunity to raise the family status further. Lord Edward Seymour of nearby Berry Pomeroy was an important and wealthy landowner.

He was Protector Somerset’s eldest son from his first marriage to Katherine Filol. The Seymour titles were entailed to the Protector’s sons from his second marriage, but Lord Seymour’s son, Edward, was still quite a catch. Elizabeth, of course, had little choice in the matter.

After some wrangling over the dowry — Sir Arthur appealed to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, to use his “good offices with Lord Edward Seymour, whose son he wishes to match with his daughter” — on 30 September 1576 Elizabeth married Edward Seymour.

Here is Elizabeth in the Seymour monument at St. Mary’s Church, Berry Pomeroy.

Elizabeth rests on an elbow, positioned below her husband and his father, who are both in armour. It is conceivable that the intent of this strange configuration was to emphasise that women held significantly less importance than men. But looked at another way, the monument might suggest that Elizabeth is supporting her menfolk.

Elizabeth’s marriage seems to have been successful. Bridget Margaret, the couple’s first child, was born in 1577. Elizabeth definitely fulfilled the most important duty of an Elizabethan wife: to provide plenty of children, including heirs and spares. Nine children, five boys and four girls, feature on the monument below her, and at her head and feet are two children who did not survive childhood: a baby in a cradle and a seated toddler.

Elizabeth became mistress of one of the most prestigious houses in the west of England. As was typical for women of her status, she took charge of a substantial estate whenever her husband was away. Sir Edward Seymour had ambitious building plans to transform Berry Pomeroy into one of the most magnificent Elizabethan buildings in Devon.

Sadly,he never completed the work. He found himself increasingly entangled in a dispute with the rival Seymour family line. The enormous costs of building and legal expenses apparently left Edward short of money from about 1611 onwards. What Elizabeth thought about her husband spending £1,095 on the baronetcy that June is not recorded.

The Berry Pomeroy Parish register records Sir Edward’s burial on May 27, 1613. It is sometimes incorrectly assumed that Elizabeth died in the same year. I have not yet found documentary evidence that confirms the exact date or place of her death.

Recently, while examining photos of Elizabeth’s effigy, I noticed a significant clue I had overlooked.The overlarge, heart-shaped headdress and the swirl of cloth around Elizabeth’s shoulders suggest she wears “widows’ weeds.”

Herbert Norris reproduces this image of Constantia, widow of Sir Thomas Lucy Knight, who died in 1603, in his book Tudor Fashion ¹as an example of widow’s garb. A hood, lined and wired, frames Lady Lucy’s face; it is very similar to Elizabeth’s hood on the Seymour monument. Constantia also has a ‘veil’ or cape hanging over her shoulder, similar to the folds of cloth around Elizabeth’s shoulders.

Based on her costume, Elizabeth appears to have outlived her husband. It’s even possible she could have contributed to the monument’s design, which, despite being called “astonishingly naïve” by architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner,² continues to help me discover more about a fascinating woman from Devon’s history.

Those poignant images of Elizabeth’s lost babies started me thinking about how women like Elizabeth coped in times of appallingly high infant mortality. Almost every woman I’ve come across in my travels in Tudor and Elizabethan Devon lost at least one of her children in infancy or early adolescence. Many other brief lives have not even made it into the records. Some people suggest that 16th-century parents didn’t experience grief like modern parents. I’ll explore that idea next time.

You can find out more about my search for Elizabeth Champernowne in this blog post.

https://rosemarygriggs.co.uk/blog/28/

1. Norris, H., Tudor Costume and Fashion, Dover edn, 1999, reprint of work originally published in two volumes in 1938, p.714.

2. Cherry, B., & Pevsner, N., (1989), The Buildings of England — Devon,: Penguin, p. 166,