Elizabeth Richardson, 1st Lady Cramond (1576/77 – 1651) was an English writer and peeress.George Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 1887–98 She is remembered for her collections of prayers.
Biography
Born Elizabeth Beaumont, she was the eldest child of Sir Thomas Beaumont (brother of Huntingdon Beaumont) and his wife, Catherine.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 including John Ashburnham (MP). Their daughter, Elizabeth, was the first wife of Frederick Cornwallis, 1st Baron Cornwallis.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 Queen Henrietta Maria.Court of Chancery, Privy Seals, 1627, Public Record OfficeCalendar of state papers, domestic series, 1627-8
On 14 December 1626 Lady Ashburnham married Sir Thomas Richardson (later Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales) at St Giles in the Fields. 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'.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
Works Lady Cramond wrote A Ladies Legacie to her Daughters, a collection of prayers in three parts, written in 1625, 1635, and 1645.E. Richardson, A ladies legacie to her daughters, 1645 She had originally started writing in 1606 when she wrote Instructions for my children or any other Christian.F. W. Steer, The Ashburnham archives: a catalogue, 1958Folger Shakespeare Library, manuscript V.a.511
Family Lady Cramond died in 1651 and was buried next to her first husband on 3 April that year, at St Andrew, Holborn.Parish register, St Andrew's church, Holborn, London Her stepson having died in her lifetime, her title passed to his son, Thomas.
She was the grandmother of Charles Cornwallis, 2nd Baron Cornwallis.
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 accessed 18 November 2007