Elizabeth BOURCHIER

In August 1620, just a few months after his twenty-first birthday, 
Oliver Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier at St Giles’s church in 
Cripplegate, London. Elizabeth had been born in 1598, the eldest 
of twelve children (nine sons and three daughters) of Sir James 
Bourchier and his wife Frances, who was a daughter of Thomas 
Crane of Newton Tony, Wiltshire. Sir James, an only son, had 
inherited land and property from his father, and seems himself to have
been a successful and prosperous businessman in London, reportedly 
involved in the fur and leather trades. He owned property both in the 
City of London, especially around Tower Hill, and in Essex, especially 
Little Stambridge Hall. He had been knighted by James I in July 1603. 
The Bourchier family from which Elizabeth sprang does not seem to 
have been connected with the noble families of that name, including 
the late medieval Bourchier Earls of Essex; nor, as far as we can tell, 
was Elizabeth related to the Sir William Bourchier who married Cromwell’s 
relative Katherine/Catherine Barrington and who fathered the regicide 
Sir John Bourchier. We know virtually nothing about Elizabeth’s childhood 
and upbringing, though she must have received some sort of education 
as she evidently was literate.

At the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, John Claypole 
was permitted to return to Northborough Manor. He took 
with him his mother-in-law Elizabeth Cromwell. She died on 
19 Nov 1665 supposedly in the small room above the porch. 
She was buried in the Parish Church of St. Andrew in 
Northborough.