Elizabeth Brooke (writer)

Elizabeth Brooke (January 1601 – 22 July 1683) was an English religious writer.

Born at Great Wigsell in the parish of Salehurst in Sussex, Lady Brooke was the daughter of Thomas Colepeper (died 1613) and his wife Anne (died 1602), daughter of Sir Stephen Slaney (died 1608), a Lord Mayor of London, and his wife Margaret Phesant (died 1619).

Her only brother was John, afterwards created Lord Colepeper of Thoresway. Both parents having died in Elizabeth's early youth, she was brought up by Lady Slaney, her maternal grandmother. In 1620 she married Sir Robert Brooke of the Cobham family, educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and a leading patron of devout clergy. He was the widower of Joan Slaney (died 1618), Lady Slaney's stepdaughter. For two years the pair lived in London as boarders with Elizabeth's childless aunt Mary (died 1623), the wealthy and devout widow of Sir Humphrey Weld. In 1622 they moved to Langley, Hertfordshire, where her husband bought a seat; and in 1630, on the Brooke estates falling to him, they went to the family mansion, Cockfield Hall at Yoxford in Suffolk. The couple had seven children: James and Anne died young, Robert and John died without children, Elizabeth and Martha married and had children, while the eldest daughter Mary stayed single.

Lady Brooke was noted for her devotion to the Crown, to the Church of England, to charity, to learning and to personal piety. She mourned the beheading of King Charles I more deeply than the loss of a child. Though always conforming to the established Church, she approved of those who campaigned to include nonconformist ministers and personally supported individual ministers.

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