Elizabeth Carey, Lady Berkeley

Elizabeth, Lady Berkeley (née Carey; later Chamberlain; 24 May 1576 – 23 April 1635), was an English courtier and patron of the arts.

Elizabeth Carey was the only child of George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, and Elizabeth Spencer. Queen Elizabeth I was one of her godmothers. Her childhood was divided between the Hunsdon residence at Blackfriars, London, Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, and (from 1593) the manor of West Drayton, Middlesex.

She married Sir Thomas Berkeley on 19 February 1596, probably at Blackfriars, when she was nineteen years old: her wedding is one of the occasions that has been suggested that Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream was performed for the first time in public. On 5 January 1606, at the wedding festivities of the Earl of Essex and Lady Frances Howard, Elizabeth was one of the female dancers representing the "Powers of Juno" in Ben Jonson's masque Hymenaei: there is an extant portrait of her dressed in her masque costume.

She bore her husband a daughter and a son:

Elizabeth and her husband circulated between Berkeley residences including New Park, Gloucestershire, Claverdon, Warwickshire, and Caludon Castle, near Coventry (the last being the principal home of her father-in-law, Henry, 7th Baron Berkeley, until his death in 1613). However, Sir Thomas was financially imprudent and ran up enormous debts. In a crisis of 1606–7, Elizabeth took over the management of his affairs (selling her own inheritance at Tonbridge and Hadlow, Kent, to minimise the burden); and in 1609 Sir Thomas signed a contract handing over all responsibility for household management to Elizabeth and the Berkeley family steward, John Smyth of Nibley. When Sir Thomas died (aged 37) in 1611, she paid off the many outstanding debts.

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