Elizabeth Danvers née Neville, later Elizabeth Carey by remarriage (born 1545/50 – 1630, Stowe, Northamptonshire) was a learnéd English noblewoman. The antiquarian and biographer John Aubrey, whose ancestor she was,[1] describes her in his Brief Lives (1693), states that she had "Chaucer at her fingers' ends" and was fluent in Italian.[2]
Elizabeth Danvers his mother, an Italian, prodigeous parts for a woman. Have heard my fathers mother say that she had Chaucer at her fingers' ends. A great Politician; great Witt and spirit, but revengeful: knew how to manage her estate as well as any man; understood jewels as well as any Jeweller. Very Beautiful, but only short -sighted. To obtain Pardons for her Sonnes she maryed Sir Edmund Carey, cosen-german to Queen Elizabeth, but kept him to hard meate.[3]
Elizabeth Danvers was the daughter of John Nevill, 4th Baron Latymer (c. 1520–1577) and Lucy Somerset. She first married Sir John Danvers, Knt., of Dauntsey, Wiltshire (died 10 December 1594) and had three sons (Charles, Henry and John) and seven daughters.[4] She later married Sir Edmund Carey, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth in a successful attempt to gain pardons for her sons who had become outlaws through the murder of one Henry Long, in a local feud.[1][5]
Two of her sons had notable lives: Sir Henry Danvers (b. 1573) was a soldier, while Sir John Danvers (b. 1588) was a regicide after the First English Civil War.
She died in 1630 aged 84 and is buried at Stowe Nine Churches, Northamptonshire where she has a Tomb and marble effigy, by Nicholas Stone, master mason to James I. It was installed around 1620 during the subject's lifetime. The quality of the carving is extremely fine.[6]