Elizabeth Isham

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EI , living unmarried in a gentry family in the earlier seventeenth century, left two unique pieces of life-writing: a year-by-year summary of major events in her life, and a connected narrative based on the same material, in which what happens is envisaged from the point of view of religious and spiritual life, with prayers interspersed. She also left manuscripts detailing her religious devotions and her practising of medicine.
  • BirthName: Elizabeth Isham

Milestones

28 January 1609

EI was born at her father's country estate, Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire, the eldest in a family of three.
This is the birth date given on the home page of the Constructing Elizabeth Isham project, but Clarke and Longfellow writing of Isham's texts give the date as 27 January.
Clarke, Elizabeth, and Erica Longfellow. “Elizabeth Isham’s Autobiographical Writings”. Constructing Elizabeth Isham.
After EI died the hall was remodelled in classical style. It is now a Grade I listed building, bequeathed in 1976 to the Lamport Hall Preservation Trust .
Lamport Hall and Gardens. http://lamporthall.co.uk/.
Clarke, Elizabeth. “Constructing Elizabeth Isham”. Warwick: Arts: Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, 5 Apr. 2011.
Clarke, Elizabeth, and Erica Longfellow. “Elizabeth Isham’s Autobiographical Writings”. Constructing Elizabeth Isham.

November 1639

EI , aged about thirty, completed her confessions, apparently the fair copy of My Booke of Rememberance, a memoir with generous admixture of religious meditation and prayer, which she had been writing since the previous year.
Clarke, Elizabeth. “Constructing Elizabeth Isham”. Warwick: Arts: Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, 5 Apr. 2011.

24 April 1654

EI , still in her forties, died at her birthplace, Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire.
Clarke, Elizabeth, and Erica Longfellow. “Elizabeth Isham’s Autobiographical Writings”. Constructing Elizabeth Isham.

Biography

Birth and Family

28 January 1609

EI was born at her father's country estate, Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire, the eldest in a family of three.
This is the birth date given on the home page of the Constructing Elizabeth Isham project, but Clarke and Longfellow writing of Isham's texts give the date as 27 January.
Clarke, Elizabeth, and Erica Longfellow. “Elizabeth Isham’s Autobiographical Writings”. Constructing Elizabeth Isham.
After EI died the hall was remodelled in classical style. It is now a Grade I listed building, bequeathed in 1976 to the Lamport Hall Preservation Trust .
Lamport Hall and Gardens. http://lamporthall.co.uk/.
Clarke, Elizabeth. “Constructing Elizabeth Isham”. Warwick: Arts: Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, 5 Apr. 2011.
Clarke, Elizabeth, and Erica Longfellow. “Elizabeth Isham’s Autobiographical Writings”. Constructing Elizabeth Isham.

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