Cowper

The Cowper family had become established Chester merchants by the mid-17th century. They are probably best known for their house and undercroft in Bridge Street (in 2018 occupied by "Trespass", an outdoor clothing shop). However, a little digging reveals a complex puzzle involving several Oliver Cromwells and some of the wives of Henry VIII.

Overleigh/Overlegh Hall
The New British Traveller (1819) described the family as follows:


 * The Cowpers of Chester descended from Thomas a younger son of the Cowpers of Strode in Sussex who was one of the gentlemen of the bed chamber in August 1498. Before the end of the year he married lsabella daughter and heiress of Richard Goodman Esq then Mayor of Chester. Their descendants have ever since continued in Chester and have repeatedly represented the City in Parliament served in all the offices of the Corporation &c The last male heir of this family died in July 1788 and on the death of his widow the house and estate descended to a branch of the Cholmondeleys who are related to the Cowpers by marriage.

Overleigh was one of the two small rural estates which comprised the Domesday territory of Lee, lay south-west of Handbridge, athwart the road to Wales. Leofwine's single virgate there had been granted by 1086 to Hugh de Mara. Whether by descent or some other means, it evidently passed to the barons of Mold, for c. 1230 Robert of Mold granted it to the abbot and monks of Basingwerk (Flints.). In 1462 the convent leased it for 100 years to Elis ap Deio ap Gruffudd, whose descendant, Matthew Ellis (d. 1574), a member of Henry VIII's bodyguard, bought it in 1545 from the Crown's grantees after the Dissolution. The timberframed mansion and chapel of the Ellis family were destroyed in the siege of Chester. Ellis is interred at St Mary on the Hill where Hanshall records his memorial tablet as reading:


 * "Here lies interred Matthew Ellis of Overleigh in the county the city of Chester, one of the gentlemen of the body guard to Henry VIII son of Ellis ap Dio ap Gryffyth successor to Kenrick Sais a British Nobleman and lineally descended from Tudor Trevor of Hereford. He died April 20 1574. Alice his wife died lö47. His son Matthew Ellis of Overleigh gent died 1575 whose Eliz daughter of Thos. Browne of Netherlegh gent died 1570 having issue Julian who was married to Thos Cowper of Chester Esq. Margery and Matthew Ellis of Overlegh gent. He died July 13 1613. His wife daughter to Richard Birkenhead of Maule Esq died July 6 1640 having issue Katherine wife to Randle Holme Chester gent & Matthew Ellis of Overlegh gent who died Nov 2 1663 his wife Elizabeth daughter to Wm Halton of Baddiley gent married Anne daughter to John Birkenhead of Backford Esq. He died Feb 17 1685; she died Aug 4 1689 "

After the Restoration a new brick house was built by Thomas Cowper (d. 1695), who had acquired the estate partly through descent (he married Julia, grand-daughter of Matthew Ellis) and partly through purchase. In the later 17th and 18th century Overleigh Hall remained the home of the Cowpers, a prominent Chester family, who included aldermen, a city recorder, and a celebrated (if at times innacurate) local antiquarian. After improvements by Dr. William Cowper (d. 1767), the hall was inherited upon the death of Thomas Cowper in 1788 by Charles Cholmondeley (1770-1847) of Vale Royal and let back to widow Harriet Cowper (d.1811) as a life tenant. Charles Cholmondeley of Condover Hall, Shropshire, was the son of Thomas Cholmondeley and Dorothy Cowper.

Rev. Charles Cowper Cholmondeley (1795-1831) of Condover Hall, Shropshire, was the son of Charles Cholmondeley. Reginald Cholmondeley (1826-1896), son of Charles, was host to the American writer Mark Twain (1835-1910) when he visited in 1873 and 1879. Condover Hall and the estate was sold out of the family in 1897. Reginald’s paintings and library were sold soon after his death.

The New British Traveller (1819) described the property as follows:


 * The ancient manor house was of timber and very spacious was demolished during the siege of Chester. The present mansion was not erected untill after the Restoration and it since received considerable additions. It contains a good Library and a great number of old portraits particularly some valuable ones of the Cromwell family of which the principal are the following mentioned in an inventory in the Library: Oliver Cromwell, uncle and godfather to the Protector aet 84 1646; Lady Elizabeth Cromwell first wife of Sir Oliver and daughter of Sir Henry Bromley, Lord Chancellor; Colonel Henry Cromwell aet 60 1616; Colonel John Cromwell second son of Sir Oliver; William Cromwell fourth son of Sir Oliver; Major John Hettley painted in a large wig; Sir Thomas and Lady Hettley Dr Sparks MD and Mr Manley.

As we shall see, the portraits present an interesting puzzle.

The Chester Approach Road
Purchased in 1821 with an estate of 135 acres by Robert, 2nd Earl Grosvenor, Overleigh Hall was demolished in 1830 to make way for a new entrance to the Eaton estate and landscaping of surrounding parklands.

The Enclosure Acts were a series of Acts of Parliament that empowered enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land that was previously held in common (such as Hough Green). Between 1604 and 1914, over 5,200 individual enclosure acts were passed, covering 6.8 million acres. Often the reasons given for enclosure were "agricultural improvement", but in effect the acts were used as a "land grab".

The 1805 parliamentary enclosure of lands in the St Mary on the Hill parish, Chester, came at the initiative of Robert, second Earl Grosvenor. The Grosvenors were immensely affluent mainly through their property in London, newly graduated to the peerage, and politically supreme at Chester. The Grosvenors were intent on enhancing their position as rentiers and furnishing themselves with a country seat and surrounding parkland (by John Webb) worthy of their enhanced status. The essential purpose of the St. Mary's enclosure was to create an impressive 'Chester approach' to an enlarged Eaton Hall. The co-operation of the Crown, together apparently with that of Mrs. Cowper of Overleigh made the enclosure possible.

Earl Grosvenor gave blatant expression to his territorial ascendancy by appointing his own land steward as a commissioner in defiance of the Commons' standing orders of 1801. His influence reached deep into the municipality and constituency of Chester and into the House of Commons itself where, as only the most obvious symptom of Grosvenor power, his first cousins Thomas and Drax both represented the city at Eaton's gates. The involvement of the ubiquitous Richards - town clerk, Grosvenor solicitor, latterly Grosvenor political agent - as clerk and treasurer to the enclosure commissioners provideed yet another channel of Grosvenor influence.

12 Bridge Street
Number #12 Bridge Street: one of the most impressive buildings on the rows, formerly known as: Nos.2 AND 4 Cowper House BRIDGE STREET ROW (also formerly familiar to many as "Bookland"). The property was improved by Thomas Cowper a Royalist, and Mayor of Chester 1641-2, possibly after severe damage in the Civil War. A sandstone fireplace above the diagonal beams in the Row walk is inscribed TC (Thomas Cowper) 1661 to each side of a blank shield, and has a substantial projecting, moulded mantel.



The property extends over 4 storeys including a medieval vaulted undercroft and Row level. A flight of 11 repaired stone steps north of the modern shopfront lead to the Row walk. On the ground floor the front undercroft, its present floor two steps below street level, is lined, however, six steps lead down through a mid 19thC Gothic Revival stone screen with archway on colonnettes and flanking windows in 13thC style, within a broad recessed arched panel, to a spectacular 6-bay quadripartite rib-vaulted rear undercroft. The undercroft was re-discovered in 1839 and is now thought to date from 1350-75, possibly even a little earlier. The undercroft has squared sandstone rubble walling, truncated-cone-shaped rib-corbels, deeply chamfered ribs and a 3-light window at the west end, formerly with trefoil heads but now heightened and with round heads. The undercroft is unique in that the ground at the rear is such that it can have a window so placed.

A trefoil archway in the fifth bay leads to a stone stair within the stone party wall with No.14, rising backward, and displaying the underside of an upper stair apparently serving Number 14 (which is actually not the case!). The rear undercroft was found and excavated in 1839, when the floor level may have been lower approx 0.6m. The front undercroft is 16m long, the rear undercroft 13m. The stall-board is again quite deep, approx 3m from front to back. There is carved fascia above Row opening, above that a seven-light mullioned and transomed leaded window c1870 stretching across most of the frontage. The strap-work carved on the jetty bressumer to the fourth storey is again inscribed TC (for Thomas Cowper) 1664 - which presumably refers to the date of repairs after the siege. Hughes writes of the undercroft as follows:




 * "Previous to 1839, no special archaeological interest attached to this locality; but in that year while excavating for a warehouse behind the shop of Messrs Powell and Edwards, cutlers, a discovery was made which at once set all the antiquaries of Chester "by the ears". The late Rev J Eaton Precentor of the Cathedral, an architectural authority in his day, made the following Report upon this Ancient Crypt as it is called for the use of the proprietors .. The ancient Crypt discovered by Messrs Powell and Edwards is of an oblong form running from east to west The following are its dimensions viz length forty two feet breadth fifteen feet three inches height from the surface of the floor to the intersection of the groinings of the roof fourteen feet This Crypt was partially lighted through the upper part of the west end in which there are three small windows divided by stone mullions and protected by iron bars The upper part of the groining on the centre window appears to have been cut away to admit of more light On examining the intersection of the groins marks were discovered from the lead on the stone work that a couple of lamps had been used for lighting The entrance to the east end is by a flight of steps cut out of the rock to the height of three feet On the south side is an Anglo Norman Gothic doorway which is attained by three or four semicircular steps and forms an outlet within its inner and outer wall by another flight of steps to the surface above the building In a niche on the south side of the window is a font in excellent preservation "

The Cowpers

 * Thomas Cowper = Isabel Goodman, daughter and heiress of Richard Goodman (mayor of Chester 1498);
 * Richard Cowper (died in the lifetime of his father);
 * Thomas Cowper = Anne Done, daughter of Ralph Done of Flaxyards, Tarporley;
 * William Cowper = Dorothy, daughter of Robert Brerewood (sheriff of Chester 1531)
 * Robert Cowper ( - 1544): died unmarried in Chester;
 * Thomas Cowper ( - 1547) = Catherine, daughter of John Aldersley
 * John Cowper = Beatrice: mayor of Chester 1561/62, having been sheriff in 1554/55.
 * Thomas Cowper (Sheriff of Chester 1582) = Elanor (d. of Sir Lawrence Smith Kt - mayor of Chester 1558-63-70)
 * Thomas Cowper = Juliana, daughter of Matthew Ellis
 * A daughter
 * Thomas Cowper ( - 1671) = Catherine
 * Thomas Cowper ( - 1695) = Elizabeth Baskerville
 * Thomas Cowper
 * Thomas Cowper (1670-1718) = Martha Callis
 * Rev John Cowper (1672-1718) = Catherine Sherwin
 * William Cowper (1701-1767)
 * John Cowper
 * Richard Cowper
 * John Cowper
 * William Cowper
 * Catherine
 * Alice
 * Matthew Cowper
 * Robert Cowper
 * John Cowper
 * John Cowper
 * Thomas Cowper (1517-1594, Bishop of Lincoln) = Amey
 * Elizabeth
 * Mary


 * William Cowper (1701-1767)
 * Thomas Cowper ( - 1736) = Esther Alleyne
 * Arbella Cowper = John Hincks (1716-1772)

Historical Context


The Cowpers might well be described as the perpetual bystanders of history. From the time of Bosworth Field to that of Waterloo, they were simply there, almost like the chorus in a Greek play, mostly swapping one Thomas Cowper for another as the "guest-stars" made their entrances and sometimes fatal exits. We find them in the shadows of the history books and their dead stacked deep beneath St Peter's and St Mary on the Hill in Chester.

Thomas Cowper c 1500
Thomas Cowper was Page of Honour to Prince Arthur, Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester and Duke of Cornwall. As the eldest son and heir apparent of Henry VII of England, Arthur was viewed by contemporaries as the great hope of the newly established House of Tudor. His mother, Elizabeth of York, was the daughter of Edward IV, and his birth cemented the union between the House of Tudor and the House of York. Plans for Arthur's marriage began before his third birthday; he was installed as Prince of Wales two years later. At the age of eleven, he was formally betrothed to Catherine of Aragon (see: Leche House), a daughter of the powerful Catholic Monarchs in Spain, in an effort to forge an Anglo-Spanish alliance against France.

While a page is a comparatively low-ranking servant, a Page of Honour is nowadays a mostly ceremonial position in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. It requires attendance on state occasions, but does not now involve the daily duties which were once attached to the office of page. It is usually a distinction granted to teenage sons of members of the nobility and gentry. Cowper attended the Prince to Chester in 1498 (the prince would have been aged about 12). The Midsummer Watch Parade was first held during the mayoralty of Richard Goodman (in 1498) - organised by the City Guilds. Meanwhile, Columbus was discovering the mouth of the Orinoco.

Robert and Thomas Cowper 1540's
The Rough Wooing (December 1543 – March 1551) was a war between Scotland and England. Following its break with Rome, England decided to attack Scotland, partly to destroy the Auld Alliance, and prevent Scotland being used as a springboard for future invasion by France, partly to weaken Scotland, and partly to force Scotland to agree to a marriage alliance between its child Queen Mary and the English heir apparent Edward, son of King Henry VIII and later Edward VI.

The Cowpers accompanied Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, with an English army, to capture Leith and Edinburgh from the Kingdom of Scotland. Edward Seymour was born c. 1500, the son of Sir John Seymour (1474–1536) by his wife Margery Wentworth. In 1514, aged about 14, he received an appointment in the household of Mary Tudor, Queen of France. When Seymour's sister, Jane, married King Henry VIII in 1536, he was created Viscount Beauchamp on 5 June 1536, and Earl of Hertford on 15 October 1537. He became Warden of the Scottish Marches and continued in royal favour after his sister's death on 24 October 1537. He became Lord Protector of England during part of the Tudor period from 1547 until 1549 during the minority of his nephew, King Edward VI (1547–1553). Edward VI noted his uncle's death in his Chronicle: "the duke of Somerset had his head cut off upon Tower Hill between eight and nine o'clock in the morning".

Thomas Cowper (Bishop of Lincoln)
This Thomas Cowper (1517-1594) became bishop of Lincoln (Feb 4, 1570), of Winchester (March 12, 1583) and died April 23rd 1594. Cooper was born in Oxford, England, where he was educated at Magdalen College. He became Master of Magdalen College School and afterwards practised as a physician in Oxford. Cooper's literary career began in 1548, when he compiled, or rather edited, Bibliotheca Eliotae, a Latin dictionary by Sir Thomas Elyot. In 1549 he published a continuation of Thomas Lanquet's Chronicle of the World. This work, known as Cooper's Chronicle, covers the period from AD 17 to the time of its writing. Following Robert Crowley's 1559 altered and updated version of the Chronicle which Cooper denounced, he issued an expanded and updated version in 1560 and 1565 that removed or altered most but not all of Crowley's changes and additions. In 1565 appeared the first edition of his greatest work, Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae, and this was followed by three other editions.

John Aubrey in "Brief lives", gave the following glimpse into the creation of the dictionary:


 * Dr. Edward Davenant told me that this learned man had a shrew to his wife, who was irreconcileably angrie with him for sitting-up late at night so, compileing his Dictionarie, (Thesaurus linguae Romanae et Britannicae, Londini, 1584; dedicated to Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, and Chancellor of Oxford). When he had halfe-donne it, she had the opportunity to gett into his studie, tooke all his paines out in her lap, and threw it into the fire, and burnt it. Well, for all that, that good man had so great a zeale for the advancement of learning, that he began it again, and went through with it to that perfection that he hath left it to us, a most usefull worke.

Thomas Cowper (Sheriff of Chester 1582)
George Marsh was a Protestant martyr born in the parish of Deane near Bolton in 1515. He died in Boughton, Chester, on 24 April 1555 as a result of the Marian Persecutions carried out against Protestant Reformers and other dissenters during the reign of Mary I of England. His death is recorded in Foxe's Book of Martyrs. George Marsh has two memorials in Chester, one is in St Johns Church and the other is a granite obelisk erected in 1888 by the side of a road in Boughton.

Thomas Cowper (d. 1671)
Cowper served as the corporation’s mayor in 1641–2, remaining loyal to Charles I in the first Civil War. During his Mayorality a drum was beaten at the High Cross for the Parliament at the instigation of Sir William Brereton (the grenade-throwing MP). According to Frank Simpson, Cowper ordered the constables to arrest the leaders of this "treasonable" gathering, but they failed to do so. At this point Cowper stepped-in and seized one of the leaders by the collar, delivering him to the civil officers. He also wrested a broadsword from another of the party, which which he cut the drum to pieces.

Cowper was also one of the party which, together with Charles I stood on the Phoenix Tower to see the Royal troops defeated in the Civil War battle of Rowton Moor (Sept 1645). One the day after the battle Cowper accompanied the King (together with Sir Francis Gamul, Captain Thropp and 500 horse to Denbigh Castle. Cowper, Gamul and Thropp stayed with the King at Denbigh for two days and then returned to Chester.



Thomas Cowper (d. 1695)
Purchased Overlegh in 1660, had served as an alderman of the borough under Charles II. He left Overleigh to his son, John, through whom it descended to his grand-daughter Dorothy.

Thomas Cowper (1670-1718)
Having been admitted to the freedom of Chester in 1696, Cowper was returned as MP for the borough in January 1698, but made little impact upon the records of the Commons, though in February 1698 he assisted Peter Shakerley in attempts to expedite payment of arrears due to Chester for the quartering of invalids in the borough. On 19 May Cowper was granted an indefinite leave of absence, thereby marking the end of his Commons career, since at the 1698 election he stood aside to allow the election of Shakerley. Cowper died on 13 Aug. 1718 and was buried five days later at St Peter’s, Chester, with Shakerley and Sir Richard Grosvenor, 4th Bt serving as two of the coffin bearers.

Rev. John Cowper (1672-1718)
Brother to Thomas Cowper born 1670. Son of Thomas, of Overlegh, Chester; matriculated from  Brasenose  College on 13th Jan 1888/9, aged 16; B.A. 19th Jan 1691/2, Fellow 1693/4, chaplain to William Stanley, 9th Earl of Derby, vicar of Middlewich, Cheshire 1702–18

The Cowper family of Overleigh Hall encroached steadily on the south-east corner of the commons at Hough Green. In 1700 the Revd. John Cowper had permission to inclose sufficient land to make a walled carriage drive from the highway to Overleigh Hall, and more land between the house and the road was taken into the grounds by his son, Alderman William Cowper, in the 1760s.

William Cowper (1701-1767)
COWPER, WILLIAM, M.D., antiquary, was the third son of the Rev. John Cowper, M.A., of Overlegh, Cheshire, by Catherine, daughter of William Sherwin, beadle of divinity and bailiff of the university of Oxford. He was baptised at St Peter's, Chester, on 29 July 1701, was admitted a student at Leyden on 27 Oct. 1719, and probably took his doctor's degree in that university. For many years he practised as a physician at Chester "with great reputation". In 1754 he was elected mayor of Chester. He died at Overlegh on 20 Oct. 1767, and was buried at St Peter's, Chester. He married in 1722 Elizabeth, daughter of John Lonsdale of High Ryley, Lancashire, but had no issue.

Cowper, who was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, published anonymously "A Summary of the Life of St. Werburgh, with an historical account of the images upon her shrine (now the episcopal throne) in the choir of Chester. Collected from antient chronicles and old writers, by a Citizen of Chester" Chester, 1749. This work is said to have been stolen from the manuscripts of Mr. Stone.

He was also the author of "Il Penseroso: an evening's contemplation in St. John's churchyard, Chester. A rhapsody, written more than twenty years ago, and now (first) published, illustrated with notes historical and explanatory," London, 1767, addressed, under the name of M. Meanwell, to the Rev. John Allen, M.A., senior fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and rector of Tarporley, Cheshire. In this work Cowper takes a view of some of the most remarkable places around Chester distinguished by memorable personages and events. He was an intelligent antiquary and preserved many valuable manuscript collections of Williamson and others which would otherwise have perished. He also left several works of his own compilation relative to the ancient history of Cheshire and Chester. These manuscripts, which are frequently quoted by Ormerod, the Cheshire historian, were preserved in the family archives at Overlegh. They consist of various small volumes, most of the contents of which are fairly transcribed into two larger ones, containing memoirs of the earls of the palatinate and the bishops and dignitaries of the cathedral, lists of city and county officers, and a local chronology of events. In his Broxton MSS. he takes Webb's ‘Itinerary’ as the text of each township, adds an account of it transcribed from Williamson's ‘Villare,’ and continues the descent of property to his own time. He also wrote a small manuscript volume, entitled ‘Parentalia,’ containing memoirs of the Cowper family, and the account of the siege of Chester, which is printed in Ormerod's ‘Cheshire,’ i. 203 seq. This description of the siege had been printed twice previously at Chester (in 1790 and 1793), but with considerable alterations.

Thomas Cowper (c1741-1788)
Is buried at Eccleston, with inscription:


 * Sacred to the Memory of Thomas Cowper Esq of Overlegh, one of his Majesty's Counsel at Law and Recorder of the city of Chester, who died the 25th day of July 1788 in the 47th year of his age. He was the last surviving branch of a very ancient and respectable family

Dorothy Cowper (1745-1786)
According to Ormerod, Dorothy Cowper (1745-1786) was the 2nd daughter and sole heir of Edmund Cowper, esq. of Overlegh, Chester. She was married 29 Oct 1764 at St. Jame's Westminster to Thomas Cholmondeley (d. 1779) of Vale Royal.

Harriet Cowper (1752-1811)
Also at Eccleston. Her monumental memorial reads:


 * Sacred to the Memory of Harriet widow of Thomas Cowper of Overlegh Hall Esq. She died on the 3d of March 1811 aged 59

An Arbella Cowper (daughter of Thomas Cowper and Esther Alleyne) is known to have married a John Hincks (a Chester banker) in 1759. Arbella was the grand-daughter of Thomas Cowper (1670-1718). Hinks had a part share in a Sugar House in Cuppin Street. John Hincks signed his will on 19th March 1768 and died about 1st June 1772. Arbella attempted to continue with the business and invested significant money in it, but it appears to have gone bust in the 1780's.

The "Cromwell" Portrait
The potentially interesting part of this story involves the provenance of the "Cromwell" portraits at Overleigh.

The Cromwells
Thomas Cromwell was born around 1485, in Putney, Surrey, the son of Walter Cromwell, a blacksmith, fuller and cloth merchant, and owner of both a hostelry and a brewery. Thomas's mother, Katherine, was the aunt of Nicholas Glossop of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. She lived in Putney in the house of a local attorney, John Welbeck, at the time of her marriage to Walter Cromwell in 1474. Cromwell had two sisters: the elder, Katherine, married Morgan Williams, a Welsh lawyer; the younger, Elizabeth, married a farmer, William Wellyfed. Katherine and Morgan's son, Richard, was employed in his uncle's service, and changed his name to Cromwell. Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell was the great-grandson of Richard Williams (Cromwell), Thomas Cromwell's nephew; via son Henry, and grandson Robert.


 * Walter Cromwell (blacksmith) = Katherine
 * Thomas Cromwell - chief minister to Henry VIII (1532-40): decapitated.
 * Gregory Cromwell = Elizabeth Seymour (sister to Jane Seymour)
 * Anne Cromwell (died young)
 * Grace Cromwell (died young)
 * Katherine Cromwell = Morgan Williams
 * Richard Williams (Cromwell) = Frances Murfyn
 * Henry Williams (Cromwell)
 * Sir Oliver Cromwell = Elizabeth Bromley
 * Henry Cromwell
 * John Cromwell
 * Thomas Cromwell
 * William Cromwell
 * Robert Cromwell = Elizabeth Stewart
 * Anne Cromwell
 * Oliver Cromwell: Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1653
 * Joan Cromwell
 * Mary Cromwell
 * Elizabeth Cromwell
 * Francis (Williams)
 * Elizabeth Cromwell = William Wellyfed

The Portraits


Victorian scholar Sir Lionel Cust (director of the National Portrait Gallery from 1895 to 1909) identified a portrait (below left) supposedly by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) as a likeness of Catherine Howard - 5th wife of Henry VIII.

The NPG's painting supposedly came from Overleigh Hall, near Chester (Strong, 1969, p. 41). It passed into the collection of Thomas Cowper who gained possession of the estate, in part through descent and in part through purchase, in c.1660. It then descended through the family to Thomas Cholmondeley of Condover (1793-1863) - who was the nephew of the last of the Cowpers. The label on the reverse of the portrait which reads T.C. and probably refers to Cholmondeley. In c.1816 the portrait and other Overleigh pictures were removed to Condover Hall. The portrait was sold in the Cholmondeley sale at Christie’s in 1897 described only as ‘a Lady, in black dress’. It was purchased by the National Portrait Gallery in 1898 (while Cust was director) as "Catherine Howard", but it was only after the sale that the dealers Colnaghi and Cust would identify it as Catherine Howard.



It is believed to be based on a three-quarter-length portrait thought to be by Holbein, now in the Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio. Although the Toledo version (dated c.1540) has previously been called Catherine Howard, there is no evidence for this to have actually been a portrait of Howard. It has been suggested, instead, that the sitter was, Elizabeth Seymour (1518-1568) a member of the Royalist wing of the Cromwell family who apparently once owned the picture, and sister to Jane Seymour (c. 1508 – 24 October 1537 another wife of Henry VIII).

Elizabeth Seymour/Cromwell
Elizabeth and her sister Jane Seymour served in the household of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII. In his quest for a male heir, the king had divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon (see Leche House), whose only surviving child was a daughter, Mary. His marriage to Anne Boleyn had also resulted in a single daughter, Elizabeth. The queen's miscarriage of a son in January 1536 sealed her fate. The king, convinced that Anne could never give him male children, increasingly infatuated with Jane Seymour, and encouraged by the queen's enemies, was determined to replace her. The Seymours rose to prominence after the king's attention turned to Jane. In May 1536, Anne Boleyn was accused of treason and adultery with Mark Smeaton, a court musician, the courtiers Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton and her brother, George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford. The trials and executions of the queen and her co-accused followed swiftly, and on 30 May 1536, eleven days after Anne's execution, Henry VIII and Jane were married. Elizabeth was not included in her sister's household during her brief reign, although she would serve two of Henry VIII's later wives, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard.

Elizabeth Seymour lived under four Tudor monarchs and was married three times. In 1531, she married Sir Anthony Ughtred, Governor of Jersey, who died in 1534.

On 18 March 1537, then a young widow of reduced means, residing in York, Elizabeth had written to Thomas Cromwell, then Baron Cromwell, who had previously offered to help her, if she was ever in need. She had hoped to "be holpen to obtain of the king's grace to be farmer of one of these abbeys if they fortune to go down ..." Cromwell, probably encouraged by Edward Seymour, proposed instead that she marry his only son and heir, Gregory. By June, it appears that Cromwell's offer had been accepted.

So she married Gregory Cromwell, 1st Baron Cromwell, the son of Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII in 1537, who died in 1551 (Gregory was actually a patron of Hans Holbein the Younger). During his time in the House of Lords, Gregory Cromwell participated in several high-profile proceedings, notably the attainders of Catherine Howard on 8 February 1542, as well as Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, in January 1547. In 1547 he participated in the funeral of Henry VIII, as one of the lords carrying the canopy over the late king's coffin. On 28 February 1549 he was present in the House of Lords when the bill of attainder was passed on his wife's brother Thomas Seymour and again in January 1550 during proceedings against his brother-in-law and patron Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Gregory Cromwell died suddenly on 4 July 1551 of the sweating sickness at his home, Launde Abbey, Leicestershire, and on 7 July 1551 was buried in a magnificent tomb in the chapel there. His wife Elizabeth was also ill but survived.



Elizabeth married her third and last husband, John Paulet, Lord St John, the son of William Paulet, 1st Marquess of Winchester in 1554.

The "Toledo" portrait is recorded as being in the hands of yet another Oliver Cromwell (1742-1821): a descendant of Catherine, sister of Thomas Cromwell (Earl of Essex) and her son Sir Richard Williams, who took the name Cromwell. The painting had been in the collection of Mr. Cromwell Bush, said by some to be a descendent of Oliver Cromwell's uncle and God-father Sir Oliver Cromwell (1566-1655). It ended-up the collection of Mr James Hamet Dunn. In 1913, his business partner Fischer disappeared and went to ground leaving Dunn with monstrous debts). Dunn was forced by the Fischer debacle to liquidate his art collection in 1914. The transaction included 13 paintings and included works by Holbein, Bronzino, Manet and El Greco. The portrait next became the property of Edward Drummond Libley (in 1915), who later gave it the Toledo Museum (1925), of which he was a founder.

The Fall of Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell is believed by many historians to have engineered the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Anne Boleyn (c. 1501 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII. Henry's marriage to her, and her subsequent execution by beheading, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation. Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Queen Claude of France. Anne returned to England in early 1522, to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken off, and instead she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry and Anne formally married on 25 January 1533, after a secret wedding on 14 November 1532. On 23 May 1533, newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared Henry and Catherine's marriage null and void. Anne was crowned Queen of England on 1 June 1533. On 7 September, she gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I. Henry was disappointed to have a daughter rather than a son but hoped a son would follow and professed to love Elizabeth. Anne subsequently had three miscarriages, and by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour. In order to marry Jane Seymour, Henry had to find reasons to end the marriage to Anne. Henry VIII had Anne investigated for high treason in April 1536. On 2 May she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, where she was tried before a jury of peers – which included Henry Percy, her former betrothed, and her own uncle, Thomas Howard – and found guilty on 15 May. She was beheaded four days later.



Henry VIII was betrothed to Jane on 20 May 1536, just one day after Anne Boleyn's execution. The couple were married at the Palace of Whitehall, Whitehall, London, in the Queen's closet by Bishop Gardiner. In January 1537, Jane became pregnant. During her pregnancy, she developed a craving for quail, which Henry ordered for her from Calais and Flanders. During the summer, she took no public engagements and led a relatively quiet life, being attended by the royal physicians and the best midwives in the kingdom. She went into confinement in September 1537 and gave birth to the coveted male heir, the future King Edward VI, at two o'clock in the morning on 12 October 1537 at Hampton Court Palace. Edward was christened on 15 October 1537, without his mother in attendance, as was the custom. He was the only legitimate son of Henry VIII to survive infancy. After the christening, it became clear that Jane was seriously ill. She died on 24 October 1537 at Hampton Court Palace. After her death, Henry wore black for the next three months. He married Anne of Cleves two years later, although marriage negotiations were tentatively begun soon after Jane's death.

During 1536 Cromwell had proven himself an adept political survivor. However, the gradual slide towards Protestantism at home and the King's ill-starred marriage to Anne of Cleves, which Cromwell engineered in January 1540, proved costly. Some historians believe that Hans Holbein the Younger was partly responsible for Cromwell's downfall because he had provided a very flattering portrait of Anne which may have deceived the king. The Franco-Imperial alliance had failed to materialise, and Henry had therefore been subjected to an unnecessary conjugal difficulty which loosened his Principal Secretary's control of events. In early 1540, Cromwell's conservative, aristocratic enemies, headed by the Duke of Norfolk and assisted by Bishop Gardiner (colloquially known as 'Wily Winchester'), saw in Catherine Howard an opportunity to displace their foe.

Cromwell was arrested at a Council meeting on 10 June 1540, accused of a list of charges. He was imprisoned in the Tower. His enemies took every opportunity to humiliate him: they even tore off his Order of the Garter, remarking that "A traitor must not wear it." His initial reaction was defiance: "This then is my reward for faithful service!" he cried out, and angrily defied his fellow Councillors to call him a traitor. A Bill of Attainder containing a long list of indictments, including supporting Anabaptists, corrupt practices, leniency in matters of justice, acting for personal gain, protecting Protestants accused of heresy and thus failing to enforce the Act of Six Articles, and plotting to marry Lady Mary Tudor, was introduced into the House of Lords a week later and passed on 29 June 1540. Cromwell was condemned to death without trial, lost all his titles and property and was beheaded on Tower Hill on 28 July 1540 in a public execution, the day of the King's marriage to Catherine Howard. The executioner had great difficulty severing the head.

Elizabeth Bromley/Cromwell
Sir Oliver Cromwell (the uncle) married firstly Elizabeth Bromley, daughter of Thomas Bromley (1530-1587), the Lord Chancellor and Elizabeth Fortescue, and had four sons and four daughters. Sir Oliver Cromwell was loyal to the crown at the outbreak of the English Civil War. His nephew and godson Oliver Cromwell was sent by parliament to the house at Ramsey to search for arms which could be sent to the King at York. The younger Cromwell is said to have stood head uncovered in the presence of his uncle. Later the Ramsey estates were sequestered but were restored to him on 18 April 1648 through the influence of his nephew who became the "Lord Protector".



There are several reasons to believe that the "NPG/Cowper" portrait is not an original of Catherine Howard:


 * The results of analysis by dendrochronology indicate that the last tree ring dates from 1609 which suggests that the only measurable board used for the panel came from a tree which was felled sometime between 1612 and 1644. On that basis the picture can be dated to the later seventeenth century. Catherine Howard died 13 February 1542 (aged 18–19);


 * The text on the portrait, ETATIS SVA 21, indicates that the sitter was in her 21st year, an age Catherine Howard never reached;


 * The sitter is wearing a sleeve which follows a style set by Anne of Cleves, which would date the portrait to after 6 January 1540, when Anne's marriage to Henry VIII took place;


 * The painting style and technique is not consistent with sixteenth-century workmanship. The handling is more consistent with a work of the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century;


 * There was no reason to have a portrait done of Catherine Howard - she had not produced an heir and the end of her life was a disaster.

However there is a clear problem with dates: Elizabeth Seymour (1518-1568) was also long dead by the dendrochronology date of 1612-1644 and was only Elizabeth Cromwell from 1537 to 1551 (between ages 19-33). The NPG'a portrait cannot be by Holbein and must be a later copy.

The later Elizabeth Cromwell is also slightly problematic as regards the dendrochronology: Sir Oliver (her husband) died in 1655 and her father in 1587. She must have been dead by 1601 when her husband remarried (she died in July 1600). So why then describe this a painting of "Lady Elizabeth Cromwell first wife of Sir Oliver and daughter of Sir Henry Bromley". The likely explanation is that the "Chester" picture was probably a copy of the Holbein for what became the Cowper family collection. The mix-up is probably that this is in fact a copy of Holbein's painting of of the earlier Elizabeth Seymour who married Holbein's patron Gregory Cromwell and therefore became an earlier Elizabeth Cromwell.

Sir Oliver's Death
There is a little to add to the description in "The New British Traveller" (1819):


 * The ancient manor house was of timber and very spacious was demolished during the siege of Chester. The present mansion was not erected untill after the Restoration and it since received considerable additions. It contains a good Library and a great number of old portraits particularly some valuable ones of the Cromwell family of which the principal are the following mentioned in an inventory in the Library: Oliver Cromwell, uncle and godfather to the Protector aet 84 1646; Lady Elizabeth Cromwell first wife of Sir Oliver and daughter of Sir Henry Bromley, Lord Chancellor; Colonel Henry Cromwell aet 60 1616; Colonel John Cromwell second son of Sir Oliver; William Cromwell fourth son of Sir Oliver; Major John Hettley painted in a large wig; Sir Thomas and Lady Hettley Dr Sparks MD and Mr Manley.

Cromwell’s sons Thomas and William fought for the king during the Civil War, and his eldest son was apparently appointed royalist sheriff of Huntingdonshire in 1643. Cromwell’s death, on 28 Aug. 1655, was caused by an unfortunate accident, described by the antiquary William Dugdale:


 * ‘he was out in the rain, and after his return, sitting by a good fire without any company in the room, by some weakness or swoon [he] fell into the fire and was so scorched that he died about two days after’

As for the fate of his sons the following is recorded:


 * COLONEL HENRY CROMWELL (1586-1657): The name of Henry was given to many of the eldest sons of the Cromwell family in honor of their munificent patron Henry the Eighth Henry Cromwell was the eldest son and heir to Sir Oliver and evinced his duty to his parent by a spirited and vigorous conduct in behalf of the Royal party This occasioned his estates to be sequestered but on petitioning Parliament in 1649 the house decreed that the fine imposed on him should be remitted The Protector afterwards courted his friendship and appointed him one of the assessors for the county of Huntingdon.


 * COLONEL JOHN CROMWELL (1589-c1660): second son of Sir Oliver. John, was a military man who served in James I’s army in the Palatinate in 1624. He then entered the service of the Netherlands and was Colonel of an English Regiment serving in Holland. Late in 1648 when news of the condemnation to death of Charles I was received, he was sent by the Prince of Orange to his cousin Oliver to plead for the King’s life. Having with difficulty gained admittance, he argued vehemently that the execution would be seen on the Continent as an indelible stain on England and even threatened Oliver that the entire family would change their name back to Williams out of shame if the execution went ahead. The mission was, of course, unsuccessful, and John Cromwell returned to Holland. He saw the conduct of his cousin as criminal, though that didn’t stop him applying to the Lord Protector for redress over a case involving his estranged wife who had, he claimed, reduced him to penury.

Thomas probably died at Newbury MA in 1645. On 29 Sept., 1646 the will of “Thomas Croomwell” was brought in to the Ipswich court to be proved.


 * WILLIAM CROMWELL (1593-1655): fourth son of Sir Oliver. The life and death of this gentleman were both singular He had frequently proved his attachment to the unhappy Charles the First yet was employed by the Protector in a secret expedition to Denmark The vessel in which he embarked was cast away and as he endeavoured to escape by leaping into a boat he broke his arm and very much bruised his head His servant was drowned his money and clothes all lost and to aggravate his calamity a fever attacked him and from being obliged to conceal his name he was for some time unable to procure assistance He afterwards returned to England and engaged in a plot to assassinate the Protector but this miscarried and Oliver acquitted him. His death was occasioned by the purchase of a new coat the cloth of which had been brought from London and was infected with the plague which he caught and died in February. The taylor with all his family and about four hundred people at Ramsey in Huntingdonshire where he resided fell sacrifices to the pestilential malady generated by this fatal garment.

Elizabeth's gold medallion shows the flight of Lot and his family from Sodom (Genesis 19) and was designed by Holbein; the drawing survives in the British Museum. Whether this choice of image has any special significance is unknown.

The Puzzle
The puzzle here is why a painting which ended up at Overleigh was listed as being the later Elizabeth Cromwell when it was actually a fairly poor copy of a genuine Holbein of an earlier Elizabeth Cromwell.

The key dates in this minor mystery are:


 * Elizabeth Seymour (1518-1568) was married to Gregory Cromwell (like his father, a known patron of Holbein) from 1537 to 1551: it is probable that the Toledo Holbein dates from 1537-51 (Elizabeth was 21 around 1539 - which possibly makes that the most likely date);
 * Elizabeth Bromley first wife of Sir Oliver died in 1600: the NPG "Holbein" is a badly restored copy of the Seymour portrait, and not (as the inventory said) Bromley. The earliest possible date for the copy is 1612 and it could date from later;
 * The paintings of her husband and sons appear to date from 1646-47; No painting of Thomas is mentioned (he died in the colonies in 1645)
 * Sir Oliver died in 1655, almost outliving his sons: the youngest son, William, dies of the plague in 1655. The last of the family estates passed to his sisters, who sold them off to settle his debts.
 * Thomas Cowper rebuilds Overleigh after the Restoration (1660);
 * The portraits are described in the "Gentleman's Magazine" as existing in 1793;

Elizabeth Bromley was born in 1564 in Holt Castle (not the one near Chester). Her parents were Sir Thomas Bromley, Lord Chancellor, and Elizabeth Fortesque. Sir Thomas presided over the commission which tried Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1586, but the strain of the trial and the responsibility of ordering the execution of a monarch proved too much for his strength, and he died soon after. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Sources and Links

 * Ormerod volume 1, page 292
 * LANDLORD CONTROL AND MOTIVATION IN THE PARLIAMENTARY ENCLOSURE OF ST. MARY'S-ON-THE-HILL PARISH, CHESTER
 * Lost Faces: Identity and Discovery in Tudor Royal Portraiture, London, Philip Mould, 2007, pp. 73-75, fig. 48 (col.).
 * The beauties of England and Wales; or, Delineations... of each county, by J. Britton and E. W. Brayley [and others]. 18 vols.
 * Sir Oliver Cromwell at History of Parliament Online.
 * Cowper House on Wikipedia;
 * Memoirs of the Protectoral-house of Cromwell: Deduced from an Early Period, and Continued Down to the Present Time, Volume 1