Elizabeth Hoby (Née Cooke, Later Lady Russell) (1540-1609)

Abstract Lady elizabeth hoby was the third of the learned daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke. Her two marriages might seem less brilliant than those of her sisters Anne Bacon and Mildred Cecil, but both her husbands were important people. When Sir Thomas Hoby (the translator of Castiglione’s Courtier) died as ambassador to France in 1566, Elizabeth I sent her a personal letter of condolence, which includes the pledge, ‘we would have you rest yourself in quietnes, with a firm opinion of our especiall favour towards you’. In 1592 she was honoured by a visit from the Queen to her estates at Bisham (the entertainment she put on on this occasion included an extremely unusual prioritizing of poetic composition over needlework as proper feminine activity: ‘How doe you burne time, and drowne beauty, in pricking of clouts, when you should be penning of sonnets?’)