After her husband died in 1602, Elizabeth lived at Hemington.[5] Though her eyesight deteriorated with age, she continued to work on her embroidery. In July 1616, when King James came to hunt in nearby Geddington woods during his progress through Northamptonshire, her eldest son Edward showed the King a handkerchief that his mother had sewn as a "wonder", and they spoke of her good works and piety.[6]
Amongst the bequests in her will, she gave pieces of unicorn horn set in gold to her daughter Elizabeth, Lady Willoughby, and to Sarah, Lady Zouche. She left a "Booke of goulde" to her granddaughter Bessie Capell, and some items of silver plate to Theodosia, Lady Dudley, including a silver pot for her "uscubath", meaning whisky: uisge beatha or usquebaugh.[8] She gave a velvet cabinet with a purse of gold coins in one of its drawers or "boxes" to Theodosia's daughter, Margaret Dudley Hobart. She gave Anne, Lady Harington a silver "posnet" dish and cover which had belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots.[9]
Mary, Queen of Scots, owned a silver posnet, which she used for "bouillon" or broth at Wingfield Manor.[10] It was listed in 1587 at Fotheringhay amongst silver in the keeping of Elizabeth Curle, sister of Gilbert Curle, said to have been Mary's gift to her priest.[11]
^Patricia Phillipy, 'Literary Legacies in the Montagu Archive', Naomi J. Miller & Diane Purkiss, Literary Cultures and Medieval and Early Modern Childhoods, p. 318.
^Elizabeth Goldring, Faith Eales, Elizabeth Clarke, Jayne Elisabeth Archer, John Nichols's The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, 1579-1595, vol. 3 (Oxford, 2014), p. 371.
^Arthur Collins, Letters and Memorial of State, vol. 1 (London, 1746), p. 81.
