ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

The writer Elizabeth Craven had seven children while she was married to her first husband, William, Lord Craven. This group portrait shows six of them, and is dated 1777. They are standing in front of an archway of classical design, through which a landscaped park can be seen. It may be that of Benham Place, in Berkshire, where Capability Brown had just landscaped the park for Lord Craven. The painting was in the Craven family collection until sold by Sotheby's in 2013 for only £25,000, which sounds like a bargain to me. Four of the children are standing, one is sitting on a woman's lap and the youngest of all is a baby in the arms of another woman, at the back of the picture.      But which child is which? And who are the women holding the youngest ones? Certainly neither is Elizabeth Craven.     One identification is easy.  The boy in the greenish-blue jacket and yellow waistcoat, with a dog at his side, is Elizabeth Craven's eldest son, William, who l...

Ashdown House near Lambourn stands on the Berkshire Downs, although nowadays owing to boundary changes it is officially in Oxfordshire. It is a mid-seventeenth century house associated with two famous women, both of them called Elizabeth. One of them is the writer Elizabeth Craven and the other is Elizabeth Stuart, Princess of England, Queen of Bohemia, for whom it was originally built. Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James I, married the Elector of Palatine who was crowned King Frederick of Bohemia in 1619. But after only a few months, he was driven from his throne, had to flee Bohemia, and soon he lost his domains in the Palatinate too. He and his young wife got the melancholy titles of the Winter King and Queen.  Portrait of 1st Lord Craven between those of Frederick, King of Bohemia and Elizabeth his wife at Ashdown House. Elizabeth Stuart returned to England where eventually her brother King Charles I suffered an even harsher fate, losing hi...