Elizabeth Zouche (before 1496 – after 1553), was an English abbess. She was the last abbess of

Shaftesbury Abbey Shaftesbury Abbey was an abbey that housed nuns in Shaftesbury, Dorset. It was founded in about 888, and Dissolution of the monasteries, dissolved in 1539 during the English Reformation by the order of Thomas Cromwell, minister to King Henry VI ...

, a Benedictine nunnery founded by

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfr ...

which was one of the largest and richest in England. She signed the deed of surrender on 23 March 1539 which brought the 650 year life of the abbey to an abrupt end and granted all its property and wealth to

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

Life

Elizabeth Zouche came from a noble family with lands in the vicinity of Shaftesbury and was known to have been a novice at the abbey in 1496.

Abbess

She was elected as the abbess in 1529, succeeding Elizabeth Shelford who died in 1528. By the time she became abbess, the train of events leading to the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the demise of the abbey was already underway. Having assented to the

Act of Supremacy The Acts of Supremacy are two acts passed by the Parliament of England in the 16th century that established the English monarchs as the head of the Church of England; two similar laws were passed by the Parliament of Ireland establishing the E ...

in 1534, Elizabeth Zouche and the nuns at Shaftesbury were visited by two commissions of enquiry in the following year, looking at the wealth and morality of the abbey. Shaftesbury was at this time the second richest nunnery in England. When the dissolution process began in 1536, as one of the larger abbeys, Shaftesbury was not immediately affected, but there was some impact as the abbess took in the prioress and two nuns displaced from a small Benedictine house in Somerset.

Dissolution

When the noose started to close on the larger houses like Shaftesbury in 1538, Elizabeth Zouche at first tried to negotiate, offering the sum of 500 marks to the king and £100 to

Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell (; – 28 July 1540) was an English statesman and lawyer who served as List of English chief ministers, chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false cha ...

to allow herself and her nuns to remain in their abbey, "by some other name and apparel". The deal was not accepted and the inevitable demise of the abbey came in March 1539, the last to surrender in Dorset. Elizabeth Zouche surrendered the abbey to

John Tregonwell Sir John Tregonwell (died 1565) was a Cornish jurist, a principal agent of Henry VIII of England, Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He served as Judge of the High Court of Admiralty from 1524 to 1536.C.S. Gilb ...

on Passion Sunday, 23 March, signing an ignominious deed of surrender, but not before she had negotiated generous pensions for herself and her fellow nuns on the previous day. The total of all the pensions was £431, of which Elizabeth Zouche's was by far the largest individual pension at £133 6s. 8d. Compared with average labour earnings of the period, the equivalent sum now would be £871,000 a year.

Later life

Records show that Elizabeth Zouche kept in touch with her former nuns, giving fifty of them a present of the value of a goose in 1553. It was also authorised in 1552 that the full value of her pension could pass on her death as an annuity to Sir John Zouche of Ansty, who is presumed to have been a relative and subsequently served as the MP for Shaftesbury. She was evidently still alive in 1553, but it is not known how much longer she lived.

Fictional portrayal

Elizabeth Zouche appears as a character in ''

The Butcher's Daughter ''The Butcher Daughter '' () is a French film directed by Christopher Thompson (actor) in 2021. It had a cinema release in France the 18 January 2022. Plot On the death of her father, Charly Fleury inherits the family butcher's shop. Editor-in-ch ...

'', a novel by

Victoria Glendinning Victoria Glendinning (''née'' Seebohm; born 23 April 1937) is a British biographer, critic, broadcaster and novelist. She is an honorary vice-president of English PEN and vice-president of the Royal Society of Literature. She won the James Tait B ...

based on the dissolution of the abbey, which was published in 2018. Elizabeth Zouche appears also in ''

The Mirror & the Light ''The Mirror & the Light'' is a 2020 historical novel by English writer Hilary Mantel and the final novel published in her lifetime, appearing two and a half years before her death. Following ''Wolf Hall'' (2009) and '' Bring Up the Bodies'' (201 ...

'', the final part of

Hilary Mantel Dame Hilary Mary Mantel ( ; born Thompson; 6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022) was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, ''Every Day Is Mother's Day'', was releas ...

's trilogy covering the life of

, published in 2020. In the 2024 BBC ''

Wolf Hall ''Wolf Hall'' is a 2009 historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family's seat of Wolfhall, or Wulfhall, in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, ''Wolf Hall'' is a sym ...

'' dramatisation of ''

'' she is portrayed by

Amanda Root Amanda Root (born 1963) is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her starring role as Anne Elliot in the 1995 BBC adaptation of ''Persuasion''. A familiar face on both stage and screen, she worked regularly with the Royal Shakesp ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zouche, Elizabeth Date of birth unknown Date of death unknown Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Abbesses of Shaftesbury 16th-century English nuns 16th-century Christian nuns People of the Protestant Reformation