Biography

Elizabeth Jocelin (or Joscelin) was born in 1596 to Richard Brooke and Elizabeth Chaderton of Cheshire. Her grandfather, William Chaderton, was Master of Queen's College, University of Cambridge and a Professor of Divinity there . She was raised and educated in her grandfather's household after the separation of her parents, where her lessons in languages and liberal arts exceeded the normal course of studies for girls. In 1616, she married Taurell Jocelin of Essex, son and heir to Sir Thomas Jocelin. She probably wrote her mother's legacy (British Library Additional MS 4378 and British Library Additional MS 27467 at Crowlands in Oakington, near Cambridge, an estate which Taurell Jocelin held by the 1620s. Jocelin wrote the legacy while she was anticipating the birth of her first child, a labour which she feared she might not survive. Her fears proved prophetic, as she died in childbed nine days after giving birth to a daughter, Theodora. We know that Theodora inherited her father's estate and married the entrepreneur Samuel Fortrey in 1643, and that she bore three sons and four daughters, but we do not know whether she ever read her mother's advice. The source of this biographical information is Sylvia Brown's edition of the legacy. Brown, 1999

Biography by Victoria E. Burke.

British Library: Add. MS 27467
A mother's legacy to her unborn child (1622)
Elizabeth Jocelin ( author, scribe)

British Library: Add. MS 27467
A mother's legacy to her unborn child (1622)
Elizabeth Jocelin ( author, scribe)

British Library: Add. MS 27467
A mother's legacy to her unborn child (1622)
Elizabeth Jocelin ( author, scribe)

British Library: Add. MS 4378
The mother's legacy to her unborn child (1622-1624)
Elizabeth Jocelin ( author)

Huntington Library: MS HM 15369
Prayers, biblical extracts, and meditations, 1633 (1633)
Elizabeth Hastings (author)

Huntington Library: MS EL 6871
Prayers, biblical extracts, and meditations, 1633 (1633)
Elizabeth Hastings (Author)

Huntington Library: Hastings Literature Box 1, Folder 6
Prayers, biblical extracts, and meditations, 1633 (1633. This copy was presented to a later Elizabeth Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (the wife of the seventh earl; the author of the manuscript was the wife of the fifth earl) on 20 July 1676, but the manuscript itself was copied by the same scribal hand which copied out the other three copies of this work. Two of those other copies are dated 1633, the year of the writer's death, and so 1633 must be the date of transcription. Hastings may have compiled the materials in the manuscript years earlier. )
Elizabeth Hastings (Author)

Huntington Library: Hastings Religious Box 2, Folder 8
Prayers, biblical extracts, and meditations, 1633 (1633. The manuscript may have been dated 1633 on fol. 1r, just as two other copies of the volume are (HM 15369 and EL 6871), but the leaf has been torn right where the date would be. On the other hand, the manuscript which it most resembles in terms of the order of its contents (Hastings Literature, Box, 1, Folder 6) does not list the date 1633 on fol. 1r and so perhaps this manuscript omitted it as well. It is highly likely that since all four manuscripts are in the same scribal hand, all of them were transcribed in 1633, the year of Hastings's death. Hastings may have compiled the materials in the manuscript years earlier.)
Elizabeth Hastings (Author)