Quick Facts
Biography
Elizabeth Hatton (née Cecil, 1578 – 3 January 1646) was the daughter of Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, and Dorothy Neville, and the granddaughter of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley. She was the wife of Sir William Hatton and later of Sir Edward Coke.
Family
Elizabeth Cecil, born in 1578, was the fourth daughter of Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, and his wife, Dorothy Neville (1548–1609), the daughter of John Neville, 3rd Baron Latimer, and his first wife, Dorothy de Vere (d. 7 February 1527), sister and co-heir of John de Vere, 14th Earl of Oxford. She was the granddaughter of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, by his first wife, Mary Cheke (died February 1543).
Marriages and issue
In the early 1590s Elizabeth married firstly, Sir William Newport alias Hatton (1560–1597), the son of John Newport (d.1566) of Hunningham, Warwickshire, and his wife, Dorothy Hatton (d.1566x70), the sister of Elizabeth I's Lord Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton. Newport had taken the surname Hatton when his childless uncle, Sir Christopher Hatton, settled his estates on him as his heir. When Sir Christopher Hatton died in 1591, Robert Greene dedicated his A Maiden's Dream to 'The right worshipful, bountiful, and virtuous lady, the Lady Elizabeth Hatton, wife to the right worshipful Sir William Hatton, Knight'.
William Hatton had earlier married, in June 1589, Elizabeth Gawdy, the daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Gawdy (died 1605) and Elizabeth Coningsby, who died soon after the marriage, leaving an only daughter, Frances Hatton (1590–1623), who on 24 February 1605 married Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick. After the marriage, Frances Hatton's grandfather, Sir Francis Gawdy, broke off relations with her.
After the death of William Hatton on 12 March 1597, and after a failed wooing by Sir Francis Bacon, on 6 November 1598 Elizabeth Hatton married secondly, Sir Edward Coke. They had two daughters, Frances Coke and Elizabeth Coke (who died unmarried). Frances Coke's forced marriage to John Villiers, 1st Viscount Purbeck, the elder brother of King James' favourite, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, was a major factor in her parents' marital strife.
Death and burial
Elizabeth Hatton died 3 January 1646, and was buried in the parish church of St Andrew Holborn.