A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Craven, Elizabeth, Lady
CRAVEN, ELIZABETH, LADY,
Margravine of Anspach, youngest daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, was born in 1750, and married, in 1767, William, last Earl of Craven, by whom she had seven children. But in consequence of his ill-treatment, they were separated in 1781. After this. Lady Craven lived successively at the courts of Versailles, Madrid, Lisbon, Vienna, Berlin, Constantinople, Warsaw, St. Petersburgh, Rome, Florence, Naples, and Anspach, where she became acquainted with the margrave Christian Frederick Charles Alexander, a nephew of Frederick the Great. On this tour, in 1787, she was persuaded to descend into the grotto of Antiparos, which no woman had ever before visited. Lord Craven died at Lisbon in 1791, and his widow soon after married the margrave, who surrendered his estates to the King of Prussia for a pension, and came to reside in England with his wife. He died in 1806. The account of Lady Craven's travels through the Crimea to Constantinople was first published, in a series of letters, in 1789. Besides these, she has written poems, plays, romances, and her own memoirs, entitled "Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach, formerly Lady Craven, &c." London, 1825. These are interesting on account of her intercourse with Catharine II., Joseph II.. and other princes.