Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



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  • Title: Elizabeth Burrough
  • Creator:
  • Description: This monument commemorates Elizabeth Burrough as a wife and mother of three children. The inscription reads: “Here lies Elizabeth Burrough, wife of John Burrough of Tottenham High Cross in the County of Middlesex, a man of good birth. She died on the 24th day of December in the year of our Lord 1616. She left behind two sons and a daughter legitimately conceived from the bodies of Elizabeth and her husband.” She wears a ruff around her neck with its pattern repeated on her shoulders. A headdress covers her hair, a stomacher decorates her bodice, and her pleated skirt reveals well-made shoes. In the tomb inscription, her husband is described as a gentleman, and records indicate that he was a local notable, renting a manor and 139 acres in Tottenham. He served as a churchwarden when his cousin was the vicar at All Hallows.

    A marriage record for a John Burrough, gentleman, and an Elizabeth Parke, widow, in Tottenham in 1611 suggests that Elizabeth Burrough died after only five years of marriage, leaving young children for her husband to raise, likely with a new wife. The monument places John Burrough and the three children alongside of Elizabeth, although there is no indication that any of the four was subsequently buried there. John wears a ruff, a doublet with a short collared cloak, breeches, and hose held up by garters. His two sons wear virtually identical outfits while the daughter differs from her mother in having a heart-shaped headdress. The adult-style clothing is not a reliable indicator of the children’s ages. Even the large size of the daughter, compared with the smaller size of the sons, may indicate not that she was the oldest but that she survived past infancy while perhaps they did not.

  • Source: Haverford College donated by David and Maxine Cook
  • Rights: Permission of Haverford College
  • Subject (See Also): Brass Rubbing Marriage Tomb Effigies
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 17
  • Date: 1616
  • Related Work: Brass rubbing of John Burrough in the Haverford College collection:
    http://library.haverford.edu/staff/mschaus/feminae/john_burrough.jpg
  • Current Location: Haverford College
  • Original Location: Tottenham, Middlesex, England. Church of All Hallows
  • Artistic Type (Category): Brass rubbing
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Heelball; Paper
  • Donor:
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 19.05 cm/43.18 cm/
  • Inscription: Hic jacet Elizabetha Burrough, uxor Johis Burrough de Tottenham Highg Crosse in Com. Midd. generosi, quae obiit 24 ? die Decembris, Anno Dni. 1616, reliquit que post se duos filios et unam filiam ex eorum corporib: legitime procreatos. Translation:Here lies Elizabeth Burrough, wife of John Burrough of Tottenham High Cross in the County of Middlesex, a man of good birth. She died on the 24th day of December in the year of our Lord 1616. She left behind two sons and a daughter legitimately conceived from the bodies of Elizabeth and her husband.
  • Related Resources: Bertram, Jerome, ed. Monumental Brasses as Art and History. Alan Sutton, 1996;
    Lindley, Phillip. Tomb Destruction and Scholarship: Medieval Monuments in Early Modern England. Shaun Tyas, 2007.