In rejecting the governor Burwell was probably not just acquiescing in her father's wishes. He had publicly declared that his daughter was completely free to choose a husband. Even Nicholson did not believe that she acted at her father's behest, but he suspected that members of the Burwell family had turned her against him with tales of immoral and violent conduct. Burwell need not have based her decision on gossip, however. Having witnessed Nicholson's embarrassing displays of passion and read his occasionally menacing love poems, she may have come genuinely to dislike him.
Burwell's temperament was not perpetually combative, however, if her tombstone epitaph at Barn Elms in Middlesex County is to be believed. Her spouse there asserted of their married life that "she never in all the time she lived with her Husband gave him so much as once cause to be displeased with Her." Lucy Burwell Berkeley bore at least two sons and three daughters during her thirteen-year marriage, a fact that may account in part for Edmund Berkeley's satisfaction with his wife and may have contributed to her death at the age of thirty-three on December 16, 1716.
Time Line
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November 21, 1683 - Lucy Burwell is born to Lewis Burwell (d. 1710) and Abigail Smith Burwell, probably at Fairfield plantation on Carter's Creek in Gloucester County.
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Spring 1699 - Governor Francis Nicholas begins to court Lucy Burwell with poems and love letters.
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September 5, 1700 - The Privy Council appoints Lewis Burwell (d. 1710) to the governor's Council at Governor Francis Nicholson's suggestion.
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September 22, 1701 - Governor Francis Nicholson delivers a speech to the House of Burgesses in which he makes an unsubtle reference to his love for eighteen-year-old Lucy Burwell, daughter of Major Lewis Burwell. She declines his marriage proposal.
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October 13, 1701 - Lewis Burwell (d. 1710) writes to the Board of Trade asking to be excused from service to the governor's Council. He cites his poor health, but may have believed that his strained relationship with Governor Francis Nicholson would make membership on the council unpleasant.
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May 20, 1703 - Six members of the governor's Council—James Blair, Robert Carter, Benjamin Harrison II, John Lightfoot, Philip Ludwell, and Matthew Page—complete a letter to Queen Anne urging her to remove Governor Francis Nicholson.
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December 1, 1703 - Lucy Burwell marries Edmund Berkeley II.
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April 5, 1705 - The Board of Trade removes Francis Nicholson from his post as governor of Virginia.
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December 16, 1716 - Lucy Burwell Berkeley dies.
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Categories
- Women's History
- Colonial History (ca. 1560–1763)
References
Further Reading
Cite This Entry
- APA Citation:
Brown, K. M., & the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Lucy Burwell (1683–1716). (2020, April 10). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Burwell_Lucy_1683-1716.
- MLA Citation:
Brown, Kathleen M. and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. "Lucy Burwell (1683–1716)." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, 10 Apr. 2020. Web. READ_DATE.
First published: November 6, 2012 | Last modified: April 10, 2020
Contributed by Kathleen M. Brown and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography.