The "Mother," as we learn from the elaborate and learned "Introduction" of Principal Lee, was Elizabeth Brooke, the granddaughter of Bishop Chaderton, whose only daughter had married Sir Richard Brooke of Norton. The exemplary old bishop survived his own daughter several years, and
"Bestowed the utmost pains to train up his only grandchild in the most solid and serious, as well as the most elegant, branches of learning in which, during the greater part of the sixteenth century, no inconsiderable proportion of ladies of rank in England attained high proficiency. Dr Goad's enumeration of the female accomplishments in which she was nurtured includes languages and other liberal arts; but, above all, that pious discipline of the mind, which is both the beginning and the consummation of the wisdom which is from above."[N]
The Dr Goad here mentioned was Dr Thomas Goad, of whom Fuller, in his Worthies of England, makes mention as "a great and general scholar, exact critic, historian, schoolman, divine." He was chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in that capacity possessed the power of licensing books. He knew both Bishop Chaderton and his granddaughter; and we shall now let him speak for himself in the matter; for he it was whose official imprimatur is impressed on this little book, which he introduces to the reader in the following quaint but beautiful "Approbation:"—
"Ovr lawes disable those that are vnder Couertbaron, from disposing by Will and Testament any temporall estate. But no law prohibiteth any possessor of morall and spirituall riches, to impart them vnto others, either in life by communicating, or in death by bequeathing. The reason is, for that corruptible riches, euen to those who haue capacity of alienating them, bring onely a ciuil propriety, but no morall and vertuous influence for the wel dispensing, or bestowing them: whereas vertue and grace haue power beyond al empeachment of sex or other debility, to enable and instruct the possessor to employ the same vnquestionably for the inward inriching of others.
"This truly rich bequeather, taking that care for the prouiding an euerlasting portion for her hoped issue, which too many parents bend wholly vpon earthly inheritance, by her death already hath giuen vnto her Testament that life and strength, whereof the Scripture speaketh, A Testament is of force after death—[Heb. ix. 17]—Now remained the other validitie & priuilege of a Testament, that it bee enacted in perpetual and inuiolable Record. Which in this was necessary not so much for the security of the chiefe and immediate Legatary, as for the benefit of all those, who, by the common kindred of Christianity, may claime their portion in this Legacy, left in pios vsus; whereout, whosoeuer taketh, yet leaueth no whit the lesse for others in remainder.
"Wherefore vpon the very first view, I willingly not onely subscribed my Approbat for the registring this Will, among the most publique Monuments, (the rather worthy, because proceeding from the weaker sex) but also, as bound to do right vnto knowne vertue, vndertooke the care of the publication thereof, my selfe hauing heretofore been no stranger to the Testators education and eminent vertues. Whereof, I here beheld reflection cleere enough, though perhaps not so particularly euident to those that take knowledge of them onely by this Abstract.
"In her zealous affection to the holy Ministry, thereto dedicating, (if by sex capable) her yet scarce budding first fruits, I saw the lineaments of her owne parentage: Shee being the onely offspring deriued from a reuerend Grandfather, Doctor Chaderton, sometime Master of Queens Colledge in Cambridge, and publique Professor of Diuinity in that Vniuersitie, afterward Lord Bishop, first of Chester, and thence of Lincolne: by and vnder whom shee was from her tender yeeres carefully nurtured, as in those accomplishments of knowledge in Languages, History, and some Arts, so principally in studies of piety. And thus hauing from a childe knowne the holy Scriptures, which made her wise vnto saluation through faith in Christ, how well shee continued in those things, which shee had learned,—[2 Tim. iii. 15, 16]—appeareth, as otherwise to those that knew her, so here to all by the frequent and pertinent application of them in these instructions.
"In her prosecution of the duty of obedience vnto Parents, I view the deepe impression, long since, when shee was not aboue six yeeres old, made in her minde by the last words of her owne Mother, charging her vpon her blessing to shew all obedience and reuerence to her Father (Sir Richard Brooke) and to her reuerend Grandfather.
"In the whole course of her pen, I obserue her piety and humility: these her lines scarce shewing one sparke of the elementary fire of her secular learning: this her candle being rather lighted from the lampe of the Sanctuary.
"In her commission of the office of an Ouerseer to her husband, what eies cannot behold the flames of her true and vnspoted loue toward her dearest, who enioyed her about the space of six yeeres and a halfe, being all that while both an impartiall witnesse of her vertues, and an happy partner of those blessings both transitory and spirituall, wherewith shee was endowed.