Early Life

Bury was baptised 12 March 1644 at Clare, Suffolk

Clare, Suffolk

Clare is a small town on the north bank of the River Stour in Suffolk, England.Clare is from Bury St Edmunds and from Sudbury. It lies in the 'South and Heart of Suffolk' . As a cloth town, it is one of Suffolk's 'threads'. Clare is the current holder of Village of the Year and has won the...

, the day of her birth having probably been 2 March. Her father was Captain Adams Lawrence of Linton, Cambridgeshire

Linton, Cambridgeshire

Linton is a village in rural Cambridgeshire, England, on the border with Essex. It has been expanded much since the 1960s and is now one of many dormitory villages around Cambridge. The railway station was on the Stour Valley Railway between Cambridge and Colchester, now closed. The Rivey Hill...

; her mother was Elizabeth Cutts of Clare, and besides Elizabeth there were three other children. In 1648, when Elizabeth was four years old, Captain Lawrence died, and in 1661 Mrs. Lawrence remarried, her second husband being Nathaniel Bradshaw, B.D., minister of a church in the neighbourhood. About 1664 Elizabeth described herself as 'converted,' and she commenced that searching method of introspection witch the evidence of which her 'Diary' abounds. Her studies, begun rigidly at four in the morning, in spite of delicate health, embraced Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, music, heraldry

Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...

, mathematics, philosophy, philology

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

, anatomy, medicine, and divinity

Divinity

Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...

. Her stepfather, Mr. Bradshaw, being one of the ejected ministers in 1662, the family moved to Wivelingham, Cambridgeshire. Elizabeth in 1664 began writing down her 'experiences' in her 'Diary,' 'concealing her accounts' at the onset 'in shorthand.'

Adult Life

In 1667, on 1 February, she married Mr. Griffith Lloyd of Hemingford Grey

Hemingford Grey

- Location:It is situated on the southern bank of the River Great Ouse in the county of Cambridgeshire, with the northern bank occupied by the flood meadow. Until 1965 it was in Huntingdonshire and between 1965 and 1974 it was in the short-lived county of Huntingdon and Peterborough...

, Huntingdonshire, who died on 13 April 1682. In her widowhood, which lasted another fifteen years, Mrs. Lloyd passed part of her time in Norwich. She was married at Bury to Samuel Bury

Samuel Bury

-Life:The son of Edward Bury, he was born at Great Bolas, Shropshire, where he was baptised on 21 April 1663. He was educated at Thomas Doolittle's academy, at that time in Islington. Here he was contemporary with Matthew Henry, who entered in 1680, and made friends with Bury...

, nonconformist minister, on 29 May 1697, having previously refused to marry three churchmen, whose initials are given, because 'she could not be easy in their communion.'

Mrs. Bury was mistress of a good estate, and was described as 'a great benefactrix' (ib. 6). She kept a stock of bibles and practical books, to be distributed as she should see occasion ; her knowledge of the materia medica

Materia medica

Materia medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing . The term 'materia medica' derived from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, De materia medica libre...

 was surprising; 'her gift in prayer was very extraordinary' ; and 'she had a motto written up in her closet in Hebrew, "Thou, Lord, seest me," . . . to keep her heart from trifling.' She became infirm after 1712, and died 8 May 1720, aged 76. Mr. Bury gave the fullest testimony to his wife's deep learning and unfailing excellences. Dr. Watts described her as 'a pattern for the sex in ages yet unborn.' Her funeral sermon was preached at Bristol on 22 May 1720 by the Rev. William Tong, and was printed at Bristol the same year ; a third edition was reached the next year, 1721. 'The Account of the Life and Death of Mrs. Bury,' Bristol, 1720, included the extant portions of her diary, the funeral sermon, a life by her husband, and an elegy

Elegy

In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...

by Dr. Watts.