Mary Cromwell, Countess Fauconberg

Mary Cromwell, Countess Fauconberg (9 February 1637 (christened) – 14 March 1713) was an English noblewoman, the third daughter of Oliver Cromwell and his wife Elizabeth Bourchier.^[1]

The Right Honourable The Countess Fauconberg
portrait miniature by Samuel Cooper
Baptised	9 February 1637
Died	14 March 1713
Burial place	St Nicholas Church, Chiswick
Spouse	Thomas Belasyse, 1st Earl Fauconberg
Parent(s)	Oliver Cromwell Elizabeth Bourchier
Relatives	Cromwell family

Biography

Born in either late 1636 or early 1637, Mary Cromwell was christened on 9 February 1637.^[1] On 19 November 1657 she married Thomas Belasyse, 1st Earl Fauconberg (then Viscount Fauconberg), at Hampton Court, and became a Viscountess (later Countess Fauconberg in 1689).^[2] Fauconberg had been previously married to Mildred Saunderson, who had died.^[3] Lady Fauconberg's residence in London was Fauconberg House which was on the north side of Sutton Street, and on the eastern side of Soho Square.^[4]

It has been claimed that, when her father's body was disinterred and symbolically executed at the Restoration, Mary bribed some guards to substitute another body for Cromwell's^[5] and to give her the real body, which she arranged to have buried at Newburgh Priory, the family seat of the Fauconbergs.^[6]

She died on 14 March 1713 in Sutton Manor in Little Sutton, Chiswick, at the age of 76, and was buried on 24 March in the church of St. Nicholas Church, Chiswick, the district where she had lived since 1676.^[4][7]

Portrait painting by circle of Thomas Murray, c. 1700