Elizabeth Craven, Baroness Craven (1750–1828)

Baroness Craven was born Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, the daughter of Augustus Berkeley, 4th Earl of Berkeley, and his wife Elizabeth Drax. In 1767, she married William Craven, 6th Baron Craven. They had seven children but the marriage was unhappy and they separated in 1780. Elizabeth Lady Craven was a friend of many literary figures of the day, including Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, and Horace Walpole, who published her early works. She produced satires, plays, musical compositions, and her memoirs, but was best-known for her travel writing. She was an insatiable traveller and gossip, driving the length of Europe and to Russia and Turkey. For several years, she was a lover of Charles Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a cousin of King George III, to whom she wrote lively letters on her many trips. They finally married in 1791, following the death of Elizabeth Craven's first husband. She was usually known after that as the Margravine of Ansbach. She first visited the Kingdom of Naples in 1789 and became part of the circle of English aristocrats, diplomats, and ex-pats living there, including Lord and Lady Hamilton. She moved permanently to Naples in 1806 on the death of her second husband.