Berkeley, Frances (1634–After 1695)
Berkeley, Frances (1634–After 1695)
American supporter of the Green Spring faction. Name variations: Lady Frances Berkeley; Frances Culpeper. Born Frances Culpeper, baptized May 27, 1634, in Kent, England; died at Green Spring, Virginia, after 1695; buried at Jamestown; dau. of Thomas and Katherine (St. Leger) Culpeper; cousin of Thomas, Lord Culpeper (colonial governor); m. Samuel Stephens (governor of Albemarle settlement in North Carolina and owner of Roanoke Island), 1652 (died Dec 1669); m. Sir William Berkeley (governor of Virginia), 1670 (died 1677); m. Philip Ludwell, c. 1680; no children.
Wife of 3 colonial governors, was a considerable political force in Virginia; immigrated with family to Virginia colony (1650); when her cousin Nathaniel Bacon headed a revolt against her husband (1676), returned to England with husband to lobby on his behalf at the court; on her return, discovered that husband's plantation at Green Spring near Jamestown had been reduced to shambles by Bacon's Rebellion (1677); led the "Greenspring faction" to violently retaliate against the followers of Bacon; following husband's death, married Colonel Philip Ludwell of Rich Neck plantation, her late husband's chief supporter, and thwarted royal representatives from imposing arbitrary measures on the Virginia colony.