Elizabeth Cresswell (c. 1625 – c. 1698), also known as Mother Creswell and Madam Cresswell of Clerkenwell, was one of the most successful prostitutes and brothel keepers of the English seventeenth century. Starting with houses in Bartholomew Close, in the City of London and St Leonard's, Shoreditch, she built a widespread network of brothels across London, supplied with girls and women from across England. Her employees included the wives of soldiers pressed into service for Charles II and gentlewomen who had supported the Cavalier cause during the English Civil War and had since fallen on hard times. Her bawdy houses were favoured by King Charles and his court as well as powerful figures in government and city guilds. This position gave her a measure of immunity from prosecution and added to her profile as a caricature of iniquity and corruption.
During the Bawdy House Riots of 1668, apprentices smashed up brothels across London, including those belonging to Cresswell. She is listed as one of the addressers of the satirical Whores' Petition, sent to Lady Castlemaine, the King's courtesan. The letter requests help for the "sister" prostitutes who have had their livelihoods destroyed, asking that the brothels be rebuilt with money from the national tax coffers. Supporter of the prominent Whig, anti-Catholic, and anti-Carolean Thomas Player, Cresswell financed his political campaigns. In her final years she was attacked by both Protestants and Catholics: by Protestants for providing the royal court with whores, and by Catholics for financing Player's political rebellion.
Cresswell occupied a rare position in seventeenth-century England, as a person of common birth who rose to a position of high status as an independently wealthy, unmarried woman running a substantial business enterprise. She figures in a wide assortment of contemporary literature and songs, in ballads, poems, broadsides, novels and party pamphlets, often portrayed as a caricature of vice, a satirical figure of street commentary, sexual theatre and political bawdry.
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ElizabethCresswell (c. 1625 – c. 1698), also known as Mother Creswell and Madam Cresswell of Clerkenwell, was one of the most successful prostitutes and...
the most successful and famous prostitutes of the 17th century. ElizabethCresswell was one of the most successful prostitutes and brothel keepers of...
Governors. In the late 17th century, the infamous London brothel keeper ElizabethCresswell was incarcerated in Bridewell Prison, possibly for reneging on a...
reappeared with a reputation to match that of Needham. Damaris Page ElizabethCresswell Dolly was a cant term for hemp: to mill dolly was to beat hemp in...
there were a number of very famous woman brothel owners, such as ElizabethCresswell and Damaris Page who rose socially because their clients included...
Conventacles, etc.' Prostitutes and brothel owners such as Damaris Page and ElizabethCresswell who had been affected by the riots published The Poor Whores' Petition...
Damaris Page and ElizabethCresswell and the writer of The Wandering Whore, John Garfield. Whilst in Newgate, Fotheringham, Page and Cresswell conspired to...
April 2022. Elizabeth Kerr Lyell Cresswell: a personal tribute on Five Lines, 12 April 2022 Lyell Cresswell discography at Discogs Lyell Cresswell at IMDb...
posthumously, 1888). She did not marry. Rachel Elizabeth Fry (1803–1888); married to Francis Cresswell. John Gurney Fry of Warley Lodge (1804–1872), married...
Cresswell, Esq. (born 1789) and Rachel Elizabeth Fry (born 1803, London, Middlesex, daughter of Elizabeth Fry). Cresswell had two older brothers (Frank Joseph...
for the rest of her life. Like other high profile bawds such as ElizabethCresswell, Page was almost as famous as the politicians of her time. The subject...
rebel cause, he was allowed American exile. Together with his wife, ElizabethCresswell, and six children, he sailed for Norfolk, Virginia. Glendy became...
the bricks to build his house. The following year he married Elizabeth R. Thompson. Cresswell probably did little farming because he was first and foremost...
Jeremy Michael Cresswell CVO (born 1 October 1949) is a British former diplomat who was High Commissioner to Jamaica and the Bahamas from 2005 to 2009...
Zagreb Trams for Several Days". Total Croatia News – via Poslovni dnevnik. Cresswell, P. J. (November 10, 2022). "Kate Beckinsale hangs from a drone while...
had taken in Mary Cresswell and after he died she was looked after by Lettice. Lettice was alarmed when she discovered that Cresswell was set on becoming...
Gloucestershire. Anne had married Cresswell in good faith and had borne him two children but another woman, his cousin Elizabeth Scrope, sued on the grounds...
A Marine lawyer, who later became chief of staff under Chegwidden and Cresswell, partnered with "Harm" and became his best friend and constantly dealt...
Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion DNZM (born 30 April 1954) is a New Zealand filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing the critically acclaimed...
The procession for the coronation of Elizabeth II was an element of the ceremony in which court, clerical, governmental, and parliamentary officials from...
Reward". Sydney Morning Herald. 15 June 1059. Retrieved 16 March 2021. Cresswell, Frances (1955). Old Homes: Lyttelton Harbour. Christchurch, New Zealand:...
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