Elizabeth Zouche

Elizabeth Zouche (before 1496 – after 1553), was an English abbess. She was the last abbess of Shaftesbury Abbey, a Benedictine nunnery founded by Alfred the Great which was one of the largest and richest in England. She signed the deed of surrender on 23 March 1539 which brought the 650 year life of the abbey to an abrupt end and granted all its property and wealth to Henry VIII. Life Elizabeth Zouche came from a noble family with lands in the vicinity of Shaftesbury and was known to have been a novice at the abbey in 1496. Abbess She was elected as the abbess in 1529, succeeding Elizabeth Shelford who died in 1528. By the time she became abbess, the train of events leading to the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the demise of the abbey was already underway. Having assented to the Act of Supremacy in 1534, Elizabeth Zouche and the nuns at Shaftesbury were visited by two commissions of enquiry in the following year, looking at the wealth and morality of the abbey. Shaftesbury was at this time the second richest nunnery in England. When the dissolution process began in 1536, as one of the larger abbeys, Shaftesbury was not immediately affected, but there was some impact as the abbess took in the prioress and two nuns displaced from a small Benedictine house in Somerset.