Outside of Pocahontas, Frances Berkeley is the best-known seventeenth-century Virginia female figure. Of course, unlike most other Virginia women of the time, she made sure her voice was heard and acknowledged at all times. There are three reasons this was possible. First, she came from an ancient English family, and was thus raised to expect others to hear and listen to her. She also married well, providing a prominent position in Virginia as well as in England. Finally, Virginia's seventeenth century was a rare and ripe time for some females to develop their own agency, and express their own will.

Such women were often capable of achieving goals that would be impossible in other places and times. This had something to do with Virginia's legal system being in a state of flux during the period, and also because there was generally a shortage of females. At least one male visitor to Virginia remarked on how the colony's women -- due to their rarity and desirability -- could have their way in any situation. Frances certainly played her numerous advantages to their fullest extent.

She was the youngest of five children. Her father was one of the original proprietors of Virginia's Northern Neck, bestowed upon him by Charles II, who was then neither ruling nor a king, but was rather in exile on the Continent. Her family emigrated to Virginia in 1650, fleeing the rule of Cromwell that followed the execution of King Charles I. She was sixteen at the time, and two years later she married Samuel Stephens, who was the governor of what would become North Carolina.

Frances was known for her vivaciousness and natural intelligence, so when Stephens died in 1669, Virginia's Governor Sir William Berkeley began to woo her. Within six months of her husband's death she married the governor and became mistress of Greenspring, Berkeley's plantation, which was considered the finest in the colony. Today some are critical and shocked by the idea of Frances marrying three times. This was not an unusual life path for any Virginia woman. Mortality rates were high across the socio-economic lines, and it was more typical than strange for both men and women to marry a multitude of times, blending families as the years passed. In the case of Frances, there would be no children.

In 1676, her young cousin, Nathaniel Bacon, for whom she had made special efforts to help settle and prosper in Virginia, raised a rebellion against Governor Berkeley, the latter of whom dispatched his wife to England to seek assistance in putting down the rebellion. She returned the following year with one thousand troops. What she found was chaos. The Greenspring plantation had been leveled and Bacon was dead. Furious, she led the investigation surrounding the rebellion, including approving of a number of random hangings and confiscation of property from those under suspicion.

Later on, Charles II sent a party of commissioners to investigate not only Bacon's Rebellion, but the actions taken in its aftermath. Frances was dismissive of the royal commission and blatantly disobeyed and rejected their authority. Governor Berkeley was invited by the commission to return to England and explain himself to Charles II. He died while he was there. Upon word of her husband's death, Frances immediately married Colonel Philip Ludwell, who was politically powerful, wealthy, and an ally of her husband's. She continued to use the title Lady Berkeley, and remained a powerful force in Virginia politics.