She lived in London and her life was recorded in detail as neighboring parishes tried to avoid her being dependant on their charity.
Her mother's name is not recorded, but after her father died she remarried to a man called William Shell who was a capper.
[1] In 1571 under the reign of Elizabeth I a new law was passed requiring men to wear a thick knitted cap every Sunday with a penalty fine of 3s/4d for anyone who failed to comply.
Cowper herself realised at this time that the capping business was in decline but she stuck with it until the 1590s when she was about thirty and out of work.
She was twelve years with a costermonger named Goodwife Cleere and then as a servant for the Dutch Rossendale family until the recently widowed father decided to return to the continent.