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'Brilliana, Lady Harley' was born in 1598 at Brill, Leiden, in the Netherlands while her father Sir Sir Edward Conway (later Viscount Conway) was governor there. She married (as his third wife), Sir Robert Harley (1579-1656) in 1623, and he served as her father's aide in the Parliament of England, while her father was Secretary of State of England.
Some 375 of her letters to her husband and her son Edward Harley survive and show her to be an educated literary woman, at home in several languages. She was able to keep her husband informed of local political affairs when he was absent from home, attending Parliament or for other reasons, and organised the collection on information locally for the Parliamenrary Committee on Scandalous Ministers.
During the English Civil War, in the absence of her husband and sons, she defended her home, Brampton Bryan Castle during a seven week siege by Royalist troops until the troops withdrew because they were needed at Gloucester. She then compelled her tenants to level the Royalist siege earthworks. She also dispatched 40 troops to raid a local Royalist camp at Knighton. She died of pneumonia on 29 October 1643.