Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library of Essential Works & Printed Writings, 1500-1640: Series I, Part One – serie

Elizabeth Cary (c.1585-1639) was an accomplished scholar of languages and theology. Her considerable strength of character was demonstrated by her public conversion to Catholicism in 1625 thereby creating an irrevocable rift in her marriage and her family. Her biography, written by her daughter, says she wrote ’for her private recreation’ and mentions various works, now lost, including the lives of saints, and poems to the Virgin Mary. She is best known today, however, for the works reproduced here.

Anne Askew (1521-1546) was accused of heresy because of her denial of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and ritual of mass. These two works provide an extremely rare autobiographical account of heresy interrogations, torture, trial and conviction. Her manuscripts were smuggled out of England to John Bale on the Continent who edited and published them in 1545 and 1546 respectively.

Elizabeth Cary (c.1585-1639) was an accomplished scholar of languages and theology. Her considerable strength of character was demonstrated by her public conversion to Catholicism in 1625 thereby creating an irrevocable rift in her marriage and her family. Her biography, written by her daughter, says she wrote ’for her private recreation’ and mentions various works, now lost, including the lives of saints, and poems to the Virgin Mary. She is best known today, however, for the works reproduced here.

The sixth and last queen of Henry VIII, and friend of Anne Askew, Katherine Parr (c.1513-1548) has a threefold claim to recognition for her contribution to the literary culture of her time. First, as a loving and adept stepmother to the royal children, who took a directive role in their education; second, as the patroness of a circle of Protestant humanist intellectuals who spearheaded the translation of Erasmus’s Latin Paraphrase upon the newe testamente; and third, as the author of the two vernacular religious works reproduced here, which established her as the earliest woman writer in English to see original works reach print and bear her name.

Jane Anger her Protection for Women A Mouzell for Melastomus Ester hath hang’d Haman The Worming of a mad Dogge Of the many tracts in defence of women published in early modern England only these four bear women’s names. All four were written in response to misogynist attacks. Of these writers, only Speght (1597-c.1630) is historically identifiable. Two or possibly three of the others use pseudonyms and indeed their gender has not yet been definitely established.

The one work traditionally attributed to Susan DuVerger is her Admirable Events (1639) - a translation of a collection of novellas by Jean Pierre Camus, a French Catholic Bishop - which she dedicated to Queen Henrietta Maria. There is some evidence however to suggest that she was the author of several other works. What little is known of her is based on her literary production - various factors suggest that she was an English Catholic who spent time in exile in France during the Civil War.

Mary Sidney (1562-1620), Countess of Pembroke, was born into one of England’s most prominent literary and political families. She was fluent in at least three languages and was an accomplished translator and poet. Her two translations from the French, A Discourse of Life and Death, by Philippe de Mornay, and Antonius, a TragÅ“die, by Robert Garnier were published together in 1592 by William Ponsonby. That combined volume is reprinted here.

Alice Sutcliffe was married in 1624 (her birth and death dates are not known, nor her exact marriage date) to John Sutcliffe who was Esquire to the Body of James I. He later became Groom of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Chamber at the Court of Charles I and it is suggested by some of her writings that Alice also had a role at Court. Meditations of Man’s Mortalitie consists of six prose meditations followed by a long poem of eighty-eight six-line stanzas on ’our losse by Adam, and our gayne by Christ’. It was dedicated to some of the most influential members of the Court, suggesting perhaps Alice’s desire to promote both herself and her husband.

The biography of Margaret Tyler remains speculative. It is known that she served the Howard family (Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk) in some capacity. Her level of education has been described as ’amazing’ for a woman who was outside of the aristocracy and possibly a middle-class servant. Her translation (published 1579 or 1580) of Diego Ortún]ez de Calahorra’s romance, Espejo de principes y cavalleros, Part I, from the original Spanish, marks not only a notable moment in book history but also the beginning of the popularity and availability of continental romance in England. Tyler was the first woman to publish a romance in England and the first English translator to work from the original Spanish. Because of the negative association of women with romance (considered a masculine domain) and the general cultural restrictions on female authorship, Tyler’s bold defence of her translation in the dedication and preface is remarkable, and as it is the earliest Englishwoman’s defence of women’s literary work, it has sometimes earned her the title of the first English feminist.

The only reliable clues available about Anne Wheathill’s life are those contained in her work, published in 1584. She describes herself as a gentlewoman, unmarried and a Protestant. She also refers to herself as poor and it has been suggested that she was one of a handful of women in Elizabeth I’s reign who attempted to earn money by writing. A handfull of holesome (though homelie) hearbs is an example of the English Reformer’s efforts to revise the Roman Catholic primers and Books of Hours to satisfy the private devotional needs of a Protestant middle class. Although Anne Wheathill apologises for her inexperience and lack of learned counsel, her text requires no apology for reprinting in this facsimile edition. It is the work of someone who has mastered the cadence of the best English religious prose of her age.

Mary Wroth (1587-1653?) was niece and god-daughter of Mary Sidney Herbert. She was married in 1604 to Sir Robert Wroth with whom she joined the Court circle of James I. In 1618 she began work on her enormous prose romance The Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania. The first known work of original fiction by an Englishwoman it reflects her experience as an eyewitness to the turbulent Jacobean Court. Drawing upon a wide range of reading Wroth created a vast encyclopedic romance with a network of women placed at the centre. Its publication swiftly unleashed a storm of criticism from powerful noblemen who attacked Wroth for depicting their private lives under the guise of fiction. When protests reached the King, Wroth wrote a letter of disclaimer to George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham, in which she stated that copies ’were solde against my minde I never purposing to have had them published’. She explained that she had stopped the sale of the book and asked for the King’s warrant to recover other copies. There is no evidence that the book was recalled. The 1621 edition reproduced here is a unique copy containing the author’s own handwritten revisions.