Early Modern Women's Letter Writing, 1450-1700 (Early Modern Literature in History)

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Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, 1450–1700 Edited by James Daybell

Early Modern Literature in History

Within the period 1520–1740 this series discusses many kinds of writing, both within and outside the established canon. The volumes may employ different theoretical perspectives, but they share an historical awareness and an interest in seeing their texts in lively negotiation with their own and successive cultures. Titles include: Anna R. Beer

SIR WALTER RALEGH AND HIS READERS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Speaking to the People

Cedric C. Brown and Arthur F. Marotti (editors)

TEXTS AND CULTURAL CHANGE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

Martin Butler (editor)

RE-PRESENTING BEN JONSON

Text, History, Performance

Jocelyn Catty

WRITING RAPE, WRITING WOMEN IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

Unbridled Speech

Danielle Clarke and Elizabeth Clarke (editors)

‘THIS DOUBLE VOICE’

Gendered Writing in Early Modern England

James Daybell (editor)

EARLY MODERN WOMEN’S LETTER WRITING, 1450–1700

John Dolan

POETIC OCCASION FROM MILTON TO WORDSWORTH

Henk Dragstra, Sheila Ottway and Helen Wilcox (editors)

BETRAYING OUR SELVES

Forms of Self-Representation in Early Modern English Texts

Pauline Kiernan

STAGING SHAKESPEARE AT THE NEW GLOBE

Ronald Knowles (editor)

SHAKESPEARE AND CARNIVAL

After Bakhtin

James Loxley

ROYALISM AND POETRY IN THE ENGLISH CIVIL WARS

The Drawn Sword

10.1057/9780230598669 - Early Modern Women's Letter Writing, 1450-1700, Edited by James Daybell

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-19

General Editor: Cedric C. Brown Professor of English and Head of Department, University of Reading

Arthur F. Marotti (editor)

CATHOLICISM AND ANTI-CATHOLICISM IN EARLY MODERN

ENGLISH TEXTS

The series Early Modern Literature in History is published in association with the Renaissance Texts Research Centre at the University of Reading.

Early Modern Literature in History Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71472–5 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England



Mark Thornton Burnett

MASTERS AND SERVANTS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE DRAMA AND CULTURE

Authority and Obedience

Edited by

James Daybell Research Fellow in History University of Reading



Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, 1450–1700

Selection, editorial matter and Chapters 1 and 5 © James Daybell 2001 Chapters 2–4 and 6–13 © Palgrave Publishers Ltd 2001

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0–333–94579–4 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Early modern women’s letter writing, 1450–1700 / edited by James Daybell. p. cm. — (Early modern literature in history)

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 0–333–94579–4

1. English letters—Women authors—History and criticism.

2. English letters—Early modern, 1500–1700—History and

criticism. 3. English letters—Middle English, 1100–1500–

–History and criticism. 4. Women and literature—Great Britain–

–History—17th century. 5. Women and literature—Great Britain–

–History—16th century. 6. Women and literature—Great Britain–

–History—To 1500. 7. Letter writing, English—History. I. Daybell,

James, 1972– II. Early modern literature in history (Palgrave (Firm))

PR914 .E2 2001 826.009’9287—dc21 2001021877 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 Printed in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire



All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.


For Ralph Houlbrooke



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Acknowledgements

ix

List of Abbreviations

xi

Notes on the Contributors

xiii

1 Introduction James Daybell

1

2 Reaction, Consolation and Redress in the Letters of the Paston Women Roger Dalrymple

16

3 Letter-Writing by English Noblewomen in the Early Fifteenth Century Jennifer C. Ward

29

4 Commanding Communications: the Fifteenth-Century Letters of the Stonor Women Alison Truelove

42

5 Female Literacy and the Social Conventions of Women's Letter-Writing in England, 1540±1603 James Daybell

59

6 Deference and De®ance in Women's Letters of the Thynne Family: the Rhetoric of Relationships Alison Wall

77

7 Fighting for Family in a Patronage Society: the Epistolary Armoury of Anne Newdigate (1574±1618) Vivienne Larminie

94

8 `How Subject to Interpretation': Lady Arbella Stuart and the Reading of Illness Sara Jayne Steen

109

9 Tudor and Stuart Women: their Lives through their Letters Rosemary O'Day

127

vii



Contents

viii Contents

11

12

13

143

`Doe not supose me a well mortifyed Nun dead to the world': Letter-Writing in Early Modern English Convents Claire Walker

159

Gentle Companions: Single Women and their Letters in Late Stuart England Susan Whyman

177

`Begging pardon for all mistakes or errors in this writeing I being a woman & doing itt myselfe': Family Narratives in some Early Eighteenth-Century Letters Anne Laurence

194

Index

207



10 Patriarchy, Puritanism and Politics: the Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley (1598±1643) Jacqueline Eales

This book of essays represents the fruits of a collaborative project of about four years' duration. In the late 1990s it became apparent to me and some others that, despite the huge amount of new work on women, including those living in the early modern period, much was still unexplored about their letter-writing. Yet the potential ®eld is very large indeed and of much interest to scholars in different disciplines. Accordingly, a dedicated group of seminars was set up within the fourth international Literature and History conference at Reading, in July 1998, as a ®rst means of bringing interested scholars from Britain, the United States and Australia together. This group of sessions was entitled `Privy and Powerful Communications: Women's Letters and Letter-Writing in England 1450±1700'. My thanks are due not only to those who presented papers at the event but also to those who provided informed support at the conference: Toby Barnard, Phillipa Hardman and Anthea Hume. During the conference it became apparent that there was much enthusiasm for the project, and plans were formed to build further on the work and to produce a broadly based book which could offer a review of an exciting ®eld. Consequently, delegates agreed to revise and augment their contributions in the light of discussions at the conference, and new contributions were sought to strengthen the volume, producing the present essays from Roger Dalrymple, Sara Jayne Steen and Susan Whyman. As editor, I would like to thank the various collaborators over the whole period of the development of the book for their enthusiasm and dedication to the venture. I should also enter a note of regret, that two contributions presented at the 1998 conference had already been committed to publication elsewhere: Susan Doran's Èlizabeth I's Religion: Clues from Her Letters', Journal of Ecclesiastical History (2001), and Karen Robertson's `Tracing Women's Connections from a Letter of Elizabeth Lady Ralegh', in Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women's Alliances in Early Modern England, eds Karen Robertson and Susan Frye (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 149±64. For continued encouragement, guidance and advice concerning the book I am grateful to Cedric Brown, general editor of the Early Modern Literature in History series, and to Eleanor Birne at Palgrave and Barbara Slater for assistance with the ®nal submission. To my family, Anthea Platt and Roger Dalrymple I give affectionate thanks for all their encouragement. ix



Acknowledgements

I would also like to thank Ross Aldrich, Jonathan Bell, Martin Simpson, Alan Stewart, and above all Heather Wolfe, for their support in the ®nal stages of preparing this book. My deepest personal gratitude, however, goes to Ralph Houlbrooke who was involved at every stage of the project, from its inception as a conference, through the intricacies of publishing contracts, to completion as a volume. His generosity, enthusiasm, friendship and counsel have made the whole process all the more easy. It is to him that this book is dedicated, as an outstanding supervisor and exemplary scholar. J.R.T.D



x Acknowledgements

BL BL Add. MS BL Cott. MS BL Eg. MS BL Harl. MS BL Lansd. MS Bodl. CKS CSP CUL CUP DNB EETS EHR EcHR Folger GLRO HC 1558±1603 HJ HMC HMSO Kendal RO LPL LSE MSS N&Q NRA NRO NUL OED OUP P&P PRO PRO SP 10 PRO SP 12

British Library British Library, Additional MS British Library, Cottonian MS British Library, Egerton MS British Library, Harleian MS British Library, Lansdowne MS Bodleian Library, Oxford Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone Calendar of State Papers Cambridge University Library Cambridge University Press Dictionary of National Biography Early English Text Society English Historical Review Economic History Review Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington Greater London Record Of®ce The House of Commons 1558±1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 3 vols (London: History of Parliament Trust, 1981) Historical Journal Historical Manuscripts Commission Her Majesty's Stationery Of®ce Kendal Record Of®ce, Cumbria Lambeth Palace Library Leeds Studies in English Manuscripts Notes and Queries National Register of Archives Norfolk Record Of®ce, Norwich Nottingham University Library Oxford English Dictionary Oxford University Press Past and Present Public Record Of®ce, Kew Public Record Of®ce, State Papers, Domestic, Edward VI Public Record Of®ce, State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth xi



List of Abbreviations

PRO SP 15 PRO SP 46 RES RH RO Staffs. RO TRHS WCRO YAS

Public Record Of®ce, State Papers, Domestic, Addenda Public Record Of®ce, State Papers, Domestic, Supplementary Review of English Studies Recusant History Record Of®ce Staffordshire Record Of®ce Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Warwickshire County Record Of®ce Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Leeds

Original spelling has been retained throughout in quotations from manuscripts. Symbols are used where quoting from editions to replicate the editorial practices employed.



xii List of Abbreviations

Roger Dalrymple is Rosemary Woolf Lecturer in Medieval Literature at Somerville College, Oxford. He is author of Language and Piety in Middle English Romance (2000) and of articles on fourteenth- and ®fteenthcentury poetry. James Daybell is a Research Fellow in History at the University of Reading. His doctoral thesis is on `Women's Letters and Letter-Writing in England, 1540±1603' (University of Reading, 1999). He has published several articles and is currently working on a book, Women Letter-Writers in Tudor England. Jacqueline Eales is a Reader in History at Canterbury Christ Church University College. She has written Puritans and Roundheads (1990), on the Harley family, and Women in Early Modern England, 1500±1700 (1998). She currently works on political preaching in the English Civil Wars. Vivienne Larminie is a Research Editor of the New Dictionary of National Biography, and author of Wealth, Kinship and Culture: the Seventeenth Century Newdigates and their World (1995). Her current research interests include male and female piety in Vaud, Switzerland. Anne Laurence is Senior Lecturer in History at the Open University. She has published articles on various aspects of women's lives in the British Isles in the early modern period and is author of Women in England 1500±1760: a Social History (1994). Rosemary O'Day is Professor of History and Director of the Charles Booth Centre at the Open University. Recent books include The Family and Family Relationships (1994) and The Professions in Early Modern England, 1450±1800: Servants of the Commonweal (2000). Sara Jayne Steen, Professor and Chair of English at Montana State University, is the author of books and articles on early modern theatre and women writers; currently she is co-editing an interdisciplinary special issue of Quidditas on early modern women.

xiii



Notes on the Contributors

xiv Notes on the Contributors

Claire Walker lectures in the History Department at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She researches early modern women's religious houses in France and the Low Countries, and she is currently completing Gender and Politics in Seventeenth-Century English Convents. Alison Wall was Senior Lecturer in History, University of Sidney, and Lecturer in Modern History at Christ Church, Oxford. She has published articles and a book on politics, articles on marriage and women's role, and Two Elizabethan Women: Correspondence of Joan and Maria Thynne 1575±1611, Wiltshire Record Society, 38 (1983). Jennifer C. Ward was Senior Lecturer in History at Goldsmiths College, University of London, until her retirement in 1999. She is author of English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (1992), and edited Women of the English Nobility and Gentry 1066±1500 (1995). Susan Whyman's PhD is from Princeton University. Her publications include Sociability and Power (1999) and ```Paper Visits'': the PostRestoration Letter as Seen through the Verney Family Archive' in Epistolary Selves, ed. R. Earle (1999).



Alison Truelove is completing an edition of the Stonor Letters for her doctoral thesis, while teaching medieval literature in the Department of English at Royal Holloway, University of London.

1

James Daybell

Right wurshipfull husbonde, I recomaunde me vnto you. Plesith you to witte that myn avnte Mondeforthe hath desiryd me to write to you besechyng you that dyee wol wechesafe to chevesshe for her at London xxti marke for to be payed to Mastre Ponyngys outher on Saterday or Sonday, weche schalbe Seint Andrwes Daye, in discharchyng of them that be bounden to Mastre Ponyngys of the seide xxti marke for the wardeship of here doughter . . . As towchyng for your leveryes, ther can noon be gete heere of that coloure that ye wolde haue of nouther murrey nor blwe nor goode russettys vndrenethe iij s. the yerde at the lowest price, and yet is ther not j-nough of on clothe and coloure to serue you. And as for to be purveid in Suffolk it wolnot be purveide nought now ayenst this tyme wythoute they had had warnyng at Michelmesse, as I am enformed. And the blissed TrenyteÂ haue you in his kepyng. Wreten at Norweche on Seint Kateryn Day. Be your Margaret Paston (Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 25 Nov. [1460])1

Dear Sister . . . I am in hopes your King of France behaves better than our Duke of Bedford, who by the care of a pious Mother certainly preserv'd his Virginity to his marriage bed, where he was so much disapointed in his fair Bride (who tho Ã his own Inclination could not bestow on him those expressless Raptures he had ®gur'd himselfe) that he allready Pukes at the very name of her, and determines to let his Estate go to his Brother, rather than go through the ®lthy Drudgery of getting an Heir to it. N.B. 1



Introduction

This is true History and I think the most extrodinary has happen'd in this last age. This comes of living till sixteen without a competent knowledge either of practical or speculative Anatomy, and litterally thinking ®ne Ladys compos'd of Lillys and Roses . . . Adieu, Dear Sister, I take a sincere part in all that relates to you, and am ever yours. I beg as the last favour that you would make some small Enquiry and let me know the minute Lord Finch is at Paris. (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Frances, Countess of Mar [1725])2 These extracts from the letters of two well-known female correspondents, each from opposite ends of our chronological spectrum, well illustrate the development of women's letter-writing over the period and the diversity of individual experience. Written in the mid-®fteenth century, Margaret Paston's dictated letter to her husband represents a functional or pragmatic mode of correspondence concerned almost exclusively with business. Despite elements of colloquialism, the formal style of the letter impedes any emotive or affective content. By contrast, Lady Mary Montagu's early eighteenth-century holograph epistle to her sister is gossipy, rather risqueÂ and perhaps intentionally humorous. It displays greater informality of purpose and appears more open and intimate, attaining an almost literary quality. Nonetheless, even for the eighteenth century this letter is exceptional: few women can have written with such freedom on a man's attitude to sexual activity. Less interested than Margaret Paston in letters as a means of transacting and conveying instructions, Lady Montagu utilised correspondence as a vehicle for lengthy description, narrative and travelwriting. It provided a creative outlet for a woman impelled to write and èntertain' an audience.3 While the Pastons preserved letters as legal evidence, Lady Montagu was conscious that her own letters would record her literary achievements as a serious writer: her Turkish Embassy letters were reworked from originals, organised into albums and published posthumously a year after her death.4 On one level, comparison of these two seemingly disparate examples of women's correspondence indicates change in the nature of letters as documents or texts over the late medieval and early modern periods, the emergence of more personal epistolary forms, and the increasing range of private, introspective and ¯exible uses for which letters were employed. It also highlights broad variations over time in terms of levels of women's education, attitudes to literacy, letter-writing conventions, and the style and content of letters. On the other hand, evident also are the continuities of certain aspects of female experience: the centrality of family to women's lives and the enduring patterns of relationships. Of



2 Early Modern Women's Letter-Writing, 1450±1700

further signi®cance is the fact that both women were able to operate through letters, though in very different ways: while Lady Montagu wrote her own correspondence, Margaret Paston's letter was penned by Richard Calle, bailiff to the Pastons.5 The manner in which letters were constructed immediately introduces conceptual problems in terms of de®ning women's letters and assessing a signatory's control and intent. Given the restrictions on epistolary privacy, how far can a letter written by someone else, even if dictated, represent what a woman wished to have set down? Also, to what extent did methods of composition affect letters' characteristics? These are questions at the heart of this volume.6 The complexity of letters is equally clear from the contrasting examples of these two women's correspondence. Indeed, letters lend themselves to a wide range of analyses: historical, literary, lexical, palaeographic and gender-based. As social documents they are useful as indicators of female literacy, the quality of familial and other relationships, and of women's social interaction in general. They offer details of women's lives, roles and their engagement in a variety of activities, social and religious, literary and political. Studied as texts or samples of women's writing and material culture, letters exhibit examples of female self-expression. Where letters are analytical rather than merely descriptive, one can detect a degree of inwardness amidst the calculation, convention and projected personas, and observe ways in which women comprehended and articulated thoughts, emotions and experiences. In order to capture the multifaceted nature of women's letters and letter-writing, this volume embraces an interdisciplinary approach, spanning social and political history, medieval and renaissance literature, and women's studies. The study of epistolary development and social change is facilitated by its chronological organisation. Furthermore, many of the essays express other agendas, for example issues of medical theory, religion, government and politics. Taken as a whole, the volume shows that women's letter-writing during the late medieval and early modern periods was a very much larger and more socially diversi®ed area of female activity than has generally been assumed, one that extended from royal women, such as Arbella Stuart, through women of the nobility and gentry, to members of the middling classes. Women's letters, although considerably less in number than surviving men's letters, provide a rich and signi®cant corpus of female authored texts: an estimated 10 000 items of women's correspondence are extant just for the period to 1642. In terms of content, there are broad similarities between men's and women's letters ± both for example discuss matters of a public and private, domestic and political nature. However, as Anne Laurence and Rosemary O'Day argue, female letter-writers bring an



James Daybell 3

alternative viewpoint to those of men on social affairs. All in all, letters as a form of written record offer a unique perspective on late medieval and early modern women, different from both male voiced prescriptive literature as well as other àutobiographical' sources such as diaries and memoirs, which generally conform to strict religious interpretative models, and for much of the period, for women at least, either do not survive or are small in number.7 Perhaps the most fundamental factor affecting women's letter-writing over this period was the variation in levels of female literacy and education. While some women clearly could write letters, others were unable to do so. As the ®rst three essays in the volume indicate, few ®fteenth-century women were able to write or used that skill for letterwriting. Thus, like Margaret Paston, many relied on the services of amanuenses or scribes, which some scholars suggest may indicate low levels of late medieval lay literacy, especially among women.8 Indeed, Alison Truelove's analysis of the letters of the Stonor family suggests that women were more likely than men to dictate letters, rather than use their own hands. How far this re¯ects cultural practices rather than female illiteracy is hard to determine. From the sixteenth century onwards, however, women increasingly wrote their own correspondence, and several essayists discern generational differences in women's letter-writing ability. Susan Whyman, for example, notes the in¯uence of writing masters on the Verney women of the eighteenth century, whose letters display marked improvements in spelling, grammar and presentation compared with those of their relatively untutored seventeenth-century female relations. More broadly, this and other contributions indicate gradual advances towards more formalised educational provision for upper-class women generally within the household. Indeed, Vivienne Larminie remarks that the generation of Fitton girls after Anne Newdigate (d.1618) were taught by governesses or tutors. In spite of greater female facility with a pen, employment of secretaries was customary for both literate women and men throughout the early modern period. My own essay, which is focused on the years 1540 to 1603, argues that for those women capable of writing, use of personal literacy for epistolary composition was determined by social convention and shifts in letter-writing practices. It draws a fundamental distinction in the nature and purpose of writing between business correspondence, which was considered menial, routine, technical and best delegated to a secretary, and private and personal writing, which was spontaneous, intimate, creative and more likely to be written in the woman's own hand.




While the ability to write brought distinct advantages, the positive or emancipating effects of literacy on the role of women must not be exaggerated. Indeed, as inferred earlier, apparent illiteracy or inadequate penmanship did not prevent women from conducting correspondence and securing a means of written expression. Nor did it stop them from manoeuvring outside traditionally de®ned domestic spheres. Jennifer Ward in particular emphasises the power of ®fteenth-century noblewomen and their use of letters in estate management, and as religious patrons and political intermediaries. Certain scholars suggest (not uncontroversially) that if anything, female in¯uence may have in fact declined during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, because of the centralisation of government functions away from the great households and periphery and the development of increasingly sti¯ing gender codes seeking to restrict the scope of women's activities.9 Furthermore, oral modes of operation ± face to face interaction and use of messengers ± were widespread and coexisted with literate practices throughout the period.10 Letter-writers regularly entrusted further details to bearers, who also conveyed replies by word of mouth. The unwillingness to commit intelligence to paper also suggests the insecurity associated with the epistolary medium, as does Brilliana Harley's use of secret codes. It seems that in certain circumstances it was actually considered more appropriate and respectful to meet someone in person than to write them a letter.11 Clearly, however, a letter was preferable as a means of communicating information to letting it be heard by rumour. Both Roger Dalrymple and Jacqueline Eales point out that letters acting either as a way of redressing false reports or as a means of con®rmation often assumed greater authority than local rumour. Greater reliance still was placed on letters in a woman's own hand. One therefore deduces a hierarchy of methods by which information could be communicated: interview, personally written letter, dictated letter and rumour. The study of women's epistolary skills goes beyond the rudimentary analysis of writing literacy. As many of the contributions to this volume demonstrate, the physical act of writing a letter represents only a small part of the process of composition, a process demanding diverse other skills: organisation and persuasiveness, linguistic and verbal dexterity, rhetorical and social adroitness, as well as technical and legal expertise. Such skills may sometimes have been acquired through formal teaching, but often appear to have been gleaned through experience or were innate. Indeed, one detects that the cogent and persuasive letters of Anne Newdigate and the exceptional Maria Thynne owed as much to these women's natural abilities, determination and forceful personalities as



James Daybell 5

they did to tuition. What is more, writing was an activity traditionally considered separate from the intellectual pursuit of composition and, as highlighted by Alison Truelove, in dictating to amanuenses women were participating, albeit unknowingly, in a scholarly tradition.12 A number of contributors ± Roger Dalrymple, Alison Truelove and Anne Laurence ± comment on the oral quality of letters: the incidence of colloquialisms, non-standard forms and erratic or phonetic spellings.13 While in certain cases dictation may have caused letters to resemble conversation or speech, colloquial elements within correspondence also conceivably indicate a person more familiar with verbal than written media. How far oral or colloquial characteristics are distinctive of women's letters is judiciously considered by Alison Truelove in her essay on the Stonor women. Accounting for scribal in¯uence and formal stylistic constraints, she ventures that women's letters may differ lexically from men's in their adoption of new and unusual linguistic forms apparently encountered in everyday speech. Thus, women are portrayed as innovators of linguistic development. However, she is also careful to argue that there is limited evidence of a speci®cally female style and that structure and language was often conditioned more by social status and circumstance than by gender. By analysing examples of correspondence from women of different backgrounds Truelove argues that the letters of gentlewomen are more formally stylised and less in¯uenced by spoken colloquialisms than those of women of mercantile origins. This essay should be read alongside Roger Dalrymple's piece on the Paston women's letters, which explores the balance between oral and literary in¯uences. For Dr Dalrymple it is the colloquial aspects of the letters that are most revealing, unaffected as they are by the rigid formulae of the ars dictaminis. Compared with the literary commonplaces of consolatory piety, they permit glimpses of `reaction', a more emotive, unmeasured mode of writing. A related issue is the degree to which letters can be considered personal, or in other words private and self-re¯ective. In the ®rst instance, the style and character of letters are linked to epistolary conventions, which underwent marked change over the period. Indeed, Jennifer Ward suggests that the apparent stiffness of late medieval correspondence re¯ects a greater emphasis on formality than in early modern England. This echoes Ralph Houlbrooke's argument that humanist letter-writing manuals encouraged `the cultivation of an easy, intimate style, and the expression of individual feelings of affection', gradually supplanting medieval epistolary forms which accentuated distinctions between superiors and subordinates within the family.14 Thus, while in 1484




Margaret Cely wrote to her husband as `Ryght [re]uer[en]d and worchupfull Ser', more informal modes of address were employed by women from the sixteenth century onwards.15 Certainly by the seventeenth century wives' use of endearing terms and egalitarian forms of Christian names, in the manner of Maria Thynne's `sweet thomken', was not that rare, despite puritan precepts which counselled deference.16 Rosemary O'Day notes similar differences in convention within the Clifford and Bagot collections. These examples further illustrate change in the nature of letters as a source. However, it is less clear how far developments in epistolary convention represent wider social change in the quality of relationships. Equally hard to establish are the precise ways in which letter-writing conventions were disseminated among women. Evidence of female readership of epistolary manuals is slight, though Jacqueline Eales describes Brilliana Harley's citation of Senecan epistles in her commonplace book. Alison Wall states that even if Maria Thynne had been aware of the model letters outlined in books such as Angel Day's The English Secretorie (1586) her letters showed little or no sign of their in¯uence. Instead women's familiarity with conventions, as Alison Truelove suggests, is more likely to stem from contact with the form, through receiving letters. A deeper question, however, is how far women's letters are mannered or sincere, whether they re¯ect true feelings or merely imitated appropriate styles. Is there a sense in which there was a formality in being informal, an affectation of being affectionate? How should one interpret the commonplace voices of maternal counsel and command, daughterly obedience and wifely duty? Perhaps most interesting is where letter writers deviate from standard forms and phrases. The nature of correspondence is also closely linked to the mechanics of letter-writing: the manner of composition and dispatch. Use of amanuenses denied women the epistolary privacy achieved by those who conducted correspondence in their own hands. Although dictation might record the words a woman wished to have set down, the collaborative process, on the other hand, if not always involving secretarial input, certainly constrained female correspondents and led to self-censorship on their part.17 Reluctance to entrust more intimate sentiments to a scribe, or indeed to a letter, further accounts for the relatively impersonal, detached nature of late medieval correspondence. Where women wrote their own letters or even merely penned a postscript, this resulted in freer forms of expression, un®ltered by a third party. Rising female literacy over the period therefore promoted greater con®dentiality and led to more intimate and privy communications.18 Concomitantly, women utilised



James Daybell 7

letters for an increasing range of purposes, both formal and informal, pragmatic and introspective. Susan Whyman, for example, argues that for the single women of the Verney family, letters performed an almost cathartic function, acting as a means of unburdening or release and selfjusti®cation. Likewise, Alison Wall's study of the Thynnes, and Elizabeth Bourne's letter of rebuke to Lady Conway quoted in my own essay reveal women employing letters to snub and issue insults. The apparent immediacy of such letters contrasts with the degrees of calculation and arti®ce evident in letters produced under different circumstances. Correspondence written spontaneously in the heat of anger and passion, close to important events, or in haste enforced by a bearer's imminent departure allowed little time for re¯ection. A more purposeful approach to letter-writing is encountered in Vivienne Larminie's essay, which highlights the fact that Anne Newdigate corrected drafts of petitions for her son's wardship. The image of herself as a mother who breast fed or `nursed' her children appears deliberate and was in fact reworked.19 Similarly, Lady Arbella Stuart circumspectly drafted and revised her own correspondence in order to fashion a carefully constructed persona, as depicted by Sara Jayne Steen. A study of successive drafts of Stuart's letters is particularly telling of initial reactions in that it discloses passages lost by subsequent amendments and the toning down of language and phraseology considered inappropriate, perhaps too hastily or rashly applied to paper. Moreover, Professor Steen's essay raises further issues about the interpretation of women's letters as texts capable of complex or multiple readings. In her analysis of illness in Arbella Stuart's letters, Steen investigates the competing balance between impulsiveness and calculation in her writing, assessing the extent to which complaints of ill health appear genuine or in actual fact represent political strategy. This and other essays alert us to the importance of contextualisation, the circumstances in which letters were produced, the desirability of reconstructing, where possible, both sides of an epistolary exchange and the need to examine letters side by side with other types of documentary evidence: diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, wills and account books. As Rosemary O'Day reminds us, letters are not isolated texts. Thus, Steen's interrogation of Arbella Stuart's own writings is complemented by scrutiny of medical treatises, contemporary accounts and other correspondence, in order better to elucidate the way in which Stuart understood and used her illness, and how others perceived her behaviour. Anne Laurence further draws to our attention the theoretical and methodological challenges of reading the complex narratives contained in the women's letters to the




Tory high churchman John Walker, letters which recorded the sufferings of family members who were royalist clergymen during the civil war. Dr Laurence argues that the letters exhibit similar problems to those encountered in oral testimony and witchcraft accounts, stressing the use of common devices to emphasise and heighten descriptions of hardship and suffering. The interpretative complications discussed by Steen and Laurence are matched by the problems of how to read women's use of overtly submissive or deferential language ± whether as convention, device or as symptomatic of women's feelings of inferiority to men. Many of the contributions to this volume suggest that images of female weakness and incapacity were employed by women to their own advantage. Vivienne Larminie argues that Anne Newdigate's portrayal of herself as a defenceless woman belies the overall con®dence and self-assurance conveyed by her letters. In like manner, Alison Wall notes Joan Thynne's utilisation of the `rhetoric of submission' in letters to her husband, discerning also elements of boldness and criticism. By contrast, Maria Thynne was less restrained than her mother-in-law in correspondence with her own husband and openly mocked precepts of female obedience. While Maria clearly subverted patriarchal gender codes, the apparent sarcasm in her letters also suggests a playfulness and compatibility with her husband. These examples should be compared with Jacqueline Eales's study of Lady Brilliana Harley. Dr Eales argues that Lady Harley broadly accepted the implications of patriarchy and that her obedient tone and comportment as a dutiful wife in early writings to her husband was conditioned by her puritanism. However, this did not prevent her strategic use of her womanhood in other letters in order to extort sympathy from royalists within the county. The differing degrees of wifely submission and authority to which these essays testify also re¯ects variations in the balance of authority or power within marriage. In actual practice the in¯uence women enjoyed within marital relationships was based on a variety of factors: character, age, wealth and circumstance. Taking age as one example, Jacqueline Eales suggests that the 20-year age gap between Brilliana Harley and Sir Robert, whose third wife she was, may account for the impression given by her letters that at least initially she was the subordinate partner within the marriage. Conversely, the intimacy apparent in my own essay between Lord and Lady Lisle, and the latter's involvement in Calais politics, may stem in some way from the fact that Lisle was appointed Lord Deputy in his seventies, when his administrative powers had possibly passed their peak. Lady Lisle, on the other hand, a widow and a



James Daybell 9

wealthy and experienced woman in her own right, was some 30 years his junior.20 Formal and submissive modes of address in letters to husbands easily coexisted with sentiments of affection. In fact Jacqueline Eales reads Brilliana Harley's correspondence to her husband as love letters; both Roger Dalrymple and Alison Truelove detect glimpses of marital intimacy among letters of the Paston and Stonor wives; and analysis of Joan Thynne's correspondence reveals the development of mutual affection between herself and her husband John, in what was an arranged marriage.21 Though signs of warmth are not uncommon in women's letters, on the whole wives' letters appear less expressive of emotion than those of husbands. An obvious exception to this is Thomas Thynne, whose only surviving letter to his wife Maria primarily concerns business and has none of the effusiveness of her correspondence to him.22 For the medieval period, the fact that men were more likely than women to write themselves partly explains the apparent reserve that Alison Truelove observes in wives' letters within the Stonor archive compared to those of their male counterparts. The comparatively more open and relaxed style and freedom of expression displayed by husbands' letters may also re¯ect men's con®dence, higher levels of male literacy and greater familiarity with epistolary mediums. Of wider interest is the question of how far the manner of women's writing was affected by the gender of recipients. In particular, this question is addressed by Alison Wall who in her essay also explores the nature of women's correspondence with men other than their husbands, and looks at whether women wrote differently to female and male correspondents. Her analysis of the Thynne papers suggests that rank, social status, position within the family and local in¯uence had as much impact as gender, if not more, on the tone of a letter. Thus, Joan Thynne commanded male deference through her personal following in Shropshire; as mistress of Longleat she received humble epistles from her daughter-in-law Maria, though this changed on the death of Joan's husband; and as a mother she expected ®lial respect from her son Thomas. Indeed, Joan Thynne's letters to her son, which mix maternal rebuke and censure with advice and command, mirror those of other mothers discussed in the volume: Margaret Paston, Anne Bacon and Brilliana Harley. In terms of female interaction ± a subject little studied by scholars of gender ± Alison Wall looks at modes of address and the tone of letters in order to examine women's relations with other women, both older and younger and of differing social status. She contrasts the formality of




women's letters to mothers-in-law with examples of more open and intimate correspondence between mothers and daughters. Similar expressions of warmth and affection between women are re¯ected in the letters of Anne Newdigate's close female correspondents described by Vivienne Larminie, while further examples of female antagonism can be discovered in Susan Whyman's essay. Although letter-writing could reinforce social distinctions between female correspondents and recipients, through polite conventions of address, deferential language and self-deprecating apologies for `scribbled lines', what emerges from Alison Wall's essay (and indeed others) is the complexity of women's emotional lives and the range in quality of relationships they experienced: distant and familiar, hostile and passionate. Useful as indicators of the differing intensities of individual relationships, letters also act as records of women's everyday lives and experiences. Studying the contents of letters, Rosemary O'Day outlines the range of activities in which women engaged: marriage arrangement, the household economy, domestic and religious patronage, medicine and education. Beyond this, letters highlight the central importance of family for most women. Vivienne Larminie, for example, depicts Anne Newdigate's role in `®ghting' for the interests of family. During her marriage it was Anne rather than her husband who by letter-writing cultivated and maintained a network of patronage contacts among kin, courtiers and local gentry, which could later be exploited. Here, letters worked to foster social and political links in much the same way as did other functions, including gift giving and hospitality. In widowhood, Lady Newdigate's èpistolary armoury' was employed to secure her son's wardship and to forward the marriages and careers of her other children. The martial language evident in Larminie's description of Anne's role is likewise used by Roger Dalrymple to characterise the determination and duty with which Margaret Paston issued letters of redress in order to secure the interests, honour and reputation of her family. While Joan Thynne and Brilliana Harley physically defended their ancestral homes against armed threat, for other women letters acted as weapons to be levelled at adversaries who threatened their family. Familial responsibilities and obligations imposed by marriage and motherhood authorised women to operate beyond the con®nes of the narrowly de®ned household or domestic sphere. In Anne Laurence's essay, women's chronicling of the experiences of related clergymen and their families during the civil war and the Interregnum, although motivated by `female' concern for reputation, involved them in the traditionally male worlds of historical record, and religious and political



James Daybell 11

debate. Furthermore, as shown by Jacqueline Eales, defence of family and religious beliefs prompted and justi®ed women's intervention in the political affairs of the civil war, an activity that she interprets as a continuation of the political and social roles of upper-class women as far back as the later middle ages. Impelled both by the desire to maintain her family's standing as well as by her puritan convictions, Brilliana Harley actively resisted royalist threats. In letters to local royalist governors, however, her resistance was couched solely in terms of familial duty, a tactic calculated to de¯ect criticism and engender understanding of her dif®cult position; there was little mention of the political and religious ideology so evident in her letters to immediate family. The obvious religious dimension to Brilliana Harley's correspondence is also encountered in other women's letters discussed in the volume, notably Margaret and Agnes Paston and Lady Anne Newdigate. The example of Brilliana Harley also raises the issues of the impact of the civil war and the extent to which married women could operate independently of husbands. While Lady Harley referred decisions concerning the estates to her husband, her father-in-law and the stewards, Dr Eales' essay highlights other evidence of more autonomous action: the offering of advice to her husband and the running of her son's parliamentary campaign. Clearly, the exigencies of civil war allowed more scope for female manoeuvre, but similar patterns of women giving advice and being allowed to use their own discretion in business matters are widespread for other periods. More generally though, these letters re¯ect relationships at a distance, women operating in the absence of men. Less clear from marital correspondence is the balance of power and division of duties when husbands were at home. Furthermore, that evidence of women's activities is greater for the civil war than for other periods relates also to the fact that increased absence of men during the 1640s simply generated more correspondence, as did the crises of the 1530s.23 During the civil war and other times of separation, letters functioned as an important means of communication, allowing women to disseminate and keep abreast of news, to maintain contacts with family, and to secure emotional as well as material support. For the nuns discussed in Claire Walker's essay, letters provided their only contact with the outside world. Although monastic rules and statutes were aimed at restricting letterwriting in order to distance nuns from worldly affairs and cut emotional ties with kin, practical realities forced many to eschew the strictest de®nitions of enclosure. Correspondence was vital to the running of convents: news of persecution and struggle fostered Catholic solidarity,




while recruitment and monastic business conducted by letter ensured economic survival. The essay emphasises the ways in which letters enabled nuns to intervene beyond the cloister as brokers and patrons, and as participants in secular and religious politics at a national level. Of particular interest are the Ghent Benedictines who in the 1650s put their postal networks at the disposal of Charles II to convey royalist mail, and whose abbess Mary Knatchbull later sought the conversion of the king and his ministers.24 With the obvious exception of nuns, the experiences of single women are less well represented in family letter collections. Indeed, Rosemary O'Day notes that the Bagot correspondence includes very few letters from single females, in contrast with the Ferrar family where unmarried women were involved in household decisions and engaged in letter-writing for pragmatic reasons. Survival or non-survival of letters may also re¯ect male policies of document preservation; correspondence from single women may have been considered less important or less worth keeping than letters from wives and married daughters. Perhaps the most signi®cant source of letters by single women are the Verney manuscripts which are exploited by Susan Whyman in her essay as part of a reassessment of the position of unmarried women during the early modern period. Her analysis indicates the dependence of spinsters on the patronage of male heads of the Verney family and the importance of letters as a means of securing ®nancial assistance. However, Dr Whyman also argues that despite their inferior status single women were not without a function, but rather assumed speci®c responsibilities within the family: they acted as companions to other women and in a fashion operated as `domestic spies', passing on valuable social and political information. In conclusion, many of the contributors to this collection use letters to locate the different forms of women's power and in¯uence within the family, locality and occasionally within a wider political scene. Whether by case study or analysis by period or social group these essays highlight the range of female experience and the diversity of women's letter-writing activities in late medieval and early modern England. Inspired by a variety of impulses ± religious, creative, literary, political and familial ± women's letters indicate greater levels of female familiarity with epistolary mediums, irrespective of educational barriers and levels of literacy, than might previously have been assumed. Taken as a whole, the essays broadly examine the development of women's correspondence, revealing the increasing personalisation of women's letter-writing over the period as well as the growing number of uses for which letters were employed, both privy and powerful. Finally, while it is hoped that this book will



James Daybell 13

signi®cantly enhance our understanding of women's lives and illustrate the richness of letters as a source of both women's history and women's writing, it also inevitably raises certain issues that remain unanswered, some of which this introduction has attempted to draw out. A further aim of the book is to open the way to further scholarship in what is a burgeoning and exciting ®eld of research.

Notes I would like to thank Ralph Houlbrooke and Anthea Platt for their helpful comments on this introduction. 1. Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Norman Davis, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971, 1976), 1, no. 156, pp. 262±3. 2. The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ed. Robert Halsband, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965±67), 2, pp. 54±6 (pp. 55±6). 3. On the characteristics of eighteenth-century letter-writing see Clare Brant, Èighteenth-Century Letters: Aspects of the Genre' (Unpublished D.Phil thesis, Oxford University, 1989), esp. her chapter on Lady Montagu. 4. Diane Watt, ` ``No Writing For Writing's Sake'': the Language of Service and Household Rhetoric in the Letters of the Paston Women', in Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre, eds Karen Cherawatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 122±38 (p. 123); The Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ed. Clare Brant (London: Everyman, 1992), p. 223. 5. Paston Letters, ed. Davis, 1, p. 262. 6. Similar questions are posed in Margaret W. Ferguson, `Renaissance Concepts of the ``Woman Writer'' ', in Women and Literature in Britain 1500±1700, ed. Helen Wilcox (Cambridge: CUP, 1996), pp. 143±68 (p. 151). 7. On early modern autobiographies and diaries see Ralph Houlbrooke, English Family Life, 1576±1716: an Anthology of Diaries (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), esp. the introduction; A. Macfarlane, The Family Life of Ralph Josselin, a SeventeenthCentury Clergyman: an Essay in Historical Anthropology (Cambridge: CUP, 1970), esp. ch. 1, `Diary Keeping in Seventeenth-Century England'. 8. Most fourteenth- and ®fteenth-century letters were in fact the work of scribes, themselves probably ecclesiastics: J. Taylor, `Letters and Letter Collections in England 1300±1420', Nottingham Medieval Studies, 24 (1980), 57±70 (p. 69). See also V.M. O'Mara, `Female Scribal Ability and Scribal Activity in Late Medieval England: the Evidence?', LSE, 27 (1996), 87±130 (pp. 96±7). 9. Joan Kelly, `Did Women Have a Renaissance?', in Joan Kelly, Women, History and Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 19±50 (p. 35); Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, eds, Women and Power in the Middle Ages (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1988), pp. 1±13; Mary Beth Rose, Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Literary and Historical Perspectives (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1988), pp. xvi±xvii. On




10.

11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

restrictive gender codes see Anthony J. Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England, 1500±1800 (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), esp. ch. 19. For discussion of the intersection of written and oral cultures see Keith Thomas, `The Meaning of Literacy in Early Modern England', in The Written Word: Literacy in Transition, Wolfson College Lectures 1985, ed. Gerd Baumann (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 97±131 (pp. 97±8); Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500±1800 (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977), p. 226; and Jonathan Barry, `Literacy and Literature in Popular Culture: Reading and Writing in Historical Perspective', in Popular Culture in England c.1500±1850, ed. Tim Harris (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 69±94 (p. 75). James Daybell, `Women's Letters and Letter-Writing in England, 1540±1603' (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 1999), pp. 275±8. Giles Constable, Letters and Letter Collections (Typologie des Sources du Moyen Age Occidental, facs. xvii, 1976), p. 42. Ralph Houlbrooke similarly notes Dorothy Bacon's phonetic spellings in his introduction to the edition of her letters: Jane Key, ed., `The Letters and Will of Lady Dorothy Bacon, 1597±1629', The Norfolk Record Society, 56 (1993), pp. 77±112. Ralph Houlbrooke, The English Family, 1450±1700 (Harlow: Longman, 1984), p. 32. Alison Hanham, ed., The Cely Letters, 1472±1488, EETS No. 273 (OUP, 1975), p. 222. Daybell, Thesis, pp. 224±9. James Daybell, `Women's Letters and Letter-Writing in England, 1540±1603: an Introduction to the Issues of Authorship and Construction', Shakespeare Studies, 27 (September 1999), 161±86. Houlbrooke, The English Family, p. 101. WCRO Newdegate Papers CR 136/B307, n.d. The word `nursed' replaces the deleted phrase `bred up': Daybell, Thesis, p. 162. James Daybell, `The Political Role of Upper-Class Women in Early Tudor England as Evidenced by Their Correspondence' (Unpublished MA dissertation, Reading University, 1996), p. 45. Two Elizabethan Women: Correspondence of Joan and Maria Thynne 1575±1611, ed. Alison D. Wall (Wiltshire Record Society, vol. 38, Devizes, 1983). Ibid., letter 65, pp. 50±1, [c.May 1610]. Barbara J. Harris, `Women and Politics in Early Tudor England', HJ, 33 (1990), 259±81 (pp. 271±2). It has also been shown that nuns were involved through letters in theological debates of the ®fteenth and sixteenth centuries: Albrecht Classen, `Footnotes to the German Canon: Maria von Wolkenstein and Argula von Grumbach', in The Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe: Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 12 (1989), 131±47.



James Daybell 15

Reaction, Consolation and Redress in the Letters of the Paston Women Roger Dalrymple

Apparently removed from letter-writing ®rsthand, the Paston women were nevertheless far from unlettered. Their mastery of the topoi of administrative and familial letters is well documented, their expressive force memorable. Envisaging their composition of a letter, however, scholarly tradition has the Paston women sit down with amanuensis rather than pen. Norman Davis has remarked the likelihood that Agnes and Margaret Paston `could not write themselves, or at any rate did not ®nd writing easy and did not like it'1 ± a view supported more recently in V.M. O'Mara's survey of female scribal activity in late medieval England: `there is very little proof provided by the Paston letters that women could write, and even if they could, they did so but rarely'.2 While consensus has emerged as to the limited role of the Paston women in scribal activity, what awaits further demonstration is the extent to which their letters exploit a shifting balance between competing oral and literary in¯uences ± a balance their use of amanuenses may well have prompted them to re¯ect upon. On one side of this balance is the colloquial quality, the apparent proximity to ®fteenth-century speech for which the women's letters are much celebrated.3 Beyond this, it is additionally demonstrable that in certain epistles a component of reaction is embodied, the letters conveying not simply an item of news but a degree of response to the intelligence conveyed. At the same time however, a counterbalancing literary in¯uence is evident in the letters of the Paston women, particularly centring around the traditional commonplaces of consolatory piety.4 An examination of these contrasting aspects shows a marked ¯uidity in the stylistic approaches and practices adopted by ®fteenth-century women letter-writers. Additionally, a focus upon contrasting oral and literary in¯uences provides a helpful context in which to view Margaret 16



2

Paston's many letters of redress: where the written word is employed as the corrective counter to oral slander or false report. Under these principles of reaction, consolation and redress, the Paston women depart from the paradigm of the purely pragmatic missive, offering the modern reader a point of insight and empathy, and contributing some of the most compelling epistles of the collection.

Reaction The Paston women are their own judicious editors. There are plentiful signs that more impassioned or less discreet sentiments were more readily entrusted to the lips of a faithful messenger than expanded upon in writing.5 Under the recurrent disclaimer that a female writer `lacks leisure' to enlarge upon her theme, we might detect a withdrawal from thoughts too emotive or non-pragmatic to be committed to writing. The letters of Margaret Paston, with which this essay is primarily concerned, re¯ect such an editorial policy throughout their chronology. With the death of John Paston I in 1466, what brief glimpses of marital intimacy we are afforded in Margaret's earlier letters give way to a robust voice of counsel and command, admonishing wayward sons to live up to their late father's memory and maintain the estates and assets he accrued. Accordingly, like the wider Paston collection, Margaret's epistles tell us much of quotidian life of the period, evoking the commodities the Pastons traded (and disputed), the property they managed and the very textures they touched, but little of an inner life, little of the emotional spectrum. This absence of `writing for writing's sake' is the less remarkable in light of the sheer mechanics of the writing of a letter in this period.6 The labour involved in the production and dispatch of a letter legislates against the likelihood that a wholly affective missive might be sent.7 Why be effusive when a letter might readily go astray? Ì wot dnote whedyr ye had the lettyr or not, for I had non answer ther-of fro yow' wrote Margaret Paston to her husband in 1460.8 Yet sometimes the women's letters may take on a more emotive aspect when their language evokes spontaneous or largely unmediated reaction to an event reported. On occasion, the breezy cataloguing of parish deaths and disputes is coloured by a hint of emotional response. At such points, the style of narration takes on an added force. Language appears to be set down in suf®cient heat of temper, or in suf®cient proximity to a momentous event, that we glean not only what Douglas Gray has styled à simple, unforced impression which seems to re¯ect colloquial speech' but additionally a sense of a perspective largely un®ltered by the formulae of the ars dictaminis.9



Roger Dalrymple 17

How might such `reactive' writing be identi®ed? An instructive norm against which to measure this quality is afforded by the famous letter sent to John Paston I by William Lomnor in May 1450. The letter reports a momentous affair of state: the exile and murder of the Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole. The opening proceeds quickly through the salutatio and captatio benevolientiae to strike a more emotive note: Ryght worchipfulle ser, I recomaunde me to yow, and am right sory of that I shalle sey, and haue soo weshe this litel bille with sorwfulle terys that on-ethes ye shulle reede it.10 The assertion sets up expectations of a letter rich in emotion ± but the most muted of accounts follows. The death of the duke is described in a prose devoid of the lurid, emotive adjectives the letter's prologue might prompt a reader to anticipate.11 Initially forthcoming, Lomnor's prologue in many respects epitomises the reticence of the wider collection: it is the bill, the letter itself that is washed in tears, not the language that is rich in emotion. The bias is towards the concrete and the tangible over the introspective and re¯ective. Generally, the women's letters embody this same bias. Any glimpses of emotion are summarily displaced by the resurgence of the pragmatic. Thus when she writes to her son John Paston III in (perhaps) 1471 Margaret is anxious for news, concerned for his safety, harried by reports of his injury, even death: Also, it was told me this day that ye were hurt be affray that was mad vp-on you be feles disgysed. Ther-[fore] in any wyse send me word in hast how youre brothere doth, and ye bothyn, for I shall not ben wele at eas till I know how at ye do.12 An apparent index of heightened emotion, this agitated writing climaxes in the wary command: `Lete this letter be brent whan ye haue vnderstond it.' But the postscript to the letter is quite different in tone and focus: Ìtem, I pray you send me iiij suger lofes, ich of them of iij li., and iiij li. of dates if thei be newe.'13 Even this most serious, impassioned of missives doubles as a shopping list. The emphasis is markedly different, however, in a letter by Agnes Paston, dated 6 July 1453. This letter is a strong candidate for consideration as an epistle embodying reaction. The bias is away from the pragmatic towards the personal; it is expressed in language adventurous enough to stray from the plainly descriptive to the affective. Agnes writes to her son reporting a




Roger Dalrymple 19

And as for tydyngys, Phylyppe Berney is passyd to God on Munday last past, wyt e grettes peyn that evyr I sey man. And on Tuysday Sere Jon Heny[n]gham [y]ede to hys chyrche and herd iij massys, and cam hom agayn nevyr meryer, and seyd to hese wyf that he wuld go sey a lytyll deuocion in hese gardeyn and than he wuld dyne; and forth-wyth he felt a feyntyng in hese legge and syyd doun. Thys was at ix of e clok, and he was ded or none.14 Hevingham is introduced in medias res; we are not informed in advance of his death. The detail of his disposition `nevyr meryer', his words to his wife, the gentle but insidious twinge in the leg are all strung together in a paratactical prose typical enough of the period but expressive here of that hushed clench of anxiety and shock experienced when death visits a neighbour suddenly.15 Margaret also writes of Hevingham's passing. Her account is less elaborate but is nevertheless tinged with the same sense evident in Agnes's letter that the sudden death was indeed a local talking point: `His seknesse toke hym on Tewysday at ix on e clok before none, and be too after none he was dedd.'16 In assessing how truly `reactive' or affective these accounts are, we might juxtapose the more typical account of another local's death reported by Margaret in (probably) 1451: Ser Herry Inglose is passyd to God this nygth, hoys sowle God asoyll, and was caryid for this day at ix of e clok to Seynt Feyis, and there shall be beryid. If ye desyer to bey any of hys stuff I pray you send me word er-of in hast, and I shall speke to Robert Inglose and to Wychyngham er-of. I suppose ei ben executorys.17 or that of another neighbour: Gerrardys wyff is deed, and there is a fayre place of hers to selle in Seynt Gregorys parysh, as it is told me. I suppose if ye leke to bye it ye shuld have it worth the mony.18 In both cases the newsworthy aspect would appear to be not the death itself but the portable property and real estate made available by its fact.



death ± a familiar enough event and one more socially countenanced than is the case today. Yet in the tone of Agnes's letter is something of that sense of shock that attends the sudden, unlooked-for death:

The exceptional character of Agnes's account of Hevingham's death is thus thrown into relief. Reactive writing is also evident in Margaret's famous account of the attack upon the family chaplain James Gloys by a belligerent local landowner, Wymondham.19 In narrating the fracas, Margaret promises her husband that the insults and `large langage' heard `ye shall knowe herafter by mouthe' yet the written account is nevertheless full and animated. Like Agnes's report of Hevingham's death, the animation of the writing is such that a long period of re¯ection on the narrated action is not suggested: reaction forms as reporting takes place. And with e noise of is a-saut and affray my modir and I come owt of e chirche from e sakeryng; and I bad Gloys go in dto my moderis place ageyne, and so he dede. And thanne Wymondham called my moder and me strong hores, and seid e Pastons and alle her kyn were [. . .] knave and charl as he was. And he had meche large langage, as ye shall knowe her-after by mowthe.20 In promising further revelations by mouth Margaret establishes one of few ®xed boundaries between the oral and written modes: by letter she sends John a piece of intelligence; by mouth she will give him a piece of her mind. Briefer instances of Margaret's apparently unmediated reaction to events may be discerned in her poignant laments at prolonged separation, often included as postscripts ± Ì xhall thynke my-selfe halfe a wedowe because ye xal not [be] at home'; `for thys ys to wyry a lyffe to a-byde for you and all youre' ± and in her response to that most deafening prompt ± silence: Ì thynk ryght long to hyre tydyngys tyll I haue t[y]dyngys from you'; Ì merveyl meche at [y]e send me nomore tydyngys an [y]e haue sent'; Ì pray yow at ye be not strange of wryting of letterys to me betwix is and at ye come hom; if I myght I wold haue euery day on from yow.'21 Such comments are almost àsides', sentiments not yet ossi®ed in convention, not wholly controlled by stylistic decorum.

Consolation If the element of reactive writing in the letters of the Paston women illuminates the colloquial strand of their correspondence, a more literary in¯uence is discernible in the distinct consolatory strand.22 Moreover, the consolatory piety of the Paston women places them into a different mode of discourse from that employed in the greater body of their letters. The




relation between female writer and male recipient shifts from a predominantly subservient one to a more ¯uid relationship between consolator and consolandus. This distinctive strand of consolatory writing appears not only in Margaret's letters but also is richly anticipated by her mother-in-law. Agnes Paston has already exercised the authority of consolatory discourse: her famous counsel of her overworked son proceeds in cadences which are biblical and Chaucerian by turns: Be my counseyle, dyspose [y]oure-selfe as myche as [y]e may to haue lesse to do in e worlde. [y]oure fadyr sayde, Ìn lytyl bysynes lyeth myche reste'. is worlde is but a orugh-fare and ful of woo, and whan we departe er-fro, ri[g]th nou[y]gth bere wyth vs but oure good dedys and ylle.23 Beyond the literary interest of the oft-cited passage, its insistence that worldly goods ultimately bring no spiritual bene®t is striking. Conventional though this wisdom is, it is a wisdom which gainsays the Pastons' notorious concern for worldly goods. Following tradition, and impacting on gender roles, the consolator here gains licence to gainsay the dominant perspective, to controvert the (socially superior) consolandus in bringing him to a broader perspective.24 This propensity of consolation to place the consolator in an authoritative mode of discourse is exploited by Margaret also. Like Agnes before her in the `pilgrim' letter, Margaret's letters deviate from pragmatic concerns and recon®gure relations of status when offering her family spiritual counsel. She shows thorough absorption of consolatory commonplaces when exhorting patience or when characterising tribulation as a mark of God's favour. Thus Margaret's letter to her son John Paston II in 1469 enjoins: `fore Goddys loue, [. . .] takeyt pacyently, and thanke God of hys vysitacyon'25 and, writing on another occasion to the same son, the matriarch elaborates upon this view of tribulation: Send me word how ye doo of yowyr syknes at ye had on yowyr hey and yowyr lege; and yff God wol nowt ssuffyr yow to haue helth, thank hym ther-off and takyt passhently, and com hom a-geyn to me, and we shall lyve to-gedyr as God woll geve vs grase to do.26 Margaret's letters also present her as active in consoling and reassuring the tenants occupying the disputed Paston lands. She reports to John Paston I in 1465: Ì haue spoken wyth youre tenauntys of Haylesdon and



Roger Dalrymple 21

Drayton both, and putte hem in confort as well as I canne'.27 In this, she perpetuates the classically derived tradition of visitation to the af¯icted as the most desirable mode of consolation ± solace sent by letter being the next best thing.28 Margaret later reports to John Paston II how the `pore tenauntes [. . .] come to me for comfort and socour, sumtyme be vj or vij to-geder'.29 If her spoken counsel was as measured as her written consolation to her son, the tenants had the bene®t of wise words indeed. Yet Margaret's incorporation of consolatory topoi in her letters extends beyond the conventional. Appeals for deliverance by God are manifold in her letters, appeals often laced with laments that earthly remedy for certain ills is not forthcoming. In exasperated tones she writes to her son: Ì haue litell help nor comfort of non of yow yet; God geve me grase to haue heraftir.'30 Resonant as a piece of maternal chiding, Margaret's comment is revealing of her ability to manipulate and adapt the traditional topoi of consolation. Promise of recompense for suffering `heraftir' is precisely what the consolatory tradition promises ± earthly hardship will be succeeded by heavenly reward. Yet here, the consolatory commonplace is reproduced to provoke a response, to induce a dutiful son to bring about remedy in the more foreseeable and immediate `heraftir'. Margaret's letters employ consolatory topoi not simply as end-points but as means to an end.

Redress In these features of reaction and consolation, differing proportions of oral and literary in¯uence have been apparent. Accordingly, within Margaret's own letters, contrasting attitudes are displayed towards the spoken word (particularly those words uttered in gossip) and the authoritative written word. Margaret's letters establish a function for themselves in providing a true record of a contested subject ± or an af®rmation of good character when character is blackened. To her husband in 1449 Margaret writes: `dHeree dare noman seyn a gode wurd for [y]ou in is cuntreÂ. God amend it.'31 Such reports are frequent in her letters. As the Paston lands are disputed and the loyalties of sympathisers and associates oscillate, Margaret provides many such opinion polls for her husband: `The pepyll was nevyr bettyr dysposyd to yow than they be at thys owyr'; `Ye wer nevyr so welcome in-to Norfolk as ye schall be when ye come home, I trowe'; `Ye are ryth myche bownde to thank God, and all tho at loue yow, at ye haue so gret loue of the pepyll as ye haue.'32 Yet when report is unfavourable it is not always left to God




alone to àmend it'. Margaret's letters show an active concern for the maintenance of honour, the blazoning of truth and the redressing of slanders. The Pastons, ùndeniably obsessed with honour'33 must counter and rebuff the `noysynges' of a restless locality, of those intending deliberate slander or those simply indulging tongues given to rumour. `There is a gret noyse in is town' wrote Margaret in 1451 of political unrest, later reminding her son with pride, `your fader was noysed of so gret valew'.34 `Noyse', a keyword in her letters, connotes a clamour always political, often malicious, always with consequences.35 In accord with her concern for the maintenance of family honour, Margaret participates in an economy of `noyse' where reputation and renown are not ®xed but require rati®cation and supplementation. This balance of `noyse' might be tipped readily by too great a preponderance of partisan speakers. Thus Margaret communicates to her husband her concern: Yowre tenawntys wold fayn at summe dmenee of yowris shuld abyde amongis hem, for they ben in gred diswyre what they may do, the langage is so grett on the toer party that it makyth e tenawntys sore afferd that ye shuld not regoyse itt.36 Thus, as the Wars of the Roses ®nd re¯ection in the microcosm of the Norfolk gentry, Margaret's letter to John I of 7 January 1462 speaks of `false schrewys at wold mak a rwmor in is contreÂ' and further delineates the structure of this context of `noyse': Pepyll of this contreÂ begynyth to wax wyld, and it is seyd her at my lord of Clarans and the Dwek of Suthfolk, and serteyn jwgys wyth hem dschold come downe and syt on syche pepyll as be noysyd ryotous in thys contreÂ.37 Margaret's letters offer insight into how she did her part to maintain Paston family honour and renown in this economy of `noyse': apprising tenants of developments, representing family interests at court and seeking by her correspondence to rebut rumour. During the duke of Suffolk's attack on Hellesdon, an ailing Margaret vows to her husband, despite sickness, `to my powere I wyl do as I can or may in yowre materys'.38 Moreover, in countering `noyse' with her writings, Margaret shows much faith in the written word as redressive, an idea in keeping with the careful preservation of much of the Paston correspondence by the family as documentation of value in any possible legal disputes and supported by her statement to her son: `Youre fadere, wham God assole, in



Roger Dalrymple 23

hys trobyll seson set more by hys wrytyngys and evydens than he dede by any of his moveabell godys.'39 Likewise, her own letters are often forged in opposition to gossip, rumour and lies: 1449 ®nds her disputing property rights with those who deny the prior agreements struck: ànd ey for-swere it, as ei do oer thyngys more, at it was neuer seyd; dande meche thyng at I know veryly was seyd'; 1461 ®nds her apprising her husband of slander: Ìt is told me at e seyd Will reportyth of yow as shamfully as he can in dyuers place.'40 Whilst Margaret can contextualise certain of the rumours emanating from Norfolk, she is often at the mercy of rumours proceeding from London. Her correspondence to the capital shows frequent anxiety as to the well-being of her sons. If reports of their deaths have been greatly exaggerated, they have nevertheless caused great concern: rumour has run ahead of the authority of the written word, send me word how that your brothere doth. It was told here that he shuld haue be ded, which caused many folkes, and me bothyn, to be right hevy [. . .] for I shall not ben wele at eas till I know how at ye do [. . .] for it was seid here pleynly that your brothere was poysoned.41 Likewise, Margaret wrote to her husband: Ì pray yow hertly at ye wole wychesaue to send me word how ye do as hastly as ye may, for my hert schall nevyr be in ese tyll I haue dtydyngyse fro yow.'42 The distress caused was clearly profound when a simple trip into company could result in the hearing of intelligence which, though often groundless, must take considerable time for a letter's arrival to dispel. A collision of the spheres of false oral report and written authority is starkly evident in the companion letters exchanged by Margaret and John Paston II in September 1469 when John Paston III lay besieged in Caister Castle. Margaret informs the elder son of his brother's plight, adding `Dawbeney and Berney be dedde and diuerse othere gretly hurt.'43 Yet the companion letter from her son challenges Margaret's version of events, pronouncing the `dead' allies alive and well: Moodre, vppon Saterday last was Dawbeney and Bernay were on lyve and mery, and I suppose ther cam no man owt of the place to yow syn that tyme that cowde haue asserteynyd to yow of there dethys.44 At the mercy of the spoken word, Margaret can only upbraid her son for his tone and allege her dependence upon rumour for information:




Roger Dalrymple 25

In this we hear the frustration of Margaret's being beholden to false report. Even her letters may sometimes be the bearers of misinformation: Ì dhauee wrytyn as yt haue be enformed me.' Margaret's letters of redress are occasionally more familial in focus. Her letter to her husband of 18 August 1465 suggests that false report is to blame for a family falling out: me thynkyth by my cosyn Clere that she wold fayn haue youre gode wyll and that she hath sworyn ryght faythfully to me that there shall no defaute be founde in here [. . .] She sayth she wote well such langage as hath be reportyd to you of here othere-wyse then she hath deseruyd causyth you to be othere-wyse to here then ye shold be. She had to me thys langage wypyng, and told me of dyuers othere thyngys the whych ye shall haue knowlych of hereaftere.46 The diplomacy that served Margaret so well in representing her family's business interests might clearly be utilised to settle disputes closer to home.47 Less dramatic than her accounts of scuf¯es, confrontations and legal disputes, this quiet account of a woman's `language wypyng' is resonant for readers other than the intended recipient of 1465.48 The letters of Agnes and Margaret Paston, then, illustrate certain of the distinctive uses the ®fteenth-century matriarch might make of the letterwriting forum. Whilst their letters are most often predicated upon practical concerns, components of reaction, consolation and redress stand out among the `tydyngys' conveyed. Letters of report may embody reactive passages where a degree of emotional response intrudes upon plain narrative. Letters of petition and of news can occasionally give way to letters of consolation, where the relationship between writer and recipient is recon®gured, affording the female letter-writer a more authoritative discursive mode than the norm. Finally, for Margaret, letters of redress play a valuable role in securing and preserving the interests and reputation of her family. In a country exposed to a steady torrent of competing propaganda and rhetoric at the level of national politics, Margaret's letters form weapons as trusty as the `crossbows' she once requests from her husband ± weapons with which false report may be countered, slanders redressed.49 The ®xed, stable text of the letter is employed to counter the unstable nature of report and chatter, to secure the last word.



me thynke be e letter at [y]e sent me be Robeyn at [y]e thynke at I xuld wryte to [y]ow fabyls and ymagynacyons. But I do not soo; I dhauee wrytyn as yt haue be enformed me, and wulle do.45

In Margaret's correspondence this last concern is arguably the greatest. Certainly, when she writes early in widowhood to her son, her complaint to him is typical of her wider preoccupations: `Yt is a schame, and a thyng at is myche spokyn of in thys contreÂ, at [y]owr faders graue ston is not mad.'50 Cast in stone or inscribed on paper, it is the written word that can still the `noyse' and which remains our surest memorial.

Notes I am most grateful to James Daybell and Caroline Cole for their valuable comments during the preparation of this essay. 1. Norman Davis's views on the scribal activity of the Paston women remain the orthodoxy: `The Language of the Pastons', Proceedings of the British Academy, 40 (1954), 119±39 (p. 121). 2. V.M. O'Mara, `Female Scribal Ability and Scribal Activity in Late Medieval England: the Evidence?', LSE, 27 (1996), 87±130 (p. 92). See also Norman Davis, `The Text of Margaret Paston's Letters', Medium ávum, 18 (1949), 12±28 (p. 14). On women's involvement in composing letters during the sixteenth century see J. Daybell, `Women's Letters and Letter-Writing in England, 1540±1603: an Introduction to the Issues of Authorship and Construction', Shakespeare Studies, 27 (1999), 161±86. 3. Some of these colloquial resonances are still in the process of coming to light. See Andrew Breeze, `Margaret Paston's ``Grene a Lyere'' ', N&Q, 45 (1998), 29±30. 4. Malcolm Parkes observes that the `development in family letters of conscious written usage with subconscious literary echoes, as opposed to spoken usage, indicates a sophisticated rather than a rudimentary form of literacy': `The Literacy of the Laity', in Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts, ed. M. Parkes (London: Hambledon, 1991), pp. 275±97 (p. 295). 5. All quotations are taken from Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Norman Davis, 2 vols (Oxford, 1971, 1976) [hereafter PL]. See for example, nos 126 (p. 219); 130 (p. 226); 131 (p. 229). 6. Virginia Woolf's famous comment is cited by Diane Watt: ` ``No Writing for Writing's Sake'': the Language of Service and Household Rhetoric in the Letters of the Paston Women', in Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre, ed. K. Cherewatuk and W. Wiehaus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1993), pp. 122±38 (p. 122). 7. H.S. Bennett's chapter on `Letters and Letter-Writing' remains an evocative and broad survey of the topic: The Pastons and their England, 2nd edn (Cambridge: CUP, 1932, repr. 1968), pp. 114±27. 8. PL, I, 157 (p. 263). 9. Douglas Gray ed., The Oxford Book of Late Medieval Verse and Prose (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), p. 33. 10. PL, II, 450 (p. 35).




11. It would of course be incumbent upon Lomnor to provide a clear and accurate record of events, eschewing lurid detail. 12. PL, I, 213, (p. 360). 13. Ibid., I, 213 (p. 361). 14. Ibid., I, 26 (p. 39): Agnes Paston to John Paston I, 6 July 1453. 15. Such a paratactical style is employed in the English chronicles of the period and is famously the dominant stylistic mode of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur. See P.J.C. Field, Romance and Chronicle: a Study of Malory's Prose Style (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1971), ch. 2. 16. PL, I, 147 (p. 250): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 6 July 1453. 17. Ibid., I, 141 (p. 243): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, probably 1451, 1 July. 18. Ibid., I, 144 (p. 246): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, probably 1452, 5 Nov. 19. For useful commentary on this letter see Norman Davis, `Style and Stereotype in Early English Letters', LSE, 1 (1967), 7±15 (p. 15); Janel Mueller, The Native Tongue and the Word: Developments in English Prose Style 1380±1580 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 90±1; Watt, `No Writing for Writing's Sake', p. 131. 20. PL, I, 129 (p. 224): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 19 May 1448. The ellipsis in the text, caused by a hole in the paper, has the felicitous effect of censoring the (possibly expletive) execrations of Wymondham. 21. Ibid., 153 (p. 258); 180 (p. 299); 181 (p. 300); 132 (p. 232); 150 (p. 254). 22. Diane Watt draws attention to the book ownership of the Paston women, implying their literacy: Àgnes borrowed a copy of the Stimulus Conscientiae and her daughter Anne owned a copy of the Siege of Thebes': `No Writing for Writing's Sake', p. 124. 23. PL, I, 30 (p. 43): Agnes Paston to John Paston I, perhaps 1465, 29 Oct. On the literary pedigree of the allusions see Parkes, `The Literacy of the Laity', p. 295. 24. See for example, the Narrator's attempted consolation of the socially superior Man in Black in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess, ll. 522 ff. 25. PL, I, 205 (p. 346). 26. Ibid., I, 221 (p. 372). 27. Ibid., I, 196 (p. 330). 28. Ìn classical, Christian, and indeed modern times a personal visit to the bereaved counts as the most effective form of consolation, but a personal letter can be an acceptable substitute. The consolations of Seneca, among the most in¯uential examples of the form, were all letters': Brian Vickers, `Shakespearian Consolations', Proceedings of the British Academy, 82 (1993), 219±84 (pp. 228± 9). On consolation in Middle English literary texts see Michael Means, The `Consolatio' Genre in Middle English Literature (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972). 29. PL, I, 200 (p. 337). 30. Ibid., I, 207 (p. 349): Margaret Paston to John Paston II, 15 July 1470. 31. Ibid., I, 131 (p. 230): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 15 Feb. 1449. 32. Ibid., I, 165 (p. 274), 169 (p. 280), 163 (p. 271). 33. Philippa Maddern, `Honour among the Pastons: Gender and Integrity in Fifteenth-Century English Provincial Society', Journal of Medieval History, 14 (1988), 357±71 (p. 357). 34. PL, I, 137 (p. 238): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 3 Mar. 1451; I, 200 (p. 337): Margaret Paston to John Paston II, 12 Mar. 1469.



Roger Dalrymple 27

35. Middle English Dictionary, sense 3(a). It is signi®cant that `noyse' forms a key word in the nearly contemporary Morte Darthur of Sir Thomas Malory, where the `noyse' of factional warfare initiates the destruction of the Round Table. See Malory: Works, ed. EugeÁne Vinaver, 2nd edn (Oxford: OUP, 1971), p. 674; p. 676 et passim. 36. PL, I, 138 (p. 239): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 15 Mar. 1451. 37. Ibid., I, 168 (p. 279). 38. Ibid., I, 188 (p. 310): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 12 July 1465. 39. Ibid., I, 198 ( p. 333): Margaret Paston to John Paston II, 29 Oct. 1466. 40. Ibid., I, 131 (p. 229): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 15 Feb. 1449; I, 161 (p. 269): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 15 July 1461. 41. Ibid., I, 213 (p. 360): Margaret Paston to John Paston III, probably 1471, 7 Dec. 42. Ibid., I, 168 (p. 279): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 7 Jan. 1462. 43. Ibid., I, 204 (p. 344): Margaret Paston to John Paston II, 12 Sept. 1469. 44. Ibid., I, 243 (p. 405): John Paston II to Margaret Paston, 15 Sept. 1469. 45. Ibid., I, 205 (pp. 345±6): Margaret Paston to John Paston II, 22±30 Sept. 1469. 46. Ibid., I, 190 (p. 316): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 18 Aug. 1465. 47. The epistle is ultimately a domestic letter of petition, a mode of writing which women letter-writers were to develop more fully in the succeeding century. See James Daybell, `Women's Letters and Letter-Writing in England, 1540±1603' (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 1999), ch. 5. 48. One of Margaret's most famous letters of redress, documenting her attempts to mitigate the fall-out from Margery Paston's illicit marriage to the bailiff Richard Calle, is recently printed in Carolyne Larrington, ed., Women and Writing in Medieval Europe: a Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 36±8. 49. PL, I, 130 (p. 226): Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 1448: Ì recomawnd me to [y]u and prey [y]w to gete som crosse bowis, and wyndacis to bynd em wyth'. 50. Ibid., I, 212 (p. 359): Margaret Paston to John Paston III, 29 Nov. 1471.




Letter-Writing by English Noblewomen in the Early Fifteenth Century Jennifer C. Ward

When we engage in letter-writing at the present day, we do so for a variety of purposes. We may be conducting business, paying bills, making arrangements with people we do not know. Or we may be writing to family or friends, bringing them up to date on various items of news, keeping in touch so that when we next meet them we can simply pick up where we left off. Our use of language varies, from the formal and impersonal in the business letter, to a readiness to display our feelings and emotions in private correspondence. At the same time, we exercise a form of self-censorship, bearing in mind to whom we are writing, and adapting our style and subject-matter to the recipient. Our education and careers teach us a variety of ways in which to express ourselves, and we place great reliance on the written word, even though we realise its dangers. It is important to be aware of our expectations from letter-writing before we can appreciate its signi®cance to English noblewomen in the early ®fteenth century. To what extent and on what occasions did these women engage in letter-writing? What were its conventions and content? What reliance was placed upon it? By about 1400, most women of the gentry and lesser and higher nobility would have been able to read, and would have needed this skill for business as well as private, notably devotional, purposes. Literacy among women of the nobility was socially acceptable, and a number of treatises urged that women should learn to read, even if only to be able to read religious works.1 Writing was a different matter. It has recently been suggested that Elizabeth, Lady Zouche may well have written her own letters, but if so she was probably in a minority; work on later ®fteenth-century letter collections suggests that few women could write or only rarely made use of this skill, preferring to get any writing done by their clerks.2 However, with many noblewomen's letters of about 1400 only surviving as copies, this issue cannot really be examined. 29



3

Well before 1400, the written word had become a trusted form of communication, and letters are only one of a great variety of forms of documentation in the early ®fteenth century. Letters were used for a variety of purposes, and those of noblewomen were usually written in French or English, with the earliest English letters dating from 1392 and 1393.3 Only a tiny proportion of the letters written have survived, and there is no major archive for the nobility like those of the Stonors, Pastons, Celys and Plumptons. Much of the surviving correspondence found its way for some reason into the royal archives; many people are represented only by a single letter, or possibly by two or three, but a ®le of eighteen documents including ®ve letters relates to Elizabeth, Lady Zouche,4 and a group of eight letters from the surviving page of a letterbook to Lady Alice de Bryene.5 Letters can also be found in episcopal and monastic registers, and more particularly in formularies and commonplace books; many letters of the Despenser family dating from about 1400 were copied into a commonplace book for the clerk's private use.6 In these cases, it cannot be assumed that a full copy was always made; subject-matter and other details may have been omitted, and further editing may have taken place. When the letters themselves are examined, the ®rst impression is one of formality and convention, even among family and friends. This applies to the letters of both men and women. The opening of a letter followed a standard format, with certain variations in wording. The address and commendation indicated respect. It was usual to express hope that the recipient was well and would continue to be so in the future; writers also commonly mentioned their own good health and thanked God for it.7 The length of this opening section varied and could be extremely elaborate, as when Robert Lovell wrote to his mother-in-law, Alice de Bryene, probably in 1397.8 Anne, wife of Sir Edward Boteler, wrote to Lady Audley: Most honoured, reverend and gracious lady, I commend myself to you as much as I know or am able, in all manner obedient, reverent and honoured, praying Almighty God that he recompense you where I cannot for all the sovereign kindness, help and relief which of your great courtesy you have graciously made to me, of which, most gracious lady, I dare to ask for the continuance.9 On the other hand, Elizabeth, Lady Zouche usually addressed her London agent, John Bore, `Rygt wel be loued frend, I greet [y]ow wel', and once as `Dere frend'.10 These expressions of respect and affection, although conventional, may represent genuine emotion; however, they need to be




Jennifer C. Ward 31

My most honoured lady and mother, entirely beloved with all my heart, may the blessed Trinity have you in his keeping and give you a good and long life, and may all your honourable desires be accomplished . . . Your humble son, if it pleases you, Robert Lovell.11 Elizabeth, Lady Zouche, like other letter-writers, normally gave the place and date of writing, and then simply put her name.12 Not all letters were dated and, on some occasions, the day and month were given, but not the year. These conventional openings and endings highlight the signi®cance of rank and status in the late medieval world. The choice of words, particularly in the address, made clear the relative positions of writer and recipient, whether inside or outside the family, and rank was a far more important factor than gender. Anne Boteler clearly wanted to ingratiate herself with Lady Audley with whom she wished to stay in order to recount her `wrongs'. Although her letter provides no details, the reason for her requested visit can be inferred from other evidence: her marriage was in dif®culties. Similarly, Laurence d'Allerthorpe, a cleric of St Paul's cathedral in London, wanted a favourable answer from Joan de Bohun, Countess of Hereford, who was the most powerful magnate in Essex in the early ®fteenth century: Most noble, honoured and gracious lady, I commend myself to your noble highness with my whole heart as entirely and specially as I know or can, at the same time most cordially desiring to hear good news of you and of your noble estate. May God in his high power maintain and increase it in honour for ever.13 By contrast, Elizabeth, Lady Zouche was writing to an inferior whom she did not need to impress, the mode of address employed is therefore less exaggerated. In these cases, more was involved than just a letter-writing convention. Respect for superiors was deeply ingrained in society and a writer anxious for a particular response had to use the appropriate means of expression. Moreover, it is likely that formality and convention were considered to be a useful cover for emotions. The importance of maintaining one's



read against the whole letter and other contextual evidence before they can be accepted. Likewise at the endings of letters, where again conventional phrases were used, sentiments cannot be taken at face value. Robert Lovell ended his letter:

dignity and honour and not yielding to adversity is underlined by a letter of condolence sent by Henry Despenser, Bishop of Norwich to his niece, Lady Despenser, after her husband, Thomas, Lord Despenser, had been beheaded during the Holland rising against Henry IV in 1400.14 There is no doubt that Lady Despenser was in a dif®cult situation; anyone who rebelled against the Crown committed treason and forfeited his goods and estates, and, although the widow's inheritance and jointure were exempt from forfeiture, the family was likely to be seriously affected.15 However, the bishop stressed that Lady Despenser must submit to reason. To question God's will was sinful; it was an even greater sin to be so consumed with grief as to be at the point of death. In such a state, he reasoned, man cannot govern himself or look after his goods. Taking reason as her chief governor, the bishop urged his niece to exert herself to recover what was recoverable, by which he presumably meant her property as well as the standing of the Despenser family. He offered to do what would be to her honour, pro®t, pleasure and comfort. If she wanted, he would be father, uncle, husband and brother to her, to the best of his power. The bishop showed affection for his niece and an understanding of her predicament, but was convinced that she had to control her emotions and be pragmatic. While conventions of letter-writing throw light on social attitudes, it is the content of letters which show whether they were `privy and powerful communications'. The modern reader expects letters, especially private and family letters, to elicit women's voices, though this is not always the case. Letters by 1400 were often detailed and informative, but they did not necessarily give the full story; a shared understanding of background circumstances and other factors, which remain dif®cult for the twentiethcentury reader to grasp, enabled the recipient to read more into the letter than was actually written. Politically sensitive letters dispatched at a time of uncertainty, as in the years after the deposition of Richard II in 1399 and the accession of Henry IV, would have been especially carefully written. There is in fact very little in the letters which could not be read by an outsider, and in this sense they cannot be described as completely private. Even in family letters, formal expressions were used. This may partly have been due to the letters being written by a clerk rather than by the woman herself, but it also re¯ects a greater emphasis in society on formality than in the Tudor and Stuart period. By then, increased literacy and more use of writing for personal matters appears to have led to a greater willingness to express feelings and emotion, at least towards the members of the writer's family.16




Moreover, in the early ®fteenth century, as indeed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was usual to give extra information to the bearer of the letter. This underlines the continuing importance of oral communication and the trust placed in messengers. Thus Lady Despenser, corresponding with Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote that she would do what she could for his clerk, Master Henry Ware, and had done what he asked for the latter's cousin; she noted also that the bearer had been entrusted with more information.17 A letter from George, Earl of Dunbar to Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland, mainly concerned with the affairs of Coldingham Priory, also mentioned that some information for which the countess had asked was being conveyed by messenger.18 This type of statement is often found. The use of letters as family communications was widespread among noblewomen by the early ®fteenth century, often to provide news and information. In spite of the conventional and formal elements, familial correspondence throws considerable light on the nature of relationships. The letters provide some opportunity to learn about the personalities of the noblewoman and of members of her family. This personal element is rarely found in other forms of documentation, such as wills, and household, legal and administrative material, although these can provide useful corroboration in some cases, especially where only a single letter to or from a noblewoman survives. Letters are especially important in highlighting the contacts among the extended family. The signi®cance of kindred rarely appears in other forms of documentation where the emphasis is usually centred on the life, concerns and future of the husband and his wife and children. Joan de Bohun, Countess of Hereford was in touch not only with her two daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren, but also with her brothers, Richard, Earl of Arundel and Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury. In an undated letter to the archbishop, Joan wrote to explain why she could not spend Easter with him; she was due to be at Denny Abbey on Wednesday 11 April, where she would stay before returning to Walden on Friday to spend Easter. Not wishing to offend her brother, the countess asked him to reply to her letter.19 The close relationship between Joan and Thomas is borne out by his household accounts when he was bishop of Ely (1374±88) which bear witness to frequent visits which were usually marked by various festivities and excursions.20 The correspondence of Bishop Henry Despenser with his nieces also underlines the existence and importance of close-knit extended family networks. His letter of condolence to Lady Despenser was part of a considerable family correspondence. He wrote to Anne Boteler congratu-



Jennifer C. Ward 33

lating her on the birth of her son (who apparently died in childhood), and asking her for further news. He also intervened when there was trouble between Anne and her husband Sir Edward Boteler, asking for the help of Lady Audley, saying that Boteler had refused to see him in London and that he was suing him in the archbishop's court. (Anne's own letter to Lady Audley, previously referred to, had been a request to visit her to recount her wrongs, which she would not commit to writing.) The correspondence between the bishop and his nieces was not all one way: Anne wrote to him about the affairs of another niece, Lady Ferrers of Chartley, beseeching him to take charge of Lady Ferrers' youngest son. A further letter from an unnamed niece stated that receipt of the bishop's news would alleviate her melancholy state.21 A letter from Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, sister of Henry IV and Queen of Portugal, shows a desire to promote the fortunes of members of the family, and it is likely that such encouragement of family interests was widespread. It was partly at her instigation that the marriage took place between Beatrice, her husband John I's illegitimate daughter, and Thomas, Earl of Arundel. Arundel had promised a substantial sum of money to Henry IV for the right to make his own choice of wife; however, he agreed to marry Beatrice, only to ®nd that the money was still being demanded by the king. Philippa intervened to press her brother to release the earl from making the payment. The letter combined respect and affection, being addressed to `the most high and powerful prince, my most supremely beloved brother'; she wrote that her children wished to be humbly remembered to the king, she offered to send him anything from Portugal that would please him, and ended the letter with a prayer to Jesus to give him prosperity, joy and long life.22 Letters within the nuclear family combine affectionate conventions with the prosaic details of news. Although it cannot be taken for granted that affectionate greetings denoted a loving marital relationship, the desire to be in contact and exchange news points to closeness and common interests between husband and wife. In some cases the husband put considerable trust in his wife's judgement and abilities. John Devereux the younger, writing to his wife Philippa, daughter of Alice de Bryene, in 1396, began and ended very affectionately, calling Philippa his `best-beloved partner'; he hoped to hear her news, and told her he was in good health; and he gave her news of the preparations at Calais for the arrival of the king of France and his daughter Isabel for her marriage to Richard II.23 Other letters show how business was managed within the family. About 1399, Alice, Countess of Kent corresponded with her son over a potential retainer, and intervened on behalf of a receiver in




Lincolnshire who was in arrears on his accounts.24 John Bourchier in 1374 greeted his wife and children 100 000 times, and then in the same sentence informed her that his ransom would cost 12 000 francs; he had been taken prisoner during the Hundred Years War. He urged her not to marvel that the sum was so large, as he had been in great danger of losing his life, and he pressed her to raise the money; more information would be provided by the bearer of the letter.25 Letters also indicate the existence of friendships among the nobility which again can be dif®cult to pinpoint in more formal documents. Details in letters throw light on the closeness of friendships, as in the epistolary exchange between Bishop Henry Despenser and Philippa, Queen of Portugal. The bishop informed her that he had been ill but that her letters had cured him; Philippa had asked him to take action on behalf of one of her ladies, Elizabeth Elmham, and he promised to do his best.26 On another occasion, Philippa wrote to thank him for his presents, and especially for the little bags which, she said, were so highly prized in Portugal that she would like more to be sent from time to time. She wrote that if there was anything in Portugal that he would like she would send it.27 These letters show that men and women were making use of letters to keep in touch with family and friends. They were essentially private communications in the sense that they related to a small and often interrelated group of people, and they provide a personal insight into the correspondents. There is more information on matters of mutual concern than on the nature of relationships, but the letters make it clear that both the extended and the nuclear family had a vital social role, and that friendship was highly prized. It was when letters were concerned with the lady's public business of estate management and patronage that they can be seen as expressions of power. Widowed noblewomen were responsible for estates accumulated from jointure, dower and sometimes inheritance, and, as estates were scattered, both messengers and letters were used in administration. Similarly, any noblewoman running her household would have some recourse to letters in securing supplies, although much could be done by oral communications to servants and tradesmen. There was inevitably some blurring in the letters between public business and private concerns. The letters of Elizabeth, Lady Zouche to John Bore in London were concerned with estate business and also required him to buy damask, silk and velvet, a rosary for her mother, as well as jewels and wine.28 What is apparent in these and similar letters is the wealth and power exercised by these women, many of whom played an active role in decision-making.



Jennifer C. Ward 35

A series of letters of 1401±6 from Margaret, Countess of Warwick to Bishop Henry Despenser underlines the importance of the letter in the exercise of power in the locality and the need for amicable local relationships. Neighbourhood networks could contribute much to the stability and order of a locality. On one occasion, Margaret introduced J.T., the bearer of the letter, to the bishop; she was sending him to manage her Norfolk estates which were situated near the bishop's and she requested the bishop's good lordship. She recommended her tenants to the bishop's favour on two other occasions.29 Possibly in 1402, she complained that she had not been able to hold her hundred court because the parson of Beeston had held it in the name of the earl of Arundel and ordered his chaplain to proclaim from the pulpit that all parishioners should resist her. She referred to the dishonour she had suffered and, worried about the possible disinheritance of her son, she asked Bishop Despenser to correct the parson.30 The bishop's answers do not survive, but clearly letters were vitally important in landed business. Relations between neighbouring landowners rarely appear in other documentation unless there was a quarrel or litigation; surviving letters are therefore of particular importance in assessing local relationships. It was universally accepted that women had a legitimate role as intermediaries, a role closely linked to their landed responsibilities and to their exercise of patronage. Social networks, based on concepts of hierarchy, good lordship and mutual interests, were the foundation of late medieval local society, and were formed and nurtured by both men and women.31 Bonds were fostered by gifts, by letter and by personal contact. The latter has left relatively little mark on the records, apart from some details about visits in household accounts.32 Household accounts also provide evidence for the widespread use of gifts; in 1385±86 Margaret Marshal, Countess of Norfolk gave and received presents of, among other things, wine, oats, boar, salmon, lampreys, poultry and game.33 Such items would be given and received by all noblewomen, although the scale would vary. In return for gifts, they offered patronage and protection. In this respect, the letter again acted as an instrument of power, and the use of the letter to request favours for a particular individual was widespread among men and women of the elite. At the end of the 1390s, Philippa of Portugal requested her cousin Richard II to provide a bene®ce for her chancellor, Master Adam Davenport, who wished to retire to England.34 A more detailed letter was written by Joan, Countess of Westmorland to her half-brother Henry IV on behalf of Christopher Standith and his wife Margaret.35 Christopher had been in the king's service in Wales, spending much of his own money, and as a result he and




Margaret had now left home. Margaret was uncomfortably housed with her many children; she had, according to Joan, one or two babies every year. Christopher was the youngest member of his family, and he and Margaret had married for love. The king had promised Christopher future reward, but what they needed was present help. It was Margaret who asked Joan to intercede; her father had been John of Gaunt's chancellor, so she had some connection with the countess and probably felt that she was her best intermediary with the king. Women conferred as well as requested favours. About 1400, the king's chancellor and treasurer wrote to the `most honoured and reverend' abbess of Wilton, asking her to present a clerk to the church of Berwick St John, as the present incumbent was not likely to live long and a vacancy would soon occur.36 The dispensing of favours was often marked by an element of reciprocity: Lady Despenser promised Archbishop Thomas Arundel that she would do what she could for his clerk. At the same time, she placed her trust in the archbishop and acknowledged his very great kindness and courtesy.37 Furthermore, women played an important role in acting as intermediaries on behalf of individuals and communities. In this respect, they were acting as a channel to facilitate the exercise of patronage or the granting of a petition. Such actions could be part of their estate responsibilities, but often emanated from the locality where the noblewoman resided and where she exercised in¯uence. In writing to her son Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent at the end of the fourteenth century, his mother, Countess Alice, reported that W. Baudewyn wanted to enter the earl's service. She had told Baudewyn that the earl would not be able to afford to take anyone on for the next two years, but he still wanted to become the earl's retainer for a small fee.38 Baudewyn was probably thinking of the advantageous contacts to be made in Holland's entourage. A community in need would urge or persuade an in¯uential member of the nobility to intervene in the right quarters so as to secure a particular favour or concession. Joan Beauchamp, Lady Abergavenny was in a good position to write to her uncle, Archbishop Thomas Arundel, to issue letters like his predecessor's in aid of repairing a bridge on the lands of Wenlock Priory; presumably, an indulgence was sought.39 Margaret, Countess of Warwick wrote to Bishop Despenser on behalf of Shouldham Priory in Norfolk which had close connections with the Beauchamp earls of Warwick, and was where her sister-in-law and niece were nuns.40 Laurence d'Allerthorpe's petition to Joan, Countess of Hereford complained of certain men of Maldon who had captured a ship and crew discharging coal at Heybridge;41 Laurence was



Jennifer C. Ward 37

in charge of the manor of Heybridge which was one of the possessions of St Paul's Cathedral. The intervention of women to settle quarrels and preserve the peace was an acceptable female activity according to contemporary theorists, and this again was facilitated by letter. Philippa of Portugal asked Archbishop Arundel to settle the quarrel between her brother Henry Bolingbroke and Bishop Despenser.42 She said that she had received much kindness from the bishop, and was writing to her brother to ask him to pardon the bishop for love of her. The bishop was certainly under suspicion early in Henry IV's reign, as he was thought to have been implicated in the Holland rising in the course of which Thomas, Lord Despenser lost his life. The outcome of these letters is only occasionally known; it is rare to have replies to correspondence and much was probably settled by oral communication. As for the two cases referred to, it appears from later evidence that the quarrel between Henry IV and Despenser was settled. Laurence's petition resulted in a royal order to the bailiffs of Maldon to free the ship from arrest, and it was stated that the whole matter was to be considered by the king's council. What the letters show as a whole is that women were ready to exercise power.43 The networks so far considered have been concerned with material and worldly gains; archbishops and bishops were involved in the same landed and political concerns as their lay neighbours, and were part of the same social and kindred networks. Yet it is clear from wills, tombs and household accounts that spiritual values were a major preoccupation of men and women of the late Middle Ages. Letters can show the ongoing relationship between noblewomen and churchmen on religious matters. Anne, Countess of Stafford was descended from the de Bohun earls of Hereford and Essex (she was the grand-daughter of Joan de Bohun), and she maintained her natal family's connection with the priory of Lanthony Secunda in Gloucestershire. She and members of her family and household were received into the priory's fraternity.44 In a letter of 1433, she referred to her gift of ornaments to the church, to be held by the priory forever. She also asked the canons to remember her in their prayers and to pray for the soul of her third husband Sir William Bourchier, Count of Eu (d.1420) who was buried at the priory. Anne herself intended to be buried at Lanthony. She had a high opinion of the priory, referring in the letter to its virtuous way of life.45 The gift of ornaments was valuable and extensive, comprising altar vessels and vestments; the silver-gilt chalice, incense boat, cruets and paxbred were worth £23 18s 8d.46 In his reply to the countess's letter, the prior assured her that two masses would be said every day at




the Trinity altar, one for her continuing welfare, pro®t and long life, and a requiem mass for her husband. In the margin of the register is a nota bene against the prior's reply.47 An undated letter from Anne, possibly of 1426 as it refers to the marriage of her son Henry, points even more clearly to the close relationship she had with the priory.48 The letter was addressed to her `right dear and entirely well-beloved'. In it the countess informed the prior that she had been ill since their last meeting, but now recovered she planned to be at the priory in ten days' time. She then went on to discuss various business and ®nancial matters. This group of letters can certainly be described as both `privy and powerful communications'. By the early ®fteenth century, letter-writing by noblewomen was an acceptable and widely used means of conveying information and transacting business, whether concerned with the household, estates, social networking or spiritual concerns. Written information was regarded as reliable and trustworthy, although the bearer of a letter often carried additional information, probably details which were considered too sensitive to commit to writing. Letters concerned both the woman's private and public sphere. They open up areas of family and social concerns which we would only guess at from more formal documents, and they re¯ect women's exercise of power in their own localities and other areas of female in¯uence. Correspondence was not the only way of doing business; much was probably still done orally through personal contact. Yet letters by the early 1400s had come a long way from the scrappy texts giving credence to the bearer which date from 200 years before. In sum, early ®fteenth-century letters show women playing a variety of social roles alongside relations, friends, landowners, churchmen and political ®gures, and, although fewer letters survive for women than men, those that we have reinforce the importance and power of noblewomen in the late medieval world.

Notes 1. M.B. Parkes, `The Literacy of the Laity' in Scribes, Scripts and Readers, ed. M. Parkes (London: Hambledon, 1991), pp. 275±97 (pp. 286±91); C.M. Meale, ` ``. . . alle the bokes that I haue of latyn, englisch, and frensch'': Laywomen and their Books in Late Medieval England', in Women and Literature in Britain, 1150±1500, ed. C.M. Meale (Cambridge: CUP, 1993), pp. 128±58 (p. 133); N. Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry (London: Methuen, 1984), pp. 144, 156±63. 2. P. Payne and C. Barron, `The Letters and Life of Elizabeth Despenser, Lady Zouche (d.1408)', Nottingham Medieval Studies, 41 (1997), 126±56 (p. 140);



Jennifer C. Ward 39

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

18.

19. 20.

V.M. O'Mara, `Female Scribal Ability and Scribal Activity in Late Medieval England: the Evidence?', LSE, 27 (1996), 87±130 (pp. 91±6). The development of trust in writing is discussed by M. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record (London: Edward Arnold, l979), pp. 231±57; Parkes, p. 288. PRO E101/512/10. Four letters and one bond were printed by E. Rickert, `Some English Personal Letters of 1402', RES, 8 (1932), 257±63; and all the letters with a calendar of the other documents by Payne and Barron, pp. 146±52. PRO SC1/51/24; the letters were printed by E. Rickert, À Leaf from a Fourteenth-Century Letter Book', Modern Philology, 25 (1927±8), 249±55. Anglo-Norman Letters and Petitions from All Souls MS.182, ed. M.D. Legge, Anglo-Norman Text Society, 3 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1941). The conventional format of ®fteenth-century letters in English is discussed by N. Davis, `The Litera Troili and English Letters', RES, 16 (1965), 233±44; À Note on Pearl', RES, 17 (1966), 403±5; `Style and Stereotype in Early English Letters', LSE, 1 (1967), 7±17. Rickert, À Leaf', pp. 253±4; the letter is quoted in translation and discussed by P. Coss, The Lady in Medieval England 1000±1500 (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998), p. 66. Anglo-Norman Letters, p. 91. Payne and Barron, pp. 148±51. Rickert, À Leaf', pp. 253±4. Payne and Barron, pp. 148±52. Anglo-Norman Letters, pp. 383±4, 416±17. Ibid., pp. 110±12. Constance, Lady Despenser was the bishop's niece by marriage. She was the granddaughter of Edward III, and the daughter of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York. Shortly after her husband's death, she was in fact granted some of her husband's estates to the value of 1000 marks (£666 13s. 4d.) a year, her husband's goods and chattels to the value of £200, together with items of plate; Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1399±1401 (HMSO, 1903), pp. 204±5, 223±4, 226. She was subsequently permitted to sue for her dower; Rotuli Parliamentorum (1783), 3, p. 533. J.R. Lander, Àttainder and Forfeiture, 1453±1509', HJ, 4 (1961), 119±51 (p. 119); reprinted in J.R. Lander, Crown and Nobility, 1450±1509 (London: Edward Arnold, 1976), pp. 127±58. See Chapter 5. Anglo-Norman Letters, pp. 353±4. Thomas Arundel was bishop of Ely between 1374 and 1388, archbishop of York between 1388 and 1396, and archbishop of Canterbury from 1396 until his death in 1414; he was in exile at the end of Richard II's reign, between 1397 and 1399. The Correspondence, Inventories, Account Rolls, and Law Proceedings of the Priory of Coldingham, ed. J. Raine (Surtees Society, 12, 1841), pp. 89±90. Joan was daughter of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, and the second wife of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland (d.1425); she died in 1440. The letter may well date from her widowhood. Anglo-Norman Letters, pp. 84±5. M. Aston, Thomas Arundel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), pp. 172±3, 181±91, 194±200.




21. Anglo-Norman Letters, pp. 103, 383±4, 92±3, 366. None of these letters is dated, but it is likely that they all belong to the beginning of the ®fteenth century. Bishop Henry Despenser died in 1406. 22. John I also asked for the payment to be remitted. M.A.E. Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies From the Twelfth Century to the Close of Mary's Reign, 3 vols (London: Colburn, 1846), 1, pp. 78±81; Royal and Historical Letters during the Reign of Henry IV, ed. F.C. Hingeston, 2 vols, Rolls Series (1860), 2, pp. 83±102. 23. Rickert, À Leaf' p. 254; Coss, pp. 65±6. 24. Anglo-Norman Letters, pp. 260±1, 274. 25. M. Jones, `The Fortunes of War: the Military Career of John Second Lord Bourchier (d.1400)', Essex Archaeology and History, 26 (1995), 145±61 (p. 159). 26. Anglo-Norman Letters, pp. 360±2. 27. Ibid., pp. 372±3. 28. Payne and Barron, pp. 148±52. 29. Anglo-Norman Letters, pp. 90, 98, 106±7. 30. Ibid., pp. 100±1. The advowson of Beeston was the subject of a commission of inquiry in 1402, and Thomas, Earl of Arundel was involved; Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1401±5 (HMSO, 1905), pp. 131±2. 31. Among women, widows were especially important in social networking because of their landed responsibilities, although wives also had a part to play. 32. For example, Household Book of Alice de Bryene 1412±1413 (Ipswich: Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History, 1931), which recorded the lady's guests each day. 33. BL Add. Roll 17208; Medieval Framlingham. Select Documents 1270±1524, ed. J. Ridgard (Suffolk Records Society, 27, 1985), pp. 86±128. Margaret was created duchess of Norfolk in 1399. 34. Anglo-Norman Letters, pp. 73±4. 35. Wood, pp. 82±5. 36. Anglo-Norman Letters, p. 457. 37. Ibid., pp. 353±4. 38. Ibid., pp. 260±1. 39. Ibid., p. 81. 40. Ibid., pp. 107±8. Countess Margaret pointed out that she held the patronage of the priory, and ought to regard it with great tenderness and love because her husband's sister and her niece Katherine Beauchamp were both nuns there. 41. Ibid., pp. 416±17. 42. Ibid., pp. 347±80. The letter must have been written in 1399 as Philippa gave her brother the title of duke of Lancaster; Henry succeeded his father, John of Gaunt, who died in early February 1399, and he became king on 30 September in the same year. At the time of writing, Archbishop Thomas Arundel was in exile. 43. Calendar of Close Rolls, 1399±1402 (HMSO, 1927), p. 349. 44. PRO C115/K2/6682, ff.148r, 192r. 45. Ibid., f.250v. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid., f.251r. 48. Ibid., f.191r. In 1426, Henry Bourchier married Isabel, daughter of Richard, Earl of Cambridge and widow of Sir Thomas Grey.



Jennifer C. Ward 41

Commanding Communications: the Fifteenth-Century Letters of the Stonor Women Alison Truelove

Letters can offer unique insight into people's lives, especially when the writers are no longer able to provide spoken accounts of their experiences. Annotated collections of correspondence by famous individuals have always been popular, as much for their entertainment value as their historical content, satisfying human curiosity while providing social analysts with potentially important source material. Private papers of all kinds are especially valuable when they concern those who are otherwise relatively hidden from the scholar's view. This is especially true in the case of medieval women. Their undeniably disadvantaged position in society inevitably led to their absence in many documents dating from the period, the majority of which were produced by of®cial institutions in which women had no role. Images and descriptions of the late medieval female are numerous in literary and religious texts, but all too often depict women as either weak and dangerously distracting, like Eve, or divinely virtuous, blameless creatures, like the Virgin Mary. Even when medieval authors chose to depart from such stereotypes, literary intentions often conspire to provide us with less than typical examples of women's experiences. In order to understand the reality behind such texts, it is necessary to read documents that are less reliant on literary conventions, and, ideally, those that women themselves had a role in creating. Writings that ful®l each of these requirements may be found in the surviving late medieval letter collections. Of these, the Paston correspondence provides the largest number of writings by women, and offers abundant information on domestic life and familial relations during the ®fteenth century.1 Margaret Paston has attracted much attention for her proli®c epistolary output and the forthright character it portrays; her female contemporaries also provide valuable insights through their own letters.2 The Cely and Plumpton collections3 each offer just two letters by 42



4

women, while the Stonor archive4 provides 31 female-authored letters, along with associated papers relating to the formally documented aspects of the women's lives. The medieval Stonors were a wealthy gentry family who had been established at their Oxfordshire home, a few miles north-west of Henley, since at least the late thirteenth century. With estates in six different counties, and a good deal of participation in public life through of®ceholding, the majority of the surviving correspondence relates to estate management and other business matters. Domestic arrangements, family relationships and wider social interaction are also revealed, and the letters of the women, far from being restricted to the domestic sphere, embrace a wide range of subject matters. The most prominent of the female correspondents is Elizabeth Stonor, the widow of a wealthy London mercer, who married William Stonor in 1475. Thirteen of her letters to William survive, all but one written from London.5 After Elizabeth's death in 1479, William married Agnes Wydeslade, a wealthy Devonshire widow from whom we have two letters.6 William's third wife, Anne, was the daughter of John Neville, Marquis of Montagu, and one of her letters to William survives.7 We also have four letters by Jane, William's mother, who was the daughter of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk,8 one by his sister Mary,9 and one from a distant cousin, Margery Hampden, who also wrote the postscript of a letter by her husband.10 Other female-authored letters are by associates of the Stonor family, including one from Alice Chaucer, Duchess of Suffolk, who was the step-mother of Jane Stonor and an in¯uential local ®gure.11 Alice, Lady Sudeley, and Dame Katherine Arundell each provide one letter,12 and there are two by Edward IV's Queen, Elizabeth Woodville.13 Two of the letters, from Eleanor la Despenser and Margaret Courtney, date from the fourteenth century and are in French,14 and the remaining two, from Alice Idle and N. Palmer, are less clearly part of the Stonor collection.15 This chapter examines what these letters add to our existing view of women's lives in the Middle Ages, while evaluating some of the linguistic characteristics of such correspondence. Women's letter-writing was regarded by medieval society as an acceptable and a practically useful activity, but was not without circumscription. When the Goodman of Paris wrote a book of instructions for his young wife at the end of the fourteenth century, he included advice on letter-writing: And I counsel you that you receive with great joy and reverence the loving and private letters of your husband, and secretly and all alone



Alison Truelove 43

read them unto yourself, and all alone write again unto him with your own hand, if you know how, or by the hand of another very privy person; and write unto him good and loving words and tell him your joys and diversions, and receive not nor read any other letters, nor write unto no other person, save by another's hand and in another's presence, and cause them to be read in public.16 There is little evidence, however, that the Stonor women regarded their letters as especially private forms of communication. The use of personal secretaries was widespread among the gentry and nobility of the period, and despite the implications of the Goodman of Paris, this did not necessarily denote an inability to write, but rather a reluctance to do so when there was a convenient alternative. Moreover, given the fact that Elizabeth Stonor used at least nine different scribes, it is unlikely that she chose them for their discretion, but rather because they happened to be close at hand. Kingsford, the ®rst editor of the letters, made the assumption that despite the frequent use of secretaries the female correspondents were generally able to write if they so desired, but careful study of the original manuscripts fails to promote such an optimistic view.17 Certainly, some of the women signed their letters with their own hand, as Elizabeth Stonor did, but ultimately the evidence is unclear. Agnes Stonor's letters are each in different hands, and in the signed one the signature is in the same hand as the body of the letter.18 A different scribe wrote each of Jane Stonor's letters, and not one is personally signed, while Margery Hampden's writings are in the same hand, and potentially are autograph. Anne Neville and Alice Chaucer evidently signed their own letters once an amanuensis had written them, while the letters of Mary Barantyne, of Alice, Lady Sudeley and of Katherine Arundell are all written in neat, professional hands which also produce a signature.19 Women's use of secretaries is con®rmed in a letter to Elizabeth Stonor by Thomas Betson, the future husband of her daughter, Katherine: I am wrothe with Katerynn by cause she sendith me no writtynge; I haue to hir dyuerse tymes, and ffor lacke off answere I wax wery. She myght gett a secretary yff she wold, and yff she will nat it shall putt me to lesse labour to answere hir lettres agayn.20 Thomas's annoyance at Katherine's reluctance to write, along with the evidence of his numerous letters to Elizabeth, also endorses the view that in this period men both tolerated and positively expected women to partake in letter-writing. Moreover, the Stonor evidence indicates that




men wrote directly to women about personal and business matters without fear that they were transgressing social codes, presupposing the ability of the women to respond appropriately. Despite the probability that scribes were widely used by women, whether for prestige, convenience or out of necessity, it is possible only rarely to evaluate whether letters were written by the female author or a scribe. It is therefore unwise to draw conclusions as to the writing abilities of the women concerned, and more important to consider the potential in¯uence the use of secretaries may have had on the content of the letters. Contrary to the ideals of the Goodman of Paris, dictation to another individual inevitably led to a lack of privacy in the communication, and as women were more likely than men to employ the services of a scribe, they would certainly have been less able to regard the letter as a con®dential document. Along with signing her dictated letters, Elizabeth Stonor often added an autograph postscript, probably after they had passed out of the hands of the scribe.21 That these were sometimes cryptically personal indicates an understandable reluctance to reveal personal matters, meant for the attention of her husband, to another individual; and their shaky and inexperienced appearance implies that her use of a scribe was possibly as much due to necessity as convenience. Other remarks in her letters indicate an unquestioned ability to read,22 and her signed account book of 1478±7923 indicates that she could read well enough to approve of its contents. Her literacy, then, was suf®cient for her requirements, and with access to the services of a number of different secretaries, she had no need to improve her elementary writing skills. Elizabeth Stonor had ample opportunity for letter-writing, since although she moved into the Oxfordshire family home after her marriage to William Stonor, she spent much of her time in London. There is even some evidence that she carried on the business of her ®rst husband, Thomas Ryche: a 1478 memorandum among the Cely papers refers to `Helsabethe Reche, mercer of London', suggesting not only that she continued as a mercer in her own right, but also that she kept the name of Ryche when acting in this capacity.24 In his search for a suitable wife, William Stonor must have found Elizabeth's London connections and independent wealth particularly attractive, and her close friendship with the merchant Thomas Betson, later her son-in-law, led to a brief but productive partnership with William in the wool-export trade. Elizabeth's role in coordinating this is signi®ed by the fact that the joint venture appears to have ended when she died in 1479.25 Her strong character reveals itself well in her letters to her husband, which are full of requests that often seem insistent despite being shrouded



Alison Truelove 45

in polite rhetoric. She invariably began by thanking William for his own letters and accompanying gifts. These were usually items such as wild boar and venison ± delicacies in the city ± but also included jewelled rings. In a letter of 1476 Elizabeth implored her husband to send her no more rings with stones in, since the jewel of one had fallen out and been lost on its journey to London.26 But gifts can have been little comfort in times of separation, and neither partner seems to have enjoyed being apart. Almost all of Elizabeth's letters contain lines in which she expressed her desire to see William soon, either wishing him in London with her, or for herself to be free to return to Stonor. Her comment in a letter of 1477 is representative of other similar remarks, and provides a glimpse of William's own feelings: `Syre, I thank you hertely that hyt pleasyd you to wyshe me with you at redyng off my letter; truly I wold I had a be there with you at that same season with all my hert.'27 That William's later wives expressed similar sentiments in their letters suggests that such statements were, to an extent, conventional within correspondence of the period. We should not, therefore, attach too great an importance to them, although accompanying expressions of affection indicate that they may have been founded on genuine feeling. Elizabeth Stonor's concern for her husband's health is evident throughout her letters to him. In 1476 she urged William to join her in London in order to avoid a contagious epidemic: gentyll cosyn, I vnderstonde that my brother and yowris is sore seke of the poxes, wherfore I am right hevy and sory of your beyng there, ffor the eyre of poxe is full contagious and namely to them that ben nye of blode, &c. Wherfore I wolde pray you, gentyll cosyn, that ye wolde comme hedyr, and yif hit wolde plese you so to doo, &c. And yif that hit lyke yow not so to doo, gentill cosyn, lettith me have hedyr some horsis, I pray you, and that I may comme to you, ffor ingood faith I can fynde hit in myn herte to put my self in jubardy there as ye be, and shall do whiles my lyff endurith, to the pleasure of God and youres, &c. For in good faith I thought neuer so longe sith I see yow.28 Elizabeth's willingness to return to Stonor and place herself at risk of infection for the sake of being with her husband surely denotes genuine affection, although comments later in the same letter of her unhappiness at being left in London show that her offer was not entirely altruistic. In October 1478, when in the capital for the memorial service of her ®rst husband, she wrote to William that she was `veray wery off London', often left alone and miserable, and unable to return home because of unpaid




bills which prevented her from leaving town with reputation intact.29 It seems, then, that Elizabeth's visits to London were not wholly pleasurable. Certainly she seems to have enjoyed spending time with her family there, and she wrote enthusiastically of meetings with the king and his mother in the company of Elizabeth of York, the sister of Edward IV and wife of Jane Stonor's half-brother John.30 Yet much of her time away from Stonor was occupied with tedious business matters and worrying about the health of her husband and children. The four children from Elizabeth's ®rst marriage did not routinely accompany her in her visits to London. Her letters indicate that unless remarkable circumstances occurred, they remained at Stonor, attended to by servants under the supervision of William. Twice Elizabeth requested in her letters that the children be sent to her in London, once because her daughter Katherine was ill and needed medical treatment, and again because of the risk of infection from a local epidemic.31 Elsewhere she wrote to William that the children were a comfort in his absence, and other remarks indicate that husband and wife took equal responsibility for the children, even though William was not their natural father.32 Upon meeting a potential husband for one of her daughters, Elizabeth wrote to William that she would not enter into negotiations for a marriage until she had discussed matters with him, acknowledging that he would be a `Rygt kynd and lovyng ffadir'.33 Such a positive view of parental affection is matched in a letter assumed to be by Jane Stonor to her daughter.34 She was placed against the wishes of her parents in the household of her aunt, the aforementioned Elizabeth of York, but does not seem to have enjoyed the experience. Her mother's letter acknowledges that if those who `dyd so gret labour and diligence' to have her are weary of her, she would be welcomed home, but only with the permission of the queen, who had arranged the placement. The practice of placing children of the gentry and nobility in other respectable households was widespread in the medieval period, and was deemed to advance social prospects while providing an education, but only through letters such as this can we observe the experiences of the children involved.35 Like Elizabeth and William, Jane and Thomas Stonor apparently enjoyed an affectionate marriage, although Jane rarely betrays her feelings for her husband in her correspondence. Instead, it is Thomas's letter to his wife that reveals marital affection, addressing Jane as `myne oone good Jane' and `goode swete Lemman'.36 Jane's own letters to Thomas lack such expressive language, as she forcefully stated her views and questioned his authority. Comments in later letters by other correspondents suggest that Jane was a formidable woman in her old age, and her letters to her



Alison Truelove 47

husband do little to dispel this view.37 They are brief and purposeful, one of 1463 informing him that she had reluctantly taken delivery of a privy seal document on his behalf, and one of around 1470 in which she disagreed with his idea of having William Lovell to stay with them.38 Such curtness might be interpreted negatively, but her direct honesty and readiness to challenge her husband on such matters indicates that she presupposed his willingness to consider her views. Their relationship, like that of Elizabeth and William, evidently involved a balance of power and mutual honesty, which might be regarded as more indicative of a close and loving marriage than affectionate words alone. There are indications that French, not English, was Jane's ®rst language, which may account for the curtness as well as the high incidence of French loan words in her letters.39 The unusual phonetic spellings ± such as àschusyt' for èxcuse it' ± signify dif®culties on the part of her scribe to understand her dictations, and this warns that we should not assume lack of eloquence to denote absence of feeling. As Jane's letters show, the Stonor wives, like the Pastons, were frequently left in charge of the household and local estates while their husbands were away, and seem to have coped admirably with the task.40 They had numerous servants to carry out most of the work, but surviving receipts show Jane Stonor taking personal delivery of revenues from the family's receivers, and the account books of Elizabeth Stonor and of her husband's grandmother, Alice, con®rm the women's jurisdiction over household ®nances.41 The general absence of information on domestic activity within the Stonor archive is a good indication that things ran smoothly and required little intervention by the women. Elizabeth Stonor's only surviving letter written from the family home in her husband's absence contains no references to domestic matters. Instead, she related news of potential wardships and stewardships, and reported the death of the local parson with emphasis on who his executors were, revealing her understanding that the abiding concern would be how his estate was distributed.42 Such awareness of events and opportunities in the local community indicates that women like Elizabeth were not excluded from the network that distributed this information. Large households, made up of servants mainly from the local area, certainly must have aided the gathering of news, and Elizabeth's letters indicate her use of such information to further the prospects of the family. The importance of being `honourable' and `worshipful' in this period is indicated in the salutations of letters, and the task of maintaining family reputation fell as much on gentry wives as their husbands. Honour was inevitably linked with status, which could be




augmented through the holding of of®cial positions within the community and maintained through gestures such as the exchange of gifts, an activity well documented by correspondence.43 Elizabeth's particular concern with such matters indicates that her mercantile background engendered similar aspirations as those evidenced among established gentry families. Her tendency to over-indulge in the trappings of gentry life is suggested in her own correspondence, which alternately reveals extravagant consumption and concern with unpaid bills. In 1478 the Stonors owed over £10 to the brother of Thomas Betson for wine, and in the same year Elizabeth wrote to William that she was being called upon daily for money.44 This recalls Christine de Pisan's warning to widows in The Treasure of the City of Ladies that `there is absolutely no shame in living within your income, however small it may be, but there is shame if creditors are always coming to your door'.45 In another letter to William, Elizabeth complains of being `ryght bare off sarventys', asking for more to be sent to her, and elsewhere she reports Elizabeth of York's complaint that William ought to provide his sisters with better attire, or she would refuse to keep them in her household.46 These examples suggest the precarious nature of the family's ®nances. Warnings by Thomas Betson that Elizabeth should beware of large expenses, along with an indication that her brother-in-law Thomas regarded her spending habits unfavourably, show that Elizabeth's levels of consumption did not pass by unnoticed or without consequence.47 After Elizabeth's death, William received a letter from his uncle, William Harleston, advising him that as a widower he might reduce his household with `honour and worship' and thus keep within his livelihood.48 Expenditure evidently was tolerated for the prestige and honour it conferred, but placed too considerable a demand on the family coffers to be continued without justi®cation. Preoccupation with status is symptomatic of the society in which the Stonors lived, and the letter played an important role in reinforcing the nature of relationships between correspondents. The tradition of letterwriting in the Western world was well established by the ®fteenth century, and although conventions were more relaxed in practical application than in earlier centuries, the rules surrounding the composition of letters were still highly prescriptive. The basic format of medieval correspondence evolved out of the rhetorical study of letter composition, the ars dictaminis, which was disseminated in the Middle Ages through letter-manuals.49 Initially, these publications conditioned epistolary practice among the formally educated, whose compositions in Latin and French were carefully constructed in accordance with a strict



Alison Truelove 49

framework dictated by the manuals. Within this framework were ®ve main sections, alternatives for which were prescribed according to the sender's relationship with the recipient, and the speci®c intentions of the communication. By the late fourteenth century, when English was again used in letters, the formulas of the manuals would have been translated into the vernacular, dictating the future style of personal correspondence.50 Studies focused on the signi®cance of salutations used in late medieval letters as indicators of social status and attitudes draw interesting conclusions as to the relationships between some authors and recipients.51 However, it is important to recognise that just as we use conventional phrases such as `yours faithfully' in our own letters without seriously considering their semantic content, certain ®fteenth-century writers may have been similarly unconscious of the linguistic implications of the phrases they used. Yet although women's limited access to education, even among the higher echelons of society, might suggest that they were ignorant of the highly ordered structuring of the medieval letter, the evidence of the female-authored Stonor letters indicates a general understanding of the expected norms within the genre. This might be the result of intervention by possibly more informed scribes, but there is no doubt that even when dictating letters, the women were aware of the expected overall structure. This knowledge presumably was developed through regular practical contact with the form rather than through formal instruction.52 Structurally, the more formal the subject, the more adherent to convention the letter seems to have been. This can be seen clearly in the letters by noblewomen such as Alice, Lady Sudeley and Alice Chaucer, whose brief and purposeful missives to Thomas and William Stonor respectively share the same structure, despite being written almost 50 years apart. In each case, the salutation is almost identical ± `Right trusty and entirely (well)beloved friend' ± and is followed by a greeting or recommendation, before the purpose of the letter is explained. Both women stressed that their trust was placed in the recipient to carry out their commands, and stated that they would happily reciprocate the favour they requested.53 The rhetoric they employed was not only classical in origin, but also was carefully crafted to ensure that their own status was recognised by the recipient, while assuming trust in him in order to promote the chances of a favourable outcome. The placing of trust in others is a device used especially by the women in their letters, which reveal a proportionately higher usage of the verb `to trust' than male-authored letters. Consequently, although the structure of the letters




was modelled on classical examples, linguistic usage within this framework may have been gender-in¯uenced. However, it seems that status, of both the author and of the intended recipient, plays an important role in in¯uencing language and style. Careful analysis of the language of women's letters will reveal the extent of this trend and ascertain whether there is any evidence of linguistic features preferred by women. A useful measure by which to assess the language characteristics within the Stonor letters is that of how close they are to Chancery Standard English, but such work is heavily reliant on variant spellings, and given the frequent use of scribes in producing the women's letters, it would be unwise to draw any conclusions regarding female language use from such features.54 It might be assumed, however, that women made the majority of lexical choices, although this too can be challenged. Letters such as those from the queen are likely to have been the products of scribes who wrote appropriate compositions based on a brief outline of intention, the female signatory having had little in¯uence over their style. Moreover, such scribes are likely to have been conservative in their language use, again creating a false impression of women's own linguistic dexterity. Even letters between family members apparently written directly from dictation may have been subject to considerable scribal intervention. Study of the language used within Elizabeth Stonor's letters shows that linguistic usage varies from scribe to scribe, importantly indicating that lexical choices in these writings were not necessarily Elizabeth's own. Three of her letters, each written by the same scribe, include the phrase `ye schale understande that', a phrase used only once in her remaining correspondence. Other features such as variations in use of present participles in prefatory phrases, or conjunctions such as ànd' and `wherefore', further support the contention that Elizabeth's letters re¯ect her own use of language less clearly than might ®rst appear. Similarly, recurring phrases and syntactical patterns throughout the women's correspondence indicate the existence of stock phrases commonly employed within letters, which only distantly re¯ect the spoken language. These are likely to have been subject most to scribal in¯uence, each writer preferring different ways to introduce and conclude remarks dictated to him or her. Scribal in¯uence seems least prevalent in those parts of the letters that are less reliant on convention, that is, those parts beyond the formulaic salutations or valedictions. Therefore authors rather than scribes might be assumed to have been responsible for any unusual vocabulary including innovative linguistic choices. Of all the Stonor women, Elizabeth was the most resourceful in terms of her vocabulary, perhaps because, in writing to her husband, she was less



Alison Truelove 51

anxious than others to convey status or to be persuasive through formal expression. Consequently she used a variety of words and phrases which uniquely re¯ect the colloquial language of the merchant class of late ®fteenth-century London. In 1478 she wrote to William, `many tymes I am post a loyne and that causeth me to thynnke the more ellynger' ± a sentence that neatly expresses her unhappiness at being left alone so often, but that sounds unfamiliar to modern readers.55 When describing the duchess of Suffolk's discontent at the attire of William's sisters, Elizabeth remarked that she was `hal®ndell dysplesyd', unusually adopting the Old English compound rather than the more common, contemporary form `half'.56 These and other unusual lexical choices in her letters more closely than others re¯ect everyday speech and indicate the richness of that language, sometimes hidden in the more formulaic correspondence of other writers, male and female alike. No other female correspondent comes close to Elizabeth's lexical variety. Her social environment and, due to her intimacy with the recipients, her relative freedom from the constraints that dictated the style of more formal letters were stronger in¯uences on style than the fact that she was a woman. Is there, then, any evidence of a speci®cally female style among the letters of the Stonor women? The most important question to be addressed in this respect is that of whether the women's letters can be grouped together purely on stylistic grounds. A cursory glance at the basic structures of the documents suggests this cannot be done. The letter by Alice Chaucer compared with that of Alice, Lady Sudeley, proves to have more in common in terms of phraseology with a letter of 1481 by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and the letters of both women display greater similarities to correspondence of Lord Lovell and other nobles than the remaining female-authored letters.57 Likewise, the letters of Elizabeth Stonor, with their numerous colloquialisms and non-standard forms, resemble those of other mercantile London correspondents, particularly Thomas Betson, more than those of any other female. Here we observe a further distinction between gentry women born into the class, such as Agnes Stonor, and those who married into it, such as Elizabeth Stonor. A comparison of the correspondence of both women reveals Agnes's letter to be more formally stylised and less in¯uenced by spoken colloquialisms than those of Elizabeth. Jane Stonor's letters are most similar to those of her husband Thomas, even to the point of using identical blessings in letters to their son William. The phrase used, Ì send you God's blessing and mine', occurs nowhere else in the Stonor letters, although Norman Davis has noted its use in model letters and literature.58 The close similarity between their




letters reinforces the view that stylistic in¯uences, particularly in the case of women, were more likely to have come from contact with other examples of the form than from contemporary letter-writing manuals.59 Further, given that letters authored by men outnumbered those by women throughout the period, women would have had resource to proportionately fewer female-authored writings, so the probability of the perpetuation of any feminine discourse style, if any such existed, would have been minimal. It follows that any features identi®ed as existing predominantly within the women's letters are rather the result of a spoken tradition, which may have imposed underlying and possibly unconscious standards upon female discourse. Such standards re¯ect social status, age, or the letter's subject matter, the register of the writing being adjusted according to individual circumstances. We are able to assess to what extent women deviated from, or conformed to, certain norms. Taking potential scribal intervention into account, we can approach a good understanding of how individual women used language both within the form of the letter, appropriated as it was from male scholarly origins, and by association in their everyday speech. Elizabeth Stonor's colloquial vocabulary has been shown to be particularly valuable in this respect; other features warrant further consideration. It has been suggested, for instance, that women have been the innovators in linguistic changes throughout the history of the English language, adopting more quickly than men new forms that spread through colloquial spoken interaction.60 To take an example, `you' began to supplant its predecessor `ye' in the subject pronoun position from the fourteenth century onwards, the change being complete only by the end of the sixteenth century. The change has been attributed to phonological confusion in spoken language, so we might expect to ®nd its use more prevalent in the writings of those less versed in the conventions of written compositions. This contention is fully supported by the evidence of Elizabeth Stonor's letters, which have a de®nite colloquial tone and appear to some extent to reproduce her words as she spoke them. She chooses `you' over the older form `ye' in 29 per cent of her uses of the subject pronoun, compared with a 5 per cent usage by her younger contemporary Thomas Betson. As a group the women were similarly advanced in their adoption of the relative pronoun `which' over the older compound `the which', again illustrating innovative language use. Overall, their use of `which' over `the which' stands at 48 per cent, which compares well with an attested ®gure of 50 per cent in Chancery English. That the majority of these uses are in a non-formulaic context furthers the



Alison Truelove 53

contention that the women concerned had assimilated the innovation into their lexicon, presumably unaware of its formulaic origins. These examples further suggest that the language within the women's letters, especially those less constrained by formal stylistic demands, shows characteristics determined more by spoken than written example. This ®ts well with the common assumption that women were on the whole less literate than their male counterparts, their relative unfamiliarity with written texts resulting in a greater reliance on verbal discourse to formulate written sentences. So, while the general structure and style of the letters seem to re¯ect circumstances and status more than the author's gender, the language itself was to some extent differentiated from that of the male writers. The use of new linguistic forms and unusual vocabulary has been seen as distinctive in the women's letters, particularly in those of Elizabeth Stonor, although further evidence of a speci®cally female style is limited. It is true that when Agnes Wydeslade wrote to her future husband William in 1480, she used phrases such as `so pore a woman as y am' and `my power [poor] welfare', which conceivably re¯ects a stereotypical submissive female attitude.61 However, they might also be interpreted positively as tactical rhetorical devices, used to invite a favourable response from the recipient. A widow herself, Agnes seems to have been anxious to remarry, and in the letter to the recently widowed William she may have been conforming to the model of a helpless woman in order to provoke his sympathy. That she married William shortly afterwards suggests that the letter was effective. This invites the conclusion that for the women themselves, scribal in¯uence was not necessarily a problem. Elizabeth circumvented the dif®culties of privacy by adding her own postscripts to letters, nobles such as Alice, Lady Sudeley and Elizabeth Woodville seem to have handed complete responsibility for the writing of their letters to scribes, while others such as Agnes Stonor almost certainly welcomed the experienced advice of more knowledgeable individuals. Regardless of the extent of intervention by others, each of the women's letters in the Stonor collection successfully commands our attention as readers, whether through highly structured formats, through authoritative words, or simply through a narrative and colloquial style. We might assume that their original recipients found them equally effective and persuasive. While the letters are most obviously of use to scholars for what they reveal of women's lives in the late Middle Ages, they offer much more besides. They shed light on language usage and change both in general and speci®cally by women, they provide valuable commentary on the relationships between individuals and how these might be expressed




through particular linguistic choices, and they invite further speculation on the writing abilities of medieval women. Finally, it is interesting to note that women's experience of letterwriting in the ®fteenth century came far closer than that of their male counterparts to the scholarly origins of the form. The ars dictaminis was literally the practice of literary composition through dictation, letterwriting therefore existing as a verbal rather than manual skill.62 Whether they knew it or not, in dictating their letters to scribes the Stonor women were practising a tradition deeply seated in intellectual history, while the majority of men of their class undertook the labour of writing their own compositions. Women may have appropriated a genre created and disseminated by men, invited by convention to adopt certain stylistic traits conceived by men, but it was they and not their husbands or sons who perpetuated the intellectual traditions of the form.

Notes I would like to thank Prof. Caroline Barron for many helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. 1. Norman Davis, ed., Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971 and 1976). 2. For example, A.S. Haskell, `The Paston Women on Marriage in FifteenthCentury England', Viator, 4 (1973), 459±71; D. Watt, ` ``No writing for writing's sake'': the Language of Service and Household Rhetoric in the Letters of the Paston Women', in Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre, eds K. Cherewatuk and U. Wiehaus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 122±38. 3. Alison Hanham, ed., The Cely Letters 1472±1488, EETS 273 (London: OUP, 1975); Joan Kirby, ed., The Plumpton Letters and Papers (Camden Society, 5th ser., 8, 1996). 4. C.L. Kingsford, ed., The Stonor Letters and Papers, 1290±1483, 3 vols (Camden Society, 3rd ser., 29, 30 and Miscellany 12, 1919 and 1923) (hereafter SLP) is the only published edition of the documents, although this has been reissued, with a new introduction by Christine Carpenter, as Kingsford's Stonor Letters and Papers 1290±1483 (Cambridge: CUP, 1996). Kingsford's transcriptions are not entirely accurate, and quotations within this chapter are taken from my own transcriptions of the documents, made during work on a new edition. In this chapter, references to Stonor documents are to their number in Kingsford's edition, or to their PRO reference number if unpublished. In quotations from the documents, the thorn and yogh graphs have been normalised to th or y/g as appropriate. 5. SLP 168±73, 175, 180, 204, 208, 226, 229 and 237, written between 1476 and 1479.



Alison Truelove 55

6. Ibid., 261 and 262, written in 1480. 7. Ibid., 306, dated 1482. 8. Ibid., 70 and 106 (to Thomas Stonor, her husband, written 1463 and c.1470), 120 (to her daughter, written c.1472) and 158 (to William, written c.1475). 9. Ibid., 294, dated 1481. Mary married John Barantyne of Haseley, and had a son named William. 10. Ibid., 186 (to William, written c.1477) and No. 75 (postscript of letter to Thomas Stonor, written c.1465). 11. Ibid., 148 (written c.1475). Her father, Thomas Chaucer, occurs regularly in Stonor deeds relating to property transactions, including PRO C146/1482, C146/3536, C146/3015, and C146/5718. 12. SLP 53 (written before 1431) and 125 (written c.1473). Alice, Lady Sudeley (d. 1443) was the daughter of Sir John Beauchamp of Powyk, and the widow of Thomas Boteler (d. 1398) of Sudeley, Gloucestershire, later marrying Sir John Dalyngrygge (d. 1408) of Bodiam, Sussex. Katherine Arundell (d. 1479) was the widow of Sir John Arundell of Laherne, Cornwall, and later married Sir Roger Lewknor (d. 1478). 13. Ibid., 293 (to the forester of Blackmore, dated 1481) and 319 (to William Stonor, dated 1482). 14. Ibid., 3 (to John de Stonor, dated 1326) and 38 (to Edmund de Stonor, dated 1380). 15. Ibid., 356 (unaddressed, dated 1481) and 134 (to Thomas Hampden, written before 1474). 16. Eileen Power (trans.), The Goodman of Paris (London: Routledge, 1928), p. 106. 17. SLP, vol. 29, p. xlvii. 18. Ibid., 262. 19. For a useful survey of medieval women's writing abilities see V.M. O'Mara, `Female Scribal Ability and Scribal Activity in Late Medieval England: the Evidence?', LSE, 27 (1996), 87±130. 20. SLP 185. 21. Ibid., 172, 175, 176, 180 and 204 all contain autograph postscripts by Elizabeth Stonor. 22. In one letter (SLP 176) she wrote: `plesith hit yow to vnderstonde that I haue receyuyd your lettre, and a byll closid in the said lettre, which I haue redde and ryght will vnderstondyd'. 23. Ibid., 233. 24. A. Hanham, The Celys and their World (Oxford: OUP, 1985), p. 196. Elizabeth may also have spent time in London for reasons of status; it has been noted that the ®fteenth-century nobility were beginning to appreciate the attractions of urban life at this time. Jennifer C. Ward, Ènglish Noblewomen and the Local Community in the Later Middle Ages', in Medieval Women in their Communities, ed. Diane Watt (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. 186±203 (p. 189). 25. Customs Accounts for 1478±79 show William Stonor and Thomas Betson making substantial shipments of wool out of London ports: PRO E122/73/40, 18±19 Edw. IV. (I am grateful to Eleanor Quinton for this reference.) There is no surviving correspondence between the two men after Elizabeth's death at the end of 1479, although one letter shows that in 1482 Betson owed William £1200: SLP 310.




26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

SLP 172.

Ibid., 180.

Ibid., 169.

Ibid., 229.

Ibid., 172.

Ibid., 168 and 169.

Ibid., 172.

In SLP 176, while in SLP 169 she thanked him for tending to her children at

Stonor while she was in London. It has been suggested that relationships

between children and step-parents were rarely this good: Ralph A. Houlbrooke,

The English Family 1450±1700 (Harlow: Longman, 1984), p. 218.

SLP 120.

Nicholas Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry: the Education of the English Kings

and Aristocracy 1066±1530 (London: Methuen, 1984), especially pp. 59±60.

Joan Kirby notes that Dorothy Plumpton was also unhappy in her position with

Lady Darcy, her step-grandmother: `Women in the Plumpton Correspondence:

Fiction and Reality', in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented

to John Taylor, eds Ian Wood and G.A. Loud (London: Hambledon Press, 1991),

pp. 219±32 (p. 228).

SLP 91.

Ibid., 301 and 320.

Ibid., 70 and 106.

For discussion of Jane's parentage and possible French education see Ibid., vol.

29, p. xxv; R.J. Stonor, Stonor (Newport: Johns, 1952), p. 127; Carpenter,

Kingsford's Stonor Letters, vol.1, p. 5, n. 19.

See Rowena Archer, ` ``How ladies . . . who live on their manors ought to

manage their households and estates'': Women as Landholders and Admin istrators in the Later Middle Ages', in Woman is a Worthy Wight: Women

in English Society c.1200±1500, ed. P.J.P. Goldberg (Stroud: Sutton, 1992),

pp. 149±81.

See P.W. Fleming, `Household Servants of the Yorkist and Early Tudor Gentry',

in Early Tudor England: Proceedings of the 1987 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Daniel

Williams (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989), pp. 19±36; PRO C47/37/22/26±9;

SLP 233 and 55.

Ibid., 237.

See P. Maddern, `Honour among the Pastons: Gender and Integrity in

Fifteenth-Century English Provincial Society', Journal of Medieval History, 14

(1988), 357±71 for more on this issue.

PRO C47/37/4/28 (printed as part of SLP 224); SLP 229.

Christine de Pisan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies or the Book of the Three

Virtues, ed. S. Lawson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), quoted in R. Archer,

op. cit., p. 172.

SLP 204 and 172.

SLP 211 and 180.

SLP 260.

See Norman Davis, `The Litera Troili and English Letters', RES, 16 (1965),

234±44, and entries on `Rhetoric' and `Dictamen' in J.R. Strayer, ed., Dictionary

of the Middle Ages (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984). Also see James J.

Murphy, ed., Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts (Berkeley: University of California



Alison Truelove 57

50.

51. 52.

53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62.

Press, 1971) for a translation of Anonymous of Bologna's `The Principles of Letter-Writing' (Rationes dictandi). The earliest known letter in English was written from Florence in 1392±3 by Sir John Hawkwood, although the earliest known letters written in English in England are those of Elizabeth, Lady Zouche, whose ®ve letters written in 1402±3 survive. The next earliest date from the early 1420s, as does the earliest Stonor Letter (SLP 42). See Helen Suggett, `The Use of French in England in the Later Middle Ages', TRHS, 28 (1946), 61±83 (pp. 66 and 69); P. Payne and C. Barron, `The Letters and Life of Elizabeth Despenser, Lady Zouche (d. 1408)', Nottingham Medieval Studies, 41 (1997), 126±56. For example, see Patricia Voichahoske, `Text Act and Tradition: Salutations and Status in the Paston Family, 1440±1495' (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Michigan, 1986). Salutations used by the women range from Elizabeth Stonor's lengthy but conventional `Right reverend and worshipful and entirely best beloved cousin', to Jane and Anne Stonor's simple uses of `sir', but none of the women are entirely consistent. Elizabeth is particularly creative, with minor modi®cations in each of her opening phrases. SLP 148 and 53. See M.P. Relihan, `The Language of the English Stonor Letters 1420±1483' (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Tennessee, 1977). The thesis is based on Kingsford's edition, which is not reliable orthographically. My new edition of the Stonor documents will facilitate more accurate studies. SLP 229. Ibid., 172. Ibid., 243, 318 and 333. Ibid., 158 and 97. Davis counted numerous examples of the phrase in the Paston Letters and sixteenth-century correspondence, all used, as in the Stonor Letters, by a parent to a child: N. Davis, À Note on Pearl', RES, 17 (1966), 403±5. See Davis, `The Litera Troili', p. 240. Terttu Nevalainen, `Gender Difference', in Sociolinguistics and Language History, eds Terttu Nevalainen and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), pp. 77±80. SLP 262. M.T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), p. 271.




Female Literacy and the Social Conventions of Women's Letter-Writing in England, 1540±1603 James Daybell

English women's letters for the period 1540 to 1603 exhibit widely diverging levels of female scribal activity. While many letters are holograph, written by women in their own hands, others were penned by amanuenses, bearing only the signature of a female correspondent. This in some measure re¯ects variations in degrees of women's literacy during the sixteenth century. Represented by a corpus of some 2300 letters surveyed are highly literate women, ¯uent correspondents, pro®cient at writing in several styles, hands and languages, including Latin. At the opposite end of the spectrum are women who were unable to write their own letters but who could perhaps read and scrawl a barely legible signature or only perform a mark. However, differences in women's scribal ability provide but one part of the equation. Of the women who employed the services of a secretary for correspondence many did so out of choice and, at other times, themselves wrote. This points to a fundamental distinction between a woman's ability to write and her propensity to do so. This chapter is therefore concerned as much with general attitudes to literacy and letter-writing as with actual literacy levels. It explores several issues related to epistolary composition: the range of women's writing abilities, as well as the conventions and practices governing the actual penning of letters and utilisation of secretaries.1 Lastly, the chapter interrogates the assumption that literacy, or more precisely the ability to write letters, had a positive or emancipating impact on women's lives. Central to this study is the question of how to discern whether or not a woman was herself capable of writing a letter. Letters can certainly be used as indicators of female literacy and illiteracy. Here, assessment relies largely on palaeographic analysis of the documents.2 Of 650 female letterwriters studied for the period 1540±1603, only secretarial letters survive for some 23 per cent of women. What proportion of these women were 59



5

constrained to use an amanuensis because they were insuf®ciently skilled at writing personally to conduct correspondence is hard to gauge. In rare instances textual references register a sender's inability to write. Mary Harding expressed regret to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland that her letters to her ladyship were not more frequent: ùmbely beseching your honor not to be ofended withe me for that I write noe oftner to your honour/ thee caues is that I cannot write myselfe and I am louthe to make any bodye acquianted withe my leaters'.3 More widely reliable, however, is a qualitative examination of secretarial letters for pro®ciency or ¯uency of autograph signatures. This furnishes some indication of the true extent of a woman's writing skills. Laboured or scratchy signatures may signify female correspondents unaccustomed to writing who found great dif®culty even in signing their own names. Muriel St Clare Byrne concludes from Honor, Lady Lisle's awkward attempts at signatures that she was unable herself to write letters.4 The letters from Elizabeth Sutton to her husband Sir Thomas Sutton, founder of Charterhouse Hospital, are also rather tortuously subscribed, suggesting that she too was not used to writing.5 For both women producing a signature probably represented the limits of their writing abilities. More problematic are cases where only a single non-holograph letter survives for a particular woman, which accounts for over 130 female correspondents sampled. In such instances it is dif®cult to evaluate letter-writing habits and to assess competency at writing, beyond signing ability. In fact establishing conclusively an individual's inability to write letters from extant secretarial examples alone creates uncertainties: indeed, it may be that a woman for various reasons simply chose not to write herself. Nevertheless, it is likely that during the sixteenth century, as in earlier periods, women more than men were forced by levels of illiteracy and inadequate literacy skills to use secretaries.6 Certain women, although capable of writing letters, in practice may have been discouraged or made less con®dent in corresponding themselves by their poor orthography and diction. The atrocious hand and erratic spelling of a holograph postscript to a missive from Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk to her brother Henry, Lord Stafford probably accounts for the duchess's use of a secretary for the main body of the letter. A transcript of the postscript is included verbatim in order to illustrate fully the extent of Elizabeth Howard's idiosyncratic orthography: Brorder I pra you to ssand me my ness dorety by kass I kno har kon dessess se sal not lake hass long hass I leffe and he wold be hord by me




James Daybell 61

Despite greater orthographic regularity by the end of the 1500s many women's letters continue to display eccentric and phonetic spellings. Individual female letter-writers were clearly self-conscious of the fact that they could not spell, which on occasion may have deterred them from writing personally. Corresponding in 1597, Elizabeth Kitson informed Sir John Hobart that, ìn this letter much false Incgliche I am suer you shall/red/ but let tru meanynge counterfayl that falte'.8 Indications of more widespread embarrassment at irregular spelling are glimpsed in Edmund Coote's The English School Maister (1596). The manual, which aimed to teach the rules of correct English spelling, was addressed to an audience `that now for want' of `true orthography . . . are ashamed to write unto their best friends: for which I haue heard many gentlewomen offer much'.9 Pride and self-esteem appear to have encouraged women to acquire and improve literacy skills for purposes of correspondence. Further, the desire to acquit oneself well on paper could account for the numerous holograph presentation letters, which were painstakingly penned by women for show in neat italic scripts, and which often bear ¯ourishing signatures. The reluctance of some women to write also may have been caused by the ridicule with which their poor erudition and inability to spell was sometimes met. Criticisms of the quality of female epistolary output are quite common: Philip Gawdy teased his sister-in-law for her `fals[e] orthographye'.10 More spiteful than this example of fraternal mocking, Elizabeth Bourne, writing under the pseudonym Frances Wesley, harshly reproved Lady Conway for her `late learned eloquence': you must sett aparte more of your idell exercyses/by larger tyme and more industrie of your scole M[aster]s to become a deaper studient in rethoricke then yet you arr/a good wyll you showe such as yll wordes may sett forthe/but your scole M[aste]r . . . he maks you use many sentences and lytell substance and you tell straynge tales and no trothe/the faulte ys greate and I wyshe you to mende yt/though wee well some tymes take lyberty to speak barborously/yett owght yt not to be untrewly when the wyttness of our hand maks yt a recorde/but happelie you apply to the exercyse to become a plesyng scoler to your m[aste]r.11 With similar malevolence Maria Thynne scorned Joan Thynne, whom she had recently replaced as mistress of Longleat, for her penmanship: ìf you



at hor haless I kyng he be hone kyne tha ffaless drab and kouk and nat ben I hade hadehar to my couffert.7

gave a fee to any counsellor to indite your letter, it was bestowed to little purpose'.12 The effect of Maria Thynne's insult is heightened by the fact that it exposed social and generational differences in standards of literacy: eloquence and learning as well as noble birth enabled Maria to treat contemptuously her widowed mother-in-law Joan, herself the daughter of a London merchant.13 Disparaging comments of this nature by other women ± far from displaying stereotypical virtues of female humility and submissiveness on the part of the women issuing the insults ± indicate an increasing unacceptability for upper-class women to be unable to write or indeed to write badly. To some extent female correspondents' unease in their own letterwriting abilities may be re¯ected in the considerable numbers of early modern women's letters that apologise for `scribbled lines' or `rude writing'. Nevertheless, such self-deprecatory comments belie a complex range of motives and customs, and should not always be accepted at face value.14 Within learned circles at least it was epistolary convention for both women and men to uphold a demeanour of false modesty: Lucy St John wrote to her father, Lord Burghley, in an elegant hand, yet courteously excused her `bade writynge'; Bartholomew Kemp, Clerk of the Great Seal, implored Lady Anne Bacon to pardon his `rude l[ett]res'.15 This manner of self-criticism, which was governed less by gender than by social status or position, acted as a way for subordinates to demonstrate respect or deference to superiors. While Lucy St John's letter should be interpreted as a mark of ®lial respect, Kemp's signi®ed his deference towards a woman of higher social rank. Moreover, women in particular could exploit assumptions of female intellectual inferiority, in order to project an aura of vulnerability to male recipients ± a strategy employed to good effect in the business sphere.16 For signi®cant numbers of the female letter-writers surveyed during this period, literacy was not an obstacle to conducting personal correspondence: a high proportion in fact wrote all their own letters and for over a third of women examples of both holograph and secretarial letters survive. The latter group of women were obviously capable of writing letters themselves, but often chose to delegate the task to scribes. Given that a woman could write herself, the decision of whether to do so was dependent upon various factors: custom, the type and context of a letter, the relationship between writer and addressee, and precise circumstances. Accordingly, the present discussion is concerned with the broad mapping of patterns of letter-writing in order to identify the different contexts in which secretaries were employed by `literate' individuals and those where women were more likely personally to engage in writing letters.




First, in numerous cases use of amanuenses was necessary for women rendered physically incapable of writing by old age, ill-health or emotional distress. On her deathbed, Winifred, dowager Marchioness of Winchester, too weak to write, dictated a letter to Burghley containing instructions for her will. In an appended note her daughter Lady Anne Dacre informed the Lord Treasurer that her mother had been `so wicke in bodye as she cold not sine this leter whiche she mouche desyred to haue writon to your lo[rdship]'.17 Susan Grey, Countess of Kent dispatched an epistle to her aunt Elizabeth Talbot, dowager Countess of Shrewsbury beseeching her to `pardon me that I write not this w[i]th my owne hand/ for that my ®nger continuethe so evell as that I am not able to howld a penn'.18 Corresponding with Sir Robert Cecil concerning the estate of her late husband, Robert, Earl of Essex, following his execution for treason in 1601, Frances Devereux explained that she was too distressed herself to write: Good M[aste]r Sec[retary] beare w[i]th me that I write not all in mine owne hand/I beegann it but my weak sinnewes would not suffer me to proceed to the third line/but inforced me to use an others help in writinge what my distemperd brayne did confusedly digest.19 In this missive, material expression of the countess of Essex's mental suffering, whether sincere or affected, may have strengthened the petition by presenting her as a pitiable widow, an image with strong religious associations. Furthermore, the need to apologise for not having written oneself suggests that these women were expected to write their own letters and that they wanted to do so. An examination of groups of holograph and non-holograph letters within speci®c archives highlights the situations where it was appropriate or conventional to engage secretarial assistance and those where correspondents were expected to write in their own hands. In broadly distinguishing formal and business from family letters, the former were more commonly written by secretaries than by women themselves. Of 18 letters discovered among the Exchequer papers at the Public Record Of®ce, each dealing with ®nancial matters, all but two were written by secretaries.20 Additional letters survive for over half of the women, at least one of which is holograph, which attests that they could in fact write, but had chosen not to correspond personally with Exchequer of®cials. Other government, legal and corporate archives, where examples of women's letters are found, exhibit equally high numbers of secretarial correspondence. By contrast the proportion of holograph letters is usually much



James Daybell 63

larger in collections of family papers. For example, of a sample of 41 women's letters for the period discovered in the Paget Papers, over 30 were penned by the female signatory.21 Similarly, a group of 35 letters to the earl of Essex from his mother, Lettice Dudley, his sisters Penelope Rich and Dorothy Percy, and his wife, includes only one item of correspondence by a secretary.22 Conventions governing the writing of letters become more pronounced when one compares methods of composition used for different types of letters ± business or formal, domestic or familiar ± within an individual woman's overall correspondence. The example of Anne Dudley, Countess of Warwick, for whom there are a range of approximately 30 letters still extant, well illustrates this. Among the countess's letters, eight can be categorised as personal letters, written to relatives conveying news and greetings; the remainder are more formulaic business letters to of®cials, dealing with administrative and patronage matters. All but two items of her personal correspondence are holograph, including three epistles addressed to her sister Margaret, Countess of Cumberland.23 By comparison, only four business letters are in the countess's own hand, the others were produced by an amanuensis. In sum, the more personal and intimate the relationship between sender and recipient, the more likely it was that a letter would be personally written. Conversely, the more formal the writing and the less impersonal the relationship, the more common it was for the sender to distance herself from the task of writing. Employing secretaries to conduct business correspondence was customary for both women and men throughout the medieval and early modern periods, as indeed it still is today.24 Use of a scribe spared correspondents the drudgery of writing, an activity considered by some to be demeaning and incompatible with nobility.25 Indeed, the humanist author Vives writing in the early Tudor period described the `multitude of nobles who hope that they are going to be esteemed as better born in proportion as they are ignorant of the art of writing'.26 The writing of business letters retained a sense of stigma during the sixteenth century, even though the ability to write became more widespread among the upper classes. Involving the preparing of ink and paper, and the cutting of quills, the task of writing was deemed a tedious and messy one best left to servants.27 In a letter to Sir Thomas Smith, Mary Fitzroy, Duchess of Richmond bemoaned the `travail' of writing.28 Clearly, a pro®cient secretary could alleviate the more arduous aspects of epistolary composition. Thus, a crucial distinction lay in the purpose of writing between, on the one hand, formal and business writing, which was considered menial,




routine and technical, and on the other, private and personal writing, which was intimate, spontaneous and creative. The former was normally undertaken by an amanuensis; the latter was increasingly conducted in women's own hands. The ability to write, therefore, was treated more and more as a reserve skill by women of the nobility and gentry, one that could be called upon when occasion required. In the context of the exigencies of women's everyday lives, delegation to a secretary can also be viewed as an ef®cient way to dispatch correspondence. Engulfed by business and legal affairs arising from estate and household management, women were responsible for large amounts of outgoing correspondence ± petitions for favour to government of®cials, letters negotiating ®nancial interests, intercessions on behalf of family members, suits on behalf of dependants and clients ± as indeed many essays in this volume testify. It was therefore only administrative good sense to employ a scribe to deal with what potentially could be an overwhelming amount of paperwork. This may well explain the reason why Lady Anne Newdigate, a proli®c correspondent on behalf of her family, sometimes employed a secretary for her formal letters; on other occasions though she drafted her own business letters.29 Other women complained that the pressure imposed on them by business matters left little time to write their own letters: Audrey Aleyn in correspondence with her brother Thomas, Lord Paget stated, `having diverse matters to move to you/I am driven to use a strang hand'.30 Anne, Lady Hungerford apologised to her daughter Dorothy Essex for failing to reply to her letters, explaining Ì wolde I had liuing that I might be out of the lawe then I shulde haue mor lessure to write.'31 At a pragmatic level secretaries were utilised for personal as well as business correspondence due to the speed and pro®ciency with which they could expedite the task. Indeed, a `swift' hand was considered by Sir Michael Hicks, patronage secretary to Burghley, to be an essential secretarial skill.32 Certainly when time was short women may have preferred to use a secretary: Alice Stanley, Countess of Derby hurried by a bearer's urgent departure informed Sir Robert Cecil `but that the jentleman was in hast/I had my selfe w[i]th my owne hande writt to you'.33 In this sense, the sporadic nature by which letters were dispatched could determine whether a woman or her secretary wrote a letter. Formal business writing, because of its technical precision, is more likely than familiar correspondence to exhibit signs of secretarial endeavour or collaboration with a third party cognisant of legal, political or ®nancial practices. Letters of this sort needed careful wording, and although some women display impressive knowledge of law and



James Daybell 65

administration many clearly felt it wise to procure expert advice in these areas, the same way that nowadays one might consult a solicitor or an accountant. Elizabeth Hatton wrote to Sir John Hobart for his help to convey a tract of land, requesting that he inform her `to what porpos & in what forme I shall wryte to thos that shall conuay the land . . . I know you will drawe out my meanyng beetor then I can seet it doune.'34 Likewise, Elizabeth Bourne having ®rst drafted a petition to the queen then sought the assistance of Sir John Conway in honing it: acordyng to my sympell skyll I haue set doune my petycyon to her ma[jes]ty/wych I have sent you to amend for I can doo it no beter and I thinke it far from that it should be I ther fore pray you to correct hit and sende hit me.35 Although tempting to interpret such comments as indicative of female inexperience and insecurity within business spheres, they more likely represent ploys to secure guidance. Both these women were in reality accomplished letter-writers who frequently penned their own missives. Moreover, innumerable correspondents regardless of gender sought technical advice in drafting letters.36 Also, it was not uncommon for women to assist men in letter-writing, which stands as clear testimony of female competence. John Bourchier, Earl of Bath clearly considered his third wife Margaret to be a pro®cient letter-writer and regularly relied on her counsel. On one occasion he asked his wife's opinion on a letter he had written to Lord Stourton, inviting her to make any amendments she felt necessary: I haue sent you a copy of the same/yf you shall so like it/if no I haue sent you a blanke & my name therunto/prayenge you and if any thinge be amysse therin to reforme the same accordinglye as you did the laste wiche I did very well like.37 Similarly, George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury appears to have valued his wife Elizabeth's judgement of his correspondence. The countess once informed her husband, Ì have sende your letter agene and thanke you for them they requyre no ansore/but when you wryte remember to thanke hym for them.'38 Elsewhere the earl expressed his satisfaction at one of his wife's letters: `your letter cam very well & I lyk them so well they could nott be amended'.39 Husbands also entrusted wives to correspond on their behalf. Sir Thomas Baskerville, the military commander, requested his wife Mary to send `2 or 3 lin[e]s from your self' to Lord Willoughby




excusing that he himself had not written, while Sir Robert Sidney charged his wife Barbara with replying to a correspondent's letter: Ì pray you write a letter of thanks to Mr Sanford and let him know that hee shall heare shortly from you.'40 That women acted in such advisory and delegated capacities indicates high levels of female conversance with epistolary media as well as women's business acumen. Certainly Lady Grace Mildmay believed that her governess `could apprehend and contrive any matter whatsoever propounded unto her most judiciously and set her mind down in writing either by letters indited or otherwise as well as most men could have done'.41 Although it was customary to employ amanuenses for formal correspondence, many female letter-writers judged it important to correspond personally with of®cials where there existed bonds of political `friendship' between sender and recipient. This in turn clouds distinctions between personal or private and business correspondence. The signi®cance attached to holograph letters as a sign of respect for the addressee also explains women's frequent apologies for not using their own hands. In a letter to Burghley, petitioning for the wardship of Nicholas Halswell, Lady Mary Sidney added a holograph postscript excusing her use of an amanuensis: I besyche your l[ordshi]pe pardon me I wryght no lardglier nor w[i]th my own hande/for I am so very syke as I canot indure to wryghte altho I must confes hit wer my part not to truble your good l[ordshi]pe in this or enny other suet w[i]thout forther respect of your great coortesis and noble dealings w[i]th me.42 As Lady Sidney's note indicates, secretarial letters were judged less personal than holograph correspondence. Margaret Clifford expressed regret at the impersonal nature of a letter she dispatched to the duke of Lennox: èxcuse I pray your lo[rdship] an other bodies hand th[a]t hath expressed my hearte'.43 In a personal political system, where individual relationships were paramount, privy communications lent a degree of con®dentiality to exchanges between correspondents, which was central to cultivating and maintaining social and political contacts.44 Correspondents also personally wrote to of®cials letters that contained politically sensitive material, prejudicial to family reputation and honour, which was best kept secret from servants or clerks. This was because the process of using an amanuensis, which was far from private, inhibited openness and often led to self-censorship on the part of the sender.45 The adverse effects of dictation are described in an Erasmian dialogue:



James Daybell 67


Re¯ecting the Dutch humanist's remarks, Lady Catherine Daubeney, anxious to maintain con®dentiality, informed Thomas Cromwell that she preferred to correspond with him in her own hand rather than to `trust any so far as to know my mind'.47 The motivation for women to write was increased by a desire for greater command over their own affairs. Arguing in favour of female education, the English writing master Martin Billingsley in his manual The Pen's Excellencie (1618) stated that writing was an essential skill for widows who wished to manage their estates: the practise of this art [writing] is so necessary for women, and consequently so excellent, that no woman surviving her husband, and who had an estate left her, ought to be without the use thereof, at lest in some reasonable manner: for thereby shee comes to a certainty of her estate, without trusting to the reports of such as are usually imployed to looke into the same: whereas otherwise for want of it, she is subject to the manifold deceits now used in the world, and by that meanes plungeth her selfe into a multitude of inconveniences.48 The ability to write oneself also led to greater epistolary control and presented opportunities for independent personal expression, for women to defend themselves and to set down their own words on paper. Lady Anne Glenham wrote to Sir Julius Caesar stating, Ì had expresed my mind in words'; Frances Withypoll declared to Sir John Hobart that she was `resolued to wright my opinion'.49 For a signi®cant number of women, including Lady Anne Bacon, Lady Elizabeth Russell and Lady Penelope Rich, nearly all their extant letters are holograph, irrespective of recipient; only rarely did they use amanuenses, which demonstrates a determination to exert full control over correspondence. A further reason for the importance of personally written letters lies in the fact that a woman's own handwriting conferred a particular authority on her correspondence and acted as proof or guarantee of a letter's contents. To Erasmus it was `very easy to forge a signature but very dif®cult to forge a complete letter. A man's handwriting like his voice has a special individual quality.'50 Lady Elizabeth Willoughby promised her



If you dictate verbatim, then it is goodbye to your privacy; and so you disguise some things and suppress others in order to avoid having an unwanted con®dant. Hence, quite apart from the problem of the genuineness of the text, no open conversation with a friend is possible here.46

son Percival that if he helped to discharge his father's debts she would strive to pass on her husband's estates to him, stating that he could `lay her own handwriting to her charge'.51 Documents produced in a person's own hand were apparently considered more binding than those that were merely signed; they were also regarded as better witness of an individual's intentions. Thus, Mary Holcroft disputing the will of her mistress Lady Hastings wrote to Sir John Puckering, the Lord Keeper, requesting that he force her mistress's husband Francis Hastings, whom she alleged had falsely excluded her from the inheritance, to produce `that draught of the will w[hi]ch he gave to his man strasmore to keepe w[hi]ch was of her owne hande writing'.52 The large proportion of holograph women's letters among family papers is in part due to the high expectations that correspondence between relatives should be personally conducted. Parents were keen to encourage daughters to use letter-writing skills: Honor, Lady Lisle, in the 1530s urged her daughter Anne, then at court, to practise her own hand in letters sent home.53 Sir Robert Sidney's pleasure in his daughter Mary's progress in letter-writing is attested by his offer to reward her with a dress as a present. In a letter to his wife Barbara, Sidney wrote, Ì thank Mall for her letter and am ecseeding glad she writes so wel/tel her for me I will give her a new gown for her letter.'54 Writing letters oneself, as a means of keeping in touch, was by many looked upon as a duty or obligation, demonstrating obedience and respect. Lady Eleanor Zouche wrote to her cousin Thomas Randolph explaining that despite her illness, the regard she had for him compelled her to write in her own hand: I haue bene very sicke/& not yet so well recouered th[a]t I can/& not in duer to wryt or to read/but w[i]t[h] great payne/yet when I remember to whom it is/I can not in any wyse yeld to any excuse.55 Symptomatic of daughterly respect, Elizabeth Grey, wife of Henry Grey, wrote to her mother the countess of Shrewsbury stating, Ì nowe haue no other ocation to drawe me to trobell yo[u]r la[dyship] with my ill hande butt only to perfome my duty.'56 Maternal complaints were commonly directed at sons for neglecting their duty and failing to write in person: Lady Anne Bacon and Gertrude, Marchioness of Exeter, both chided their sons for employing amanuenses for corresponding with them.57 Recipients clearly placed great value on letters from relatives where the services of a scribe had been dispensed with. In appreciation of an epistle penned by her brother-in-law Burghley, Lady Elizabeth Russell wrote to



James Daybell 69

thank him for troubling to correspond in his own hand: Ì kiss the hand th[a]t tooke so muche payne w[i]t[h] penn.'58 Likewise, Alexander Colles reported to his mistress Lady Margaret Long that her future husband the earl of Bath `dyd receive with much gentleness' her letter, adding that he `gave you great thanks that it now pleased you to take the pains to write yourself'.59 Time and effort taken to correspond oneself, rather than delegating the task to a clerk, demonstrated the attention given to a letter by a writer. Moreover, the letters produced by one's own pen were likely to be more personal and intimate than dictated epistles: Erasmus expressed `how warmly we respond whenever we receive from friends or scholars letters written in their own hands! We feel as if we were listening to them and seeing them face to face.'60 The desire for letters to be written personally is perhaps strongest among married couples during the sixteenth century, where it was considered important in both precept and practice for there to be epistolary privacy between husband and wife. Martin Billingsley extolled the virtues of writing for women in order that `the secrets that are and ought to be, betweene a Man and Wife . . . in either of their absences may be con®ned to their owne privacy'.61 The evidence of marital correspondence itself further indicates couples' demands for con®dentiality: in fact over 80 per cent of letters to husbands by some 46 individual wives are holograph.62 Of those women employing secretaries to write for them, only two appear to have done so because they were unable to write: Joan Alleyn, wife of the actor Edward Alleyn, and Elizabeth Sutton, both of whom corresponded between 1600 and 1603.63 Indeed, most letters composed using an amanuensis were sent by women who would normally have written themselves but who were prevented from so doing by illness or fatigue. Joan Thynne, for example, apologised to her husband for not writing in her own hand: Ì came to London this present Sunday at three of the clock. I did endure my journey very well but I was very weary at night, wherefore I hope you will pardon me because I did not write myself.'64 Additionally, third parties occasionally helped wives to construct letters to husbands where con¯ict within the marriage necessitated more carefully worded epistles.65 Part of the apparent need for privacy, as argued by Linda Pollock, is explained by spousal concern to keep secret matters relating to business, reputation and honour.66 John Gamage, for example, wrote to his wife stating, Ì wold wyshe that my doings myght be a secret.'67 However, there is also a sense in which greater personalisation of letter-writing was encouraged by married couples' wishes to be more intimate, endearing and affectionate in expression. Honor, Lady Lisle, asked her husband to




James Daybell 71

Good my lord, whereas in my former letters I have written to you that you should write to me with your own hand, whereof ii lines shold be more comfort to me than a hundred of another man's hand; my meaning therein is not to require of you to take so much pain as 6 to write 6 to me in your own hand in or for all your business or necessary affairs, but only at your own pleasure of sum secret things as it shall please you to advertise me of, and at your convenient leisure to signify unto me part of your gentle hart, which unto me shall be most rejoice and comfort.68 It was normal for couples to write personally to each other; to get another to write in one's stead was to provoke question and was often interpreted as a sign of a letter-writer's illness or displeasure. Joan Thynne in a letter to her husband John, remarked that: I do not a little marvel that I hear from you but not by your own [hand], which surely giveth me occasion to think that you are not in good health. Wherefore sir, to put away such doubts I humbly desire you that you would take so much pains as to write to me yourself which shall not a little engladden me, whereas now I stand in great doubt.69 Likewise, Maria Thynne announced to her husband Thomas her dislike of his using a servant to write to her: Ì like not his writing in your name for it is as though thou were angry.'70 Wives able to write themselves also attached emotional signi®cance to penning their own letters: Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, wrote tenderly to her husband the earl, explaining that òf late I haue yoused to wryte letyll w[i]t[h] my owne hande but coulde nott now forbayre'.71 Expressions of this sort further suggest the need for spouses to communicate with each other in a more personal manner; to some degree correspondence represents an extension of the transient private spaces attainable within early modern marriages.72 Related to the issues of female literacy levels with which this essay began, women who were self-conscious of their poor writing abilities appear to have been more willing to use their own hands to write informal letters to family than for of®cial correspondence. Katherine Howard described herself to her husband Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, as an èyll . . . writter', stating Ì would not show my baed hande to any but 6 to 6 you which I knowe will taket in good part wher et mouche wors[e].'73 In



write to her himself of `secret things'; two lines in his hand were better than a hundred from another:


Thus being desirus to heare of your good helth . . . I am so boulde to trouble you with my rude wrighting and in ditieng/for nobodi is privi to it but my pen and I presumieng that you will take it in good parte or ells I should be diskuriged hereafter to indite ani more of my selfe.74 This indicates that certain female letter-writers may have felt greater con®dence operating within domestic or household contexts, and that the family offered a more private environment within which to write letters, one in which they believed their educational de®ciencies would be accepted without ridicule. At the heart of this chapter is the question of how far literacy or letterwriting ability had a positive effect on women's lives. Here, it is important that the impact of literacy should not be overplayed as an emancipating force for women.75 Viewed within the context of late medieval and early Tudor evidence, female roles attain a degree of continuity. Seemingly illiterate women appear to have been highly active in areas of household and estate management, and political and religious patronage, whether operating face to face or through the intermediary of a messenger.76 Furthermore, unlettered individuals had access to scriveners, or at a higher level to secretaries, who performed various scribal functions. Educational barriers therefore did not inevitably preclude women from epistolary activity. Thus, Elizabeth Shelton, herself unable to write, in 1603 sent a letter to her father complaining of the treatment that she was experiencing from her uncle, in whose household she had been placed. Despite her inability to write, not only was she able to persuade someone within her uncle's household to write a letter for her, but also she seems to have had it secretly conveyed to her father. Ì desire you in any wayes' she begged her father `let not my uncle knowe th[a]t I have writte unto you/ for I gett one to write unawares to him/by cause I hard him in such a rage.'77 Clearly, women were able to conduct correspondence within dif®cult and restricted circumstances despite their illiteracy. In the ®nal analysis, however, acquisition of full literacy ± the ability to read and write ± conferred signi®cant bene®ts that were denied to women whose partial or total illiteracy prevented them from writing their own letters: conducting personalised correspondence in maintaining social and business relationships; writing more intimate letters to family members; greater degrees of personal control over language and self-expression; con®dentiality in business, and a tighter grip on



like manner, Susannah Fanshawe wrote to her cousin Thomas Fanshawe concerned that no one other than he should see her writing:

household and business affairs. Indeed, as levels of female writing ability rose during the period, more personal and introspective uses were made of letters, either as emotional, `literary' or religious outlets.78 Additionally, the availability of a trustworthy scribe was not always guaranteed. Letter-writing therefore increasingly formed an integral part of the education of an upper-class woman, one that would equip her with the necessary societal skills for her roles as mother, wife and mistress of a household.

Notes I would like to thank Ralph Houlbrooke and Roger Dalrymple for their comments on earlier versions of this essay. 1. Elsewhere I have dealt with methods of epistolary composition: James Daybell, `Women's Letters and Letter-Writing, 1540±1603: an Introduction to the Issues of Authorship and Construction', Shakespeare Studies, 27 (1999), 161±86. 2. For detailed discussion of the holograph status of women's letters see James Daybell, `Women's Letters and Letter-Writing in England, 1540±1603' (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 1999), pp. 68±76, 104±7 [hereafter Daybell, Thesis] 3. HMC Report on the Manuscripts of his Grace the Duke of Rutland, Preserved at Belvoir Castle, 3 vols (HMSO, 1888), 1, p. 301: 24 July [1592]. 4. Muriel St Clare Byrne, The Lisle Letters, 6 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 1, p. 32, plate 8j; idem 2, p. 700. 5. GLRO, Charterhouse Archives, ACC 1876/F3/7/1±3, 5 and 6, 1876 F3/7/2/68 and 70, c.1600±02. 6. See Alison Truelove, Chapter 4, this volume, for comments on literacy and ®fteenth-century women's letter-writing practices. 7. M.A.E. Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies from the Twelfth Century to the Close of Mary's Reign, 3 vols. (Colburn, 1846), 3, p. 191. Wood's translation reads, `Brother, I pray you to send me my niece Dorothy, because I know her conditions ± she shall not lack as long as I live, an you would be heard by me at (all), or else I think you be own kin to false drab and cook; an not been (had it not been) I had had her to my comfort'. For the original document see BL Cott. MS Titus, B.I. f.162. 8. BL Harl. MS 4712 ff.412±3, 3 Oct. 1597. 9. Edmund Coote, The English Schoole Maister (Widow Orwin, 1596), sig. A2. 10. BL Eg. MS 2804 f.84: Philip Gawdy to Bassingbourne Gawdy, n.d. 11. BL Add. MS 23212 ff.193±193v, n.d. 12. Alison D. Wall, ed., Two Elizabethan Women: Correspondence of Joan and Maria Thynne 1575±1611 (Wiltshire Record Society, vol. 38, Devizes, 1983), pp. 33±5 (p. 34), letter 49, c.1605. [hereafter T.E.W.] For background to the relationship of these two women see Alison Wall, Chapter 6, this volume.



James Daybell 73

13. Ibid., pp. xv, xvii±xix, xxvi, xxx. 14. James Daybell, `Ples acsep thes my skrybled lynes: the Construction and Conventions of Women's Letters in England, 1540±1603', Quidditas: Journal of the Rocky Mountains Medieval and Renaissance Society, 20 (1999), 123±40. 15. BL Lansd. MS 104 f.175, Sept. 1588; LPL Bacon MS 649 f.63, 13 Mar. 1594. 16. Daybell, Thesis, chs 4, 5. See also Vivienne Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture: the Seventeenth-Century Newdigates of Arbury and their World (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1995), p. 88. 17. PRO SP 12/190/36, 16 June 1586. 18. Folger, Cavendish/Talbot MS, X.d. 428 f.38, 26 Jan. 1593. 19. Hat®eld House, Cecil MS 85 f.139, 3 Apr. 1601. 20. PRO SP 46/27/39. 21. Staffs. RO, Paget Papers, D603, D1734. 22. WCRO, Èssex Letter Book c.1595±1600', MI 229. 23. Kendal RO, Hoth®eld MSS, WD/HOTH Box 44. 24. The Lisle Letters, 4, pp. 229±30; Paul Hammer, `The Use of Scholarship: the Secretariat of Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex, c.1585±1601', EHR, 109, 430 (Feb. 1994), 26±51; A.G.R. Smith, `The Secretariats of the Cecils, c.1580±1612', EHR, 83 (1968), 481±504; H.S. Bennett, The Pastons and their England (Cambridge: CUP, 1922; reprinted 1991), pp. 115±17; Christine Carpenter, ed., Kingsford's Stonor Letters and Papers, 1290±1483 (Cambridge: CUP, 1996), pp. 74±5. 25. Giles Constable, Letters and Letter Collections (Typologie des Sources du Moyen Age Occidental, facs. xvii, 1976), p. 42. 26. Jonathan Goldberg, Writing Matter from the Hands of the English Renaissance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 113. 27. Keith Thomas, `The Meaning of Literacy in Early Modern England', in The Written Word: Literacy in Transition, Wolfson College Lectures 1985, ed. Gerd Baumann (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 97±131 (p. 100). 28. PRO SP 10/7/1, 4 May 1549. 29. WCRO, Newdegate Papers, CR 136 B307, B308, B309a: secretarial drafts. For expert analysis of Lady Newdigate's correspondence see Vivienne Larminie, Chapter 7, this volume. 30. Paget Papers, D603 K1/3/40, 25 Oct. 1572. 31. PRO SP 15/18/19 f.5, 25 Mar. 1570. 32. A.G.R. Smith, Servant of the Cecils: the Life of Sir Michael Hicks (London: Cape, 1977), p. 37. 33. Cecil MS 182 f.66, 25 June 1601. 34. Bodl. Tanner MS 286 f.5, n.d. 35. BL Add. MS 23212 f.118, n.d. 36. Daybell, Ìssues of Authorship', pp. 167±8. 37. CUL Hengrave MS 88/1 f.141, n.d. 38. LPL Talbot MS 3205 f.66, n.d. 39. Folger X.d. 428 f.89, 1570. 40. BL Harl. MS 4762 f.25, n.d; CKS, De L'Isle MS, U1475 C81/108, 16 July 1604. I am grateful to Lord De L'Isle for permission to quote from these manuscripts. 41. Linda Pollock, With Faith and Physic: the Life of a Tudor Gentlewoman, Lady Grace Mildmay 1552±1620 (London: Collins and Brown, 1993), p. 26. 42. BL Lansd. MS 17 f.41, 12 Sept. 1573.




43. Kendal RO, WD/Hoth Box 44, n.d. 44. The personal nature of Tudor politics is outlined in W.T. MacCaffrey, `Place and Patronage in Elizabethan Politics', in Elizabethan Government and Society, ed. S.T. Bindoff, Juel Hurst®eld and C.H. Williams (London: Athlone Press, 1961), pp. 95±127 (p. 99); J.E. Neale, `The Elizabethan Political Scene', in Essays in Elizabethan History, ed. J.E. Neale (Cape, 1958), pp. 59±84 (pp. 61±2). 45. On the impact of secretarial input see Daybell, Ìssues of Authorship', pp. 166±70, 176±80. 46. A.S. Osley, Scribes and Sources: Handbook of the Chancery Hand in the Sixteenth Century: Texts from the Writing Masters (London: Faber and Faber, 1980), p. 30. 47. Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, 2, letter 53, pp. 119±24 (p. 122), 1534. 48. Martin Billingsley, The Pen's Excellencie or the Secretaries Delighte (1618), pp. 35±35v. 49. BL Lansd. MS 158 f.92, 26 Mar. 1598; Bodl. Tanner MS 283 ff.71±2 (f.71), n.d. 50. Osley, Scribes and Sources, p. 29. 51. HMC, Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Middleton, Preserved at Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire (HMSO, 1911), p. 570, n.d. 52. BL Harl. MS 6996 f.95, 8 Apr. 1594. 53. The Lisle Letters, 5, letter 1126: Anne Basset to Lady Lisle, 15 Mar. 1538. 54. De L'Isle MS U1475 C81/68, 6 Oct. 1595. 55. BL Harl. MS 6994 f.4, 28 Apr. 1586. 56. LPL Talbot MS 3205 f.104, 1604. 57. LPL Bacon MS 651 f.328: Lady Anne Bacon to Anthony Bacon, 5 Aug. 1595; Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, 3, pp. 303±4 (p. 303): Gertrude, Marchioness of Exeter to Earl of Devonshire, 8 June 1555. 58. BL Lansd. MS 10 f.136, 25 Aug. 1584. 59. CUL Hengrave MS 88/I f.10, 27 Dec. 1547. Also printed in John Gage, The History and Antiquities of Hengrave in Suffolk (Carpenter, 1822), pp. 121±3 (p. 121). 60. Osley, Scribes and Sources, p. 29. 61. Billingsley, The Pen's Excellencie, p. 35. 62. Husbands' letters to wives likewise exhibit little secretarial intervention: Daybell, Thesis, pp. 220±4. 63. Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Muniments of Alleyn's College of God's Gift at Dulwich, ed. George F. Warner (Longmans, Green and Co., 1881), p. 24, note 5: Joan Alleyn to Edward Alleyn, 21 Oct. 1603. 64. T.E.W., p. 5, letter 11, 6 Mar. 1580. 65. Daybell, Thesis, pp. 81±4. 66. Linda Pollock, `Living On the Stage of the World: the Concept of Privacy Among the Elite of Early Modern England', in Rethinking Social History: English Society 1570±1920 and its Interpretation, ed. Adrian Wilson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), pp. 78±96 (pp. 85, 87, 89±90). 67. PRO SP 46/60/2, Feb. 1576. 68. The Lisle Letters, 5, letter 1544, 21 Sept. 1539. Although Lady Lisle was herself seemingly unable to write, St Clare Byrne has noted that her intimate letters to her husband were dictated verbatim, in contrast to business letters where secretaries were left to add conventional introductory and closing formulae: 6 Ibid., 1, p. 32, and 4, pp. 229±30. Words between marks ( ) were inserted above the line.



James Daybell 75

69. 70. 71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76.

77. 78.

T.E.W, p. 4, letter 9, 7 Mar. 1577. Ibid., pp. 32±3 (p. 33), letter 48 (after Aug. 1604). LPL Talbot MS 3205 f.73, n.d. For discussion of lack of privacy in the early modern period see Ralph Houlbrooke, The English Family, 1450±1700 (Harlow: Longman, 1984) p. 23; Martin Ingram, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570±1640 (Cambridge: CUP, 1987), p. 245; Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500±1800 (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977), p. 102; Pollock, `Living On the Stage of the World'; Orest Ranum, `The Refuges of Intimacy', in A History of Private Life: III. The Passions of the Renaissance, ed. Roger Chartier (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 207±63. 6 Longleat House, Seymour Papers, 5 f.182, n.d. Words between marks ( ) were inserted above the line. PRO SP 46/16/211, 28 Aug. 1580. The dangers of overemphasising the positive effects of literacy are debated in Thomas, `The Meaning of Literacy', pp. 97, and 113±14. Jennifer Ward, English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (Harlow: Longman, 1992) pp. 129±42; Eileen Power, Medieval Women (Cambridge: CUP, 1975; Canto edition, 1997), pp. 34±9; Barbara A. Hanawalt, `Lady Honor Lisle's Networks of In¯uence', in Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1988), pp. 188±212; James Daybell, `The Political Role of Upper-Class Women in Early Tudor England as Evidenced by their Correspondence' (Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Reading, 1996), pp. 2±6 and 28±47. PRO SP 46/57/204b: Elizabeth Shelton to J. Astwick, 18 Dec. 1603. Daybell, Thesis, pp. 191±203.




Deference and De®ance in Women's Letters of the Thynne Family: the Rhetoric of Relationships Alison Wall

`For the titles which a wife in speaking to her husband, or naming him . . . they must be such as signify superiority, and so savour of reverence' wrote William Gouge; he ordered women always to use deferential expressions in addressing their husbands, for: Contrary are those compellations which argue equality or inferiority, rather than superiority . . . such as these, ``Sweet, Sweeting, Heart, Sweetheart, Love, Joy, Dear, etc'' and such as these ``Duck, Chick, Pigsnie, etc'' and husband's Christian names as ``John, Thomas, William, Henry, etc'', which if they be contracted (as many use to contract them thus Jack, Tom, Will, Hal) they are much more unseemly: servants are usually so called. Women were told even to think submissively: `Subjection is that mask which wives are directed to aim at in their thoughts, words, and deeds.'1 Similarly the Elizabethan Homily on Marriage, which everyone heard read in parish churches, commanded women to obey their husbands but also to show subjection.2 And some women were suitably obedient and deferential to their husbands, as the funeral sermons for Katherine Stubbes, Katherine Brettergh, Elizabeth Gouge, and others claimed.3 Katherine Stubbes `surpassed in the virtue of humility' and `would never contrary him in anything', according to Philip Stubbes, who published the biography of his dead wife deliberately as a model of obedience and deference for other women to follow.4 It was reprinted an astonishing 24 times by 1637, so people must have been eager to buy such a handbook to instil subservience! Joan Thynne obediently utilised the rhetoric of submission. Her letters commenced very formally: `Mr Thynne', `Good Mr Thynne', occasionally 77



6

under stress `my good husband'; never any pet or nicknames.5 Early in her marriage she was signing letters very conventionally `your obedient wife', `your loving wife during life to command'; later `your everloving wife' or `your loving and faithful wife', although perhaps there could be a hidden barb in this last one. For in 1601 she implied he was too friendly with women at court, complaining that his court friends could not get him a knighthood, `yet methinks some of your great ladies might do so much for you'.6 In this sharp remark, she was also criticising his strategy at court, without the prescribed deference. The quantity of surviving evidence for women's, and men's, reactions to the didactic literature is less than we would like, since private papers where personal views might be found are singular and rarely preserved, compared with the multiple copies of books printed. But some such evidence remains, scattered in general correspondence of family archives. Since women were admonished to be meek and submissive, then we want to enquire if women's letters just followed formulaic rhetoric, using merely conventional phrases of obedience and wishes for good health. Or could these women express nuances of emotion, and show their awareness of social gradations as well as of patriarchy? Their education was often limited and, as with Joan Thynne's, their handwriting was frequently rather childish and unformed compared with that of educated men. Some women's surviving letters are simply brief and matter-of-fact, showing no very personal response. Fortunately the women's letters of the Thynne family tell us more; they express attitudes and strong emotions. To help understand them, a very wide range of other material survives to ®ll out the contexts: letters from family members and advisers, as well as lawsuits in Chancery, Star Chamber, and the ecclesiastical court. These women's letters demonstrate clear awareness of the precepts, but a much wider and more subtle range of relationships than envisaged by the preachers and writers. Joan Thynne, and later her daughter-in-law Maria, sometimes did use expressions of submission in writing to their husbands. Joan could phrase needs as requests, asking her husband to send supplies ìf it please you to afford the charges'. Regarding arrangements at Caus Castle where she lived mostly at that time, she wrote in 1601 ànd therefore good Mr Thynne consider speedily what course you intend to take and I shall ever be ready to be commanded by you'.7 But neither woman maintained real humility. From early on Joan, still a teenager, told him what to do; she even demanded he sack a servant, and sent commands about how John should behave to her father, to àcknowledge your faults although they be many'!8 She instructed him acerbically about his political career at court,




Alison Wall 79

I know thou wilt say (receiving two letters in a day from me) that I have tried the virtue of aspen leaves under my tongue, which makes me prattle so much, but consider that all is business, for . . . there is not a more silent woman living than myself.9 She too upbraided a husband, and delivered instructions. She could be sarcastic. When he did not allow her to make decisions at Longleat, she wrote him a diatribe, complaining that òthers . . . can wonder (as they well may) that my advice and consent (being in right to be mistress there) should in no cause be taken . . .'.10 In another letter she wrote: in praise of thy kindness to me, thy dogs, thy hawks, the hare and the foxes, and also in commendation of thy great care of thy businesses in the country, that I think I need not amplify any more on that text, for I have crowned thee for an admirable good husband with poetical laurel, and admired the inexpressible singularity of thy love in the cogitations of piamater, I can say no more but that in way of gratuity, the dogs shall without interruption expel their excremental corruption in the best room (which is thy bed) whensoever full feeding makes their bellies ache . . . and so on in de®ant mode ± for his making her pregnant!11 Her letters are extraordinarily vivid. There is no evidence that Maria had seen the models for types of letter set out in textbooks such as those of Angel Day, Abraham Fleming or William Fulwood, which do include rhetoric for letters of complaint.12 But hers are so speci®c and individually expressed that they can owe little or nothing to such books, even if she knew of them. The prohibition on pet names was sometimes de®ed. Men certainly used them often, and perhaps we can identify an epistolary double standard, where men used pet names while women were supposed to remain formal. Robert Sidney's letters to his wife Barbara frequently commence `Sweetheart' and one ended with the informal `Farewell sweet wenche' as a variation from his `Farewell sweet Barbara'. Unfortunately her replies do not survive to tell us how she addressed him. He considered their marriage more affectionate than others, writing in 1594 Ì would not



their lawsuits, farming and ®nancial matters, but inserted occasional humble words between the forceful phrases. Maria Thynne went further and deliberately mocked the precepts in writing to her husband Thomas:

for anything that the il husbands at the Court should know how fond I am growne to send you in this fashion the ®rst dainties I can come by'.13 The earl of Dorset wrote to his wife, the assertive Anne Clifford, as `sweete Harte', as did Nathaniel Bacon to his wife Jane.14 John Thynne addressed his wife as `Good Pug' or `My good Pug'. Yet as we saw, Joan Thynne always obeyed the demands for formality of address and signature in writing back to him. But rhetoric differed from reality; her formal address does not mean it was a stiff relationship. Theirs had been a carefully arranged marriage when she was only 16, but they developed affection, and expressed it. Twenty years on, Joan wrote: I would all things were ended to your content and yourself here with me where you were never so welcome as now you should be unto me, a most discontented creature till I hear from you or see you, which I heartily pray you, may be as soon as possible. She wrote three weeks later `My love to yourself is such not to be broken by knives or anything else whiles I live', still signing quite formally `your loving wife for ever'.15 In contrasting style, the next generation altered the style of address. Their son Thomas Thynne wrote to his wife Maria as `Good Sweet'.16 But she was far more effusive and not at all deferential to him; she went well beyond the prohibited `Tom' for Thomas: `Mine own sweet Thomken', `My fair Tomken', even `Sirrah' (Sirrah was a put-down term which could lead to serious trouble, even duels, if used between men of equal status in public!). Her signing-off was always unconventional, usually playful as well as affectionate: àsk all the husbands in London, or ask the question in the Lower House, what requests they grant their wives, and then good husband think upon your fool at home as there is cause. Thine Maria' or Ànd so once more fare ever well, my best & Sweetest Thomkene, & many thowsand tymes more than thess many thankes 1 00000000000000000000000000 for thy kinde wanton letters. Thinne & only all thinne, Marya', the row of zeros used to ®ll about a third of a line.17 As well as using pet names, she played with words to express ironic dismay as when he made her pregnant, but also sexy love. Very few women's letters of the period do that. My best beloved Thomken, and my best little Sirrah, know that I have not, nor will forget how you made my modest blood ¯ush up into my bashful cheek at your ®rst letter, thou threatened sound payment, and I sound repayment, so as when we meet, there will be pay, and repay,




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The dog Latin is meant to suggest `you will rise up frequently'. In another letter she anxiously sent medical instructions, ending with expressions of affection that surely were genuine: `God in Heaven preserve thy health as long as I live, and continue thy love to me, as I may have cause to love thee no less than I do, which is yet as my own soul.'18 Love accompanied de®ance. The 1563 Homily on Matrimony recognised the possibility that women might try to rule, and later there was a literature of the stroppy wife. Other writers like William Heale argued that God made woman àn equal associat and fellow-helper for man', and Edmund Tilney claimed that it would be better to be beloved by a wife than feared.19 Between the textbook extremes, both Joan and Maria successfully managed a marital balance ± their letters show that they were able to ¯out some of the strictures and assert themselves. Yet they both made their marriages work well, as warm and trusting partnerships ± unlike some other assertive women. Elizabeth Willoughby's marital troubles led her to leave home, but to defend her interests she had to return; however, along with apparent submission, she wrote that Ì shall refuse to enter into any hard condicions.' Willoughby took the conventional line, writing sharply to her that part of her letter `may minister occasion of offence' and that Ì do not ®nd as yet by yor letter eyther that yow confesse yor fault or require pardon therof in such humilitie as is mete and convenient for the recovering of my goodwill'!20 `Bess of Hardwick' feuded notoriously with her fourth husband Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, so that Queen Elizabeth intervened, and the pair lived separately; the wife busy creating Hardwick Hall. Anne Clifford, `proud Northern lady' did not defer to her husbands, the earl of Dorset and the earl of Pembroke, nor even to King James, in her successful crusade to secure her inherited lands.21 Maria Thynne's strange much younger sister the pamphleteer Eleanor Davies, insisted on publishing, so that her angry husband burned her works!22 Sadly I know of no letters Eleanor wrote to him about that! Perhaps we know more about the wives who in their rhetoric and behaviour, de®ed the command for submission, the women who made demands, than we do about quiet domestic mice. A few family collections include anodyne women's letters. But if women disobeyed the strictures to stay indoors and concentrate on household matters, if they dealt with other matters and people, `meddled in the world', they probably wrote



which will pass and repass, allgiges vltes fregnan tolles, thou knowest my mind, though thou dost not understand me . . . Your horses are taken up, and I will take thee up when thou comest home . . .

more letters, and the letters were more likely to be preserved, since parts were about estate business, and so evidence of insubordination survived too. If women's letters to their husbands could mingle submission with mockery, advice, even de®ance, how did women write to other men? Were they self-abasing and humble to all men? Robert Cleaver recommended a good wife should also be modest, humble, kind and quiet in her dealings with others, and William Whately that a woman should use moderate and quiet speech to any men.23 Or did they throw their weight around with ordinary men, even when submissive to their own husbands? Elizabeth, the London sister of Joan Thynne, did not bother with humility when she wrote to Joan's husband, her brother-inlaw, without any ¯owery rhetoric, and even with open irritation. Some were just practical ± Ì have sent gloves of carnation taffeta for your son' or `the true note of money laid out' for her brother-in-law and his family over two years. In 1600, she acidly told him that his son Thomas could not be sent to travel on the Continent for less than £100 per year, for Ì hope your meaning is not that he shall go over to live as one that is enjoined to do some penance there.' Elizabeth threatened that if John Thynne refused to provide as much for his son, then she and her courtier husband would not help him by asking the queen for the boy's licence to travel, nor by informing the French ambassador! In 1601, referring to problems with Thomas, she very strongly criticised her brother-in-law for neglecting her advice: ìf yourself would have followed my counsell, this had been clearely avoyded', and she told Thynne that in anger against his son he should not forget the love for his son, he should correct an error `rather than bitterly in displeasure condemne as an unpardonable offence'. Elizabeth lectured her brother-in-law outright, telling him to be a good and not a bad father to Thomas.24 Where money was owing, women could be pretty short and matter-of fact, especially to brothers ± Gresham Thynne sharply rebuked her brother John, the master of Longleat, in 1603, because she could not get money he was due to pay, but ìs going to Court' and needed it.25 The next owner of Longleat, Thomas Thynne, was chivvied by his sister Dorothy as well as their mother, to pay Dorothy's inheritance due from the estate. Dorothy ®rst wrote a fulsome letter to him in 1606, hedging around the fact that in her current negotiations for marriage, he needed to cooperate: my mother . . . desireth a good Joyncture for me, but what is offered I know not: it may be these bearers her men can shewe you what is it, onely my desire is, as it is expedient, to understand your good likeing




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She addressed it `to my most esteemed brother Sir Thomas Thynne knight'.26 But that match failed, and two years later Joan politely asked her son to help Dorothy: `myself and your sister do wholly reserve the managing of this business to your own best discretion'. No marriage occurred then, and in 1611 Joan wrote three increasingly angry letters to her son to pay his sister's inheritance, the ®rst of them complaining that he failed to come according to his promise. In the second she wrote `Good son, these bearers by authority from your sister are coming to you to receave her money which I hope you will care to make them payment of.' He still did not pay, for a month later still `you came not according to your promise, which gave both her and myself much discontentment . . .'.27 Irritated mothers through the ages have written like this, we may think, and to his mother, a son remains her child, even when like Thomas, he was knighted and an MP. But Thomas owed his sister her inheritance of £1000 ± maybe a million pounds in today's value, so it was a serious issue. Thomas's mother-in-law Lucy, wife of George, Lord Audley, also wrote angrily to Thomas. As the wife of an aristocrat, she could claim that her high status outweighed gender, that there was the social superiority, as well as the generational hierarchy. Thomas was often dilatory and irritating, even at 23 years old and more. Lady Audley wrote a long letter to rebuke Thomas: `Sonn Thynn, I receaved a letter som three weekes synse . . . lyke wyse now annother, wheare in I ®nde your Dyscontentemente and am sorye you take all in the worste parte'. She berates him sarcastically for complaining that she is withholding a small amount of money, which she did suppose `had byn your wyfes, and that I myghte have made so bowlde with myne owne Daughter' but Ì meane not to mak bowld with her hense forthe for a halfe pennye', ironically apologising. (This undated letter was addressed to him as èsquire', so before August 1604 when he was knighted.) There were dif®culties about a ®nancial agreement, probably to overcome the lack of dowry and jointure arrangements because of Thomas's sudden marriage to her daughter. But she rebukes him on that too, writing that `for your assurance, yt ys nowe no lesse than a yeer synse I wyshed you to cawse your cownsell to drawe yt up . . . so as theare ys no faulte in mee yf all bee not ended to your lykinge'. This long angry tirade, though, she ends `Your mother and sure friend Lucy Audley'. Delays continued, however, and she imperiously told Thomas he must do his part; later, that he must stop troubling himself or his counsel over it till she has resolved some `new matter'.28 We should



thereto, for I hope your Brotherly love will herein and alwayes show your desire of my best advauncement.

note that Maria's mother, Lucy Audley, was organising the ®nancial contract, even though Lord Audley was alive and might be expected to handle such matters. Lady Audley's tone suggests that she is doing her best, and that Thomas is ungrateful and dif®cult. There is certainly no hint that the man is superior to woman in everything, nor that she is deferring to any other man such as her husband in handling the business. She told Thomas that if her plans worked, he should be satis®ed with suf®cient security, and less dif®culty than with other property that had apparently been suggested in settlement. And she hinted that she was dealing with great persons over it, and Thomas had jolly well better toe the line: Ì would not make Poynts to tell you whom yt weare whose pleasuer I attend.'29 Joan Thynne attracted much male deference within the wider family and beyond, as she built up a personal following in Shropshire around Caus Castle, which she held and defended while her husband was at court or Longleat, and from 1604 as a widow. `Cousins' Reynold Williams, and others discussed legal tactics without talking down to her. In 1593, Williams wrote to her about her choice of jurors, and promised to support the favourable ones.30 James Croft wrote her in 1602 an unusually obsequious response to her thanks for hospitality, saying à welcomer guest never came unto me' and assuring Joan that a friend of his would do her any good. Croft himself claimed to be `leaving my self always at yor devoti[on] to persue the love and honest of®ce of a poore frende'. He was declaring himself to be of her faction, probably in the long dispute over the Caus estates. And Croft was not a yokel, but the son of a courtier; he was a gentleman pensioner to Queen Elizabeth and soon to be knighted.31 John Iston wrote in 1605 `We (I meane of this neighbourhoode all) wishinge your good return to this quyet and true countye of Sallop . . . you can never have more love there than here.' Iston helped with the estate, and his ending offered deference, calling her `Your Worship'.32 Her supporters thought she should maintain her position in Shropshire rather than spend more time elsewhere. In 1608, Thomas Purslow also used the strongly deferential formula `your Worship' at the start and four more times in a letter, interspersed with `your' and `your Ladyship'. More signi®cantly, he referred to `Mr Newbury and others your followers'. So gentlemen and others belonged to her circle, and promised her their assistance in disputes.33 So far we have been exploring women's and men's relationships and the problem of female subservience. The extensive theoretical work on the construction of gender has focused on women's relations with men, and on women's perceptions of themselves and their roles as wives.34 Now, I




have become curious to see how women related to other women. How did they address them and what indications are there of attitudes to older or younger women, especially family members ± often among the most fraught relationships? For Elizabethan and Jacobean society emphasised not only values of patriarchy, but also of social hierarchy, that order and degree should put everyone at their proper level. Sumptuary laws even speci®ed gradations so that people did not dress to appear of higher status than they were! So did women, in practice, respond to such notions? Up to now, there has been little attention to female interaction among the elite. The letters of the Thynne family do include some interesting female interactions, and show that all was not sweetness and light. Before looking at them, let us consider brie¯y the letters of a young wife, Anne Bacon, married to Norfolk gentleman Nathaniel Bacon in 1569. She was initially sent off to live with her husband's family, despite fears of `my Lady's sharpness towards her'. Despite the pain, afterwards young Anne sent conventional humble thanks `my dutie most humbly rememebred unto your good Ladyship', and to àcknowledge my self greatly bounden to yow for the great care that yow alwaies had of my well doiunge duringe my beinge with yow'. Letters to her own stepmother were similarly humble `least by not writinge I sholde seame to forget that dutie which I justly owe'.35 Anne's letters show a vivid contrast between the approaches to different women in the family, for she was the acknowledged illegitimate daughter of Sir Thomas Gresham, and really was much humbler. Writing to her natural mother, she is much freer, telling her that she is sick of staying in relatives' houses and wishes she and her husband could have a house of their own, where mother could stay at length. With approaching pregnancy Anne fervently wished her mother were with her. She thanks her for some cloth `more than bestowed on me by any other towards my lying down'. This implicitly thanked her own relatively poor mother for managing to provide more towards the childbed than the rich stepmother and mother-in-law.36 The contrast in style stems largely from the difference in writing to an actual mother. But she also allowed for the difference in status between the recipients. Anne's mother was mere Mistress Dutton, addressed as `Mother Dutton'; the others were Lady Bacon, and Lady Gresham. The mother-in-law relationship was more problematic for Joan Thynne, who was sent to Longleat after her marriage, to be shown the ropes by her husband's stepmother Lady Dorothy Thynne. In 1576 16-year-old Joan complained bitterly to her young husband, then in London, about his family's treatment of her. She wrote from Longleat that



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But it was dif®cult on both sides. There is a colourful bitchy letter from Margaret, Countess of Derby to Joan's mother-in-law Dorothy, working up to the fact that she needs to be warned about Joan: Marry, the Alderman's daughter dissembleth not her kind. She is altogether bent to disgrace you and belie you, and as I believe doth greatly injure you and your house. She hath reported that you will not allow her meat, drink, or any other thing needful, and that by your means she is restrained in such a miserable sort as I shame to rehearse: you nickname her unto her face, and scorn and mock her behind her back. She saieth: with many other despiteful reproaches which for the vainness therof I am weary to recite. However, the countess could not resist reciting more details of Joan's misbehaviour, and went on: But in ®ne she concluded that was naught in you but pride, malice, and mischief . . . Therefore if you love your own quiet and credit, take heed of such venomous vermin, and now you be warned, be armed. Suffer not such moths quietly to harbour in your gown till they fret a hole in your nearer garment.38 The countess writes as a friend, and although her status is higher, that is not really apparent in the way she addresses Dorothy ± she just can't wait to tell! But there is a very strong social snobbery in her discussion of commercial types and the fact that they do not know how to behave: `the Alderman's daughter dissembleth not her kind'. Twenty-®ve years later, Joan's own daughter-in-law wrote to her in February 1602: My good mother, if you did but know at how high a rate I would estimate your favour, and how much I would endeavour to deserve the continuance thereof; the reverent conceit I hold of your virtuous disposition makes me rest assured that you would willingly bestow it; where it should be received with so grateful an acknowledgement of



almost daily my Lady keeps her accustomed courtesy towards me which I may count a hell to heavenly joys or such lady's love that will force me to leave this country . . . I hope you will not have me stay where I shall be so vilely abused as now. I am more meeter for some servant than for one of my estate.37

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This letter concludes `with as many wishes for the increase of your happiness, as yourself can desire / Your loving daughter at command / Maria Thynne'. Over a year later, she wrote: To you my dearly loved mother are these lines sent from her that hath vowed to make herself as worthy as her best service can make her, of so kind a mother as yourself . . . I crave nothing but your good opinion, which I will be . . . thankful for. The letter concludes `Your very loving and obedient daughter Maria Thynne'.39 As a young daughter-in-law writing to her husband's mother, these polite yet warm letters seem clearly to demonstrate the proper deferential and affectionate attitude from the younger generation to the older. They follow accepted style and are conventionally humble. But they are not quite what they seem, for there was a dramatic background to them, and further developments afterward. Thomas Thynne and Maria Audley had married seven years before, in a clandestine ceremony at night in an inn at Beacons®eld where Thomas had ridden from Corpus Christi, his Oxford college, and Maria travelled from the court by coach. The families were the most bitter feuding enemies, and the couple parted next morning and kept the marriage secret from the Thynnes for over a year.40 On hearing of it, Joan expressed her view of her son's match: `how hard is my hap to live to see my chiefest hope and joy my greatest grief and sorrow'. And his parents sought to persuade Thomas to repudiate the marriage.41 There followed a long lawsuit in the Court of Arches, Maria and her family defending the marriage, while Thomas's parents hoped that the wedding would be declared invalid and the marriage annulled. This outcome would have ruined Maria's honour, and any prospects of another match, as Lady Audley pointed out. But in the summer of 1601 the ecclesiastical court judge ®nally examined the young people in private under oath, and then declared it was a valid, intended marriage.42 Almost immediately, Maria started writing to Thomas's mother, in the terms we have seen. The letters were not of genuine feeling, but were seeking to soften her up to accept the marriage, and to create a reconciliation. On the ®rst of them, Maria put a lock of her dark red hair under her Audley family seal.43 (Maria wrote this letter more neatly and tidily than most of her letters, trying to impress.) It is likely that Joan



your goodness, and be requited with so large a measure of zealous affection.

had never even met Maria, for in 1602 she wrote Ì cannot yet account of her'.44 That might help to explain what Maria was doing with the hair, but more it was an appeal to sentiment. If we had only Maria's ®rst few letters, without information on the true circumstances and the parents' hostility, we would have a very misleading view of the relationships, and think them much friendlier than they were. There was also a little in-laws' spat between the young pair's two mothers, Lucy Audley and Joan Thynne. On 10 June 1602, Lucy wrote to help the reconciliation, `notwithstanding the doubt long since conceived how any letters of mine might ®nd a grateful acceptation'. She wrote a rather roundabout letter, seeking friendship and justifying her own behaviour. She points out that Thomas is beloved to her, and asks Joan to accept Maria, who would `carry both a loving and dutiful regard to you as her husband's mother'. It is cautious, though not especially warm, ending `so I rest both your eyes and my hands, remaining your assured friend, Lucy Audley' ± which of course she was not, or not yet.45 But the phrase aimed to start communications. Lucy Audley wanted reasonable relations, but was touchy. (Maria herself also wrote three days later to Joan, possibly sent via Thomas, since the letter mentions that he is with his mother.)46 But Joan was resentful ± she waited two months to reply, and noted that she had expected to be sought out long since. She harps on the fact that she had lost her son, who once she had loved more than herself, to the marriage and to Maria's family.47 There is another dimension to these letters as well as the very complicated emotional situation. That is the question of social status. For Joan was still the alderman's daughter and wife of a country esquire, not even knighted. Lucy was the wife of George Touchet, Lord Audley, who sat in the House of Lords. Both women show they are aware of this difference. Joan uses `your ladyship' in the course of her letter. And she says she would not wrong inferior persons, `much less an honourable Lady of your place and reputation'. So she refers directly to the other mother-in-law's superior social position, but without becoming servile; indeed she is somewhat self-important and critical. It is not clear if anything came of these exchanges in June±August 1602. Earlier that year, Joan had even refused to see Thomas, telling people that he had dealt `monstrous unnatural and unkindly' to her, though she would not be a monster toward him, but a letter or two would not be enough.48 In July, Maria seemed to accept that reconciliation had failed, for she wrote a `last letter'. Nevertheless she wrote again at least twice more after that, mentioning Joan's letters to her (which do not survive).49 The patriarch of Maria's family, her grandfather Sir James Marvin, had joined the




campaign, writing to John Thynne in March 1603 asking him to suppress all old griefs and dislikes, and accept his son's marriage. Marvin's appeal failed, and the Thynnes never accepted Maria, although in May 1603, Joan may have thawed slightly, and Maria was writing to excuse herself, signing, `your very loving and obedient daughter'.50 But Maria's apparent deference to her mother-in-law did not continue when their relative status altered greatly in 1604 on the death of John Thynne. Thomas as the heir, and Maria, took over the great estate of Longleat, displacing Joan. Moreover, Thomas was knighted in August 1604. Worse, John had died intestate, leaving arguments over inheritance. In 1605 Joan Thynne commenced a furious Chancery suit against Thomas, for her three younger children's inheritance. She still expressed bitterness about Thomas's clandestine marriage, complaining that without his parents' knowledge, he had taken to wife the daughter of a nobleman, without securing any dowry.51 So relations between the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law deteriorated further for two reasons: although the younger generation, Maria now was the social superior, with no need to toady. Joan was merely a widow. And apparently Joan had written criticising Thomas as well as the management of Longleat. Maria's de®ance came with a passionate and cutting invective, showing an extraordinary command of language to express revenge, and an unusual level of insult between women. She taunts Joan, saying: I confess (without shame) it is true my garden is too ruinous, and yet to make you more merrier you shall be of my counsel, that my intent is, before it be better, to make it worse. For . . . I intend to plough it up and sow all variety of fruit at a ®t season. I beseech you laugh, and so will I at your captiousness. Now, whereas you write your ground put to basest uses, is better manured than my garden, surely if it were a grandmother of my own and equal to myself by birth, I should answer that odious comparison with telling you I believe so corpulent a Lady cannot but do much yourself towards the soiling of land, and I think that hath been, and will be all the good you intend to leave behind you at Corsley.52 There is a lot more of this sarcasm, in total contrast to the earlier simpering reconciliation letters. No humility here, no deference, but a de®ant riposte, stressing Maria's higher status by birth. And not surprisingly, this is her last letter to her mother-in-law ± how could she ever follow this up?



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Clearly, some women could write remarkably potent persuasion, affection, as well as chiding or insult, especially vividly in the case of Maria Thynne. And these letters can help to answer some of our questions about how relatives viewed and wrote to each other. They referred overtly to social status. Words may sometimes be manipulated to produce effects, not necessarily to express actual feelings, and modes of expression alter according to the recipient. They alter with change of circumstance and of course with quarrels and reconciliations. The women knew their place (although they did not necessarily keep it), and they could use words passionately, to lash, as well as to love. They lived complicated emotional lives with a range of distance and closeness to different family members. In relationships with them they were certainly not cold and unfeeling, and they could express themselves powerfully: sometimes in deference and, despite the precepts, sometimes in de®ance.

Notes This is a revised version of the paper given at the Literature and History Conference, and to the History and English Research Seminar at Reading; I am grateful to the audiences at both and especially to Ralph Houlbrooke for helpful discussion. 1. William Gouge, Of Domesticall Duties (First edn 1622; 1634 edn), pp. 285±6. William Whately also opposed nicknames such as Tom, Dick, Ned for husbands: A Bride-Bush or, A Direction for Married Persons . . . (1619), p. 199. 2. Homily on Marriage (1563), any edition. 3. Philip Stubbes, A Christal Glasse for Christian Women: Contayning an Excellent Discourse of the Life and Death of Katherine Stubbes (1591); William Harrison, Death's Advantage Little Regarded . . . Two Funerall Sermons at the Burial of K. Brettergh (with a life by William Leigh, 1602, six editions by 1617); Nicholas Guy, Pieties Pillar: Or A Sermon Preached at the Funerall of Mistresse Elizabeth Gouge . . . (1626). 4. Stubbes, sig. A3. 5. Most of the letters of Joan Thynne and of Maria are printed, in modernised spelling: Two Elizabethan Women: Correspondence of Joan and Maria Thynne 1575±1611, ed. Alison D. Wall (Wiltshire Record Society, vol. 38, Devizes, 1983), (hereafter T.E.W.), along with some letters to them. Other documents from the MSS of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat, Thynne Papers (hereafter T.P.); my thanks to the late Marquess of Bath for permission to use them. In quotations from letters other than from the edition cited above, original spelling is retained, but abbreviations extended and punctuation added. 6. T.E.W., pp. 19±20. (I propose to discuss both political and family life in a book on the Thynnes 1540±1640). 7. T.E.W., pp. 16, 21.




8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22.

23.

24. 25.

Ibid., pp. 2±3. Ibid., p. 48. Ibid., p. 32. Ibid., pp. 32±3. Piamater means tender mother, OED. Angel Day, The English Secretorie (1595) includes examples for family subscriptions, such as `Your La. loving and obedient Daughter', `Yours everloving and most assured', pp. 13±16, and of whole letters, including invective to disobedient sons, Part I, pp. 42±6; II, pp. 34±47. William Fulwood, The Enemie of Idlenesse (1568); Abraham Fleming, A Panoplie of Epistles (1576). In¯uenced by Erasmus's De Conscribendis Epistolis, these books followed Roman rhetorical models. HMC., De L'Isle & Dudley, vol. 2: letters from Robert Sidney to Barbara, esp. pp. vii, 100, 102, 153. K. Acheson, The Diary of Anne Clifford 1616±1619 (NY and London: Garland Publishing, 1995), p. 10. Other works on Anne Clifford include George Williamson, Lady Anne Clifford Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery, 1590±1676: Her Life, Letters and Work (2nd edn, Wake®eld: S.R. Publishers, 1967); Richard Spence, Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery [sic], (Stroud: Sutton, 1997). Bacon's letter: The Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis, 1613±1644, ed. Lord Braybrooke (Privately pr. 1842), p. 83. T.E.W., pp. 11±12. Everyone in her family called her `Mall'; she told Thomas `make much of thy Mall when thou dost come home', and she punned on `mall' as in `Mallenchollye', Ibid., p. 33, & n. 5. Ibid., pp. 32, 33, 36, 37; T.P., viii f.6. T.E.W., pp. 37, 36. Margaret Ezell, The Patriarch's Wife: Literary Evidence and the History of the Family (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987) discusses the literature and the anti-female satire as entertainment; William Heale, An Apologie for Women . . . (Oxford, 1609), pp. 52±3; Edmund Tilney, A Briefe and Pleasant Discourse of Duties in Mariage . . . (1568, refs here to 1571 edn), sig. Biij. Alice Friedman, `Portrait of a Marriage: the Willoughby Letters of 1585±6', Signs, ii, 3, (Spring 1986), 542±55, esp. pp. 550, 552. See also her House and Household in Elizabethan England: Wollaton Hall and the Willoughby Family (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). David Durant, Bess of Hardwick: Portrait of an Elizabethan Dynast (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977); for Clifford see n. 14. Since George Ballard's Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (Oxford, 1752, London, 1775), many people have written on Eleanor, including Esther Cope, Handmaid of the Holy Spirit: Dame Eleanor Davies, Never Soe Mad a Ladie (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992). R.C. [R. Cleaver], A Godlie Forme of Household Government (1600; ®rst edn 1598, later edns with John Dod), p. 87; Whately, Bride-Bush, (1617 edn), p. 41, discussed in Jacqueline Eales, `Gender Construction in Early Modern England and the Conduct Books of William Whately', Ecclesiastical History Society, 34 (1998, R. Swanson ed.), p. 171. T.P., vi ff.11, 197; Ibid., vii ff.185, 200. Ibid., v f.124.



Alison Wall 91

26. Ibid., viii f.25. 27. T.E.W., pp. 45, 51±3. Domestic advice books do not clarify the age when a boy's obedience to his mother reduced. 28. T.P., viii ff.60±3, three undated letters, the ®rst before Aug. 1604, when Thomas was knighted; the others after, as they are addressed to `Sir Thomas Thynne'. I hope to include these in an expanded edition of the Thynne women's correspondence. 29. Ibid, viii f.63. 30. T.E.W., pp. 7±8, 35±6. 31. T.P., vii f.241. Croft, DNB. s.v. his father Sir James Croft, died 1590. 32. T.P., vii f.288. 33. T.E.W., p. 43. 34. Kathleen Davies, `Continuity and Change in Literary Advice on Marriage', in Marriage and Society: Studies in the Social History of Marriage, ed. R.B. Outhwaite (London: Europa, 1981) remains an excellent guide; Alison Wall, Èlizabethan Precept and Feminine Practice: the Thynne Family of Longleat', History, 75, (Feb. 1990), 23±38; Ezell, Patriarch's Wife. Margaret Sommerville, Sex and Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early-Modern Society (London: Arnold, 1995), esp. pp. 174±209, gives a general introduction to the theory. Non-elite women feature in research on witchcraft, and on defamation, notably Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), where con¯icts between women are explored. 35. The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, vol. 1, 1556±1577, eds. A. Hassell Smith, G.M. Baker and R.W. Kenny (Norfolk Record Society, 1978 and 1979), esp. p. 11, pp. 23±4, 25, 53, 60, 74, drafts in her husband's hand. 36. Ibid., pp. 25, 75, 78. Cf. Anne Clifford's very affectionate correspondence with her mother: Williamson, Lady Anne Clifford, ch. 8. 37. T.E.W., p. 2. 38. Ibid., pp. 55±6. 39. Ibid., pp. 22, 31. 40. Alison Wall, `For Love, Money, or Politics? A Clandestine Marriage and the Elizabethan Court of Arches', HJ, 38, 3 (1995), 511±33; T.E.W., Intro. pp. xxv±xxvii; evidence based on unpublished MSS. All previous publications incorrectly dated the marriage to 1601 or 1603, and ignored the circumstances. 41. T.E.W., pp. 8, 9±12. 42. Wall, `Clandestine Marriage', esp. pp. 527±8. 43. T.E.W., pp. xxvii, 21 & n. 1; Wall, `Clandestine Marriage', p. 528. 44. T.E.W., p. 29. 45. Ibid., p. 26; T.P. vii f.232. The handwriting is a female style, but more carefully and decoratively written than her others. 46. T.E.W., pp. 26±7. 47. Ibid., pp. 28±9; T.P. vii f.237. Joan's normal hand is here much neater and ¯ourished ± she must have taken long over it. Most of her letters are in her hand; a few of her last ones are different hands, probably of her male retainers at Caus. 48. Samuel Bowdler reported to Thomas Thynne about his parent's attitudes and recommended ways to conciliate them, 28 March 1602, T.E.W., pp. 57±9.




49. Ibid., pp. 27±8, Maria says she will not write again, though a postscript mentions a new letter from Joan which there is no time to answer; the next two, pp. 29, 31. 50. T.P., vii f.253; T.E.W., p. 31. 51. T.P. Vol. LXXXIV Box XXXVII, ff.4±105, comment on lack of `portion' f.87. Lord Chancellor Ellesmere's efforts to settle this, June 1605, T.P., vii ff.329, 330; viii f.72. In the Barrington family, inheritance by the son caused problems with his mother, nevertheless the relationship between Judith Barrington and her mother-in-law seems genuinely warm, as when she expresses hope that her mother-in-law would stay the whole summer: Barrington Family Letters 1628±1632, ed. Arthur Searle (Camden Society, 4th ser., 28, 1983), pp. 17, 68±9, 95, 152, 209. 52. T.E.W., pp. 33±5, undated but probably 1605.



Alison Wall 93

Fighting for Family in a Patronage Society: the Epistolary Armoury of Anne Newdigate (1574±1618) Vivienne Larminie

Over the last 20 years or so, the recovery of an impressive and expanding corpus of women's writing and the emergence, piecemeal, of evidence relating to individual female experience of childhood and youth, has to a modest degree revised upwards estimates of girls' access to academic learning in the early modern period.1 Nonetheless, even among the social elite, the nature and extent of the early education of many women remains unknown, and, given the frustrating lacunae of the available sources, may seem often destined to remain so.2 Anne (Fitton) Newdigate's formation is at ®rst sight a case in point. There is no direct evidence, as there is for the next generation of Fitton girls, that a governess or tutor was employed; it is not known whether she learned any foreign languages, or even if she spent any extended period in a household other than her own.3 What is clear, however, is that she was educated. She was educated in the general sense that she had acquired in good measure the social and managerial skills indispensable for holding her own in the competitive world of the late Elizabethan and Jacobean elite; she was educated in the particular sense that she possessed the technical and intellectual skills requisite for keeping detailed and careful account books, for appreciating musical, literary and classical allusions, and, above all, for expressing herself forcefully, eloquently and persuasively on paper.4 As a result, through periodic visiting in London and the provinces, and through an apparently frequent exchange of letters, Anne could sustain effectively a geographically far-¯ung circle of correspondents, which included courtiers, of®ce-holders, kin and servants. Her epistolary skills, and this range of contacts, proved vital to the Newdigate family. While during her husband's lifetime her letters maintained important links with the court, and nurtured them with leading local gentry in the county 94



7

where they were newly established, after his death in 1610 her powers of written persuasion were critical in rescuing her eldest son and his estates from the worst burdens of wardship and in forwarding the careers and marriages of all her children. Indeed, her eloquence, together with her aptitude for household and estate management and her strenuous efforts to cultivate, when she could, face to face contact with those who moved in London society, was critical to the family's very survival in the ranks of the greater gentry. Anne was born in October 1574, the elder daughter of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, Cheshire, and his wife Alice Holcroft.5 It is evident that she spent a signi®cant part of her youth in London and in close proximity to the royal court. William Kemp, the comic actor, in dedicating his Nine Dayes Wonder to Ànne Fitton, maid of honour', mistook Anne for her younger sister Mary, whose court career was to end in scandal in 1601, but it is an understandable mistake.6 If Anne did not attend the queen directly, she moved in the highest echelons of the social and political elite. Through her father's favour with Lord Burghley, she had an entreÂe to the Cecil household and called Elizabeth Vere a friend; her father was on visiting terms with the Stanleys, Earls of Derby; Francis Fitton, the great uncle whose favourite niece she was, was married to the dowager Duchess of Northumberland, and Lucy Percy called her cousin; she knew Arbella Stuart, a year younger than herself.7 On 30 April 1587, when she was twelve and a half, Anne married 16-year-old John Newdigate, the eldest son of another John Newdigate, a gentleman with many children and hidden debts. For the ®rst seven years and more Anne's life apparently was little changed. The young couple continued to live in Sir Edward Fitton's house and at his expense, as John went to university and as the saga of his grossly-encumbered landed inheritance slowly unfolded. If John lacked the anticipated ®nancial resources ± and he did to a staggering degree ± he was however well supplied with good connections. The relatives of John's mother Martha Cave ± the lawyer Crokes and the courtier Knollys ± and the near neighbours of his small Hare®eld estate, the Egertons, came within Anne's reach.8 Since they spent a good deal of time, it would seem, in London, habits of mixing with the eminent and the powerful were perpetuated. However, by 1595 Sir Edward Fitton, on this and on other accounts considerably the poorer, had sorted out his son-in-law's tortuous affairs to the extent that the young couple were able to take possession of the estate at Arbury in Warwickshire acquired by Newdigate senior, now dead. Thereafter John and Anne Newdigate made Arbury their main home. Arriving without money in a county with which neither of them had any



Vivienne Larminie 95

prior connection and on an estate which needed energetic farming in order to make their ®nancial situation viable, they needed both to cultivate their new neighbours and to maintain vital connections with their friends in and around the court if they were to retain the social status to which they were accustomed. Some time could be, and was, spent visiting locally and further a®eld, but social intercourse through letterwriting was vital while farming and thrift dictated that they remain largely at Arbury.9 Judging by surviving correspondence, it was Anne Newdigate, rather than her husband, who took the lead in this. While John studied to improve himself as a Christian and a magistrate, churning out many folios of reading notes and some speeches to juries, it was principally his wife who received letters, from both female and male relatives, friends and acquaintances, and almost certainly above all she who wrote them.10 Although very little outgoing correspondence survives before 1610, incoming letters reveal as much: Ì have delyverd your letter to my Lady Derbye', wrote great-uncle Francis Fitton to Anne in 1601, speaking of the great lady who was the Newdigates' neighbour at Hare®eld.11 In view both of the paucity of Anne's own writing from this period and of the fact that I have addressed elsewhere the signi®cance of others' letters to her in her husband's lifetime, I do not propose to dwell long on them, focusing primarily instead on the period of her widowhood, but because correspondence undertaken later so clearly rested on skills honed and contacts formed earlier, it is worth brief attention.12 From the beginning letters were critical in nurturing links with friends in London and the court. Correspondence kept communication alive between Anne and Francis Fitton, who gave generously of his time and money to prosecute the Newdigates' affairs in the law courts and elsewhere in London, and to get John a knighthood: `myne owne sweet niece I thanke you moche for your last of the 14 of this instante . . . and so lykewyse for many other before, because I honor you and love you as any the deerest friends you have'.13 A rare surviving reply of 4 March 1602, to `my assured good uncle . . . at his lodging at the redd cocke in the Strande', lends insight into the continuity of business between them, containing thanks for items of haberdashery sent from the city, mention of Anne's letters to royal of®cials and commendations to aunt Engle®eld.14 It was not just a one-way process, for the Newdigate family's bene®t. `Longing soe much as I doe to heere of your good agreement with the contrye life', wrote Henry Carye, later Viscount Falkland, to Anne in December 1596, Ì have persuaded my comforteless eyes to watch till my hand might discover my desire to be satis®ed therein.' Frequent communication was




encouraged and would be reciprocated ± `wright with every occasion, soe shall you hence ordinarily receyve salutacons' ± and evidently need not depend on an urgent desire to pass on information ± `noe news here worthy you, all at this end of towne are become melancolique for want of yor presens. I love you and ever will.'15 Lady Margaret Hoby and Lady Maccles®eld wrote in similar, if less gallant vein, and as they moved between London and provincial estates several gentlewomen, including Elizabeth, Lady Grey, Mildred, Lady Maxey, and Elizabeth, Lady Ashburnham, evidently exchanged letters with their `sister', but no relation, Anne Newdigate.16 Sometimes letters were occasioned by services rendered, as when Lettice Digby, Lady Offaly, acknowledged Anne's help in looking after her family when she was absent from her husband's seat at Coleshill, and Frances Egerton, Lady Brackley, expressed appreciation of Anne's gift of a book.17 Sometimes letters were `mere' expressions of affection, as was Anne's own to Lady Gray in about 1611. Addressed to `my harts all honoring Lady', it displayed a dynamic and alliterative eloquence: al the actions of my pore lives pilgrimages performance . . . is to solicit our merciful redimer . . . that he would be pleased to power upon you as many blessed comforts as in his rich goodness he vouchsafeth to bestowe uppon his best beloved.18 Initially it may be tempting to dismiss such letters as of little value to the historian, being all rhetoric and no news, but that seems to miss a vital point: important ties were being nourished, and it was the women of the family who were writing and keeping the correspondence. The Newdigates' chief contact at court was Sir William Knollys, made comptroller of the household in 1596 and succeeding to various in¯uential of®ces thereafter.19 He wrote frequently to Anne, prompted ®rst by his regard for Sir Edward Fitton, then by his need to con®de unrequited love for Mary Fitton (`yt may be you contrye wits can give counsel'), but ®nally `for your own worthynesse', that made him profess himself to his `fayre gossepp sweete & pleasant Nan', à most faythfull ffrend who will ever be readye to doe all good of®ces wherein I may stead you'. Anne's letters were taken seriously ± `your ffayre written letter & more ffayrely endited I have receaved [and] read more then once or twyse' ± and he paid tribute on another occasion to their impact ± `your ffew lynes but verye pythye and signif®cant' ± such that he feared to `be thought unworthye yff I should suffer your letters to returne unanswered'.20




Ironically, Anne's other habitual court advocate and correspondent was her kinsman Vice Admiral Sir Richard Leveson, a leading Staffordshire and Shropshire gentleman, who became from about 1602 Mary Fitton's lover, and who was the father of Anne Fitton or Leveson, born in 1603. Mary was installed at Leveson's manor house at Perton, near Wolverhampton, where Anne, apparently the principal bridge between her wayward sister and her disapproving parents, was an avowedly welcome visitor. Between Anne and Leveson, who stood godfather to Anne's son Richard in November 1602, there was a striking degree of intimacy.21 Addressing Anne as `deare partner' and `sweet wyffe', he pleaded that, whensoever my love or service may stand you in any stead: as I do now beare the title of your husband: so let me carry this much credit with you that I wilbe more at your devotion than the best of husbands are generally to the best reputed wyffes.22 He needed no prompting to use his position to Anne's advantage: `lay any thinge upon me that this place and my power can afforde and use no other body but my self'.23 When his efforts and those of other friends ultimately failed to secure for Anne the position of royal wet-nurse in the winter of 1604±5, Leveson paid tribute to the power of the written word in soothing rivalries and jealousies in¯amed by competition for preferment in advising Anne to write to Sir William Knollys, declaringe your mind to be as free from entertayninge unworthy conditions as you were apte at ®rst to nouryshe any hope that mought bringe possibility of Advancement to your house and posterity, which you are able to express in better wordes, and I will deliver yf you thinke so good with some Addition of my own.24 If correspondence with courtiers at this period failed to ful®l quite all the Newdigates' ambitions, correspondence with local gentry seems to have contributed immeasurably to their securing and keeping a place in the front rank of Warwickshire gentry, even though their ®nancial situation continued fragile.25 Between 1599 and his death in 1606, Anne exchanged letters, as well as visits, with Sir Fulke Greville senior, one of the leading gentlemen in the county ± a JP, twice sheriff, recorder of Warwick and of Stratford, and with an illustrious reputation which John Newdigate, whose relationship with him was respectful but evidently more formal, was to celebrate in a personal obituary.26 Very affectionate and paternal in tone, Greville's letters bear witness to Anne's effectiveness in communication:




I only glory that I have a servant which conteynes all vertews, and the same draws to her the trew love & afecktion off all good mynds, & myne in good faythe, sweet servant, in such sort that, thoughe I have the honor to be called your Master, you have the powre to command me & any thinge I have, & in that so redye to obey that I shalbe most glad when you shalbe pleased to use that your awcktority.27 After 1606, the connection was sustained through Fulke Greville the younger. In February 1608 Anne's kinsman Philip Mainwaring, steadily working his way up in Greville's service, `which I doe impute to be for your Ladyship's sake', rated Anne's regular letters so highly as to wish to be the bearer of them.28 If an indistinguishable mixture of affection and ambition instigated and characterised Anne Newdigate's correspondence before 1610, necessity underpinned it thereafter. Assiduous attention to farming and coalmining on John Newdigate's part, and to careful account-keeping on his wife's, had begun to generate a respectable estate income, with prospect of further enhancement.29 However, in the spring of 1610 John fell seriously ill. The couple had ®ve children under 13, including his heir, also John but known as Jack, who was just short of ten years old. This was potentially disastrous. The combined weight of continuing debt and of testamentary provision for Anne's jointure and younger children's portions would already put an overwhelming long-term burden on the estate, but an 11-year wardship until Jack reached his majority brought the prospect of control not only of Jack's education and marriage but also of the entire Newdigate inheritance passing into the hands of ®nancially predatory third parties.30 Anne and her steward William Whitehall, a younger son from a Staffordshire gentry family who served the Newdigates from the time he and John Newdigate were at Oxford in the 1580s until his death in 1637, calculated that only by Anne's obtaining the wardship and exploiting the estates vigorously herself, without extracting her jointure representing two-thirds of its value, could her children's rights be preserved.31 At this point, building on all the contacts she had previously established, and summoning all her epistolary skills, she took up her pen on behalf of herself and her children, and having succeeded in her ®rst aim, continued to deploy it to great effect for the remaining eight years of her life. Her surviving letters ± to friends, to of®cials and to servants ± reveal possession of a complete armoury of means of persuasion and of command, a woman well able to hold her own in written discourse. Even as her husband lay dying, Anne Newdigate wrote to the earl of Salisbury, as master of the Wards, seeking her son's wardship. Two fair




drafts among the Newdegate papers are not in her hand, although a few corrections almost certainly are, but there are several indications of her authorship.32 A third draft in William Whitehall's hand was later endorsed by her younger son Richard `my mother's letter'.33 The style of all the drafts is consistent not only with a re¯ective memorandum beginning, `What I have by my Lord Graunteing me the wardship . . .', unquestionably in her hand but also with her other extant letters.34 Francis Beaumont of Bedworth, one of Anne's most assiduous correspondents and of advanced literary tastes, keen to see and digest at leisure what was spoken of as a particularly successful example of Anne's work, requested and received a copy of the letter.35 While the family account books reveal she regularly retained eminent legal counsel in London and thus had access to technical advice about procedure in the courts, there is no evidence that she relied on a secretary to compose business letters for her, or needed to do so.36 In fact, to be a woman, and able to exploit all the possibilities of that role, carried distinct advantages. Playing to the full the theme of an inadequate and defenceless female petitioner, her initial petition actually conveys an impression of con®dence, determination and polish. Presented as the ùnmannerly presumption of a most unfortunate woman', ìn this heavie extremitie being altogether frendles', writing `scraling womanishe lynes', the petitioner, `the unfortunate mother of ®ve yonge chylderen, all nursed upon my owne brestes, and now in burthen with the sixt in this uncomfortable tyme . . .' facing Ì and all my pore children [being] utterly ruinated' nonetheless is not deserted by striking or emolient turns of phrase. Anne is assured of Cecil's òwne noble hart's disposition and worthie compassion of all', of `the wonted favorse . . . your honourable clemencie hath ever given testimonie of to widdowes and infants'. She acknowledges Ì and myne bounde whilst wee breath to solicite the almightie for your encrease of honour to your owne noble hartes content.'37 The letter, supported by court advocates from among Anne's circle of correspondents, had the desired effect, in spite of competition for the wardship from the very well-placed Lord and Lady Harington.38 Greville's manservant Philip Mainwaring reported from court on its impact on 26 March 1610: your letter to my Lord was so passionate and moveinge as you did not need any better meanes for the obtayninge your desyer. Yet in my hearinge (my Lord speakinge of Sir John's death & your pitifull letter)





Having got what she wanted, Anne herself proffered an acknowledgement in a further letter, more overtly con®dent but no less eloquent than the ®rst, and calculated ± with what degree of conscious arti®ce may be ultimately unfathomable ± to cement Cecil's good opinion. `Being engaged in all bound dutie for your favorable respect of mee and myne (releeving myne almost dying spirittes) in graunting unto me the wardshippe of my sonne, which was the onely comfort could in this time befall mee', she was prompted to communicate her `so great contentment, received from your honoure'. She was not afraid of appealing to platitude, but invested it with her own self-conscious if still unoriginal stamp: And although it be an ordinary phrase to say, I will pray for your honoure: yet I beseeche you favour me so much, as to beleeve, that with all constant heartes sinceritie, I will not faile daylie to solicite the Almightie, in your most earnest devotions, to graunt unto you the blessed happines of your own desires.40 Securing the wardship allowed Anne Newdigate, together with William Whitehall (although during her lifetime his role was patently subsidiary), complete control of her children and the chance to continue ef®cient, forward-looking estate management at Arbury, but it did not entirely insulate her from the problems connected with an under-aged heir.41 One neighbour, Mr Robinson, took advantage of the complications of wardship to press claims to some land belonging to the Newdigates. The Master of the Wards being, by this time, none other than Sir William Knollys, it is not entirely surprising that the court initially found in John Newdigate's favour, but Robinson found means of pressing his suit further.42 As the case dragged on through the courts, Anne had again occasion to write to Knollys in April 1616, displaying the familiar deft, effective mixture of apologetic and self-deprecation, and of con®dent and eloquent presumption. `Being obliged to your Lordship by sundrie your noble favoures to me worthles of any', she presumed to `troble' him. Hearing he had not been well ± `whose health I humbly beseeche God speedely & perfectly restore, to his glorie and your wellwisheing freinds comfort ± wanting other meanes to present my humbly sute unto your Lordship in this so short a times liberty', she `humbly beseech[ed] his Lordship', `to pardon this my unmannerlye boldness,



three or four great persons . . . moved my Lord very earnestly for your good, who answered he had & would respect you.39

necessity enforceing', before proceeding to a clear outline of the situation in the courts and her own request.43 Unfortunately, not even the favour of so partial a judge as Knollys could prevent Anne's adversaries from pursuing their cases in other courts. A year or so later she felt compelled to apply to him again, relying on a letter `to be my solicitore', employing characteristically a winning mixture of piety, ¯attery and unanswerable rectitude: when your Lordship heares the equitye of the cause: I desire your favoure to me & my sonn as your owne wise iudiciall harte tells you it iustly deserveth, for it is Only A compackted trick of malice invented to troble me. But God hath hitherto often delivered me [from] their mischeifous plots & I make no [doubt] but so he ever will especially now I fall into the hands of so gracious A iudge as your Noble selfe. Which I hold as A great happiness to me.44 One of Anne Newdigate's trump cards in pressing her claims with the great was that she had renounced the idea of a second marriage for the good of her children. Were she `so accursed a woman as to marry agayne', she pointed out in a private memorandum, it would be `with a private purpose of my own commoditie to defraud my children'.45 However, she did not lack suitors, and not wishing to alienate any potential friends and well-wishers, used her epistolary skills to strike a ®ne balance between encouragement and repulsion. The most persistent was Francis Beaumont of Bedworth, who despite his high-¯own and learnedly allusive letters, did not scorn to hand Anne's replies round his family as models of their kind.46 It is not dif®cult to see why. Anne wrote carefully that, `these many testamonies of the contineweance of your frendlye respect of me can not by me be so worthlesslye esteeme[d] as silently to receave them, and neclect a little thanks (though to pore a requitall for so rich a curtesie)', but she kept her distance, establishing Beaumont's exact relationship to her: were she to neglect to acknowledge the courtesy, she would heape uppon myselfe that which I hate to be burthened with all, haveing bin ever precisely careful rather to cherishe a good opinion conceaved of me then to give just cause to extinguishe it, knoweing it much easier to get a frend then to keepe one.47 Anne used the medium which she had so successfully employed to get and keep friends to prosecute day-to-day estate business, as when she




wrote on 1 April 1615 to a `worthy knight' from whom she had received `sundrie testimonies of your freindly desire to performe al loveing of®ces to me & mine', presuming `thus unmanerly now to troble you' for assistance in effecting the lifting of a mortgage on the family's Brackenborough land.48 She also used it in 1614 to try to gain for her sons' tutor the living of Hinckley, ®ve miles from Arbury (as she observed) and thus suf®ciently near to allow him to continue to teach them until they went to university. Immediately she heard of the previous incumbent's death she wrote to a cousin, although `my last to you was but yesterday', seeking his assistance and informing him she had also written to Philip Mainwaring `my Lord Chancellor's man' since it was in his master's gift. Deprecating her own judgement ± `being ignorant in al thinges; much more in a business of this nature' ± she was none the less con®dent that she might approach potential brokers and recommend the man.49 Her greatest energies, however, were reserved for persuading kinsmen to be her agents in ®nding suitable marriage partners for her two eldest children, Mary and Jack. Striking up an acquaintance with her late husband's cousin Sir Anthony Chester of Chicheley, she had the satisfaction not only of having her letters well received ± Ì cannot expresse how acceptable your kinde letters are to me' and `the sympathie of your letters received . . . revived my quayled spirites' ± but of his making careful enquiry for a match in Buckinghamshire.50 Command of the medium of correspondence, and con®dence in using it for her purposes, are displayed most notably in a series of letters to Sir Henry Slingsby, preserved among the Slingsby manuscripts. Slingsby, addressed as `the ®rst in the ranke of my dearliest beloved friends' was approached to help in the search for a match for Jack in 1617, and apparently responded most helpfully. The appropriate acknowledgement was ¯attery, at which Anne was adept: `the thanks I returned for your love and favoures are pore requitals to equale your worthye desert; neither can I ever be satis®ed that my best acknowledgement is suf®cient, by anye expression to discharge the debt I owe you'.51 And on another occasion: words are not suf®ciently powerful rightly to express what I owe you, yett doe me the honore to believe that whersoever I am, you have an affectionate cosin, that wisheth you as much blessed happiness as your own worthy heart can desire.52 Anne continued to present herself as the champion of her vulnerable children's future happiness seven and a half years into her widowhood, commending Slingsby as `your good selfe whose love is so respectively





mistake not my purposs about my sonn, that I ever ment to entertaine any match for him, till that were answered, you so lovinglye motioned (here I seriouslie profess that I thinke my self so exceedinglie much bounde to you; & am so con®dent in your well-wisheing of me & mine that any match you shall please to propose for him. I shalbe so desireous to effect; my sonns lykeing therto agreeing) that I will referr my selfe to you for the conditions.53 Yet for all the ¯attery, and all the closing apologetic ± `fearing I have wearied you with this tediousness' and `these dumb lines' ± letters to Slingsby, like the letters of other men to her, were marked in some respects by frankness and an impression of minds meeting as equals.54 Anne was coy neither about her ®nancial means nor about her ambitions. Slingsby had suggested that Jack's chances of a good match might be enhanced if he possessed a knighthood, which Anne `confessed' she would `be most glad to purchase at an easy rate . . . for I doe thinke it might be an occasion of his soner bestoweing, because women are sometimes ambitious, especially young ones'.55 She had approached a member of the privy council, she explained in another letter, who had promised to procure the knighthood: Ì will shrive my selfe unto you', she told Slingsby, Ì acquainted him that it was your devise, for the better advancement of my sonn in marriage.'56 Evidently Slingsby had been made party to the reasons for the urgency of Jack's ®nding a bride ± until he did so there was no money either for his sisters' dowries or his younger brother's portion ± for Anne was candid about the slim prospects for a match with the daughter of a recently deceased merchant, one Mr Dorrington: Ì thinke that portion I expect will not be had there' and ìt is not like to be neare that sum our conveyniencie hopeth after'.57 Candid also about her intent to lobby all who might possibly help her to establish her children, Anne betrayed a paradoxical combination of passive piety and active ruthlessness. `God's wil be done', she remarked, apropos the procuring of the knighthood, ùnless I sonner determined to have made some frend an instrument for effecting of such a business.'58 God's purposes would prevail ultimately, but in the meantime her responsibility in her calling as a mother and an estate manager was as great as her husband's had been as a godly magistrate. Ì humbly thanke God . . . whoe is the worker of the minde; when his will is, he will I hope



carefull for the good of my pore chickens; uppon whose well doeing my lives cheife comfort dependeth'. Disarmingly, if not entirely truthfully, she put herself completely in Slingsby's hands:

send A happie matche for [Jack]; in the mean time I must uss the meanes & pray for a blessing.'59 Here indeed was a masterful woman, revealed by her letters as entirely equal to holding her own in dif®cult circumstances. Her 17-year-old son was, she reported to Slingsby, malleable as to his marriage: `yett have I great cause to thanke God for his respect to me, for will ever say whatsoever I will have him do; he will do it, though contrarie to his owne fancie . . . both for his good & his sisters.'60 Although Jack `sayth he can never have A pretier wench' than Mistress Dorrington, there was, Anne af®rmed, no dif®culty when the match was abandoned: `he is well satis®ed: whatsoever I persuade to, he is most willing to yield unto'.61 It is in Anne Newdigate's letters to her deputy steward William Henshawe, contemporaneous with those to Slingsby, that there emerges most strikingly that subtle combination of piety, humanity, determination and habit of command, together with a clear grasp of the way the world worked and what was required to conquer it for the bene®t of her family. She was still taking advantage of old friends and contacts, and in letters to a trusted servant, could review their usefulness. Twenty years on, old correspondent Henry Carye was now `Chancellor of the Exchequer', where the Newdigates had business: Ì hope well since Mr Chancellor is the iudg. It seems he is often absent. I pray you make his [secretary] sure by what friends you can.'62 Master of the Wards, Lord Knollys was still an important contact, if not entirely reliable: Ì hold it not so convyenient to write to my Lord Knollys till I have occasion to uss him, for it will but be forgotten.'63 A stream of authoritative instructions were handed to `good Willi' ± enquire after such-and-such, commend me to so-and-so, `buy me 3 quire of large gilt paper', Ì have writt to Sir Francis Engle®eld to enquire out A match for Jack, put him in mind thereof.'64 But although there was no need to ¯atter Henshawe, Anne was generous, in a manner indicative of a successful manager of people, in her thanks to him and his relatives. She was sympathetic to `your poor uncle [Whitehall], who has had a long ®t in great extremity of pain', and frank, in this last year of her life, as to her fears for her own health. She extended a kind of intimacy, revealing her priorities and her methods.65 A potential `friend' who proved unreliable was to be `trouble[d] . . . in that kinde no more since he is so spare of his breath & liberall in his promise', but the task was not abandoned: Ì hope yet to have A friend that will get it done eyther by payeing or prayeing or both.'66 Judging by her letters, that hope was not empty. Con®dent in the combined ef®cacy of God's bene®cence and her own efforts, she faced the world. `God blesse me and mine, I most humbly beseeche him, from the devil & all his instruments malice, & give me




triumphe & victorie over my enemies as he hath done, & I trust in Jesus Christ will do.'67 By the time Anne Newdigate died in July 1618, she had not actually succeeded in arranging marriages for her eldest son and daughter.68 Nonetheless, through the determination, the con®dence and the persuasive skill so evident in her letters, she had made a critical contribution to her children's future well-being, preserving the estate from wardship, enhancing its revenues and, above all, securing invaluable friends and patrons. It may be that, as Francis Fitton and Fulke Greville implied, Anne Newdigate was extraordinarily endowed with charisma and especially adept at correspondence. However, the men who wrote to her were not noticeably surprised by ®nding themselves corresponding with a woman, and the women who wrote to her acknowledged a sisterhood in correspondence. Letter-writing was evidently a natural medium for oiling the wheels of friendship and patronage, and if in the process use was sometimes made of the convention of female weakness, relations between men and women were equalised to a signi®cant degree.

Notes 1. See for example: Sara Heller Mendelson, `Stuart Women's Diaries and Occasional Memoirs' and Patricia Crawford, `Women's Published Writings 1600±1700', in Women in English Society 1500±1800, ed. Mary Prior (London: Methuen, 1984), pp. 181±210 and 211±82; Elaine Hobby, Virtue of Necessity: English Women's Writing 1649±1688 (Virago, 1988); Her Own Life: Autobiographical Writings by Seventeenth-Century Englishwomen, eds Elspeth Graham, Hilary Hinds, Elaine Hobby and Helen Wilcox (London: Routledge, 1989), intro., pp. 1±27, and bibliography, pp. 225±35; T. Krontiris, Oppositional Voices: Women as Writers and Translators in the English Renaissance (London: Routledge, 1992); Women, Writing and History 1640±1740, eds Isobel Grundy and S. Wiseman (Batsford, 1992). On education itself, see: N. McMullen, `The Education of English Gentlewomen 1540±1640', History of Education, 6, 2 (1977), 87±101; Linda Pollock, ` ``Teach Her to Live Under Obedience'': the Making of Women in the Upper Ranks of Early Modern England', Continuity and Change, 4, 2 (1989), 231±58; Helen M. Jewell, Education in Early Modern England (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), 11±13, 56±60, 133. Anthony Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500±1800 (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), remains cautious about the degree of scholarly education even for the elite: à very small group of women mainly from noble families did experience the classical curriculum' (p. 366); they were `very much exceptions' (p. 367). 2. Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England 1550±1720 (Oxford: OUP, 1998), pp. 90±1.




3. I am grateful to Dr Caroline Bowden for this information. 4. What follows is an extension of research undertaken for my thesis, `The Lifestyle and Attitudes of the Seventeenth-Century Gentleman, with Special Reference to the Newdigates of Arbury Hall, Warwickshire' (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, 1980), and for Vivienne Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture: the Seventeenth-Century Newdigates of Arbury and their World (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer for the Royal Historical Society, 1995). 5. WCRO, CR 136, B832. 6. F.B. Williams, Index of Dedications and Commendatory Verses in English Books before 1641 (1962). For Mary Fitton, and for an earlier analysis of Anne Newdigate and her correspondents, see Lady Newdigate-Newdegate, Gossip from a Muniment Room (Nutt, 1897). 7. HC 1558±1603, 2, 124; Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, pp. 127±8; WCRO, CR 136, B2 (Arbella Stuart), B434±6 (Lucy Percy), B513 (Elizabeth Vere). 8. Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, ch. 2, esp. pp. 25±30, and ch. 9, esp. pp. 126±30. 9. Ibid., esp. pp. 10±17. 10. V.M. Larminie, `The Godly Magistrate: the Private Philosophy and Public Life of Sir John Newdigate, 1571±1610' (Dugdale Society occasional paper 28, 1982). For evidence of Anne's authorship of letters, see below. 11. Newdigate-Newdegate, p. 39. 12. For a discussion of Anne as a wife, see Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, pp. 80±1, 90. 13. WCRO, CR136, B133±144; Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, p. 127; Newdigate-Newdegate, p. 41. 14. WCRO, CR136, B304a. 15. WCRO, CR136, B66. 16. WCRO, CR136, B220±222 (Hoby), B273 (Maccles®eld, endorsed by Anne òne of my deare friends'), B166±180 (Grey), B270 (Maxey to `my deare & sweete sister'), B10a (Ashburnham). See also Mendelson and Crawford, p. 244. 17. WCRO, CR136, B400, B105. 18. WCRO, CR136, B306. 19. Pam Wright, À Change in Direction: the Rami®cations of a Female Household, 1558±1603', in The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War, ed. David Starkey (Harlow: Longman, 1987), pp. 147±72 (pp. 153±4). 20. WCRO, CR136, B231±43; Newdigate-Newdegate, esp. pp. 14±16, 27±9, 36±7. 21. HC 1558±1603, 2, 464±5; G.P. Mander, `Sir Richard Leveson and Mary Fitton, The Wolverhampton Antiquary (1933), 368±76. I am indebted to Mr Richard Wisker for this last reference. 22. WCRO, CR136, B256. Discussed in Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, p. 81. 23. WCRO, CR136, B253. 24. Ibid., CR136, B259. 25. This continued after 1610: see for example, WCRO, CR136 B63 (Peter Burgoyne, 1615), B101 (John Dugdale, 1616). 26. Ibid., CR136, B182±90, B701; Ann Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire 1620±1660 (Cambridge: CUP, 1987), ch. 2.




27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

WCRO, CR136, B182. WCRO, CR136, B276; Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, p. 31. Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, pp. 14±15. Ibid., 31±2. WCRO, CR136, B307, B311. WCRO, CR136, B307±8. WCRO, CR136, B309. WCRO, CR136, B311. WCRO, CR136, B305. Vivienne Larminie, ed., `The Undergraduate Account Book of John and Richard Newdigate, 1618±1621' (Camden Society Miscellany, 30, 1990), pp. 154, 207±8, 246±7; Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, p. 38. WCRO, CR136, B307. Newdigate-Newdegate, p. 89. WCRO, CR136, B277. WCRO, CR136, B308. Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, pp. 36±9; WCRO, CR136, B512. WCRO, CR136, B310. WCRO, CR136, B313 (two letters). Ibid. WCRO, CR136, B311. WCRO, C136, B24±39 (Beaumont letters); Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, p. 87, n. 55. WCRO, CR136, B34 (endorsement). WCRO, CR136, B318. WCRO, CR136, B312. WCRO, CR136, B69±70. YAS, Slingsby MSS, DD56/M2 (12 September 1617). YAS, DD56/M2/58 (14 August 1617). YAS, DD56/M2 (9 October 1617). Lady Newdigate's simultaneous appeals to others for help is evident from her letters to William Henshawe: see below. Ibid., (12 September 1617). YAS, DD56/M2/58. YAS, DD56/M2 (12 September). Ibid. YAS, DD56/M2/58. YAS, DD211 (25 November 1617). YAS, DD56/M2 (9 October 1617). YAS, DD56/M2 (12 September 1617), DD211. WCRO, CR136, B314 (25 October 1617). Ibid. Ibid., and B316 (22 November 1617). WCRO, CR136, B314, B317 (26 November 1617). WCRO, CR136, B314. Ibid. See Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, pp. 38±9, 108±23.




`How Subject to Interpretation': Lady Arbella Stuart and the Reading of Illness Sara Jayne Steen

A friend recently was diagnosed with re¯ex sympathetic dystrophy. To those who have compassion for her pain, she is an amazing woman, successful as a partner, parent and professional in spite of interspersing nerve blocks between commitments. To those who suspect her cautious words about `not feeling well today' she may seem unpredictable, too apt to reschedule appointments. She fears that her in-laws read her every statement within the context of their concern about whether their son is being manipulated by a malingerer. Because hers is a relatively `new' disease in terms of public awareness, her acquaintances have little direct knowledge and must extrapolate from their experience of related behaviours. As Sander L. Gilman notes, being ill is value-laden: `Like any complex text, the signs of illness are read within the conventions of an interpretive community that comprehends them in the light of earlier, powerful readings of what are understood to be similar or parallel texts.'1 That process of reading illness is signi®cant to discussions of letters written by the Lady Arbella Stuart (1575±1615), ®rst cousin to King James VI and I and niece to Mary Queen of Scots. From her later twenties until her death at nearly 40, Stuart repeatedly became ill (as she argued) or manufactured illness as a political ploy (as onlookers often judged) or engaged in a combination of the two. Sometimes she could not, or refused to, eat or drink, which places her among those fasting women who have received much attention in recent years. Her recurrent illnesses garnered extreme reactions from contemporaries, some of whom pitied her bodily in®rmity and `grief of mind' while others doubted her veracity and condemned her obstinacy. Any analysis of Stuart's prose must also involve to some degree a reading of her illness.

109



8

In this essay, I would like to examine Stuart's letters, and those of her contemporaries who comment on her case, in relation to modern and early modern beliefs about physical and mental health. Through these letters, we can explore seventeenth-century illness in words chosen by a bright, articulate woman and can compare her language with that of her observers. Because the health of a member of the royal family was a political issue, investigations were held and accounts shared, so that a surprising amount of evidence remains about how Stuart's illnesses were perceived. Extant letters and reports even allow us to glimpse a doctor± patient relationship sustained over years and complicated by politics at the highest level. Through their words, Stuart and her contemporaries have created the multiple texts of her illness that we interpret and create again as we read. I do not minimise the dif®culty of interpreting past medical terminology; the language of seventeenth-century illness to modern ears often is ambiguous. In Stuart's case, however, we have suf®cient information to attempt a current diagnosis. As I have suggested elsewhere2 and believe more strongly as a result of additional discussions with physicians and historians of science, it is probable that the Lady Arbella Stuart suffered from acute intermittent porphyria (AIP), a disease unknown in the seventeenth century but that `can be diagnosed in retrospect with some con®dence' because of the `speci®c combination of seemingly unconnected symptoms'.3 AIP is characterised by recurrent attacks of abdominal pain, with stomach and liver distention; severe muscle pain and weakness; mental shifts ranging from depression and excitement to delusion; dif®culty in swallowing and subsequent emaciation; convulsions; coma; and, if severe enough, death. The patient may suffer from restlessness, insomnia, a rapid or irregular pulse, or sensitivity to light. Extant letters by or about Stuart indicate that nearly all of these symptoms were present. The disease is biochemical, an inherited, dominant enzyme de®ciency; symptoms appear after puberty, usually in the third or fourth decade, and more commonly in women.4 Attacks may be mild or intense, with sudden onset and equally sudden recovery, and may be provoked by infection, stress, malnutrition, endocrine factors or medication.5 In addition, there is evidence of porphyria in her family. The disease appears in heterozygous individuals: any child of an affected parent would have a 50 per cent chance of having inherited the defect even if no symptoms were present. With symptoms, the diagnosis is increasingly likely. Because King James's physician, Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, maintained detailed notes, we have clinical evidence of James's




symptoms, including thick discoloured urine, that medical geneticists ®nd convincing. James's son Prince Henry probably died from porphyria, and James's daughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia, was described as having had the disease.6 The illness can be traced forward through the house of Hanover, as dramatised in the 1995 ®lm The Madness of King George, and has been con®rmed by testing of descendants. Similar symptoms are recorded for James's mother, Mary Queen of Scots, and Arbella's father, Charles Stuart, as well as for James's grandfather, James V of Scotland. The common genetic source would be Margaret Tudor, who, like her sister Mary, suffered from recurrent episodes of weakness and pain; she died of what was described as `palsye'.7 Although the evidence is not as conclusive as modern testing, the case is strong. If we accept that diagnosis, AIP becomes part of the text of Stuart's illnesses and thus a framework for reading. That Stuart likely had porphyria does not indicate when her words might have been impulsive, re¯ecting physical excitement, and when carefully planned. It does not imply that she was not in control of her words at any given time. Until porphyria is in the most advanced stages, the higher critical functions such as reasoning remain intact between and even during attacks, which may occur months or years apart.8 Someone suffering from porphyria might learn to understand these attacks and how others respond to them, even to use the disease. If we accept the premise that Stuart suffered from AIP, then her life and writing involved a more complex interaction between patient, disease, intelligence, body and social situation that leaves much room for interpretation. No one in the early seventeenth century could have imagined an enzyme de®ciency. The medicine taught in English universities was Galenic, or based in humours: blood, choler, melancholy and phlegm. If one humour were imbalanced in relation to the others, the patient's mind might be affected. Grief could provoke imbalance; joy might restore health. The doctor's duty was to treat the whole patient, serving as con®dante and moral philosopher, because the body could not be cured without the mind.9 Women practitioners, who could not attend the university but who nonetheless played a central role in health care, shared this theory. Certainly women in Stuart's family were knowledgeable: her cousins Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent, and Alethea Talbot, Countess of Arundel, composed medical texts,10 and the Lieutenant of the Tower once called Dr Moundford when Stuart became ill because if he had not, Elizabeth and Alethea's mother and Stuart's aunt, Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, would have insisted on visiting `to minister Physick'.11



Sara Jayne Steen 111

The diseases most relevant for our understanding of this milieu are melancholy and hysteria, somewhat variable and even overlapping diagnoses. Timothy Bright in his Treatise of Melancholie (1586) de®ned natural melancholy as a grosser part of the blood that in excess `surchargeth the bodie, and yeeldeth vp to the braine certaine vapors, whereby the vnderstanding is obscured'.12 Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) said the disease had as many symptoms as Proteus had forms: depression, grief, leanness, sore eyes, wind, stomach pain, inability to sleep, restless fantasies, idle talk and others. Causes included loss of liberty and sorrow.13 According to Michael MacDonald in his analysis of physician Richard Napier's case records, melancholy was the fashionable diagnosis for gentlefolk with emotional problems signalled by delusions, fear or sadness.14 Hysteria, from hystera, the Greek word for uterus, was the disease of the wandering womb, in which either the disturbed womb or vapours from it were believed to move upward through the body with disastrous effect. In 1603, Edward Jorden, a prominent member of the College of Physicians, published A Briefe Discourse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother (with mother a term for uterus). In hysteria, he said, the organ most affected was the brain, leading to `®ts' affecting sense and motion. Symptoms might include an irregular or racing pulse, a damaged imagination or reason, loss of appetite, pain and convulsions. The mind was key: `here is also some Melancholike or capricious conceit . . . which being . . . remoued, the disease is easily ouercome'.15 Although these writers usefully acknowledge the role of the mind in illness, the logical corollary, especially if physic proves ineffectual, is to place responsibility on the patient, who must take charge of his or her passions. To a degree, then, melancholy and hysteria are what we would call psychosomatic, or in seventeenth-century language, the result of perturbations of mind. Writers such as Bright, Burton and Jorden assumed that these diseases could be suffered by both sexes, but the illnesses differed in connotation. Women were prone to melancholy because they were perceived as emotional, but melancholy increasingly became associated with men and the heroic suffering that led to art, while hysteria suggested women and triviality. Similarly, melancholia was suffered largely by the upper classes, while the lower classes were likelier to be thought hysterical.16 Not surprisingly, Stuart employed the language of melancholy; contemporaries' comments re¯ect both respect and disrespect. Until Stuart was 27 years old, she suffered only the usual childhood ailments. The question of illness ®rst occurs with letters that Stuart wrote in early 1603, after she had attempted to contract an unauthorised




marriage. During the 1602 Christmas holiday, while living in the custody of her grandmother, Elizabeth of Hardwick (Bess), Stuart had revived a proposal to marry another claimant. Queen Elizabeth's adviser Sir Robert Cecil quickly sent Sir Henry Brounker to investigate. Although the queen forgave Stuart, Bess became increasingly restrictive, and Stuart determined to force court attention to her situation by creating a ®ctional lover in prose. Stuart correctly anticipated that her letter would be forwarded to court.17 While she awaited reply, Stuart either deliberately began to starve herself or became too ill to eat and drink and then discovered that fasting conferred authority. Bess wrote to Robert Cecil on 21 February that Stuart had been `very sick w[i]th extream payne of her side w[hi]ch she never had before' and under a doctor's care for two weeks. She had been ìnforced to take much phisick . . . but [she] ®ndes little ease./ I see hir minde is the cause of all.' Bess saw Stuart's pain as genuine and yet interpreted her behaviour as deliberately intractable; she wrote that Stuart `hath made a vowe not to eat or drink in this house at Hardwick or where I am'. To save Stuart's life, Bess had her moved elsewhere,18 and Brounker was dispatched, as Stuart had hoped. When Brounker returned, Stuart confessed her ®ction, then continued to employ it.19 Cecil, Brounker and the Privy Council joined her grandmother in condemning what seemed to them irrational behaviour. Cecil noted in one letter, drawing on the general theory of melancholy and hysteria, Ì think that she hath some strange vapours to her braine', a phraseology at best disparaging.20 Privy Council members thought her letters written in `strange stile' and their release ìnconvenient' and `disgracefull'; they suggested that she needed friends who could keep her `w[i]thin bounds of temper and quietnes',21 emphasising her need for self-control. Her grandmother wrote to Cecil and Sir John Stanhope that Stuart was `so wilfully bent' there was no reasoning with her; she spent her time writing idly, or foolishly.22 Brounker had argued from his ®rst visit that Stuart had been `somewhat distracted', suggesting a state between agitation and derangement. Later he told the Privy Council, echoing Bess, that `much writinge' had led to the `distempering of her braynes apparente enough by the multitude of her idle discourses' and to Cecil described her `wilfulnes'.23 Catholic priest Anthony Rivers said of the members of the court: `they give out that she is mad'.24 Historians often have considered these letters, which are rhetorically distinct from Stuart's other letters in being more ¯uid, angry, and associational, as evidence of mental disturbance, even weakness of character, and described them as `hysterical'.25




Stuart's language, however, is very different from that used by her scornful readers. In a letter written to Sir Henry Brounker on 4 March, she alludes to the lover early in the letter but explains at length and with frustration that she has been threatened and verbally abused, against Brounker's instructions, the moment he left Hardwick Hall. She has taken action in spite of `®nding my selfe scarse able to stand what for my side and what for my head'; she has `forti®ed my weake body as well as I can' and hopes that Brounker, who calls himself her friend, is ashamed to see his word broken before he could have reached his night's lodging.26 Two days later, she wrote to him that Sunday, the day of rest, can `not priviledge my travelling minde from imploying my restless penne'.27 Her most extended discussion occurs in a letter written to Brounker (and thus, as she knew, to Cecil and other Privy Councillors) on 9 March, the day before she attempted to escape with her uncle Henry Cavendish and 40 armed men. Here she mourns the Earl of Essex, executed for treason, and compares herself to him as one maligned by enemies. Stuart describes Essex's friendship and her sorrow. These are, she says, `malincholy thoughts' provoked `by the smarting feeling of my great losse who may well say I never had or shall have the like frend nor the like time to this to need a frend in Court'. She adds that she is well aware of how her text will be read: I do it [write thus much] not to be requited with your applause . . . nor that my troubled wittes cannot discerne how unlookt for, how subject to interpretation, how offensive almost every word will be even to you. But for somm reasons which I will tell you least, you returne to that opinion I tooke so very unkindely at your hands That the more I writt to the lesse purpose it was. First as I voluntaryly con®ne my selfe to teares silence, and solitarinesse . . . so I determined to spend this day in sending you the ill favoured picture of my griefe. Similarly, she knows that he will consider hers a `peevishly tedious' letter. Why has she written it? Because, she says, being allowed no company to my likeing and ®nding this the best excuse to avoid the tedious conversation I am bound to, I thinck the time best spent in tiring you with the idle conceits of my travelling minde till it make you ashamed to see into what a scribling melancholy (which is a kinde of madnesse and theare are severall kindes of it) you have brought me and leave me, if you leave me till I be my owne woman and then your trouble and mine too will cease.




She emphasises that she is ìn sorrow, sicknesse prison and many wayes distressed', of `malincholy innocence', and argues that she must try for relief `with speed because my weake body and travelling mind must be disburdned soone or I shall offend my God',28 presumably by committing suicide, a threat she could be certain the court would take seriously. Stuart's description of herself is of someone physically weak and in pain, troubled by grief and imprisonment, restless and excited (if the last suf®ces as a modern equivalent for a `travelling minde'), a suffering that she casts as melancholic and heroic. That she describes her wits as `troubled' and repeatedly employs the phrase `travelling minde' is signi®cant as a re¯ection of Stuart's understanding of what was happening to her. One might expect someone of royal rank in Stuart's situation to portray herself heroically to the court, but talk of suicide usually suggests serious distress. If Stuart had had an attack of AIP, then her comments about her muscular weakness, mental excitability, and efforts to be strong are not solely metaphorical or hyperbolic. She might have been capable of functioning intelligently and writing with rhetorical sophistication during either a painful attack or its aftermath or both. When King James's succession was established, Stuart was permitted to come to court. The `strange style' of her writing ceased. The letters Stuart wrote over the next seven years reveal no emotional disturbance and few discussions of physical ailments, a shift that probably suggested to some that her words had been, as they thought, wilfulness. Only when the throne no longer was at issue did any courtiers who had read her letters express sympathy. Stuart's uncle Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, wrote that Robert Cecil had advised King James to tell her he was satis®ed by her compliance and she could choose her place of residence; otherwise ìt would redooble hir greefe, and af¯iction of mynd, wherw[i]th she had beene too too longe already tormented'.29 The second time that Stuart's health and letters were at issue was in 1610±11, after Stuart's clandestine marriage to William Seymour. During Stuart's years at court, King James had repeatedly promised to restore her patrimony, and thus establish her ®nancially, upon her wedding; but he had not approved any marriage. To the king's outrage, Stuart wed without permission a young nobleman who had a minor claim to the throne. Both were arrested. The ®rst indication of Stuart's illness occurred within weeks. According to the testimony of Stuart's attendant Anne Bradshaw ± taken during an inquiry in 1618, three years after Stuart's death, when James was frantically investigating rumours that his cousin had secretly given birth to a child ± in 1610




the Lady was distempered her body swelled, her gowne was let out shee her selfe let fall words that shee thought shee was w[i]th child but shee was not to her knowledge. Doctor Momford was the phisitian, this distemper fell into an issue of bloud w[hi]ch came from her. There was never any midwife p[ro]vided, neither was it ®tting, for this hapned 3. monthes after shee was maried and shee began to swell a month after mariage. The issue of bloud contynued 3 dayes and shee showed some of it to Doctor Momford.30 It is unclear whether the `shee' who showed the blood to Dr Moundford was Stuart or Bradshaw, but the wording argues that Stuart's physician did not perform a gynaecological examination, not surprisingly, given their sexes and stations. What happened is uncertain, but the swelling associated with an attack of AIP can mistakenly suggest pregnancy.31 The Thomas Moundford mentioned above had become Stuart's physician sometime after she joined James's court. By then, Moundford was well established. He had received degrees from Cambridge in the 1570s and early 1580s and by 1594 was a fellow of the College of Physicians, of which he served seven times as president. He was an expert on melancholy and hysteria. Moundford was both physician and divine, and professionally respected although his social status was well below Stuart's aristocratic rank. In 1603 Stuart had described as illness what others called obstinacy; in 1610±11 the situation recurred, with the difference that Stuart had allies such as Moundford. By January of 1611, King James had informed Stuart that she would be removed to Durham. Aware of what northern exile had meant to her aunt Mary Queen of Scots, Stuart fought to remain in London. First, she appealed for a writ of habeas corpus.32 Then, whether from muscular weakness or strategy or both, and under great stress, she became too ill to travel. Stuart was put into a litter, but told her carriers she could not continue. The Privy Council sent Sir James Croft with the king's command to physically remove Stuart `by the strength of mens handes . . . in case you ®nde hir still so willfull in that course of disobedience as to refuse to go on'.33 Stuart was carried six miles to Barnet. During these weeks, Moundford became Stuart's advocate; he consulted with her uncle Gilbert Talbot as though they were a team and argued her case with the king. From the beginning, however, Moundford did not believe that Stuart's weakness had a physical cause; its source, he told Gilbert Talbot, was grief. Nonetheless the poor condition of her body meant she could not travel without risk to her life.34





felt her pulse and entered into some discourse of her weaknes and in®rmities yesterdaye: and this morning he had a sighte of her uraine and agayne felt her pulse. I am sure that by nether of theis he can warrant ether amendment of her grefe, or contynuance of lyfe, if some contentment of minde be not joyned with physicke which I with all dewe respecte will cause to be ministered when tyme and oportunyte of place shalbe afourded us / In the meane tyme I am inforced to insiste in cordials.35 That Moundford thought Hammond's examinations of pulse and urine would be useless may re¯ect pique at having another physician consulted and perhaps increased the alliance with Stuart indicated by his use in his letters of ùs' and `my Lady'. Pragmatically, he hoped that his care for his `distressed, weke and comfortlesse pacient' would be acknowledged.36 Because Moundford found no physical cause, he offered Stuart the good counsel indicated for melancholics. Stuart's uncle Gilbert agreed that `the indisposition of her boddy . . . is far the worsse, by the disquietnes of her mynde' and thanked Moundford for advising her to be patient and obedient. Gilbert said the king had told him in disgust ìt is ynoughe to make any sound man syck to be carryed in a bed in the manner she is, much more for her whose unpatient & unquiett spirites heapeth uppon her selfe far gretter indisposition of boddy', suggesting, as did even compassionate observers, that the fault was in part her own. Gilbert regretted that `melancoly thoughtes . . . have gotten the uper hande of her' and was certain that if she believed the king's displeasure would not endure, Ì sholde not muche doubte of her spedy recovery.'37 Dr Hammond concurred and told the Privy Council that Stuart was assuredly very weake, her pulse dull and melancoly for the moste parte, yet somtymes uncertayne; her water badd, showynge very great obstructions [suggesting colour or sediment in the urine]; her countenance very hevy, pale, and wann; nevertheles she was free . . . from any fever, or any other actuall sycknes, but of his conscience he protested that she was in no case to travayle untill God restored her to somme better strengeth, bothe of boddy and mynde.38 King James granted a month's rest. By 17 April Sir James Croft wrote to the Privy Council that to his knowledge Stuart had not been able to



King James demanded a second opinion and sent Prince Henry's physician, Dr John Hammond. Moundford reported to her uncle that Hammond

walk the length of her bedchamber: neither did he ever discover her out of bed. He said she was `dejected', envisioning exile in its worst forms.39 Stuart's language in her letters, however, argues a reading other than that of a frightened woman who has made herself sick, though Stuart certainly appears to have been angry and frustrated. In the summer of 1610, she wrote to her husband, then in the Tower, in language that re¯ects her understanding that sorrow affected the body: For Gods sake let not your griefe worke upon your body. you may see by me what inconveniences it will bring one to. And no fortune I assure you daunts me so much as that weakenesse of body I ®nde in my selfe.40 After her disrupted journey, Stuart spoke more forcefully of her illness. For example, she wrote to Lord Fenton, in a heavily revised letter, Ì have binne sicke even to the death from which it hath pleased God miraculously to deliver me for this present danger, but ®nde my selfe so weake.' She complains, in passages she later deleted, that Ì can neither get clothes nor posset ale for example nor any thing but ordinary diett . . . not so much as a glister [enema]' and issues a threat: neither phisition nor other shall comme about me whilest I live till I have his Majesties favour with out which I desire not to live, and if you remember of olde I dare dy so I be not guilty of my owne death. Stuart suggests that she might allow herself to die, perhaps by fasting, without actively committing suicide, a mortal sin. She hopes that Fenton will help her at a time when she can hardly lift her pen: `my weaknes is sutch that [writing] is very paynfull to me to write and cannot be pleasant to any to read'.41 Similarly, when she appealed to Sir Robert Cecil, Stuart explained that `the extremytie of greefe . . . hath almost brought me to the brinck of the grave'.42 She wrote to one lord of her àf¯iction' and asked him to move others on her behalf, `my weaknesse not permitting me to write particulerly' to each one.43 She asked the Privy Council to intercede: I am in so weak case as I veryly thinck it would be the cause of my death to be removed any whither at this time though it weare to a place to my likeing. My late discomfortable journey (which I have not yet





In this letter, although Stuart focuses on her illness, she again is assertive, even aggressive, in her threat of what `the world would conceive' if she were forced into suicide.44 Although emphasising her weakness would have been strategic, she might have been straightforward. Stuart persuaded the king to extend her recovery time by offering, in Moundford's words, `her submission in a letter to his heighnes . . . with all dewe acknowledgment of her recoverye from the grave by tyme most gratiuslye graunted by him'.45 In her petition, Stuart responded to what James and the Privy Council had said, as recorded in letters sent to Croft and Moundford.46 Extant copies of these letters are in Stuart's handwriting or that of her attendant; that she was allowed to copy them suggests the sympathy of her keeper and her physician and Stuart's active involvement in these exchanges. In her request, Stuart answers every argument, carefully revising to tone down her anger. She is well aware of the discrepancy between her presentation of her illness and others' readings of it and directly confronts that difference, expressing her grief that James believed reports `which impute that to my obstinacie which proceeded meerelie out of necessitie'. She emphasises that she èndeavored by all good meanes to make my extreame weakenesse knowne to your Majestie'. She thanks James for the weeks earlier granted, describes her improvement, and requests an additional three weeks, by which `Doctor Moundford hopes I maie recover somuch strength as may enhable me to travell'.47 In the ®nal version of this letter, Stuart adds a further reassurance: And . . . as an arg[u]ment that I had never anie other thought then to gaine your Majesties favoure by obedyence I do promise to undergoe the Jorney after this time expired without anie resistans or refusall to do such things as are ®tt for mee to do to make my Jorney<s> less painefull, or perillous. On one draft, next to this passage, is a marginal notation that, had James seen it, might have given him second thoughts: às thoughe I had made resistans etc. and so the Jorney more perilous and painefull by my selfe whereuppon I must confess I bely my selfe extreemely in this'. These words are resentful, not deferential, and they are written on a draft likely intended only for Stuart's private ®le, thus suggesting the genuineness of her weakness and inability to travel in Stuart's own mind. Conceding to



recovered,) had almost ended my dayes and I have never since gonne out of a few little and hott roomes.

James's alternative reading of her illness, telling him what he wanted to hear, was a necessary deception to achieve her ends. When Stuart used the respite to plan her escape to France cross-dressed as a man and was physically capable of making the attempt, many people believed that her illness had been a ruse. (The rapid recovery associated with AIP often leads to accusations of duplicity.) The Venetian ambassador wrote to the Doge and Senate that Stuart had `feigned illness for many days previously, and was seen by no one but the doctor'.48 Even if an attack had occurred, Stuart perhaps pretended to be ill in the days before her escape; it is not surprising that James doubted Stuart's obedient words. Dr Moundford was among those immediately committed prisoner on suspicion of collusion.49 Soon after Stuart was recaptured and imprisoned in the Tower she again was reported to be ill. No extant letters can be con®rmed to have been written by Stuart after she entered the Tower, but documents about her health are numerous. Stuart was attended by another physician in prison, and her relationship with Moundford (who had been quickly released) altered, although she and her aunt Mary contributed £400 to the College of Physicians, perhaps by way of apology or payment to him.50 The Lieutenant of the Tower wrote that in 1612 Stuart had fallen ill and revealed, perhaps deliberately, that her aunt planned to deliver her to Roman Catholics who hoped to convert England through the crown. The Lieutenant obtained permission for Dr Moundford, `being her ordinary Phisicion in whome she dyd repose greate trust' to visit. Before Christmas, Stuart again fell into what Lieutenant Waad called `fyttes of distemper and convulsyons' and Edward Somerset, Earl of Worcester, described as `greate distemper and vexatyon'. Aware of what others would suspect, Waad af®rmed that her `dangerous distemper . . . could be no ®ction'.51 As he wrote of his visits, Moundford understood the potential consequences of offending his audience. His reports to Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, who was in charge of this investigation, are detailed and cautious; Moundford refers not to `my Lady' but to `her Ladyship'. Even so, his statements suggest he had doubts about Stuart's veracity. He testi®ed that he found Stuart in bed, às I thinke sleeping', though her attendant said Stuart could not eat or sleep. Stuart, he reported, then awakened and told him she was upset with her aunt. `Good Madame' Moundford said, remember one rule which I have often repeted: I did learne it of a wise woman. it is this. If thou be Croste, Crosse not thy selfe. and seing good Ladye that this rather Agritudo then Morbus [rather sickness than





It is not surprising that Stuart refused to talk further. Moundford here adopts a superior moral position, assuming that Stuart need only adjust her thinking to rise from bed. When he returned the next morning, Moundford commented on Stuart's insomnia and restlessness, Madame, I nowe doe not marveyle that yow sleepe not being this disquieted. for we physitions holde that Corpus animam sequitur in suis actionibus: Anima vero Corpus in suis accide[n]tibus [The body is governed by the spirit in its actions; but the spirit is governed by the body only in non-essential matters] and here nowe in your Ladyship I ®nde that mentis agitatio quae nunquam acquiescit in this ®tt perturbat omnia [an agitated mind for reason of which one cannot rest . . . throws all into confusion].52 Stuart's aunt Mary Talbot argued that the source of her niece's sickness was melancholy arising from rumours of her husband's `deboshed [debauched] cariage' in Paris and that Stuart, oppressed with grief, would be sorry for her words when `she came to her selfe', suggesting that Mary might have had experience with similar episodes before. Questioned later about the plot, a seemingly recovered Stuart rose and terminated the conversation when she chose. She is reported to have spoken of the episode as her `late dangerus sickness'.53 During the last years of Stuart's life, indications of disability alternate with indications of health. At one moment Stuart is handling her ®nancial affairs and working for her release and then is described as in òne of hir ®ttes'.54 Her illnesses are often characterised cavalierly. Likely in early 1613, at the time of Moundford's visits, Northampton wrote that Stuart ìs in verie great danger at this present of no speciall disease but of a wastinge with an extreem debility[.] she hath neyther taken broth nor any drink more than once theas three daies which excesse on fastinge breedes idolnesse', his phraseology indicating that he saw her fasting as deliberate. He reports that she no longer wants to live, `stormes with extremity' at the idea of being attended by a physician or divine, and was for a time in à kinde of traunce'.55 Nonetheless, Northampton, often himself characterised as duplicitous, says he is incredulous, given his



disease] the practise of this rule is verye nedefull. Then her Ladyship replied. I knowe not what it is. Well Madame saide I: your Ladyship shall ®nde my olde Cordiall of Pacience and Humilitie to be a most sovereigne medicine if it please yow to use it, soe ®nding her unwilling to use any farther speache I did take my leave.

knowledge of `more giddy partes plaid formerly by hir'. Her fasting, he says, is pretence: `god knowes what supplies are brought when the curtines are drawne'. In unpleasant terms, he laughs about what sound like delusions on Stuart's part and jokes that he's been told she can drink if tricked into toasting Devonshire's health. He describes her accusations of her aunt as `the trippes and turnes of an vnstaid tounge' carried about like a `whorly gigge'. Some have argued that her health might improve if she were removed from her `dismall' lodgings, but Northampton rejects the suggestion: if that works, he says, everyone in the Tower will `counterfaite as cunningely'.56 Writing of the rumours that were circulating that spring of 1613, John Chamberlain also is ¯ippant: she is `distracted' and `crakt in her braine'. Over a year later, he writes that she is `far out of frame this midsommer moone'.57 On 8 September 1614, the Privy Council wrote to a Dr Fulton that Stuart ìs of late fallen into some indisposition of body and mind' and needs someone òf gravity and learning' to offer comfort to a `Christian in cases of weakness and in®rmity',58 the ®rst time during these last years the court employed such sympathetic language. It would make no sense to send a minister to someone who lacked discernment. In the Tower Stuart was read through her illness, and in part silenced by it, as courtiers could suspect her words because she was `far out of frame'. Nonetheless, Stuart retained suf®cient authority that her every hinted accusation was investigated. For a year before her death on 25 September 1615, Stuart refused to allow a doctor to feel her pulse or examine her urine, a decision she was capable of enforcing, and a sensible choice if she had realised that medicines could provoke or increase her pain. The Venetian ambassador heard that her death was accompanied by a sudden tremor and weakness of the lower limbs; her aunt Mary Talbot said she had not been told of Stuart's renewed `weakness' until two days before Stuart's death.59 The ®nal contact between Stuart and Dr Moundford occurred after her death, when he and ®ve fellow physicians were ordered to conduct a postmortem. According to their report, she had been suffering from a growing cachexy [ill health and malnutrition] which day by day increased due not only to her own neglect and the refusal of remedies . . . but also to an extremely sore condition of her back from a prolonged period of lying in bed. . . . Thus she had induced a con®rmed indisposition of her liver and extreme emaciation of the body. From which conditions . . . we con®rm that death must necessarily follow.60




To physicians who may have resented being put aside and likely chose their words with care, Stuart `had induced' the conditions that led to death, a position congruent with James's opinion that she died `contumacious',61 or rebellious. Popular opinion held that she died of sorrow, with `griefe possest',62 a reading that has continued to the present; in a 1998 Tales from The Tower television episode Stuart is portrayed as having died of grief when her husband failed to write.63 In the reading of illness, and thus of Stuart's life and letters, one seemingly small adjustment can make an enormous difference in interpretation. Some of her contemporaries viewed the Lady Arbella Stuart with compassion, even though they saw her as a royal melancholic who needed more self-control; others considered her a political manipulator, an actor, a wilful woman, eventually a madwoman in the Tower. Insanity has long been the diagnosis for women who do not conform to their culture's de®nition of modest womanhood, as the Lady Arbella Stuart clearly did not. The evidence suggests Stuart's understandable need, in extraordinarily dif®cult circumstances, to take charge of her own life. If those circumstances were complicated by a recurrent illness, as they probably were, an intelligent woman coped impressively in the face of continual suspicion and scepticism. Reading Stuart's illness through the lens of acute intermittent porphyria means reconsidering her words and those of her readers. We might say, for example, that medical advances have given Thomas Moundford a small dose of what he prescribed: a cordial of humility. Although I do not mean to denigrate Moundford, who seems to have been a caring physician, there is something unsettling to modern ears about repeated requests to exercise self-command. More disturbing if we imagine recurrent attacks of pain is the amused detachment with which the Earl of Northampton writes of Stuart's `®ts'. The Lady Arbella Stuart's pain and weakness may have been quite genuine, however intelligently, even cannily, she may have used illness to her advantage. That she was capable of pretence, as in the creation of a ®ctional lover, makes interpretation of her writing more complex. Although she necessarily viewed what was happening to her in the context of seventeenth-century medicine, Stuart was aware of and rejected readings of her illness that denied its actuality. In the marginal note of that petition to James in which Stuart promises to travel north obediently, she writes às thoughe I had made resistans . . . whereuppon I must confess I bely my selfe extreemely in this'.64 Stuart also was alert to the nuances of language and the process of reading while she shaped her prose with what she described in 1603 as a `travelling minde'. In her longest letter to Sir Henry Brounker, she did not want him to think for a





Notes 1. Disease and Representation: Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 7. 2. In my edition of The Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart (New York: OUP, 1994), pp. 96±100; references to Stuart's letters are indicated by L.A.S. and letter number. 3. Ida Macalpine, Richard Hunter and C. Rimington, `Porphyria in the Royal Houses of Stuart, Hanover, and Prussia: a Follow-up Study of George III's Illness', in Porphyria ± A Royal Malady: Articles Published in or Commissioned by the British Medical Journal (London: British Medical Association, 1968), p. 23. 4. Isabel Allende describes her daughter's death from porphyria in Paula, trans. Margaret Sayers Peden (Thorndike, Maine: Hall, 1995). Allende imagines a sorcerer who has put a time bomb in a young girl's body that everyone forgets until she is 28 and it goes off, p. 82. 5. Attallah Kappas, Shigeru Sassa, Richard A. Galbraith and Yves Nordmann, `The Porphyrias', in The Metabolic and Molecular Bases of Inherited Disease, ed. Charles R. Scriver et al., (7th edn; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995), vol. 2, pp. 2103±59; and Jennifer B. Jeans et al., `Mortality in Patients with Acute Intermittent Porphyria Requiring Hospitalization: a United States Case Series', American Journal of Medical Genetics, 65 (1996), 269±73. 6. On James and Henry, see Macalpine et al., pp. 26±35; on Elizabeth, I am indebted to John M. Opitz, MD. I am also grateful to physician Robert J. Flaherty, biologist Thomas Valente, and historians of science Monique Bourque and Pierce C. Mullen for conversations about AIP. 7. Patricia Hill Buchanan, Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1985), p. 269; and Nancy Lenz Harvey, The Rose and the Thorn: the Lives of Mary and Margaret Tudor (New York: Macmillan, 1975), pp. 231±2. 8. Conversation with Dr John M. Opitz. 9. F. David Hoeniger, Medicine and Shakespeare in the English Renaissance (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992); and Nancy G. Siraisi, Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine: an Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). 10. Grey's A Choice Manuall of Rare and Select Secrets in Physick and Chyrurgery (1653) and Talbot's Natura Exenterata (1655). 11. BL Add. MS 63543 ff.11±12. 12. (London; facsimile rpt. Amsterdam: Da Capo Press, 1969), pp. 2±3. 13. The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. Holbrook Jackson (1932; reprinted New York: Vintage Books, 1977), vol. 1, pp. 37, 250±2, 259, 302, 343±4, 383, 407±8; vol. 2, pp. 9, 30, 102±3, 109. Although Burton's work was published six years after Stuart's death, many ideas were current earlier. 14. Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge: CUP, 1981), pp. 150±60.



moment that `my troubled wittes cannot discerne . . . how subject to interpretation . . . almost every word will be even to you'.65

15. Edward Jorden, A Briefe Discourse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother (London: Windet, 1603), sigs. B1±H1. 16. See Lawrence Babb, The Elizabethan Malady: a Study of Melancholia in English Literature from 1580 to 1642 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1951); Elisabeth Bronfen, The Knotted Subject: Hysteria and its Discontents (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998); Stanley W. Jackson, Melancholia and Depression: from Hippocratic Times to Modern Times (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); Mark S. Micale, Approaching Hysteria: Disease and its Interpretations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Juliana Schiesari, The Gendering of Melancholia: Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Symbolics of Loss in Renaissance Literature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992); and Ilza Veith, Hysteria: the History of a Disease (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965). 17. L.A.S., 7. 18. Hat®eld House, Cecil Papers 135 f.150. 19. L.A.S., 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16. 20. On a copy of L.A.S. 12, Cecil Papers 135 f.163. 21. Cecil Papers 135 ff.168±9. 22. Ibid., 92 f.1. 23. Ibid., 135, ff.114, 174, and 175. 24. Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus: Historic Facts Illustrative of the Labours and Sufferings of its Members in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Henry Foley, vol. 1 (London: Burns and Oates, 1877), p. 53. 25. For example, E.T. Bradley, Life of the Lady Arabella Stuart (London: Bentley, 1889), vol. 1, p. 143; B.C. Hardy, Arbella Stuart: a Biography (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 115±16; Ian McInnes, Arabella: the Life and Times of the Lady Arabella Seymour, 1575±1615 (London: Allen, 1968), pp. 112±14; and David N. Durant, Arbella Stuart: a Rival to the Queen (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978), pp. 106±7. 26. L.A.S., 12. Word in brackets (

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