Margaret Cavendish, The Life of …William Cavendish (1667)

By Mark Empey and Martine van Elk

So far, on this blog we have only featured one example of a female-owned copy of a work by Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673), her Poems and Fancies (1653), which has two female signatures in it. Thus far, we have been unable to identify those two with certainty. Today, we are presenting another example, one that not only offers a fascinating insight into women who read Cavendish but also reveals an intriguing connection between the book owner and the author.

The popularity of Cavendish as an author is well established. The findings of the European Research Council-funded project RECIRC: the Reception and Circulation of Early Modern Women’s Writing, 1550-1700 show that of the 1,878 female authors in the database, Cavendish is in the top three most popular women writers. Even more revealing, the project’s research shows that The Life of the Thrice Noble, High and Puissant Prince William Cavendish, Duke, Marquess, and Earl of Newcastle received the highest number of receptions (8, see here). By Liza Blake’s count, no fewer than 99 copies of this book survive in libraries and private collections (Digital Cavendish–Locating Margaret Cavendish). All of the receptions traced in RECIRC were, curiously, attributed to male book owners.

This particular copy of the book has an inscription by Henrietta Holles. It is noteworthy not only because it shows evidence of women reading a work by a female author but also because of the family connection between reader and writer.

‘Henrietta Holles her Book 1708’

Henrietta Holles was born on the 11 February 1694. Her parents were John Holles, Duke of Newcastle-on-Tyne (1662-1711), and Lady Margaret Cavendish (1661-1715/16). Her mother was the daughter of Henry Cavendish, second Duke of Newcastle-on-Tyne (1630-1691), who was the son of William Cavendish and his first wife, Elizabeth Howard. In other words, Henrietta was the great-granddaughter of William Cavendish and related to Margaret Cavendish the author through marriage.

Thus, her interest in The Life of William Cavendish at the age of fourteen may have had as much to do with a desire to learn about her family’s legacy as with the popularity of one of seventeenth-century England’s greatest female writers.

By the time Holles signed the book, Margaret Cavendish had been dead for 35 years; it seems likely the book was passed down to her by her mother, who was herself only twelve when Margaret Cavendish died.

We know that Holles was a keen reader. At the age of twelve, her mother gave her The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety by Richard Allestree. Two years later–the same year she read The Life of William Cavendish–she was given Richard Parr’s The Life of the Most Reverend Father in God, James Usher (Goulding). 

As multiple posts on our blog show, Allestree was popular among women readers. However, Parr’s work is more striking in this particular context. An interest in the Irish archbishop’s distinguished career cannot be discounted. Yet it could also be suggested that Parr’s account was used as a manual to learn classical languages. Included in the book was correspondence to and from Ussher in English, Latin and Greek. In other words, Lady Cavendish seems to have used books to supervise and satisfy her daughter’s religious, linguistic and familial curiosities.

The personal relationship between the book and its book owner is not the only aspect of interest in this copy. As James Fitzmaurice has noted, in virtually all extant copies of the book corrections have been made, mostly in the form of inked out passages. In his essay on the hand-corrections Cavendish had carried out before giving away or selling her books, he notes that The Life of William features two main passages that are most frequently inked out. He found this to be true in 43 out of 44 volumes he consulted (the exception is in the Nottingham Central Public Library, 304). In highlighting both the Duke’s strategic capabilities and obedience to the Crown, Cavendish had originally included the observation that the king ordered her husband to command the royal troop “by none but himself.” To this she added “they remain’d upon duty without receiving any pay or allowance from His Majesty until His Majesty had reduced his Rebellious Subjects” (9). However, after having the book printed, Cavendish had the phrase “without receiving any pay or allowance from His Majesty” inked out.

Crossed out on the page: “without receiving any pay or allowance from His Majesty”

A second passage, on p. 26, accuses Lord Goring and Sir Francis Mackworth of “invigilancy and carelessness,” an accusation that is also usually inked out. Fitzmaurice speculates that on the one hand, the deletion may serve the purpose of fulfilling the promise Cavendish made to her husband, according to a prefatory letter, not to “disgrace” any particular person but also notes on the other that these deletions in fact draw more attention to what is underneath; in some copies he has seen, “the inked out words are supplied in contemporary hands” (302). This is not the case in this particular copy. Cavendish’s precise motive for these deletions will remain a matter of speculation.

Meanwhile, Henrietta Holles would marry Edward Harley, Second Earl of Oxford (1689-1741) a mere five years after she put her inscription in The Life of William.

Portrait of Lady Henrietta Harley, Countess of Oxford and Countess Mortimer by John Wootten, reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

Edward Harley was an avid collector of manuscripts and a bibliophile, so he may well have had a keen interest in this book. Through his marriage to Henrietta, he also became the owner of Wellbeck Abbey, one of the two main homes in which Margaret and William Cavendish lived upon their return to England after the Civil War.

Like her husband, Henrietta collected books, in many of which she made careful note of when she read them. Richard Goulding provides a list of books given her by her husband, found in the Wellbeck Abbey library, which includes works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Katherine Philips, Spenser, Beaumont and Fletcher, and others. He also notes authors gave books to her. It is possible that many of these books are no longer at Wellbeck, given that portions of its collection were sold in the 1950s, which may well explain how her Life of William has ended up for sale. Henrietta corresponded with Lady Mary Wortley Montague, among others, and letters by her are part of the family papers, now housed at the University of Nottingham.

Henrietta had a bookplate made for her (seen here), which remains helpful in reestablishing her collection; the Folger has a copy show owned of a religious work entitled A Dissuasive from Revenge by Nicolas Stratford (1684), which contains with the inscription ‘Given me by my Lord Decr. 1731’ (Folger Catalog), and a copy of A Good Minister of Jesus Christ: A Funeral Sermon for the Reverend Mr. Richard Steel by George Hamond, with the same bookplate and “with manuscript note attributing the volume as a gift of ‘My Lord Sepr: 1739’ (Folger Catalog). After her husband’s death, Henrietta would sell his manuscript collection to the nation in 1753, creating the foundation of what was to become the British Museum, now known as the Harley Manuscripts.

Henrietta herself died in 1755 at the age of 61, perhaps leaving the book about her famous great grandfather to her daughter Margaret or her son Henry.

Source: Book offered for sale by Wisdompedlars, sold 9/27/2020. Images reproduced with permission.

Further Reading

James Fitzmaurice, “Margaret Cavendish on Her Own Writing: Evidence from Revision and Handmade Correction,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 85, no. 3 (1991), pp. 297-308.

Richard W. Goulding, “Henrietta Countess of Oxford,” Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 27 (1923). http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/articles/tts/tts1923/oxford/oxford1.htm.

Charles I, Eikon Basilike (1649)

First published within days of the execution of its putative author, King Charles I, and appearing in about sixty editions within a year, Eikon Basilike. The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings (1649) was a seventeenth-century bestseller.[1] It is also a book with an increasingly well-documented history of ownership by early modern women. All six copies currently listed in the Private Libraries in Renaissance England project database (plre.folger.edu) are associated with women: three copies, including one in French, in the library of Lady Anne (Stanhope) Holles (d.1651), two in the library of Lady Elizabeth (Talbot) Grey, Countess of Kent (d.1651), and one in the library of Lady Dorothy (Percy) Sidney, Countess of Leicester (d.1659). Sarah Lindenbaum noted on this site (July 1, 2019) a copy signed by “Anna Vyvyan” in the early eighteenth century, and Scott Schofield has posted on this site (April 19, 2021) an account of three copies with female ownership held by the library of Western University in London, Ontario: one inscribed “Barbara Whyte” and dated 13 June 1649, another inscribed “Lettice Cuff” and dated 1688, and a third, passed down first “To my daughter Frances Bouchiry [?] 1700” then subsequently gifted “To My Dear Daughter Sarah Amy Hersent [?] 1725.” Laura Lunger Knoppers has addressed the widespread presence of early ownership marks and gift inscriptions in copies of Eikon Basilike, including the “relatively high number of female signatures,” a history of inscription that foregrounds the book’s cultural status as material legacy.[2]

The “Heneretta: Maria Pitches Juń” who inscribed “Her Book” on this copy of Eikon Basilike, currently in a private collection, claimed with her signature not only the book itself but also other forms of legacy. One legacy is familial: born in 1715 in Bildeston, Suffolk, Henrietta Maria Pitches was named after her mother, Henrietta Maria (Capel) Pitches (c.1695-1726): “Juń” is an abbreviation for “Junior.” The use of “Junior” for a daughter bearing the same name as her mother is unusual but not unknown, and that is clearly the reading here. The other legacy is cultural: Henrietta and her mother were both evidently named after Queen Henrietta Maria (1609-1669). The name announced the family’s political-cultural affiliations, and what book more appropriate for a namesake of the Queen to possess than the book that represented the textual and material legacy of the executed King? The status of the book as material legacy is in addition signalled by its fine binding. This copy is Wing E283 (Madan #21), an octavo edition dated 1648 but published in the second half of March 1649. The gold-tooled “lozenge or diamond”-style binding likely preceded the book’s acquisition by Henrietta Maria Pitches: the British Library holds two copies of Eikon Basilike decorated in a manner similar to this copy by the Restoration binder Thomas Dawson of Cambridge.[3] Henrietta Maria Pitches either acquired this finely decorated copy or was gifted or inherited a copy bound in a manner appropriate to the suggestive association with her royal namesake.

In August 1738, Henrietta Maria Pitches married the “eminent Jeweller” Robert Nelson, bringing with her a substantial dowry of £3000.^[4] The wedding announcement notes that she was niece to the Bishop of Ely, the Reverend Robert Butts (1684–1748), who in 1712 had married her aunt, Elizabeth Pitches (1686–1734). Bishop Butts had been a chaplain to George II and before his translation to Ely in 1738 had been Bishop of Norwich, an appointment he won through a patron’s influence with Queen Caroline (ODNB). As befitting her name, Henrietta Maria Pitches enjoyed connections with church and court.

This copy of Eikon Basilike features one additional signature: the name “Charlotte Wentworth” (unidentified) is inscribed on the front pastedown in a hand later than Henrietta Maria Pitches’ but still early: the ink is brown and the signature likely dates from the later eighteenth or earlier nineteenth centuries. This inscription was covered up when new blank pastedowns were glued over the originals and new free endpapers added. These changes themselves probably date from before the twentieth century: the replacement endpapers are handmade and look eighteenth century. Additional evidence of early provenance or reader engagement may have been lost with the disappearance of the original free endpapers.

One additional piece of information helps round out the story of this inscription. A copy of Richard Allestree’s Ladies Calling (1675) sold in a 2005 auction at Christie’s is also signed “Henrietta Maria Pitches”: but this Henrietta Maria is the mother, as the book is also signed, in the same hand, “Heneretta Maria Capoll.”[5] Henrietta Maria (Capel) Pitches was the daughter of William Capel of Stow Hall, Suffolk and Mary Capel (1670-1724); her husband, Richard Pitches (1668-1727), father of Henrietta Maria Pitches “Juń,” served as rector in the parish of Hawstead, Suffolk.[6] The current location of this copy of Allestree is unknown. It had been collected by Lady Hilda Ingram (1891-1968), who concentrated on fine bindings: the Christie’s auction catalogue describes the Allestree as featuring “Contemporary black morocco elaborately tooled in gilt with wide border round sides composed of tulips, roses, fleurons, birds heads with infilled corner pieces surrounding a central diamond shaped decoration composed of the same tools, the whole within a narrow border of pointillé dots, semi-circles, etc., gilt spine and edges.” Mother and daughter evidently shared a taste for quality decorated bindings, and it is possible that Henrietta Maria Pitches “Juń” acquired her Eikon Basilike from her mother, but that her mother’s provenance markings were lost when the endpapers were replaced: the signatures in the Allestree appear on the front free endpaper, the original of which is no longer present on this copy of  Eikon Basilike.

Source: Book in private ownership. Images posted with permission.

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[1] The standard bibliography remains Francis F. Madan, A New Bibliography of the Eikon Basilike of King Charles the First (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1950). Madan offers an authoritative discussion of the book’s authorship, concluding that it was written by John Gauden but probably includes some authentic writings by Charles (126-63).

[2]  Laura Lunger Knoppers, Politicizing Domesticity from Henrietta Maria to Milton’s Eve (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011), 86-93 (88).

[3] See shelfmarks Davis75 and c118d50 in the British Library “Database of Bookbindings”:  https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/bookbindings/. Davis75 is strikingly similar, though the binding tools employed are not identifiably identical with those on with this copy. For overviews of the decorative characteristics of fine bindings in the second half of the seventeenth century, see Howard M. Nixon, English Restoration Bookbindings: Samuel Mearne and His Contemporaries (London: British Library, 1974), and David Pearson, English Bookbinding Styles 1450-1800: A Handbook (2005; rpt. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2014), 68-73, 133-38. 

[4] Gentleman’s Magazine: and Historical Chronicle, vol. 8 (London, 1738), 435.

[5] Christie’s, Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, 2 November 2005, lot 1.

[6] Sir John Cullum, The History and Antiquities of Hawsted, in the County of Suffolk (London, 1734), 37. Stow Hall is probably West Stow Hall, a still-surviving Tudor manor that features Elizabethan wall-paintings depicting the “Four Ages of Man”: https://weststowhall.com.

Lady Dorothy Long’s Library

While most of our posts involve single books or evidence of book ownership in the form of marginalia and signatures, another key area of provenance research is in the form of inventories and book lists. The fascinating database and journal series Private Libraries of Renaissance England have showcased a number of key women for whom the content of larger libraries are known. These lists, whether they are based on inventories or wills, help us determine not only what women read, but also, as Edith Snook notes, how they wanted to present themselves. Indeed, in her essay on the private library of Elizabeth Isham, Snook calls the booklist a form of life writing or “ego document,” a source that can tell us something about women’s senses of identity, particularly for noble women whose profile was of necessity at least to some degree public.

In his chapter in the collection Women’s Bookscapes, Joseph Black predicted that “Unpublished early modern booklists will … continue to turn up” (219). A few months ago, I was delighted to receive a message from Tim Couzens, who offered to share with us and our readers two lists of books that he has found in the papers of Lady Dorothy Long housed at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. Though he will be editing and publishing these lists more fully soon, we get here an advance look at the contents. The lists were evidently drawn up to facilitate their placement in the household, as they are books to be put on “the high shelf,” some of them grouped among the “little books to be put on the high shelf.” Whether the “high shelf” indicates that they needed to be placed out of reach or were stored where they were not readily accessible is unclear.

Lady Dorothy Long, née Leche (c. 1620-1710) was married in around 1640 to Sir James Long, second Baronet (1617-1692), a politician. The couple lived in their estate at Draycot, Wiltshire. Sir James had fought on the side of the royalists in the Civil Wars, but nonetheless, according to biographer John Aubrey, befriended Oliver Cromwell through his interests in hawking, a lifelong passion. Aubrey lists James Long under “amici” (friends) in his Brief Lives.

Sir James Long, by an anonymous painter. Oil on canvas, feigned oval. © National Portrait Gallery, NPG 4638.

In their edition of Elizabeth Isham’s autobiographical writings, Elizabeth Clarke and Erica Longfellow mention Lady Long (“Dolly”)’s correspondence with Isham’s brother and contrast her style with that of the more sober Isham: “[Long’s] letters employ the banter of a royalist coterie, complete with nicknames and a (mocking) reference to their ‘Academy’, in a style reminiscent of the more familiar and accomplished works of Margaret Cavendish and Katherine Philips. Lady Long does display an interest in literature, particularly the salacious Ovid, but she mocks the Countess of Dysart’s serious study of Donne.” Long donated to the Ashmolean, and their Book of Benefactors describes her in much different terms, as “the pride and joy of her family and her sex … [She] showed a deep interest in primitive religions and antiquities. Her piety and great good will to this University led her to give a carved ivory crosier [head] which had belonged to Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, to this museum to be placed with the other treasures.”

Given these contrasting descriptions, it is fascinating to think, with Snook, of the two lists of books that belonged to Long as a form of life writing to counter the narratives of royalist eccentricity and piety.

Here is Tim Couzen’s transcription, along with his preliminary identifications of the books in brackets:

Little books to put ith highe Shelf. [15 July 1704, from content]

Narrative oth Fire at London [An Historical narrative of the Great and Terrible Fire of London, Sept 2^nd1666. Gideon Harvey. This may be an original of the book published more generally by W. Nicoll in 1769.]

Epitome of Husbandry [The Epitome of the Art of Husbandry: comprising all necessary directions for the Improvement of it. Etc, by J.B. Gent (Joseph Blagrave), 1675.]

Flatmans Poems [Dr. Thomas Flatman (1635–1688) Fellow of the Royal Society, Poet and miniature painter. Probably Poems and Songs (1674).]

Coun^r Manners Legacy to^s Son. [Counsellor Manners, His Last legacy to His Son: etc. Probably the first edition, published in 1673, by Josiah Dare.]

Dr Gouge Domestick dutys [Of Domesticall Duties, eight treatises etc. by William Gouge, 1622.]

Pasquin risen from ye Dead [London, 1674.]

Nat: Culverwel on ye Light of Nature [Nathaniel Culverwell (1619–1651), An elegant and learned discourse of the Light of Nature, 1652.]

The History of Joseph &c: [Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews. Probably the 1700 edition.]

Theopanila Broms Poems [William Sales’s Theophania (London, 1655) and Alexander Brome’s Poems.]

G [Gaius] Velleius Paterculus [Roman Historian (c 19BC – c AD31). There are several early editions.]

Evagoros. [Evagoros. [Two possible identifications: Paul Salzman has suggested this is Evagoras, a Romance by L.L. Gent (London, 1677). A second possibility is the Greek oration by Isocrates on the King of Salamis (Unknown edition). Given the mixture of romances, for Dorothy Long’s own use, and text books from her grandson, James, it is not possible to be certain, but the former seems much more likely.]

Bookes to put into ye High Shelfe ye 15^o July 1704. 

The Countise Montgomerys Urania [romance by Mary Wroth (1587–1653), dedicated to Countess of Montgomery; the book was first published in 1621.]

Orlando Furiosa: Abraham Cowleys workes [Two separate books. The first is Orlando Furioso, an Italian epic poem of Ludovico Ariosto (1516–1532), presumably in an early, but un-named translation.  Abraham Cowley (1618–1667), was an English poet, with 14 printings of his works published between 1668 and 1721.]

Mrs Phillipes’s Verses. orinda. [Katherine Philips (1631/32–1664), known as “The Matchless Orinda,” was an Anglo-Welsh royalist poet, translator, and woman of letters. After her death, in 1667, an authorized edition of her poetry was printed entitled Poems by the Most Deservedly admired Mrs Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda, which included her translations of Pompee and Horace.]

Scarrons Comicall Romance [Paul Scarron (1610–1660) was a French dramatist and novelist. The Roman Comique was reworked by a number of English authors.]

The Lusiad. or Portingales His: a Poem [The Lusiads is a Portuguese epic poem written by Luis vaz de Camoes (c1524/5–1580) and first published in 1572. The date and author of the early translation is not stated.]

The warres of Justinian [The history of the warres of the Emperour Justinian in eight books: etc. Written in Greek by Procopius etc. Englished by Sir Henry Holcroft (1586–1650). Published in 1653.]

Micrographia. By Rob: Hooke [Likely to be a first edition (1665) directly from the author. The book is listed in the 1846 Draycot House contents catalogue.]

The Civell warrs of Spain [Joseph Black has identified this as Prudencio de Sandoval, The Civil Wars of Spain (published in multiple editions from 1652 to 1662) This book is also listed in the 1795 Draycot House Inventory.]

Phillipe De Comines. [An early translation from French of the Memoirs of Philippe de Commines. The usual publication date for Volume 2 is 1712.]

Cornelius Tacitus Tacitus Arriana. [The Annales of Cornelius Tacitus: The description of Germanie. Translated by Richard Greenway and Sir Henry Savile (1549–1622). Published London, 1640; Ariana is a romance by Jean Desmarets, Sieur de Saint Sorlin, originally translated in 1636.]

Of Goverment of obeydiense by Jo: Hall. [Of Government and obedience as the stand directed and determined in Scripture and reason, four books by John Hall of Richmond. London, 1654.]

Cass[andra?] Sanders on Memory &c. [The title is obscured by the fold; the first book is Cassandra the fam’d romance: the whole work: in five parts / written originally in French: now elegantly rendred into English by a person of quality. Cassandra is a translation of a romance novel by Gaultier de Coste La Calprenède, translated in 1652. Possible second work is unidentified.]

Pasquil risen from ye Dead to put higher [see above.]

Standly’s 7: wise Men &c. [Thomas Stanley (1625–1678) was an English Author and translator. The History of Philosophy, 3 volumes published in 1655, 1656, and 1660, includes the seven wise men (sages) of Greece.]

A larg print of Cardinall Richeleis House [Probably the Chateau de Richelieu, south of Chinon, Touraine, rather than the Palais Royal in Paris.]

Nero Ceazar. & y^e warr of Jugurth &c: [Two separate books. The first title is possibly Nero Caesar, or Monarchy Depraved. An Historical Work, by Edmund Bolton (published 1627). The second is an early English translation of Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus). The Warre of Jugurth is by Thomas Heywood, 1608.]

The collection of books is, as Tim Couzens notes in his email to me, largely associated with her schooling of her grandsons, Sir Giles and Sir James Long (later 5^th Baronet), before they went on to tutors and governors and to Oxford. But many women’s collections included works of history and politics, whether or not they used them to educate their children.

Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs Katherine Philips, Folger Shakespeare Library, P2035.

Readers of this blog will be particularly interested to see both Mary Wroth’s Urania and Katherine Philips’s Poems in the listing, and, compared with other such inventories, there are surprisingly few devotional books. Though Margaret Cavendish is missing, the presence of Philips certainly shows, much like the romance texts, an affiliation with royalist culture. Links between different books are evident: Thomas Flatman, author of a book of poems listed here, had written a dedicatory poem for Philip’s collection, and as it happens, another copy of Philips’s poems we have featured on this site (housed by the Folger Shakespeare library) was owned by Hannah Flatman, Thomas Flatman’s wife.

Generally, Long’s inventories reveal her political affiliations, her investment in learning (or teaching the boys in her family), and a wide range of interests in romance, history, philosophy, and poetry, with only minor concerns with household management and domestic advice so commonly found in women’s inventories and little in books of devotion that normally dominate such libraries. Perhaps those books were placed on the lower shelves.

We want to thank Tim for providing us with transcriptions and pictures of the two lists of books owned by Lady Dorothy Long and Sara Morrison and Anabel Loyd for permission to reproduce both the transcription and images.

Source: Wiltshire and Swindon History Center 2943B/1/35. Draft letters and notes by Lady Dorothy Long [No description] (1686-1704). 35 documents.

Further Reading

Joseph L. Black, “Women’s Libraries in the Private Libraries in Renaissance England Project.” Bookscapes in Early Modern Britain: Reading, Ownership, Circulation. Edited by Leah Knight, Micheline White, and Elizabeth Saur. University of Michigan Press, 2018. 214–229.

Elizabeth Clarke and Erica Longfellow, “Introduction to the Online Edition.” Elizabeth Isham’s Autobiographical Writings. Center for the Study of the Renaissance, University of Warwick, 2015. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/researchcurrent/isham/texts/.

Tim Couzens, Hand of Fate: The History of the Longs, Wellesleys and the Draycot Estate in Wiltshire. ELSP, 2001.

PLRE.Folger: Private Libraries in Renaissance England. Ed. Joseph L. Black et al. Folger Shakespeare Library. https://plre.folger.edu/

Private Libraries in Renaissance England vols. 8-9 (2014–16).

Thomas Seccombe (rev. Henry Lancaster), “Long, Sir James, second baronet (bap. 1617, d. 1692), politician.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Date of access 23 Jan. 2022, <https://www-oxforddnb-com.access.authkb.kb.nl/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-16968>.

Edith Snook, “Elizabeth Isham’s ‘own Bookes’: Property, Propriety, and the Self as Library.” Women.’’ Bookscapes in Early Modern Britain: Reading, Ownership, Circulation. Edited by Leah Knight, Micheline White, and Elizabeth Saur. University of Michigan Press, 2018. 77–93.

Charles I, Eikon Basilike (1649)

Scott Schofield

Fig. 1: Title page with famous foldout with engraving of Charles I at prayer and “The Explanation of the Embleme.” Call number: A185.

Less than six weeks after King Charles I was executed outside the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, nearly twenty separate editions of Eikon Basilike, popularly known as The King’s Book, were circulating throughout England. By the end of summer, the edition count would run to more than 35. Various formats of the work, ranging from large octavos to miniature duodecimos, were printed and sold surreptitiously by a range of stationers. While the book’s main structure of twenty-eight chapters detailing political events from 1640–1648 would remain common in all printed editions, new letters, prayers, poems, portraits, and other paratexts were added within weeks of the first printing. When we speak of the materiality of the Eikon, therefore, we need to think of it in iterative terms, as a text that would mutate, in both form and content, over a very short window of time. By looking closely at copies of Eikon Basilike, we not only begin to see the extent of these changes in print, but also how various intermediaries, particularly stationers and book owners, reacted to the textual flux by supplementing and customizing their copies to reflect the ever-changing composition of the book (fig. 1).[1]

Fig. 2: The upper board with gilt centrepiece crown and initials CR (i.e. Charles Rex) to Barbara Whyte’s copy of Eikon Basilike. Call number: A15.

Western University in London, Ontario owns more than 30 copies of the Eikon Basilike, and more than two thirds of those copies carry some evidence of past ownership.[2] Among the most interesting examples are those with early female provenance. In one copy, bound in contemporary calf with a gilt centrepiece, Barbara Whyte has signed her name twice on the front endpaper of her book (figs. 2 and 3). While the repeating of one’s signature was not unusual in surviving books from this period, examples in different hands or styles are less common.[3] Of particular note here is the addition of “13 June 1649” to the first signature, the earliest date inscribed in any of Western’s copies. While I have not been able to identify Barbara Whyte, I can’t help but see her inscribing and dating of this controversial book in the year of the execution as a bold assertion of ownership.

Fig. 3: Inscriptions of Barbara Whyte with date and Barbara White. Call number: A15.

A second example with evidence of female ownership appears in what is the smallest of Western’s copies. Still in its original binding, the boards are decorated in a simple faded gold-tooled frame with corner ornaments, while the flat spine contains nine flowers repeated in gilt. Printed in black and red by Richard Bentley for John Williams (fig. 4), the copy contains an initial printed leaf with a crown and a seal with Latin motto. 

Fig. 4: Titlepage of small format edition of Lettice Cuff’s copy of Eikon Basilike. Call number: A233/233a-mini.

It is here, above the crown, that Lettice Cuff has signed and dated her copy (fig. 5). Volume 6 of John Lodge and Mervyn Archdall’s The Peerage of Ireland or Genealogical History of the Present Nobility of that Kingdom (Dublin, 1789) mentions one Lettice Cuff as wife of Henry Dodswell of Athlone Esq. in a larger passage that begins with John Digby of County Kildare, Ireland. While the passage doesn’t provide dates for Lettice Cuff, it does mention that her only daughter died in 1731 (p. 287).  It seems possible, if not likely, that this is the same Lettice Cuff who signed her copy of Eikon Basilike in 1688.

Fig. 5: The inscription of “Lettice Cuff 1688.” Call number: A233/233a-mini.

In this final example, we see two traces of female ownership through gift giving. The first, in black ink, reads “To my daughter Frances Bouchiry [?] 1700” while the second, in pencil, reads “To My Dear Daughter Sarah Amy Hersent [?] 1725” (Fig. 6). Taken together, the inscriptions allow us to see the same book passing through several hands and different families, but ultimately ending as the possession of two different female owners. With the first inscription we get the addition of biblical scripture, which in this case might be read as a critique of the false leaders who oversaw the regicide in 1649 or perhaps a reminder of similar troubles to be cautious of in 1700. At the very least, to include this excerpt of Jeremiah 5.30 above the inscription suggests the gift comes with a warning.  

Fig. 6: Front endpaper showing multiple gift inscriptions to two daughters, one dated 1700 and the other 1725.

The evidence of female ownership found in these three copies of the Eikon offers a potential clue to the importance of this book for women in the early modern period. Indeed, as Laura Knoppers has shown in her examination of copies of the Eikon in libraries in North America and the UK, female ownership marks are commonly found on the title pages, endpapers, and even across the margins of this printed text.[4]  Similar to the copies at Western, those copies examined by Knoppers include examples with single and repeated signatures, statements relating to weddings, baptisms, and deaths, and inscriptions attesting to gifts given or received.  As she writes: “In private closets and cabinets, owned, exchanged, and annotated copies of the Eikon Basilike became the readers’ own material legacies” (p. 90). As scholars increasingly look to the material traces of provenance in early printed books, the Eikon proves a particularly strong case for studying female ownership and use.  

Source: Archives & Special Collections, Western University. All images used courtesy of the James A. and Ellen R. Benson Special Collection, Archives & Special Collections, Western University.

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[1] The printing of the Eikon Basilike comes with an incredibly complex record of editions, states and issues. For the standard bibliography, see Francis A. Maden, A New Bibliography of the Eikon Basilike of King Charles the First, with a Note on the Authorship (Oxford UP, 1950). For further discussion of the printings and iterations of the Eikon in its larger historical context, see Kathleen Lynch, “Religious Identity, Stationers’ Company Politics, and Three Printers of Eikon Basilike,” PBSA 101:3 (2007) 285–311 and Robert Wilcher, Eikon Basilike: The Printing, Composition, Strategy, and Impact of ‘The King’s Book in The Oxford Handbook of Literature and the English Revolution, edited by Laura Lunger Knoppers (Oxford UP, 2013), DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199560608.013.0016.

[2] The vast majority of Western’s copies of the Eikon Basilike were acquired in 1968 as part of the G. William Stuart Jr. Collection of Milton and Miltoniana, the largest collection of its kind in Canada.

[3] A good example is Thomas Knyvett (c 1539-1618), who signs his name in both italic and secretary hand.  See David Pearson, Provenance Research in Book History: A Handbook (Bodleian Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2019). p. 365. It is possible, however, that the second “Barbara White” is a later addition by another individual with the same name or simply someone playfully copying a signature in variation.

[4] “Material Legacies: Family maters in Eikon Basilike and Eikonoklastes” in Politicizing domesticity from Henrietta Maria to Milton’s Eve (Cambridge UP, 2012) pp. 68–93; p. 90.

Thomas Fuller, The Church-History of Britain (1655)

This first edition of The Church History of Britain (1655), bound with The History of the University of Cambridge and a short history of Waltham Abbey, is one of many history books for which we have found evidence of female ownership in the early modern period. Thomas Fuller, whose work has featured on this website before, was a clergyman and a moderate royalist, who lived during the turbulent times of the Civil Wars and their aftermath, which had a deep impact on his career. He was known for his support for peace, preaching sermons that urged King and Parliament to reconcile during the war and attempting unsuccessfully to aid in negotiations between the two. As W. B. Patterson notes in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, “Fuller’s career was shattered by the defeat of the royalist cause,” though he managed to convert this defeat into a professional opportunity as a historian, producing important works of history.

The Church History contains no fewer than 166 dedications, a sign of the troubled state of Fuller’s professional life in the 1650s, but also, Patterson explains, of wider support: “Each of its eleven books and each of the appended works is dedicated to a member of a noble family. There are also dedications of sections of the book to merchants and lawyers in London and gentry in the counties around London. These patrons evidently helped to support his research and the publication of the work. They comprise an extensive network of persons apparently supportive not only of Fuller’s work but of the monarchy and the established church of the pre-war period.”

What makes this copy of the book particularly important is its female owner’s inscription. The book contains the signature of Arundell Penruddock, born Freke (c. 1616–1666), wife of the royalist John Penruddock (1619–1655).

John Penruddock was a member of the landed gentry in Wiltshire and a well-known royalist conspirator, who attempted to restore the Stuarts to the throne in the uprisings associated with the secret organization the Sealed Knot. When he was tried for treason and condemned to death, Arundell made a number of failed petitions for clemency on his behalf, most importantly to Oliver Cromwell himself. But her efforts proved in vain, and Penruddock was beheaded in 1655. Sarah-Jayne Ainsworth gives a full account of these and later petitions in this blog post, showing that Arundell continued to attempt to restore her husband’s property to her family on behalf of her seven children and to restore her husband’s reputation after the Restoration, with some degree of success.

Fuller’s book came out in the year of Penruddock’s execution, and since Arundell signed it in 1657, we can only wonder about her feelings upon reading it so soon after her husband’s death. As Patterson writes, “Fuller’s book … provided an explanation for the tumultuous religious and political events of his own time, and it included the first detailed account of the decades immediately prior to the civil wars to be published.” Thus, to Arundell, Fuller’s work may have offered important historical perspective on the events that affected her family so personally. Although it is not pictured here, the bookseller notes that this copy also contains a 19th century Penruddock bookplate.

Source: Book offered for sale by Colin Page Books, 12/1/20, and since sold. Images reproduced with permission.

Further Reading

Ainsworth, Sarah-Jayne. “The Penruddock Petitions: The Aftermath of a Royalist Revolt, 1655-1660.” The Power of Petitioning in Seventeenth-Century England. 12 May 2020. https://petitioning.history.ac.uk/blog/2020/05/the-penruddock-petitions-the-aftermath-of-a-royalist-revolt-1655-1660/.

Durston, Christopher. “Penruddock, John (1619–1655), royalist conspirator.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  21 May 2009. https://doi-org.access.authkb.kb.nl/10.1093/ref:odnb/21893.

Patterson, W. B. “Fuller, Thomas (1607/8–1661), Church of England clergyman.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 3 January 2008. https://doi-org.access.authkb.kb.nl/10.1093/ref:odnb/10236.  

Memoires du Cardinal de Retz (1731)

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So far, our blog has featured signed books from England, the Low Countries, and Sweden, but not yet from France. I encountered this series of books during the annual Deventer Bookmarket in 2019. A woman named Catherine Mann signed all three of her volumes of the Mémoires du Cardinal de Retz, a work that gives a historical account of the early parts of the reign of Louis XIV.

This book by Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz (1613–1679), the opponent of Cardinal Richelieu in the Fronde or French Civil Wars, is a memoir addressed to an unnamed lady, perhaps appealing to this particular female reader. The signature certainly shows a woman’s interest in history and French politics.

Unfortunately, we do not know the date of the signature or even the nationality of this female reader, but whoever she was, she wrote her name carefully in all three volumes of this book.

Source: book seen at the bookmarket in Deventer on August 4, 2019, offered for sale by Antiquariaat Klikspaan. Photos by Martine van Elk; taken and reproduced with permission.