Elizabeth Egerton

Last updated

Elizabeth Egerton, Countess of Bridgewater (néeLady Elizabeth Cavendish; 1626 – 14 July 1663) was an English writer [1] who married into the Egerton family.

Egerton family English noble family

The Egerton family is a British aristocratic family. Over time, several members of the Egerton family were made knights, baronets and peers. Hereditary titles held by the Egerton family include the dukedoms of Bridgewater (1720–1803) and Sutherland, as well as the earldoms of Bridgewater (1617–1829), Wilton (1801–1999) and Egerton (1897–1909). Several other members of the family have also risen to prominence.

Contents

Biography

She was encouraged in her literary interests from a young age by her father, William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, himself an author and patron of the arts surrounded by a literary coterie which included Ben Jonson, Thomas Shadwell, and John Dryden. Her works consist of a series of manuscripts, some few of which have recently become available in modern editions.

William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle 17th-century English polymath and aristocrat

William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne KG KB PC was an English polymath and aristocrat, having been a poet, equestrian, playwright, swordsman, politician, architect, diplomat and soldier. He was born into the wealthy Cavendish family at Handsworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire; it had a good relationship with the ruling Stuart monarchy and began to gain prominence after he was invested as a Knight of the Bath, and then inherited his father's Northern England estates.

Ben Jonson 16th/17th-century English playwright, poet, and actor

Benjamin Jonson was an English playwright, poet, actor, and literary critic, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours. He is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox, The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. "He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I."

Thomas Shadwell English poet and playwright

Thomas Shadwell was an English poet and playwright who was appointed poet laureate in 1689.

She married John Egerton (Lord Brackley) in 1641, when she was fifteen. Her mother, Elizabeth Bassett, died in 1643, and her father was later remarried to noted writer Margaret Cavendish. William Cavendish and his sons relocated to France during the English Civil War, while Egerton and her sisters Jane and Frances remained at the besieged family seat in Nottinghamshire until 1645 when she relocated to her husband's home where she was relatively sheltered from the rest of the war. Egerton's earliest manuscript compilation (Bodl. Oxf., MS Rawl. poet. 16; Yale University, Beinecke Library, Osborn MS b. 233), an anthology of poems and dramas, Poems Songs a Pastorall and a Play by the Right Honorable the Lady Jane Cavendish and Lady Elizabeth Brackley, co-written with her sister, dates from this period. The Concealed Fansyes, the play of the title, "features two heroines who hold out for and get 'equall marryage,' having trained the gallants, Courtley and Praesumption, who were intending to train them." [2] Egerton's final manuscript collection, known as the "Loose Papers," is made up of prayers, meditations, and essays, some written in response to the illness and death of her children (four survived to adulthood), and to pregnancy and childbirth:

John Egerton, 2nd Earl of Bridgewater English noble

John Egerton, 2nd Earl of Bridgewater PC was an English nobleman from the Egerton family.

Jane Cavendish British poet and playwright

Lady Jane Cavendish (1621–1669) was a noted poet and playwright. She was daughter of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and later the wife of Charles Cheyne, Viscount Newhaven, Along with her literary achievements, Jane helped manage her father's properties while he spent the English Civil War in exile; she was responsible for a variety of military correspondences and for salvaging many of her family's valuable possessions. Later in life, Jane became an important community member in Chelsea. She used her money and resources to make improvements on Chelsea Church and to otherwise benefit her friends and neighbours. Marked by vitality, integrity, perseverance, and creativity, Jane's life and works tell the story of a Royalist woman's indomitable spirit during the English Civil War and Restoration in England.

O Lord, I knowe thou mightest have smothered this my Babe in the wombe, but thou art ever mercyfull, and hast at this time brought us both from greate dangers, and me from the greate torture of childbirth. [3]

Elizabeth Egerton died delivering her tenth child and was buried at Ashridge, Hertfordshire. Her manuscripts are held at the Nottingham University Library, Portland collection (letters); the Bodleian and Beinecke libraries (Poems Songs &c.); and the British and Huntington Libraries (her "Loose Papers"). Her essays on marriage and widowhood "open a highly unusual window on the thinking of a seventeenth-century woman." [4]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

Earl of Bridgewater

Earl of Bridgewater is a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of England, once for the Daubeny family (1538) and once for the Egerton family (1617). From 1720 to 1803, the Earls of Bridgewater also held the title of Duke of Bridgewater. The 3rd Duke of Bridgewater is famously known as the "Canal Duke", for his creation of a series of canals in North West England.

John Egerton, 3rd Earl of Bridgewater English politician

John Egerton, 3rd Earl of Bridgewater KB PC was a British nobleman from the Egerton family.

Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater English noble

Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater, known as Viscount Brackley from 1687 to 1701 and as the Earl of Bridgewater from 1701 to 1720, was a British peer, courtier and pioneering landowner.

<i>The Nine Muses</i>

The Nine Muses, Or, Poems Written by Nine severall Ladies Upon the death of the late Famous John Dryden, Esq. was an elegiac volume of poetry published pseudonymously. The contributors were English women writers, each of whom signed their poems with the names of Muses. The collection was edited by Delarivier Manley and includes pieces by Susanna Centlivre, Sarah Fyge Egerton, Mary Pix ("Clio"), Catherine Trotter ("Calliope"), and Sarah Piers ("Urania"). The poet writing as "Polimnia" has not been identified; her initials are "Mrs. D. E."

Sarah, Lady Piers was an English literary patron, political commentator, and a poet.

Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland British writer, 1585-1639

Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland, was an English poet, dramatist, translator, and historian. She is the first woman known to have written and published an original play in English. From an early age, she was recognized as an accomplished scholar by contemporary writers.

Alicia D'Anvers [née Clarke] was an English poet.

Mary Oxlie would seem to have been an early 17th-century Scottish or Northumbrian coterie poet, though little is known of her beyond one attribution.

An Collins English poet

An Collins is an English poet, and the otherwise unknown author credited with the authorship of Divine Songs and Meditacions, a collection of poems and prose meditations published in 1653.

John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater English peer and politician

John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater KB, PC was an English peer and politician from the Egerton family.

Elizabeth Wilmot, Countess of Rochester British countess

Elizabeth Wilmot, Countess of Rochester was an English heiress and the wife of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, the "libertine". She was born Elizabeth Malet, the daughter of John Malet, of Enmore Manor, and Unton Hawley, daughter of Francis Hawley, 1st Baron Hawley.

Elizabeth Thomas was a British poet.

Anne Wharton, née Lee was an English poet and verse dramatist. Little of her work was published in her lifetime, but some 45 works have been ascribed to her.

John Egerton, 7th Earl of Bridgewater British politician

John William Egerton, 7th Earl of Bridgewater FRS, known as John Egerton until 1803, was a British cavalry officer, and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1777 to 1803 when he succeeded to the peerage as Earl of Bridgewater. He was from the Egerton family.

Jane Egerton, Countess of Bridgewater, was the second wife of John Egerton, 3rd Earl of Bridgewater. She was a daughter of Charles Paulet, 1st Duke of Bolton, by his second wife Mary Scrope.

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ Blain et al. 190.
  3. ↑ BL MS Egerton 607, f.30. Cit. Greer et al. 108.
  4. ↑ Travitsky, OED .

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.