The gentlewoman's remembrance: Patriarchy, piety, and singlehood in early Stuart England 9781526100900

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The gentlewoman’s remembrance

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Politics, culture and society in early modern Britain General Editors DR ALEXANDRA GAJDA PROFESSOR ANTHONY MILTON PROFESSOR PETER LAKE DR JASON PEACEY

This important series publishes monographs that take a fresh and challenging look at the interactions between politics, culture and society in Britain between 1500 and the mid-eighteenth century. It counteracts the fragmentation of current historiography through encouraging a variety of approaches which attempt to redefine the political, social and cultural worlds, and to explore their interconnection in a flexible and creative fashion. All the volumes in the series question and transcend traditional interdisciplinary boundaries, such as those between political history and literary studies, social history and divinity, urban history and anthropology. They thus contribute to a broader understanding of crucial developments in early modern Britain. Recently published in the series Chaplains in early modern England: Patronage, literature and religion HUGH ADLINGTON, TOM LOCKWOOD AND GILLIAN WRIGHT (eds) The Cooke sisters: Education, piety and patronage in early modern England GEMMA ALLEN

Black Bartholomew’s Day

DAVID J. APPLEBY

Insular Christianity ROBERT ARMSTRONG AND TADHG Ó HANNRACHAIN (eds) Reading and politics in early modern England GEOFF BAKER ‘No historie so meete’ JAN BROADWAY Republican learning JUSTIN CHAMPION News and rumour in Jacobean England: Information, court politics and diplomacy, 1618–25 DAVID COAST This England PATRICK COLLINSON Sir Robert Filmer (1588–1653) and the patriotic monarch CESARE CUTTICA Doubtful and dangerous: The question of succession in late Elizabethan England SUSAN DORAN AND PAULINA KEWES (eds) Brave community JOHN GURNEY ‘Black Tom’ ANDREW HOPPER Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum JASON MCELLIGOTT AND DAVID L. SMITH Laudian and Royalist polemic in Stuart England ANTHONY MILTON The crisis of British Protestantism: Church power in the Puritan Revolution, 1638–44 HUNTER POWELL

Exploring Russia in the Elizabethan Commonwealth: The Muscovy Company and Giles Fletcher, the elder (1546–1611) FELICITY JANE STOUT Full details of the series are available at www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

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The gentlewoman’s remembrance Patriarchy, piety, and singlehood in early Stuart England . ISAAC STEPHENS

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Isaac Stephens 2016 The right of Isaac Stephens to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 1 7849 9143 2 hardback First published 2016 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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For Dorothy

Contents

. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS—viii ABBREVIATIONS—x

Introduction: finding and remembering Elizabeth Isham 1 ‘My Booke of Rememberance’: the spiritual autobiography of Elizabeth Isham 2 ‘As a branch with a roote’: the Ishams of Lamport and their world 3 ‘The sweet private life’: singlehood in the patriarch’s household 4 ‘My own bookes’: Elizabeth Isham’s reading 5 ‘To piety more prone’: Elizabeth Isham’s religion Conclusion: a memory restored

1 20 53 101 144 186 233

BIBLIOGRAPHY—242 INDEX—266

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Acknowledgements

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No book is solely the product of just one person, and this is definitely true for this monograph. My awareness of Elizabeth Isham occurred well over a decade ago when Tom Cogswell sat me down in his office and revealed that he had stumbled on her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ while he spent a day on Princeton University’s campus snooping about the Firestone Library’s special collections. That meeting was fortuitous, for it ultimately laid the seeds for this present study of Elizabeth’s life and world. Consequently, no words can express my enormous debt to Tom – not only did he steer me towards the foundational source of this book but he has also served as an inspiring mentor since my time as a graduate student under his guidance. Equally crucial mentorship has come from Peter Lake and Ann Hughes, who have both intently listened to me talk about Elizabeth over the years and have read many versions of the book manuscript. Their suggestions, insights, support, and friendship have greatly impacted the final product, as well as influenced my growth as a historian. I am also grateful for other colleagues, peers, and friends who have served as sounding boards for ideas and have offered thoughtful advice, particularly Bill Bulman, Elizabeth Clarke, David Como, Anne Cotterill, Richard Cust, Michael Drake, Lori Anne Ferrell, Ken Fincham, Paul Hammer, Heidi Brayman Hackel, Randolph Head, Steve Hindle, Dale Kent, Krista Kesselring, Paul Lim, Erica Longfellow, Noah Millstone, Rupa Mishra, Jason Peacey, Mary Robertson, Sandy Solomon, Tim Stretton, Denise Thomas, Amos Tubb, and Vanessa Wilkie. Of course, without various sources of financial support – especially those that came in the forms of a postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University and a National Endowment of the Humanities Long-Term Fellowship at the Henry E. Huntington Library – this book would never have seen the light of day, since they have given me the time and means to research and write. Moreover, I am conscious of the invaluable research assistance that I have received at such repositories as the British Library, Clarke Library, the Firestone Library, the Huntington viii

Acknowledgements

Library, the National Archives, and the Northamptonshire Record Office. My family has also greatly contributed, and I owe special thanks to my father, mother, and grandmother, the latter to whom I dedicate this book. Finally, no debt is greater than the one I owe Kathleen McGuire – she has lived nearly as long as I have with Elizabeth Isham in her life, and has read and commented on countless drafts and thoughts of mine. Thank you, Kath, for always being in my corner and being a wonderful spouse. Portions of this book have appeared in previous incarnations in the following articles: ‘The Courtship and Singlehood of Elizabeth Isham, 1630– 1634’, The Historical Journal, 51 (2008), 1–25; ‘My Cheefest Work: The Making of the Spiritual Autobiography of Elizabeth Isham’, Midland History, 34 (2009), 181–203; ‘Confessional Identity in Early Stuart England: The “Prayer Book Puritanism” of Elizabeth Isham’, Journal of British Studies, 50 (2011), 24–47. Quotations from the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ are here printed by permission of the Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library; quotations from materials in the Isham Collection, Northamptonshire Record Office (NRO), printed by permission of the Lamport Hall Trust.

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Abbreviations

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Add. MSS APC BL Bridges, HAN

Additional Manuscript Acts of the Privy Council British Library John Bridges, The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, vol. II, Peter Whalley, ed. (Oxford, 1791). CDI The Correspondence of Bishop Brian Duppa and Sir Justinian Isham, 1650–1660, Gyles Isham, ed. (Kettering, 1951). DNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Colin Matthew (Oxford, 2004) Fielding, CPCC John Fielding, ‘Conformists, Puritans, and the Church Courts: The Diocese of Peterborough, 1603–1642’, Ph.D. thesis (University Birmingham, 1989). Finch, WFNF Mary Finch, The Wealth of Five Northamptonshire Families, 1540–1640 (Oxford, 1956). HJ The Historical Journal Isham, BR Elizabeth Isham, ‘My Booke of Rememberance’, The Robert Taylor Collection, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, RTCO1 (no. 62). IC Isham Correspondence IL Isham Lamport IMSS Isham Manuscripts JBS Journal of British Studies JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History JMEMS Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies MMSS Montagu Manuscripts NPP Northamptonshire Past and Present NRO Northamptonshire Record Office P. and P. Past and Present SP State Papers TNA The National Archives TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society VCHN The Victoria County History of Northampton x

Abbreviations

Author’s note: all dates are in Old Style with the exception that I take 1 January to be the beginning of the New Year. For quotes, I have retained, whenever possible, the original seventeenth-century spellings, but have expanded contractions.

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Introduction: finding and remembering Elizabeth Isham

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G

azing out the windows of a bus at the bucolic setting of the English countryside while headed north along the A508 – a road that leads from Northampton to Market Harborough – on a pleasant and late summer day. The destination is the small Northamptonshire village of Lamport. Upon arrival, the driver drops passengers off just outside a quaint gastro-pub called The Swan; to the east is the adjacent High Street shrouded in the shadows of oaks and pines. There are homes lining the street, but all pale in comparison to the stately domicile, Lamport Hall, the residence of the Isham family for over four hundred years and now under the purview of a private trust that offers tours of the stately home’s rooms and gardens. Adjacent to the home, on the north side of the High Street, is All Saints (also called All Hallows), the small parish church of the village. The church is chiefly notable because of the family monuments of the Ishams found inside. Procurement of a key from the trust’s docent allows entrance into the church graced with a late Norman tower and medieval nave accentuated by a late Stuart chapel and an early Georgian ceiling. Beneath the communion table, a slate funeral monument rests, memorializing Sir John Isham, the family’s first baronet who secured much of its wealth in the early seventeenth century. North from the communion table, inside the side chapel, sits the fine marble monument to Sir Justinian, second baronet of the Ishams, Restoration MP, and early member of the Royal Society. On the north wall of the chancel exist two memorials to Sir Justinian’s first wife, Jane, and their infant son John, who both died in 1639. More inconspicuous are the two brass plaques found near the communion table and dedicated to Sir Justinian’s mother and sister, both of whom were named Judith. Combined with the grandness of Lamport Hall, all these monuments strikingly represent the social prominence of the Ishams over the centuries. Yet, after meticulous inspection of the church, there is a peculiar absence amongst these various tributes to a long-dead family; there are no monuments to Elizabeth, eldest child of Sir John and sister to Sir 1

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Justinian. Indeed the only recognition of her is a brief inscription on her father’s tomb: ‘Sir John Isham … married Judith [Lady Isham] … had by her one son Justinian and two daughters Elizabeth and Judith’.1 Thus, a departing visitor could leave All Saints and its tombs wholly ignorant of any aspect of her life except that she had been the daughter of a knight and baronet. In other words, there’s little to mark the existence, much less the inner thoughts of Elizabeth Isham, apparently lost and forgotten as so many women have been in the shadows of history and the recesses of historical memory. Fortunately, the opportunity to bring out her of these shadows and recesses arose in the spring of 2002 with the discovery by Tom Cogswell, in the special collections of the Firestone Library at Princeton University, of a previously unknown (at least among scholars) and extensive manuscript autobiography that Elizabeth Isham penned and completed circa 1639.2 Entitled ‘My Booke of Rememberance’ and one of the earliest narrative autobiographies in seventeenth-century English, it is essentially a life-narrative in the form of an extended written supplication or confession, with Elizabeth’s voice directed towards God as she interwove details of her family and her life with prayers, scriptural citations and quotations, and recognitions of the active role that she believed Providence had in her existence. An intensely private document, the autobiography allows us to enter her mind, so to speak, and view how an early seventeenth-century woman perceived – through primarily a religious understanding – her relationship with God, her family, and her overall world. The richness of the source is further apparent when juxtaposed with the Isham papers, especially those related to the seventeenth-century branch of the family, deposited at the Northamptonshire Record Office (NRO). An overwhelming impression, if not reality emerges from these papers – Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham are amply documented with correspondence, indentures, bonds, deeds, probate inventories, and academic writings, revealing much about the lives of two men who, combined, served as the Isham patriarchs for nearly three-quarters of the seventeenth century. Thus they each cast a wide shadow over their family and, by extension, the Isham papers. Largely lost in this shadow are the day-to-day interactions and relationships that existed at Lamport Hall, particularly those between the women of the family. Fortunately, Elizabeth Isham represents the most documented seventeenth-century woman in the family collection, with a smattering of correspondence, lists of books she owned, collections of medicinal recipes, and a peculiar manuscript that the NRO has catalogued as a ‘diary’. Consisting of only one folio, Elizabeth produced this ‘diary’ sometime around 1651 and jotted down short notes on events that she experienced from roughly the ages of eight to forty. Combined with the other materials related to her in the Isham papers, the ‘diary’ thus allows for an impression of her life, but it is exactly that – an impression, something that no doubt had contributed to her relegation to mere footnotes in scholarly literature before 2002. All of this further throws into sharp relief the significance of the ‘Booke of Remember2

Introduction

ance’, since, in comparison to everything that exists in the family papers – including all that we know about Sir John and Sir Justinian from the collection – it provides the most intimate perspective of both Elizabeth and the other seventeenth-century Ishams of Lamport. Indeed, when read within and against the context that the Isham papers provide, the autobiography presents an enhanced understanding of Elizabeth Isham’s life and her family, an understanding that also offers unique and compelling ways to examine the broader seventeenth-century English society and culture in which they lived.3 The book that you now hold in your hands seeks to provide such an understanding and examination, with Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and her family serving as the primary contact points with the early modern period. From these points, we learn much about Elizabeth and the world she inhabited. Above all, it appears that God and the cultivation of her personal piety defined much of her existence. Nothing illustrates this better than how the autobiography reveals the intimate role that God and religion had in shaping perhaps the defining characteristic of her identity and status – the fact that she never married. Elizabeth entered into courtship in 1630 with John Dryden II of Canons Ashby, a fellow member of the Northamptonshire gentry and grandson of the notable Puritan firebrand, Sir Erasmus Dryden. Scholars had long known of the match, with all knowledge ultimately coming from correspondence found in the Isham papers that showed that, having reached a financial impasse, the couple’s respective family patriarchs – Sir John and Sir Erasmus – aborted the proposed marriage. At first glance, such a case seems rather unremarkable; similar stories abound of other contemporary families and in more detail.4 Yet the match gains increased significance because of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Unlike the correspondence that mainly dealt with the economic aspects of the match, Elizabeth provided a more personal and emotional account, revealing the importance that familial love and honour played in the arrangement. She also explained how the failed match gave her a religious aversion to wedlock. While Sir John and Sir Erasmus, along with their representatives, haggled over acceptable financial terms for over a year, Elizabeth explained that she grew to have an enormous affection for her suitor. All of this, in her mind, proved providentially dangerous – God ultimately stepped in to dissolve the match because she had come to love John Dryden II more than God himself. Determined not to displease her heavenly father again, Elizabeth subsequently chose never to flirt with the prospect of wedlock despite Sir John’s strong desires to the contrary, instead deciding to devote her life to her family and the cultivation of her relationship with God while continuing to live at Lamport Hall until her death on 11 April 1654.5 That cultivation found its primary expression with the production of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Indeed, the autobiography is essentially a written confession to God, with Elizabeth composing it in a rhetorical style rooted in Puritan practices of self-examination.6 Despite its godly overtones, the 3

The gentlewoman’s remembrance

autobiography also reveals that Elizabeth revered the Book of Common Prayer, especially its set prayers and the ebb and flow of the holy feasts and holidays that its sacred calendar prescribed. In other words, both Puritan divinity and Prayer Book devotion shaped her piety. Autodidactic reading and personal exegesis – centred largely on devotional literature and Scripture – played a crucial role in the cultivation of such piety and greatly influenced Elizabeth’s life-writing.7 It was a piety and writing that she desired to share with her brother Justinian’s first four daughters, for she bequeathed her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ to them to read. Moreover, Elizabeth wished to leave a memorial testament of her mother, Lady Isham, and sister, Judith, in the autobiography, and in doing so produced the richest source on the lives of her two closest female relations. Such a testament grew out of the relationship that Elizabeth had with her mother and sister, and their deaths – the former in 1625 and the latter in 1636 – had a profound impact on why she decided to put pen to paper and compose her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. When read together with the Isham papers, the autobiography is also a wonderful source for examining the lives of the seventeenth-century gentry, and reveals in vivid detail Elizabeth’s relationship with both her father and brother, showing how she negotiated gendered expectations for gentry women and their place within a society defined by idealized patriarchal conventions.8 Key here were the cultivation of her piety and her beliefs in God’s providence, two things that provided her with the means to dramatically subvert Sir John’s patriarchal authority and to justify following what, to her, was a vocational calling as a never-married woman devoted to her spiritual father in Heaven. During her remaining years, Elizabeth adhered to such a vocation as she lived with her father at Lamport Hall, while also directly experiencing the tribulations of the English Civil War and subsequently coming under the familial authority of her brother when Sir John died in 1651. In examining all of these defining aspects and biographical details of Elizabeth Isham, the present study belongs to a small but increasing group of scholarship – mostly literary in its focus – that has been responsive to her existence and acutely sensitive to the significance of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. One of the literary scholars to do so earlier than others was Anne Cotterill, an expert on John Dryden, the poet, not Elizabeth’s suitor. She had stumbled upon the autobiography in Princeton’s special collections while she was a visiting lecturer at Rutgers University and searching for materials related to the famous bard. She inherently understood the uniqueness and scholarly value of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, and later offered a short study on the autobiography’s literary production. Independent of Cotterill, another literary scholar named Erica Longfellow had come across Elizabeth’s autobiography during a trip to give an unrelated paper at Princeton University on Nigel Smith’s invitation. Subsequently, Longfellow teamed up with Elizabeth Clarke – co-editor of the women’s writing database, the Perdita Project – to receive in 2006 a substantial British Academy fellowship for a team 4

Introduction

project called ‘Constructing Elizabeth Isham’. Two significant results manifested from this endeavour: a two-day literary conference centred on Elizabeth Isham at Princeton University in 2007 – which included Cotterill, Longfellow, Clarke, and Smith – and the publication of an on-line edition of Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ in 2009. Combined with the work that a few historians (including myself) have devoted on the subject, the online edition has increased the scholarly awareness of Elizabeth Isham, and since its publication we have begun to see traces of this awareness emerge in scholarly works.9 If roughly a decade ago she was an obscure figure to the academy, the situation has changed as more and more scholars have found her and her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ worthy of mention and study. Yet this new attention has largely taken shape as short studies or mere anecdotal references to her and her life-writing, and more often than not from a predominantly literary perspective. Consequently, to date, there has not been an extensive study on Elizabeth that thoroughly and seriously examines both her and the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ in their multiple contexts and considers the many historiographical insights that such an examination can produce. The present study is an attempt to achieve exactly this and to bring her further out of historical obscurity, placing her fully into scholarly view by influencing our broader historical memory of her existence. In other words, this book is as much about remembering as it is about finding Elizabeth Isham and her writing, and it does so with a thoroughness that no other scholarly work has yet done. Remembering and memory are central to understanding both Elizabeth Isham and the world she inhabited. After all, her autobiography is entitled ‘My Booke of Rememberance’, indicating, if not denoting that she found the retrospective act of writing about her life – and God’s place in that life – an act of memory. Yet the memory of Elizabeth is not restricted to her own process of remembering but also includes how both her contemporaries and subsequent generations have remembered her. A case in point is the absence of a funeral monument to Elizabeth in the parish church of All Saints, something that distinguishes her from the other members of her immediate family who lived in the seventeenth century. Of course, it was fairly typical for nevermarried women to not receive such markers after their deaths due to a myriad of reasons, ranging from financial constraints to social stigmas in the early modern period that revolved around lifelong singlehood for women. However, Elizabeth was not the only never-married woman who lived and died at Lamport Hall in the early seventeenth century, since her sister Judith found herself honoured with a monument – one designed by Sir Justinian in 1636 – even though she never wed. Thus the Ishams seemingly chose to remember one female member of their family while essentially forgetting another by neglecting to erect a funeral monument in her honour, something that has helped shape our subsequent memory of Elizabeth Isham. The contents of the Isham papers have further affected such memory. Regardless of the fact 5

The gentlewoman’s remembrance

that Elizabeth represents the most documented early Stuart woman in the family collection, such status is really only in relative terms, for what material does exist only provides vague impressions of her life that pale in comparison to the far richer detail of Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham found in the collection. Again, there is nothing necessarily unusual about this – as in nearly all gentry collections from the early modern period, men often take centre stage. What makes the relative paucity of materials on Elizabeth’s life in the papers, combined with the absence of a funeral monument, more scholarly intriguing is when we consider the provenance of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Important to the story and history of Elizabeth Isham are not just events and people of the seventeenth but also the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. The autobiography is one of only a few manuscripts related to the Ishams that does not rest among the family collection housed at the NRO. In 1985, Robert Taylor – an alumnus and American bibliophile – bequeathed, along with numerous other manuscripts and rare books, the ‘Book of Rememberance’ to the special collections at Princeton. Constituting what became known as the Taylor collection, these materials were not fully catalogued until the turn of the century, resulting in why Elizabeth’s autobiography likely went unnoticed for so many years. In short, the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ essentially sat for years in a repository in central New Jersey, hidden from scholarly view. This raises the question of why the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ does not currently reside among the Isham collection, where it had once probably rested for centuries with Elizabeth’s other papers after her death. Possible answers seem to point to the activities of two Ishams who lived centuries later. The family had owned an extensive library of early modern titles, several of which Sir Charles Isham – the late nineteenth-century patriarch of the family – sold in 1893 to the Christie-Millers of Britwell Court, a book-collecting family who later unloaded their entire library from 1916–27 at successive Sotheby’s auctions.10 If the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ did not belong to this sale, then it may have left the Isham collection in the middle of the twentieth century because of the actions of the last head of the family, Sir Gyles Isham. After a career in the military and film, Sir Gyles inherited the Isham estate, making Lamport Hall in the 1940s his primary residence and also taking a keen interest in both the history of his family and Northamptonshire. He worked hand-in-hand with Joan Wake – founder of the Northamptonshire Record Society – in promoting interest in the county’s history, and also allowed Lamport Hall to serve as the home of the NRO from 1947 to 1959. Moreover, as the baronet and patriarch of the Ishams of Lamport, Sir Gyles enjoyed full custodianship of the family papers, and his interest in history provoked him to dive headlong into reading and researching them; he became an amateur historian, producing many publications on the Ishams, particularly in relation to correspondence produced by Elizabeth’s brother, Sir Justinian, and a diary written by her nephew, Sir Thomas.11 Despite such historical 6

Introduction

interests, there is evidence that Sir Gyles may have been involved in the sale of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ or had been at least privy to its auctioning at a Sotheby’s sale in 1952, an auction that seems to have proved instrumental in the autobiography eventually going to the United States.12 If it was either Sir Charles or Sir Gyles who were responsible, then it appears an Isham patriarch may have directly expunged the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ or at least never felt it worthy enough to purchase the manuscript to include it among the family papers once again. Whatever the case may be, the exclusion of the autobiography greatly shaped people’s, if not scholars’ memory of Elizabeth Isham. Memory studies, of course, has carved out a significant place in the academy, particularly in relation to the practice of cultural history that has wrestled with concepts like ‘collective memory’ or ‘social memory’ and ‘historical memory’. Often, scholars have viewed the former two as processes of shared recollections and identities linked to actual lived experience – such as through ties to living elders – while their perception of the latter concept has revolved around engagement and investigation that relies less on individual and lived recall and more on the exploration of historical fragments like documents to remember or construct a sense of the past.13 Throughout this study of Elizabeth Isham, the application of such a conception will occur with the use of the term ‘historical memory’, as well as with the assertion that the early modern sources deployed and examined have locked within them essentially ‘crude’ historical memory that the book refines and processes through an analytical discussion and mapping of her life and world. Scholarship – most of it outside the purview of the field of early modern English history – on archival custodianship and control is significant to such methodology, since it illustrates the effects that archival custodianship and control can have on historical scholarship and historical memory. Early commentary on these effects came from French academics, with Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida breaking much of the ground for subsequent scholars, particularly with their assertions that archives are essentially cultural and social artifacts rather than simply inanimate repositories of records or knowledge lacking any conscious or subconscious agenda for their existence. Who creates or determines what belongs to an archive shapes how we view, interpret, and remember the past as much as the materials housed in that archive. Therefore, an archive can both hide and reveal, greatly determining the narratives and arguments that historians are capable of producing. Since such narratives and arguments can often have political uses, they, in turn, can create a usable past in contemporary contexts.14 Inspired by such revelations, a number of historians – particularly feminist and post-colonial scholars – have participated in what we may characterize as an ‘archival turn’ in the discipline. Much of this turn has been acutely concerned with problematizing the revered pedestal on which previous scholarly generations have placed archives in the production of objective historical 7

The gentlewoman’s remembrance

knowledge or historical memory. Moreover, some historians have begun to imagine what constitutes an archive, moving beyond just thinking of it at the institutional level (e.g. a national or county record office) to include a whole range of possibilities, such as the memories locked within the mind of an individual person, papers kept in boxes found in a family household, or the electronic data stored on flash drives or digital ‘clouds’. In such a scholarly context, an interest has emerged to examine archives – and the knowledge and the historical memory of societies that they assist in shaping – as historical phenomena in their own right.15 In studying early modern Europe, such concepts and methods have produced insights on the dynamics between historical memory and identity, the relationship between power and knowledge, and the ties between institutional archives and state formation, all of which have proven significant to enhancing our understanding of the period and region.16 Regardless of these scholarly developments, literary scholars and historians of early modern England have largely been behind the curve set by their counterparts in other fields. One goal of the present study is to underscore the historiographical power that archives wield. Particularly in relation to our understanding of early modern England, the desire – one that borrows from the insights of feminist historians mainly researching other periods – is the impact that patriarchy, as a system of power and cultural influence, can have in shaping our historical memory of women who lived in the past. Elizabeth Isham’s socio-economic status helps highlight such influence. Similar to the Isham papers, many family collections of the landed elite traditionally fell under the purview, if not archival authority of men – like Sir Charles Isham or Sir Gyles Isham – who often underappreciated the documentary remnants of their female relations, either finding them insignificant or peripheral to the respective status or history of their families. Consequently, it is common to find that women are relatively less represented in such collections, be they still housed in stately homes or institutionally based archives. While it is true that there have been enormous strides made since the 1970s in expanding our knowledge of early modern women, particularly those of elite status, it is nonetheless still common that many scholars examine or know far more about men of the upper ranks and their worlds than their female counterparts.17 Of course, it could be true that women simply produced less documentation than men, since the former usually received less formal education and held fewer positions of authority in the early modern period. Yet it is difficult to discount the fact that archives can obscure our historical perspective of the past, and, as a consequence, either remove or place women outside our scholarly view. The story and history of Elizabeth Isham and her family offers illustration for this phenomenon. After all, there are only traces of her nearest female relations in the Isham papers and the one document – her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ that provides unprecedented access to the family household – appears to have found itself excluded from the family archive by 8

Introduction

patriarchal authority that did not or could not appreciate fully the value of a first-hand and layered account of a seventeenth-century family and world presented from the perspective of a never-married woman. The methodological foundation of the present study is to unite, if not reunite the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ with the Isham papers, essentially juxtaposing and linking two repositories of historical memory that, just on their own, do not provide us with the fullest portrait of the Ishams of Lamport or Elizabeth Isham, if not, more generally, gentry families or women of the early modern period. As we view this portrait from multiple perspectives, another methodology will also prove important – microhistory. The goal of this book is not to produce a biography of Elizabeth Isham that traces her existence in a chronological and linear narrative simply because of her compelling life story. Of course, such a life story, in many ways, is what makes Elizabeth an attractive subject to study, but the intention is to utilize that story as an entryway into understanding not just her but also the early modern world in which she lived. Here we will follow in the footsteps of microhistorians who, since the late 1970s, have carved out a firmly established methodological and historiographical niche in academic history. Largely a reaction to the quantitative and model-based scholarship of social and political historians, microhistory has its origins in the approaches of the German Alltagsgeschichte, the Italian microstoria, and the French reaction to the Annales. Certainly the approaches of these historiographical and methodological traditions are distinctive, but they have nonetheless operated with common preconceptions and preoccupations. Perhaps the most striking similarity has been concern for everyday life or history ‘from below’, a concern often couched in a desire to offer qualitative perspectives that emphasize past peoples as subjects rather than objects of study, viewing them as active agents with real and genuine motives, feelings, and experiences. Put simply, microhistorians have often sought to place a ‘human face’ on the past. In doing so, they have commonly questioned or refuted broad teleological conceptions of history – such as Whig or Marxist interpretations – found in macrohistorical approaches that have relied on abstract categories of study like the ‘peasantry’, the ‘working class’, or the ‘gentry’. Fundamental to such questioning has been the notion that by combining a rigorous empiricism with a reduced scale of observation, a truer, deeper, and more compelling perspective of past societies emerges. Furthermore, by focusing on an individual, family, or small community, microhistory allows for the opportunity to view how people thought and conducted themselves within large social and cultural systems such as Puritanism, patriarchy, or the state. Thus microhistory, as a method, permits testing or re-examination of generally accepted notions of the past formulated and presented by macrohistorians, bringing to light factors or phenomena previously unobserved.18 Indeed, the application of microhistory by scholars has greatly increased our overall understanding of early modern European, if not English history, enlightening us on a whole range of themes like personal 9

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cosmologies, identity formation, peasant lives in villages, crime, gender ideals, women’s lives, religion, and devotional practices.19 Yet microhistory – as a methodology and historiographical tradition – has not gone without its critiques or refutations. The scale of observation, with its close examination of sometimes less than mainstream individuals or communities, has led to microhistory being viewed as a practice overly concerned with the esoteric and verging on the antiquarian, centred on learning about unusual cases at the expense of fully addressing broader historical enquiries. From this premise emerges the inevitable question of how representative microhistorical subjects are of the past. If they are not representative, so it follows, then how valuable are they to increasing our overall understanding of general phenomena such as, for example, the rise of confessional states, the causes of the English Civil Wars, or the origins of the Enlightenment? Microhistorians have been sensitive to such critiques, and have offered serious response to them, with many working from Edoardo Grendi’s premise of eccezionale-normale that holds that exceptions illustrate the rule, in the sense that they reflect and refract the predominate cultural conventions of a past society. Exceptions may look strange to us but their abstruseness becomes comprehensible when they are contextualized within their cultural framework and we then, in turn, learn more about this framework. In other words, people like Menocchio, Arnaud du Tilh (Martin Guerre), or Nehemiah Wallington were ultimately products of their contexts and they therefore tell us something about early modern Italy, France, or England, even if they appear not to have fully accorded to what historians feel were the dominant cultural conventions of these places. Moreover, not all who have engaged in microhistory seek out exceptions but look to something that may appear as insignificant or ‘normal’ as a means to gain insights of the bigger picture. Be they the exception or the rule, the key is to investigate a given individual, family, or village in the diversity of various contexts. Examined in this way, the contexts form components of the broader world under historical observation, and for the maximization of such observation the microhistorian’s task must be as much small as large in scale, since only understanding the whole will allow insights of the particular and vice versa.20 In what follows, these methods and considerations will find application, since the characteristics of the evidence employed and deployed in the examination of Elizabeth Isham and her world make a microhistorical approach more than appropriate. In doing so, this microhistorical approach – combined with attentiveness to the role of archival custody in shaping historical memory – will throw into sharp relief our overall understanding of life-writing, reading, patriarchy, piety, singlehood, and the family in early modern England. With the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ as the central source of the present study, Chapter 1 begins the process of restoring the historical memory of Elizabeth by illustrating the remarkable characteristics of her narrative spiritual autobiography with an examination of both its rhetorical qualities and the motivations for its produc10

Introduction

tion. To Elizabeth, the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was a spiritual meditation, an act of repentance and memory, a testament of intense godly self-examination, a defence of her marital status, a written model of instruction to later generations of Isham women, and a memorial to her mother, Lady Isham. For its style and structure, the reading of devotional literature proved important, with William Watt’s translation of Augustine’s Confessions serving as Elizabeth’s primary literary model when producing an account of her life. In short, the autobiography has many hybrid qualities. Moreover, since her spiritual autobiography pre-dates the emergence of the genre of the seventeenth-century conversion narrative, it allows us to consider the long-standing scholarly debate over the connections between early modern life-writing and the birth of a modern subjective self centred on an intense interiority. Indeed, we find elements of both Elizabeth’s interiority and exteriority expressed in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, suggesting that to preference one over the other creates a false dichotomy that pays few, if any scholarly dividends. While the rhetorical structure and qualities of the autobiography are crucial to acquiring reasons for its production and to viewing it from a literary standpoint, we must acknowledge that Elizabeth and the individuals whom she presents in its pages were actual people shaped and affected by a myriad of early modern contexts. Chapter 2 begins the process of situating Elizabeth in perhaps her most important and immediate contexts – her family and her county. Crucial to this endeavour is the recovery and construction of the historical memory of her life, which requires a juxtaposition of the perspectives that the Isham collection and the autobiography provide on her and her family. Such methodology illustrates the stark patriarchal history we find in the family papers, a history overwhelmingly skewed towards Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham because of the ample documentation on them in the collection. Both men simply cast a wide shadow over the history of the Ishams. To underscore this reality, the chapter begins with a thorough analysis of the two patriarchs, an analysis that initiates the reconstruction of essential elements of the world which Elizabeth Isham inhabited. It also creates a stark contrast that provides familial reasons for why the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ is such a unique and valuable source. The image of Sir John – as a county sheriff and then justice of the peace – that emerges is of a moderate caught in the political and religious extremes that existed between Puritans and antiCalvinists in early Stuart Northamptonshire. Justinian arguably took a much more colourful path in life than his father, pursuing intellectual endeavours that eventually brought him into the orbit of the Royal Society, practising an intense royalism that eventually led to his imprisonment during the Interregnum, and experiencing widowerhood that threatened the continuation of the Isham line. When we attempt to similarly reconstruct detailed portraits of Sir John and Sir Justinian’s female relations just from the Isham papers – including what we can glean about Elizabeth – the venture is impossible, particularly in the cases of Lady Isham and Judith Isham. Yet when we turn 11

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to the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ to learn about the family, all of these women appear in full scholarly light, and their historical memory is much fuller, if not restored, revealing their intimate and mutually supportive relationships as they faced spiritual, emotional, and physical trials and tribulations. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates the potential power that patriarchy exerts on our historical memory of past women, as well as maps essential contexts for fully analyzing Elizabeth Isham, her life-writing, and her world. Significant to her world was her marital status as a never-married woman. To examine such significance, Chapter 3 gives pride of place to the interplay that existed in the early modern period between piety, marriage formation, singlehood and patriarchy by examining Elizabeth’s relationships with her father and brother, and her negotiation with patriarchal authority. Evidence in both the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and the Isham papers reveals that Elizabeth largely had a strong relationship with both her father and brother, two men to whom she was financially dependent as she spent nearly her entire existence at Lamport Hall. Yet, while she appeared to have been close to Sir John and Sir Justinian, there could be strains between Elizabeth and her patriarchs that stemmed from her singlehood. Of course, the failure of her match with John Dryden II was the primary circumstance that contributed to her never-married status, and the chapter considers the dissolution of the proposed marriage largely from her perspective as captured in the historical memory that exists in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Emotionally and religiously rocked by the experience, Elizabeth came out of the match determined to never marry, leading her to refuse successive suitors presented by her father in 1633 and 1634, all in order to wholly devote herself to a life of piety that accorded to what she perceived were the providential wishes of God. In the end, she chose to obey the desires of her heavenly father over those of her earthly father. Faced with this reality, Sir John conceded defeat, providing Elizabeth with a substantial annuity in 1636 and then allowing her to remain at Lamport Hall for the remainder of her days. It was a dramatic outcome, and it gives further nuance to our understanding of singlehood and patriarchy in early modern England, showcasing a significant demographic – one that represented approximately 20 per cent of women – and their possible avenues for negotiating male authority in the period. The ‘Booke of Rememberance’ leads us to this nuance, demonstrating how the marital status of a woman could challenge patriarchy, how providence and spiritual patriarchy could buttress this status, and how conventional historical wisdom has not fully appreciated the ambiguity that existed in Protestant thought on the prospect of never marrying. Part of the motivation for the production of the autobiography was a desire to defend her never-married status, and crucial to this production was Elizabeth’s reading habits. Indeed, it appears that she devoted much of her life to books, and Chapter 4 discusses how engagement with texts defined much of her existence by examining the extant evidence of her reading – two book 12

Introduction

lists together containing approximately eighty titles that she owned and that are now in the family papers, as well as multiple references, citations, and quotations to texts found in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. We learn from the autobiography that both books and reading were fundamental to the Ishams’ familial interactions, with members giving texts as gifts, Sir John and Lady Isham teaching their children and servants to read, and aural reading being a favourite pastime in the household. Consequently, a large proportion of Elizabeth’s reading was communal, especially with female relations like her mother and sister. With Lady Isham and Judith suffering from large degrees of physical and spiritual trauma in their lives, aural reading of devotional literature served as a salve for their sufferings. This medicinal reading inspired Elizabeth to become a practitioner of household medicine, something self-taught through the consultation of contemporary books on the subject. She also applied autodidactic reading to her own spiritual growth and piety, with books serving not only a communal but also a deeply personal and private function. Indeed, she spent much time reading silently and alone, and, while she was certainly familiar with non-devotional texts, her primary literary penchant leaned towards books of a religious orientation, especially guides of practical divinity and Scripture. She demonstrated her mastery of Scripture with exegesis that often conflated her own language and ideas with biblical passages as she produced her life-narrative in the autobiography. Combined with the other aspects of her reading, this autodidactic exegesis empowered Elizabeth, and the reading that shaped this empowerment was neither completely silent and internal nor aural and external. All contributed to Elizabeth’s interiority and exteriority, illustrating that without her diverse reading practices, the piety, identity, and self – in their internal and external forms – that she fashioned would simply not exist in the pages of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Both she and her life-writing underscore a scholarly interest for the supposed link between modernity and the transition from aural/ communal to silent/private reading, suggesting that such a concern has created a false dichotomy in recent historiographical and literary debates. Consequently, when juxtaposed with the Isham papers, the historical memory locked in her autobiography animates the reading practices of the bibliophilic Ishams, and allows us to bring nuance to the history of books and reading. With religion having such an influence on Elizabeth’s reading, if not all aspects of her life, the final chapter fully addresses and examines two central themes, in their own right, found throughout the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ – her personal piety and confessional identity. At the foundation of her life was religion – it defined much of her relationship with her family, served as the prime justification to never marry, predominantly influenced her reading practices, and served as the key factor in her decision to write the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Read within its multiple contexts – familial, provincial, and national – the historical memory in the autobiography allows us to open a window into both Elizabeth’s internal and external religiosity. We find that 13

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she held a strong penchant for the Book of Common Prayer while she also engaged in an intense form of internal piety common among the godly, a combination of devotional practices best described as ‘Prayer Book Puritanism’. The Prayer Book immensely shaped Elizabeth’s religious sensibilities; she admired its liturgy, revered its prescribed holy days, learned and taught from its catechism, and utilized its set prayers in her own daily and private supplications to God. Moreover, she proved a staunch Royalist during the English Civil Wars, a manifestation of a lifelong loyalty to the house of Stuart. Yet, simultaneously, she fell under the sway of the godly literature of the ‘pietist turn’, reading the devotional works of men like John Preston, William Perkins, Daniel Dyke, and John King as she engaged in a form of self-examination common among the godly that often included grappling with spiritual temptations and transgressions ascribed to Satan. Influential also on Elizabeth’s piety were the precepts and personal example of the strenuously Puritan minister, John Dod, and the lived experience, memory, and writings of her godly mother, Lady Isham. A great deal of recent scholarship has sought to blur the confessional lines and differences that existed in early modern England, with an underlying assumption that what best characterized the period was a broad-based Protestant culture, overwhelmingly defined more by consensual coexistence and devotional commonalities than religious conflict. Seeking a ‘mainstream’ Protestantism has defined such work, and on the surface, Elizabeth appears a perfect candidate to illustrate this ‘mainstream’, but to see her as such leads to a lack of appreciation for the possible uniqueness of her devotional practices and religion. Instead, viewing her as an ‘exceptional norm’ pays more scholarly dividends – the narrative and historical memory of her life in the ‘Book of Rememberance’ shows us how an individual could live her piety, a piety full of multiple contours and facets largely rendered meaningless without appreciating or applying terms that capture and help us recognize the ambiguous, diverse, and divisive aspects of early modern England’s religious environment. Combined with the insights touched on in the previous chapters, these revelations about Elizabeth’s piety and confessional identity could not occur without the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Indeed, on their own, the Isham papers – the correspondence, the indentures, the deeds, and the bonds – seem rather unexceptional from a conventional historical perspective. We could argue that they are the ‘normal’ that illustrates the rule, since the historical memory locked within the collection affirms – predominantly from the patriarchal perspective of Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham – standard views of the early modern gentry, families, gender relations, local politics, and religion. When we, however, juxtapose the family papers with the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, the collection becomes exceptional since it provides vital context to an equally exceptional document. After all, the autobiography’s survival and discovery allows us to appreciate one of the earliest seventeenthcentury narrative autobiographies written in English, marking it as a unique 14

Introduction

document and Elizabeth as a woman who engaged in an enormously creative act. Through this act she transmitted to us a historical memory of her life and world that are exceptional vis-à-vis that captured in the Isham papers, and she has provided us with a near unprecedented perspective of a nevermarried woman of the early seventeenth century. Yet, when placed in a diversity of cultural contexts – be they defined by family, gender norms and relations, marital status, life-writing, books, and religion – we see that Elizabeth and her autobiography also reflect and refract many of the conventional norms of seventeenth-century England. We may say that she is both a typical and an atypical historical figure. As we move through her various contexts – be they small or large – we will discover that this typicality and atypicality will bring fresh light to our overall understanding of patriarchy, piety, and singlehood in the early modern period. This will also constitute a remembrance of Elizabeth, giving her recognition that her family appears to have failed to grant by never erecting a funeral monument in her honour and by apparently excluding her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ from the family archive. Consequently, no longer will she be a mere footnote nor anecdotal subject matter for largely literary exercises of scholarship, but a fully fleshed out and formed historical figure who allows us to view early modern England from a myriad of unique and compelling perspectives. In other words, as we learn much about Elizabeth Isham we will also learn much about the society and culture in which she lived.

NOTES 1 Inscription, All Saints Church, Lamport, Northamptonshire. See also John Bridges, The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, vols I–II, ed. Peter Whalley (Oxford, 1791) (hereafter Bridges, HAN), 113. 2 Elizabeth Isham, ‘My Booke of Rememberance,’ The Robert Taylor Collection, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, RTCO1 (no. 62) (hereafter Isham, BR). I owe an enormous debt to Tom Cogswell for stumbling upon the manuscript and for revealing its existence to me in the Spring of 2002. Subsequently, I researched and wrote my Ph.D. thesis on the manuscript and Elizabeth Isham, which represents the early incarnation of this present study on her life and world. 3 For examples, see Kate Aughterson, ‘Isham, Elizabeth,’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Colin Matthew (Oxford, 2004) (hereafter DNB); Mary Finch, The Wealth of Five Northamptonshire Families, 1540–1640 (Oxford, 1956) (hereafter Finch, WFNF), 34 and n. 7–9, 198; John Fielding, ‘Conformists, Puritans, and the Church Courts: The Diocese of Peterborough, 1603–1642,’ Ph.D. thesis (University of Birmingham, 1989) (hereafter Fielding, CPCC), 16, 47; The Correspondence of Bishop Brian Duppa and Sir Justinian Isham, 1650–1660, ed. Gyles Isham (Kettering, 1951) (hereafter CDI), xl, 40 n. 4, 44 n.11, 78, 84–85, 87 n.1; Elisabeth Bourcier, Les Journaux Privés en Angleterre de 1600 à 1660 (Paris, 1976), 42, 54–55, 59, 61, 66, 203–204, 209, 213, 217, 280–281, 290, 338; Felicity 15

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4

5 6

7

8

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Heal and Clive Holmes, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500–1700 (Stanford, CA, 1994), 91 and 365; Robyn Priestley, ‘Marriage and Family Life in the Seventeenth Century: A Study of Gentry Families in England,’ Ph.D. thesis (University of Sydney, 1998), 51–55; Kevin Sharpe, Reading Revolutions: The Politics of Reading in Early Modern England (New Haven, CT, 2000), 271; J.T. Cliffe, The Puritan Gentry: The Great Puritan Families of Early Stuart England (London, 1984), 67. For discussion and examples of early modern courtship and marriage formation, see Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (New York, 1977), 30–36, 42–65, 87–91, 135–141, 180–193, 270–314; Alan MacFarlane, Marriage and Love in England: Modes of Reproduction, 1300–1840 (Oxford, 1986), chs 10–13; Heal and Holmes, The Gentry, 60–76; David Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1997), chs 10–11; and Diana O’Hara, Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor England (Manchester, 2000). For discussion, see Isaac Stephens, ‘Courtship and Singlehood of Elizabeth Isham, 1630–34,’ The Historical Journal (hereafter HJ), 51, no. 1 (2008), 1–25. Throughout this book I will use the terms ‘Puritan’ and ‘godly’ interchangeably, and largely as way to denote, address, and recognize an intense form of early modern English Protestantism that centred on the observance of Calvinist theology, on an exaltation of Scripture and preaching, and on an often austere pattern and style of piety and way of life that could both oppose and work within the social, cultural, and political structures of the national church and state. I will often use ‘life-writing’ as an all encompassing term to refer to writings – like diaries, biographies, and autobiographies – that centre on the individual life of a person. My use of the terms ‘patriarch’ and ‘patriarchy’ will denote a social and cultural system of gendered power in which husbands and eldest males had at least nominal authority over all women and younger men within households and communities. Stephens, ‘Courtship and Singlehood,’ 1–25; Isaac Stephens, ‘“My Cheefest Work:” The Making of the Spiritual Autobiography of Elizabeth Isham,’ Midland History, 34, no. 2 (2009), 181–203; Isaac Stephens, ‘Confessional Identity in Early Stuart England: The “Prayer Book Puritanism” of Elizabeth Isham,’ JBS, 50, no. 1 (2011), 24–47; Erica Longfellow, ‘Public, Private, and the Household in Early Seventeenth-Century England,’ Journal of British Studies (hereafter JBS), 45 (2006), 319, 321–322, and 325; Erica Longfellow, ‘“Take Unto ye Words:” Elizabeth Isham’s “Booke of Rememberance” and Puritan Cultural Forms,’ in The Intellectual Culture of Puritan Women, 1558–1680, Johanna Harris and Elizabeth Scott-Bauman, eds (New York, 2011), 122–134; Erica Longfellow, ‘“My Now Solitary Prayers:” Eikon Basilike and Changing Attitudes Toward Religious Solitude,’ in Private and Domestic Devotion in Early Modern Britain, Jessica Martin and Alec Ryrie, eds (Farnham, 2012), 69 n. 50 and 70 n. 53; Rebecca Laroche, Medical Authority and Englishwomen’s Herbal Texts, 1550–1650 (Farnham, 2009), 8, 10, 93, 95, 100–101, 103–105, and 121–135; Alice Eardley, ‘“Like hewen stone:” Augustine, Audience and Revision in Elizabeth Isham’s “Booke of Rememberance,”’ in Women and Writing, c. 1340– c.1650: The Domestication of Print Culture, Anne Lawrence-Mathers and Phillipa Hardman, eds (Woodbridge, 2010), 177–195; Anne Cotterill, ‘Fit Words at the

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“Pitts Brink:” The Achievement of Elizabeth Isham,’ Huntington Library Quarterly, 73, no. 2 (2010), 225–248; Adam Smyth, Autobiography in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2010), 93–94 n. 132; Margaret J.M. Ezell, ‘Elizabeth Isham’s Books of Remembrance and Forgetting,’ Modern Philology, 109, no. 1 (2011), 71–84; Andrew Cambers, Godly Reading: Print, Manuscript and Puritanism in England, 1580–1720 (Cambridge, 2011), 47, 65, and 96–97; Kathleen Lynch, Protestant Autobiography in the Seventeenth-Century Anglophone World (Oxford, 2012), 10–11; Kate Narveson, Bible Readers and Lay Writers in Early Modern England: Gender and SelfDefinition in an Emergent Writing Culture (Farnham, 2012), 5, 15, 42, 51, 133, 142, 144–149, and 151; Alec Ryrie, ‘Sleeping, Waking and Dreaming in Protestant Piety,’ in Domestic Devotion, Martin and Ryrie, eds, 73–92, at 85–86 and 90; Alec Ryrie, Being Protestant in Reformation Britain (Oxford, 2013), 86–87, 138, 272, 331 n. 65, 338, 371, 397, 430, and 434–435; Kate Hodgkin, ‘Elizabeth Isham’s Everlasting Library: Memory and Self in Early Modern Autobiography,’ in History and Psyche, Sally Alexander and Barbara Taylor, eds (New York, 2012), 241–264. For further discussion of Elizabeth Isham and her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, please see the website associated with the project ‘Constructing Elizabeth Isham,’ http://www2. warwick.ac.Uk/fac/arts/ren/projects/isham/. R.E. Graves, ‘The Isham Books,’ Bibliographica, 3 (1897) 418–429; Seymour de Ricci, English Collectors of Books & Manuscripts (1530–1930) (Cambridge, 1930), 27; Charles Edmonds, An Annotated Catalogue of the Library at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire, the Seat of Sir Charles E. Isham, Including Copious Notes and Observations on the Rare, Unique, and Hitherto-Unknown Books of English Poetry, Early English Plays, and Prose Works, as Well as on Other Interesting Books and Manuscripts Preserved There In (privately printed, 1880). Gyles Isham, ‘The Historical and Literary Associations of Lamport Hall,’ Northamptonshire Past and Present (hereafter NPP), 1, no. 1 (1948), 17–32; Gyles Isham, ‘The Affair of Grafton Underwood,’ NPP, 1, no. 4 (1951), 1–6; Gyles Isham, ed., CDI; Gyles Isham, ‘Introduction,’ translated by Norman Marlow, The Diary of Thomas Isham of Lamport (1658–81), Kept by him in Latin from 1671 to 1673 at his Father’s Command (Farnborough, 1971). Rarely did Sir Gyles write about his female ancestors, but when he did, his discussions of them usually occurred in the context of their relationships with men. For example, see Margaret Ruth Toynbee and Gyles Isham, ‘Ann Isham of Barby and her Three Husbands,’ Genealogists’ Magazine, 13, no. 1 (1959), 1–7; Margaret Ruth Toynbee and Gyles Isham, ‘Ann Isham of Barby and her Three Husbands,’ Genealogists’ Magazine, 13, no. 2 (1959), 34–44. K.J. Höltgen, ‘Unpublished Early Verses “On Dr. Donnes Anatomy,”’ Review of English Studies, 22 (1971), 304–306; K.J. Höltgen, ‘Isham Manuscript Volume,’ Notes and Queries, 19 (1972): 109. For helpful discussion of the influence that memory studies has had on historical scholarship, see Susan A. Crane, ‘Writing the Individual Back into Collective Memory,’ American Historical Review, 102, no. 5 (1997), 1372–1385; Alon Confino, ‘Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method,’ American Historical Review, 102, no. 5 (1997), 1386–1403; Thomas W. Laqueur, ‘Introduction,’ Representations, ‘Special Issue: Grounds for Remembering,’ no. 69 (2000), 1–8; Kerwin Lee Klein, ‘On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse,’ Representations, ‘Special Issue: Grounds for Remembering,’ no. 69 (2000), 127–50; 17

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18

Francis X. Blouin Jr. and William G. Rosenberg, Processing the Past: Contesting Authority in History and the Archives (Oxford, 2011), ch. 6. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology and Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, translated by A.M.S. Smith (New York, 1972); Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, translated by Eric Prenowitz (Chicago, 1996); Jacques Derrida, Paper Machine, translated by R. Bowlby (Stanford, CA, 2005). See also Sonia Combe, Archives interdites: les peurs Francaises face a l’histoire contemporaine (Paris, 1994); Carolyn Steedman, Dust: The Archive and Cultural History (Manchester, 2001); Carolyn Hamilton, Verne Harris and Michèle Pickover et al., eds, Refiguring the Archive (Cape Town, 2002); Antoinette Burton, ‘Introduction: Archive Fever, Archive Stories,’ in Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History, Antoinette Burton, ed. (Durham, NC, 2005), 1–25; Blouin and Rosenberg, Processing the Past, especially the Introduction and chs 1, 6, 7, and 8. For further discussion and scholarly manifestations of the ‘archival turn’, see Helen M. Buss and Marlene Kadar, eds, Working in Women’s Archives: Researching Women’s Private Literature and Archival Documents (Waterloo, Ontario, 2001); Antoinette Burton, Dwelling in the Archive: Women Writing House, Home, and History in Late Colonial India (Oxford, 2003); Durba Ghosh, ‘National Narratives and the Politics of Miscegenation: Britain and India,’ in Archive Stories, Burton, ed., 27–44; Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, ‘A Living Archive of Desire: Teresita la Campesina and the Embodiment of Queer Latino Community Histories,’ in Archive Stories, Burton, ed., 111–135; Renée M. Sentilles, ‘Toiling in the Archives of Cyberspace,’ in Archive Stories, Burton, ed., 209–233; Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Sense (Princeton, NJ, 2009); Kate Eichhorn, The Archival Turn in Feminism: Outrage in Order (Philadelphia, PA, 2013). On knowledge systems, see Anthony Grafton, Defenders of the Text: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450–1800 (Cambridge, MA, 1991); Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea (Cambridge, MA, 2009); Peter Burke, A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot (Cambridge, 2000). For the influence of the ‘archival turn’ on the study of early modern Europe, see the special issue ‘Archival Knowledge Cultures in Europe, 1400–1900,’ Archival Science, 10, no. 3 (2010), 191–343. Representative examples are the family collections of the Drydens, Knightleys, Fitzwilliams, or Montagus now housed at the NRO. On scholarship on early modern women, including those belonging to the landed elite, see Barbara J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550: Marriage and Family, Property and Careers (Oxford, 2002); Jacqueline Eales, Puritans and Roundheads: The Harleys of Brampton Bryan and the Outbreak of the English Civil War (Cambridge, 1990); Jacqueline Eales, Women in Early Modern England, 1500–1700 (London, 1998). Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England, 1550–1720 (Oxford, 1998); Christine Peters, Women in Early Modern Britain, 1450–1640 (Basingstoke, 2004); Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1993); Vanessa Wilkie, ‘“Such Daughters and Such a Mother”: The Countess of Derby and Her Three Daughters, 1560–1647,’ Ph.D. thesis (University of California, Riverside, 2009). Of course, we must also acknowledge the efforts and achievements of Brown University’s ‘Women’s Writing Project’ and

Introduction Nottingham Trent and Warwick Universities’ ‘Perdita Project’ in allowing us to increasingly hear women’s voices from the past. Yet, despite the progress made, the work in finding women’s writing must continue and remain vigilant. 18 For useful discussions of microhistory as a methodology and historiographical tradition, see Giovanni Levi, ‘On Microhistory,’ in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Peter Burke, ed. (University Park, PA, 1991), 93–111; Edward Muir, ‘Introduction: Observing Trifles,’ in Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe, Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, eds (Baltimore, MD, 1991); Jacques Revel, ‘Microanalysis and the Construction of the Social,’ translated by Arthur Goldhammer, in Histories: French Constructions of the Past, Jacques Revel and Lynn Hunt, eds (New York, 1995), 492–502; Brad S. Gregory, ‘Is Small Beautiful? Microhistory and the History of Everyday Life,’ History and Theory, 38, no. 1 (1999), 100–10; István Szijártó, ‘Four Arguments for Microhistory,’ Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, 6, no. 2 (2002), 209–215; Sigurdur Gylfi Magnússon, ‘The Singularization of History: Social History and Microhistory within the Postmodern State of Knowledge,’ Journal of Social History, 36, no. 3 (2003), 701–735; John Brewer, ‘Microhistory and the Histories of Everyday Life,’ Cultural and Social History, 7, no. 1 (2010), 87–109; Filippo de Vivo, ‘Prospect or Refuge? Microhistory, History on the Large Scale,’ Cultural and Social History, 7, no. 3 (2010), 387–397. 19 For examples, see Carlo Ginsburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, translated by John and Anne Tedeschi (Baltimore, MD, 1980); Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1984); Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, MA, 1983); Natalie Zemon Davis, Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives (Cambridge, MA, 1995); Paul Seaver, Wallington’s World: A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century London (Stanford, CA, 1985); David Underdown, Fire from Heaven: Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century (New Haven, CT, 1992); Margo Todd, ‘Puritan Self-Fashioning: The Diary of Samuel Ward,’ JBS, 31 (1992): 236–264; Harold J, Cook, The Trials of An Ordinary Doctor: Joannes Groenevelt in Seventeenth-Century London (Baltimore, MD, 1994); Steve Hindle, ‘The Shaming of Margaret Knowsley: Gossip, Gender, and the Experience of Authority in Early Modern England,’ Continuity and Change (1994), 391–419; Bernard Capp, The World of John Taylor the Water-Poet, 1578–1653 (Oxford, 1994); Cynthia Herrup, A House in Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the Second Earl of Castlehaven (Oxford, 1999); David Cressy, Agnes Bowker’s Cat: Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 2000); Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (New Haven, CT, 2001); Alec Ryrie, The Sorcerer’s Tale: Faith and Fraud in Tudor England (Oxford, 2008); Peter Marshall, Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A Ghost Story (Oxford, 2007). 20 Ginsburg, Cheese and the Worms; Zemon Davis, Martin Guerre; Szijártó, ‘Four Arguments for Microhistory,’ 209–215; de Vivo, ‘Prospect or Refuge,’ 387–398.

19

Chapter 1

. ‘My Booke of Rememberance’: the spiritual autobiography of Elizabeth Isham

T

he history and memory of Elizabeth Isham’s life is intimately connected to an archival odyssey of antiquarians, booksellers, and literary dilettantes residing on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1971, Karl Josef Höltgen wrote: ‘A MS. volume of Elizabeth Isham’s turned up in the London sale rooms about 1940. It contained poems and religious meditations some of which were thought to be her own … unfortunately, the book cannot now be traced’. Initially, he believed that an American named Myers purchased the manuscript from Sir Gyles Isham – the last Isham patriarch and custodian of the family papers through much of the twentieth century – bringing it back upon his return to the United States.1 With further detective work, Höltgen soon placed an advertisement in a 1972 issue of Notes and Queries: ‘Information requested about the location of a seventeenth-century MS volume by Elizabeth Isham, “My Book of Remembrance” sold for £10 … in Sotheby’s Sale of the library of the late E.H.W. Meyerstein, 15/17 December 1952’. Speculation pointed to the bookseller Raphael King as the buyer of the manuscript, who had reportedly died since acquiring it.2 For Höltgen, the trail grew cold, for it appears he never was successful in his endeavour. We know, however, that some time after Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ appeared in a London auction room it came into the possession of the American bibliophile, Robert Taylor, for the goodly sum of $175. He subsequently deposited it at Princeton University’s Firestone Library in 1972 – his undergraduate alma mater – and bequeathed its ownership to the university upon his death in 1985, where it lay virtually hidden from scholarly view for nearly two decades.3 It is not that we knew nothing about Elizabeth Isham before the deposit of her autobiography at Princeton and its subsequent scholarly ‘discovery’ – a smattering of documentation in the Isham collection ensured minor mention of her existence by scholars, with their comments and observations usually restricted to mere anecdotes related to such themes as gentry life, the financial realities of early modern courtship, or the English keeping private 20

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journals.4 Much of this scholarship relied on what the Northamptonshire Record Office has long classified as a ‘diary’. Produced circa 1648 and written retrospectively, the ‘diary’ provides brief biographical information on Elizabeth’s life from the ages of around eight to forty years. It consists of a single folio with writing on both recto and verso, divided into thirty-six squares or panels that are approximately 7.5 by 10 centimetres in size. At the heading of each panel, Elizabeth wrote a corresponding year, under which she recorded brief details of what she experienced in that given time.5 In the square dated 1638, she reflected: ‘I began my confessions which was my cheefest work for this yere.’ For the following year, she noted that she had completed the project towards the end of 1639: ‘I ended my confessions this [year] about Nouem[ber] the 25.’6 Read in isolation, the meaning of all this is unclear, for it begs the questions – what were her ‘confessions’ and why did she consider them her ‘cheefest work’? When read, however, alongside Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance,’ it becomes quite evident that her ‘confessions’ and the document that led Höltgen on his quest are one and the same. As we will see, it was apt for her to refer to her autobiography as her ‘confessions’ due to its spiritual nature. Consequently, evidence of the existence of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ sat right under the noses of many scholars who consulted the so-called ‘dairy’. Of course, with the autobiography excluded from the Isham papers, it was, in many ways, only natural for scholars not to dig a little deeper when confronted with cryptic statements about ‘confessions’. Put frankly, this exclusion shaped the historical memory of Elizabeth Isham, and limited much of what historians and literary scholars could say about her, essentially relegating her to the outskirts of early modern English history. Yet no longer is our memory of Elizabeth distorted, nor can we conclude any more that she is inconsequential. The discovery of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ in 2002 was enormously significant – we now have a nearly 60,000word narrative autobiography written by a woman just a few years before turmoil and war rocked England for almost two decades. Moreover, the emergence of Elizabeth’s ‘confessions’ places her among a relatively small group of women writers who we know produced life-writings in the seventeenth century, and among an even smaller segment of contemporaries who composed what we can safely label as narrative autobiography. The primary goal of this chapter is to thoroughly examine this autobiography to determine the reasons why Elizabeth produced it, as well as to illustrate the functions that she believed it served. In other words, we will view the process of the making of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and the meanings it had for Elizabeth. By exploring the making of the autobiography, a foundation will emerge for the layers that we will build upon in understanding her life and world in subsequent chapters. To know Elizabeth Isham is to know the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and the motivations of its production. After all, it is the richest source for accessing the historical memory of her life and her world. 21

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Heavily influenced by devotional literature – particularly Augustine’s Confessions – Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ rested squarely in the tradition of spiritual life-writing and internal piety commonly practised among Puritans. By far the richest source on the seventeenth-century Ishams of Lamport Hall – particularly on the female members of the family – her autobiography also memorialized previous generations of Isham women and served, so she hoped, to enrich the spiritual lives of succeeding generations of women in the family. Always an echo throughout the text, Elizabeth’s marital status proved important too, since she intended it to serve as an implicit, if not explicit written apology and justification for her never-married existence. Designed to fulfil a number of overlapping functions, the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was unique and a hybrid form of writing. This hybridity defines the autobiography’s value, and allows us to use the source to broaden and refine scholarly interpretations of early modern life-writing.

LIFE-WRITING IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND When Elizabeth Isham chose to take up the quill and write on her life, she partook in a creative act that we can only appreciate by examining the complex nature of early modern life-writing and the scholarship that such writing has helped to create. It is not a misnomer to state that an explosion of life-writings – a useful and encompassing term to describe a wide range of writing centred on the lives of individual people – occurred in early modern England. This is not to say the English of previous centuries did not produce similar writings; indeed, Bede’s Martyrology and the Book of Margery Kempe come to mind. Yet the sheer number of life-writings produced in Tudor-Stuart England was staggering when compared to production in previous centuries. Hundreds, if not thousands of lives – be they based in reality or fictional in nature – found their way into writing, coming in a myriad of genres, such as biographies, martyrologies, diaries, memoirs, autobiographies, plays, and novels. The stimulus for or origins of this phenomenon revolved greatly around Renaissance humanism and the Reformation. As Kevin Sharpe and Steven Zwicker have noted, antiquity handed to early modern humanists an eclectic array of written lives – like Plutarch’s Parallel Lives or Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations – from both classical Greece and Rome. These lives were largely exemplary, presenting models to follow and for achieving – among others things – stoic self-restraint, military prowess, civic virtue, and proper public duty to polis, state, or empire.7 The exemplary element became a humanist hallmark, and it proved profoundly influential on the rhetorical characteristics of the vast majority of life writings in the period, especially after the fracturing of a confessionally united Christendom in the early sixteenth century. Once England broke from Rome in 1534 and experienced the subsequent seesaw of religious changes brought about by 22

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Tudor monarchs’ various confessional whims for the Church of England, the deployment of the exemplary became acute in efforts to win and shape souls, and by extension acquire political and religious loyalty. For example, a glance at John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments, Thomas Stapleton’s Tres Thomae, or John Mush’s The Life and Death of Mistress Margaret Clitherow reveals that, while the steadfast and good death proved important in all the lives in these works, what was equally or more important was how people like John Hooper, Prest’s wife, Thomas More, and Margaret Clitherow devoted their entire lives to God and true religion.8 In other words, they were Christian exemplars – presented essentially in biographies – for others to follow, and this trope had long-lasting impact on subsequent works in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including the Eikon Basilike, Samuel Clarke’s Lives, Edmund Calamy’s Abridgement of Mr. Baxter’s Life, and John Walker’s The Numbers and Sufferings of the Clergy.9 If the Reformation created conditions for these elements of early modern religious biography, it also planted seeds that gave people the impulse not to just write about others but also about themselves. In particular, two seeds were instrumental, both of which emerged because of the Elizabethan religious settlement – the deep cultural and religious resonance of Calvinism and the need for something to replace confession after it no longer was an official sacrament in the national church. Characterized as part of a ‘pietist turn’ in English reformed religion, late sixteenth-century divines – in both the pulpit and printed devotional literature – began to encourage the laity, after the dissolution of sacramental confession, to practise an intense form of self-examination in order to put a check on their sins and to ensure that they lived a true Christian life. Such self-examination was particularly important to Puritans, whose ‘practical predestinarianism’ led them to search for signs of their elect status.10 Puritans recognized that the elect were sinful, but unlike the reprobate, they acknowledged their transgressions, repented for them and sought spiritual amendment. Encouraged to account for their sins and recognize the active presence of Providence in their lives, a spontaneous phenomenon occurred towards the end of Elizabeth I’s reign – the godly began to keep what we might term spiritual account books or diaries, writings that constitute a large bulk of the well over three hundred journals or diaries that we know survived from the early modern period.11 Divines like Samuel Ward or Samuel Rogers produced the most famous examples, but the laity also engaged in such behaviour. If Margaret Hoby and Nehemiah Wallington are noteworthy cases of a certain sort of Puritan life-writing, two other leading examples come from Elizabeth Isham’s home county of Northamptonshire. Grace, Lady Mildmay produced a book of meditations and an autobiographical account of her own life early in the seventeenth century and Robert Woodford, the godly steward of Northampton, kept a diary from 1637 to 1641.12 Diaries, however, were not the only form of life-writing associated with the godly. The early Stuart period also witnessed the emergence of the godly 23

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life, a form of biography heavily influenced by martyrology and centred on the experiences of an exemplary Puritan. One of the earliest of such writings was the account of Katherine Brettergh’s death-bed experience, first published in 1602.13 By the 1630s, the production of other godly lives increased, presumably circulating in manuscript and even beginning to find their way into print. In 1634, a life of the divine, Andrew Millet, by Peter Smith appeared as an appendant to an edition of Synopsis Papismi.14 As the decade progressed, the production of similar life-writings occurred, such as the lives of two Cheshire worthies, Jane Ratcliffe and John Bruen, and Thomas Ball’s manuscript life of John Preston.15 Additional life-writings circulated among Elizabeth Isham’s godly neighbours in Northamptonshire; a long account of the spiritual crisis suffered by the Oxford divine, Thomas Peacock, who had been attended by both John Dod and Edward, Lord Montagu’s minster, Robert Bolton, emerged amongst the papers of Bolton himself. This account only achieved the apotheosis of print in 1646 and a longer but very similar account of the spiritual trials of Joan Drake, to whom the ubiquitous Dod also attended, made its way into print in the 1650s.16 Such godly accounts often relied on spiritual diaries as sources, and the two literary forms sometimes blended into or informed the other. Thus, John Ley’s life of Jane Ratcliffe quoted liberally from her own spiritual writings, but they were not wholly by her, since he had only persuaded her to write down her thoughts and comments on Scripture by agreeing to look over them himself. In all of this we see that a number of elements – the exemplary life, the pietist turn, self-examination, and spiritual accounting of sins and providence – could intersect and conflate. Such coalescence underscores the reality that the spiritual diary was rarely ever a purely private document, meant only for the eyes of its writer and God; diaries could and did circulate.17 The same was true of another form of lifewriting – the spiritual autobiography. Borrowing and adapting the original nineteenth-century definition of the term autobiography that denotes it as a continuous narrative of a life that is self-written, retrospective, and chronological, scholars have long pointed to the 1650s as the birthplace of what they see as a literary genre of spiritual autobiography in England. Indeed, it was a form of life-writing that became increasingly prominent mid-century because of the religious divisions of the English Revolution and the spiritual testimonies required of aspiring members of gathered congregations – like Independents, Baptists, or Quakers – during the period.18 These testimonies typically were to evidence the workings of grace or the Holy Spirit within a person. A conversion was necessary – a change within, an awakening, an acceptance and recognition of God’s truths, his providence, and the wonderful gift Christ represented for humanity. In other words, true believers were redeemed and regenerate saints, and the testimonies they told about how they achieved this status have led scholars to refer to their stories as conversion narratives. This is not to say that concern with conversion was a product of this later period – Ball’s account of Preston, 24

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for example, turned on a moment of evangelical conversion that had transformed him into a regenerate Christian and minister of the word.19 The difference is accounts like that on Preston were not completely, if at all self-authored by those who constituted the subjects of the lives told, whereas most seventeenth-century conversion narratives were autobiographical and were similarly self-reflective like spiritual diaries. And it did not take long for conversion narratives – such as John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners – to find their way into print and present exemplary lives to emulate. The conventions of the conversion narrative became so powerful that they also appeared in allegorical and fictive stories, as Bunyan’s other classic, Pilgrim’s Progress, and Daniel Defoe’s novels, Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, attest.20 Combined with martyrologies, the godly life, and the diary, the spiritual autobiography – largely in the form of the conversion narrative – has drawn its fair share of scholarly attention. Much of it has centred on questions about autobiography, and life-writing more generally, and its relationship to concepts of modernity. Here the long legacy of people like Jacob Burckhardt and Max Weber still reverberates, particularly the former’s stress that the Renaissance gave birth to a clearly modern subjectivity and the latter’s assertion that Protestantism produced a questioning and capitalistic individualism in Europe.21 Underlining both concepts is the notion of a modern self – an individual who has a subjective understanding of her or himself, with an inwardness or interiority that is inherently different and unique, if not alienated from other selves. It is this sort of individual, so the argument goes, that defines modern, particularly Western liberal societies that seek to protect the subjective self with a rule of law steeped in Enlightenment traditions of equalitarianism and liberty. With the self-reflective and Protestant characteristics of early modern spiritual diaries and autobiographies in mind, many scholars of early modern England have pointed to them as evidence of the origins of the subjectivity believed necessary for such a society to emerge.22 In short, the inward life, as captured especially in the retrospective autobiography or conversion narrative, marks the beginnings of the modern world, fitting quite nicely in ‘Whig’ interpretations of history. Of course, the historiographical revisionism of the 1970s and 1980s has made us all sensitive to the anachronistic tendencies and problems that such interpretations can have – with modernity as the end point, hindsight can lead to a large degree of misunderstandings of the Tudor-Stuart period. Regarding early modern life-writing, major critiques of the subjectivity thesis, as sketched above, have steadily increased since the 1990s in an attempt to reverse anachronism’s hold over the study of diaries and autobiographies. On one front, assaults on the thesis have revolved around the definition of early modern interiority, a definition that critics have stressed does not fully take into account the fact that early modern life-writings were not just the product of the private self – looking only within – but also a result of how that self 25

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identified and placed itself within broader social and cultural communities. After all, it was common for life-writings – from martyrologies to conversion narratives – to circulate, cross-fertilize, and emerge as a result of public interaction and reception. Recent work by Andrew Cambers and Kathleen Lynch has sought to ground itself in this reality, with focus revolving around the almost symbiotic relationship that the production of spiritual diaries and spiritual autobiographies had with early modern reading communities.23 Perhaps even more ambitious, Adam Smyth has sought to illuminate the instability of using generic terms such as diary or autobiography and to stress the variability of life-writing, so much so that he has argued that almanacs, financial accounts, commonplace books, and parish registers were sites in which the self wrote about itself and also influenced other life-writers and their writings.24 Further assaults against the subjectivity thesis come in the form of criticisms of early modernists ascribing to their period the birth of a wholly new and unique subjectivity that marked the beginnings of modernity. In particular, scholars of antiquity and the Middle Ages point to a slew of literary examples from their periods that contain many of the same sorts of subjectivity that we see in early modern life-writings, perhaps the most obvious seemingly to be Augustine’s Confessions.25 At least in regards to Augustine, scholars challenging the subjectivity thesis find support from Georges Gusdorf and James Olney, two early and key figures in the study of autobiography as a literary genre. Each has determined that Augustine’s fourth-century piece of life-writing was a touchstone for modern autobiography, with Olney opining: ‘it has come to be inevitable that I should see Augustine as the initiator of a long tradition of life-narration in the Western world’.26 Yet not all have agreed with such an assessment, largely because they feel that the Confessions lacks the narrative qualities necessary to present a unified and subjective self. As James O’Donnell has articulated: ‘This is emphatically not the “first modern autobiography”, for the autobiographical narrative that takes up part of the work is incidental content while prayer is the significant form.’27 Expressing a similar critique, Patrick Riley and Eugene Vance have declared that the Confessions is not an autobiography because of the text’s structure; although it does follow a narrative that presents biographical information and contains self-reflection, it nonetheless deviates from that narrative in Book X when Augustine indulges in strictly theological and philosophical discussions. Indeed, Riley has quipped: ‘the story ends but the book does not’.28 Implied in such critiques is, since the Confessions is not an autobiography, it did not set a standard for the genre and, hence, did not influence succeeding generations of life-writing nor set a precedent for modern subjectivity. This is a stance that Paul Delany and Michael Mascuch have largely supported when assessing the legacy of the Confessions on early modern English autobiography – both emphatically reject the idea that it had a profound effect on self-authored life-writing in the period.29 26

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Complicating the matter further are scholars of women’s early modern autobiography, who contend that gender shapes subjectivity and that women’s conceptions of the self are different from those of men. Consequently, Augustine could have no influence on women’s life-writing of any form, as Mary Mason has contended: ‘Augustine’s Confessions, where the self is presented as the stage for a battle of opposing forces … spirit defeating flesh … simply does not accord with the deepest realities of women’s experience and so is inappropriate as a model for women’s life-writing.’ Unlike men, Mason has argued that women in their autobiographies present, evaluate, and assert their identities in relation to some ‘other’, such as God or their families.30 Also attempting to establish difference between male and female writing, Estelle Jelinek has stressed that the life narratives in men’s autobiography are far more linear and chronological than those of women. As she has asserted, women’s autobiography does not follow the linear model of male writers like Augustine, who: ‘narrates his life story progressively up to the time of his conversion and then crowns it with three chapters of brilliant intellectual analysis’.31 Echoing such a stance, Cynthia Pomerleau has written with relation to women’s self-writing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England: ‘What is noteworthy about the productions of women … is that they are by no means anemic imitations of those of men.’32 The influence of Augustine’s Confessions on the production of Elizabeth Isham’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ clearly contradicts these assessments of his influence. Indeed, as we shall see, he proved to be her literary model and inspiration, suggesting that she identified with the forms of subjectivity he presents in the Confessions. This realization would seem to add weight to the critiques of the birth of early modern subjectivity, as does the fact that we cannot understand Elizabeth’s autobiography as just a private account or product of the workings of her interiority; her family also influenced her writing and she did see them as a potential reading audience for the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Yet this does not mean that we should completely reject the overwhelming evidence that her autobiography was a dramatic testament of her inward self. We do enter into her mind, hear her thoughts, and gain a real sense of how she viewed herself, the world, and her place in the universe vis-à-vis God. After all, she thought of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ as her ‘confessions’ and it was a clear manifestation, in writing, of Puritan self-examination in action. In this way, it resembled the Puritan spiritual diary, while at the same time not adhering to the dominant form of seventeenth-century spiritual autobiography – the conversion narrative. And why would it, since the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ pre-dated the emergence and dominance of the conversion narrative as a literary genre by roughly a decade. Erica Longfellow has asserted: ‘The “Booke of Rememberance” is arguably the first text in English that is recognizably autobiography in the modern sense: a retrospective chronological narrative that appears to describe the development of a unified self.’33 Identifying the chronological uniqueness of 27

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Elizabeth’s autobiography is not far off the mark, although the examples of The Booke of Margery Kempe, Lady Mildmay’s life-writings, Dionys Fitzherbert’s spiritual memoir, or Sir Tobie Matthew’s retrospective writings point to Elizabeth perhaps not standing alone on the pedestal on which Longfellow places her.34 Yet, if Elizabeth Isham was not the first, she certainly was one of the earliest seventeenth-century writers, in English, of what we can call early modern narrative autobiography. On this alone we must stand and take notice of her ‘confessions’, but it also provides a means to question the debate over the link between the ‘subjectivity thesis’ and scholarly conceptions of modernity.

THE SPECTRE OF DEATH AND THE EXEMPLARY MOTHER To thou deepest searcher of each secret thought Infuse in me thy all affecting grace So shall my workes to good effectes be brought While I peruse my uggly sinnes a space Which (I confesse) in me hath ta[k]ne deepe place Whose staining filth so spotted hath my soule, As nought will wash but teares of inward dole.35

With this lyric evocation, Elizabeth Isham opened her ‘My Booke of Rememberance’, and with it, she expressed the centrality that religion plays throughout the entire autobiography. Yet none of the verse was of her creation, but likely from G. Ellis’s The Lamentation of the Lost Sheepe, a devotional poem that incorporates large sections of Nicholas Breton’s The Passion of a Discontented Minde. In fact, for the above verse, Ellis lifted all of the text from the fourth stanza of Breton’s poem, except for the fifth line: ‘Which (I confesse) in me hath ta[k]ne deepe place.’36 It is probable that Elizabeth identified with this line, and the one that precedes it, for they both captured the religious essence of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Indeed, she recognized many of her self-perceived ‘uggly sinnes’, choosing to confess them in writing in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, offering up prayers and leaving a testament – a Puritan spiritual autobiography – of her repentance before God. After opening with Breton’s and Ellis’s devotional verse, Elizabeth wrote the following: ‘Beholde now I … speake unto my Lord, and I am but dust and ashes. O eternall God, Creator of all things and preseruer of all that thou hast created, inspire me with thy praise which may be most pleassent to thee and profitable to my soules health; thou art my hope, O God.’ A mixture of her own words and Scripture, Elizabeth’s prayer acknowledged that God was the ultimate source of her soul’s health. Believing that humanity inhabited a fallen world, Elizabeth continued: ‘Considering the state of man … he, not keeping thy commandement, sinned, therein we haue lost our orriginall rightousnes … and are not onely subiect to natureall corruption but also commite many actuall sinns.’37 If sin was inevitable for 28

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the fallen creature, then the only response was to confess to God and pray for forgiveness and amendment. Elizabeth found support for this conviction in Scripture, paraphrasing chapter one, verse nine of John’s first epistle: ‘thy euangelists, St. John, saith if we acknowledge our sinnes, he [God] is faithfull and iust to forgiue us our sinnes, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse’. Armed with such belief, Elizabeth declared: ‘I will now call to mind my ouerpassed impurities and the fleshy corruptions of my soule.’38 In taking her life into account through writing, Elizabeth partook, albeit retrospectively, in the practice of self-examination, seeking to codify a coherent narrative of her lifetime practices of Puritan self-monitoring and self-fashioning. At the heart of this self-examination and account was Elizabeth’s struggle against her repeated lapses into sin and demonic temptation.39 To combat and cope with these temptations and transgressions, she turned to prayer. For the godly, prayer was the ultimate response and recognition of their complete dependence on God’s providence and grace.40 Elizabeth subscribed to such a belief, examples of which abound throughout her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Indeed, the entire text is essentially an exercise in prayerful conversation with God, as Elizabeth recalled not only her past transgressions but also his past dealings with her as a repentant sinner. In such recollections, she marked her spiritual progress from her childhood to her thirtieth year in 1639. Yet this feeling of spiritual progress did not involve any sense that she believed she was less sinful in her later years. Indeed, Elizabeth’s fears over her sinfulness ultimately led her to compose her autobiography. Typically Puritan, the spectre of death proved a powerful motivation for such fears. In 1637, at the age of twenty-eight, Elizabeth began to think of dying, largely because of the loss of her sister Judith, who passed away in 1636 after battling poor health for years. Subsequently, it proved difficult for Elizabeth not to think of Judith on the one-year anniversary of her sister’s death in 1637: The time of the yere coming about in which my Sister died I was the more mindfull of her … I had sometimes passified my selfe with thinking she was out of her misery in ioy & [I] had learnt that it was the best to bare [Judith’s death] patiently & cheere up myselfe for those crosses which I could not auoid.

No matter how much she tried to manage her grief, Elizabeth could not totally console herself that Judith had overcome her physical miseries and entered into a better existence. Unable to cope with the loss, Elizabeth noted that she wished to die in order to join her sister and God in Heaven: ‘a conceit came into my mind which fed my malancolly humor that I might die at the same time or day of the yere that she [Judith] did’. Elizabeth felt a pang of guilt for such a desire: ‘I blamed myselfe considering that death should not be desired out of natural affection or human respect [for her Sister] but [only] to be with thee [God].’41 29

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Although believing that she should not desire death, Elizabeth nonetheless continued to think about dying well into 1638: ‘I then thought of my owne death and that it was most necessary to looke to my owne waies, calling … to mind let a man try himselfe & examine himselfe withall thinking that selfe murther was the worst for I might undoe my owne soule by omission of good.’ Elizabeth appears to have contemplated suicide, but she fought such a desire by remembering that it was a sin. Instead, she resolved to examine her own life: ‘I therefore determined to mend my selfe & to make my waies more perfect that I might be fit for a better life considering the unsertanty of death; I found this to be pleasing to thee my God and also my selfe.’42 Both obsessed with and fearful of death, Elizabeth noted: ‘I was angry with my selfe that I should be so loth to goe to thee [God], considering thy Blessed saints haue desired to be desolued & to be with thee.’ Feeling she needed to ready herself before entering God’s kingdom, Elizabeth came to a resolution: ‘I purposed to prepare my selfe with my whole hart & soule in all my action[s] which hast promised that where our treasure is there our harts shall be also.’43 Thus, her sister’s death led Elizabeth to a heightened sense of her own mortality and to have an intense desire to make herself more fit in the eyes of God. To aid such a goal, Elizabeth chose to write her life-narrative in which she remembered and confessed her sins, and, perhaps most importantly, used her memory to fashion herself as an elect saint always ready to be a subject to the loving care of a just, merciful and omnipotent God. Elizabeth’s upbringing in a godly household greatly shaped this intensely Puritan piety and the writing of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. If we want to find perhaps the primary influence for Elizabeth to engage in self-examination we need search no further than her own mother, Judith, Lady Isham. In their formative years, Lady Isham served as the earliest educator of her children – Elizabeth, Judith, and Justinian – and the education she provided, particularly in religion, created an intense affection and spiritual intimacy to exist between mother and offspring. Yet this spiritual intimacy with her mother also had a darker side, a side that led Elizabeth, at a remarkably young age, to witness firsthand the sort of spiritual crisis that had afflicted both Thomas Peacock and Joan Drake. Like for the former, the local Northamptonshire divine John Dod came and assisted Lady Isham in 1619 when she began to suffer from intense soteriological doubts. Compounding the situation was that fact that Lady Isham’s physical health declined in the 1620s, and, despite the relief that Dod brought her, she lay on her deathbed in 1625 in fear of her soul’s eternal salvation, and thus her passing was far from a good death. Elizabeth’s own spiritual crises after her sister’s death in many ways paralleled those of their mother. After witnessing her mother’s anxious demise, it was very likely that Elizabeth’s own determination to prepare herself for the afterlife was a means to avoid repeating Lady Isham’s dark encounter with the grim reaper. Yet, in 30

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relation to Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’, Lady Isham’s positives clearly outweighed her negatives, for her most crucial influence may well have been through her own life-writings. Recalling Lady Isham’s spiritual difficulties, Elizabeth noted: I can no better express my mothers troubles then out of the nots of her owne hand writing, which she keept (carring them about her) as rememberancess & instructions to her selfe: how horribly low she was, the Lord leueing her, as it ware [were] to her selfe, [and to] the vile visions & outrages [and] sinfull words … which the temter did assalt her weaknes.44

Like Elizabeth, Lady Isham had ‘desired in her nots or table Bookes to make good use of all the Lords mercies & corrections.’45 There was so much value in Lady Isham’s writings that, when first producing her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ in 1638, Elizabeth began to read them as if they were part of an advice book: ‘I thought to make use of my mothers writings, wherein I might find many good instructions for the bettering of my owne life, for me thinks I enter in to her soule which tho her body be dead yet [she] speaketh.’46 By entering into her mother’s mind, if not soul, Elizabeth found guidance from Lady Isham’s writings. Unfortunately, these writings are lost, making it unclear how much they directly influenced the style and structure of Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’, but it seems clear that her mother’s example played a major role in prompting Elizabeth to put pen to paper. Moreover, so powerful was Lady Isham’s influence that Elizabeth intended her autobiography to memorialize her mother, or rather God’s dealings with Lady Isham: ‘in this time … it came into my mind not to let thy [God’s] goodnesse & mercie towards my mother die in obliuion’.47 If the autobiography was therefore a remarkable testament of Elizabeth’s interiority, it certainly was also a testament of her exteriority. A cross-fertilization of writing occurred when she placed her eyes on her mother’s own writing. Consequently, inspired by both her mother’s life and writings, Elizabeth not only viewed her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ as a private document of godly devotion, but also a manuscript meant for others’ eyes.

A SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY FOR OTHER EYES Elizabeth’s wish to have an external audience view her autobiography placed her firmly in a tradition that many other women writers chose to follow. In the early modern period, the very act of writing carried enormous political and social significance for women, since a female writer fundamentally challenged the conventional cultural ideal that all women need be chaste, silent, and obedient. Armed with such an ideal, male authors, who were often humanist intellectuals, spurned the idea of a pen in the hands of a woman. To these humanists, the pen was a masculine instrument, for it was the tool that men used to demonstrate their intellectual prowess both in print and 31

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manuscript publications. Most considered such activity part of a male domain in which women did not belong and were not welcome. It is little wonder then that it was a common notion that rather than the pen, the instrument deemed more proper for a woman was the needle, a tool symbolic of the domestic sphere.48 As Rozsika Parker has pointed out, a number of women took this idea to heart, for when they endeavoured to write, they did so through embroidery with their needles and thread.49 Such an act was a dramatic example of the cultural ideals of the period, illustrating that a number of women indeed subscribed to the notion that the pen was a man’s instrument and that writing was a male domain. However, far more illustrative evidence of women adhering to cultural ideals is the fact that there were fewer printed works authored by women as compared to men in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Reasons for this were manifold in the period, beginning with the fact that many high-born women often subscribed to the viewpoint that print was a plebian medium opened to the potential readership of the lower ranks. Added to this was the ideal that demonstrations of wit in writing violated the belief that women must be modest and subservient to patriarchal rule. To ensure that women adhered to such a tenet, satirists attacked the idea of women entering the male-dominated realm of printed writing, often linking female intellectual expression with promiscuous women. Under such social pressures, few women sought to have their writings printed so as to protect their social reputations. And even for those women who did not fear such pressures and sought to publish, they faced the censorship of printers – nearly all men – who ultimately had the final say on what materials reached the press. Thus, far fewer women authored printed books than men in the period.50 Yet women were nevertheless avid writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Margaret Ezell has shown that women tapped into the burgeoning practice of manuscript exchange and publication that existed in early modern England. The audience for such writings could be broad, ranging from a woman’s family to the general populace. For this audience, women wrote, in both prose and verse, on a number of subjects, such as love, marriage, family, devotional practice, theology, philosophy, and household medicine.51 As the range of subjects illustrates, women found a fruitful medium in manuscript for the dissemination of their written thoughts. Therefore, Elizabeth Isham – with whom we can also include Lady Isham – was no different than other women who turned primarily to manuscript as a medium for which others could read their writings. Interestingly, Elizabeth’s intention to have others read her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ may have influenced the physical form that her autobiography took. Tied together into thirty-eight leaves, the manuscript very much apes the appearance of a printed book. Indeed, Breton’s devotional poem at the beginning is essentially a preface, followed by introductory prayers and finally a body consisting of confessions and more prayers interwoven into a life narrative. Much like a 32

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printed book from the period, Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ also contains marginal notes – like the one above – placed throughout the text that expound or elucidate content in the body. The text itself is in a very clear italic hand, and there are minimal editorial corrections, such as crossed-out words. This suggests that Elizabeth wrote drafts of her autobiography, something confirmed by the inside pages of a letter she received in 1638 on which she composed portions of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’.52 Not only does this confirm that Elizabeth wrote the autobiography between 1638 and 1639, but also that she took time and care when producing it. Such care likely stemmed from the fact that she had an intended audience besides God when she put pen to paper. But who, besides God, was the intended audience for her ‘Booke of Rememberance’? There are two internal clues in her ‘confessions’ that are extremely suggestive. The first relates to her marital status, and it seems, at least initially, that Elizabeth only desired that her father, Sir John Isham, and brother, Sir Justinian Isham, read her autobiography, two men who served as her patriarchs during her life. The main thrust for such a desire revolved around Elizabeth never marrying. We will examine how this came to be far more thoroughly later in this book, but it is worth briefly detailing it here. Between 1630 and 1631, Elizabeth had come very close to wedding John Dryden. Entering into a year-long courtship, the young couple grew to love each other while their respective families negotiated the financial settlement of the proposed marriage. Elizabeth interpreted the dissolution of the match as a result of God’s providence against her for loving an earthly man more than God himself. Determined never to displease God again in this way, Elizabeth forever turned her back on marriage and remained single for her entire life, despite her father’s strong desires to the contrary. She lived the remainder of her days as a single woman at Lamport Hall until her death in 1654.53 The decision ran counter to contemporary norms and expectations that held that all women should enter into wedlock and become mothers.54 Elizabeth noted that she experienced repercussions for not marrying, ranging from the displeasure of her father to the gossip and opprobrium of her neighbours. All of this motivated her to put the record straight: my Sister telling me the speeches of diuers conserning my selfe about Marriage & I hauing reasonings within me whereby I was satisfied before thee [God] (& as I thought I was able to defende my cause) yet I tolde my Sister it may be I will writ somewhat to leaue my mind to my friends when I die to giue them satisfaction, which I thought I ought to doe especially to my father.55

If we consider Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ as her ‘mind writ’, it is not unreasonable to presume that her confessions served as a defence of her choice not to marry.56 In writing her autobiography, Elizabeth put a great deal of emotional and intellectual energy into portraying her decision to stay single as a product of serving God. Such a portrayal enabled both her and others to 33

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view her decision not as a wilful and selfish act of disobedience directed against the wishes of her father and society, but rather as a selfless act of obedience to an altogether higher authority. On this basis, she felt justified in portraying her never-married status as a direct product of divine providence. If a desire for exculpation lay under Elizabeth’s decision to write her life, she found yet another purpose for her autobiography during the period in which she produced her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Near the beginning of her ‘confessions’, Elizabeth wrote the following marginal note: ‘not that I intend to have this published, but to this end I haue it in praise & thankfullnes to God & for my own benefit which if it may doe my Brother or his Children any pleasure I think to leaue it them whom I hope will [be] charitable censure of me’.57 The crucial group here was her four nieces – Jane, Judith, Elizabeth, and Susan – with whom her relationship transformed because of another tragic death in the family. It was a transformation that occurred while Elizabeth composed her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Elizabeth explained that between 1638 and 1639, Justinian and his first wife Jane regularly visited Lamport Hall with their young family for extended periods. Such visits brought both Sir John and Elizabeth pleasure: ‘I praise thee my God for the fruits of this union especially for the children which of thy mercie thou bestowest upon my Brother and which much reioyced my father to see the grandchildren of his one body as it was also that ioy of the whole family.’58 For Elizabeth, her delight rested largely in the fact that she always enjoyed the company of children: I reioyce & praise thee for thy more immediate speciall Blessings which thou hast created after thine owne image my Brothers children which thou art now pleased to lend unto me (after the death of my Sister those companions of my life were deare to me) for from being little my selfe I loued children.59

Little wonder than that she welcomed the news in 1639 that Jane expected the birth of her fifth child. Her pregnancy brought Justinian’s family once again to Lamport, and, in late February, Jane gave birth to their only son, John. Recalling the young infant’s unfortunate death two weeks later, Elizabeth wrote: ‘it [the baby boy] continued [to live] about a fortnight & [then] died, being sicke 2 or 3 daies’.60 The boy’s death seems to have been the consequence of an illness that nearly all of Justinian’s family had contracted prior to the birth. Justinian fell ill first, followed by the rest of his family: ‘we hauing had the comfort of our friends our house was visited with a … feuer my Brother being first ill & after he hardly recouered but his children fell ill and [then] some of the seruants’. Fortunately for Justinian and his daughters, they all recovered, but his wife was not so blessed. Indeed, Jane’s sickness may have caused her to prematurely go into labour: ‘his [Justinian’s] wife being bigg with child fell very ill & was before her deliuered sonne who was presently Christened we not expecting life being so soone borne’. The 34

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premature birth, combined with illness running rampant in the home, made Lamport an unsafe environment for the baby. Such a situation also proved fatal for Justinian’s wife; weakened by the delivery and illness, Jane passed away only days after their son: ‘she willingly resigned her selfe to thy will my God to die & leaue [her] husband and children which she dearly loued … the violence of her feuer wrought strongly upon her … [and then] thee [God] shewed thou wert her guider unto death’.61 Left a widower, Justinian faced the reality of providing for and raising his four daughters without his wife. Fortunately, he had his sister to shoulder some of the burden. Indeed, Justinian’s daughters spent much of their childhood and youth at Lamport Hall. When they were there, the senior female in the household was Elizabeth Isham, making her their surrogate mother in many respects. Always interested in the girls’ learning, she believed that the bequest of the ‘Book of Rememberance’ could serve their education well. The acceptance of mothers as primary educators of their children was common in early modern England.62 Many women seem to have internalized this ideal, with some offering spiritual advice and presenting themselves in writing as examples of virtuous and pious living women to their children. Yet such motherly advice books did not only benefit the children, but also the mothers themselves, since it was also a common notion in the period that a woman’s salvation depended on the nurturing and education of offspring.63 If she had lived, Justinian’s wife would have been their children’s primary source of religious education. Already writing her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ when Jane and the baby died, Elizabeth thus found an additional purpose for her autobiography. After all, it presented the godly devotion and internal piety of a woman that her nieces could emulate. To a large degree, it should come as no surprise that Elizabeth believed that her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ could religiously benefit the girls, since the devotional writings of Lady Isham had done the same for her. Therefore, passing on religious writings from elder to younger Isham females became a multigenerational tradition when Elizabeth bequeathed her autobiography to her nieces. Viewed in this way, her autobiography becomes a peculiarly intense exercise in women’s writing. A testament of her mother and herself, as well as a motherly advice book, Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ centred on a largely private style of piety shaped by women living in a highly religious world centred around women in the household. Through memorializing her mother, Elizabeth intimately linked Lady Isham to her spiritual life. In doing so, she highlighted Lady Isham’s role in introducing her to the norms and forms of godly devotion. Elizabeth’s sister and sister-in-law also emerge from her autobiography as significant in her life, since their deaths motivated her, on the one hand, to prepare herself for death, and on the other to present her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ to a younger generation of Isham women. With such a presentation, Elizabeth engaged in the practice of passing down religious education from one woman to another in the Isham household. Thus, 35

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while her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was clearly an intense form of lifewriting devoted to the inward self, it surely was also a piece of women’s writing by a woman, about women, and for women in the context of the outward self. Yet, although definitely female centric, men nonetheless had an enormous influence, as we also see in relation to her desire to explain her never-married state. Moreover, men, if not the subjectivity of a man, proved pivotal to the literary style and structure of her autobiography.

EMBOLDENED BY THE SAINT As we have suggested, Elizabeth Isham’s intention to have others read her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ may have influenced why its physical appearance resembled a printed book. A likely reason for such appearance rests with Elizabeth’s devotional reading, which, combined with the workings of her internal Puritan piety, offered further influence and inspiration, if not legitimation for her writing: ‘besides the meanes which I haue of Bookes, thou [God] callest unto me by thy word preched in thy house of prairr that I should embrace those good motions, whereby I confessed unto thee & now sing to thy name O most highe’. Elizabeth qualified this statement in a marginal note directly next to the passage: ‘now of late I was imboldened by the sight of Saint Austin[’s] confessions & afore by B[ishop] Kings lectur[es] to remember the Lord and give him thankes … and by the cure of cares to examine my life’.64 The latter two works were John King’s Lectures Upon Jonas and Henry Mason’s Cure of Cares, two guides of practical piety. In his twenty-eighth lecture, King advised that when the godly faced spiritual crisis, they ‘remember the Lord … that the Lord may remember you again in his holy kingdom’.65 For such remembrance, meditation was essential, a theme that Mason extolled when recommending how to cope with temporal worries: There is no better way to draine them, then by making another passage for them, and by diverting them upon some other matter, fitter to be thought upon; especially if we set then on worke about some such things as may either affect our mindes with some usefull delight, or may tend to the mitigating or abating of these cares. For which purpose, wee may teach our hearts to meditate on the vanity of worldly things; or on the comforts and peace of a good conscience, or on the shortnesse of this life, or whatsoever other good matter that we can most willingly receive and entertaine.66

Among the list of worldly cares that Mason highlighted were worries about death, advising readers to focus on some useful work of meditation that would mitigate or abate the concerns created by such thoughts. On this basis, we can see King and Mason providing Elizabeth with a warrant for some of the main characteristics of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. After all, if the autobiography was, on the one hand, a way to remember God’s presence in 36

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her life, it was also an act of meditation centred on death. Yet, while they might have prompted such activities, neither Mason nor King offered Elizabeth a model of how to execute spiritual meditation through the writing of a book of remembrance. And while there existed other narrative types of autobiography in England by 1639 – like the works of Lady Mildmay or Dionys Fitzherbert – Elizabeth had no exposure to them. Thus, for a literary model, she did not, indeed could not turn to any contemporary, Puritan or otherwise. Instead, becoming a humanist woman of sorts, she looked back to antiquity and found a father of the Church in William Watts’s translation of the Confessions to guide her. More than any other text, Augustine’s Confessions had the greatest influence on Elizabeth’s writing of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Indeed, the two works share a similar style and structure, and by extension, a similar subjectivity between their authors. As Elizabeth did in her autobiography, Augustine, throughout his Confessions, directed his voice to God, opening the text by discussing the sinful nature of humanity: ‘man, who being a part of what thou hast created, is desirous to praise thee; this man bearing about his owne mortality with him, carrying about him a testimony of his owne sinne’.67 Continuing, Augustine then ruminated on the omnipotent nature of God, a nature to which he believed humanity paled in comparison, since they were creatures of a fallen world. Because of this, Augustine pleaded for divine mercy, likening himself, much as Elizabeth did in her autobiography, to dust and ashes: ‘Yet suffer me to plead before thy Mercy seate, even me who am but dust and ashes … once again let me speake seeing tis thy mercy to which I addresse my speech, and not man … even thou perhaps doest smile at me; but turning thou wilt pitty me’.68 Acknowledging the superiority of God, Augustine then began to recount his life, doing so in a chronological narrative similar to that found in Elizabeth’s autobiography. From his narrative, we learn of Augustine’s childhood, his education, his reading of Scripture, his views on memory, and the various sins that he committed in life. All these themes in the Confessions have direct parallels in Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’. In particular, there is a striking similarity in the importance that Elizabeth and Augustine placed on memory in their respective autobiographies. For Elizabeth, memory was a spiritual library, an archive through which God revealed the meaning of his actions and plans: I haue admired … memory as a meruelous worke of thine that I should utterly forget those things which at another time haue come freshly to me, besides for the mulitiplicity [of] a thing, O my God to be amazed at hauing in us … [an] euerlasting library besides then so he [God] that formeth the mountains and createth the wind … [can] declareth unto man what is his thought.69

From this library, it was paramount to recall God’s gifts and judgments, as Elizabeth related near the beginning of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’: ‘O 37

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Lord, that I may neither ungratefully remember thy benefits nor ungraciously forget thy seuere iudgements; who both in the one and the other hast beene beyond all measure so gracious unto mee’.70 Clearly, Elizabeth found God’s judgments just as beneficial as his mercies, despite any hardships she may have endured from the former: I remember my affliction[s] & my mourning the wormewood, & the gall, my soule hath them in rememberance & is humbled in me; I had the better experience of thy power & iustice whereby I feared thee and of thy mercy whereby my loue was increased to thee [and] my faith was strengthened in thee.71

Augustine also meditated on the correlation between memory and piety, doing so in Book X of the Confessions. In essence, he believed that the remembrance of his sins and the subsequent sorrow over them, brought him closer to God: ‘But now, for that my groaning [over past sins] is witnesse for mee, that I am displeased with my selfe: thou shinest out unto mee, and art pleasing to me, yea desired, and beleved of mee’.72 By the use of his memory, Augustine found what he felt was God’s truth and mercy: See now, how I haue coursed ouer all my memory in search of thee, O Lord; and no where could I find thee, without it. Nor haue I found any thing at all concerning thee, but what I haue kept in memory, euer since the time that I first learnt of thee … for where I found truth, there found I my God who is truth it selfe … These be my holy delights, which thou hast bestowed upon me through thy mercy, which had respect unto my pouerty.73

Remembering his sins, Augustine acquired reminders of God’s presence in his life; in despair because of his transgressions, he believed that God had offered his mercy, an act that brought Augustine joy and happiness. Thus, like Elizabeth did in her autobiography, Augustine in his Confessions believed that memory was essential for the cultivation of his piety. Reaching into the recesses of their minds, both Elizabeth and Augustine recounted their many temptations and transgressions in life. Indeed, Elizabeth confessed childhood sins very similar to those featured in Augustine’s account. In Book II of the Confessions, Augustine vividly told of his stealing pears as an adolescent with a group of friends: ‘A peare-tree there was in the Orchyard next our Vineyard … To the shaking and robbing of this, a company of lewd yong fellows of us went, late one night … Thence carried we huge loadings, not for our lickorishnesse, but even to fling to Hogs’.74 Augustine deeply regretted taking the pears, as he did for all his youthful transgressions: ‘I slid away from thee, and I went astray, O my God, yea, too much astray from thee … in these dayes of my youth, and I became to my selfe (as it were) that far country of misery.’75 Elizabeth did much the same when remembering her acts of theft as a girl. She noted she had been a thief twice in her childhood, the first time coming at the age of eight: ‘I hauing fancied a primer put it in a place where it could not be found … but it was asked for and I 38

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denied hauing it, thinking to auoid both the shame & punishment (but which was worse), I was not ashamed before thee [God] whom I ought most to feare’.76 Elizabeth’s shame, however, did not prevent her from stealing on another occasion. Similar to Augustine, this time it involved fruit: ‘a lickorishnesse stole upon me to open my mothers coberd … I longed to trie whether I could open it with my key, which when I had found the way of it tooke fruite from thence’. As before, Elizabeth felt ashamed: ‘concerning my sins which I haue committed I am ashamed to confesse to my Lord … I found myselfe gilty’.77 The parallels between Elizabeth and Augustine’s respective accounts of their lives do not end here. As in the case of Elizabeth’s mother in her autobiography, Augustine’s own mother, Monica, plays an important and central role in his life narrative. So significant is Monica in Augustine’s autobiography that it is reasonable to contend that his Confessions is not only a legacy of his own life but also that of his mother. In Book IX of his Confessions, Augustine noted: Many things doe I ouerpasse, because I make hast[e]. Receiue my Confessions and Thankesgivings, O my God, for innumerable things which I am silent in. But omit I will not whatsoeuer my soule can bring forth concerning that Handmaid of thine, which brought forth mee [his mother].78

Like Elizabeth, Augustine wished to leave a testament of the life of his mother Monica; he portrayed his mother as a pious and virtuous woman just as Elizabeth did with Lady Isham. Throughout his Confessions, Augustine recounted how Monica worried over her son’s lack of faith before his conversion, often praying that he would one day join her as a Christian.79 Believing that his conversion was God’s answer to Monica’s prayers, Augustine was grateful for both divine providence and his mother’s constant belief that he would one day be saved. Augustine’s gratefulness also led him to believe that Monica’s very presence in his life brought him closer to God: ‘Those of them knew her praised you, honoured you, and loved you in her, for they could feel your presence in her heart and her holy conversation gave rich proof of it’.80 Unfortunately for Augustine, he would not enjoy his mother’s ‘holy conversation’ for long after his conversion, since Monica died shortly after his experience beneath the fig tree. Upon her deathbed she made a last request that Augustine remember her at ‘the alter of the Lord’, implying that he should pray for her soul when attending church.81 Inspired by his mother’s request, Augustine took Monica’s last wish a step further, deciding to remember his mother in his Confessions so that others could read of her life and pray for her soul: ‘So it shall be that the last request that my mother made to me shall be granted in the prayers of the many who read my confessions more fully than in mine alone’.82 Although a much larger audience than what Elizabeth wished for her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, Augustine also intended to leave his Confessions for others to read. Thus, similar to 39

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Elizabeth, he desired that his intended audience know and remember the life of his mother. If Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and Augustine’s Confessions both offered written memorials to their mothers, their life-narratives also served as reverential testaments to Scripture. Augustine constantly quoted and cited the Bible in his Confessions; throughout the text he referenced various books, from Genesis to Revelations, but the Psalms take a central role in his autobiography. The very first lines in Augustine’s Confessions paraphrased Psalms 145:3 and 147:5: ‘Great art Thou (O Lord), and greatly to be praised; great is thy power, and thy wisdom is infinite’.83 From this point forward in the Confessions Augustine frequently referenced the Psalms, doing so no less than 222 times.84 He explicitly expressed his reverence for the Psalms in Book IX of the Confessions, explaining the comfort he found in them shortly after his conversion: ‘Oh what passionate voices sent I up unto thee, my God, when as I read the Psalmes of David (those faithfull songs): Oh what sounds of devotion, quite excluding the swelling spirit of ostentation!’ He recited the Psalms to God with great emotion, something he further noted: ‘Oh, what passionate expressions made I unto thee in the reading those Psalmes! Oh, how was I inflamed towards thee by them!’85 The Psalms also reminded Augustine of his belief in the centrality that the Bible should have in a person’s life: These things I read [the Palsmes], and burnt againe; nor could I tell what to do to those deafe and dead manichees, of whom myself was sometimes a pestitlent member, a snarling and a blind bawler against thy Scriptures, all behonyed ouer with the hony of heaven, and all lightsome with thine owne light.86

Considering such reverence, it has been natural for scholars and theologians to identify the importance that the Psalms play in Augustine’s Confessions. With humility and in a reverential tone, Augustine used a similar style and language as that employed by David to glorify what he found to be the truth and light in his life – God. In other words, as Brian Stock has noted, Augustine applied words and phrases of the Psalms into the spiritual story of his life.87 Elizabeth Isham did much the same in her own autobiography. Indeed, she referenced the Bible many times in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, citing numerous books from Scripture, but she prized the Psalms more than any other. At an early age, she received, along with a prayer and service book, a Psalm book from Lady Isham: my mother gaue euery one of us [the Isham children] a Psalme Booke, in which I much delighted because of the verce & haueing learned sum psalmes I sung them thinking I did well by immitacion of others although I did not so fully understand them nether sing according to the [correct] tune.

Although finding delight in singing Psalms at an early age, Elizabeth nonetheless troubled herself with singing well and not fully understanding the 40

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content of what she sung. Much of this distress came from her belief that David had composed his Psalms for people who excelled in music and that such excellence enhanced the worship of God: ‘although the cheefest matter which is required is the intention of the hart uttering words of deuine knowledge, yet in these gifts born of singing & eloquence is the heart inflamed with the more alacrity & vigour and spirit … to giue the more attention to thy Glory [God]’.88 Like Augustine, Elizabeth found that the Psalms set her soul aflame in devotion to the divine. Moreover, she came to have a fuller understanding of the meaning and purpose of the Psalms as she grew older and became a mature woman. From her reading of the Bible, Elizabeth also found further Scriptural basis for confession, particularly in Psalm 32:5: I acknowledge my sinne unto thee, nither hid I mine iniquities for I thought I will confesse against my selfe my wickednes unto the Lord and thou forgauest the punishment of my sinne. In these and diuers other places I haue found inducments both of confession & praise.89

Elizabeth recounted a similar sentiment when recalling that when she was twelve, she grew closer to God, something that brought her joy and caused her to quote from Psalms 27:8: ‘now thou begannest in these times to grow sweet unto mee and putting gladnesse in my heart; and by these means thou callest unto mee and I answered yea thou saidest seeke ye my face and my heart answered thy face Lord’.90 Thus, when Elizabeth expressed her reverence for God, the Psalms often played a significant part in such expression. So important did Elizabeth find the Psalms in confessing and combating sin that she referenced, quoted, or cited them more than any other part of Scripture in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, doing so approximately 160 times.91 Needless to say, such consultation greatly parallels Augustine’s use of the Psalms in his Confessions. Yet, as we have seen, the Bible was not the only text that Elizabeth consulted when she composed her autobiography. Indeed, with relation to Augustine, she cited or quoted him over twenty times, either in the body or marginal notes of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. In comparison, it was only Scripture that Elizabeth referenced more, a fact that provides the most explicit evidence of Augustine’s influence on her writing. Of the references to Augustine, she directly cited the Confessions approximately thirteen times and, on three occasions, Thomas Rogers’ two anthologies of prayers and meditations allegedly produced by Augustine.92 Moreover, on six other occasions, Elizabeth mentioned his name in relation to what she wrote.93 At first glance, such references seem random, but a closer look reveals something of a pattern, with Elizabeth turning to Augustine when addressing some of her most crucial concerns. One such worry was the issue of election and finding signs of redemption. Citing Augustine in a marginal note towards the beginning of the autobiography, Elizabeth prayed to God: ‘I may so laber here [the temporal world] that I may receiue the reward promised to thine 41

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elect of thy free mercy and goodness … herein I repose my confidence in hope of this thy mercy that … I may then lie down in peace and rest’.94 Affliction, even of the most extreme sort, could be a crucial aid in this process, as Elizabeth expressed when remembering the experience of her mother: ‘though she was clouded with afflictions, yet when they were any whit past she was so much reuiued as though they had not bine … forasmuch as Saint Austin saith the greatest ioy is usherd in by the greatest painfullnesse’.95 As with afflictions, God’s blessings could lead to an increase in faith if experienced not as temporal delights but instead as gifts that prompted praise and thanksgiving: ‘herein I concluded with the words of S[aint] Austin, Good Lord such blessings hast you giuen us in this life … all these we see & they are very good because thou seest them in us, who hast giuen to us thy Spirit by which wee see these things and might loue thee in them’.96 For her own spiritual trials, Elizabeth often turned to Augustine’s Confessions when recalling them in her autobiography. Crucial here was a chronic lack of trust and faith in God, a sin that Elizabeth called atheism. She cited Augustine in a marginal note when writing about this lack of faith: ‘suffer me yet Lord to verify thy power & goodness that I may be strengthened in thee for it is not seldome that I haue found this sin of Athisme lurking in me’. Elizabeth further explained that she sometimes doubted the liturgy of the Church and, when she did take part in religious ceremonies, she often did so without faith in God.97 Wrestling with this lack of faith, Elizabeth recounted how she found solace in the Bible and perceived that this assurance paralleled Augustine’s assertion in his Confessions that Scripture was the ultimate source of knowledge: ‘What neede I dout of thee my God, seeing thou hast granted me that sauing knowledge where is no where else to be found, as S[aint] Austin saith he found it, for there is no booke of human learning like in thy Booke unto thy word’.98 Bolstered by such knowledge, Elizabeth prayed to God for the cleansing of her soul, again referencing Augustine when doing so: ‘my God I desire, as S[aint] Austin, giue me a watering fountaine & a cleare fountaine (which may be most out of loue to thee) wherein this defiled soule may be cleansed according as thou thinkest best’. For such cleansing, Elizabeth called on God to direct her life, much like Augustine had done: ‘the desire of S[aint] Austin hath often run in my head who saith teach me to aske those things thou mayest grant, I now rather say with the psalmist (which I suppose S[aint] Austin ment) teach me to aske to do the thing that pleaseth thee’.99 Considering Elizabeth’s multiple references of Augustine in these spiritual reflections, combined with the fact that it was the sight of his Confessions that emboldened her to write her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, it is reasonable to assert that she found him, next to the Bible, the most important textual authority in her life. Yet none of this should imply that her spiritual autobiography is a carbon copy of Augustine’s Confessions. Perhaps the most obvious difference is the complete absence from Elizabeth’s account of anything like 42

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a conversion experience. Before Augustine described the moment of his conversion to Christianity beneath the fig tree in Book VIII of his Confessions, he recounted a mystical experience of having visions of Continence beckoning him to enter into the arms of God. After this moment and hearing the children’s cries, Augustine flung himself down to the ground and read Paul’s Epistles, solidifying his conversion in the process.100 It is a dramatic moment of self-transformation, analogous to Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. There is no such moment of transformation or conversion in Elizabeth Isham’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’, and this is the clearest difference between the two autobiographies, and perhaps a sign of Elizabeth diverging from completely identifying with Augustine’s subjectivity. The nearest she came to describing some sort of self-transformation is towards the end of the autobiography when she recounted the merits of examining her life: ‘Since I called my owne waies to rememberance I haue learned … that I was in times past unwise, disobedient, deceiued, [and] hatefull’. Elizabeth went on to make allusions that she was indeed of the elect, something her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ helped to confirm: ‘When I called to mind the time that is past it reioyced mee to thinke you [God] hadest made me the seruant of thy seruants … yea Lord thou hast made me the companion of them that loue thee and keepe thy commandements’. While Elizabeth indicated with these statements that she had changed morally and gained affirmation of her spiritual status, she nonetheless did not describe a Pauline transformation or conversion. In fact, she thought of her self-examination more as a means of amendment rather than conversion, something that caused her to thank God: ‘I praise thee for spareing me so longe & giueing me so large a time of Repentance & amendment’.101 The reasons for this omission are not difficult to discover. As we have seen, while there were godly lives centred on conversion experiences produced at roughly the same time that Elizabeth wrote her ‘confessions’, such experiences did not become the norm within the conventions – if there was such a thing – of godly life-writing until the 1650s. Indeed, we have no reason to believe that Elizabeth Isham read any godly lives like those of Joan Wake or John Preston, since she turned to a piece of life-writing composed in antiquity as her literary model. Moreover, the radical discontinuity of conversion – with a true professor moving from a profane to a saved life in one moment of revelation – was completely antipathetic to the tenor of Elizabeth’s account of her own life and piety. After all, such a life and piety centred on the transfer of the basic prerequisites of true faith down the generations of women living in essentially a godly household. Here the different life trajectories of Elizabeth – a never-married woman whose existence was largely private and centred on her home of Lamport Hall – and Augustine – a father of the Church and canonized Saint – come to the fore. Life experience explains a great deal about the difference in the importance of conversion in the subjectivities of both figures. Based on her account, rarely did Elizabeth 43

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feel not elect, and when she did have doubts, they were fleeting at best. Rather, she sought self-amendment with the goal of becoming a more perfect saint, trusting that such amendment was God’s providence working to bring her to an ever increasing, effectual, and saving faith in him. Conversion, therefore, seems to have had no place for Elizabeth in the way that it did for Augustine, who struggled, so he tells us in the Confessions, to move away from his pagan past and accept God’s truth. Yet the subjectivities of both Elizabeth and Augustine are too similar to ignore. Inward looking in so many ways, perhaps the key connection between both subjectivities is the place that memory – and belief in the spiritual power it could provide – has in their respective life-writings. It was Elizabeth’s greatest debt to Augustine and perhaps most defined her affinity for him. Crucial to her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was the workings of recall, workings Elizabeth found only explicable when thought of as a result of God’s will; when she remembered something, it was he who placed the thought in her mind, not she freely conjuring up past experiences. The very act of remembering and writing her autobiography gave Elizabeth compelling proof of God’s control over both her life and consciousness. To maximize and give meaning to such proof, there was perhaps no better way to do so than placing them in the context of a life lived, a life lived through time and written in, if not understood in the form of narrative autobiography. Was this not what Augustine had done when he wrote his Confessions? Viewed in this way, Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ operated both as a record to recapture, if not relive the acts and episodes that she deemed important in her life. In other words, past and present conflated, a process that Elizabeth could reenact if she decided to read her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. This would seem paradoxical, since she believed that her consciousness and memory were entirely out of her control and in the hands of God. Yet, for her, there was no contradiction, for if she chose to read the account of her life and recall the past, the choice was the result of providence and not her own will. The reward was a testimony of God’s grace and the Holy Spirit working in her life. Consequently, by writing an autobiography in a style similar to Augustine’s Confessions, Elizabeth acquired not only a way to create a testament of her life, but also a means to commune with her spiritual father. There was perhaps no better or more potent ‘physic’ or anecdote for any doubts, melancholy, or anxiety she may have felt over her spiritual condition or fate.

A HYBRID TEXT Considering the multifaceted elements coming together in Elizabeth Isham’s ‘Book of Rememberance’, we can conclude that it was a remarkable hybrid text, both in relation to its purpose and literary structure. The autobiography at first appears to be a purely private document – with an inward subjective self at its centre – and an extended act of prayer intended for the ears of God 44

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and the eyes of Elizabeth alone. There is certainly a great deal to such an interpretation. The autobiography’s primary inspiration and purpose appears to have been both personal and entirely religious. It was the product of intense spiritual self-examination, intended to help Elizabeth realize her destiny as an elect saint and allow her to achieve the godly death that had eluded her dear departed mother. Yet upon closer inspection, the autobiography appears to be not just a purely private document but also public in some sense. Although certainly not meant for publication through print, the autobiography took the appearance of a seventeenth-century printed text, making it accessible for public viewing. Intended to memorialize the lives of multiple generations of godly Isham women, Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ ensured that the memory of her beloved mother was not lost to history. It also offered a way for Elizabeth to defend her decision not to marry by explaining that her choice was an act of obedience to God. Directed perhaps at first to her father and brother, the autobiography became transformed during its production into something like a book of maternal advice for her nieces, intended to operate in their lives much like the writings of Elizabeth’s mother had operated in her own. Indeed, generated within an intensely religious environment defined by the tradition of passing on religious knowledge from elder to younger females, the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was a product of a woman that was largely about women and essentially meant for other Isham women to read. Elizabeth, however, modelled its literary structure on the writings of men, particularly a great father of the Church. Saint Augustine – along with John King and Henry Mason – provided legitimation of sorts from male and clerical authority figures for Elizabeth’s exercise in godly self-fashioning. Moreover, Augustine also offered literary inspiration, if not a subjective model, giving her an effective template from which to compose her own confessions. The result was a dense, multi-layered and intensely hybrid text that neither accorded to one existing generic formula nor served one single purpose. The emergence of Elizabeth Isham’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ brings all of this to light, and in relation to the study and understanding of early modern life-writing, it has important implications. Its production circa 1639, before the time that the conversion narrative became pre-eminent, forces us to further realize that creative acts of narrative autobiography – in this case by a woman – were possible prior to spiritual autobiography becoming a more ubiquitous form of life-writing. That Augustine, a writer from late antiquity, proved crucial in such a creative act also highlights that he could significantly influence the autobiographical writing produced in early modern England, no matter how many scholars attempt to state otherwise. Moreover, the fact that Elizabeth could relate to the subjective self captured in the pages of the Confessions seems to contribute to the push against the thesis that in early modern life-writings we find proof of the birth of a modern subjectivity, more focused on interiority than exteriority. The importance that members of 45

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Elizabeth’s family played – as inspirations, sources of literary models, and potential audience – on her writing merely seems to further call into question such a thesis. Yet to say that Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was all about exteriority would be equally untenable. After all, there are intense elements of Elizabeth’s inward self playing out in the pages of her autobiography, an inward self concerned with the destiny of its soul and its relationship primarily to God, not necessarily the souls or the relationships of other people to that God. At the centre of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ is Elizabeth – the narrative found in its pages is primarily about her, with her mother, sister, father, brother, and nieces playing supporting roles. Perhaps it is best not to allow scholarly debates over the viability of the birth of modern subjectivity in the early modern period colour our understanding of Elizabeth Isham’s autobiography. When considering its hybrid characteristics, we should hold up the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ as an example of the fruitlessness of such debates. To argue for or against the subjectivity thesis essentially creates false dichotomies – inward verses outward selves, female versus male subjectivities, Augustine as an important or inconsequential influence. Elizabeth’s ‘confessions’ blurs the lines between all of these dichotomies, and it is hard to see that it is an ‘either/or’ issue for any of them. Indeed, her autobiography shows that both the interiority and the exteriority were crucial to its production; it shows that both male and female subjectivities were crucial to its production; and it shows that Augustine could be both a major influence and also not the sole influence on its production. These are some of the major literary implications of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and they permit us to begin delving into the historical memory of Elizabeth Isham, providing us with an entrée to knowing and understanding her. Yet such knowing is not restricted to just the literary qualities of her life-writing. After all, Elizabeth was a woman of the early Stuart period, and the society and culture in which she lived greatly shaped how she thought and wrote about her life. Indeed, her exteriority directly affected the production of the autobiography, but we must also realize that within its pages are stories of actual people who did not see or necessarily imagine themselves as serving as rhetorical devices, and thus what Elizabeth tells us about herself and them has more than just literary relevance. Therefore, it seems paramount to also grasp that the historical memory in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ also opens a window into Elizabeth’s world and the society and culture that helped create that world. Peering through that window will throw into sharp relief many aspects of memory, patriarchy, reading, piety, and singlehood in early modern England.

NOTES   1 K.J. Höltgen, ‘Unpublished Early Verses “On Dr. Donnes Anatomy,” ’ Review of English Studies, 22 (1971), 304–306. 46

The spiritual autobiography of Elizabeth Isham   2 K.J. Höltgen, ‘Isham Manuscript Volume,’ Notes and Queries, 19 (1972), 109.   3 Isham, BR; Robert H. Taylor of English and American Literature Collection History, http://findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/RTC01#collhist. Thanks again go to Tom Cogswell for being the first scholar to unearth the autobiography in Princeton’s collections.   4 See above, Introduction, note 3.   5 Elizabeth Isham, ‘diary’, c. 1650, Isham Manuscripts (hereafter IMSS), NRO, IL 3365.   6 Ibid.   7 Kevin Sharpe and Steven N. Zwicker, ‘Introducing Lives,’ in Writing Lives: Biography and Textuality, Identity and Representation in Early Modern England, Kevin Sharpe and Steven N. Zwicker eds (Oxford, 2008), 1–26.   8 John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church (London, 1563); Thomas Stapleton, Tres Thomae (Douai, 1588); John Mush, An Abstracte of the Life and Martirdome of Mistres Margaret Clitherowe (Mechelin, 1619); Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas S. Freeman, Religion and the Book in Early Modern England: The Making of John Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ (Cambridge, 2011); Thomas Freeman, ‘Introduction: Over Their Dead Bodies: Concepts of Martyrdom in Late-Medieval and Early-Modern England,’ in Martyrs and Martyrdom in England, c. 1400–1700, Thomas S. Freeman and Thomas F. Mayer, eds (Woodbridge, 2007), 1–34; William Sheils, ‘Polemic as Piety: Thomas Stapleton’s Tres Thomae and Catholic Controversy in the 1580s,’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History (hereafter JEH), 60, no. 1 (2009), 74–94. Peter Lake and Michael Questier, The Trials of Margaret Clitherow: Persecution, Martyrdom and the Politics of Sanctity in Elizabethan England (London, 2011).   9 John Gauden, Eikon basilike the pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his solitude and sufferings (London, 1649); Samuel Clarke, ed., The Lives of Two and Twenty Divines, Eminent in Their Generations for Learning, and Painfulnesse in the Worke of the Ministery, and for Their Sufferings in the Cause of Christ (London, 1660); Richard Baxter, Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, Abridgments, ed. Edmund Calamy (London, 1713); John Walker, An attempt towards recovering an account of the numbers and sufferings of the clergy of the Church of England (London, 1714); Andrew Lacey, The Cult of King Charles the Martyr (Woodbridge, 2003); Andrew Lacey, “‘Charles the First, and Christ the Second”: The Creation of a Political Martyr,’ in Martyrs and Martyrdom in England, c. 1400–1700, Thomas S. Freeman and Thomas F. Mayer, eds (Woodbridge, 2007); Peter Lake, ‘Reading Clarke’s Lives in Political and Polemical Context,’ in Writing Lives: Biography and Textuality, Identity and Representation in Early Modern England, Kevin Sharpe and Steven N. Zwicker eds (Oxford, 2008), 293–318; John Seed, ‘History and Narrative Identity: Religious Dissent and the Politics of Memory in Eighteenth-Century England,’ JBS, 44, no. 1 (2005), 46–63; Matthew Neufeld, ‘The Politics of Anglican Martyrdom: Letters to John Walker, 1704–1705,’ JEH, 62, no. 3 (2011), 491–514. 10 The literature on the ‘pietist turn’ and internal Puritan piety is quite vast. For useful examples, see Theodore Dwight Bozeman, The Precisianist Strain: Disciplinary Religion & Antinomian Backlash in Puritanism to 1638 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2004), especially part II; Charles Lloyd Cohen, God’s Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (Oxford, 1986), particularly ch. 3; Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, ‘Practical Divinity and Spirituality’, in The Cambridge Companion to 47

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11

12

13 14

15

16

48

Puritanism, John Coffey and Paul C.H. Lim, eds (Cambridge, 2008), 191–205; R.T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford, 1979), 51–138; Peter Lake, Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church (Cambridge, 1982), ch. 7; John Stachniewski, The Persecutory Imagination: English Puritanism and the Literature of Religious Despair (Oxford, 1991), part I; Dewey D. Wallace, Puritans and Predestination: Grace in English Protestant Theology, 1525–1695 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1982), 43–55; Michael Winship, ‘Weak Christians, Backsliders, and Carnel Gospelers: Assurance of Salvation and the Pastoral Origins of Puritan Practical Divinity in the 1580s,’ Church History, 70, no. 3 (2001), 462–481. See Owen Watkins, The Puritan Experience: Studies in Spiritual Autobiography (New York, 1972), chs 1–2; D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2005), ch. 1; Michael Mascuch, Origins of the Individualist Self: Autobiography and Self-identity in England, 1591–1791 (Stanford, CA, 1996), ch. 4; Tom Webster, ‘Writing to Redundancy: Approaches to Spiritual Journals and Early Modern Spirituality,’ HJ, 39 (1996), 33–56; Effie Botonaki, Seventeenth Century English Women’s Autobiographical Writings: Disclosing Enclosures (Lampeter, 2004), 32–42; Effie Botonaki, ‘Seventeenth-Century Englishwomen’s Spiritual Diaries: SelfExamination, Covenanting, and Account Keeping,’ Sixteenth Century Journal, 30 (1999), 3–21. Samuel Rogers, The Diary of Samuel Rogers, 1634–1638, Tom Webster and Kenneth Shipps, eds (Woodbridge, 2004); Margo Todd, ‘Puritan Self-Fashioning: The Diary of Samuel Ward,’ JBS, 31 (1992), 236–264; Paul Seaver, Wallington’s World: A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century London (Stanford, CA, 1985); Linda Pollock, With Faith and Physic: The Life of a Tudor Gentlewoman, Lady Grace Mildmay, 1552–1620 (London, 1993); Retha M. Warnicke, ‘Lady Mildmay’s Journal: A Study in Autobiography and Meditation in Reformation England,’ Sixteenth Century Journal, 20 (1989), 55–68; John Fielding, ‘Opposition to the Personal Rule of Charles I: The Diary of Robert Woodford, 1637–1641,’ HJ, 31 (1988), 769–788. William Harrison and William Leigh, Deaths Aduantage Little Regarded, and the Soules Solace Against Sorrow (London, 1602). Peter Smith, ‘The Life and Death of Andrew Willet, Doctor of Divinitie,’ in Synopsis Papismi, that is, A General View of Papistrie, Andrew Willet, ed. (London, 1634). William Hinde, A Faithful Remonstrance of the Holy Life and Happy Death of John Bruen of Bruen Stapleford (London, 1641); John Ley, A Patterne of Pietie, or, The Religious Life and Death of that Grave and Gracious Matron, Mrs. Jane Ratcliffe (London, 1640); Thomas Ball, ‘The Life of Doctor Preston, Who Died Anno Christi, 1628,’ in The Lives of Two and Twenty English Divines, Eminent in their Generations for Learning, Piety, and Painfulnesse in the Work of the Ministry, and for their Sufferings in the Cause of Christ, Samuel Clarke, ed. (London, 1660), 95–143. Although not published until 1660, Ball likely wrote his account of Preston some time between 1636 and 1639. I thank Peter Lake for bringing this to my attention. Robert Bolton, The Last Conflicts and Death of Mr Thomas Peacock, Batchelour of Divinity, and Fellow of Brasen-nose Colledge in Oxford (London, 1646); John Hart, The Firebrand Taken Out of the Fire, or, The Wonderfull History, Case, and Cure of

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17 18

19 20 21 22 23

24 25

26

27 28 29 30

31 32 33

34

Mis Drake, sometimes the Wife of Francis Drake of Esher in the County of Surrey (London, 1654). For discussion, see Peter Lake, ‘Feminine Piety and Personal Potency: The “Emancipation” of Mrs. Jane Ratcliffe,’ Seventeenth Century, 1 (1987), 143–165. Watkins, The Puritan Experience, especially chs 1–2; Hindmarsh, Evangelical Conversion, ch. 1; Mascuch, Individualist Self, especially part II; Webster, ‘Writing to Redundancy,’ 33–56. Ball, ‘Doctor Preston,’ 99–100. See Sharpe and Zwicker, Writing Lives. Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Toronto, 2011); Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism (New York, 2002). The clearest examples are Mascuch, Origins of the Individualist Self; Paul Delany, British Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1969). Kathleen Lynch, Protestant Autobiography: In the Seventeenth-Century Anglophone World (Oxford, 2012); Andrew Cambers, Godly Reading: Print, Manuscript and Puritanism in England, 1580–1720 (Cambridge, 2011); Andrew Cambers, ‘Reading, the Godly, and Self-Writing in England, c.1580–1720,’ JBS, 46 no. 4 (2007), 796–825. Adam Smyth, Autobiography in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2010). David Aers, ‘A Whisper in the Ear of Early Modernists; or, Reflections on Literary Critics Writing the “History of the Subject,’ ” in Culture and History 1350–1600: Essays on English Communities, Identities and Writing, David Aers, ed. (Hemel Hempstead, 1992), 177–202. Georges Gusdorf, ‘Conditions and Limits of Autobiography,’ in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, James Olney, ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 28; James Olney, Memory and Narrative: The Weave of LifeWriting (Chicago, 1998), xii. It should be noted that Lynch has also seen Augustine’s influence, particularly on the writing on Sir Tobie Matthew and John Donne, Protestant Autobiography, ch. 1. James O’Donnell, Augustine, Twayne World Author Series, 759 (Boston, MA, 1985), 83. Patrick Riley, Character and Conversion in Autobiography: Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Rousseau, and Sartre (Charlottesville, VA, 2004), 26. Mascuch, Individualist Self; Delany, British Autobiography, 31. Mary G. Mason, ‘The Other Voice: Autobiographies of Women Writers’, in Autobiography, Olney, ed., 15; Brigitte Glaser, The Creation of the Self in Autobiographical Forms of Writing in Seventeenth-Century England (Heidelberg, Germany, 2001), 37. Estelle C. Jelinek, introduction, in Women’s Autobiography: Essays in Criticism, Estelle C. Jelinek, ed. (Bloomington, IN, 1980), 17. Cynthia Pomerleau, ‘The Emergence of Women’s Autobiography in England,’ in Women’s Autobiography, Jelinek, ed., 30. Erica Longfellow, ‘“Take unto ye words”: Elizabeth Isham’s “Booke of Rememberance” and Puritan Cultural Forms,’ in The Intellectual Culture of Puritan Women, 1558–1680, Johanna Harris and Elizabeth Scott-Bauman, eds (New York, 2011), 123. For discussion of the life-writings of these three individuals, see Linda Pollock, ed., With Faith and Physic: The Life of a Tudor Gentlewoman, Lady Grace Mildmay, 49

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35 36

37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50

51

52 50

1552–1620 (London, 1993); Katherine Hodgkin, ed., Women, Madness and Sin in Early Modern England: The Autobiographical Writings of Dionys Fitzherbert (Farnham, 2010); Lynch, Protestant Autobiography, ch. 1. Isham, BR, fo. 1r. G. Ellis, The Lamentation of the Lost Sheepe (London, 1605), stanza 19; Nicholas Breton, The Passion of a Discontented Minde (London, 1601), A1v, stanza 4. Thanks goes to those involved with the ‘Constructing Elizabeth Isham’ project for bringing these references to my attention. Isham, BR, fo. 2r. Ibid., fo. 2v. For further discussion, see ch. 5 below. For useful discussion of the importance of prayer for Puritans see Nathan Johnstone, The Devil and Demonism in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2006), 90–92; Cynthia Garrett, ‘The Rhetoric of Supplication: Prayer Theory in Seventeenth-Century England,’ Renaissance Quarterly, 46 (1993), 328–357; Seaver, Wallington’s World, 3–4, 39–41. Isham, BR, fo. 33r. Ibid., fo. 33v. Ibid., fo. 33r. Elizabeth referenced Matthew 6:21 when making this statement. Ibid., fo. 11r. Ibid., fo. 11v. Ibid., fo. 34r. Ibid., fo. 30r. Margaret W. Ferguson, ‘Renaissance Concepts of the “Woman Writer,”’ in Women and Literature in Britain, 1500–1700, Helen Wilcox, ed. (Cambridge, 1996), 152–153. Rozsika Parker, The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine (New York, 1989). For discussions of the social challenges that early modern women faced in regards to having their writings published, see Louise Bernikow, ed., The World Split Open: Women Poets, 1552–1950 (New York, 1974), 20; Antonia Fraser, The Weaker Vessel: Women’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England (New York, 1984), 335–336; Angeline Goreau, Reconstructing Aphra: A Social Biography of Aphra Behn (Oxford, 1980), 149, 153–154; Wallace Nussbaum, The Brink of All We Hate: English Satire on Women, 1660–1750 (Lexington, KY, 1984), 19–20. A bibliography of women’s printed works in the seventeenth century exists in Patricia Crawford, ‘Women’s Published Writings, 1600–1700,’ in Women in English Society, 1500– 1800, Mary Prior, ed. (London, 1985), 211–231. Margaret J.M. Ezell, The Patriarch’s Wife: Literary Evidence and the History of the Family (Chapel Hill, NC, 1987), ch. 3; Margaret J.M. Ezell, Writing Women’s Literary History (Baltimore, MD, 1993); Margaret J.M. Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent of Print (Baltimore, MD, 1999). For studies extremely influenced by Ezell’s work see George L. Justice and Nathan Tinker, eds., Women’s Writing and the Circulation of Ideas: Manuscript Publication in England, 1550–1800 (Cambridge, 2002). On the overall mechanics of manuscript circulation and publication in general, see Harold Love, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford, 1993). Jane Isham to Elizabeth Isham, c.1638, Isham MSS, NRO, IC 4344.

The spiritual autobiography of Elizabeth Isham 53 Stephens, ‘The Courtship and Singlehood,’ 1–25; Stephens, ‘Under the Shadow,’ ch. 5. 54 A. Froide, Never Married: Singlewomen in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2005); A. Froide, ‘Marital Status as a Category of Difference: Singlewomen and Widows in Early Modern England,’ in Singlewomen and the European Past, 1250–1800, J. Bennett and A. Froide, eds (Philadelphia, PA, 1999); B. Hill, Women Alone: Spinsters in England, 1660–1850 (New Haven, CT, 2001). 55 Isham, BR, fo. 30r. 56 I thank Anne Cotterill for discussing this matter with me, as well as for her presentation on Elizabeth’s autobiography at the ‘Elizabeth Isham at Princeton Workshop,’ on 8 September 2007. 57 Isham, BR, fo. 2r. 58 Ibid., fo. 34r. 59 Ibid., fo. 33v. 60 Ibid., fo. 34v. 61 Ibid., fo. 34v. 62 Charlton, Women, Religion and Education, ch. 7; Charlton, ‘Women and Education,’ 16–20. 63 Valerie Wayne, ‘Advice for Women from Mothers and Patriarchs,’ in Women and Literature in Britain 1500–1700, Wilcox, ed., 56–79. Since my first reading of Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ in 2002, I have thought that she wished to leave the autobiography to her nieces as a tool for their religious education. My articulation of this idea, however, has been greatly assisted by Michelle Dowd’s insightful paper ‘Forms of Selfhood: Household Piety and The Mothers’ Legacy,’ delivered at the ‘Elizabeth Isham at Princeton Workshop,’ 8 September 2007. For further discussion of motherly advice books, see Michelle Dowd, ‘Structures of Piety in Elizabeth Richardson’s Legacie,’ in Genre and Women’s Life Writing in Early Modern England, Michelle Dowd and Julie Eckerle, eds (Aldershot, 2007), 115–130; Kristen Poole, ‘ “The Fittest Closet for All Goodness”: Authorial Strategies of Jacobean Mothers’ Manuals’, Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900, 35(1995), 69–88; Betty S. Travitsky, ‘The New Mother of the English Renaissance: Her Writings on Motherhood’, in The Lost Tradition: Mothers and Daughters in Literature, Cathy N. Davidson and E.M. Broner, eds (New York, 1980), 33–43. 64 Isham, BR, fo. 33v. 65 John King, Lectures Upon Ionas (Oxford, 1597), 384. 66 Henry Mason, The Cvre of Cares (London, 1627), 30. 67 Saint Augustine, Confessions, translated by W. Watts (London, 1631), 2. I use Watts’ translation because it was the version that Elizabeth consulted when writing her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. 68 Ibid., 11–12. 69 Isham, BR, fo. 32r. 70 Ibid., fo. 2v. 71 Ibid., fo. 25r. 72 Augustine, Confessions, 569. 73 Ibid., 645–646. 74 Ibid., 79. 75 Ibid., 97. 51

The gentlewoman’s remembrance 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

88 89 90 91 92

93 94 95 96 97 98

99 100 101

52

Isham, BR, fo. 4. Ibid., fo. 10r. Augustine, Confessions, 522. Ibid., 68–70 and 111–112. Ibid., 196. Ibid., 199. Ibid., 205. Ibid., 1. See also Rowan Williams, ‘Augustine and the Psalms,’ Interpretation, 58 (2004), 17. Paul Burns, ‘Augustine’s Distinctive Use of the Psalms in the Confessions: The Role of Music and Recitation,’ Augustinian Studies, 24 (1993), 133. Augustine, Confessions, 500–501. Ibid., 188–189. Brian Stock, Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation (Cambridge, MA, 1996), 114. See also Williams, ‘Augustine’s Distinctive Use,’ 25. Isham, BR, fos 5r–5v. Ibid., fo. 7v. Ibid., fo. 15r. Ibid., fos 1r–38r. These two anthologies were probably A Precious Booke of Heauenly Meditations: Called, A Priuate Talke of the Soul With God, translated by T. Rogers (London, 1581); A Right Christian Treatise, Entitled S. Augustine’s Praiers, translated by T. Rogers (London, 1581). According to the ESTC, it is likely that neither work was actually by Augustine, but it is doubtful that Elizabeth Isham knew this at the time when she wrote her autobiography. Isham, BR, fos 8r, 15v, 24v, 35r, 37v. Ibid., fo. 8r. Ibid., fo. 13r. Elizabeth quoted here from Book VIII, ch. 3 of the Confessions; see Augustine, Confessions, 431. Ibid., fo. 34r. She quoted here from Book XIII, ch. 34 of the Confessions; see Augustine, Confessions, 1007. Ibid., fo. 31v. Ibid., fo. 32r. In the marginal note adjacent, Elizabeth cited Book VI, chs 5 and 11, and Book VII, ch. 21. For Book VI, chs 5 and 11, and Book VII, ch. 21 see Augustine, Confessions, 284–289, 319–22, 407–411. Ibid., fo. 33v. Augustine, Confessions, 476–484. Isham, BR, fo. 35v.

Chapter 2

. ‘As a branch with a roote’: the Ishams of Lamport and their world

N

orthamptonshire has long been known as the English county of ‘spires and squires’, a reference to the architectural beauty of its churches and to the prominence of its many landed families, such as the Spencers, the Knightleys, the Montagus, the Hattons, and the Watsons. Indeed, the presence of these families in the county has made the Northamptonshire Record Office one of the richest repositories of gentry family papers in all of England. Arguably, the county archive’s most extensive collection is the papers of the Ishams of Lamport, who entered the ranks of the landed elite during the Elizabethan period. Like so many other gentry collections, the Isham papers provide far more information on the male than the female members of the family. This is especially the case for the seventeenth century, the period when Sir John Isham and his son, Sir Justinian Isham, were the family’s patriarchs. The voices of both shout out at us from the Isham papers, shouts that ensure that both men do not become lost in our historical memory of the family. Their tombs in the church of All Saints merely further solidify their legacy and do not allow us to forget that both men laid a stable foundation for subsequent generations of Ishams to prosper. Until relatively recently, this created a stark reality – almost exclusively, the Isham men took centre stage in scholarly work related to the family.1 This is somewhat understandable. After all, a quick glance at the approximately 10,000 index cards that catalogue the Isham family papers can, if not will lead to one question – where are the women? Nothing is necessarily unusual about such a reality; in the vast majority of gentry family collections from the early modern period, men are simply documented more than women. For the Ishams, this could lead to the absurd impression that either women did not exist or played little role in the family, an impression that the patriarchal stewardship of the Isham papers and writings of people like Sir Gyles Isham have only likely helped perpetuate over the years. Yet Sir John and his son were actually in the minority in regard to 53

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the gender distribution in the family – neither had brothers and Sir Justinian only had sons at a late age. Thus both patriarchs lived most of their lives surrounded by women, with grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and daughters outnumbering their male kin. Despite this basic fact, the Isham papers do little to address the issue; if we rely on them solely, we know very little about the character, personality, outlooks, and actions of the majority of these women. It is true that there is some evidence of their existence in the family papers, and Elizabeth Isham is actually the most documented female among them, but the picture that the Isham collection paints of her is fragmentary, much as it is for the rest of her female relations. Consequently, the Isham collection really only gives us a shadowy and partial portrait of the family. The partial portrait underscores the enormous historical value of Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Indeed, the hard fact of the matter is there is just nothing like her autobiography housed in the Isham collection at the Northamptonshire Record Office; in this single document we enter the confines of Lamport Hall in ways that none of the correspondence, indentures, deeds, legacies, and local government papers can or will ever allow us to do. In other words, we gain intimate entrance into Elizabeth’s world. Yet to truly appreciate this intimacy, we must clearly understand that she – and by extension her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ – were the product of her world; not only was her ‘confessions’ the product of her interior but also her exterior self. To begin to round out our perspective of Elizabeth’s exterior self, we must juxtapose the autobiography and the Isham papers, both reading them together and against the other. In short, we must view and unite two repositories of the historical memory of the Ishams of Lamport. Such methodology will be a common thread found throughout our entire study of Elizabeth Isham, but it will take pride of place in this chapter. We will first thoroughly examine the lives of Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham largely through the lens of the Isham papers to achieve a sense of their prominence, influence, and effect in and on their family. By beginning with these two patriarchs, we will also essentially map the enormous shadow that they have long cast over the seventeenth-century Ishams. Patriarchy was essential to the familial context of the Ishams but it has far too long distorted the historical memory of that context. A subsequent analysis of the remnants of their female kin in the Isham papers will underscore this reality, a reality that we will begin to counterbalance when we turn in the chapter to the historical memory locked in the pages of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ to more fully reconstruct the lives of the Isham women. The reconstruction will provide an alternative perspective, one less dependent on the patriarchal focus found in the Isham papers. No longer excluded from the family collection, the autobiography allows us to unlock the door to a female world that has largely been hidden from scholarly eyes for far too long, and, consequently, gives substantial semblance of Elizabeth Isham’s historical context, a context not just shaped by men but also by women. It is a context that we 54

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must fully establish to not only gain a better understanding of the making of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ but also the overall insights that her life and writing afford us when discussing women’s marital status, reading, and piety in early modern England in subsequent chapters.

ELIZABETH ISHAM’S FATHER AND PATRIARCH On 8 July 1651 Sir John Isham died at the age of sixty-eight, just three short weeks from his sixty-ninth birthday. Laid to rest in All Saints Church, Lamport, his gravestone is modest in form, for which Justinian Isham drafted an epitaph: ‘Here lyes interd a Noble Knight Sr John Isham who was right unto his country & from soueraigne [Charles I] hee would noe Apostate euer bee … since hee is dead Lord graunt thy Seruant roome within his heart to build thy heart a Tombe.’2 Judging from surviving evidence from the Isham papers and from other gentry collections related to Northamptonshire, it was a poignant recognition of a man who raised political and religious moderation to an art form. Indeed, Sir John held a reputation as a servant to his county and his king, a reputation that he built during his long and active engagement in local politics as first a high-sheriff and then justice of the peace. Furthermore, for nearly half a century he was the patriarch of the Ishams of Lamport, becoming the family head in 1605 and maintaining that status until his death in 1651. Because of his social standing, Sir John’s decisions and actions greatly affected the lives of all the members of his family, especially Elizabeth Isham. During most of her life, Elizabeth lived at Lamport Hall and was largely at the financial mercy of her father. Such a situation restricted her social orbit and the type of dealings she had with other people; with Lamport Hall as her main point of contact, most of Elizabeth’s interactions were with her immediate and extended kin, villagers from Lamport, the parish minister, and the occasional family acquaintances from outside the village who visited the Isham estate. Sir John held great sway in this world, influencing it with a combination of financial prudence, wise marriages, and, for the most part, sound and moderate political maneuvering. To fully appreciate this influence, we must first delve into the Isham patriarch’s family background. Charles I made Sir John a baronet in 1627, an act that not only increased Sir John’s status, but also symbolized his family’s social rise over approximately a seventy-year period.3 The Ishams had yeoman roots in Northamptonshire dating back to the fourteenth century, holding lands near the locales of Isham and Pitchley, villages just a short distance east of Lamport in the hundred of Orlingbury. Their social ascendency was common for other landed families in seventeenth-century Northamptonshire, with likely three-quarters of the county’s landed elite in the early Stuart period having little if no direct ties with the medieval aristocracy and gentry.4 It was Pitchley where the Ishams were the most successful, 55

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eventually acquiring substantial holdings in the parish by the mid-sixteenth century. The head of the family at the time was Euseby Isham, who, with his wife Ann, had five sons and five daughters reach maturity. It was Euseby’s fourth son, John who became the founder of the Lamport branch of the Ishams.5 At the age of sixteen, John travelled to London and – from 1542 to 1551 – worked his way through the ranks to emerge as a citizen mercer and subsequently become warden of the mercers three times and governor of English merchant adventures in Flanders. Proving to be frugal and having an astute ability in the wool trade, he accumulated substantial wealth, enough indeed to return to Northamptonshire and join the county’s already large number of landed families. For the price of £610, John and his brother Robert, the rector of Pitchley, purchased the manor and advowson of Lamport from Sir William Cecil in 1560. Subsequently, John enclosed large quantities of land, purchased even more land, and secured the ecclesiastical revenue from the parish of Lamport by acquiring in 1568 a ninety-nine year lease of the rectory. Ultimately, John retired to Lamport in 1572 where he lived until his death in 1596, leaving a strong financial legacy to his heir, Thomas Isham.6 Similar to his father, Thomas was a financially astute man, who avoided the trap of conspicuous consumption that could be all too common for the late Tudor and early Stuart gentry.7 Although Thomas’s frugality was an attribute inherited from his father, everyday reality also influenced him to watch his purse. The father of three daughters, he faced the daunting and expensive prospect of providing marriage portions for them once they reached the appropriate age to enter into courtship and wedlock. Elizabeth, the eldest of the three, was the first to marry, becoming the wife of Sir Anthony Denton of Tonbridge, Kent, in 1601. A Gentleman Pensioner, Sir Anthony was socially the superior of the Ishams, having an office at court and two homes in London. For the marriage, Thomas supplied a portion that well exceeded £1,000. The match proved fruitful for the Ishams, for it gave them a regular connection to Court and life in London. Susan Isham’s marriage in 1608 to Sir Martin Stuteville – noted for his surviving correspondence with the academic, Joseph Mede – also served the family well, since he belonged to a well-established gentry family in Suffolk. As with the case of her sister Elizabeth, it took a £1,000 portion in order for Susan to marry into the Stutevilles. The same amount was paid for Jane when she married John Ardys of Bedforshire in 1607.8 Combined, the three marriages cost the family around £3,000. While he died before seeing all of these marriages come to fruition, it is nonetheless little wonder why the women’s father had a propensity for frugality, since he understood that their eventual marriages could prove dear to his purse. Such economic prudence allowed Thomas to accumulate enough capital in 1600 to send his son, the eventual Sir John, to Queens’ College, Cambridge and later to the Middle Temple in London. Some of the earliest evidence of 56

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Sir John’s life comes from a series of letters he exchanged with Thomas during his time at university and the Inns of Court. The letters provide an intimate view of the relationship between a father and a son in the early seventeenth century, and touch on major themes that characterize the Ishams of Lamport. Early on, this correspondence usually centred on the everyday necessities of a student, and a father’s advice to a son living away from home, like when Thomas sent word to Queens’ in 1600: ‘your man I trust hath bin with you before the returne of this carrier and hath brought you money for the quarter, though I suppose you need it not yet. But because I would not haue you beholdinge to others I sent it’.9 Notable here was Thomas’s clear aversion to debt and his desire for restraint in expenditure, a character trait he successfully imparted to his son. Similarly, he did the same with regard to reliance on and assistance for family and kin. After leaving Queens’ College in 1602 for the Middle Temple, Sir John became a major representative and point of contact for Thomas in London. Indeed, the former soon received word during his sojourn to the capital: ‘As you are admitted into the [Middle] Temple so be carefull to keep orders of your house and acquaint yourselfe with such good companions as there learning and manners may teach you sumwhat both concerninge religion and honest lyfe’. Thomas obviously felt Sir John’s time at the Middle Temple was an excellent opportunity to increase his son’s social networks and overall knowledge. Yet, adopting a tone of a father concerned over the dangers that could descend on a young gentleman from the Midlands new to the hustle and bustle of London, Thomas further advised his son: ‘Both the tyme and place where you are very dangerous therfore heare all and speake little and make me acquainted with such matters when you haue occasion to write’.10 However, it would be wrong to just paint Thomas Isham as a man only concerned with financial expenditure and the well being of his son. Like many other members of the landed elite in early modern England, he took pleasure in humanist culture, education, and reading. In April 1600, Thomas requested that his son obtain a book for him: ‘Tell … Nicolson I desire him, to borrowe, of Doctor [Thomas] Playfere, the booke which the Bishoppe of London did sett forth as it is thought against Mr. Chatterton [Laurence Chaderton] and other ministers’.11 The book was Richard Bancroft’s Danguerous positions and proceedings published and practised within this iland of Brytaine, a work attacking Chaderton and the non-conformity of Puritanism.12 The request for Bancroft’s work was not the only time he brought up the subject of books while Sir John was at Queens’ College. On 9 May 1600, Thomas commented to his son: ‘The readinge of those bookes you … did write me of doeth verie well content me. Yf hereafter you be not taught to make a verse instead of Lucan you may learne Plutarch, yet poetree I comend’.13 Mention of Lucian and Plutarch made it obvious that Thomas’s literary tastes went well beyond contemporary religious books to include Classical literature. Moreover, as we will see, his literary interests represented a broader penchant 57

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for intellectual pursuits among the Ishams of Lamport, a penchant that Elizabeth Isham also shared. Unfortunately for Thomas, he would not live long enough to witness his progeny’s engagement with books and intellectual endeavours, for he passed away suddenly in 1605. On his father’s death, Sir John Isham returned from London and officially became the head of his family. At his familial ascendance, his immediate concern was finding a bride. Even before his father’s demise, Sir John had made marriage a top priority, since having no heir and being the only male Isham made marriage imperative in order to ensure the continuation of the family line in Lamport. Between 1605 and 1607 Sir John considered no fewer than nine women as potential wives. Success finally came on 19 October 1607 when Sir John wed Judith Lewin, the youngest daughter of William Lewin. While no surviving documentation reveals what the marriage settlement entailed, it is certain that the match was yet another social advancement for the Ishams.14 An ecclesiastical lawyer of some repute during the reign of Elizabeth I, William Lewin owed his social advancement to William, Lord Burghley who first took notice of the lawyer during his days at Cambridge. In 1572, upon Burghley’s request, the College of Advocates admitted Lewin, marking the beginning of his legal career. Four years later, Archbishop Grindal appointed Lewin Dean of the Arches, and he subsequently ascended through the ranks to become chancellor of the diocese of Rochester by 1580. Such a position served him well, for he sat three times as Member of Parliament for Rochester in the late 1580s and early 1590s, serving on numerous committees in the process. During his advancement, Lewin married Anne, daughter of Francis Goldsmith, in 1572, and shortly after purchased his home estate of Otterden in Kent.15 Sir John Isham’s connections to Kent via Sir Anthony Denton likely gave him the inroads he needed to make contact with the Lewins and win the hand of Judith Lewin. Her pedigree provided the Ishams with further contacts at Court, a reality that likely helped in 1608 when James I knighted Sir John, firmly placing him and his family for the first time amongst the ranks of the gentry. With this new status, Sir John pursued the conventional endeavour thought fit for all members of the landed elite – to increase the status and wealth of his family. In comparison to other landed families in Northamptonshire, the Ishams in the early seventeenth century were relatively prosperous, especially when compared with their neighbours burdened by debt and expense, such as the Fitzwilliams of Milton and the Treshams of Rushton.16 By 1654, shortly after Sir Justinian Isham ascended to the head of the family, the Ishams were wealthy enough to employ the services of John Webb, the renowned pupil of Inigo Jones, to design a new façade for Lamport Hall in the neo-classical tradition. Such extravagance could never have occurred without the financial conduct of Sir John Isham. Indeed, by the time of his knighting, Sir John had continued the efforts of his father and grandfather of adding to the family coffers and holdings. He did so primarily in four ways – farming, land 58

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speculation, leasing, and money lending.17 There are no exact figures within the Isham papers that explicitly reveal just how high Sir John’s income was by the 1630s, but there are clues that lead to a reasonable estimation. In 1634 Sir John negotiated the marriage of Justinian to Jane Garrard, the daughter of Sir John Garrard, Baronet of Lamer, Hertfordshire. In the marriage settlement between the two families, Sir John declared that the annual value of the manor of Lamport was over £1,000.18 If we add the money we know Sir John earned from mortgages and land speculation to that from the manor of Lamport, Sir John’s income probably ranged from £1200 to £1500 between 1627 and 1634, and hovered around these amounts for most of his 1ife.19 Following the example of his grandfather and father, Sir John also refrained from the conspicuous consumption that was all too common among other members of the landed elite in the seventeenth century.20 Such frugality, combined with his income, gave Sir John a solid base of wealth that we will see gave Elizabeth Isham opportunities that many never-married women rarely enjoyed. Her father certainly was not the richest man in Northamptonshire, but he was well off, which allowed Sir John to focus his attention on other matters besides managing his estate and business affairs. At the forefront of such interests were the local politics of his home county, something he actively engaged in from almost the moment he succeeded his father and became sheriff and then justice of the peace. In doing so, Sir John interacted with some of the most powerful and prominent men in Northamptonshire, if not in all of England and negotiated the county’s complex political and dynamics throughout his entire life. Along with the county of Rutland, Northamptonshire sat within the diocese of Peterborough. Created in the wake of the dissolution of the monasteries, Peterborough was a relatively new diocese carved out of the immense ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Lincoln. The real wealth and power in the diocese concentrated in Northamptonshire, where the majority of the diocese’s landed families resided. During much of the early Stuart period, two men dominated local affairs – Sir Edward, first Baron Montagu of Boughton and Sir Robert, Lord Spencer of Althorp – having enormous influence over the county bench and the choosing of who would represent the shire in Parliament.21 As William Sheils and John Fielding have shown, throughout the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods, the county also had a deep and abiding Puritan presence, particularly at the level of the landed elite. This led to Peterborough being synonymous with Puritanism by the accession of James I in 1603. From the most moderate acts, such as Sir Walter Mildmay’s founding of Emmanuel College for the spreading of the Gospel, to the more radical approaches represented by Sir Richard Knightley’s promotion of Presbyterianism and involvement with the Marprelate tracts, Puritanism indeed had deep roots in the diocese. A good many Northamptonshire gentry sought further reformation of the national church by installing godly ministers in their parish churches who promoted a strongly predestinarian piety, strictly 59

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observed the Sabbath, and stressed the importance of preaching over ceremony. Dotted throughout the county were centres of preaching like the combination lectures at Kettering – under the patronage of Lord Montagu – and at Northampton. Here godly divines, such as Daniel Cawdrey, Thomas Ball, John Barker, Robert Bolton, and Joseph Bentham preached to both their colleagues in the ministry and large lay auditories. More clandestine, if not radical, was the clerical patronage that revolved around the Drydens of Canons Ashby and the Knightleys of Fawsley, who willingly resisted the dictates of the Crown and Church by financially supporting radical Puritan clerics ejected from their livings for non-conformity in the early Stuart period. Both families essentially created a church within a church in Northamptonshire, harbouring ministers like John Dod, who in turn not only preached at Fawsley and Canons Ashby, but also in the homes of other county elites.22 This contrasted greatly with the more formal institutions of the diocese – namely the bishopric and church courts. From the crowning of James I until the Civil War, every bishop who presided over Peterborough held either deeply antiCalvinist or Arminian convictions, while members of the church courts sought to implement similar beliefs within the diocese. The result was a combustible situation between a largely godly gentry, their parish clergy, and an anti-Puritan episcopal administration that had the potential of exploding. For most of the early seventeenth century, hostilities took the form of mere flare-ups, but when the Church in the 1630s implemented the Laudian reforms through the likes of men such as Sir John Lambe and Robert Sibthorpe, a true eruption occurred.23 In this political and religious environment, where a bitter divide existed between the godly and their anti-Calvinist enemies, Sir John Isham lived and worshipped. Based on existing evidence, an impression emerges of him as a man who walked a tightrope over the county’s existing divisions. Key to his balancing act was his cultivation of a moderate religious sensibility that rested between extremes and ensured that he did not create distrust among his peers. On one level, Sir John had no qualms about interacting with people of a conservative or episcopal bent, including clerics of major repute in both Northamptonshire and all of England. One such individual was John Williams, noted for being both the bishop of Lincoln and then York but who also had ties to Northamptonshire, where he served as parson of Grafton Underwood and JP of the quorum in the late 1610s. Indeed, holding these positions brought Williams directly into conflict with Lord Montagu over the enforcement of observing the Sabbath in Grafton Underwood that became a local cause célèbre.24 Evidence in the Isham papers indicates that Sir John and Williams were acquaintances, if not friends; a letter exists amongst the Isham papers that Williams wrote on 5 September 1626 while Bishop of Lincoln that called on Sir John to mediate a land sale.25 Their acquaintance likely developed when both served on the county bench as Northamptonshire JPs, and 60

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such a position gave Sir John an insider stance on the Grafton Underwood affair in 1618, so much so that it allowed him to report on it with another local cleric, Robert Tounson.26 Dean of Westminster at the time, Tounson had been vicar of Old, Northamptonshire and a client of Sir John between 1607 and 1617. Tounson would later assume the bishopric of Salisbury and, shortly after his new appointment, become an early cleric to utilize the articles of John Overall, Bishop of Norwich, articles that one historian has declared as the ‘flagship amongst anti-Calvinist articles’.27 Based on his ties to Williams and Tounson, an impression of Sir John emerges of a man who held conformist and perhaps moderate anti-Calvinist religious beliefs. Further support for this assessment comes from an examination of Sir John’s rectory appointments for Lamport. During his tenure as the Isham patriarch, four clerics sat as the rectors of Lamport. The first was Daniel Baxter, a Calvinist conformist whose appointment Sir John inherited from his father, Thomas Isham.28 In 1629, Sir John appointed Thomas Bunning as rector of the parish, who appears to have been Baxter’s curate for most of the early seventeenth century. Unfortunately for Bunning, his tenure as rector was short lived, due to his death in 1636. For his successor, Sir John appointed his distant counsin, William Nokes, a decision well in line with the wishes of Francis Dee, the Bishop of Peterborough at the time.29 Owing his position to William Laud, Dee wished to move the Church of England towards an increased emphasis on ceremony. It is unclear what exact connections he had with Nokes, but Dee did have ties to the Lamport minister, for he bequeathed money to Nokes in his will.30 Although there is no surviving evidence about how Nokes conducted church services in Lamport, such a connection to Dee suggests that he most likely at least conformed to the Laudian reforms. During the 1640s, Nokes would fall under the fire of the Committee for Plundered Ministers for provoking the ire of parishioners in Northamptonshire for having a history of pluralism, holding livings simultaneously in Lamport and Great Addington during the 1630s.31 Nokes’s pluralism largely stemmed from the fact that it was well known by locals that Sir John, due to inheriting the ninety-nine year lease of the rectory, controlled and pocketed the £400 benefice to the depravation of Lamport’s ministers. This caused a critic to lambast Sir John for not promoting the propagation of the Word: ‘no marvel if there were little preaching, and ’tis pitty that such a great Living should be swallowed up under colour only of a Lease’.32 Together, these details leave the impression that Sir John was averse to Calvinist doctrine and godly religion. Yet we should be extremely cautious in coming to such a conclusion. Indeed, Sir John had numerous ties with noted Northamptonshire Puritans, both lay and clerical. A case in point was the friendship that appears to have existed between him and the godly Robert Woodford, the noted diarist and steward of Northampton. All evidence of the interaction between the two men comes from Woodford’s diary, which he 61

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kept between 1637 and 1641. Similar to many Puritans, Woodford divided the world into two groups of people – the elect who God predestined for salvation and the reprobate who lacked his grace, a group that Puritans felt deserved avoidance. Although he strove to follow such an ideal, Woodford nonetheless interacted with the so-called reprobate, largely because his profession required him to socialize with a wide range of characters, including people he deemed reprobate and with whom he sometimes spent evenings drinking and smoking. Woodford proved guiltridden for such behaviour and interactions, seeking to repent by recording and remembering his transgressions in his diary.33 However, these regrets do not exist when he described his interactions with Sir John Isham, indicating that Woodford did not view him as one of the ungodly. Despite some disagreements that occurred between them over Parliamentary elections in 1640, both Sir John and Woodford had good relations, with the latter often providing legal services for the former and visiting the Isham estate of Lamport Hall.34 Sir John’s amicable interactions with the Northamptonshire godly also stretched into the clerical ranks. In particular, Sir John ensured that the Ishams would have intimate contact with perhaps the epitome of a godly minister in early Stuart England – John Dod. During the early 1620s, this Puritan and non-conforming minister made numerous visits to Lamport Hall, usually for the purpose of providing spiritual guidance to Judith, Lady Isham and, upon permission by Sir John, religious instruction to the Isham children. The fact that Sir John allowed Dod to interact and attempt to shape the religious sensibilities of his children illustrates that, although he patronized conformists, if not Laudians in his local parish, he was not averse to the preaching of radical Puritans. By letting Dod in his home, Sir John became an active participant in the Knightleys and Drydens’ ‘church within a church’ within Northamptonshire. Indeed, such participation had enormous significance in shaping Elizabeth Isham’s world, perhaps no more exemplified than by the fact that Sir John willingly sought to have his daughter marry into the Dryden family. Since the Drydens – under the patriarchal authority of Sir Erasmus Dryden for much of the early seventeenth century – were leading members of the landed elite in Northamptonshire and allied to powerful men, like Richard Knightley, a marriage alliance with them had the potential of increasing the Ishams’ political and social ties in the county. Consequently, for Sir John – a man we have seen acutely concerned with his political and social standing in the community – it was logical and natural to pursue the match. Talks between the two families began in earnest in the spring of 1630, when Sir Erasmus welcomed the idea of his grandson marrying Elizabeth: ‘This causeth mee with due thankfulness to god (for this speciall fauor) to declare my correspondensye in enterainge your alliance and readines to yeild such present maintenance and such Jointure as your porcion shall requier’.35 Sir Erasmus’s son, John Dryden I, also welcomed the match, sending word 62

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to Sir John nearly a fortnight later: ‘you shall neuer treate with any man that shall more truly desier your loue and aliance then my selfe’.36 Having concluded the initial courtesies, negotiations began over the financial details of the match. On 22 April 1630 Sir Erasmus proposed to Sir John Isham: ‘namely, if you will parte with 4000£ my grandson, [and] your daughter shalbe allowed (during my life) 300£ by the year and after my death, her jointure [will be] 400£ yearily’. To assure the completion of the marriage alliance, and the transfer of the desired £4,000 portion, Sir Erasmus mobilized his close friends, Richard Knightley and John Dod, to join in the negotiations.37 In a letter to Knightley on 4 August, Sir John discussed two major stumbling blocks. The first issue was Sir Erasmus’s offer of £300 during his life and then £400 after his death for Elizabeth’s jointure. Seeking to clarify the offer, Sir John asked that: ‘If there uponn I may conclude that thereby an estate in land of 400£ a yeare in present may be made good to my daughter to ioynture & maintenance for the young gent’. Sir John went on to ask that if Sir Erasmus was not able to supply a £400 jointure that his son, John Dryden I, should make sure that the Drydens supply the requested amount: ‘if Sir E [rasmus] will not be wiling to parte with that reuenue [£400] during his life out of his estate for their [the couple’s] present maintenance then to haue the same supplied by Mr. Driden [John Dryden I]’.38 Sir John’s insistence on this point was sound, ensuring as it did the steady maintenance of the young couple. Yet his concern for their financial security did not end here. Sir Erasmus’s offer for a jointure was comparatively low for the time, when most prospective brides obtained a jointure that represented more than £100 for each £1,000 of portion. In fact, out of fifteen marriages that took place among other contemporary landed families in Northamptonshire, most did not have such a low jointure and maintenance as that offered by Sir Erasmus. A typical example of the ratio of jointure to portion in the 1630s was the alliance cemented between the Fitzwilliams of Milton and the Perrys, a mercer family from London. The marriage occurred in 1638 and involved Lord Fitzwilliam’s heir William and Jane, daughter of the London alderman and mercer, Hugh Perry. For a portion of £5,000, Fitzwilliam provided a jointure of £600, going beyond the standard of £100 for each £1,000. Fitzwilliam was not alone in offering such a handsome jointure; other landed families in the county acted similarly. For a marriage in 1633 between his eldest son Robert and Mary Dunbar, Lord Thomas Brudenell provided a £700 jointure in return for a £6,000 portion. Indeed, another excellent example comes from the Ishams themselves; Sir John’s only son, Justinian Isham, married Jane, daughter of Sir John Garrard of Lamer, Hertfordshire in 1634. Justinian’s new bride brought a £4,000 portion to the marriage and in return his father guaranteed a jointure of £600.39 In light of such examples, it is not surprising that Sir John Isham wished to increase the pressure in response to Sir Erasmus Dryden’s relatively low 63

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offer of a jointure. In the same letter to Knightley on 4 August 1630 Sir John sought a further stipulation that Sir Erasmus assure that residue from the Dryden home estate of Canons Ashby and their property of Hodnell in nearby Warwickshire would come down through inheritance to John Dryden II and any future male heirs begotten with Elizabeth.40 On receipt of Sir John’s letter, Knightley promptly replied to Sir John’s new stipulation by informing him that Sir Erasmus’s executor would hold the revenue from the lands for a year after his death.41 Sir John found it wholly unacceptable, largely because Elizabeth’s jointure would come from such revenue and possibly remain out of her reach for a year if unfortunate circumstances would befall her future father-in-law or husband. Consequently Sir John never wavered from his desire that the Dryden estates should descend immediately to John Dryden I upon the death of Sir Erasmus. On 11 August John I sought to break the impasse and reassure Sir John by explaining in more detail Sir Erasmus’s plans for Canons Ashby and Hodnell: ‘when hee [Sir Erasmus] made his will … theare shoulde haue beene an indifferent choice made of 4 honest Gentlemen our neighboures to set downe the rates of the stock and chattells in Ashby. And if I would so take them at those rates they were praised then I should peaceably enter upon all of Ashby and Hodnell’.42 While Ashby and Hodnell became an issue, Sir Erasmus deployed John Dod, whose connections to the Ishams ideally placed him to tell Sir John on 22 September that ‘Sir Erasmus Driden [desires] upon my report that as soone as the marriage was concluded and the articles agreed upon that then (upon sufficient securitie) you would be pleased to make present payment of one 1000£’.43 To demonstrate his good will, Sir John promptly made the requested payment early, not waiting for the marriage of the young couple to provide the money. The payment was part of the £4,000 portion that Sir Erasmus had proposed at the beginning of the negotiations. As Dod and Sir John corresponded, it seems that Sir Erasmus may not have had full contact with Dod and did not know of the £1,000 payment, for he asked for the same amount plus an additional £1,000 on 28 September. He was also eager to conclude the negotiations: ‘My desier is that wee hasten to a conclusion as soone as conuiently possible’.44 Regrettably for all involved, the unresolved matter of Sir John’s insistence on Canons Ashby and Hodnell remained. Some progress had been achieved in March 1631 when Knightley offered hope to Edward Shagborough – an Isham representative – that Sir Erasmus was willing to meet Sir John’s demands concerning the Dryden estates: ‘this is resolued that the younge people, shall presentlie during Sir Erasmus Drydens life haue 320£ yearely, & after his death to make it up 400£, & soe much ioynture & Ashby and Hodnill to be assured upon their heire males’.45 Although an extra £20 added to the jointure was not a major concession, Sir Erasmus’s decision to concede on the issue of Ashby and Hodnell offered hope for successful conclusion of the negotiations. As April began, however, the Dryden patriarch dashed such hopes by refusing to compromise on Sir 64

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John’s demands on the estate of Hodnell. In response, the Dryden’s lawyer and noted Puritan opponent to the Crown, Christopher Sherland, suggested to the Isham’s lawyer, Robert Tanfield, that John I add an annuity of £100 to Sir Erasmus’s promised £300 so as to meet Sir John’s request of £400 for Elizabeth’s jointure.46 Reflecting the impatience that doubtless all involved felt by that point, John I alluded to these suggested alterations to the proposed match in a letter to Sir John on 8 April: ‘This day upon commande from my father I haue beene with Mr Sheriland, who hath had a seconde veiwe of the Marriage Bookes, soom things are altered by my father … I would intreate you to peruse these lines … that you would bee pleased to giue us a meeting at Northampton to finish thease occasions’.47 At this point Sir John became adamant: he did not find the proposed alteration of a £100 annuity for Elizabeth’s jointure to his liking, nor was he pleased with Sir Erasmus’s renewed stance on Hodnell. With Sir Erasmus ever unpredictable and unyielding, Tanfield confessed his bewilderment about what to do next, given ‘the uncertayne and variable resolutions of Sir Erasmus Dryden I know noe better way to reconcile the differences’. With a degree of desperation, he advised Sir John to think of some other course to follow if he could not convince Sir Erasmus to yield.48 Weary after more than a year of haggling and likely feeling his honour besmirched, Sir John chose to suspend talks with the Drydens and, in the process, began voicing his frustration. At the end of the following month, John I expressed regret in a letter to Sir John that the whole affair had fallen apart, but he also voiced his displeasure on learning that Sir John had spoken ill of Sir Erasmus: ‘hearing harsh aspercions which you have caste upon my father, understandably whose honor I cannot but bee jealous of’.49 Amid these mutual recriminations, the financial negotiations over the proposed Isham–Dryden match ended. The correspondence that provides all these details paints a picture of economic haggling by family patriarchs, ideas of honour among the Northamptonshire gentry, and financial reasons why the proposed marriage of John Dryden and Elizabeth Isham ultimately failed. What it does not show is how she experienced the entire affair, and thus we view the proposed Isham– Dryden match largely through the lens of Sir John Isham provided to us by the Isham papers. In other words, the legacy of patriarchy shapes our historical memory, placing Elizabeth not at the centre but the periphery of the narrative that revolves around the match. Indeed, much of what we have recounted here about Sir John testifies to the Isham collection largely placing her on the outskirts the family’s history. The contrary is true for Sir John, since the Isham papers give the impression that he served as an all powerful patriarch whose decisions and actions created a context in which the majority of the members of his family merely played supporting roles in the story of his life. In this story, we see him as a man of moderate means, modest wealth and political sway caught in a world of extremes, who sought to live a 65

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conventional life of a gentleman concerned with maintaining his status and wealth. Inheriting from his father and grandfather this moderate character trait, as well as a sound financial base, Sir John practised frugality in his management of the family’s wealth, continuing the profitable familial tradition of selling wool while simultaneously earning modest profits from land speculation and money lending. Although Sir John sat in the proverbial driver’s seat in these activities, their reverberating effect on the Ishams was profound, for the wealth of the family placed both constraints and opportunities on its members, especially, as we shall see, Elizabeth. A hard fact of the matter is that nearly all surviving women’s life-writings from the early modern period came from the hands of women who belonged to the upper ranks of English society, a status that no doubt provided them with the time and means to put pen to paper and write about themselves. Elizabeth Isham was no exception – without her father’s wealth, she likely may never have had the opportunity to write the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and would have been largely lost to history. A similar impact resulted from Sir John’s active participation in the political, social, and religious dynamics of Northamptonshire, choosing yet again a moderate stance when interacting with his neighbours in the county and making parish appoints in Lamport. Indeed, Sir John apparently saw no incongruity between dealing with men like John Williams or Robert Tounson nor John Dod or Robert Woodford. Moreover, serving as a broker in the Isham–Dryden match was a manifestation of such an approach, and highlights Sir John’s ambitions to cultivate political and social networks to maximize his and his family’s standing in the county. Of course, the dissolution of the match greatly shaped the trajectory of Elizabeth Isham’s life, and set the ball in motion for her to follow the path of a never-married rather than a married woman, a status not only important to her existence but that also served as a key motivation for why she wrote her spiritual autobiography. While certainly not giving us the full picture of this life, the Isham papers nonetheless show us how Sir John proved instrumental in creating this reality for Elizabeth. Moreover, they make us acutely aware that the county context of Northamptonshire shaped his motivations and actions during the negotiation of the match. Consequently, we must understand Sir John’s context in order to understand Elizabeth Isham’s context. The same is true for her brother, Sir Justinian Isham.

ELIZABETH ISHAM’S BROTHER AND PATRIARCH Of all the monuments to Elizabeth Isham’s family found in All Saints Church, by far the most ostentatious honours Sir Justinian Isham. Sculpted out of white marble and topped with the Isham family crest, the monument sits about a metre above the floor of the north chapel, with an inscription that 66

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eulogizes Elizabeth’s younger brother. Providing brief detail on Sir Justinian’s life and character, the inscription declares that he was a man ‘Equipped with the best training and skill at home and abroad and endowed with an excellent natural character, with learning, eloquence, discretion and every virtue’. Doubtless, such personal qualities aided Sir Justinian’s social and political rise within Northamptonshire, for, as the monument describes: ‘Charles II, having been at last restored, he [Justinian] was elected by the people to the high court of Parliament’.50 The road to Parliament, however, proved long and hard for Justinian, largely because he did not approach life with the similar moderation embodied by his father. Nothing better illustrates this more than Justinian’s loyalty to Charles I during the Civil Wars. Although sympathetic to the king, Sir John was never as overtly supportive of Charles as his son, who, while never taking up arms, nonetheless spent time in the Royalist stronghold of Oxford during the war. Sir Justinian suffered imprisonment for his loyalties during the Interregnum, an outcome that represented a far cry from the moderate and conventional life of his father. Differing also from his father in other ways, Justinian’s interests went well beyond concerns for maintaining or increasing the Ishams’ prestige and status, since he devoted much time to intellectual pursuits that put him into contact with important founders of English science and the Royal Society. Yet Justinian was a landed gentleman, a reality that obliged him to concern himself with common issues that all men of status faced. In particular, he expended considerable energy in finding a bride and acquiring a male heir, especially after his first wife died in 1639 without leaving him with a surviving son to perpetuate the Isham line. While not ascending to the head of his family until 1651, Justinian nonetheless, with all his activities, greatly shaped the world of Lamport Hall and affected all the Ishams, not least of whom his sister, Elizabeth Isham. Born on 20 January 1611, Sir Justinian Isham was the youngest child of Sir John and Judith, Lady Isham. He was the namesake of Lady Isham’s brother, Sir Justinian Lewin, and he proved the only hope for the continuation of the family line, since he was their only son. Consequently, his parents groomed Justinian to become the Isham patriarch. Similar to his father, the foundation of such grooming called for a strong formal education, which first began with the local cleric, Thomas Bunning, who served as tutor to Justinian when he was a young boy. Sir John took further care of Justinian’s education, sending the boy to Uppingham School to study under the tutelage of John Clerk. Sir John was wise in his choice, since Uppingham often served as a conduit for pupils to attend Christ’s College, Cambridge, something that he pushed to make a reality for Justinian in 1627.51 He did so largely by relying on the Ishams’ existing social networks to procure Justinian’s matriculation at Cambridge. Key to this were ties that the Ishams had in Suffolk, particularly with Sir Martin Stuteville of Dalham – Sir John’s brother-in-law and husband to his sister Susan – who was a close 67

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friend and correspondent to the noted academic, Joseph Mede. Of course, historians are well acquainted with the Stuteville and Mede correspondence, especially for it providing a window from which to view the ‘current issues’ of the 1620s and 1630s that concerned English society at the time. Yet interspersed in letters centred on subjects such as the Spanish Match, the Thirty Years’ War, or Northamptonshire gentlemen refusing to pay the Forced Loan, Stuteville and Mede addressed less colourful subjects. Indeed, early in 1627, the young Justinian Isham became a frequent topic of conversation for Mede and Stuteville, with the latter requesting the former take on Sir John’s son as a student. Mede proved keen on the idea, and by 21 April, he informed Stuteville: ‘On Wednesday morning came Mr Justinian Isham, to my chamber & was admitted’.52 A fellow-commoner at Christ’s College, Justinian spent a year in Cambridge. While there, his chamber mate was his cousin John Stuteville – Sir Martin’s eldest son – and both pupils joined the ranks of such men as Henry More and John Milton who attended Christ’s College during John Mede’s tenure there. A respected scholar and known millenarian, Mede was well versed in a number of subjects, including Hebrew, Greek, Scripture, philosophy, mathematics, botany, and history. As Justinian related, he was also a man who took great interest in the care of his students, and such care eventually led to a close relationship between tutor and pupil. Indeed, when summer came in 1627, Mede intended to stay at Lamport during a trip from Lincolnshire to Northamptonshire. In mid-August, Mede found his way to the Isham estate where he stayed for three days before heading to the Stuteville estate of Dalham in Suffolk. The Ishams did not wish to see him depart so soon: ‘I came on Saturday to Lamport where I stayed three dayes & but that I ran away betimes in the morning was in danger to haue stayed 3 weekes. Sir John gott up in his shirt but in vaine; complained he should haue written to you’. Before allowing Mede to leave, Sir John insisted he promise to visit again before Michaelmas. Mede paid lip-service to the request, bidding his adieu, and headed to Dalham. Justinian accompanied him for the first few miles of the journey on the understanding that he would point his tutor in the right direction, but in truth he did so in a last attempt to convince Mede to stay longer at the Isham estate: ‘my Pupill (who was willing to haue returned with me) he yeelded onely that he should go some 5 or 6 miles to show me the way … but no further, unlesse I would stay a fortnight longer’.53 Unfortunately, Justinian’s attempt proved futile, for Mede pushed on toward Suffolk, leaving behind his student and Lamport. Despite the outcome, genuine affection existed between tutor and student, and just a short month later, Justinian was back in Cambridge to continue his studies under Mede’s watchful eye and direction. Attending Christ’s College well into the next year, Justinian eventually moved on to the Middle Temple, following in his father’s footsteps in the process. Justinian’s departure, however, from Cambridge did not mean that he lost contact with Mede. Indeed, they continued their intellectual relationship, engaging in long-term correspondence for roughly the 68

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next decade, correspondence that largely dealt with news of the day, particularly the Thirty Years’ War.54 Both men would have likely continued to stay in close contact for years to come had it not been for Mede’s unexpected death on 1 October 1638. Although Justinian certainly must have taken the death hard, he honoured the memory of his old tutor by pursuing further intellectual endeavours well after his mentor’s passing. His connections to Mede made him well placed to run in academic circles that included some of the great minds of not just England, but all of Europe. By far the most noteworthy of these associations was with Samuel Hartlib, the intelligencer who created what historians commonly refer to as the ‘Hartlib Circle’ – a vast network of correspondence, books, and manuscript circulation in the first half of the seventeenth century. How they met is unclear, but what is certain is that Justinian began corresponding with the intelligencer shortly after the death of Mede, whom Hartlib also knew well. Much of the correspondence that Hartlib sent to Justinian dealt with news of the Thirty Years’ War, but he also addressed intellectual endeavours, especially in efforts that began in 1639 to arrange the arrival of Johannes Amos Comenius to England. Hailing from Moravia, Comenius was a theologian and educator who championed the creation of universal knowledge, or pansophy, knowledge that Comenius hoped would reveal the sum total of the truths of God’s world and allow humanity to better understand the essence of his divine plans.55 Justinian proved a great admirer of Comenius, and consequently was receptive to Hatlib’s attempts to bring the Moravian to England, working with a fellow Northamptonshire gentleman, Sir Christopher Hatton, to successfully assist in achieving the goal in 1641. Unfortunately, with England on the brink of civil war, Comenius’s stay proved short, but Justinian pursued similar activities in the years to come, eventually creating ties with men like Seth Ward, John Wilkins, and other key individuals who eventually founded the Royal Society in 1660. Ultimately, Justinian’s active interest in science and learning proved beneficial; on 7 November 1673 the fellows of the Royal Society unanimously elected him a member.56 Surely this was sweet affirmation for Justinian after his many years of intellectual pursuits. Having such a man within its ranks tied the Ishams – no matter how directly or peripherally – to some of the ‘great minds’ of early modern England, if not all of Europe. Not only did Justinian Isham – beginning at a very early age – associate and correspond with men like Comenius, Hartlib, Ward, and founding members of the Royal Society but he also brought into the very doors of Lamport Hall arguably the champion of millenarian studies in the early Stuart period, Joseph Mede. Ironically, despite the vastness of the Isham collection, we do not have a proverbial ‘smoking gun’ that directly or explicitly reveals how all of this may have affected the Ishams. Yet to conclude that it did not lacks historical imagination. Justinian illustrates that knowledge and the development of the mind was important to the seventeenthcentury Ishams. While we may not have much evidence of Sir John Isham’s 69

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intellectual pursuits, we must remember his inclination to extend Mede’s visits to the family estate, an inclination that suggests that he revelled as much as his son in the Cambridge tutor’s presence. In such a cultural milieu, it should be no surprise then that Elizabeth Isham chose to remember her life in writing by producing her 60,000-word ‘Booke of Rememberance’, an act that we surely can describe as intellectual in nature. As we have seen and will further see, books and reading – two things that Justinian did influence – proved instrumental in how Elizabeth thought about her life and conceptualized it in writing. Considering that her immediate context included a brother who hobnobbed with the likes of Comenius, Hartlib, or Ward, the making of her spiritual autobiography seems less random or a fluke of history. Indeed, we could argue that her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was the pinnacle of the Ishams’ academic pursuits in the seventeenth century. If Justinian, however, contributed to shaping the intellectual environment of Lamport Hall, none of this should leave the impression that his thirst for knowledge solely defined his existence. After all, he was a member of the gentry, and this status forced Justinian to concern himself with other matters, including the social status of his family and the political realities that faced his home county and, more broadly, England as a whole. In roughly the same period that he associated with such men as Comenius, Hartlib, and Ward, Justinian also became a married man, a father, and widower. Until 1657, Justinian would only have daughters and lacked a male heir, a reality that threatened the continuation of his family line. It was only natural, therefore, that wedlock and children consumed much of Justinian’s time and energy. Moreover, shortly after Charles I unveiled his standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642, Justinian offered his support to the king. Although never taking up arms, Justinian’s allegiance to Charles placed the Ishams directly in the sights of Parliament both during and after the war, with the family arguably facing its greatest challenges and difficulties in the early modern period. Needless to say, combined, Justinian’s familial and wartime pursuits also greatly affected the world and life of his sister Elizabeth. Of course, Justinian’s wife Jane ultimately died on 4 March 1639, tragically after the birth of a short-lived baby boy named John. The death of his wife and son forced Justinian to face the grief of losing a spouse and child, as well as experience the reality that he had no one to carry on the family line if he unexpectedly died. Confronted with these circumstances, Justinian prepared the burials of his two loved ones. For his wife, a local stonecutter named Thomas Stanton executed Justinian’s design of a monument in which three angels hold up the inscription, ‘Religiosa Deo, Casta Marito, Liberis Chara’.57 Justinian also honoured the memory of his son, John, by having a copper plate erected in the church that eulogized the infant boy: I saw the world too soone and soone I died But had I longer lived to have espied 70

The Ishams of Lamport and their world A world of mischiefe in this world contain’d I might have lost that which I now have gain’d.58

Both monuments were a bittersweet testimony to Justinian’s love for his wife and son. As we have seen, the tragic event occurred while Elizabeth Isham was in the process of composing her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and led her to feel that the spiritual autobiography could possibly serve as a mother’s legacy book of sorts once she became the primary female elder to Justinian’s daughters. If Elizabeth hoped that her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ provided exemplary advice to her nieces on how to live the life of a pious woman, Justinian intended to achieve similar aims with an advice letter he sent the girls on 22 October 1642. Opening the letter, Justinian stated his purpose for writing: ‘The uncertaintie of man’s life, of his course and condition whilst he is living, as also the state of things where he lives, are motives sufficient to neglect no tyme … I write this … for the discharge of myself and the manifestation of that dearest affection I have towards you’. Moving on, he focused primarily on giving advice to his daughters on the most effective ways to cultivate their personal pieties and religious identities. For such purposes, they benefited from their familial and county context: I beleeue that no woemen in England haue fairer Examples to follow of their own sex & kindred on both sides … then you haue whose names I doubt not will be still fresh unto you … Your imitation of diuers of them (of one which, Lady to the Lord Edward Mountague, you may chance meete with some obseruations of mine in a letter to Her) will saue me a labour of giuing my precepts to you, there hauing bin of our House both maides, wifes, & widdowes, all of a very virtuous exemplary life.

Combined with following the exemplary lives of their female kin and Ann, the wife of Lord Montagu, Justinian also told his daughters to delve into devotional literature, despite the fact that he bought into the conventional gendered attitudes of his time: Although your sex is not so capable of those stronger abilities of the intellect, to make you so learned & knowing as men ought to be … St. Augustines Meditations, Kempe of the imitation of Christ & Gerard’s Meditations I commend unto you, as also Doctor Featlies Handemaide to Devotion & Divers Treatises of Doctor Sibbs often read over by your mother who was a religious & discreet woman.

Learning from books and from the example of how other women conducted themselves was ultimately to ensure what Justinian wished his daughters to be – holy, chaste, obedient, charitable, discreet, frugal, and affable. All were attributes that he believed defined a virtuous woman and served largely two purposes. The first dealt with marital status: ‘A virtuous woman is a good portion … which shall be given as a gift to such feare the Lord, so here you see the best way to gett a good husband unto who being virtuous you will be 71

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a very possession, nay more his crowne & glorye’. The second centred on God: ‘I say serue him, be euer mindeful with what a price you are bought, and that you endeavour to keep your selues Holy and unspotted as Temples of the Holy Spirit will at length witness unto yours that you are the children of God’.59 Such evidence is a rarity in the Isham collection – it gives us a tantalizing glimpse of male and female relations within the family during the seventeenth century. Yet the glimpse comes from the perspective of a future and landed patriarch. It is obvious that Justinian took great interest in and had affection for his daughters, but it is as clear that he also took a definite paternal attitude – coloured with conventional gendered ideals of the period – towards them. Indeed, his wish was for his daughters to adopt the persona of the pious gentlewoman, brimming with virtues like chastity, obedience, and discretion. While this would please God, it would also prove attractive to potential suitors once Justinian’s daughters had come of age and went on the marriage market. Nowhere did he state that the girls should choose or had the option to remain single throughout their lives; rather, he envisioned them becoming the pious wives of well-respected men of comparable social standing. To ensure this occurred, the girls were to follow the exemplary conduct of their female elders and read devotional literature. Interestingly, we have already seen how many of the book titles – such as Augustine’s Meditations – that Justinian offered up for his daughters proved significant to Elizabeth Isham and the production of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. This adds further credence to the assertion that Justinian assisted in making Lamport Hall an intellectual environment – if he was recommending them to his daughters, it seems very likely that he may have done the same for his sister or that the Ishams held in reverence writings by the likes of Augustine. Similarly, Justinian’s views on marriage enhance our examination in Chapter 3 of Elizabeth’s less than conventional marital status of singlehood, a status that may have been a reason why he chose not to explicitly state her name as an exemplar for his daughters in the letter or why he failed to erect a funeral monument in her honour. Yet, why did Justinian feel the need to write the letter to his daughters in the first place? Much as it was a compelling motivation for Elizabeth to write her autobiography, Justinian seems to have perceived the spectre of death looming over him. Considering his personal situation in 1642, it was not an unreasonable fear, since he openly supported Charles I during the 1640s and even lived for a time in Oxford during the Civil Wars. It was a prudent decision, for Northamptonshire was a Parliamentarian stronghold, something not surprising when remembering the godly propensity of much of its landed elite in the county. Loyalty to the king in this context did not bode well for anyone, including members of the gentry or aristocracy. For Justinian, he feared that Parliament’s challenge – led by radical Puritans – to Charles I, could evolve into an entire breakdown of the social hierarchy of England. Unlike his father, 72

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Justinian held more negative views on Puritanism, as comments in his advice letter to his daughters illustrate: ‘I charge you on my Blessing euer (as neere as you can) to be deligent obseruers both of her [the Church of England] Doctrine & Discipline … But herein you ought to bee very cautious in your regard of her Ministers, some of which are men of great zeale & of a singular Facultie in the stirring up of Affections, though not altogether of so sound Judgement’.60 For Justinian, the Church of England was the most reformed and true church, and Puritan ministers practised poor judgement when they questioned its established liturgy set down in the Book of Common Prayer. While simultaneously adding weight to speculation that he feared death during the Civil War, further evidence of Justinian’s reverence for the national church also comes from the will he drew up in 1644 when living in the king’s stronghold of Oxford. Wishing to provide for the minister of Shangton, an estate he acquired in his first marriage, Justinian commanded his executors to: pay or cause to be paide to the Parson of Shangton in the County of Leicester then being, and to his successors ten pounds per annum … provided that the sayd Parson and his successors shall duly every Lords Day … preach one sermon both in Defence and Explanation of our Liturgie, and read the Common Praiers fully and constantly on the Lords Dayes and on such other dayes as is ordered by the Church of England.61

Combined with the views given to his daughters, Justinian’s stipulation that he would not provide £10 unless the liturgy prescribed in the Prayer Book took precedence over preaching in the parish of Shangton is strong evidence that he was at least a prayer book Protestant, if not a Laudian in his sympathies. This religious stance made Justinian no friend of Puritans, something he further made clear in a long document of musings on science, politics, and religion. In the manuscript, he denounced Puritans for their rejection of saints and the Church’s liturgy by asking: ‘Have they hated Idolatrie and committed sacriledge?’ He also questioned Puritan hostility toward Laudianism, especially their common practice of declaring in the pulpit their opposition to anything ceremonial. Moreover, since the main ringleaders of the challenge to the king held Puritan sensibilities, Justinian could not help shoot more venom at the godly: ‘The People [Parliamentarians] … they also having at any tyme had but the ragines loosend & the stronger power in them haue bin as excessively unreasonable in their limiting of their Princes Perogatives as their princes could haue euer bin in the restraint of the Subiects Libertie’. He viewed Puritan and Parliamentary objections to Church and king as excessive, so much so that he feared these objections could encourage the lower orders to question all of their social superiors. Above all he believed in hierarchy: ‘lett every one looke to his proper Duty in the way he is in, Princes in their Regiment, subiects in their obedience’.62 There is no more explicit evidence that explains Justinian’s ideological grounds for his allegiance to supporting the king during the Civil Wars. 73

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His royalism had profound repercussions for both him and his family, and brought Sir John Isham and Elizabeth Isham directly into the fray of the war, no matter the fact that the former strove to remain neutral throughout the conflict. Shortly after Justinian fled to Oxford, he remained in clandestine correspondence with Elizabeth, who fed him reports of events around the family estate. In March 1644, Justinian asked her to confirm news that he had heard concerning Lamport Hall: I haue herd by diuers howe some [Parliamentarian] forces brake into your house & chamber in the night, which, whatsoeuer they did there, was more barbarous and savadge in regard of the afright yourself & little children might be put to at that season, then if in the day tyme they had come and turned you all out doors.63

Elizabeth responded promptly to her brother’s letter, reporting that all the family members were well: ‘I thank God we haue bin well since that afright you hard of us. I dare say … we had no hurt some report abroad are worse then sometimes they are I desire it should not be so by me for we shall fare neuer the better for the making the matter worse’. Despite her reassurance that there was no major harm to the family, Elizabeth nonetheless recounted how the soldiers attacked the property of one of Justinian’s servants: ‘they (the gray men) [Parliamentarian Soldiers] came in the night to your Baily Freeman & serched his house for plate & many it is said & tooke away his horses & your beast is gon’.64 Unable to subdue his worries, Justinian replied: I should thinke if the high chamber door were made up like the rest of that wall, and such a door (as you haue heard mee speake of) were made in the roofe of the closet that has the black doore, that yourself or him [Sir John Isham] who you are with, may lie there more securely at least from rogues & robbers.65

To even imagine, let alone actually build a secret room in Lamport Hall, highlights the insecurity that the family lived under during the Civil Wars. Moreover, Parliamentary troops specifically targeting Justinian’s property illustrates that they likely understood his loyalties, loyalties that put his family at risk. It was a risk that led Sir John on multiple occasions in the 1640s to request protection of his property and redress from Parliament for the economic woes he suffered. Perhaps an indication of the political capital he accumulated during his service as a high sheriff and justice of the peace, Sir John was successful in gaining multiple promises and orders from Parliamentarians for the protection.66 Small consolation, however, for the Isham patriarch, since his son continued to face harassment from Parliament, especially after Charles I’s crushing defeat at Naseby in 1645. On 18 September 1646, Parliament’s Committee for Compounding examined Justinian, finding him guilty of delinquency and subject to fines, despite his arguments that he never took up arms for the king’s cause. With his property of Shangton sequestered, 74

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Justinian faced the annual fine of 20 percent of £1,100 – the manor’s worth – for the subsequent years.67 Yet, his purse was not the only part of his life to take a hit because of the war; constantly under pressure from Parliament and not getting any younger during the 1640s, Justinian, the widower, had little time to test the marriage market. The pressure increased when Sir John died in 1651, making it even more urgent for the new Isham patriarch to find a second wife and produce a male heir to continue the family line. With four daughters in tow and under the suspicious eye of Parliamentarians, Justinian found it a rough slog. In the early 1650s he had a number potential matches – among whom included the noted Dorothy Osborne – never materializing. Nevertheless, fortune finally smiled on him; at the end of August 1653, Justinian wed Vere Leigh – daughter of Thomas, Lord Leigh of Warwickshire – and the newlyweds would go on to have eight children, six of whom were boys, the first Thomas, born in 1657.68 Unfortunately, the marriage and the insurance of the continuation of the Isham line largely proved the only bright points for Justinian in the 1650s, for his royalism landed him in prison on multiple occasions during the Interregnum. Political relief only came Justinian’s way with the Restoration, as it did for many Royalists who survived the tumultuous years of the 1640s and 1650s. As a reward for his loyalties, he found himself elected as a knight of the shire for Northamptonshire in 1661 but he only sat in the Cavalier Parliament for a year, choosing instead to focus his energies on both his family and the estate of Lamport Hall. Subsequently, he lived the rather conventional life of a county gentleman up until his death on 2 March 1675 while on a trip to enrol his second son, Justinian II, at Christ Church, Oxford.69 Justinian had been the Isham patriarch for twenty-four years, far shorter than the forty-six year tenure that his father had enjoyed. Arguably, however, Justinian lived a far more colourful and less moderate life than his father. Unlike Sir John, whose existence centred primarily on increasing the status of his family within Northamptonshire, Justinian’s life took a less conventional direction that focused on more than just financial gain and making political alliances. It is true that Justinian did not entirely neglect common concerns that all of the landed elite shared; after all, he did make his share of land purchases and expended much energy attempting to find a wife so as to acquire a male heir and ensure the survival of his family line. But such activities did not dominate his existence, for Justinian’s intellectual pursuits and support of the Stuart dynasty were as or more important in his life and broadened his horizons beyond the confines of Northamptonshire. Groomed at a young age, Justinian’s intellectual prowess brought him to the attention of some of the great minds in seventeenth-century England, if not all of Europe. His Royalist sympathies also broadened his social orbits, embroiling him in the hostilities of the Civil Wars and Interregnum. Together, Justinian’s choices in life affected all the Ishams of Lamport, much as those made by Sir John had done. 75

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Indeed, Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham’s tenures as the Isham patriarchs lasted a total of approximately seventy years, and of these years Elizabeth lived during forty-five of them. For this reason alone, we cannot ignore Sir John or his son when attempting to understand her life and world, since nearly all their actions and experiences, as documented mainly in the Isham collection, impacted her in some form or fashion while she lived. We have alluded to how Justinian’s scholarly interests helped define the intellectual character of Lamport Hall, and how this must have assisted in the cultivation of Elizabeth’s mind and approach in remembering her past through writing. Justinian’s familial activities and tragedies also explain a great deal why Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ transformed, while she produced it, into not only a spiritual autobiography for her own benefit but also for other women in her family. After all, if his wife Jane and her baby boy had never died, Elizabeth may never have bequeathed her written confessions to her four nieces for their spiritual instruction. Moreover, Justinian’s political leanings brought the English Civil Wars directly to the doorstep of Lamport Hall and, as we have seen, implicated Elizabeth directly in the conflict. Last, but certainly not least, she spent the last three years of her life living at Lamport Hall with her brother as the family head. Simply put, we cannot do without the memory of Sir Justinian Isham – or that of his father – that rests within the Isham collection because it gives us the ability to truly appreciate the immense historical value that the ‘Book of Rememberance’ holds and the life that was crucial to its production. This revelation becomes even more striking when we turn to the Isham women of Lamport Hall.

THE WOMEN OF LAMPORT HALL (ARCHIVAL BITS AND BOBS) Before their deposit in the NRO, the custodianship of the Isham papers had likely been under the purview of patriarchs – like Sir Charles and Sir Gyles Isham – for much of their history, and this has greatly shaped and determined how conventional historical wisdom has viewed, read, and written the history of the family, skewing, until relatively recently, our perspective of its male and female members. Indeed, the previous sections are largely an exemplary testament of this process, for they illustrate that Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham cast a wide shadow over the Isham papers from the seventeenth century. In other words, the historical memory that we find in the family collection revolves around men, with the majority of the documentation produced by men. This reality highlights a growing awareness among scholars that an archive – a term that we can equate to the body of papers that constitute the Isham collection – is not just a repository of evidence that ideally reveals ‘truth’ about the past, but also shapes that ‘truth’ because of the records that belong and do not belong within it. Therefore, archives 76

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contribute to historical narratives of the past as much as historians do when they put their fingers on the keyboard and produce their articles and books.70 Reliance on the Isham archive leads to a general conclusion – only when the Isham women had direct connection to the social and economic manoeuvrings of Sir John and Sir Justinian do we gain any significant glimpse of them. Sir John’s wife and daughter, Judith, Lady Isham and Judith Isham, are shadowy figures, with little or no evidence that reveals their experiences. The same applies to Sir Justinian’s first wife, Jane, for whom we only have random letters and marriage documents providing us with any sense of who she was. As for the four daughters from Justinian’s first marriage, we know most about them from family correspondence, but these letters provide only a superficial perspective of the girls. These women have been for centuries under the shadow of the patriarch, a shadow through which we must peer. Fortunately, our archive of the Ishams has expanded because of the ‘Book of Rememberance’, but let us further showcase the significance of this expansion by turning first to what little the Isham collection can tell us about the Isham women by highlighting perhaps the two most important females in Elizabeth Isham’s life – her mother and sister. The enormous role that Elizabeth Isham’s mother had on her life-writing prompts us to begin with her. With her marriage to Sir John Isham on 29 October 1607, Judith Lewin became Lady Isham and the leading maternal figure of the Ishams of Lamport. Over a year later in January 1609 she gave birth to her and Sir John’s first child, Elizabeth. Approximately a year after, Lady Isham bore their second child, a baby girl named Judith. Although likely a joyous occasion, the fact that Sir John and Lady Isham had only produced two daughters may have put pressure on the young couple, since only a son would perpetuate the family line. Fortunately for them, this occurred with the birth of Justinian in 1611. As the mother of the patriarch’s heir, Lady Isham must have held great status in the family. Yet until the discovery of Elizabeth Isham’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ we knew little about this woman. On a memorial to her found in All Saints Church, the following inscription reveals that Lady Isham lived a rather short life: Here lyeth the bodie of the Lady Jvdeth Isham the wife of Sir John Isham knight and davghter to learned William Lewyn docter of the civil law and ivdge of the prerogative covert she lived vertously and dyed religiously on the 25 day of ivne in the yeare of ovr Lord 1625 being of the age of 34 yeares she was a most loving and faithfvll wife to her husband and a carefull mother of her children She had by him which were three one sonne and two davghters.71

Although certainly reverential and honouring of Lady Isham, the memorial, in essence, defines her by her roles as daughter, wife, and mother. Such a depiction does not distinguish Lady Isham much from other contemporary women who also held similar roles in the early modern period. The existing records in the Isham collection do little to broaden our understanding of Lady 77

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Isham, where there are mere traces of her life, traces that only give us crude impressions of her existence and character. We know that Lady Isham maintained ties with her natal family back in Kent, remaining on good terms with her brother, Sir Justinian Lewin, and negotiating loans and legacies with her sister-in-law, Lady Lewin.72 An impressionistic view also emerges that Lady Isham may have developed a close relationship with Sir John Isham’s sister, Elizabeth, Lady Denton, who – born on 29 August 1578 and living until 1664 – held considerable status in the family. She married twice, first to Sir Anthony Denton and later to Paul D’Ewes, both of whom died long before her own passing. Each marriage was not only a direct social advancement for Lady Denton, but also for the entire Isham clan. As we have seen, Sir Anthony was a Gentleman Pensioner who had ties to court, as well as held property both in London and Kent.73 Lady Denton’s second husband was no less impressive – he was a clerk of the chancery, held lands in the county of Suffolk, and was the father of the noted Sir Simonds D’Ewes.74 While living, she played an important role for assisting her natal family back in Northamptonshire, assisting Justinian Isham’s first wife, Jane, with childbirth, loaning money to her nephew, and serving as host to the Ishams of Lamport in Suffolk on numerous occasions in the 1640s and 1650s.75 As for Lady Denton’s relationship with Lady Isham, we gain only rare glimpses from the Isham collection, but it appears that the latter relied on the former as a contact to the world outside the confines of Lamport Hall and Northamptonshire. We see this in a letter Lady Denton sent her sister-in-law on 30 October 1616 from London: ‘I haue gotten your petticoat scarf ready, which you shall rescue by the carrier with your conserve of roses … [but] the taylor sayth your gowned and laze both are dyed in grained which made them the dearer’.76 Besides having simply the ability to provide Lady Isham with such clothing, Lady Denton’s other motivation to lend a helping hand may have stemmed from an understanding of Sir John’s wife often battling ill health. Traces of such an understanding appear in a letter she and her second husband sent Sir John shortly after Lady Isham died in 1625: ‘the priuate loss was great no doubt, but [Lady Isham] the being the subiect of sicknes for many yeares and prepared for this howre [her own death] by many warnings I assume my selfe she did reioice that her time was come’.77 As we shall see, Lady Isham did suffer with long-term health problems, but D’Ewes and Lady Denton’s letter here offers us only a small clue as to the scale of such problems. Indeed, as with other aspects of her life, we see here Lady Isham essentially falling through the cracks of the historical memory locked within the confines of the Isham collection. Yet Lady Isham is not the most shadowy female member of the family, since her second daughter, Judith Isham, is even less represented. Born on 28 February 1610, Judith lived, as we know, a short life, dying at the age of twenty-six, after apparently spending nearly her entire existence at Lamport Hall. Like her mother, one of the few traces of her comes from a memorial 78

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found in All Saints: ‘Jvdith Isham maide, second davghter of Sir John Isham and the Lady Judith his wife, having lived 26 yeares and about 9 months died vpon All-Saints day 1636’. Following this rather straightforward inscription is a four-line verse written by her brother Justinian: Here she who, with afflictions try’d and try’d Of mind and body was so purify’d That with the sacred beate of divine love Her soule soone hatcht to the saints above.78

A key piece of information from both the inscription and verse is that Judith was a never-married woman who suffered from ill health, which perhaps explains why she never wed. Sir John wrote shortly after her death that his daughter had throughout her life suffered of ‘body and mind’, ultimately dying of consumption.79 The possibilities for Sir John finding a match for such a sickly daughter were slim at best, since no man could have confidence that his marriage would last long enough to produce a family together. When his youngest daughter reached the age of twenty-one, Sir John provided Judith with a £100 annuity to serve as her maintenance while she lived out the remainder of her days at Lamport Hall.80 Along with her mother, Judith seems a rather insignificant figure, in relation to her family, if not early modern England more broadly. The paucity of evidence in the Isham collection makes it so, preventing a fuller reconstruction of either Judith or Lady Isham. Of course, both women did have significance in Elizabeth Isham’s life but we would never know it if we relied solely on the Isham collection. A similar perspective emerges of Elizabeth based on the family papers. Indeed, while there is by far more documentation on her in the collection, the picture that it reconstructs pales in comparison to what her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ permits us to produce. Similar to her mother and sister, we only gain tantalizing glimpses of Elizabeth through the lens of the Isham papers. Much of the evidence of her existence in the papers comes from correspondence, indentures, and the peculiar document classified as a ‘diary’ by the Northamptonshire Record Office and in which we have seen she referred to her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ as her ‘confessions’ and ‘cheefest work’. It is very likely that the document is not the product of the same time period in which she produced her spiritual autobiography, since the ‘diary’ is also retrospective in nature and seems to have been composed sometime around 1648. Reasonable speculation points to the possibility that Elizabeth may have used it as memory aid, a vade mecum, or – even more tempting from a scholarly perspective – she thought to have it serve as a rubric for the writing of another spiritual autobiography. What is certain is the ‘diary’ is more analogous to a modern calendar or datebook than to a personal journal in which one writes a daily narrative of innermost thoughts. Read alongside the indentures and correspondence, it provides us with a far broader perspective than any other woman we have traces of in the Isham papers.81 79

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From the ‘diary’ we can discern a number of themes that seem to have run through Elizabeth’s life, themes that seem rather typical for a woman of her social standing. Indeed, like most gentlewomen, the ‘diary’ leaves the impression that underscores Elizabeth’s conventionality – family was central to her existence. Throughout the ‘diary’ there are numerous but short references to her family, especially the members of the household at Lamport Hall. For example, one of her earliest recollections of home life in her ‘diary’ is the terse statement she recorded for her eighth year of age: ‘I would be with my S[ister] and B[rother]’.82 Of her two siblings, it appears that Elizabeth may have preferred the company of her sister over her brother when they were young; Elizabeth’s recollections in the ‘diary’ of her relationship with Sir Justinian are slim prior to adulthood, only mentioning that he was ill when eight years old and that he began attending Cambridge in 1627. In comparison, there are more nuggets of information about her sister Judith. Corroborating other evidence in the Isham papers, Elizabeth often noted her sister’s ill health in the ‘diary’, revealing slightly more about this shadowy member of the Ishams.83 Other tantalizing clues, however, point to Judith’s life not solely revolving around her health. In particular, she spent her days with needle and thread when the girls were around the age of thirteen: ‘My G[randmother] commended me for teaching my S[ister] to [needle]worke’. When doing such work, Judith made clothing, such as boot-hose, for her family members, an activity for which Elizabeth also found much fondness. She revealed in her ‘diary’ that she was an avid seamstress, something that she made evident by recording her engagement with needlework on nearly every panel of the document. Remembering her activities at the age of eight, Elizabeth jotted down that she did drawn-work, a form of ornamental needlework that formed patterns in textile fabrics. Needlework was a pastime that she continued for the rest of her life; she recorded that at age ten she quilted a ball, moving in her later years on to more complex tasks by sewing a coin purse for her father, knitting gloves for various family members, and producing a dress for herself.84 She seems to have been a genuine connoisseur when it came to finding the choicest materials. Writing to Sir John some time in her teenage years or early adulthood, Elizabeth attached five small pieces of lace in a letter, informing her father: ‘I haue sent heare paterns of lace and the prises of them’. The price of the lace ranged from two to ten pence, and Sir John presumably was to inquire what the going rate was in London.85 Combined with the many notations in her ‘diary’, the letter underscores the central place that needlework had in her life. It apparently became an important thread in her relationship with her nieces as they grew in age during the 1640s and 1650s. We have seen how in these years Elizabeth’s significance for her brother’s family increased, largely because she became a surrogate mother to his four daughters from his first marriage. Indeed, the tragic deaths of Justinian’s 80

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wife Jane and baby boy John in 1639 transformed the function of her ‘Book of Rememberance’ to include the purpose of a motherly advice book. Curiously, she recorded neither the death of her sister-in-law nor of her infant nephew in the ‘diary’, something that is clearly not the case in her spiritual autobiography. There are traces in the ‘diary’ of concern for her brother’s children, since she recorded in the document the birth of Jane, Elizabeth, Judith, Susan, and John. As we know from Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’, there was a surge of emotion at Lamport Hall with the birth of John, who after all was in line to become the Isham patriarch some day. Subsequently, tragedy followed, but Elizabeth chose to note it in her autobiography and not in the ‘diary’. The emotional pain over the loss may have lessened for Elizabeth by 1648 but it certainly had not when she described it in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ in 1639. Without the autobiography, we could only speculate on her or her family’s reactions towards the deaths of Justinian’s wife and son, and we would never understand how the deaths actually proved pivotal in Elizabeth’s life and for her life-writing. Unfortunately, more speculation is needed when we try to understand what her actual relationship was like with her nieces, since her spiritual autobiography does not cover the last fifteen years of her existence. In the ‘diary’, Elizabeth recorded that she tutored the girls in needlework, and they seem to have wanted to showcase their abilities in the latter activity, as her niece Jane’s letter – sent from the D’Ewes’ estate of Stow Hall on 13 April 1649 – reveals: ‘Honoured Aunt … Be pleased to receiue the humble thanks for your token, with this purse from her who desirest nothing more then a fauorable acceptance, which shall encourage me to present you with some more of my handy work’.86 Elizabeth Isham’s niece, her namesake Elizabeth, also stayed in contact with her aunt when she was sixteen, reporting on the female kin at Stow: ‘Honoured Aunt … you are still pleased … to accept of my sublime letters which emboldene me to giue you an account of our healths which we all inioy but my [great] Aunt Stuteville hath been very ill with a sore legg … being broken out in 3 places’.87 The letter marks the end of any surviving correspondence between Elizabeth and her nieces, leaving us to essentially wander in the dark, aimlessly searching through the fragmented traces of historical memory of these women’s relationship found in the Isham papers. In other words, we are left with the historian’s often used but little trusted companion – speculation. It is a companion we must rely on when examining her life after 1639, and when the Isham collection allows us not to do so – like in the case of the financial details of her proposed marriage to John Dryden – we see her life largely through the prism of patriarchy, with Sir John taking centre stage. In short, the Isham papers only allow limited and random snapshots of her life, much as they do for the rest of her female kin. The same is not true when we turn to her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, especially in regards to her relationships with her mother, sister, and paternal grandmother. We have briefly 81

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touched on these relationships when discussing the making of Elizabeth’s ‘confessions’, but we will now turn to them with more intense focus. In doing so, we will see that the richness of Elizabeth’s descriptions of these Isham women will begin to round out our picture of them, will illustrate their significance in her life, and will further highlight the importance of the discovery of her spiritual autobiography. Lastly, at least in regards to the Ishams, we will also chip away at patriarchy’s power over the historical memory of early modern women.

A PROFITABLE REMEMBRANCE OF THE ISHAM WOMEN Elizabeth’s autobiography is one of only a small number of documents produced by a member of her family that does not rest among the Isham collection housed at the NRO. As we have seen, either Sir Charles or Sir Gyles Isham seem prime candidates for excluding the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ from the family papers, and the latter had a keen interest in the history of his family largely centred on his male ancestors, with particular focus on Sir John and Justinian Isham. Only fortune has allowed us the opportunity to metaphorically reunite Elizabeth’s autobiography with the Isham collection. This reuniting lifts the shroud off the history we have attempted to reconstruct in the previous sections of this chapter, a history verging on the antiquarian, full of speculation and shaped either implicitly or explicitly by men telling us what was important about their family. In other words, Elizabeth Isham’s spiritual autobiography frees us from a male-dominated historical narrative, giving us a female perspective of the Ishams through which to view the life of the longest living woman to have resided at Lamport Hall in the early seventeenth century. Important in this life were women – Grandmother Isham, Lady Isham, and Judith Isham – who we know far too little about if relying solely on the Isham collection. Elizabeth reveals in the autobiography that Sir John’s wife, if not his mother too, were leading female members of the Isham household, serving as managers of Lamport Hall’s servants and providing the Isham children with their earliest education. Indeed, Elizabeth details how Lady Isham was perhaps the most influential person in shaping her character and worldview. Equally significant was her sister, Judith Isham, who maintained a close relationship with Elizabeth, with each serving as the other’s primary confidante and emotional support throughout their childhoods and early adulthoods. Moreover, Elizabeth’s commentary about her sister offers a rare glimpse of a relationship between two never-married women who belonged to the same family living in early modern England. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, by the time that she was twenty-seven, she had lost her grandmother, mother, and sister due to death. Yet they continued to have a deep effect on her, no better illustrated than by Lady Isham’s and Judith Isham’s 82

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influence on Elizabeth to put pen to paper and compose her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Thus they were profound figures in Elizabeth’s existence, and, considering the significance of her autobiography, remarkably important to understanding the Isham family and women of the early modern period. Elizabeth’s recollections of her childhood in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ provide an excellent portrait not only of her early years, but also of her closest female relations at Lamport Hall. Among these relations, Elizabeth’s mother, and, to a degree, her grandmother were at the heart of her written memories of her childhood, memories that are by far the richest source on these two women. The most illustrative example of this is the biographical information that Elizabeth provided on her mother in the autobiography, information found nowhere in the Isham papers. Confirming that her mother was the daughter of William Lewin, the noted ecclesiastical lawyer, Elizabeth revealed in her autobiography that Lady Isham was an orphan during much of her childhood: ‘she liued at Otterden [the Lewin estate] where her father died, she being 8 yeares of age, and her mother not long after at the 12 yeere of her age, so she was left to an uncle, who liued at Mitses in Kent a pleasant place which she often mentioned’.88 Lady Isham thus appears to have come of age in a secure and welcoming environment after the death of her mother and father. She found an even more welcoming home when, at the age of seventeen, she married Sir John Isham on 29 October 1607. Elizabeth related as much in her autobiography, telling of the strong relationship that her grandmother, also named Elizabeth Isham, had with Lady Isham: I cannot omit to praise thee O Lord, for the unity & loue betwext my father mother & grandmother, remembering well those good bookes of my grandmothers reading to my mother … wherein they reioyced together before thee, there agreement hath often made mee call to mind the loue betwixt Naomie and Ruth, which they would sumtimes mencion.89

It was fitting to think of her mother and grandmother in such biblical terms, for just as Naomi aided in the raising of Ruth’s child Jesse, so did Elizabeth’s grandmother Isham assist Lady Isham in the raising of her children. Such assistance many times came in the form of the Isham children’s education. With regard to Elizabeth, her mother was the first to encourage her to partake in one of the domestic duties and activities that she held so dear in adulthood – namely needlework. When she was around eight years old, so Elizabeth remembered, Lady Isham had a household servant first expose her to the art of needle and thread: ‘In these times I went forwards in learning my [needle]worke taught by my mothers waiting woman’. Elizabeth explained she quickly took to such instruction, finding little challenge in the needlework projects presented to her when she was a child: ‘I know not what ienius led me to loue it so well that I tooke foorth patturns of all or of most I could doe of my selfe sometimes it so fell out I had non to teach me or that I had learnt in what they could doe’. Indeed, Elizabeth recalled that she was so talented 83

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that she would finish her projects in half the time that it took others living at Lamport Hall to do similar work. Such a situation caused her mother to search for ways to keep Elizabeth busy: my mother … many times to auoid idelnes (til I had a more conuient time to learn or more to teach me) would lett me to worke things to ware, but I liked not to doe much of one kind of worke that was out to me, my mother perceuing my idleness to doe very little, would taske me, which was so easey that many times I could doe it in halfe the while which she set me.90

Despite the impression that Elizabeth made quick work of any presented task, Lady Isham’s efforts bore fruit, for her daughter’s love for needlework – as evidenced by her ‘diary’ and ‘Booke of Rememberance’ – kept Elizabeth busy throughout her life. This was, however, not the only influence that Lady Isham had in shaping the character and interests of her daughter or, for that matter, all her children. Perhaps the most profound influence manifested itself around Lady Isham’s spiritual, mental, and physical well-being. As we have seen, some time in 1619 she experienced an intense spiritual crisis: ‘I remember one deepe point wherewith my mother was troubled (as many are) touching predestination & (or) falling away from grace’.91 Although the local ministers of Lamport offered some relief to Elizabeth’s mother, Lady Isham nonetheless entered into a deep soteriological melancholy. At his wits’ end over how to help his wife, Sir John called on his Northamptonshire neighbours, among whom was Sir John Pickering, a future knight of the shire in 1625. Pickering had intimate connection to the Dryden–Knightley circle, since his wife, Susannah, was the daughter of Sir Erasmus Dryden. Such ties, in turn, gave the Ishams direct contact with John Dod, as Elizabeth Isham revealed: ‘Sir John Pickering a worthy gentleman who I take it commended Mr. Dod a minister to my father’. The commendation led Sir John to invite Dod to Lamport Hall to assist Lady Isham in her spiritual crisis. In doing so, the Isham patriarch tapped the talent and energy of a notorious nonconformist and radical Puritan cleric. We have seen how Dod – with his main patrons being the Drydens and Knightleys – served as a key person in the promotion of godly piety and religion in Northamptonshire in the early Stuart period. He also had a notable talent in helping aggrieved souls: ‘[he] had much employment in comforting such as were wounded in their spirits, being sent for, not only nigh at hand, but also into remote countries’.92 Indeed, Dod’s talents were so renowned that he became widely known as a ‘doctor of the soul’ in England. On this spiritual physician, the Ishams’ hopes rested, and Dod’s impact was immediate, as Elizabeth further recounted: ‘now my mother found some comfort in those with her being not altogether so ill as she was … yet I neuer perseued that she so much comfort[ed] by any as by Mr. Dod, who hath a singular gift in comforting afflicted consciences aboue any I know’.93 True to 84

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his reputation, Dod greatly eased Lady Isham’s doubts, applying Scripture to console her: when he had expounded the 28 chapter of Isai[ah] towards the end of it, which as I take it was to this effect: that God doth not always afflict his nor suffer the rod of the wicked to rest upon the back of the rightous but whereas the wicked is broken, his chosen seed is beaten & tried and made as fitt ground to receue his word.

Her spirits lifted, Lady Isham emerged from her bedchamber, where she had apparently been confined because of her spiritual turmoil. The situation overwhelmed Elizabeth with emotion: ‘I could hardly beleeue my selfe supposing it might [be] a dreame … and because she [her mother] had kept her chamber long & now my affections was carried with hers to sorrow & reioyce for her in part as she did’. Lady Isham, however, had not completely recovered from her melancholy; to pull herself out of her emotional distress she continued to rely on Dod’s emotional support, as well as on that of her relatives and friends. Indeed, Lady Isham found comfort in the godly Sir Francis Nichols’s wife, who lived in the nearby village of Faxton: ‘Now my mother was not yet perfectly well but mended by degrees … her Neighbour Mrs Nicolls coming to visite desired that she would go home with her, to which my father consented’. Staying at the Nichols’s estate for a fortnight, Lady Isham enjoyed the spiritual consultation of a number of ministers with whom Mrs Nichols was acquainted.94 All of the assistance and emotional aid that Elizabeth’s mother received from her family and friends paid dividends, for Lady Isham recovered from her bout of melancholy. Yet she was not out of the proverbial woods: ‘Now my mother had no long time of rest before her speech in part was taken from her speaking like a Childe not being able to utter the full sound of words’. Lady Isham’s condition, at first, did not cause her much distress: ‘yet continued she well & lightsome in her mind calling to us & making signes two or three of us coming about her to know who should best understand her meaning whom she often laughed at for our misinterpretations’.95 Despite her carefree attitude, Lady Isham’s inability to speak nonetheless worried her family: Now my father tooke it ill that in all this time of my mothers adversity none of her frindes came nor sent to her … her onely Brother that was liuing Sr Justinian Leowen being troubled in his sleepe of sent to my fathers Sister the Lady Denton … to Know how she did who sent him that if he would see her aliue he should goe now to see her.

Here we see the Ishams and their extended kin rallying around someone in a time of need with the usual suspects taking part, namely Lady Denton and Sir Justinian Lewin. They were, however, not the only members of the family concerned – Sir John Isham also feared for his wife, hiring the services of 85

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two doctors to diagnose what illness Lady Isham suffered from: ‘he had sought for her hauing the aduice of two phisicions who both agreed that it was the palsee which had taken her toong & so hindered her speech’. By the time of the diagnosis, so Elizabeth recounted, the palsy that Lady Isham suffered from had spread throughout her body, apparently causing weakness in the limbs and hindering her motor skills.96 Regardless of the handicaps, Lady Isham’s spirits remained high. Upon his hastened arrival to Lamport, her brother ‘found her indifferent, well & chearefull (as she could be in her case)’. Nevertheless, Lady Isham faced enormous difficulties and discomfort during this period. The first of these came with the passing of her brother Lewin, who died shortly after taking leave of his sister to return to his London home. Considering Lady Isham’s recent mental state, her family was understandably cautious about informing her of her brother’s death. Sir John once again called on the services of John Dod, asking him to relate the tragic news.97 Although she experienced a degree of sorrow on learning of her brother’s passing, Lady Isham was not overcome with grief: ‘at the last he [Dod] told her who wept yet not exceeded in mourning though she loued him [Justinian Lewin] dearly for I soppose she knew no sorrow greater then her trouble in mind’. Such a description further illustrates the severity of the soteriological crisis that Lady Isham had previously experienced, since it appears that not even a death in the family could shake her as much as the anxiety and doubts over her own spiritual salvation. Her family, nonetheless, sought to ease her mind: ‘after this my father led her up to my grandmother where Mr. Dod expounded the first Chapter of the first Epistle of S. Peter a fitt place for her’.98 Considering the theme of this part of Scripture, it is little wonder that Elizabeth felt it was a ‘fitt place for her mother’; its stress on the redeeming quality of God’s grace likely reassured Lady Isham of her brother’s salvation. This may also give further explanation for why her brother’s death, while certainly a great personal loss, did not throw her into an emotional spiral nor into a deep melancholic state. Also, Lady Isham may not have had enough time to do so because her recovery from palsy took up a great amount of her energy. Not long after Justinian Lewin’s demise, she went on a strict and extensive regimen of medical remedies that her doctors prescribed, remedies that were not for the lighthearted: Now the time was (came) in which my mother was to haue those meanes for the health ministered unto her which was in [such] a maner: a whole course of physick as first 3 vomits within few dayes one of another then a potion after a decoction & pilles, letting of blud in the arme & gargarismes.

In a marginal note next to this passage, Elizabeth wrote that the ‘potions’ and ‘pills’ administered to Lady Isham often came in the meat and drink she had at mealtimes, a reality that likely made breakfast, lunch, and dinner 86

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unpleasant experiences. Apparently for the sake of her health, Lady Isham also experienced the cutting of her hair: ‘the phisicions twice agreed that her hare should be cut hauing quilted capps for her with herbs of hot nature with perfumes to fume ouer all, these she suffered with cutting of her hare which was both fare coloured and long’. Elizabeth remarked that this remedy, combined with the letting of her mother’s blood, greatly helped Lady Isham: ‘she after mended by degrees praised be God’.99 Fortunately for Lady Isham, her health improved for a short period after her bout with palsy. By 1621, she had recovered enough to leave the confines of Lamport: ‘[she] riding forth not onely for her recreation but also to see her Neighbours’. Despite the encouraging signs that these trials and tribulations were behind Lady Isham, their effects on Elizabeth were substantial, both when they occurred and how they lingered in her memory. We clearly see this when Elizabeth had the opportunity to leave the confines of Lamport for the hustle and bustle of London when she was eleven. In 1620, shortly after Lady Isham’s recovery from palsy, Lady Denton made a short stay at Lamport Hall. The visit was a joyous occasion for all the Ishams and, while preparing to take her leave and return to her London home, Lady Denton suggested that Elizabeth could come and stay with her for a short duration. Many in the family encouraged Elizabeth to go and she did feel that the trip would benefit her, but she ultimately refused: ‘I was loth to goe from my mother she being a sickly woman, though my frindes sought to perswad me with those promises which might haue allured my childishness’. Based on Lady Isham’s history of ill health, it is understandable why her daughter did not want to leave her side. Elizabeth further expressed her feelings: I confess it might haue bine better in some worldy respectes besides her [Lady Denton’s] owne good care of my Religious education. For I suppose she would haue bestowed more upon my breeding then I could haue at home she hauing no child of her owne & liuing in London yet since I repented not for this refused because my mothers life was pretious to me in many respects both in herselfe & for the good meanes which she had which I found to be beneficiall to me.100

Elizabeth declared that such benefit rested largely on Lady Isham’s efforts to raise her daughter to be a virtuous woman by providing her with sound religious knowledge. This knowledge gave Elizabeth the strength to confront the trials and tribulations in her life: ‘thinking my selfe sure against all stormes which though they did after happen to me I was the better able to brooke them being as I thought my selfe so thoroughly grounded’.101 With such words Elizabeth not only expressed her affection for her mother, but also highlighted how influential Lady Isham’s upbringing was on her. As she poetically summed up her relationship with Lady Isham: ‘my education was much bettered by her meanes; I growing up with her as a branch with a roote and neuer departing from her while she liued’.102 87

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Unfortunately for Elizabeth, this upbringing came to an end when she was sixteen. After experiencing a period of good health after recovering from palsy, Lady Isham’s physical condition took another downturn in the summer of 1624. The relapse led her to despair: ‘Now my mother many times made her moane to my Aunt Isham, which made my very bowls earn to heare her speake of her much illness diuers wayes, for which she would say she had suffered many things of physitions & that her soul forget prosperity’. The Aunt Isham that Elizabeth referred to was the wife of Henry Isham, Sir John’s brother. She seems to have brought Lady Isham comfort: ‘when she [Lady Isham] was anything well she would cheere up her selfe & ariue to walke, calling upon my Aunt Isham to sing psalmes with her yet after this she was so weake that she could endure no body to speake aloud’. Once again, John Dod arrived at Lamport Hall to assist Lady Isham through her trials. As on his previous visits, Dod expounded Scripture to ease Lady Isham’s mind. In doing so, he discussed her mortality: ‘Mr Dod used to come to my mother I well remember those excellent expositions [of Scripture] of his as if they were but yesterday … admonishing my mother of death’. Elizabeth explained that Dod advised Lady Isham not to fear death, something she resisted: ‘[she] seemed to be unwilling to leaue us, but hee said she should not be unwilling to leaue her children to God’. Shortly after Lady Isham’s condition deteriorated, and by early June 1625 she lay on her deathbed. To her side came her family, and the rector, Daniel Baxter. The local cleric urged Lady Isham to end her suffering and willingly die so as to enter into God’s kingdom. As before with Dod, Lady Isham rebuked such advisement: ‘she put [him] … back saying you would haue me die whether I will or can, death is terrable to mee (againe as she grew faint) O let me liue with my husband & children’. Her resistance continued into the evening and near the moment she drew her final breath, Lady Isham spoke to Baxter: ‘Now the gate of my stomacke is open, I shall not die but liue & declare the Workes of the Lord’.103 Shortly after, Lady Isham passed away. Her hesitation to die generated concern – instead of accepting God’s plans for her and welcoming death, she resisted her divinely ordained demise. In comparison to the passing of Elizabeth’s grandmother Isham, who died in 1621, Lady Isham’s death was far less noble from an early modern perspective: her [grandmother Isham] spech one night began to fale, my father and mother with our selues askeing her Blessing she gaue it us and though she was long weake liuing … death strongly acted his part that religious & holy soule being discharged from the prison of her body in the next morning.

In a marginal note directly adjacent to this passage in her autobiography, Elizabeth added a final note on her grandmother’s death: ‘[with] humble repentance & strong faith … [she] willing[ly] submitting her body & soule into 88

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the hands of her mercifull God with her great patience of long suffering’.104 This greatly contrasts with Elizabeth’s recollection of Lady Isham’s death: I suppose the feare of the violence of death together with her affection takeing on like a naturall mother caused her to be unwilling to die … it is said in the 102 psalm take me not away in the mids of my dayes; yet what neede I be dismayed at her unwillingness to die seeing our Blessed Sauior as he was man feared death.

Elizabeth attempted to reconcile her concern over Lady Isham’s fear of death, something that she did not do for her grandmother Isham. Moreover, her mother’s ‘bad death’ likely prompted Elizabeth to prepare herself better for her own passing through the process of life-writing. However, none of this could subdue Elizabeth’s overall despair created by the loss her mother. It was a despair that the entire Isham household shared and experienced: Though I thought to bare my mothers death as well as I could yet she [Elizabeth’s sister] and I should weepe together thinking our selues very vaket without her as sheepe without a sheparde & though my father was kind to us yet he could not chouse but be full of greife as he was for so good a wife & my brother for so kind a mother & so our grife was the greater concerning together.105

Thus Elizabeth ultimately viewed her mother as her shepherd, a woman who provided guidance and direction by both educating and serving as a role model for her children, especially her daughters. While Lady Isham’s actions near the end of her life may have shaken her daughter’s confidence in her, Elizabeth nonetheless in the end stood by and supported her mother, no better exemplified than by the written memorial of Lady Isham found in the pages of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. For the rest of her days, Elizabeth had to live without the most influential woman in her life. To fill the void, she turned to her sister Judith, a woman who was perhaps second only to Lady Isham in importance to Elizabeth. Similar to Lady Isham, Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ provides us with the deepest and most well-rounded perspective of Judith Isham. She appears to have been a woman of high intellectual prowess who found great joy in books and reading. Such enjoyment, however, was one of the few that Judith experienced, for Elizabeth’s spiritual autobiography confirms, in far more detail than the Isham papers, that her sister faced constant poor health until her death in 1636. Troubles came in a number of forms, including broken bones, infectious diseases, and bouts of melancholy. Throughout all of these hardships, Judith relied on her family for comfort, especially her mother and Elizabeth. Indeed, after the death of Lady Isham in 1625, Judith and Elizabeth developed a genuinely strong sisterly relationship, with both serving as the primary emotional support for the other. Indeed, Judith was arguably the most significant woman in the latter half of Elizabeth’s life. Yet their relationship as children was sometimes strained, especially from the perspective of Elizabeth. As she admitted in her autobiography, she was 89

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often envious of her sister at a young age: ‘many times I should be deiected supposesing my mother loued my Sister better, because sum told her she was like her’.106 The situation contributed to a degree of sibling rivalry between the sisters. Elizabeth confessed regret to God for her jealously and scheming against her sister: ‘though my selfe hath been well suffered I should be too glad when my Sister hath bin found in fault, that my selfe might appeare the better’.107 Her concern over gaining the attention and approval of her parents was a constant theme in the memories of her childhood, since she recalled how she and her siblings often attempted to discover whom Sir John and Lady Isham favoured most: Now my parents carried themselues this wisely towards us there children that I neuer could heare them say which they loued best, but (or most) many times they fauored us according as wee deserued; sometimes whissperings of seruants would deiected us (besides our owne sirmissies [surmising]) talking which were loued best.108

Despite the fact that the Isham parents attempted not to show favouritism, their children nonetheless could sometimes perplex them. At least this was how Elizabeth recalled it: ‘I remember my mother told my father one day of all the children she had she knew the le[a]st of my disspocition’. The same was not true for Judith, whose character Elizabeth believed was similar to that of Lady Isham: ‘I hauing not that quicknes of Spirit like her [Lady Isham] or my Sister’.109 Elizabeth’s perception that Lady Isham and Judith shared a similar disposition may have largely stemmed from Elizabeth witnessing her mother constantly showering affection on Judith. We clearly see such affection in Elizabeth’s accounts of Judith’s poor health. In particular, Elizabeth offered graphic details on how her sister endured numerous fractures in her legs at a young age. Judith experienced her most severe injury when she was around six, which proved so gruesome that Elizabeth felt the need to recount the episode: ‘my sister broke her thigh againe which was a great grife to my frindes, who presently sent for Mr Hales a man very skilfull in the art of bonseting’. It was not Mr. Hales’s first visit to Lamport Hall, but it may have been his most grisly: ‘hauing so much experience of broken bones he stayed not long from her (because he confessed he was troubled in his sleepe of her) but came againe to see her, where he found the bone amiss & was faint to break it to make it right’. His previous visits must have been terrifying for Judith, otherwise she would not have reacted like she did when learning of Mr Hales’s arrival: ‘my Sister soune as she hard or saw his coming her teeth would chatter in her head for very feare’. Subsequently setting the bone, Mr. Hales warned Lady Isham that he would be unable to reset her daughter’s leg if it were to break again, since, so Elizabeth recalled, it was the third or fourth time it had broken. It was not, however, only her broken thigh that brought concern. During his consultation with Lady Isham, Mr. Hales further discussed Judith’s 90

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condition: ‘my mother asked Mr. Hales of her shoulder which began to grow out & of her ankle, he said they weare [were] out of joint, to[o] long to set, which was done when she was very little’. Based on such a description, it appears that perhaps Judith may have been a ‘hunchback’ of sorts, and the fact that at least one of her ankles was out of joint must have only compounded the discomfort from such a condition. Elizabeth suspected that it was the ankle that may have attributed to Judith falling and breaking her limbs: ‘I suppose by the carelessness of those that tended her when my Father & mother was from home and after feared to confesse it til it was to late her ankle hitting with her foot not standing right against her other lege I thinke was the cause of her falling upon very little accation’.110 Even if Judith had never suffered from any other illness in her life, the condition of her bones would have been enough to make her physical existence less than ideal. It is little wonder then why her memorial in All Saints Church remembers her as a woman who faced prolonged bodily suffering.111 There was, however, one benefit from such hardships – Judith enjoyed more motherly affection and tenderness from Lady Isham. This was especially the case when Mr Hales mended Judith’s thigh, something that Lady Isham could not bear to watch: ‘my mother being full of tender compation towordes her [Judith] went into the next rome because she would not see her misery’. Lady Isham’s compassion led her to assist in recovery of her daughter, prompting her to share a bed chamber with Judith soon after Mr Hales’s departure: my mother … kept the chamber with my Sister and company cominge to see her she told them of the great comfort & Joy she had of my Sister, delighting soo much in her booke (which I well remember & sum of the places) and compared her to a Marter for her broken bones then lettel supposing the many misseys which since she [Judith] hath sustained.112

As was typical for her, Lady Isham viewed her daughter’s ill health from a religious perspective, finding Judith’s sufferings the plight of a martyr. Elizabeth’s description of her mother’s reaction to Judith’s troubles also foreshadowed the later ills that her sister experienced. Indeed, Judith’s bouts with illness were so intense that Lady Isham, near the time of her death in 1625, concerned herself more with Judith’s well-being than her own: ‘she [Lady Isham] supposed the best & desired that my Sister should haue something [medicine] who now began to be ill’. 113 Whatever the cause of her sister’s illness, Elizabeth’s attitudes and envy of Judith appear to have forever changed after their mother’s death. Indeed, Elizabeth recounted her increased closeness with her sister, as the two women grew older and entered adulthood. Their developing bond seems to have chipped away at Judith’s stubbornness in taking an interest in clothwork, as Elizabeth intimated when recalling an episode from her teenage years: ‘I now taught my Sister to [needle]worke who thought she neuer loued 91

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it very well, yet now seemed tooke it better from me then any afore’.114 The two sisters enjoyed additional recreational activities together, as Elizabeth recalled the enjoyment she derived from going on a ride in 1629: ‘at this time my selfe & Sister rose betimes & ride a broad in the coach a mornings to take the aire’.115 Along with the pleasures of a coach-ride, Elizabeth and her sister found enjoyment in walking through the orchards on their family’s estate. Sisters hand in hand, Elizabeth and Judith were inseparable and their bond was extraordinarily strong, a reality not explicitly found within the Isham papers and only unearthed by the former’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’. The bond, of course, could not withstand the test of time or Judith’s medical hardships. By 1632, Judith’s physical condition had acutely deteriorated. Indeed, the situation had worsened to such a degree that she even considered suicide: ‘my Sister was tempted to make an end of a miserable life hauing so much illness of mind & body as she had’. Judith never acted on this desire, but her despair continued, causing her to withdraw from a life of activity. This alarmed both Elizabeth and Justinian Isham: ‘my Brother & my selfe perswaded her [Judith] by all meanes wee could … that she would striue & not giue way to make herselfe worse by doeing nothing therefore I perualed with her many times to doe something & to walke around’.116 Whether Judith took their advice is uncertain, but her siblings’ recommendation did not alleviate her overall feelings of hopelessness. By 1636, Judith revealed that she wished her life would not last much longer: ‘about this time my Sister told me she hoped God would take her away shortly’.117 After years of living in poor health, Judith had grown weary and thus was willing to die. Elizabeth empathized with such despair – during the same period that Judith’s physical condition took a turn for the worse, she faced her own dilemma, one more akin to the spiritual crisis that her mother had undergone in 1619. In particular, around 1632, Elizabeth began to increasingly worry about her sins, which she believed the devil had tempted her to commit. Such worry caused her great mental anxiety, leading her to compare her struggles with that of her sister: ‘In this winter my Sister had ill fits againe … I told her I was inwardly as she appeared outwardly, for when the Deuill had acted his part of strongly tempting I then found through my owne weaknesse of yeelding, that my soule seemed to be totally eclipsed’.118 Finding it difficult to struggle against the devil, Elizabeth, like her sister, flirted with similar thoughts of suicide: ‘I was cast down … with the sence of my misery & I thought I had endured all maner of temptations, but impurity (which since I haue bene tempted with) & to make a way myself’.119 Thus Elizabeth’s own despair, while manifesting itself in a different form, nonetheless was intense enough for her to also consider taking her own life. Just as her sister had attempted to ease her pain, Judith did the same for Elizabeth in her moment of crisis, often praying for Elizabeth’s recovery from her spiritual trials.120 By 1636, such concerns also evolved into worries over 92

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Elizabeth’s physical well-being: ‘Now my Sister told me she thought one of us should die but she wished it might should be her selfe … I supposing she would haue bine … worse without me then I her, which I beleeue she considered for if I had bine a little ill she would haue come trembling about me’.121 Judith’s wish soon came true, for she shortly afterwards fell terminally ill. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, the situation caused her much distress: ‘Now my Sister being ill againe me thought [it] was more griuous to me then afore … I had heauenes fearing her death & much desiring she might liue with me although sometimes I thought it unpossible to nature & uncharitable to wish her in still misery’. The emotional anguish compelled Elizabeth to never leave her sister’s side, an act for which Judith proved appreciative: ‘Now she told [me] … none knew her illness so much as my selfe, whom she thought most pittied her’. Despite her appreciation, Judith nonetheless worried how her death would affect her sister’s future, illustrating how their sisterly bond prevented her from totally fixating on the fact that she was near death: ‘she [Judith] confessed she was troubled conserning me yet she said she hoped God would comfort me’. It was not the only time that Judith hoped that her death would not cause Elizabeth pain: ‘she told [me] another time [I] lieing by her I hope Sister as you bine partaken of my misery so you shalbe of my ioy’. Here we see Judith’s faith in the belief that her destiny lay in God’s hands, faith that brought her comfort and assurance; while she may have faced numerous trials and tribulations on earth, the promise of joy and paradise beckoned her to Heaven. In other words, her death did not mark the end of her existence but rather marked the beginning of her days in God’s kingdom. Yet before such days could commence, Judith had to endure a long and slow death that was full of discomfort and pain in the autumn of 1636. Confirming details found on Judith’s memorial at All Saints Church, Elizabeth noted that her sister died on 1 November: ‘a sudden her speech used to be taken from her … yet was she (when) able a little to goe with leading & to sit up some part of the day till the houre her fit tooke her whereof she died, it being the day which is kept in memorie of (about) all Saints’. At first, Elizabeth did not accept the reality: ‘yet my unwillingnes to thinke of her death made me still hope that she might liue & that this was one of her sounding fits, tho I still feared & being loth to goe from her I continued with her till there was no hope of her life’. Perhaps because of the shock of the whole experience, Elizabeth recounted that she did not shed any tears until an hour or two after Judith took her last breath. The lack of tears brought Elizabeth some hope that her strength was great enough to cope with the loss of her sister, but her resolve proved all for naught: Brake I not foorth into weeping till an houre or two after and some comfort it was to behold or take my last farewell of that beloued obiect which was deare unto me and in whom death seemed sweet but after length of time increased sorrow by a 93

The gentlewoman’s remembrance wound taken by hauing that sweet & deare custome of liuing with her thus broken off & after I wished my selfe of the nature of those who can suddenly crie it out they sooner after finding more ease.122

Racked with grief, the heartfelt remembrance of Judith’s death is perhaps the most poignant illustration of the bond that existed between the sisters, a bond that was forever severed and lost, except in the memories locked in the pages of Elizabeth’s spiritual autobiography. Moreover, the exteriority of the experiences she had with Judith proved enormously significant for why she took up the quill and wrote such a remarkable document. Judith’s death marked yet another loss of a beloved female relation for Elizabeth. Of course, by the time of Judith’s passing, Elizabeth had experienced a number of personal losses with the deaths of other women in her family. The first to die was Elizabeth’s grandmother Isham, for whom she held great affection and with whom, we will see, she spent a great deal of time reading and discussing religious matters. In her final memories of grandmother Isham, Elizabeth also made note of the good death that she experienced by having trust and faith in God’s plans for her, something that Elizabeth likely wished to emulate. However, grandmother Isham’s impact on Elizabeth’s life paled in comparison to the effect of Lady Isham. As the wife of Sir John Isham, Elizabeth’s mother was essentially the leading female at Lamport Hall while she lived. With such status, Lady Isham, we will see, followed the conventional norm deemed proper for mothers in the period – to raise their children in a religious household and cultivate their piety through religious education. We can only speculate how such education may have shaped Justinian Isham’s outlook on life, since, somewhat ironically, he did not leave as significant a piece of writing to reveal any aspect of the innerworld of Lamport Hall as Elizabeth did with her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Indeed, because of the female perspective found in Elizabeth’s autobiography, we are certain that Lady Isham’s tutelage left an enduring mark on her daughters. In particular, she greatly shaped Elizabeth’s worldview and religious sensibilities by attempting to serve as a pious exemplar to follow. After her mother died, Elizabeth’s closest relationship with another female family member was with her sister. Together, Elizabeth and Judith served as each other’s primary emotional support through times of physical and mental hardships, especially in the 1630s. Their support for each other ultimately created a strong bond, a closeness that caused Elizabeth much grief when her sister died. Combined with the passing of her mother, Judith’s death left a void in Elizabeth’s life, for all the adult women in her nuclear family were gone. Yet their absence neither extinguished their significance nor lessened Elizabeth’s affection for them in her life. After all, with her spiritual autobiography, she left a written testament in memory of her grandmother, mother, and sister, giving posterity a rich view of the female world of Lamport Hall and Elizabeth’s exteriority. 94

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HISTORICAL MEMORY AND THE ISHAMS OF LAMPORT When compared to the paucity of information on the women of Lamport Hall in the Isham collection, it is clearly not an overstatement to say that Elizabeth Isham’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ plugs major holes in our historical memory of the her family. Nowhere in the family papers do we really see the close bond and crucial role that Sir John’s mother, grandmother Isham, had in the lives of his children. Nowhere in the family papers do we acquire a sense of the truly intense physical or spiritual traumas that Lady Isham experienced, how such personal crises affected Sir John, Justinian, Judith, Elizabeth, or other individuals with ties to Lamport Hall. Nowhere in the family papers is there any indication of John Dod’s place in such crises, or how his relationship with Lady Isham towards the end of her life probably made him a worthy broker in the negotiations that revolved around the proposed Isham– Dryden match roughly half a decade later. Nowhere in the family papers – besides perhaps Justinian Isham’s memorial verse to his sister – do we find compelling poignancy and heartbreak when we turn to Judith Isham’s death. Nowhere in the family papers is there a well-rounded story of the death of Justinian’s first wife Jane and baby boy John. And nowhere in the family papers do we gain any real sense of what life was like for the Isham women or how they interacted with each other in the early Stuart period, as the fragmentary evidence we addressed in the first half of this chapter illustrates. To have a fuller history of the Ishams of Lamport Hall, we must turn to Elizabeth Isham and her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Of course, our appreciation of what the autobiography tells us about the Ishams is only enhanced when we read it along with and against the contents of family papers housed at the NRO. Juxtaposing the historical memory found in the Isham papers – largely overshadowed by patriarchy – with the historical memory found in the autobiography permits a fuller reconstruction of the historical memory of the family that called Lamport Hall their home. What shame then that the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ sat for decades in a box, hidden from scholarly view for far too long in the wilds of central New Jersey. Of course, Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ tells us nothing about her or her household after 1639, the year that she completed the life-writing. Indeed, we only know about such things as the Ishams’ trials and tribulations during the English Civil War and Interregnum, the importance that Lady Denton held in the family, and the lives of Justinian’s daughters from sources like the ‘diary’ and random correspondence. Yet these sources merely underscore the enormous lack of significant evidence on the female members of the family, something that becomes even more apparent when recalling what the Isham collection reveals about Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham. Consequently, Elizabeth’s spiritual autobiography brings many of her female relations out of the patriarchal shadow of both her brother and father. In doing so, it balances out the once 95

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male-dominated historical memory of the Ishams of Lamport, and rounds out our knowledge of not just the women but also the men of the family. If the emergence of Elizabeth Isham’s ‘confessions’ has allowed us to challenge the patriarchal distortion of the memory of her family, it will also give us a means to see that she could challenge patriarchy in her own right while she lived.

NOTES 1 For a brief, but useful discussion of the history of the record office, see Joan Wake, ‘Northampton Records,’ Speculum, 33 (1958): 229–235. For examples of early scholarship on the Ishams of Lamport, see Sir Gyles Isham’s historical work on his family: Thomas Isham, The Diary of Thomas Isham of Lamport (1658–81), Kept By Him in Latin from 1671 to 1673 at His Father’s Command, translated by Norman Marlow (Fanborough, 1971), introduction by Gyles Isham; Gyles Isham, ‘The Historical and Literary Associations of Lamport,’ Northamptonshire Past and Present, 1, no. 1 (1948): 17–32; Gyles Isham, ‘The Affair of Grafton Underwood Feast,’ 1, no. 4 (1951), 1–6; Gyles Isham, ‘Captain Henry Isham: A Friend of Pepys,’ Genealogists’ Magazine, 13, no. 3 (1959): 70–76; Gyles Isham, ed., The Correspondence of Bishop Brian Duppa and Sir Justinian Isham, 1650–1660 (Lamport, 1955). 2 An epitaph to Sir John Isham, c.8 July 1651 IMSS, NRO, IL 1637. The actual inscription on the stone in All Saints reads: ‘Sir John Isham Kn & Barrontt/Only Son of Thomas Isham/Esq Married Jvdith Daught/Of Willia Lewin Doctor/of the Civil Law & Judge of the Prerogative Court/Had By Her one Son Jvstinian & Two/Daughtrs Elizabeth and Jvdith/Lived 68 Yeares 11/Months & Died the 8 of July 1651’. 3 Baronetcy Patent, IMSS, NRO, IL 5269. 4 Alan Everitt, ‘Social Mobility in Early Modern England,’ Past and Present (hereafter P. and P.), 33 (1966), 56–73, at 63. 5 The Victoria County History of Northampton (hereafter VCHN), L.F. Salzman ed., vol. IV (London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 210–211. 6 Finch, WFNF, 6–21; VCHN, vol. IV, 195–196. 7 See Felicity Heal and Clive Holmes, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500–1700 (Stanford, CA, 1994), 136–165; Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641 (Oxford, 1965), 184–188, 547–586. 8 Finch, WFNF, 25–27. 9 Thomas Isham to John Isham, 4 April 1600, IMSS, NRO, IC 13. 10 Thomas Isham to John Isham, 17 March 1601/02, IMSS, NRO, IC 27. 11 Thomas Isham to John Isham, 4 April 1600, IMSS, NRO, IC 13. 12 Richard Bancroft, Danguerous Positions and Proceedings Published and Practiced Within this Iland of Brytaine (London, 1593). 13 Thomas Isham to John Isham, 9 May 1600, IMSS, NRO, IC 14. 14 See George Marshall, ed., The Genealogist, vol. II (London, 1878), 247; William Betham, The Baronetage of England, or the History of the English Baronets (Ipswich, 1801), 302; Finch, WFNF, also provides a brief discussion of the marriage, 28. 96

The Ishams of Lamport and their world 15 Ralph Houlbrooke, ‘Lewin, William (d. 1598),’ DNB; online edn, 2012. 16 On the Treshams and Fitzwilliams’ financial woes, see Finch, WFNF, chs 4 and 5. 17 A concise discussion of Sir John’s economic activities also exists in Finch, WFNF, ch. 1. 18 Copies of Settlement for Marriage of Justinian Isham and Jane Garrard, IMSS, NRO, IL 1709, IL 1710, IL 2381, IL 301, IL 1411. For a brief discussion of the marriage see Finch, WFNF, 35. 19 Particulars of Justinian Isham’s Estate, IMSS, NRO, IL 1596. 20 See Healand Holmes, Gentry in England; Stone, Crisis of Aristocracy. 21 Esther S. Cope, The Life of a Public Man: Edward, First Baron Montagu of Boughton, 1562–1644 (Philadelphia, PA, 1981); Richard Cust, ‘Montagu, Edward’, DNB. 22 W.J. Sheils, The Puritans in the Diocese of Peterborough, 1558–1610 (Northampton, 1979); Fielding, CPCC; John Fielding, ed., The Diary of Robert Woodford, 1637–41, Camden Fifth Series, vol. 42 (Cambridge, 2012), Introduction; John Fielding, ‘Arminianism in the Localities: Peterborough Diocese, 1603–1642,’ in The Early Stuart Church, 1603–1642, K. Fincham, ed. (London, 1993), 93–113; T. Webster, Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England: The Caroline Puritan Movement c. 1620–1643 (Cambridge, 1997), ch. 11. 23 Sheils, Puritans in the Diocese of Peterborough, chs 1, 6 and 7; Fielding, CPCC, 1–11. 24 Sir Author Throckmorton to Sir Edward Montagu, 23 August 1618, MMSS, NRO, vol. 14, fo. 32; Sir Francis Fane to Sir Edward Montagu, 3 August 1618, MMSS, NRO, vol. 1, fo. 94; See also Isham, ‘The Affair of Grafton Underwood Feast;’ Fielding, ‘Arminianism in the Localities;’ and Fielding, CPCC, 77–78; 25 John Williams to Sir John Isham, 5 September 1626, IMSS, NRO, IC 167. 26 Sir John Isham to Robert Tounson, 8 August 1618, IMSS, NRO, IC 3281. See also Isham, ‘The Affair of Grafton Underwood Feast;’ Sir Gyles provides a full transcription of Sir John’s letter in this article. 27 Kenneth Fincham, ed., Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church, vol. I (Woodbridge, 1994), xx, 157–168. See also C.S. Knighton, ‘Townson, Robert,’ DNB. 28 There is little evidence on Daniel Baxter, with most information on him found in Isham, BR, fos 11r, 15v, 17r, and 18v–19v. 29 IMSS, NRO, IL 5364. 30 Fielding, CPCC, 55–56. 31 For Nokes’s clerical downfall see the ‘Register Book of the Proceedings of the Committee of the House of Commons for Plundered Ministers,’ BL, Add. MS 15670, fo. 192; ‘The Original Register of the Proceedings of the Committee for Plundered Ministers,’ Bodleian Library, B MS 324, fo. 159r; A.G. Matthews, Walker Revised: Being a Revision of John Walker’s Sufferings of the Clergy During the Grand Rebellion, 1642–1660 (Oxford, 1948), 283. 32 A Certificate from Northamptonshire (London, 1641), 7. 33 John Fielding, ‘Opposition to the Personal Rule of Charles I: The Diary of Robert Woodford, 1637–1641,’ HJ, 31(1998): 772–773. 34 John Fielding, ed., The Diary of Robert Woodford, 1–91, 125–126, 203, 311, 326–327, 329, 331, 335, 352, and 361–362. 35 Sir Erasmus Dryden to Sir John Isham, 22 April 1630, IMSS, NRO, IC 184. 97

The gentlewoman’s remembrance 36 John Dryden I to Sir John Isham, 4 May 1630, IMSS, NRO, IC 185. 37 Sir Erasmus Dryden to Sir John Isham, IMSS, NRO, IC 184. See also Finch, WFNF, note 9, 34–35; J.T. Cliffe, The Puritan Gentry: The Great Puritan Families of Early Stuart England (London, 1984), 67. 38 Sir John Isham to Richard Knightley, 4 August 1630, IMSS, NRO, IC 188. 39 Finch, WFNF, 34–35, note 9. 40 Sir John Isham to Richard Knightley, 4 August 1630, IMSS, NRO, IC 188. 41 Richard Knightley to Sir John Isham, August 1630, IMSS, NRO, IC 3666. 42 John Dryden to Sir John Isham, 11 August 1630, IMSS, NRO, IC 3683. 43 John Dod to Sir John Isham, 22 September 1630, IMSS, NRO, IC 193. 44 Sir Erasmus Dryden to Sir John Isham, 28 September 1630, IMSS, NRO, IC 194. 45 Richard Knightley to Edward Shagborough, 24 March 1630/31, IMSS, NRO, IC 3435. 46 Charles Sherland to Robert Tanfield, 8 April 1631, IMSS, NRO, IC 196. 47 John Dryden to Sir John Isham, 8 April 1631 IMSS, NRO, IC 197. 48 Robert Tanfield to Sir John Isham, 20 April 1631, IMSS, NRO, IC 198. 49 John Dryden to Sir John Isham, 26 May 1631, IMSS, IC 200. 50 Bridges, HAN, 114. The inscription is in Latin, but there is an English translation found in All Saints Church, Lamport. 51 Admission to Christ’s College, IMSS, NRO, IC 3199; see also John Peile, ed., Biographical Register of Christ’s College, 1505–1905, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1910), 382; CDI, xxxiii. 52 Joseph Mede to Martin Stuteville, 21 April 1627, BL, Harl. MSS 390, fo. 235r. 53 Joseph Mede to Martin Stuteville, 18 August 1627, BL, Harl. MSS 390, fo. 289r. 54 For the Mede–Isham correspondence produced in the 1630s, see IMSS, IC 4833, IC 4836, and IC 4837. 55 J.T. Young, Faith, Medical Alchemy and Natural Philosophy: Johann Moriaen, Reformed Intelligencer, and the Hartlib Circle (Aldershot, 1998), 101–112. 56 CDI, xliii. 57 Sketch and inscription for tomb of Jane Isham, IMSS, NRO, IL 1635. See CDI, xxxv. 58 See also Bridges, HAN, 114; CDI, xxxiv. Both monuments to Justinian’s first wife and infant son still exist within All Saints Church, Lamport and lie on the north wall of the chancel. 59 Justinian Isham to Jane, Elizabeth, Judith, and Susan Isham, 22 October 1642, IMSS, NRO, IC 3415. 60 Ibid. 61 Justinian Isham’s Will, IMSS, c. 1644, NRO, IL 1626. 62 Justinian Isham’s musing on science, politics, and religion, IMSS, NRO, IL 3438. Also partially quoted in Fielding, CPCC, 258. 63 Justinian Isham to Elizabeth Isham, 14 March c. 1644, IMSS, NRO, IC 3273. 64 Elizabeth Isham to Justinian Isham, c. March 1644, IMSS, NRO, IC 3273. 65 Justinian Isham to Elizabeth Isham, c. March 1644, IMSS, NRO, IC 3274. 66 Sir John Isham to the Committee of the Parliament for Northamptonshire, 13 March 1645, IMSS, NRO, IC 3424. 67 Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, part II, 1494; IMSS, NRO, IL 1626, IL 3820, IL 2875, IC 3463; CDI, xli. 68 CDI, Introduction; Priestly, R., ‘Isham, Justinian,’ DNB. 98

The Ishams of Lamport and their world 69 Isham, ed., The Diary of Thomas Isham, xliv. 70 For discussion on the power of archives to shape historical research, narratives, and memory, see Carolyn Steedman, Dust (Manchester, 2001); Antoinette Burton, Dwelling in the Archive: Women Writing House, Home, and History in Late Colonial India (Oxford, 2003), especially ch. 1; Antoinette Burton, ed., Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History (Durham, NC, 2005); Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, translated by E. Prenowitz (Chicago, 1995); Carolyn Hamilton, Verne Harris and Michèle Pickover et al., eds, Refiguring the Archive (Cape Town, 2002). 71 Inscription, All Saints Church, Lamport, Northamptonshire. See also Bridges, HAN, 113. 72 Two letters reveals this; Sir Justinian Lewin to Lady Judith Isham, 2 June 1616, IMSS, NRO, IC 148a; Lady Judith Isham to Lady Elizabeth Lewin, 28 February 1623, IMSS, NRO, IC 158. 73 Finch, WFNF, 26–27. 74 For further biographical details on D’Ewes see H.R. Tedder and I. Gadd, ‘D’Ewes, Garrett,’ DNB. See also Finch, WFNF, 27. 75 See Jane Isham to Justinian Isham, c.29 November 1637, IMSS, NRO, IC 4815; Susan Isham to Sir Justinian Isham, 18 May 1650, IMSS, NRO, IC 4326a; Judith Isham to Justinian Isham, IMSS, NRO, IC 281; Jane Isham to Justinian Isham, IMSS. NRO, IC 283; Lady Elizabeth Denton to Sir Justinian Isham, 18 May 1650, IMSS, NRO, IC 4326a. 76 Elizabeth, Lady Denton to Judith, Lady Isham, 30 October 1616, IMSS, NRO, IC 149. 77 Paul D’Ewes and Elizabeth, Lady Denton to Sir John Isham, 1625, IMSS, NRO, IC 166. 78 Inscription, All Saints Church, Lamport, Northamptonshire. See also Bridges, HAN, 113; Justinian Isham, ‘Book of Poetry,’ IMSS, NRO, IL 2684, fo. 12r. 79 See Marshall, ed., The Genealogist, 248; Finch, WFNF, 34. 80 Annuity to Judith Isham, 7 January 1630/31, IMSS, NRO, IL 2258. 81 Elizabeth Isham, ‘diary,’ c. 1648, IMSS, NRO, IL 3365. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. 85 Elizabeth Isham to Sir John Isham, 10 April c. 1630, IMSS, NRO, IC 3473. 86 Jane Isham to Elizabeth Isham, 13 April 1649, IMSS, NRO, IC 265. 87 Elizabeth Isham to Elizabeth Isham, 1 December 1652, IMSS, NRO, IC 4331. 88 Isham, BR, fo. 12v. 89 Ibid., fo. 4v. 90 Ibid., fo. 9v. 91 Ibid., fo. 12v. 92 Samuel Clarke, ‘The Life of Master John Dod, Who Died Anno Christi 1645,’ Samuel Clarke, ed., The Lives of Two and Twenty Divines, Eminent in Their Generations for Learning, Piety, and Painfulnesse in the Work of the Ministry, and for Their Sufferings in the Cause of Christ (London, 1660), 202. 93 Isham, BR, fo. 11v. 94 Ibid., fo. 12r. 95 Ibid., fo. 13r. 99

The gentlewoman’s remembrance 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122

100

Ibid., fo. 13v. Ibid. Ibid., fo. 14r. Ibid. Ibid., fos 14r–14v. Ibid., fo. 14v. Ibid., fo, 10v. Ibid., fo. 19r. Ibid., fo. 17r. Ibid., fo. 19v. Ibid., fo. 3v. Ibid., fo. 9r. Ibid., fo. 12v. Ibid., fo. 17v. Ibid., fo. 6r. Inscription, All Saints Church, Lamport, Northamptonshire. See also Bridges, HAN, 113–115. Isham, BR, fo. 6r. Ibid., fo. 19r. Ibid., fo. 17r. Ibid., fo. 21r. Ibid., fo. 26r. Ibid., fo. 29v. Ibid., fo. 24r. Ibid., fo. 24v. Ibid., fo. 22r. Ibid., fo. 30r. Ibid., 30v.

Chapter 3

. ‘The sweet private life’: singlehood in the patriarch’s household

For I supposed if wee be industerous in an honest calling and hauing that content which doth spring from the root of all goodenesse wee haue enough. I haue bine so well pleased with this priuat life that I haue verily thought you [God] hast fitted me for it though I confesse I haue sometimes desired a little more liberty but seeing my fathers mind was not so much for it, I haue bene very well passified so that I haue thought it thine [God’s] owne doeing to make us so like, for thou onely O Lord doest know how sweet a priuet life hath bine to me.1

So Elizabeth Isham reflected in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, equating her unmarried state circa 1639 with the private life, an existence that she asserted brought her much pleasure. As we know, she remained single for the remainder of her days, a fate not necessarily planned by her or her father. Between 1630 and 1631, she nearly married John Dryden II of Canons Ashbey, after Sir John Isham had negotiated with Sir Erasmus Dryden and John Dryden I for over a year to have her wed the man. If we rely solely on the Isham papers, it appears that the match failed only because of a breakdown between the two families over purely financial disagreement. The discovery, however, of Elizabeth’s autobiography adds nuance to our understanding of the failed match by revealing that the dissolution of her relationship with Dryden further shaped how her ‘confessions’ was a product of not just her interiority but of an exteriority largely moulded by family. Of course, on one level, we can view the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ as a piece of life-writing that revolved around tales about women. Yet these women only partially helped define Elizabeth’s life and writing, since Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham also proved powerful figures in both her and their world, so powerful that she alluded to her father placing limits on her mobility outside the confines of Lamport Hall. The two men were Isham patriarchs, and to them Elizabeth sought to leave her ‘mind writ’ in the form of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, offering her interpretation of how she came to remain unmarried and partake in the sweet private life, a life she viewed as spiritually sanctioned. Key to this story was Elizabeth’s 101

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negotiation with the constraints that patriarchy placed on her life, constraints for which she found the most potent counterbalance in the providence of her heavenly father. Indeed, beliefs in God’s providence proved pivotal in how Elizabeth viewed and approached the prospect of marriage. Contrary to what the Isham papers reveal, it was not wholly financial considerations that caused the dissolution of the Isham–Dryden match. Elizabeth explained that she essentially put the final nail in the coffin of the proposed marriage by calling off the affair because of her sense of familial love, honour, and desire to protect Sir John from conceding to the Drydens’ demands. Religion was also central to the decision, for Elizabeth believed that the dissolution of the match was ultimately God’s judgement against her for loving Dryden more than God himself. Such religious conviction prompted her to reject any further opportunities of marriage in her life, despite her father’s wish that he see Elizabeth the wife of a well respected gentleman. Refusing to wed, Elizabeth instead cultivated what she felt was her vocational calling – a never-married life centred at her family’s estate. To cultivate this vocation, Elizabeth self-fashioned an identity that revolved around austerity, spiritual reflection, and pious meditation. Essentially she became an oxymoron – what we may characterize as a ‘Puritan nun’ with Lamport Hall serving as her protestant convent. Her marital status and life as a never-married woman may have influenced her long position in the recesses of the historical memory of the Ishams, for the status and life do not fit neatly into conceptions of the family’s past centred on the lives and achievements of its patriarchs. We will probably never know fully whether Sir Charles or Sir Gyles Isham intentionally wished to keep locked the particular door to the memory of Elizabeth’s marital status, but their apparent inability to appreciate that memory may have contributed to the exclusion of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ from the family records. In other words, Elizabeth’s refusal to marry seemingly determined not just the trajectory of her life while she lived it but also the remembering of that life during the past four centuries. Our current access to her ‘confessions’ represents a remedy to the patriarchal influence over the historical memory of her singlehood, as well as provides us with intimate access to the role that patriarchy played in her lived existence. Reliance on just the Isham papers creates the impression that Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham were familial despots who ruled over their relations absolutely. The autobiography counterbalances such an image. Regarding Elizabeth’s brother, the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ depicts her relationship with Justinian as a bond between siblings, rather than as a woman subordinate to a patriarch. It seems natural that it does, since the production of her autobiography occurred long before Justinian became head of the Isham family in 1651 – he was the brother not the patriarch in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Just as she was close to her sister, Elizabeth recounted how she had a strong attachment to her brother, noting his caring nature and his involved interest in her life. Elizabeth also related 102

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that she was extremely close to her father, so much so that it appears that she may have had as strong a bond with Sir John as she did with Lady Isham. Yet strains could exist between these men and Elizabeth, the greatest of which shaped her choice never to marry and to adopt the identity of an enormously pious single woman. The identity provides us with important insights on singlehood and patriarchy in early modern England.

EARLY MODERN PATRIARCHY AND SINGLEHOOD To say that early modern England was a society in which patriarchal ideals underwrote or informed how most people thought about power dynamics is not an overstatement. Couched in metaphor and allegory, justifications for royal authority commonly portrayed monarchs like James I or Charles I as paternal figures, with their kingdom or commonwealth equated to domestic households over which they served as family heads. Little wonder then that such an image filtered into thinking on the actual domestic sphere of everyday society. Indeed, the image was ubiquitous in the conduct literature of the period. In their famous book on household government, John Dod and Robert Cleaver asserted that England was the sum of all its familial parts: ‘An household is as it were a little Commonwealth, by the good gouerment whereof, Gods glorie may be aduanced, and the commonwealth which standeth of seuerall families benefited; and all that liue in that familie receiue much comfort and commoditie’.2 To the husband and father primary governorship in the ‘little Commonwealth’ went, and Dod and Cleaver were not alone in holding such sentiment. Richard Brathwait – the seventeenth-century poet and author of several conduct books – pontificated in 1630: ‘As every man’s house is his Castle, so is his family a private Commonwealth, wherein if due government be not observed, nothing but confusion is to be expected’.3 Other domestic theorists shared a similar opinion, such as the preacher William Whately: ‘He that allowes not an evill thought of the Prince, will not allow evill speeches of the husband [or father] … for he is the Prince of the household, the domesticall king’.4 At first glance, based on the Isham papers, this parallel between the household and state seems to apply to Sir John and Sir Justinian Isham. The former arranged marriages, purchased the manor of Shangton for his son, controlled the Isham finances, and added to the family holdings. Succeeding Sir John in 1651, Justinian continued his father’s practices, remodelling Lamport Hall and becoming the first of the family to serve in Parliament. Together they appear in the Isham papers to have reigned as the kings of their household, with their female relations subordinated to their wills and whims, including in the realm of historical memory. Taken in this way, the place of Sir John and Sir Justinian in the Isham household accords nicely with what feminist theorists and a number of historians have viewed as the key characteristic of patriarchy through time – it 103

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has been a system of hegemonic power in which men subordinate and dominate women in all walks of life, be it from the level of the state down to the level of the family.5 There is much evidence from the early modern period that points to men attempting to achieve such a reality. Medical and religious explanations, if not justifications existed in early modern Europe that served as arguments for why power in society should rest with men rather than women. The first of these drew from the Galenic-Aristotelian tradition of physiology that produced a sex or gender scheme that centred on the belief in four humours – sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic – linked to the four bodily fluids of hot and moist blood, hot and dry choler-bile, cold and dry black bile, and cold and moist phlegm. A distinct gradation existed between these humours, with privilege given to heat over cold. How these fluids mixed together within any given individual differed and determined his or her temperament and behavioural characteristics, although the general assumption was that women normally had an over abundance of cold humours as opposed to men’s propensity for hot ones. In other words, women’s humours made them inversions of men, and these humours generally, in turn, made females more prone to melancholy and irrationality than sanguinity and rationality. When conflated with the Scriptural exegesis of Augustine of Hippo on the book of Genesis, this conception of the bodily differences between men and women found a complementary rhetorical stance. Original sin emerged from the Fall in the Garden of Eden, and that sin resulted from Eve’s weakness of succumbing to the serpent’s temptation to eat the forbidden fruit and lead Adam astray. Thus blame for paradise lost fell squarely on the shoulders of the first woman, and all subsequent women became viewed as the daughters of Eve, daughters full of cold humours that made them less capable than men and more prone to sin.6 In sum, contemporary belief considered women to be ‘weaker vessels’ who lacked the ability to control their desires and resist temptation. Their propensity to sin – so many believed in the period – predisposed women to have a voracious appetite for all earthly delights, the greatest of which was sex. The key, therefore, was to put checks on such appetites, no better achieved than by men. After all, they apparently had the desired combination of humours in their bodies and they were the sons of Adam, the first man created in God’s image. As husbands and fathers, it was they who had the ultimate responsibility to ensure that their wives and daughters strove to be chaste, silent, and obedient, a behavioural combination seen as the best counterbalance to their believed inherent weakness. Masterless or independent single females had no legitimate place in this conceptual framework, particularly because of a centuries-old stereotype that equated these sort of women to prostitutes and instigators of debauchery in society. The living arrangements of women needed strict oversight, manifested most efficiently through wedlock. It was marriage that made men into husbands and women into wives, and from their conjugal unions emerged households with the birth of sons and 104

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daughters. In this context, the prevention of fornication occurred, sexual honour remained pristine, and the insults of ‘whore’ and ‘harlot’ – perhaps the worst of all derogatory labels for women in the period – proved essentially moot. Of course, a number of scholars have emphasized that such ideals could cross the confessional divide, asserting that a great deal of continuity and similarity existed between Catholics and Protestants regarding marriage and the family after the Reformation. Yet it is hard not to find that wedlock took on new dimensions for Protestants. Unlike Catholics, they lacked the ecclesiastical institution of the convent for women who wished to live celibate lives and wed themselves to Christ. Furthermore, while Protestants – especially Puritans – did not believe that marriage constituted a sacrament, they nonetheless infused it with enormous meaning. It was through wedlock that a religion of the Word perpetuated itself with the creation of godly households that would maintain harmony and order in society, and that would in turn serve as bulwarks against the threat of the anti-Christ and popery. Marriage was therefore serious business, not only due to its social or economic implications but also because of its religious and eschatological significance. The stakes were high, too high to leave them to just the purview of the so-called ‘weaker vessel’, and consequently the daughters of Eve needed the guidance and direction of husbands and fathers.7 Much of this has contributed to assertions that the Reformation strengthened patriarchal authority in early modern England, if not throughout all of Western Europe.8 However, although patriarchy served as the political ideal at both the state and household level, it was not a completely rigid system that prevented the expression of women’s agency. Indeed, the notions expressed by the likes of Brathwaite and Whately were ideals that did not always work in practice nor were completely set in stone as inflexible dictates. While men were seen as having the ultimate say in the household, it was quite a common notion too that they needed to share some authority with women, as Dod and Cleaver made evident: ‘The gouenours of a family, be such as haue authoritie in the familie by Gods ordiance, as the father and mother, master and mistresse’.9 Historians have also shown that it was not just the sharing of authority that could put limits on patriarchy. In his study of the power of female gossip, Bernard Capp has argued that women frequently negotiated the terms of the patriarchal order in the household, often gaining a degree of personal autonomy and authority. Likewise, Susan Dwyer Amussen has stressed that domestic theorists advocated a benevolent patriarchy; after all, neither a male head of the household nor a king should be a despot. To demonstrate this ideal, she has illustrated how husbands and fathers never had absolute power to use physical force against their wives. So limited was patriarchy in the period that scholars like David Underdown, Anthony Fletcher, and Mark Breitenberg have contended that early modern England was a country full of anxious patriarchs who had genuine, if not legitimate fears that women 105

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could undermine their authority. Looking to provide further nuance, scholars – like Fletcher and Linda Pollock – have stressed that affection and negotiation within families often softened patriarchal power in households. Moreover, to say that patriarchy only subordinated women ignores the fact that not all men enjoyed the social positions of husband or father, or that women could exert power over other women.10 One thing should be profoundly clear from this – a great deal of ambiguity existed in early modern patriarchy, ambiguity that throws many degrees of colour onto a starkly black-and-white portrait that feminist historians have typically painted of male tyranny over women. There was perhaps no better manifestation of such ambiguity than in the realm of courtship and marriage, the essential ingredients for the creation of patriarchal households. We see this in contemporary conduct literature. Pointing to numerous Old Testament examples – like Michol and David or Rebecca and Isaac – Dod and Cleaver opined: ‘All of which testimonies and examples doe plainely proue the great interest, power, and authority that parents haue in bestowing their children’.11 William Gouge put it in starker terms: God himself hath given us herein a patterne: He first brought the woman to the man, whereby he would shew that he who gave a being to the woman to the man, had a right to dispose her in marriage: which right parents now have: for from them under God, children receive their being. In this case Parents stand in Gods roome, and are as it were Gods hand to joyne their children in marriage.

So key were parents that Gouge followed: ‘The ancient fathers of the Church have in their ages taught children this duty, and pronounced marriages of children without consent of parents, to be unlawfull’.12 Echoing Gouge, Matthew Griffith further stressed: ‘And this is a perpetuall Law of Marriage; for children (how-ever in some respects they may be exempted from parents authority) doe owe notwithstanding, the duty of honour unto them, and accordingly they are bound to testifie the same by being advised and ordered by them’.13 All of this leaves the impression that the cultural norm of the period placed absolute authority in the hands of parents, particularly fathers. Yet men like Dod, Cleaver, and Griffith could temper their rhetoric on marriage formation. According to Dod and Cleaver, a whole range of considerations – including true and sanctified love, mutual promise, free consent, and religious affinity – were necessary: ‘so that in this regard, neither parent, magistrate, nor any other, can or ought to breake it’.14 Indeed, there were ultimate limits on parents’ authority in Griffith’s mind: Yet we must not forget, or omit this; that were the parents different, and can yield no probable cause; there the Marriage consummated without their consent, is, and ought to be ratified by the authority, and laws of the civill Magistrate … for Household-government is not a Tyrannie (as some head-strong, brain-sick Parents would have it) but is to be ruled by equitie.15 106

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Parents, with husbands and fathers taking the lead, were to be benevolent and they were not to force upon their children marriages to which they did not consent. Marriage was to create godly commonwealths in miniature, to perpetuate God’s seed on earth and honour him with husbands and wives yoked together through affection in order to spread both the Word and God’s love among his earthly children. While clearly a hierarchal partnership, husband and wife acted as master and mistress in such homes, and this partnership could not work well if forced upon them unwillingly by their parents. The theme of parental power underscores scholarship on courtship and marriage that has long crystallized around scholarly debate over whether economics or romantic love was more important in the formation of early modern English marriage. Lawrence Stone has argued that when it came to marriage negotiations, the concern for the upper ranks of English society was to maintain, if not to expand their family status and estates. For this reason, the landed classes de-emphasized the importance of love as a reason for marriage and, in turn, stressed that wedlock had to be a family affair, since it was too important to be left to the bride and groom alone.16 Other historians have stressed that such a situation was not only true for the landed elite, but also for all social levels of English society. In her work on courtship and marriage in the sixteenth century, Diana O’Hara has asserted that marriage formation occurred in a ‘social-moral’ community of family, kin, and neighbours. This community exerted pressure on young people that could assume a number of forms, such as moral sanctioning or physical intimidation, but financial considerations often took precedence over all other pressures.17 Likewise, Peter Rushton’s study of Durham court records from 1560 to 1630 argued that few people entered into marriage without a sound economic foundation.18 Not all historians – particularly Alan MacFarlane and David Cressy – have agreed with this assessment, stressing that romantic love and attraction were the fundamental ingredients in the process of marriage.19 Taking a more cautious position, Keith Wrightson, Ralph Houlbrooke, and Martin Ingram have contended that a subtle marriage system existed in which romantic love and economic considerations had equal or greater influence over the other, depending on the situation.20 Clearly romantic love and economics were essential but the debate over which took precedence creates a rather narrow and a limited perspective of marriage formation in early modern England. By focusing on affection or finances, scholars have created yet another false dichotomy for our study and understanding of early modern England. To her credit, O’Hara has declared the dichotomy over-simplistic because it does not consider that other issues besides monetary and romantic concerns could prove important in the courtship process.21 While she contradicts this declaration by also stressing that financial concerns played the main role in marriage formation, O’Hara’s observation is nonetheless a welcomed insight; it allows for the possibility that other factors – such as familial love, honour, and personal piety – could be as or more important than romantic love and 107

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economics. Moreover, the dichotomy has led to an under-appreciation of the lasting impact that a failed match could have on an individual, particularly how it could lead to a lifelong existence of singlehood within a patriarchal society. For those concerned with such an issue, we must turn to work centred on never-married women. Maryanne Kowaleski has asserted that one in five women in Europe, who reached the age of fifty, never entered into wedlock through much of the seventeenth century.22 Such data reveal that nevermarried women likely represented a substantial portion of the population in early modern England, especially as time progressed into the Stuart period. Yet they have garnered little scholarly attention until recently – only a handful of studies on the subject exist, with the leading work produced by Bridget Hill and Amy Froide.23 The latter has contended that most never-married women experienced courtship and the possibility of marriage, ‘but for various reasons these women were either tripped up or they stopped short. They then diverted to an alternative path, that of singlehood’. Such women, Froide has stressed, rarely made a straightforward choice to remain unmarried; more often than not their status as never-married women stemmed from a series of decisions and different factors, ranging from sickness or deformity to the pursuit of a religious vocation. Yet whatever the reasons that led a woman to a life of singlehood, this marital status – something Froide considers to be a category of historical analysis like class or gender – largely determined how she constructed her identity in a society that did not champion the existence of the never-married woman.24 After all, single women had the potential of falling through the cracks of the ideals of the patriarchal household, and hence become masterless sowers of sin and disorder in society. In other words, the proper roles of women were to be wives and mothers, and those who did not acquire these roles could pose a serious danger. Fear of single women could manifest in dramatic fashion, as scholars have shown by illustrating that it was usually widows or unwed women who disproportionally suffered during early modern witch-hunts.25 Hill has perhaps best summed up Tudor-Stuart attitudes on never-married females: ‘women who did not marry were regarded at best “failed women” to be pitied or derided, at worst, ruined women whose presence “contaminated society”’.26 General Protestant views on marriage and celibacy informed and shaped these attitudes. While marriage could lead to the creation of the godly household – with all of its social, economic, and eschatological significance – wedlock, in the mind of the Protestant, nonetheless could also have particular and enormous impact on the destiny of the individual’s soul. Common in contemporary conduct literature was reference to Paul’s statement on his own celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7:9: ‘I say to the unmarried, and to widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I do: but if they cannot abstaine, let them marry for it is better to marry than to burne’.27 To defend against the temptations and sins of the flesh, wedlock was the necessary solution. It 108

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served as insurance against fornication, locking a couple into a monogamous relationship through holy matrimony with God sanctioning sexual acts performed within that union. William Perkins – that giant, if not undisputed champion of Calvinist theology in the Elizabethan period – also addressed the issue by couching his comments in anti-papal rhetoric on Catholic vows: ‘the vow of continencie, whereby a man promiseth to God to keepe chastity always in a single life … This kind of vowe is flat against the worde of God and therefore unlawfull. For Paul saith, 1 Cor. 7.9. If they can not continence let them marry. 1 Tim. 4.1. It is a doctrine of deuills to forbid to marry. Heb.13.4. Marriage is honour able among all, and the bedde of undefiled’.28 Ideas on clerical marriage proved influential on Perkins’ views: ‘it appeareth to be a cleare case, that the commandement of the Pope of Rome, whereby he forbiddeth marriage of certain persons, as namely, of Clergie men, is merely diabolicall’. In this regard, he found monasticism particularly harmful: ‘the lawe of god is practiced not apart; but in and with the loue of our neighbour. This being so, it is manifest that vowed pouertie in monkish life makes many unprofitable members both of Church and common wealth’.29 Pursuing, therefore, a chaste and cloistered life could prove ill for both the individual and society. Yet the privileging of marriage over celibacy by English Protestants also could have degrees of ambiguity. Eric Carlson has asserted that, unlike other parts of Europe in which Protestantism made inroads, celibate ideals never fell under a similar vigorous attack in England during the sixteenth century; widespread changes, for example, of views on the virtues of clerical marriage proved slow and gradual over much of the Tudor period and did not have real impact on cultural norms until the seventeenth century.30 While such an argument has echoes of the revisionist agenda of historians like Christopher Haigh and Eamon Duffy, there is evidence in the writings of leading English Protestants that points to remnants of centuries-old norms on singlehood that existed long before the Reformation. Indeed, ambiguity existed in Perkins’ position on marriage: To some men who haue the gift of continencie, it is in many respects farre better then marriage, yet not simple, but only by accident in regard of sundrie calamities which came into the world by sin. For, first it freeth a man from any great cares of household affaires. Againe, it maketh him much more fit & disposed to meditate of heauenly things, without distraction of mind. Besides that, when dangers are either present or imminent, in matters belonging to this life, the single person is in this case happie, because he and his are more secure and safe, [than] the others be who are in married state.31

Here Perkins juxtaposed continence as a possible superior state with wedlock, holding it up as ideal for the cultivation of piety and a spiritual state, and as a means to protect someone from facing similar temporal challenges experienced by married people. Continence was a divine gift, a token of providence: ‘Gods gifts be of two sorts; some are common to all beleeuers, as the gift of 109

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faith, repentance and the feare of God etc. others are peculiar to some onely, as the gift of continence’.32 Perkins was not alone in his beliefs, since we know that Matthew Griffith offered similar rhetoric: ‘It is true indeed that (since the fall) to those few that have the gift of continence, the single life is better than the married’. Singlehood freed a person from household affairs, allowed them to meditate more fully on spiritual matters, and gave them the acumen to face persecution easier because of the lack of worries over the safety of spouses and children.33 In many ways this reiterated Perkins’ stance, and both he and Griffith also felt that continence was a rare gift that few of God’s saints could enjoy. Dod and Cleaver shared such sentiment: ‘All persons which haue not receiued the gift of abstinence, and are fit for procreation, are called and commanded to marry, and therefore may lawfully enter a contract of the same’.34 Thus, while marriage held enormous religious and cultural weight among early modern Protestants – they did view it as the calling for the vast majority of people – reformed divines in England were nonetheless also capable of believing that chastity did have a place in their church. As long as it was a providential gift, continence was a sanctified destiny for the chosen few. God’s judgement could ultimately overrule any general reservations of the unwed state and provide reverence for chastity in an early modern society that idealized marriage and could cast scorn on single people, especially never-married women. If we turn to specific evidence of cases of women who experienced or had thoughts about marriage formation and singlehood, we find illustrations of the religious ambiguities that revolved around the processes of wedlock and never marrying. Of course, Catholic women in England had long found a ready religious avenue to pursue if they felt disinclined to have a husband, as was the case for the noted mystic and nun of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Mary Ward. Born in 1585 in Yorkshire, she experienced the prospect of marriage at least twice, first at the tender age of ten and then at thirteen but on the latter occasion ‘her mind so much an other Way’ that her ‘dear and noble harted Father [Marmaduke Ward] broke it off’.35 By the age of sixteen, Ward determined to pursue the vocation of a religious sister – despite her father’s contrary desires – by wedding God instead of an earthly man: ‘she resolved to embrace the first opportunity to passe the Seas, and sayd to her selfe, I will see him no more, and that joy, so as what had beene above thousands of Worlds deare to her, when in ballace with her best pleasing God, was as nothing’.36 Here we view Ward choosing her spiritual patriarch over her earthly father and, while her Catholicism helps explain a great deal of why she had such an option, we should not necessarily assume it was something that Protestant women did not consider when the prospect of marriage presented itself to them in the early modern period. A case in point was Alice Thornton – the daughter of Christopher Wandesford, Lord Deputy of Ireland for a short period after the fall of Thomas Wentworth in 1640 – who explained that religious considerations weighed heavily on her 110

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mind when thinking about the positives of singlehood over wedlock: ‘As to my selfe, I was exceedingly sattisfied in that happie & free condition [singlehood], wherein I inioyed my time abundantly in the Seruice of my of god’.37 Family interests had influence too, but it was ultimately providence that Thornton trusted to finally agree to marry William Thornton in 1651, approaching the union with a religious conviction: ‘Therefore itt highly conserned me to enter into this greatest Change of my life [singlehood] with abundance of feare & caution, not lightly, nor Vnaduisedly; nor, as I may take God to witnesse … to fulfill the lusts of the flesh, but in chastity, & singlenesse of heart, as marrieing in the Lord’.38 In the end, the marriage was an affectionate one, and when her husband died in 1668, it served as a major motivation for why she composed an autobiographical account of her own life. A less happy union occurred for Alice Thornton’s contemporary, Elizabeth Delaval, but religion also proved important to her interpretation of marriage. In the 1660s, she experienced other people’s disapproval with the possible match of James, Lord Annesley, a man with whom she was deeply in love and considered eloping. Unfortunately for her, familial pressures proved too powerful, since Annesley never became her husband. Instead, she wed Sir Robert Delaval, a marriage that apparently brought her few joys and had an ill effect on her religious meditations: ‘I am … amazed in a new world, haveing quited my beloved vergin state of life, I scarce know where I am; and all the evills I feel come upon me are for want off allowing my selfe that due time of consideration which I ought to do’.39 Thus, similar to Thornton, Elizabeth Delaval conceived that marriage could interrupt her religious life, one that she had developed as a youthful virgin. What women like Thornton and Delaval underscore is the reservations about marriage that Protestant women – ones that lived well after the Reformation had occurred – could have that were strikingly similar to those that Catholic women like Ward held. Yet these two Protestant women ultimately married, something that was not the case for a contemporary of Elizabeth Isham, Dionys Fitzherbert, who spent her entire life outside of wedlock. Born in 1580 to an Oxfordshire gentry family, Fitzherbert was an enormously godly woman who, in her teens, rejected a gentleman whom her family wished her to marry, a rejection likely rooted in an desire to cultivate a celibate life devoted to piety and God. Indeed, so strong were her convictions of the value that a never-married state could have for Protestant women that Fitzherbert drafted a letter addressed to the Church of England that illustrated her understanding of derision that early modern society could heap on celibate women: ‘Now, alas, we are fallen below all degree of contempt. For can there be named a more despised thing than a virgin, an ancient virgin, who hath in a religious way given her name to Christ … in fasting and prayer day and night’.40 Indeed, so Fitzherbert stressed, never-married women could fall between the cracks of early modern society, without anyone extolling their virtues: ‘Our case is not commended to the church, nor our parents, 111

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kinsfolk and friends, that we might not be neglected of our own families as taking a course contrary to all the world, and so anything though good enough for us’. There was a real shame in this reality, since the continence of pious women could socially and spiritually benefit all, including the Church itself: ‘if right information were given concerning us, I doubt not but many even noble families would flourish with notable patterns of chastity and piety, to the helping to stop the mouths of thine adversaires, which say there is no eminent holiness in thee and thy sister reformed churches’.41 Based on all of these statements, it is clear that Fitzherbert – a Protestant English woman – likely would have agreed with the assertions made by the likes of Perkins, Griffith, Dod, and Cleaver who, despite their overall exaltation of marriage for women, nonetheless found room in their Protestant thought for the merits of celibacy and singlehood. As we see in Thornton and Delaval, even women who ultimately entered wedlock could also cherish the virtues of continence, even lamenting the possible loss of these virtues after marriage. What we are dealing with here is the lack of absolutes, much like we do when faced with the scope of marriage formation and the reach of patriarchal authority in the early modern period. With Elizabeth Isham, we see all this ambiguity coalescing in one person, and the survival of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ allows us to examine this coalescence from a deep and microhistorical perspective. As one of the few never-married women whose life-writing – in this case a narrative spiritual autobiography – has survived from the seventeenth century, Elizabeth gives us near unprecedented entry into the thinking and worldview of an individual who belonged to a growing, significant, and often derided demographic in seventeenth-century England. The fact that she freely chose singlehood simply adds to the profoundness of the discovery of her ‘confessions’. Much as it does for the women of her family, the autobiography brings Elizabeth’s relationships with her father and brother into the light, and reveals how such relationships shaped how she negotiated – particularly with her father – the potential restraints placed upon her by patriarchal status and authority. Such negotiation was complex, and the circumstances that led to her lifelong singlehood are the best illustration of Elizabeth’s circumvention of men’s authority. These circumstances provide us with the means to question the viability of the ‘love–economics debate’ in the study of courtship and marriage, and to show that the spiritual patriarchy of God could far outweigh its earthly counterpart. Scholars have spent too little time fully considering such patriarchy, and it is this spiritual patriarchy that gave her the ability to become essentially a ‘Puritan nun’ in a kingdom rife with views against such a lifestyle and identity. While she proved capable of deflecting negative judgement against her for choosing this identity during her life, she could not defend against it after her death, since it appears to have affected how Isham patriarchs subsequently shaped our historical memory of Elizabeth Isham. 112

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A BROTHER, A PATRIARCH, AND A SISTER Upon the death of Sir John in 1651, Justinian Isham became the family head of the Ishams, and consequently Elizabeth’s second patriarch at Lamport Hall. One of his first acts after ascending to his new position was to erect a large slate tombstone in the church of All Saints to honour the memory of his father. All existing evidence in the Isham papers indicates that Justinian never made a similar gesture in honour of Elizabeth, a decision that has shaped our historical memory of her for centuries. After all, she is the only member of her immediate family who does not have a funeral monument in All Saints Church. Reasons behind Justinian’s failure to erect a monument could be many, ranging from simply following a trend among the gentry not to erect funeral markers for deceased never-married woman to possible sibling discord. Whatever the reason, the certainty here is we enter into the realm of speculation, largely due to the shadowy history in the Isham papers of her life after 1639. Prior to this date, we avoid guesswork because of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Indeed, no matter the motives for Justinian failing to erect a monument in honour of his sister, Elizabeth recounted in her autobiography that the relationship between her and her brother was one of genuine affection during their childhoods and early adulthood. Seemingly, such affection would have made it natural for Elizabeth to garner a marker at her death but this, of course, was not the case. Elizabeth’s earliest memories of her brother reveal that Justinian, like her sister Judith, experienced ill health early during his childhood to such a degree that sometimes the Isham family worried for his life. ‘My Brother,’ Elizabeth related, ‘had an ill fitt at nurs being weakly afterward (I hard my mother say she had little hope of his life) but such is thy goodness O Lord which hath made him a sounde man to our great ioy and comfort’.42 Along with the rest of the family, Elizabeth was thankful for the survival of her brother. She was also grateful for Justinian being a ‘sounde man’, a man she found to be respectful and honourable. Her admiration for her brother likely stemmed not only from the fact that Justinian worked hard to be a well-respected gentleman, but also because she enjoyed his company. At eight or nine, Judith Isham fell ill, causing her parents to quarantine Justinian and Elizabeth from her: ‘about this time my Sister had a feuer, for which cause my brother & I remoued into the chamber within my granmothers’. Also staying in their grandmother Isham’s chamber was Thomas Ardys, Elizabeth’s cousin, who proved difficult for her grandmother to manage. Ardys’ behavior annoyed Elizabeth and Justinian, who together tormented the boy: though he was untoward in the day to my grandmothers greffe, yet he was very fearful in the night crying out in his sleepe & saying his prayers & I called upon my Brother to rore as I did to scare him, O God pardon my faults & let not my unworthyness hinder my praiers.43 113

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Notwithstanding her later regret, it is not hard to imagine that she and Justinian found delight in jointly harassing their young cousin, a delight that reinforced the bond between brother and sister, a bond reinforced by their mutual affection for their sister Judith. Elizabeth was probably thankful for Justinian’s kindness toward their sister, a woman whom we have seen was perhaps the most important female figure in Elizabeth’s early adult life. Noting the memorial verse found both in the parish church of All Saints and the Isham papers that Justinian composed, Elizabeth commented in her autobiography how her brother coped with the death of their sister in 1636: ‘my Brother to who she was deare, & to whom she used to make her mind knowne made this epitaph of her: Heere shee who with afflictions trid & tride of minde & bodie was so purefide that by the Sacred heate of Deuine loue her Soule soone hatcht flew to the Saints above’.44 His love also motivated Justinian to comfort Judith when she was living, helping her to cope with both her physical and spiritual hardships: she found much comfort in my Brother who I beleeue was not free from suggestions of Satan but being a man had more strength & learning to withstand them & to comfort her & being most inward with him for she would tell me she was most like him & that she loued him better then she did me.45

On hearing such words, it would have been understandable if Elizabeth felt a degree of envy. Yet this proved not to have been the case: ‘I said I was contented she should [love Justinian] I knew she loued me well too, and my selfe loued her neuer whit the worse, for so saying or doing and I was glad that she had such comfort of my Brother’.46 Happy to know that Justinian took an active interest in the well-being of Judith, Elizabeth joined him a year later to convince their sister to strive to improve her health: ‘my Sister delighted not to imploy her selfe this way … whereby I suppose she suffered the more both in mind & body, though my Brother & my selfe perswaded her by all meanes … that she would striue & not giue way to make herselfe worse by doeing nothing’.47 Unfortunately for Elizabeth and Justinian, their efforts could not prevent the subsequent deterioration of Judith’s health and eventual death. Despite this outcome, Elizabeth’s gratefulness for Justinian’s efforts increased her respect and love for him, as Elizabeth frequently noted in her autobiography. Remembering when she was about eleven years old, Elizabeth related: ‘now I growing to more yeeres of discretion had … more affection towardes my brother’. She recalled that she employed her skills as a seamstress to express her affection for Justinian: ‘also about this time I wrot him a purs’.48 Such affection caused Elizabeth to miss her brother when he was not present at Lamport Hall, particularly when Justinian sojourned in the Low Countries between 1633 and 1634. Elizabeth noted that in her brother’s absence she found the writings of Joseph Hall, the Bishop of Exeter at the 114

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time, appropriate to express her feelings: ‘I haue found in my Brothers absences Doctor Halls words good, true loue to be like a strong streme which the further it is from the head runs with the more violence & I thought I had in my selfe being eldest a motherly affection towards him’. Here Elizabeth revealed she had maternal feelings for Justinian, which led her to fret over his well-being, a worry she shared with her sister Judith: my Sisters loue I suppose was no lesse [than mine] who told me often that her strength of loue to her friends did her hurt especially to my Brother, whom wee often talked of at nights & our praiers & desires was to thee [God] for him & for his safe return.49

Fortunately for Elizabeth and Judith, their brother returned in 1634, and subsequently married Jane Garrard. With her brother wed, Elizabeth approached her father: ‘I spoke to my father my Brother & Sister [in-law] might liue here for I [or] we was alone & thought it would be more lightsome for us’.50 Although Justinian, his wife Jane, and their children would not make extensive stays at Lamport for another few years, it greatly pleased Elizabeth when they finally did: ‘I haue found this company [of her brother’s family] profitable both for my spiritual & temporal estate’.51 In short, her frequent expressions of affection for Justinian highlight Elizabeth’s overall closeness to her brother. This affection, however, between brother and sister may have withered as time progressed. In late February 1654, Sir Justinian Isham wrote to his good friend, bishop Brian Duppa, reporting his intention to make improvements to Lamport Hall: ‘My cheifest imployment at present seems to me as naturall as to the very birds and crowes about mee, to be busy in building my nest’.52 We know that Justinian had planned the improvements for at least a year and a half, since in May 1652 he was in correspondence with David Papillon – a noted French architect – enquiring about his services. Papillon discouraged Justinian from remodelling Lamport Hall, but suggested that he build an entirely new home for the beginning price of £1,500.53 The cost and the proposed new house was not to Justinian’s liking, since he chose not to commission Papillon, instead going with the services of John Webb, a pupil of the renowned Inigo Jones. In June 1654, Webb began working on designs for a new front in a neo-classical style, subsequently leading to construction at Lamport lasting until 1657.54 Unfortunately there is no evidence of what the scene was like during the remodelling, although we can imagine that there was a hustle and bustle around the Isham estate, with the click-clack of hammers and the chipping of stone heard as workmen laboured to execute Webb’s design. Just prior to the beginning of this whole process, Elizabeth Isham died in Lamport on 11 April 1654. Unaware of her death, Duppa wrote to Justinian the same day: ‘I am troubled … for that which afflicts you, the sickness of your onely sister, whose health I shall pray for’.55 In his reply, Justinian 115

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informed his friend of Elizabeth’s passing: ‘Since my last to your Lordship which acquainted you with our condition heere, God hath pleased to take my sister to Him after her 15th daye being ill when we hoped for recovery’. Justinian’s wish for Elizabeth’s recovery was the only hint of his concern for her, since he went on to tell Duppa that rather than mourn her death, he would use the event to take precaution that no one else fell ill at Lamport: ‘There have not any since fallen sick amongst us. God grant we make a right use of this His visitation, many in these parts as elsewhere being suddenly taken’.56 There is little or no significant sorrow here for Elizabeth’s death in Justinian’s comments, something that may have contributed to why he apparently never erected a funeral monument in the church of All Saints to honour Elizabeth. Now, it is true that Justinian experienced periodic harassment by the Cromwellian government during the Interregnum and renovations at Lamport Hall did consume much of his focus. Yet if these proved so significant, then Justinian’s political and architectural priorities took precedence over the death of his sister. Indeed, compared to the cost of the renovations to Lamport Hall, the expenditure for a monument to Elizabeth would have been minuscule. We know that he was the executor of her will and the gesture would neither have taken much effort nor would it have been expensive; a small funeral plaque similar to those of his mother and sister Judith – the latter for whom we know he wrote the epitaph found on her funeral monument – would have affected his purse very little. Of course, the erection of funeral monuments could be hit and miss among the landed elite in England, especially for female kin who never married, but questions still arise when we realize that Elizabeth was the only one of her immediate family who did not receive a marker in Lamport’s All Saints church.57 Reasons for this absence could rest with the conventional cultural views toward singlehood for women in early modern England, a status not championed but often derided in the early Stuart period. In the case of the landed elite, especially among relatively new members of the gentry like the Ishams, monuments to deceased relatives served the primary functions of not only being key elements in the mourning process but also to display and communicate a family’s power, prestige, and honour. Marriage sat at the heart of building such status or honour in the period, for it created or maintained familial alliances and wealth when members of either the gentry or nobility entered into marital unions. The hard fact of the matter was that never-married women of the landed elite did not directly contribute to this process, since they never became spouses of well-respected gentlemen or lords. Little wonder then that we find few funeral monuments to nevermarried women from the upper ranks of early Stuart society. As the heads of landed families, patriarchs of the gentry or nobility were viewed as the prime custodians of the status and honour of such families and the displays of their prestige that included the erection of monuments to dead loved ones. 116

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Never-married women did not easily nor necessarily fit into stories that evoked this prestige. Considering this context, the fact that Justinian neglected to provide a monument for Elizabeth is perhaps less surprising, as he may have proven critical of her singlehood – a singlehood that she spent almost entirely at the Isham estate of Lamport Hall – and the financial security that it provided her. In other words, he may have resented the fact that she was a never-married woman, seeing her status as a dishonour to the family and a drain on his purse. This does not mean that Justinian could not hold affection for his never-married siblings; after all, he was more than willing to contribute to the design and execution of the monument to Judith Isham that now rests in All Saints. Yet such contributions occurred while he was Sir John Isham’s heir, making him merely Elizabeth’s younger brother for most of her life. Perhaps after becoming the family patriarch in 1651, he felt then beholden, because of contemporary cultural attitudes, to present an image of the Ishams that did not include the never-married story of the longest living female presence at Lamport Hall in the early seventeenth century. As we know, Justinian’s decision not to erect a monument could leave any visitor to the church of All Saints wholly ignorant of Elizabeth Isham’s existence. In doing so, he shaped our memory of his sister much like the heirs to his patriarchal authority two or three centuries later did when excluding the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ from the family papers. If, as it appears, that Elizabeth’s singlehood and its relation to patriarchy throws light onto why such exclusions occurred, then it behoves us to explore more the factors that contributed to her never marrying. The ‘Booke of Rememberance’ provides us with the most intimate means to conduct such exploration, and, as we will see, it reveals that Sir John Isham and his patriarchal authority shaped how Elizabeth thought about and acted on the prospect of wedlock. Her thoughts and actions in this regard underscore that Sir John’s familial power – similar to many patriarchs in early modern England – was ambiguous and not absolute.

A FATHER–DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP Although Elizabeth made it evident in her autobiography that her mother, sister, and brother were important, we could argue that her father was the central, if not most significant person in her life. After all, as patriarch, Sir John held great sway over the Ishams, serving as leader of the family and expending great energy in maintaining and increasing their wealth and status. Indeed, since Elizabeth never married and lived nearly all her life at Lamport Hall, she was economically dependent on him. This became even more the case when Sir John, beginning in 1636, provided her with an annuity of £300.58 By the time of the annuity, Elizabeth’s mother and sister 117

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had died, and Justinian, after his first marriage, only periodically lived at Lamport Hall. Thus her father was the only adult member of the Ishams with whom Elizabeth consistently lived during her adulthood. Not surprisingly, therefore, she wrote a great deal about her father in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, and from such writing we gain an intimate look at Elizabeth’s views on and relationship with Sir John. Reflecting back on her childhood, Elizabeth’s memories painted Sir John as a loving and caring father and husband, who concerned himself with the well-being of his family. First and foremost, Elizabeth recounted the strong relationship that existed between her father and mother. A clear example of this is Elizabeth’s account of how her father dealt with Lady Isham’s various spiritual and physical ailments. Remembering one of Lady Isham’s spiritual crises, Elizabeth recounted: ‘This affliction of my mothers was a great griffe to my father and the greater by reason (when he was tooketh about Country business) some told him it was long [wrong] of himselfe, for they said that he keept her in & would not let her goe abroad’. Providing a brief glimpse of Sir John’s experience as a JP in Northamptonshire, Elizabeth revealed that her father faced criticisms at the quarter sessions and assizes from his fellow county gentlemen for forbidding his wife to leave the confines of Lamport Hall. His daughter, however, noted that such a criticism was unfounded: ‘I suppose those that said it knew her not; for she was unable to visit her frinds, hauing ingaged her selfe to see them my father being very willing thereto’. Thus it was Lady Isham’s poor health that forced her to abstain from visiting friends, not her husband refusing to allow her to socialize with their county neighbours. To further portray her father in a good light, Elizabeth wrote: ‘I neede no better testimony of my fathers kindness to her then what I find by her owne writings acknowledging it the Lords great mercie in mouing her husbands heart, that he had such care & prouided such meanes for her health’.59 The fact that Lady Isham was so thankful for Sir John indicates that he was indeed a caring husband. His compassion made him quick to approve of Lady Isham visiting her friend, Mrs Nichols of Faxton, once her health improved: ‘Now my mother was not yet perfetly well but mended by degrees being much better then before, her Neighbour Mrs. Nicolls coming to visite her desired that she would goe home with her, to which my father consented’.60 Such gestures of kindness strengthened Lady Isham’s love for Sir John, an affection that led her to worry over his well-being. Elizabeth recalled as much when recounting how the Isham household feared that Sir John might die in 1620. Suffering from an infection that apparently caused swelling in his glands, Sir John’s illness especially concerned his wife: this Christmas … my father was so ill with the swelling of the almons [glands] in his throt that my mother feared he would haue died, sending for her phisition in the night who came speedily for him whereby (as I suppose) he was somewhat 118

Singlehood in the patriarch’s household eased & mended by degrees keeping himselfe warme yet was he apt to take cold being ill in this maner diuers times since.

Lady Isham was grateful for her husband’s recovery, as was Sir John’s mother; while her son was ill, grandmother Isham worried that her son’s death would gravely harm the entire family. This was largely due to the fact that neither Lady Isham nor Sir John had any living brother or near male relation to aid the family upon the latter’s death: I suppose she desired not to see us in that wreched stat wherein wee might haue bine if he had then died my mother being a weake sickly woman & unable to deale in afares of the world & neither my father nor she hauing any brother or neere Kinsman to helpe us, besides my brother being under age ready to be taken ward.61

Although Lady Isham no doubt feared the emotional loss that would result from Sir John’s death, his mother understood that his passing would have further ramifications; essentially, if Sir John had died in 1620, the Ishams of Lamport would have probably experienced a decline in their wealth and status as a family because their estate would likely have been placed under ward. Fortunately for the Ishams, such a situation never occurred, thanks to Sir John’s long life, a life during which he strove to maintain his family’s status of belonging to the landed elite of Northamptonshire. In addition to allowing him to preserve the social standing of his family, Sir John’s longevity offered him the opportunity of having a prolonged role in Elizabeth’s life. She recounted how her father often trusted her by giving her various responsibilities around the household during her youth. Reflecting on the time shortly after she stole fruit from her mother’s cupboard when she was eight, Elizabeth faced a test of her trustworthiness: ‘after this I carried a more uprighte mind though I had the opertunity to the contrary my father diuers times seting me to keepe his mony … when he hath bin out of the roome’.62 Since she felt the episode merited a mention in her autobiography, Elizabeth plainly felt a degree of pride that her father trusted her to look after his money at such a young age. It was not the only time that Elizabeth remembered her father trusting her in financial affairs; after Lady Isham’s death in 1625, Sir John gave Elizabeth the part of the revenue made from the sale of dairy produced at Lamport: ‘my father let me keepe the Dary mony to bie what I needed for my selfe & Sister’. Along with mentioning the ‘Dary mony’ in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, Elizabeth also made note of it in her ‘diary’, confirming that she found Sir John’s granting of the money a significant event in her life.63 Sir John gave her further responsibility after Lady Isham’s death, placing Elizabeth in charge of managing the household servants of Lamport Hall: ‘after the death of my mother my father gaue me in charge to keepe things of the house & to looke ouer his maides, but I was partly willing to ease my selfe with letting those old seruants keepe & doe those things’.64 119

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As with the ‘Dary mony’, Elizabeth took great interest in this new responsibility. Although she related that she was content with not interfering with the established methods of the Ishams’ servants, Elizabeth nonetheless could not help but take an active part in their lives. Indeed, when she was twenty years old, she liked to conduct surprise inspections of the servants: ‘I tooke great delight in being my owne seruant to take my rest & rise without the helpe of any to dresse me & sometimes riseing to see what the seruants did they not expecting me’. In the same year, Elizabeth decided to take over the management of the kitchen after a long-time servant left the Isham household: ‘at this time our olde seruant Mary Ashwell was to marry away & I tooke into my owne the keeping of those things which belonged to the Kitchen which she before would haue had me kept being weary of her office which I performed with more ease & as much or more profit’.65 Since her father placed her in charge of managing the household, Sir John was the ultimate source of the satisfaction that Elizabeth derived from her interaction with the Lamport servants. He may have understood that Elizabeth would enjoy such management, motivating him to give her the responsibility in the first place. Yet he did not always take his daughter’s enjoyment into consideration. Based on many of the memories recorded in her autobiography, Elizabeth could find Sir John to be a stern but loving father. As a young child, so Elizabeth remembered, the household servants would sometimes go to a nearby fair or market. On their return, Elizabeth loved to eat various treats that they brought back to Lamport: ‘I call to mind … being to subiect to couet (desire) afterward fauring things of the Servants when they had come from a fare or market’. Upon seeing Elizabeth eating the treats, Sir John reprimanded his daughter: ‘I well remember my father reproued me for my eating of those things which were not good for me with my too full feeding & my slothfullnes’.66 Sir John’s sternness led Elizabeth, as a child, to worry about offending her father. For instance, Sir John insisted that his children learn and recite to him the catechism in the Book of Common Prayer. As we have seen, Elizabeth’s mother bought her children catechisms with proofs, or scriptural aids, to supplement their study of the Prayer Book. Sir John took a different approach: ‘my father would haue us learne that [the prayer book] without pruftes [proofs] I soppose because it was easeyer for memory for which I thought it hard enough’. Elizabeth persevered, but she recalled that it was neither easy nor pleasant: ‘At last I hauing learnt it my Father herd me say it and my Brother and Sister euery Sabbath when our turns came, in the after noone; I remember the paines I tooke saying it euery night to myselfe, for feare lest I should forget it’. Contrasting greatly with her remembrance of the religious education that she received at the hands of her mother, Elizabeth’s memories of Sir John’s methods reveal he made her ill at ease. Indeed, she recalled that during her early childhood she felt trepidation when interacting with her father: ‘for in these times I more feared my father then my mother 120

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being most used to … her’.67 In other words, Elizabeth’s fear of her father led her to prefer the company of her mother. Despite such fear, Elizabeth had the courage to disagree, if not to resist her father’s wishes. At a young age, chastisement came because of her eating habits: ‘my father inioining me that I should eate no peares but they tempting me euery time I saw them should take one’. Elizabeth tried to heed her father’s command, but the lure of the fruit proved too tempting: ‘hauing som regard to my fathers command, thinking that if I offended not in the number I did well enough but after I … tooke my part of many [pears] that was somewhat perished so by this meanes I was satisfied of what I would of these things’. Although Elizabeth fed her desire for fruit, she nonetheless felt guilt over the episode: ‘my conscience hath often reproued me for these & other suche things’.68 Yet such guilt did not prevent her from deceiving her father again. Around the age of fourteen, as Elizabeth recalled, many in the Isham household believed that she suffered from greensickness, a term used in the early modern period to describe the symptoms of pubescent girls that included dietary disturbances, lack of menstruation, and change in skin colour.69 In response, Sir John felt physical activity would do Elizabeth good, and assigned her a regiment of exercise: ‘my father inioyned me to runn up easy stares (which was [in] three parts) twelfe timis & to rest me once but my wind was so good that sometimes I rann them all & not rest mee’. Elizabeth, however, soon became disinterested in the task, choosing not to fully meet her father’s demand of twelve repetitions up the three stages of stairs: ‘at last being sometimes idle [in running] … my father scrictly exammened me whether I run up so many times or no & from the tops to the bottome … [but] I … run eleuen up of [only] one part of the three [parts of the stairs]’. On the twelfth repetition, Elizabeth noted that she ran all three parts of the stairs, coming back down to lie to her father: ‘at the last [I ran] from the toppe to the bottome of them [the stairs] all & to answere him [Sir John] according to his demand [of twelve repetitions]’.70 Sir John was none the wiser about Elizabeth’s fib, since she never experienced any repercussions for misleading her father. Besides deceiving Sir John, Elizabeth could also disagree with him. Remembering back to when she was eleven, Elizabeth noted an occasion when her father decided to purchase some spun wool: ‘my mother delighted in spinning of woolen which her maides did whereof wee had cots made but my father liked it not thinking it better to bie’. Elizabeth criticized her father’s decision, feeling that it deprived the female members of the Isham household from busying themselves with a worthwhile activity: ‘herein I thinke it better if most women were thus imployed [spinning wool] & that all reasonable wayes of delight wherein is no hurt were nourished in them, considering too many now a dayes more vainly set there mindes’. It was not the last time that Elizabeth disagreed with Sir John; at the age of twenty-six she disliked his choice of a new servant for the Isham household: ‘at this time a maide seruant was commended to my father whom I heard some speake ill of & I thought 121

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she or some of her frinds ha[e]rd of my intentions for another & so thought both to hinder me’. Elizabeth noted that she did not concede on the matter, speaking out against the servant: ‘I confesse I spake some words against her which I hard, that she might not come but my father was minded to haue her & I thought to hinder her of some profit because she came against my mind’. Feeling a pang of guilt, Elizabeth ultimately felt shame for her conduct: ‘I was inwardly moued not to haue any malice against her considering thy [God] goodness towards me … I therefore proposed to forgiue her as I looked for forgiueness from thee … & after I was sorry … she prouing better then I expected’.71 Despite feeling such guilt, it is noteworthy that Elizabeth was willing to put up such a fight against a servant of her father’s choosing. In a small way, Elizabeth’s differences with her father illustrate that he was not an unquestioned ruler of his family, despite the heavily patriarchal impression we have of him from the Isham papers. Here we see ambiguity existing in early modern patriarchy that so many historians have sought to demonstrate over recent years. Yet it is difficult to argue that Elizabeth’s lying about running up stairs or disagreeing over the employment of servants were major affronts to Sir John’s authority; all they show is that Elizabeth neither always agreed nor blindly followed all the dictates of her father. If this was female agency in the face of patriarchy, then it was a rather mild form of agency. Elizabeth, however, was a woman capable of performing far greater affronts to her father’s authority. There is no better testament of this than Elizabeth’s attitudes toward wedlock found in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, attitudes that ultimately ran counter to Sir John’s wishes and explain why she never married. While influential throughout the entire process of Elizabeth adopting such marital status, he nonetheless proved absolutely impotent once she resolved that singlehood would define her life trajectory.

DESIRING NEVER TO MARRY We know that the closest Elizabeth Isham ever came to marriage was with John Dryden II of Canons Ashby. As already discussed in Chapter 2, based on the correspondence in the Isham papers, the courtship lasted approximately a year and seems to have failed largely due to economic factors. In April 1630, Sir Erasmus Dryden set the parameters for the negotiations, proposing that he would offer a £300 jointure while he lived and then £400 upon his death. In return, Sir Erasmus asked that Sir John provide a £4,000 portion. Responding, Sir John insisted that Sir Erasmus instead pay a jointure of £400 from the very beginning of the proposed marriage. Alternatively, if Sir Erasmus did not meet this stipulation, Sir John asked that the Dryden estates of Canons Ashby in Northamptonshire and Hodnell in Warwickshire descend to his daughter and John Dryden II without any encumbrances. These stipulations proved a stumbling block, and Sir Erasmus refused to 122

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bend on his original terms. Negotiations, however, continued over the next year, thanks to devoted intermediaries like Richard Knightley, John Dod, Christopher Sherland, Robert Tanfield, and Sir Erasmus’s son, John Dryden I. Despite the interventions of these men, Sir John and Sir Erasmus never did come to a compromise on their original terms. After growing weary of haggling, and likely feeling his honour besmirched by Sir Erasmus’s behavior, Sir John called the match off in the spring of 1631. In short, financial reasons apparently explain why the proposed marriage failed. Yet all of this becomes largely untenable after examining Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’, and the pride of place that she gave the Isham– Dryden match in the autobiography. Instead of a cold account of economic calculation and haggling by family patriarchs, the story she tells is a highly personal tale of love not just for Dryden but also for her family. Elizabeth’s account also illustrates the importance of religion in a woman’s experience with courtship, and chronicles the lasting impact that a failed marriage arrangement could have on a woman in early modern England. Moreover, the story that Elizabeth told about the possibility of marriage is the prime example of her ability to negotiate with, and ultimately to resist, her father’s patriarchal authority and wishes. When Elizabeth was around sixteen, her parents had flirted with the idea of her entering the marriage market. For her part, Elizabeth showed little enthusiasm for such a prospect, wishing instead to devote herself to a religious life: ‘In these yeeres for as my knowledge increased I was so pleased with the deuine truth that to inioy it with the more freenesse I desired not to marry’. Here we hear echoes of Perkins or Griffith noting the spiritual benefits and ascetic attraction of a single life expressed by a woman remembering her teenage years. Despite her reluctance in those years, her father and mother received overtures about the possibility of their eldest daughter entering into wedlock: ‘my father was now solicited for mee & my mother by those our Neighbours of good account, to which she seemed to be willing’. Elizabeth, however, never met any potential suitor in this period, largely because of her mother’s lobbying: ‘she desired my father that he would not be hastie in marieing of me nor force me to any against my owne likeing for she thought that I might be prepared the better for the worse of times & best ends’. Sir John seems to have agreed with his wife, for they both ultimately chose not to entertain any serious thoughts of Elizabeth entering wedlock at the tender age of sixteen. Elizabeth welcomed their decision: ‘herein my mind was agreeable to my parents, for I cared not how long they kept me from Marriage’.72 Unfortunately for Elizabeth, this was not the last time she had to worry about wedlock. In 1627, when she was eighteen, Sir John sent her to spend the better part of a year with his cousin, James Pagitt, in London.73 Her sojourn in the capital was not unique at this time; it was common for young gentlewomen in the seventeenth century to journey to London, and such trips 123

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exposed women from the countryside to the fashionable metropolitan life of the city and its large marriage market. As the kingdom’s administrative, legal, and cultural centre, London attracted aristocracy and gentry from all over England for many reasons, not least of which was that the city contained a larger pool of potentially well-connected and high-status marriage partners than existed back in the provinces.74 Since a baronet of Sir John Isham’s wealth and standing was understandably interested in his eldest daughter testing the London marriage market, he dispatched Elizabeth to stay with her cousin. This strategy paid dividends, for a number of potential suitors immediately showed interest, all of whom Elizabeth ‘had no desire they should’. Of these men, one in particular stirred her ire. Left unnamed in her autobiography, she describes her first encounter with this suitor: ‘he told me my father was willing but I spake to him as if I would know my fathers mind my selfe before any and so thought farely to put him off diuers times auoiding his company when I thought he would come’.75 Plainly Elizabeth disliked her would-be suitor, but mere distaste does not explain fully why she wanted nothing to do with the man. A closer analysis of the autobiography reveals that Elizabeth’s dislike of him, or indeed of any of the other London suitors, owed much to her religious and ascetic sensibilities that she had developed by the age of eighteen: being full of that ioy which Religion kindeled in mee through the vehemency of my zeale I offered my affections to thee my God at diuers times desiring that if it might be more acceptable to thee (which I thought therefore would be better for me) that I might not marry.76

Throughout her autobiography, she makes it evident that she desired to love God more than anyone else and to disregard worldly temptations. One of these temptations, Elizabeth felt, was marriage, since it would divert her attention away from God and redirect it toward her husband. The various suitors who made advances in London posed no real threat to such an ideal, for none of them gained the hearty acceptance of Sir John and so became mere footnotes in her life. When Elizabeth returned to the Isham estate of Lamport Hall in 1628, the homecoming filled her with contentment: ‘I found my friends well and as ioyfull to see me as I was them and while after I found I misse of the company which I had at London withall leauing to learn that which before I did yet I pacified my selfe finding this place [Lamport Hall] fitter to adorne in rich my soule then adorne my Body’. Such a statement suggests that Elizabeth may have missed the bustle of metropolitan life in London, but, as she explained, her ascetic piety overshadowed and quelled such feelings. To cultivate this piety, Elizabeth adopted a rather austere lifestyle on her return, something she reflected on when remembering an occasion when her father presented her with a fashionable new garment in 1629: ‘I cared not to follow the extremity of fashions set forth to my selfe because you Lord hadest giuen me enough 124

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content and not to be proud’. Rejecting human creations, Elizabeth instead delighted in nature, often taking the family coach out with her sister to enjoy blossoming flowers in the surrounding countryside. By the summer of 1629 Elizabeth had seemingly forgotten London, growing accustomed to such a trouble-free lifestyle and becoming even more resolute to remain single: ‘I suppose that I might haue had the more mind to marry but I thought my mind should not be a slaue to my body’.77 This tranquil life, however, abruptly ended in the following year. She had experienced a peaceful autumn in 1629, with few worries, but by its close, Elizabeth recounted: ‘the winter of aduersity came on and my soule began to lage afflictions [which] like mundations of waters entered in to my soule [that they] liked to drowne me’. The afflictions came in the form of John Dryden who caught her father’s eye as someone he found ‘both for religious breeding and estate to be a fit match’ for his daughter. It is not known how Sir John became aware of the young gentleman; perhaps John Dod – with his links to the Ishams – had suggested that Dryden was an ideal match for Elizabeth. Whatever the case, Sir John invited Dryden to visit Lamport at the end of March 1630. Her father, Elizabeth recalled, had not warned her of the young man’s visit so that she might formulate an unbiased opinion of Dryden. Initially, Elizabeth was not overly impressed, just as her earlier suitors in London had underwhelmed her. Suspicious that the motivation for Dryden’s visit was indeed marriage, Elizabeth described how she, ‘began in my mind to take care how I should put him off’. Her steadfastness, however, dissolved when Sir John revealed that he had indeed invited Dryden, before asking whether she would consider entering into courtship with him. Sir John’s polite intervention caused Elizabeth to reconsider her stance: ‘I was the more moued to give way to his desire because (I thought) his affection appeared rather then his authority to command’. Implicit in such a statement is Elizabeth’s feeling that Sir John did have the right to exert his patriarchal authority and command her to enter into such a courtship, but it seems that his affection for his daughter prevented him from utilizing this power. Here we see the sort of affection that Pollock and Fletcher have argued existed in the early modern period, greasing the wheels of the proposed match. Above all, Sir John wished that his daughter was comfortable with the idea of courting and eventually marrying Dryden. With this in mind, Elizabeth felt obliged to reconsider her former stance on marriage: ‘therefore I resined my will to my fathers’. Yet her decision to do so was not simply one of filial respect; it also related to her relationship with God. Elizabeth interpreted Dryden’s sudden appearance in her life as an act of divine providence. Reflecting on her decision, she wrote that ‘trusting in thee O Lord God that thou wouldest doe for the best which way it pleased thee I thought my selfe safe in thus doeing’. Combined with her admiration for her earthly father, this strong faith in her heavenly father’s plans provided Elizabeth with ample reasons to begin what proved to be a year-long courtship. 125

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At first, since she barely knew Dryden, Elizabeth evidently found it difficult to develop an interest in him and remained rather unmoved during the early stages of their relationship. The passage of time, however, eventually changed her feelings: I was yet indifferent not being much aqua[i]nted with him which came to me, yet the winter coming on and company departing he had few to be with but my selfe who kept him the more company because his only coming was to mee, so in time his company bred liking and liking loue.78

This love was strong enough to cause Elizabeth to become a concerned partner, often worrying over Dryden’s well-being: ‘when he was long absent I should with much vehemency thinke of him fearing that he was not well’. Yet notwithstanding her growing love, Elizabeth’s affection could not totally eclipse her earlier misgivings about marriage. During the courtship, Elizabeth was constantly concerned that if she loved Dryden too much it might interfere with her devotion to God. At times, she seems to have weighed in her mind the merits of her would-be husband and God himself: ‘I thought how well I should be if I were delivered from this cumbersome trouble [that] if it should chance break off that I might think of Marriage no more but that I might with more freenes serve thee [God] without those thoughts of human loue’.79 In addition, Elizabeth found that Dryden’s own piety did not always meet her high standards, causing her to consider ending the courtship.80 In the end, however, she decided not to break off the relationship while the negotiations proceeded, suggesting that her love for Dryden began to eclipse her devotion to God, albeit narrowly. Thus Elizabeth appears to have resolved her internal conflicts about marriage – at least until the negotiations between Sir Erasmus and her father hit an impasse. In the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, she never explicitly mentioned the financial details but certainly alluded to them. With a critical eye on arranged marriages, she wrote with relation to the talks between her father and the Drydens: Now as I fashion of the world in those parents which standmore upon worldly estate then loue thereby hassarding the parties affection, so for this time which was almost a yere they many times seemed to breake it off, though my father I suppose was resolued what to do, yielding to them in what indifferent way might be for the best withall asking me diuers times if I were willing it should goe forwards who answered I was.81

Since she noted that her father was indifferent during the entire negotiation process, such statements perhaps show that Elizabeth did not know the finer details of the proposed marriage contract. After all, it is hard to characterize Sir John’s stance during the negotiations with the Drydens as indifferent – he was as resolute as they in achieving a sound financial agreement for the marriage. Elizabeth’s statement is nonetheless significant, due to her explicit 126

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recollection of her father’s constant consultation with her about whether he should carry on negotiating with the Drydens. Similar to how Sir John had initially approached Elizabeth about Dryden, so he felt the need to take his daughter’s feelings into account during the negotiations. It is also significant that, despite Elizabeth’s repeated uneasiness about marriage, she willed her father to proceed due to her love for Dryden. Sir John heeded his daughter’s wishes, despite becoming increasingly apprehensive about his dealing with Sir Erasmus.82 Familial affection, therefore, appears crucial to how Sir John conducted himself as the Isham patriarch as the Isham–Dryden match remained a possibility – he did not want to arbitrarily force his daughter into the marriage. As the final breach in the negotiations approached in April 1631, the Drydens seem to have been well aware of this situation and thought that Elizabeth’s love for her suitor could serve to their advantage. This strategy was clearly evident in a letter that John Dryden II wrote to Elizabeth at the end of April. He first greeted her with professions of love: ‘Sweet Hart … Never was time so tedious to me as this since my departure from you’. He then explained that his apparent long absence was due to Sir John’s insistence on the matter of Canons Ashby and Hodnell and the constant income of £400. Wishing for a successful conclusion of the talks, Dryden sought to persuade Elizabeth to intervene and convince her father to soften his stance: ‘If it please your father to yeeld to the former conditions [Sir Erasmus’s terms] I will present my true love to you speedily [otherwise] if not than hee [Sir John] thinke it not [fit] I will deferre it [his love] till I can doe better in it’. Perhaps experiencing some guilt in attempting to turn Elizabeth away from her father and towards her lover’s family, Dryden felt the need to explain himself: ‘Thy constant love makes mee plaine hearted therefore Sweet Heart excuse these my waies and returne mee an answere as pleases your sweet self’.83 When we read Dryden’s letter against the account in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, it is clear now that the outcome of the match lay in Elizabeth’s hands. Considering that Sir John had always consulted his daughter as to whether she wanted to continue the negotiations, there is little doubt that he would have come to terms with the Drydens had she wished. Unfortunately for the Drydens, Elizabeth chose not to continue the match, feeling the decision accorded with providence: I could not but admire thy just dealing my God. That I should feele that smart of loue which was not to be obtained, which I supposed others felt for mee and so might wish me to haue and then I saw the vanities and unconstances of peoples mindes which when it was in hand uppluased it beyond the reach of wisdome.

Yet Elizabeth’s religious beliefs were not all that informed her position on the proposed marriage. To a large degree, she felt that if the match were to continue, it was up to Dryden to mend the breach, rather than herself and 127

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her family: ‘Now some would haue had me sent or written to him but I thought a womans [place] consisted more in being sought to then to seeke, which was his part & if he had not so much loue [for me] I desired him not’. Such hope in her suitor honouring their love and salvaging the match was wishful thinking on Elizabeth’s part, for she received word that he had spoken ill of Sir John, probably because of her father’s resolve not to concede to Sir Erasmus’s demands. In response to Dryden rallying to the side of his grandfather, Elizabeth firmly lined up with Sir John: I could not tel how to speake to my father for him [Dryden], because he had spoken against him [Sir John] and though my father said (as I was told by one) that he would haue sought after them and yeelded to them, if I did desire it rather then I should take harm or be the worse for it yet I did not desire through my weaknes to haue my father stoope to them.84

Elizabeth refused to accept her father’s humiliation in the negotiations as a price for her hand in marriage. Here was love triumphant – not love for her intended husband but rather love for her father that influenced Elizabeth to protect his honour. Elizabeth’s decision has relevance for a scholarly debate over whether economics or romantic love was more important in the formation of early modern English marriage. Much like the debate over early modern subjectivity, historians have created a false dichotomy between romantic love and economics, making it an ‘either–or’ issue. True, romantic love was a powerful stimulus in the formation of marriage, but by focusing only on romantic love scholars have missed the power of other emotional bonds. Love for family could have a greater influence, as Elizabeth’s affection for her father during the Isham– Dryden affair demonstrated. After all, her love and loyalty for her father effectively brought the negotiations to an end; she insisted on the protection of Sir John’s honour by not having him ‘stoope’ to the Drydens. As for her own honour, Elizabeth wished Dryden to respect her status as a woman, since she felt a woman’s role ‘consisted more of being sought then to seeke’. Added to this mixture was the place that Elizabeth’s religious beliefs played – we must remember her spiritual outlook made her hesitant at first to enter into courtship and when the dissolution of the match occurred she largely viewed it in providential terms. Thus, because of God, her concern for Sir John’s honour and, for her own, Elizabeth chose not to continue the match. Her reasoning illustrates that familial love, honour, and religion could be just as or more important than romantic love or economics in marriage formations during the seventeenth century. Elizabeth’s choice also underscores patriarchal authority in the period. Affection not only could put limits on a husband or father’s authority or wishes – as Pollock and Fletcher have asserted – but also enhance them. After all, Elizabeth’s love for Sir John and concern for his honour essentially gave him more than economic legitimacy to end the marriage negotiations with the Drydens; he had his daughter’s 128

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emotions and wishes to honour too. In other words, Elizabeth’s choice effectively gave him the final excuse to end the match for which he had grown weary because of a financial impasse. Yet if Elizabeth’s affection had been stronger for Dryden than for her father there is little doubt that Sir John would have conceded to his daughter’s desire. Throughout the entire Isham– Dryden episode, Elizabeth’s father constantly conferred with her as to whether she wanted the match to continue, respecting her wishes throughout the affair. What we are dealing with here is affection working both ways within the framework of patriarchy, with father and daughter benefiting from how their affection for each other made such a framework ambiguous. Unfortunately for Sir John, the equivocality of his authority vis-à-vis Elizabeth would not prove mutually beneficial a second time in regards to the prospect of marriage for his daughter. After the dissolution of her relationship with Dryden, Elizabeth’s personal piety and love for God proved far too powerful for Sir John’s patriarchal authority to withstand. In other words, spiritual patriarchy trumped earthly patriarchy.

LOVE, HONOUR, AND GOD Elizabeth’s decision to end the Isham–Dryden match haunted her in various ways throughout the rest of her life. She noted that toward the end of 1631, John Dryden fell ill and died, but Elizabeth was resolute after hearing the news: ‘when I (suddenly) heard it [the news of Dryden’s death] I said it was nothing to me because I thought I had no part of loue in him who after went to another’. Despite such emotions, Elizabeth’s feelings on Dryden‘s death may have owed more to him entering into a relationship with another woman than any indifference she may have felt toward her former suitor. Indeed, wistful thoughts of Dryden and the dissolution of their relationship regularly flooded her memories after the courtship and found testament in the production of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. These memories could cause Elizabeth, in her writing, to mourn the fact that she never married Dryden: ‘[I] kept him company whereby he thought himselfe sure of my loue, which neuer altered for I carried myselfe farely towards him and with that respect which I thought fit for him, always which should have been my husband’.85 While Elizabeth clearly lamented having to choose between her father and Dryden, her religious beliefs nonetheless did not allow her to enter into a perpetual state of melancholy. Just as Elizabeth felt that providence had brought Dryden into her life, so she believed that it had ushered him out. Elizabeth clung to this conviction, expressing her trust in God: ‘Being confident that thou lord neuer leaue thy seruant which put there trust in thee for thou hast neuer failed them wouldest that seeke thee, but I must needs confesse I was very low and should haue bine worse if I had not remembered that I trusted in thee [God]’. This trust gave Elizabeth comfort, as did her 129

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pious desire to devote herself to God, which had never ceased: ‘And though at the first braking off it much troubled me, yet I was the better pasified (it being at that time) to thinke that I might the more liue unto him (Christ) which died for me’.86 Her spirit gained great comfort from this faith: ‘my comfort was my loue to thee [God] was euer aboue all and I knew thou wouldest not forsake me’.87 Bolstered by such beliefs, Elizabeth sought solace in deep spiritual contemplation and self-examination. Accordingly, Elizabeth did exactly this in her autobiography, divulging various actions and thoughts that troubled her in life. Most ominous was her deep belief that the Devil lured her to have blasphemous thoughts and desires. Not surprisingly Elizabeth recalled that such thoughts and desires were extremely intense in 1632, only a year after the collapse of her proposed marriage to Dryden. While she had supported her father, the extraordinary tension involved with this decision led her to confess that the Devil had caused her to think ill of God and Sir John: ‘Satan could not overcome me but that I utterly hated all rebellious and blasfemus thoughts against my maker [God], yet then he [Satan] would tempt, to curse my owne father, this I also utterly hated for I not onely knew that by the Law of God it deserued death’.88 Considering the magnitude of her decision to break off the negotiations, it is scarcely surprising that Elizabeth felt tempted to vent her emotions against the one who had greatly influenced her decision: her father. Other emotional demons haunted Elizabeth in the aftermath of the Dryden courtship. Although she found Satan a ready cause for her transgressions, Elizabeth also felt that she was responsible on her own accord for her sins. This is clearly evident when she recalled her worried state when she was twenty-seven in 1636: in these yeres not only [did] I [have] temtations of Satan [that] troubled me, but also there slided into me the temtations of the world and I found those sinnes which my own flesh were prone to for I had euill thoughts which were not lawfull (besides the deuill tempting me to filthy thoughts which were not desent ) and I had vaine thoughts which were not expedient for tho[ugh] I esteemed not the world very much yet sometimes I hoped for a worldy rewarde for things to please my owne sensuall delight.89

Although Elizabeth’s ascetic sensibilities are clearly evident in earlier portions of her autobiography, such sensibilities came to the fore in the descriptions of her life after 1631. As she explained, it was the temptations of the world that led her to sins such as vanity or carnal delight, as well as a lack of caring for others. Moreover, her worldview induced her acute states of anxiety, as revealed when she recounted the feelings she had experienced after completing some needlework: My owne worke many times affected me so much that I apprehended to be better then I found it to be when I againe looked on it which caused some discontent in 130

Singlehood in the patriarch’s household me because it pleased me not againe other whiles looking on it when it happened to please me I thought there was a kind of temtation in it when I looked on it too or I found my selfe tempted to displease thee [God] in beholding too much such vanities.

Elizabeth’s distrust and misgivings of the temporal world prompted her to make other statements that expressed her ascetic sensibilities, perhaps no better exemplified than by the following: Now finding the things of this world false, shadowy and vaine uncertain riches, the truths are to be found no where but in heauen for these things are not good but in there lawfull use, nothing is absolutely good but only O Lord God and all other things as they are of thee, yea there is nothing in the world worth rememberance but only thy goodness to us.90

To avoid the falsehoods of earthly existence, Elizabeth chose to turn as much as possible from this world to look to what she felt was the truth of God and his heavenly kingdom. In light of these beliefs and her dramatic reaction to the collapse of her courtship with Dryden, Elizabeth had ample reason for deciding she would never again entertain the possibility of marriage. Much of this resignation came from Elizabeth’s fear that her decision to enter into courtship with Dryden had incurred sombre spiritual repercussions. In many respects, she had come full circle to the stance she had on marriage when she had lived in London at the age of eighteen. Looking back on events in 1633, she recollected: Now I thought I was much the better by reason my father troubled me not with speaking to me of Marriage and I now resolued if he or any other shoulde aske me to stand out fearing I had offended [God] in yeelding too soone afore. I found great comfort in this resolution considering what I had desired of thee [God].91

Elizabeth felt that she had offended God; love for an earthly man had caused her spiritual father to punish her by removing Dryden from her life. To prevent something similar from happening again, Elizabeth turned her back on marriage. She recalled that, in the same year, ‘a kinsman of Mr. Dryden, his whom I should formerly haue had would haue bine a suter to me’. Elizabeth explained that her father again ‘asked me if I was willing’, but this time, ‘I refused’. Another man, whom Elizabeth called ‘Mr. Fant’, declared his love for her in the same year, but she had no real interest, despite feeling sympathy when she heard that he was near death: ‘Now my Sister told me betimes one morning Mr. Fant was ill like to die which stroke very cold to my hart so suddenly that sorrow & pitty tooke place where loue did not’. Elizabeth’s aversion to courtship and marriage extended well beyond another Dryden and Mr Fant; at least two other men came to win her hand in 1633, one of whom Sir John was extremely eager to see 131

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her wed: ‘now my father being much sought unto for me in Marriage moued me with it’. Yet she ‘flatly refused it and said it was against me (for I found it not to be agreeable to my natural inclination, being so long before minded to the contrary)’. The result could well have been a dispute between father and daughter, but, as with the Isham–Dryden arrangement, Sir John respected Elizabeth’s wishes: ‘I suppose my father thought to put them off, with standing upon those condishons which they there friends would not yeeld to & many times pretending to others that he liked not of there estate’. Much as before, Sir John seems to have been acutely concerned with his daughter’s feelings regarding the prospect of marriage, but this time he did not enjoy similar dividends to those he acquired from the dissolution of the Isham–Dryden match. Consequently, Sir John’s fondness for Elizabeth did not prevent him from attempting to change her mind. Elizabeth made it explicitly clear in her autobiography that her father, while respecting her desires, nonetheless wanted to see her become the wife of a well-respected gentleman. Frustrated with her persistent refusals, he threatened her financial security if she did not concede to marriage: ‘he would not giue me as much portion if I liued single as he intended if I married, but I said I esteemed his fauor aboue any thing I looked for at his hand let him giue me what he pleased; my mind was more to me then wealth’.92 Here Elizabeth called her father’s bluff, and her disregard for wealth made it extremely difficult for Sir John to persuade her to marry. Yet the Isham patriarch proved persistent. In 1634, he presented two more potential husbands, perhaps hoping that Elizabeth had finally dropped her aversion to marriage. For her part, Elizabeth admitted that she occasionally had positive thoughts about wedlock but such thoughts seem to have been fleeting at best: ‘I founde my selfe more reasonable withall [till] I was put to it whether I would marry or not which troubled me to thinke of especially if I thought to yeeld & much content I found in standing out’. Confident in her decision, Elizabeth again chose to reject Sir John’s proposed matches for her.93 Elizabeth’s rejection of the new suitors challenged Sir John’s authority and wishes, finally proving to him that there was no longer any point in trying to marry his daughter off; she remained immovable, and his affection for his daughter caused him to respect her wishes. Once more the ambiguity of early modern patriarchy comes into play here, with familial love again taking centre stage. In contrast, however, to its influence during the Isham– Dryden match, affection did not benefit Sir John as much as it did Elizabeth. Put bluntly, she won and he lost when it came to her entering into wedlock – affection mediated and softened patriarchal power at Lamport Hall, as it did in many other contexts in early modern England. We see a further softening of Sir John’s authority when considering Elizabeth’s wishes concerning her financial security after she chose to remain unmarried. Elizabeth related as much, revealing in her autobiography that Sir John did not provide 132

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his daughter her £300 annuity in 1636 until she proved willing to accept it: I resolued if my father offered me againe to take more meanes to take it & not refuse it … now of late when my father offered me monie I told him I did not desire much, yet for all this he dealt with me after a more bountiful manner then I expected which I was the willinger to receiue considering I might be the more helpful to the poore.94

Money may not have meant much to Elizabeth, but she found that with it she could live a charitable life, something that complemented her religious sensibilities. Her acceptance of her father’s financial assistance also illustrates the limitations of her father’s patriarchal authority; it is difficult to view Sir John as a family despot when considering it was she who had the final say on whether to take the money or not. After giving her approval, combined with the fact that Sir John granted her permission to continue living at Lamport Hall, Elizabeth had the economic means to fulfil her desire never to marry.

THE PRIVATE LIFE Once again Elizabeth’s experience highlights the rather narrow perspective that the dichotomy of romantic love and economics imposes on our understanding of early modern marriage formation. After the dissolution of the Isham–Dryden match, it was neither love nor economics that influenced Elizabeth to decline all other suitors, but rather her religious aversion to marriage was the leading factor in her decision. Elizabeth’s refusal also ran counter to her father’s wishes, highlighting scholarship that has shown the limitations of patriarchy in the early modern period. It was a decision that forever ensured that Elizabeth would live her life as a never-married woman. Amy Froide has made clear that few early modern women travelled a linear path to lifelong singlehood – a whole range of factors conflated and brought a female to such status, a status far from revered in the period. After all, marriage – couched so much in Protestant ideals of the godly household – was, so many felt, the primary means of preventing women from succumbing to the temptations and ill behaviour to which their so-called natural condition as ‘weaker vessels’ made them prone. In other words, contemporary wisdom held that wedlock ensured that women became chaste, silent, and obedient by placing them under the authority of men. Of course, singlehood, especially for women, was a status not championed largely because it fell out of the purview of these conventional norms. All the more remarkable then that Elizabeth refused to ever marry, since the decision ran counter to and essentially rejected the enormous cultural investment that early modern England placed in the importance of marriage. 133

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Indeed, Elizabeth experienced social consequences from remaining single, lending credibility to Bridget Hill’s assessment that singlehood could have negative repercussions for early modern women. After she sealed her fate in 1634, Elizabeth became the subject of gossip that revolved around puzzlement over why she did not marry: ‘In this time my Sister telling me the seuerall opinion of diuers conserning me, which for the most part she thought was in the wrong, [they] immagining why I did not marry, some thought I was perswaded by some about me, others that I was proud or mallancolly, or for dislike of it refused’. This talk somewhat worried Elizabeth, leaving her with a sense that she had been unwise in refusing all her suitors, but she chose to use the gossip for her spiritual benefit, ultimately disregarding what others said of her: ‘yet this use I made of it [gossip] to examine myselfe whether I was any waies gilty of that they said of me that I might mend myselfe before thee my God, whom I most feared & so that my waies were acceptable before thee I cared not how I was esteemed of by others’.95 While, in the end, Elizabeth cared more of what God thought of her actions than people did, she nonetheless worried how Sir John felt about her refusal to marry. She noted as much when remembering the last two men he presented to her in 1634: ‘Now it was some sorrow to mee to thinke that I could not condisend to my fathers desire [that she marry] and haue my owne, for my father hauing two whom he intended or thought fitt to marry; many thoughts pleaded within me for him’.96 Her sorrow probably derived from her defiance of Sir John’s patriarchal authority, as well as from her devotion to and affection for him. Yet Elizabeth’s appreciation of her father’s love could not change her desire to devote herself to God and remain single. This conflict in turn caused her considerable anxiety: I now thought it a hard matter to withstand my fathers desire and herein I thought not my will absalute without his neither would I be rebellious therefore I thought to bend my owne mind to my fathers, yet herein I perceiued I went against my natural inclination, which would be some trouble to me as I found then beginning when I thought it besides I knew my fathers intention of Marriage of me was for my good, yet seeing I could not safely alter my mind, I was forced to withstand his desire.97

Elizabeth was therefore emotionally torn because of her decision not to marry. She wished to adhere to her father’s plans, not only because she desired to show him respect but also because she realized that he was acting with her best intentions in mind. Such anxiety also underscores the discomfort that, as Hill asserts, many never-married women felt in the seventeenth century. Elizabeth, however, was not alone in experiencing discomfort because of her decision to remain single, for her father also faced a degree of dishonour for accepting his daughter’s choice not to marry. Indeed, the Ishams’ neighbours proved critical of Sir John for not persuading Elizabeth to enter into 134

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wedlock: ‘My father telling me that he was blamed for my not marrying, in that they said it was wrong of him. I told him I would take it [the criticism] upon myselfe’. Sir John appears to have been grateful for Elizabeth’s resolution, leading him to provide insurance for her after he died: ‘at this time my fathers care was so of me that he told me I should not be beholding to my Brother … this I desired not though it was out of his loue to me for I had good confidence in my Brother’.98 Blamed for his daughter remaining unwed, Sir John could have reacted harshly toward Elizabeth but he did not. Instead, he attempted to make sure she would not be beholden to Justinian when he became patriarch, an act that indicates that Sir John anticipated that his son might not treat Elizabeth well after ascending to the head of the family. Although not accepting Sir John’s offer, Elizabeth nonetheless understood her father’s gesture as a sign of his love towards her, something that she greatly appreciated. Her gratefulness only increased her affection for Sir John, an affection that led her to worry about her father: ‘I found my nature nearely linked to my fathers, weeping to think if I should lose him’. Elizabeth’s concern led to her desire to do well by her father: ‘I found my affections to fear the lose of my friends more than my owne life which I haue often found in my hart … that I might doe them [her relatives] good especially of my father (Lord thou knowest my thoughts trauill for him)’.99 As we have seen, these feelings for her father served as one of a multiple set of motivations for the production of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. If we consider the autobiography as her ‘mind writ’ we can presume that the document served as means to defend the fact that she was not married.100 Indeed, we must recall the marginal note in which she bequeathed her ‘confessions’ to her brother and nieces – in it she stated that she hoped that they would be ‘charitable censure of me’.101 Thus Elizabeth truly cared about the opinion her family had of her, and it is safe to say that her status as a never-married woman carried an extraordinary potential of pushing that opinion towards the negative. After all, we have speculated that her singlehood did not sit well with Sir Justinian Isham, and this may have been a leading reason why he refused to erect a funeral monument in her memory after she died in 1654. We know for certain that, while Elizabeth lived, she experienced the negative gossip of her Northamptsonhire neighbours, as well as the difficult negotiation with and refutation of her father’s wishes that she marry. Sir John may have resigned himself to her refusal to marry but he did not necessarily like it. Yet Elizabeth had powerful weapons to combat any negative assessment of her never-married status – religion and God. Religion could empower and bring females honour in early modern England, since contemporaries felt that piety cultivated or enhanced the ability of women to be chaste, silent, and obedient and, by extension, live virtuously.102 Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was a testament of her own piety, a piety that revolved around an austere devotion to a god whose providence she believed had ultimately made her decide never to marry. 135

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In the context of early modern England, could there have been a more powerful argument against the wish that she become a wife and eventually a mother? It is true that Protestant culture espoused the virtues of marriage, and gender ideals created stereotypes of single women that equated them to prostitutes and made them more prone to accusations of witchcraft. Yes, William Perkins degraded the Catholic ideals of monasticism and vows of chastity, and that he and others – such as Matthew Griffith, John Dod, and Robert Cleaver – believed that people were more suited to marry than to not. Yet, within the very society in which these views found fertile ground, there was also room for the admiration of singlehood to exist. Divines like Perkins and Dod felt that continence was a virtue, a spiritual gift that allowed people to throw away worldly cares and focus on their devotion to the almighty in Heaven. Consequently, singlehood was acceptable if providentially sanctioned. Moreover, although they may have believed that God granted such a gift to a select few and that monastic vows were diabolical, it is not hard to feel that the single life that Perkins or Dod described looks strikingly similar to that of the Catholic monk or nun cloistered off from the world. For Elizabeth Isham, she believed that she had received the providential gift of continence – God had led her towards marriage with Dryden and then pulled her away to live what she felt was the ‘priuat life’ as a never-married woman. Although never taking formal vows like a Catholic nun, Elizabeth nonetheless chose, we could say, a similar life of austerity and spiritual contemplation as a ‘Puritan nun’: ‘I might haue changed [choosing marriage] to haue bettered my selfe but it was rather contrary to hauing that true content [living an ascetic life] which I thought the world could not giue’.103 Hence, while her decision to remain single brought some guilt and discomfort, it generally delighted her. For Elizabeth, happiness came from her belief that being single was her vocational calling and a role that she felt God had chosen her to fill and practise to her fullest abilities. The proper way, so she believed, to practise such a role was by devoting herself wholeheartedly to God, and this devotion gave her ease as she spent the remainder of her days at Lamport Hall with little opportunity to leave the family estate. She had acquired the greatest freedom of all for her: to live in the way she saw fit, in prayer and meditation. Consequently, in the end, Elizabeth did ultimately choose to follow patriarchy, the patriarchy of her spiritual father.

PATRIARCHY AND SINGLEHOOD IN ELIZABETH ISHAM’S LIFE The compelling story of how Elizabeth Isham became a never-married woman forces us to consider the historical themes of patriarchy and singlehood in a fresh light. Her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ gives us the rare opportunity to enter into the mind, if not the subjective self of a woman who belonged to a 136

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demographic that represented a significant percentage of the English population by the middle of the seventeenth century. If indeed one in five women remained single throughout their lives in the period, then it is very likely that nearly every family – be it nuclear or extended – had at least one nevermarried female within its ranks. Elizabeth’s ‘confessions’ allows us an inside perspective of the emotions and thinking of such a woman, and how these emotions and thinking shaped her view of the world. She was acutely aware that her choice to remain single was unconventional for a Protestant woman in England, and this awareness shaped how and why she decided to write her life into a narrative autobiography. The pious life, as captured within its pages, allowed her to defend against negative assessments of her singlehood and, in turn, her singlehood proved important to how she thought about the most advantageous way to fashion that pious life. In other words, singlehood and worshipping God were symbiotic for her, two sides of the same coin that could and should never separate. If we apply conventional historical wisdom, the fact that a Protestant or, more specifically, a Puritan woman could hold such a belief is truly remarkable. Yet Elizabeth’s thinking was not unprecedented for the period, since leading theological and conduct writers and women of a similar confessional leaning could also see the merits of singlehood in an otherwise religious and cultural framework that gave the virtues of marriage precedence. Ambiguity thus existed within Protestant thinking, and it provided intellectual room for a single woman to work within and find legitimacy for her decision not to enter into wedlock. Whether a person married or not was all dependent on providence, and Elizabeth fully accepted that she received the gift of continence from an omnipotent and spiritual patriarch. How apropos for a Puritan woman, although a Puritan women who never married. We simply cannot fully understand Elizabeth Isham without giving significant pride of place to this marital status – it enveloped and defined her entire existence, both in relation to her internal and external self. In this regard, we need to stand up and listen intently when Amy Froide asserts that the consideration of marital status – particularly as a category of analysis like class or gender – can reveal much about how women in the early modern period constructed their identities. Elizabeth’s life probably would have taken a different path had she married John Dryden II; she would have achieved the norm that English society expected of adult women – that of wife and, perhaps eventually, mother. Marriage could have also bestowed on Elizabeth a great deal of status as the wife of a man in line to become the head of a well-connected and highly influential family in Northamptonshire. Unfortunately for Dryden, he died only months after the Isham–Dryden talks dissolved, but if Elizabeth was pregnant with a boy before her husband’s death, she still could have acquired considerable status as the mother of the potential and eventual heir of the Dryden estates. Moreover, Sir John Isham would have ceased being her patriarch once she became a member of the Dryden 137

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family, and she would have left her life at Lamport Hall behind and may never have experienced the deaths of her sister Judith or sister-in-law Jane in the same way. Combined with the impetus of explaining her never-married status, these deaths provoked Elizabeth to put quill on paper to write about her life and bequeath her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ to her nieces. In short, if she had married, her life would have taken a far different trajectory, and she may never have produced her spiritual autobiography, a document that captured her interiority and exteriority. If indeed she had both married and still written an autobiography, that self would have certainly looked very different. Of course, the most obvious factor militating against such an outcome was the financial disagreement between the respective family patriarchs of the Drydens and Ishams. Yet, as her account reveals, Elizabeth herself played a significant role in determining whether John Dryden II would eventually become her husband. Indeed, she ultimately had the final say in the Isham– Dryden marriage talks; had she been willing, Elizabeth’s father would presumably have worked to finalize the arrangement with the Drydens. She chose not to because of both her sense of honour and love for Sir John and of her sensitivity to God’s will. The choice worked to Sir John’s advantage, since it gave him an additional and emotional justification for ending the negotiations with the Drydens that were already in dire straits because of financial discord. Essentially, Elizabeth’s affection for her father reinforced his patriarchal authority while his affection for her prevented him from being a family tyrant. Such mutual benefit was a one-off when it came to marriage. She subsequently fully challenged her father’s wishes by never entertaining the idea of marriage again due to her religious sensibilities. Here his affection for his daughter worked to her advantage – he never threw her out of Lamport Hall to brave the world on her own, despite that fact that he did threaten to withhold her financial maintenance. In the end, he accepted Elizabeth’s religious conscience – her ‘natural inclination’ – that caused her to believe and fully accept singlehood as the best representation of God’s providential plans for her. No earthly authority that Sir John wielded could match such heavenly power in Elizabeth’s mind. Thus she played two patriarchs off each other and won, in the sense that she acquired legitimate means to become the ‘Puritan nun’ of Lamport Hall. In doing so, she demonstrated for us the limits of early modern patriarchy, limits that scholars have spilt much ink in attempting to demonstrate. If we take Sir John as representative, he was certainly more of a benevolent than malevolent patriarch, one whose daughter clearly made him anxious by choosing never to marry. His benevolent nature found full expression in his affection for his daughter, an affection that grew as Sir John and Elizabeth’s relationship developed during her childhood and increased as she progressed through adulthood. Their love for each other made Sir John’s patriarchal authority ambiguous and never absolute, much like a number of scholars have argued was the case throughout England. Such ambiguity came into 138

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play when Elizabeth experienced courtship and marriage, and that experience illustrates that early modern marriage formation could be far more complicated than the interpretative framework of romantic love or economics has long postulated. Ironically, the ambiguity also adds some credence to feminist conceptions of patriarchy that view it as the pure male subjugation of women. Although Sir John was never an absolute patriarch, one nonetheless did exist in Elizabeth’s life – namely God, to whom she freely subordinated herself and whose authority trumped all others while she lived. Historians should consider such a reality far more explicitly and take better account of the place of spiritual patriarchy in early modern England. After all, it was a society in which religion and beliefs in providence defined and infused meaning into nearly all thinking, conduct, social relations, and cultural practices. For Elizabeth, spiritual patriarchy – in the form of God’s providence – legitimized her lifestyle and gave it meaning. Unfortunately, such legitimacy faced its challenges when she became the only member of her immediate family not to receive a funeral monument, and when her autobiography found its way across the Atlantic Ocean. Her singlehood likely influenced Sir Justinian Isham’s decision on the monument and Sir Charles or Sir Gyles Isham’s exclusion of the autobiography from the family archive. Here, in the realm of historical memory, earthly patriarchy seems to have long reigned supreme, but with the discovery of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ fortune, if not providence appears to have had the final and most significant laugh.

NOTES 1 Isham, BR, fo. 29v. 2 John Dod and Robert Cleaver, A Godly Forme of Household Gouerment, For the Ordering of Priuate Families, According to the Direction of Gods Word (London, 1630), sig. A10r. 3 Richard Brathwait, The English Gentleman: Containing Sundry Excellent Rules, or Exquisite Observations (London, 1630). 4 William Whately, A Bride-Bush: Or A Direction for Married Persons (London, 1623), 204. 5 For useful discussion, see Sylvia Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy (Oxford, 1990); Judith M. Bennett, ‘Feminism and History,’ Gender and History, 1, no. 3 (1989), 251–272; Judith M. Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (Philadelphia, PA, 2006), esp. ch. 2; Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History (Oxford, 1986); Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (Oxford, 1986); Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1988), part I; Joanne Harriet Wright, Origin Stories in Political Thought: Discourses on Gender, Power, and Citizenship (Toronto, 2004), ch. 6. 6 For useful discussion, see Jacqueline Eales, Women in Early Modern England (London, 1998), ch. 4; Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1998), ch. 1; Patricia Crawford, Women and Religion in England, 1500–1720 (New York, 1993), 6–10. 139

The gentlewoman’s remembrance 7 See Crawford, Women and Religion, ch. 2; Keith Thomas, ‘The Double Standard,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 20, no. 2 (1959), 195–216; Judith Spicksley, ‘A Dynamic Model of Social Relations: Celibacy, Credit, and the Identity of the “Spinster” in Seventeenth-Century England,’ in Identity and Agency in England, 1500–1800, Henry French and Jonathan Barry, eds (New York, 2004), 106–146; Patrick Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England: Religious and Cultural Change in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1988), ch. 3; Margo Todd, Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order (Cambridge, 1987), ch. 4; Anthony Fletcher, ‘The Protestant Idea of Marriage in Early Modern England,’ in Religion, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain: Essays in Honor of Patrick Collinson, Anthony Fletcher and Peter Roberts, eds (Cambridge, 1994), 161–180; Kathleen M. Davies, ‘Continuity and Change in Literary Advice on Marriage,’ in Marriage and Society: Studies in the Social History of Marriage, R.B. Outhwaite, ed. (London, 1981), 58–80. 8 For examples, see Lyndal Roper, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in the English Reformation Augsburg (Oxford, 1989); Retha Warnicke, Women in the English Renaissance and Reformation (Westport, CT, 1983); Thomas Robisheaux, Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1989); Merry Wiesner, Working Women in Renaissance Germany (New Brunswick, NJ, 1987); Steven Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Cambridge, MA, 1983); Collinson, Birthpangs, 62–63. 9 Dod and Cleaver, Household Gouernment, sig. A8r. 10 See Bernard Capp, When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighbourhood in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford, 2003), 25 and Conclusion; Susan Dwyer Amussen, An Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern England (New York, 1988); Susan Dwyer Amussen, ‘“Being Stirred to Much Unquietness:” Violence and Domestic Violence in Early Modern England,’ Journal of Women’s History, 6 (1994), 70–89; David Underdown, ‘The Taming of the Scold: The Enforcement of Patriarchal Authority in Early Modern England,’ in Order and Disorder in Early Modern England, Anthony Fletcher and John Stevenson, eds (Cambridge, 1985), 116–136; Mark Breitenberg, Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1996); Anthony Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England, 1500–1800 (New Haven, CT, 1995), ch. 1 and Conclusion; Anthony Fletcher, ‘Men’s Dilemma: The Future of Patriarchy in England, 1560–1660,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, 4 (1994), 61–81; Linda Pollock, ‘Rethinking Patriarchy and the Family in Seventeenth-Century England,’ Journal of Family History, 23 (1998), 3–27; Alexandra Shepard, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003), especially Introduction and Conclusion; Laura Gowing, Common Bodies: Women, Touch and Power in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven, CT, 2003). 11 Dod and Cleaver, Household Gouernment, sig. I3r. 12 William Gouge, Of Domesticall Duties (London, 1634), 452. 13 Matthew Griffith, Bethal: or, A Forme for Families (London, 1633), 274–275. 14 Dod and Cleaver, Household Gouernment, sig. H1r–H4v. 15 Griffith, Bethel, 275. 16 Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (New York, 1977), 86–91. 140

Singlehood in the patriarch’s household 17 Diana O’Hara, Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor England (Manchester, 2001), Introduction, 218–220, and Conclusion. 18 Peter Rushton, ‘Property, Power and Family Networks: The Problem of Disputed Marriage in Early Modern England’, Journal of Family History, 11 (1986): 205–219, 210. 19 Alan MacFarlane, Marriage and Love in England: Modes of Reproduction, 1300–1840 (Oxford, 1986), 35–48, 174–208; David Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1997), chs 10 and 11. 20 Keith Wrightson, English Society: 1580–1680 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1982), 80–86; Ralph Houlbrooke, The English Family, 1450–1700 (London, 1984), 76; Martin Ingram, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1987), 142. 21 O’Hara, Courtship and Constraint, 2–3, 218–220, and Conclusion. 22 Maryanne Kowaleski, ‘Singlewomen in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: The Demographic Perspective,’ in Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250–1800, Judith M. Bennett and Amy M. Froide, eds (Philadelphia, PA, 1999), 38–81, 53. 23 Amy Froide, Never Married: Singlewomen in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2005); Bridget Hill, Women Alone: Spinsters in England, 1660–1850 (New Haven, CT, 2001); Bridget Hill, ‘Marital Status as a Category of Difference: Singlewomen and Widows in Early Modern England,’ in Singlewomen in the European Past, Bennett and Froide, eds, 236–269; Pamela Sharpe, ‘Literally Spinsters: A New Interpretation of Local Economy and Demography in Colyton in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,’ Economic History Review (1991), 46–65; Pamela Sharpe, ‘Dealing With Love: The Ambiguous Independence of the Single Woman in Early Modern England,’ Gender and History, 2 (1999), 209–232; Christine Peters, ‘Single Women in Early Modern England,’ Continuity and Change (1997), 325–345; Spicksley, ‘“Spinster” in Seventeenth-Century England,’ 106–146; Judith M. Bennett and Amy M. Froide, ‘A Singular Past,’ in Singlewomen in the European Past, Bennett and Froide, eds, 1–37. 24 Froide, Never-Married, 182–216. 25 See Spicksley, ‘“Spinster,” 112; Bennett and Froide, ‘Singular Past,’ 14–15; Merry E. Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2000), chs 6 and 7. 26 Bridget Hill, Women Alone: Spinsters in England, 1660–1850 (New Haven, CT, 2001), 1. 27 For examples, See Dod and Cleaver, Household Gouernment, sig. H7v; Griffith, Bethel, 22. 28 William Perkins, A Reformed Catholike: or, A Declaration Shewing How Neere We May come to the Present Church of Rome in Sundrie Points of Religion (Cambridge, 1598), 164. 29 Ibid., 167. 30 Eric Josef Carlson, Marriage and the English Reformation (Oxford, 1994), ch. 1. 31 William Perkins, Christian oeconomie: or, A short survey of the right manner of erecting and ordering a families, according to the Scriptures. First written in Latine by the author M. W. Perkins, and now set forth in the vulgar tongue, for more common vse and benefit, by Tho. Pickering Bachelar of Diuinitie (London, 1609), 12. 32 Perkins, A Reformed Catholike, 162. 141

The gentlewoman’s remembrance 33 Griffith, Bethel, 21–22. 34 Dod and Cleaver, Household Gouernment, sig. H8r. 35 Mary Ward, A Breife Relation … With Autobiographical Fragments and a Selection of Letters, Christina Kenworthy-Browne, ed., Catholic Record Society Publications, vol. 81 (Woodbridge, 2008), 6. 36 Ibid., 8. 37 Alice Thornton, My First Booke of My Life, Raymond A. Anselment ed. (Lincoln, 2014), 76. 38 Ibid., 77–78. 39 Elizabeth Delaval, The Meditations of Lady Elizabeth Delaval, Written Between 1662 and 1671, ed. Douglas G. Greene (Gateshead, 1978), 202. 40 Katharine Hodgkin, ed., Women, Madness and Sin in Early Modern England: The Autobiographical Writings of Dionys Fitzherbert (Farnham, 2010), 121. 41 Ibid., 125. 42 Isham, BR, fo. 3v. 43 Ibid., fo. 4r. 44 Ibid., fo. 30v. 45 Ibid., fo. 24v. 46 Ibid., fo. 24v–25r. 47 Ibid., fo. 26r. 48 Ibid., fo. 14r. 49 Ibid., fo. 27v. 50 Ibid., fo. 34r. 51 Ibid. 52 Endorsed reply, Sir Justinian Isham to Brian Duppa, c.28 February 1554, CDI, Letter XLIV, 83. 53 David Papillon to Sir Justinian Isham, 12 May 1652, IMSS, NRO, IC 312. 54 See Webb–Isham Correspondence, June 1654 to June 1657, IMSS, NRO, IC 4772.1–4772.10. 55 Brian Duppa to Sir Justinian Isham, 11 April 1654, CDI, Letter XLVI, 84–85. 56 Endorsed reply, Sir Justinian Isham to Brian Duppa, c. 11 April 1654, CDI, Letter XLVI, 85. 57 I thank Richard Cust for our discussion of funeral monuments – his insights have proven helpful. For further discussion of funeral monuments in the early modern period, see Ralph Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family in England, 1480–1750 (Oxford, 1998), 343–371; Nigel Llewellyn, Funeral Monuments in PostReformation England (Cambridge, 2000), especially ch. 3. 58 Annuity to Elizabeth Isham, 1 December 1636, IMSS, NRO, IL 1256 and IL 1257. Finch, WFNF, 34–35. 59 Isham, BR, fo. 11v. 60 Ibid., fo. 12r. 61 Ibid., fo. 14v. 62 Ibid., fo. 10r. 63 Elizabeth Isham, ‘Diary’, c. 1650, IMSS, NRO, IL 3365. 64 Isham, BR, fo. 20r. 65 Ibid., fo. 21r. 66 Ibid., fo. 4v. 67 Ibid., fo. 10v. 142

Singlehood in the patriarch’s household 68 Ibid., fo. 10r. 69 See Helen King, The Disease of Virgins: Green Sickness, Chlorosis and the Problems of Puberty (London, 2004). 70 Isham, BR, fo. 17v. 71 Ibid., fo. 29v. 72 Ibid., fo 18v. 73 Ibid., fo. 20v. Elizabeth refers to Pagitt as her uncle, perhaps because he was her elder, but in fact they were distant cousins. 74 Susan Whyman, Sociability and Power in late-Stuart England: The Cultural Worlds of the Verneys, 1660–1720 (Oxford, 1999), 124–139; Vivienne Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture: The Seventeenth-Century Newdigates of Arbury and their world (London, 1995), 117–118. 75 Isham, BR, fo. 21r. 76 Ibid., fo. 20v. 77 Ibid., fo. 21r. 78 Ibid., fo. 21v. 79 Ibid., fo. 23r. 80 Ibid., fo. 23v. 81 Ibid., fo. 21v. 82 Ibid., fo. 23r. 83 John Dryden II to Elizabeth Isham, 25 April 1631, IMSS, NRO, IC 199. 84 Isham, BR, fo. 23v. 85 Ibid., fo. 23r. 86 Ibid., fo. 23v. 87 Ibid., fo. 24r. 88 Ibid., fo. 24v. 89 Ibid., fo. 32r. 90 Ibid., fo. 32v. 91 Ibid., fo. 26v. 92 Ibid., fo. 27r. 93 Ibid., fo. 28r. 94 Ibid., fo. 33r. 95 Ibid., BR, fo. 29r. 96 Ibid., fo. 28r. 97 Ibid., fo. 29r. 98 Ibid., fo. 28r. 99 Ibid., fo. 33v. 100 I thank Anne Cotterill for discussing this matter with me, as well as for her presentation on Elizabeth’s autobiography at the ‘Elizabeth Isham at Princeton workshop,’ in Princeton, NJ on 8 September 2007. 101 Isham, BR, fo. 2r. 102 For discussion of the empowering characteristics of personal piety for women, see Crawford, Women and Religion, ch. 4; Peter Lake, ‘Feminine Piety and Personal Potency: the “Emancipation” of Mrs. Jane Ratcliffe,’ Seventeenth Century, 1 (1987): 143–165; Debra L. Parish, ‘The Power of Female Pietism: Women as Spiritual Authorities and Religious Roles Models in Seventeenth-Century England,’ The Journal of Religious History, 17, no. 1 (1992), 33–46. 103 Isham, BR, fo. 29r. 143

Chapter 4

. ‘My own bookes’: Elizabeth Isham’s reading

I

f one stands and gazes south across High Street from All Saints – the church that we have seen houses the various memorials to the Isham family – Lamport Hall appears in its neo-classical grandness. Resting in a setting with sheep grazing in the surrounding meadows, the hall is truly a historical testament to the Ishams’ prominence in the village of Lamport, if not all of Northamptonshire. Of course, the hall’s appearance today differs greatly from what it looked like when Elizabeth Isham lived there, since Sir Justinian Isham transformed the original Tudor manor house when he employed John Webb in 1655. A striking manifestation of this renovation is the neo-classical front begun by Webb and completed in the eighteenth century. Yet perhaps far more impressive is what lies within the northern wing of this section of the home – the Lamport Hall library. A casual stroll through the large room reveals cases filled to the brim with books, with many of the titles from the Tudor-Stuart period and some still in vellum covers. The visual of this reality can easily lead to one conclusion – the Ishams of Lamport were a bibliophilic family for whom reading held enormous importance in their household. After all, we know that Sir John Isham appears to have been an active reader, with books often being a topic of conversation between him and his family – particularly his father, Thomas Isham – and with his enjoyment in the company of academics like Joseph Mede.1 After all, Mede came to Lamport Hall on the invitation of Justinian Isham, for whom books were also important in the active intellectual life that he pursued that brought him into the orbit of such men as Samuel Hartlib, Johannes Amos Comenius, and founding members of the Royal Society. As we shall see, reading also played a significant role in the lives of the female members of the family like Elizabeth’s mother, sister, and grandmother. Growing up and living most of her life in this environment, Elizabeth Isham matured from a young age to have a great interest in books and reading. 144

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Indeed, much evidence of her reading exists. When relying on just the Isham family papers, we find two sources for such activity: her ‘diary’ and two book lists – one entitled ‘My Own Bookes’ – of approximately eighty titles that she appears to have owned. From the lists alone, we know that the majority of the texts were religious in content and written by various authors such as John Dod, Daniel Featley, John Preston, and Saint Augustine of Hippo. The booklists also reveal that Elizabeth may have had some proficiency in French and Latin and also had an interest in household medicine. 2 Supplementing such evidence, the ‘diary’ records that she often engaged in oral and aural reading with family members and that she also was familiar with the works of Chaucer, Sidney, and Spenser, illustrating that her literary penchant did not just centre on devotional and medical books.3 All of this, however, really only gives us a superficial glimpse of her reading; similar to how other records found in the Isham collection offer us only a partial perspective of aspects of Elizabeth Isham and her family, especially its female members. Together, the booklists and ‘diary’ simply tell us only what she read, not why she chose such books, how she read them, nor what she thought about them. Fortunately, the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ once again opens windows for us, allowing us to begin answering such questions. Littered throughout the spiritual autobiography are references to Elizabeth’s public and private engagement with the written word, citations and quotations from printed works, thoughts and comments on books, and accounts of how books inspired both her choices in life and her writing. When we juxtapose the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ with what we see in the Isham papers – in this case especially focusing on Elizabeth’s reading – a form of historical memory once again emerges that enriches our overall understanding of both her and her family. Particularly, while the many books that now rest in the Lamport Hall Library and the evidence of the seventeenthcentury Ishams’ reading in the family papers are valuable, they nonetheless paint a rather inanimate picture of their bibliophilic nature. Elizabeth’s autobiography animates, bringing much life to this previously stale picture. Yes, books were important to Sir John but the Isham papers do not reveal how they influenced his interactions with his children nor the gender dynamics that revolved around his relationship with his daughter Elizabeth. Of course, books obviously held a significant place in Justinian’s life but we find that many memories that Elizabeth had of her relationship with her brother often centred on the written word. Books and reading also greatly defined how Elizabeth interacted with her female relatives at Lamport Hall, something that we can only view from the perspective of her spiritual autobiography and not the Isham collection. When spending time together, the women often read to each other and exchanged books, while also interacting with the Isham servants through the act of reading. In short, reading was often an oral, aural, and social activity at Lamport Hall that defined much of Elizabeth’s existence. Yet her reading could also be silent and private, and such 145

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activity took on an autodidactic and functional character throughout her life that she sought to use to enrich both herself and her family. In many ways, she was the product of reading, with the written word greatly shaping her exterior and interior self. To know this allows us to better know Elizabeth Isham, and it also throws into sharp relief the role of books and reading in the broader early modern society in which she lived.

BOOKS AND READING IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND We can easily argue that Elizabeth Isham lived in a period profoundly centred on both the written and spoken word. By the sixteenth century, humanist education – with its emphasis on the recovery of classical texts, mastery of language, the art of reading, and the power of rhetoric – had become firmly entrenched as the dominant pedagogy on both sides of the Channel, having an enormous effect on the political, economic, social, and cultural characteristics of Europe writ large. Thrown into this mix was the ever-increasing rise, since Gutenberg’s efforts in the fifteenth century, in the production of and place held by print in early modern Europe. This particularly and dramatically manifested during the Reformation, with the exaltation of concepts like sola scriptura and sola fide and the battle over hearts, minds, and souls between various confessional groups, be they Catholic or Protestant. In other words, the coalescence of humanism, print, and the Reformation created new dynamics in Europe that brought about profound change. Print shops and bookshops sprang up in the busy and densely populated towns and cities, and writers gained a new way to circulate their ideas and thoughts en masse. Peddlers roamed busy streets, carted printed texts on dirt roads and across grassy meadows, and hawked broadsides, chapbooks, pamphlets, plays, verse, political treatises, and Bibles to urban and rural dwellers alike. Such clientele proved only too eager to snatch up and read the peddler or bookshop keeper’s wares, devouring texts either alone or with others in a myriad of contexts like the home, church, alehouse, street corner, or field. Governments quickly grew concerned and weary of such activity, and they responded with the creation of elaborate means of state censorship to put checks on what could be printed and read. Moreover, court culture often had an intimate connection to print, with many talented and humanist educated people attempting to display their analytical and rhetorical abilities to lords, bishops, princes, or monarchs in the hopes of garnering good favour and patronage. Thus, from the highest to the lowest social levels, books and reading contributed much to shaping the early modern period. The realization of this among scholars has generated a great deal of study on the workings of print culture – a concept defined largely by the production, materiality, distribution, consumption, and readership of books. For scholars of early modern England, they have taken much of their original cue for 146

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studying print culture from the innovative example set by continental historians, especially of Italy, France and l’histoire du livre. Born largely out of the Annales school, the early focus of the history of the book, as a field, was largely quantitative, with an emphasis on print runs, the circulation of texts, and the socio-economic backgrounds of those who purchased new books hot off the presses. A whole range of enquiry has grown out of this original approach, resulting in studies focused on an eclectic array of topics such as the technologies used in printing, the importance of typeface and the physical layout of books, paper and ink production, the number and managing of bookshops, the print runs and various genres of both popular and unpopular titles. While certainly revealing much about the mechanics of the book trade, such studies nonetheless have often only produced a top–down model in which writers and printers fed rather abstract and faceless audiences with new texts. Historians – most notably Roger Chartier and Robert Darnton – began to question whether we could know more about the people who actually read the tangible manifestation of print culture – the books. In other words, scholarly concern began to shift towards a pursuit of early modern readers and a history of reading. The means to do so have varied greatly, but in general have relied on such material as book titles listed in wills, inventory lists of bookshops, library inventories, court records, and marginalia found in old texts to gain insights into what people read and how they thought about what they read. Inspiration has especially derived from pioneering work by microhistorians, particularly Carlo Ginsburg and his study of the miller Menocchio and the corpus of books that he read and fashioned to accord to his own personal cosmos. Menocchio showed that scholars could discover how actual people could read, providing an exemplary model of a possible way to open up the mental framework and landscape of an early modern individual. As Chartier has stressed, it is essential for historians to pursue how readers intellectually used their books, something that requires a move beyond a simply thematic examination of printed titles or the socio-economic consumption of types of genres.4 A number of historians of early modern England have found inspiration from this scholarship, and have produced a large degree of work on the history of print culture and reading during the Tudor-Stuart period. Mirroring approaches employed by continental historians, much of the early ink spilled on this topic revolved around interests in social history, especially in regard to unearthing the interplay between print and people of humble status in English society. In particular, early modern literacy, as a subject, held pride of place early on, largely because of how the skills of reading and writing benefited a person both at a secular and spiritual level; not only did the ability to read help cultivate one’s piety by allowing direct access to Scripture but it could also bestow intellectual advantages that could propel someone up the socio-economic ladder. Furthermore, regarding print culture, there could be no book trade without people who knew how to read. Compared to the 147

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present, early modern England was an overwhelmingly illiterate society, with David Cressy arguing that well over two-thirds of men and nine-tenths of women did not have the ability to read or write prior to the English Civil War.5 Others have stressed that these estimates likely misrepresent overall literacy rates in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, since Cressy relied primarily on evidence of people’s ability to sign their names to arrive at his conclusions. Indeed, it is likely that the most common form of education, particularly in rural areas, put particular emphasis on teaching a child to read at the expense of providing him or her with the skills to write.6 The implications of this scholarship helped spur on some of the most formative studies of reading and print culture in early modern England. For the most part, such studies have centred on the phenomena of cheap print – broadsides, chapbooks, woodcuts, pamphlets that contained a litany of subject matter, be it news, ballads, romances, religious stories, political satire, or history. A groundbreaker of sorts, Margaret Spufford jumped headlong into such material produced after the Restoration, and demonstrated that English people of humble status and learning were a ready and potent market for cheap print, devouring what came off the presses in the late Stuart period.7 Tessa Watt subsequently followed with profoundly influential work on cheap print produced during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that shed much light on popular piety and Protestantism by illustrating the commercial mechanisms that motivated printers to peddle cheap print that met the demands for religious images, moral stories, or spiritual songs. Through such media, Protestant ideology disseminated at a popular level and provided the opportunity for reformed ideas to seep into the popular imagination of the English people.8 Looking to counter the revisionist push that has argued that Catholicism’s hold was firm, long lasting, and difficult to dismantle in the Tudor period, other scholars have built on Watt’s discoveries and approach. Sharing a somewhat common methodology, Alexandra Walsham and Peter Lake – by examining print culture and cheap print aimed at popular audiences and centred on sermons, providential occurrences, murder pamphlets, and gallows performances – have done much to explain how reading and books provoked the cultural interchange between popular religion and English Protestantism. Moreover, the work of both historians has underscored the intimate relationship that existed between oral and print culture, and how the spoken and written word often fed off each other.9 The increased awareness of this relationship between these two forms of communication has complicated our understanding of print culture in the period, reminding many that England – in the sixteenth and much of the seventeenth centuries – was still a predominantly oral society. Complicating the matter further has been the awareness that older media of written communication continued to hold a significant place in the early modern period. As Harold Love has stressed: ‘scribal publication … had a role in the culture and commerce of texts just as assured as that of print 148

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publication’. For especially the literate, it was as common for them to view a text in manuscript as it was for them to see it in print. Much of this material – be it a newsletter, separate, political commentary, pamphlet, piece of sheet music, or ballad – was the product of professional scribes whose work distributed through organized markets.10 Scribal publication and manuscript circulation also had persistent transaction with both oral and print culture. Indeed, manuscript, oral, and print media had a symbiotic relationship with each other, with all sorts of content passing through all three not just once but often multiple times. Transmission of ideas and information could only have worked in this relationship if those who were not literate had the opportunity to have access to the written word. Most, however, knew someone who could read, and, it was more common than not, that when a person read something in the period he or she did so out loud. Consequently, the vast majority of people had the ability to learn the contents of either manuscript or printed texts even if they lacked literate skills. The fact that oral traditions could find their way into both forms of publication and often back again out of such publication into oral traditions only illustrates further the complex nature of early modern communication and the history of reading.11 Yet, combined with what the work of scholars like Watt and Walsham reveals, all this really only gives a sense of the mechanics, the dissemination, the content, and the ways people could access the written word. Put another way – we may gain a sense of how print, manuscript, and oral culture worked but we really do not acquire a picture of what people thought about what they heard or read. It is difficult to actually enter into the early modern mind and view how it intellectually engaged with and used the written word, like, for example, Menocchio did in sixteenth-century Montereale. This is largely due to the relative paucity of sources – at least in comparison to the mass of materials generated by both print and scribal publication – that provide insights on readers’ thinking about what they read. Fortunately, such paucity has not left scholars overly daunted. With the existence of reading habits and thoughts about reading found in such sources as marginalia and annotations in books, commonplace books, and life-writings, we do have paths to access and enter readers’ minds. Early scholarly voyagers along these paths, Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine have offered, in their study of Gabriel Harvey’s annotations of Livy, an approach to understanding early modern reading – it was largely goal-oriented and was active rather than passive, particularly that which was scholarly oriented and pursued for political usage. The ‘activity of reading’ was done in search of more than an accumulation of information, a search that also commonly created the conditions from which a reader chose and appropriated aspects of a text that had an application in his or her life. A reader’s choice and appropriation ensured that a variety of readings of a text could occur, allowing for it to have multiple, if not infinite meanings depending on the method, perspective, and goal that a given reader brought 149

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to it. Active reading seems to have been ubiquitous, as other cases like John Dee and William Drake attest.12 When turning to women’s reading, a similar impression emerges. As with history on print culture and reading more broadly, work on early modern women and the written word generally began with a focus on the mechanics, production, content, and circulation of texts but with an additional interest in early modern gender dynamics. A forerunner, Suzanne Hull provided an analysis of books written for or about women, and identified a common trope in these books that mirrored overall gender ideals in England – women should strive to be chaste, silent and obedient. Authors, who were usually men, argued that women should only read works that helped them achieve this ideal. For this reason, they stressed that only domestic guides and religious books were suitable for women to read, since both genres instructed women to serve their father’s or husband’s needs and revealed how to live a virtuous life.13 Books that did not belong to these two genres were considered unsuitable for female readers and received rebuke and scorn as improper. As Mary Ellen Lamb has pointed out, the conduct books of the period – such as Juan Luis Vives’ Instruction of a Christian Woman – commonly distinguished women readers of religious works from promiscuous women who read ‘trivial’ and ‘frivolous’ romances or love poetry.14 In other words, social commentators deemed any book that was not devotional or domestic in nature as dangerous to women. Despite this caution against reading romances or love poetry, women did not always abide by the warnings. Indeed, Carol Meale and Julia Boffey have concluded: ‘Whatever routine advice about suitable reading matter may have been dispensed throughout the period, the reality, for gentlewomen, involved access to a range of books much wider than has been suspected.’15 Corroboration of such a conclusion has come from studies that have utilized the evidence of women’s reading found in book lists, correspondence, marginalia, and commonplace books. Heidi Brayman Hackel has stressed that the goal should be to examine historical traces from these sources to view actual readers rather than ‘phantom-idealized’ readers. Although she has asserted that few women actually annotated books, they were nonetheless book owners of a wide variety of secular texts and that they often inscribed their books, stamped them, bequeathed them in wills, catalogued them, and wrote about their experiences with them. As she has quipped: ‘For the many women who collected, read, and shared their books, books were not mere ornaments; they were tools that enriched these women’s lives and expanded the world they inhabited’. 16 An eclectic array of scholarly work has demonstrated such enrichment. Lamb has shown, in her analysis of the ‘Great Picture of the Clifford Family’, that Lady Anne Clifford was an avid reader and someone who actively engaged with texts many contemporaries considered romances, such as the works of Sidney and Ovid’s Metamorphoses.17 Kathryn DeZur – in studying the commonplace books of Anne Campell, Elizabeth Clarke, and 150

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Lady Anne Southwell – has demonstrated that these women read and copied down numerous love poems in their lifetimes. These activities functioned as resistance to the cultural ideal that women need be chaste, silent, and obedient; not only did they read literature deemed unsuitable for women, but Campell, Clarke, and Southwell also often changed the poetry they copied, becoming writers in the process.18 Here we see the agency of women in the period, highlighting how not all passively accepted the cultural ideals of what they should and should not read. Yet scholars have also shown that early modern women could also exercise power by reading the socially acceptable genre of devotional literature. In her study of George Herbert’s The Temple, Helen Wilcox has stressed that women readers were not passive recipients of the text, but actively copied or altered parts of it into commonplace books, quoted from it in letters to illustrate their own experience, and followed its style and rhetoric in their own devotional poetry. Through such activities, Herbert’s ‘poetic devotion was both sympathetic and empowering’ for women. There is plenty of other evidence to illustrate female agency derived from conformity to early modern ideals for what was proper reading for women. One of John Foxe’s martyrs of Henry VIII’s reign, Anne Askew, was clearly a religious reader, since the account of her life and holy demise are full of references to her familiarity with the Bible and how it provided her with scriptural justifications for her steadfastness in the 1540s against the Henrician authorities who accused, tortured, condemned, and ultimately burned her to death on charges of heresy.19 Religious reading, particularly about martyrs, could influence women to find a vocational calling absolutely and completely devoted to God, as it did for the Catholic mystic and nun, Mary Ward, in the late sixteenth century: ‘She was wont also to spend much time in reading the Lifes of Saints, particularly Martyrs, which so enflamed her well prepared Hart, as nothing cou’d satisfy her, but Living or Dying Martyrdome’.20 A contemporary of Ward, Margaret Hoby, often based her daily routines around both private and communal engagement with religious texts, as she did on 4 October 1599, finding structure and contentment in her life: ‘After I praied I wrett notes in my testament, then I walked abroad, then I Came home and dined: and after diner I went againe awalkinge: then I wret in my sarmon book … then I went to examination and praier, then to supper: after, to the Lectore [a sermon], and then hard one of the men read of the book of marters, and so went to bed’.21 Devotional reading could also serve as the basis for creative expression, as it did for the noted poet, Aemelia Lanyer, who in 1611 found the story of Christ’s Passion ready material to help confront conventional norms and anxiety about female sexuality and engagement with the written word.22 Reading pious texts also proved instrumental in Dionys Fitzherbert’s ability to fashion in the early seventeenth century an intensely religious identity that contributed to her decision never to marry, while such texts also gave her the means to recover from intense bouts of mental and spiritual distress.23 We see religious reading 151

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both influencing and empowering Fitzherbert’s life and its character or trajectory, much as it did for Askew, Ward, Hoby, and Lanyer. However, while these cases illustrate how devotional reading could enhance a woman’s agency in shaping or thinking about their lives, it is worth noting Kate Narveson’s assertion that engagement with religious books was not strictly gendered, with both men and women approaching texts like Scripture in similar ways and both finding empowerment from it.24 The ability of devotional literature to empower individuals reminds us of the central place that spiritual matters held in the early modern period. Of course, much of the cheap print analyzed by the likes of Watt, Walsham, and Lake clearly falls within the genre of devotional literature but the work of Wilcox illustrates how people – in this case women – used and read such texts. Andrew Cambers has perhaps produced some of the most innovative work recently on the consumption and use of devotional literature in his study of Puritan reading practices, and in so doing has incorporated and addressed much of the methodology and approaches associated with the history of the book, print culture, cheap print, scribal publication, and oral and literate culture. Grand narratives about the history of the ‘rise’ of the subjective self and interiority fall under heavy critique as a result. With echoes of the study of early modern life-writing, a line of scholarship on the history of reading has traced a teleological development of a progressive transition from the medieval practice of communal and social reading to private and silent reading. Key in this transition was the Reformation and the perceived emphasis that Protestantism, especially Calvinism, put on internalized belief. Hence, Cambers focuses on godly reading practices, since Puritans have long held a central place in master narratives chronicling the perceived and steady march towards modernity. His conclusions have challenged common stereotypes. While not surprising to find that the written word and devotional reading sat at the heart of Puritan piety, we cannot characterize their engagement with religious texts as only or primarily individualistic, private, and silent. Rather, the predominant form of devotional reading for them was communal and oral, and collective reading out loud provided a means for Puritans to fashion their own religious identity by demarcating themselves as elect and those who did not read with them as reprobate. The picture here is not that of a person isolated in a room – ruminating over scripture and his or her individual salvation – but that of a godly community socially constructing, through the act of oral reading, a collective religious identity. Consequently, godly reading was as much, if not more about the exterior than the interior self.25 We could argue that such communal engagement with devotional texts was active reading, just active reading not intended for only the use of the individual but the group. Yet an impression emerges here that looks strikingly similar to the subjectivity related to the study of life-writing, only in this case it revolves around reading. Consequently, it may be as scholarly fruitful 152

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to blur the lines between what looks like a dichotomy between the exterior and interior self in relation to reading – be it devotional or secular – as it is when dealing with life-writing. To his credit, Cambers, in observing Margaret Hoby’s reading practices, has stressed an awareness of the diversity of styles of reading employed by early modern people is enormously important if we are to truly appreciate all the dynamics of the history of the book and reading in the period.26 The evidence of Elizabeth Isham’s books and reading – the book lists, her ‘diary’, and ‘Booke of Rememberance’ – provides an ideal perspective on such diverse practices, as well as allows us to highlight the false dichotomy between interiority and exteriority as related to reading. Indeed, Elizabeth’s book ownership and reading practices were diverse – she engaged with printed and manuscript materials, and her reading did not centre only on silent or oral reading but included both. Furthermore, she was clearly an active reader, perusing texts and extracting elements from them that proved useful in her life. Functional in character, reading – as it did with other early modern women – empowered her, giving her knowledge and ways to think about her relationships with her family and God. In other words, reading assisted her in fashioning a sense of internal self and an exterior identity vis-à-vis others. You are what you read, and there is perhaps no better example of this than Elizabeth Isham.

EXTERIORITY, EDUCATION, AND READING No one, not even Justinian, provides us with such an inside and insightful view of the bibliophilic Ishams than Elizabeth Isham. Reading and books were important to both her and the entire family, as the approximately eighty titles on the lists of books that she owned and references that she made in her ‘diary’ attest.27 Although clearly significant – since no comparable evidence exists in the Isham papers – the lists and ‘diary’ nonetheless provide rather inanimate glimpses of the role that reading played at Lamport Hall. Similar to black-and-white still shots, such evidence pales in comparison to the moving technicolor that the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ provides us. Once again, when turning to the autobiography, a far fuller perspective emerges, rounding out our historical memory of both her and the Ishams. In her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, Elizabeth cited nearly ten titles from her book lists or ‘diary’, referenced approximately twenty additional texts not mentioned in either source, and recounted numerous occasions when reading shaped her interactions with her family. Thus, when read alongside her book lists and ‘diary’, the autobiography reveals much about the interplay that existed between reading and Elizabeth’s exterior self and world. In short, we learn more than just what they read but how and why she and her family engaged in both discussing books and reading out loud to each other. Education and gender ideals often coloured such engagement. 153

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The earliest memories Elizabeth has in her autobiography of reading centre on her and her siblings’ education. In particular, Lady Isham took an avid interest in teaching the Isham children to read: ‘I growing on my parents was much delighted in me because of those gifts of Nature & life … at which time my mother taught mee my Booke & a while after my Sister & Brother’.28 When she was perhaps six or seven, Elizabeth received books as gifts from Lady Isham: ‘my mother gaue me & my sister a prayer booke a piece and I was much stirred betimes to this spiritual exercise of prayer and reading’.29 The book was A Godly Garden – an anonymously authored manual and collection of set prayers first published during the late sixteenth century and that Elizabeth listed among the books she owned in the late 1640s.30 In addition, she had early exposure to the Prayer Book catechism, the study of which soon allowed her to recite most of it by heart: ‘I could say most of that in the servis[e] book by hearing her [an Isham servant] that tended us’. Lady Isham supplemented the Prayer Book by providing Elizabeth with another catechism ‘with pruftes [proofs]’ which she ‘liked well to read’, but Sir John demanded that his children’s learning not rely on such pedagogical aides.31 Elizabeth persevered, but she recalled that it was neither easy nor pleasant, and the entire experience left her with a childhood fear of her father and a preference to be in the company of her mother while a young girl. This memory likely contributed to the reverential tone she used to speak of Lady Isham in her autobiography. 32 The education, however, that she received from both her mother and father served her well as she grew older. Indeed, if solely relying on the ‘diary’ or book lists, we could produce an impressionistic sketch of Elizabeth as a woman of some intellectual and literary prowess. Indeed, she noted on one of her books lists that she owned ‘2 Bibles, a greater & lesser’ and another in French. The fact that she owned a Bible that was not in English indicates that she had proficiency in other languages, something corroborated by another notation that shows she also owned French and Latin grammars. Her ‘diary’ reveals that she was well acquainted with some of the powerhouses of English literature, as when she took the time to record that, when she was eighteen and also at twenty-one, she ‘read some of Chaucer’. Along with the works of a fourteenth-century literary master, Elizabeth also spent time curled up with more contemporary authors, as her memory of the summer of 1635 reveals: ‘I did the [needle]work of harts & read in Sr Phillip S[idney]’.33 Yet Elizabeth appears to have not been overly confident in her intellectual abilities throughout her life, something we learn when turning to her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. In this regard, her measuring stick was both her brother and sister. Judith’s cleverness caused Elizabeth to feel jealousy and shame: ‘I was naturally of a child apt to my [needle]worke but my Sister was redier at her Booke, & although my parents did commend me yet they would say that she had chosen the better part, and indeed she was of a riper wit’.34 Sir John and Lady Isham looked approvingly on the cultivation of Judith’s 154

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intelligence when she was a child: ‘my Sister willingly would not learne her [needle]worke, for the onely trad of her was in reading her booke for which she was much comended & for her memorie’. Considering her brother’s academic interests as an adult, it is not surprising that Elizabeth expressed a similar assessment of Justinian’s abilities: ‘my Brother … did farr excell mee in the desire of knowledge, who did not understand the name of Wisdome that I might obtaine it’.35 Like Judith, it seems to have come relatively easy to Justinian when he was a child: ‘my brother naturally loued his Booke learning, rising sooner to goe to scoole then many times some would haue him’.36 As Elizabeth grew older, Justinian sought to share his love of learning with his sister. Indeed, he often lent books to Elizabeth when they were both young adults. When she was twenty-three, so she remembered, her brother exposed her for the first time to the work of Sidney and Edmund Spenser: ‘my Brother lent me Sir Phillip Sidneys Booke (& after spencer) which I hard much commended by some’. Although she did not give the exact titles of the books, Elizabeth was probably referring to Sidney’s Arcadia and Spencer’s The Faerie Queene, since these were the most popular titles of each author. Of the two, Elizabeth seemingly enjoyed Sidney’s work most, often reading him after sundown: ‘I read … Sir Phillip Sidny for the most part on euenings’.37 In the same year, Justinian also exposed Elizabeth to the writings of James I: ‘As I take it this time my Brother let me read King James workes which I liked well of both for deuine & moral learning & instruction’. The most insightful instruction that Elizabeth found in the king’s writings was his thoughts on reading the Bible: ‘since I thought of this where he [James I] written of reading the Scriptures that where any thing is hard or intricate that places to us wee should rather imput it to our dullnes & imbecillity of understanding then thinke any ill or defect of that which is absalutly good & perfect’.38 Understanding Elizabeth’s love for the Bible, Justinian may have known that James I’s thoughts on Scripture would have pleased his sister, leading him to lend her the king’s writings. Justinian’s motivation to introduce Elizabeth to the king’s works, as well as those of Sidney and Spenser, may also have stemmed from a desire to expose his sister to the world of letters simply for her educational benefit. Indeed, Justinian took a genuine and active interest in Elizabeth’s education, something she clearly remembered in the summer of 1634: ‘my Brother learned me some French’. Once again, the main benefit from Justinian’s efforts was religious in nature: ‘I took the more delight to [her brother’s teaching of French] because thy [God’s] word seemed the more french to me as another language taking the more heede to it & thereby I might be perfect in it though I had not so well learned the French as to well speak’.39 While there is no surviving evidence showcasing Elizabeth’s ability to read or write French, we nonetheless have seen from the catalogue of books she owned that she possessed a French grammar and French Bible in 1648, illustrating further her belief that it was an 155

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advantageous language in which to read the Word.40 Consequently, given Elizabeth’s intense piety, she was likely thankful for her brother’s linguistic instruction. Moreover, we have direct evidence here of Justinian shaping his sister’s intellectual abilities, abilities that no doubt played a crucial role in making her capable of composing her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Fortunately, the historical memory locked within the pages of the autobiography allows us to fully view the diversity of Elizabeth’s reading practices and materials, diversity greatly determined by the familial context and surroundings of Lamport Hall. In other words, her exteriority – be it in the form of her education at the hands of her parents or interactions with her brother – affected her engagement with both the written word and other people. Such exteriority could expand at Lamport Hall, particularly when extended kin arrived at the Isham household. Here books and reading could shape such visits, as we see when Elizabeth recounted how she, at the age of eighteen, took part in oral and aural reading with a cousin from London, Anne Pagitt. The young women especially enjoyed reading non-devotional texts together: [I] had good company of my cosen Anne my uncle Pagitts daughter ([at] night) wee spent our time for the most part working & hearing one read my cosen being a good reader I loued to hear; the Bookes wherein she read were Ouids Midamorfeces in Sandyes [translation], trauels in the holy land & Gods reuenge against Murther, so we profited together working & reading.41

By reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses – a text that we know she also owned by 1648 – Elizabeth and her cousin did not adhere to the cultural ideal expressed by social commentators that only devotional literature and conduct books were suitable for women to read.42 Further support for this claim comes from the other titles that Elizabeth read with her cousin, the first of which was Sir John Mandeville’s The Voyages and Traualies of Sir John Mandevill. Penned some time in the fourteenth century, the book was quite popular in the early modern period, chronicling the supposed journeys of Mandeville through the Mediterranean world and Asia.43 The last book that Elizabeth noted was The Triumphs of God’s Revenge Against the Crying and Exceedble Sinne of Murther by the merchant and writer John Reynolds. Although a book that held moral and religious undertones, Reynolds’ work was nonetheless an account of violent murders and gruesome executions, making it far from a strictly devotional piece of literature.44 Considering that Elizabeth felt it worthy enough to mention such episodes in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, it is not unreasonable to presume that she looked back on reading with her cousin Anne with fondness. Some of that fondness may have stemmed from Elizabeth’s enjoyment of not just the company but also the texts that they read together. Indeed, she had no qualms engaging with non-devotional literature in her life, despite the gender norms of the period. Such sentiments also existed early in her childhood, since she 156

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seems to have enjoyed verse that was not religiously oriented: ‘I delighted so much in ballads that I could say many by hart, my father being much offended with me that I could not learn that which was better’.45 Sir John’s offence indicates that he likely found ballads and literature of this sort frivolous reading for girls and women. In particular, romances were especially harmful to the virtue of a female. Elizabeth did not totally share such a view, something clearly evident when she remembered the time Justinian lent her Sidney’s Arcadia and Spenser’s The Faerie Queene: ‘[many] discommended the reading of such Bookes of loue, but I found no such hurt’.46 It was obvious that Elizabeth did not completely agree with the cultural conventions of the time that love poetry or romantic literature were harmful. Here we see reflected the stances of scholars like Lamb or DeZur who find that reading such texts was a means for early modern women to exercise their personal agency. If we view Elizabeth’s reading of love ballads, Ovid, Mandeville, Reynolds, Sidney, or Spenser as such agency, then we are not off the mark to state that this reading empowered her. Indeed, her direct familiarity with these authors ran counter to her father’s wishes, highlighting yet another way that Elizabeth could challenge his patriarchal authority while he lived, in this case through the reading of non-devotional literature. None of this, however, should leave the impression that Elizabeth wished to completely reject gender expectations regarding books, as a simple glance at the catalogue of books that she owned illustrates. Of the approximately eighty titles that we know she possessed, well over fifty were devotional in nature, illustrating Elizabeth’s proclivity for religious texts.47 A similar impression exists in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, for the majority of the books that she cited in the autobiography were also devotional. We need simply recall her thoughts on the Bible and the writings of James I after her brother lent her the king’s works. Needless to say, such a literary penchant conformed to cultural norms for women in the early modern period. As we have seen, Elizabeth’s cultivation of her personal piety and her fashioning of a godly identity for herself provided potent means to resist earthly patriarchy. Reading proved pivotal to the formation of such identity, and the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ provides us with an inside view of her devotional and religious reading. It was reading that commonly had communal and pedagogical elements. Not only did Lady Isham concern herself with educating her children, but she also sought to look after the religious learning of the servants at Lamport Hall. Elizabeth noted this concern when recalling her mother’s recovery from melancholy in 1619: ‘at this time my mother called her maides to account what they remembered of the weekely sermons they heard, instructing likewise the most ignorant of them before they receued the holy communion’.48 Lady Isham may have viewed the interest in her servants’ piety as an extension of her domestic duties, something that John Dod had encouraged her to do when she had been sick with palsy: ‘she was the more stired 157

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up to ouersee the wayes of her household because Mr. Dod exorted her thereto’.49 The creation of a godly household was of particular interest to Dod, especially when we consider that he, along with Robert Cleaver – a fellow Dryden-Knightley client – authored the best-selling A Godly Forme of Household Gouerment.50 By seeking to provide religious instruction and education to both the Isham servants and children at Lamport Hall, Lady Isham in many ways was in accord with Dod’s ideals for a mother and wife in a godly household. Of course, a household’s senior female members were usually expected to provide early education to children, and, if they lived in the home, to servants. When Elizabeth – after her father bestowed the responsibility upon her – became the domestic manager of the Lamport servants, she chose to follow the example of her mother and adhere to cultural expectations. Indeed, at the age of twenty-three, Elizabeth sought to prepare the family’s servants for communion: ‘according to my mothers way I asked the maides what they could say my selfe helping them & also I heard them read euery one a chapter on the Sabbath dayes of those which could not read I heard them say there Catechismes before they reciued the Blessed Sacrament’.51 Such interaction apparently brought Elizabeth and her servants joy: ‘wee thought our selues happy & I praised thee [God] for most of them who was good seruants & which wee were glad to make use of to keepe us company & make us merry’.52 Unlike in the case of romantic verse or non-devotional literature, Elizabeth never mentioned Sir John casting aspersions upon activity that revolved around the holy Word, implying that he approved of the interaction between his daughter and his servants, even though, as we have seen, they could disagree over the management of those servants at times. Of course, he had appointed her to the role of household manager and she was essentially following in the footsteps of her mother by offering religious instruction to the servants, but at a deeper level it further illustrated the ambiguity of patriarchal authority in the Isham household. While certainly challenging Sir John’s authority by ignoring or directly contradicting his opinions or wishes in regards to non-devotional literature, Elizabeth nonetheless was more than comfortable adhering to the existing gender ideals on religious reading that informed his thinking. Yet we should beware that this adherence reduced her abilities to act in the ways she saw fit. A godly woman – someone whom we have described as the ‘Puritan nun’ of Lamport Hall – Elizabeth empowered herself when adopting an educative role towards the Isham servants by providing them with scriptural tutelage. Not only did this bring her status within the Isham household but it also reinforced the overall pious identity that she especially cultivated after she chose never to marry and immortalized that decision in her autobiography. Her experience with communal reading – the engagement of both devotional and non-devotional texts with other people – and the education she received in the household gave her the means for such cultivation. In other words, the exteriority of her reading influenced her 158

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life-writing and sense of self. A similar dynamic existed in how reading shaped her experiences with her female relations – particularly with her mother and sister – relations we have already seen had a powerful impact on Elizabeth’s perception of herself and the world around her.

PIETY, HEALTH, AND WOMEN READING If Elizabeth Isham’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was a written defence of her marital status that employed the power of spiritual patriarchy over its earthly counterpart, it was also a testament about women produced by a woman. After all, the autobiography memorialized Lady Isham and also acquired the function of a motherly advice book when Justinian’s four daughters lost their mother upon Jane Isham’s death in 1639. Moreover, locked within the pages of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ is the historical memory of the Isham women who lived at Lamport Hall while Elizabeth was a resident there from 1609 to 1654. Unlike the Isham collection, Elizabeth’s ‘confessions’ provides us with an intimate perspective of her relations with her mother, sister, and grandmother. Enormously close to Lady Isham, she viewed her mother as an exemplar in many ways, wishing to never leave her side, especially in times of sickness. A similar bond existed between Elizabeth and her sister Judith – with only a year’s difference between them, the two came of age together and shared the same marital status throughout their lives. Also suffering from ill health, Judith nonetheless served as Elizabeth’s primary confidante while both women were young adults. Of course, tragedy struck Elizabeth when Judith and Lady Isham passed away, but their memory lived on when she chose to take up the quill and write about them in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. In other words, she left behind for us the female world of Lamport Hall. It was a world in which reading and books served as a thread, if not glue that bound Elizabeth’s exterior self to her mother, sister, and grandmother. When she remembered these women, engagement with texts proved important in her memories, and this engagement was usually communal and often meant to assist with the spiritual and physical well-being of the Isham women. We acquire faint glimpses of such reading in Elizabeth’s ‘diary’. The impression, as gleaned from the document, was the Isham women were avid readers, particularly regarding devotional literature. For Elizabeth and Judith, encouragement to do so largely came from Lady Isham: ‘my mother used to haue my S[ister] & I to read the meditations upon the passion of our saviour’. From the ‘diary’, reading seems to have often been a group activity among the Isham women, as Elizabeth’s memory of when she was twelve suggests: ‘I remember [at this time] my S[ister] read to my M[other]’. While certainly giving us further empirical proof of Lady Isham’s educational role in her daughters’ lives, as well as illustrating for us that the practice of reading out 159

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loud existed among the women of the Isham household, the ‘diary’ nonetheless pales in comparison to the richness of Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’.53 As with most aspects of the Ishams, especially its female members, we must turn to her autobiography for a much fuller view of their reading practices. What we find is that Elizabeth’s earliest memories of reading often included interaction with her grandmother Isham. When Elizabeth was eight or nine-years old, her grandmother Isham fell so terribly ill that many in the family feared she would die. One of Elizabeth’s formative moments with reading occurred in this period: ‘in this time of my grandmothers sicknes I comming in dayly to see her lighted upon her Bookes (which lay in her windoe) wherein she much delighted and I gathered spiritual flowers out of the garden of her sweetness’.54 Elizabeth’s reading appears to have continued to largely be devotional in her grandmother’s presence. She recalled that, when she was eleven, Justinian Isham fell ill with smallpox, a situation that led her parents to quarantine her from her brother. Subsequently, Elizabeth fell under the watchful eye of her grandmother Isham: [in this time] my Grandmother … said she would not part with mee no more neyther did I desire it [for I] hauing so good company of her & her bookes, but I especially delighted in hearing her maide read when I was in bed she hauing begun the olde testament & was not further then my selfe knew, yea & I well delighted in any thing or booke so much as in the holy histories of the Olde and New testament in the bible.55

Such a statement offers confirmation of the overall impression of Elizabeth’s reading habits taken from her ‘diary’ and book lists – devotional works, especially the Bible, were her genre of choice. Additional evidence of such reading comes from further interactions that she had with her grandmother. When Elizabeth was twelve, so she recalled, she engaged her grandmother in religious discussions, particularly on the issue of predestination. Pondering whether she and her family were among the elect, Elizabeth explained how she sought answers from her grandmother: ‘she mentioned to me the 11 Chapter to the Romanes where is shewed that wee being Gentiles of the wilde Oliue tree by nature were grafted into the right Oliue tree and so wee are [of] Israel of God’.56 By citing Scripture, grandmother Isham eased her granddaughter’s mind, but Elizabeth still worried, mentioning Lucifer’s fall in the process: ‘yet I thought I might after fal because the Angels sinned & kept not there habitation but were cast downe into hell’. Such thoughts caused Elizabeth to ponder whether sin existed in Heaven, since, after all, some angels who had lived in God’s kingdom had challenged divine authority. Puzzled, she sought answers from her grandmother: ‘she answered me no (child) … she proued to me a place in Christian praires and meditiations where is mentioned of this life & sinne which in heauen is none’. The book that grandmother Isham consulted was Henry Bull’s Christian Praiers and 160

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Meditations,57 but it still did not put Elizabeth’s mind to rest: ‘I gaue not much credet to this [book] unlesse it were confirmed by that holy writ’. With her patience tried by Elizabeth’s inquisitiveness, grandmother Isham turned to the Rector of Lamport at the time, Daniel Baxter, to put the matter to rest about whether indeed there was sin in God’s kingdom: ‘[he] answered out of Reve[lations] 21.27 … that no uncleane thing should enter into heauen[‘s] gates’. Despite the efforts of her grandmother and the parish rector, Elizabeth found no satisfaction in their assurances, for she remembered: ‘yet this satisfied me not for I still feared I might sinne there though it did not much trouble mee that I could not apprehend the misteries of these things for I still hoped Lord … thou [would] instructest me further’.58 Thus, in the end, the young and precocious Elizabeth put her final trust in God, but the outcome would likely never have occurred had it not been for the exteriority of her reading. After all, it was largely engagement with books and reading that she shared with her grandmother that brought her to her ultimate conclusion. Furthermore, no matter the outcome of the incident, Elizabeth’s consultation with her grandmother highlights her trust in the knowledge of an elder female relative. Such trust was rather conventional, for, as we have seen, early modern society approved of adult women providing religious instruction to their children, especially to girls.59 Lady Isham’s purchase of prayer books for her children is another case in point, since it was an act that exemplified the great concern that she placed on the development of her children’s piety. Elizabeth related that after buying her daughters their prayer books, Lady Isham intended to see the texts put to good use: ‘I remember my mother once wisht mee to use to say my praires in the after Noone, besides morning and euening, the which pious exercise as I take it she said her mother used’.60 This statement reveals the generational nature of the religious education in the Isham family; by encouraging Elizabeth to pray at least three times a day, Lady Isham perpetuated a tradition that she had learned from her own mother. Indeed, her religious tutelage did not limit itself to exposing her daughters to the importance of prayer books and the act of prayer. When Elizabeth was around the age of twelve, her mother began to give her devotional books written by godly divines: ‘Now my mother let me keepe some bookes of her, whereof one was called Christian Praires & Meditations, which pleased me so well that I used almost euery day to writ something out it’. As the statement illustrates, Elizabeth eventually found Henry Bull’s book valuable, despite the fact that she had been critical of it during the episode with her grandmother concerning the matter of whether sin existed in Heaven. Yet, while she may have used Bull’s text every day after her mother introduced her to it, Elizabeth also enjoyed Lady Isham’s other devotional books, refusing to tie herself ‘alwaies to one’.61 The access to her mother’s books probably only increased Elizabeth’s bond with Lady Isham. 161

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We have seen that the spiritual and physical tribulations that Lady Isham experienced in her life also intensified her bond with her daughter. While the Ishams employed physicians and spiritual guides like Dod to alleviate Lady Isham’s suffering, the family also perceived that books and reading had the power to relieve her pain. Consequently, they welcomed the deployment of such power whenever the opportunity arose. Of course, Dod had offered similar care, serving as a spiritual mentor and expounding on scriptural passages that helped ease Lady Isham’s mental state. Similar to Dod, family and friends turned to devotional literature to assist Elizabeth’s mother. Upon return from a sojourn to the household of the neighouring Nichols family in Northamptonshire, Lady Isham received a warm welcome from her family but she also acquired a sermon book from her neighbour that brought her further comfort: I remember one deepe point wherewith my mother was troubled (as many are) touching predestination … Now she was fully resoulued by a sermon booke (which Mrs. Nichols sent her) called the Saints Coniunction with God and support in troubles made by Mr John Randall … who was troubled in the like kind & fully resolued himselfe before he died.62

Once again a devotional book, this time by the renowned Puritan John Randall, proved significant in the religious lives of the Isham women.63 In addition to her own reading, Lady Isham also drew comfort from Elizabeth’s reading of the Bible: ‘Now I perceuing the cause of my mothers sadness would picke out fit places [of Scripture] for her when she called mee to read to her, besides some nots which I would put her in mind of as James 1.12. the 4.7, 1 Peter 5.8. and psalms 27.14, these when I had mentioned to her she would call often to mee to say them in her eare’. Combined, the scriptural references were meant to serve as a dressing for Lady Isham’s spiritual wounds, wounds suffered because her physical and mental health had created acute soteriological doubts. The biblical passages were appropriate to her needs, and Elizabeth chose them likely because of the themes that they shared and exalted – the virtues of humility, submission to God, steadfastness of faith in the face of temptation, and the elect’s need to endure affliction. By highlighting such biblical themes, Elizabeth essentially followed in the footsteps of Dod, providing her with spiritual medicine to alleviate her troubles. Thus reading devotional literature empowered Elizabeth to assist one of the leading members of her family. Such empowerment was even more potent when we realize that Elizabeth’s spiritual salve apparently served its functional purpose. Indeed, she noted that she perceived that it caused her mother to hold her in even higher esteem: ‘By this meanes I had gotten the better hand of my Sister who now was cast downe as much as my selfe’. If we recall that Elizabeth felt that Judith –while both women were children – had a much closer relationship with Lady Isham than she did, this statement reveals that Elizabeth believed 162

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that she had gained the favour of her mother at the expense of her sister by providing useful spiritual medicine. The memory illustrates the sibling rivalry that Elizabeth believed existed between her and Judith, with the former besting the latter in this situation. Yet we could interpret Judith’s ‘casting down’ on this occasion as not just dejection that her sister had garnered maternal favour but also an overall melancholy over Lady Isham’s ill health, something that Elizabeth most definitely felt too. Whatever was the case, for comfort Judith turned to an elder Isham, and again books proved important: ‘she found a good frind of my Aunt Isham who was witness for her at her Baptisme, they would sitt together priuetly takeing & reading’.64 Unfortunately, Elizabeth does not reveal what Judith and Aunt Isham – likely their uncle Henry’s wife Anne – read in their private meetings, but considering the propensity for the Isham women to read devotional literature, it is very likely that Judith and Anne Isham’s reading was religiously oriented. It would have been appropriate reading, since the entire Isham household must have experienced enormous emotional toil due to Lady Isham’s struggles. To cope with such toil, the women of the family thus turned to reading for comfort. In other words, reading served as ‘physic’ in a time of distress and need in the household. Of course, the distress culminated with Lady Isham’s death in 1625. We have seen how this event had a long-term effect on Elizabeth, leading her eventually to memorialize her mother within the pages of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Moreover, as time progressed – so the autobiography reveals – the relationship between Lady Isham’s daughters grew stronger and centred on a deep and mutual affection. Long passed were the days of sibling rivalry – as young women, Elizabeth and Judith became each other’s closest confidantes, with the two spending an enormous amount of time together engaging in needlework, strolls through the bucolic setting of Lamport Hall, and coach rides in the countryside. Furthermore, the historical memory locked within the pages of Elizabeth’s autobiography reveals that the sisters participated together in one activity at a high frequency – communal reading. In such reading, devotional literature again took pride of place and served as essentially a form of spiritual medicine. Elizabeth explained that Judith and she in 1631 delighted in reading the works of Lady Isham’s spiritual advisor: ‘the time was the more delightfull to me because I sometimes read whereby both my selfe & Sister had comfort for I read Mr. Dods booke on the commandements being much taken with the large extension of Gods mercie & goodness to them that loue him’.65 The timing of such reading reveals much about its significance; Elizabeth remembered that it eased and diverted her mind during the aftermath of perhaps her greatest, at least in her mind, spiritual and earthly challenge – the dissolution of the proposed Isham–Dryden match. Indeed, the entire courtship and possible marriage ultimately had caused Elizabeth to spiral into a spiritual crisis, and left her forever determined to never marry. Ironically, relief came from reading with 163

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her sister a man who had served as a key broker for the Drydens during the marriage negotiations. Their personal connection to the godly Dod likely explains why they would turn to one of his works and read it together. After all, if he brought relief to their mother during her many crises, then he certainly could do the same with the one that Elizabeth faced; just instead of accessing the talents of this ‘doctor of the soul’ directly they did so through his writings. So potent were these writings that Elizabeth owned her own personal copy of Dod’s book that she and Judith read together, Plaine and Familiar Exposition of the Ten Commandements.66 Indeed, it may have been Elizabeth’s own copy that they used, and their reading of Dod may have influenced them to partake in the works of other Puritan divines. In particular, they also were familiar with the writings of the renowned cleric and Dod’s close friend, John Preston: ‘I found great comfort in Doctor [John] Prestons sermons … which my Sister read to mee’.67 While we cannot determine for certain which collection of sermons they read, it appears that the function of the text revolved around Elizabeth’s well-being. If we recall that her spiritual torments over marriage continued after the Isham–Dryden match, then it appears that Preston joined Dod in providing her with a cordial when she and Judith engaged with his writing. Reading served a similar purpose for Judith’s health. Besides the writings of Puritans like Dod and Preston, the sisters took pleasure in devotional verse, particularly the work of the noted seventeenth-century poet Francis Quarles: ‘I bought Mr. Quarlesses emblems which my Sister was very much pleased with me for it’. Elizabeth purchased Emblems some time in her early twenties and continued to own the text at least as late as 1648.68 Combined with the works of Dod and Preston, the ownership and oral reading of such a text underscores the effect that Lady Isham had on her daughters’ engagement with the written word, since her preference for such literature led Elizabeth and Judith to acquire a penchant for such books themselves. Furthermore, similar to Lady Isham, Judith’s constant health struggles produced many opportunities for the application of such reading to lessen her suffering. One of the earliest memories of Elizabeth reading with her sister revolved around a harrowing incident at Lamport Hall. Shortly after Christmas in 1631: ‘my sister being ill fell one day into a swownd she being so long in it that wee thought shee would haue died’. After regaining consciousness, Judith went on to say little and not eat much for the subsequent two or three days, prompting Sir John to call on physicians to come to Lamport Hall and examine his daughter. Although prescribing medicine that relieved Judith’s symptoms to a degree, her illness continued unabated and put great fear into the hearts of the Isham household: ‘she continued being sometimes indifferent well & then falling into extremity of illnesse diuers times calling for my father to see him thinking she should haue died’.69 Conjecture pointed to Judith’s suffering resulting from a natural propensity to illness inherited from her mother. Elizabeth viewed another similarity first hand: ‘I being 164

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most with her perceued what she aileded which she would confesse to me which was as much in her mind as in her body (or both together) for her too much griefe for my mothers death had breed this illnesse upon her (besides other her infermities)’. Thus, just as Lady Isham had experienced, it appears that Judith faced her own soteriological challenges because of her physical illness. To her rescue came books and reading: ‘I perceiued her spirits was much raised with reading to her those Bookes or places wherein she delighted or found comfort’. Such books included Lewis Bayley’s The Practice of Piety, which the local minister, Thomas Bunning, read her, and Quarles’ Emblems, the devotional verse of which Elizabeth read out loud to Judith.70 Elizabeth’s sister especially delighted in the latter work, and continued to do so in the following years. These were not years of joy and ease, since Judith’s health would continue to decline up to her death in 1636, but Elizabeth’s reading of devotional literature like Emblems to her sister was a means to ease the pain: ‘I did what I could to uphold her in thee [God] with ioy … which I knew … being perfectly good & found that not only her soule but her body was the more healthfull for it’.71 Books were thus spiritual medicine, and Elizabeth believed that they not only offered remedy to Judith’s ailing soul but also her body. Yet the function of books for Elizabeth – in relation to her sister’s health – went beyond simply reading devotional texts out loud and offering up comforting passages. After witnessing the difficulties that Lady Isham experienced and the profound suffering that Judith had undergone for nearly her entire life, Elizabeth acutely understood that body, mind, and soul worked together symbiotically. At the root of the spiritual anguish that both Lady Isham and Judith experienced was their physical health, and Elizabeth grew determined to alleviate at least the latter’s sickly body. Consequently, at the age of twenty-five, Elizabeth began to pursue household medicine: I rather tooke holde of S Pauls words, 1 cor. 8.1. Knowledge puffeth up, but loue edifieth. I therefore porporsed to read of the vertue of those herbs & flowers which I had wrought which as they are different in there shapes & coullers so are there vertures; which made me often call to mind the 24 verse of the 104 psalme: O Lord how manifold are thy workes; in wisdome hast thou made them all, I found this way might be very beneficiall both to my Sister & others & that I might make the best use of those things which our garden afforded, which abounded in those things which was cordiall for her [Judith].72

Inspired by both her sister’s condition and her own reading of Scripture, Elizabeth chose to tap into the richness of God’s creation – nature. It would be an act of love and charity directed primarily towards her family, the overriding element in her life that defined her exteriority. English society viewed women’s role in the administering of household medicine as a natural extension of their domestic duties, and couched such 165

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administering in religious terms as an extension of godly charity. It was, however, a virtuous act that first required a woman to acquire an extensive and working knowledge of household or popular medicine. Traditionally such knowledge came first-hand from the tutelage of an elder female – an aunt, grandmother, or mother – and instruction could come in the form of how to make remedies, or could take place more indirectly through the passing of a family medical recipe book from one female generation to another. Books could also serve as a vital source, and Elizabeth indeed turned to them when in pursuance of medical knowledge. On one of her book lists she recorded that she owned three additional books on the subject. Of these, two were by John Partridge, The Widdowes Treasure and Treasurie of Commodious, and Hidden Secrets – recipe books on medical remedies. In the introduction of the latter, Partridge stated his purpose: ‘To all women that loue and professe the practices of good huswifery as well as wiues as maides … this Booke … [is for] … the necessary prouision for the health of her [a housewife] household’.73 Partridge not only relied on women as a market for his book, but also looked to them as a source for his other text – The Widdowes Treasure – which was an edition of an anonymous gentlewoman’s personal recipe book of medicinal remedies.74 Elizabeth appears to have jumped headlong into this world in the mid1630s and continued to practice household medicine up to her death in 1654. In addition to her ownership of the Partridge books, Elizabeth noted in one of her book lists that she also owned ‘An Herball’.75 To identify exactly which ‘herball’ she referenced is difficult, but there were at least four in print to choose from in the first half of the seventeenth century.76 She also appears to have applied what she read in her ‘herball’ and in the Partridge books to her everyday life. Indeed, we know that she owned ‘a book of gardening’, a text that may have allowed her to cultivate herbs and medicinal plants.77 Moreover, Elizabeth seems to have also attempted to possibly produce her own medical handbook in the 1640s. In the Isham collection there are approximately seven loose papers – some correspondence – on which she covered every inch with medical recipes. These papers may have served as drafts for a medical recipe book that Elizabeth wished to produce, a common practice for women in the seventeenth century. Unfortunately, we do not have concrete evidence of such a production in Elizabeth’s case, but it was certainly not out of the realm of possibility. After all, we know that she also drafted her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ on loose sheets of paper and letters, and, once in its final form, bequeathed it to her brother and nieces. It was quite common to do the same for recipe books in the period, with elder females bestowing their personal herbals to their younger female kin.78 We must recall that it was interaction with family members – most particularly her sister – who had finally persuaded Elizabeth to acquire a deep interest in household medicine and books on the subject. Above all, knowledge, through interaction with female relations and from texts, was required 166

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for her to practise such medicine but it was medicine not restricted to the production of medicinal remedies consisting of herbs or oils. Elizabeth viewed – along with other members of the Isham household – the oral or aural reading of books as essential to the health of people living at Lamport Hall. Books were medicinal objects in the home, especially when read out loud to others who suffered from great mental and spiritual anguish because of their physical ills. This was clearly the case for Lady Isham and Judith, whose bodies, minds, and souls Elizabeth viewed as intimately linked and needed a holistic approach to comfort. The ability to read – especially to read orally – gave Elizabeth a sense of empowerment to assist her mother and sister. Religious texts – be it Scripture, sermons, practical guides of piety, or devotional verse – sat at the heart of this reading and the practice seems to have been multi-generational. We need only recall that Elizabeth spent many a day reading with her grandmother Isham and her mother, or that Judith did the same with their Aunt Isham on occasions. Oral reading helped cement the bond between these generations of Isham women, as it did also with extended kin like the Pagitts, in whose company Elizabeth also found herself moved by non-devotional texts. The ‘Booke of Rememberance’ brings this all to light, and floods out the shadow of patriarchy that has long hung over the ‘bookish’ Ishams of Lamport Hall. Much of this bibliophilic nature revolved around communal engagement with texts, and we see that Elizabeth’s reading was as much the product of her exteriority as was her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Yet, as we have seen, the autobiography embodies as much, if not more of her internal than external self. If we remember that Elizabeth’s reading heavily influenced the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, then it stands to reason that such reading must have also centred on her interiority.

AUTODIDACTIC READING, DEVOTIONAL BOOKS, AND INTERIORITY Recalling in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ when she was around the age of twenty-four – a period in which she still felt afflicted with the prospect of marriage – Elizabeth recounted a discussion she had with Justinian Isham: ‘I told my B[rother] I thought I was the more tried for much knowledge yet did not wish lesse contrary to the mind of those that say it is not good for a woman to be too Bookish for if I had not had knowledge especially of thy word I had perished in my affliction, psalm 119.92.’79 Encapsulated in this statement are three themes around which much of our understanding of Elizabeth’s reading must revolve – family, God, and knowledge. We have viewed how all three defined much of her communal engagement with the written word – interactions with her family commonly centred on aural reading, this reading often was devotional, and her formative education came 167

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at the hands of the other members of the Isham household. Moreover, we must remember that Elizabeth’s reading practices were diverse, a diversity that made her well acquainted with non-devotional texts and helped her exert her personal agency within the constraints of the patriarchal authority in which she lived. Such diversity also extended beyond the exteriority of her life. Implicitly, Elizabeth’s above statement to her brother expressed that her acquisition of knowledge through reading had little, if no direct relation to communal reading with her family. Instead, she procured much of the knowledge through a ‘bookish’ nature that was largely about her interior self. While acknowledging that her love of books and reading both ran counter to the overall cultural norms of English society and compounded the emotional suffering she experienced over the prospect of marriage, Elizabeth nonetheless found solace that the positives far outweighed the negatives. Indeed, reading brought her a fuller understanding of God and his providence, and provided the means to fashion herself as a pious and devout woman, an image that early modern society championed. It is certainly true that her exteriority played a significant role in this process, but her interiority played a crucial role too. An autodidact in many ways, Elizabeth Isham was largely a self-taught woman whose silent and active reading profoundly shaped her existence and further empowered her to pursue the life that she saw fit. Only through access to the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ can we truly appreciate this reality. Elizabeth reveals that her autodidactism began quite early in her life, around the same time that she first learned how to read from her mother and acquired her communal reading practices. Lady Isham allowed her to have her own reading closet at the tender age of nine, and it gave Elizabeth the opportunity to commune with God through the written word: ‘I remember the Bookes which I had in my closet reading and praying to thee in secret thinking my selfe safe in so doeing, hearin I praise thee my God; for the good things I learnt in my testament & for writing nots out of it.’80 Clearly Elizabeth had developed her penchant for devotional texts early in her life, and she developed the habit of cultivating this interest privately at Lamport Hall. Furthermore, there is perhaps no better glimpse in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ of how and why she silently read religious works; examining and taking notes from Scripture, she also poured forth prayers to God while consulting devotional texts. She continued such behaviour in her adulthood, best illustrated by the autobiography itself, in many ways a written prayer likely produced in private and full of multiple references to her religious reading. Her ‘confessions’ was by far the greatest testament of the textual orientation of Elizabeth’s devotional practices. So important were books to her piety that she recalled that she loved to carry around with her portions of Scripture in her pocket so as to silently read them: ‘now I finding a louse paper of the epistles of Saint John … I folded it up & made mee a little booke of it and being very ioyent of it I keept it in my poket redding it often to my selfe’.81 168

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Wishing never to be without Scripture nearby, she made God’s Word portable and meditated on it whenever she fancied, an act that clearly underscores for us her overall reverence for the Bible. Such reverence is ubiquitous in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ – throughout the autobiography we find her reflections, meditations, comments, and citations of the Bible on every page. Elizabeth demonstrated a true command of Scripture, referencing an eclectic array of chapter and verse from both the Old and New Testaments. Such command could only have come from intense reading and study of the Bible, a honed expertise of Scripture overwhelmingly acquired on her own through likely repetitive consultation and note-taking. An owner of at least three bibles by 1648, Elizabeth truly adhered and embodied the concepts of sola scriptura and sola fide that sat at the heart of reformed religion. The Bible was her access to God, to whom she had primarily directed her voice in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Deeper knowledge of his Word enhanced this access: And now Lord what loue haue I unto thy Law all the day long is my study in it, psa 119, for sence (or when) I began [this study] I found thy word to me better then gold, yea then much fine gold: Sweeter also then hony and the honie combe, psa 19. 10, for by this use which I haue now made of it, I haue found it far sweeter to mee then euer (especially in the psalmes which haue fitted me) but as Salomon saith by wisdome eate hony for it is good & the hony combe for it is sweet unto thy mouth so shall the knowledge of wisdome be unto thy soule if thou find it, pro 24.13.14.82

Here we not only observe Elizabeth’s reverence for the Word and her sense that if studied intensely enough she would acquire spiritual gold, but also her ease and ability to conflate different biblical passages – from psalms and proverbs – with her own rhetoric to assert her belief in the value of the Bible. Of course, the spiritual gold of which she spoke was the salvation promised to all of God’s chosen, and the knowledge of this truth – so in her mind – derived from the active reading of Scripture. By meshing together her own rhetoric with biblical language, Elizabeth exerted agency in articulating her belief in spiritual truth, expressing her mind in a society that did not necessarily esteem the rhetorical powers of women. The religious content of the rhetoric empowered her in this context, since it adhered nicely to the cultural ideal of the pious female engaging in socially acceptable behaviour. Moreover, she addressed her own spiritual needs, for through her pontification on the value of biblical study she also found a means to meditate on her perception of God’s glory and love. In other words, autodidactic employment of Scripture provided Elizabeth with the opportunity to both religiously express herself in her autobiography and to commune with her heavenly father. This duality of rhetorical expression and personal piety is found throughout her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, illustrating further her active reading of Scripture and the function it had in her life. Of all the books of the Bible, it 169

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was the Psalms that most delighted her, something not surprising when we realise that Elizabeth had engagement with them from an early age. Indeed, Lady Isham had given all of her children a psalm book when they were young, and Elizabeth often sang psalms to her parents as a girl. Such exposure led Elizabeth as an adult to find in Psalm 32:5 the scriptural basis for the importance of confession, something that supported her choice to write about and self-examine her life in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. So important were the psalms that she cited or quoted from them approximately 160 times in the autobiography.83 Considering the intimacy of its verses – with the personal and loving relationship expressed between David and God, with the former’s supplication to the all powerful latter – it is hardly surprising that Elizabeth, or for that matter Christians in general, found much to identify with in the Psalms. For Elizabeth, she perhaps most identified with Psalm 119, since she frequently referenced it throughout her ‘confessions’. Consisting of 176 verses, Psalm 119 addresses a number of overlapping themes – following and obeying God’s Word and Law, the interplay between affliction and comfort, the demarcation between the wicked and righteous, the desire for divine mercy and salvation, and a supplicant’s humility and love for the Lord. We see these themes in the verses that Elizabeth chose to quote and cite in the autobiography, themes that she often related to actual events in her life. Reflecting on the responsibility that Justinian Isham had acquired upon his marriage to Jane Garrard when Sir John had helped them purchase the manor of Shangton in Leicestershire, she thought about the care needed to secure one’s inheritance, especially the spiritual kind: ‘much more shall wee be blamed if wee neglect our heauenly inheritance which hath such recompence of reward, thy testimonies (Lord) haue I claimed as my heritage for euer and why they are the very ioy of my heart I haue applied my heart to fulfill thy Statutes always euen to the end, psal 119’.84 Remembering the purchase of Shangton triggered Elizabeth to meditate on her spiritual inheritance – the salvation promised to all of God’s true believers – and deploy her self-taught knowledge, acquired through her reading of the Bible, to articulate such meditation and conflate her rhetoric with that of Scripture. It was a practice she commonly turned to in her autobiography. A case in point was when she thought of the gossip that swirled around her decision not to marry, a choice we have seen she was resolute and steadfast in making largely because of her ascetic beliefs and faith that it was all divinely planned. Once again, the psalms shaped her thinking at the time and how she remembered her choice: ‘for I desired much to please thee aboue all diuers times after this & to be inlightened, I asked it sayeing grant me understanding and I shall live, psal 119’.85 Interestingly, in both the case of her reflection on spiritual inheritance and on spiritual enlightenment, Elizabeth deemed it not necessary when citing Psalm 119 to provide the corresponding verse. Yet, a bit of detective work reveals that in regards to spiritual inheritance, she quoted from Psalm 119:111 170

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and 122, while she lifted the language for her reflection on spiritual enlightenment from Psalm 119:144. In either case, she tapped into scriptural rhetoric to fashion her own writing and demonstrated a competent knowledge of the Bible. It is not that Elizabeth was incapable of citing or referencing exact verses from this particular psalm, or for that matter any of the other psalms. The spectre of death, of course, was one of the primary reasons for why Elizabeth put pen to paper and produced her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, and Psalm 119 informed her understanding: ‘I see all things come to an end but thy commandement is exceeding[ly] large and in respect of it which I hold most deare I hate (those) vaine inuentions but thy Law doe I loue psa 119.113’.86 Again, here Elizabeth fused her own rhetoric with Scripture, making it clear that she understood that salvation after death only derived from total supplication and acceptance of God’s authority. She also cited directly the full chapter and verse of the language she lifted, something she continued to do when reflecting further on the link between providence, divine law, and salvation by incorporating more language from Psalm 119: ‘O looke thou upon me and be still mercifull unto mee as thou usest to doe unto those that loue thy Name for I haue found it is good for me that I haue bene afflicted that I might learne thy Statutes, ps 119.71’.87 Not only did this statement illustrate Elizabeth’s reflections on death but it also offered up a written prayer to God. Of course, part of the essence of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was written prayer, and Elizabeth turned once again to Psalm 119 in a marginal note towards the end of her autobiography when engaging in the practice: ‘O quicken me according to thy louing kindness & then shall I not goe backe from thee but keepe thy testimonyes of thy mouth, ps. 119.88’.88 Wishing to express her belief that God’s love would provoke her to keep his commandments, Elizabeth also altered the original verse by inserting her own words like ‘according’, ‘goe’, and ‘backe’. By manipulating the biblical language, she essentially exerted literary authority over the text. She performed a similar act when mixing various biblical passages – Psalms 94:12, Psalms 119:71, and Lamentations 3:27 – together when speaking on the benefits of affliction near the beginning of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’: ‘Blessed is the man whom thou chastisest O Lord and teachest in thy law; it is good for mee that I haue bene afflicted that I may learne thy Statutes; it is good for a man to beare the yoke in his youth’.89 Similar to the cases in which she meshed biblical rhetoric with her own, this conflation of Scriptural verse underscored her mastery of the Word and her incorporation of it into her life-writing. In many ways, Elizabeth engaged in what we could call autodidactic exegesis, and – as the case of her references to Proverbs or Lamentations attests – she did not limit her reading to just the Psalms. Progressing through her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, we find she quoted and cited passages that ran the biblical gambit from Genesis to Revelations. The majority of these references reflected the overall theme found in the autobiography – the 171

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confessions of an afflicted but repentant sinner to an all powerful and merciful god. We find this theme in the very first line of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, in which Elizabeth paraphrased Proverbs 3:6 and 16:3: ‘Commit thy works unto the lord, and thy thoughts shall be directed’.90 If we interpret her autobiography as such a work, it is clear that this line captures much of the confessional and spiritual purpose for why Elizabeth put pen to paper. As we have seen, asceticism often informed the confession of her deeds and thoughts, a theme underscored in the early pages of her autobiography, where she reflected on the worldly aspects of her life and cited II Corinthians 4:17 and 11:30: ‘Enter not into iugment with thy seruant O Lord for no flesh is righteous in thy sight, I find them altogether corrupt and my best actions are impure before thee’.91 Critical of her spiritual purity, Elizabeth pondered how offensive her childhood transgressions were, reminding herself of Luke 16:10: ‘I thought the smallness of my offences would bare me out not considering that they which are uniust in the le[a]st are uniust also in much’.92 No matter her age, Elizabeth’s sins were baneful in the eyes of God, largely because she, like all humans, bore the burden of original sin. In the face of this, comfort came from turning to the Bible, as she did when citing the book of Isaiah: ‘I haue often desired that that euill which I am borne to by nature thou wouldest reforme by thy grace: for thou makest them that coniecture fooles & turnest the wise men backward & make there knowledge foolishnesse, Isa 44.25’.93 Only her divine father in his heavenly kingdom could ensure Elizabeth’s salvation, and God bestowed the promise of everlasting life by sending Christ to die for humanity’s sins. She felt particularly moved by such a divine gift – as promised in the book of John – while remembering the spiritual suffering she underwent because of the prospect of marriage: ‘herein wee haue found more by the second Adam then wee lost by the first, then wee might fall but now whosoeuer beleeueth in the sonne of God shall not perish but haue euerlasting life, John 3.16’. Yet, even if someone believed in Christ’s redeeming gift, she or he still needed to combat their sinful nature and understand that the faithful must recognize that God will bestow afflictions upon them. A clear theme throughout the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, Elizabeth nicely highlighted it by referencing the book of Job in the autobiography’s latter half: ‘Yea what is man that thou doest magnifie him and that thou settest thine heart upon him and that doest visit him euery morning and triest him euery moment iob 7.17.18’.94 In the end, only through supplication could one find the deliverance of God’s providence, as Elizabeth intimated when incorporating once again the book of Psalms into one of the final prayers written in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’: ‘Therefore show me thy waies, O Lord and teach me thy paths, leade me foorth in thy truth, and teach [and] instruct me for thou art my God and savior, ps[alm] 25.4.5’.95 Combined, all of these examples of Elizabeth’s active reading of Scripture illustrate once again the conflation of biblical rhetoric with her own. As a book, the Bible had a tangible function in her life – it offered enumerable 172

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ways for her to think about herself, her world, and her relationship with God. The ‘Booke of Rememberance’ displayed her personal and autodidactic exegesis, and the symbiotic connection between Scripture and the interiority of her life-writing. A substantial document – nearly 60,000 words in length – the autobiography was a testament to her overall knowledge of the Bible. All the biblical paraphrasing, references, citations, and quotations found within the autobiography’s pages dramatically communicated Elizabeth’s ownership of such knowledge. She had acquired it largely through her own means by silently reading, writing, and thinking deeply about the Word. Of course, we could argue that this entire process was ultimately focused on her exteriority. After all, we have seen how she intended to have at least her closest family members one day read her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, essentially making it a scribal publication with a small circulation. As a bequest to her brother and nieces – for the purpose of defending her marital status and to serve as a motherly advice book – it showcased Elizabeth’s biblical erudition to the bibliophilic Ishams, an audience for whom she held only God in higher esteem. Indeed, Elizabeth intimated that while she respected and loved her family members, she often felt she had less intellectual and spiritual prowess than them. The hundreds of biblical references and citations that she weaved into her ‘confessions’ demonstrated that she was perhaps their intellectual equal if they read the autobiography. Yet the purpose of her autodidactic exegesis was as much, if not more about her interiority and her personal relationship with God. We must recall that it was probable that Elizabeth not only used the autobiography as a means to confess her sins through the process of writing but also likely could have turned to it as a memory aid to assist in her piety. After all, she believed fully in God’s providence, and the references to the Word in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ were ultimately his will working through Elizabeth. In other words, she believed that the reason she wrote the autobiography and engaged the Bible within it was because of God’s will. If ever she read through the autobiography after its completion, her eyes would have passed over the many Scriptural references she made within its pages, allowing her to recall the original and active force of the Holy Spirit working upon the interiority of her soul. Thus the link between reading the Bible and her life-writing functioned as a powerful mechanism for Elizabeth to commune with her heavenly father. Scripture, however, did not define all of her devotional reading. Indeed, we have seen how three particular authors shaped her decision to write her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ – Augustine of Hippo, John King, and Henry Mason. Of the three, it was by far Augustine who had the greatest impact, no better illustrated than by the fact that Elizabeth cited his Confessions (she owned William Watt’s translation) more than any other book in her autobiography. Ruminating on the inevitability of death near the one-year anniversary of her sister’s demise, Elizabeth subsequently found inspiration in Augustine’s own autobiography to confess her sins through the writing of a 173

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life-narrative. Being ‘imboldened’ [sic] to put ink on paper, she consequently modelled the structure and form of her life-writing on the Confessions when she engaged in intense self-examination. The parallels between the two works proved significant, with Augustine and Elizabeth’s respective life-writings chronicling their childhood transgressions of stealing fruit, their desire to memorialize their mothers, their need for redemption, their reverence for Scripture, and their belief in the symbiotic relationship between piety and memory.96 Moreover, on one of her book lists, Elizabeth noted that she also owned ‘S[aint] Austin Meditations’, a translated edition by Thomas Rogers of prayers and meditations attributed to Augustine of Hippo by contemporaries and entitled A Precious Booke of Heauenly Meditations: Called a Priuate Talke of the Soule with God.97 She cited this work, along with Roger’s other book – A Right Christian Treatise, Entitled S. Augustine’s Praiers – in her autobiography at least three times, showcasing further her penchant for works by or attributed to Saint Augustine. Furthermore, we must recall that Justinian Isham, in an advice letter written in 1642, recommended to his daughters Rogers’ translation of Augustine’s meditation. This suggests that the Isham household esteemed Augustine as a literary and religious authority, making Elizabeth’s penchant for the saint’s writing not so unique when considered in her familial context. Perhaps Justinian had given Rogers’ translation as a gift to Elizabeth, since we know for certain that he was the one who had given her Mason’s work: ‘I receued comfort out of a Booke my Brother gaue me when he went beyond sea called the Curre of Cares’.98 Mason influenced Elizabeth to find meditation necessary when she faced spiritual crisis, and, when she decided to ruminate on death, she chose to mediate through the writing of her autobiography. Also owning John King’s Lectures Upon Jonas, Elizabeth found further support from him for her belief in the need to remember God in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. The function, however, of King’s work went beyond simply serving as an inspiration for Elizabeth’s writing; it also had an influence on how she practised her piety and dealt with spiritual crises. We clearly see this with her concern over atheism when she was twenty-eight years old, a worry that had reared its head after Elizabeth read the writings of Guillaume du Bartas: ‘upon the reading of Dubertus in a place reasoning with an Athest … it came questioning into my mind of the truth of God, seeing many would show a reason in nature for about euery thing, this temptation came many times unto me which was greiuious to me that I should so thinke’.99 Here the relationship between Elizabeth’s reading and interiority spawned religious misgivings. Indeed, she was so concerned that she considered her soul gravely infected, something that led her to think of the twenty-first lecture in King’s Lectures Upon Ionas: ‘atheisme is the maine desease of the soule, Mr. King L[ecture] 21’. As with all her sins, Elizabeth felt despair over what she perceived as her lack of faith in God. Like she had done in similar situations, Elizabeth understood that she was helpless to combat such sin without God’s 174

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helping hand: ‘I find my owne weaknesse & wickednesse brought to light for all the security I had of my faith in thee, But Lord what soule can best or stay it selfe upon it[s] strength’. Elizabeth searched for God through prayer: ‘I am neither able to conceiue good nor long retaine it without thy diuine assistance, therefore say my God (I beseeche thee) what you art unto mee say unto my soule that thou art my health or saluation’.100 By praying, she followed the prescribed solution that King advised for times of spiritual crises. Much as reading had served as spiritual medicine for her exteriority so it did for her interiority. Through her reading she came to identify with Jonah, an identification that helped her combat worries over atheism. King noted the despair that the prophet Jonah experienced during his time in the belly of the whale. In fear and anguish, Jonah declared that his soul had fainted, which led him to turn to God for assistance. Expounding on this in his twenty-eighth lecture, King wrote: ‘After his feare againe his hope: I remembered the Lorde, and my prayer came unto thee in thine holy temple … Ionas receiued hope by remembering the Lorde for his part, and that the Lorde on the other side accepted his praier and gaue success to it’.101 Thus it was only by remembering the Lord and praying to him that Jonah received mercy, for he acknowledged with such acts that it was only through God’s power that he would find salvation. In other words, by discussing Jonah’s despair and repentance, King stressed that an individual must remember God in order that he may bestow his grace upon a believer. Elizabeth took this ideal to heart; after all, along with Augustine’s Confessions, King’s twenty-eighth lecture in the Lectures Upon Ionas served as another inspiration for the production of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’.102 A confession of her sins, Elizabeth’s autobiography was also a remembrance of God’s presence in her life and a written prayer asking for his grace and mercy. Therefore the production of her autobiography was a religious act, inspired in part by King’s godly theology as articulated in his lectures on the story of Jonah. Combined with her reading of Scripture, Augustine, and Mason, all evidence points to Elizabeth’s engagement with King’s Lectures Upon Ionas as being primarily private, silent, and autodidactic. It was a form of active reading that empowered her, both in the way it inspired her writing and in the way that he allowed her to cope with the private and internal struggles in her spiritual life. Considering the importance that all of this reading had for her, it is not surprising to find that the vast majority of her silent reading was devotional in nature. After all, out of the approximately eighty books that we know that she owned, well over fifty centred on religious content. While certainly influenced by external factors – particularly the health of her mother and sister – Elizabeth’s decision to practise household medicine rested greatly on her autodidactic abilities to acquire knowledge of homemade remedies from books. These books were largely focused on worldly concerns, and when Elizabeth read them she essentially engaged with non-devotional texts. Yet her interest in household medicine in many ways also revolved around the 175

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spiritual. After all, the physical challenges that Lady Isham and Judith Isham experienced in their lives had a profound effect on their mental and spiritual health. Elizabeth’s belief in or actual ability to ease or alleviate such suffering – especially for her sister – empowered her to act on and shape the lives of her family but this empowerment ultimately rested with providence. As with everything in her life, so she believed, God’s will determined the trajectory of her actions in life, be it choosing not to marry, deciding to write a spiritual autobiography, or reading texts on household medicine to meet the Ishams’ health needs. Consequently, it is difficult to make a clear distinction between how she used both devotional and non-devotional texts – she often found functions for each that melded into the other. Indeed, it was common for her to juxtapose a secular text with a devotional book when attempting to understand aspects of God’s omnipotence. We find this in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ when she recalled her reading of the godly Daniel Dykes’ Sixe Evangelical Histories of Water Turned into Wine.103 Initially, the attraction of the book apparently rested on its usefulness to Elizabeth’s abilities to cope with the anxieties that she felt about her transgressions. Remembering her concern over being too gluttonous and enjoying the delights of food in her late twenties, Elizabeth wrote that she strove for sobriety after reading Dyke: ‘[it] came now the more upon me by reason of helth[i]er diet we hauing more company [at Lamport] but [then] I learned within a while soberiaty is the right use by reading som part of Mr. Dike’.104 Yet Dyke offered much more than a means to reflect on her sins. Contemplating the physical phenomenon of the world, Elizabeth wrote: ‘I haue read of some philosophers who would giue a natural reason for euery thing but could not tell from whence the winde should come (or what should be the cause of it)’. The main philosopher and work she referenced here was John Swan’s Speculum Mundi, a proto-encyclopedia on natural phenomena.105 In an attempt to refute Swan, Elizabeth turned to Dyke: in Swans Booke of naturall philosophie [I found this] but Mr. Dike saith in his 6 euangelical histories of that place on the 3 of John & the 8 verse The philosophers seem to know were the wind comes but they very among themselues about the original [source] & most that can be said is but probable & also know not the ebing and flowing of the sea.

Dyke’s summary of John 3:8 inspired Elizabeth to go to the source, leading her to quote the biblical passage in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’: ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it commeth and whether it goeth, so euery man that is borne of the spirit’. Elizabeth’s motivations for concerning herself with the source of wind become clear when we see that she directly quoted from I Corinthians 2:14: ‘the naturall man can giue no reason of those conflicts in a Christian soule, because he perceiueth not the things of the spirit of God, they [it] being spiritually discerned’. Equating the perceived mystery of where wind came from 176

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to the mystery of the internal conflict of the soul, Elizabeth arrived at the conclusion that God was the source of both. Unable to ever truly understand God’s reasons for creating wind or sin, due to their temporal existence, human beings had only one way of dealing with such mysteries – to place all their trust in God himself. In other words, by utilizing Dyke, Swan, and Scripture to bolster her beliefs, Elizabeth affirmed her conviction that she lacked any free will and must abandon her fate to divine will. It was a truly autodidactic conclusion on her part, derived from her personal and private reading of different texts to arrive and affirm a religious truth in her mind. The conflation of Elizabeth’s use of secular and religious texts to enhance her piety did not end here. We know that Elizabeth found no harm in reading love ballads or romances, a stance that ran counter to her father’s belief in what was ‘proper’ reading for women. Her opinion and reading of such literature subverted his wishes, and – in line with DeZur’s contention of the interplay between female agency and reading – empowered her vis-à-vis patriarchal authority. Such agency, however, was far more complex than simply engaging with texts that ran counter to gender ideals on women’s reading. A case in point is Elizabeth’s reading of Sidney’s Arcadia and Spenser’s Faerie Queen. Typical of herself, Elizabeth qualified her enjoyment of them: ‘these books of human learning … are not worthy to be counted excellent unlesse they show forth the vertues of the mind as well as the perfections of the body which they both doe’.106 Thus Elizabeth believed that the true value of a book rested in how much it assisted in the cultivation of her virtue. Such cultivation, like most things in her life, went hand in hand with her piety. Elizabeth related this when contemplating how she found support in Spenser’s Faerie Queen for her belief that it was her natural inclination to remain single and devote herself to God: ‘Now though I had not that full liberty [by remaining single] which for the most part many others had yet I thought there was no manner of life but a body might make a benefit of according to that saying of our owne poet [Spenser] each hath his fortune in his owne brest’.107 Here fortune represented God, who Elizabeth believed she could better serve as a single rather than a married woman, a marital status – if we recall – held in ill regard in broader English society and by both her father and brother. Of course, the cultivation of Elizabeth’s personal piety and the fashioning of a pious identity – most dramatically manifested in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ – combated such objectionable views towards her marital status. The ideal was for women to be pious, and from their piety grew virtue. For Elizabeth, this virtue also pleased God, since by not marrying she believed she adhered to his providential desires. Not only did devotional literature assist in meeting these desires but so did non-devotional books – the silent reading of Spenser added yet another weapon in Elizabeth’s autodidactic arsenal to fashion an identity and life in the way she believed was fit. In essence, this largely defined much of the role that reading played in her interiority as captured in the pages of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. 177

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Considering that it was a spiritual autobiography primarily written as a confession and a prayer to God, it should not be surprising that Elizabeth’s accounts of her reading and the books she referenced were largely devotional in nature, something further confirmed by her book lists and ‘diary’. Of course, the Bible took precedence over all other texts within the autobiography, providing the most explicit evidence of how scripturally based Elizabeth’s piety was and how she embodied the Protestant ideals of sola scriptura and sola fide. While it is certainly true that her reading of the Bible often occurred in a communal setting – with the Isham women particularly reading the Word to each other – the majority of her engagement with Scripture was private and done in silence. Furthermore, it took on an autodidactic character, with Elizabeth acquiring a mastery of the Bible – particularly the psalms – that was self-taught and influenced the personal exegesis captured in the pages of her autobiography. Indeed, such exegesis served as the foundation for her strong asceticism, her belief in the virtues of affliction and redemption, her desire for self-examination, and her faith in God’s providence and loving mercy. She found further support in these beliefs in both the reading of devotional and non-devotional literature, be it Augustine’s Confessions, John King’s Lectures on Ionas, John Swan’s Speculum Mundi, or Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen. All of this reading shaped Elizabeth’s internal self and influenced the pious identity that she presented to the outside world and that she believed accorded with God’s will. In other words, the relationship between her reading and interiority greatly determined who Elizabeth Isham was as a person.

HYBRID READING PRACTICES Elizabeth Isham’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ allows us to appreciate perhaps the most essential characteristic about her reading practices – their diversity. She participated in an array of reading activities – silent and oral, private and communal – and became well acquainted with a number of authors, works, and genres during her life. Never locking herself firmly down with one practice or another, Elizabeth’s reading was defined both by her interiority and exteriority. A bibliophilic household, the Ishams of Lamport Hall created a stimulating intellectual environment in their home. Learning to read at the hands of her parents – especially Lady Isham – Elizabeth recognized at an early age the Ishams’ penchant for communal reading and the exchange of books, be they religious or secular in nature. Indeed, the Ishams recited material they learned from devotional literature, shared or gave books as gifts, engaged their servants with books, and simply read out loud to each other to pass the time. This was particularly true of the Isham women, for whom books and reading helped cement familial bonds between them, especially in times of spiritual and physical crises. After all, the Ishams viewed books 178

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as medicinal objects, and Elizabeth not only read them orally to ease primarily the suffering of both her mother and sister but also to acquire useful knowledge to practise household medicine for the benefit of her family. It was truly active reading in a communal sense, serving a definite function and purpose. So too was the interiority of Elizabeth’s reading, in which her autodidactic abilities allowed her to acquire a mastery of the Bible, devotional literature, and secular books to assist in the practice of an intense form of piety, cultivate a better understanding of God’s role in her life, and ultimately write a nearly 60,000-word spiritual autobiography. Without Elizabeth’s reading practices, the identity and self – in both its internal and external forms – that she fashioned for herself would simply not exist in the pages of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Much of this throws into sharp relief our overall understanding of the history of the book and reading. Originally a field of study particularly concerned with the materiality and mechanics of the consumption of and engagement with texts, the history of the book has traditionally worked from evidence quite similar to the list of books that Elizabeth Isham owned. Of course, the lists provide valuable insights into the literary oeuvre that was at her disposal and gives us a real sense of her taste in books. Indeed, we can conclude from the lists that she had a penchant for devotional literature – with the majority of the books in her possession being religious in content – but also was not immune to owning books on household medicine or gardening. No doubt, we can make reasonable inferences from such evidence about Elizabeth having interests in both religion and household medicine. In many ways this is similar to what scholars have done when studying print culture and cheap print in the early modern period, relying on the inventory and content of an enormous array of printed genres to make conclusions about readership and demand for such genres as ballads, chapbooks, or pamphlets. Yet Elizabeth’s book lists and these various genres of print tell us little to nothing about how people read in the period. Fortunately, much like marginalia or reading notes found in commonplace books, her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ opens a window to reveal what she read and what she thought about what she read. Perhaps the most striking revelation is Elizabeth clearly found empowerment from her reading – especially of devotional literature – since it defined much of her interaction with her family, furnished her with the opportunities to cultivate her personal piety and subvert earthly patriarchy, allowed her to fashion a pious identity for herself, provided the means to offer household medicine to her family, and gave her the inspiration and the ability to write her spiritual autobiography. The reading that shaped such empowerment was neither completely silent and internal nor aural and external. Rather, both shaped Elizabeth’s interiority and exteriority, and underscore for us how to fixate on just one is largely scholarly fruitless. Of course, we should be suspicious of grand narratives that postulate that the rise of the subjective self and modernity had its roots in an early modern shift – greatly influenced by 179

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Protestant culture – from aural to silent reading. Clearly, communal reading was ubiquitous in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, be it centred on godly culture or not. And, yes, reading books out loud and exchanging books within the Isham household defined a great deal of Elizabeth’s exposure and interaction with texts. However, it is impossible to ignore – largely because of the nature and content of her autobiography – that Elizabeth spent much of her life reading silently and privately. These were the conditions and foundation for her autodidactic and active engagement with books like the Bible and, in turn, her life-writing and understanding of herself and her world. Consequently, similar to the insights she provides for the perceived distinctions between interiority and exteriority that has shaped the study of early modern life-writing, Elizabeth allows us to blur the lines between the two regarding the history of reading too. Indeed, to say that either had more importance in her reading would essentially create a false dichotomy. Much like her life-writing, hybridity therefore defined her use of books and reading practices. Without her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ we could never come to such a conclusion if relying only on the evidence of either her or the other Ishams’ reading found in the family papers. The historical memory locked in her autobiography animates the reading practices of the ‘bookish’ Ishams, and allows us to bring nuance to the history of books and reading. We will soon learn that the ‘Book of Rememberance’ does much the same for our understanding of religion and personal piety in early modern England.

NOTES 1 Thomas Isham to John Isham, 4 April 1600, IMSS, NRO, IC13; Thomas Isham to John Isham, 9 May 1600, IMSS, NRO, IC 14. 2 Elizabeth Isham, ‘My Owne Bookes,’ 1648, Isham MSS, NRO, IC 4829. 3 Elizabeth Isham, c.1648, Isham MSS, NRO, IL 3365. 4 For work that nicely represents scholarship related to the history of the book see David Gerard, The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450–1800 (London, 1976); Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1979); Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto, 1962); Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, L’Apparition du livre (Paris, 1971); John P. Feather, ‘The Book in History and the History of the Book,’ Journal of Library History (1974–1987), 21 (1986), 12–26; Robert Darton, ‘What is the History of Books,’ Daedalus, 111 (Summer 1982), 65–83; Robert Darnton, ‘First Steps Toward a History of Reading,’ Australian Journal of French Studies, 23 (1986), 5–30; Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1984), especially 215–256; Roger Chartier, Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations (Cambridge, 1988); Roger Chartier, The Cultural Use of Print in Early Modern France, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane (Princeton, NJ, 1987); Roger Chartier, ed., The Culture of Print: Power and the Uses of Print in Early Modern Europe, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane 180

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(Princeton, NJ, 1989); Roger Chartier, ‘Reading Matter and “Popular” Reading: From Renaissance to the Seventeenth Century,’ in Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, eds, A History of Reading in the West, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane (Amherst, 1999), 269–283; Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, translated by John and Anne Tedeschi (London, 1980). David Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge, 1980), 1–18 and 191–202. Margaret Spufford, ‘First Steps in Literacy: The Reading and Writing Experiences of the Humblest Seventeenth-Century Autobiographers,’ Social History, 4 (1979), 407–435; Margaret Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and Its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England (Athens, GA, 1981), especially the Preface, and chs 1 and 2; Keith Thomas, ‘The Meaning of Literacy in Early Modern England,’ in Gerd Baumann, ed., The Written Word: Literacy in Transition (Oxford, 1986), 97–131; Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 1991), 1–8. Spufford, Small Bookes and Pleasant Histories. Watt, Cheap Print. Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999); Peter Lake with Michael Questier, The Antichrist’s Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in Post-Reformation England (New Haven, CT, 2002), especially the Introduction and part I. For additional work on book circulation and the influence of print culture, both in regards to religious and secular matters, see Ian Green, The Christian’s ABC: Catechisms and Catechizing in England c. 1530–1740 (Oxford, 1996); Ian Green, Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2000); Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago, 1998). Harold Love, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford, 1993), especially part I. For excellent discussion of this phenomenon see Adam Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500–1700 (Oxford, 2000), especially the Introduction, ch. 1, and Conclusion. Lisa Jardine and Anthony Grafton, ‘“Studied for Action:” How Gabriel Harvey Read His Livy,’ P. and P., 129 (1990), 30–78; Lisa Jardine and Anthony Grafton, From Humanism to Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth and Sixteenth-Century Europe (London, 1986); Lisa Jardine and William Sherman, ‘Pragmatic Readers: Knowledge Transactions and Scholarly Services in Late Elizabethan England,’ in Religion, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain: Essays in Honour of Patrick Collinson, Anthony Fletcher and Peter Roberts, eds (Cambridge, 1994), 102–124; William Sherman, John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance (Amherst, MA, 1995); Kevin Sharpe, Reading Revolutions: The Politics of Reading in Early Modern England (New Haven, CT, 2000). Suzanne Hull, Chaste, Silent, & Obedient: English Books for Women, 1475–1640 (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library Press, 1982) chs 1–2, ch. 4, and 142. Mary Ellen Lamb, ‘Constructions of Women Readers,’ in Teaching Tudor and Stuart Women Writers, Susanne Woods and Margaret P. Hannay, eds (New York, 2000), 24. For a useful discussion of Lamb’s point and gendering of genre in 181

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16 17 18

19

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21 22 23

24

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27 28 29 30

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the seventeenth century, see Edith Snook, Women, Reading, and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern England (Aldershot, 2005), 12–16. Carol M. Meale and Julia Boffey, ‘Gentlewomen’s Reading,’ in The Cambridge History of The Book in Britain, 1400–1557, vol. III, Lotte Hellinga and J.B. Trapp, eds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 540. Heidi Brayman Hackel, Reading in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2005), 254. Mary Ellen Lamb, ‘The Agency of the Split Subject: Lady Anne Clifford and the Uses of Reading,’ English Literary Renaissance, 22 (1992), 347–368. Kathryn DeZur, ‘“Vaine Books” and Early Modern Women Readers,’ Ian Frederick, ed., Reading and Literacy in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Turnhout, Belgium, 2004): 105–125. For a useful version of the account, see John N. King, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: Select Narratives (Oxford, 2009), 22–34. For further discussion, also see Snook, Women, Reading, 34–39. Mary Ward, A Breife Relation … With Autobiographical Fragments and a Selection of Letters, Christina Kenworthy-Browne, ed., Catholic Record Society Publications, vol. 81 (Woodbridge, 2008), 7. Joanna Moody, ed., The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady: The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599–1605 (Stroud, 1998), 26. Snook, Women, Reading, 115–135. Katharine Hodgkin, ed., Women, Madness and Sin in Early Modern England: The Autobiographical Writings of Dinonys Fitzherbert (Farnham, 2010), 40–5, 160–162, 174–176, 204–206. Helen Wilcox, ‘Entering The Temple: Women, Reading, and Devotion in Seventeenth-Century England,’ in Religion, Literature, and Politics in PostReformation England, 1540–1688, Donna Hamilton and Richard Strier, eds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 204; Kate Narveson, Bible Readers and Lay Writers in Early Modern England: Gender and Self-Definition in an Emergent Writing Culture (Farnham, 2012), Introduction, ch. 5, and Conclusion. Andrew Cambers, Godly Reading: Print, Manuscript, and Puritanism in England, 1580–1720 (Cambridge, 2011), especially chs 1 and 7; Andrew Cambers, ‘Reading, the Godly, and Self-Writing in England, c. 1580–1720,’ JBS, 46 (2007), 796–825. For work on the emergence of silent reading and the individual self, see Paul Saenger, Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading (Stanford, CA, 1997); Paul Saenger, ‘Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society,’ Viator, 13 (1982), 367–414. Andrew Cambers, ‘Readers’ Marks and Religious Practice: Margaret Hoby’s Marginalia,’ in Tudor Books and Readers: Materiality and the Construction of Meaning, John N. King, ed. (Cambridge, 2010), 211–231. Isham, ‘diary,’ IMSS, NRO, IL 3365; Isham, ‘My Own Bookes,’ IMSS, NRO, IC 4829; Book list, IMSS, NRO, IC 4825. Isham, BR, fo. 3r. Ibid., fo. 8r. A Godly Garden Out of the Which Most Confortable Herbs Maybe Gathered For the Health of the Wounded Conscience of All Penitent Sinners (London, 1574); Isham, ‘My Own Bookes’, IC 4829; Book list, IC 4825.

Elizabeth Isham’s reading 31 Isham, BR, fol. 10v. The text was by the godly Eusebius Pagit, an Elizabethan and Jacobean cleric related to the Ishams. See Eusebius Pagit, Short Questions and Answers, Conteyning the Summe of Christian Religion (London, 1579). Pagit apparently worked with Robert Openshaw on later editions of the text, and it is possible that Openshaw is the one who included the proofs, which were essentially scriptural annotations intended to enhance the understanding of the content found in the catechism. For discussion of the text, see Green, The Christian’s ABC, 67, 210–211, 247, and 253. 32 Isham, BR, fo. 10v. 33 Isham, ‘diary,’ IMSS, NRO, IL 3365. 34 Isham, BR, fo. 5v. 35 Ibid., fo. 5v. 36 Ibid., fo. 12r. 37 Ibid., fo. 26r. 38 Ibid., fo. 25v. 39 Ibid., fo. 28r. 40 Elizabeth Isham, ‘My Own Bookes,’ IMSS, NRO, IC 4829. 41 Isham, BR, fo. 20v. 42 See Hull, Chaste, Silent, & Obedient, chs 1–2, 4 and p. 142; Lamb, ‘Constructions of Women Readers,’ 24; Snook, Women, Reading, 12–16; Meale and Boffey, ‘Gentlewomen’s Reading,’ 540. 43 John Mandeville, The Voyages and Traualies of Sir John Mandeville … Wherein is Set Downe the Way to the Holy Land (London, 1618). See also M. C. Seymour, ‘Mandeville, Sir John (supp. fl. c.1357),’ DNB. 44 John Reynolds, The Triumphs of God’s Revenge Against the Crying and Exceedble Sinne of Murther (London, 1621); K. Grudzion Baston, ‘Reynolds, John (b. c.1588, d. after 1655),’ DNB. 45 Isham, BR, fo. 10v. 46 Ibid., fo. 26r. 47 Isham, ‘My Owne Books,’ IMSS, NRO, IC 4829. 48 Isham, BR, fo. 13r. 49 Ibid., fo. 13v. 50 John Dod and Robert Cleaver, A Godly Forme of Household Gouerment, For the Ordering of Priuate Families, According to the Direction of Gods Word (London, 1630). 51 Isham, BR, fo. 25r. 52 Ibid., fo. 25v. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid., fo. 5r. 55 Ibid., fo. 14r. 56 Ibid., fo. 15r. 57 See Henry Bull, Christian Prayers and Meditations (London, 1568). 58 Isham, BR, 15v. 59 Kenneth Charlton, Education in Renaissance England (London, 1965), ch. 7; Kenneth Charlton, ‘Women and Education,’ in Early Modern Women’s Writing, Anita Pacheco, ed. (Oxford, 2002), 17. For further discussion of education by mothers, see discussion of ‘motherly advice books’ in ch. 1 above. 60 Isham, BR, fo. 8r. 183

The gentlewoman’s remembrance 61 Ibid., fo. 16v. 62 Ibid., fo. 12v. The book referred to in the quote is John Randall, Saint Pauls Triumph, or, Cygnea illa & Dulcissima Cantio that Swan-Like and Most Sweet Song, of that Learned and Faithfull Servant of God, Mast. Iohn Randall, Bachelor of Divinitie (London, 1623). 63 For further discussion see Stephen Wright, ‘Randall, John (1570–1622),’ DNB; online edn January 2008. 64 Isham, BR, fo. 12r. 65 Ibid., fo. 24r. See also John Dod, Plaine and Familiar Exposition of the Ten Commandements (London, 1603). 66 Isham, ‘My Own Bookes,’ IC 4829; Book list, IC 4825. 67 Isham, BR, 27v. 68 Isham, ‘My Own Bookes,’ IC 4829; Book list, IC 4825. 69 Isham, BR, 21v. 70 Ibid., 22r. 71 Ibid., fo. 29v. 72 Ibid., fo. 28r. 73 John Partridge, Treasure of Commodious Conceits, and Hidden Secrets (London, 1627), A2r. 74 John Partridge, The Widdowes Treasure (London, 1639), A2r. 75 Isham, ‘My Own Bookes,’ IMSS, NRO, IC 4829. 76 A general search in the English Short Title Catalogue of the word ‘herbal,’ for the years 1588–1654, provides the following four titles: Thomas Vicary, The Englishmans Treasure: With the True Anatomie of Mans Bodie (London, 1596); Rembert Dodoens, A New Herball, or Historie of Plants (London, 1595); John Gerard, The herball or Generall Historie of Plants (London, 1597); John Pakinson, ed., Theatrum Botanicum: The Theater of Plants or, An Herball, of Large extent (London, 1640). Another possibility is that the herbal she owned may have been a manuscript copy of some woman in her family. 77 Isham, ‘My Own Bookes,’ IMSS, NRO, IC 4829. 78 Elizabeth Isham’s medical recipes, IMSS, NRO, IC 4823, IC 4824, IC 4826– 4828, IC 4830–4831. I would like to thank Michelle DiMeo for her insightful presentation on Elizabeth Isham’s medical practices at the ‘Elizabeth Isham at Princeton Workshop’ held in Princeton, NJ on 8 September 2007. There is a possible candidate for a surviving recipe book that Elizabeth produced; see Elizabeth Isham and Thomas Sendal, ‘Book of Receipts,’ c. 1659, Royal College of Surgeons Archives, MS0030; unfortunately, the manuscript consists of numerous recipes, and they are in two different hands, and, while one of these has striking similarity to Elizabeth’s own italic hand, there is just not enough internal evidence in the document to conclusively state that she had any part in its production. 79 Isham, BR, fo. 27v. 80 Ibid., fo. 10r. For a brief discussion of this episode of Elizabeth reading in her private closet see Erica Longfellow, ‘Public, Private, and the Household in Early Seventeenth-Century England’, JBS, 45 (2006), 321. 81 Isham, BR, fo. 14r. 82 Ibid., fo. 34r. 83 See discussion above, ch. 1. 184

Elizabeth Isham’s reading 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

100 101 102 103

104 105 106 107

Isham, BR, fo. 27v. Ibid., fo. 28v. Ibid., fo. 32v. Ibid., fo. 35v. Ibid., fo. 35r. Ibid., fo. 6v. Ibid., fo. 1r. Ibid., fo. 6v. Ibid., fo. 10r. Ibid., fo. 18r. Ibid., fo. 26v, fo. 31v. Ibid., fo. 37v. See discussion above, ch. 1. Saint Augustine of Hippo, A Precious Booke of Heauenly Meditations: Called a Priuate Talke of the Soule with God, translated by Thomas Rogers (London, 1629). Isham, BR, fo. 27v. Ibid., fo. 31r–31v. See Guillaume Du Bartas, Bartas: His Deuine Weekes and Workes Translated & Dedicated to the Kings Most Excellent Maiestie, translated by Josuah Sylvester (London, 1605). There are several sections in which Du Bartas mentions atheism. For example, see pp. 3 and 306. I thank those involved with the ‘Constructing Elizabeth Isham’ project for bringing this to my attention. Isham, BR, fo. 31v. King, Lectures Upon Ionas, 379–380. He was expounding here on Jonah 2:7. Isham, BR, fo. 33v. Daniel Dyke, Sixe Euangelical Histories of Water Turned into Wine (London, 1617). For more on Dyke, see Patrick Collinson, ‘Dyke, Daniel (d. 1614),’ DNB. Also see Isham, ‘My Owne Books,’ IC 4829. Isham, BR, fo. 32v. John Swan, Speculum mundi: or A Glasse Representing the Face of the World (Cambridge, 1635). Isham, BR, fo. 26r. Ibid., fo. 29v. See Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen, edited by Thomas Roche (New York, 1978), 983.

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Chapter 5

. ‘To piety more prone’: Elizabeth Isham’s religion

Hitherto, in all the particulars mentioned, men have boasted, but there is one, the maine, in which they have scarce so much as pretended to outstrip them [women]; and that is the highest improvement and glory, namely pietie and religion, unto which they [women] have somewhat the greater advantage in regard that their affections are more ordinarily lively and stirring.1

Thus Samuel Torshell quipped when comparing the abilities of men and women, stating that the latter excelled the former when it came to the cultivation of their personal piety and religion. As we have seen, conventional cultural expectations on female virtue went hand-in-hand with religious ideals for women in seventeenth-century England. Galenic-Aristotelian and scriptural notions – which conflated ideas centred on the humours and the concept of the daughters of Eve – depicted women as devoid of reason and interpretive thought while also more vulnerable to sin and Satan’s temptations. They were, therefore, weaker vessels when compared to men, a juxtaposition that buttressed ideological justifications for early modern patriarchy. Of course, these justifications often functioned only in theory, with ambiguity defining much of how patriarchy worked in practice during the period. Women could find manoeuvrability within and against gender restraints and expectations, and religion could prove a potent means to this end. Contemporaries may have viewed women as weaker vessels, but they were also considered essentially empty vessels because of their believed lack of reason and supposed susceptibility to sin. Consequently, while their nature may have put them in danger of falling under immoral influences, women nonetheless could as easily come under the sway of religious instruction and God’s Word. William Alexander, the Earl of Stirling, perhaps captured early modern thinking best: ‘The weaker sex, to piety more prone’.2 The ideal, therefore, was for women to live a virtuous life, something that required them to cultivate their piety and strive to make God a key figure in their lives. In short, early modern 186

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English society championed the devout and pious female as the identity that all women should strive to achieve.3 To say that Elizabeth Isham agreed with, if not internalized this stress on women’s piety is an understatement. Religion was the central element in her life, shaping her character, worldview, and actions. After all, our primary source on her life is the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, a spiritual autobiography modelled on Augustine’s Confessions and structured as much as an extensive written prayer as a life narrative. It is the most striking manifestation of her piety, a project that took her over a year to complete and which she deemed her ‘cheefest work’. God was her primary audience, but she also wished to leave a memorial to her mother, defend her choice never to marry, and have the autobiography serve as a ‘motherly advice’ book for her four nieces. The common thread in all of this was religion, since it shaped much of her relationship with her mother, served as the prime justification to never marry, and constituted the central subject matter for the tutelage of Sir Justinian’s daughters. Moreover, we have seen how books – read both orally and silently – contributed to Elizabeth’s devotional practices, and it was her autodidactic reading and exegesis of pious texts that greatly influenced the crafting of the autobiography. Even in relation to non-devotional literature, she often deployed it in a pious fashion and under a religious inspiration, as her engagement in household medicine to comfort the spiritual and physical suffering of her sister Judith illustrates. We unlock all of this historical memory with the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, and when juxtaposed with material that rests in the Isham collection, we gain a rounded perspective of Elizabeth’s religious world. Up to now, however, we have only viewed how such a world shaped her life and actions, without necessarily examining the essence and character of her piety and religious identity on their own. The goal of this chapter is to provide a closer look at Elizabeth’s religious beliefs, for it allows us to complete our overall portrait of her in this study. We have established that the Ishams were a Protestant household, but religious diversity and ambiguity seems to have defined the devotional practices and beliefs at Lamport Hall. Indeed, Elizabeth’s immediate family ran the religious gamut – Sir John was a religious moderate, Sir Justinian associated with and perhaps was a Laudian himself, and Lady Isham and Judith were both godly women. Considering this familial milieu, Elizabeth’s religion, much like her autobiography, is best characterized by hybridity. In the previous chapters, the assertion has been that she was godly, going so far as to call her the ‘Puritan nun’ of Lamport Hall. Yet what sort of godly woman was she – what is the most suitable way to describe her piety, beliefs, and religious identity as a whole? Elizabeth was a woman deeply concerned with and devoted to the omnipresence of God and his divine will. She associated with radical clerics, had an affinity for the Puritan community, and practised an intense form of internal piety common among the godly. The reading of practical divinity provided a strong foundation for 187

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such devotion, and the books that Elizabeth read from this genre of literature were predominantly written by some of the most renowned Puritan clerics of the early modern period. Yet her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ reveals that she also revered the Book of Common Prayer, and found the ceremonies and holy days associated with it essential to her piety. Furthermore, she was absolutely loyal to the Stuart monarchy, particularly Charles I, a monarch who was by the 1640s persona non grata within many Puritan ranks. To the king and his family she remained loyal, and when she lay on her deathbed in 1654, she died a Royalist. Considering all of this, we may assert that a fusion of both prayer-book conformity and godly devotional practices underpinned Elizabeth Isham’s religious identity.

THE RELIGIOUS ENVIRONMENT OF EARLY MODERN ENGLAND If we are to truly understand Elizabeth Isham’s personal piety – and its historiographical implications – we must situate her on the diverse religious spectrum that existed in England by the first half of the seventeenth century. To gain a full appreciation of this spectrum requires a thorough mapping of the scholarly and historical contexts of early modern English religion. At the centre of these contexts sits the English Reformation and its causes, manifestations, and consequences. Conventional or ‘whig’ historiographical perspectives have long portrayed the Reformation in a narrative of Protestantism that spread relatively rapidly, and reached its inevitable success and triumph at the ascension of Elizabeth I, which in turn established the key roots for the emergence of modern England, if not all of Britain.4 The surge of revisionist scholarship in the 1970s and 1980s sought to utterly dismantle this narrative – rather than a success or triumph, the Reformation in the sixteenth century was instead a protracted process that failed in many ways to meet the spiritual needs of the English people. Consequently, the creation of a Protestant national church and the enforcement of conformity to that church was not a triumph but a tragedy. Moreover, the process of making the English Protestant did not culminate with the Elizabethan settlement but proved long and arduous, to such a degree that – according to some scholars – if Mary I had not had such a short reign then England would have likely remained within the Roman fold. Indeed, the religious reforms implemented during Elizabeth I’s reign apparently addressed this reality, particularly in relation to the liturgy prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, ceremony that Eamon Duffy and Christopher Haigh have claimed was merely a morphing of Catholic ritual to make Protestant reforms easier to stomach for the queen’s subjects who were fundamentally conservative and devoted to the traditions of the Church of Rome. It was a practical move, designed under the basic awareness that with Calvinism coming to predominantly shape the character 188

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of reformed religion in the period, Protestantism was too overly intellectual, text-based, and predestinarian to prove attractive to the average sixteenthcentury person.5 The ‘revisionist’ narrative rocked, if not dismantled the historiographical applecart and we have dealt with the scholarly reverberations ever since. Few present historians would view the growth of Protestantism in England as the product of a definitive and chronologically contained Reformation. Rather, periodization has expanded to examine and understand religious change, indeed perhaps far more than revisionists would have been comfortable with or would have foreseen. More and more scholars have come to accept the concept of the ‘Long Reformation’, driving the traditional chronological boundaries deep into the seventeenth century – if not sometimes beyond – and recently also pushing these boundaries back into the medieval period. Working from this concept as a springboard – either implicitly or explicitly – insightful social and cultural history concerned with religious change has brought much attention to a wide range of themes often centred on lived religion, such as the interiority of belief and conversion, private and public devotion, meanings ascribed to the life cycle, and contemporary imaginings of divine omnipotence and providence. Such scholarship has attempted to recognize the contribution of scholars like Duffy and Haigh, offering nuance to our understanding of early modern Catholicism while also emphasizing that Protestantism was a lively social and cultural phenomenon that could have popular appeal and did have significant impact on people’s lives in the sixteenth century and beyond. For our purposes, a major message is that a wide and complex religious spectrum of Christian beliefs and practices existed in early modern England, with various forms of Catholicism at one end and radical manifestations of Puritanism, dissent, or sectarianism at the other, depending on how far we move forward into the seventeenth century.6 Perhaps the most fertile activity of this scholarly trend revolves around the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods, with the ramifications of the Reformation and the causes of the English Civil Wars serving as the backdrop for many scholarly concerns. Of course, conventional knowledge has long held that the links between the two phenomena rested squarely in a divide between Anglicans and Puritans, two diametrically opposed groups who emerged from the Elizabethan settlement – the former fundamentally Erastian, episcopal, religiously conformist, ceremonial, and a religious via media and the latter strictly Calvinist in theology, anti-episcopal, scripturally and preaching centric, and nonconformist to both the state and national church. In other words, here we have the forefathers of Cavaliers and Roundheads, defenders of the status quo versus religious and political revolutionaries.7 Similar to the account of Protestant triumphalism, this narrative no longer holds much scholarly water. Nicholas Tyacke and Patrick Collinson did much to dismantle it when they independently asserted that in contrast to conventional historical notions, a ‘Calvinist Consensus’ existed in the Elizabethan 189

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and early Stuart Church in which the revolutionaries were not Puritans but Arminians or Laudians of the 1630s. Along with Peter Lake, Collinson has further nuanced our understanding of Puritanism, defining it not in terms of its opposition to governing structures and liturgical forms but more of an intense style of Protestantism with attitudes, piety, and doctrines designed to fit within and animate the religious life of the Church of England. Thus Puritans could be as much moderate as they could be radical.8 On the flip side, ‘Anglicanism’ – as an identifiable religious and historical phenomenon – has largely become a bête noire among scholars, predominantly viewed as an anachronism in contrast to the term ‘Puritan’ that did have wide contemporary usage as an insult for people who self-identified themselves as the godly, the saints, or the elect. Indeed, a number of scholars have asserted that, contrary to the image of the Church of England established in the Elizabethan period as a via media between early modern Catholicism and Reformed Protestantism, this church only became religiously distinctive after the Restoration and only christened as ‘Anglican’ in the nineteenth century.9 Yet a distinctive global religion labelled as Anglicanism or Episcopalism does exist today and some scholars do recoganise that, in some form of fashion, it has historical origins before the reign of Charles II.10 A logical place to look is at Laudians or Arminians – along with their anti-Calvinist or avant-garde Conformist forerunners – and there is some merit to this when considering the writing of men like Richard Hooker, John Overall, Richard Montague, and Peter Heylyn or contemporary imaginings of the liturgical and spiritual role that altars played in the Tudor-Stuart period. Laudianism, however, was neither static nor monolithic, and there were a number of Calvinists or moderate Puritans who could share common ground with Laudians on what constituted the visible church of believers or polemical debates over Roman religion.11 The relatively recent work on Puritanism and Anglicanism has underscored the ambiguity that existed along the early modern religious spectrum. Elizabeth Clarke has written that Elizabeth Isham’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ is ‘one of the few documents in existence that reveals the change of affiliation in its author from mainstream Puritan to Royalist and Arminian’.12 To make such a conclusion reflects an oversimplified perspective of the religious environment of England in general, and Puritanism, Royalism, or Laudianism more specifically. All three concepts – along with their ambiguities – offer the means to contextualize and gauge Elizabeth Isham’s religious sensibilities, and a brief examination of a sample of contemporary views on both the Book of Common Prayer and the Caroline monarchy proves useful in such an exercise since each were important in her life. Conventional historical wisdom has long held that Puritans were intensely hostile to the Prayer Book. The noted and godly Richard Baxter seemingly captured such hostility in his critical comments on his parishioners at Bridgnorth, Shropshire in the late 1630s: ‘That all this is not merely through 190

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idleness, because they will not be at the pains to serve God, but it is out of a bitter enmity to his Word and ways … they are as zealous for Crosses, and Surplices, Processions and Perambulations … the observation of Holidays, and Fasting days, the repeating of the Letany, or the like forms in the Common Prayer.’13 The assessment echoed the critiques of John Field and Thomas Wilcox – those two early fathers of the Puritan community – in 1572: ‘We must nedes say as foloweth, that this [Prayer] booke is an unperfecte booke, culled and picked out of that popish dunghill, the Masse booke full of all abhominations.’14 Opposition to the Prayer Book only intensified through the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, and on the eve of civil war, the elderly Puritan cleric, Richard Bernard, urged Parliament to abolish the book in 1641: ‘we againe and againe entreat you to pluck up that plant of the service-booke, which God neuer set’.15 With the adoption of the Directory of Pubic Worship – Parliament’s manual of directions for worship meant to replace the Prayer Book – such opposition appears to have reached a crescendo in 1645. Yet, if we believe John Morrill, the Directory was an unpopular replacement for the majority of the population committed to the old liturgy of the Church of England, a commitment that undermined Puritan efforts for further religious reformation during and after the Civil War. 16 This suggests that the godly were completely at odds with the liturgy of the national church and most people’s religious sensibilities, but we should be cautious to accept such a notion fully. A sample cross-section of people with godly credentials living in the late Tudor and Stuart periods demands such historical care. Margaret, Lady Hoby of Hackness – in one of the earliest diaries written by a godly woman – noted approval when her parish minister, Master Rhodes, followed the prescribed liturgy of the service book before his congregation in 1605.17 The godly patriarch of Dorchester, John White, also found value in the Prayer Book, going so far as to begin his days by reciting its set prayers and believing that holy inspiration led to its production.18 And there was Richard Baxter – while he was certainly critical of the Book of Common Prayer, he was not completely averse to using it during church services on the eve of the Civil War: ‘I often read the Common Prayer before I preached, both at the Lord’sday and Holy-days; but I never administered the Lord’s supper, nor ever Baptized any child with the sign of the cross, nor wore the surplice.’19 Here we see a godly cleric omitting elements of the Prayer Book but not completely refusing to use it, an approach that Baxter shared with a number of his peers and contemporaries. Indeed, as long as Puritans in the early Stuart period made formal professions of conformity and did not voice their dissatisfaction with elements of the Prayer Book in public, many bishops willingly ignored local adaptations to the liturgy.20 Consequently, the godly’s use of and views on the service book were not necessarily straightforward or clear-cut, something that we also find in relation to political loyalties during the English Civil Wars. From a bird’s eye view, it does appear that there often was a correlation between how Puritan 191

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a person’s religious sensibilities were and what side she or he took prior and during the conflicts, and when we take a worm’s eye view this impression seemingly also holds true. Turning simply to Nehemiah Wallington – the godly turner of London who epitomises seventeenth-century Puritanism for many historians – we find an opponent to the House of Stuart or its patriarch, as his views on the providential justice of the regicide on 30 January 1649 capture: ‘about two a clock was King Charles beheaded on a scaffold at Whitehall. Whatever may be unjust with man God is righteous and just in whatever he doth’.21 The Herefordshire gentlewoman and staunch Puritan, Lady Brilliana Harley, showed her political proclivities – on the eve of and during the Civil Wars – when she organized her family’s response to the monarchy by going so far as to attempt buying arms in 1642 from the Royalist Croft family for the parliamentary commission for the Irish uprising and subsequently resisting a Royalist siege of the Harley estates.22 Of course, prior to the war, Puritan sentiments – consumed with worries over the rise of Laudianism, the confessional identity of Henrietta Maria, the martyrdom of Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, and war with the Scots – could make the godly concerned or critical, if not become hostile to Charles I, as the life-writings of the cleric, Samuel Rogers, or the lawyer, Robert Woodford, express.23 Yet the godly were perfectly capable of supporting the king, or taking a complex position vis-à-vis the monarchy. In the context of Northamptonshire, Edward Lord Montagu of Boughton – patron of the Puritan Kettering lecture and the staunchly godly minsters, Robert Bolton and Joseph Bentham – supported the king and subsequently died under house arrest for his loyalties, while the moderate Puritan cleric, Edward Reynolds, continually called for charity and peace as he navigated religious and political conflict as a local minister and member of the Assembly of Divines on the road to his eventual appointment as Bishop of Norwich after the accession of Charles II.24 Moreover, how Puritanism manifested politically or religiously was not straightforward throughout the 1640s and 1650s – we need only remember disputes between Presbyterians and Independents or the rise of sectarians, and that loyalties could ultimately be fluid in spite of spiritual sensibilities. Lastly, the links between Laudianism or proto-forms of ‘Anglicanism’ with royalism were enormously multifaceted and never always politically or religiously in accordance.25 Again, here we see the ambiguity of the religious landscape of early modern England, in this case as it relates to both the Book of Common Prayer and the English Civil Wars. Despite such a reality, a number of scholars have nonetheless attempted to locate or discover ‘mainstream’ religion in the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods. The underlying assumption that drives such work is that what best characterized England was its broad-based religious culture, overwhelmingly defined more by consensual coexistence and devotional commonalities than conflict or confessional difference. Perhaps the most noteworthy scholar who has propagated this general point is Alexandra Walsham, who in her work on providence, persecution, toleration, and 192

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memory has largely ironed out difference to throw into sharp relief shared beliefs and practices among the early modern English, particularly in relation to Protestantism. Ian Green has echoed such an approach in his work on print culture, seeing in the production, sale, and acquisition of early modern catechisms or devotional literature the development and coalescence of a crucial dimension of a material and literary culture that was both Protestant, wide reaching, and popular. Centring her focus on early modern liturgical practices as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, Judith Maltby has located a religious ‘mainstream’ in what she refers to as ‘prayer book protestantism’, a religious and devotional outlook that was neither Puritan nor Laudian in its orientation but rather manifested as a deep affection for the service book, a support for episcopacy, and a rejection of radicalism. Also concerned with devotional practices, Alec Ryrie has recently asserted – while expanding the geographic focus and largely excluding any attention to Laudianism – that the lived experience of religion for the majority of early modern British people by 1640 revolved around Protestant worship that was emotionally intense, dynamic, and spiritually appealing. All of these historians appear to be enormously sensitive to the ambiguous and wide religious spectrum sketched above, seeking to move away from pigeonholing or orienting their analyses around confessional groups, if not labels like Catholic, Puritan, or Laudian. As Ryrie has stated: ‘the Puritan-conformist division has misled scholars for long enough. Its apparent prominence is a result of historians’ fondness for divisive questions, and of our sources’ being skewed towards polemics … the unity of post-Reformation English religious culture is such that there is only one useful term for it: “Protestant”.’26 While there is a certain appeal to taking Ryrie’s advice by ignoring ‘divisive questions’ or ‘polemics’ and viewing everything as ‘Protestant’, the hard fact of the matter is that divisions, differences, and conflict arose because of religious beliefs in early modern England. A religious spectrum did exist – one, by the way, that included Catholics – that could and did lead to commonalities but that spectrum could and did also create animosities that prompted the production of polemics and ultimately served as a significant cause for civil wars. Furthermore, confessional and religious labels should matter to presentday scholars. After all, terms like ‘Puritan’, ‘godly’, and ‘Arminian’ had actual contemporary meaning and usage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On this alone we should take them seriously, but they also have enormous value because of their discursive qualities and actual analytical applications, providing us with important means to conceptualize, describe, discuss, and make sense of the Tudor-Stuart period. Certainly, Elizabeth Isham was Protestant – the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ reveals that her piety embodied the precepts of sola fide and sola scriptura, and it demonstrates that she had no enthusiasm for, nor acceptance of Catholicism while engaging in devotional practices that were clearly emotionally dynamic and intense. Important to such practices were the Book of Common Prayer, the reading of religious 193

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literature, and beliefs in providence, all of which seemingly put her in line with the ‘mainstream’ Protestant culture that scholars like Maltby, Green, Walsham, and Ryrie have attempted to reconstruct. Yet it is impossible to ignore that Elizabeth’s piety had a genuine and definite Puritan orientation, an orientation that did not prevent her from expressing Royalist sympathies and loyalties to the king when civil war engulfed England in the 1640s. If we place all of these elements of Elizabeth’s life – unearthed by tapping into the historical memory found in both her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and the Isham papers – in the broader context of the ambiguous religious environment of early modern England, she emerges as a figure who straightforwardly does not fit easily into claims for the existence of ‘mainstream’ Protestantism. Rather, it seems more worthwhile to view her as an ‘exceptional norm’, one manifestation or expression of an entire realm of possibilities that the complex religious environment of the early modern period could create. Elizabeth Isham was a religious product of her world – with this world and her reflecting and refracting off each other – and that is crucial to understanding not just her but early modern England as a whole.

THE PRAYER BOOK, CONFORMITY, AND ROYALISM On 30 March 1654, Elizabeth composed her last will and testament, in which her first wish was to donate money to the local rector of Lamport at the time: ‘to Mr. John Goodman minister of Lamport five pounds to buy him a peece of plate’.27 In 1649, Sir John Isham had appointed Goodman to the rectorship after a dispute with local parishioners over whether a godly minister would serve the cure.28 The appointment of Goodman ran counter to the parishioners’ wishes, since the rector had a long history of associating himself with Laudians in the 1630s. His clerical career began when Richard Corbet, the bishop of Oxford, ordained the young minister in 1631. Subsequently taking residence in Northamptonshire, Goodman first served as William Sellar’s curate at Stowe-Nine-Churches, and then eventually became vicar of the parish of St Giles in the town of Northampton. He owed this appointment to William Laud’s ecclesiastical pit bull, Sir John Lambe, who presented Goodman to the vicarage in 1641.29 Considering his patronage, it is not unreasonable to presume that if not a Laudian, Goodman was at least a devoted conformist to the Caroline Church. To this man, Elizabeth made her first bequest of money in her will, suggesting that she may have approved of Caroline conformity, if not Laudian divinity. Of course, at the heart of such divinity was its emphasis on the ‘beauty of holiness’ in which ritualized worship took precedence over preaching during church services. This ritualized worship greatly revolved around the communal administering of the sacraments, especially the Lord’s Supper. As Tyacke has written: ‘Building on the Prayer Book, English Arminians [i.e. Laudians] elaborated a scenic 194

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apparatus in which the sacrament of the holy communion had a key role.’30 Those of a more precise persuasion in their religious beliefs smelled a less than subtle whiff of popery in the ecclesiastical reforms of the 1630s. In many ways, the fact that the reforms built upon the existing liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer merely reinforced, if not intensified radical Puritan critiques of the ceremonies of the national church. Elizabeth had a strong background in the Prayer Book, thanks to the efforts of her parents to educate their children in the particulars of its catechism and liturgy. It was an education that greatly influenced Elizabeth’s devotional practices. As a child, she used the Prayer Book as a means to please God: ‘out of feare or love, being ze[a]lous to doe well, I affton repeted my prayers at a time together with the ten commandments & [with] belliefe, saying the old caticissme in the servis[e] book.’31 When educating Elizabeth, Lady Isham had stressed the importance of daily prayer. Taking her mother’s advice to heart, Elizabeth wrote that she often prayed two to three times a day as an adult, reciting prayers from the Book of Common Prayer in the process: ‘through thy grace [God] I haue continued [my mother’s practice], haueing no let to the contrary, saying 2 or 3 prayers [a day] which are in the service book’.32 Not only did she actively apply the Prayer Book in her daily prayers, but she also seems to have internalized its very language, for she sometimes directly incorporated this language into written prayers in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. This is especially striking near the end of the autobiography in which Elizabeth quoted and paraphrased portions of the general confession found in the Prayer Book’s prescribed service for holy communion: ‘Now Lord for thy Christ and our Jesus forgiue all that is past, saue and defende me from euill and conferme me in a godly life to the honour and glory of thy Name, Amen.’33 The fact that as an adult she consulted the Book of Common Prayer as a source for her daily prayers, combined with her application of its language in her autobiography, suggests she had a reverence for the text. Such reverence led Elizabeth to use the Prayer Book when serving as a religious pedagogue to the Isham servants at Lamport. As with many things, she followed in her mother’s footsteps here: ‘according to my mothers way I asked the maides what they could say my selfe helping them & also I heard them read euery one a chapter on the Sabbath dayes [and] of those which could not read I heard them say there Catechisme’. Elizabeth believed such instruction was essential, since she noted that ‘seruants often shift into diuers parishes one minster learnt them one, and another, another [way], so that they could say letle or nothing when they came to a strange place of what was demanded, many of them failing in that which was most necessary to learn’. For her, there was really only one way to alleviate the situation: ‘I found the old Catechisme [in the Prayer Book] to be the best for them … because … it is [the] fittest [for] they should cheefely learne according to there vow in baptisme, the crede, the Lords prayer & the ten commandements.’ Such learning spiritually prepared the Isham servants ‘before they recieud the Blessed 195

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Sacrament’ of holy communion.34 Elizabeth’s interest in whether the servants were fit to partake in communion was not surprising. Of all the ceremonies prescribed in the Prayer Book, communion was perhaps the most revered and sacred element of the Church’s liturgy, and the sacrament held a central place in Elizabeth’s religious life: ‘for my spiritual growth that I may be confirmed strengthened & stablished in all virtuous & godly liuing thou hast reconciled and sealed me to thee euen by the Sacrament of thy precious Body and Blood’.35 So worried was Elizabeth over communion, that she expressed concern over whether she was worthy of the sacrament toward the end of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’: ‘Now my Lord for these yeeres in which I haue receiued the Blessed Sacrament of thy supper I haue not performed those good duties which thou requirest of me, hauing not that Deuotion nor repentance nor reverence & zeale as I ought.’36 Despite chastising herself, Elizabeth nonetheless did not always feel that she was unworthy of the sacrament. She claimed that this was largely because of her parents’ efforts after her baptism: They that which were witnesses for me at my Baptisme promissed that I should be taught all things which a Christian woman ought to know for her soules health, which my parents afterwards was carefull to performe, giuing me such good education that after my admittance into the Church by Baptisme that when I cam to yeeres of discretion I might be fitted to receiue the Blessed Sacrament of the Lords supper for my Spirituall … growth therein.37

Once again, Lady Isham and Sir John come to the forefront of Elizabeth’s religious education. The Book of Common Prayer played an essential role in such education, and indeed Elizabeth remembered that when she was a teenager she was fit to receive communion after witnessing her mother instruct the Isham servants: At this time I was the better fitted to receue [the sacrament] because I had diuers times hard my mother instruct her maids, which as I remember was to this effect, that as verily as they receued Bread & Wine so they should receiue Christ to be there Sauior with a stedfast faith that he died for us being sorry for our sinnes past, perposeing to amend our liues & to be in loue & charity with all & this sacrament as a signe & seale that Christ died for us.38

The episode left an indelible mark on Elizabeth’s later practice of preparing the Isham servants for communion, for which, as we have seen, she used the Prayer Book catechism. It was not the only example of Elizabeth placing importance on both the service book and the rituals of the Church. Throughout her life she had affection for the feasts and holy days sanctioned by the Prayer Book, days that many Puritans believed were popish and bred sinful behavior. Elizabeth did not share such precise attitudes, as she clearly expressed when expounding on the importance of Christmas and Easter: 196

Elizabeth Isham’s religion I call to mind the knowledge that I had in these times of our Lord and Sauiour Jesus Christ which I well remember by the celebration of his feasts, & especially the feast of his nativity when an angel brought that joyful message that unto us was born a Savior, he manifested so to be when he suffered (died for us) rose again and ascended into heaven to prepare a place for us.

Feasts served as a means for Elizabeth to remember the life of Christ and the sacrifice she believed that he made for the salvation of all humanity. She also found value in other religious holidays: ‘surely it is a good thing to reioyce in these Feasts and in the holydayes which are keept in memory of the Apostles, which are the foundation of the Church, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone in whom wee being members thereof groweth unto an holy Temple in the Lord.’ Moreover, knowledge of God came from observing holy days: ‘surely these feasts are the life of devotion and doth stirr up with the more cheerfulnes, both unlettered people & children to the more Knowledge of God.’ The days were ultimately for the exaltation of God’s mercies and benefits, so Elizabeth believed: ‘these feasts or holydayes are keept in rememberance that God hath don thus & thus for them [his children] … wherein was appointed a day of reconciliation and of humbling themselves (by fasting and praier) so was there also ordained feasts wherein they were to reioyce.’39 Elizabeth’s affection for holy feasts rounds out what appears to have been an entirely positive view of the liturgy and traditions of the national church. After all, she had learned the rhythms and virtues of the Prayer Book from her parents, and, in turn, incorporated the service book in her daily prayers as an adult and for the religious instruction of the Isham servants. The environment of Lamport only reinforced Elizabeth’s attitudes toward the Book of Common Prayer. As we have seen, there was a well-established tradition of conformity in the parish largely because of the type of ministers appointed by her father to serve the cure. Sir John enjoyed the advowson, having presentation rights to the parish due to a ninety-nine-year lease of the rectory that he had inherited upon becoming the Isham patriarch in 1605. He inherited the conformist Daniel Baxter as rector, a man whom Sir John’s father, Thomas, had appointed in 1602. Sir John continued the tradition of choosing conformists throughout his life, to the chagrin of godly observers who declared that there was very ‘little preaching’ in Lamport.40 If indeed this was the case, then the church services at Lamport likely revolved mostly around the ceremonies of the Prayer Book. Of course, Elizabeth attended these services, but it was in Lamport Hall where her religious life primarily revolved. Here she had regular contact with the conformist ministers of the parish, who were often fixtures in the household. Indeed, Daniel Baxter made numerous visits to the Isham home throughout most of Elizabeth’s formative years. As she remembered, the purpose of these visits usually pertained to the elder female members of the family, Lady Isham and grandmother Isham. An apparent invalid of sorts in her old age, grandmother Isham found very 197

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little opportunity to leave the confines of Lamport Hall while Elizabeth was a child. This prevented Sir John’s mother from regularly attending services at All Saints, prompting Baxter to personally look after her spiritual welfare: ‘[he] used sometimes to expound to her by reason she was unable to goe to Church’.41 These meetings created a close bond between the minister and Elizabeth’s grandmother, no better exemplified than by his reaction to her death in 1621: ‘our minister Mr Baxter, being very carefull with her, came to comfort my father and mother yet being ouer ruled with passion of affection brake forth (as he came) … sayeing gon is that worthy woman she is gon she is gon’.42 While it seems that he did not have such an intimate relationship with Lady Isham, Baxter nonetheless also attended her in times of need. In particular, as she began to suffer from soteriological doubts when Elizabeth was around ten, Lady Isham found herself attended by Baxter and grandmother Isham: ‘my mother growing more distressed had her friends to comfort her, as my grandmother who was brought to her and the minister of the Parish Mr. Baxter came often’. Elizabeth admired Baxter’s improvisational prayers for the relief of her mother’s distress: ‘I well remember those effectuall prayers which he powred out for her, having a good gift in praying extempory.’43 She made similar statements of respect for Baxter’s qualities as a minster. Besides attempting to meet Lady Isham’s spiritual needs, the rector also was always ready to offer assistance whenever physical illness struck her. On one occasion in 1624, Sir John called on the services of the noted physician, Richard Napier, but Lady Isham proved hesitant to employ him: ‘she feared he used indirect means, she therefore & my father desired Mr. Baxter … to goe to him for her that he might see by the lawfull waye of physicke she might have helpe’. Baxter dutifully complied with the request, going to meet Napier, from whom he received medicine and instructions that Elizabeth’s family should pray for Lady Isham’s recovery. The remedies subsequently worked, for Lady Isham’s condition improved. Thankful, Elizabeth remembered Baxter as a ‘minister who was ready to doe any good office’.44 After Baxter’s tenure in Lamport ended in 1629, the conformists – Thomas Bunning, William Nokes, and John Goodman – served in succession as rector in the parish during Elizabeth’s life and with whom she had a good relationship. Indeed, as noted, she went so far as to leave money to Goodman upon her death. Considering all these connections to conformists, it is perhaps no small surprise that Elizabeth and her family were sympathetic to the Stuart monarchy. Remembering when she was around the age of sixteen, she proved thankful for the Rex pacificus of the early seventeenth century: ‘Hitherto I praise thee my God for the good and peacable yeeres we haue had under thy seruant James our gracious King.’ Such praise and thankfulness intimated admiration, and we have seen how Elizabeth also found James I’s religious writings applicable and useful to her devotional practices. Her sentiments 198

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were not restricted to just the first Stuart king: ‘Let not our unworthynesse hinder thy fauor & mercie towards us in still Blessing us in his offspring and grant that they may be blessed in us, that so if it be thy will they may long raigne ouer us to thy glory & our comfort euen as long as the sun & moone endureth.’45 Here we once again see Elizabeth’s beliefs in providence and God’s omnipotence, but we equally view her loyalty to the Stuarts and her wish that their dynasty would endure for years to come. Similar beliefs, feelings, and longings emerged near the end of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, where Elizabeth offered up prayers – while referencing I Timothy 2:2 – for Charles I and his children: ‘And thou God of power and loue who hast ordained (by the Apostle) that wee should make praiers for all men Let thy Blessings be upon our King under whom wee lead a godly & peacable life … set him & his as Blessings for euer, ps[alm] 24, and let thy mercies & truth still preserue him.’ Not all – indeed, Robert Woodford or Nehemiah Wallington come to mind – would have agreed that Charles reigned over a purely godly commonwealth, considering objections to his marriage to a Catholic queen, to his promotion of the Laudian reforms, and his war with Presby­ terian Scots in the 1630s. Elizabeth did not share these sentiments, since she was steadfastly loyal to the king, as her prayer for the preservation of the king on earth and in heaven illustrates: ‘prevent him with liberall blessings, in this life many yeres and after; Crowne him with an eternall waight of glory in the life to come’.46 Elizabeth wrote this prayer c.1639, and she likely did not suspect then that England, if not all the British Isles would spiral into war in only a few years. When it did, she remained steadfast in her loyalty to the king and his house, as evidence in the Isham papers illustrates. She joined the rest of her family who either remained neutral or overtly sided with Royalists during the English Civil Wars. Of course the most ardent was Justinian, who after all resided in the king’s stronghold of Oxford, and suffered sequestration and jail time in the 1650s for his pains. Such ties had an adverse effect on the Ishams, since it appears it led to a number of instances of harassment at Lamport Hall by Parliamentarians in the 1640s. In addition, Roundheads often billeted at the Isham estate while the war raged. Throughout all these episodes, Elizabeth advocated against any compromise to Parliamentarians and remained loyal to the king. There is no better example of this than her outrage over the potential compounding of Sir John’s estate. Sometime in 1646, Elizabeth pleaded with her father: Dear Father, if euer the words of a Child take place let them now. You know I haue euer desired you to be constante, I feare some will cunningly counsel you to compound and so bring you into the like danger they themselues are if not worse you haueing more I assure myselfe your cheefest ame is to please God to whom wee all hope to goe let us stand for him now.

Typically Royalist, Elizabeth naturally disagreed with Sir John’s consideration whether to compound, since it involved recognizing Parliament’s authority 199

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and victory in the Civil War. In other words, to compound was to acknowledge the defeat of the Royalist cause.47 To persuade Sir John, Elizabeth expressed her distrust of others providing advice to her father, as well as her belief that his actions had religious ramifications. Yet if God’s displeasure was not enough to convince him, Elizabeth turned to family motivations as another reason to stand against Parliament: If you compound I assure my selfe you will repent it and you shall see mee languish with griefe of hart which will be worse to you then the losse of yor cattle & goods, if you haue any fatherly affection I assure you if you stand now out and patiently suffer I shall ioy more in it then in all the worldly means you can giue me … but if you giue an euill example I shall haue no rest in my mind.48

Here again we view Elizabeth negotiating with the patriarchal authority of her father, deploying familial love, honour, and worldly concerns much like she had done when presented with the prospect of marriage in the early 1630s. Fortunately for her, subsequent circumstances accorded to her Royalist desires – based on existing evidence, it appears that her father did not experience further pressure to compound. Additional examples of Elizabeth’s Royalism come from two other pieces of evidence. The first is a draft letter that Elizabeth likely wrote some time in December 1644 to Thomas Beaumont –a colonel in the king’s army and based in Yorkshire – intended as a request for the protection of her family against Parliament.49 In roughly the same period she also drafted a letter intended for the king himself. In a reverential tone, Elizabeth offered her hopes and prayers for peace in England and the continued long reign of Charles I: Gracious Soueraigne … I haue presumed so much … to present this my selfe, beleeuing it will be most acceptable to your Majestye … which delighteth in the prosperity of his seruants and people, so pray I that your Majestye may haue joy againe of your seruants & people so that all may sound forth praises & thankgiuings to him [God], by whom kings reigne, both for your Royall Selfe & posteritie even as long as this world shall last.50

Whether or not Elizabeth actually sent the letter is unknown, but plainly she was a staunch supporter of the Crown and no friend to Parliament’s cause. By drafting a letter addressed directly to Charles – one in which she prayed for England’s prosperity and offered her support to the king’s struggle against Parliament – Elizabeth demonstrated that she was no less devoted to the Crown than her staunchly Royalist brother Justinian. When viewing her royalism – along with both her reverence for the Book of Common Prayer and overall conformity to the Church of England – much of Elizabeth’s external religious beliefs appear rather conservative. This could lead to the conclusion that she was a Laudian or proto-Anglican or, if we apply the perspective and terminology of scholars like Judith Maltby, a ‘prayer book 200

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protestant’. Yet we have seen that ties to or support for conformity, the Prayer Book, or the House of Stuart were not always so straightforward in the ambiguous and complex religious environment of early modern England. In Elizabeth’s case, we should not take her penchant for the service book or the Crown as an indication that she held anti-Puritan beliefs. After all, the randomness of how the state and national church enforced conformity in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries essentially provided a religious infrastructure for a diversity of devotional practices and expressions of that very conformity. We must remember that while maintaining a liturgy that many felt resembled Roman traditions, the national church in the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods was nonetheless an institution grounded in Calvinist theology because of documents like the Thirty-Nine Articles. Moreover, viewing this era as a time when a ‘Calvinist Consensus’ developed and grew, the institutional apparatus of the national church – from the parish level where Puritan ministers resided to the episcopacy where men like George Abbott or John King sat – allowed for godly religion to set strong roots in the kingdom. If we take the perspective of some scholars, we could conclude that this all simply shaped a broad-based Protestant religion that defined ‘mainstream’ religion in the period, a ‘mainstream’ in which religious differences were less significant than commonalities. However, this perspective runs the danger of ignoring or erasing the subtleties and nuances of the personal piety practised by people like Elizabeth Isham, a person for whom the terms ‘Puritan’ or ‘godly’ have much application when we shift our attention particularly to the internal aspects of her religion.

A PURITAN STYLE OF PIETY While it is certainly true that the members of her family were central to her existence, God was nonetheless perhaps the most significant figure in Elizabeth’s life, especially in relation to the interiority of that life. This is clear in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, a document in which Calvinism, if not Puritanism has left an indelible mark. Elizabeth’s sense of salvation rested on a concept of predestination in which God, because of his omnipotence, had determined who the recipients of his grace were. The beneficiaries of this grace were God’s saints, the elect whose faith in him and the redeeming qualities of Christ destined them to experience the glory and paradise of the Kingdom of Heaven. However, it was no easy task to determine who such individuals were, since the godly believed that people could do nothing to ensure their own salvation. Put simply, it was only God who held the keys to Heaven’s gates. Yet, while only God knew for certain who was saved or damned, this did not prevent godly individuals from seeking assurances in their lives to determine whether indeed they were among the elect, practising in the process self-examination or what R.T. Kendall has called ‘experimental 201

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predestination’.51 In many regards, Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ was a testament of such self-examination in action. We have seen that a major stimulus for the production of her autobiography was Elizabeth’s concerns over her own death, concerns that began around a year after her sister’s died in 1636. To prepare herself for the afterlife, Elizabeth chose to examine her existence, doing so by writing a retrospective lifenarrative modelled on Augustine’s Confessions. Similar to Augustine, Elizabeth placed her self-perceived struggle with temptation and sin at the centre of her narrative. An exercise in the creation and deployment of memory, her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ enabled her to recall, recast, and recount her life as a story of the interrelations between a just and merciful God and one of his elect saints. In this respect she began her account deep within her own childhood, dwelling on sins that she committed in her youth. As we know, these transgressions came in the form of multiple episodes of theft, with her stealing such items as a primer and fruit. Yet, for Elizabeth, the theft was not her only nor even her greatest transgression, since desire for the fruit derived from gluttony, a sin that she recalled as all too typical of her childhood self. On her own account, Elizabeth had not been eager to share with others. We have seen how her mother had allowed her a private closet, which she used not only to read privately but to hoard pears, much to the disapproval of her father: my mother let me keep a closet to my selfe, wherein I kept pares to dish out for the table, my father enjoining me that I should eat no pares, but they tempting me euery time I saw them, I should take one, hauing som regard to my fathers command; thinking that if I offended not in the number, I did well enough, but after I passed funder & took my part of many that was somwhat perished, so by this means I was satisfied of what I would in these things I scaped without the offence of my parents not knowing what I did in secret.

Thus, not only had Elizabeth been gluttonous, she had been deceptive and disobedient. Offering final comment on these youthful transgressions, Elizabeth wrote: ‘my conscience hath often reproved me for these & other [such] things’.52 She also found fault with her devotional practices as a child. Remembering when she was around twelve years old, Elizabeth recounted: ‘I haue bin animated to doe thee [God] seruice as for the good example I had of others & for the knowledge that thou gauest me of thy power whereby I feared thee for as thou art a father … so art thou also a Lord & a reuenger to punish them which will not obay.’ Such fear made Elizabeth more dutiful in her service to God, but also caused her to severely judge her childhood self: ‘at these times to often I confesse I serued rather out of feare of punishment to my selfe … which was a seruell kind of feare & not so much for thine own sake … & serue thee for loue as I ought to haue done’. Elizabeth blamed these spiritual failings on her youth: ‘being a child I serued thee my God out of 202

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good intention, being ignorante of those things which now I know better, then my seruice was more verball but now more cordiall, my understanding & affections [now] being stronger’. Looking back on her childhood piety, Elizabeth used it as a means to reflect on her more mature devotion of God as a grown woman. Elizabeth, however, could not help but admit that there was still room for improvement as an adult: ‘Although thou [God] hast increased stren[g]th in my soule [since being a child], yet I deplore my owne weaknes of faith & loue towards thee.’53 Besides bemoaning the weakness of her faith, Elizabeth reproached herself for sins committed in her later life. Remembering when she was twenty-eight, Elizabeth noted she still suffered from a number of temptations. In particular, she confessed she often succumbed to being too self-centred and envious of others: ‘[I had] enuious thoughts thinking much that others should fair better or as well as my selfe & not being so glad as I might be for the good of others as for my selfe.’ She also thought too highly of herself: ‘the most that posest me was vaine thoughts or vaine things & selfe conceit … I found them the worse because they many times interrupted me in good duties’.54 Elizabeth continued to have what she considered sinful thoughts over the next few years, resulting in her confessing: ‘now impure thoughts haue troubled me to apply thy most holy Name to filthy things besides to scoffe at thee & thy Name’. Besides scoffing at God and having impure thoughts, she also at times doubted the concept of the Holy Trinity: ‘I haue bine temted to the disuniting of the Blessed Trinity (or not to esteeme one person [God, Christ, or the Holy Spirit] so well as another).’55 These desires and sins, so Elizabeth believed, originated from her own self, but like many godly individuals, she often interpreted her struggles against temptation as a literal battle with Satan.56 Of course, Satan had long held a key place in western Christianity, with the Roman Church since its early beginnings stressing the corruptible agency of the devil. To combat this agency, the Church offered a number of means of intercession in the form of ceremonies, such as baptism and exorcism. Catholic believers, like their Protestant counterparts from the sixteenth century onward, could also turn to prayer to defend against the devil’s assaults. Unlike Protestants, however, these prayers could ask for the intercession not only of God but also assistance from the numerous saints that existed in the Roman Church. Moreover, it was common for Catholics to think of Satan as a being who could take corporeal form, often with physical attributes that combined both human and animal characteristics. In such forms, the devil conjured up mischief and misery, often tempting people to engage in immoral acts. To be sure, this image carried a great deal of cultural weight in England, for even after the Reformation, popular conceptions continued to hold that the devil could take the form of a corporeal being who tormented humanity and entered into pacts with individuals who did his bidding for a worldly reward. There is 203

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perhaps no better illustration of how this belief manifested in reality than the witch-craze that gripped early modern Europe, including England and its American colonies, in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.57 Yet, despite the persistent convictions in the corporeal abilities of Satan, Protestant theologians, from the very onset of the Reformation, painted a far different picture of the prince of darkness. Instead of viewing him as a creature who could take physical and temporal form, emphasis turned to depict the devil as more of a spiritual being whose primary objective was to enter directly into a person’s mind and plant transgressive and tempting thoughts that produced sinful acts and behaviour. Indeed, Martin Luther found that Satan’s objective was to produce illusions in the mind, illusions meant to generate doubt about God and Christ’s saving grace. The notion existed not only in Germany, but throughout the rest of Western Europe where Protestantism spread. It proved particularly intense in the hands of the godly in England – the belief in the devil as primarily a spiritual being who wreaked havoc on the thoughts of God’s children accorded nicely with the importance they placed on sin and its relation to the assurance of salvation. For Puritans, the root of all sin rested in the mind, and it therefore became extremely important for a godly individual to monitor his or her mental state and recognize when sinful thoughts occurred so as to keep them in check. The most powerful originator of these thoughts was Satan, who planted them within the mind in the hope that they would lead to sinful acts. In keeping with Calvinist beliefs, Puritans stressed that God, with the interest of testing the faith of the true believer, allowed the devil the role of tempter who infused the mind with enticing and sinful thoughts. Faced with these mental temptations, the individual needed to recognize Satan’s assaults and turn to God for his protection. The most effective means of acquiring this protection was through prayer, an act that caused the individual to surrender himself wholly into God’s hands in order to combat the despair that she or he felt from the afflictions produced by the devil. People, so the godly thought, should repeat this process of recognizing and then resisting the devil’s assaults over and over again throughout their lives. Those who did not were doomed, forever destined to reprobation.58 Elizabeth Isham clearly subscribed to such beliefs, for she made multiple references throughout her autobiography to her personal struggles with the devil. He was a being whom she envisaged preyed on the godly in times of their spiritual weakness: ‘Our aduersary the deuil is not ignorant of his fittest oppertunity, but is alwayes watchful to overthrow us when wee are at the weakest.’59 Typically, she located the earliest of her experiences with the devil in her childhood. Before she was even eight years old, she suffered from troubling dreams: ‘I well remember the fearful dreames of fighting with the deuill … since I have thought it sum sin of those many conflictes [with Satan] which I have sustaned.’60 The devil also tempted her while she 204

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was conscious; at the age of ten she overheard Lady Isham reading scripture to her maids: I hearing some descorses of that place of Scripture, wherein Jobs wife temted him, saying curse God & die; this word so ran in my mind, the Deuill darting it into mee … diuers times before I could at the present resest him of calling upon thee my God that I thought I had through my necligence by my too much yeelding, commited that foule sin of blaspheme against the holy Ghost, which should neuer be forgiuen, thus the deuill would haue driuen me to despare.61

Here was the devil tempting Elizabeth to curse God and then using that initial temptation to entice her further with despair for having committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. When she was a grown woman, Elizabeth subsequently found that she was more ready to combat Satan’s plots. Remembering reaching the age of twenty-four, she recalled: ‘as I take it by this time I had learned to reply more swiftly to those asalts of Satan using those words of our Sauior, auoide Satan … & not to pause or parlye with him, this way I found to be most safe & my enemy soonest quell[ed]’.62 Despite her breakthrough, the moment did not mark the end of the torment that she experienced at the devil’s hands. In 1637, the fiend had been present in her mind while she read the Bible and heard sermons at church: ‘yea in the distractions of prayer & hearing of thy word, I haue obserued the subtiltie of Satan how he would thrust in other good motions and meditations upon me unseasonably or purpose to hinder me in present holy business’.63 On another occasion, Satan invaded her thoughts when she partook in one of her favourite pastimes, clothwork: ‘when I was about my worke I could perceue when Satan began to tempt me which I thought first was a kinde of numnes in my soule or sences’. Once again, Elizabeth found the devil ready to lure her to despair: ‘Then a temtation which if I through my own slothfulnes did not resist quickly, I yeelded then (many times) he [Satan] would tempte me with desperation.’ Unable to defend herself, Elizabeth often sang Psalms: ‘Now (then) many times being wares of his plots, when my soule began to be numned I should lift up or rasie my soule to thee [God] with singing of psalmes which I found to be very beneficiall unto me.’64 Facing despair, Elizabeth thus turned to God for his helping hand. It certainly was not the last time that she took this action. Throughout her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ Elizabeth admitted her own spiritual inadequacy and corruption. The medium through which she sought to express such feelings was prayer. Considering herself a fallen creature, Elizabeth believed that only God’s forgiveness could cleanse her of her sinfulness. Rejecting human works as a way to acquire divine mercy or salvation, she sought confirmation of her own elect status by recognizing her sinfulness and her spiritual impotence in the face of God’s justice. In short, prayer was the ultimate means for Elizabeth to confess her sins and to admit her complete reliance on the healing effects of God’s grace for salvation.65 From a 205

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young age she had recognized the importance of prayer: ‘About this time being as I take it the eight year of my age, I came to a fuller knowledge of thee, that whereas before I apprehended thee to be glorious in thy self that thou wert God … now I understood that thou wert able both to hear and help us.’66 At first, she had sought such help to escape parental punishment for trivial offences, such as the loss of her sewing needle: ‘I wel remember my praying unto thee to a voyde my mothers displeasure, euen for my needle when I had lost it.’67 From the perspective of her adult self, Elizabeth found much to criticize about her youthful prayers: ‘I haue considered of my praying when I was a yong child unto thee and thought it better not to haue done it.’ This regret stemmed from Elizabeth’s sense that as a child she had not prayed with enough knowledge and reverence: ‘I uttered a vocall kind of seruis[e] talking like a parrit rather of custom then deuotion, and little better after more of devotion then of knowledge, speaking words too wonderful for mee.’68 While all this served as a condemnation of a certain sort of rote learning, and the mindless repetition of set prayer, it did not lead Elizabeth entirely to condemn her childhood efforts: ‘yet upon consideration I think better of this early seruing of thee my God, perceiuing the inclination of children to be apt to learn that which is not so good and to reioyce in it’.69 Thus Elizabeth was grateful that she had learned to ask for God’s mercy through the means of prayer, even though she did not always perform it as properly as she had wished. Having learned the value and importance of prayer, she did not fail to apply such learning when combating her various temptations and sins as an adult. This is clear toward the end of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’, for there Elizabeth poured forth numerous prayers to God for a litany of sins. In particular, she believed that she had offended God by not displaying a proper reverence for the Sabbath. Ashamed, she prayed: ‘pardon me I beseech thee & grant from henceforth … that thereby I may receiue thy blessing whereby they [Sabbaths] may be sanctified & profitable & delightfull to me’. Elizabeth felt that the Lord’s Day was essential to her piety, and asked for God’s assistance in observing it better. She also called on his mercy when relating her frequent thoughts of ‘atheism’ and mistrust in God: ‘Lord I humbly pray in mercy to pardon in me the sin of Athisme, infidillity, distrustfullnes, inconstancy in good scoffing at it my dullnes & weaknes in not resisting the temtations of Satan.’ Moreover, Elizabeth pleaded for mercy for the grand cause of her infidelity: ‘Lord I humbly beseech thee to pardon wherein I haue broken any of thy commadement[s] … wherein I haue any waies offended in thought or word & deede against thy diuine Majestie whether they be sinns of comission or of action.’ Bringing these prayers to a conclusion, Elizabeth begged: ‘O merciful God pardon these sinnes which I haue confessed to thee and many more which I am unable to resite.’70 By the time she wrote this plea, Elizabeth had come to view all her temptations and transgressions as an inevitable consequence of living in a fallen 206

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world: ‘I perceiue I shall be still troubled as long as I am in this tabernacle or house of clay whose foundation is in the dust and subiect to temtation by reason of manifold infermities.’ Yet Elizabeth extracted hope from this, pointing to Hebrews 4:15 and reminding herself that even Christ suffered from temptations: ‘my onely refuge & comfort is we haue not an high pri[e]st [Christ] which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infermities but was in all things tempted in the like sort’.71 Addressing this theme again in another section of her autobiography, Elizabeth cited Hebrews 2:18: ‘In that he [Christ] suffered and was temted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.’ Although Christ ultimately had not succumbed to temptation, he had nonetheless experienced the most intense of temporal sufferings. This gave Elizabeth comfort; after all, if even Christ had suffered pain and misery, what could the godliest of his servants expect? Furthermore, if they followed his example and subsequently interpreted their own afflictions correctly, they could turn even the most dreadful suffering and soul threatening temptation to their spiritual benefit: ‘God is faithfull, who will not suffer you to be tempted aboue that you are able but will euen giue the issue with the temtation that ye may be able to bear it also.’72 All of this suffering and sin brought the true believer closer to God. As she wrote: ‘I remember my affliction[s] … my soule hath them in rememberance & is humbled in me I had the better experience of thy power & iustice whereby I feared thee and of thy mercy whereby my loue was increased to thee [and] my faith was strengthened in thee & my selfe & others was bettered to serue thee.’73 By acknowledging her sins and turning to God, Elizabeth felt she received his mercy, even though she admitted it sometimes proved a struggle: ‘thy goodnes & mercy neuer decayeth, thou seemest to hidest thy face from me to teach me to seeke that you maiest enlighten me with thy greater power & vertue’. Thus, while she endured afflictions and despair because of her sins, Elizabeth struggled hard to regard this suffering as God’s way of increasing her faith in him. She expressed as much when she found her prayers unanswered at times: ‘tho[ugh] sometimes thou deferrest thy comfort & the granting of our request, it is to teach us to perseuer[e] that we may feele thy Holy Spirit’.74 Essentially, the struggle increased the desire to have God bestow his mercy – without spiritual pain there could be no spiritual gain. This notion typified Elizabeth’s piety, something that she captured in the following prayer: Behold me Lord as thy creature, thy handy worke and as one of them for whom thou sendest thy sonne to redeeme, therefore I dout not but with him to receiue remission of sinnes & all things also; Now if thou pardon, thy mercy shall appeare … for if we acknowledge our sinnes (with purpose to amend) thou art faithfull to forgiue them, to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse.75

Here Elizabeth recognized not only the power of God, but also his love for his earthly children. As long as they identified their transgressions, he was 207

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more than willing to offer his mercy and helping hand to raise them out of their sinfulness by means of his grace. The patterns of Elizabeth’s prayers offer a potent illustration of her acute sensitivity and conviction of the role of God’s omnipotence and providence. So awed was she by his power that she ultimately submitted herself to his will: ‘in all earthly things I haue ropossed my whole confidence in thy prouidence which knowest better what to giue then wee to aske’.76 Yet surrendering her will could make Elizabeth anxious over whether she pleased God with her actions. This is illustrated by her experience with the possibility of wedlock. We know how it was a difficult choice for her not to marry, since she had developed a deep affection for John Dryden, an affection that she believed led God to sour the match because she had come to love her suitor more than God himself. And we have seen that thereafter she turned her back on the prospect of marriage in order to avoid offending her heavenly father. While the most striking example of her belief in providence, her refusal to marry was not an isolated case of such trust in God’s will. Recalling when she was twenty-four – only two years after the dissolution of the Isham– Dryden match – she noted: ‘Now many times I had a paine in my right thigh … so that I feared I should be lame.’ Elizabeth’s religious sensibilities psychologically compounded her physical discomfort because she believed that the pain was the result of God’s judgement against her for insufficiently fighting against the devil’s temptations: ‘I thought Lord it was thy iust iudgment on me for yeelding & not striuing so much as I should haue don against Satans temtations.’77 Thus, not only did her fear of the devil lead her to despair but she also found in him a ready cause of God’s providential punishment for her spiritual weakness to combat the prince of darkness. The fear, however, of divine judgement did not overshadow her overall conviction that his providence benefited her soul, a conviction clearly expressed near the end of her autobiography: Doutlesse there is a God that iudgeth in the earth. If I goe within the dores of my owne flesh I find thy [God’s] prouidence wonderfull towards me that euen at the very same time of the pitts brinke of despare thou shouldest comfort, for I haue found thine owne words according to truth fit for me, yea & if I call to mind former times, I haue found the experience of thy goodnesse toward me by mine inlargments in praire & successe thereafter … & when I said … I am cast out of thy sight yet thou hardest the voice of my prair when I cried to thee.78

Once again, in her despair Elizabeth turned to God, trusting that his providence would pull her away from the ‘pitts brinke’ of anguish over her transgressions. Abandoning any thought that she held any free will, Elizabeth instead trusted the will of God. Her belief in predestination preconditioned such trust. She had long been conversant in the doctrine of predestination, and clearly made a distinction between the reprobate and the elect. The origin of this 208

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awareness, like most things in her life, emerged during her childhood. In the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, she admitted that from a very early age she had a strong desire to be among God’s chosen: ‘about this time hearing and understanding of the Blessedness of euerlasting life and of the unspeakable ioyes thereof, it being the finall end & chefest good, which thou Lord hast prepared for thine elect’.79 When in her late twenties Elizabeth came to worry over her own death, the ‘unspeakable joys’ of heaven naturally flooded her thoughts: ‘I was angry with my selfe that I should be so loth to goe to thee [God], considering thy Blessed saints haue desired to be desolued & to be with thee I found if I was prepared I should be willing with ioy to render me selfe into thy hands.’80 Crucial to such preparation was a natural inclination and desire to repent for one’s transgressions and sins. Elizabeth explicitly articulated her belief in this notion when recalling how the spiritual trials she experienced during her courtship with John Dryden had led to self-doubt about her salvation: ‘for a space of time [I] felt no difference betwext my selfe and a reprobate’. She overcame such doubt by assuring herself that the elect repent for their transgressions while the reprobate do not: ‘for there is not that custome that bindeth ingratitude and locketh impenitency … in the Godly as in the wicked’.81 It is little wonder then that Elizabeth laboured to be a penitent child of God and to live a righteous life. After all, she believed the desire to do so was a crucial trait of the elect and a sign that they were the recipients of God’s grace: ‘grant that I may so laber here that I may receiue the reweared promissed to thine elect of thy free mercy and goodness’.82 She gained resolve from this belief, praising God and those he destined for salvation: ‘All honor & praise be giuen to thee [God] for thy Saints whose death is precious in thy sight.’83 Elizabeth ultimately felt that God included her amongst such saints. Refusing to marry, she claimed to have chosen what she characterized as a ‘private life’, but she was adamant that she had not completely withdrawn from the world to lead just an internal existence. For all the intensity of her private devotions, she insisted that she nonetheless found great joy in the company of the elect: ‘Yet I speake not [of] this [priuate life] that I dislike of company specially of those that are thine, for my delight is with the Saints that are upon earth counting them the greatest earthly felicity and some of my kindred or frinds in whom I haue found good company haue not parted from me without my teares.’84 With these words, Elizabeth expressed her sense that the elect were a visible community to which she, her family, and friends belonged and from which she drew ‘the greatest earthly felicity’ in an impure and fallen world. Along with her beliefs on sin, patterns of prayer, desires for divine mercy, struggles with Satan, and convictions on providence, Elizabeth’s sense of predestination and the elect make her internal religious persuasion look very much Puritan. Indeed, if we did not have evidence in both her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ or the Isham papers pointing to the contrary, we could 209

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possibly come to the conclusion that, similar to many Puritans, the interiority of her piety likely made her averse to the liturgical patterns and rhythms of the Book of Common Prayer or that her godly sensibilities would have led her to become a supporter of Parliament’s cause during the Civil Wars. Neither scenario, of course, was the case, since Elizabeth’s external devotion found expression in both the Prayer Book and the House of Stuart, two forms of devotion that were also a manifestation of deep convictions within her internal self. Yet perhaps the most striking evidence of her royalism rests in the historical memory that does not sit within the pages of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ but rather within the random manuscripts related to her life found within the Isham papers. As we know, Elizabeth produced her ‘confessions’ between 1638 and 1639, and thus we are beholden to the remnants of her life in the family collection to gain any sense of the approximately final fifteen years of her existence prior to her death in 1654. Such a reality raises the potential for us to speculate – as Elizabeth Clarke has done – that Elizabeth Isham’s piety and religious identity, based on what we know about her royalism, changed and became more Laudian in orientation. Of course, jumping to such a conclusion seems somewhat reckless when considering the ambiguity that could exist between religious beliefs, political loyalties, and choosing sides in the civil wars. Furthermore, it does not take into consideration powerful evidence of her piety in the Isham papers that suggests the continuity of her internal religious beliefs throughout her life. To understand this continuity, we must again turn to her engagement with the written word.

RELIGIOUS IDENTITY AND DEVOTIONAL READING If we can confidently assert that Elizabeth Isham’s Puritan style of internal piety was not just a manifestation of her devotional practices as captured in ‘Booke of Rememberance’ c.1639 but also continued on until her death in 1654, we must juxtapose the historical memory found in its pages with that which exists within the Isham papers. There is perhaps no better means of doing so than to return to an examination of her reading practices as found in her autobiography and the two lists of books she owned, one of which we know she produced in May 1648, nearly a decade after she completed her ‘confessions’. Engagement with the written word was a central pastime for all the Ishams of Lamport Hall, not least of whom was Elizabeth, with books and reading greatly shaping both her interiority and exteriority that we view within the pages of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Considering her family context, it is little wonder that this should be the case, since the Ishams of Lamport Hall were a bibliophilic family, with reading and texts often serving as the glue to interactions and relationships in the household. This glue proved essential to Elizabeth’s memory of her family and her place within that family, as her recollections of her education, aural reading with female 210

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kin, disagreements over romantic literature with her father, Justinian Isham providing books as gifts, and her keen interest in household medicine attests. While her engagement with romantic literature or the acquisition of medical knowledge points to interests in non-religious literature, devotional motives nonetheless sat at the heart of most or all of Elizabeth’s reading during her life. There is no starker expression of this reality than the evidence of the autodidactic and private reading of devotional literature found in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ or the fact that the vast majority of books that she owned were religious in orientation. In other words, it is safe to say that Elizabeth’s literary tastes and reading practices were overwhelmingly devotional. Consequently, the authors and content of the works that she read provide us with further means to understand her religious beliefs and piety. What becomes profoundly evident is the devotional nature of Elizabeth’s reading related to a literary phenomenon in the late sixteenth century. We must remember that although communal religious life that revolved around the parish church was significant to contemporaries’ spiritual lives, it was not necessarily always the driving force that defined people’s personal piety and devotional practices. Equally important was what scholars have come to call the ‘pietist turn’ in English Protestantism that first emerged in the late Elizabethan period and came to fruition during the early seventeenth century. Largely an extension of their attempt to promote further religious reform from within the national Church after failing to withstand opposition led by such clerics as John Whitgift, moderate Puritans shifted – roughly in the 1590s – much of their focus to shaping the internal piety of the laity. Naturally Calvinist in its theological orientation, the approach attracted many other divines, who in turn extolled its virtues in both sermons and guidebooks that became immensely popular. The outcome was the emergence of the literary backbone of the godly introspective piety of self-examination or ‘experimental predestinarianism’ that a number of scholars have argued became widespread by the 1630s.85 Thus, not only did Calvinism come to have an enormous doctrinal influence on the national church, but it also sank broad and deep roots into lay piety. Therefore, if a form of ‘mainstream’ Protestantism existed to which the majority adhered, then the internal aspects of this Protestantism must have had a definite Calvinist, if not Puritan tinge to it. We can place the majority of the books that Elizabeth owned around 1648 squarely in this ‘pietist turn’ in English devotional literature. Indeed, she had a personal copy of the widely popular A Garden of Spiritual Flowers, a collection of treatises on the cultivation of personal piety by such eminent clerics as Richard Rogers, William Perkins, Richard Greenham, and Miles Mosse. All these men had the reputation of being serious and precise clerics and were largely responsible for creating many of the traditions that defined Puritan practical divinity in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Amongst Elizabeth’s books we also find A Most Comfortable and Christian Dialogue Between the Lord and the Soul, in which the godly and Scottish bishop 211

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of Galloway, William Cowper, discussed the soul’s struggle with sin and Satan while it reaches out to Christ through prayer and meditation, subject matter that clearly paralleled Elizabeth’s own devotional practices. Within her personal library was also the work of John Brinsley – a Leicestershire Puritan minister and schoolmaster who in 1604 called for further reforms of the national church – particularly his The True Watch, and Rule of Life, a manual on the necessity of constant self-examination throughout life. Closer to home, Elizabeth also owned a number of tracts by Northamptonshire clergy, including posthumous works credited to Edward Lord Montagu’s staunchly godly cleric, Robert Bolton, and sermons by the steadfast anti-Laudian, Daniel Cawdrey. Both these men had been active in the Kettering combination lecture patronized by Montagu in the early seventeenth century, and Elizabeth possessed published sermons from this lecture, such as those preached in the 1630s by the moderate Puritan cleric, John Fosbroke. Her familiarity with the writings of other local moderate Puritans also included Edward Reynolds’ Three Treatises of the Vanity of the Creature, a collection of sermons centred on the life of Christ. Besides the fact that all of these works were devotional and revolved around practical divinity, their other commonality was they were by authors with definite godly credentials. This seemingly was no coincidence, for Elizabeth’s two book lists from the late 1640s leave the impression that she had an overall penchant for Puritan authors, with titles by a number of other godly notables like John Preston, John Dod, Richard Sibbes, Robert Cleaver, Samuel Hieron, Eusebius Pagitt, John Nordon, Richard Capel, Richard Bernard, and Thomas Goodwin. If we keep in mind that Elizabeth continued to own these books in the late 1640s – and also finding them important enough to write down that they were her property – it is more than reasonable to assert that her piety remained Calvinist and godly in its devotional orientation in the latter years of her life.86 Yet her book lists nonetheless reveal literary tastes that brought confessional ambiguity to such an orientation. Perhaps nothing captures this better than the curious notations on one of the lists that Elizabeth owned the manuscript writings of the local ministers of Lamport. We have seen that she bequeathed John Goodman money in her will, and it appears that she also owned a manuscript tract that she called ‘Private Devotions’ that he apparently penned during his tenure as the Rector of Lamport. In addition, while she rarely, if ever mentioned in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ her interaction with William Nokes – Goodman’s predecessor – she nonetheless seems to have respected his clerical abilities. Indeed, she owned four or five manuscript sermons by the conformist minister who had clear ties to no less a Laudian than Francis Dee, and who found himself sequestered from his living at Great Addington by Parliament in 1644.87 Unfortunately, we have no idea what the content of these sermons may have been – nor do we know for certain what she found attractive in Goodman’s manuscript tract – largely because they seem to date after the production of the ‘Booke of 212

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Rememberance’ and that she made no mention of them in any other records. If we, however, view Goodman and Nokes, based on their associations, as Caroline conformists or Laudians, we may infer that Elizabeth was not strictly a precise woman belonging solely in the company of radical Puritan zealots. A similar impression emerges when we turn to the printed works that she not only owned but also referenced in her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. We only need turn to her ownership and reading of Henry Mason’s Cure of Cares, a work that we have already seen proved instrumental in her decision to put pen to paper and write her ‘confessions’. It was a gift from her brother, who presented Elizabeth with the book during her trials and tribulations in the aftermath of the failed match with John Dryden II. Considering Justinian’s religious sensibilities, it is perhaps small wonder why he gave his sister the book. A number of scholars have argued that Mason was a staunch Arminian in the early Stuart period, a fact that may have contributed to him joining the likes of Nokes and many other Caroline conformists who found themselves ejected from their clerical livings in the 1640s. Some historians have claimed that by that time Mason had a publication record – his tract, God’s Love to Mankind, perhaps being the most noteworthy – that had major echoes of or associations with Arminianism. Indeed, the Cure of Cares, first published in August 1627, enjoyed licence with the Stationers’ Company under the hand of Dr Thomas Worrall, chaplain to the then Bishop of London, staunch Arminian, and eventual Archbishop of York, George Montaigne.88 Yet, when we scratch the surface of Mason’s history, he begins to look like a much more complicated figure than a man whom scholars have branded as a Laudian or Arminian. During his early career, he was chaplain to none other than John King, bishop of London and the author of the inspirational and spiritually comforting book for Elizabeth – Lectures upon Ionas. If ever there was a poster child for the so-called Calvinist consensus of the Jacobean church, King fits the bill. After all, an evangelical prelate, he was well known by contemporaries for his preaching and espousing the merits of Calvinist doctrine in particularly the pulpits of London and in print. Moreover, thanks to the meticulous examination of London’s religious and confessional environment made by Peter Lake and David Como, we now know that King proved active in what they have characterized as the city’s fissiparous and dynamic Puritan underground. Mason’s link to King brought him into the orbit of this underground, and ensured that the bishop’s chaplain, as a young man, very much associated, if not identified with many of the leading Calvinist conformists or moderate Puritans of the early Stuart period.89 On such evidence, it is clear that Mason was an ambiguous figure, and, if indeed an Arminian, certainly was not of the exact religious cut as men like Richard Montague or Peter Heylyn. Examining the actual content of the Cure of Cares illustrates this further, since in the book we find a virtual absence of anything that resembles the principles of the ‘beauty of holiness’ or a sacerdotal message. Rather, the book is a ‘how-to’ manual for pious practices meant to assuage spiritual despair 213

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and misgivings revolving around earthly concerns, an orientation that resembled many of the other texts in the vein of the ‘pietist turn’. Overall, the central theme in Mason’s book is an asceticism and distrust for the cares of the temporal world, a world that breeds only despair and diverts a person away from God: ‘They busie and vexe men withe excessive toile, and yet they no way help him, or make him any recompense for his paines.’90 Focus needed to instead be on the spiritual world and a steadfast faith in God’s providence, so Mason stressed with the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac: ‘this is the end of those, that dare trust God in their trials, and with cheerfulnesse can follow him through their troubles. Let us then imitate Abrahams faith, and wee shall partake also of his blessinge’.91 Meditation brought a person to a fuller understanding of God’s will and mercy, a message, as we have seen, that accorded nicely with Elizabeth Isham’s decision to begin her spiritual autobiography and likely why Mason’s work inspired her to engage in lifewriting. The attraction to his book, however, surely went well beyond this, since we find in the tract further and striking parallels between both his prescription for coping with despair and Elizabeth’s Puritan style of piety. Indeed, for Mason, meditation led the faithful towards a comprehension of the virtues of the trials and tribulations that God brought upon his children, for they ultimately melted hearts and instilled a full recognition of utter spiritual impotency vis-à-vis divine providence. Such recognition prompted prayer for loving mercy and grace, a grace only achieved through a complete relenting to the redeeming qualities of Christ’s sacrifice, as Mason illustrated with Philippians 4:7: ‘And therefore, when cares take hold on us, instead of musing, wee should fall to praying. And then the peace of God, which passeth all understanding will preserve our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ’.92 Considering how Mason’s words mirrored Elizabeth’s devotional practices, combined with the fact that she first looked upon them at the time of perhaps her greatest earthly trial – the prospect of marriage – there is little doubt then why she found his book useful and why it ended up not only in the catalogue of the books she owned but also garnered mention in the pages of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Mason may have had a complicated and ambiguous confessional identity but to Elizabeth all that mattered was the religious message he extolled in his devotional manual. We find parallels and similarities with another author and book that she read and owned – Daniel Featley’s Ancilla pietatis: or, the Hand-Maid to Priuate Deuotion.93 Featley had also served as a client to John King in London, and had ties to the Puritan ‘underground’ of the city but, unlike Mason, maintained a steadfast opposition to Arminianism. Indeed, he faced ecclesiastical censure during the 1630s, something that he addressed at Laud’s trial in 1644, a time in which he also sat as a member of the Assembly of Divines. Yet Featley served as a royal chaplain during the Personal Rule and faced intense opposition from his congregation at the outbreak of the civil war, resulting in his ejection from the parish living of Lambeth in 1643.94 Clearly Calvinist, 214

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if not godly, Featley nonetheless strikes a complex confessional figure. This is clearly evident when we turn to his views on the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer, particularly his commentary in the Hand-Maid. Within its pages, Elizabeth found a kindred spirit in regards to the observance of saints’ days and other religious holidays, as Featley’s reaction to criticism of such observance attests: I have much marveled what the reason might bee that they undertaking to fit prayers and devotions to severall seasons, and special occasions, baulked the Christian fasts and feasts. For albeit the Saints daies might fare the worse with them, because Popish superstition overcloyed them, which yet is an abuse of arguing to argue from the abuse to the abolishing the right use. By this meanes they might take from us the use of all Gods creatures, because they have been superstitiously or profanely abused some way or other.95

Here Featley asserted that to advocate abolishing all feast days and religious holidays essentially threw the baby out with the bath water. Yes, Catholics may have abused these days, falsely edifying them by shrouding them in superstition, but the days nonetheless had enormous spiritual value. After all, Scripture divinely sanctioned these religious occasions: God in the old Law beside the Sabbath appointed yearly and monethly solemnities. It is true the ordinance in particular was ceremoniall, but the ground in generall was morall, to imprint the more deeply his benefits in their mindes, to assemble the people for the hearing the Law, to testifie their ioy, and delight in his seruice … May not the Church appoint the like, to eternize the memory of spirituall blessings and actuall deliuerances, not of one nation only, but the whole company of Gods elect?96

We find echoes of Elizabeth’s views on religious holidays in Featley’s words, and indeed she cited his work in the margins of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ when discussing the value of holy feasts: ‘Daniel Featly in his booke the hand[maid to priuate deuotion]’.97 Conventional historical wisdom could find enormous incongruity between Featley and Elizabeth’s affinity for feasts and holy days and their Calvinist, if not godly convictions but to them both there obviously was nothing strange at all. As in her reading of Mason, all that mattered to Elizabeth was how Featley’s views touched a cord with her own religious beliefs. While he may appear to us, from a confessional standpoint, as an ambiguous figure, to her there was no ambiguity in his message in the Hand-Maide – feasts were good things and their observance should continue in perpetuity. Of course, she chose to both reference Featley’s book in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ in 1639 and to continue to own the text well into the late 1640s, suggesting that she held onto this religious belief in her later years. There were other books and authors for whom she did the same, and many of these writers presented a less ambiguous confessional pose than Mason 215

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or Featley. Indeed, the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ confirms an impression that emerges from her book lists – staunchly Puritan writers proved very attractive to Elizabeth’s religious and literary tastes and seemingly either influenced or reinforced her godly style of piety. From her book lists, we know that she owned two posthumous publications of sermons that the Puritan cleric, John Preston, preached before Charles I in the 1620s.98 The ‘Booke of Rememberance’ provides a glimpse of the application of these sermons in her life. As we have seen, when she neared the age of twenty-seven, she began to deeply contemplate death and desired to prepare for the heavenly paradise promised to God’s saints. She believed that this desire was a sin, and her sister-in-law, Jane Isham, helped ease her despair over such transgression by reading to her a Preston sermon: I should haue bine too dull with the consideration of my owne unworthynesse if I had not bine exorted to it by a sermon of Doctor pres[t]ons, which I happened to here my Sister [Jane] Isham read. The text I take it was this I Samuel 12. 20, yea haue [I] indeed done all this wickednesse yet depart not from following the Lord.99

Elizabeth gained spiritual comfort from hearing her sister-in-law read Preston’s religious ruminations on how essential it was for an individual to never abandon hope in God’s mercy. In doing so, she applied the Ishams’ penchant for communal reading to confirm – through exposure to Preston’s exegesis – her trust in God’s will and divine forgiveness as a means to cope with and understand the internal spiritual struggles that she experienced in her late twenties. It was not the only time that aural reading of one of Preston’s sermons impacted Elizabeth, as her memory of a bout with the devil at the age of twenty-four illustrates: ‘my old enimie would haue had me thought that I was not yet in thy fauour for so much yeelding to his temtations against thee’. Suffering despair, Preston again brought relief, this time with his expounding on the book of Genesis: ‘I found great comfort in Doctor Prestons sermons good which my Sister read to mee, the texts was in Genesis 17.1 … where it is said thou art God all sufficient.’100 Again, Elizabeth gained confirmation of another personal belief from Preston, this one being that only through God’s mercy could she combat Satan’s assaults. Combined with her worries over death and sin, here is direct correlation between Elizabeth’s reading of a Puritan author and her own style of devotion and godly beliefs. When faced with similar anxiety, she proved ever willing to consult other Puritan authors. Such was the case in yet another assault by Satan, one that prompted her to reach for a book called Saint Pauls Triumph, or the Saints Coniunction with God by the godly John Randall: ‘I receiued comfort & instruction in the book of the saints coniunction with God which my mother had used’. Once again her mother’s influence on Elizabeth’s piety emerges, this time in relation to a book of practical divinity aimed at people with afflicted consciences.101 Elizabeth gained further comfort in times of distress from other godly divines, like William Cowper, whose books, we have seen, she 216

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owned. He particularly served her needs during her brother’s long absences from Lamport: ‘I passed the time with the more comfort passifing my selfe with the reading of Mr. Cowpers book of the 8 chapter to the Romans.’ Much like Randall’s book, Cowper’s Three Treaties Vpon the Eight Chapter to the Romans was a practical guide of piety that laid out the proper Calvinist steps for repentance and gaining assurance of salvation.102 Of course, based on her book lists, we know that Elizabeth was quite familiar with the forefathers – Rogers, Greenham, and Perkins – of such practical divinity, and her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ confirms that she read at least one of these authors prior to composing the autobiography. At the age of seventeen, so Elizabeth recalled, she grew to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity from The Workes of the Famous and Worthy Minister of Chirst … Mr. William Perkings: ‘I remember a while afore this it was a great ioy to apprehend the Blessed Trinity by that obserued out of Mr. Perkings workes … which he resembled to the sum body of the first person in the trinity the second to the light and the third to the heat.’103 Thus in seeking to clarify a theological question, Elizabeth turned to one of the most renowned Puritan thinkers in English history. If Perkins assisted her in understanding the mysteries of the Trinity, then other godly authors served a similar function in shaping her patterns and acts of prayer, acts that were not necessarily wedded to the Book of Common Prayer. Recalling when Lady Isham allowed her to read Henry Bull’s Christian Praiers and Holie Meditations at the age of twelve, Elizabeth noted using the prayer guide compiled by a Marian exile and associate of both John Foxe and Edmund Grindal: ‘[It] pleased me so well that I used almost euery day to writ something out of it (for some part of this yeere & the next) likewise I enioyed … sometimes praying out of it.’ Offering instruction on how to commune with the Almighty, Bull’s work fitted nicely with Elizabeth’s religious sensibilities and the place that prayer held in her devotional practices.104 Yet she refused to tie herself down to one prayer manual, for she also found attractive Thomas Sorocold’s The Supplication of Saints, a publication that first appeared in 1608 and went through multiple editions throughout the seventeenth century. Sorocold appears to have had a godly background – he ran in Lancashire circles that included Puritan nonconformists like William Leigh and Oliver Carter, and became a regular godly preacher in London after acquiring the rectory of St Mildred Poultry in 1590. As a young girl, Elizabeth utilized his The Supplication of Saints: ‘other whiles [I also read] out of the supplication of the Saints & other bookes as after pleased me not tieing my selfe alwaies to one Praire Booke for I found that viriaty quickened my Spirites’.105 While she was certainly open to a variety of prayer books or manuals that were not the Book of Common Prayer, Elizabeth nonetheless appears to have been drawn to those produced by men, such as Bull or Sorocold, who had godly affiliations. As with Bull’s work, Sorocold’s text reinforced Elizabeth’s belief in the essentiality of prayer, serving a practical function in her devotional 217

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practices. In other words, it reinforced the godly style of piety that she personally – and often privately – cultivated at Lamport Hall. Essentially, what we gain a glimpse of here is how Elizabeth autodidactically gleaned and fashioned much of her piety from the godly books she owned. An additional example of this was her reading of Samuel Smith, a moderate Puritan minster with ties to Richard Baxter. She placed great value in the former’s Christs Last Supper, a scriptural exposition in which the cleric expounded on the sacrament of communion.106 As she recalled: ‘I tooke much delight in my closet in reading Mr Smith … before I receiued the Sacrament.’ Once again we see Elizabeth reading devotional literature in her private closet, this time preparing herself for the Lord’s Supper. While remembering her experiences shortly after the dissolution of the Isham–Dryden match, Elizabeth also noted in a marginal citation how, after reading another book by Smith, she desired God’s favour and honour: ‘I desired the honner of God most & as I take in the 24 yere I desired Gods fauor most reading in Dauids Repentance written by Samuel Smith’.107 The book, Davids Repentance, was an exegesis of Psalm 51, which Smith highlighted when articulating what he felt was key to Calvinist piety and the essential need for proper recognition of sin: The first step to heauen, and the beginning of true repentance is this; for a man to bee grieued for his sins, to bee wounded in conseience for them; for till a man see his sinnes, and feele the burthen of them, and feare the curse of God due unto them: he will neuer repent and seeke the pardon of them. This is that godly sorrow, that leadeth to repentance.108

Here Smith’s words greatly mirrored Elizabeth’s personal piety, making it reasonable to speculate that she found his book attractive because it reinforced, if not informed her spiritual beliefs. Further parallels between Smith and Elizabeth’s piety are clear when considering his stress on the importance of prayer and God’s mercy: ‘Let us go unto God in prayer, intreate for mercy at his hands: Let us not go to Saints or Angels, or any other creature, saue God alone, in the name of Christ Jesus.’109 Typically godly, Smith thus stressed that only through the divine will of God could a person receive mercy and grace, a conviction, of course, that Elizabeth also held. As with the other books she owned and read, her engagement with Smith’s works creates the overall impression that Elizabeth’s book ownership and reading had a godly orientation greatly influenced by the so-called ‘pietist turn’ of the late Elizabethan and early Stuart periods. Her autodidactic reading was goal-oriented in this sense – as a woman profoundly focused on the cultivation of the internal aspects of her personal piety and personal relationship with God, Elizabeth found herself attracted to books that predominantly served the function of maximizing such cultivation. The authors of these books – Greenham, Rogers, Perkins, Preston, Cowper, Sorocold, and Smith – were more often than not Puritan and when she did read the works of other 218

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authors who were not as clearly godly, their confessional leanings were often ambiguous. We clearly observe this in relation to Mason and Featley, the former whom scholars often claim was an Arminian but nonetheless interacted with the ‘Puritan Underground’ in London and served as a client to John King, perhaps the embodiment of the ‘Calvinist Consensus’ during the reign of James I. Featley was also King’s client and, while he extolled the virtues of feasts as proper edifications of holy days, he nonetheless clearly held Calvinist and anti-Catholic credentials. As with the other authors that drew Elizabeth’s interests, Mason and Featley thus had godly associations despite sometimes displaying not as precise views as perhaps men like Preston or Smith. Yet what seemingly mattered most to Elizabeth was the religious messages that all of her authors extolled, messages that often accorded to her own pious sensibilities. In this regard, Elizabeth likely found, for example, Mason’s advice on how to cope with despair over sin not incongruous with Preston’s commentary on the same subject – both essentially offered a message that was deeply ascetic overall and geared towards a reverence of divine will and the spiritual world as opposed to corporeal will and temporal existence. Of course, Elizabeth also owned manuscript works by the local rectors Nokes and Goodman – both men with conformist, if not Laudian ties – but one suspects, when considering her literary tastes, that such works may have also accorded to her devotional beliefs and practices that combined a penchant for ceremony with a godly style of piety. As we shall see, our evidence of her actual interactions with ministers at Lamport Hall helps us underscore such a combination.

GODLINESS PERSONIFIED IN THE ISHAM HOUSEHOLD With Elizabeth Isham, we are dealing with a woman deeply attached to the Book of Common Prayer and the rhythms of the English Church but who also cultivated an internal spiritual life that bore many of the marks usually associated with Puritanism. Despite what conventional wisdom might have us believe, we should not view such a combination as necessarily unusual for the period, especially in Elizabeth’s case. Indeed, it may, dare say, only seem natural – if she owed much of her fondness for the Prayer Book to her parents, she owed much of her Puritanism to the same source. As we have seen, Lady Isham took an active part in educating her children, teaching them to read and exposing them to godly devotional literature. Yet such education did not always occur through instruction but also by example. After all, Elizabeth witnessed first-hand her mother’s intense soteriological doubts and crises, and turned to Lady Isham’s own spiritual writings for inspiration when producing the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Moreover, Lady Isham’s spiritual troubles opened the door for Elizabeth to interact with one of the most noted godly divines in all early Stuart England – the radical and 219

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nonconforming minister, John Dod. Growing close to Lady Isham largely because of the effectiveness of his spiritual ministrations, Dod became a trusted and regular guest at Lamport Hall up to the death of Elizabeth’s mother in 1625 and subsequently also served as a broker in the Isham-Dryden marriage negotiations. So trusted was Dod that Lady Isham and Sir John allowed him to provide religious instruction to the Isham children. Recalling when she was ten, Elizabeth noted that Dod prescribed a strict regimen of scriptural study: ‘at this time Mr. Dod apointed my selfe Sister & Brother to read 2 chapters a day the one in the Old Testament in the morning & the other in the New at night calling us to account what wee could remember & so sometimes he expounded upon it.’110 Dod continued his tutelage on other visits, which brought Elizabeth much delight: ‘Now Mr. Dod coming diuers times to edifie that good worke which he had begun (for which I much reioyced) demanded of us if wee kept that order which he inioyned us of reading our chapters & relating what wee could remember.’111 In addition to pedagogically interacting with the Isham children, Dod also many times expounded scripture within the confines of Lamport Hall. Elizabeth considered his preaching very effective, far more so than the efforts of Daniel Baxter, the rector of Lamport at the time: ‘For Mr. Dod had a delightfull easey way which was very efectuall and it was the more pleaseing because he expounded those comfortable places of Scripture which the other [Baxter] did not so much.’ Dod’s preaching, so Elizabeth remembered, enriched her soul: ‘for in these times I found that this pleasant easey way [of Dod’s] was profitable to me’.112 She never made any similar statements in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ about another cleric, illustrating how large an impression Dod made on her life. In essence, Elizabeth’s enthusiasm for Dod allowed her to benefit from the existing network of nonconformity that revolved around the Dryden– Knightley circle in Northamptonshire. Of course, the Ishams moved in and even attempted to marry into this circle. Consequently, if Elizabeth had indeed entered into wedlock with John Dryden in 1631, she would have joined the Ishams and herself permanently to one of the most radical families of the Northamptonshire Puritan community. While she loved Dryden and likely would have willingly accepted God’s providence if the marriage had gone ahead, Elizabeth nonetheless would perhaps not have always agreed with the more radical and precise religious beliefs that her amour’s family held. Elizabeth left this impression when she recalled her courtship with Dryden. In her mind, when the marriage negotiations soured, her suitor accepted the breakdown and simply walked away, rather than pushing for the match to continue. Remembering Dryden’s actions, Elizabeth offered an explanation: ‘I thought he reserued himselfe because his frindes was more precise then mine was and indeed I thought that the maine points of Religion was not to be hindered (or refused) by standing upon ceremony which are things indifferent.’113 Considering Elizabeth’s reverence for the Prayer Book, 220

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it was only natural that she disagreed with the Drydens’ refusal to conform to the liturgy of the Church. She also diverged from other precise Puritan viewpoints, maintaining a certain critical distance from all that Dod extolled. In particular, she disagreed with his opinion when he witnessed Elizabeth and her family engaged in card playing: ‘In this winters euenings … after I had done my Chapter, which I made too much hast of that I might goe play at cardes, master Dod came, who, seeing us at play, spake as if it were unlawfull, but my father tolde him it was but for pindes.’ Feeling guilt for hurrying through her reading of Scripture in order to enjoy some merriment, Elizabeth nonetheless found nothing wrong with playing cards. Elaborating on Dod’s harangue, she noted that he believed that while the children may have played for pins, such play could easily evolve into full-fledged gambling of money in the future. Recalling such sentiment, Elizabeth disagreed: ‘I am not of his opinion, for I suppose it may be lawfull with some company who onely desire it for mirth & recreation, which is best when owne [one] playeth for no more then owne [one] would willingly loose which may be without preiudice to ones selfe & not making it a trad[e] of life.’ Provided that card playing occurred in moderation, without detrimental economic or moral effects, Elizabeth found nothing wrong in what she regarded as a harmless pastime. She was thankful that she did not go to extremes in such play, but did admit that she could have if her circumstances had differed: ‘I find by my selfe (under correction) to be safe as other recreations [like card playing] … although this I confesse that if I had had goode lucke I should haue loued it too well still couiting to winne.’ Elizabeth believed herself fortunate that this never became a reality: ‘I therefore receued this benifite by it to loue it so little that I had rather doe any other lawfull thing that might bee a more sertaine way of pleasure or propfit.’114 As with her remarks on the Drydens’ precise beliefs, Elizabeth was taking a classically moderate Puritan position; like church ceremonies, the playing of cards was a ‘thing indifferent’, rendered sinful only by its abuse. She was no religious zealot, preferring to be judicious when it came to both religious ceremony and activities of mirth. Such discretion came to the fore when Elizabeth compared the godly Dod with the conformist Daniel Baxter. Of course, she held Dod in high esteem, but this did not mean that she thought that he was superior to all clerics. Indeed, she was very careful to not over-glorify him: ‘I am not of there opinion who extole Mr. Dod aboue all others.’ Ironically, she used Dod’s own teaching to justify this opinion: ‘it is a hard mater to make comparison … euery owne [one] hath his proper gift of God one after this manner and another that, neither bind I myselfe to the priuat opinion of any [for] I know there is none but hath there infirmities, as Mr Dod [has] excellently expounded’. Thus, while she may have preferred Dod as a preacher, Elizabeth did not necessarily feel that Baxter lacked merit as a minister of the word. Instead, she put the blame squarely on her shoulders when speaking about his ability in the 221

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pulpit: ‘now me thinkes I should question with my selfe why I profited no more by others [Baxter] at church … I delighted not so much in it [his preaching] because I understood it not so well’.115 She believed that it was not Baxter’s inability that was the reason why she did not profit from his preaching, but her own lack of understanding his sermons. Furthermore, we must remember that Elizabeth admired the conformist rector’s abilities in extemporary prayer. The contrast, therefore, drawn between Dod and Baxter – though distinctly in the former’s favour – was between relative spiritual gifts and qualities. Hence, although Elizabeth admired an aggressively nonconformist minister for his piety and preaching, she nonetheless did not harbour any nonconformist beliefs herself. By the late sixteenth century, moderate Puritanism began to increasingly define the character of the English Church, and was crucial to the emergence of the so-called ‘Calvinist Consensus’ in the early Stuart period. If we believe Collinson or Lake, moderate Puritan clerics, from within the establishment, were successful by the sixteenth century in infusing the Church and state with godly beliefs. Yet Elizabeth Isham was no cleric, and her conformity did not rest on some grand objective for further reformation of the Church. Her conformity was not some sort of moderate Puritan compromise but the result of a deep, if not internal devotion to the ecclesiastical and political status quo. What was crucial to her was an internalized set of beliefs that happened to correlate with the broader cultural forms and norms of the godly community in England. Consequently, from this perspective, it should not surprise us that she found much of what Dod extolled spiritually potent and valuable. The fact that he brought his ministerial and spiritual prowess into the Isham household – under the pretence of assisting her mother with coping with intense soteriological doubts – must have only increased how Elizabeth held him in high esteem. After all, Lady Isham was her personal exemplar, and Dod did actually help alleviate much of her melancholy over the destiny of her soul. This no doubt must have made Sir John and Lady Isham more willing to allow Dod to provide religious instruction to their children, and, in the long term, situated him as an ideal marriage broker when the Isham–Dryden match first materialized. Here was a man who personified the early modern godly community, and it appeared that Elizabeth was destine to cement the Ishams’ ties to that community with her possible marriage to John Dryden. History took a different turn, and perhaps it is well it did, since Elizabeth’s appears to have been steadfast in her prayer book conformity and discerning in what she felt most adhered to her own godly sensibilities. In her eyes, Dod was a potent minister and worthy of praise but her own inclinations did not allow her to accept all that he extolled. When viewing her entire piety and convictions in the round – her fondness for the Prayer Book, her royalism, her intense practice of self-examination, and her devotional reading – we could assert that her relationship with Dod was a microcosm of Elizabeth’s engagement with Puritanism. She clearly was 222

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a godly woman, but she fashioned that godliness in ways that uniquely made sense to her within the mental and cultural worlds that she inhabited. Finding the terminology that best captures the qualities and essence of such godliness is where we now turn.

PRAYER BOOK PURITANISM? Elizabeth Isham revered the Book of Common Prayer and made it an essential part in the practice of her internal and external piety. Moreover, she was an ardent Royalist. However, her use of and belief in the Prayer Book did not preclude her from practising an intense form of godly piety and associating with radical Puritans, a fact that distinguishes her from the postulation that a so-called ‘Prayer Book Protestantism’ characterized ‘mainstream’ religious practice and belief in early modern England. Rather, it appears that Elizabeth’s piety was an amalgam of both Prayer Book and Puritan devotion, a conflation of religious practices that we could describe as ‘Prayer Book Calvinism’, if not ‘Prayer Book Puritanism’. She likely never would have called herself a ‘Prayer Book Puritan’, much as few among the godly applied the term ‘Puritan’ to themselves. Yet, similar to how Puritanism has long been more than just a historical phenomenon but a useful concept and term to define and think about an intense form of English Protestantism in the early modern period, ‘Prayer Book Puritanism’ may be the best, and perhaps most valuable way to define and think about Elizabeth’s confessional identity and style of piety. Indeed, the liturgy and set prayers of the national church – together with godly practices and outlooks manifested in both her religious interiority and exteriority – defined the self or identity that she fashioned and presented in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. What remnants of historical memory we can glean from the Isham papers – particularly from her book lists – point to the continuity of such identity up to her death in 1654. It is an identity that seems to fly in the face of conventional historical wisdom, and it could have been more common than historians may think. After all, we have observed how both clerics and lay people – such as Daniel Featley, Richard Baxter, John White, and Margaret Hoby – were either able to use the Prayer Book with a discretionary eye on its supposed ‘popish’ elements or fully incorporate the rhythms of its prayers, prescribed holidays, or overall liturgy into their daily religious lives. All of this may represent the tip of an early modern iceberg of piety in which a combination of Prayer Book devotion and the rigours of internal Puritan religiosity may well have been if not the norm, then certainly far from unusual. If indeed ‘Prayer Book Puritanism’ was widespread, then the historical memory locked in the pages of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ affords us a unique opportunity to thoroughly view what this sort of religious synthesis actually looked like from the inside. The Prayer Book immensely shaped Elizabeth’s religious sensibilities; she 223

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admired its liturgy, revered its prescribed holy days, learned and taught from its catechism, and utilized its set prayers in her own daily prayers to God. Simultaneously, she fell under the sway of the godly literature of the ‘pietist turn’, reading the devotional works of men like Preston, Smith, Dyke, and King while engaging in a form of self-examination common among the godly. Influential also were the precepts and personal example of John Dod and the lived experience, memory, and writings of her strenuously Puritan mother. In short, Elizabeth practised what appears very much like a Puritan style of piety, but found no contradiction in also making the Prayer Book an essential element in religious life. The relative stability of this mixture of pietist practices is remarkable in that it formed within the religious hotspot of early Stuart Northamptonshire, a county divided between radical Puritan, conformist, and anti-Calvinist elements amongst both the clergy and the gentry. Elizabeth’s style of piety shows that such an environment need not always produce polarization and conflict, but may also prompt and enable a variety of different mixtures of religious sensibilities and practices. On this, we may conclude that she fits nicely into the broad conceptual framework of scholars who have sought to locate ‘mainstream’ devotional practices and religious beliefs in the years and decades prior to the English Civil Wars. At the heart of this framework is often the premise that consensus and commonality rather than conflict and polarization were the key characteristics of the religious environment of early modern England. If we apply the premise as a touchstone for addressing the representativeness of Elizabeth Isham, then we could perhaps assert that ‘Prayer Book Puritanism’ was a primary incarnation of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ‘mainstream’ Protestantism. Yet we could approach the representative question from a different position that works more from the ambiguities of the early modern religious environment and from Elizabeth’s uniqueness. Indeed, we can as easily conclude that her piety was an anomaly in the early modern period – the product of one individual’s life trajectory, personal experiences, and context. Her case is rather exceptional, rendered such by the production, survival, and discovery of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and by the remarkable historical memory of religious despair, mental affliction, and physical hardship that we can mine from its pages. Nevertheless, she, and the internal and external selves that she presented in her autobiography, were the products of England’s contemporary and ambiguous religious environment. Similar to other early modern Protestants, Elizabeth had exposure to the wide range of possible religious texts, practices, and traditions in the period, including devotional literature, Calvinist theology, Puritan piety, the Book of Common Prayer, and clerics with a diverse range of beliefs. If there was anything that was ‘mainstream’ in the period, it is how ubiquitous it was for people to experience such exposure to these religious elements in their lives. Presented with the elements in her own life, Elizabeth took them and fashioned her ‘Prayer Book Puritanism’, an internal and external piety that best 224

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suited her spiritual inclinations and allowed her, so she believed, to best cultivate a personal relationship with her heavenly father. We can imagine that other English people did the same, meaning they exerted personal agency in the way they internalized and externalized the wide variety of potential devotional practices and religious beliefs presented to them in their multiple cultural contexts as manifested in such forms as families, parishes, counties, or England more broadly. Perhaps we should embrace the individuality of such a phenomenon and view piety more from the perspective of the ‘exceptional norm’ rather than attempt to lump the people of the period into a faceless abstraction like an all encompassing ‘mainstream’ Protestantism. Because of the discovery of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, Elizabeth Isham provides us with the opportunity to do so – through the memory and narrative of her life, she shows us how an individual could live a religion full of multiple contours and multiple facets. The piety of her contemporaries surely also had an array of contours and multiple facets, and this may have been the most ‘mainstream’ aspect of early modern religion that we should always strive to recognize.

NOTES 1 Samuel Torshell, The Woman’s Glory (London, 1645), 88–89. 2 William Alexander, Doomes-Day, or, The Great Day of the Lords Iudgement (Edinburgh, 1614), Fifth Hour, Stanza 55. 3 Patricia Crawford, Women and Religion in England, 1500–1700 (London, 1993), ch. 4; Diane Willen, ‘Women and Religion in Early Modern England,’ in Women in Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europe: Public and Private Worlds, Sherrin Marshall, ed. (Bloomington, IN, 1989), 140–165; Christine Peters, Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England (Cambridge, 2003) 195–197; Anthony Fletcher, ‘Beyond the Church: Women’s Spiritual Experience at Home and in the Community 1600–1900,’ Studies in Church History, 187 (1998), 187–204; Sara H. Mendelson, ‘Stuart Women’s Diaries and Occasional Memoirs,’ in Women in English Society 1500–1800, Mary Prior, ed. (London, 1985), 185. 4 For examples of such scholarship, see A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation (London, 1964); A.G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509–58 (Oxford, 1959); G.R. Elton, England Under the Tudors (London, 1955); G.R. Elton, Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell (Cambridge, 1972); G.R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England, 1509–58 (Cambridge, MA, 1977). 5 For the most notable revisionist examples, see Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven, CT, 1992); Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (New Haven, CT, 2001); Eamon Duffy, Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor (New Haven, CT, 2009); Christopher Haigh, ed., The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge, 1987); Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society Under the Tudors (Oxford, 1993); J.J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (Oxford, 1984). 225

The gentlewoman’s remembrance 6 See Nicholas Tyacke, ed., England’s Long Reformation, 1500–1800 (London, 1998); Peter Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (Oxford, 2002); Peter Marshall, Reformation England, 1480–1642 (London, 2003); Peter Marshall, ‘(Re) defining the English Reformation,’ JBS 48, no. 3 (2009), 564–586; Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999); Alexandra Walsham, The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2011); Peter Lake with Michael Questier, The Anti-Christ’s Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in Post-Reformation England (New Haven, CT, 2001); Peter Lake and Michael Questier, The Trials of Margaret Clitherow: Persecution, Martyrdom, and the Politics of Sanctity in Elizabethan England (London, 2011); Michael Questier, Conversion, Politics and Religion in England, 1580–1625 (Cambridge, 1996); Michael Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c. 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 2008); Ethan H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003); Ethan H. Shagan, ed., Catholics and the ‘Protestant Nation:’ Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England (Manchester, 2005); Alec Ryrie, Being Protestant in Reformation Britain (Oxford, 2013); David Como, Blown by the Spirit: Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in Pre-Civil-War England (Stanford, CA, 2004). 7 This conventional interpretation is largely ‘whig’, and teleological, if not Marxist in later incarnations. See S.R. Gardiner, History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603–1642, 10 vols (London, 1883–1884); S.R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, 1642–1649, 3 vols (London, 1886– 1891); S.R. Gardiner, The History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649– 1656, 4 vols (London, 1903); Michael Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Cambridge, MA, 1965); Christopher Hill, Puritanism and Revolution: Studies in the Interpretation of the English Revolution of the Seventeenth-Century (London, 1958); Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution (Edinburgh, 1961). 8 Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism, c. 1590–1640 (Oxford, 1987); Patrick Collinson, The Religion of Protestants: The Church in English Society, 1559–1625 (Oxford, 1982); Patrick Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England: Religious and Cultural Change in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: The Third Antsey Memorial Lectures in the University of Kent at Canterbury, 12–15 May 1986 (Basingstoke, 1988); Peter Lake, Moderate Puritans and the English Church (Cambridge, 1982). 9 While there are a number of scholars who hold such views, see particularly the explicitly vocal Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘The Myth of the English Reformation,’ JBS, 30, no. 1 (1991), 1–19; Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘The Birth of Anglicanism,’ Ecclesiastical Law Journal, 7, no. 35 (2004), 418–428; Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘Putting the English Reformation on the Map,’ TRHS, 15 (2005), 75–95; Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘Changing Historical Perspectives on the English Reformation: The Last Fifty Years,’ Studies in Church History, 49 (2013), 282–302. 10 For examples, see John Spurr, The Restoration Church of England, 1646–1689 (New Haven, CT, 1991), especially ch. 1; Ethan H. Shagan, The Rule of Moderation: Violence, Religion and the Politics of Restraint in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2011), 9–10, 15, and ch. 3; Marshall, ‘(Re)defining the English Reformation,’ 577–579. 226

Elizabeth Isham’s religion 11 Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988); Peter Lake, ‘Lancelot Andrewes, John Buckeridge, and Avant-garde Conformity at the Court of James I,’ in The Mental World of the Jacobean Court, Linda Livy Peck, ed. (Cambridge, 1991), 113– 133; Peter Lake, ‘The Laudian Style: Order, Uniformity and the Pursuit of the Beauty of Holiness in the 1630s,’ in The Early Church, 1603–1642, Kenneth Fincham, ed. (Basingstoke, 1993), 161–185; Kenneth Fincham and Nicholas Tyacke, Altars Restored: The Changing Face of English Religious Worship, 1547– c.1700 (Oxford, 2007); Anthony Milton, Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640 (Cambridge, 1995); Anthony Milton, ‘The Creation of Laudianism: A New Approach,’ in Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain: Essays in Honour of Conrad Russell, Thomas Cogswell, Richard Cust, and Peter Lake, eds (Cambridge, 2002), 162– 184; Anthony Milton, ‘“Anglicanism” by Stealth: The Career and Influence of John Overall,’ in Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England, Kenneth Fincham and Peter Lake, eds (Woodbridge, 2006), 159–176; Anthony Milton, Laudian and Royalist Polemic in Seventeenth-Century England: The Career and Writings of Peter Heylyn (Manchester, 2007). 12 Elizabeth Clarke, ‘What Kind of a Puritan is Elizabeth Isham?’, abstract, Princeton Symposium on Elizabeth Isham, 7–8 September 2007, http://www2. warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/projects/isham/workshop/clarke. 13 Richard Baxter, The Saints Everlasting Rest: or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in Their Enjoyment of God in Glory (London, 1650), 344r–344v. 14 John Field and Thomas Wilcox, An Admonition to the Parliament (Hemel Hempstead, 1572), B3v. See also W.H. Frere and C.E. Douglas, eds, Puritan Manifestoes: A Study of the Origin of The Puritan Revolt, with Print of the Admonition to the Parliament and Kindred Documents, 1572 (New York, 1907), 21. 15 Dwalphintramis, The Anatomie of the Service Book, Dedicated to the High Court of Parliament (c. 1641), 66. According to the ESTC, Dwalphintramis was a pseudonym for Richard Bernard, a noted religious writer and nonconforming Jacobean minister. The book was likely published shortly after Bernard died in March 1641. 16 John Morrill, ‘The Church in England, 1642–9,’ in Reactions to the English Civil War, 1642–1649, John Morrill, ed. (New York, 1982), 103–114. 17 See Joanna Moody, ed., The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady: The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599–1605 (Stroud, 1998). 18 Rawlinson MSS, B 158, Bodleian Library, 176–177. I am grateful to Ken Fincham for sharing this reference with me. 19 Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae or Mr Richard Baxter’s Narrative of the Most Memorable Passages of his Life and Times (London, 1695), 15. 20 On such issues related to conformity, see Kenneth Fincham, ‘Clerical Conformity from Whitgift to Laud,’ Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church, c. 1560–1660, Peter Lake and Michael Questier, eds (Woodbridge, 2000), 125–158. 21 David Booy, ed., The Notebooks of Nehemiah Wallington, 1618–1654: A Selection (Aldershot, 2007), 145. 22 See Jacqueline Eales, Puritans and Roundheads: The Harleys of Brampton Bryan and the Outbreak of the English Civil War (Cambridge, 1990); Jacqueline Eales, ‘Patriarchy, Puritanism, and Politics: The Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley 227

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23

24

25

26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 228

(1598–1643),’ in Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, 1450–1700, James Daybell, ed. (Basingstoke, 2001), 143–158. Tom Webster and Kenneth Shipps, eds, The Diary of Samuel Rogers, 1634–1638 (Woodbridge, 2004), xlviii, lxxv, lxxvi, and 47; John Fielding, ed., The Diary of Robert Woodford, 1637–1641, Camden Fifth Series, vol. 42 (Cambridge, 2012), 71–73, 112, 173, 216, 246, 251, 297–298, 312, 358, 374–375, and 387; John Fielding, ‘Opposition to the Personal Rule of Charles I: The Diary of Robert Woodford, 1637–1641,’ HJ 31, no. 4 (1988), 769–788. Esther S. Cope, The Life of a Public Man: Edward, First Baron Montagu of Boughton, 1562–1644 (Philadelphia, PA, 1981); Peter Lake, ‘A Charitable Christen Hatred: The Godly and Their Enemies in the 1630s,’ The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700, Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales, eds (Basingstoke, 1996), 145–183; For more on Montagu, Bolton, Bentham, and Reynolds, see Peter Lake and Isaac Stephens, Scandal and Religious Identity in Early Stuart England: A Northamptonshire Maid’s Tragedy (Woodbridge, 2015). For useful, thoughtful, and insightful discussion of this phenomena in its multiple contexts, see Ann Hughes, Gangraena and the Struggle for the English Revolution (Oxford, 2004); David Como, Blown by the Spirit: Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in Pre-Civil-War England (Stanford, CA, 2004); Paul Lim, Mystery Unveiled: The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2012); Barbara Donagan, ‘Varieties of Royalism,’ in Royalists and Royalism During the English Civil Wars, Jason McElligott and David L. Smith, eds (Cambridge, 2007), 66–88; Anthony Milton, ‘Anglicanism and Royalism in the 1640s,’ in The English Civil War: The Conflict and Contexts, 1640–49, John Adamson, ed. (Basingstoke, 2009), 61–81. Ryrie, Being Protestant, 8. Elizabeth Isham’s Will, 30 March 1654, IMSS, NRO, IL 320. See above, ch. 2. For John Goodman’s early ecclesiastical appointments see IMSS, IL 708, IL 735, IL 740, IL 745. I owe a great debt to John Fielding for providing me with these references. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 246. Isham, BR, fo. 4r. Ibid., fo. 8r. Ibid., fo. 37v. I thank the scholars involved with the ‘Constructing Elizabeth Isham’ project for bringing this to my attention. Ibid., fo. 25r. Ibid., fo. 20r. Ibid., fo. 36v. Ibid., fo. 27v. Ibid., fo. 20r. Ibid., fo. 8v. See above, ch. 2. Isham, BR, fo. 15v. Ibid., fo. 17r. Ibid., fo. 11r. Ibid., fo. 18v. Ibid., fo. 18v.

Elizabeth Isham’s religion 46 Ibid., fo. 36r. 47 I would like to thank Ann Hughes for our discussion on compounding. 48 Draft letter, Elizabeth Isham to Sir John Isham, c. 1646, IMSS, NRO, IC 4335. 49 Draft letter, Elizabeth Isham to Thomas Beaumont, December 1644, IMSS, NRO, IC 249. For a biographical discussion of Beaumont, see P.R. Newman, Royalist Officers in England and Wales, 1642–1660 (New York, 1981), 20. 50 Draft letter, Elizabeth Isham to Charles I, c. 1645, IMSS, NRO, IC 4621. 51 R.T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford, 1979), 1–9 and part III. The scholarship on the internal piety of Puritans is quite vast. Useful examples include Theodore Dwight Bozeman, The Precisianist Strain: Disciplinary Religion & Antinomian Backlash in Puritanism to 1638 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2004), especially part II; Charles Lloyd Cohen, God’s Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (Oxford, 1986), particularly ch. 3; Charles E. HambrickStowe, ‘Practical Divinity and Spirituality,’ in The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, John Coffey and Paul C.H. Lim, eds (Cambridge, 2008), 191–205; John Stachniewski, The Persecutory Imagination: English Puritanism and the Literature of Religious Despair (Oxford, 1991), part I; Dewey D. Wallace, Puritans and Predestination: Grace in English Protestant Theology, 1525–1695 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1982), 43–55; Michael Winship, ‘Weak Christians, Backsliders, and Carnel Gospelers: Assurance of Salvation and the Pastoral Origins of Puritan Practical Divinity in the 1580s,’ Church History, 70 (2001): 462–481. For excellent examples of ‘experimental predestination’ in action, see Paul Seaver, Wallington’s World: A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century London (Sanford, 1985), chs 1–2; Margo Todd, ‘Puritan Self-Fashioning,’ JBS, 31 (1992), 236–264. 52 Isham, BR, fo. 10r. 53 Ibid., fo. 16v. 54 Ibid., fo. 32r. 55 Ibid., fo. 35r. 56 Nathan Johnstone, The Devil and Demonism in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2006); Darren Oldridge, The Devil in Early Modern England (Stroud, 2000), ch. 3; Darren Oldridge, ‘Protestant Conceptions of the Devil in Early Stuart England,’ History, 85(2000), 232–246; Frank Luttmer, ‘Persecutors, Tempters and Vassals of the Devil: the Unregenerate in Puritan Practical Divinity,’ JEH, 51 (2000), 43–45. 57 For useful discussions of witchcraft and Satan on both sides of the Atlantic, see Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England (Oxford, 1997), chs 14–18; Richard Godbeer, The Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (Cambridge, 1992), chs 4 and 6. 58 Johnstone, Devil and Demonism, Introduction, chs 3–4; Oldridge, The Devil in Early Modern England, ch. 3; Oldridge, ‘Protestant Conceptions of the Devil in Early Stuart England,’ 232–246; Frank Luttmer, ‘Persecutors, Tempters and Vassals of the Devil,’ JEH (2000), 43–45. 59 Isham, BR, fo. 10v. 60 Ibid., fo. 4v. 61 Ibid., fo. 13r. 62 Ibid., fo. 26v. 229

The gentlewoman’s remembrance 63 Ibid., fo. 32v. 64 Ibid., fo. 26r. 65 For useful discussion of the importance of prayer for Puritans, see Johnstone, Devil and Demonism, 90–92; Paul Seaver, Wallington’s World, 3–4, 39–41; Cynthia Garrett, ‘The Rhetoric of Supplication: Prayer Theory in Seventeenth-Century England,’ Renaissance Quarterly, 46 (1993): 329–357. 66 Isham, BR, fo. 3v. 67 Ibid., fos 3v–4r. 68 Ibid., fo. 6v. 69 Ibid., fos 6v–7r. 70 Ibid., fo. 37r. 71 Ibid., fo. 35r. 72 Ibid., fo. 22v. 73 Ibid., fo. 25r. 74 Ibid., fo. 35r. 75 Ibid., fo. 36v. 76 Ibid., fo. 8r. 77 Ibid., fo. 26v. 78 Ibid., fo. 32r. 79 Ibid., fo. 8r. 80 Ibid., fo. 33r. 81 Ibid., fo. 22v. In remembering her spiritual doubts and expressing her belief in repentance, Elizabeth appropriated language from John King, Lectures on Ionas (London, 1611), 363. I thank those involved with the project, ‘Constructing Elizabeth Isham’, for discovering from which page in King’s work such language derived. 82 Ibid., fo. 8r. 83 Ibid., fo. 34v. 84 Ibid., fo. 29v. 85 See Theodore Dwight Bozeman, The Precisianist Strain: Disciplinary Religion & Antinomian Backlash in Puritanism to 1638 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2004), especially part II; Charles Lloyd Cohen, God’s Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (Oxford, 1986), particularly ch. 3; Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, ‘Practical Divinity and Spirituality’, in The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, John Coffey and Paul C.H. Lim, eds (Cambridge, 2008), 191–205; Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism, 51–138; Lake, Moderate Puritans, ch. 7; Stachniewski, The Persecutory Imagination, part I. 86 Isham, ‘My Own Bookes,’ IC 4829 and book list, IC 4825; Richard Rogers, William Perkins, and Richard Greenham et al., A Garden of Spiritual Flowers (London, 1609); William Cowper, A Most Comfortable and Christian Dialogue Between the Lord and the Soule (London, 1610); John Brinsley, The true vvatch, and rule of life.  Or A direction for the examination of our spirituall estate, and for the guiding of the whole course of our life (according to the word of God, whereby we must be iudged at the last day) to helpe to preserue vs from apostasy, or decaying in grace, and to further our daily growth in Christ (London, 1608); Robert Bolton, Certaine devout prayers of Mr. Bolton upon solemne occasions (London, 1638); John Frosbroke, Six sermons delivered in the lecture at Kettering in the countie of Northampton, and in certain other places (Cambridge, 1633); Edward Reynolds, Three treatises of 230

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87 88 89

90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

99 100

101

the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life of Christ. Being the substance of severall sermons preached at Lincolns Inne (London, 1658); Green, Print and Protestantism, 152, 218, 308, 312, 314, 324, 376, 510, 609–610, 653; Fielding, ed., Woodford’s Diary, 45, 155 n. 241, 199 n. 385. Isham, ‘My Own Bookes,’ IC 4829. Henry Mason, The Cvre of Cares (London, 1627); J.D. Alsop, ‘Mason, Henry, (1575/6–1647),’ DNB. See Peter Lake and David Como, ‘“Orthodoxy” and Its Discontents: Dispute Settlement and the Production of “Consensus” in the London (Puritan) “Underground,”’ JBS, 39 (2000), 34–70, at 43–44, 47, and 66; Lake, Boxmaker’s Revenge, ch. 7. Mason, Cure of Cares, 17. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 49. Isham, ‘My Own Bookes,’ IC 4829. Arnold Hunt, ‘Featley , Daniel (1582–1645),’ DNB; online edn, January 2008; Matthews, Walker Revised, 47. Daniel Featley, Ancilla Pietatis: or, the Hand-Maid to Priuate Deuotion (London, 1626), sig. A9r. Ibid., 414–415. Isham, BR, fo. 8v. Isham, Book List, IC 4825; John Preston, The saints daily exercise. A treatise vnfolding the whole dutie of prayer. Delivered in fiue sermons vpon I Thess. 5.17. By the late faithfull and worthy minister of Iesus Christ, Iohn Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplaine in ordinary to his Maiesty, Master of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolnes Inne (London, 1629); John Preston, Sermons preached before his Maiestie, and upon other speciall occasions. Viz. 1 The pillar and ground of truth … 2 The new life … 3 A sensible demonstration of the Deity … 4 Exact walking … 5 Samuels support of sorrowfull sinners … By the late faithfull and worthy minister of Iesus Christ, Iohn Preston, Dr. in Diuinity, chaplaine in ordinary to his Majesty, master of Emanuel, [sic] College in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolnes Inne (London, 1634). Isham, BR, fo. 31r; Preston, Sermons preached before his Maiestie, 95–118. Isham, BR, fo. 27v; John Preston, The new covenant, or, The saints portion a treatise vnfolding the all-sufficiencie of God, mans vprightnes, and the covenant of grace : delivered in fourteene sermons vpon Gen. 17.1.2 : wherevnto are adioyned foure sermons vpon Eccles. 9.1.2.11.12 by the late faithfull and worthie minister of Iesus Christ Iohn Preston (London, 1629). Isham, BR, fo. 26v; John Randall, Saint Pauls triumph, or cygnea illa & dulcissima cantio,  that swan-like and most sweet song, of that learned and faithfull seruant of God, Mr. Iohn Randall, bachelor of diuinitie: vttered by him (in an eleauen sermons, vpon the eight chapter of St. Pavl his epistle to the Romans, vers. 38.39.) lately before his death, in the time of his great and heauy affliction, and vpon the Communiondayes, either altogether, or for the most part. And now published for the glory of God, the edification of his church and people, and the hononrable [sic] memoriall of the author, b William Holbrooke, preacher of the word of God (London, 1623). For discussion on Randall, see Stephen Wright, ‘Randall, John (1570–1622),’ DNB; online edn, January 2008. 231

The gentlewoman’s remembrance 102 Isham, BR, fo. 27v; William Cowper, Three heauenly treatises vpon the eight chapter to the Romanes. Viz. 1 Heauen opened. 2 The right way to eternall glory. 3 The glorification of a Christian. VVherein the counsaile of God concerning mans saluation is so manifested, that all men may see the Ancient of dayes, the Iudge of the World, in his generall iustice court, absoluing the Christian from sinne and death. Which is the first benefit wee haue by our lord Iesus Christ (London, 1609). Also see David George Mullan, ‘Cowper, William (1568–1619),’ DNB. 103 Isham, BR, fo. 20r. William Perkins, The works of that famous and worthy minister of Christ in the Vniversitie fo Cambridge, M. William Perkins. The second volume with distinct chapters, and contents of every booke prefixed, and two tables of the whole adjoyned, one of the matters and questions, the other of choice places of Scripture (London, 1631). 104 Isham, BR, fo. 16v. 105 Isham, BR, fo. 16v. See also Thomas Sorocold, Supplications of saints. A booke of prayers: diuided into three parts.1. Daniels deuotion. 2. Paul, and his company. 3. David alone. prayers for seuerall dayes. seueral occasions. seuerall parties. Wherein are three most excellent prayers made by the late famous Queene Elizabeth (London, 1612); Robert Halley, Lancashire: Its Puritanism and Nonconformity, vol. 1 (Manchester, 1869), 127–129; Stephen Wright, ‘Sorocold, Thomas (1561/2–1617),’ DNB; Green, Print and Protestantism, 252, 254, 264–265, 271, 285, and 561. 106 Samuel Smith, Christs Last Supper (London, 1620); C.D. Gilbert, ‘Smith, Samuel (1584–1665),’ DNB; online edn, January 2008. 107 Isham, BR, fo. 21v. For more on Smith, see Gilbert, ‘Smith, Samuel (1584–1665),’ DNB. 108 Samuel Smith, Dauids Repentance: or, A plaine and familiar exposition of the 51 psalm (London, 1614). 109 Ibid., 69. 110 Isham, BR, fo. 12r. 111 Ibid., fo. 14v. 112 Ibid., fo. 15r. 113 Ibid., fo. 23v. 114 Ibid., fo. 14v. 115 Ibid., fo. 15r.

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W

e return to where we began our discussion and examination of Elizabeth Isham and her world – the parish church of All Saints in the village of Lamport. Much appears different – the memorials to a long-dead family enriched and enhanced by the historical memory no longer lost nor locked away in the pages of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Moving through the nave past the pews and towards the communion table, we turn left to behold the north chapel and the fine marble monument to Sir Justinian Isham. He is now more than just the second baronet of the family, a Restoration MP, and an early member of the Royal Society – he is Elizabeth’s younger brother and second patriarch, a man who exposed her to books in which she placed great value, shared her Royalist proclivities but with whom she likely had a strained relationship late in her life, and to whose daughters her role transformed from just an aunt into also a maternal figure. Of course, that transformation resulted because of the deaths of Justinian’s first wife and infant son – Jane and John – and their memorial that we now approach on the north wall of the chancel gains ever more poignancy as we realize how crucial their passing was for the purpose and production of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. Subsequently, we glance about and again notice the brass plaques to Judith Lady Isham and her daughter and namesake Judith, once shadowy figures but now fully remembered as enormously significant to the early seventeenth-century Ishams, not least of whom Elizabeth. While each faced enormous physical and spiritual trials in their lives, Lady Isham served as her godly exemplar and Judith became Elizabeth’s closest confidante and initial inspiration to meditate on death through the process of life-writing, something that offers an intimate view of the female world of Lamport Hall that revolved around books, education, needlework, and loving and emotional support. Upon recalling this, our attention shifts to the monument to Sir John Isham that rests beneath the communion table. Our memory of the first Isham baronet and local Northamptonshire dignitary now more nuanced, we 233

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know him as Elizabeth’s first patriarch with whom she had a loving relationship and yet could also challenge his familial authority, perhaps no more dramatically than by choosing to never marry. On pondering this, we look about the church and are reminded of another key figure for Elizabeth – God, the one to whom she addressed her voice and confessed her sins in the spiritual autobiography that represented a testament to her belief in the active presence of his divine will in her life. As we step down from the chancel and return through the nave, we further reflect on how both God and her family defined much of her existence, coming to comprehend, when we move outside the church, that this reflection is impossible and devoid of meaning without the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. After all, there is no memorial to Elizabeth Isham in All Saints, essentially erasing her from the historical memory of her family that rests in the church. Seemingly, in patriarchy we find the reason why she is the only one of her immediate family without a funerary monument in her honour. Indeed, while Justinian was busy directing the remodelling and reconstruction of Lamport Hall, Elizabeth fell ill and died in 1654. The head of the family at the time, it appears that Justinian made the decision not to add to the memorials of his departed family members by erecting a similar recognition to Elizabeth. Of course, she did leave remnants of her life, like her so-called ‘diary’ and her book lists, and eventually these documents in the Isham family papers came to rest at the Northamptonshire Record Office (NRO). As we have seen, Sir Gyles – the final Isham patriarch – proved an active participant in the early years of the record office, going so far as to allow Lamport Hall to be its base of operations through most of the 1950s. An amateur historian especially interested in the history of both his family and county, he wrote much on the early seventeenth-century Ishams, particularly Sir Justinian, after retiring from professional acting and military service to spend the remainder of his days as a Northamptonshire squire. During all of this activity, Sir Gyles Isham in the late 1940s and early 1950s welcomed either a proposition to sell or, at least, not reacquire the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ (there is a possibility that Sir Charles Isham expunged the manuscript in the nineteenth century), perhaps unable to appreciate the rich perspective of a never-married woman that it provided of his early Stuart ancestors. Excluded forever from the family papers, the autobiography subsequently passed through multiple hands and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to eventually rest in the special collections of Princeton University. Consequently, much of the female world of the early modern Ishams fell under the shadow of a patriarchal perspective, something that the sheer disproportion of documentation on the men as opposed to the women in the family collection buttressed and enhanced. This patriarchal shadow continued to shape the historical memory of both Elizabeth and the family after Sir Gyles’s death and the deposit of the Isham papers at the NRO, while the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ remained hidden from scholarly view in central New Jersey. If Sir Justinian had done 234

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much to hide from our eyes his sister by apparently not erecting a monument in her honour, then subsequent Isham patriarchs likely proved equally instrumental in making Elizabeth an obscure historical figure. Put simply, there has been more forgetting than remembering her existence over the past four centuries. Therefore, it is not an understatement to assert that the discovery of her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ in 2002 provided an invaluable opportunity to round out our perspective of both Elizabeth and the early Stuart Ishams. The primary goal of the present study has been to extensively place her and the spiritual autobiography at the centre of the historical memory of the family, and in doing so increase our understanding of not just her and the Ishams but also of the broader history of early modern England. Perhaps its most central contribution is to address a common perception and assumption within the academy of scholars who work on England of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – they are overly empirical and wedded to archival sources, favouring a deep immersion in records over broad historical models and theories often utilized in other fields of history. Considering all that we know about England in the period, it is a method that has paid great dividends.1 Yet rarely, if ever have such historians stopped to consider the distortion of the past that archives produce by determining what sorts of documents deserve and do not deserve preservation; they silence as much as allow us to hear the past. Indeed, we need only recall the archival odyssey of the ‘Book of Rememberance’ and the role that archival custody played in that odyssey. Embracing the ‘archival turn’ far more could serve historians well who study the early modern period, hopefully leading them to develop new historical questions and to pursue new avenues of research. Particularly, it could provoke more scholars – in their research – to include more serious, meticulous, and extensive searching of private libraries and university collections that exist on both sides of the Atlantic. If we take the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ as our example, then we must realize that random exploration around an American archive can unearth invaluable historical treasures. Prior to the good archival fortune in 2002, Elizabeth rested on the fringes of history, similar to the vast majority of her female contemporaries who have dwelled in past obscurity, lost as it were in the recesses of our historical memory of early modern England. Consequently, Elizabeth Isham and her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ remind us that we still must be vigilant in our search for voices – particularly those of women – and always mindful of the phenomena or forces like patriarchy that shape and restrict how we historically remember the past through the production of historiography. Indeed, we could assert that the historiography on early modern England is essentially the ‘collective memory’ of the scholars who have studied and examined the period. Through their analyses of documents and the writing of articles or books, they engage, interpret, and remember, generating historical memory in the process. The archive places enormous parameters on such activity, and when a little known 235

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or forgotten document like the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ emerges, our historical memory, as expressed through historiography, alters and potentially becomes richer. After all, when juxtaposed with the Isham papers, the autobiography has allowed us to remember Elizabeth Isham – largely through a microhistorical approach – in ways that throw a number of aspects of our understanding of patriarchy, singlehood, and piety into sharp relief. The remarkable characteristics of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ have been our prime means in such an undertaking. Produced circa 1639, the approximately 60,000-word spiritual autobiography is one of the earliest known life-narratives from the Stuart period, a document which took Elizabeth nearly a year to complete. Her ‘cheefest work’ and ‘confessions’, it was a hybrid piece of life-writing, a creative presentation of an individual self produced under a myriad of motivations and for an array of purposes that related to both Elizabeth’s interiority and exteriority. Witnessing and subsequently remembering the death of her beloved sister Judith, Elizabeth grew concerned about her own death and eventually decided to engage in spiritual meditation and godly self-examination through the writing of a life narrative to help prepare for her inevitable demise. God was her primary audience but she also wished for others to read the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ – in a marginal note near its beginning, she bequeathed the autobiography to her brother Justinian and his four daughters, hoping that it would do them ‘good’ and that they would be ‘charitable censure’ of her. A large explanation for the bequest were the deaths of Jane Isham and the infant boy John, events that occurred while Elizabeth was in the midst of producing her ‘confessions’. Now the eldest female relation to Justinian’s daughters, she became a maternal figure to the young girls and likely came to believe that the autobiography could serve as a ‘motherly advice’ book for her nieces. Lady Isham’s own life-writing (something that unfortunately does not survive) served a similar function for Elizabeth, making it somewhat natural for her to think that the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ could do the same for a younger female generation of Ishams. Moreover, by passing on the autobiography, Elizabeth sought to preserve and present a written testament or memorial of the lives of both her mother and sister, two enormously significant figures in her life. Yet she also desired to leave her ‘mind writ’ to Sir John Isham, as a means to explain and defend her desire never to marry, a choice explicitly explained as made for predominantly religious reasons. Here Elizabeth’s exteriority conflated with her interiority, since at the heart of the autobiography were her inward piety and internal self. Engaging in self-examination, Elizabeth found literary inspiration and models in the writings of John King, Henry Mason, and Augustine of Hippo, and she particularly related to Augustine’s subjectivity and relationship with God as captured in the pages of his Confessions. Elizabeth fashioned a similar subjectivity in her own autobiography, producing a self equally shaped by both her interiority and exteriority. Consequently, her life-writing forces us to view the debate that has revolved around the ‘subjec236

Conclusion

tivity thesis’ as perhaps scholarly fruitless, too geared towards a false dichotomy that discounts the hybrid nature that life-narratives could and did take. Much of this debate has dwelled on primarily literary assertions, with questions of modernity lurking in the background. Indeed, it often neglects to focus on the most obvious aspect of life-writing – while certainly sensitivity to literary conventions, tropes, and generic discursive practices are important for our analysis of such sources, they nonetheless present the internal and external existence of actual people who lived and died. Elizabeth’s ‘Booke of Rememberance’ thus also provides us with a wonderful gateway to explore the social and cultural worlds that helped shape both her and the autobiography. When juxtaposed with what the Isham papers reveal about her familial and county contexts, such a gateway becomes immensely rich, for, when read with and against each the other, the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and the family collection inform and enhance our understanding of both. Exclusively relying on the Isham papers creates – like with most gentry family collections – a predominantly patriarchal perspective, with an overpowering cache of documentation on Sir John and Sir Justinian generating an acute paucity of evidence on their female relations. Overwhelmingly represented in the papers, Sir John appears as a moderate man with relatively moderate means for a landed gentleman who established a local reputation as a level-headed patriarch intimately involved in Northamptonshire politics as first a high sheriff and then local justice of the peace. Moreover, as a landed gentleman, he primarily concerned himself with acting astutely and frugally with his finances, with also a commitment to maintain an almost ecumenical religious position in a county rife with political divisions between Puritans and anti-Calvinists. Also well documented, Justinian appears a county gentleman too, concerned with perpetuating the Isham line and status by marrying twice and having eight children. Nevertheless, he was less moderate and lived arguably a more colourful life than his father, partaking in intellectual pursuits that brought him into the orbit of men like Joseph Mede and Samuel Hartlib, associating with clerics like Brian Duppa and espousing Laudian views, and remaining a steadfast Royalist throughout the English Civil Wars and the Interregnum. When turning away from these two patriarchs in the Isham papers to their female relations, the picture is less full and rich. In particular, Lady Isham and Judith Isham are essentially forgotten in the historical memory of the family, with only archival bits and bobs providing fleeting clues of their existence. Even Elizabeth Isham – with her so-called ‘diary’ and book lists as valuable sources – remains impressionistic in appearance when relying solely on the family collection. All changes when the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ comes into play – it unlocks the doors of Lamport Hall, permitting us to enter and see it in intimate ways that the Isham papers simply do not allow. More rounded is the history of the family, especially the women, as we come to understand fully the spiritual trials and tribulations of Elizabeth’s mother and sister and the emotional bonds between all three 237

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women. Essentially, the autobiography provides the means to counterbalance the perspective of the Isham papers, freeing us from the all too common dilemma of patriarchy’s influence on the historical memory of women, be it exerted during the seventeenth century or when men like Sir Charles and Sir Gyles Isham have had custodianship over a family archive. When placed alongside the historical memory of the Isham men in the collection, Elizabeth’s ‘confessions’ also enhances our perspective of Sir John and Sir Justinian and allows us to underscore marital status as a category of analysis and the reality that approximately one-fifth of English women were single in the seventeenth century. Early modern marriage formation occurred across an array of contemporary patriarchal, gender, and religious norms that created cultural expectations for women and wedlock. Galenic-Aristotelian and scriptural notions that portrayed women as ‘weaker vessels’ offered ideological justifications for their subordination to men, with the ideal for daughters, wives, and mothers to be chaste, silent, and obedient. According to social conventions, wedlock served as the best means to achieve this ideal, since it led to the creation of households and brought women under the wisdom and governance of husbands and fathers. Protestant beliefs in the sanctity of marriage, the fostering of godly households, and the popish dangers of chastity buttressed such governance, leading some scholars to claim that the Reformation strengthened early modern patriarchy. Yet, even writers as godly as William Perkins and John Dod granted that – as long as it was providentially sanctioned – continence could enhance the cultivation of piety and a spiritual state. Moreover, scholars have convincingly shown that cultural conventions on patriarchy were largely ideals that rarely worked fully in reality. Consequently, ambiguity existed in relation to marriage and patriarchy in the period, ambiguity clearly seen at play in Elizabeth’s experiences as recounted in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. During her life, two men – Sir John and Sir Justinian – respectively sat as the head of the Isham household, and the autobiography illustrates the close relationship that she had with her brother, a relationship that perhaps soured after he became the family patriarch in 1651. Speculation points to Justinian’s neglect to erect a monument in honour of Elizabeth stemming from her marital status and her ability to resist his familial authority. Such speculation gains credence when turning to her relationship with her father, for she was not hesitant to negotiate or resist patriarchy and gender ideals for women when it came to him. Her refusal to never marry after the dissolution of the Isham–Dryden match strikingly illustrates this – while she ultimately sided with Sir John when the negotiations broke down, her belief that she had failed a providential test by loving John Dryden II made her resolute never to flirt with the prospect of wedlock again despite her father’s strong desires to the contrary. Adopting an identity that we can characterize as a ‘Puritan nun’, Elizabeth chose a vocational calling that revolved around the godly cultivation of her personal piety within the confines of Lamport Hall. In the end, she adhered to spiritual instead of 238

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earthly patriarchy, interpreting her singlehood as a divine gift, something that served as a compelling defence against any negative assessments of her never-married status. She forces us to seriously acknowledge the social and cultural potency of spiritual patriarchy as it related to marital status, and highlights the ambiguity of Protestant attitudes towards singlehood in the early modern period. Important throughout Elizabeth’s life as a never-married woman were books, reading, and the bibliophilic environment of Lamport Hall. Her reading practices were diverse – silent and oral, private and communal – and her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ and book lists reveal that she was acquainted with well over seventy early modern titles, as well as with being well versed in Scripture. Many of her memories of Lamport Hall centre on the written word, with the Ishams reading aurally, providing books as gifts, and engaging in textual discussions. Learning to read from her parents – particularly Lady Isham – Elizabeth acquired an empowering skill, placing her firmly in line with scholarly assertions on the relationship that existed between reading and women’s agency. She applied her ability to read in functional ways that related to both her interiority and exteriority. With reading often serving as an intimate activity in which the Isham women participated, she often found books to be medicinal objects that, when read or consulted, could assist the physical and spiritual welfare of her mother and sister. After all, finding and reading appropriate scriptural passages, excerpts from devotional literature, or texts on household remedies consumed Elizabeth’s time as she sought to alleviate the hardships that Lady Isham and Judith experienced. Such activity served as vital context for why she came to practice household medicine in the late 1630s, an activity she continued until her death. Yet Elizabeth’s reading also revolved around her internal self, as she autodidactically turned to texts – the majority religiously oriented – while she cultivated her personal piety, practised self-examination, and devoted her life to God. It stands to reason, therefore, that Scripture held a significant place in her life, as she practised exegesis and demonstrated a command of the Bible that reinforced her godly convictions. Nevertheless, she also turned to other devotional and non-devotional texts to enhance her spirituality. Here authors – such as Augustine or John King – were crucial, for they explicitly influenced her to put pen to paper and compose her ‘confessions’. A spiritual autobiography and hybrid text, produced under a number of motivations, the autobiography shows that Elizabeth’s reading was also hybrid in nature, serving both an internal and external function in her life. Much as her ‘confessions’ calls into question the ‘subjectivity thesis’ for the study of life-writing, so it does the same in relation to the debate over oral or silent reading in early modern England. Both forms of reading were important to Elizabeth and the self that she presented, if not fashioned in the ‘Booke of Rememberance’. With religion so significant to that self, it is clear that she internalized many of the cultural conventions that her contemporaries espoused, with the 239

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historical memory found in her autobiography demonstrating that Elizabeth largely accorded to the stereotype that women were ‘to piety more prone’. As the ‘Puritan nun’ of Lamport, she appears on the surface as the ideal virtuous and pious woman often lauded in the conduct literature of the period, but complexity defined her piety and devotional practices. Elizabeth came of age in a household in which her father adopted an ecumenical confessional position, her brother extolled Laudian principles, and her godly mother and sister suffered intense soteriological crises. Lamport Hall also witnessed local conformist clergy like Daniel Baxter and John Goodman ministering to the Ishams, as well as welcomed one of the most renowned radical Puritan divines of the early Stuart period, John Dod, to serve as a ‘doctor of the soul’ to Lady Isham, to preach, and to offer religious instruction to the household’s children. All of this defined the immediate exteriority of Elizabeth’s religious context, and from it she fashioned a piety that conflated a devotion to the rhythms and content of the Book of Common Prayer with an intense internal style of beliefs and practices often associated with Puritans. If only relying on the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, we could conjecture that her piety may have changed as time progressed into the 1640s and 1650s, since the autobiography only covers her life to 1639 and we know she became a steadfast Royalist during the English Civil Wars. This could suggest that Elizabeth evolved to hold predominantly Laudian sentiments, but her book lists in the Isham papers point to continuity of her piety and religious beliefs, as her literary collection was both predominantly devotional in orientation and written by godly authors. When considering all of this, it is perhaps best to describe and define Elizabeth’s religious identity as what we may call ‘Prayer Book Puritanism’, a rhetorical combination that captures her devotion to the service book and the practice of her godly style of piety. Placed within the broader and ambiguous religious environment of early modern England that scholars have come to reconstruct over the past three decades, such a combination should not appear incongruous nor applied to support a recent scholarly push to find a representative ‘mainstream’ English Protestantism. Rather, it seems more prudent – following the example of microhistorians – to view her religion as an ‘exceptional norm’, one product in a myriad of possibilities that a person could fashion in the complex cultural and religious milieus of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It is this fashioning that perhaps makes Elizabeth and her piety most characteristic of the period. Overall, this underscores how she was a representative early modern figure, but representative in exceptional ways. The archival odyssey of the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ is rather remarkable, especially when juxtaposed with what we know of the custodianship and content of the Isham papers. Sir Charles or Sir Gyles Isham’s decision to exclude the autobiography from the family archive seems extraordinary, especially when considering how Elizabeth’s life-writing arguably provides the most intimate portrait of their 240

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early seventeenth-century ancestors. Yet when viewed from the perspective of patriarchy’s potential power over gentry collections and influence over the historical memory of families like the Ishams, then we perhaps should not be surprised by the exclusion of Elizabeth’s ‘confessions’ from the family papers. The exclusion ultimately rendered the ‘Booke of Rememberance’ essentially forgotten, but with its rediscovery it has become an invaluable document for viewing the early modern world which Elizabeth inhabited. In all its multifaceted dimensions, this world shaped her into the woman she became. Indeed, she was a product of that world – with both she and it reflecting and refracting off each other – as early modern patriarchy, piety, and singlehood defined her internal and external existence. Life-writing conveyed this existence, and from it we view a woman who – through her individual agency – actively created a life in ways she saw fit within both the cultural framework at her disposal and the cultural constraints with which she had to negotiate. Her existence was lived and experienced, as it was for all her contemporaries, and this should remind us that we should always maintain an acute sensitivity to what an individual life can reveal and expose about the past. By engaging primarily with the ‘Booke of Rememberance’, we have placed a deeply ‘human face’ onto the history of early modern England that can all too often lean towards generalizations. Restored is the memory of Elizabeth Isham, and what a profitable remembrance it is.

NOTE 1  Indeed, such methodology continues to do so; we only need consider the examples of Jason Peacey, Print and Public Politics in the English Revolution (Cambridge, 2013); Brendan Kane, The Politics and Culture of Honour in Britain and Ireland, 1541–1641 (Cambridge, 2014); Paul C.H. Lim, Mystery Unveiled: The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2012); Jan Broadway, ‘No historie so meete:’ Gentry Culture and the Development of Local History in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England (Manchester, 2012).

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MANUSCRIPT SOURCES Bodleian Library, Oxford Bodleian MSS: B MS 324

Original Register of the Proceedings of the Committee for Plundered Ministers British Library

Additional MSS: Add. MS 4456 Add. MS 15670 Add. MS 25079 Add. MS 75308

Thomas Birch’s Poetical Collections Register Book of the Proceedings of the Committee of the House of Commons for Plundered Ministers Letters and Papers of the Spencers of Althorp, Northamptonshire Correspondence and Misc. Papers of the Spencers of Althorp, Northamptonshire

Harley MSS: Harl. MSS 378–79, Correspondence and Misc. Papers Relating to the D’Ewes of 384–389 Stow Hall, Suffolk Harl. MS 390 Correspondence from Joseph Mede to Sir Martin Stuteville The British National Archives (TNA) C108/63

Poetry and Letters from Justinian Isham to Ann Montagu Huntington Library

Huntington MSS: HM60666 ‘A New Ballad Called the Northamptonshire High Constable’ Stowe-Temple MSS: STT 1888–1895 Correspondence from Robert Sibthorpe to Sir John Lambe 242

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UNPUBLISHED THESES Fielding, John, ‘Conformists, Puritans and the Church Courts: The Diocese of Peterborough, 1603–1642,’ Ph.D. diss. (University of Birmingham, 1988) Leong, Elaine, ‘Medical Remedy Collections in Seventeenth-Century England: Knowledge, Text and Gender,’ Ph.D. diss. (Oxford University, 2005) Pennell, Sara, ‘The Material Culture of Food in Early Modern England, Circa 1650– 1750,’ Ph.D. diss. (Oxford University, 1997) Priestley, Robyn, ‘Marriage and Family Life in the Seventeenth-Century: A Study of Gentry Families in England,’ Ph.D. diss. (University of Sydney, 1998) Stephens, Isaac, ‘Under the Shadow of Patriarch: Elizabeth Isham and Her World in Seventeenth-Century Northamptonshire,’ Ph.D. diss. (University of California, Riverside, 2008) Stine, Jennifer, ‘Opening Closets: The Discovery of Household Medicine in Early Modern England,’ Ph.D., diss. (Stanford University, California, 1996) Wilkie, Vanessa, ‘“Such Daughters and Such a Mother”: The Countess of Derby and Her Three Daughters, 1560–1647,’ Ph.D. diss. (University of California, Riverside, 2009)

265

Index

.

Alexander, William  186 All Saints (All Hollows) Church  1–2, 5, 53, 55, 66, 77, 79, 91, 93, 113–114, 116–117, 144, 198, 233–234 Amussen, Susan Dwyer  105 archive  7–8, 15, 37, 53, 76–77, 139, 235, 238, 240 Ardys, Jane (nee Isham)  56 Ardys, John  56 Ardys, Thomas  113 Askew, Anne  151–152 Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)  11, 22, 26–27, 36–46, 71–72, 104, 145, 173–175, 178, 187, 202, 236, 239 Aurelius, Marcus  22 autobiography  3–7, 11–13, 15, 20–29, 31–46, 54, 72, 81–83, 88–89, 94–95, 101–102, 112–114, 117, 119–120, 123–124, 130, 132, 135, 138–139, 145, 153–154, 156–160, 163, 167–175, 178, 180, 187, 195, 202, 204, 207–208, 210, 217, 224, 234, 236–240 narrative  2, 10, 14, 21, 28, 44–45, 137 spiritual  10–11, 20, 24–28, 31, 42, 45, 66, 70–71, 76, 79, 81–82, 89, 94–95, 112, 138, 145, 176, 178–179, 187, 214, 234–236, 239 see also life-writing autodidactic  4, 13, 146, 167–169, 171, 173, 175, 177–180, 187, 211, 218, 239 266

Ball, Thomas  24, 60 Bancroft, Richard  57 Barker, John  60 Baxter, Daniel  61, 88, 161, 197–198, 220–222, 240 Baxter, Richard  190–191, 218, 223 Bayley, Lewis  165 Beaumont, Thomas  200 Bentham, Joseph  60, 192 Bernard, Ricahrd  191, 212 Bible (Scripture)  4, 13, 24, 28–29, 37, 40–42, 68, 85–86, 88, 104, 147, 151–152, 154–155, 157–158, 160, 162, 165, 167–175, 177–180, 186, 189, 205, 215, 218, 220–221, 238–239 Boffey, Julia  150 Bolton, Robert  24, 60, 192, 212 Book of Common Prayer (Prayer Book)  4, 14, 73, 120, 154, 188, 190–197, 200–201, 210, 215, 217, 219–220, 222–224, 240 ‘Booke of Rememberance’ (Confessions)  viii–ix, 2–15, 20–22, 27–37, 39–46, 54–55, 66, 70–72, 76–77, 79, 81–84, 92, 94–95, 101–102, 112–113, 117–119, 122–123, 126–127, 129, 135–139, 145, 153–7, 159–60, 163, 166–80, 187–188, 190, 194–195, 199, 201–202, 205–206, 209–217, 219–220, 223–225, 233–241

Index books (reading)  2, 4, 6, 10–15, 26, 32–33, 36–37, 40–41, 46, 55, 57–58, 69–72, 76, 83, 89, 94, 103, 144–180, 187–188, 193, 195, 205, 210–224, 233, 235, 239–240 Brathwait, Richard  103, 105 Breitenberg, Mark  105 Breton, Nicholas  28, 32 Brettergh, Katherine  24 Brinsley, John  212 Brudenell, Lord Thomas  63 Brudenell, Mary (nee Dunbar)  63 Brudenell, Robert  63 Bruen, John  24 Bull, Henry  160–161, 217 Bunning, Thomas  61, 67, 165, 198 Bunyan, John  25 Burckhardt, Jacob  25 Burghley, William Lord  58 Calamy, Edmund  23 Cambers, Andrew  26, 152–153 Campell, Anne  150–151 Canons Ashby  3, 60, 64, 101, 122, 127 Capel, Richard  212 Capp, Bernard  105 Carlson, Eric  109 Carter, Oliver  217 Cawdrey, Daniel  60, 212 Cecil, Sir William  56 Chartier, Roger  147 Chaucer  145, 154 Christ Church, Oxford  75 Christ’s College, Cambridge  67–68 Church of England  23, 60–61, 73, 111–112, 189–191, 200, 219, 222 conformity/nonconformity  57, 60–62, 84, 151, 188–189, 191, 193–194, 197–198, 200–201, 212–213, 217, 219–222, 224 Clarke, Elizabeth  viii, 4–5, 190, 210 Clarke, Samuel  23 Cleaver, Robert  103, 105–106, 110, 112, 136, 158, 212 Clerk, John  67 Clifford, Lady Anne  150 Cogswell, Tom  viii, 2

Collinson, Patrick  189 Comenius, Johannes Amos  69–70, 144 Committee for Compounding  74 Committee for Plundered Ministers  61 Como, David  viii, 213 Constructing Elizabeth Isham Project  5 Corbet, Richard  194 Cotterill, Anne  viii, 4–5, Cowper, William  212, 216–218 Cressy, David  107, 148 D’Ewes, Sir Simonds  78 Darnton, Robert  147 DeZur, Kathryn  150, 157, 177 Dee, Francis  61, 212 Dee, John  150 Defoe, Daniel  25 Delany, Paul  26 Delaval, Elizabeth  111–112 Denton, Elizabeth Lady (née Isham)  56, 78, 85, 87, 95 Denton, Sir Anthony  56, 58, 78 Derrida, Jacques  7 devotional literature  4, 11, 13–14, 22–23, 28, 32, 35–36, 71–72, 145, 150–153, 156–165, 167–168, 173, 175–179, 187–188, 193, 210–212, 214, 218–219, 222, 224, 239–240 ‘diary’ (Elizabeth Isham)  2, 21, 79–81, 84, 95, 119, 145, 153–154, 159–160, 178, 234, 237 Dod, John  14, 24, 30, 60, 62–64, 66, 84–86, 88, 95, 103, 105–106, 110, 112, 123, 125, 136, 145, 157–158, 162–164, 212, 220–222, 224, 238, 240 Drake, Joan  24, 30, Drake, William  150 Dryden, John (poet)  4 Dryden, John I  62–65, 101, 123 Dryden, John II  3, 12, 33, 64–66, 81, 95, 101–102, 122–123, 125–133, 136–138, 164, 208–209, 213, 220 222, 238 Dryden, Sir Erasmus  3, 62–65, 101, 122–123 267

Index du Bartas, Guillaume  174 Duffy, Eamon  109, 188–189 Duppa, Brian  115–116, 237 Dyke, Daniel  14, 176–177, 224 Eikon Basilike  23 Ellis, G.  28 English Civil War  4, 10, 14, 60, 67, 72–76, 95, 148, 189, 191–194, 199–200, 210, 214, 224, 237, 240 episcopal  60, 189–190 Ezell, Margaret  32 Featley, Daniel  145, 214–216, 219, 223 Field, John  191 Fielding, John  59 Fitzherbert, Dionys  28, 37, 111–112, 151–152 Fitzwilliam, Jane (née Perry)  63 Fitzwilliam, William  63 Fletcher, Anthony  105–106, 125, 128 Forced Loan  68 Fosbroke, John  212 Foucault, Michel  7 Foxe, John  23, 35, 151, 163, 217 Froide, Amy  108, 133, 137 Garrard, Sir John  59, 63 Ginsburg, Carlo  147 Goodman, John  194, 198, 212–213, 219, 240 Goodwin, Thomas  212 Gouge, William  106 Grafton, Anthony  149 Green, Ian  193–194 Greenham, Richard  211, 217–218 Griffith, Matthew  106, 110, 112, 123, 136 Grindal, Edmund  58, 217 Gusdorf, Georges  26 Hackel, Heidi Brayman  viii, 150 Haigh, Christopher  109, 188–189 Hall, Joseph  114 Harley, Lady Brilliana  192 Harvey, Gabriel  149 Hatton, Sir Christopher  69 Herbert, George  151 268

Heylyn, Peter  190, 213 Hieron, Samuel  212 Hill, Bridget  108, 134 historical memory  2, 5, 7–15, 21, 46, 53–54, 76, 78, 81–82, 95–96, 102–103, 112–113, 139, 145, 153, 159, 163, 180, 187, 194, 210, 223–224, 233–238, 240–241 Hoby, Margaret  23, 151–153, 191, 223 Hodnell  64–65, 122, 127 Höltgen, Karl Josef  20 Hooker, Richard  190 Houlbrooke, Ralph  107 household medicine  13, 32, 145, 162–167, 175–176, 179, 187, 211, 239 Hull, Suzanne  150 Independents  24, 192 Ingram, Martin  107 Isham Collection  ix, 2–4, 6, 8, 11, 14–15, 20, 53–55, 65, 69, 72, 76–83, 89, 95, 145, 159, 166, 187, 210, 234–235, 237–238, 240–241 Isham, Anne (aunt)  88, 163, 167 Isham, Elizabeth (grandmother)  54, 81–83, 86, 88–89, 94–95, 113, 119, 144, 159–161, 166–167, 197–198 Isham, Elizabeth (niece)  34–35, 45–46, 71, 76, 80–81, 135, 138, 166, 173, 187, 236 Isham, Euseby  56 Isham, Henry  88, 163 Isham, Jane (nee Garrad)  1, 34–35, 59, 63, 70, 76–78, 81, 95, 115, 138, 159, 170, 216, 233, 236 Isham, Jane (niece)  34–35, 45–46, 71, 76, 80–81, 135, 138, 166, 173, 187, 236 Isham, John  56 Isham, John (nephew)  1, 34–35, 70, 76, 81, 95, 233, 236 Isham, Judith (sister)  1–2, 4–5, 11, 13, 29–30, 33–35, 46, 77–82, 89–95, 102, 113–117, 119–120, 125, 131, 134, 138, 144, 154–155, 159, 162–167, 173, 175–176, 179, 187, 202, 216, 220, 233, 236–237, 239–240

Index Isham, Judith (niece)  34–35, 45–6, 71, 76, 80–81, 135, 138, 166, 173, 187, 236 Isham, Judith Lady (mother)  1–2, 4, 11, 13–14, 30–31, 33, 35, 39–40, 42, 45–46, 58, 62, 67, 77–79, 81–91, 94–95, 113, 116–121, 123, 144, 154, 157–168, 175–176, 179, 187, 195–196, 198, 202, 206, 216, 219–220, 222, 224, 233, 236–237, 239–240 Isham, Justinian II  75 Isham, Sir Charles  6–8, 76, 82, 102, 139, 234, 240 Isham, Sir Gyles  6–8, 20, 53, 76, 82, 102, 139, 234–235, 238, 240 Isham, Sir John (father)  1–4, 6, 11–14, 33–34, 53–69, 74–86, 88, 90, 94–95, 101–103, 113, 117–135, 137–139, 144–145, 154, 157–158, 164, 170, 187, 194, 196–200, 220, 222, 233, 236–238 Isham, Sir Justinian (brother)  1–6, 11–12, 14, 30, 34, 53–55, 58–59, 63, 66–69, 74–82, 92, 94–95, 101–103, 113, 115, 117–118, 135, 139, 144–145, 155–157, 160, 170, 174, 187, 199–200, 233–234, 236–238 Isham, Sir Thomas (nephew)  6, 75 Isham, Susan (niece)  34–35, 45–46, 71, 76, 80–81, 135, 138, 166, 173, 187, 236 Isham, Thomas  56–58, 61, 144, 197 Jardine, Lisa  149 Jelinek, Estelle  27 Jones, Inigo  58, 115 Kendall, R. T.  201 Kettering  60, 192, 212 King, John  14, 36–37, 45, 173–175, 178, 201, 213–214, 219, 224, 236, 239 King, Raphael  20 Knightley, Sir Richard  59–60, 62–64, 84, 123, 220 Kowaleski, Marianne  108

Lake, Peter  viii, 148, 152, 190, 213, 222 Lamb, Mary Ellen  150, 157 Lambe, Sir John  60, 194 Lamport  1, 3, 6, 9, 53–59, 61, 66, 75, 77–78, 87, 96, 116, 119, 144, 161, 194, 197–198, 212, 233 Lamport Hall  ix, 1–6, 12, 22, 33–35, 43, 54–55, 58–59, 62, 67–70, 72, 74–76, 78–84, 86–88, 90, 94–95, 101–103, 113–120, 124–125, 132–133, 136, 138, 144–145, 153, 156–159, 163–164, 167–168, 176, 178, 187, 195, 197–199, 210, 217–220, 233–234, 237–240 Lanyer, Aemelia  151–152 Laud, William  61, 194, 214 Laudianism (Arminian, antiCalvinist)  11, 60–62, 73, 187, 190, 192–194, 199–200, 210, 212–214, 219, 224, 237, 240 Leigh, Thomas Lord  75 Leigh, Vere  75 Leigh, William  217 Lewin, Sir Justinian  67, 78, 85–86 Lewin, William  58, 83 life-writing  2, 4–5, 10–13, 15, 21–28, 31, 36, 43–46, 66, 77, 81, 89, 95, 101, 112, 149, 152–153, 159, 171, 173–174, 180, 192, 214, 233, 236–237, 239–241 account books  6, 23–27 conversion narrative  11, 24–27, 39–40, 44–45 diary  6, 23–27, 61–62 martyr tale  22, 24–26, 151 ‘motherly advice book’  31, 35, 45, 71, 81, 159, 173, 187, 236 Longfellow, Erica  viii, 4, 27–28 Love, Harold  148 Lynch, Kathleen  26 MacFarlane, Alan  107 Maltby, Judith  193–194, 200 Mandeville, John  156–157 marriage formation  12, 59, 105–107, 109–110, 112, 128, 133, 139, 238 Mascuch, Michael  26 269

Index Mason, Henry  36–37, 45, 173–175, 213–215, 219, 236 Mason, Mary  27 Matthew, Sir Tobie  28 Meale, Carol  150 Mede, Joseph  56, 68–70, 144, 237 microhistory  9–10, 112, 147, 236, 240 Mildmay, Grace Lady  23, 28, 37 Mildmay, Sir William  59 Millet, Andrew  24 Milton, John  68 Montagu, Richard  190, 213 Montagu, Sir Edward  24, 59–60, 71, 192, 212 Montaigne, George  213 More, Henry  68 Morrill, John  191 Mosse, Miles  211 Mush, John  23 Napier, Richard  198 Narveson, Kate  152 needlework  32, 80–81, 83–84, 91, 130, 154–155, 163, 206, 233 never-married  3–5, 9, 12, 15, 22, 34, 36, 43, 59, 66, 79, 82, 102, 108–113, 116–117, 122, 129, 133–139, 234, 239 Nichols, Sir Francis  85 Nichols, Mrs.  118, 162 Nokes, William  61, 198, 212–213, 219 Nordon, John  212 Northamptonshire Record Office (NRO)  ix, 2, 6, 21, 53–55, 76, 79, 82, 95, 234 O’Donnell, James  26 O’Hara, Diana  107 Olney, James  26 Osborne, Dorothy  75 Overall, John  61, 190 Ovid  156–7 Pagitt, Anne  156 Pagitt, Eusebius  212 Pagitt, James  123 270

Papillon, David  115 Parker, Rozsika  32 Partridge, John  166 patriarchy  8–10, 12, 15, 46, 54, 65, 81–82, 95–96, 102–103, 105–106, 112, 117, 122, 129, 132–133, 136, 138–139, 157, 159, 167, 179, 186, 234–236, 238–239, 241 Peacock, Thomas  24, 30 Perkins, William  14, 109–110, 112, 123, 136, 211, 217–218, 238 Perry, Hugh  63 Pickering, Sir John  84 piety  3–4, 10, 12–15, 22, 30, 35–36, 38, 43, 46, 55, 59, 84, 94, 107, 109, 111–112, 124, 126, 129, 135, 147–148, 152, 156–157, 159, 161, 165, 167–169, 173–174, 177–180, 186–188, 190, 193–194, 201, 203, 206–207, 210–212, 214, 216–219, 222–225, 236, 238–241 Plutarch  22, 57 Pollock, Linda  106, 125, 128 Pomerleau, Cynthia  27 Presbyterian  59, 192, 199 Preston, John  14, 24–25, 43, 145, 164, 212, 216, 218–219, 224 Princeton University  viii–ix, 2–6, 20, 234 providence  2–4, 12, 23–24, 29, 33–34, 39, 44, 102, 109–111, 125, 127–129, 135–139, 148, 168, 171–172, 176–178, 189, 192, 194, 199, 208–209, 214, 220, 238 Psalms  40–41, 88–89, 162, 165, 167, 169–172, 178, 205, 218 Puritanism (godly, elect, saints)  3–4, 9, 11, 14, 22–25, 27–31, 35–37, 42–45, 57, 59–62, 65, 67, 69, 72–73, 84–85, 102, 105, 107–108, 110–112, 133, 136–138, 151–152, 157–158, 161–162, 164, 166, 175–176, 180, 187–197, 201–204, 209–224, 233, 236–240 Calvinism  11, 23, 61, 109, 152, 188–190, 201, 203–204, 209–215, 217–219, 222–224

Index pietist turn  14, 23–24, 211, 214, 218, 224 ‘Prayer Book Puritan’  14, 223–224, 240 Quakers  24 Quarles, Francis  164–165 Queens College, Cambridge  56–57 Ratcliffe, Jane  24 Reformation  22–23, 59, 105, 109, 146, 152, 188–189, 191, 193, 203–204 Revisionist  109, 148, 189 Reynolds, Edward  192, 212 Reynolds, John  156 Riley, Patrick  26 Rogers, Richard  211, 217–218 Rogers, Samuel  23, 192 Rogers, Thomas  41, 174 Royal Society  1, 11, 67, 69, 144, 233 Royalism  11, 74–75, 190, 192, 194, 200, 210, 222 Rushton, Peter  107 Ryrie, Alec  193–194 Sabbath  60, 120, 158, 195, 206, 215 Satan (Devil)  14, 92, 114, 130, 186, 203–206, 208–209, 212, 216 Sellar, William  194 Shagborough, Edward  64 Shangton  73–74, 103, 170 Sharpe, Kevin  22 Sheils, William  59 Sherland, Christopher  65, 123 Sibbes, Richard  71, 212 Sibthorpe, Robert  60 Sidney, Sir Philip  145, 150, 155, 157, 177 Singlehood  ix, 5, 10, 12, 15, 72, 101–103, 108–112, 116–117, 122, 133–139 Smith, Nigel  4–5, Smith, Peter  24 Smith, Samuel  218–219, 224 Smyth, Adam  26 Sorocold, Thomas  217–218 Southwell, Lady Anne  151 Spencer, Sir Robert  59 Spenser, Sir Edmund  155

Spufford, Margaret  148 Stanton, Thomas  70 Stapleton, Thomas  23 Stock, Brian  40 Stone, Lawrence  107 Stuteville, Sir Martin  56, 67–68, Stuteville, Susan (née Isham)  56, 81 Stutteville, John  68 Swan, John  176–178 Tanfield, Robert  65, 123 Taylor, Robert  6, 20 Thirty Years’ War  68–69 Thornton, Alice  110–112 Torshell, Samuel  186 Tounson, Robert  61, 66 Tyacke, Nicholas  189, 194 Underdown, David  105 Vance, Eugene  26 Vives, Juan Luis  150 Walker, John  23 Wallington, Nehemiah  23, 192 Walsham, Alexandra  148–149, 152, 192, 194 Ward, Mary  110–111, 151–152 Ward, Samuel  23 Ward, Seth  69–70 Watt, Tessa  148–149, 152 Watt, William  11, 37, 173 Webb, John  58, 115, 144 Weber, Max  25 Whately, William  103, 105 White, John  191, 223 Whitgift, John  211 Wilcox, Helen  151–152 Wilcox, Thomas  191 Wilkins, John  69 Williams, John  60–61, 66 Woodford, Robert  23, 61–62, 66, 192, 199 Worrall, Dr Thomas  213 Wrightson, Keith  107 Zwicker, Steven  22 271