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Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland (1586-1639) is one of the best known
women writers of the seventeenth century. The works on which her reputation
rests span a variety of genres: her drama, The Tragedie of Mariam,
was published in 1613; her prose history of the reign of Edward II, originally
attributed to her husband, was published in two different editions in
1680, and her translation of a theological treatise by the French Catholic
Cardinal Perron, A Reply to … the Answeare of the King of Great
Britaine, was published in 1630. In addition to these surviving works
(and the eighteen letters and petitions included here), Cary reportedly
translated the remainder of Perron's works, Seneca's Epistles, some works
of Ludovicus Blosius, and engaged in theological controversy by contributing
her own reply to her son in the printed debate between Lucius Cary, second
Viscount Falkland, and the Catholic Walter Montague. She apparently also
wrote a verse history of Tamburlaine, an advice letter to her eldest son
and daughter, a quantity of verse on the Virgin Mary, and the lives of
three female saints--none of which are known to survive. She was evidently
a most learned and literary woman: her daughter tells us that she learnt
French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Hebrew, Irish and Transylvanian to varying
levels of competence during her life.
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However, Cary is equally well known for the sensational circumstances
of her life. She married Sir Henry Cary in 1602, and travelled with him
to Ireland, where he served as Lord Deputy from 1622 to 1629. In 1625,
Elizabeth Cary returned to London, and she became a high-profile convert
to Roman Catholicism in 1626. Her conversion cost her the support of her
husband, who sought a separation from his wife, and she led the remainder
of her life in some poverty in London, seeking both financial redress
and custody of their children. The drama of her life has often led to
a strong biographical emphasis in criticism of her work, and it is with
the documentation of the life that this edition is concerned.
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The Lady Falkland: Her Life is a biography of Cary, written primarily
in the hand of her daughter Lucy, with corrections in the hands of her
daughter Mary and son Patrick, and an unidentified fourth hand. The circumstances
of the Life's composition are compelling in and of themselves--four
of Cary's six daughters became Benedictine nuns at Cambrai, while her
two youngest sons also professed in French religious houses, but returned
to Protestantism later in life. Its composition in the monastery of Our
Lady of Consolation, Cambrai, clearly colours its biographical agenda,
and Wolfe's new edition pays ample and justified attention to the Life
as a hagiographical text in itself, rather than as a tool for interpreting
Cary's surviving writings.
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Wolfe usefully locates this new edition in relation to existing editions,
which have tended to emphasise either Cary's Anglo-Catholicism, or the
biography as a literary-critical tool. She makes a good case for this
edition as the pre-eminent version, not least due to its meticulous transcription
practice (extending to the faithful transcription of struck-through punctuation
marks). The syntax itself is hard to follow in places, in which case Wolfe
provides elucidatory notes.
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Most usefully, this edition presents the life alongside a large number
of letters written by and concerned with the various lives of Elizabeth
Cary, her husband and children. Thus, we get a fuller account of this
failed seventeenth-century marriage and its consequences. This narrative
is dominated by financial and religious concerns: Elizabeth Cary's post-conversion
poverty is placed within the context of her husband's complicated legal
suits and pursuit of payments due to him from the crown. A number of clearly
defined voices are brought to bear on the events surrounding the family.
We can cross-reference the Life with the epistolary documents:
for example, the episode recounted in the Life in which Elizabeth
Cary arranged for her sons Patrick and Henry to be kidnapped from her
eldest son's home, and transported to Catholic Europe, is substantially
enriched by the reproduction of four reports of the King's Bench and Star
Chamber examinations of their mother on the same events. The inclusion
of these documents also highlights the European context for English Catholics:
her children's various affiliations with religious houses in France and
Italy, with English ambassadors to Spain, present us with a broader picture
of the English Catholic experience at the time, extending the already
established narrative to embrace succeeding generations. The letters of
1650, for instance, juxtapose the overlapping narratives of Cary's son
Patrick as he seeks advancement in Europe, and her grandson Henry, fourth
Viscount Falkland, who emerges as something of a wild child, encouraged
to remain travelling in Europe until a time when his advisors trust that
he will be capable of maintaining, rather than dissipating, his English
estates.
- This edition of the Life and Letters, then, presents us with a
comprehensive, scholarly, and thoroughly researched picture of a seventeenth-century
family, split by matters of religion, which is of great benefit to Cary
scholars and historians of the period alike.
