Abstract
Among the Cecil papers at Hatfield House is a sheet of verses which on internal evidence can be dated between July 1618 and March 1620. These verses mock contemporary figures as devotees at several shrines. One cult centres on Lucy Harington Russell, Third Countess of Bedford:
As I went to Bedforde Howse
to yt puritan shrine
mett twise begger Hamleton
and a freinde of mine
mett I weake Lorde Chamberlaine
Doncaster there was he
mett I proude Lorde Arundell
foolish Montgomery.
in counsell thease vndertakers breake
ye Spanish matche and ye truce
The puritans offer golde and pearle
wth sacrifices to s’ Luce1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
See Francis H. W. Sheppard (ed.), Survey of London XXXVI: The Parish of St. Paul Covent Garden (London: Athlone Press, 1970) 23: 205–7 and Plate 1.
See William Temple, ‘Upon the Gardens of Epicurus; or, Of Gardening, in the year 1685’, The Works of Sir William Temple (London: T. Woodward, 1750), II, 170–90, pp. 185–6.
Robert Clutterbuck, The History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford (London: Nichols, Son & Bentley, 1815) I, 195.
The indispensable finding aid for literary patronage as recorded in Early Modern printed texts is Franklin B. Williams, Jr., Index of Dedications and Commendatory Verses in English Books before 1641 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1962).
An early survey of Lady Bedford’s literary patronage was: Florence Humphreys Morgan, A Biography of Lucy Countess of Bedford, the Last Great Literary Patroness, unpublished Ph.D. (English) dissertation, University of Southern California, 1956.
More recent and better known is: Barbara Lewalski, ‘Exercising Power: The Countess of Bedford as Courtier, Patron, and Coterie Poet’, Chapter 6 in her Writng Women in Jacobean England (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 94–123.
For William Herbert, see: John Richard Briley, A Biography of William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, unpublished Ph.D. (English) dissertation, University of Birmingham, 1961.
and Michael G. Brennan Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance: the Pembroke Family (London: Routledge, 1988).
Donne’s name has dominated posthumous accounts of Lady Bedford since the early 1680s, when it was noted that although she had ‘died without Issue… her memory still survives, highly Celebrated in Dr. Donnes Poems’ (James Wright, The History and Antiquities of the County of Rutland [London: B. Griffin, 1684; facsimile edition E P Publishing Ltd., East Ardsley, Wakefield, 1973], p. 49). (In the 1685 essay which is cited in Note 4 above, William Temple referred to her as ‘the Countess of Bedford, esteemed among the greatest Wits of her Time, and celebrated by Doctor Donne’.) Their living relationship lasted long enough, and was well enough documented, to have occasioned extensive and often impressive study — most notably, by Patricia Thomson, R. C. Bald, Margaret Maurer, Arthur Marotti, Ted-Larry Pebworth, Paul R. Sellin and Cedric Brown. Indeed, a narrative of Lady Bedford’s intellectual culture and her Calvinism could be mapped through reference to Donne’s work and work on Donne: such, however, is not the route of the present essay.
John Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton, 22 February 1617, in John Chamberlain, in N. E. MacLure (ed.), The Letters of John Chamberlain (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1939), II, 54–7, p. 55.
Karen Hearn, ‘Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford, as Art Patron & Collector’, MA thesis, Courtauld Institute University of London, 1990, p.41; revised as ‘A Question of Judgement: Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford, as Art Patron and Collector’, in Edward Chaney (ed.), The Evolution of English Collecting: Receptions of Italian Art in the Tudor and Stuart Periods (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2003), 221–39, especially pp. 227–8.
See Duncan Robinson, ‘Recent Acquisitions (1995–2004) in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge’, The Burlington Magazine CXLVI (2004), 505–25, especially p. 508.
Nicholas Stone, in Walter L. Spiers (ed.), The Notebook and Account Book of Nicholas Stone, Master Mason to James I and Charles I (Oxford: Walpole Society, 1919), pp. 47–8, 111.
Johann Gerhard, The soules watch: or a day-booke for the deuout soule… Englished by Rfichard] B[ruch] (London: Thomas Snodham for Roger Jackson, 2nd edn, 1615), fol. A3.
Nicholas Byfield, An Exposition vpon the Epistle to the Colossians (London: T.S[nodham & Edward Griffin] for Nathaniel Butter, 1615), fol. f5v.
Nicholas Byfield, Sermons Upon the First Chapter of the first Epistle generall of Peter (London: Edward Griffin for Nathaniel Butter, 1617), fols! 2v-3.
Thomas Wilcox, The Works of that Late Reverend and Learned Divine, Mr. Thomas Wilcocks (London: John Haviland, 1624), fol. A3V.
Cornelius Burges, A Chaine of Graces, drawne out at Length for Reformation of Manners (London: J.H[aviland] for Samuel Man, 1622), fol. A4v.
Abraham Jackson, Gods Call for mans Heart (London: T. Sfnodham] for Roger Jackson, 1618), fol. A2V.
Johann Gerhard, Gerards [sic] Prayers, or, A Daily Exercise of Piety…Translated into English by R. Winterton (London: for Roger Jackson, 1625), fol. A3.
I am here indebted to Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), especially pp. 13–29.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2010 Marion O’Connor
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
O’Connor, M. (2010). Godly Patronage: Lucy Harington Russell, Countess of Bedford. In: Harris, J., Scott-Baumann, E. (eds) The Intellectual Culture of Puritan Women, 1558–1680. Early Modern Literature in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289727_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289727_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-31020-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-28972-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)