Lady Lettice Vi-countess Falkland : edited with introd. by M.F. Howard

LADY LETT1CE
VI-COUNTESS FALKLAND

•LADY LETTICE,
VI-COUNTESS FALKLAND1

'LADY LETTICE
VI-COUNTESS FALKLAND'

BY JOHN DUNCON

EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, BY
M. F. HOWARD

_*- ,.,.:^\

•S«^*-^jL(

i^*S

GATEWAY IN GARDEN OF MANOR HOUSE, GREAT TEW

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1908

1 It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make men better be ;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sere.
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May.
Although it fall and die that night,
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.'

BEN JONSON : Ode to the
Memory of Henry Morison.

OR

TO

K. M. B.

PREFACE

THE idea of this book was suggested to me by the
sympathetic account of Lettice Lady Falkland's
remarkable, pious, and beautiful life given in the
chapter on Great Tew in Mrs. Sturge Henderson's
' Three Centuries in North Oxfordshire.'

References to Lady Falkland in the seventeenth
century biographers, Anthony a Wood and John
Aubrey, are full of respect and admiration ; whilst
Lord Clarendon — her husband's most intimate
friend — describes her as ' a lady of most extra-
ordinary wit and judgment, and of the most signal
virtue and exemplary life that the age produced '
(' Life,' i. 45). There are glimpses of her gentle
presence and influence in his ' Character of Lord
Falkland,' and also in a biography of her mother-
in-law, Elizabeth, first Lady Falkland ; but the
real charm of her personality only appears in the
little book of consolation written by her chaplain,

vii

viii PREFACE

Dr. John Duncon* (1648). It gives a vivid pic-
ture of the life of a devout lady of the seventeenth
century — one of the many pious Royalist widows.
She would be interesting merely as 'the dearly-
beloved wife Lettice ' of Lord Falkland ; but her
own fascination becomes additionally apparent in
the simple story of her great sorrows, and of the
eager, loving, and practical spirit in which she
grappled with the social problems of her time and
sphere. Her methods of charity may seem obso-
lete, but they are characterized by that directly
personal contact and sympathy which is now recog-
nized as the highest type of social service. This,
with her earnest sense of responsibility and her
idealism for herself and for others, makes her life
as instructive to those who work as to those who
suffer.

The sincerity of Dr. Duncon's narrative gives it
a real value as a record of spiritual experience, and
although perhaps, as a whole, it can scarcely claim
to be regarded as a book of devotion suitable to
the present day, yet it contains so much that is
intensely human in thought and aspiration, so
much that is as appropriate to the needs of to-
day as to those of three centuries ago, that I

* See footnote, p. 3.

PREFACE ix

believe it will appeal to many, and I have there-
fore incorporated a large part of the spiritual
letters in this volume.

The description of her life and character to be
found in the Rev. W. H. Teale's ' Life of Lord
Falkland ' has been helpful to me in many ways.

My thanks are due to the friends who have taken
an encouraging interest in the preparation of this
book ; also to Viscount Falkland for very kindly
allowing me to reproduce the portrait in his pos-
session.

M. F. HOWARD.

February, 1908.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION : PAGE

I. BIOGRAPHY, ELEGY, AND CHARACTER I

II. ARGUMENT OF 'THE RETURNS OF SPIRITUAL COM-
FORT AND GRIEF IN A DEVOUT SOUL* - 15

' A LETTER CONTAINING MANY REMARKABLE PASSAGES IN
THE MOST HOLY LIFE AND DEATH OF THE LATE LADY
LETICE VICOUNTESS FALKLAND ;' WITH EXTRACTS
FROM 'THE RETURNS OF SPIRITUAL COMFORT AND

GRIEF IN A DEVOUT SOUL/ BY JOHN DUNCON, PARSON,
SEQUESTRED, OF RATTENDEN, ESSEX - - 33

INDEX - - 107

XI

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

LETTICE, VISCOUNTESS FALKLAND (FROM A CONTEMPORARY

ENGRAVING) - - frontispiece

GATEWAY IN GARDEN OF MANOR HOUSE, GREAT TEW title-page

ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, GREAT TEW - i

INTERIOR OF ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, GREAT TEW, WHERE

LORD AND LADY FALKLAND WERE BURIED - 32

LETTICE, VISCOUNTESS FALKLAND (FROM THE PORTRAIT
BY CORNELIUS JANSSEN, IN THE POSSESSION OF VIS-
COUNT FALKLAND) - - to face page 32

Xll

ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, GREAT TEW.

INTRODUCTION

THE rapid development of biography is one of the
most interesting features of English literature in
the seventeenth century. Before this period it
scarcely existed in an independent form, except for
a few Lives of kings — where the interest was scarcely
psychological — and the stories in Foxe's ' Book of
Martyrs/ The place of the modern obituary
notice was taken by the elegy, which was especially
popular with the superficially cultured Eliza-

•

2 INTRODUCTION

bethans. Although the pastoral laments usually
miss the note of personal sorrow, there is a stately
reticence in their pseudo-classicism which is not
lacking in good taste and feeling. The death of
Ben Jonson, in 1637, was deplored in a little volume
of elegies written by his friends and imitators —
including Lord Falkland. A few years later, similar
poems were inscribed to the memory of Lucius
Gary himself, but the truest portrait of the man
and his life was written much later on, in the auto-
biography of his greatest friend, Lord Clarendon.
This appreciation of Lord Falkland is, in form,
closely allied to the ' Characters/ which were as
fashionable a craze of literary aspirants in the
metaphysical Jacobean period as the sonnet was of
the poetical Elizabethans. Perhaps the earliest
example of a prose biography of the modern type
is Izaak Walton's ' Life of Dr. Donne/ published
as a preface to his works in 1640. The distinc-
tive note of seventeenth-century monographs —
elegies or Characters — is their idealism, for they are
all based upon sympathy and personal friendship.
A very representative little book, published in
the last year of the reign of Charles I., combines
the different elements of biography — elegy, Char-
acter, and narrative — in a quaint and pathetic

MEMORIAL OF LADY FALKLAND 3

manner. It is a memorial of Lady Falkland,
written by her chaplain and two friends for her
mother and the ladies who had known and loved
her during her short lifetime. The greater part is
a theological and rather mystical discussion upon
spiritual joy and sorrow, which the chaplain had
composed for Lady Falkland a few months before
her death. The biography was an afterthought,
written to her mother in the form of a letter, and
added to the second edition of ' The Returns of
Spiritual Comfort and Grief in a Devout Soul/1
As prologue and epilogue there are two elegies,
more conspicuous for enthusiasm than poetry, but
typical examples of the weaker Caroline verse.
They imitate the conceits and far-fetched meta-
phors of Herbert and Donne, and the epigrams
which delighted Crashaw — all the artificialities and
mannerisms which show decadence in any school of

1 The whole book — ' The Returns of Spiritual Comfort and
Grief ' — was republished, 1653, with additions, and again
about 1760. The first edition (1648) has disappeared, and the
second (1649), to which the biography was appended, seems
to have become rare by the time Antony a Wood wrote his ' Life
of Lord Falkland/ The ' Life of Lady Falkland ' was modern-
ized and slightly adapted by Gibbons, and included in his work
' Eminently Pious Women/ published in 1777, 1804, and 1815.
The Rev. W. H. Teale added a short account of Duncon's ' Life
of Lady Lettice ' to his ' Life of Lord Falkland.'

1—2

4 INTRODUCTION

poetry. The authors had scarcely escaped from
Ben Jonson's influence, but there is no trace of the
conventional classical elegiac style, and the poems
are biographical. Their metre is the heroic couplet
dear to the later seventeenth-century poets, but
their spirit is that of the early Caroline writers, and
the combination is suggestive of Jacobean epitaphs.
They were written by members of an Oxford col-
lege, and signed with initials which probably repre-
sent Jaspar Mayne and R. West, or Walter, who
had been Lord Falkland's fellow-contributors to
' Jonsonius Virbius,' the collection of elegies on the
Poet Laureate. The longer and more elaborate
poem, by Mayne, seems to have been written from
a personal knowledge of Lady Falkland's life and
character, though his appreciation was founded
upon a partial misunderstanding. The biography
shows that her purity of soul was that of flame
rather than snow. The elegies are confirmed in
their praise by the later testimony of Lord Claren-
don, who described her as ' a lady of most extra-
ordinary wit and judgement, and of the most
signal virtue and exemplary life that the age
produced.'

Incidentally the elegies throw some light upon the
state of religious feeling in the Royalist party. The

ELEGIES 5

standpoint of the two poets is that of the tolerant
orthodox Arminian (characteristic of Oxford life
and thought at that period), to whom such saintli-
ness as Lady Falkland's was a virtue rather than
a necessity. But they held the doctrine of special
vocations in spiritual things, and reckoned her with
those elect souls called apart for superior sanctity.

' Show me your Legends, you in whose bright Year
More Saints and Martyrs than black Daies appear :
Martyrs and Saints whose consecrated Names
Stand shining there as in their second Flames.
'Mongst all your Tecla's, Bridget's, Friswid's ; all
Your fiction-Saints ; or which we true Saints call ;
You will not find one He, or She, more fit
To be extoll'd or canoniz'd in Wit,
Than this departed Ladie, who embalms
All Poetrie, and turns all Verse to Psalms.'

With equal assurance the other poet declares :

' Her deeds are more than boldest nuns do vow,
The legends will turn a true histrie now.'

Although not wholly free from exaggeration, in
thought and word, the Life written by her chap-
lain, John Duncon, is far more spiritual in tone,
and truer in its view of her character. He had a
closer knowledge of the facts of Lady Falkland's
last years, and also a great sympathy and reverence
for her personally. His deep admiration of her

6 INTRODUCTION

saintliness, and his gratitude to her and to her
widowed mother, Lady Morison (who lived with
her at Great Tew), must account for his tendency
to obsequiousness.

John Duncon had been deprived of his living, at
Rattenden in Essex, by a Parliamentary Commis-
sion, about 1642 or a little later. His political
opinions were probably the chief reason of his
sequestration, for his sympathies were so obviously
loyal that malice and ignorance were sure to effect
his displacement by slander or misrepresentation.
He explains his position in the preface to ' The
Returns of Spiritual Comfort and Grief in a Devout
Soul/

' It hath fared with me (by the extraordinary
blessing of God) as sometimes it doth with Ship-
wracked Mariners, to be cast off a tempestuous
Sea, into a rich Island.

' Had I gone onward in the voyage I set out for
(attending my Cure in Essex), I could not have
promised my self so much content and satisfaction
(no, not in outward respects) as my happy Ship-
wrack (by Sequestration from my Parsonage) hath
gained me. I left Houses and Friends, but God
provided (according to His promise S. Mark x. 30)
even these worldly Comforts, with an hundredfold
Advantages.

' I shall offer no other proof for it than that I
was received with full Accomodations, and plen-

JOHNfDUNCON 7

tifull Conveniences in the House of the Right
Honourable Vi-Countess Falkland.

' And in this Family, while I was reaping Carnall
Things, there appeared to me a necessity of sowing
Spirituall things.

' This virtuous Lady afflicted with Barrenness in
her Soul wanted Inward Comforts ; and I, being
the nearest (though the meanest) of God's Minis-
ters, undertook that Office of Comforting/

In Lady Falkland's household at Great Tew1
John Duncon seems to have found his inspiration
and the great opportunity of his life — first, in his
ministry to Lettice Cary herself ; later on, in the
publication of the letters representing her spiritual
conflicts and his own advice and comfort ; lastly,
in the short biography which gives so intimate
and vivid a picture of one of the noblest yet
most typical women of the early seventeenth
century.

John Duncon published no other book, and died
before the Restoration. Although his theology was
narrow, and his literary powers were not great,
there is a certain charm and individuality in his
work. His style is transitional — it is not as affected

1 Great Tew is in North Oxfordshire, about seventeen miles
from Oxford. The Manor House was pulled down and rebuilt
at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The stables and
dovecote of Lord Falkland's house are said to remain.

8 INTRODUCTION

as that of Donne, or Dr. Featlie, the writer of Lady
Falkland's favourite book of devotions, but it has
not the direct simplicity of Izaak Walton. Many
of Duncon' s phrases are quaintly beautiful in their
naive poetry, and may be compared with Walton
at his best. But as a rule the overstrained meta-
phors (especially Scriptural), the occasional pro-
lixity, and the love of pseudo-metaphysical self-
analysis, reflect the fantastic prose of the early
Caroline writers. His thought is limited in range,
but it is curiously representative of the elements
which composed the faith of an orthodox Church-
man at that period. With Herbert, Laud, and the
High Church party, John Duncon is intensely loyal
to the teaching of the Prayer-Book ; his advice on
the inner life of the soul is deeply tinged with the
mysticism which probably came to him through
the influence of Nicholas Ferrar ; but there are
traces of the austerity of the Puritans, their dis-
trust of human love and joy, and their gloomy
opinions on election and reprobation.

John Duncon thus describes the origin and
growth of his book :

' After frequent Communication with this Lady,
having learned all her Objections against herself,
and having seen the chief sorrows of her heart, I

THE ORIGIN OF THE BOOK 9

composed them into these Letters, and annexed
these Answers to them, and left them with her.

' And now they are the Figure of a Pious Soul,
with its vicissitudes of Comfort, and Grief; The
Lineaments of which Figure I have drawn (as you
will understand by comparing the Treatise with
the Life hereunto annexed) from that Holy Ladies
Soul ; lest she (for whom alone it was at first
decyphered) should think it too general ; but the
Proportions, and Degrees, I drew not exactly from
her ; those I heighten here and there, lest you (for
whose benefit it is now Published) should think it
too Particular.

' So it will appear that these Letters, and their
Answers, are not a strict Relation, but a Repre-
sentation ; And in them I have taken the Liberty
of a Representor, to express the height of Comfort,
and the depth of Sorrow, suddenly succeeding one
to the other ; One and the same Soul yesterday on
the top of Mount Tabor, shining with the excess
of Comfort, and to-day on the top of Mount
Calvary, pierced through with the sharpest points
of Sorrow ; And though this be not ordinary, yet
some such there have been and are.

' But you, perhaps, are one of those Holy Souls,
who walk in the plain low way, unacquainted with
Heights and Depths ; And though so, in this Repre-
sentation you may see the various Dispensations of
God, and from it you may learn (however God hath
been pleased to deal with you heretofore ; or how-
ever He shall be pleased to deal with you hereafter)
to be fervent in Spirit, and to be zealous to the end.

io INTRODUCTION

' The other annexed Letter is not a Representa-
tion of what the Lady should have been, or how
she ought to have lived, and died, but a strict
Relation, of some Spiritual Comforts and Griefs,
with their Returns ; and of many excellent virtues
in the Life of the late Vi-Countess Falkland ; which
particulars were gathered up and put together, at
the request of some of her dear Friends, who have
promised (as it is hoped you also will) to be fol-
lowers of her as she was of Christ, and then to
strive to excel in every grace and virtue.

' If in anything you receive Comfort, or Benefit,
let God have the praise, and pray for me, who am

' Your friend and servant in our Lord Christ,

' J- D.'

At the end of the Life, it may be noticed that
John Duncon describes the preceding letters as a
collaboration in which Lady Falkland herself took
a large part :

' I have prefixed a discourse (by way of Letters
too) wherein much of a Character of this your
Daughter is conteined ; It was composed for her,
and delivered to her, and left among her Papers,
(and though upon the transcribing of the Letters I
have altered and added somewhat, yet that was
according to her desire, and the directions I re-
ceived from herself after her perusal of them) ; and
your Ladyship will quickly discern that many of
the objections, and of the answers too, came from
her own self, and therefore proper enough to be
joyned with this relation of her Life.'

A STUDY OF A SPIRITUAL LIFE n

Bishop Earle, the friend of Lord Falkland, had
written short ' Characters ' of a child, an antiquary,
a contemplative man, and many other types — keen-
sighted, witty, and rather satirical studies of man,
the microcosm.1 John Duncon, the 'sequestered
parson/ with unconscious boldness, described the
Devout Soul, in ' general/ and Lady Falkland in
1 particular ' — it is probable that Bishop Earle also
had ' particular ' cases in his mind. There is no
question of a pious fraud in the ' Representation by
means of Letters ' — a form of literature for which
Duncon had at least one precedent, in Lyly's
' Euphues.' The whole work as he conceived it is
not the correspondence of Lady Falkland and her
chaplain, but a study of the spiritual life of a pious
soul.

Early in 1649, when a second edition of Duncon' s
book was published, by Richard Royston (an
enthusiastic Royalist), a similar study or ' Char-
acter ' appeared from the same press, and caused
much excitement and controversy. In the ' Eikon
Basilike ' (' The King's Image ') very similar prob-
lems present themselves, for there is the same
uncertainty of authorship, notwithstanding Dun-
con's explanation of his own part in the Letters,
' Microcosmographie,' by John Earle.

2 — 2

12 INTRODUCTION

and Gau den's somewhat incredible claim to the
' Eikon Basilike.' Did Charles I. write the medita-
tions which form an ' Apologia pro Vita Sua,' or
was Bishop Gauden or some other chaplain1 the
interpreter of his hidden life, as Duncon was to
Lady Falkland ?

It would be preferable to believe in the King's
authorship of the ' Eikon Basilike/ for no sym-
pathy is adequate to the task of writing an
impartial and yet appreciative ' Character/
Personality is too elusive for analytic description.
Consequently, John Duncon' s view of Lady Falk-
land is sometimes obscured and falsified by
exaggeration, and very often by an apparent
misunderstanding of her motives. His greatest
merit as a biographer is his habit of quoting her
own words, and her quaint speeches often have a
deeper though more obvious meaning than her
chaplain recognized. Lettice Gary was essentially
a mystic, but, in the spirit of St. James, she in-
stinctively translated her emotion into action, her
faith into works. Even her arguments, her im-
pulsiveness, and her ' anguish and bitterness of

1 The Rev. Edward Simmonds, who brought the King's
MS. to the printer, had been Rector of Rayne in Essex. It is
probable that he knew John Duncon.

DEPTH OF CHARACTER 13

spirit/ show the depth and reality of her character,
and sometimes make Duncon's serene orthodoxy
seem a little dull and superficial. Unhappily, he
did not fully realize how far her depression was due
to ill-health, and he commended, though he did not
advise, a much stricter asceticism than she should
ever have practised.

Lettice Gary's life was an aspiration, but she
was an intensely human woman, and, though
starting with a clearer spiritual insight than many
souls, she had no scorn of earth, and little of the
mystic's impatience. There was no dullness in
her life — in joy and sorrow alike she lived vividly
and truly. Mayne's elegy rises to an almost
Wordsworthian thought in describing her youth :

' A stage of life, in which appear'd all seeds
Of after-virtue, yet unmixed with weeds.
Here did begin her studies, which then told
How young she was in years, in grace how old.
Whose other Scriptures were God's creatures, where
She heard Him speak t' her eye, as that t' her ear ;
And like the Hebrew shepheard, in each blush
Of flowers beheld Him flaming in a bush,
Once more unburnt, thence thought she heard a sound,
Which told her, God thus seen made holie ground.'

Her early lif£ at her country home in Leicester-
shire, and her romantic marriage for love, seem to

14 INTRODUCTION

have been as ideally happy as earth allows. ' I
have had my portion with the first — no one woman
more/ she testifies. There had been times of
doubt and depression, nevertheless, and she had
a natural tendency to melancholy, which appears
first in the youthful temptation to despair (a fore-
shadowing of the trials of her later years). Her
brother's death must have been the greatest
sorrow of her girlhood, but it is probable that Sir
Henry Gary's resolute opposition to her marriage
with his son, and his obstinate refusal of forgive-
ness, may account for some part of her ' anguish
and bitterness of spirit.1

As John Duncon states, her afflictions began with
the separation caused by her husband's departure
for the Scotch campaign in 1639, ' When her dear
lord and most beloved husband, that he might be
like Zebulon (a student helping the Lord against
the mighty), went from his Library to the Camp ;
from his Book and Pen to his Sword and Spear.'
From this time onward he was deeply engaged in
political duties, and, having identified himself with
the Royalists, he was made Chief Secretary of
State in 1641. The Civil War broke out in the
following year, and Lord Falkland fought with a
desperate and reckless courage which, added to his

INFLUENCE OF THE CIVIL WAR 15

obvious anxiety and grief for the national troubles,
occasioned the suspicions which arose after his death
at the Battle of Newbury (September 20, 1643).

Lady Falkland survived him for three years, ' a
most disconsolate widow/ finding her only possible
comfort in devotion and the strict performance of
her duty to her children and dependents. Loyal
though she was, it is likely that the political
troubles had affected her most painfully through
her husband's distress ; and from the mournful
seclusion of Great Tew, after his death, the great
struggle was regarded with less excitement than
sorrow. References to the war are few and vague,
but it cannot be forgotten that the spirit of the
time was full of strife and suffering, and that
Duncon's picture of Lady Falkland's life is painted
upon a dark background — as it were, of distant
battlefields.

II

It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the
Civil War broke the hearts of both Lord and Lady
Falkland. But even in a time of peace and pros-
perity, Lettice Gary was too emotional and too
sensitive for any lasting satisfaction with earthly

16 INTRODUCTION

joy, and she never ceased to look through and
beyond things temporal for things eternal. She
was a devout Churchwoman, and the first letter in
Duncon's book describes in detail her religious
exercises, and their resultant spiritual joy.

' Now and then I compare the former pleasures
and delights I had in worldly things, at Court, with
these I now enjoy, and I account them all as dross
in comparison of these.'

But the chaplain responds with a warning, as
well as encouragement.

' All such comfort and delight (as you seem to
speak of) is not spiritual or lasting ; In these holy
exercises . . . there is an outward and sensible
comfort, as well as an inward and spiritual com-
fort ; and these sensible consolations (as they are
called) not so lasting and permanent, as these
inward comforts are/

His correspondent replies :

' That clause in your letter of Spiritual and
sensible consolations, I do not clearly apprehend ;
how (I pray) can there be sensible consolations in
Inward and Spiritual things ?'

In the next Answer the chaplain explains his
meaning in a characteristic metaphysical theory.1

1 Duncon seems to have studied some modern mystical
writers, especially S. Francis de Sales, as well as the Fathers.

THEORY OF CONSOLATIONS 17

It is somewhat mystical and abstruse, but Lady
Falkland was a cultured and intellectual woman,
and, later on, complained of herself : ' If I could
abridge myself a little of the pleasure I take in
Philosophy and History/

' I must subdivide the Soul/ John Duncon
writes, ' into a Lower region and an upper ; I
mean, into Sensitive and Rationall faculties ; the
lower region or the Sensitive part, consists of the
Inward senses, Imagination and Memory, etc., the
Upper region or Rationall part consists of the
Understanding and Will, and answering to these
two parts of the Soul, there are Spiritual and
sensible consolations/

This is merely a preface to the main argument,
and in the next letter, using the phraseology and
distinctions thus expounded, the devout soul
laments the decrease of her ' sensible consola-
tions/

Throughout the letters there is no obvious refer-

The Spanish mystics were popular in England with a certain
section of the High Church party (cf. Crashaw's enthusiasm for
St. Teresa, and Abraham Woodhead's edition of her 'Life').
Nicholas Ferrar, of Little Gidding, translated the ' Hundred
and Ten Divine Considerations/ by Valdes, a Spaniard. An
Italian translation of this book was presented to the Bodleian
Library in 1639 by one John Duncomb, Rector of Swanning-
ton, near Norwich. Possibly this was John Duncon.

3

i8 INTRODUCTION

ence to the events of Lady Falkland's life, but it is
clear that her spiritual conflicts were caused by
her grief for her husband. With her widowhood,
a great change came over her spirit. There may be
some morbidity in her view of the sorrow which
had fallen upon her, but there is more to be ad-
mired in the faith and love which still endured,
though her health was failing and her heart broken.
Henceforward she modelled her life and character
upon the Sermon on the Mount, and this resolve
is the framework of John Duncon's description of
her widowhood, so that the outward story becomes
the symbol of her inward growth in grace. To the
chaplain, it seemed a triumphal progress in the
way of Holiness, but to Lettice Gary herself
(judging by her words and the letters) the imita-
tion of Christ included the Via Dolorosa — the
' King's Highway of the Holy Cross/

But the crisis which occasioned the writing of
the letters came in November, 1645, two years after
her husband's death, when she lost the youngest
of her three children, Lucius, Henry, and Lorenzo.
As John Aubrey says, she was ' much governed by
and indulgent to the nursery/ and this boy was
specially dear to her because of the promise of his
character — and partly, perhaps, on account of the

LOVE AND LIFE 19

delicate health which he and his eldest brother seem
to have inherited.

In the biography there is a pathetic but brief des-
cription of her sorrow and the spiritual difficulties
which followed this trial, but the problem is dis-
cussed through several letters. JohnDuncon writes:

' If God will not have any love of yours run
waste upon consolations, but elevate it all to Him-
self, you have no more reason to complain than the
Child, from whom the Nurse is withdrawn that
the Mother might gain its chiefest affections ; or
supposing God bestowed comforts (especially those
sensible) on you because of the infirmity of your
condition, but now hath strengthened you to sub-
sist without them, you have no more reason to
complain than the Cripple that is healed, for the
loss of his Crutches/

The chaplain's theory of life sometimes seems
to place all earthly blessings in the category of
' comforts ' for the lack of Absolute Joy in this
world — depriving them of their value as a real,
though not essential, part of that joy. Lettice Gary
did not accept this Puritan doctrine without a
struggle, but there is almost a note of bitterness
in her words on earthly love — ' Oh, love me not, I
pray, too much, and God grant I never love my
friends too much hereafter ; that hath cost me

3—2

20 INTRODUCTION

dear, and my heart hath smarted sore with grief
for it already/ The words ' sound harshly ' to us,
as they did to her dearest friends, but it is likely
that she foresaw her early departure, and would
have saved them from mourning for her too deeply.
The ascetic view of human love and joy had no
attraction for her, and refusal of earthly happiness
was no part of her philosophy of life, but she advo-
cated temperance in affection, and fully recognized
the claim of a higher love. Moreover, the truest
earthly love is seldom free from an element of
selfishness which entails purification by sorrow.
The problem discussed in the letters is summed up
in that pathetic speech which gives the keynote
of her life : ' Oh, I have had my portion of these
very comforts with the first ; no one woman more ;
but there is no lasting or true pleasure in them :
There is no real comfort from any espousals, but
from those to Christ/

In some measure, she accepted her earthly
sorrows with resignation, but a feeling of desertion
developed from her grief, and drove her to despair.
She could feel no joy in her faith — the chaplain
insisted upon its necessity, even in tribulation.

' There is a joy which is the fruit of the Spirit, and
it constantly ariseth from faith in God, and love of

JOY IN TRIBULATION 21

Him ; and there is the fullness or superabondance
of that joy . . . the first is a Grace, the second is a
Reward . . . the first is a most necessary fruit of our
Faith and Love, and doth always accompany them.
We love Him not unless we rejoice in Him . . .
whereas this second is a bountiful expression of
God's extraordinary grace towards us ; a foretaste
(indeed) of the joys of Heaven. The first is as
the Christian's daily bread ; this second as their
festival cheer/

To this his correspondent replies :

' Alas, instead of my former Omer of Joy, I do
not now find this Ephah ! And if my joy wholly
fails, what love can there be in me ?'

John Duncon's solution is full of insight and
sympathy, with all its mystical metaphysics.

1 The Schoolmen are wont to say that all the
while our most blessed Saviour Christ lived upon
earth there was (as it were) a traverse [screen]
drawn between the beatifical vision and the sensi-
tive faculties of Christ's human soul ; and that when
our Saviour was upon the Cross, and cried out,
" My God, My God ! why hast Thou forsaken Me ?"
then the traverse was drawn between the beatifical
vision and the reasonable faculties of His human
soul.

' This may be applied to many good Christians.
... As there was a true hypostatical union between
God and man in Christ while He cried out so upon

22 INTRODUCTION

the Cross, though the manhood had no vision of
the Godhead ; so there is still a mystical union be-
tween God and your soul, though you have no
vision or appearance of it. Subtracta est visio, non
soluta est unio. Love still unites you to God, and
there is joy and other necessary graces with it, too,
though you wanted the comfort of them in your
sensitive faculties for a long time, and now also in
your reasonable/

But the question of the disinterestedness of her
love, which was Duncon's greatest anxiety, is the
occasion of his finest passage :

' Your Love, that most precious and excellent
affection of your Soul, shall by this desertion be
advanced to God, and appropriated to Him alone.
Then you may see how weak that Love is, when
we love God only or chiefly for that parcel of Mercy
or comfort which He is pleased to communicate to
us ; and that the strength of love is to love that
infinite mercifulness and incomprehensible good-
ness that is in Him ; to love God more for that
Ocean in Himself than for these few drops He sheds
down upon us ; for His own goodness more than for
our benefit or comfort by it — this, this is the
strength of love.'

There is comfort in the very theory of sorrow as
a discipline, for meek souls with Lettice Gary's in-
tense desire for perfection. Yet the worst pain of
her desertion was the thought that her own sin had

HER FAULTS WERE ALMOST VIRTUES 23

caused it, for, as Julian of Norwich said : ' There
is no harder hell than sin/ There are pathetic con-
fessions in the letters of faults chiefly due to her
bodily weakness. ' I am actually slothful and will
not, and then I excuse it that I am naturally weak
and cannot/ she complains. Another lament is
equally human :

' I have some jealousies . . . worldly-mindedness
may be shrewdly accessory to this my desertion.
I am too busily (I fear) imploied in the things of
this world to have and retein that portion of
heavenly comfort ; I traffick too much on this side
Jordan to have those sweets of the land of Canaan.'

Nevertheless, her worst faults were almost vir-
tues in excess— an unconscious selfishness in affec-
tion, a dread of offending those whom she loved,
and some degree of impatience and impulsiveness.
Though they were at the root of her worst ' deser-
tion/ they seem little more than the sins of a child.
In answer to the most despairing letter, the chap-
lain repeats an earlier warning that her fear may be
a great temptation of the Evil One, and ends with
a prayer that it may quickly pass away. The next
letter recounts the return of joy to the devout soul :

' Now my joys return ; I now behold the face of
God, and feel His comforts in the service and wor-

24 INTRODUCTION

ship of Him, and therefore every hour seems five
until the hour of Prayer comes. ... If barrenness
be so fruitful, and yields such a plentiful harvest,
oh, my soul ! be thou never hereafter troubled at
it. Resolve thou rather with Habakkuk, cap. 13.
17 : " Though there be no Oile of Joy nor wine of
comfort — no, nor blossom on the Olive or Vine (no
appearance or hopes of any Oile or Wine for re-
freshment)— yet will I love the Lord and rejoice in
my God"; and then press forward (O my soul)
towards that of Job, cap. 13, 15 : ' ' Etiamsi occideres,
though I be parched and withered with drought,
and consumed with barrenness, though Thou killest
me (O Lord) with it, yet will I love Thee and trust
in Thee."

The argument of the book ends with this attain-
ment of a higher type of spiritual joy in the tenth
letter, but two more letters and answers follow as
an epilogue, with advice on questions of conduct
and encouragement for continuance and progress.
The chaplain enforces his early warnings against
the delusions of a false joy in a way which shows
his knowledge of mystical theories. The devout
soul, practical as ever, is ' full of diligence in holy
duties and exercises of devotion/ and, ' though
increasing in holy fear and godliness, is much
troubled with doubts and scruples/ Some passages
may be read in close connexion with the biography.

SYMPATHETIC COUNSEL 25

' Though God hath given me a most sincere and
unfeigned desire to please Him, yet in many things
I offend, in most things I fear and doubt. One
while, I fear, I indulge too much liberty to others,
and too little to myself ; another while, that I am
too strict to others, and too remiss to myself, and
therefore I mete not to others as I mete to myself.
I multiply queries against myself — whether this
duty was well performed or not ; this action lawful
or not ; that word or silence seasonable or not/

John Duncon's conclusion, with its sympathetic
counsel, is characteristically quaint :

' And now at last . . . you seem to grudge all
time which is not spent by you in holy Duties and
Prayer, and you think fit to advance in them as
in other graces and virtues. Love, I see, is liberal,
and where you love much you will still be giving
more.

' And the more you increase in Love, the less
will that seem to be which you bestow ; that which
is much now will seem less hereafter. And if you
think fit your holy duties of Prayer and Meditation
should advance still, in proportion to your Love :
Remember withall that of Jacob (the mighty man
of Prayer) to drive no faster than the children and
cattle (your weak body, Jumentum animczy as the
Fathers call it) are able to endure.

' Now, my Prayer shall be, That all these shak-
ings by doubts and scruples may tend to root you
more deep and more firm in the love of our Lord

26 INTRODUCTION

Jesus Christ, to Whose grace and mercy I com-
mend you, and rest

' Your servant in Christ Jesu,
'J. D.

'December 23, 1646.'

These letters seem to have been the chaplain's
Christmas gift to Lady Falkland a few weeks before
the journey to London which hastened her death.
At the end of her life there was no ecstasy and no
terror ; ' her tranquillity of mind was most ob-
servable/ She sent all who could be spared to
pray for her in the church. So much of her life
was bound up with that church at Great Tew that
her friends must have found hope and comfort
there from a fuller realization of the Communion
of Saints. To those who stayed with her, she said
only, ' Fear God, fear God I' and so rested in peace.

It was an elementary truth, for ' the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom/ yet the fear
which is reverence can never be outgrown. More-
over, ' the secret of the Lord is with them that fear
Him.1

It was not the spirit of bondage which pervaded
Lettice Gary's life, but the spirit of loving service.
With all their characteristic thoroughness and spon-
taneity, her actions are so practical and so wise in

CARE FOR HER HOUSEHOLD 27

their unworldliness that they clear her from the
charge of morbidity. There was nothing superflu-
ous in the charities which seem formal or fussy in
John Duncon' s record. They supplied a real need,
for the cottagers whom she helped and visited were
dependent upon the bounty of the richer classes to
an extent which it is hard to realize now. Even
the house-servants, whose welfare occupied so
much of her time and thought, were probably un-
able to read, and were certainly untrained in the
refinement and Christian courtesy which Lady
Falkland desired in her household.

It seems that the ideal which the domestic life
at Great Tew Manor followed during Lady Falk-
land's widowhood was the standard of that at
Nicholas Ferrar's ' Protestant Nunnery ' at Little
Gidding (a much-criticised but beautiful endeavour
to revive the professed religious life). One of John
Duncon's brothers was a High Church divine, and
another was Edmund Duncon, who had been
sent from Little Gidding to George Herbert's
deathbed in 1633, an(i was entrusted with the
poet's manuscripts. He lived in close connexion
with the Ferrars for some years. It is more
than likely that John Duncon had shared this
intimacy, and that his account of their ordered

4—2

28 INTRODUCTION

and devout lives had a great influence upon Lady
Falkland.

One of her most cherished plans was that for the
establishment of

' places for the education of young Gentlewomen,
and for retirement of Widows . . . hoping thereby
that learning and religion might flourish more in
her own Sex than heretofore, having such oppor-
tunities to serve the Lord without distraction/

It is said that Burford Priory,1 an estate which
Lord Falkland sold to the Speaker, Lenthall, had
seemed to her especially adapted for such a pur-
pose. It was a large Elizabethan manor-house,
with a Jacobean chapel. This scheme seems to
have been suggested, or influenced, by the success
of the community at Little Gidding, which chiefly
consisted of Nicholas Ferrar's widowed mother and
sister and several nieces. The ' Nunnery ' had been

1 Burford Priory, in Oxfordshire, the birthplace of Lord
Falkland, was left directly to him by his grandfather, Lord
Tanfield. The house has been rebuilt with the old materials,
and made smaller, but it still has a fine Elizabethan front.
The chapel was unaltered, and is in much better repair than the
house, which is falling into ruin. Teale seems to be the only
authority for its connexion with Lady Falkland's plans, but
his supposition is not improbable, as she spent some part of her
early married life there, before it was sold to Speaker Lenthall
in 1634.

TENDENCY TOWARDS ASCETICISM 29

commended so highly by Charles I. and other
visitors, and was so much in harmony with the
ideas of many Royalists, that, in a more settled
time, Lady Falkland would have had little diffi-
culty in carrying out her project.

This influence accounts also for the apparent
tendency towards asceticism and conventual life,
which is rather exaggerated, not only by John
Duncon and the writers of the two elegies, but
also by W. Marshall, the artist who designed the
symbolical frontispiece to ' The Returns of Spiritual
Comfort and Grief in a Devout Soul/ Emblems
(reminiscent of Quarles) representing the contents
of the book are surmounted by a portrait of Lady
Falkland, in which the nun-like characteristics of
her face are emphasized by a black widow* s veil,
which is hauntingly suggestive of a conventual
dress. A visitor to Little Gidding writes :

' The habit of the young women, nine or ten or
more of them, was black stuff all of one grave
fashion, always the same, with comely veils on
their heads/

Duncon records of Lady Falkland that ' the
vanity of apparel and dresses she had cut off long
before, and after her Husband's death the richness
of them, too/ During his lifetime she had certainly

30 INTRODUCTION

dressed to please his taste, since ' clothes and habits
... he had minded with more neatness and indus-
try and expense than is usual to so great a soul/
for two earlier portraits represent her in the elabo-
rate dress of the period. In her girlhood she was
exquisitely pretty, with a pensive and gentle ex-
pression which reveals a tendency to a rather sen-
suous type of mysticism. A later portrait is dig-
nified and reserved, with a somewhat cold refine-
ment, but it lacks the charm of her personality.

The frontispiece portrait, though it represents
Lettice Gary in her thirty-fifth year, worn with
sorrow and ill-health, has a much more youthful
expression. In spite of exaggerations and possible
inaccuracies, the artist had caught the spirit of
her life, and, to the utmost of his power, he de-
picted the soul he saw. Her eagerness and sincerity
are evident, and her pathetic humility and wistful-
ness make the same appeal as the letters of inquiry.
Her features show very plainly, in their unearthli-
ness and transparency, ' that look we have on our
faces who die young/ The small chin, the large
and beautiful eyes, and the sadness of her mouth,
all give an impression of flower-like purity and
fragility. It is not a weak face — unless the inno-
cence of a child is weakness — and the extreme sen-

A BOOK OF FRIENDSHIP 31

sitiveness is that of a fine spirit, capable of suffer-
ing, not with passive endurance, but with a power
of realization of pain which made even sympathy
an agony to her. The deepening of spirituality
makes this the best and truest of the portraits, for
it shows a woman who loved much, whose strongest
characteristic was devotion too earnest to be in-
variably wise and reasonable. Yet her great capa-
city for joy is visible enough, and it is easy to
imagine a smile, wistful and quaintly humorous as
her little epigrammatic sayings. Perhaps she was
too sincere to be wholly serious, and sometimes
John Duncon seems to record a playful remark or
thought so ponderously that the point is obscured
or lost. But although he did not always under-
stand her real meaning, he quoted her actual words
in the letters or the life simply because she had
spoken them, and her friends would love to re-
member them. The whole book — and this is, per-
haps, the only excuse for the publication of her
biography with the letters, which she had probably
authorized Duncon to print — is a book of friend-
ship, written by and for those who loved Lady
Falkland.

The keynote of the volume is sounded with no
uncertainty in the text which forms its motto.

32 INTRODUCTION

Sorrow and suffering are not mere tests of faith and
love, but a ' means of grace/ and a way towards
the ultimate and eternal joy. So, through all his
deep sympathy, and even while he recognized pain
as a chastening discipline, John Duncon's theme is
Christian gladness, and thus he could write on the
papers he ' composed for and delivered to ' Lady
Falkland : ' We are helpers of your joy/

INTERIOR OF ST. MICHAEL'S, GREAT TEW.
(Lord and Lady Falkland were buried here, but their graves are not known.)

LETTJCE, VISCOUNTESS FALKLAND.

From the portrait by Cornelius Janssen in the possession of
Viscount Falkland,

A LETTER CONTAINING MANY REMARKABLE
PASSAGES IN THE MOST HOLY LIFE AND
DEATH OF THE LATE LADY LETICE,
VICOUNTESS FALKLAND

WRITTEN TO THE LADY MORISON AT GREAT TEW IN
OXFORDSHIRE1

' MADAME,

' It is the desire of some Honourable Per-
sonages to have an exact account of the Death of
your most dear Daughter, the Lady Falkland ;
they being privy to much piety in her life, expect
(as well they may) somewhat most remarkable in
her sickness and death.

' And for the comfort of you, and for the satis-
faction of them, I have gathered together some
scattered particulars of her life, sickness, and death,
and have sent them unto you. That the most
precious perfume of her name, being poured out
(like S. Mary Magdalen's box of Spikenard), may
1 Second Edition, 1649. London : R. Royston.
33 5

34 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

fill your and their houses. And though this rela-
tion of so many eminent virtues in her, would not
(perhaps) have appeared so handsome from your
own pen (because so deep a share of the praise
belongs to you), yet you need not blush at the
delivering of it ; it may consist with your modesty,
to be a witness of the truth of these particulars ;
though not to be a Publisher of them.

' And if the memory of that most holy Lady,
continue precious amongst us ; and her holy ex-
ample efficacious with us ; and God (who sanctified
her here, and now glorifies her in heaven) be mag-
nified and honoured for his mercies and graces, I
have all I aim at.

' I shall note somewhat remarkable in the very
beginning of her Christian race ; more, in her pro-
gress, and proficiency in it ; and then come to the
last stages, when the crown, at the end of the race,
was (as it were) within her sight and view.

' This elect Lady set out early in the ways of
God, in the dawn or morning of her Age : There
was care taken while she was young, that she
should be brought up in the nurture and admoni-
tion of the Lord ; She came not from her nurse's
arms, without some knowledge of the principles of
Christian religion.

OBEDIENCE AND DILIGENCE 35

' While she was very young, her obedience to
her Parents (which she extended also to her Aunt,
who had some charge over her, in her Father's
house) was very exact ; and as she began, so she
continued in this gratious and awful temper of
duty and observance : I have heard you say
(Madame) that you cannot remember any one par-
ticular, wherein at any time, she disobeyed her
Father, or you.

' That her time might not be mis-spent, nor her
employments tedious to her, the several hours of
the day had variety of employments assigned to
them ; and the intermixing of prayer, reading,
writing, working, and walking, brought a pleasure
to each of them, in their courses ; so that the day
was carried about faster, than she would, and she
begins in this her youth, to abridge herself of sleep,
and was ofttimes at a book in her Closet, when she
was thought to be in bed.

1 You remember wel *, I presume, the Purse her
young fingers wrought for her own alms, and how
importunately she would beg your single mony to
fil it ; and as greedy she was of emptying it too ; the
poor seldome went from the house without the alms
of the young daughter, as wel as of the Parents.
L The spelling of the original is followed throughout.

5—2

36 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

' And how constant she was then, at her private
Prayers, I ghesse (guess), by what I have heard
from the keeper of your house. When strangers
were in her own room, where she ordinarily had
her retirements, he was called to give her the
key of some other chamber for that purpose,
at her hour of Prayer. She would procure a
new Oratory, rather, than omit, or defer, that
duty.

' And how powerful with God, the lifting up of
her pure hands everywhere, in this her innocent
Childhood was, soon appeared. For while her
piety and holiness was in this bud, a violent at-
tempt there was made to blast it. About the thir-
tenth year of her Age, there was a form of tempta-
tion raised in her, and some arguments the tempter
had suggested to drive her to despair of God's
mercy towards her : And this I note the rather,
because it is not ordinary at such years, to have
attained to that growth, as to be thought fit for
those encounters : But God upheld this young
twig, against such a storm, which hath torn up
many a fair tree : For see after some anguish of
spirit, and patience in the combate, and earnest
praiers, God's grace was sufficient for her : And
surely it was not the strength of her hands, at this

DELIGHT IN HOLY DUTIES 37

Age, but the pureness of them, which prevailed for
her.

' Some there are, whom God leads from the
spirituall ^Egypt, to Canaan, not by this way of
the Philistines, lest they should repent when they
see war, and turn back again into ^Egypt (Exod.
13. 17). But her (it seems) God trained up in this
military course ; and from her youth exercised her
in it, that she might be expert at it.

' After this conquest, her soul enjoyed much
peace and tranquility, and she went on most cheer-
fully in holy duties, and tasted much comfort and
delight in them :

Extract from Letter 2.

' I bless God Who openeth His hand wide, and
poureth out plentifully His comforts upon me ;
And so much the more must I praise Him for this
goodness of His towards me, because (as you in-
form me in your letter) these comforts are not
common to all ranks of holy Christians, but to
Beginners chiefly/

Compare the chaplain's answer to Letter 10 :
1 These consolations . . . are sometimes a special
gift of God, which He bestows upon some men to
invite them and allure them by the sweetness of
them to His service, and one whose heart is still
stony may have them and receive the word with
joy (St. Matth. 13. 20). And at other times God

38 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

bestows these consolations after regeneration to
strengthen them ; regenerate and encourage them
in His service.

' Secondly, these consolations sometime proceed
from our own temper, and from our natural con-
stitutions ; some men, and many women, have
such soft constitutions and tender tempers, that
the affections of joy and grief are very soon raised
in them, they may soon be dissolved (as it were)
into sighs and tears ; and they are soon dilated and
enlarged with the cheerful expressions of love and

joy-'

' And her heart was ever and anon so full,
that out of the abundance of it, she would
say, " Oh, what an incomparable sweetness there
is in the musick upon David's harp ; oh, what
heavenly joy there is in those Psalms, and in
praiers, and praises to God ; how amiable are the
courts of God's house ; how welcome the days of
his solemn worship !"

' And now, nothing can hinder her from those
holy Assemblies ; Every Lord's Day constantly,
forenoon, and afternoon, she would be with the
earliest at them : Some while (when she wanted a
convenience of riding) she walked cheerfully three
or four miles a day, as young, and as weak, as she
was, to them : And at night she accounted the joys
and the refreshments, which her soul had been par-

RICHES OF CHARACTER 39

taker of, a sufficient recompense, for the extream
weariness of her body.

' And within a short while by reading good
Authors, and by frequent converse with learned
men, she improves (by God's help) her natural
talents of understanding, and reason, to a great
degree of wisdom and knowledge.

' And now these riches, of her piety, wisdom,
quickness of wit, discretion, judgment, sobriety,
and gravity of behaviour, being once perceived by
Sir Lucius Gary,1 seemed Portion enough to him :
These were they, he prized above worldly Inheri-
tances, and those other fading accessions which
most men court.

' And she being married to him, riches and
honour, and all other worldly prosperity, flow in
upon her, and consequently to proceed in holiness
and godliness grows an harder task, than before it

1 She was the daughter of Sir Richard Morison, and her
brother, Sir Henry Morison, was Lucius Gary's intimate friend
at Cambridge. The Morisons lived at Tooley Park, near
Leicester. Henry died about the age of twenty, and Ben
Jonson wrote an elegy describing the friendship between the
two young men. Lucius Gary married Lettice Morison soon
afterwards, against his father's will (Sir Henry Gary's estate
was much embarrassed, and he wished his son to marry a
richer woman).

40 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

seemed to be ; it being much more difficult when
riches and honor thus increase, then, not to set her
heart upon them.

' Yet God enabled her by his grace for this also ;
for when possession was given her of stately
Palaces, pleasantly seated, and most curiously and
fully furnished, and of revenues and royalties an-
swerable, though your Ladyship hath heard her
acknowledg God's great goodness towards her, for
these temporal preferments, yet neither you, nor
any of her friends, could perceive her heart, any
whit exalted, with joy for them.

' They were of the Babylonian's retinue, who
when they had seen Hezekiah's riches and treasures
set their hearts upon them (Isai. 39). This true Is-
raelite reserved her affections, for those riches
which never fade, and for those dwellings, which
are above, where the City is of pure gold, and the
walls garnished with precious stones.

' This confluence of all worldly felicities and con-
tentments, did so little affect her, that there were
some seemed displeased at it ; and then she would
attribute much of it to a melancholick disease,
which was then upon her ; And though I deny not,
but that some worldly delights might fall by the
hand of her melancholy, yet doubtless where the

SPIRITUAL COMFORTS 41

disease slew its hundreds, grace slew its ten thou-
sands.

' And in this condition some years passed, during
which time, she was most constant at Prayers, and
Sermons, and frequently received the blessed
Sacrament ; and although now, and then, she felt
not her wonted spirituall Comforts, but in stead of
them had some anguish, and bitterness of spirit,
yet by the advise of good Divines, and by her
ordinary help of Prayer, she recovered soon her
peace and joy.

Extract from Letter i.

' Your Spiritual directions I have observed as
punctually as I could : I am present at all publike
Assemblies in the house of God, and bear my part
constantly in the solemn worship of His Name.
And to these publike devotions I add private
Prayers with my family, Morning and Evening,
and to them, Secret in my Closet, and these duties
I perform constantly ... for I remember you told
me that that strict precept of the Apostle, " Pray
continually/' hath not ordinarily a more qualified
sense than this, " Observe your set times of
Prayer constantly, without intermission."

1 Neither am I less constant at Sermons and
Catechizings, and at the Holy Sacrament of our
most blessed Lord's Body and Blood, though I
cannot be so frequent at these duties ; Those I

6

42 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

can hear but once a week, This I can receive but
once a month. And on days of Humiliation, I
labour to intermix more earnest as well as more
frequent Prayers, for the publike necessities, and
for mine own private wants ; endeavouring to ob-
serve the Ordinary and Extraordinary Fasts of the
Church, as strictly as my weak body and my weaker
flesh will admit.

' And that which I relate all this for, which I
dare not divulge to others nor conceal from you,
is this : my exceeding great delight in these spiritual
exercises. While I hear, or read, I taste much
sweetness in the promises of the Gospel ; and while
I pray or meditate, I receive much Comfort and
Delight ; my soul is filled as it were with marrow
and fatness, and my heart is almost ravished with
spiritual joy.'

* Thus in severall conditions of youth, and ripe
yeares of virginity and marriage ; and amongst con-
trary temptations, of adversity, and prosperity,
affliction, and comfort, she continues that course
of holy Life, which she had begun ; a great pro-
ficiency, and a far progress this : yet I crave leave
to reckon it all into her beginning, for this was but
slow in respect of that great agility, and quick
speed, she attained unto, in the other part of her
spirituall race.

' Her proficiency and progress I shall account
from that time, when her prosperity began to

HER HEAVY AFFLICTION 43

abate ; when Her dear Lord, and most beloved
Husband, that he might be like Zebulon (a student
helping the Lord against the mighty, Judg. 5. 14),
went from his Library to the Camp ; from his Book
and Pen, to his Sword and Spear ; and the conse-
quent of that, an inevitable necessity, that she
must now be divorced from him, for a while, whom
she loved more than all the things of this world ;
this was a sad beginning : but that totall divorce,
which, soon after, death made between him and
her ; that he should be taken away by an untimely
death, and by a violent death too, this, this was a
most sore affliction to her ; the same sword which
killed him, pierced her heart also.

' And this heavy affliction which God sent upon
her, she interpreted for a loud call from heaven,
to a further proficiency in piety and virtue.

Extract from Letter 4.

' I have no stream of Comfort at all in my Devo-
tions, no comfortable blast of the Spirit to set me
forward, and a heavie load of dullness and drowsi-
ness to retard me, and yet I must make as quick a
dispatch as when I had no such impediment against
me and a full stream for me : Yet for these late
weeks I have set myself strictly to observe that
and your other directions ; but alas, Sir, the more

6—2

44 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

I struggle with my disease the more it increaseth
upon me.'

The chaplain replied :

' There is a Spiritual desertion of grace and a
Spiritual desertion of comfort. The first, when God
withdraws His Holy Spirit and divine Grace from
us, for some notorious sin committed against Him.
The Latter, when He withdraws only the joy and
comfort of that Grace which is still with us.

' And this latter kind of Spiritual desertion may
be in the best saints of God upon Earth. . . . (It)
may be inflicted upon you, Ob caritatis profectum,
as an incentive to love. . . . Or, Secondly, . . . ob
humilitatis cmtodiam, as a preservative against
pride, that humility may grow more in you ; a
Thorne in the flesh, lest you should be exalted
above measure with the abundance of heavenly
Consolations. And, if so, who will complain, though
the honey and the honeycomb be taken away from
him, when he hath eaten sufficient, and is in danger
to surfeit by the rest ?'

'And yet she fears it may be a punishment
also upon her, for some sin or other, and therefore
strictly examines her self, and ransacks every
corner of her heart, to find out wherein she had
provoked God to lay this great affliction upon her ;
and to make sure, she renues her repentance for
all her transgressions ; and her godly sorrow for
her sins past, is as fresh, as if it had been for the
sins of yesterday.

STRICT COURSE OF LIFE 45

Extract from Letter 5.

' Upon a view of my actions since the last solemn
Humiliation of my Soul, I find many defects and
failings, and though I cannot charge myself with
any one notorious sin unrepented of (blessed be
God my upholder), yet, while I am compassed
about with so many infirmities and imperfections,
negligences, and ignorances, I cannot but fear, too
probably, that for some of these it is that God
in displeasure withdraws those His comforts
from me.

' And can there be a greater heart-sore than this,
that my dearest comforts should be taken away,
yea, driven away from myself by myself P

' And now she adresses her self to a Divine
of great eminence for piety, and learning1 ; and
from him she takes directions for a more strict
course of life in this her Widowhood, than for-

1 This may have been Dr. Eleazar Duncon, who was at-
tached to the High Church party, and was one of the King's
chaplains. Dr. Triplet had been tutor and chaplain to Lord
Falkland. Hugh Cressy, John Earle, William Chilling worth,
and Henry Hammond all belonged to the circle of Falkland's
clerical friends, and were frequent visitors at Great Tew.
Jaspar Mayne, Canon of Christchurch, and Rector of Cassing-
ton and Pyrton in Oxfordshire, had written verses which were
much admired by Lord Falkland, and he was (almost certainly)
the author of the longer elegy on Lady Falkland. He also was
a personal friend.

46 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

merly ; now she forgetting quite what was behind,
presses forward to what was before, and, as if she
had done nothing yet, she begins anew.

' And though the greatest and chiefest part of
her Christian work, was locked up close within her
self, and some of it very studiously and industri-
ously conceeled by her (that she might be sure no
degree of vaine glory, should creep upon her with
it), yet much of it appeared by the effects, and is
now forced to come abroad before us.

' Her first and grand employment was, to read
and understand, and then (to the utmost of her
strength) to practise our most blessed Saviour's Ser-
mon upon the Mount, in the fift, sixt, and seventh
Chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel ; and having read
over a most compleat (though compendious) Com-
ment upon that Sermon, she set forthwith, upon
the work of practising it, and began with those
virtues, to which the beatitudes are annexed.

' And her mercifulnes was none of those virtues,
which she could at all conceal from us ; much of
her estate (we saw) given yearly to those of her
kindred, which were capable of Charity from her :
And some of her neer neighbours, who were very
old, and not able to work ; or very young, and not
fit for work, were wholly maintained by her : To

WISDOM OF HER CHARITY 47

other poor children she contributed much, both for
their spiritual, and their temporal wel being ; by
erecting a School1 for them, where they were to
be taught both to read and to work : much care
she took, that no man, or woman, or child should
want employment ; that their own hands might
bring them in a competent subsistence ; and ac-
counted that the best contrivement of her estate,
which set most poor people on work ; for if it were
to their profit, she little regarded her own detri-
ment in it.

' So that her principal care herein, was to keep
them from Idleness (that root of all sin and
wickedness), for by another contrivement of her
estate, she might have received more profit, and
thereby have been better able, to relieve them,
though by this only, she was able to set them on
work.

' A most eminent piece of mercifulnesse this,
where corporall and spirituall mercy went together,
and wisdome guided both.

' And for the poor at home, and for strangers at

1 About the end of the eighteenth century, a school-build-
ing, attached to or close by the church at Great Tew, was
pulled down. It is probable that this was the school erected
by Lady Falkland.

48 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

the dore, she was very charitable in feeding the
hungry, and refreshing the faint and weak ; and
for clothing the naked, in some extremities you
should see this Lady her self goe up and down the
house, and beg garments from her Servants' backs
(whom she requited soon after with new), that the
poor might not go naked, or cold from her dore :
So that she was not only a Liberal Almoner to the
poor, but also an earnest solicitor for them : And
when it was objected, that many idle and wicked
people, were by this course of charity, relieved at
her house, her answer was : " I know not their
hearts, and in their outward carriage and speech,
they all appear to me good and virtuous ; and I
had rather relieve five unworthy vagrants, then
that one member of Christ should go empty away ;"
And for harboring strangers, the many inconveni-
ences, ordinarily ensuing upon it, could not deter
her from it ; sometimes for some weeks together,
they were entertained by her.

' And since her death, I hear of plentiful relief,
here, at London, and at Oxford, sent privately to
Prisons, and needy persons, with a strict charge
that it should not be known whence it came ; She
would not have her left hand know what her right
hand gave.

RELIEF FOR HER ENEMIES 49

1 And this her mercifulness could not be bounded
within the limits of friends, it extended itself to
her enemies too ; when there were some store of
them taken prisoners by the King's Soldiers, and
in great need, she consulted how she might send
relief to them : and when it was answered, that
such an act would raise jealousies (in some) of her
loyalty to His Majesty, she replied, " No man
will suspect my loyalty, because I relieve these
Prisoners, but he would suspect my Christianity,
if he should see me relieve a needy Turk, or Jew :
however, I had rather be so misunderstood (if
this my secret Almes should be known), than that
any of mine enemies (the worst of them) should
perish for want of it."

1 And this one instance, and reason of hers is
ground enough to believe, she failed not to relieve
her enemies, as often as occasion required.

' But beyond all, her mercifulness towards the
sick, was most laudable : her provision of Anti-
dotes against infection, and of Cordials, and other
several sorts of Physick for such of her neighbors
as should need them, amounted yearly to very con-
siderable sums : and though in distributing such
medicinal provisions, her hand was very open, yet
it was close enough in applying them, her skil

7

50 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

(indeed) was more than ordinary, and her wariness
too.

' When any of her poor neighbors were sick
she had a constant care, that they should neither
want such relief, nor such attendance, as their weak
condition called for, and (if need were) she hired
nurses to serve them : And her own frequent visit-
ing of the poorest Cottages, and her ready service
to them, on their sick-bed, argued as great humility,
as mercifulness in her ; yet the Books of spiritual
exhortations, she carried in her hand to these sick
persons, declared a further design she had therein,
of promoting them towards heaven, by reading to
them, and by administering words of holy councel
to them : " There is no season more fit (she would
say) for sowing good seed than this ; while the
ground of their hearts is softened, and melting with
sorrow, and sickness ;" And to gain this advantage
it was that she was so frequent a visitor of the
sick, going day after day, to their bed-side ; This
Honourable Lady hath bin observed sitting in a
Cottage, way ting the sick woman's leisure, til the
slumbers and fits were over, that she might read
again to her, and finish the work she had begun.

' And of late when she could not do this good
office, in her own person (she growing sickly and

CARE FOR THE SICK 51

weak) yet she would do it stil by proxie ; for some
of her friends or servants were deputed by her, to
go to the sick, with her Books too, daily ; and now
and then most of her family (who were fit for such
an imployment) were sent abroad on this errand.

' Thus ordinarily in all her works of corporal
mercy, she added works of spiritual mercy, too ;
relieving the wants of the body, and of the soul
together, instructing, and exhorting, and earnestly
persuading the poor and the sick to some virtue or
other, for their souls health.

' Herein following the command in this Sermon,
and also the example of the Preacher, our most
blessed Savior : who, when He cured the diseases
of the body, cured the diseases of that infirm soul
too ; and at the same time, with one word, ad-
ministered to the sick and impotent, both health
and grace : our Savior's practice is the gloss upon
His own Text ; and this handmayd of His, was for
the text, and this glosse too of mercifulnesse.

' And as for this, so for meekness also, she was
most eminent : she was second to none of her Sex,
and Age (I believe) among us, for perspicacity of
understanding, and clearness of judgement ; yet as
far from self-conceit, as from ignorance : her wont
indeed was upon debates, to object till all argu-

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52 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

merits, she could think on, to the contrary, were
satisfied ; and when that was once done, no cavill
was heard, but her assent readily given ; and this
ready submission of her judgement to the best
reasons, I mention, for the meekness of her under-
standing ; herein this Lady excelled some of the
chiefest Rabbis, that her knowledge did not puff
up, but edifie.

' And her understanding leading the way in
meekness, her wil chearfully followed in it too ; as
soon as her understanding was satisfied, her wil
bowed presently and obeyed ; she seldome denied
to do, what she was convinced was fit to be
done.

' The greater difficulty was with her affections :
her natural temper she would oft complain inclined
her to anger ; and being so well aware of it she
most diligently observed her self, and did in a
great degree conquer that froward inclination : and
that good measure of meekness (in this kind) which
she attained unto, was the more commendable,
because of the great difficulties she met with,
in it.

' Then for peaceablenesse : as much as in her lay,
and as far as was possible, she had peace with all
men ; she suffered her self to be defrauded, and

A PEACEMAKER 53

damaged in her Estate, rather than she would dis-
quiet a debtor, by suits at law ; for peace is equiva-
lent (said she) to the summe detained.

' And for differences in Law among others, where
she was not a Party, her Christianity engaged her
to wish, and endeavour for reconciliation amongst
Brethren ; but especially, when controversies arose
between Neighbors, and Parishioners, she made use
of all her power and art, to reconcile them.

' And she had her Antidotes here too, as well as
her medicines ; to prevent contentions as wel as to
cure them. It cost her a good sum, your Lady-
ship knows, a while since to prevent a contention,
she foresaw arising among the neighbors, about the
choice of a Parish Officer : she hired one, and all
was peacable and quiet.

' Thus she hungred and thirsted after peace, and
after righteousness too ; as the chased, wearied,
and faint hart after the water brooks, so her soul
seemed to long after righteousness ; frequently
panting, " Oh why am I not ? Oh how shal I be ?
Oh when shal I be perfect, as my heavenly Father
is perfect ?"

' And for patient suffering. Of late she was sel-
dome free from this or that trouble : spiritual afflic-
tions, and sorrows, or bodily infirmities, or weak-

54 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

ness and sickness, or worldly losses, in her estate,
one, or more of these, or such like pressures were
constantly heavy upon her ; yet little disturbance,
no impatience at all could be perceived in her ; I
have seen them all upon her together, and yet her
patience triumphing over them all.

Extract from Letter 3.

' Heretofore I took great delight in the service
and worship of God ; my Prayers were refreshments,
yea, banquets to me, my Fasts and Humilia-
tions as corne and wine did feast and cheer my
Heart ; By reading, or hearing God's Word, or by
meditating upon it, and by receiving the Blessed
Sacrament, my soul became young and lusty as
an Eagle, full of vigour and comfort ; But now
dryness and sadness have taken hold upon me,
and sorrow and grief overwhelm me.

' In the exercise of Holy Duties I am so little
affected with comfort and delight that I grow now
backward to them, and dull and drowsy in them ;
and those times which are set apart for the publick
and solemn worship of God seem now to me (as
the Sabbaths to them in Amos) most tedious and
long. ... I was well aware that the delights of the
world were fading and transitory, but are these
Christian Comforts, these holy joys so, too ? The
fire and heat of Earthly Pleasures I have oft seen
suddenly quenched, and can that from heaven,
heavenly, be quenched, too ? Oh, that I had wings

POVERTY OF SPIRIT 55

like a Dove, that I might flee away to those com-
forts and Pleasures which never fail, where there
is fulness of joy, and that for evermore !'

' There were who thought her in love with suffer-
ing, when she refused to pay contribution mony
against the King, and suffered her stock of great
value to be seized on, rather than to pay some
little tax, which was demanded : This (I say) was
thought much ; had not carrying the Cross, when
it is inevitably layd on, bin enough ; but thus to
meet the Cross, and take it up, thus forwardly to
suffer damage, rather then blemish her obedience
and loyalty, this was her practise ; and there-
fore til the King himself granted an indulgence,
she patiently suffered whatsoever damage came
upon her, stil refusing to pay contribution to
the neighboring Garrisons, which were against
him.

' And now after the exercise of all these virtues
in this high degree, such a Poverty of spirit was
apparent in her, as was most admirable : upon all
occasions bewailing her weaknesses, and lamenting
her spiritual wants : There were some about her,
who had an holy emulation to be like her, in these,
and such like graces and virtues, and she hath now
and then overheard them, wishing, that they were

56 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

as forward, as she : and her constant reply was,
" Oh, ye are not so backward ! yet wish yourselves
better ; ye know not how vile and corrupt my
heart is/' So that in some respects she accounted
her self the greatest of sinners ; in no respect would
she esteem better of her self, than of the least of
Saints ; a welwisher towards holines, and a be-
ginner stil.

' Of late I have been searching up and down my
soul for those other graces and virtues which God's
spirit had formed in me, and whereas they should
grow and increase more and more, for a while they
also have languished in me, and now (I fear) they
are quite dead. ... I am a weak Suppliant (God
help), and a weaker Combatant. Indeed, if I should
perceive my zeal working only while I am on my
knees, and not other ways also ... I dare not ap-
prove myself for that. I was wont to aim at being
a stout Combatant as well as a fervent Suppliant :
But now, not only my knees are feeble, but also
my hands, and no zeal at all to be perceived. . .
And when I plead for my excuse (as you suggest I
may), my Natural Infirmity, I fear lest that should
be Self-flattery/

' Thus she daily practised these graces and vir-
tues, to which our Savior annexed such special
blessings ; and studied to be stil more and more
perfect in them, with as much diligence, as the

THE DUTY OF PRAYER 57

Scholar doth his lesson, and with as much success,
and good speed too.

Extract from Letter i.

1 Now I miss those opportunities I had at Court
and at the Cathedral [Christchurch, Oxford] ;
either of these places afforded publick Prayers
thrice every day, and Lectures also on the week-
days ; Nay, it is not here so well with me as it was,
when you and I lived together in that Country
Village, where the good Parson had Morning and
Evening Prayer in the parish Church, twice a day
continually. . . . Now we have this advantage of
Publick Prayer only on the Lord's Day and its
Eve, and on Holy Days and their Eves, and on
Wednesdays and Fridays, our wonted Litany-
days ; now I find not that other Analogy between
our Prayers, and the Incense and Perfumes of the
Tabernacle, that as those were, so these are now
offered up daily/1

1 And from this Sermon of our blessed Savior,
she learned that duty of Praier ; and her chief
practise therein, she could not conceal from us
neither, which was, as follows.

' First, she spent some hours every day in her
private devotions, and meditations ; and these were
called (I remember) by those of her family, her

1 This probably refers to the Prohibition of the Prayer
Book, 1645.

8

58 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

busy howrs ; praiers, her business ; Martha's em-
ployment was her recreation, she had spare howres
for it ; Maries, was her business : Then her maids
came into her chamber early every morning, and
ordinarily she passed about an howr with them ;
In praying, and catechising, and instructing them ;
to these secret and private praiers, the publick
Morning and Evening praiers of the Church, before
dinner, and supper ; and another form (together
with reading Scriptures, and singing Psalms) before
bedtime, were daily and constantly added.

' And so strict was she for the observing of these
severall howres of Prayer, that a charge was given
her servants to be frequent (if their occasions per-
mitted) at every of them : However, she would not
endure that any one should be absent from them
all ; If she observed any such, she presently sent
for them, into her Chamber ; and consecrated
another howr of Prayer, there, purposely for them :
And she would pray with those servants privately,
ere she went to bed, who had not prayed publickly
with her, that Day.

' To pray with David, seven times a day, or with
Daniel three times, is expected perhaps only from
such persons, as have leisure and opportunity : but
with Levi to offer up Morning and Evening Sacri-

KEEPING THE LORD'S DAY 59

fice, every day, this she required from the busiest
servant in the house, that at the outgoings of the
Morning and Evening, every one should praise God,
and call upon His name.

' Neither were these holy offices appropriate to
her menial servants, others came freely to joyn
with them, and her Oratory was as open to the
neighbors, as her Hall was.

' On the Lord's day she rose in the morning,
earlier than ordinarily; yet enjoyned her self to
much private duty, with her children and servants
(examining them in the Sermons, and Catechisings,
etc.), and with her own soul, that oftentimes the
day was too short for her ; and then I have known
her rise two or three howrs before day, on the Mon-
day, to supply what was left undone, the day before.

' To dispose her self the better for the religious
keeping of the Lord's day (as wel as for other
spiritual ends) I presume it was, that she so
solemnly fasted every Saturday ; that day she se-
questred herself from company, and from worldly
employment, and came seldom out of her Closet,
til towards evening, and then the Chaplain must
double the sacrifice ; praiers she had and Catechiz-
ing both.

' And the other Holy days of the Church she

8—2

60 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

punctually observed : and when the publick duties
were performed by the Congregation, on those days
she released her servants to their recreations, and
to their particular Occasions, saying, " These days
are yours, and as due to you, as ordinary days to
my imployments ; and I wil not be unjust to en-
croach upon your severals,1 by expecting any
work from you."

' And on these Holy days she rejoyced much, at
the advantage she gained, of going to her poor un-
learned neighbors with her Book ; " Now their
plow and their wheel (said she) stands stil ; and
they are at good leisure, to hear some good lessons
read to them/'

' And her strictness was exemplary in keeping
the fasts of the Church, and such days as were ap-
pointed for Solemn humiliation ; yong and old,
noble, and mean, free and bond, in her family,
must observe them duly : the Ninivites were her
patern, both for outward and inward humiliation.

' And since our calamities increased upon us, she

1 * Severals ' : a word which has fallen out of use since the
enclosing of the country. ' While the country was for the most
part laid out in commons, it was applied to the portion set
apart for different owners of common rights, for growing their
private crops, the rest being pasture for the parish herds '
(Teale).

SCRUPLES AND FEARS 61

often wished, that lawful authority could vote it
fit, that not only the second Fridays, but also the
last Wednesdays in every Month, should be kept
solemnly throughout the land ; that our Fasts were
doubled as well as our troubles.

' And her care to prepare her self for the receiv-
ing of the holy Sacrament, of our most blessed
Lord's Supper, was most commendable, and most
punctual : oftentimes scruples and fears arose in
her, tending to keep her back from that heavenly
banquet ; and she (having upon examinations of
them, reason enough (as we thought) to conclude,
that they were temptations from the Devil, whom
she perceived labouring amain, to deprive her of
that strength and comfort, which she hoped to re-
ceive from that sacred ordinance) neglected them
all and presented her self, with an humble and
trembling heart, at that blessed Sacrament, and
these fears and scruples in her, occasioned this
peremptory resolution from her, that she would
not (by God's help) thenceforth omit any oppor-
tunity of communicating : Thus while the Devil is
undermining to weaken her, she is countermining
to strengthen herself more against him ; which reso-
lution she constantly kept at home, and (I am
told) at Oxford, and London too ; The first inquiry

62 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

almost after her journey thither, was, where, and
when is there a Communion ? And sometimes she
would go to the other end of the City for it.

' At home her Servants were all moved to accom-
pany her to the Sacrament, and they who were
prevailed with, gave up their names to her, two
or three days before ; and from thence, she applied
her self to the instructing of them ; and she knew
wel, how to administer, to every one their par-
ticular portion ; and several exhortations she had
for several persons whom she had power over.

' Yet she trusted not in her own instructions of
them, but desired the Chaplain's help also to ex-
amine them, and to instruct them farther ; and her
care was so to order her domestical occasions, that
all those Servants, who were to receive the Sacra-
ment, should have the day before it free from their
ordinary work, that they might have better leisure
for that spiritual work of preparing themselves for
that Sacrament.

' And after the holy Sacrament, she called them
together againe, and gave them such exhortations
as were proper for them.

' And this very care and piety in family duties
was so highly esteemed of in Abraham, that God
made him one of His privie councell (as I may so

A FURTHER AFFLICTION 63

say), for that alone (Gen. 18. 17). And might not
the singular wisdom and deep knowledge of divine
councels, and heavenly mysteries, which this
daughter of Abraham had, be a reward of that
care to instruct her Children, and household in the
ways of God ?

* Yet while she is thus religiously and piously
imployed in this good proficiency, and far progress,
going on from grace to grace, from virtue to virtue ;
God hath a further designe upon her, another afflic-
tion to quicken her yet more.

* Her young and most dear son Lorenzo (whom
God had endowed with the choicest of natural
abilities, and to whom her affections were most
tender, by reason of those fair blossoms of piety,
she perceived in him) God takes away from her.
This added to her former troubles, of the loss of
her Husband, of her crosses in the world, and of
her spirituall afflictions (which came often upon
her) makes the burthen most heavy ; she was
bruised with afflictions before, but now she fears
being ground to powder.

Extract from Letter 6.

* I peruse your directions daily, for I am still in
my disconsolate condition, my dryness, my dry-
ness, woe is me ! I cannot dissemble it. Those

64 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

Comforts have held up my weary hands, in prayer
they have strengthened my feeble knees ; in the
publike Congregation, in my private closet, medi-
tating in the field and on my bed, at all times and
upon all occasions they have been my companions
and my supporters also. They have made me more
forward in Christian duties, more cheerful in them,
and more plentiful of them, than otherwise I fear
I should have been ; but now they have all for-
saken me, and I am left weak/

' Now she weeps and mourns all the day long,
and at night also waters her couch with teares ;
and weeping, saith, " Ah ! this immoderate sorrow
must be repented of, these tears wept over again :"
and this quick sense of displeasing God, by this
deep grief, soon allayed the vehemency of it. And
now she retires herself to listen, what the Lord God
said unto her, in this louder call of affliction ; and
she seems to be prompted, that she was not yet
weaned enough from the things of this world, and
that it is expedient for her, that some of those
worldly comforts she most delighted in, should be
taken away from her, that her conversation may
be yet more spiritual, and heavenly, and therefor
this affliction seemed to call her to a greater morti-
fication to the world, and to a near conformation
to Christ her Lord.

THE CHAPLAIN'S COUNSEL 65

' Yet stil her sorrow for her son is somwhat ex-
orbitant (she fears), and therfore she goes to her
ghostly Physitian again, and acquaints him with
the violence of those fits of sorrow, which of late
seized upon her, for the death of her Son ; and he
with his medicinal councel and direction, by God's
help, cured this her distemper1 ; and antidotes he
prescribed too, to prevent a relapse into this
malady of excessive grief.

Extract from Answer to Letter 3.

' Devotion doth not consist in these outward
and sensible consolations, but in a steady, active
will and purpose to conform ourselves inwardly
and outwardly to the holy pleasure and commands
of God, and as occasion is given, executing the will
of God, and obeying His Laws ; This, this is pure
Devotion/

Extract from Answer to Letter 6.

' There goes alway along with these our Conso-
lations, self-love, and sometime too much of it too ;
It will concern us therefore to moderate it ; to that
purpose, when we propose to ourselves the exer-
cise of any duties, or the practice of any Christian

1 The Chaplain's counsel in ' desertion ' follows the highest
and severest method of the devout life. His chief points are
absolute and wilful faith and obedience, and entire disin-
terestedness in the service of God. Cp. St. F. de Sales'
' Devout Life/ Part IV.

66 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

virtues, our own interest, Pleasure, or advantage
(spiritual though they be) must be the least things
we aim at, lest self-respects blemish all. And thus
(though in the depth of desertion) our love is more
commendable, and those duties and virtues more
acceptable to God, for Whose sake wholly we per-
form them, than those exercises and duties we for-
merly had so much comfort in ; and upon this
reason I still advise you, not to set too high an
esteem upon these Consolations, your own delights.'

' Now she confesses that this very affliction was
most fit for her, and that it would prove most be-
hoofful to her, and therefore she labors to put
on joy instead of sorrow, and comfort instead of
mourning, and returning home with perfect cheer-
fulnesse, every one there observed a most notable,
though sodaine change in her ; sad Hanna's coun-
tenance and conversation not more visibly changed
upon the good words of Eli the Prophet, to her,
concerning the Samuel she should obtain, then hers
now is, after the loss of one.

' Thus God made the medicine most sovereign
to her, and the antidote too ; for I verily believe
she never after felt any fit of that her disease ; and
though she wept often for her tears so profusely
spent formerly upon her Son's hearse, yet after
this, not a tear more shed over it.

A SUBTLE TEMPTATION 67

' And with this extraordinary cheerfulness she
takes up a most firm resolution of a further pro-
gress in holiness and piety, and addresses herself to
run these later stages of her Christian race, with
greater speed, than she had shewed in any of the
former ; and thereupon she begins with a most
diligent endeavour to conform her life exactly, and
universally to the most holy wil of God.

' But the Devil, who before envied her beginning,
and her proficiency much more, is now most violent
to hinder her perfection ; and therefor upon this
her renued purpose of more exact obedience, pre-
sently assaults her with fiercenesse and rage,
strongly tempting her, to think that she had
deceived her self all this while, and that she had
mocked God with a counterfeit repentance, which
was no way acceptable to Him.

' And an Argument was brought to this purpose,
which was so fully suitable to the tendernesse of
her own spirit, that it is hard to say, whence it
proceeded.

' And this it was ; my grief for my sins hath not
been so vehement, as that, the other day, for the
death of my Son ; I wept not so bitterly for
them, as I did for that ; and therefore, that my
repentance is not acceptable ; you may read the

9—2

68 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

argument further pressed against her self, in the
Letters annexed.

Extract from Letter 7.

' The other day, while I was judging myself for
my sins, an allegation was cast in against my Re-
pentance also, and that was accused of insincerity
and hypocrisy ; and proof was brought in of it :
My grief and sorrow for my sins was compared
with my sorrow for other things ; the small bottle
of my penitential tears was brought forth and set
by the bottle of my tears for worldly crosses ; and
it appeared how enlarged I had been in these, and
how straitened in those ; that I have wept more
for the loss of a friend, or of a pension for some
years, than for the loss of my Lord God. . . . Upon
this, how heavy and sad my guilty soul is cannot
be expressed/ *

\ Extract from Letter 9.

' My sins, which were removed from me as far
as the East is from the West, are now met together
again, and set in order before me ; and they which
were as white as snow or wool, are now crimson
and scarlet again. Yea, my Saviour and Redeemer,
Who was my Surety, and cancelled the bond of
handwriting which was against me, is now become
an incensed creditor against me. Lord, if I could
believe in Him, He would quit me and set me free
again ; Oh, help Thou mine unbelief ! and though
I am weak in faith, make me faithful in weakness.

COMFORT AND SATISFACTION 69

And yet my hope perisheth also (Lam. 3. 18). I
was wont when I could not rejoice in things en-
joyed, yet somewhat to comfort myself in things
promised, but now things past, and present, and
to come, are all against me, and fear is on every
side/

The Chaplain answered :

' I think that the Lord inflicts not, only suffers
this against you ; that it is the Devil who thus
buffets you, and that these are his fierce assaults
and vehement temptations. And if so, as before
you were conformed to our blessed Saviour in
desertion of comfort, so now you fill up that con-
formity to Him, by enduring also this infliction of
temptations. . . . And if our Head and our fellow-
members suffered these very afflictions, I pray
think it not strange concerning this fiery trial :
especially considering that this conformity to
Christ's sufferings will work out for you a con-
formity to Him in glory/

' And in this anguish of spirit, she hastens to her
learned friend againe, and begs councel and direc-
tion from him, and after devout Prayers and holy
Conferences, received full comfort and thorough
satisfaction, and returns home now as visibly lifted
up from the deep pit of anguish, and disquiet of
spirit, as she was the other day, from the valley of
sorrow : and with tranquillity of mind, and joy of
heart, shews to her friends, both how she sunk,

70 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

and how she was raised again ; as you may read
further in the annexed Letters.

Extract from Letter 10.

' I return you many thanks for your letters of
ghostly direction and comfort, and for your Prayers
for me, and the more heartily because they prove
so behoofful and advantageous to me ; The floods
of afflictions and the waves of terrors beat vehe-
mently upon my soul, but the Lord, Who sitteth
above the water-floods, hath supported me, and I
have now seen the wonders of God in the Deep.
... I have found Him Whom I sought, the love of
my Soul, and the joy of mine Heart, my God and
my Lord. Now I enjoy His Presence, I feel His
Influence, and the light of His Countenance also
shines upon me. . . . Surely, Sir, my sufferings
compared with the Age of my sinfulness, but espe-
cially with the eternity of Comforts which I shall
enjoy, were but for a moment, a very short
moment, but the twinkling of an Eye : And now
my joys return. . . . And when I am filled with
the comforts of God, my heart dilates itself further
by looking upon the joys of heaven ; for if there
be such joys during the seedtime, how infinite is
the joy of harvest ?

' Praised be the Lord Who hath heard my com-
plaint and answered my prayer, and that with ad-
vantage. I asked my former comforts, and He fills
me with them far more than before ; He hath been
more bountiful to me, than I dared presume to ask.
Now I perceive it was so far from being prejudicial

FULLNESS OF JOY 71

to me, that it was most expedient for me, that
Christ should go away from me, with these His
Consolations, for now He hath sent the Holy Ghost
the Comforter down into my soul, with far greater
delights, and with more Heavenly joy, than ever
heretofore ; and if barrenness be so fruitful, and
yields such a plentiful harvest, oh my soul be thou
never hereafter troubled at it.'

I And now having by the help of her God leapt
over this wall, and overcome this difficulty, with
much cheerfulness of spirit she enters upon the
practise of what she had last resolved on.

Extract from Letter n.

I 1 still abound with these consolations, and I
cannot mistrust them to come from any other foun-
tain than from heaven ; my sensitive faculties have
some share in outward consolations, but my ra-
tional faculties overflow with them ; and therefore
I bless God, the Author of these and of all true
comforts. And these still increase in me ; the oil
of my former joy was as that in the widow's little
cruse ; but now I have such store that (with the
other widow) I want vessels to hold it.

' Oft-times I cry out (with the holy man I read
of) : "Sufficit, Domine, sufficit " — It is enough, Lord,
it is enough, I am full of joy, brim-full, and can
hold no more/

' This opposition, though it stayed her awhile,
yet set an edge upon her resolution, and she soon

72 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

recovered that whetting time. And she begins
by a most sharp mortification, to obey the call
of her last Affliction.

' The vanity of apparel and dresses she had cut
off long before ; and after her Husband's death, the
richness of them too. These (and her looking-
glasses with the women in the law, Exod. 38. 8)
she had laid by, for the service of the Tabernacle :
what she spared in these, she bestowed upon the
poor Members of Christ, and now she begins to cut
off all worldly pomp also.

' In her House, in her Retinue, and at her Table,
and otherwise, she denies herself that stale (which
her quality might have excused) that (with Dorcas
the Widow) she might be full of good works ; and
more delight she takes to see her Revenues now
spent among a crowd of Almes-men and women
at her dore, then by a throng of Servants in her
house ; it was a greater joy to her that she could
maintain poor children at their Books, and their
work, then to have Pages and Gentlewomen for
her Attendants : These expences she knew would
be better allowed, in her Bill of Accounts, at the
general Audit, then those other ; it was her pomp
and joy to mortifie all useless pomp of State, and
all delight in Courtly vanities.

THE UNRULY MEMBER 73

' And now her anger too (which was crushed
before) must be wholly subdued ; and to that pur-
pose she solicitously avoids all enquiries ; and all
discourse which she feared would provoke her to
immoderate anger ; and when she feels it struggling
to arise in her, then presently (either by silence, or
by diverting to another matter) she labours to
stifle it.

1 And while she is suppressing the sinfulness of
this passion, she undertakes also, that most diffi-
cult task of taming the tongue : And as it is neces-
sary with unruly beasts, she begins roughly with
it, ties it up, with a most strong resolution, and
scarce suffers it to speak, lest she should offend
with her tongue : thus for some while it was
straightened, and then she loosed it a little with
these two cautions.

' First, that it should never speak evil of any
man, though truly, but only upon a designe of
charity, to reclaim him from that evil : And because
it is not ordinary to reclaim any vicious person,
in his absence, therefore her charge is peremptory
to her tongue, That it never should speak evil
of any man, were he most notoriously vicious, if
he were absent, and not like to be amended by it :
A strict rule this, yet verily I perswade my self,

10

74 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

that for a long time before her death, she most
punctually observed it ; she accounted it a crime
to speak evil falsly of any man ; and it went for a
slander with her (as wel it might) to speak evil
truly of any one, unless it were in love.

' The second caution her tongue had, was that,
as much as possible, it should keep in every idle
word, and speak out only that which was to edifica-
tion.

' The Thessalonians were famous for speaking to
the edification one of another (i Thes. 5. n), and
this Thessalonian language our good Lady studied,
with as much diligence and earnestness, as we
ordinarily study a deep science, or a gainful
mystery : and now she is very slow to speak (as
the Apostle exhorts) and, where she cannot rule
the discourse to edification, she sits silent, and
refrains even from good words, though it be pain
and grief to her.

' And of late she distinguish^ between civil, and
spiritual edification, and scarcely allowed herself
discourses for civil edification of her friends, or
neighbors in worldly matters : Spiritual edification
in heavenly things was all her aim.

' And her care was the same in writing, as in
speaking ; not a vain, not an idle word must slip

MORTIFICATIONS 75

from her pen ; she thought not her soul clean, if
there were such a blot in her paper. In her Letters,
no favour of complement at all, and she judged
her self guilty of a trespass, if she subscribed her
self, Your servant, to whom she was not really
so.

' And for that other temperance in diet, as wel
as in speech, she was very eminent. A small dosis,
of meat or drink, and of sleep, and ease, sufficed
her.

' In fastings often, in watching often ; and tem-
perate she was, in an high degree, continually.
And these were sure means for the mortification
of her appetites ; and as far from daintiness as
from intemperance, and both that, and this, not
only in a care of her health, and in respect of God's
commandment, but also out of a consciousness (as
she would now and then intimate) that she was
unworthy to enjoy any thing, for quantity or
quality above the meanest in the Parish.

' And together with these mortifications of her
affections to honor and state ; and of her appetites ;
she now also severely undertakes the mortification
of her natural Affection to her Children and
Friends, and keeps that from its wonted exorbi-
tancy.

10 — 2

76 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

Extract from Letter 5.

' If I could abridge myself a little more of that
delight I take in the study of History, Philosophy,
and the like ; If I could abate some little of that
comfort I solace myself with, in friends and chil-
dren ; if I could be a little more straitened in these
worldly comforts, I should well hope to be enlarged
again in these spiritual comforts/

' It sounded very harshly, to some of her dearest
friends, when she said, " Oh love me not, I pray,
too much !" until she added, " And God grant,
I never love my friends too much hereafter, that
hath cost me dear, and my heart hath smarted
sore with grief for it already :" And now her will
and understanding must be henceforth more mor-
tified than formerly ; she had resigned them before
to God's will, and she renues that resignation daily,
and most freely submits herself in everything, not
only to God's will, but also to his wisdome : " And
whatever comes upon me (said she) I will bear it
patiently, because by God's will it comes ; yea, I
will bear it cheerfully, because by God's wisdome
it is thus ordered, and it will work (as all things
else) for mine advantage."

Compare the Chaplain's answer to Letter 8 :

ACQUIESCENCE IN THE DIVINE WILL 77

' Consider, I pray, there are other graces to grow
in you besides peace and joy ; and though the light
of God's countenance, those sunshiny days, might
ripen them most, yet this present cloudy weather
may advantage your growth in humility and
mourning and self-denial ; and if there be a growth
downward in these, though you perceive no growth
upward in the other, yet are you increasing in
holiness/

1 And upon this reason she was wont to account
the death of her Husband, and of her Son, as ex-
traordinary perquisits and advantages to her ; " and
therefore I should offend not only against free
obedience and submission, but also against com-
mon prudence (said she) if I should wish my con-
dition otherwise, then now it is ; I cannot wish
anything so gainfull and prosperous to me, as this,
which my heavenly Father in his wisdome hath
ordered for me."

c And as in suffering, so in doing, she resigns up
her self wholly, and resolves (by the grace of God)
to do whatsoever is her duty in everything, and
therefore she proposes henceforth to deliberate of
nothing, but what is her duty, in this, or that
particular ; and without further pause goe about it.

' When matters of difficulty came, she usually
consulted with the most learned and pious Divines

78 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

she could meet with, to learn what was her duty
therein ; she trusted not her own judgement, nor
mistrusted theirs ; but presently applyed her self
to do, as they directed her.

' In the Transactions of her worldly affaires,
though she foresaw sometimes inconveniences en-
suing by following their directions, yet more she
feared might otherwise happen, and therefore she
would not neglect them. And when the success of
any business answered not to her expectation, she
seemed not troubled at it ; her Conscience bearing
her witness, that she had done what was her duty
to doe ; and seeing it was God, who in His wisdome
denied her successe, she would still hope, and say,
" Though at this time, this way, this business pros-
pered not, yet at some other time, some other way,
it will be successfull unto me. This doing my duty
will be some time, or other, some way or other, for
mine advantage/'

' And these her mortifications were not without
a great degree of Sanctification, both in the inward
and outward man ; for to these she joyned her
former purpose of adorning her soul, more espe-
cially with those virtues which our Savior com-
mends, in his Sermon on the Mount ; and now
she endeavours to put them in practice more

INCREASE IN VIRTUES 79

perfectly, and more exactly then formerly she had
done.

' And first, mercifulness begins to exceed : she
was most liberal before, now she is (considering
her Estate brought into a very narrow compass)
most bountiful : for whereas before the main of
her Revenue was for her own maintenance, the
superfluity of it for her charity, now the maine of
her Revenues goes abroad for Charity ; the other
only is left at home for her maintenance : I have
heard her compute, and the remainder after such
and such deeds of Charity to be expended quarterly,
that small pittance was only it, she accounted hers,
and ordered her course of life accordingly ; very
well content, though she herself made a shift with
Augurs single food and rayment (Prov. 30. 8) that
others, who depended on her, should (as the hous-
hold of Lemuels virtuous woman) be fed and
cloathed with double (c. 31. 21).

' And with this, her meeknes exceeds also : meek-
nes was the attire of her soul, before, now it is the
Ornament thereof : hath the fulness, and length,
and comeliness too, of an Ornament or Robe : And
I will say nothing (for I cannot say enough) of the
richness, and glory, and beauty of that Robe, a
meek and quiet Spirit : now she grows a most

8o BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

eminent pattern of meeknesse and gentlenesse in
every kind, and all that knew her admired and
reverenced her for it.

' And her Compassion, which was thought to
be with the deepest before, goes deeper now ;
she had formerly the heart of a most tender
mother, towards every one in distresse, now she
put on the heart of God ; and so enlarged she
grows in her heart, that she seldome sees, or hears
of any object of pity, but it yearns so much with-
in her, as to force tears from her eyes ; And it is
hard to say, whether her heart or her Hand (her
Compassion or her Charity) contributed most to
the comfort of the poor and needy.

' This was confined, that at large ; and the pub-
lique calamities which her Hand of Charity could
not reach, her heart's Compassion did; And we,
who observed her (when the publique and generall
miseries of the Kingdome and Church were the
Discourse at Meales) to mingle her Drink with her
Teares, cannot but think, that the sadder thoughts
of them, in private, made her water her Couch with
her Teares.

' And now she is almost pined with hunger, and
faint with thirst after righteousnes ; ever and anon
sighing, " Oh that I could attain unto it ! Oh

JUSTICE 81

that my ways were made so direct !" It was usual
for her at night to compose herself to sleep, saying
to her woman (not without some joy), " Well, now
I am one day neerer my journey's end ;" comfort-
ing herself, that when her body should sleep in the
bed of her grave, then the days of sin should be
accomplished, and then she should be perfect, as
her heavenly Father is perfect.

' Particularly, her hunger and thirst after justice
was most commendable, that judgement might run
down as a stream, and righteousness like a mighty
river : And for justice in her own affaires, there
lives not (I believe) any one, more punctual and
exact than she was. She perused a learned and
strict Treatise of justice, and made those rules her
standard, practising them most precisely : And in
more perplexed and difficult cases she would send
to some Divines (of whose piety and fervor she
had a good opinion) and desire them to pray (as
she her self did) that she might be most just in
them, neither swerving to the left, nor to the right
hand.

1 In her absence from home, the Sutlers of the
Army came to her House, and took provision, pay-
ing for every particular the highest price ; which,
when her Servant accounted to her again, she com-

ii

82 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

puted exactly, what the particulars cost her ; and
then sent solicitously up and down the Army to
find out the Sutlers, and to restore the overplus,
which she thought not just to be taken by her :
and her hunger and thirst after that justice was
not satisfied, til she heard it was so done.

' And for engagements descended to her (after
care taken to satisfy them with all possible speed)
she lamented often with teares that she could not
actually discharge them, saying, Though they may
consist with justice (2 Kings 4. i), yet they could
not consist with that outward thankfulness which
she desired to express.

' And for the other points of our Savior's Sermon,
her charity suspected few, judged none of her
neighbours ; an Eagle's ey(e) she had, to espie any
good, though but inclinations in them, and with a
favorable construction, judged the best of what
she heard, or saw in them : yet a Mole's eye, to
espie the evil, though acts in her brethren ; a mote
of goodness could not escape her sight ; but it must
be a beam of evil, her eye would take notice of :
and her slowness to believe miscarriages in any
one, drave all talebearers from her : yet when
faults were evident (in such as she had charge over)
she would reprove with a great deal of power.

HUMILITY 83

' She was most respective to her superiors ; and
most courteous and affable towards inferiors ; And
very cautious lest she should give offence to one or
other, either in word or gesture ; and as cautious
too, lest any of them should take offence at any
speech, or look of hers, towards them ; " for either
way (said she), in offences given or taken, God is
offended ;" And her humility in begging forgive-
ness from others, was most singular : Of late, your
Ladyship knows, she seldome slept, til she had
asked forgiveness as well as blessing from you ; if
she had offended you, she thought your pardon
necessary ; if not, it was no cumbrance, to have
supernumerary pardons from you, lying by her.

' But to see this honourable Lady begging for-
giveness from her inferiors and servants (as she
often did) for her angry words to them, or her
chiding frowns upon them, was that, which put us
all to shame, and to astonishment ; now and then,
when she had expressed no anger, outwardly, yet
their pardon she would desire, because, said she,
" somewhat I felt within my self, too like anger
against you, though I suppressed it as soon as I
could."

' More than once, or twice of late, she brought
her gift to the Altar (was in her Closet on her knees

II — 2

84 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

towards Prayer), and there she remembred that her
Brother might possibly have somewhat against her
(for such a word, or such a look, or a neglective
silence a little before), and she left her gift at the
Altar, and went, and was reconciled (asked par-
don), and then came and offered : so that her chief
care was still, to lift up in Prayer pure hands,
without wrath ; If there were any wrath in her
against others, or any, in others against her, she
would have it allayed, before she offered her gift
of Prayer.

' And though all these graces and virtues (by
God's help) did thus increase in her, yet a true
poverty of spirit increased also in her.

Compare the Chaplain's reply to Letter n :
' Though these consolations of yours are (as you
hope) from the Holy Spirit (Who giveth every good
thing plenteously), yet there may be too much de-
light taken in them ; and temptation there may
come to rest in them, to think yourself not only
the more happy but also the more holy, and the
more fervent for them ; yea, and holy enough with
them ; But labour I pray to abound as with com-
fort so in every good work, knowing that the more
comfort you receive, the more holiness you must
return/

' The more Holy, the more Pious she was, the
more humbly she walked with God : In her greatest

HER CHILDREN'S DEVOTIONS 85

abundance she complained most of spiritual wants.
Sure the bright lustre of her virtue gave her an
advantage, to espie many corruptions in her
self, which she could not before ; and these she
lamented more sadly, now, then heretofore.

' And in these duties of praier, she advanced for-
ward too. Now, her Nursery must have an Ora-
tory annexed to it ; and her Children1 their private
Devotions ; they are appointed by her, to read
Morning and Evening Prayers, and Lessons at their
rising up, and at their lying down : and their spare
minutes being destined as hers also were to conning
of Psalmes without book ; they open the day with
one of the seven Eucharistical Psalms (for thanks-
giving to God, for renuing his loving kindnes to
them that Morning), and they shut up the day,
with one of the 7 Penitential Psalms (praying for
pardon of the offences of the day) ; this care she

1 She had three sons, Lucius, Henry, and Lorenzo. Lorenzo
died in November, 1645. The eldest was entered at Christ-
church in Lent term, 1646-1647, but soon afterwards went
abroad with his tutor, Maplet. It is possible that grief for his
mother had weakened his health, for he died in the same year at
Montpelier. Henry succeeded to the title and estates, but is
chiefly remarkable for the tradition that he sold his father's
library for a horse and mare. He had only one child, at whose
death the direct line ceased, before the end of the seventeenth
century.

86 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

took to season her Children's affections, and memo-
ries with good things ; and now she trains them up
also, to those virtues commended in our Savior's
Sermon, and an explication of them, she directs,
should be annexed to their first Catechism.

' And for the Church prayers in her house, there
was of late some exceptions against continuing that
practice ; and some danger the Exceptors appre-
hended, likely to have ensued upon it :l Hereupon
the Book of Martyrs was brought, and the story of
the Lady Knevit in Norfolke, in the time of Queen
Mary was publikly read, which in short is this : " A
persecuted Protestant Minister, being in her house,
reads the Morning and Evening Prayer of King
Edward the sixt his Service-book (the same with
our Service-book) constantly in her family, though
there was an Act of Parliament against it. Here-
upon the holy Lady is threatened to be punished
for it ; she goes on notwithstanding, in that course
of piety, promising to welcome the punishment,
when ere it came ; and though many resorted to
her house, who had disaffection enough to her
piety, and particularly to that Form of prayer,
yet they commonly kneeled down, and joyned in

1 The use of the Prayer Book was forbidden by Parliament
in 1645.

EXAMPLE OF LADY KNEVIT 87

prayers with her ; God would not suffer their hands
to punish, nor their mouths to speak against her,
for it."

' And now, when every passage in this story was
so readily appliable, to this our pious Lady also,
she wanted not an answer for the Objectors, nor
courage to go on in her wonted course : and the
event was most particularly according to the presi-
dent ; for though complaints were made, and
threats sent to us ; and many quartered upon her,
who liked not our Form of Prayer, and had power
to suppress it, yet God suffered them not to execute
that their power upon us. And, Madame, if the
Lady Knevit was thought fit to be Chronicled
(amongst the Martyrs and Confessors) for this
alone, I pray let not this of our Lady be forgotten :
And I shall presume that your Ladyship, and every
one who considers these, and such like examples,
will hazard any thing, rather then alter your course
of piety, and constant use of our sacred Liturgy.

' And she was as constant, and as resolute for
her other howrs of Prayer and Meditation. The
entertainments of honourable persons, or the haste
of necessary business, should not excuse her from
these other Devotions ; In her deepest griefs and
disturbances, in her highest comforts, and gratula-

88 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

tions, she was most constant at them : and though
she could not, at these times, discharge those duties
at her ordinary howrs, yet her eyes were not suf-
fered to sleep, til she had gone through with them ;
when she must lose her sleep, or God this his ser-
vice, she readily resolved, which was fittest of the
two.

' Her last work, every Evening, was to review
with some diligence all the works of that day, her
thoughts, words, and deeds ; what in this room,
what in that ; what good she had done, what evil
she had committed ; what opportunities of benefit-
ing others, she had embraced, or neglected ; and
what comforts and blessings she had that day re-
ceived : and after this examination, giving thanks,
and begging pardon, in every particular, as occa-
sion required, having communed with her own
heart, in her bed-chamber, she was still.

* Thus she was a very good proficient in these
several points of our Savior's Sermon, went on
from one degree to another, in most of them.
Faith, and judgement (the weightier matters of the
law, the chief virtues) she was most eminent in ;
and for tything of mint and cummin (the lesser
virtues) she would not leave them undone.

' She thought not all the laws of God performed,

A COVENANT WITH HER FRIENDS 89

If any laws of the King were neglected ; and there-
fore she was wont earnestly to presse obedience to
all things which the laws of the Realm require ;
even to penal laws against shooting and hunting,
and the like ; and would not suffer any of hers to
transgresse, in these lesser matters : Severely
(though judiciously, and truly enough) affirming,
" That the Lawgivers made their penal laws,
for obedience, not for Mulct ; and their chief
and first intention was, that their laws should
be observed, not that the offender should be
punished."

' And having thus far improved her self (by the
grace of God) in an holy and spirituall life, she
now labors what she can, to improve others
also ; and now she is strong, to strengthen her
brethren.

' A Covenant she enters into with her acquaint-
ance, especially those with whom she frequently
conversed, that they should take liberty to reprove
whatsoever they saw amisse in her : and also to
give her liberty to deal so with them ; saying to
them " there is no friendship without this ; and if
you suffer me to be undone for ever ; or I you ;
how are we friends ?"

' There was near acquaintance between her, and

12

go BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

some strict Papists/ and as near between her, and
some stricter Non-conformists ; and she not only
warily avoided the Superstition of the One, and
the Nonconformity of the Other, but also earnestly
laboured to reduce the One and the Other from
their Erroneous ways ; And not without happy
Successe. I could instance in some (and perhaps
your Ladiship can instance in more) who now are
firme to the Tenets and Practices of our Church of
England whom she (principally) by her Arguments
and Endeavours gained from Rome and from
Geneva.

' But for improving her nearer Acquaintance it
was her constant Labour.

' That counsel which she gave to young Mothers,
not to be fond2 of their Children or Husbands,
came most properly and most pathetically from
her. " Oh, I have had my portion (said she) of
these very comforts, with the first ; no one woman
more ; but there is no lasting nor true pleasure in
them : There is no real comfort from any espousals,
but from those to Christ ;" this (I say) came most

1 Her husband's mother and sisters and brother had all
become Roman Catholics. They stayed some time at Great
Tew.

3 Fond = excessively affectionate, or foolishly loving. In
theology, ' inordinate affection/

LOVE OF THE PSALMS 91

fitly from her, here she had tripped once, and again,
and now she fore-warns others of the dangers, lest
they should stumble at it.

' The benefit she had received from her child-
hood, by pious and learned Divines, makes her
solicitous to provide such for her neighbours ; and
til they were acquainted (as wel as she) with the
conversations of the people, she would, some way
or other, hint unto them, what virtues it would be
proper to commend in their Sermons, and Dis-
courses to the Parish ; and for catechizing the
young, and for visiting the sick, she her self took
a special regard, as if the cure had depended more
upon the Patroness, then upon her Clerk.

' And the remembrance of those heavenly com-
forts, she frequently had, while she played upon
David's harp, set her on to commend those Psalms,
for daily and howrly devotions to all.

' Yet some discord she found of late, even from
that harp ; observing such Psalms of David, where-
in he (by his Prophetical spirit, or in zeal for divine
justice, upon the publick enemies of God) pro-
nounces curses, spitefully picked out and malici-
ously applyed, both in private families, and publick
Congregations to our own enemies ; This she often
lamented as a most notorious profanation of the

12 — 2

92 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

holy Book of Psalms, and as an evident breach of
charity : " Oh, that sweetest harp sounds most
harshly, unless it be touched with pure hands,
without wrath : Therefore (said she) the people
must be often warned (in these days of contention
and opposition) to sing David's Psalms with David's
spirit : And when cursing of enemies came in, to
reflect (as David oft did) upon the lusts and cor-
ruption of our hearts ; and then the 109 Psalm (a
common curse among the Hebrews) be upon these
our vilest enemies, and most deadly foes, little
enough/1

' Neither was her care of improving others con-
fined to the present age ; designs and projects she
had also for posterity ; for setting up schools, and
manufacture trades in the Parish ; to shut out (by
those engines) for ever, ignorance, idleness, and
want.

' But that magnificent, and most religious con-
trivement, that there might be places for the educa-
tion of young Gentlewomen, and for retirement of
Widows (as Colleges and the Inns of Court and
Chancery are for men), in several parts of the King-
dom, This, was much in her thoughts ; hoping
therby that learning and religion might flourish
more in her own Sex, then heretofore, having such

HER ABANDONED PROJECT 93

opportunities to serve the Lord, without distrac-
tion : A project this adequate to the wisdom, and
piety, of this Mother in Israel ; and not beyond
the power, and interest, she had with great ones,
to have effected it.

' But these evil times disabled her quite, and
discouraged her somwhat, from attempting much,
in these her designs, she returns therfore to im-
prove her self with the greatest vigor ; If her virtue
cannot shine out over all the Kingdome, it shall
shine and burn so much the more within her own
soul ; and now she grows so strict to her self, and
so severe in examining her own heart, that, with
holy Job, she fears all her workes. She had always
a tender conscience ; but now that exceeds too, in
quickness, and tenderness ; and this holy fear began
at last to breed in her many doubtings and scruples.

Extract from Letter n.

' Though in matters of faith (I bless God) I waver
not, yet in matters of fact, both divine and civil,
spiritual and temporal, many doubts and scruples
(I know not what to call them) arise in me daily.
. . . Now, Sir, if these motions be from the Spirit
of God in me, I must hearken what the Lord God
saith to my soul ; at my utmost peril it is, if I re-
ceive not and cherish not these motions ; and if
they be doubts I raise of myself, they are not to be

94 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

neglected, there is danger (my books tell me) in
that ; but if they be scruples, heeding them is
danger, so there is danger on every side/

The Chaplain answered :

' I much commend that universal care you have
of all your ways. ... If we ... performed all we
ought as well as God's grace did, then enable us,
yet are we unprofitable servants^ and thereupon
the Apostle chargeth us to pass all the time of our
sojourning here in fear. This fear will advance our
awe and reverence to God ; it will quicken us in
His service, and make us more diligent ; and it
will truly humble us in and after all our perform-
ances.

' And yet I must tell you, this fear is very prone
to be extravagant, and to run out into vain doubts
and scruples ; and our task is to keep it and to
moderate it ; not to cast it off, nor yet to let it run
out. If we keep this fear within its bounds and
due limits, it will bring forth these effects of rever-
ence and diligence and humility/

1 And in these doubtings and fears, she seldom
trusted her own judgement, but advised with
learned Divines ; and when she met with anyone
of learning and piety, she proposes her Cases, and
seeks Resolves.

' And upon these fears she would dispute against
her self very sharply ; scarce omitting any objec-
tion material, nor accepting any answer, which was
not fully satisfactory ; and when she was once

DOUBTS AND SCRUPLES 95

clearly resolved, she cheerfully submitted, and
ordered her future practice accordingly.

' And it is very observable, how this holy fear
(as her other virtues), extended it self also, not only
to greater matters, but also to lesser, almost to all :
such was her love to God, and her reverential awe
of His Majesty, that she feared to offend him, in
the least particular : " If it be but a mote, may it
not grow (said she) to a beam in mine eye ?"

' And such zealous Anxieties, as these, such holy
fears of displeasing God in any, the least thing, are
strong arguments of most ardent love to God ; and
of most passionate desires to please him ; oh how
greedily did she aspire after perfection, while she
thus solicitously fears the least imperfection !

' And if some of these Scruples proceeded from
Her own Carnal Reason, or from Satan (to disquiet
and DisturbeHer),yet even that Poyson,she turned
into Honey, taking Occasion from those very
Scruples, to be more exact afterward in her Life.

1 And now in the very last stage of her Christian
race, she growes so exact, that all time seems
tedious to her, which tends not to Heaven ; and
thereupon she now resolves, to get loose from the
multitude of her worldly employments ; and pro-
vides to remove from her stately mansion, to a

96 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

little house neer adjoyning ; and in that house and
garden, with a book, and a wheel, and a maid or
two, to retire her self from worldly businesse, and
unnecessary visits, and so spend her whole time ;
and she took as great delight in projecting this
humiliation and privacy, as others do, in being
advanced to publick honours, and state employ-
ments.

' Now towards the end of her race, all her
strength seems weakness, and her quickest speed
seems slothfulness ; Therefore at Christmas last,
she prepared to be at the holy Communion, with
the first ; and after that, her soul stil wanting the
strength and vigor it aimed at, she thinks of com-
ing with the last too, the next Lord's day : But he,
who hath let, will let ; for that very morning she
had a very sore conflict, and great anguish in
spirit : one while her unworthiness, another while
her dulness, and driness deterred her from ap-
proaching to the holy Sacrament ; and then the
singularity and unaccustomedness of receiving so
often, disswaded her ; after an hour or two, some
reason she found to presume this might be from
the Devil, her grand enemy ; (who was unwilling
that the Castle which he now besieged, should be
double-walled against him) and thereupon she con-

A STORM OF TEMPTATION 97

tinues resolution, and came to the blessed Sacra-
ment, that second day also, and received with it
much comfort and peace.

' And not many days after, the Devil brought
his strongest batteries, and laboured to take this
castle by storm ; Temptations again she had, and
those vehement and fierce, to suspect her whole
course of life, as so full of weakness at best, and
oftentimes so full of gross corruptions ; Her faith
so weak, her repentance so faint, that God would
not accept of her : But her shield of Faith in
Christ's merits, soon repelled these darts, and her
wonted Sanctuary of prayer secured her presently
from this storm of temptation.

Compare the chaplain's answer to Letter 7 :
' Whether you should take part with Fear or
Hope, you yourself must resolve ; yet somewhat I
shall say, concerning the fears which arise in you,
that you are not justified before God nor recon-
ciled to Him.

' It is good to fear alway ; it keeps us low, lest
pride enter ; and it keeps us active, lest sloth seize
upon us ; and so we humbly labour to make our
Calling and Election sure ; and when I sadly con-
sider how many miscarry through Spiritual se-
curity, not at all suffering themselves to mistrust
their condition towards God, I am not forward to
cast out fear : Yet there is torment in fear, and a

13

98 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

firm hope well grounded (if it ejects not fear itself)
will wholly allay the torment of it.

' Whether your Faith and Repentance were as
they ought to be, is between God and your own
soul ; but if your faith were lively, with love and
trust in God, and your repentance unfeigned, assure
yourself it was no other Spirit but the Holy Spirit
of God (Who can neither deceive nor be deceived)
Who said unto your soul, Christus est justitia tua,
et salus tua; Christ is thy justification and thy
salvation/

'And in peace and tranquillity of mind, her piety,
and zeal of Justice, hurry her to London (in the
bitterest season of this winter) to take order for
the discharge of some engagements : this she knew
was her duty, and that she her self should take
that journey, was conceived the necessary means
to performe that duty, and therefore she ventures
upon it, and leaves the success to God.

' There, at London, she strengthens her self yet
more, for the final period of her race, by receiving
the holy Sacrament again : But alas, Madam,
Though her inward strength encreases, her out-
ward strength decays, and her weak consumptive
body, by a cold there taken, grows weaker : yet
thence she came homeward, and at Oxford, her
cough and cold very much encreasing, she with
most earnest prayers, and holy meditations (which

ILLNESS AT OXFORD 99

a pious and learned Divine suggested to her) pre-
pares her self for death.

' After a while, they, who were about her, fearing
the pangs of death to be upon her, began to weep
and lament ; the whole company grew sad and
heavy ; she only continued in her former condition,
not at all sorrowful, nor affrighted by these mes-
sengers of death : Then the Physitian comming,
and upon consideration, saying, " Here is no signe
of death, nor of much danger ; by Gods help she
may recover again ;" the whole company was very
much comforted and cheared ; she only in her
former indifferency ; no alteration at all could be
perceived in her, as if she had been the only party
in the chamber, unconcerned in it ; neither fear of
death could grieve, nor trouble her, nor hopes of
life and health rejoyce her ; " I have wholly re-
signed up my self to God (said she) and not mine
but His will be done ; whether in life or death :"
She was not afraid to live, and still endure the
miseries of this life (and ever and anon encounter
with Satan too) because she had a powerfull God
able to uphold her : nor yet afraid to die, and ap-
pear at Gods Judgement seat, because she had a
merciful Redeemer, willing to save her.

' They who write of perfection, account it an

13—2

ioo BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

high degree, to have Vitam in patientia et mortem
in voto, to be content to live, but desirous to die ;
yet surely, this here, In aequilibrio ad vitam et ad
mortem, to be wholly indifferent, and to be most
equally inclined to either, to desire nothing, to fear
nothing, but wholly to resigne our selves to God,
accounting that to be the best (whatsoever it is)
which He pleases to send, This, this is to be a
strong man in Christ ;T And this in our most pious
Lady, was a very neer approach unto perfection.

' It was related for a very great virtue in S.
Cyprian, that, Maluit obsequi praeceptis Christi,
quam vel sic coronari, He had rather live and obey
God, then die and reign in glory : But this, to have
no propension at all, more to one, then to the other,
to be wholly indifferent, to work on still in God's
Vineyard, or to be called up to Heaven, to receive
pay, this may be a greater virtue.

Compare the chaplain's reply to Letter 10 :

' I do truly sympathize with you, and rejoice for

the return and increase of your joys ; now you see

how good and gracious the Lord is to all them

that call upon Him, and wait upon Him patiently,

1 Compare ' Manchester al Mondo ' (published 1638-1639 ) :
' It is a good mind in a man, to be content to dye, and willing
to live : But to be willing to dye and content to live, is the
mind of a strong Christian.' (Henry Montague).

HER PERFECT RESIGNATION 101

according to His promise by the Prophet, Isaiah
54. 7. With great mercies will I visit thee again,
though for a small moment I have forsaken thee.

' Your afflictions were like Job's, in body, in
estate, and in your friends, and in the barrenness
of your spirit, and in the terrors of your soul ; and
your deliverance is like his also (in these spiritual
things) : and as he did, so you have already re-
ceived double for all your losses ; for a cup of
affliction, vessels of joy ; for disconsolate days,
months of great delight and comfort.

' Continue, I pray, your indifferency to abund-
ance or want ; Let not the height of your joys puff
you up, nor the depth of desertion cast you down ;
or any condition dishearten you in the service of
God ; Learn to be as well content to be with Christ
on Mount Calvary, sorely suffering, as on Mount
Tabor, full of joy and comfort ; And as heretofore
Christ was your only hope in your barrenness and
sorrow, so let Him be your Rock and your Castle
still, and rejoice not so much in your Consolations,
as in Him Who is the only true joy and comfort
for ever/

'And this perfect indifference to do, or suffer
Gods will, in life, or death, appearing in this
servant of God, was such an act of self-denial,
which they, who observed it, in her, could not but
set a special character upon, most worthy to be
commended to your Ladyship.

' Thus she was brought from Oxford, home, and

102 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

now being far spent, and near her end, she could
speak little, yet expressed a great deal of thank-
fulnesse to God, who had brought her safe, to die
in her own house, among her dearest Friends.

' And there she showed those friends a rare pat-
tern of patience in the extremity of her sickness.

' But the tranquillity of mind, which she had in
these her last daies, was most observable ; that the
Devil, who had so often perplexed her, with violent
temptations, should now leave her to rest and ease :
she was wont to fear his most violent assaults on
her deathbed (as his practice commonly is), but
now God (it seems) had chained him up, and en-
abled her (by his grace) to tread Satan under her
feet : not a word of complaint, nor the least dis-
turbance, or disquiet, to be perceived by her, which
is a sufficient argument to us (who know how open
a breast she had, to reveal anything in that kind,
especially to Divines, whereof she had now store
about her) of her exceeding great quietness, and
peace : and this tranquillity of mind, more clearly
now appearing at her death, then ordinarily in the
time of her health, is a great evidence, to me, of
God's most tender mercy and love towards her, and
of some good assurance, in her, of her salvation.

' This quiet gave her leave, though now very

SO SHE VANISHED FROM US ' 103

faint and weak, to be most vigorous, and most
instant at prayers ; she calls for other help, very
faintly ; but for praiers, most heartily and often
(in those few hours she lived at home), and after
the office of the Morning was performed, she gave
strict charge, that every one of her family (who
could be spared from her) should go to Church and
pray for her ; and then in a word of exhortation
to them, who stayed by her, saying, " Fear God,
fear God/' she most sweetly spent her last breath ;
and so most comfortably yielded up her spirit to
him who made it : and was (we doubt not) admitted
into Heaven, into the number of the Apostles and
Saints of God (on S. Matthias day) there to reign
in the glory of God for evermore.

' In which moment of her death, there seemed
as little outward pain, as inward conflict ; none
could perceive either twich, or groan, or gasp, or
sigh, onely her spirits failed ; and so she vanished
from us, as if God had intended her here, some
foretast, not onely of the rest of the soul, but also
of the ease of the body, which she should enjoy
hereafter in Heaven.

' Thus in her youth, she was soon perfected, and
in a short time of five and thirty years, she ful-
filled a long time.

104 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

' And having in a most acceptable manner prac-
tised the duties of our most blessed Saviors Ser-
mon, she is now (we firmly believe) partaker of the
blessedness too of that Sermon ; through Christs
mercy, she hath obtained mercy, and enjoyes the
vision of God, in the Kingdome of Heaven, where
she is most fully satisfied with delight, and com-
fort, and joy.

' There were these, and many other virtues your
Ladyship knows, observable in this your most
pious Daughter ; but I pretend not to relate all,
many I omit, because common to all the servants
of God, and many other excellencies also there were
in her (I doubt not) which she concealed from her
nearest friends ; and indeed, many of these, I have
named, she endeavoured studiously to conceal from
us, but now, and then, unawares, she discovered
them, and so I came acquainted with them.

' And now, Madam, you have observed, that
the growth of grace, which was most evident and
apparent in her, especially these late years (as of
corn from a blade to an ear, then to a blossome,
and thence towards full maturity and ripenesse),
was most of all promoted, by the afflictions, which
God sent upon her ; the loss of her dearest friends,
and other troubles, were as a shower of rain, to a

A « LADDER OF PERFECTION ' 105

crop of corn, on a dry ground ; an evident benefit,
and a present improvement by it.

' And was there not then somewhat extraordi-
nary in that dream of hers, soon after her Sons
death ? wherein she being much troubled for that
loss, a ladder presently appeared, reaching (with
that Ladder in Jacob's dream) from earth to
heaven ; after the death of her Son, every one of
us could sensibly perceive her climbing up higher,
and higher every day, in piety, and holiness, till
God exalted her, to the top of Jacob's ladder, the
height of glory in heaven.

' So may it be with every one, who suffers in-
ward, or outward affliction.

' And now, though all this while, I have been
comforting your Ladyship, and wiping the tears
from your eyes, yet I have deteined you too long
(I fear) from improving this affliction sent upon
you (the loss of your dearest child) with that hast
and greediness you desired, to your spiritual bene-
fit : I shall help you what I can hereafter, by
begging in my praiers the strengthening, and estab-
lishing grace of God, for you, to bring store of
heavenly comfort into your soul, from this your
present sorrow.

' And for the further satisfaction of those to

14

106 BIOGRAPHICAL LETTER

whom you shall please to communicate this rela-
tion, I have prefixed a discourse (by way of Letters
too) wherein much of a Character of this your
Daughter is conteined ; It was composed for her,
and delivered to her, and left among her Papers
(and though upon the transcribing of the Letters I
have altered and added somewhat, yet that was
according to her desire and the directions I re-
ceived from herself after her perusall of them) ;
and your Ladyship will quickly discern, that many
of the objections, and of the answers too, came
from her own self, and therefore proper enough, to
be joyned with this relation of her Life. That
herein I may promote the service of our gracious
Lord, and comfort you, or any other of His true
servants, is the utmost drift, and most earnest
prayer, of him, who is

' Your servant in Christ Jesus,

'I. D.

' April 15, 1647.'

INDEX

ARMINIAN standpoint, 4
Aubrey, John, 18
Autobiography, Lord Claren-
don's, 2

Beatitudes, 46

Biography, i, 2, 3, 4, 7, 24,

31
Burford Priory, 28

Cambridge, 39
Gary, Sir Henry, 14, 39
Lettice. See Falkland
Lucius. See Falkland
Lucius (son), 18, 85
Lorenzo, 18, 63, 65, 68, 77,

8$, 105

Henry, 18, 85

Cathedral, Christchurch, 57
Characters, 2, 10-12, 106
Charles I., n, 29
Children, 85

Chillingworth, Dr. William, 45
Clarendon, Lord, 2, 4
Compassion, 80
Consolations, theory of spirit-
ual and sensible, 16, 17 ; joy
in sensible, 42 ; decrease of
sensible, 17, 19 ; loss of
sensible, 21, 43, 45, 64;
return of spiritual and sen-

sible, 23, 70, 71, 100 ; in-
difference to sensible, 66,
101 ; danger of sensible, 84
Court, 1 6

David's harp, 38, 91, 92
Desertion, 20, 22, 23, 65
Devotion, true, 65
Disinterested love, 22, 65
Divines, 45, 77, 81, 91, 94, 98,

99, 102

Donne, Dr. John, 2, 3, 8
Dream, Lady Falkland's, 105
Duncon, Dr. John, history of,
5, 6 ; thought and style of, 7,
8 ; his preface, 9 ; theory of
consolations, 16, 17 ; counsel
in desertion, 65 ; his keynote
joy, 31 ; his scheme of bio-
graphy, 1 8

Duncon, Edmund, 27
Dr. Eleazar, 27, 45

Earle, Bishop, n, 45
Eikon Basilike, 11,12
Elegy, 1-5, 39 ; quoted, 5, 13
Essex, 6, 12
Euphues, ii

Falkland, Lady, memorial of,
2 ; appreciations of, 4, 5 ;

107

4—2

io8

INDEX

part in letters, 10 ; mysti-
cism, 12, 13, 30 ; early life,
13, 34-38 ; marriage, 13, 39 ;
prosperity, 40 ; beginning of
her sorrows, 14, 43 ; widow-
hood, 15, 43 ; models her life
on the Sermon on the Mount,
1 8, 46 ; loses her son, 18, 63 ;
her grief, 64-66, 69 ; return
of her spiritual joy, 70 ; re-
solves on further mortifica-
tion, 72 ; of worldly pomp,
72 ; of anger, 73 ; of speech,
73-75 ; of appetites, 75 ; of
affections, 75, 76 ; of will and
understanding, 76-78 ; her
sanctification and increase of
former virtues, 78-89 ; care
for improvement of others,
89 ; philanthropic schemes,
92, 93 ; strict self-discipline,
93 ; doubts and scruples, 93-
95 ; plan of retirement, 96 ;
her last Christmas, 96, 97 ;
journey to London, 98 ; illness
at Oxford, 98 ; resignation,
99-101 ; returns home, 101 ;
death, 103

Falkland, Lord, writes elegy, 2,
4 ; character of, by Claren-
don, 2 ; Life, by Teale, 3 ;
marriage, 13, 14, 39 ; political
duties, 14 ; distress for Civil
War, 14, 15 ; death at New-
bury, 14, 43

Fasting, 59, 60, 75

Featlie, Dr., 8

Ferrar, Nicholas, 8, 17, 28

Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," i,
86

Francis de Sales, St., 16,
65

Gauden, Bishop, n, 12
Gidding, Little, 17, 27-29

Hammond, Dr., 45
Herbert, George, 8, 27
History, delight in, 17, 76
Humility, 77, 83
Hunger and thirst after right-
eousness, 53, 80

Jonson, Ben, 1-4, 39
Julian of Norwich, 23
Justice, 81, 98

King Charles I., n, 29, 55,

89
Knevit, Lady, 86, 87

Laud, 8

Leicestershire, 13
Lenthall, 28
London, 26, 48, 61
Lyly, u

" Manchester al Mondo," 100
Manor, Great Tew, 7, 27
Maplet, 85

Marshall, William, 29
Mayne, Jaspar, 4, 13, 45
Meditation, 25, 87, 98
Meekness, 51, 53, 79
Mercifulness, 46-51, 79
Microcosm, n
Montague, Henry, 100
Morison, Henry, 39

Lady, 6, 33

Sir Richard, 39
Mortification, 72-78
Mystics, 1 6 ; mystical theories,
17, 24

Newbury, first Battle of, 15
Nonconformists, 90
Norwich, 17, 22

Oratory, 36, 85

Oxford, 48, 57, 61, 98, 101

Oxfordshire, 33, 45

INDEX

109

Patient suffering, 53

Peaceableness, 53

Perfection, desire for, 22, 53,

81, 95, 99, 100

Philosophy, delight in, 17, 76
Portraits, 29-31
Poverty of spirit, 55, 85
Prayer Book, 8, 57, 86, 87
Prisoners, 48, 49
Psalms, 85, 91, 92

Quarles, 29

Rattenden, 6

Rayne, 12

" Returns of Spiritual Comfort

and Grief," 6, 9, 15-26, 29
Roman Catholics, 90
Royalist party, 4, 14
Royston, Richard, n

Sanctification, 78-89
Schools, 47, 92
Scotch campaign, 14

Sermon on the Mount, 18, 46-
51, 57, 78, 82, 86, 88, 104

Servants, care for, 58-62 ;
humility towards, 83

Severals, 60

Simmonds, Edward, 12

Sutlers, 8 1, 82

Swannington, 17

Tanfield, Lord, 28

Teale, W. H., 3, 60

Teresa, St., 17

Tew, Great, 6, 7, 15, 26, 27, 33,

47

Tooley Park, 39
Triplet, Dr., 45

Valdes, 17

Walter, R., 4, 5
Walton, Izaak, 2, 8
War, Civil, 14, 15
Wood, Anthony a, 3
Woodhead, A., 17

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