Beyond Romance: Re-reading the “Lives” of Lady Anne Halkett (1621/2-1699) Edinburgh Research Explorer Beyond Romance? Citation for published version: Trill, S 2009, 'Beyond Romance? Re-Reading the ‘Lives’ of Anne, Lady Halkett (1621/2?-1699)', Literature Compass, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 446-459. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00605.x Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00605.x Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Peer reviewed version Published In: Literature Compass Publisher Rights Statement: © Trill, S. (2009). Beyond Romance?: Re-Reading the ‘Lives’ of Anne, Lady Halkett (1621/2?-1699). Literature Compass, 6(2), 446-459 doi: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00605.x General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 06. Apr. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00605.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00605.x https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/beyond-romance(e18e6bf8-cd3c-4e45-b78a-6a1717ddd8ee).html © Trill, S. (2009). Beyond Romance?: Re-Reading the ‘Lives’ of Anne, Lady Halkett (1621/2?- 1699). Literature Compass, 6(2), 446-459 doi: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00605.x Beyond Romance? Re-reading the ‘Lives’ of Anne, Lady Halkett (1621/2?-1699) Suzanne Trill, University of Edinburgh If you are not among the somewhat select group of ‘devoted Halkettites’, it is quite possible that Anne, Lady Halkett is totally unknown to you.1 If, however, you are familiar with her name it is most likely to be because of her connection with Colonel Joseph Bampfield.2 Famously, Halkett assisted Bampfield in his daring plan to rescue the Duke of York (later James II & VII) from his imprisonment in St James’s Palace in 1648 by procuring female clothing to disguise him for his journey to the Continent. One reason that Halkett’s association with Bampfield has come to dominate critical responses to her life is that it is her own narration of this event which has been included in the canon-making Norton Anthology of English Literature.3 While Halkett does describe this event in great detail, it represents a tiny fraction of the text from which it is selected: that is, Halkett’s own autobiographical narrative, which is variously referred to as her Autobiography or Memoirs.4 Even when commentators have read the full narrative, however, it is usually described as being divided into three sections, each of which are defined by Halkett’s relationship with her suitors (respectively, Thomas Howard, Colonel Joseph Bampfield, and Sir James Halkett). The prevailing critical practice, therefore, is to privilege ‘romance’ as the key to understanding Halkett’s life and writing. Of these three relationships, most critical attention has focused on Halkett’s liaison with Bampfield. Unfortunately, although the exact nature of their relationship has not been definitively established this association placed Halkett in a precarious position. For ‘despite his proposal of marriage and his repeated reassurances that his first wife was dead, it became apparent that he was not telling the truth … [and] Halkett thus inadvertently found herself in 2 a potentially adulterous relationship’.5 Furthermore, as I discuss below, the mystery surrounding this relationship is further compounded by an apparently crucial missing page in Halkett’s extant narrative. Intriguing as this may be, a disproportionate amount of critical ink has been spent on this issue. This focus is particularly curious when it is contrasted with the current lack of reference to the other twenty-one manuscript volumes Halkett produced during her lifetime.6 In her groundbreaking article, ‘Ann Halkett’s Morning Devotions: Posthumous Publication and the Culture of Writing in late Seventeenth-Century Britain,’ Margaret J. M. Ezell cogently reminded the critical community that Halkett was a prolific, almost daily, writer from 1648-1699. Ezell rightly argued that the existence of these volumes provides ‘a completely different profile of Anne Halkett as a writer’ than that which dominates modern criticism, as ‘instead of being a single, fragmentary text, the Civil War memoirs in fact are a small part of a lifelong literary career’ (2000, 216). Despite this, with the notable exceptions of Ezell, Mary Ellen Lamb, Susan Wiseman, and I the overwhelming majority of current published criticism remains curiously resistant to extending Halkett’s ‘canon’. Consequently, the image of Halkett which dominates current criticism is of ‘a spirited, if somewhat misguided, royalist heroine whose main aim in life was to find fulfillment in romantic love’ (Trill, ed. Lady xvii). In contrast, my edition reveals that ‘Halkett sought to (re)construct herself in accordance with the rather more solemn, biblical example of “a Widow Indeed”’ (Trill, ed. Lady, xviii). At first glance this might seem to suggest that I endorse the more pious image of Halkett established in the Life of the Lady Halket, which has been dismissed as ‘hagiographic’.7 Rather I seek to nuance our understanding of Halkett’s life and writing by re-inscribing an awareness of the political implications of her religious identifications. That this is perhaps a new trend in Halkett studies is suggested by the simultaneous publication of an important, revisionary, essay by 3 Lamb.8 In what follows, I aim to trace the way in which critical paradigms – past and present – have limited our understanding of both Halkett’s life and writing. This essay seeks to explain why the romance paradigm is so dominant in Halkett studies and to indicate areas of further research which might enable critics to move beyond it. In the process, I hope to provide a fuller answer to Wiseman’s question: ‘which of Halkett’s texts have been circulated and what has that circulation emphasized, what effaced?’9 1. The ‘Romance’ Paradigm. In modern terms, circulation is usually associated with publication.10 Although the Life included an abbreviated version of Halkett’s narrative and, at times, cites it verbatim, the first published edition of the full text was John Gough Nichols’s The Autobiography of Anne, Lady Halkett (1875). Significantly, Nichols died before completing that volume. In that (doubly posthumous) edition, a selection of Halkett’s other writings were included but Nichols’s extensive notes suggest he may have intended to make them a more prominent part of it.11 The title of this edition is undoubtedly important, as Halkett first received critical attention by early twentieth-century scholars trying to trace the emergence of autobiography as a genre.12 While not the only early modern woman to be discussed in these critical tomes, Halkett is frequently singled out and unanimously applauded for her psychological perceptiveness and her narrative skills which are, almost universally, acclaimed for their stylistic anticipation of a surprising range of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novelists.13 Despite comparison with Richardson, Scott and Defoe, some early commentators also observe that her narrative was imbued with ‘femininity’:14 of these, Margaret Bottrall accords her most space but values the narrative because what Halkett chose to record ‘was just the 4 sort of thing that lingers in the mind of the average woman’ (152). In this context, it is, I think, admonitory to note that it was Bottrall who began the trend for associating Halkett’s text with specific characters and events in the novels of Jane Austen.15 These early studies also established the prevailing predilection for dividing Halkett’s narrative into three sections. In 1930, Donald A. Stauffer declared that it is ‘a relation of the important incidents in her life, principally of her three love affairs, with Thomas Howard, Colonel Bampfield, and Sir James Halkett’ (212). The majority of succeeding critics still invoke this convenient tri-partite division, which inevitably implies that it is her romantic attachments which constitute the organizing principle of Halkett’s narrative; hence, David Stevenson’s essay is entitled ‘A Lady and Her Lovers: Anne, Lady Halkett’ (1996) and Sharon Cadman Seelig comments that ‘the narrative might be marketed as “The Life and Loves of the Lady Anne Halkett”’ (2006, 113).16 The persistence of this perspective is partially attributable to the publication of John Loftis’s influential edition, The Memoirs of Anne, Lady Halkett and Ann, Lady Fanshawe (1979).17 For while he notes that Halkett ‘wrote with intense piety and with a troubled conscience’ Loftis maintains that her narrative is ‘above all a study in personal relationships’ (ix, x). Although he recognizes an ‘occasional’ reference to the wider world, Loftis concentrates on Halkett’s relationship with Bampfield (which, for him, ‘dominates the surviving portion of her Memoirs’ (xi)). Crucially, he also posed a question which remains a bone of considerable contention: ‘Was Anne Murray the mistress of Colonel Bampfield?’18 In seeking to answer this question, Loftis is the first to make explicit reference to the fragmentary nature of the manuscript and posed another question which remains the subject of intense scholarly speculation: what might have been contained in the missing pages, who removed them, and why? (xiii-xiv). Unfortunately, in connecting the missing pages with the question of the exact nature of Bampfield and 5 Halkett’s relationship, one of Loftis’s main legacies is to encourage a reading of Halkett’s narrative as a (potentially) scandalous memoir.19 From Bottrall’s suggestion that Bampfield was ‘the love of her life’ (154), through Loftis’s edition of Bampfield’s Apology, to Ottway’s comparative analysis of the two texts and Judith Kearns’s ‘Fashioning Innocence’, Halkett’s life is, it seems, inextricably connected to her relationship with Colonel Joseph Bampfield. While this incident is undoubtedly significant, it is regrettable that it has been allowed to epitomize Halkett’s ‘life’: for, as Wiseman notes, her narrative ‘has to negotiate the fact that the incident on which her personal and political credit is founded, Halkett’s aid to the Stuarts was bound up with the very circumstance which threatened to undermine it – her involvement with Bampfield’ (‘Most considerable’, 33). Wiseman has convincingly argued that Halkett’s ‘narrative implicitly answers sexual slurs on political, rather than sexual, terrain’ and has done much to assist in the re-politicization of Halkett’s life and writing. However, by focusing on the broader contemporary inter-connections between royalism and romance, Wiseman is unable to exorcise the spectre of Bampfield which haunts nearly all modern critical engagement with Halkett’s narrative.20 The speculation about the nature of Halkett’s romantic attachments has encouraged some critics to try and establish how her narrative style and structure relates to contemporary generic conventions of romance. As Halkett is often identified as an embryonic novelist, most criticism in this area examines how she deploys the specific conventions of contemporary prose romances. Given the implicit association of Halkett’s narrative with scandal, it is interesting to note that Rippl suggests it ‘resembles a French “nouvelle” more than contemporary romances’(13). Nevertheless, Kearns makes the most comprehensive case for reading the narrative with reference to the classic definition of 6 romance articulated by Northrop Frye (346). While Kearns emphasizes prose romances, she later asserts that in ‘authorizing female self-reliance and ingenuity, Halkett may well be drawing on conventions of romantic comedy of the period’ (350). This argument is extended by Kim Walker who was convinced that Halkett’s sense of self was ‘defined by relationship with the romantic drama of her youth’.21 Importantly, underlying these attempts at generic classification is the desire to discover what motivated Halkett to write her narrative in the first place. Whereas the earliest commentators are not that concerned with this question, it is addressed at great length in nearly every essay or article published after 1980. The ‘mystery’ of Halkett’s motivations is usually coupled with speculation about her intended audience. The key question here is whether or not Halkett intended her narrative for publication. The earliest commentators tended to assume that, because it remained in manuscript, it was a private document which would only have circulated amongst family and friends. Although this position is reiterated in some recent criticism, it is far more frequent for them to note the extent to which the narrative seems to anticipate a wider audience. 22 Significantly, a number of critics emphasize that whatever the intended audience, the narrative’s ‘dominant ideological motif is the protagonist’s integrity, her attempt to evaluate and ultimately justify her own actions’ (Seelig, 113). The degree of Halkett’s success in achieving this objective is another matter of debate. In part, critical opinion on this point rests on how the reader responds to Halkett’s ingenuity in two frequently cited episodes: Thomas Howard and the blindfold incident and Halkett’s final conversation with Bampfield.23 More often, however, this issue arises with reference to the fragmentary nature of the extant narrative. While many critics have commented its abrupt ending, rather less has been said about the missing page at the 7 opening of her text.24 Subject to far greater scholarly speculation are the other pages missing from the extant manuscript: according to Halkett’s own pagination two pages are missing between the end of the Howard and the beginning of the Bampfield narratives, and two further pages are missing after Sir James Halkett informs his future wife that Mrs Bampfield is definitely still alive. Admittedly, it is tantalizing that these pages should be missing at potentially crucial places, especially for those critics intent on discovering the specific nature of Halkett’s relationship with Bampfield. However, it is rather unnecessary to ‘try to make a whole of what is left, filling in the gaps with our imagination’ (Seelig 130), particularly when the imaginative leaps concerned are often unsubstantiated flights of fancy.25 More importantly, as a number of critics including Seelig have suggested, the missing pages raise the question of why – and by whom – the narrative appears to have been censored? While some critics have suggested these missing pages indicate Halkett’s own self- censorship, others put the case for external censorship.26 Wherever responsibility may lie, the general critical consensus for the reasons for the internal omissions is that ‘someone – perhaps one of Halkett’s heirs – thought she had been a little too frank on the subject of her relations with Bampfield’ (Seelig, 130). Seelig continues by asserting that whoever was responsible, s/he removed ‘what are arguably the most interesting pages of the manuscript’. Thus, even the discussion of the text’s materiality is informed by the desire to know the ‘true’ nature of Halkett’s relationship with Bampfield, again reinforcing the notion that Halkett’s narrative is primarily concerned with her romantic attachments. This assumption is also apparent in the critical insistence that the ‘narrative breaks off abruptly in 1656, the year of her marriage’ which is interpreted as demonstrating that Halkett ‘recognizes that, with the achievement of a peacetime marriage, her active heroism ends’.27 8 2. Beyond ‘Romance’: Royalism and Religion. However, strictly speaking the ‘memoirs’ do not end with the curtain of marriage but with Halkett acting as intercessor between her new husband and the Cromwellian rulers of Edinburgh, in attempt to prevent him from being imprisoned for refusing to act as a Justice of the Peace.28 It is, therefore, more accurate to claim that Halkett’s narrative ends on a political note; thus, while she is now a wife rather than a ‘maid’, Halkett manifestly does not desist from engagement with the wider world or cease to view herself as an active agent in contemporary affairs.29 As Wiseman has noted, the focus on romance has occluded Halkett’s active political identification as a royalist. One reason for this is that readers such as Seelig find ‘the latter section of the autobiography’ to be ‘generally less consistent, less focused, and less highly patterned than the earlier part of the narrative’ (123). It is my contention that it is not that Halkett’s narrative becomes ‘less highly patterned’ but rather that the text refuses the romantic paradigm which has wrongly been imposed upon it.30 Halkett’s royalism is not the only aspect of her text which remains unrecognized: for, in common with her contemporaries, Halkett’s political beliefs are founded on her religious affiliation. While the devotional nature of the surviving first sentence has been noted, this is usually accompanied by a sigh of relief and contented exclamations that fortunately such pious concerns do not impinge on the narrative under discussion.31 For the overwhelming majority of critics, therefore, Halkett’s writing is unproblematically defined as secular. This assumption leads to some curious critical contortions as scholars struggle to accommodate the fact that Halkett ‘speaks again and again of guilt, sin, damnation and divine providence’ (Rippl, 10). Thankfully, Lamb has recently demonstrated that it is ‘not necessary to choose between the sacred and the secular’ (‘Merging,’ 82). Furthermore, she eloquently argues that 9 ‘with its coexisting secular and devotional versions of selfhood, Halkett’s Memoirs provide ideal material for a study of the entanglements possible between subject positions’ (83). Crucially, Lamb concludes that when ‘approach[ing] a work such as Halkett’s Memoirs, it is important to consider religion as a productive rather than a repressive force’ (94). Unfortunately, despite extensive research which has firmly established this possibility, many modern scholars do not share this point of view. Resistance to ‘religion’ has played a major part in establishing ‘romance’ as the key to Halkett’s narrative. Such resistance is clearly visible in Walker’s article comparing Halkett’s narrative with Simon Couper’s Life of the Lady Halket.32 Walker objects to his emphasis upon Halkett’s ‘religious “Piety and Vertue”” and asserts that it is ‘clearly a hagiographical text concerned to mark out an exemplary (gendered) subject whose religious devotion may be imitated’ (133- 4). As Wiseman and I have demonstrated, the Life is undoubtedly marked by Couper’s own religious affiliation and contemporary political exigencies.33 However, unpalatable as this may be to modern critics, his account of her life is closer to Halkett’s own self-conception than their cherished image of the romantic heroine. Importantly, Halkett gave all of her manuscripts to Couper, and two other Episcopalian ministers, with the express intention that ‘if they thought fitt’ they would posthumously publish her writing.34 This means that when writing his biography Couper had access to all of the volumes indexed at the end of the Life. Others have noted that he cites directly from the ‘Memoirs’; importantly, however, he also paraphrases liberally from the fourteen extant manuscripts currently deposited at the National Library of Scotland.35 Arguably even more significantly, this decision on Halkett’s part makes it absolutely clear that she intended her writing to circulate publically after her death. 10 3. Re-reading the ‘lives’ of Lady Anne Halkett: Beyond ‘Romance’. As Ezell, Lamb, Wiseman and I have demonstrated, in order to deepen our understanding of Halkett’s life and writing it is crucial to relocate Halkett’s ‘autobiography’ or ‘memoir’ in the context of her devotional writing. Given the extent of her corpus, this will take time and extensive scholarship, but reading this material has already enabled me to pose solutions to questions which have so far been the matter of speculation. Not only did Halkett definitely envisage a broader circulation of her texts than has so far been suggested, but she also comments on her motivation for writing in the first place and, perhaps more importantly, provides us with her intended title for her best known text. While modern editors and critics have variously referred to her text as an ‘autobiography’ or a ‘memoir’, my recent edition reveals that Halkett herself defines it as ‘a True accountt of my life’ (xxxvi). Therefore, like many other contemporary female writers (including those as socially diverse as Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle and Anna Trapnel) Halkett self-consciously writes to set the record straight. While the textual impulse toward self-justification has not gone unnoticed, critics have frequently found it difficult to explain. Furthermore, this title suggests that, despite the modern critical desire to focus on her romantic intrigues, Halkett herself saw herself as involved in the practice of self-accounting, more usually associated with the spiritual autobiography or conversion narrative.36 Other factors have also influenced the reception and transmission of Halkett’s writing. The text which has received most attention is deposited at the British Library, London; the ‘Religious Meditations’ at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. The bias toward the former text is indicative of a broader Anglo-centrism which underlies most accounts of Halkett’s life and writing. A glance at the title of the books in which Halkett’s 11 writing has been discussed demonstrates that she is predominantly identified as ‘English’.37 However, the Scottish dimensions of her textual production require further attention. Scottish by ancestry, Halkett’s initially arrived in Scotland as a political exile in 1650. As a result of her marriage to Sir James Halkett, Laird of Pitfirrane and her extensive widowhood (spent predominantly in Dunfermline, Fyfe) Halkett ended up spending approximately two- thirds of her life in Scotland. With the exception of one small octavo volume, all of Halkett’s extant manuscripts – including the ‘True accountt’ - were written while she lived in Scotland. Nevertheless, Halkett continued to identify herself as English. Indeed, even her choice of name, poses problems. In seventeenth-century Scotland it was not common for married women to adopt their husband’s surnames; in choosing to do so, therefore, Halkett effectively reinforces her English cultural identity.38 Finally, her Church of England upbringing made her an ally of the Episcopalians, in a county (and country) which was predominantly Presbyterian. Halkett’s life and writing does not, it seems, fit easily into many of our pre-existing critical categories. With the majority of her texts deposited in a Scottish library, most English researchers have not seen the need to make a trip to the NLS to consult them. And, because Halkett is usually identified as English, her texts have been largely ignored by those interested in Scottish history and Literature. The focus on her involvement in the escape of the Duke of York means that Halkett is most commonly discussed within the context of the wars of the Three Kingdoms. However, as has been widely noted her ‘True accountt’ was actually written in 1677-8, so it might more readily be understood within a Restoration context. Add to this Couper’s Life and his posthumous publication of a selection of her writings and, in terms of publication history, Halkett’s writing is arguably more properly located in the ‘eighteenth century’. 12 The general resistance to ‘religion’ may also partially explain why Halkett’s devotional writing has received little critical attention so far. Nestled within the extensive Pitfirrane Papers, Halkett’s NLS volumes are succinctly defined as ‘Religious Meditations’. However, my edition provides some indication of the breadth of material which is actually covered under this umbrella classification. I argue that these volumes are ‘stylistically sophisticated’, provide ‘detailed insights into Halkett’s life and experiences as a wife, mother and widow from 1659-1699’, and demonstrate her ongoing engagement with political and religious debates (xviii). According to Halkett’s own classification, her other extant writings are divided into ‘Select’ and ‘Occasional’ Meditations. Ezell’s discussion of Halkett’s own indexing processes is instructive in its exploration of the inter-relationship of manuscript and print practices in the late seventeenth century. However, more work remains to be done on this topic, especially in relation to Couper’s listing of Halkett’s ‘Books’. Given that all critics agree that Couper had access to the ‘True accountt’ when he wrote the Life, it is curious that only I have commented on the fact that it does not appear in that listing. Couper’s descriptions of the extant volumes are generally highly accurate but his list also includes extensive descriptions of volumes which are now missing. More so than the missing pages in the ‘True accountt’, these missing volumes raise ‘perplexing questions about censorship and self-censorship’.39 Whereas Seelig claims that our ‘utter lack of knowledge’ (130) means that we have either to accept the ‘gaps’ in Halkett’s ‘True accountt’ or fill them by an act of critical imagination, this is manifestly not the case. There are extensive, material resources which can help us to understand Halkett’s ‘lives’ and her writing, if we take the time to examine the available records.40 Inevitably, they will not provide answers to all the existing ‘perplexing questions’ posited by Seelig and others; indeed, it is likely that they will instead provoke 13 others. In contrast to the current tendency to focus on Halkett’s ‘life’ as articulated in the singular (and with reference to a single text), it is vital that we pay more attention to the plurality of Halkett’s ‘lives’.41 Together these texts clearly demonstrate that while modern critics have been obsessed with romance, Halkett herself was far more preoccupied with royalism and religion. Works Cited Botonaki, Effie. 1999. Seventeenth-Century Englishwomen's Spiritual Diaries: Self- Examination,Covenanting, and Account Keeping. Sixteenth Century Journal 30 (1):3-21. ———. 2004. Seventeenth-Century English Women’s Autobiographical Writings: Disclosing Enclosures, Studies in British Literature. USA: Edwin Mellen Press. Bottrall, Margaret. 1958. Every Man a Phoenix. London: John Murray. Breashears, Caroline. 2003. Scandalous Categories: Classifying the Memoirs of Unconventional Women. Philological Quarterly 82:187-2000. C[ouper], S[imon]. 1701. Life of the Lady Halket. Edinburgh. 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In The Intersections of the Public and Private Spheres in Early Modern England, edited by P. Backsheider and T. Dystal. London: Frank Cass. Loftis, John. 1993. Bampfield's Later Career: A Biographical Supplement. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. Loftis, John C, ed. 1979. The Memoirs of Anne, Lady Halkett and Ann. Lady Fanshawe. Oxford: Clarendon. Moody, Ellen. 2006a. 'Cast out from respectability a while:' Anne Murray Halkett's Life in the Manuscripts. Review of Reviewed Item., http://www.jimandellen.org/halkett/CastOut.html. ———. 2006b. 'A Hole in the Manuscript big enough to put your finger through:' the misframing of Anne Murray Halkett's autobiography. Review of Reviewed Item., http://www.jimandellen.org/halkett/AHole.html. Nichols, John G., ed. 1875. The Autobiography of Anne Lady Halkett. London: Camden Society. Ottway, Sheila. 1998. Desiring Disencumbrance. Gronigen. ———. 2000. 'They Only Lived Twice': Public and Private Selfhood in the Autobiographies of Anne, Lady Halkett and Colonel Joseph Bampfield. In Betraying Our Selves: Forms of Self-Representation in Early Modern English Texts, edited by H. Dragtstra. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Potter, Lois. 1989. Secret Rites and Secret Writing: Royalist literature, 1641-1660 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rippl, Gabriele. 1997. 'The Conflict Betwixt Love and Honor': The Autobiography of Anne, Lady Halkett. In Feminist Contributions to the Literary Canon: Setting Standards of Taste, edited by S. Fendler. Rose, Mary Beth. 2002. Gender and Heroism in Early Modern English Literature. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Seelig, Sharon. 2006. Autobiography and Gender in Early Modern Literature: Reading Women's Lives, 1600-1680. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shumaker, Wayne. 1954. English Autobiography: Its Emergence, Materials, and Forms. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califonia Press. Stauffer, D. A. 1930. English Biography before 1700. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Unversity Press. Stevenson, David. 1996. A Lady and her Lovers: Anne, Lady Halkett. In King or Covenant? Voices from the Civil War, edited by D. Stevenson. East Linton: Tuckwell. Stone, Lawrence. 1977. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Sutherland, James. 1969. English Literature of the Late Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon. http://www.jimandellen.org/halkett/CastOut.html http://www.jimandellen.org/halkett/AHole.html 15 Trill, Suzanne. 2004. Lady Anne Halkett (1621 (?) - 1699). In The Literary Encyclopedia. ———. 2006, 2007. Murray, Anne, Lady Halkett. In The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women: From the earliest times to the present, edited by E. Ewan, S. Innes, S. Reynolds and R. Pipes. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ———. 2007. Lady Anne Halkett: 'Meditations' Overview. In The Literary Encyclopedia. ———. 2008?, forthcoming. Private Devotion and Political Discourse: Lady Anne Halkett's Meditation on the Twentieth and Fifth Psalm (1651/2, 1701). In The Psalms in the Early Modern World, edited by K. McBride. Aldershot: Ashgate. ———. 2009, forthcoming. Life-Writing and the Self. In Palgrave Advances in the Study of Early Modern Women's Writing, edited by S. Trill. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———, ed. 2007. Lady Anne Halkett: Selected Self-Writings. Aldershot: Ashgate. Walker, Kim. 2001. 'Divine Chymistry' and Dramatic Character: The Lives of Lady Anne Halkett. In Women Writing, 1550-1750, edited by J. Wallwork and P. Salzman. Bundoora: Meridian. Webster, Tom. 1996. Writing to redundancy: approaches to spiritual journals and early modern spirituality. Historical Journal 39:33-56. Weintraub, Karl J. 1975. Autobiography and Historical Consciousness. Critical Inquiry 1 (4):821-48. Wilcox, Helen. 1992. Private Writing and Public Function: Autobiographical Texts by Renaissance Englishwomen. In Gloriana's Face: Women, Public and Private, in the English Renaissance, edited by S. P. Cersano and M. Wynne-Davies. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Wiseman, Susan. 2001. 'The Most Considerable of My Troubles': Anne Halkett and the Writing of Civil War Conspiracy. In Women Writing, 1550-1750, edited by J. Wallwork and P. Salzman. Bundoora: Meridian. ———. 2006. Conspiracy and Virtue: Women, Writing, and Politics in Seventeenth- Century England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1 (Ezell 2000) 218. Halkett, née Murray, is usually referred to as either ‘Anne, Lady Halkett’ or ‘Lady Anne Halkett’. I am grateful to Alan Sykes for pointing out that, according to Debrett’s, the correct formulation is either ‘Lady Halkett’ or ‘Anne, Lady Halkett’. 2 (Findley and Hobby 1981) 14-16. See also (Stone 1977) 3 (Halkett 1986) 4 These alternative titles relate to the different editions of Halkett’s narrative; (Nichols 1875) And (Loftis 1979) 5 (Trill 2007) 6 A list of Halkett’s ‘books’ is appended to (C[ouper] 1701) For further discussion of these volumes see Ezell ‘Morning Devotions’(2000), (Ezell 2002; Trill 2004, 2007, 2007, 2008?, forthcoming; Wiseman 2001, 2006) 7 (Walker 2001) 139. See also the conclusion of (Ottway 2000) 8 (Lamb 2007) 81-96. 9 Wiseman, ‘Most Considerable’, 36. Wiseman seeks ‘to track the ways in which politics has, in process of transmission, circulation and reading been written out of such texts’ (25); see also Wiseman Conspiracy and Trill, Ed. Lady 2007. For a more detailed discussion of how the treatment of Halkett’s life writing compares with that of her contemporaries, see Trill “Life Writing and Self” in Trill, Ed. Palgrave Advances in the Study of Early Modern Women (forthcoming 2009). 10This assumption can itself distort our understanding of early modern women’s writing, see (Ezell 1993) 11 Nichols’s notes are also deposited at the NLS amongst the Pitfirrane Papers, see NLS Ms. 6503, ff. 98-139. 16 12 (Stauffer 1930; Shumaker 1954; Bottrall 1958; Delany 1969; Sutherland 1969; Ebner 1971) 13 Those who associate Halkett with Richardson are Delany, 162; Sutherland, 263, (Rippl 1997) Rippl (23) and Seelig (124) also make reference to Defoe ( (Seelig 2006)). Delany also compares her to Sir Walter Scott (162), Stauffer mentions Charlotte Brontë (214), and Ottway adds the spy novel to this list (137). 14 Stauffer suggests the narrative ‘is tinged with some piety and with very much more femininity’ (213); Bottrall describes this ‘little known’ narrative as a ‘remarkably interesting … [and] thoroughly feminine document’ (149). 15 Discussing Howard’s return from France, Bottrall cites a scene from Sense and Sensibility (which is re-iterated by Rippl (191)); (Stevenson 1996) Ponders whether ‘can one say Anne halkett is a distant … forerunner of Jane Austen in some respects?’ (206). (Rose 2002)defines ‘C.B. [as] a dashing, handsome cad, a nonfictional predecessor of Jane Austen’s Willoughby and Wickham’ (80); Seelig notes that ‘Howard comes to resemble the too easily gallant young men of Jane Austen: the man who promises never to marry marries first’ (117). Curiously, Seelig earlier associates Howard with ‘Austen’s Mr Knightley’ (115) and remarks in a note ‘could Austen have read Halkett?’ (184 fn.10). 16 Stevenson (205). See also Shumaker (20); Bottrall (152); Rippl (17); Ottway, ‘They Only’ (137-8); and (Kearns 2004), 347. 17 Loftis provides no rationale for calling Halkett’s narrative her ‘memoirs’ and seems unaware of the potential, aesthetic ‘downgrading’ this could suggest. For a discussion of the relative merits of generic classifications of ‘autobiography’, see (Weintraub 1975) 18 Loftis, Ed. Memoirs xii. In this edition, Loftis states ‘we cannot know’ whether or not there had been a secret marriage ceremony (xiv); however, his later ‘hypothesis’ that they did so, probably in Holland, has encouraged others to endorse this possibility ((Loftis 1993) 248-9. See (Ottway 1998) 272 and Ottway, ‘They Only’ 145. Despite citing Loftis on this point (188, fn. 29)., Seelig offers a more nuanced approach to the question by paying particular attention to Halkett’s conversations with Mr. Dickson (126). Findley and Hobby suggest that ‘Halkett’s engagement was probably a spousal de futuro’ (15); according to Stevenson although the then Anne Murray accepted Bampfield’s proposal ‘it was decided to delay the marriage until the political situation clarified itself’ (194). Rather curiously Ellen Moody confidently asserts that after agreeing to marry Bampfield in 1648 ‘until 1653 Anne Murray lived with and behaved towards Joseph Bampfield as his spouse’ ( ‘“A Hole in the Manuscript’ (Moody 2006b), 3. 19 See Moody ‘A Hole’ who discusses Halkett’s narrative in the context of contemporary, published texts by French women and speculates that ‘Halkett wrote her book in 1677/78, prompted perhaps by the Mancini memoirs’ (‘A Hole’, 5). On the broader definition of the ‘scandal memoir’, see (Breashears 2003) 20 Wiseman, ‘Most Considerable’, 34; see also broader discussion of the connection between royalism and romantic conventions in Conspiracy. The only critic to separate Halkett from Bampfield is Margaret J. M. Ezell, ‘Morning Devotions’ and ‘Posthumous Publication’. 21 Walker, 143. On this point, a number of critics also cite Lois Potter’s reference to the dramatic precedence for Halkett’s blindfolding herself to converse with Howard. (Potter 1989) 22 Those who suggest Halkett wrote for herself alone include Bottrall, Delany, and Stevenson; Ottway suggests ‘that she wrote the story of her life for the exclusive readership of her own immediate family’ (‘They Only,’ 138). Findley and Hobby note that ‘although Halkett apparently made no attempt to have her autobiography published, it is constantly addressed to an assumed reader’ (18); this position is reiterated by Rippl, Kearns, Wiseman and (Wilcox 1992) 23 These incidents are often cited as examples of Halkett’s heroic ingenuity see, for example, (Keeble 1995) However, they are also noted as points at which the narrative potentially undermines itself, see (Botonaki 2004), 178. 24 The extant BL manuscript both begins and ends in mid-sentence. See Trill. Ed. Lady , 2007. 51-2. See Delany, Stevenson, Ottway ‘They Only’, Rippl, Walker, Wiseman ‘Most Considerable’, Kearns, and (Landry 1996) 140. The only critics to make detailed reference to the fragmentary opening of Halkett’s narrative are Lamb, Seelig and Trill, Lady 2007. 25 In ‘They Only’, Ottway, for example, suggests that ‘it is surely because of the details of this intimate affair that two leaves of the manuscript of Halkett’s autobiography were intentionally torn out by some unknown person, presumably in order to protect the author’s reputation’ (139). However, she proceeds to speculate: ‘Had she lost her virginity, or had she perhaps been married bigamously, though unwittingly, to Joseph Bampfield?’ (139). Stevenson speculates on the motivation for all the missing pages but is particularly ‘infuriated’ by the abrupt end of the narrative and asks ‘Did she for some reason become unhappy at her description of her married life?’ (202). 17 26 See Landry, 140; Walker, 133, 138; Wiseman, ‘Considerable’, 31; Kearns, 343; and (Moody 2006a) 27 (Rose 2002) Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2002. 83, 80. 28 This is also noted by Ellen Moody who argues that ‘an anachronistic and sexist failure of imagination is responsible for the insistent reading of Halkett’s story as a confessional romance with a happy ending’ (2006b, 4). 29 Wiseman claims that ‘her marriage, from 1656 to 1670, divides two periods of political activity: in the first she aided the Duke of York’s escape and acted as a royalist agent and in the second she wrote her memoir’ (‘Most Considerable’, 29). 30 Rippl suggests that ‘Anne Halkett cannot use the love story pattern of the romance for self-stylization any more after her marriage, because a continuation of this pattern would have been a severe breach of the dominant social code for a married woman. This is perhaps a reason why her text abruptly breaks off after her wedding’ (Rippl 22, fn. 32). However, Trill suggests that Wiseman is right to argue that ‘Halkett is not writing solely a confessional memoir but … a political life’ (2000 34-5), see (Trill 2009, forthcoming). I am grateful to the anonymous reader who reminded me that Halkett makes reference to the 1660 Act of Indemnity and indicates she will discuss it further later. This, plus the fact that she recorded the grant of £500 awarded her in 1662, suggests that she intended to continue her narrative until at least the Restoration (see Trill, ed. Lady, 2007. 140; 140, fn. 220). 31 See, for example, Walker who argues that Couper’s depiction of Halkett as pious ‘may come as a surprise to anyone who has read the autobiography, since despite a brief devotional introduction, the manuscript is relatively free of pious observation’ (134). 32 See also Ottway ‘They Only,’ 46-7. 33 Trill 2007, xxxiii; Trill ‘Private devotions’ (forthcoming); see also Wiseman Conspiracy. 34 Trill 2007, xxxiii; the entry discussing this decision is reproduced in full in that edition, 188-90. 35 While many of the episodes Couper includes in his biography are recorded in volumes which are now missing, some of them are traceable in extant manuscripts. For example, Couper’s summary ‘When she heard of her Sonnes being a Prisoner at London, (who was taken in his return from Irela nd to Fra nce) she thanked God that he was alive, and prayed that his present circumstances might have the same effect on him, and find the same Mercy, which Solomon prayes for to such in his case; I. Kings: 8, 46. &c.’ (1701, 49), relates to a series of entries in NLS. Ms. 6499. The specific citation of I Kings can be found an entry dated Monday 11th August (pp. 10-11). I am currently researching the textual connections between Couper’s biography and Halkett’s manuscripts. 36 For further discussion of this type of life-writing, see (Botonaki 1999) and (Webster 1996) 37 Stevenson locates her within a Scottish context; Ottway makes reference to his essay and queries whether Halkett should be seen as ‘English’ or ‘Scottish’ (Desiring 253); Ezell ‘Morning’ pays attention to the specific issues relating to the Scottish publication of the Life and Halkett’s meditations. 38 Given the practices outlined above,my brief biography of her can be found under ‘Murray, Anne, Lady Halkett’ ((Trill 2006, 2007)) It is, however, worth noting that, in accordance with local pronunciation, their surname was pronounced ‘Hacket’. For evidence of contemporary English usage of this pronunciation, see Trill. Ed. 125, fn 189; 140, fn 220. 39 While Halkett did give her manuscripts to Couper, the fact that they – and her correspondence – is part of the larger Pitfirrane papers suggests that they retrieved them from at some (currently unknown) point. 40 For example, in addition to the NLS volumes, which are now remotely accessible (if your institution invests in The Perdita Project materials available from Adam Matthews), there are a number of extant letters both there and in the National Archives of Scotland. 41 Wiseman also notes that Halkett’s life is represented by ‘a complicated web of texts, available to different readers at different moments’ (‘Most Considerable’ 29).