Elizabeth Cary

Image of an ornately dressed woman standing in between two pink curtains. Her hand rests on a pink chair, and her dress is made of a highly decorated cream underlayer and what looks to be a black velvet overlayer with gold embroidery. William Larkin. Elizabeth Cary? c. 1610. Oil on Canvas.

Elizabeth Cary (1585–1639)

Elizabeth Cary was an accomplished noblewoman who pioneered many firsts for women of her time. From a young age, she was bookish, reading Catholic and Protestant religious texts in her youth. This practice was encouraged by her parents, who employed a tutor who taught her to speak French fluently. She subsequently taught herself how to speak Spanish, Italian, Latin, Hebrew, and Transylvanian.

Upon her marriage at age 17, her in-laws barred her from reading books, so she began to write poetry, which she believed was the highest form of literacy. Cary and her husband, Sir Henry Cary (later elevated to Viscount Falkland, subsequently making Elizabeth Viscountess Falkland), were not acquainted prior to the marriage, which was socially advantageous for her and financially advantageous for her husband. She birthed eleven children between 1603 and 1624, six daughters and five sons, all of whom she lost custody of after converting to Catholicism in 1626 and being placed under brief house arrest by King Charles I.

Her conversion led to her formal separation from her husband and was met with disapproval from her parents; her father disinherited her while her mother refused to take her back after the separation. In 1633, after her husband’s death and living in poverty for many years, she regained custody of most of her minor children. She resorted to kidnapping two of her sons in 1636 to have her family back together, three years before she died in London in 1639, where she is also buried.

The Tragedy of Mariam (1613)

Although scholars argue whether or not this was the first play written by Cary, The Tragedy of Mariam, Fair Queen of Jewry is her earliest surviving piece and the first original English play written by a woman. It is the first English play to explore the account of Herod the Great’s marriage to his second wife, Mariam.

Several parallels exist between the character of Mariam and Cary: both are ambitious, unhappy wives to an authoritative husband. The play is a closet drama, most likely written to be read in a small, private circle of women, not performed on stage. Cary describes all of the action through the dialogue as opposed to physical actions or stage directions. Closet drama was popular with early modern women writers so they could have a private place to enjoy drama without endangering their reputations.

The History of the Life, Reign and Death of Edward II, or The History of the most Unfortunate Prince, King Edward II (published 1680)

In possibly a mere 10 days in 1627, Cary wrote The History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II, a political piece based on the English King Edward II. Although there were already a number of plays and biographies written about him, Cary’s included an intricate and well-written section about Edward’s wife, Queen Isabel, which is unique compared to other texts. Cary’s Edward II was not published until long after her death in 1680, when it was published anonymously by one of her daughters. This same daughter also wrote Elizabeth’s biography, Lady Falkland: Her Life, making Cary the first female English author to have a written biography.

Other Works

Although only a small amount of Cary’s work has survived, several missing poems and stories are hinted at in her surviving works, including the full plays of The Lives of St. Agnes, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, and St Mary Magdalene; verses of The Life of Tamburlaine and The Virgin Mary; and translations of Seneca and Blosius.

Aside from her original published pieces, she also made an English translation of Abraham Ortelius’s L’Epitome du Théâtre du Monde (1588), titled The Mirror of the Worlde in 1598 when she was only 13, which was finally published in 2012. It is believed to be one of the first English versions of the original text, and it provides information and context to the authors and texts that influenced the young Cary.

Key Print Sources Cary, Elizabeth, et al. The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry. Broadview Press, 2000. Hodgson-Wright, Stephanie. Cary, Elizabeth, Viscountess Falkland (1585–1639). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2014. Wolfe, Heather. The Literary Career and Legacy of Elizabeth Cary. Seventeenth-Century News. Fall-Winter, 2007, vol. 65, no. 3–4, pp. 1613–1680.

Key Online Sources Alfar, Cristina León. Elizabeth Cary’s Female Trinity: Breaking Custom with Mosaic Law in <title level="m">The Tragedy of Mariam. Early Modern Women, vol. 3, 2008, pp. 61–103. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23541518. Beal, Peter. Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland. Catalog of English Literary Manuscripts, 1450–1700. https://celm-ms.org.uk/introductions/CaryElizabethViscountessFalkland.html. Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland, Writer, Translator & Catholic Recusant. The Twickenham Museum, 12 Mar. 2014. https://twickenham-museum.org.uk/people/writers-poets-and-historians/elizabeth-cary-viscountess-falkland/. Heller, Jennifer L. Space, Violence, and Bodies in Middleton and Cary. Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900, vol. 45, no. 2, 2005, pp. 425–441, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3844552. Mackay, Elizabeth Ann. Shrew(d) Maternities, Elizabeth Cary’s Life, and Filial Equivocations. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 33, no. 2, University of Tulsa, 2014, pp. 23–50, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43653324. Perry, Nandra. The Sound of Silence: Elizabeth Cary and the Christian Hero. English Literary Renaissance, vol. 38, no. 1, Wiley, 2008, pp. 106–141, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43447957.

Image Source Larkin, William. Elizabeth Cary? c. 1610. Oil on Canvas.