Anne Ley

Anne (Norman) Ley (c. 1599 – 1641) was an English writer, teacher, and polemicist. She wrote several poems, letters, meditations, and funerary texts. Her husband was Roger Ley, a writer and a curate of St. Leonard's Church in Shoreditch, Middlesex. Both of the couple were ardent royalists and religious conformists.

Early life Anne Ley was born to Thomas Norman of Bedfordshire, a leatherseller, and his wife Anne (née Searle). Anne Ley was baptized on 19 August 1599 as "Annie" Norman.

Life after Marriage Sometime after their marriage, the Leys established a parish school on Shoreditch to help with their finance. When she died during the first week of October, 1641, she was buried next to her parents at her husband's Shoreditch parish. Millman and Wright point out that there is also the possibility that Roger Ley "may have been engaged in a retrospective re(ordering) of his wife's writings" and that the "extent to which he may also have manipulated them is a matter worth consideration." On the other hand, Gordon and Rist note that "his is a manuscript that jointly presents the writings of a wife and husband" and that "ike Sibthorpe and Egerton, Roger Ley is ordering his wife's literary remains—but in this case, alongside his own."

Selections from Anne Ley's Works According to Gordon and Rist, Anne Ley's "earliest dateable" poem in the commonplace manuscript is "A Sermon Preached in St. Paul's Church upon the Second Commandment by Mr. Squire, January 6, 1623," in which she criticizes "’Rome's gross idolatry’" and "mocks English papist who, like Adam and Eve in the Garden, ‘with leaves, their nakedness would hide, [avoiding] the touch of Truth.’"

Other early poems include writings on the death of King James and the subsequent succession of Charles I.

On the Death of King James

Our Sun departed yet no night appeared:

The cause (obscure) was by Urania cleared,

Who heard this hymn sung in the Aonian grove:

"Phoebus must leave his orb, and shine with Jove.

And in the moment when this thing is done,

Must Charles's Wain be England's glorious Sun.

They ride on, Charles! Keep Sol's old trackéd ways!

And may thy radian beams equal his rays.

Heavens grant thy steed may ne’er be out of wind

Till thou quite through the universe has shined,

And that our sphere admit no other car

Till thou, our planet, be a fixéd star!

Upon the Great Plague, Following the Death of King James

Afflicted England, how thine ills increase

And seems to threaten thine approaching fall,

And to bereave thee of that happy peace

For which all nations do thee blesséd call.

The dreadful pestilence doth now begin

To shed its venom in thy chiefest seat—

Denouncing judgment for thy heinous sin

Except repentance, Mercy do entreat.

And lest this punishment should seem too small,

Behold, another stroke doth wound they head:

Renownéd James, that was admired of all

For learnéd skill, thy king of peace, is dead.

—Whose gentle nature, though it did decline

The sad aspect of war's most direful look.

In future ages shall his valor shine

For one brave combat which he undertook:

His pen, the weapon was; the Truth, the cause

(His proud foe, Rome, the murderer of kings);

Whose worthy work, deserving high applause,

Hath left the Romanists a deadly sting.

And we are left in sorrow to lament

This heavy loss with fear what will ensue;

But He which us this great affliction sent

In deepest woes, His mercy did renew:

Our Sun no sooner set, and doleful night

Seemed to threaten some disaster strange,

A glorious Star with splendor shining bright

Expelled those fears: our grief, to mirth, did change.

One of Anne Ley's poems, "Upon the necessity and benefite of learning ... to W.B. a young scholler," was presumably written for one of her students, advising him on the importance of keeping a commonplace book. Stevenson and Davidson comment that this poem "sheds some interesting light on how one of the ‘commonplace books’ which survive in quantity from the seventeenth century was supposed to be used by its compiler."

Upon the necessity and benefite of learning written in

the beginning of a Common place booke belonging to W.B. a young scholler

As from each fragrant sweet the honey Bee

Extracts that moisture is of so much use;

Like careful labour I commend to thee;

Which if performed much profit will produce.

In this great universe that may compare

To learnings worth which beautifies the minde

Adornes the body makes it seem more faire

And with the best doth kind acceptance finde.

All other hopes how soone they may decay

Like faire flowers nipt with suddaine blast

Friends are but mortall riches flie away,

Tis onely this proves constant to the last.

Which to obtaine employ your chiefest skill,

Heere is an hive to treasure up your store,

Which with each useful sentence you may fill

T’will be a meanes that you aloft may soare

To learnings pitch, where that you once may rest

Il’e lend a hand, doe you but doe your may.

The commonplace manuscript also contains a short, undated letter (likely an except) that Anne Ley wrote to her father, concerning poetry: “I am glad to heare you are so merilie disposed, as to enter into that veine of peotrie; or else it may be these times, wherein our London is changed to Aracadia.”

Lastly, the following poem is about the birth and atonement of Jesus Christ:

A Christmasse Caroll: or verses on the Nativitie of Christe

Most blessed time wherein we celebrate,

his happie birth which was both God and man,

Whoe came to save us from eternall hate,

Such length and depth of mercie none can scan.

We being dead and doomed to live in hell,

by Adams sinne of which we all pertake:

the promised seed that sentence did expel,

Being given us atonment for to make.

But after such a manner it was done,

as men and Angels could not comprehend,

that our offended God should send his Sonne

which was true God by death our fault to mend.

Whose birth was rare, conception most divine.

Gordon and Rist argue that Anne Ley's works are "serious verses, inspired by parish sermons and local parishioners, the death of King James and subsequent plague, the nativity, and political events of 1640-1641." Gordon and Rist note that "er scholarship and literary activity are conspicuous in her letters" and that, according to the evidence, "Anne Ley was a keen writer, immersed in London parish life ... participating in a vibrant manuscript culture facilitated by their professional and familial circles."