Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland

Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland (née Tanfield; 1585–1639) was an English poet, dramatist, translator, and historian. She is the first woman known to have written and published an original play in English: The Tragedy of Mariam. From an early age, she was recognized by her contemporaries as an accomplished scholar.

Biography Early life Elizabeth Tanfield was born in 1585 or 1586 at Burford Priory in Oxfordshire, the only child of Sir Lawrence Tanfield and his wife Elizabeth Symondes of Norfolk. Her father was a lawyer, who eventually became a judge and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Her parents were highly supportive of their daughter's love for reading and learning.

Elizabeth's parents employed a French instructor for her when she was five years old. Five weeks later, she was speaking fluently. After excelling in French, she insisted on learning Spanish, Italian, Latin, Hebrew, and Transylvanian on her own, without an instructor. Her accomplishment as a scholar was stressed by Michael Drayton and by John Davies of Hereford in works they dedicated to her.

Her father arranged her marriage at the age of 15 to Sir Henry Cary, later Viscount Falkland, who married her because she was an heiress. When she finally moved into her husband's home, her mother-in-law informed Cary that she was forbidden to read, so she instead chose to write poetry in her spare time.

It was not until seven years after they were married that Lord and Lady Falkland had children; they would go on to have a total of eleven: Catherine (1609–1625), Lucius (who later became the second Viscount Falkland; 1610–1643), Lorenzo (1613–1642), Anne (c.1614–1671), Catherine reported an apparition of the Virgin Mary while on her deathbed. This apparent sighting deeply moved Cary and furthered her mission to convert her surviving children, as Catherine had died a Protestant. Eventually, four of her daughters — Anne, Elizabeth, Lucy, and Mary — became Benedictine nuns and her son Henry joined the priesthood. In 1627 her residence was Cote House in Oxford.

Henry Cary died in 1633 and Cary sought to regain custody of her children. She was questioned in the Star Chamber for kidnapping her sons — she had previously, and more easily, regained custody of her daughters — but although she was threatened with imprisonment there is no record of any punishment. In 1634 Elizabeth, Mary, Lucy, and Anne Cary were converted to the Catholic faith by John Fursdon, who was their mother's confessor. Edward Barrett reported this to King Charles I and the King agreed that the four girls be removed from their mother's house and taken to Great Tew, an estate inherited by her son Lucius Cary, who was then Viscount Falkland.

In 1639, Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland, died in London. She was buried in Henrietta Maria's Chapel in Somerset House.

Writing According to the biography by her daughter Lucy Cary, Elizabeth Cary saw poetry as the highest literary form. Many of her poems have been lost, but her dedication to the form is clear in her plays. Her first or possibly second play, The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry (1613), was written in iambic pentameter. Change in pattern and rhyme scheme indicate multiple sonnets embedded throughout the play. The Tragedy of Mariam was the first original English play to be published by a woman.

Elizabeth Cary then wrote The History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II (1626/1627), which was a political fable based on historical events. It was not published until 1680, decades after her death.

Works

The mirror of the world, a translation of Abraham Ortelius's Le mirroir du monde (1598) The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry (pub. 1613) Reply of the most Illustrious Cardinal of Perron (1630) The History of the Life, Reign and Death of Edward II, or The History of the most Unfortunate Prince, King Edward II (published 1680)