Mary Monck

Mary Monck (; 1677?1715) was a celebrated beauty, poet and translator. Title page of first volume of Poems by Eminent Ladies 2 Vols. (London: R. Baldwin, 1755)

Life She was the second daughter of the 17 children of Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth, and Letitia Coote, third daughter of Richard, Lord Coloony, and sister of Richard, Earl of Bellamont. There are no records of her early life, but it is believed that she was self-educated and used the family's extensive library to learn Latin, Italian, and Spanish.

She became the first wife of George Monck of St Stephen's Green, Dublin. The couple appear to have struggled financially, with Monck asking her father for assistance at times, as well as issues with her husband's mental instability. Her father wrote on 16 July 1712: "We are bleeding, physicing and dieting George Monk. He is now very sober, but by fits starts out and then ‘tis always quarrelsome and withal dangerous." The couple separated for a time, as her sister records that she was living with her children in lodgings in 1714.

Monck died at Bath in 1715 of consumption.

On her deathbed she wrote verses to her husband, which are not included in her works, but which were printed in George Colman and Bonnell Thornton's anthology Poems by Eminent Ladies. Some critics consider Verses written on her death-bed at Bath to her husband at London to be her most famous and moving work, expressing her love for her husband and the relief she felt while escaping the long and painful illness she was suffering from.