Elizabeth Stuart: A Lost Girl

Elizabeth Stuart (born 28 December 1635)

The daughter of the ill-fated Charles I, king of England, and his queen, Henrietta Maria, Elizabeth Stuart didn't have much of a life. 

Van Dyck's 1637 painting of Elizabeth Stuart
and her younger sister, Anne,
who died in 1640, at the age of three

It might all have turned out quite differently for her--in 1636, while the Stuart princess was still an infant, her grandmother, the French regent Marie de' Medici, was interested in arranging a match between the baby and William, the prince of Orange (the future William II of Orange). 

Although King Charles was not impressed with the prospects of such an alliance and rejected it for Elizabeth, he later accepted it for his eldest, Mary Henrietta, in 1641, after other marriage negotiations fell through and his economic situation grew dire.

After the outbreak of the English Civil Wars in 1642, Elizabeth Stuart and her younger brother, Henry, duke of Gloucester, were taken into the "care" of Parliament, placed into the hands of a series of "guardians" assigned to the task. 

In 1643, she was moved to Chelsea, where she was tutored by a woman we have met before, the scholar Bathsua Makin; with Makin, the princess  studied classical and modern languages and mathematics. In 1644, when Elizabeth was nine years old, Makin wrote about the princess's accomplishments, and although it is not absolutely clear, she may have remained as the girl's tutor until Elizabeth's death. 

Meanwhile, in 1647, Elizabeth and her brother were allowed to spend two days with their father, who had been captured and was being held by parliamentary forces. They had more occasion for visits when the king was moved to Hampton Court palace, but after his escape, there would be no more time spent with him.

In 1648, parliament acted to reduce Elizabeth's household, a decision she protested in a letter: "My Lords," she wrote, "I account myself very miserable that I must have my servants taken from me and strangers put to me. You promised me that you would have a care for me; and I hope you will show it in preventing so great a grief as this would be to me. I pray my lords consider of it, and give me cause to thank you, and to rest. Your loving friend, Elizabeth." 

An engraving of Elizabeth Stuart,
after 1645

The princess was moved to St. James's, where she was held in close captivity. After her father's trial and condemnation, she again wrote parliament, asking for permission to join her sister on the continent, in the Netherlands. Denied even that, the thirteen-year-old Elizabeth and her younger brother, were allowed to visit their father before his execution.

According to her account of this visit, she wrote that her father attempted to console his sobbing daughter. Further, 

He bid us tell my mother that his thoughts had never strayed from her, and that his love would be the same to the last. Withal, he commanded me and my brother to be obedient to her; and bid me send his blessing to the rest of my brothers and sisters, with communications to all his friends. Then, taking my brother Gloucester on his knee, he said, "Sweetheart, now they will cut off thy father's head." And Gloucester looking very intently upon him, he said again, "Heed, my child, what I say: they will cut off my head and perhaps make thee a king. But mark what I say. Thou must not be a king as long as thy brothers Charles and James do live; for they will cut off your brothers' heads when they can catch them, and cut off thy head too at the last, and therefore I charge you, do not be made a king by them." At which my brother sighed deeply, and made answer: "I will be torn in pieces first!" And these words, coming so unexpectedly from so young a child, rejoiced my father exceedingly. And his majesty spoke to him of the welfare of his soul, and to keep his religion, commanding him to fear God, and He would provide for him. Further, he commanded us all to forgive those people, but never to trust them; for they had been most false to him and those that gave them power, and he feared also to their own souls. And he desired me not to grieve for him, for he should die a martyr, and that he doubted not the Lord would settle his throne upon his son, and that we all should be happier than we could have expected to have been if he had lived; with many other things which at present I cannot remember.

The two children were regarded as even more of a burden after their father's execution--parliament refused the repeated offer of sanctuary in the Netherlands, and a succession of men appointed to act as their guardians rejected the duties the job entailed. 

Elizabeth found some respite under the care of Robert Sidney and his wife Dorothy Percy, who extended kindness to the girl. But even this didn't last--in 1650, when her elder brother, who would one day become Charles II, entered Scotland, the frightened English parliamentarians moved Elizabeth to the Isle of Wight, despite her pleas of ill health. 

She developed pneumonia and died on 8 September 1650, shortly after the move to Wight. She was fourteen years old.

When she was eleven years old, am ambassador from France had called her a "budding young beauty" who had "grace, dignity, intelligence and sensibility." But when her remains were examined in the nineteenth-century, it could be seen that she had suffered from rickets, resulting in shoulder and back deformities that would have made it difficult for her to walk--the result, surely, of the deprivations she suffered.

(Henry, duke of Gloucester, managed to survive his trials and tribulations, eventually reuniting with his older brothers, Charles and James, on the continent. He was with his brothers when Charles was restored to the throne, but he died shortly thereafter of smallpox. As he lay dying, his mother, Henrietta Maria, refused to see him because he had withstood her efforts to convert him to Catholicism. Family values. Sheesh.)

You may be interested in this BBC History Extra podcast, in which historian Linda Porter discusses the unhappy fate of Charles I's "left behind" children--click  here.

For a post on Elizabeth Stuart's sister, Mary Henrietta, click here.

Bathsua Makin and the Education of Women

Bathsua Reginald Makin (elegy addressed to the Countess of Huntingdon, 24 June 1649)

Although Bathsua Makin is a noted writer and proponent of education for women, much of her life is not well documented. Her date of birth is not known (even the year isn't certain), and the year of her death is also unknown. So I've linked this post to an event in Makin's life that can be dated--Makin wrote a Latin elegy addressed to Lucy Hastings, the dowager countess of Huntingdon, in honor of the countess's nineteen-year-old son, Henry, who died, of smallpox, on 24 June 1649.

Bathsua Makin, c. 1640-48,
engraving by William Marshall

Bathsua Reginald was the elder daughter of a schoolmaster named Henry Reginald. (We don't know the name of her mother.) Her year of birth is generally given as "c. 1600"--her younger sister, Ithamaria, was baptized at the church of St. Dunstan and All Saints in Stepney in 1601.

Henry Reginald ran a school in London, and a former student was to note that Bathsua had "an exact knowledge in the Greek, Latin, and French tongues," as well as "some insight" into Hebrew and "Syriac." Indeed, she "doubtless" had "much more learning" than her father, who was "a mere pretender to it."

Aside from this later recollection, the earliest clear information about the young Bathsua's life comes from Musa virginea, published in 1616 by Henry Reginald, a collection of his daughter's  poems in praise of King James and other members of the royal family composed in six languages: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, French, and German. (A gift of praise the king obviously appreciated: when he received the volume, the king is reported to have asked, "But can she spin?") On the book's title page, Reginald says that the book is published in his daughter's "sixteenth year of age."

A second publication may be dated from the same year--a book published by her father, probably in 1616, contains a demonstration of a new system of shorthand, which seems to be Bathsua's original creation. Bathsua may have published a pamphlet, under her own name, on the system--a 1619 title page for her Index Radiographia is all that remains. 

The young woman was already gaining a reputation; by 1619, the king's physician wrote that she was "eruditiones eximiae virgini" (an exceptionally learned young woman), and part of her exceptional learning may have been her medical knowledge; a noted London doctor was later to claim that she had accumulated a trove of medical "receipts" (Sir Walter Raleigh's medical receipts, to be exact!), and that she had treated and cured one of Charles I's chaplains. 

Bathsua Reginald married Richard Makin, a minor court servant in the court of both James I and Charles I, on 5 March 1622, and over the course of the next two decades, she gave birth to eight children (1623, 1627, 1628, 1629, 1630, 1633, and 1642). 

But, while Richard Makin lost his place at court by 1640, Bathsua gained one. Although it is not at all clear how, she had become the tutor of Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of Charles I, responsible for instructing the princess in classical and modern languages and mathematics. She continued in this position at least until 1644, when she writes about Elizabeth's skills at age nine, and perhaps until the death of the princess in 1650. 

After the death of Princess Elizabeth, Makin suffered financially. In 1655 she petitioned for payment "of the arrears" for her "attendance on the late king's children," but this petition was dismissed. The death of her husband Richard, in 1659, was a personal loss and further contributed to her financial difficulties. But, at some point, she found another influential pupil, Lucy Hastings, countess of Huntingdon, whom she instructed in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Spanish. She also taught the countess's son, Theophilus, who would become the seventh earl of Huntingdon. When her role in the household began isn't clear, though her elegy for the countess's oldest son, Henry, was dated 1649. In 1664, when Lucy Hastings died, Makin also wrote an elegy dedicated to her. Letters from 1668 show Makin's ongoing connections to the family. 

By 1673, Makin had established her own school, in Tottenham, designed to educate the daughters of gentlemen; her Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen in Religion, Manners, Arts, and Tongues, published in that year, provides a rationale for educating women (or, at least, some women); delivers a brief history of women’s accomplishments in a range of fields, including languages, philosophy, and mathematics; includes the names of women renowned for their learning; and serves as an advertisement for her school.

For Makin, education for women is not only a practical advantage but a moral necessity, enabling women, like men, "to employ their lives to those noble and excellent ends for which the omnipotent and all-wise Creator made them, which are the glory of God, the eternal happiness of their immortal souls, and to be useful in their places."

Interestingly, while objecting to the "barbarous custom to breed woman low," Makin's "essay" is actually composed in the voices of not one but two "men," who exchange letters, one male writer arguing in favor of women's education, the other opposing it. 

It's not clear whether Makin's school was a success, how long it was open, how many students she may have taught, and who some of those students may have been. It isn't even clear when she died--the last letter from her that survives is dated November 1675 and shows that she was still living in London. There are no death or burial records.

The best account of Makin's life is Frances Teague's entry for her in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biograpphy--access is by subscription, however (which I don't have--I have to get it via Interlibrary Loan, so that's another option). Teague also published Bathsua Makin: Woman of Learning, which seems to be out of print, though copies are available. There is also a wonderful chapter on Makin, "Bathsua Makin: Female Scholars and the Reformation of Learning," in Carol Pal's Republic of Women: Rethinking the Republic of Letters in the Seventeenth Century.

Makin’s Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen in Religion, Manners, Arts, and Tongues is available online at A Celebration of Women Writers.