FEMALE EDUCATION IN THE LATE SIXTEENTH AND EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES IN ENGLAND AND WALES: A STUDY OF ATTITUDES AND PRACTI CE Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy: January 1996 Caroline Mary Kynaston Bowden Institute of Education, University of London \ 2 ABSTRACT OF THESIS This thesis provides a study of attitudes and practice in respect of female education in England and Wales in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It begins with a review of primary and secondary sources, and throughout draws substantially upon personal documents consulted in collections of family papers covering a wide geographical area. These documents, it is argued are broadly representative of gentry families. Chapter Two examines the education of daughters; Chapter Three the role of women in marriage; Chapter Four motherhood. Each of these chapters examines the links between education and the roles girls and women fulfilled. Throughout these three chapters, contrasts and comparisons are drawn between prescriptive advice and practice. Chapter Five considers the difficult issue of standards in the education of girls and women, while the final chapter examines some of the outcomes of education in terms of women as intermediaries in informal power networks, estate and farm managers and educational benefactors and founders. The thesis draws conclusions in respect of the importance of education in permitting the developing role of women in both private and public spheres and examines the reasons for such changes. It also challenges existing theories regarding the differences between Catholic and Protestant attitudes to girls' education. A substantial appendix listing some 870 educated and literate women of the period is provided, both to demonstrate the major sources for this study and to provide a basis for future research. 3 Acknowl edgenients The gestation of the thesis has been long and placed the usual demands on a supportive family, particularly my husband Richard. He has continued to believe that it could be done. My son, Tom, has given invaluable advice on textual matters. David Glennie has read the thesis with an eagle eye and his comments have led to many improvements in the writing. Joanne Nickels has saved me from despair over my lack of word processing skills on a number of occasions and led the way forward. Mary Prior gave me encouragement when it all began, pointing out sources and research already completed, and has continued to take a friendly interest as the study progressed. My supervisor, Richard Aldrich, has understood the need for encouragement as well as criticism and has been exacting in the standards he has set. To them, and the other historians who have advised, particularly in unfamiliar areas, my grateful thanks are hereby recorded. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE Introduction and sources Page 5 CHAPTER TWO Educating daughters: Page 42 prescriptive advice, parental attitudes and practice. CHAPTER THREE The role of women in marriage: Page 86 prescriptive advice and practice. CHAPTER FOUR Motherhood: prescriptive advice Page 124 and practice. CHAPTER FIVE Standards in women's education. Page 160 CHAPTER SIX Women as intermediaries, Page 203 managers and benefactors: a study of the outcomes of literacy. CONCLUS ION Page 241 B IBLIOGRAPHY Page 246 APPENDIX Page 264 TABLES Table One: Distribution of Page 31 letters by decade. Table Two: Analysis of the Page 35 contents of women's letters for interests and relationships. Table Three: Numbers of women Page 166 sending letters in 13 gentry families. ILLUSTRATION Examples of women's handwriting. Page 163 5 CHAPTER ONE IWflODUCTION AND SOURCES Mary and Helen Copley, daughters of William and Magdalen Copley, were Catholic girls waiting in a London inn in 1610, before making their way illegally to join one of the English convents in the Low Countries. Magistrates in London, worried about a possible threat from Catholics following the assassination of Henry IV in Paris, used this as a pretext to enter the houses and lodgings of known sympathisers. A Justice of the Peace with a band of men entered the Copleys' room to search it for evidence of emigration and illicit books. They searched in vain; the girls had just enough time to hide their Catholic books and the money for the journey down their bed, leaving out only their Virgil as a 'safe' book to be found by the men.' Their ability to read Latin and their interest in Classical authors was in marked contrast to the educational experience of Magdalen Montague, also Catholic, daughter of Lord Dacre of Gilsiand, who on five occasions between 1587 and 1604, put only her initials in beginners' writing at the end of her letters, suggesting a much lower standard of education. 2 This kind of contrast is repeated in the evidence from other families: the educational experience of girls of the landed classes was diverse in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Most evidence relating to girls' education does not come from quite such dramatic circumstances as the raid on the Copleys: it can be found among household and personal papers in the family collections of the gentry now deposited in many local record offices. The evidence of the education of the Copleys and Magdalen Montague raises many questions about girls' education in the 1 Doi Adai flailiton, b1ish Auqustiiiiarz Carionesses of St Konica's, Edinburgh, Sands and Co., 1904, Vol.1, p114-5. 2 Magdalen Montague's letters, B L Add MS 12,506 Vol.i, ff65, 101, 147, 159, 173. 6 late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. For example; how far were these girls representative of other Catholic girls, or girls from similar social backgrounds who were Protestant? Why did parents such as William and Magdalen Copley decide to educate their daughters to such a high standard? How far did women such as Magdalen Montague participate in activities in the public sphere outside the family and how important was education in enabling them to do so? How far is it possible to find evidence of girls' education outside the privileged landed classes? To return to the examples: all these girls came from Catholic families and show the wide variation of educational standards within the same religious group. 3 Magdalen Montague came from an aristocratic background, but was less well educated than the Copley girls from a gentry family. Some historians have commented on a decline in teaching girls Latin in the latter part of the sixteenth century, but the Copley girls were only two of many girls who learned Latin.' Magdalen Montague's initials were made by someone unaccustomed to writing; pressing hard and moving the pen slowly over the paper. No evidence has been found that she was able to write her own letters, but she would have been able to read print at least and she participated in informal patronage networks with confidence. Some accounts of the Reformation have placed emphasis on the importance to Protestant Reformers of educating girls, with the implication that education was less important in Catholic families, but many other Catholic girls, besides the Copleys and Magdalen Montague, were educated to a similar standard. Research already completed on girls' education in the period, In 1610, Catholics were a significant iinority in England. John Bossy estivated that 50% of the population of England was Catholic in 1570, but that this had fallen to 25% by 1620. John Bossy, T Erqlish Cat1ic Coizriity 1570-1850, London, Darton, Longian and Todd, 1975, p183. For details of the level of girls' education, see Appendix. 7 has shown that the education that girls were given was intended by their parents to fit them for their future role as wives and mothers, and that very few parents considered a different future for them. 5 The resulting educational experience for girls was heterogeneous, ranging from the acquisition of basic reading skills to the ability to compose original prose and translate full-length plays. This variation in the provision of education was the result of a number of different factors affecting parents; perhaps the most immediate being the economic circumstances of the family, which in many cases severely restricted choice for poorer parents. Yet even within the wealthier classes, there were divergent views on the future for which they were preparing their daughters and the amount of education necessary. It is essential to examine both the evidence contained in personal documents as well as the advice given in the prescriptive literature, to explain the different experiences. At the end of the sixteenth century in England, according to the prescriptive conduct books, the role of adult women was adjudged to lie within the household and family. This coincided with the views of most parents. The aim of virtually all parents was to see their daughters married and few women held formal positions outside the household, so it is within the context of the family that most evidence of women's activities is to be found. A study of girls' education in the early modern period is therefore focused on the family as a starting point. Familial relationships have been at the centre of long term controversy among historians. Recent research on children has shown their importance to sixteenth-century parents, challenging the conclusions of Aries and Lawrence Stone who found little evidence of affection. Based on contemporary autobiographical writings, personal documents and a re- See for exaiple, Noria McMullen, The Education of English Gentlewoien 1540-1640, ffistory of Edncation, 1977, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp87-101. 8 interpretation of iconographical images, historians such as Linda Pollock have shown that parents in the early modern period experienced family life as diversely as modern parents, and that many took their responsibilities very seriously.6 This concern is reflected in the care that parents took to provide education and training for their daughters' future.