Coauthors of a pastoral play, a drama, and poetry; daughters of William Cavendish, duke of Newcastle, and his first wife, Elizabeth Bassett The Cavendish sisters, Elizabeth Brackley and Jane, were encouraged by their father to engage in literary pursuits, and they did. They are best known for their coauthored drama, The Concealed Fancies (ca.1645), and jointly wrote a pastoral masque and poetry. Their stepmother Margaret Cavendish (who was thirty years their father’s junior when she married him in 1645) was also a published author, making the literary women of the Cavendish family as prolific as those of the acclaimed Sidneys.
During the English Civil War, Elizabeth (known as Elizabeth Brackley or E. B. in her manuscripts) and Jane were left at the family estate at Welbeck Abbey with their younger sister Frances while their father and brothers served the Royalist forces. Welbeck Abbey was captured by Parliamentary forces in 1644 and surrendered the following year. It is ironic that this period of confinement for the Cavendish sisters should result in the literary freedom marked by their dramatic text. In The Concealed Fancies the authors challenge social attitudes toward both class and gender. The play’s heroines educate their suitors on a woman’s proper role in marriage; the heroines demand their autonomy and contradict the traditional expectations of obedience. While the play is a comedy ending in multiple marriages, the realities of war serve as a backdrop to these events.
The elements of autobiography in the text are not limited to references of war but extend to the script’s preoccupation with a woman’s role in marriage. At the time The Concealed Fancies was written, Elizabeth would have been married to John Egerton, Viscount Brackley. The two wed in 1636, but Elizabeth remained in her father’s home due to her young age. After the Cavendish family vacated Welbeck, Elizabeth went to the Egerton family home. By all accounts, her marriage was a happy one. She continued to write poetry and meditations and raised four children. When she died in 1663 as result of premature labor, Egerton distributed her writings to her family. Jane married Charles Cheney in 1654 and also appears to have made a happy match. She died in 1669 after a series of epileptic fits. Her only extant poem was written on the death of her sister Elizabeth.
Michelle Osherow
See also Cavendish, Margaret; Theater and Women Actors, Playwrights, and Patrons.
Bibliography
Cerasano, S. P, and Marion Wynne-Davies, eds.
Renaissance Drama by Women: Texts and Documents. London and New York: Routledge,
1996.
Wynne-Davies, Marion, ed. Women Poets of the Renaissance. New York: Routledge, 1999.
World History
