Memoirist at the British royal court, author of devotional writings
Anne Halkett’s three love affairs—one involving the married Colonel Bampfield—and her role in the daring 1648 escape of the Stuart heir apparent from St. James’s Palace, figure prominently in her Memoirs and demonstrate its dual narrative threads of romantic and political intrigue. Written between 1677 and 1678, her largely secular autobiography contains some precursors of the early novel, including naturalistic dialogue and a distinctly self-conscious literary style and structure. It also demonstrates traits of an apology as she contextualizes and explains her actions. Known mainly for her Memoirs and from a posthumous biography entitled The Life of the Lady Halkett (1701), Anne Halkett nee Murray also wrote twenty-one devotional manuscripts and other pious texts including Instructions forYouth, some of which were published posthumously with her 1701 biography.
Anne Halkett’s parents, Thomas and Jane Murray, were tutor and governess for the royal family. In her Memoirs, Halkett explains that her mother “paid masters for teaching my sister and mee to writte, speake French, play lute and virginalls, and dance, and kept a gentlewoman to teach us all kinds of needleworke.”
The tripartite structure of Lady Halkett’s autobiography, written about her life from 1623 to 1656, reflects the three significant romantic relationships in her life: Thomas Howard, Colonel Joseph Bampfield, and James Halkett. She narrates her relationship with Thomas Howard, which was forbidden by her mother because of his higher rank as the future Lord Howard of Escrick. In 1648, Colonel Joseph Bampfield enlisted her help in disguising the future James II in women’s clothing during the heir apparent’s escape from St. James’s Palace. United by their Royalist cause, Anne Halkett and Bampfield became romantically involved, although she remained uncertain about his marital status for over six years. Guilt ridden, she severed their relationship when she discovered that he was not a widower as he had claimed.
In her Memoirs, Halkett mentions briefly that she treated injured soldiers and the poor, but The Life of the Lady Halkett highlights this aspect of her life: “She became very famous and helpful to many, both Poor and Rich (though it was mainly, with respect to the Poor, that She undertook that practice).” Her Memoirs conclude in 1656 when, after a four-year courtship, she married Sir John Halkett.
Marlo Belschner
Bibliography
Primary Work
Loftis, John, ed. The Memoirs of Anne, Lady Halkett and Ann, Lady Fanshawe. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.
Secondary Work
Walker, Kim. “The Lives of Anne Halkett” In Women Writing, 1550—1750. Edited by Jo Wall-work and Paul Salzman, 133—149. Bundorra, Victoria, Australia: Meridian, 2001.
World History
