The Monument of Matrones

10 The Monument of Matrones

The Monument of Matrons: Containing Seven Several Lamps of Virginity, or Distinct Treatises; Whereof the First Five Concern Prayer and Meditation: the Other Two Last, Precepts and Examples, 1582 was the first published anthology of women’s writing, containing ‘divers very godly, learned and divine treatises, of meditations and prayer, made by sundry right famous

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Queens, noble Ladies, virtuous Virgins, and godly Gentlewomen of all ages.’ It is indeed monumental, containing one thousand five hundred pages, though by no means all of the women included are virtuous virgins. The conceit of separating the writings into ‘Lamps’ is based on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins in Matthew 25: ‘Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.’ Most of the writings are devotional: prayers, meditations on Scriptures and so on; certainly all are devotional and virtuous, rather than transgressive. Monument was compiled by Thomas Bentley, who was a student at Gray’s Inn in London, and printed by Henry Denham, hoping to attract the patronage of Elizabeth I. He stated his aim in this huge volume to be:

to publish the same abroad in print, as a book, in the judgement of them that are learned, not unprofitable to the church: but very necessary, and in some respect, more proper and peculiar for the private use of women, than heretofore hath been set out by any. . . So have you good reader, by the goodness of God, who worketh all our works for vs, here now at the length in this Monument or collection contained (if you list so for distinction or names sake to call or entitle them) not only a burning Lamp for virgins, but also a crystal Mirror for Matrons: as also a delectable Dial for to direct you to true devotion, with a perfect President or register of holy prayer for all women generally to have recourse unto, as to their homely or domestical library.

The ‘godly Gentlewomen’ included in Monument are mostly not at all transgressive, nor are they mostly writers in the proper sense, but three of the women included are worth a mention – none of them normally known as writers but all of them in their own way highly transgressive,

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Lady Jane Grey Katherine Parr Princess Elizabeth

both in religious and political terms: Lady Jane Dudley (known to history as Lady Jane Grey); Henry VIII’s last wife Katherine Parr and the then Queen Elizabeth though the texts included in the anthology were written when she was still Princess Elizabeth. As a twenty-two-year-old Princess, Elizabeth had been imprisoned in the Tower of London by her sister Mary in 1554 for her transgressive, Protestant beliefs. She was led in via Traitors Gate, and questioned by the same Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester who had interrogated and tortured Anne Askew in the same anti-Protestant witchhunt which tried unsuccessfully to implicate Katherine Parr as a heretic; the Princess Elizabeth probably never expected to come out alive. Lady Jane Grey, also transgressively a devout Protestant, was technically Queen of England for nine days in 1553 after the fifteen-year-old Edward VI died and before Mary Tudor took over; initially Mary showed Jane and her husband clemency – they had only been married for two months and both were only fifteen – but they were executed in February 1554, just a month before Princess Elizabeth was imprisoned. Bentley specifically singles out these three women:

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the most gracious Sovereign Lady Queen ELIZABETH, to muse divinely of the inward love of the soul towards Christ their spouse, their Lord and father, mother and brother: or with the virtuous Lady Queen KATHERINE, to bewail the ignorance of their blind life led in superstition: and with her also in all their troubles to stir up their godly minds patiently to suffer all afflictions for the love of everlasting felicity: or with the right godly Lady Jane Dudley to endure the cross to death most patiently.

Katherine Parr is subject to quite an encomium by Bentley, showing how much the religious and political landscape had changed since Elizabeth took full hold of the reins of power.

Here mayest thou see one, if the kind may move thee, a woman; if degree may provoke thee, a woman of high estate; by birth, made noble; by marriage, most noble; by wisdom, godly; by a mighty King, an excellent Queen; by a famous HENRY, a renowned KATHERINE; a wife to him that was a King to Realms: refusing the world, wherein she was lost, to obtain heaven, wherein she may be saved: abhorring sin, which made her bound, to receive grace, whereby she may be free: despising flesh the cause of corruption, to put on the spirit the cause of sanctification: forsaking ignorance wherein she was blind, to come to knowledge, whereby she may see: removing superstition, wherewith she was smothered, to embrace true religion, wherewith she may revive.

One of the included texts written by the Princess Elizabeth comes from her time in the Tower, and is a prayer: ‘Help me now, O God, for I have none other friends but thee alone. And suffer me not (I beseech thee) to build my foundation upon the sands: but upon the rock, whereby all blasts of blustering weather may have no power against me.’

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The two very short pieces of writing by Lady Jane Grey come from her very last days, while she was in the tower. The first is a prayer to God, asking him to, ‘arm me, I beseech thee, with thine armour, yet I may stand fast, my loins being girded about with verity, having on the breastplate of righteousness, and shod with the shoes prepared by the Gospel of peace: above all things taking to me the shield of faith, wherewith I may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.’ The second is a letter to her sister, apparently written the night before she was executed; it seems that Jane has left her Bible to her sister.

Lady Jane Grey’s prayerbook

I have here sent you, good sister Katherine, a Book, which although it be not outwardly trimmed with gold, yet inwardly it is more worth than precious stones. It is the book (dear sister) of the law of the Lord; it is his Testament and last will, which he bequeathed unto vs wretches, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy. And if you, with a good mind read it, and with an earnest desire follow it, it shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life. It will teach you to live, and learn you to die. . . And if ye will cleave to him, he will prolong your days, to your comfort, and his glory. To the which glory God bring me now, and you hereafter, when it shall please God to call you. Farewell good sister, and put your only trust in God, who only must help you. Your loving sister, Jane Dudley.

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