Oxford World’s Classics

by Jane Austen

Elizabeth: Elizabeth I (1533–1603), Queen of England and Ireland, only child of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. She reigned from 1558 to 1603. Hume credits her with ‘vigour’, ‘constancy’, ‘magnanimity’, ‘penetration, vigilance, address’ (History of England, ‘Elizabeth’, ch. 44); Goldsmith calls her ‘prudent, active, and discerning’, ‘wise and good’ (History of England, iii, 152–3). Cassandra’s portrait of Elizabeth I has been identified as that of JA’s mother Cassandra Leigh Austen; that of the young and beautiful Mary, Queen of Scots, on the facing page and also in formal attire, may be intended as a likeness of JA (see Love and Freindship, ed. Alexander, pp. xxiv–xxv). In his prologue to Susanna Centlivre’s The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret! (see ‘Henry & Eliza’, note to p. 27), James Austen mocked Elizabeth’s ‘ugliness & dress’ (l. 27).

  Misfortune of this Woman to have bad Ministers: a direct contradiction of Goldsmith, who writes that Elizabeth ‘was indebted to her good fortune, that her ministers were excellent’ (History of England, iii, 152). Cf. the dispute about Elizabeth in ‘Kitty, or the Bower’ (p. 175).

  Lord Burleigh, Sir Francis Walsingham: William Cecil (1520–98), created Lord Burleigh (or Burghley) in 1571, served for two terms as Elizabeth’s secretary of state and, for the great part of her reign, as her most trusted adviser. Sir Francis Walsingham (c.1532–90) was the queen’s principal secretary and privy councillor, popularly remembered as her spymaster. Both men were heavily implicated in the death of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–87).

  130 Mr Whitaker, Mrs Lefroy, Mrs Knight: John Whitaker (1735–1808), historian and author of Mary Queen of Scots Vindicated (1787), which championed the cause of Mary and incriminated her enemies, particularly Elizabeth (a 2nd edn was published in 1790); Anne Lefroy, née Bridges (1749–1804), wife of the rector of Ashe, near Steventon, a close friend of JA and her family; and Catherine Knight, née Knatchbull (1753–1812), Edward Austen’s adoptive mother. Gilpin comments in his Observations Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty that Whitaker ‘hath given the public some new lights on the history of Mary; and thrown the guilt on Elizabeth’ (i, 92 n.). Differing interpretations of Mary persisted throughout the 18th century: historians such as William Robertson (in The History of Scotland. During the reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI. till his accession to the crown of England, 2 vols. (1759)) and Hume (in his History of England, ‘Elizabeth’, ch. 42) argued that Mary was guilty of adultery and murder, charges hotly contested by John Whitaker and by William Tytler, author of An Historical and Critical Enquiry into the Evidence Produced by the Earls of Murray and Morton against Mary, Queen of Scots (1760), reviewed by Samuel Johnson in the Gentleman’s Magazine and by Tobias Smollett in the Critical Review, and republished five times.

  abandoned by her son: James VI and I (1566–1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567—when Mary, Queen of Scots, was compelled to abdicate in his favour and to appoint her illegitimate half-brother as regent—and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 Mar. 1603 until his death. He was the only son of Mary and her second husband, Lord Darnley. Reared a Protestant and anxious to safeguard his own right to the succession, he made only perfunctory efforts to save his mother from execution.

  Fotheringay Castle … 1586: Fotheringay was a heavily fortified medieval castle in Nottinghamshire, in which Mary was imprisoned for nineteen years until her execution on 8 Feb. 1587 ( JA gives the wrong year—1586).

  Sir Francis Drake … now but young: Francis Drake (1540–96), the greatest sailor of his age, completed the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, and was the first to undertake it as captain and leader throughout. Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581; in 1588, he was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada. In another parodic treatment of historical events as a means to predict inevitable future occurrences, JA flatters her brother Francis, Drake’s namesake, that he will equal such legendary exploits. Francis Austen went on to become Rear Admiral and Admiral of the Fleet, and to be knighted.

  130–1 Lord Essex … Delamere: Essex, like Delamere, is daring and impetuous; both men could be viewed as the servants and tormentors of the women they purportedly love. Delamere pursues and abducts Emmeline, demanding that she marry him; when she breaks off their engagement, Delamere dies in a duel. Essex’s reckless and treasonable behaviour culminated in a rebellion and his execution. See note to p. 127.

  25th of Feb.ry: as with the letter from Anne Boleyn (see note to p. 126), JA omits the year—1601.

  clapped his hand on his Sword: cf. History of England, in which Goldsmith reported that Essex ‘turned his back on the queen in a contemptuous fashion’ and ‘she gave him a box on the ear’; Essex then ‘clapped his hand to his sword; and swore he would not bear such usage even from her father. This offence, though very great, was overlooked by the queen’ (iii, 139).

  died so miserable: Elizabeth died in Mar. 1603, two years after Essex was beheaded; Goldsmith writes that, ‘With the death of her favourite Essex, all Elizabeth’s pleasures seemed to expire’ (History of England, iii, 150).

  James the 1st: Alexander suggests that the model for Cassandra’s image of James as a well-dressed young gentleman may have been her brother James (Love and Freindship, 422 n.).

  allowing his Mother’s death: see note to p. 130.

  Anne of Denmark: James married Anne of Denmark (1574–1619) in 1589.

  died before his father … his unfortunate Brother: Prince Henry died aged 18 in 1612, 13 years before the death of his father. The fate of Henry’s ‘unfortunate Brother’, Charles I, is recounted in the last section of JA’s ‘History’, the ‘evils which befell’ him being a protracted and bloody civil war, imprisonment, trial, and (in 1649) a public execution.

  I am … partial to the roman catholic religion: JA boldly reverses the Protestant bias typically displayed by 18th-century historians, and the expected allegiances of an Anglican clergyman’s daughter.

  Their Behaviour … very uncivil: alluding to the Gunpowder Plot (1605), in which a group of Catholic conspirators including Guy Fawkes (c.1570–1606) hoped to explode ‘the king and both houses of parliament at a blow’ (History of England, iii, 164). But the plan was exposed when the Catholic peer William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle (1575–1622), received an anonymous letter, warning him not to attend Parliament on the intended day of the explosion, and passed it on to the secretary of state. JA follows Goldsmith in identifying the author of the letter as Sir Henry Percy (History of England, iii, 166–7).

  132 Attentions … Confined to Lord Mounteagle: JA picks up on Goldsmith’s description of Percy and Monteagle, which hints at a sexual relationship as well as a shared religion: ‘his intimate friend and companion, who also was of the same persuasion with himself’ (History of England, iii, 167).

  Sir Walter Raleigh: Walter Raleigh or Ralegh (1554–1618), celebrated courtier, scholar, author, explorer, and favourite of Elizabeth I, knighted in 1585. He testified against his sometime ally the Earl of Essex at the trial that ended in Essex’s execution; Raleigh himself was imprisoned for the first 13 years of James I’s reign, set free to lead an expedition in search of gold in South America, and arrested, tried, and executed on his return in 1618.

  the particulars of his Life … the Critic: cf. references to Sheridan’s The Critic in ‘Frederic & Elfrida’ (see note to p. 3) and ‘The Mystery’ (see notes to pp. 49 and 50). The Critic features a rehearsal of Mr Puff’s tragedy The Spanish Armada; Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Christopher Hutton appear as characters in this absurd play-within-a-play.

  amiable disposition … keener penetration in Discovering Merit: a bold double entendre, hinting at the king’s sexual proclivities and tendency to promote good-looking young men to positions of wealth and status.

  Sharade: or charade, ‘A kind of riddle in which each syllable of a word, or a complete word or phrase, is enigmatically described, or (now more usually) dr
amatically represented (in early use often more fully acted charade), sometimes in mime (more fully dumb charade); a game of presenting and solving such riddles’ (OED). Popular in JA’s family, charades survive by her mother, sister, four of her brothers, and by JA herself. See also the charade in E, ch. 9.

  My first is … my whole: another bold joke about the king’s sexual preferences, this charade depicts Sir Robert Carr (1590–1645) as the favourite, or ‘pet’, of James I, hence ‘car-pet’. The son of a Scottish nobleman, Carr was made Viscount Rochester in 1611, privy councillor in 1612 and Earl of Somerset and treasurer of Scotland in 1613.

  Duke of Buckingham: the beautiful and corrupt George Villiers (1592–1628), who succeeded Carr as the king’s favourite ( James called him Steenie, a diminutive of Stephen, since St Stephen, according to the Bible, had a face like an angel). In 1619 he became Lord Admiral of the navy, exploiting his position to amass vast power and wealth for himself. His influence on the court persisted after the death of James I. He was impeached in 1626, accused of holding too many offices; of delivering English ships into French hands for use against the Huguenots; of selling honours and offices; of procuring titles for his relatives; and, finally, of poisoning James I. Rather than allow the impeachment to run its course, Charles I dissolved Parliament. Buckingham was assassinated in a public house in 1628. Writing about James I and Buckingham, Goldsmith notes cautiously that ‘The history of these times … does not however insinuate anything flagitious in these connexions, but imputes his attachment rather to a weakness of understanding, than to any perversion of appetite’ (History of England, iii, 178). In The Ladies History of England; from the Descent of Julius Cæsar, to the Summer of 1780 ([1780–81]), Charlotte Cowley, by contrast, expresses some aversion towards James’s ‘peculiar weakness’ and susceptibility to attractive young men (302, 304).

  132–3 Charles the 1st … his lovely Grandmother: Charles I (1600–49), grandson of Mary, Queen of Scots, reigned from 1625 to 1649, when he was executed for ‘high treason’ following the victory of Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army over Royalist forces in the Civil War. JA’s family remembered her vehement defence of Charles I (Memoir, 71, 173); her pro-Stuart marginalia in Goldsmith’s History of England begin at the passage discussing the reign of Charles I, the rise of Cromwell, and the Civil War (see Juvenilia, Appendix B).

  133 Archbishop Laud … Ormond: William Laud (1573–1645), Archbishop of Canterbury, accused of treason and imprisoned in the early stages of the Civil War, was executed in 1645, despite being granted a royal pardon. Sir Thomas Wentworth (1593–1641), 1st Earl of Strafford and leader of the House of Commons, attempted to strengthen the royal position against Parliament and was executed in 1641. Lucius Cary (1609/10–43), politician and author, sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1642, fought on the Royalist side, and was killed in action at the First Battle of Newbury. James Butler (1610–88), 1st Duke of Ormonde, commanded the Royalist forces in Ireland. Sir Thomas Wentworth was a remote ancestor of JA’s mother, Cassandra Leigh; the surname Wentworth is given to the sailor hero of P.

  Cromwell … Pym: cf. hostile references to Cromwell and Hampden in JA’s marginalia to History of England (see Juvenilia, Appendix B). Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), Parliamentarian and supporter of the regicide, governed the republican Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death. Thomas Fairfax (1612–71) commanded the parliamentary forces in the Civil War; John Hampden (1594–1643), politician and Parliamentarian colonel, was killed at the Battle of Chalgrove in June 1643; and John Pym (1583–1643), politician, created the administrative machinery to run the Parliamentarian war effort.

  [Collection of Letters]

  134 Collection of Letters: a popular title in the 18th century, attached to works of epistolary fiction, to letter-writing manuals, and to historical and biographical anthologies of letters. In its preoccupation with young ladies’ innocence and experience, the need for instruction, their entrances into the world, and with names and namelessness, ‘Collection of Letters’ seems to be recalling Burney’s Evelina (see also note to p. 138).

  Miss Cooper: Jane Cooper, JA’s cousin (see ‘Henry & Eliza’, note to p. 27). Given the use of her maiden name, this must pre-date her marriage in Dec. 1792 to Captain Williams.

  Clime: ‘Contracted from climate and therefore properly poetical’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary).

  Curious: ‘ Exquisite, choice, excellent, fine’ as well as ‘Deserving or exciting attention on account of its novelty or peculiarity; exciting curiosity; somewhat surprising, strange, singular, odd; queer’ (OED). JA’s alliterative list recalls other Collections of Letters: see e.g. ‘a curious collection of letters on compliment, business, and several other occasions’ in Thomas Wise, The Newest Young Man’s Companion, Containing a Compendious English Grammar, 9th edn (1773); A Curious Collection of Genuine and Authentick Letters ([1750]); Elegant Epistles: Or, a Copious Collection of Familiar and Amusing Letters, Selected for the Improvement of Young Persons, and for General Entertainment ([1790]). Cf. the comic use of alliteration in ‘Frederic & Elfrida’ (‘Patches, Powder, Pomatum & Paint’; and see note to p. 5), and in JA’s letter to Cassandra of 9 Feb. 1813: ‘Candour & Comfort & Coffee & Cribbage’ (Letters, 213).

  at that age … become conversant with the World: JA refers to the rite of passage for genteel young women known as ‘coming out’, typically occurring in their mid- to late teens. Whether a girl was ‘out’, taking her place in society and therefore becoming available on the marriage market, was not always clear. See ‘Kitty, or the Bower’, p. 194; cf. P&P, ch. 29; MP, ch. 5. See also JA’s comment to her niece Anna on ‘the madness of otherwise sensible Women, on the subject of their Daughters coming out’ (Letters, 281).

  entrée into Life: here, ‘entrée’ means the formal entrance into polite society in general (cf. ‘The three Sisters’, note to p. 60).

  drink tea: see ‘The three Sisters’, note to p. 54.

  Morning-Visits: short, formal, pre-dinner social calls (OED), made from around noon to 3 p.m. (‘morning’ was the period between breakfast and dinner).

  135 presided over their infancy: cf. Louis Mayeul de Chaudon’s Historical and Critical Memoirs of the Life and Writings of M. de Voltaire (1786): ‘Apollo appears to have presided over the infancy of M. de Voltaire’ (2). Similar phrasing about a mother appears in another work translated from the French, M. Florian’s Gonzalva of Cordova; or, Grenada Reconquered, 3 vols. (1793): ‘Never could the tenderest of mothers do more for a beloved child. To no one would she confide the care of my earliest infancy; she alone presided over my education’ (ii, 72). Although in JA’s fictional letter the mother appears to be babying her teenage offspring, ‘Civil infancy’, as Johnson notes, was ‘extended by the English law to one and twenty years’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary, ‘infancy’).

  136 Willoughby … Crawfords: the names at either end of this list are given to major characters in JA’s novels: Willoughby in S&S, Crawford in MP.

  Melancholy: ‘Sadness, dejection, esp. of a pensive nature; gloominess; pensiveness or introspection; an inclination or tendency to this’, with an implication of ‘Tender, sentimental, or reflective sadness; sadness giving rise to or considered as a subject for poetry, sentimental reflection, etc.’ (OED). In the late 18th century, melancholy was increasingly associated with women. Cf. ‘Kitty, or the Bower’: ‘tender and Melancholly recollections … at once so sorrowful, yet so soothing!’ (p. 170).

  Dashwood: another name to appear in JA’s mature fiction: the Dashwoods are the central characters in S&S.

  136 Sister: here, sister-in-law.

  137 I am advised to ride by my Physician: riding was recommended as beneficial to health, partly because it involved plenty of fresh air. Fanny Price depends on riding to feel well (MP, ch. 7).

  ‘Ride where you may, Be Candid where You can’: freely adapting Pope’s Essay on Man (epistle 1, l. 15): ‘Laugh where we must, be
candid where we can’. To laugh is ‘ridere’ in Italian and ‘rire’ in French, which may have encouraged JA to turn ‘Laugh’ into ‘Ride’. In any case, Pope’s aphoristic line was often rewritten, by authors including Oliver Goldsmith in the Epilogue to The Good-Natur’d Man; George Crabbe, in Inebriety, A Poem (1775), pt 3; and Arthur Murphy, in the prologue to The Upholsterer; or What News? A Comedy (1786).

  fighting for his Country in America: that is, fighting on the British side in the American War of Independence, or the Revolutionary War (1775–83) between the rebel colonies and the British army.

  138 I could not prevail on myself … no right to that of Annesley: in failing either to adopt her husband’s name or revert to her maiden name, Miss Jane casts doubt on the validity of her marriage and suggests she may be illegitimate (in which case she would not be entitled to use her father’s surname). Burney’s Evelina encounters similar problems, caught between a father who will not acknowledge her and an invented surname, ‘Anville’. Miss Jane’s solution of ‘bearing only my Christian [name]’ is adopted by Evelina, who signs herself in letters to her guardian by that name alone.

  139 honour of calling for me in her way … sit forwards: Lady Greville is on her way to the ball, so the ‘honour’ costs her little; sitting ‘forwards’ means facing the direction of travel. This confers ‘a great obligation’ on Maria Williams as it is considered the preferable position.

  you know I always speak my mind … old striped one: cf. Lady Catherine de Bourgh in P&P, an equally insulting character, who also says ‘You know I always speak my mind’ (ch. 37). Lady Greville and Lady Catherine further agree on the matter of dress; Mr Collins tells Elizabeth that ‘Lady Catherine will not think the worst of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved’ (P&P, ch. 29).

  Candles cost money … extravagant: candles made of beeswax rather than tallow (animal fat) were expensive; cf. Miss Bates on ‘the comfort and style’ of having ‘Candles every where’ at a ball in E, ch. 38.