Whitelocke, Mary

presumably autograph, comprising an intimate and detailed autobiography addressed to her eldest son and encompassing her life from the time of her first marriage, much of the narrative given over to her children and their loving and pious behavior, in a homiletic style with copious Biblical references in the margins, written in a clear italic hand and signed (on page 43), most leaves written on the rectos only, red ruled margins, c.175 pages, plus blanks, 1660s; at least 43 leaves misbound leaving the final section of the narrative bound at the beginning of the volume; binding slightly rubbed. Contemporary embroidered canvas binding over pasteboard with birds and flowers on a silver thread background) modern black morocco-backed red buckram folding-box.

"William Puzey" (ownership inscription). acquisition: Bernard Quaritch

A remarkable first-hand account of the life of a wealthy gentry woman in the mid-seventeenth century. It was written by Mary, the daughter of a London merchant called Bigley Carleton. She married, firstly, Rowland Wilson, MP, also from a London mercantile family (d.1650), and secondly, in 1650, the prominent lawyer and politician Bulstrode Whitelocke (1605-75), with whom she had seven children.

Mary Whitelocke gives a full and often touching account of her life, written in a pious but unaffected style that does not ignore public events (she is vigorous in defence of Whitelocke's public life) but is overwhelmingly concerned with the domestic and characterised by distinctively feminine imagery:

"...god deals with his people as a tender harted mother dus with her child at her breast, she puts some bitter thing upon the nipple not to hurt the child but to make the child care the less for the breast: so the lord dealt with me he put some bitter dispensation upon all my creature injoyments...." 

She married at 16 and her first marriage was happy but childless — she gives a poignant account of a miscarriage — however, after some fourteen years, her husband fell sick and died ("...tel then did I not know what true greife and sorrow ment..."). When she came to choose a second husband she writes that Whitelocke's high public office meant that "he might doe much good to the people of god and ... by marrying of him I might be an instrument in gods hand." Once again it was a happy marriage and also brought her the children that were the greatest blessing of her life. Much of the memoir is taken upon with tender recollections of her children and their behavior, especially the angelic childhood of her eldest son. She gives charming vignettes, for example of his calm in sickness (which contrasts to her own overpowering maternal emotions: "...I sat down on day by his bed side very sad; the child asked me mother what would you do if I should dye; I told him I should grive very much: and I feared I should kill my selfe with greife..."), his anxiety after giving his sister tainted water to drink, and his affection towards his parents:

"...when ever I did write to his father he would [take] a pen and inke and would set by me; some times two hours at a time and say in his pritty childlike Language; pray dad make hast to come home to mum and sam and when ever he did se me at any time of the day he would kneel downe at my knee and say god bless mum and send dad well home..."

This manuscript is referred to and quoted in R.H. Whitelocke's Memoirs of Bulstrode Whitelocke (London, 1860), pp.283-88, but otherwise appears to be unpublished and unknown to scholars.