The Accomplish'd Ladies Delight, 1686, Lady Grisell Baillie's copy

From the Library of the Earls of Haddington

[WOLLEY, HANNAH]

The Accomplish’d Ladies Delight in Preserving, Physick, Beautifying, and Cookery. Sarah Harris, 1686

12mo, sixth edition enlarged, preliminary licence leaf, portrait frontispiece and additional engraved title-page, preface signed T.P., 4 full page illustrations, contemporary calf, spine gilt with Baillie’s golden fleece motif, spotting and browning, hinges splitting, some chipping to margins of leaves, rubbed

LADY GRISELL BAILLIE’S COPY

Lady Grisell Baillie was the eldest surviving child of staunch Presbyterian Sir Patrick Hume (the first earl of Marchmont). At the age of 12, Lady Grisell was entrusted with delivering letters between her imprisoned father and her future father-in-law, fellow covenanter, Robert Baillie. After the Rye House Plot to assassinate Charles II, Baillie was executed for treason. The Hume family fled to Utrecht. It was here that Lady Grisell began to manage the family's household.

After the revolution in 1688, Lady Grisell was offered the post of maid of honour to Princess Mary. She declined preferring instead to return to Scotland to marry George Baillie. Lady Grisell managed their estate in its entirety, taking on the management of her father’s estate and brother’s affairs as well.

She kept meticulous accounting books for over half a century of her life, beginning in her first year of marriage, which include upwards of 1,000 entries. They provide unparalleled insight into the managing and accounting of Scottish estates in the seventeenth century.

LITERATURE:

ESTC R186799

PROVENANCE:

Lady Grizel Baillie (1665-1746) signature on title-page; George Baillie (1644-1738), engraved armorial bookplate applied; thence by descent to the Earls of Haddington

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