Anne Wharton
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Anne Wharton (née Lee, 20 July 1659 - 29 October 1685) was an English poet and verse dramatist. Little of her work was published in her lifetime, but some 45 pieces have been ascribed to her.


Life

Anne Lee was born 20 July 1659 at
Ditchley Park Ditchley Park is a country house near Charlbury in Oxfordshire, England. The estate was once the site of a Roman villa. Later it became a royal hunting ground, and then the property of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley. The 2nd Earl of Lichfield built ...
, Oxfordshire, the posthumous younger daughter of Sir Henry Lee, and a member of a wealthy family. Her mother Anne Danvers, daughter of Sir John Danvers, died not long after her birth. She and her sister Eleanor were brought up at Adderbury House, where they lived with the mistress, mother and grandmother of its owner, the poet and libertine
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1 April 1647 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 26 July 1680 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II of England, Charles II's Restoration (England), ...
, who was Anne Wharton's uncle. On 16 September 1673 she married Thomas Wharton (1648–1715). She paid visits to
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
for her health in 1678 and 1680, as she suffered from eye troubles and convulsions, possibly linked to
syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The prim ...
. Her husband soon neglected her and they had no children.


Death

Anne Wharton died on 29 October 1685 at
Adderbury Adderbury is a winding linear village and rural Civil parishes in England, civil parish about south of Banbury in northern Oxfordshire, England. The settlement has five sections: the new Milton Road housing Development and West Adderbury, towar ...
, Oxfordshire. Her death, in her sister Eleanor's house, was very painful. The poet
Robert Gould Robert or Bob Gould may refer to: Sportspeople * Bob Gould (rugby union) (1863–1931), Welsh rugby union player *Bobby Gould (born 1946), English footballer and manager * Bobby Gould (ice hockey) (born 1957), Canadian ice hockey player * Robbie ...
in an eclogue to the memory of Eleanor, who died in 1691, observes that her own was a peaceful one by comparison: "Think how her sister, dear 'Urania' . e. Anne fell, When ev'ry Arte'ry, Fibre, Nerve and Vein Were by Convulsions torn, and fill'd with Pain..."


Allegations

After her death, her brother-in-law,
Goodwin Wharton Goodwin Wharton (8 March 1653 – 28 October 1704) was an English Whig politician and autobiographer, as well as an avid mystic, alchemist and treasure hunter. His unpublished manuscript autobiography, in the British Library, "ranks high in the a ...
claimed in his autobiography to have had an affair with her, and alleged that she had had three other affairs – with
Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough, (1658 – 25 October 1735) was a British army officer and Whig politician. He was the son of John Mordaunt, 1st Viscount Mordaunt, and his wife Elizabeth, the daughter and sole heiress of Thomas ...
before her marriage (ostensibly bribing a servant to let him into the girl's room at night) and with "Jack Howe" (probably the Whig politician
John Grubham Howe John Grubham Howe (1657–1722) was an English politician. Elected on numerous occasions as Member of Parliament, he made the transition from the Whig to the Tory faction. Early life He was second son of John Grobham Howe of Langar, Nottingh ...
, 1657–1722) in the 1680s – as well as being "lain with long by her uncle, my Lord Rochester." Her letters to her husband from Paris seem devoted, but when he visited her again in Paris, to obtain her signature on some documents to do with her £8000 estate, her ardour seems to have cooled.


Works

Wharton is remembered today for the verse drama ''Love's Martyr; or, Witt above Crowns'', and for a number of lyrical poems and biblical paraphrases, but all that was published in her lifetime was a heartfelt elegy on Rochester's death, under the pseudonym Urania. This brought appreciative poetic responses from
Edmund Waller Edmund Waller, 3 March 1606 to 21 October 1687, was a poet and politician from Buckinghamshire. He sat as MP for various constituencies between 1624 and 1687, and was one of the longest serving members of the English House of Commons. Althoug ...
and
Aphra Behn Aphra Behn (; baptism, bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration (England), Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writ ...
. Behn's was a verse-letter addressed to Anne, included in her 1684 ''Poems on Several Occasions'', in which she took the opportunity of defending herself from a charge of bawdiness brought by the future bishop
Gilbert Burnet Gilbert Burnet (18 September 1643 – 17 March 1715) was a Scottish people, Scottish philosopher and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch language, Dutch, French language, French, Latin language, Latin, Greek language, Gree ...
, who had attended Rochester on his deathbed. Anne may also have prompted Behn to provide a prologue for Rochester's play ''Valentinian'', which was first performed in 1684. A modern critical edition of 34 known works by Anne Wharton appeared in 1997, but at least eleven other poems have been discovered in manuscript since then. Her "Elegy on the Earl of Rochester" appears in the '' New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse (1991)'' and "A Paraphrase on the Last Speech of Dido in Virgil's Aeneis" in ''Seventeenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology''.


A Song


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wharton, Anne 1659 births 1685 deaths 17th-century English women writers 17th-century English writers 17th-century English poets English women poets
Anne Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), Annie a ...
Writers from Oxfordshire