Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/652

638 to Oxford, where the court then resided, and became maid of honour to Henrietta Maria, the consort of king Charles I. When the queen was obliged by the unhappy situation of the king's affairs, to retire to France, she attended her thither to Paris, and became acquainted with the marquis of Newcastle, then a widower, who married her in 1645. From Paris they went to Rotterdam, and from thence to Antwerp, where they settled and remained during the time of exile, enjoying quietly the remnant of their broken fortunes. That she proved a very agreeable companion to the marquis, the many compliments he made to her sufficiently testify.

Being greatly distressed for want of money, and by debts contracted there, she came to England, in order to obtain some of his rents, and accordingly went with lord Lucas her brother to Goldsmith's hall, but could not procure a grant to receive one penny of the marquis's vast estate; and had they not been relieved by the generosity of Sir Charles Cavendish, his brother, they must have been reduced to extreme poverty. Having got a considerable sum from her own and his relations, she returned to Antwerp, where they continued till the restoration of king Charles II. This opportunity the marquis laid hold of to return to his native country, after sixteen years banishment from it; leaving his lady at Antwerp to dispatch his affairs there; which having done, she soon followed him into England, where she spent the remainder of her life in composing and writing letters, plays, poems, philosophical discourses, and orations. Mr. Giles Jacob says, she was the most voluminous writer of our female poets; that she had a great deal of wit, and a more than ordinary propensity to dramatic poetry. Mr. Lang- horn