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 lady, as distinguished for her courage as for the splendour of her birth, bravely defended, in the absence of her husband, the castle of Wardour, with a spirit above her sex, for nine days, with a few men, against Sir Edward Hungerford, Edmund Ludlow, and their army, and then delivered it up on honourable terms. Obit. 28 October, 1649, Etat. 66. Requiescat in pace. 'Who shall find a valiant woman? The price of her is as things brought afar off, and from the uttermost coast. The heart of her husband trusteth in her.'—Prov. 81."

ARUNDEL, MARY, the daughter of Sir Thomas Arundel, knight. She was married, first to Robert Ratcliff, who died without issue, 1666; secondly, to Henry Howard, earl of Arundel.

She translated from English into Latin "The Wise Sayings and Eminent Deeds of the Emperor Alexander Severus." This translation is dedicated to her father; the manuscript is in the royal library at Westminster. She translated also from Greek into Latin, select "Sentences of the seven wise Grecian Philosophers." In the same library are preserved, of her writing, "Similies collected from the books of Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, and other philosophers," which she also dedicated to her father.

ASCHAM, MARGARET, married in 1554 to Roger Ascham, the celebrated preceptor of queen Elizabeth, Margaret brought a considerable fortune to her husband, and what was of more worth, a heart and mind willing and qualified to aid him. To her care the world is indebted for Mr. Ascham's book, entitled "The Schoolmaster;" to which she prefixed an epistle dedicatory, to the honourable Sir William Cecill, knight This work was published in quarto, 1570, London, and reprinted in 1589. Mrs. Ascham is supposed to lie interred with her husband, in the church of St. Sepulchre, London.

ASENATH, of Potiphar or Potiphera, and wife of Joseph, prime minister to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is supposed by some to be the daughter of the same Potiphar, whose wife had caused Joseph's imprisonment, and that Asenath had endeared herself to Joseph by taking his part in his adversity and vindicating him to her father.

ASKEW, ANNE, of Sir William Askew, of Kelsay, in Lincolnshire, was born in 1529. She received a liberal and learned education, and early manifested a predilection for theological studies. Her eldest sister, who was engaged to Mr. Kyme, of Lincolnshire, died before the nuptials were completed. Sir William Askew, unwilling to lose a connexion which promised pecuniary advantages, compelled his second daughter, Anne, notwithstanding her remonstrances and resistance, to fulfil the engagement entered into by her sister. But, however reluctantly she gave her hand to Mr. Kyme, to whom she bore two children, she rigidly fulfilled the duties of a wife and mother.

Though educated in the Roman Catholic religion, Anne became