Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was an English philosopher, poet, scientist, fiction writer, and playwright. She was a prolific writer, publishing over 12 original texts under her name at a time when women were largely removed from publishing.
Although many would credit author Mary Shelley as the inventor of science fiction, Margaret Cavendish can also be counted as an essential pioneer. Her book The Blazing World is one of the first to fall into the science fiction genre. As a well-connected natural philosopher, Cavendish engaged with some of the most influential minds of her time, including René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, and Henry More.
Background
Born Margaret Lucas to Sir Thomas Lucas and Elizabeth Leighton, she was the youngest child of the family. She had four sisters and three brothers, the royalists Sir John Lucas, Sir Thomas Lucas and Sir Charles Lucas, who owned the manor of St John's Abbey, Colchester. As a teenager, she became an attendant on Queen Henrietta Maria and traveled with her into exile in France, living for a time at the court of the young King Louis XIV. She became the second wife of William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1645.Her husband, the marquess William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, was a Royalist commander in Northern England during the First English Civil War and in 1644 went into voluntary exile in France. Margaret accompanied him and remained abroad until the Stuart Restoration in 1660.
Writings
Cavendish, as a poet, philosopher, writer of prose romances, essayist, and playwright, published under her name at a time when most women writers remained anonymous. Her topics included gender, power, manners, scientific method, and philosophy. Her utopian romance The Blazing World is one of the earliest examples of science fiction. She was unusual in her time for publishing extensively in natural philosophy and early modern science, producing over a dozen original works; with her revised works the total came to 21. She often would have her portrait engraved on the covers of her works so that people would know that she was solely responsible for the creation of whatever she wrote and then published in some way or another.Cavendish has been championed and criticised as a unique, ground-breaking woman writer. She rejected the Aristotelianism and mechanical philosophy of the 17th century, preferring a vitalist model. In May 1667, she became the first woman to attend a meeting at the Royal Society of London, criticising and engaging with members and philosophers such as Robert Boyle. She has been claimed as an early opponent of animal testing.
Cavendish's publications brought her fame and helped to disprove the contemporary belief that women were inherently inferior to men. Cavendish used them to advocate women's education: women were capable of learning and benefiting from education, and she insisted her own works would have been better still if, like her brothers, she had been able to attend school.
Early years
Childhood
Cavendish's father, Thomas Lucas, was exiled after a duel that led to the death of "one Mr. Brooks", but pardoned by King James. He returned to England in 1603. As the youngest of eight, Cavendish recorded spending a lot of time with her siblings. She had no formal education but had access to libraries and tutors, although she hinted that the children paid little heed to tutors, who were "rather for formality than benefit". Cavendish began putting ideas down on paper at an early age, although it was poorly accepted for women to display such intelligence at the time and she kept her efforts in the privacy of her home. The family had significant means and Cavendish stated that her widowed mother chose to keep her family in a condition "not much lower" than when her father was alive; the children had access to "honest pleasures and harmless delights". Her mother had little to no male help.Lady-in-waiting
When Queen Henrietta Maria was in Oxford, Cavendish never gained permission from her mother to become a lady-in-waiting. She accompanied the Queen into exile in France, away from her family for the first time. She notes that while she was confident in her siblings' company, she became bashful amongst strangers. She was fearful she might speak or act inappropriately without her siblings' guidance, and with this, she carried anxiety about being well-received and well-liked. Due to this, she spoke only when necessary and so came to be regarded as a fool, which Cavendish stated that she preferred to being seen as wanton or rude. Regretting that she had left home to be a lady-in-waiting, Cavendish informed her mother that she wanted to leave the court, but her mother persuaded her not to disgrace herself by leaving and provided her with funds that Cavendish noted quite exceeded the normal means of a courtier. She remained a lady-in-waiting for two more years before marrying William Cavendish in 1645, then still Marquess of Newcastle.Marriage to the Marquess
Cavendish noted that her husband liked her bashfulness; he was the only man she was ever in love with, not for his title, wealth, or power, but for merit, justice, gratitude, duty, and fidelity. She saw these as attributes that held people together even in misfortune, and in their case helped them to endure suffering for their political allegiance. Cavendish had no children, despite efforts by her physician to help her conceive. Her husband had five surviving children from a previous marriage, two of whom, Jane and Elizabeth, wrote a comic play, The Concealed Fancies.Cavendish later wrote a biography of her husband: The Life of the Thrice Noble, High and Puissant Prince William Cavendish. In her dedication, Cavendish recalls a time when rumours surrounded the authorship of her works: that her husband wrote them. Cavendish notes that her husband defended her from these but admits to a creative relationship, even as her writing tutor, for writing "fashions an image of a husband and wife who rely on each other in the public realm of print."
Personal life
Health
Cavendish stated in A True Relation of My Birth, Breeding, and Life that her bashful nature, which she described as "melancholia", made her "repent my going from home to see the World abroad." It manifested itself in reluctance to discuss her work in public, but this she satirised in her writing. Cavendish defined and sought self-cures for the physical manifestations of her melancholia, which included "chill paleness", inability to speak, and erratic gestures.Religious beliefs
Cavendish's views on God and religion remained ambiguous. Her writings show her as a Christian, but she did not often address the matter. In her Physical Opinions, she explicitly stated her belief in the existence of God – "Pray account me not an Atheist, but believe as I do in God Almighty," – but sought to split philosophy from theology and so avoid debating God's actions in many of her philosophical works.Her theological temerity was unusual at a time when much of women's writing was built around religion. Although Cavendish acknowledged God's existence, she held "that natural reason cannot perceive or have an idea of an immaterial being." So "when we name God, we name an Inexpressible, and Incomprehensible Being." Still, she believed that all parts of nature have an innate knowledge of God's existence. Even inanimate matter, she argues, "also have an interior, fixt and innate knowledge of the existency of God, as, that he is to be adored and worshipped. And thus the inanimate part may, after its own manner, worship and adore God."
Fashion and fame
Cavendish, in her memoir, explained her enjoyment in reinventing herself through fashion. She said she aimed at uniqueness in dress, thoughts, and behaviour and disliked wearing the same fashions as other women. She also made her desire for fame public. Several passages remark on her virtuous character: while acknowledging the goodness in others, she thought it acceptable to hope to better them and even achieve everlasting fame.She expected to be criticized for deciding to write a memoir but retorted that it was written for herself, not for delight, to give later generations a true account of her lineage and life. She noted that others, such as Caesar and Ovid, had done the same.