Perdita woman: Elizabeth Clarke

Biography

Elizabeth Clarke is one of three people who has compiled Folger Shakespeare Library MS X.d.177. She is probably a relative of the first or second compiler of the manuscript. The first scribe was an Oxford student who compiled the poetry and jests on fols 1r, 3r-v, and 8r. He refers to himself as being 23 in the thirty-seventh year of Elizabeth I's reign on fol. 8r, which is approximately 1595. Brasenose College is the only college mentioned by name in that section of the manuscript and so perhaps the scribe was a student there in the late 1580s and/or early 1590s. The second hand has written undated accounts, mainly concerning expenditures for a funeral. References in the accounts to Bristol, Frome, and Babcary suggest that they were written by someone with connections to Somerset. The third hand, that of Elizabeth Clarke, has written two stanzas of a poem on fol. 8v rev., and she has also signed the first folio four times, sideways along the left margin. The identity of Elizabeth Clarke is uncertain, but it seems reasonable to suggest that she had some connection to the Oxford student or the accounts writer. Her contributions to the volume are much later. Her chosen poem was first printed in 1651, and then subsequently as a song setting and in miscellanies, but it also circulated in manuscript. Perhaps Elizabeth Clarke was a daughter or even a granddaughter of the Oxford student. A Somerset link seems possible since a subsequent owner of the manuscript was a Colonel Sandlord, who was a descendent of the Clarkes of Chipley in Somerset. Chipley is in the parish of Milverton. No Clarkes appear in the Milverton section between 1550 and 1620 of Somerset Parish Registers: Marriages, vol. 13, ed. by W.P.W. Phillimore and H.W. Seager (London: Phillimore, 1910). Katherine Hordinant (or possibly ffordinant; i.e. Fordinant) has also signed the first folio of the manuscript, but she is similarly untraced.


Folger Library: MS X.d.177
Jests and poems, compiled c.1595, with later additions (c. 1595-c. 1660)
Elizabeth Clarke (scribe)


Folger Library: MS X.d.177
Jests and poems, compiled c.1595, with later additions (c. 1595-c. 1660)
Elizabeth Clarke (scribe)


Folger Library: MS X.d.177
Jests and poems, compiled c.1595, with later additions (c. 1595-c. 1660)
Elizabeth Clarke (scribe)


Folger Library: MS X.d.177
Jests and poems, compiled c.1595, with later additions (c. 1595-c. 1660)
Elizabeth Clarke (scribe)