Perdita woman: Margaret Cunningham

Biography

Margaret Cunningham was the daughter of James Cunningham, 6th Earl of Glencairn, and his first wife, Margaret Campbell (Scots Peerage, IV.243-4). Little information is available about Cunningham's life until December 1597, when she was contracted to marry James Hamilton, and was granted a life rent on his lands in Crawfordjohn [South Lanarkshire, Scotland] and Evandale (Hamilton, p.281). According to Cunningham's memoirs, the marriage itself took place on 24 January 1598; however, she remained in her father's house for the next three years, possibly because she was too young initially to live as a married woman (National Library of Scotland Western MS 874, fol.363r).

Even after Cunningham moved to Evandale, though, her husband's neglect and cruelty repeatedly drove her back to her parents. She returned to her father's house in May 1601, delivered her first child, James, there on 4 July, and stayed until October. Despite the marriage settlement, Cunningham's husband consistently failed to provide her with enough money to survive, forcing her to beg food and clothing from her parents. Cunningham's parents, siblings and in-laws, as well as several other members of the gentry, attempted to intercede for her throughout the ten years that she lived as Hamilton's wife, but they only managed to extract promises from her husband that he then refused to honour. Hamilton conducted several affairs and periodically either abandoned Cunningham or refused her entrance into his house. When their second son was born in October 1603, Cunningham wrote to her husband, asking him to come to her, but he instead travelled to France. A brief reconciliation followed his return from Europe, but Hamilton soon became abusive again, turning his pregnant wife and her maid, both "naked", out of the house at night, and threatening to "stryk both [their] backs in two with a sword" if they returned for their clothes (fol.365v). In January 1607, Cunningham travelled to Edinburgh in an attempt to gain some of her estate through a lawsuit, but this was unsuccessful. Four months later, Cunningham wrote to her husband, who was once again out of the country, confessing that her "temporall affairs" were "not well" (fol.374r). The letter is surprisingly tender and loving, expressing joy over her husband's apparent repentance, and solicitude for his continued spiritual growth. Yet, once again, Hamilton's contrition did not last long. After the birth of their fifth child in April 1608, Cunningham refused to sleep with him any longer "for divers respects, especially for his wicked life, at the present being excommunicate for slaughter, and also Jennat Campbell being with bairn to him" (fol.369v). Hamilton then ordered his wife out of the house, and Cunningham's memoirs close on 29 September 1608, with her and her children living "destitute" in Libberton [South Lanarkshire, Scotland]. Yet she appears to have continued to struggle against her husband for two more years; the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland records that in July 1610 Cunningham lodged a complaint against him for not paying money that he owed her (IX.20).

The July 1610 record describes Cunningham as Hamilton's "spouse"; however, she seems to have obtained a divorce soon after this, for on 8 September 1610, she married Sir James Maxwell (Fraser, I.473). Although C.K. Sharpe and William Fraser state that Cunningham was a widow when she remarried, the Scots Peerage and G. Harvey Johnston both claim that her first husband was still alive in 1611, and George Hamilton notes that he was involved in a charter dated 2 June 1613 (Hamilton, p.281). Whilst no legal records pertaining to a divorce have come to light, Cunningham's detailed account of her sufferings during her first marriage might have been composed as part of an attempt to obtain one. Cunningham's second marriage appears to have been much happier than her first. In a 1622 letter to her sister Ann, Cunningham describes Maxwell as "my last dear husband" and claims of their union that "greater love was never betwixt two" (fols.380v-381r). This same letter also contains Cunningham's "will", which is essentially a document begging Ann to care for Cunningham's children. Cunningham's two sons from her second marriage had been provided for by their late father, but her other sons were not as fortunate. Apparently Ann's husband, the 2nd Marquis of Hamilton (1589-1625, DNB), had acquired from James Hamilton the estates of Crawfordjohn and Evandale "by means not the most honourable", leaving Cunningham's three sons from her first marriage with little inheritance (Aiton, p.57). In addition, whilst Cunningham had already provided a dowry for her one surviving daughter from her first marriage, she had little to leave her four daughters from her second marriage. It is unknown exactly how long Cunningham survived after writing this 1622 "will", but she died sometime before 1632 (Fraser, I.473).

Biography by Faith Lanum.


National Library of Scotland: MS 874, fols. 363-384
Margaret Cunningham's autobiographical writing, plus a letter from her to her first husband, and a letter to her sister. (after 1622)
(Author)Margaret Cunningham


National Library of Scotland: MS 906
Margaret Cunningham's autobiographical writing, plus a letter from her to her first husband, and a letter to her sister. (after 1622)
(Author)Margaret Cunningham