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| Perdita woman: Constance Aston Fowler |
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Biography Constance Aston Fowler was the youngest daughter of Sir Walter Aston (created first Lord Aston, Baron Forfar in 1627) and Gertrude Sadler , granddaughter of the celebrated Elizabethan courtier Sir Ralph Sadler (for biographical information see Grazebrook, pp.134-37, Paul vol.1, pp.406-11; and Clifford, Tixall Poetry, pp.i-xxxv). Her father was a courtier who went on two diplomatic missions to Spain, from 1620-25 and 1635-38. Constance married Walter Fowler of St. Thomas, Stafford sometime between 1633 and 1635, and was buried at Baswich in 1664. Sources conflict about their offspring, but they may have had six sons and six daughters. Their eldest son, Walter , was born in 1645; although Constance and Walter Sr. were married more than ten years earlier, their extreme youth may have led their parents to keep them from co-habiting until they had reached sufficient maturity. The politico-religious affiliations of Constance Aston Fowler's family were Roman Catholic and Royalist. Her father had converted to Catholicism during one of his embassies to Spain, and his family followed suit. His children married into the Catholic families of Thimelby, Fowler, Pershall, and Weston. During the civil war many landowning members of their circle took up arms for the king, including Walter Fowler , Sir William Pershall , Walter, second Lord Aston, and two of his brothers ( Wrottesley, p.331). Many of their estates were sequestrated in 1648 (Landor pp.389-90), but these families had the resources to withstand this hardship. The experience of the Tixall group acts as a corrective to the view that Catholics were still a seriously persecuted minority in the 1630s. Though channels of manuscript circulation for Catholic material still had to be kept secretive, the wealth, status, and influence of families like the Astons and Thimelbys ensured that they could lead lives of relative freedom, and that the literary activities of women like Constance Aston Fowler could flourish. |
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Huntington
Library: Huntington MS HM 904 Huntington
Library: Huntington MS HM 904 Huntington
Library: Huntington MS HM 904 |