Biography

Lady Anne Southwell is the main author of two manuscripts, Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.b.198 , a miscellany which includes her original poetry, and British Library MS Lansdowne 740, a copy of her poetry on two of the ten commandments. Much biographical detail about Southwell is noted in her epitaph (fol. 74r of her miscellany, Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.b.198; see also J.L. Vivian, ed., The Visitations of the County of Devon (Exeter, 1889-1895), p. 452). She was the daughter of Sir Thomas Harris of Cornworthy, Devon, and Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry Pomeroy. Thomas Harris, Sergeant at Law, was knighted by King James at his coronation. Anne was baptised on 22 August 1574; she had a sister, Honor, and two brothers, Edward (later Lord Chief Justice of Munster) and Christopher, who was killed at the siege of Ostend.

Southwell married Sir Thomas Southwell of Spixworth, Norfolk, on 24 June 1594 at St. Clement Danes Church, London. Sir Thomas Southwell was the nephew of Robert Southwell, the poet and martyr. Lady Anne Southwell appears to have been one of the ladies who welcomed Queen Anne at Berwick in 1603; several letters record how Southwell refused to travel from Berwick to London without escorts for her protection (HMC Salisbury, part XV (London: HMSO, 1930), pp. 90-91, 124, and 388). The Southwells (along with Thomas's brother Anthony) moved to the Munster plantation in Ireland soon after James's accession. Sir Thomas was a member of the Council of the President of Munster and lived at Poulnalong Castle, near Kinsale, in the county of Cork. Thomas and Anne had two daughters, Elizabeth and Frances (Mervyn Archdall, ed., The Peerage of Ireland, by John Lodge, rev. ed., vol. 6 (Dublin, 1789), pp. 7-8). Southwell's acquaintance in Ireland was a wide one, judging from references in her miscellany: Henry Cary, Viscount Falkland, Lord Deputy of Ireland (Southwell may have also known his wife, Elizabeth Cary, the poet and playwright, who lived in Dublin from 1622-1625); George Touchet, first Earl of Castlehaven (Southwell may have known his daughter, Lady Eleanor Davies, the widely published prophet, but it is not certain how much time Davies spent in Ireland before returning to London in 1619 after her husband was relieved of his duties in Ireland); Dr. Bernard Adams, the Bishop of Limerick; and Cicely Ridgway, Countess of Londonderry (with whom she carried out a correspondence on the value of poetry).

Southwell married her second husband, Captain Henry Sibthorpe, in 1626. Sibthorpe led a company in the disasterous Cadiz expedition of 1625, and was an officer under Sir Edward Villiers in Youghal in 1626-1627 . The couple may have left Ireland soon after the last recorded payment to Sibthorpe from the Corporation of Cork on 12 December 1627 (Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Ireland, 1625-32 (London, 1900), p. 293). They moved to Clerkenwell, an area of London they left in 1631 for Acton, Middlesex (see the inventories on fols 59r, 60v, 61r; msItems 55 and 57) where Southwell remained until her death on 2 October 1636. She had contact with a circle in Acton which included Roger Cox, the curate of St. Mary's Church; Dr. Daniel Featley, the rector of St. Mary's (in one poem (fol. 26r) she asks someone, possibly Cox, to send her poem to ""our beloved Doctor Featley"", for revision); Robert Johnson, the court musician and composer who leased Bank House to Southwell and Sibthorpe; his wife Ann, who signed several receipts for rent in the miscellany; and possibly Lady Catherine Conway.

Southwell was a member of the gentry. Her father and first husband were knighted by King James at his coronation. She evidently held onto her title after her second marriage to Henry Sibthorpe, a military captain, though strictly speaking she is Lady Southwell and not Lady Anne Southwell, since she is not the daughter of an earl or more highly placed aristocrat, but took her title from her husband. Nonetheless, since the manuscript repeatedly identifies her as Lady Anne Southwell, this catalogue entry will follow that example. In terms of her politico-religious affiliations, she was a Calvinist conformist and Royalist. Her theology was firmly middle-of-the-road " "Anglican."" In her Decalogue poetry she condemns the Pope and Roman Catholics, but she attacks even more strongly radical sects like the Family of Love, and implores the Lord to send his sowers to glean his wheat ""Least sectes & schismes & fowlest heresyes/ choake vp thy seed wth sad calamityes"" (British Library MS Lansdowne 740, fol. 166r). See also Jean Klene's biographical work on Anne Southwell in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and in her edition (see bibliography).


The Folger Shakespeare Library: MS V.b.198
Miscellany containing poetry, prose, and notes (1587-1636)
(author, occasional scribe)


The British Library: MS Lansdowne 740
Religious poetry on the third and fourth commandments (c. 1600-1636)
Anne Southwell (author)


The British Library: MS Lansdowne 740
Religious poetry on the third and fourth commandments (c. 1600-1636)
Anne Southwell (author)