Mary Caesar

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Despite shaky spelling and punctuation, MC wrote during the early eighteenth century a unique, highly partisan, Jacobite diary or journal, which partakes also of the nature of a memoir, elegy, family history, or commonplace-book. In all it amounts to about 30,000 words.

Milestones

Shortly before 3 October 1677

Mary Freeman or Freman (later MC ) was born at Aspenden Hall in Aspenden, Hertfordshire. She was baptised there on this date.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Under Charles Caesar (1673-1741)
Potter, Dorothy, and Mary Caesar. “Foreword, Acknowledgements”. The Journal of Mary Freman Caesar, 1724-1741, Edwin Mellen Press, p. viii - xii, xix-xxii.
viii

30 May 1724

MC began compiling a manuscript of commentary on political events and personalities,
Rumbold, Valerie. “The Jacobite vision of Mary Caesar”. Women, Writing, History, 1640-1740, edited by Isobel Grundy and Susan Wiseman, Batsford, pp. 178-98.
178
presented from an intensely Jacobite standpoint, which extended in the course of seventeen years to about 30,000 words.
Rumbold, Valerie. “The Jacobite vision of Mary Caesar”. Women, Writing, History, 1640-1740, edited by Isobel Grundy and Susan Wiseman, Batsford, pp. 178-98.
180, 178
Potter, Dorothy, and Mary Caesar. “Foreword, Acknowledgements”. The Journal of Mary Freman Caesar, 1724-1741, Edwin Mellen Press, p. viii - xii, xix-xxii.
x

After 2 April 1741

After her husband died, MC closed her book by pasting in his obituary notice and writing: Alas, there's no Expression / To Tell my Dismal Woe. These words from a bereaved royalist (John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham on his son's death) enact her own silencing.
Buckingham was lamenting his son, a Stuart by birth, and thus the extinguishing of dynastic hopes.
Rumbold, Valerie. “The Jacobite vision of Mary Caesar”. Women, Writing, History, 1640-1740, edited by Isobel Grundy and Susan Wiseman, Batsford, pp. 178-98.
196
Caesar, Mary. The Journal of Mary Freman Caesar, 1724-1741. Editor Potter, Dorothy, Edwin Mellen Press.
141
Rumbold, Valerie. “The Jacobite vision of Mary Caesar”. Women, Writing, History, 1640-1740, edited by Isobel Grundy and Susan Wiseman, Batsford, pp. 178-98.
196

July 1741

MC died, just three months after her husband .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Under Charles Caesar (1673-1741)

Biography

Birth and Family

Shortly before 3 October 1677

Mary Freeman or Freman (later MC ) was born at Aspenden Hall in Aspenden, Hertfordshire. She was baptised there on this date.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Under Charles Caesar (1673-1741)
Potter, Dorothy, and Mary Caesar. “Foreword, Acknowledgements”. The Journal of Mary Freman Caesar, 1724-1741, Edwin Mellen Press, p. viii - xii, xix-xxii.
viii

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