Lady Jane Cavendish

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LJC wrote, in the middle years of the seventeenth century, nearly ninety poems (including occasional and political pieces, compliment, religious pieces and a country-house poem) and the better part of two plays: a pastoral or mock-pastoral drama and a comedy. Her sister Lady Elizabeth had some part, but a lesser one, in this output. Her writing was not published, but was apparently well known in manuscript form in her extended and discriminating social circle.
  • BirthName: Jane Cavendish
  • Self-constructed: Cavendysshe
    This was how she spelled her own name.
    ; JC
  • Married: Cheyne
    Margaret Cavendish demonstrates the pronunciation of this name by spelling it Cheiny.
  • Styled: Lady
    Jane became Lady Jane when her father became an earl in 1628.
Head-and-shoulders portrait of Lady Jane Cavendish. Turned slightly to her left, she looks out to the viewer with slightly raised eyebrows. Her hair is off of her face, falling in soft curls to her shoulder. She is dressed in blue, with a jewelled headpiece, and pearl necklace and drop earrings.

Milestones

About 1621

Jane Cavendish (later Lady Jane) was born, the eldest child of aristocratic parents.
Souces differ as to her date of birth. Her own entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says 1620/1. Her father's entry there says 1622.
qtd. in
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

After mid-June 1663

Lady Jane Cheyne , formerly Cavendish, composed an elegy, On the Death of my Dear Sister the Countess of Bridgewater, probably quite soon after the event.
qtd. in
Cerasano, S. P., and Marion Wynne-Davies, editors. Renaissance Drama by Women: Texts and Documents. Routledge, 1996.
130

8 October 1669

Lady Jane Cheyne (formerly Cavendish) died, apparently of epileptic fits. She was not yet fifty.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Family

About 1621

Jane Cavendish (later Lady Jane) was born, the eldest child of aristocratic parents.
Souces differ as to her date of birth. Her own entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says 1620/1. Her father's entry there says 1622.
qtd. in
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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