Elizabeth Cellier

-
The small but significant literary output of seventeenth-century midwife EC amounts to three pamphlets on topical religious, medical, and gender issues, notably including the attempt to establish midwifery as a profession parallel to the male medical professions.

Milestones

Perhaps about 1630

If, as has been suggested, EC was about fifty when she published Malice Defeated, then she would have been born about this time.
However, if she was speaking truth at the time of her publication when she said that she might be pregnant, the date could hardly be so early, and scholar Penny Richards suggests a later time, during the Civil War.
Gardiner, Anne Barbeau, and Elizabeth Cellier. “Introduction”. Malice Defeated and The Matchless Rogue, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, p. iii - xiv.
iv
Cellier, Elizabeth. Malice Defeated and The Matchless Rogue. Editor Gardiner, Anne Barbeau, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California.
24
Richards, Penny. “A Life in Writing: Elizabeth Cellier and Print Culture”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
7
, No. 3, pp. 411-25.
412
Gardiner, Anne Barbeau, and Elizabeth Cellier. “Introduction”. Malice Defeated and The Matchless Rogue, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, p. iii - xiv.
iv
Cellier, Elizabeth. Malice Defeated and The Matchless Rogue. Editor Gardiner, Anne Barbeau, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California.
24

16 August 1680

The printing of EC 's famous pamphlet, Malice Defeated, her account of the false accusation laid against her in the Meal Tub Plot, was halted by the Privy Council .
Gardiner, Anne Barbeau, and Elizabeth Cellier. “Introduction”. Malice Defeated and The Matchless Rogue, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, p. iii - xiv.
vii-viii

June 1687

EC published A Scheme for the Foundation of a Royal Hospital . . . and . . . a Corporation of Skilled Midwives . . ..
Cellier, Elizabeth. A Scheme for a Corporation of Midwives.
title-page

16 January 1688

EC dated her final and most feminist work: To Dr — An Answer to his Queries, Concerning the College of Midwives.
Cellier, Elizabeth. A Letter To Dr ----.
1, 8
Gardiner, Anne Barbeau, and Elizabeth Cellier. “Introduction”. Malice Defeated and The Matchless Rogue, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, p. iii - xiv.
x

19 July 1688

Lady Powis , governess to the infant Prince of Wales , brought the baby to the king with Elizabeth Cellier 's Foundling Hospital petition in his hand.
Lady Powis was author of a broadside Ballad upon the Popish Plot (as a Lady of Quality) and probably (after someone else had written a hostile Second Part of her work) of A Ballad. The Third Part. Of her two youngest daughters, Lady Lucy Herbert became the Mother Superior of an Augustinian convent at Bruges and published devotional works, while Lady Nithsdale made a daring rescue of her husband out of the Tower of London when he was under sentence of death, and at her sister Lucy's urging wrote a narrative of her exploit.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Tayler, Henrietta. Lady Nithsdale and her Family. Lindsay Drummond.
8

Perhaps after 1693

Either EC or some relation of hers was alive at St-Germain-en-Laye in France this year; she was said to have outlived her husband .
Richards, Penny. “A Life in Writing: Elizabeth Cellier and Print Culture”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
7
, No. 3, pp. 411-25.
414 and notes
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.

Biography

Background

Perhaps about 1630

If, as has been suggested, EC was about fifty when she published Malice Defeated, then she would have been born about this time.
However, if she was speaking truth at the time of her publication when she said that she might be pregnant, the date could hardly be so early, and scholar Penny Richards suggests a later time, during the Civil War.
Gardiner, Anne Barbeau, and Elizabeth Cellier. “Introduction”. Malice Defeated and The Matchless Rogue, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, p. iii - xiv.
iv
Cellier, Elizabeth. Malice Defeated and The Matchless Rogue. Editor Gardiner, Anne Barbeau, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California.
24
Richards, Penny. “A Life in Writing: Elizabeth Cellier and Print Culture”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
7
, No. 3, pp. 411-25.
412
Gardiner, Anne Barbeau, and Elizabeth Cellier. “Introduction”. Malice Defeated and The Matchless Rogue, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, p. iii - xiv.
iv
Cellier, Elizabeth. Malice Defeated and The Matchless Rogue. Editor Gardiner, Anne Barbeau, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California.
24