Catharine Macaulay
-
CM
is best known as a radical historian (the only historian of England from a republican point of view for almost two centuries after she wrote). The eight volumes of her History of England took her another twenty years of work from the publication of the first volume in 1763, and ran to 3,483 quarto pages. She also wrote memorable pamphlets on political and other topics, and treatises on theology and gender politics.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
26
Milestones
2 April 1731
Catharine Sawbridge (later CM
) was born at her father's estate of Olantigh, in the parish of Wye in Kent.
This is just across the River Stour from Godmersham Park, which was later owned by a brother of Jane Austen
.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
6
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
4
By November 1763
CM
published, with her name, the first volume of her History of England from the Accession of James I
to that of the Brunswick Line—that is, the Hanoverian monarchs.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
16 (1763): 321
1765
CM
published the second volume of her History of England, again for the author, through J. Nourse
.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
253
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
By February 1767
CM
published volume three of her History of England, From the Accession of James I, with a subtitle that reads to the Elevation of the House of Hanover.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
23 (1767): 81
July 1768
Weekly serial publication of CM
's History of England began, to make it accessible to readers who could not afford to buy the volumes.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
49-50
By February 1769
CM
published volume four of her History of England.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
27 (1769): 81
By April 1771
CM
published volume five of her History of England through Edward and Charles Dilly
, with a subtitle that reads From the Death of Charles I
to the Restoration of Charles II
.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
31 (1771): 275
By February 1781
Not much more than two years after her second marriage, CM
published volumes six and seven of her History of England, with a subtitle that reads To the Revolution.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
51 (1781): 124
By March 1783
CM
ended her History of England (this long narration of national evils and national follies) with an eighth volume.
Macaulay, Catharine. The History of England. J. Nourse and others.
8: 338
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
55 (1783): 212
By September 1790
CM
published Letters on Education. With Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects; its section on metaphysics incorporated much of her Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth (1783).
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
162n47
Late 1790
CM
published another pamphlet answer to a former antagonist: Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke
, on the Revolution in France.
Hill, Bridget. “Daughter and Mother: Some new light on Catharine Macaulay and her family”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
22
, No. 1, pp. 35-49. 45
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
223
22 June 1791
CM
died at Binfield in Berkshire, after being seriously (and painfully) ill since April.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
129
Hill, Bridget. “Daughter and Mother: Some new light on Catharine Macaulay and her family”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
22
, No. 1, pp. 35-49. 46, 48
Donnelly, Lucy Martin. “The Celebrated Mrs Macaulay”. William and Mary Quarterly, Vol.
3rd series: vi
, pp. 173-07. 199
Biography
Birth and Background
2 April 1731
Catharine Sawbridge (later CM
) was born at her father's estate of Olantigh, in the parish of Wye in Kent.
This is just across the River Stour from Godmersham Park, which was later owned by a brother of Jane Austen
.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
6
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press.
4