Lady Mary Wroth

Lady Mary Wroth (18 October 1587 – 1651/3) was an English poet of the Renaissance. A member of a distinguished literary family, Lady Wroth was among the first female British writers to have achieved an enduring reputation. She is perhaps best known for having written The Countess of Montgomery's Urania, the first extant prose romance by an English woman, and for Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, the second known sonnet sequence by an English woman. Wroth's works also include Love's Victory, a pastoral closet drama.

Mary Sidney was born on 18 October 1587 to the former Barbara Gamage (1563–1621), a wealthy Welsh heiress and first cousin to Sir Walter Raleigh, and Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester. Her father, Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester and Viscount Lisle of Penshurst Place, was a poet and governor of Flushing, Netherlands. Mary Wroth was niece to Mary Herbert née Sidney (Countess of Pembroke and one of the most distinguished women writers and patrons of the 16th century), and to Sir Philip Sidney, a famous Elizabethan poet-courtier.

Because her father, Robert Sidney, was governor of Flushing, Wroth spent much of her childhood at the home of Mary Sidney, and Penshurst Place, Baynard’s Castle in London. Penshurst Place was one of the great country houses in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. It was a center of literary and cultural activity and its gracious hospitality is praised in Ben Jonson's famous poem To Penshurst. During a time when most women were illiterate, Wroth had the privilege of a formal education, which was obtained from household tutors under the guidance of her mother. With her family connections, a career at court was all but inevitable. Wroth danced before Queen Elizabeth on a visit to Penshurst and again in court in 1602. At this time a likeness of her as a girl in a group portrait of Lady Sidney and her children was painted by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger in 1596, and is now on display at Penshurst. As a young woman, Lady Mary belonged to Queen Anne’s intimate circle of friends and actively participated in masques and entertainments.

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