Lady Downing's Prayers, illuminated manuscript
manuscript prayerbook
[Domestic] Forester, Mary [Lady Downing]. Illuminated Manuscript, Lady Downing’s Prayers. [n.p., prob. Shropshire]. [1880s-1890s].
4to; contemporary calf over beveled boards; elaborate blind-tooling; upper cover titled in gilt; calligraphic title; 2 illuminated borders and half-page tailpiece; illuminated initials; illumination in red, blue, gold and green; red ruled borders; capitals in red; upper joint neatly repaired.
An unpublished manuscript of 20 original prayers composed by Mary Forester, Lady Downing, whose arranged marriage was a cause célèbre at the beginning of the 18th century, reproduced in a lavishly illuminated volume representing the efforts of several generations of female descendants. In his treatment of the Forester family estate in his account of the surrounding area, John Randall states that “some of [Mary Forester’s] prayers are transcribed in a book at Willey,” and likewise H.W.P. Stevens refers to “extant copies of prayers which were composed by her,” in his history of Downing College. These unpublished writings of Forester in our volume represent a significant discovery in the annals of 18th-century women’s literature.
Many of the prayers are appeals for strength in times of turmoil and suffering, which Forester was intimately acquainted with. The unhappy story of her marriage to Sir George Downing was well known in her lifetime and is copied out at as preface to the prayer book. In 1700, Mary’s father, Sir William Forester, arranged for a secret wedding between his daughter and Sir George Downing, heir to a sizeable fortune, and Sir William’s ward. The marriage between the 13-year-old bride and 15-year-old groom went unconsummated, and Sir George left for a several years’ tour of the continent. In his absence, Mary became a maid of honour in Queen Mary’s court, a position traditionally granted to unmarried women. Upon his return, Sir George, humiliated, sought to have the marriage contract undone, a desire shared by both Mary and her father. However their petition for divorce was denied by the House of Lords, leading to a protracted, expensive, and very public legal battle, which was not abandoned until 1715 and which was ultimately unsuccessful. Though legally married, Miss Forester and Sir Downing lived apart their entire lives. Mary resided with a sister and helped to raise her children until her death in 1734. Sir George never remarried, had no heirs, and upon his death his considerable wealth went towards the founding of the college at Cambridge which bears his name.
One of Mary’s suitors while she was a maid at court was Sir Edward Leighton. When Leighton asked Mary’s father for her hand in marriage, he was informed of the secret marriage to Sir George and offered the hand of Mary’s younger sister instead, which Leighton accepted. Leighton’s great-great granddaughter was Emma Leighton, who composed the history of Miss Forester and Sir George which stands as a preface to the prayers in this volume, and to whom the papers of Mary Forester, Lady Downing had been passed down, among them “a small roll on the outside of which was written Lady Downings Prayers.” The account of this lineage is given in a separate preface by the illuminator and scribe of our volume, identified by a note on the front endpaper as Ellen C. Hope-Edwardes, the author of several travel narratives and also a descendant of Leighton. Preceding and following the twenty prayers of Mary Forester and illuminated with the same vibrancy and fluidity that characterizes the volume throughout, is a commentary on the beatitudes and a few prayers by the popular 18th-century preacher John Cennick.
The work of women writers in the Early Modern period has been of intense interest to recent scholarship, and this volume presents a substantial body of original work by an Englishwoman of that period heretofore unknown as an author. They reflect the intellectual and spiritual life of an English Lady whose class status had been rendered precarious, if not defunct, by her disputed marriage. They shed light in a more general sense on personal devotional practice in 18th-century England. And, finally, the volume as a whole represents a singular intellectual and artistic collaboration between women of several generations of the same family.
***
In her time at court Mary proved to be a popular maid. She drew the attention of more than one suitor, and the Globe amusedly mentioned the stir she caused at the Ascot Races when she appeared in the riding outfit of a man. No less an observer than Jonathan Swift describes meeting the young maid Mary in letters 27 and 31 of The Journal to Stella, though he was decidedly less charmed by the maid than were others: I was tired with riding a mettlesome horse a dozen miles, not having been on horseback these twelve months. And Miss Forester did not make it easier. She is a silly true maid of honour and I did not like her, although she may be a toast and was dressed like a man.”
Ellen Charlotte Hope-Edwardes was the author of Eau-de-Nil; A Chronicale of Recent Travel in Egypt [London: Richard Bentley, 1882] and Azahar Extracts from a journal in Spain in 1881-82 [London, R. Bentley and Son, 1883]. At the end of the 19th century she also undertook the copying of the registers of several English counties, including Stapleton, Shropshire, location of Willey house.
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