The wife of Sir Anthony Markham, of Sedgebrook in the county of Notts.
She was the daughter of Sir James Harington, younger brother of John,
first Baron Harington of Exton. See note to last poem. She was thus
first cousin to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and died at her home at
Twickenham on May 4, 1609. On her tombstone it is recorded that she
was 'inclytae Luciae Comitissae de Bedford sanguine (quod satis) sed
et amicitia propinquissima'. It is probably to this friendship of
a great patroness of poets that she owes this and other tributes
of verse. Francis Beaumont wrote one which is found in several MS.
collections of Donne's poems, sometimes with his, sometimes with
Beaumont's initials. In it he frankly confesses that he never knew
Lady Markham. I quote a few lines:
As unthrifts grieve in strawe for their pawnd Beds,
As women weepe for their lost Maidenheads
(When both are without hope of Remedie)
Such an untimelie Griefe, have I for thee.
I never sawe thy face; nor did my hart
Urge forth mine eyes unto it whilst thou wert,
But being lifted hence, that which to thee
Was Deaths sad dart, prov'd Cupids shafte to me.
The taste of Beaumont's poem is execrable. Elegies like this, and I
fear Donne's among them, were frankly addressed not so much to the
memory of the dead as to the pocket of the living.
According to two MSS.(_RP31_ and _H40_) the _Elegie_, 'Death be
not proud', was written by Lady Bedford herself on the death of
her cousin. It is much simpler and sincerer in tone than Donne's or
Beaumont's, but the tenor of the thought seems to connect it with the
_Elegie on M^{ris} Boulstred_, 'Death I recant'. The same MSS. contain
the following _Epitaph uppon the Ladye Markham_, which shows that she
was a widow when she died:
A Mayde, a Wyfe shee liv'd, a Widdowe dy'd:
Her vertue, through all womans state was varyed.
The widdowes Bodye which this vayle doth hide
Keepes in, expecting to bee justlie [highly _H40_] marryed,
When that great Bridegroome from the cloudes shall call
And ioyne, earth to his owne, himself to all.
l. 7. _Then our land waters, &c._ 'That hand which was wont _to wipe
all teares from all our eyes_, doth now but presse and squeaze us as
so many spunges, filled one with one, another with another cause of
teares. Teares that can have no other banke to bound them, but the
declared and manifested _will of God_: For, till our teares flow to
that heighth, that they might be called a _murmuring_ against
the declared will of God, it is against our Allegiance, it is
_Disloyaltie_, to give our teares any stop, any termination, any
measure.' _Sermons_ 50. 33. 303: _On the Death of King James_.