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Significant Scots
Lady
Anne Halket |
HALKET, (LADY) ANNE, whose extensive
learning and voluminous theological writings, place her in the first
rank of female authors, was the daughter of Mr Robert Murray, of the
family of Tullibardine, and was born at London, January 4th,
1622. She may be said to have been trained up in habits of scholastic
study from her very infancy, her father being preceptor to Charles I.,
(and afterwards provost of Eton college,) and her mother, who was allied
to the noble family of Perth, acting as sub-governess to the duke of
Gloucester and the princess Elizabeth. Lady Anne was instructed by her
parents in every polite and liberal science; but theology and physic
were her favourite subjects; and she became so proficient in the latter,
and in the more unfeminine science of surgery, that the most eminent
professional men, as well as invalids of the first rank, both in Britain
and on the continent, sought her advice. Being, as might have expected,
a staunch royalist, her family and herself suffered with the misfortunes
of Charles. She was married on March 2d, 1656, to Sir James Halket, to
whom she bore four children, all of whom died young, with the exception
of her eldest son Robert. During her pregnancy with the latter, she
wrote an admirable tract, "The Mother’s Will to the Unborn
Child," under the impression of her not surviving her delivery. Her
husband died in the year 1679; but she survived till April 22d, 1699,
and left no less than twenty-one volumes behind her, chiefly on
religious subjects, one of which, her "Meditations," was
printed at Edinburgh in 1701. She is said to have been a woman of
singular but unaffected piety, and of the sweetest simplicity of
manners; and these qualities, together with her great talents and
learning, drew upon her the universal esteem and respect of her
contemporaries of all ranks. |
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