Folger Shakespeare Library
CELM

Anne, Lady Twysden

1574–1638

Introduction

Anne, Lady Twysden (née Finch) is known as a writer from a single book of devotions, an edited copy of which was made for her son, Sir Roger Twysden, after her death (TwA 1). Her original manuscript, sometimes known as the Jennings-Bramley MS, is currently unknown but was in existence at least until 1849, when it was cited by J.M. Kemble in his edition of Roger Twysden's Certaine considerations upon the government of England. Otherwise, apart from two letters by her (TwA 2-3), no other manuscripts by her, devotional or otherwise, are known at present. References to her occasionally occur, however, among the partly dispersed Twysden family papers, the main collections of which are in the British Library (Add. MSS 34147-34178) and in the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone.

Prose

Anne, Lady Twysden's Prayerbook
TwA 1

Copy, in a neat italic hand, entitled (f. [vir]) in the small italic hand of Sir Roger Twysden, second Baronet (1597-1672), antiquary, Certayn comfortable places of Scripture and three prayers collected and made by my deare and Noble Mother ye Lady Ann Twysden who dyed at her howse in East=Peckham the 14th of October 1638 / Roger Twysden, and with his headnotes, vii leaves + 84 octavo pages (including blanks, plus further blanks at the end, in contemporary vellum with green ties.

Transcribed from Lady Twysden's original MS (known as the Jennings-Bramley MS and now untraced) and including a prayer by her brother, Sir Heneage Finch (1580-1631), Speaker of the House of Commons.

c.1638

Described in detail in the online Perdita Project.

Letters

Letter(s)
*TwA 2 c.1625
Autograph

Autograph letter signed (Anne Twysden), in her italic hand, to My swetehart, on three pages of a pair of conjugate quarto leaves, the text written in various directions.

A folio guardbook of correspondence chiefly of the Twysden family, of Roydon Hall, East Peckham, Kent, in various hands and paper sizes, 51 leaves, in 19th-century morocco.

Sotheby's, 7-8 April 1892.

TwA 3 c.1628

Autograph letter signed (Anne Twysden), in her italic hand, to My swetehart, on a single folio leaf, the text written in various directions.

A folio guardbook of correspondence chiefly of the Twysden family, of Roydon Hall, East Peckham, Kent, in various hands and paper sizes, 51 leaves, in 19th-century morocco.

Sotheby's, 7-8 April 1892.

Contents