Anne Lok, or Lock or Locke (1530-1607) was an English poet, translator, and Calvinist religious figure, who wrote the earliest sonnet sequence in English.
Life[]
Lok was born Anne Vaughan, the daughter of Stephen Vaughan, a merchant, royal envoy, and prominent early supporter of the Protestant Reformation.
She married Henry Lok, a younger son of mercer William Lok. In 1553 John Knox lived for a period in the Lok household, and in 1557, during the reign of the Catholic Mary Tudor, Anne took 2 of her children (the younger of whom, a baby girl, died shortly after her arrival) and followed Knox to Geneva, where she translated John Calvin's sermons on Hezekiah from French into English. Henry Lok remained in London for the 18 months that Anne was in Geneva.
In 1560, after the accession of Elizabeth I, Anne and the young Henry Lok, who would become known as a poet, returned to England, and to her husband. Knox sent Anne reports from Scotland of his reforming endeavours, and she worked to find him support among London merchants.
Her husband died in 1571, and in 1572 Anne married Edward Dering, who died in 1576. Her 3rd husband was Richard Prowse of Exeter. In 1590 she published a translation of a work of Jean Taffin.[1][2][3][4]
Family connections[]
Anne's family background was a dense web of relationships involving the Mercers' Company, the court, Marian exiles and notable religious figures. Her father, Stephen Vaughan, was a merchant and diplomatic agent for Henry VIII. His second wife, Anne's stepmother Margery, was the widow of Henry Brinklow, mercer and polemicist.[5] Through his connection to Thomas Cromwell, Stephen Vaughan found a position for Anne's mother, also called Margery, as silkwoman to Anne Boleyn.[6]
Henry Lok was a mercer and 1 of many children of mercer William Lok, who married 4 times. William Lok was also connected to Cromwell. Anne's sister-in-law, and a sister of Henry Lok's was Rose Lok (1526-1613), known as a Protestant autobiographical writer, married to Anthony Hickman.[7] Another of Henry Lok's sisters, Elizabeth Lok, married Richard Hill; both Rose and Elizabeth were Marian exiles. Elizabeth later married Bishop Nicholas Bullingham after his 1st wife died (1566).[8] Michael Lok was a backer of Martin Frobisher, and married Jane, daughter of Joan Wilkinson, an evangelical associate of Ann Boleyn and her chaplain William Latimer.[9][10]
Writing[]
A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner[]
Scholars now agree[11] that Anne Lok published the earliest sonnet sequence in English, A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner; it comprises 26 sonnets based on Psalm 51. It was added to a 1560 volume of translations of Calvin's sermons on Hezekiah that she dedicated to the Duchess of Suffolk.[12] Anne's sonnets show that she was influenced by both Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.[13]
In the 1560 edition, the translations and sonnets were prefaced by a letter of dedication to Catherine Brandon, duchess of Suffolk.[14] The duchess, a longtime patron of Protestant writers, also lived in exile during the reign of Mary I; Locke may have known her through their sons, who were both educated at the home of William Cecil.[15] The volume was entered into the Stationers' Register on 15 January 1560 by John Day, a printer known for his publication of Protestant and reformist texts.
The sequence begins with 5 prefatory sonnets, printed under the heading "The preface, expressing the passioned mind of the penitent sinner." Another heading, "A Meditation of a penitent sinner, upon the 51. Psalme," introduces the remaining 21 poems in the sequence. The "Meditation" poems gloss the 19-line psalm line by line, with a few expansions: Locke gives 2 sonnets each to the 1st and 4th lines of the psalm; these comprise the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th poems in the sequence. In the 1560 edition, each line of the psalm appears beside its corresponding poem. This version of the psalm was probably translated by Lok.[14][16]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner (edited by Greg Foster). Eugene, OR: University of Oregon, 2003.
Collected editions[]
- Collected Works of Anne Vaughan Lock (edited by Susan M. Felch). Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies / Renaissance English Text Society, 1999.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[17]
See also[]
References[]
Notes[]
- ↑ Diana Maury Robin, Anne R. Larsen, Carole Levin, Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance: Italy, France, and England (2007), p. 219.
- ↑ Patrick Collinson, Elizabethan Essays (1994), p. 123.
- ↑ Francis J. Bremer, Tom Webster, Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia (2006), p. 74 and p. 161.
- ↑ http://www.kateemersonhistoricals.com/TudorWomen8.htm
- ↑ http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11755
- ↑ Retha M. Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII (1991), p. 191.
- ↑ Cathy Hartley, Susan Leckey, A Historical Dictionary of British Women (2003), p. 217.
- ↑ Dictionary of National Biography, article on Bullingham.
- ↑ Mary Prior, Women in English Society, 1500-1800 (1985), p. 98.
- ↑ Maria Dowling, Humanism in the age of Henry VIII (1986), p. 241.
- ↑ Link label[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1477-4658.1997.tb00011.x/abstract
- ↑ It appears in Sermons of John Calvin, vpon the songe that Ezechias made after he had been sicke (1560).
- ↑ Michael Spiller, Early Modern Sonnetteers: From Wyatt to Milton (2001), pp. 24-27.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Spiller, "A Literary 'First'," 41.
- ↑ Felch, introduction to '’The collected works of Anne Vaughan Locke'’, xxxvi.
- ↑ Nugent, “Anne Lock’s Poetics of Spiritual Abjection,” 10.
- ↑ Search results = au:Anne Lock, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Aug. 25, 2020.
External links[]
- About
- Anne Locke at My Lord Katie
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