Margaret King
Encyclopedia
Margaret King was an Irish hostess, writer, traveller, and medical adviser. Despite her wealthy aristocratic background, she had republican sympathies, shaped in part by having been a favoured pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft
. In Italy in later life, she reciprocated her governess's care by offering maternal aid and advice to Wollstonecraft's daughter Mary Shelley
(author of Frankenstein
) and her travelling companions, husband Percy Bysshe Shelley
and stepsister Claire Clairmont
.
Margaret King was born to the Anglo-Irish
Kingsborough family, leading members of the Protestant Ascendancy
. Her mother, Caroline Fitzgerald, one of the wealthiest heiresses in Ireland, was married off
at 15 to Robert King, second Earl of Kingston
. The family seat was Mitchelstown Castle
, in the north County Cork
town of Mitchelstown
.
As a young teenager, Margaret's life was touched by the pioneer educator and proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft
, to whom she was a "most devoted protegee". This appointment as her governess did not last more than a year, as Wollstonecraft could not get along with Lady Kingsborough. The children found her an inspiring instructor; Margaret King would later say she "had freed her mind from all superstitions". Some of Wollstonecraft's experiences during this year would make their way into her only children's book, Original Stories from Real Life
(1788). The maternal teacher who frames these stories
is called Mrs Mason, a name Margaret King adopted in later life.
, who went on to graduate from Trinity College, Cambridge
, marry a Swiss woman, and live in several countries.
In 1798, her brother Robert King, 1st Viscount Lorton
was involved in a scandal. He was tried for the murder of a relative who had seduced their younger sister.
In the context of the Irish Rebellion of 1798
, she joined the Society of United Irishmen and wrote pamphlets about the Union Crisis in 1799-1800. She was a friend of aristocrat and revolutionist Lord Edward FitzGerald
. Her eldest brother, George King, was a prominent Loyalist.
In December 1801 she embarked on a grand tour
as a group of "nine Irish adventurers", including her husband and a friend, the diarist Catherine Wilmot
. Wilmot wrote extensive letters home, some of which were published in 1920 as An Irish peer on the continent (1801-1803) being a narrative of the tour of Stephen, 2nd earl Mount Cashell, through France, Italy, etc. These describe much detail of the Cashells' life and habits, including their lavish entertaining, especially during the first nine months in Paris. In June 1802 the Cashells had another son, Richard Francis Stanislaus Moore, and Wilmot records that its godparents were William Parnel, "the Polish Countess Myscelska", and the American minister.
When she left her husband for the agricultural theorist George William Tighe, Mount Cashell kept the children, as was his right, but gave her one thousand guineas.
, which necessitated cross-dressing
. (She was as tall as a man.) She later studied with professor of surgery, Andrea Vaccá Berlinghieri of the University of Pisa
. She wrote a book of household medicine for the care of babies and children.
By this point in her life she was a "no nonsense grande dame". She published some of her work with the London team of William Godwin
, widower of her governess-mentor Mary Wollstonecraft, and his second wife, Mary Jane Clairmont. She had visited and grown friendly with them when she was in London in 1807.
She set up home at Casa Silva, Pisa, with Tighe and their daughters Lauretta and Nerina. They were visited there in 1820 by a young threesome: the poet Percy Shelley, his wife the writer Mary Shelley
(daughter of Godwin and Wollstonecraft, and already author of Frankenstein
), and their translator her stepsister Claire Clairmont
. She felt maternal towards the women, as they were both in a sense daughters of her life-changing motherly governess. She offered "sage advice" to Shelley about his health and to Clairmont about her career. She introduced them all to a new intellectual and social circle in Pisa, and helped Mary set up her household, finding them pleasant lodgings and advising on servants.
Tighe provided Percy Shelley with a great deal of material on chemistry, biology, and statistics. The Masons inspired the Shelleys with "a new-found sense of radicalism".
A generation later, in 1841, she again opened her Pisa home to Claire Clairmont, after the younger woman had spent several years taking care of her aging widowed mother in London, until Mary Jane Clairmont had died. Claire continued the ties of family and friendship by remaining in correspondence with the Masons' descendents into the 1870s.
She was described, in the 1920 introduction to Wilmot's diaries, as "socially charming and attractive, highly cultivated, upright and refined", but "harsh to her children, a Freethinker in religion, and imbued with what were then the most extravagant political notions".
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
. In Italy in later life, she reciprocated her governess's care by offering maternal aid and advice to Wollstonecraft's daughter Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
(author of Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
) and her travelling companions, husband Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
and stepsister Claire Clairmont
Claire Clairmont
Clara Mary Jane Clairmont , or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was a stepsister of writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra.-Early life:...
.
Childhood
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...
Kingsborough family, leading members of the Protestant Ascendancy
Protestant Ascendancy
The Protestant Ascendancy, usually known in Ireland simply as the Ascendancy, is a phrase used when referring to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland by a minority of great landowners, Protestant clergy, and professionals, all members of the Established Church during the 17th...
. Her mother, Caroline Fitzgerald, one of the wealthiest heiresses in Ireland, was married off
Arranged marriage
An arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...
at 15 to Robert King, second Earl of Kingston
Earl of Kingston
Earl of Kingston is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1768 for Edward King, 1st Viscount Kingston. He had already succeeded his father as fifth Baronet of Boyle Abbey and been created Baron Kingston, of Rockingham in the County of Roscommon in 1764 and Viscount Kingston in 1766,...
. The family seat was Mitchelstown Castle
Mitchelstown Castle
Mitchelstown Castle, the former home of the Irish Earls of Kingston, was located in the north County Cork town of Mitchelstown in Ireland.-15th to 18th century:...
, in the north County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
town of Mitchelstown
Mitchelstown
Mitchelstown is a town in County Cork, Ireland with a population of approximately 3300. Mitchelstown is situated in the valley to the south of the Galtee Mountains close to the Mitchelstown Caves and is 28 km from Cahir, 50 km from Cork and 59 km from Limerick...
.
As a young teenager, Margaret's life was touched by the pioneer educator and proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
, to whom she was a "most devoted protegee". This appointment as her governess did not last more than a year, as Wollstonecraft could not get along with Lady Kingsborough. The children found her an inspiring instructor; Margaret King would later say she "had freed her mind from all superstitions". Some of Wollstonecraft's experiences during this year would make their way into her only children's book, Original Stories from Real Life
Original Stories from Real Life
Original Stories from Real Life; with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness is the only complete work of children's literature by 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Original Stories begins with a frame story, which sketches out...
(1788). The maternal teacher who frames these stories
Frame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
is called Mrs Mason, a name Margaret King adopted in later life.
Early adult life
She acquired the title Lady Mount Cashell by marrying Stephen Moore, 2nd Earl Mount Cashell. They eventually had seven children.The eldest son, Stephen Moore, 3rd Earl Mount CashellStephen Moore, 3rd Earl Mount Cashell
Stephen Moore, 3rd Earl Mount Cashell , styled Lord Kilworth until 1822, was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat.-Background and education:...
, who went on to graduate from Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
, marry a Swiss woman, and live in several countries.
In 1798, her brother Robert King, 1st Viscount Lorton
Robert King, 1st Viscount Lorton
General Robert Edward King, 1st Viscount Lorton , styled The Honourable from 1797 to 1800, was an Irish peer and politician....
was involved in a scandal. He was tried for the murder of a relative who had seduced their younger sister.
In the context of the Irish Rebellion of 1798
Irish Rebellion of 1798
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 , also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion , was an uprising in 1798, lasting several months, against British rule in Ireland...
, she joined the Society of United Irishmen and wrote pamphlets about the Union Crisis in 1799-1800. She was a friend of aristocrat and revolutionist Lord Edward FitzGerald
Lord Edward FitzGerald
Lord Edward FitzGerald was an Irish aristocrat and revolutionary. He was the fifth son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and the Duchess of Leinster , he was born at Carton House, near Dublin, and died of wounds received in resisting arrest on charge of treason.-Early years:FitzGerald spent most of his...
. Her eldest brother, George King, was a prominent Loyalist.
In December 1801 she embarked on a grand tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
as a group of "nine Irish adventurers", including her husband and a friend, the diarist Catherine Wilmot
Catherine Wilmot
Catherine Wilmot was an Irish traveller and diarist.-Life:She was born in Drogheda, County Louth, where her father was the port surveyor. He was transferred to a similar post in County Cork in 1775, where Catherine was raised...
. Wilmot wrote extensive letters home, some of which were published in 1920 as An Irish peer on the continent (1801-1803) being a narrative of the tour of Stephen, 2nd earl Mount Cashell, through France, Italy, etc. These describe much detail of the Cashells' life and habits, including their lavish entertaining, especially during the first nine months in Paris. In June 1802 the Cashells had another son, Richard Francis Stanislaus Moore, and Wilmot records that its godparents were William Parnel, "the Polish Countess Myscelska", and the American minister.
When she left her husband for the agricultural theorist George William Tighe, Mount Cashell kept the children, as was his right, but gave her one thousand guineas.
Later life
She decided to study medicine at JenaJena
Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...
, which necessitated cross-dressing
Cross-dressing
Cross-dressing is the wearing of clothing and other accoutrement commonly associated with a gender within a particular society that is seen as different than the one usually presented by the dresser...
. (She was as tall as a man.) She later studied with professor of surgery, Andrea Vaccá Berlinghieri of the University of Pisa
University of Pisa
The University of Pisa , located in Pisa, Tuscany, is one of the oldest universities in Italy. It was formally founded on September 3, 1343 by an edict of Pope Clement VI, although there had been lectures on law in Pisa since the 11th century...
. She wrote a book of household medicine for the care of babies and children.
By this point in her life she was a "no nonsense grande dame". She published some of her work with the London team of William Godwin
William Godwin
William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...
, widower of her governess-mentor Mary Wollstonecraft, and his second wife, Mary Jane Clairmont. She had visited and grown friendly with them when she was in London in 1807.
She set up home at Casa Silva, Pisa, with Tighe and their daughters Lauretta and Nerina. They were visited there in 1820 by a young threesome: the poet Percy Shelley, his wife the writer Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
(daughter of Godwin and Wollstonecraft, and already author of Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
), and their translator her stepsister Claire Clairmont
Claire Clairmont
Clara Mary Jane Clairmont , or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was a stepsister of writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra.-Early life:...
. She felt maternal towards the women, as they were both in a sense daughters of her life-changing motherly governess. She offered "sage advice" to Shelley about his health and to Clairmont about her career. She introduced them all to a new intellectual and social circle in Pisa, and helped Mary set up her household, finding them pleasant lodgings and advising on servants.
Tighe provided Percy Shelley with a great deal of material on chemistry, biology, and statistics. The Masons inspired the Shelleys with "a new-found sense of radicalism".
A generation later, in 1841, she again opened her Pisa home to Claire Clairmont, after the younger woman had spent several years taking care of her aging widowed mother in London, until Mary Jane Clairmont had died. Claire continued the ties of family and friendship by remaining in correspondence with the Masons' descendents into the 1870s.
She was described, in the 1920 introduction to Wilmot's diaries, as "socially charming and attractive, highly cultivated, upright and refined", but "harsh to her children, a Freethinker in religion, and imbued with what were then the most extravagant political notions".
Works
- Stories of Old Daniel: Or, tales of wonder and delight -- children learning from real life
- Continuation of the Stories of Old Daniel in 1820
- Advise to Young Mother on the Physical Education of Children, by a Grandmother. -- practical baby care & children's medical advice
- The Sisters of Nansfield: A Tale for Young Women -- two-volume novel
Sources
- Sunstein, Emily. A Different Face: the Life of Mary Wollstonecraft. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1975. ISBN 0-06-014201-4.
- Todd, JanetJanet ToddJanet Margaret Todd is a Welsh-born academic and a well-respected author of many books on women in literature. Todd was educated at Cambridge University and the University of Florida, where she undertook a doctorate on the poet John Clare...
. Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2000. ISBN 0-231-12184-9. - Todd, Janet. Rebel Daughters: Ireland in conflict 1798 (2003)
- Tomalin, ClaireClaire TomalinClaire Tomalin is an English biographer and journalist. She was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge.She was literary editor of the New Statesman and of the Sunday Times, and has written several noted biographies...
. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Rev. ed. 1974. New York: Penguin, 1992. ISBN 0-14-016761-7. - Wardle, Ralph M. Mary Wollstonecraft: A Critical Biography. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1951.
- Wilmot, CatherineCatherine WilmotCatherine Wilmot was an Irish traveller and diarist.-Life:She was born in Drogheda, County Louth, where her father was the port surveyor. He was transferred to a similar post in County Cork in 1775, where Catherine was raised...
. An Irish peer on the continent (1801-1803) being a narrative of the tour of Stephen, 2nd earl Mount Cashell, through France, Italy, etc.
Further reading
- The Sensitive Plant: A Life of Lady Mount Cashell by Edward C. McAleer; University of North Carolina Press, 1958
- Advice to young mothers on the physical education of children, by a grandmother. Florence, 1835 fulltext here