Lady Hester Pulter was a seventeenth-century poet lost to the waves of time– that is, until 1996. Her works, commonly referred to as simply “The Manuscript,” were rediscovered in the Brotherton Library in Leeds, UK. Here researchers unearthed a work with depths of political and scientific intelligence, as well as a wealth of personal reflection. Pulter’s writings show that she was impressively conscious of both the political and astronomical worlds in the seventeenth century, which were in tumultuous states at that point in the English Civil Wars and the scientific revolution. This vault of knowledge comes as a shock from a woman poet who had virtually disappeared from the literary world for over three centuries, but based on what researchers have inferred from the content of the texts, Pulter’s thoughts were never intended to see the light of day due to existing political ties in her family and how her opinions could have affected perceptions of the family.

Born as Hester Ley to James Ley and his wife Mary in Dublin in the early 1600s, Pulter had wealthy connections from the beginning. Her father James worked his way up in Ireland’s political world, becoming the Lord’s Chief Justice of the King’s Bench of Ireland, and then would later become the first Earl of Marlborough, a notable political position in England. This promotion to Earl officially deemed the Ley family aristocrats in England (“The Poet”). Pulter’s involvement with the upper class did not end with her immediate family; she married Arthur Pulter, a politician in his own right with various public roles, from local sheriff to justice of the peace. While Arthur worked in his various roles, Pulter was “confined” to the house, where she spent most of her days writing her poetry and raising her fifteen children. The remoteness of the location, however, led to Pulter’s desire to voice her political opinions in her works–specifically about the ongoing English Civil Wars (“The Poet”).

The English Civil Wars were a series of rebellions between the supporters of King Charles I (Royalists) and his opposers, referred to as the Parliamentarians, within his domain, mainly England, Scotland and Ireland. These wars are separated into the First and Second English Civil Wars and spanned from 1642-1649, while the Anglo-Scottish War of 1650 to 1652 is sometimes considered the Third English Civil War. King Charles I was never popular because he wanted to rule by decree and dissolved Parliament multiple times to achieve this goal. So, when Charles put specific people into governing roles with the intention to give himself absolute rule as a monarch, forces assembled in Scotland, Ireland, and England against his military in rebellion. Ultimately, the Parliamentarians were successful, and King Charles I was executed in May 1649 (“English Civil War”).

The extensive military expenses Charles I invested in before the English Civil Wars broke out in 1642 were worrying to Parliament, but what was also concerning was considerable ecclesiastical reform in the Church of England. His religious reforms were influenced by his own faith and learning as well as that of his Catholic, French-born queen, Henrietta Maria (“English Civil War”). After the Royalists fell, Henrietta Maria never saw her husband again, and disappeared to France (“Henrietta Maria”). She appears, however, in Pulter’s “The Invitation to the Country” under her pastoral pseudonym: Chloris. Henrietta Maria and Charles I would use these names when play-acting as shepherds and shepherdesses, nymphs, gods and goddesses in brief court entertainments.  The English Civil Wars serves as both the backdrop and the influence for “The Invitation to the Country,” and is vital in understanding Pulter as a feminist, a potential Royalist, and a Royalist critic.

Dear daughters, come, make haste away

From that sad place; make no delay.

He’s gone that was the city’s grace;

Fierce Hydras now usurp his place.

The fanes are overgrown with moss,

With shedding tears for England’s loss,

Hard hearts insensible of woe,

Whom marble walls, in grief, outgo.

Then come, sweet virgins, come away;

What is it that invites your stay?

What can you learn there else but pride,

And what your blushes will not hide?

There, virgins lose their honored name,

Which doth forever blur their fame.

There, husbands look with jealous eyes,

And wives deceive them, and their spies.

To Inns of Court and armies go

Wise children, their own dads to know.

There, shepherds that no flocks do keep,

Like butcher’s mastiffs, worry sheep.

Then come, sweet children, come away;

What can allure you yet to stay?

Hyde Park, a place of chief delight,

Her bushes mourn like Jews in white.

The stately deer do weeping stray,

Anticipating their last day.

Spring Garden, that such pleasures bred,

Looks dull and sad since Chloris fled^[1].

The crystal Thames her loss deplores

And to the sea her grief outroars.

The swans upon her silver breast

Though dying, yet can find no rest,

But full of grief cry, “welladay,”

And, singing, sigh their breath away.

Ay me, then come, make haste away;

From that sad place make no delay.

Here’s flow’ry vales and crystal springs;

Here’s shady groves, here ever sings

The bullfinch, linnet, striving which

The auditors shall most bewitch.

The early lark, long ere the morn

With roses can her head adorn,

Sings cheerfully a roundelay,

Telling this lower world ’tis day.

Here thrushes, wrens, and redbreasts sing

To welcome in the gladsome spring.

Then come, sweet maidens, come away;

To this sweet place make no delay.

Here careful shepherds view their sheep;

They him, and he their souls doth keep.

Blessings flow on them from above

That are reciprocal in love.

He in his bosom bears the lambs

And gently leads the heavy dams;

He whistles those that go astray

By which means, none runs quite away.

Here husbands, free from jealous eye,

Have wives as full of modesty;

They, in their children, both rejoice,

Commending still their happy choice:

Most kind and free from all debate,

That no true love can ever hate.

Then come, my children, come away;

To this sweet place make no delay.

Here virgins sit in flow’ry vales,

Refreshed by sweet Favonius’s gales,

Making them anadems and poses,

Crowning their heads with new-blown roses.

In woods and dales fair maidens may,

Unfrighted, freely gather may.

Then lovely lasses, come away!

To cheer my heart make no delay.

But O, those times now changéd be;

Sad metamorphosis we see.

For since Amintas went away,

Shepherds and sheep go all astray.

Those that deserved whole groves of bays

In sighs consume their youthful days;

And that fair fleecy flocks did keep,

Despised in corners sit and weep.

Since Chloris^[2] went, both wife and maid

In love and beauty hath decayed.

.

Where maypoles showed their feathered head,

There, colored ensigns now are spread;

Instead of music’s pleasant sound

And lively lasses dancing round,

Tumultuous drums make deaf our ears

And trumpets fill our hearts with fears.

In shades where nymphs did use to walk

There sons of Mars in armor stalk^[3].

Enameled vales and crystal streams

Prove now, alas, poor Broadfield’s dreams.

Lea’s drooping swans now sadly sing

And Beane comes weeping from her spring.

Mimram and Stort in mourning weeds,

Showing their hearts for grief e’en bleeds.

All run to Lea for some relief,

And in her bosom pour their grief.

Thus she and they all weeping go

To tell the Thames their grievous woe.

Ver looks and sees this shire look sad;

She whirls about as she were mad.

Round Verulam his ruinéd stones

She runs, and tells to Colne her moans;

For since her saint his blood was shed,

She never grieved so, as she said.

Colne sympathized with her in woe,

And to the Thames resolved to go,

Clear Purwell too came bubbling out,

But long she did not stand in doubt;

Seeing our halcyon days were done,

She loathed (she said) to see the sun

As he pursued the cheerful day,

But turned her course another way.

And, sighing, shed forth tears as clear

As pearls, and ran to Bedfordshire—

To Ouse, who was so full of grief

That she herself did want relief—

And said, would any place receive

Her tears, she would her channel leave,

As when King Richard’s reign had date;

But this she was denied by fate.

Gray’s Spring too sadly makes her moan,

And with her tears turns moss to stone;

And, seeing delight with Chloris fled,

She sighed and murmuring hid her head

Within her womb that gave her breath,

Venting her grief below the earth.

The Naiades here sit in ranks,

Forlorn upon our withered banks,

And garlands make of willow boughs

To hide their tears and shade their brows.

Since Chloris went, our flowers fade;

No pleasure is in hill or shade.

Poor Philomel doth sit alone,

To senseless trees now makes her moan.

Our woods their choristers now lack:

The woozles whistle, clad in black,

And the forsaken turtledove

Bewails her own and Chloris’s love.

The Hamadryades invokes

The goddesses enshrined in oaks,

Who fold their yielding arms across

And weep with them Amintas’s loss.

Some trees drop gum from their sad eyes

T’immortalize ambitious flies;

Though they can give us no relief,

They’ll sympathize with us in grief.

The Oreads sport and play no more,

But great Amintas’s loss deplore.

Instead of roses, cypress boughs

Pearled o’er with tears doth shade their brows.

Disheveled, torn, neglected hair

Hang o’er their throbbing bosom bare.

Nay, the Napeae from their hills,

Dissolved with tears, weep crystal rills.

Those flowers which the valleys crown,

O’ercharged with grief, their heads hang down.

Since lovely Chloris frighted fled,

The crown imperial hangs his head;

His princely breast o’erwhelmed with fears,

Weeping at once six crystal tears^[4].

To lovely shades pale vi’lets creep,

And there, unpitied, sit and weep.

The royal rose that ne’er would yield,

But strove for mast’ry in the field,

And Chloris’s cheek, neglected, fades

In silent, solitary shades.

The lily and the gillyflower

Do wish it were within their power

To sleep forever in their cause;

But ’tis denied by Nature’s laws.

Th’auricula that cures the giddy brain,

Dizzy with grief, hangs down her head again.

Then shall not we with grief o’erflow?

Shall vegetables us outgo?

Thus neither woods, nor fields, nor hills,

Enameled vales, nor crystal rills,

Nor birds, nor trees, nor flowers of scent:

But do this kingdom’s loss resent.

Then let us still lament and grieve

Till Heaven, in mercy, doth relieve.

’Tis neither sight nor odor’s scent

Can my afflicted heart content,

Until I see them both restored,

Whose absence hath been so deplored.

Just Heaven, hear our prayers and tears

And place them in their shining spheres.

Then come, sweet daughters, come away;

To comfort me make no delay.

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