Constance Fowler Explained

Constance Aston Fowler was a 17th-century English manuscript author and anthologist. Born "Constance Aston" about 1621,^[1] she was the youngest child of Walter Aston, 1st Lord Aston of Forfar and Gertrude Sadleir, who were a Catholic family.^{[2] [3]} Her home was The Priory at St Thomas, near the family home of Tixal Hall in Staffordshire.^[4]

Studied

Her Verse Miscellany of Constance Aston Fowler is studied as an example of "how manuscript texts were produced, disseminated, and preserved in provincial areas."^[3] "Constance Aston Fowler built up her own private anthology, mingling the poems of her family with ones by Ben Jonson, Henry King, and John Donne.^[3] Her father, her brother Herbert, sister-in-law Katherine Thimelby, sister Gertrude and their friend Lady Dorothy Shirley contributed.^[3] Four of the poems in the anthology also appear in Tixall Poetry and the manuscript, HM 904.^[5] She began the anthology in the 1630s and made the last entry in 1658. The manuscript now resides at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California (number HM 904).^[5]

Constance married Walter Fowler in about 1634–1635 and had 12 children; Walter, Edward, William, Bryan, Thomas, Francis, Constance, Dorothy, Gertrude, Constance, Mary, and Magdalen. Edward, Bryan, Francis and Constance all died young.^[6] Constance died on March 29, 1664, and is buried at Baswich, Staffordshire.^[7]

Primary sources

• Book: Fowler, Constance Aston . Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in conjunction with Renaissance English Text Society . 0-86698-252-3 . 206 . The Verse Miscellany of Constance Aston Fowler: A Diplomatic Edition . Tempe, Ariz . 2000.
• Book: Clifford, Arthur . Printed by James Ballantyne . Tixall poetry with notes and illustrations . Edinburgh . 1813.

Secondary sources

• University of Oxford . Burke . Victoria Elizabeth . Women and Seventeenth-Century Manuscript Culture: Miscellanies, Commonplace Books, and Song Books Compiled by English and Scottish Women, 1600-1660 . 1996. (Ph. D. dissertation)
• 0268-117X . 12 . 135–150 . Burke . Victoria Elizabeth . Women and Early Seventeenth-Century Manuscript Culture: Four Miscellanies . The Seventeenth Century . 1997. 2 . 10.1080/0268117X.1997.10555427 .
• 29 . 549–67 . La Belle . Jenijoy La Belle . Jenijoy . Huntington Aston Manuscript: First-Line index of the MS . The Book Collector . 1980.
• 79 . 13–31 . LaBelle . Jenijoy . A True Love's Knot: The Letters of Constance Fowler and the Poems of Herbert Aston . Journal of English and Germanic Philology . 1980.

Notes and References

1. authorities.loc.gov
2. Book: Aldrich-Watson, Deborah . Renaissance English Text Society . 978-0-8018-6139-0 . The Verse Miscellany of Constance Aston Fowler: A Diplomatic Edition . Tempe, Arizona . 2000 . xxiii.
3. Book: Ezell, Margaret . Johns Hopkins University Press . 978-0-8018-6139-0 . Social Authorship and the Advent of Print . Baltimore . 1999 . 27.
4. Book: Ezell, Margaret . Johns Hopkins University Press . 978-0-8018-6139-0 . Social Authorship and the Advent of Print . Baltimore . 1999 . 26.
5. Book: Aldrich-Watson, Deborah . Renaissance English Text Society . 0-86698-252-3 . The Verse Miscellany of Constance Aston Fowler: A Diplomatic Edition . Tempe, Arizona . 2000 . x.
6. Book: Aldrich-Watson, Deborah . Renaissance English Text Society . 0-86698-252-3 . The Verse Miscellany of Constance Aston Fowler: A Diplomatic Edition . Tempe, Arizona . 2000 . xxix.
7. Book: Aldrich-Watson, Deborah . Renaissance English Text Society . 0-86698-252-3 . The Verse Miscellany of Constance Aston Fowler: A Diplomatic Edition . Tempe, Arizona . 2000 . xxix.