Cowper, Mary ___ 1685-1724 ___ British ___ courtier

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
William Cowper, later 1st Earl of Cowper, was trained as a lawyer and became a leading Whig politician. He took part in negotiating the union of England with Scotland, and was appointed the first lord chancellor of Great Britain (1707­10). In 1706 he married Mary Clavering, who became Lady to the Bedchamber of Princess of Wales (Caroline Anspach) in 1714. Countess Cowper kept a diary for several years while working in the royal household. The diary is notable for its intimate pictures of court at the beginning of the Brunswick dynasty. Later, William Cowper was suspected of involvement in a Jacobite plot, and this led Countess Cowper to destroy most of the entries in her diary after 1716.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - All sorts of colours

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1712-1716 1720 ___ royalty society

WEB TEXT LINKS
googlebooks
etext
about

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Diary of Mary, Countess Cowper, Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales
 

May 2005, September 2008, March 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.