Mary Armine by Frederick Hendrik van Hove, after Unknown artist line engraving, published 1683
Lady Mary Armyne (née Talbot), England (1594-1676) Born into a prominent Protestant family, Lady Mary Armyne, or Armine, was known for her business acumen and pious charity. She studied French, Latin, history, and theology, and was well versed in Jewish and Roman Scriptures. Memoirist Thomas Gibbons wrote,
As to her natural abilities, she was quick and lively, and had a very comprehensive understanding even to the last hours of her life. Though she was considerably above fourscore years of age, yet she could discourse as rationally on the very day on which she died, as others can in the very flower of their time.
Lady Armyne committed much of her wealth to religious charity, supporting missionaries in the Americas and establishing three hospitals. Through both conversation and letters, Lady Armyne counseled others toward godliness, distributing religious books to recipients of her charity. When several hundred ministers were dismissed for non-conformity in 1662, Lady Armyne provided money to be distributed among the poorest families, and upon death left her sizable estate to charity. In 1816 Lady Armyne’s name was revived by the Female Reading Class in Colchester, Connecticut, part of a wave of women’s abolitionist societies.
Sources:
Eales, Jackie. “Lady Mary Armyne.” Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries (1803). Chawton House Library Series: Women’s Memoirs, ed. Gina Luria Walker, Memoirs of Women Writers Part II. Pickering & Chatto: London, 2013. vol. X, pp. .
Gibbon, Thomas. “Lady Mary Armyne.” Memoirs of Eminently Pious Women, Volume 1. New
Edition. Ed. Samuel Burden. London: Duncan, Longman and Co., 1827.
Hays, Mary. Female biography, or Memoirs of illustrious and celebrated women of all ages and countries (6 volumes). London: R. Phillips, 1803.
Kelley, Mary. “Reading Women/Women Reading: The Making of Learned Women in Antebellum America.” The Journal of American History 83.2 (1996): 401-424.
Stephen, Leslie, Ed. “Armyne, Mary.” Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. II: From Annesley to Baird. London: Macmillan, Smith, Elder & Co., 1885.
Tags: Age of Discovery, Baroque, Europe, Philanthropists
