Women of Fortune
Money, Marriage, and Murder in Early Modern England

Offers a compelling story of mercantile wealth and merchant heiresses who asserted their rights despite loss, imprisonment, and murder.

Linda Levy Peck (Author)

9781107034020, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 October 2018

350 pages, 16 b/w illus. 16 colour illus.
25.3 x 18 x 2 cm, 0.91 kg

'This book is a very good read … The author has painted a fascinating picture of this gallery of individuals, whose lives were so different in outcomes and yet had similarities.' Janette Rutterford, The Economic History Review

Women of Fortune tells the compelling story of mercantile wealth, arranged marriages, and merchant heiresses who asserted their rights despite loss, imprisonment, and murder. Following three generations of the Bennet and Morewood families, who made their fortune in Crown finance, the East Indies, the Americas, and moneylending, Linda Levy Peck explores the changing society, economy, and culture of early modern England. The heiresses - curious, intrepid, entrepreneurial, scholarly - married into the aristocracy, fought for their property, and wrote philosophy. One spent years on the Grand Tour. Her life in Europe, despite the outbreak of war, is vividly documented. Another's husband went to debtors' prison. She recovered the fortune and bought shares. Husbands, sons, and contemporaries challenged their independence legally, financially, even violently, but new forms of wealth, education, and the law enabled these heiresses to insist on their own agency, create their own identities, and provide examples for later generations.

List of figures
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
Family trees
Introduction
Part I. Money: 1. 'The Great Man of Buckinghamshire' The Lord Mayor, the Benefactor, and the moneylender: the Bennets
2. 'My personal estate which God of his infinite goodness hath lent me' the grocer's apprentice: the Morewoods
Part II. Marriage: 3. 'The £30,000 widow' and Kensington House: the Finches, the Cliftons, and the Conways
4. 'I was never one of fortune's darlings' city and country: the Gresleys
5. 'One of the greatest fortunes in England' money, marriage and mobility: the Bennet heiresses
Part III. Murder: 6. “The most sordid person that ever lived' the murder of Grace Bennet
Part IV. Metropolis: 7. 'The Countess of Salisbury who loved travelling' from Hatfield House to the Grand Tour: the Earl and Countess of Salisbury
8. 'A seventh son and beau major shall gain my Lady Salisbury' courting the Countess: George Jocelyn
9. 'Diverse great troubles and misfortunes' losing a fortune: John and Grace Bennet
10. 'Fortune's darlings' single women in Hanoverian London: the Dowager Countess of Salisbury and Grace Bennet
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]