Elizabeth Freke

Introduction

Elizabeth Freke is known for her striking autobiography, or, as she called it, ‘Remembrances of my misfortuns [that] haue Attended me In my unhappy life since I were marryed: wch was November the 14: 1671’. These ‘Remembrances’, as much concerned with her variable financial dealings as with her marital problems, survive in two versions, in two of her autograph notebooks (FrE 1-2). They are preserved together with three other volumes of papers by or relating to her (FrE 3-5).

Peter Beal