The Poetry of Isabella Whitney Isabella Whitney

Whitney lived and worked in London until 1573 when she lost her position under the mistress she was serving and became unemployed.[2] The reason behind the loss of her employment is assumed to be due to slander as evidenced in A Sweet Nosegay.[4] She resided in Abchurch Lane while she continued to write but, financially, she could not stay there for long.[2] Throughout her work, it is evident that she reached out to friends and family for support, but none could do so.[2] Unable to support herself, she returned to the family home in Ryles Green. The Wilkersley court records for 1576 show her father being fined for the fact that his unmarried daughters, Dorothea and Isabella, were both pregnant. Isabella’s child, a girl, was baptised in September of that year in Audlem but there is no further reference to her. Sometime around 1580 she married the physician of Audlem, Richard Eldershaw, a Catholic who was several times fined for non-attendance at church. In 1600 he was fined the sum of £240 at a time when a rural labourer would expect to earn £40-£60 a year. Perhaps this is why Whitney saw the benefit of using her contacts in the publishing world to make a little extra money around this time. They had two children: Marie and Edmund. Sister Eldershae is mentioned in her brother’s will of 1601 as are her children and her husband, Richard. Dorothea is not mentioned in this Will so it must be assumed that she predeceased her brother. Geffrey left his sister, Isabella, a quantity of silver – a bequest perhaps recognising her lamentable financial situation and the affection between the two siblings. Isabella surfaces again in 1624 when her other brother, Brooke, a successful lawyer in London, makes his Will and dies. There is no mention of Richard Eldershaw; he has presumably died since 1601. By this time Isabella would have been in her seventies. No record of her death has so far surfaced though her children are shown living in Stafford as adults.[3]