Anne Harris, Lady Southwell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Southwell

Anne Southwell (1574 – 1636) [nee Harris], later called Anne, Lady Southwell, was a poet. Her commonplace book includes a variety of works including political poems, sonnets, occasional verse, and letters to friends.

Southwell was born to Thomas and Elizabeth Harris of Cornworthy, Devon, where she was christened on 22 August 1574. Her brother was the prominent Irish judge Sir Edward Harris. Anne and her first husband moved to Ireland in the early seventeenth century, but little is known of their life there.

On 24 June 1594, she married Thomas Southwell of Norfolk at St Clement Danes in London; they had two daughters. She became Anne, Lady Southwell, when Thomas was knighted in 1603. Her work suggests that she had some familiarity with the Court of James I of England, but apart from the knighthood, her husband received no preferment there.

Some time after her first husband's death in 1626, she married Captain Henry Sibthorpe, who was an army officer then serving in Ireland. For social reasons, she retained the name Southwell for the remainder of her life. They went to live at Clerkenwell in London and then moved in 1631 to a house they rented from the composer Robert Johnson. They both worked together to create a book that contained Anne's works and examples of texts by other writers. Southwell died in Acton in 1636