Alice Thornton

Alice Thornton
Born Alice Wandesford
13 February 1626
Kirklington, North Yorkshire
Died January 1707
East Newton
Occupation writer
Nationality British
Genre Autobiographer
Notable work My first Booke of my Life

Alice Thornton (born Alice Wandesford) (13 February 1626 – January 1707) was a British autobiographer during the English civil war. Her books were published in part in 1875.

Life

Thornton was born in Kirklington, North Yorkshire.[1] She was the younger surviving daughter of Christopher Wandesford, later Lord Deputy of Ireland, and Alice Osborne (died 1659), only daughter of Sir Hewett Osborne and Joyce Fleetwood. She was, through her mother, a first cousin of Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, the leading English statesman of the 1670s. Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, was a distant relative of her father, who was one of his closest friends and political allies, and went with him to Ireland in 1633 on Wentworth's appointment as Lord Deputy. Wentworth treated the Wandesfords as part of his own family, and Alice grew up with his daughters in Dublin Castle. Following Wentworth's downfall in 1640 Alice's father replaced him as Lord Deputy, but died only a few months later. His family fled back to England during the Irish Rebellion of 1641, and after a long and difficult journey they returned safely to Kirklington.[2]

During the general confusion of their flight her father's will disappeared, and did not turn up again for several years, leading to years of litigation and a bitter family feud over the inheritance.[3] Alice was the main sufferer in the lawsuit: she knew that the will, which she had had in her keeping for a time, made generous provision for her, but without possession of the original will itself she was unable to prove what exactly she was entitled to.[4] Even when the will was eventually found some members of the family disputed its validity, causing her further hardship.[5] Alice married William Thornton in 1651.

She started her autobiography, My first Booke of my Life, on 2 February 1669 when she was 47. The book was originally written as a defense against slander.[6] It contains much valuable information about her father's career, and also contains vivid sketches of her mother, her sister Katherine, and her three brothers.

In August 1662 she and her husband, William, built a house in East Newton in Yorkshire, where Alice spent the remainder of her life. William died in 1668. The marriage was a happy one, and Alice always wrote of her husband with love and gratitude. He has sometimes been blamed for failing to defend his wife's interests against her family, and for leaving her in poverty at his death. However Alice in her autobiography places the blame for the dispute over her father's will firmly on her own family, and in particular on her brother Christopher junior and his father-in-law Sir John Lowther. [7]

Of her numerous children, only three, a son and two daughters, reached adult life. The elder daughter, Alice, married Thomas Comber, Dean of Durham, by whom she had six children.

Death and Legacy

Thornton died in 1707 in East Newton and left three books to her daughter, Mrs. Alice Comber, who died in 1727.[8]

In 1875 the Surtees Society published the first version of her biography.[9] This version was expurgated. Since that time the middle of Thornton's books has been lost but the other two have been made available by the collector who owns them.[8]

References

  1. Alice Thornton at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  2. Osborough, W.N. "Wills that go missing- the quest for the lost will of Christopher Wandesford, Lord Deputy of Ireland"published in Reflections on Law and History Four Courts Press Dublin 2006 p.10
  3. Osborough pp.8-16
  4. Osborough pp.8-16
  5. Osborough pp.8-16
  6. Alice Thornton, Orlando, Retrieved 2 October 2017
  7. Osborough pp.8-16
  8. 1 2 Anselment, Raymond A. (Winter 2005). "Seventeenth-Century Manuscript Sources of Alice Thornton's Life". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900. 45 (1): 135–155. JSTOR 3844593.
  9. Mrs. Alice (Wandesford) Thornton (1875). The Autobiography of Mrs. Alice Thornton, of East Newton, Co. York. Society.
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