11 Isabella Whitney Had I a Husband, or a house, and all that belongs thereto My self could frame about to rouse, as other women do: But till some household cares me tye, My books and Pen I will apply. Isabella Whitney, A Sweet Nosgay
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sabella Whitney was the first published secular female poet in England. Very little is known about her life, though she was probably born in Cheshire sometime in the middle of the sixteenth century, the second of seven children. She had no formal education though one of her brothers, Geoffrey Whitney attended a grammar school and published A Choice of Emblems in 1586. Whitney was sent to London to work as a domestic servant somewhere around the age of ten or twelve; this is not necessarily a sign of the family’s poverty, it was quite common for girls to be sent to work as domestic servants at the time. Isabella seems to have been employed by a ‘virtuous lady’ but for some reason lost this position and she would then have found it very 66
