Alice Sutcliffe was married in 1624 (her birth and death dates are not known, nor her exact marriage date) to John Sutcliffe who was Esquire to the Body of James I. He later became Groom of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Chamber at the Court of Charles I and it is suggested by some of her writings that Alice also had a role at Court. Meditations of Man’s Mortalitie consists of six prose meditations followed by a long poem of eighty-eight six-line stanzas on ’our losse by Adam, and our gayne by Christ’. It was dedicated to some of the most influential members of the Court, suggesting perhaps Alice’s desire to promote both herself and her husband.

Selected and Introduced by Patrick Cullen