ABSTRACT
The Cavendish household, as both a physical space and a group of people, contributed vitally to the composition and performance dynamic of The Concealed Fancies by Jane Cavendish (1621-69) and her younger sister Elizabeth Brackley (1626-63). At the head of the household, William Cavendish provided an example of literary and theatrical creativity which he encouraged his children to follow. He recognised that Jane had ‘the pen of a most ready writer’ and urged Elizabeth ‘Bess, you must write too, write but what you think/ Now you’re a girl, dissemble when you link.’1 His comments to Elizabeth suggest that the family home was a privileged haven for uncensored self-expression. Here she could write openly ‘what you think’, whereas in the ‘link’ or bond of marriage she would be obliged to ‘dissemble’. Jane and Elizabeth freely acknowledge their debt to their father. The handsome folio of ‘Poems, Songs, a Pastorall and a Play’ which they prepared for him often shows admiration akin to idolatry. The first poem addresses William Cavendish as ‘The Great Example’, while in the second, Jane describes him as the god-like source of her life and writing: ‘Your company creates, and makes me free,/For without you, I am dull peece of earth/And soe contynues nothinge, till you make my birth.’2 Luceny, the elder sister in The Concealed Fancies, echoes these sentiments, declaring her father ‘shall be my alpha and omega of government’ (2.3.32).3
