ABSTRACT
Originally published in French in 1635, Jerome Hainhofer's translation of Jacques du Bosque's The Secretary of Ladies, Or a New Collection of Letters and Answers Composed by Moderne Ladies and Gentlewomen was entered in the Stationers' Register on 2 August 1638. Foreignness, disguise and authenticity invoke the hotly-debated Roman Catholicism practised at the court of the Queen consort Henrietta Maria. Feminine friendship supports a practice of reason unsustainable at court, in the country, or in families. Husbands and children function is literally to symbolise how feminine friendship provides a means to act upon religious convictions. The women's passions are expressed in the language of friendship, courtesy and compliment but they are nonetheless intrinsically political because they effect the formation and preservation of a sovereign community. Anxiety that England was being taken over by Papists was a central feature of pre-Civil-War unrest. The alliance between Puritans and Catholics against Laudian Arminianism only operated at court.
