ABSTRACT
Legacy writers work with a cultural script of sorts that dictated how a mother was to die. Articulated in multiple forms, this script insists that the dying mother bless her children, remain stoic in the face of physical suffering, and assure her deathbed watchers of her salvation. The 1549 Book of Common Prayer, for instance, specifies that individuals should set their affairs in order when they are in health, rather than on the deathbed. Deathbed narratives often describe dying parents as giving advice tailored to each child's needs. Elizabeth Cary handled death like a woman, as her biographer-daughter takes great pains to prove. An elderly widow, Elizabeth Richardson has experienced the deaths of those around her, and she is closer to her own death than younger writers. This explains her interest in prayers that focus on the deathbed experience and that invoke God as a caretaker of the embattled soul.
