ABSTRACT
In the period in which Anne Clifford was writing and reading, most religious texts, including sermons and interpretations of scripture, had polemical purposes. In reading religious texts, Clifford was thus not merely passing her time in the "typical" pursuits of an English gentlewoman, nor was she advertising her Christian or wifely submission. The providence that Clifford so explicitly relied on was a guiding belief system for many early modern people, and it was frequently based on a typological similitude between ancient Israel and England. The person with whom Clifford most frequently associated specific texts was her mother, Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland, her greatest champion in the land case. Deeply invested in a providentialist narrative of election, spiritual and behavioural resolution, and Christian neo-Stoicism, Anne Clifford read her religious books in intimate dialogue with indeed as a key part other pursuit of land and position.
