Geneviève Petau de Maulette
Madame Geneviève Pétau de Maulette, Lady Glenluce (c. 1563–1643) was a French noblewoman, tutor to Elizabeth of Bohemia, author and the second wife of John Gordon, D.D., Dean of Salisbury and Lord Glenluce and Longormes.
Biography[edit]
Pétau was born in Brittany, France. Her parentage is not known for sure, but she was probably the daughter of François Pétau, seigneur de Maulette.[1][2]
Pétau was raised a Protestant, and in 1594 she married Dr. John Gordon, a prominent Scottish reverend who was Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the French king.[1]
Their son-in-law, Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun, wrote that she was the French teacher to the eldest daughter of King James I and Queen Anne of Denmark, Princess Elizabeth, and that her daughter Louisa, who he later married, was brought up with the princess in Lord Harrington's household.[1][3]
Geneviève died on 6 December 1643 at Gordonstoun, Moray, and was buried at the Michael Kirk in the old churchyard of Oggston in the parish of Drainie, Moray.[1]
She owned a portrait miniature of King James I in a case decorated with diamonds. She worked a suite of furniture at Gordonston in green tent stitch including bed, cupboard cloth, stools, chair and couch.[4]
Works[edit]
Lady Geneviève is remembered for her work in French entitled, Devoreux, Vertues Teares for the Losse of King Henry III of Fraunce, by a learned gentlewoman, Madame Geneviève Petau. The poem praises Henry III of France and an English nobleman, Walter Devereux.[5] The work was written some time after the end of the siege of Rouen in late 1591 and before it was translated into English in 1597 by Gervase Markham.[6][5]
Family[edit]
Lady Geneviève and her husband had one child, Lucie or Louise (1597–1680), who married Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun,[1] fourth son of 12th Earl of Sutherland.[7] Their daughter Katherine Gordon was mother of the Quaker Robert Barclay.[1]
His daughter Elizabeth Gordon was born at Salisbury in January 1617. At her christening, the Earl of Hertford was a godfather, Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, and Jean Drummond, Countess of Roxburghe were godmothers.[8]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f Mullan 2008, Gordon, John.
- ^ But she may have been the daughter of Gideon Pétau, sieur de Maule and "first president" of the Parlement of Brittany (Mullan 2008, Gordon, John).
- ^ Robert Gordon, Genealogical history of the Earldom of Sutherland (Edinburgh, 1813), p. 292, 319..
- ^ HMC 6th Report (Sir W. G. Gordon Cumming) (London, 1877), p. 683.
- ^ a b Cox 2004, p. 54.
- ^ Prescott 2008, Mary Sidney's Antonius ....
- ^ Stevenson, David. "Gordon, Sir Robert, of Gordonstoun". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11075. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Robert Gordon, Genealogical history of the Earldom of Sutherland (Edinburgh, 1813), p. 343.
Bibliography[edit]
- Cox, Michael, ed. (2004). "1596". The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 54. ISBN 0-19-860634-6.
- Mullan, David David George (October 2008) [2004]. "Gordon, John (1544–1619)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11061. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- Prescott, Anne Lake (2008). "Mary Sidney's Antonius and the ambiguities of French history". The Free Library.
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