Margaret Cavendish was born into the Lucasses, a family of English gentry. She does not seem to have had an education that was in any way remarkable for a young woman of her time. Indeed, she reports that while she had the usual tutors, her mother "cared not so much for our dancing and fidling, singing and prating of several languages" (Cavendish 1667), deeming honesty and civility more important. One consequence is that Cavendish was never able to speak or read any language but her native English. In 1643, when she was about twenty, she became a maid of honor to Charles I's wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, and the next year she followed the queen into exile in Paris.

While at the court in exile, she met and subsequently married William Cavendish, who eventually became the Duke of Newcastle and who was a widower some twenty...