A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Halket, Lady Anne
HALKET, LADY ANNE,
Whose extensive learning and voluminous theological writings place her in the first rank of female authors, was the daughter of Mr. Robert Murray, of the family of Tullibardine, and was born at London, January 4th., 1622. Her father was preceptor to Charles the First, and her mother sub-governess to the Duke of Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth. Lady Anne was carefully educated by her parents in every polite and liberal science; but theology and physic were her favourite studies; and she became such a proficient in the latter science, and also in surgery, that the most eminent professional men, as well as invalids of every rank, both in this country and on the continent, sought her advice.
Being a staunch royalist, her family and herself suffered with the misfortunes of Charles. She married, in March, 1656, Sir James Halket, to whom she bore four children, all of whom died young excepting her eldest son Robert. It was to him she addressed her admirable tract, "The Mother's Will to the Unborn Child," under the impression that she should not survive its birth. She died in 1699. During her lifetime there were published of her writings no less than twenty-one volumes, chiefly on religious subjects. She was a woman of the most singular and unaffected piety, and of the sweetest simplicity of manner; this, together with her great talents and learning, procured her the universal esteem of her contemporaries. She left thirty-six books in manuscript, containing "Meditations."