Life into Story: The Courtship of Elizabeth Wiseman (review)

Reviews 211 geographer in resolving this dispute. The final chapter is on the lives and roles of two of the greatest Renaissance cartographers, Mercator and Ortelius. The relationship between the two m e n is revealing of cultural attitudes of the time, but perhaps the most significant points to arise from this chapter concern the changes m a d e in the semiotics and social significance of mapmaking by the intervention of advanced techniques in print reproduction. Finally, one should pause briefly to consider the physical characteristics of the book and the fine quality of its production, because these factors themselves are of the greatest importance to a work of this kind. Reaktion Books have succeeded in producing a work with 44 illustrations, including 8 full colour plates, that sells at a remarkably low price. The quality of paper is exceptionally high, as it needs to be for a layout in which high-resolution illustrations are not separated off from the text but are incorporated in it. The result is not only a book that is easy to read, without any irksome turning back and forth between text and illustration, but also one that is most attractive in appearance. Christopher Wortham Department of English University of Western Australia Chan, Mary, ed., Life into Story: The Courtship of Elizabeth Wiseman, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1998; cloth; pp. xlvii, 113; R.R.P. £35.00. In a fascinating series of documents, Professor Mary Chan presents the story of an aristocratic courtship which became a dangerous and threatening menace in the life of Elizabeth Wiseman, a thirty-seven year old widow. Pursued by Robert Spencer, a cousin of the powerful Earl of Sunderland, chief minister of James II, for her fortune of £20,000, Lady Wiseman was forced.to take refuge in the country, and keep out of his way, lest any meeting should give substance to his claims, or, even worse, his threats of claiming his o w n should materialise as rape. As Chan points out, the sequence of letters and evidences which were collected in anticipation of a law case takes us into the territory of the epistolary novel 212 Reviews of the eighteenth century. Elizabeth escapes Spencer, w h o becomes increasingly repugnant to her, by her o w n prudence, spirit, and determination, and the strong support of some of her family, especially three of her brothers. The story has its o w n fascination, which readers will enjoy. Of special interest to historians is therichdocumentation ofa familiar tale ofmarriage negotiations which went wrong. Although the participants are aristocratic, the story was a c o m m o n one, the product in part of the legal uncertainty around promises of marriage during the Early Modern period. According to canon law, which the secular courts would uphold, a verbal promise of marriage in the present tense was a binding marriage. Even if no sexual union took place, the couple was deemed to be married in the eyes ofGod and the world; neither was free to marry anyone else. This was where Spencer gained his power, as he had witnesses to swear that Elizabeth had made a verbal promise; as one said, even if he had not heard her vow, 'yet he saw her lips goe' (p. 100). Although the case never came to court, much of the verbal sparring turned upon words both spoken and written. Women's words were unreliable, it was said, hence although Elizabeth protested that she had never entertained his suit, Spencer was the more credible, first because he was a man, whereas Elizabeth was a w o m a n and therefore fickle, and secondly because Elizabeth's eldest brother and witnesses supported him. Over the three years of the dispute, the meaning of the case was canvassed through gossip and rumour: the Spencers tried to p u m p the neighbours in the country to find out where Elizabeth had taken refuge; Elizabeth's allies reported the views of Spencer's grandmother. All the while Elizabeth's younger brothers tried to get the meaning of the courtship story fixed in writing, as one of a suitor rejected. The story gives a chilling insight into...