Mary Monck

Life

She was the second daughter of the 17 children of Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth, and Letitia Coote, third daughter of Richard, Lord Coloony, and sister of Richard, Earl of Bellamont. There are no records of her early life, but it is believed that she was self-educated and used the family's extensive library to learn Latin, Italian, and Spanish.

She became the first wife of George Monck of St Stephen's Green, Dublin. The couple appear to have struggled financially, with Monck asking her father for assistance at times, as well as issues with her husband's mental instability. Her father wrote on 16 July 1712: "We are bleeding, physicing and dieting George Monk. He is now very sober, but by fits starts out and then ‘tis always quarrelsome and withal dangerous." The couple separated for a time, as her sister records that she was living with her children in lodgings in 1714.

Monck had two daughters (the eldest, Sarah Monck, died in 1739) and one son, Henry Stanley Monck of St Stephen's Green, who died in 1745.

Monck died at Bath in 1715 of consumption.

Works

Some poems were published posthumously by her father shortly after her death under the title of Marinda. Poems and Translations upon several occasions, London, 1716, 8vo. The volume was dedicated to the princess of Wales, later Queen Caroline. Also included were poems from friends addressing Monck as Marinda, praising her translation skills and place in the "literary coterie". The volume contained her translations of Della Casa, Guarini, Petrarch, Quevedo and Tasso, along with her own poems, epigrams, songs, and odes, may of which were satirical. Her father wrote that he found "most of them in her Scrittore after her Death, written with her own Hand, little expecting, and as little desiring the Publick shou'd have any Opportunity either of Applauding or Condemning them."

On her deathbed she wrote some very affecting verses to her husband, which are not included in her works, but which were printed in George Colman and Bonnell Thornton's anthology Poems by Eminent Ladies. The Verses written on her death-bed at Bath to her husband at London are her most famous work and express her love for her husband and the relief she was feeling to escape the long and painful illness she was suffering from.

References

References

1. Webb, Alfred. (1878). "A Compendium of Irish Biograph: Comprising Sketches of Distinguished Irishmen, Eminent Persons Connected with Ireland by Office or by Their Writings". M.H. Gill & Son.
2. Clarke, Frances. (2009). "Monck (Monk, Molesworth), Mary".
3. "Mary Molesworth".
4. Monk [sic], Mary. (1755). "Poems by Eminent Ladies: Particularly: Mrs. Barber, Mrs. Behn, Miss Carter, Lady Chudleigh, Mrs. Cockburn, Mrs. Grierson, Mrs. Jones etc". R. Baldwin.
5. "CELM: Mary Monck".