The Legacy and Rhetorics of Maternal Zeal

Abstract

Lady Anne Halkett, author of this passage, lost her four-year old daughter to smallpox in 1660 and a son to a lingering disease one year later. The loss of all but one of her children was intensified by death of her husband, Sir James Halkett, on 24 September 1670. Meditating on her circumstances, newly widowed Halkett gains strength from reminding herself of the only and cheife thing that tyes [her] to world: despite her overwhelming grief, she knows her primary duty in life is to continue to care for her one surviving child, Robert, instructing him in ways of Church of England.2 Halkett s text is a mother s legacy, a genre that offers religious advice from a dying mother to her children as its primary purpose.3 These texts are shot through with a complex set of claims that are grounded in maternal body; legacy writers assert a vital, corporeal link with their children, which is unique result of having conceived, carried, and borne them. This bodily connection creates a naturalized bond between mother and child that authorizes composition: obligation a mother has to nurture her child's physical body begins in pregnancy and carries over into youth.4 Yet bodily authority has its limits. A dy ing mother?the rhetorical persona behind legacy?writes on verge of physical dissolution that spells loss of bond she shares with her infant. After all, how can a dead mother provide day-to-day care for her children? In response to this dilemma, legacy writers shift their claims away from their bodily substrate. They espouse an anti-worldly position, encouraging their children to reject lure of