Welsh Journals

CATHERINE MACAULAY AND THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY* 'One hand a roll of ancient records grac'd, The other arm sweet Liberty embrac'd; And on her bosom Alfred hung-the Great, Who plung'd Corruption headlong from her seat'. Anon., Six Odes Presented to that justly-celebrated Historian Mrs. Catherine Macaulay on her Birthday (n.d., 1777?), pp. 42-43. I CATHERINE MACAULAY, famous in her own day as the authoress of an eight-volume History of England from the Accession of James I to the Elevation of the House of Hanover, and as a political radical, is, one suspects, never read these days. Yet, quite apart from her interest to historians of feminism, there is much in her work worthy of attention. The history of the formation and destruction of myths about the seventeenth-century English Revolution, and especially of Whig and radical myths, has still to be written; but when it is written, Mrs. Macaulay will be found to play an important part in it. It is the object of this article to attempt to revive a little interest in Catherine Macaulay and her History. She was born on 2 April 1731, and died sixty years later. Her grandfather was Jacob Sawbridge, banker and director of the South Sea Company. When the South Sea Bubble burst, the House of Commons disabled him from holding office and expelled him from the House for 'notorious breach of trust'. His assets were estimated at £ 77,254 Is. 8d., out of which he was allowed £ 5,000 for his future support.1 He survived until 1748. Meanwhile the family fortunes were retrieved by his eldest son, John Sawbridge ofOlantigh, Wye, Kent, who married the daughter and heiress of George Walmsley, another London banker. John Sawbridge had two sons and two daughters, of whom Catherine was the youngest. Of these, John (17327-95) followed in his father's footsteps byjnarrying a lady We are greatly indebted to Professor David Williams for advice and encouragement at an early stage of the research on which this article is based. 1 For Catherine Macaulay's defence of her grandfather's reputation, see The History of England from the Revolution to the Present Time. In a Series of Letters to a Friend (Dr. Wilson). Vol. I (all published), 1778, 306-7. A less flattering picture appears in J. Carswell's The South Sea Bubble (1960); bribery and fraudulent bankruptcy are here attributed to Jacob Sawbridge (pp. 117, 185, 227, 283).