I

When the then Margaret Lucas arrived in Paris in November of 1644, she was a quiet but observant maid of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria. Margaret met and not long afterwards married William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle, a widower and a Royalist grandee who had been on the losing side at the Battle of Marston Moor. In her autobiography and in her drama, Margaret tells her readers that she was beset with bashfulness in Henrietta Maria’s court, and it is probably true that during her early days in Paris she tended to watch and listen in silence. Nevertheless, and contrary to much of what has been written about her, Margaret was not paralyzed by fear into insensibility while at court. Her letters to her future husband show her sharing shrewd and even harsh observations of court politics. Furthermore, the strong relationship that developed between the two provided a foundation for her daring marriage to her socially prominent wooer, a marriage that contravened the wishes of her royal mistress. If Margaret was quiet in large aristocratic gatherings in Paris, she was not overawed by those in power.

This chapter will provide evidence for the assertion made by Timothy Raylor that Cavendish did not endure a harmful exile on the Continent during the Interregnum, and it will establish instead that she benefited from participation in a rich intellectual and cultural environment in Antwerp. To this end, the chapter will concentrate on connections between the visual arts and architecture of the Low Countries and what is found in Cavendish’s fiction published in Natures Pictures (1656). The chapter will conclude with a consideration of the restricted cultural environment available to Cavendish when she returned to England and took up residence in the north after the Restoration.