Anne Finch Research Paper

Conway was born as Anne Finch in London, on the 14th of December 1631, into a politically influential family. She was the youngest child of Elizabeth Bennett and Sir Heneage Finch, a former House of Commons speaker, who died before Conway was born. Both her parents had previous marriages, and therefore Conway had a number of half siblings, including her beloved older brother John Finch. Her childhood was spent at what is today known as Kensington Palace, in London. From an early age, Conway suffered from extremely painful headaches, which were to continue for the rest of her life. She became well known for her patient bearing of the illness and for seeking cures from leading physicians and natural philosophers of her time. This included a failed …show more content…
There is little information regarding Conway’s early education, although some scholars suggest that her brother John Finch may have tutored her. Later in life she learned Latin and Greek, and also Hebrew, in order to be able to read the Jewish mystic works of the Kabbalah. We can glean from extant correspondence with her father-in-law Lord Conway that by the time she engaged in philosophical correspondence with Henry More in 1650, she was already widely read and interested in philosophy. It is most likely through her brother John that More and Conway came into contact. Finch was a student of Henry More at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he took his MA in 1649. Sometime prior to Finch’s departure for Italy in 1651, Conway commenced a correspondence course in philosophy with More, who initially tutored her in Cartesian philosophy, challenging his bright pupil not with the Meditations, but with Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy, his extensive Latin treatise in natural …show more content…
Conway herself contracted the illness and was somewhat disfigured, but survived. Due to her painful headaches, Conway preferred to pursue her philosophical interests at home and to remain in seclusion at Ragley. She also benefited from one of the largest private libraries in England, with more than 11,000 volumes, collected by her father-in-law the second Viscount Conway (Lord Conway). Her husband Edward does not seem to have had a university education, but Lord Conway was an erudite man and virtuoso, encouraging Conway in her pursuit of philosophy and purchasing books for her. The marriage seems to have been a happy one, with both Edward and Lord Conway showing concern for Conway’s health and education. The natural philosophy of Conway is often compared to that of Cavendish, but the two women could not have been more different. Whereas Cavendish courted public attention and fame, Conway preferred to pursue philosophy in the seclusion of her home. Whereas Conway suffered from excruciating headaches all her life, which she bore patiently and without complaint, often in seclusion, Cavendish dressed extravagantly and wrote popular witty poems and

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