I WAS fascinated to read about the Oxford Archaeological Society’s discovery of the Lady of St Cross (the remains of a young woman from the Civil War period buried in unconsecrated ground near Pusey Street).

It immediately made me think of a poem by Hester Pulter, a 17th century writer, whose manuscript notebook is in the Brotherton Library at Leeds University.

Entitled Of a Young Lady at Oxford 1646, the poem describes the suicide of a “Gallant Las”, who, in despair because her beloved was killed for his good king in this “Grand rebellion”, shot herself in the chest.

The relevant lines explain that: “Taking Pistol in her snowy Hand, she placed its sulpherus mouth at her generous Heart, rolling her sparking dying eyes to Heaven as her spirit flew from her undaunted Breast”.

Pulter wrote other verses based on topical news (one notable instance concerns the loss of Sir William Avenant’s nose to an embarrassing infection), so it is likely that this poem has some basis in an historical event.

As a suicide, such a young woman would be denied burial in consecrated ground.

I wonder, then, whether these circumstances warrant consideration alongside current theories that the Lady of St Cross died from typhus or the plague.

A full transcription of Pulter’s poem can be found in Alice Eardley’s edition of the writer’s works, Poems, Emblems, and the Unfortunate Florinda (Toronto, 2014).

Professor KAREN BRITLAND
English Dept
University of Wisconsin-Madison
United States