The first published English romance by a woman was The Countess of Montgomery's Urania, 1621, by Lady Mary Wroth. Over the last twenty years this work has justly received an increasing amount of critical attention. Understandably, much of this discussion has explored the relation of the Urania to the Arcadia of Wroth's uncle, Sir Philip Sidney, as mentioned above at pp. 108–9. Gradually, however, we are beginning to appreciate more fully Wroth's deep immersion in, and creative use of, a wide range of romance sources, an appreciation significantly fostered by the late Josephine Roberts's illuminating introduction to her magnificent edition of the 1621 Urania. This chapter aims to use the romances I have already discussed as contexts for an exploration of how the relations between women and romance are developed by the Urania; and to convey something of the work's distinctive qualities.

WROTH AND THE TRADITION OF ROMANCE

As is by now widely known, the Urania is a roman à clef in which many of the characters shadow Wroth herself and members of her circle. In particular, the central love story, between Pamphilia and Amphilanthus, reflects upon Wroth's own adulterous relationship with her cousin, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. One inset narrative provoked the ire of Edward Denny, Baron of Waltham, by exposing a scandal in his family. Wroth disowned ‘the strang constructions which are made of my booke’, but they provide detective puzzles for the modern scholar which are intriguing but by no means unsolvable, and must have been readily discernible by many of her contemporaries.