Catharine Macaulay

Overview

Catharine Macaulay was an influential English historian and political writer, known for being the first major female historian in England. She gained prominence for her 8-volume The History of England and her pro-democratic views, which resonated with many in the American Colonies. Despite facing harsh criticism for her unconventional views and personal life, Macaulay inspired future feminist thinkers, including Mary Wollstonecraft.

Personal Facts

• Also Known As: Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham.
• Nickname: The Historian in Petticoats.
• Born: March 23, 1731, in Kent, England.
• Spouse: George Macaulay (1760), William Graham (1778).
• Died: June 22, 1791, in Berkshire, England. 60 years old.
• Significance: Catharine Macauley is important to American History due to her support for the American Revolution and correspondence with Mercy Otis Warren and Abigail Adams. She is also recognized as the first female historian from England.

Key Details

• Catharine Macaulay is known as the first major female historian in England.
• Macaulay wrote The History of England from the Accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line, which consists of eight volumes.
• She was an advocate for pro-democratic views and social reforms.
• Macaulay visited America and spent time with George Washington and Martha Washington at Mount Vernon.

Biography

Early Life and Education

• Catharine Sawbridge was born on March 23, 1731, in Kent, England.
• She was born into a prominent Whig family.
• Her father was John Sawbridge, and her mother was Elizabeth Wanley.
• Her mother was an heiress from a London banking family.
• Her father allowed her to pursue her own interests, including her education.

Controversy

Sawbridge studied intellectual topics and developed political views that were unusual for a woman in the 18th Century, becoming a vocal advocate for the lower classes of English society.

• She became a controversial figure in England when she married Scottish physician Dr. George Macaulay, who was 15 years her senior, shortly before her 30th birthday. Macaulay died in 1766.
• She was supported by her brother John Sawbridge, who was Lord Mayor of London and a member of Parliament.

She called for ending the peerage, equality between women and men, prison reform, limits on aristocratic wealth, and increasing individual rights and freedom. At the time, these were liberal views in Europe, and they made her many enemies in England who were eager to attack her ideas and works.

AHC Notes

• Peerage — The English system of hereditary titles, including Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount, and Baron. Within the system, people holding these titles are known as “peers.”

The History of England

Macaulay published the first volume of The History of England from the Accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line in 1763, which eventually consisted of eight volumes.

• Macaulay expressed pro-democratic views influenced by her love of Roman and Greek history.
• She argued that corrupt royal power had deprived the English people of their representative rights.
• Macaulay criticized Enlightenment figures like Thomas Hobbes and Edmund Burke.
• She attacked Hobbes in the 1767 work Loose Remarks on Certain Positions to be Found in Mr. Hobbes’s Philosophical Rudiments of Government and Society.

AHC Notes

• Edmund Burke (1729–1797) — Burke was a British politician who supported the Patriot Cause but sought to maintain the British Empire. He gained prominence through his political roles and influential writings and coined the phrase “wise and salutary neglect” in 1775.

Praise from John Adams

Macaulay’s works were known in the American colonies.

• John Adams agreed with her view that English liberty was corrupted by royal power.
• Adams praised her as “one of the brightest ornaments not only of her Sex but of her Age and Country.”

In 1775, she published An Address to the People of England, Scotland and Ireland on the Present Important Crisis of Affairs, and predicted American Independence.

• Macaulay warned of the potential harm to England in a war with the American colonists.
• She suggested that people in England could face enslavement in their own country.
  Macaulay predicted that England would be weakened globally.
• She said, “If a civil war commences between Great Britain and her Colonies, either the Mother Country, by one great exertion, may ruin both herself and America, or the Americans, by a lingering contest, will gain an independency.”

Controversy Over Thomas Wilson

• In 1775, she traveled to Bath, England, for therapeutic treatment of an illness.
• She moved into the home of Reverend Dr. Thomas Wilson, rector of St. Stephen’s Church in London, which caused a scandal.
• He erected a life-size statue of her in his church, symbolizing her as the muse of history.
• Parishioners were offended, forcing Wilson to reluctantly remove the statue.

Time in France

• Macaulay traveled to France in 1777 and met Benjamin Franklin while in Paris, where he was negotiating the Franco-American Alliance.
• She worried about being accused of working with the enemy due to her French connections.
• Macaulay believed France would take advantage of the situation to harm England and form an alliance with America.
• She remained firm in her belief that a war in America would have negative consequences for England.

AHC Note

• Macaulay wrote a letter to Franklin on December 8, 1777, in which she said, “I am sure Sir that you and every generous American would be exceedingly concerned to hear that my feeble constitution was totaly destroyed by a long imprisonment and to see me fall a sacrifice to the resentment of administration unpitied and unlamented as an impertinent individual who would needs make a bustle where she could not be of the smallest service and especially Sir as I hope the whole tenor of my conduct must have convinced you that I would with pleasure sacrifice my life to be of any real use to the public cause of freedom and that I am now nursing my constitution to enable me to treat largely on our fatal civil wars in the History I am now about.”
• She was still in France when she wrote the letter.

Ongoing Criticism

Macaulay faced harsh criticism in England, particularly for her appearance and manners.

• Critics mocked her elaborate dress, heavy makeup, and plain looks.
• Journalist John Wilkes sarcastically described her as “Painted up to the eyes” and “looking rotten as an old Catherine Pear.”

AHC Notes

• John Wilkes (1725–1797) — Wilkes was an English politician and writer whose disputes with Parliament over free speech and government corruption won widespread support in the American colonies. His repeated exclusion from Parliament, the popularity of slogans such as ‘Wilkes and Liberty,’ and the symbolic use of the number ‘45’ helped colonists link his struggle to their own defense of rights. His later support for American independence strengthened his influence on colonial political thought.

Controversial Marriage to William Graham

In 1778, Macaulay married William Graham, a 21-year-old Edinburgh surgeon’s mate, whose brother was considered to be a fraud.

• Her peers in England considered the marriage a social mistake, leading to her being shunned.
• Horace Walpole said, “Dame Thucydides has made an uncouth match.”
• Her book sales declined after the marriage.

British feminist Hannah More criticized Macaulay, fearing her actions might harm the women’s movement. She described Macaulay as “absurd, vain, and affected” and remarked that she was “not feminine either in her writings or her manners” but rather “a clever man.”

• Reverend Wilson even threatened her, claiming he could publish her letters that would damage her reputation.
• Her credibility as a historian was criticized by others.
• Isaac Disraeli, the father of Benjamin Disraeli, accused her of destroying papers at the British Museum that contradicted her views and claimed that she distorted facts in her writings.

AHC Notes

• Isaac Disraeli (1766–1848) — Disraeli was a British author and scholar who wrote the five-volume Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles the First, King of England.
• Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) — Disraeli was a conservative politician and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Visit to the United States

In 1784, Macaulay traveled to the United States with her husband. They visited George Washington and Martha Washington at Mount Vernon.

• Macaulay discussed the democratic foundations of the new nation with Washington.
• Despite her visit, she remained unpopular with many Americans.
• She faced criticism regarding her ideas and her appearance.
• Despite the negative rumors, she still had followers who appreciated her books and recognized her analytical thinking abilities.

Final Works and Legacy

• Macaulay published Letters on Education; with Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects in 1790.
• She printed Observations on the Reflections of … Edmund Burke in 1791.
• Macaulay died on June 22, 1791.

She left a legacy that inspired other women writers, such as Mercy Otis Warren.

• Warren followed Macaulay’s example by writing a political pamphlet and a history of the American Revolution.
• Mary Wollstonecraft eulogized Macaulay in her 1792 work Vindication of the Rights of Women, calling her “the woman of the greatest abilities, undoubtedly, that this country has ever produced.”

AHC Notes

• Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814) — Warren was the sister of James Otis, and became an influential poet, playwright, and historian of the American Revolution who used her writing to critique British policy and comment on political events. Through works such as The Adulateur (1773), The Group (1775), and her 3-volume History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution (1805), she offered republican viewpoints and insider perspectives shaped by her ties to key Patriot leaders. Her commentary sparked disputes, including a notable rift with John Adams, but her literary legacy remains significant. Her husband was James Warren, who was involved in the Patriot Cause in Massachusetts.
• Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) — Wollstonecraft was an English writer who is best known for her support of women’s rights. Her daughter, Mary Shelley, wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).