Dorothy Dury

Dorothy Durie or Dorothy Dury (1613–1664), born Dorothy King, first married name Dorothy Moore (c.1618–1645), was an Anglo-Irish writer on education. She had a talent for languages and she was interested in the education of women, in alchemy and in the study of medicine.

Dorothy Durie
Born	Dorothy King 1613 Dublin
Died	1664 London
Occupation	writer
Nationality	Irish
Subject	education

Life

Durie was born in Dublin in about 1613.^[1] Her father was Sir John King (died 1637) of Boyle, County Roscommon, Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper and a member of the Irish House of Commons, and her mother was Catherine Drury (died 1617), daughter of Robert Drury of Laughlin and Elizabeth Carew, and grand-niece of Sir William Drury, Lord President of Munster. She had eight siblings, including Sir Robert King of Boyle Abbey and the poet Edward King, whose early death inspired John Milton to write the poem "Lycidas".

Her English father was based mainly in Dublin but he had been granted lands by the Crown in Ireland under dubious circumstances: by the time of his death he held land in twenty-one counties in all. He sat in the Irish House of Commons as MP for Roscommon, and held numerous public offices.^[2]

Durie was interested in education, although she considered her own education to have been frivolous. Despite this she could read both Latin and Greek and she was fluent in French: she and her two sisters, Lady Lowther and Lady Charlemont, were considered to be among the best-educated women in Ireland of their generation. When she visited France it was said that she was the first educated woman there since Lady Jane Grey.^[1]

Around 1618 she married Arthur Moore, fifth son of Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore and Mary Colley, who owned 1000 acres in Ireland and was known to enjoy his drink. They had two sons, Charles and John.^[3] He died on 9 April 1635 and Durie moved to London where she stayed with Katherine Boate and her husband Gerard Boate, physician and author of A Natural History of Ireland.^[1] She had some lands in Ireland but most of them seem to have been lost, and she would eventually sell some of her remaining land in Ireland to Katherine Boate.

In August 1642 she moved to the Netherlands in order that she could renew her friendship with Calvinist divine John Dury (who was a friend of John Milton). She had consulted him about the education of her sons, and she and Dury began a correspondence. In March 1642 he had taken up a job in The Hague as the child Princess Mary Stuart's chaplain. Dorothy followed him as he toured the Netherlands. She had to scotch rumours of a secret marriage between them,^[1] although one source says she was the Princess's governess.^[4]

She married John Dury^[5] in 1645 and they returned to England. Their daughter, Dora Katherina Dury (1654–77),^[1] later became the second wife of Henry Oldenburg, also a younger member of the same Hartlib Circle in which John himself was so prominent, and the first secretary of the Royal Society.^[6]

She exchanged letters with the theologian André Rivet concerning the role of women in religion and she corresponded with Lady Ranelagh, with whom she discussed both the education of girls and love in marriage.^[1]

They both took an interest in alchemy^[7] and later she dabbled in pharmacy, either because she was short of money or out of interest in selling medicines.^[1]

Durie died in London in 1664 while her husband was abroad.^[1]

Of her sons, Charles died without issue. John married Elizabeth Honeywood, daughter of Sir Robert Honywood of Charing in Kent and Frances Vane, daughter of Sir Henry Vane the Elder, and founded an enduring branch of the Moore family based at Drumbanagher House in County Armagh. He died in 1680.^[8]

References

1. "Durie [née King], Dorothy (c. 1613–1664), writer on education | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/55437. Retrieved 18 March 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. Goodwin, Gordon (2004). "King, Sir John (d. 1637), politician and landowner | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". In Clavin, Terry (ed.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15569. Retrieved 18 March 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. Collins, Arthur Peerage of England London 1812 Vol.9 p.16
4. Dijk, Suzanna van (2004). I Have Heard about You: Foreign Women's Writing Crossing the Dutch Border : from Sappho to Selma Lagerlöf. Uitgeverij Verloren. ISBN 978-90-6550-752-5.
5. Campbell, Gordon; Corns, Thomas N. (23 October 2008). John Milton: Life, Work, and Thought. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-162298-4.
6. If the dates of birth and death of Dora's short life (23 years) are correct, John Dury married his daughter to Henry Oldenburg probably after Dorothy herself was already dead, at a quite young age. Dora would have been only 10 years old when her mother died. If John went ahead with the marriage plans when Dora was 14 or 15 years old, probably the youngest age at which a young woman could get married at the time, then the wedding would have occurred around 1667 at the earliest. If so, Henry Oldenburg would have been around 48 years old, and John Dury would have been around 71 years old at the time of the wedding. Both Henry and Dora died only 10 years later, in 1677.
7. William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe (2002), Alchemy Tried in the Fire, p. 244.
8. Collins p.16