Introduction
Margaret, Lady Hoby (née Dakins), whose three successive husbands included brothers of Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, and of Sir Philip Sidney, is known for a single extant diary, covering six years during the time of her third marriage, to Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby. It is, as commentators have noted, perhaps the earliest known diary by an Englishwoman and throws notable light on the strictly disciplined domestic life of a deeply pious Puritan aristocrat of the period.
Peter Beal