Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/285

This page has been validated.
OF CELEBRATED WOMEN.
271

CLEMENT, (MARGARET) born 1508,

Niece to Sir Thomas More, in whose house she was brought up, and carefully educated with his daughter in the learned languages, and almost all the liberal sciences, in which she seems to have made a great progress. She corresponded with the celebrated Erasmus, who commends her epistles for their good sense and chaste Latin. Mr. Thomas More, who wrote the life of his great grandfather Sir Thomas, makes honourable mention of her, and styles her a learned woman.

About the year 1531, she was married to her tutor, Dr. John Clements. They had one daughter, named Winifred, on whose education she bestowed the same care as was taken of her own. Mr. Anthony Wood styles her an ingenious and learned woman, and says, she was married to Mr. William Rastall (nephew to Sir Thomas More) a celebrated writer, and the most eminent lawyer of his time.

Female Worthies.


CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt, Mistress of Marc Antony. Died B. C. 30; aged 39;

Daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, who, dying in the year 51 B. C. bequeathed his crown to his eldest son and daughter, ordering them to be married according to the usage of their family, and jointly govern the kingdom. They were both very young, Cleopatra the eldest, not being above seventeen; and therefore he committed them to the tuition of the Roman senate. They could not agree, either to be married, or to reign together. Ptolemy, the brother, deprived Cleopatra of that share in the government left her by her father's will, and drove

her