Meditations

Language: English

Context and purpose

National Library of Scotland MS 6501 is the thirteenth of fourteen extant manuscripts of religious meditations written by Anne, Lady Halkett. For a discussion of all of the surviving manuscripts plus the lost volumes, see the Context and Purpose article in NLS MS 6489.

This manuscript consists of select or biblical meditations and occasional meditations. The first meditation critiques Roman Catholicism (pp.vii-34, msItem 5). Though Halkett calls it a select meditation it does not seem to focus on one main biblical text, but instead on the ""Collect in the Liturgy"". Its topics include the royal family and Presbyterianism. This meditation is followed by twelve select meditations on: Exodus 3:14, John 6:35, John 8:12, John 10:7, John 10:11, John 11:25, John 14:6, John 15:1, Deuteronomy 8:2, Romans 13:8, Isaiah 41:31, and the Book of Esther (pp.35-200, msItems 6-17). Occasional meditations begin on p.201 and continue to the end of the volume, but those written on pp.265-373 were written before those on pp.201-264 (see next paragraph). The occasional meditations discuss many personal and political incidents, including the story of a woman who became a Quaker, Halkett's ministers' troubles with the Presbyterians, Halkett's being accused of being a witch, illnesses, and the execution of an atheist.

Halkett did not compile these meditations sequentially. In the table of contents (see also msItem 14) Halkett explains that she began writing her select meditations on Thursday the 21 of May 1696 on the recto of p.1 and her occasional meditations on 25 May 1696 on p.267 (really p.265). She completed her first section of occasional meditations on p.373 on 11 January 1697. She began writing occasional meditations again on p.201 on 1 April 1697, completing them on p.264 on 24 July 1697. Halkett did not complete her select meditations until 6 September 1697 (p.200). Prefatory material in the volume was bound in later. The table of contents was written onto a conjugate bifolium (pp.i-iv, msItem 2). One scrap of paper (p.v) notes the order of composition of the occasional meditations. Another scrap (p.vi) is an extract from a sermon by Joseph Hall. The first meditation begins on p.vii, the recto of p. 1. One leaf has been torn out of this volume (the leaf following p.255). The table of contents indicates that the missing first leaf of the meditation was written about Halkett's stepson Sir Charles Halkett, with whom she was known to disagree: perhaps Halkett or another family member decided that the meditation was too inflammatory.