Mary Dering

Mary, Lady Dering (née Mary Harvey), (bap. 3 September 1629 – 7 February 1704) was an English composer. The daughter of Daniel Harvey and Elizabeth Kynnersley, Mary Harvey was baptised in Croydon on 3 September 1629, and therefore probably born within a day or two of that. Daniel Harvey was a wealthy London merchant and member of the Levant Company, his eldest brother being the anatomist William Harvey. Mary Harvey was sent to Mrs Salmon's school in Hackney, where her friends included Mary Aubrey (later her sister-in-law, and niece of John Aubrey) and Katherine Philips (the Matchless Orinda). In 1645, she married her cousin and father's former apprentice, William Hauke; this was without her father's consent, and it was quickly annulled. The man her father arranged for her to marry, and whom she did on 5 April 1648, was Sir Edward Dering. The marriage turned out well; the couple produced seventeen children (seven of whom died young), as well as poems and music. Despite bearing so many children, Dering outlived her husband by twenty years, dying in February 1704 (1705 New Style); she also outlived her eldest son Sir Edward Dering, 3rd Baronet. Dering studied music with Henry Lawes. Lawes dedicated his Second book of airs to her, declaring that