Brilliant Brilliana!

Brilliana Harley (1598-1643) was born in 1598 at the seaport of Brill (after which she was named), near Rotterdam, daughter of Edward Conway and Dorothy Tracy Conway.

Among her ancestors were royalty, including William I and Henry II. Her father, Sir Edward Conway (later Viscount Conway), was the Governor of Brill at the time of her birth, hence her unique name. Brill was one of three so-called ‘Cautionary Towns’, key seaports in the Dutch Republic that had been garrisoned by English troops from 1585 onwards when the English aided the Dutch in their fight against the domination of the Spanish in what is known as the Eighty Years War or the Dutch Revolt (1566/1568–1648). They were governed as English colonies – hence the role of Brilliana’s father as the Governor of Brielle – and were eventually returned to the Dutch Republic in 1616.

There is much that we do not know about Brilliana’s early years, but her education included French and Latin. Later in life, she tutored her sons in Latin when she felt that the local schoolmaster was unreliable. She acknowledged that she was actually more at home reading French than English.