Elizabeth Cellier Great Missenden Church, Buckinghamshire. She wrote: Mrs. Cellier is an important character in Alison Macleod's historical novel "The Portingale", a biography of Queen Catherine of Braganza. Elizabeth Cellier Elizabeth Cellier (commonly known as Mrs. Cellier and dubbed the "Popish Midwife"), flourished 1668–1688, London, England, was a notable Catholic midwife in seventeenth-century England. She stood trial for treason in 1679 for her alleged part in the "Meal-Tub Plot" against the future James II but was acquitted. She later became a pamphleteer and made attempts to advance the field of midwifery. Elizabeth Cellier was a noted London midwife, who came into prominence
17th-century French literature aspects of the phenomenon associated with the "précieuses" (similar to Euphuism in England, Gongorism in Spain and Marinism in Italy)—the use of highly metaphorical (sometimes obscure) language, the purification of socially unacceptable vocabulary—was tied to this poetic salon spirit and would have an enormous impact on French poetic and courtly language. Although "préciosité" was often mocked (especially in the late 1660s, when the phenomenon had spread to the provinces) for its linguistic and romantic excesses (often linked to a misogynistic disdain for intellectual women), the French language and social manners of the 17th century were permanently changed by it. From