Her religious education was extensive, and she read the Bible, said daily prayers and regularly attended church.

[5] In 1639 Dr Robert Johnstone, a friend of the jeweller George Heriot, bequeathed her a diamond ring.

Halkett's emotions were caught between the economic difficulties the marriage would result in, and the pain and loss of credibility that Howard would suffer if she did not marry him.

Halkett disguised him as a woman to effect his escape[5] to continental Europe, commenting in her autobiography that he "was very pretty in it."

On her return to Edinburgh she stayed with the Sophia Lindsay, the pregnant wife of Sir Robert Moray in Lord Tweeddale's house in the Canongate.

[5] They were married in 1656 at Charlton House, the service was conducted in Henry Newton's closet by Mr Robert Gale, the chaplain of Christian Cavendish, Countess of Devonshire.

[16] When he died she was left with insufficient funds to support her family, and made her living by teaching children of nobility[5] in her home.

Her financial difficulties eased when James II provided her with a pension for her services to him during the English Civil War.

[2] For Halkett, writing about what she had read, her dreams, and her hopes for her children were a part of her daily domestic devotions as well as for pleasure.