poem, which does not contain the Petrarchan break between octave and sestet. In using this form consistently, the author sets him/herself apart from other early English sonnet writers, who generally ascribed to the traditional Petrarchan octave/sestet pair. Authorship Authorship of the sonnet sequence and the translations of Calvin's sermons was first ascribed to Locke by critic Thomas Roche in 1989, in Petrarch and the English Sonnet Sequences. Roche is thus also the first scholar to name her as the author of the first sonnet sequence in English. Recent work by Stephen W. May, an authority on Tudor manuscripts, attributes the sequence to Locke's close contemporary, neighbor, and co-religionist Thomas Norton, however. Though the volume's dedication to the Duchess of Suffolk is only signed "A.L.", it is likely that Locke's identity remained identifiable to London's community of English Church reformers, many of whom, like Locke, lived in exile in Geneva during the reign of Mary I. The inclusion of her initials, rather than her full name, allowed her to avoid both perils that plagued female writers during the period – anonymity and full exposure – who were branded as unchaste if their material was accessible to the broader public. The choice of psalm to translate and gloss arguably favours the case for her authorship of the sequence, and helps her negotiate sixteenth-century England's condemnation of a woman writer as unchaste. Psalm 51 specifies that the experience of God's forgiveness includes speaking God's praise, framing speech as a duty. Some of those who dispute Locke's authorship of the sequence ascribe its authorship to John Knox. When Knox communicated with Locke, however, he wrote in Scots English and would have composed poems in the same dialect; the Meditation sonnets show no grammatical or idiomatic sign of Scots English. According to Stephen May, a much more likely candidate for authorship of the sequence is Thomas Norton. Editions Kel Morin-Parsons (editor) (1997), Anne Locke. A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner: Anne Locke's Sonnet Sequence with Locke's Epistle Susan Felch (editor) (1999), The Collected Works of Anne Vaughan Lock Family connections Anne's family background was a dense web of relationships involving the Mercers' Company, the court, Marian exiles and notable religious figures. Her father, Stephen Vaughan, was a merchant and diplomatic agent for Henry VIII. Her mother Margaret or Margery was firstly the wife of Edward Awpart, citizen and Girdler of London in the parish of