Martha Moulsworth (née Dorset; later Prynne, Thorowgood) (1577–1646) was the author of an unusual autobiographical poem written on her fifty-fifth birthday in 1632. The poem is one of the first examples of autobiographical poetry by a woman written in English, and is significant for its expression of protofeminism. Moulsworth takes pride in her early education but laments that her learning did not—indeed, could not—continue in a university since the only two universities in England during her lifetime did not allow women students. She expresses confidence that if women were allowed to compete with men at the university level, they would in fact surpass the achievements attained by any men at any time and in any place. But despite the fact that Moulsworth was denied the chance to attain her full intellectual potential, she nonetheless spends most of her poem celebrating her three different husbands, who all predeceased her. Her poem, then, is an important document relevant to the lives of early modern wives and widows, just as it is additionally significant for its celebration of the autonomy a woman could in fact attain both during marriage and afterwards. By the end of the poem, which consists of fifty-five skillfully designed couplets for each of Moulsworth’s fifty-five years, Moulsworth finally decides that she is content to remain a widow rather than risking a fourth marriage. She concludes that she is unlikely to find a new husband as good as, let alone better than, the three she has already “enjoied.”