I was condemned to be beheaded, or burnt, as the king pleased; and he was graciously pleased, from the great remains of his love, to choose the mildest sentence.

Even when Lady Gould died in 1733 there was little money for the children. Sarah's mother Sarah Gould was the daughter of Sir Henry Gould a judge on the King's Bench who had been reappointed to the Queen's Bench and Sarah Davidge Gould. Henry was sent to Eton but all of the daughters were sent to Mary Rookes's boarding school in Salisbury.

She was the author of The Governess or The Little Female Academy (1749) which was the first novel in English written especially for children (children's literature) and had earlier achieved success with her novel The Adventures of David Simple (1744).