Book Read Free

The Weaker Vessel: Women's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England

Page 1

by Antonia Fraser




  The Weaker Vessel

  Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-century England

  ANTONIA FRASER

  PHOENIX

  PRESS

  5 UPPER SAINT MARTIN’S LANE

  LONDON

  WC2H 9EA

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Contents

  Dedication

  By Antonia Fraser

  About the Author

  List of Illustrations

  Author’s Note

  Chronology of Important Events 1603–1702

  Prologue: How Weak?

  PART ONE: As It Was – This Blessed Knot

  1 A Wife Sought for Wealth

  2 Affection Is False

  3 Crown to her Husband

  4 The Pain and the Peril

  5 Are You Widows?

  6 Poor and Atrabilious

  7 Unlearned Virgins

  8 Living under Obedience

  PART TWO: With the War – Stronger Grown

  9 Courage above her Sex

  10 His Comrade

  11 A Soliciting Temper

  12 Sharing in the Commonwealth

  13 When Women Preach

  PART THREE: Afterwards – A Continual Labour

  14 Worldly Goods

  15 Divorce from Bed and Board

  16 Benefiting by Accomplishments

  17 Petticoat-Authors

  18 Helping in God’s Vineyard

  19 The Delight of Business

  20 Wanton and Free

  21 Actress as Honey-Pot

  22 The Modest Midwife

  Epilogue: How Strong?

  References

  Reference Books

  Plates

  Index

  Copyright

  for

  LECTISSIMA HEROINA ELIZABETH LONGFORD

  By Antonia Fraser

  Mary Queen of Scots

  Cromwell: Our Chief of Men

  King James VI of Scotland, I of England

  (Kings and Queens series)

  King Charles II

  The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England

  The Warrior Queens: Boadicea’s Chariot

  The Six Wives of Henry VIII

  The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605

  Marie Antoinette: The Journey

  Antonia Fraser is the author of many widely acclaimed historical works including the biographies King Charles II, the recently republished Mary Queen of Scots and Marie Antoinette: The Journey which won the Franco-British Literary Prize in 2001 and was made into a film by Sofia Coppola in 2006. Most recently she has published Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King.

  Antonia Fraser won a Wolfson History Prize in 1984, was made CBE in 1999, and was awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2000. She lives in London and has six children and eighteen grandchildren.

  Illustrations

  A family group c.1645 (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)

  The family of Sir Robert Vyner (National Portrait Gallery, London; now being restored)

  Margaret Duchess of Newcastle (British Library)

  Mary Countess of Warwick (Mansell Collection)

  Ann Lady Fanshawe (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Lettice Viscountess Falkland (photograph by courtesy of the Courtauld Institute of Art)

  Mrs Margaret Godolphin

  A milkmaid

  Susanna Perwick (British Library)

  A countrywoman

  The housewife and the hunter

  The title page of The Needles Excellency

  A scold’s bridle (British Library)

  Execution of witches, 1655

  A Boulster Lecture

  A witch and her imps (British Library)

  Dorothy Countess of Sunderland (Earl Spencer, Althorp, Northampton; photograph by courtesy of the Courtauld Institute of Art)

  Mary Ward (Rev. Mother Superior General, Mary Ward Institute, Rome; photograph by Foto-Studio Tanner)

  Brilliana Lady Harley (Mr Christopher Harley; photograph by P. G. Bartlett)

  Brampton Bryan Castle (Hereford and Worcester County Libraries)

  Illustration from ‘The Female Warrior’ (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Douce Ballads 1,79)

  Illustration from ‘The Valiant Virgin’ (British Library)

  Corfe Castle (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments)

  Mary Lady Bankes (University Library, Cambridge)

  Lady Bankes’s monument (by permission of the Vicar of Ruislip; photograph by Behram Kapadia)

  Charlotte Countess of Derby

  Lucy Hutchinson (from a private collection)

  Eleanor Countess of Sussex (photograph by courtesy of the Courtauld Institute of Art)

  Mary Lady Verney (Sir Ralph Verney, Claydon House; photograph by R. & H. Chapman)

  Fishwife (reproduced by courtesy of the Guildhall Library, London)

  ‘Grandmother Eve’, as shown on an English charger (Victoria Art Gallery, Bath City Council)

  Oliver Cromwell at the age of fifty (courtesy of Sotheby’s)

  A Quakers’ Meeting (Mary Evans Picture Library)

  Cromwell’s granddaughter, Mrs Bridget Bendish

  Mrs Elizabeth Pepys (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Lady Isabella Thynne (by permission of the Marquess of Bath; photograph by courtesy of the Courtauld Institute of Art)

  Basua Makin (Mansell Collection)

  Mary Duchess of Beaufort and her sister Elizabeth Countess of Carnarvon (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, bequest of Jacob Ruppert, 1939)

  Anne Countess of Winchilsea (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Rachel Lady Russell

  Anne Killigrew (British Library)

  Elizabeth Barry (E. T. Archive/Garrick Club)

  Painting thought to portray Anne Viscountess Conway (Mauritshuis, The Hague)

  Peg Hughes (The Earl of Jersey)

  A London courtesan (The Museum of London)

  Diana Countess of Oxford (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)

  Catherine Countess of Dorchester (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  Mrs Jane Myddelton

  Illustration from the The Midwives Book (British Library)

  Seventeenth-century gynaecological instruments (The London Hospital)

  Medal commemorating the birth of Prince James in 1689 (Cyril Humphris; photograph by courtesy of Spink and Son Ltd)

  Satirical medal commemorating Prince James’s birth (Cyril Humphris)

  Author’s Note

  ‘Were there any women in seventeenth-century England?’ This question was put to me by a distinguished person (male) when I told him the proposed subject of my new book; like another jesting interlocutor, he did not stay for an answer, but vanished up the steps of his club. This book is in part at least an attempt to answer that question.

  Wherever possible I have quoted the voices of women themselves, in letters, in the few but poignant diaries, and in the reports of others. Obviously there are enormous difficulties with the written record where women of this period are concerned, in view of the fact that the vast majority below the gentry class were, through no fault of their own, illiterate. Nevertheless I have battled to breach the walls of this artificial silence. Indeed, if I have had a bias, it has been towards the unknown rather than the known; believing strongly in what we owe to ‘the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs’, in the words of George Eliot’s moving conclusion to Middlemarch.

  The idea of
writing such a book first came to me in 1970 when I was working on a biography of Oliver Cromwell; it occurred to me that a study of women in the English Civil War would produce some interesting results, in view of the spirited nature of the women in question, whether petitioning, defending castles or fighting alongside their husbands – a variety of activities, none of them particularly passive. Working on a life of Charles II, following these women through to the next generation, did nothing to diminish my ardour, but did show me how much more complicated the subject was than I had supposed.

  After ten years of working on the seventeenth century I felt more enthusiasm than ever. But I did come to the conclusion that I must confine my study to England alone; although I had at an early stage wistfully contemplated including Scottish women, until the many differences in the laws as well as the society of the two nations convinced me that this was a separate subject. I also realized how important it was to take the hundred odd years from the death of Queen Elizabeth I to the accession of Queen Anne as a whole, if only to explore to what extent woman’s position in society did or did not improve with the passage of time.

  This, then, is a study of woman’s lot: it is not intended as a dictionary of female biography in the seventeenth century, nor for that matter as an encyclopedia of women’s topics. I have selected those characters who interested me; omissions were not only inevitable, if the book was not to be of mammoth size, but also deliberate.

  Obviously, no one writes in a vacuum, and to boast of being unswayed by the currents of opinion swirling about in one’s own time would be, like most boasts, foolish. During the twelve years in which I have been taking notes towards this book, the growth of feminism both as a force and an influence has been a spectacular phenomenon. But this book is, I hope, a historical work, not a tract. After all, to write about women it is not necessary to be a woman, merely to have a sense of justice and sympathy; these qualities are not, or should not be, the prerogative of one sex.

  I have taken the usual liberties in correcting spelling and punctuation where it seemed necessary to make sense to the reader today. For the same reason I have ignored the fact that the calendar year was held to start on 25 March during this period, and have used the modern style of dates starting on 1 January throughout. This is an age which presents considerable problems to the writer, where the nomenclature of women is concerned. On the one hand, many of the them bore the same Christian name: in a host of Marys, Elizabeths and Annes, one learns to be grateful for the odd Jemima. On the other hand, equally confusingly, women at this period changed their surnames with frequency, due to marriage and remarriage. Sometimes, therefore, it has proved convenient to use a pet-name or diminutive consistently for a particular character; sometimes I have used the same surname or rank for a woman throughout the book (as for example Margaret ‘Godolphin’, antedating her marriage, and Margaret ‘Duchess’ of Newcastle, despite the changes in her husband’s title). My aim in all this has been clarity for the reader.

  I wish to thank the Marquess of Bath for permission to quote from the Longleat MSS, and Miss Jane Fowles, Librarian and Archivist to the Marquess of Bath; Miss Cathleen Beaudoin, Reference Librarian of the Public Library, Dover, New Hampshire, for letting me see the Jon Scale MS on Quaker women; and the Wardens, Melvin and Sandra Roberts, of the Religious Society of Friends, Nottingham Meeting, for permission to quote from the letter of Isabel (Fell) Yeamans. I am grateful to the staff of numerous libraries, principal among them the Bodleian Library, the British Library, the Institute of Historical Research, the London Library and the New York Public Library.

  I should also like to express my thanks to the following, who helped me in a variety of different ways over the years, from answering queries to conducting stimulating conversations: Dr Maurice Ashley; Professor John Barnard; Mr G.P. Bartholomew; Dr Chalmers Davidson; Mr Fram Dimshaw; Lt. Col. John Dymoke of Scrivelsby; Mr Peter Elstob; Miss Jane Ferguson, Librarian to the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh; Mr John Fowles; Ms Valerie Fildes; Reverend Mother M. Gregory IBVM; Pauline Gregg; Mrs Cicely Havely; Mr Cyril Humphris; P.J. Le Fevre; Sir Oliver Millar; Mr G.C.E. Morris; Sir Iain Moncrieffe of that Ilk; Mr Richard Ollard; Professor Elaine Pagels; Mr Derek Parker; Professor J.H. Plumb; Mr Anthony Powell; Dr Mary Prior; the Duke of Rutland; Ms Sally Shreir; Lady Anne Somerset; Emma Tennant; Miss Dorothy Tutin; Brigadier Peter Young.

  Over the years I have much appreciated professional support from my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, John Curtis of Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Robert Gottlieb of Knopf. In addition, I am deeply indebted to my daughter Flora Powell-Jones for her assiduous researches; to Mrs Hatherley d’Abo who showed herself a heroine typing the manuscript; to Linden Lawson of Weidenfeld’s for patient editorial overseeing; to Dr Malcolm Cooper for the Chronology and to Gila Falkus for the Index.

  Lastly I would like to acknowledge with affection and gratitude three early readers of the book: my mother, to whom it is justly dedicated; my daughter Rebecca; and my husband, who was, as he is fond of pointing out, ‘the first’.

  ANTONIA FRASER

  All Hallows Eve, 1983

  Chronology of Important Events 1603–1702

  1603 Death of Elizabeth I; accession of James I

  1605 Discovery of the Gunpowder Plot

  1611 Publication of the Authorized Version of the Bible

  1614 The Addled Parliament

  1616 Death of William Shakespeare

  1620 Pilgrim Fathers sail for America

  1621 Parliament issues Protestation against James I’s excesses

  1625 Death of James I; accession of Charles I

  1628 Assassination of the Duke of Buckingham; the Petition of Right issued

  1629 Charles I dissolves Parliament (and rules without one until 1640)

  1634 Raising of ship-money; imprisonment of Prynne

  1638 Scottish National Covenant drawn up

  1639 End of the First Bishops’ War

  1640 The Short Parliament; the Second Bishops’ War; first sitting of the Long Parliament

  1641 Execution of Strafford; the Grand Remonstrance issued

  1642 Beginning of the First Civil War; Battle of Edgehill (23 October)

  1643 Battles of Roundway Down (13 July) and first Newbury (20 September); Parliament signs Solemn League and Covenant with Scots; first meeting of the Westminster Assembly

  1644 Battles of Cheriton (29 March), Marston Moor (2 July), Lostwithiel (2 September) and second Newbury (27 October)

  1645 Introduction of the Self-Denying Ordinance and formation of the New Model Army; Battle of Naseby (14 June); execution of Laud

  1646 Charles I surrenders to the Scots; end of the First Civil War

  1647 Charles I imprisoned at Carisbrooke

  1648 Start of the Second Civil War; Battle of Preston (17 August); end of the Second Civil War; Pride’s Purge

  1649 Execution of Charles I; formation of the Commonwealth; Cromwell’s expedition to Ireland

  1650 Cromwell leads campaign against Scots; Battle of Dunbar (3 September)

  1651 Battle of Worcester (3 September); escape of Charles II

  1652 Start of the First Dutch War

  1653 Dissolution of the Rump Parliament; the Barebones Parliament; Cromwell becomes Lord Protector

  1654 End of the First Dutch War

  1658 Death of Cromwell

  1660 Declaration of Breda; Restoration of Charles II; Act of Indemnity and Oblivion; marriage of the Duke of York and Anne Hyde

  1661–5 Enactment of the ‘Clarendon Code’; Corporation Act (1661); Act of Uniformity (1662); first Conventicle Act (1664); Five Mile Act (1665)

  1662 Marriage of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza; foundation of the Royal Society

  1665 The Great Plague; start of the Second Dutch War

  1666 The Fire of London

  1667 End of the Second Dutch War; fall of Clarendon

  1670 Enactment of the second Conventicle Act

  1672 Charles II’s Declarat
ion of Indulgence; start of the Third Dutch War

  1673 The First Test Act; marriage of the Duke of York and Mary of Modena

  1674 End of Third Dutch War

  1677 Marriage of Princess Mary and William of Orange

  1678 The Popish Plot

  1682 The Rye House Plot

  1685 Death of Charles II; accession of James II; the Monmouth Rebellion; the Bloody Assizes

  1687 James II dismisses Parliament and issues his first Declaration of Indulgence

  1688 James II’s second Declaration of Indulgence; imprisonment of the Seven Bishops; birth of James’s son; overthrow of James II and arrival of William and Mary

  1689 Start of joint rule of William III and Mary II; Bill of Rights and Toleration Act passed; start of the War of the Grand Alliance

  1694 Death of Mary II; Triennial Act passed

  1697 End of the War of the Grand Alliance

  1701 Act of Settlement passed

  1702 Death of William III; accession of Anne

  PROLOGUE

  How Weak?

  It was a fact generally acknowledged by all but the most contumacious spirits at the beginning of the seventeenth century that woman was the weaker vessel; weaker than man, that is.

  The phrase had originated with Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament into English in 1526 and was given further prominence by the King James Bible. St Peter, having advised wives in some detail to ‘be in subjection to your own husbands’, urged these same husbands to give ‘honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life’, founding his remarks on those of St Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians.

  By 1600 the phrase was freely employed – by Shakespeare amongst others – to denote either a particular female or the female sex as a whole. Throughout the century following, the words of St Peter, founded on those of St Paul, might form part of the Protestant marriage service as an alternative to a sermon: so that there was a fair chance that most women would listen to them at least once – on the most important day of their life, their wedding-day.

 

‹ Prev