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

by Antonia Fraser

  9 Gardiner, Oxinden Letters, pp.40–41.

  10 cit. Notestein, English Woman, p.94.

  11 Howell, Familiar Letters, p.76; Memoriae Matris in Herbert, Works, p.422 (translation by Edmund Blunden in Essays and Literature by Members of the English Association, XIX, pp.32–3).

  12 cit. Clark, Working Life, pp.44–5.

  13 Stout Autobiography, p.3.

  14 cit. Fussell, English Countrywoman, p.62; Clark, Working Life, p.51.

  15 Queens Closet Opened, Preface; see especially pp.7, 44.

  16 Kent, Choice Manuall, see especially pp.107–8, 174, 4.

  17 Kent, Choice Manuall, p.198.

  18 Brathwaite, English Gentlewoman, p.397.

  19 Walker, Holy Life, pp.14, 67.

  20 Walker, Holy Life, p.67.

  21 Walker, Holy Life, p.72.

  22 Walker, Holy Life, pp.67, 88.

  23 Ambrose, Works, pp.117–18.

  24 Fell Smith, Warwick, pp.322–41; Warwick Memoir, pp.292–4.

  25 Walker, Holy Life, p.27.

  26 Evelyn, Mundus Muliebris, Preface; Gardiner, Oxinden Letters, p.299.

  27 Nash, Worcestershire, I, p.500.

  28 See Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, pp.489–90; Sharp, Midwives Book, p.33.

  29 Gouge, Domesticall Duties, p.223; Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV, lines 338–9.

  30 cit. Bowle, Evelyn, p.177.

  31 Capp, Astrology, pp.120–21.

  32 Oglander Notebook, p.5.

  33 Whitelocke, Memorials, III, p.32.

  34 See Christie, Shaftesbury, p.lii.

  35 Fell Smith, Warwick, p.302.

  36 Heywood Autobiography, I, pp.61, 177.

  37 Harley Letters, pp.1, 3.

  38 Denbigh, Royalist Father, pp.197, 202, 199.

  39 Lovelace Poems, p.17.

  40 See Lady Fanshawe’s account in Halkett and Fanshawe, pp.110, 102.

  41 Halkett and Fanshawe, p.114.

  42 Halkett and Fanshawe, p.115.

  43 Halkett and Fanshawe, pp.115–16.

  44 Halkett and Fanshawe, pp.123, 128.

  45 Halkett and Fanshawe, pp.130–31.

  46 Halkett and Fanshawe, p.103.

  47 Halkett and Fanshawe, p.103.

  48 Fanshawe, Shorter Poems, p.6.

  Chapter 4: The Pain and the Peril

  1 See Schücking, Puritan Family, p.67.

  2 Hookes, Amanda, p.1.

  3 Walker, Holy Life, pp.44, 33.

  4 See Appendix, ‘A Chronology of Sir Richard Fanshawe’, Halkett and Fanshawe, pp.95–9.

  5 Hieron, Helpe unto Devotion, p.148; I Timothy, 2, VS. 14–15.

  6 Hieron, Helpe unto Devotion, p.148.

  7 Halkett and Fanshawe, p.22.

  8 Sermon, Ladies Companion, p.7.

  9 Cust Family Records, series II, p.97; Pepys Diary, V, p.222.

  10 Grant, Margaret the First, p.96; Newcastle, CCXI Letters, p.94.

  11 Sackville-West, Clifford, p.107; Newcastle, CCXI Letters, p.95.

  12 Heywood Autobiography, I, p.70.

  13 Mordaunt Private Diarie, p.21.

  14 Mordaunt Private Diarie, p.3; Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, VI, p.59.

  15 HMC, Salisbury MSS, 1612–88, p.433; see Fraser, Cromwell, pp.478–82.

  16 Mordaunt Private Diarie, pp.28, 38, 152, 183.

  17 Himes, Contraception, pp.168–70, 183, 191–2; Pepys Diary, VIII, p.318.

  18 See Schnucker, ‘Elizabethan Birth Control’; ‘New Bill in Reply to the Ladies and Batchelors’, p.449.

  19 Defoe, Conjugal Lewdness, p.155; Capp, Astrology, p.122.

  20 Capp, Astrology, p.122; Schnucker, ‘Elizabethan Birth Control’, p.657.

  21 Schnucker, ‘Elizabethan Birth Control’, pp.657–9; Eccles, Obstetrics in Stuart England, pp.26–32.

  22 Macfarlane, Josselin, p.201.

  23 cit. Wrigley, ‘Family Limitation’, p.105, note 3.

  24 See Wrigley, ‘Family Limitation’; Henry, Anciennes Familles Genevoises.

  25 Warwick Autobiography, p.32.

  26 Josceline, ‘Mothers Legacy’, BL Add MSS, 27, 467; Reynolds, Learned Lady, p.29.

  27 Josceline, ‘Mothers Legacy’, BL Add MSS, 27, 467: Reynolds, Learned Lady, p.29.

  28 Sharp, Midwives Book, p.170; Newcastle, CCXI Letters, p.189.

  29 Harcourt Papers, I, p.106; Pilkington, Celebrated Female Characters, p.199.

  30 See Evelyn, Mrs Godolphin, for her story; esp. pp.79, 144–51.

  31 Black, Folk-Medicine, pp.162–3; Pepys Diary, IV, p.339 and note 2; Eccles, Obstetrics in Stuart England, p.20.

  32 Evelyn, Mrs Godolphin, p.156.

  33 Hartmann, King’s Friend, p.205.

  34 Hieron, Helpe unto Devotion, p.270; Cartwright, Sacharissa, p.74.

  35 Gardiner, History of England, IX, p.80; Higgins, ‘Women in the Civil War’, p.50.

  36 See Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, esp. pp. 105–14; MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, pp.77–82.

  37 Verney Memoirs, II, p.296; Heywood Autobiography, I, p.45; Souars, Orinda, p.89.

  38 Cholmley Memoirs, p.31.

  39 Clarke, Lives of Eminent Persons, p.158.

  40 Duncon, Vi-Countess Falkland, p.175; Sidney, Diary, I, p. lxxxv.

  41 Cust Family Records, series II, p.120; see Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, p.60 for ‘an average family’ of four, five, or six children of whom two or three would die young.

  42 Thornton Autobiography, p.126.

  43 Thornton Autobiography, p.94.

  44 Thornton Autobiography, p.145.

  45 Peter Laslett, in World we have lost (1983), p.129; cit. Illick, Child-Rearing, p.305 and note 10, p.333; Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, p.619.

  46 See McLaren, ‘Nature’s Contraceptive’.

  47 Stout Autobiography, p.14; McLaren, ‘Nature’s Contraceptive’, p.432.

  48 Ross, Margaret Fell, p.335; Collins’ Peerage, II, p.81; Conway Letters, p.124.

  49 Fildes, ‘Infant Feeding Practices’, seminar.

  50 Sharp, Midwives Book, pp.349, 365; Verney Memoirs, II. p.94.

  51 Heywood Autobiography, I, p.58; Clark, Working Life, p.27; CSP Domestic, 1661–2, p.221; ‘Farthing affidavit’, Notes and Queries, V, 11th series, 1912, p.508; Fildes, ‘Infant Feeding Practices’, seminar.

  52 McLaren, ‘Nature’s Contraceptive’, p.433.

  53 Schnucker, Puritans and Pregnancy, p.648; Sharp, Midwives Book, p.353.

  54 Newdegate, Muniment Room, pp.20, 88.

  55 See ‘Lincoln’s Nursery’, esp. pp.25, 27, 205, 31.

  Chapter 5: Are You Widows?

  1 ‘Warwicke Specialities’, BL Add MSS, 27, 357.

  2 Duncon, Returns of Spiritual Comfort; Clarke, Lives of Eminent Persons, II, p.148.

  3 Newdegate, Muniment Room, pp.86, 156, 126.

  4 Macfarlane, Marital and Sexual Relationships, pp.120, 213.

  5 Herbert Autobiography, pp.xix, 10 and note 3.

  6 See Cartwright, Sacharissa, for the story of Dorothy Sidney; Waller Poems, I, p.128; Cartwright, Sacharissa, p.74.

  7 Cartwright, Sacharissa, pp.104–6.

  8 Osborne Letters, p.44.

  9 Pepys Diary, I, p.60.

  10 Laslett, World we have lost (1983), Table 10, p.108, gives 38.1 in 1601, declining to 35.7 in 1661 and 32.5 in 1721.

  11 Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, p.56.

  12 Verney Memoirs, I, p.242,

  13 Verney Memoirs, I, p.257.

  14 Verney Memoirs, I, pp.265, 268.

  15 Verney Memoirs, I, p.274; Warwick Autobiography, p.27.

  16 Fell Smith, Warwick, p.11.

  17 Fell Smith, Warwick, pp.109–10.

  18 Herbert Autobiography, pp.46–7.

  19 Blundell, Cavalier’s Notebook, p.242; Brailsford, Quaker Women, p.137; Harley Letters, p. 117.

  20 Notestein, English Woman, p. 107, note 16.

  21 Osborne Letters, p.123.

  22 Kirkman, Unlucky Citizen, p.163.

  23 Price, London Banker
s, pp.151, 31; Price, Marygold, p.23.

  24 See Lang, ‘Greater Merchants of London’, Chapter V; Chamberlain Letters, II, pp.572, 576; Pepys Diary, VI, p.215.

  25 See the Rev. L.B. Larking in Proceedings, Principally in the County of Kent, In Connection with the Parliaments called in 1640, for the story of the Widow Bennett.

  26 Philip Massinger, City Madam, Act IV, scene IV.

  27 John Webster, Duchess of Malfi, Act I, scene I; Swetnam, Arraignment of Women, p.31.

  28 Larking, Proceedings, p.xxxiii.

  29 See Verney Papers, pp.199–223 for the second marriage of Margaret Poulteney.

  30 Verney Papers, p.221.

  31 Allestree, Ladies Calling, p.42.

  32 ‘Twysden Notebooks’, BL Add MSS, 34, 163, fo. 211.

  33 ‘Twysden Notebooks’, BL Add MSS, 34, 163, fo. 211.

  34 ‘Twysden Notebooks’, BL Add MSS, 34, 163, fo. 210, 28.

  35 G.E.C., Complete Peerage, XII/2, p.775, note D.

  36 Sackville-West, Clifford, p.xxxviii; Rowse, Shakespeare’s Dark Lady, p.139.

  37 Notestein, Four Worthies, p.128; Sackville-West, Clifford, p.28.

  38 Sackville-West, Clifford, p.xxxix; Whitaker, History of Craven, p.277; Cocke, ‘Clifford’.

  39 Notestein, Four Worthies, p.149; cit. Ballard, Memoirs of Several Ladies, p.317.

  40 Notestein, Four Worthies, p.154; see Ballard, Memoirs of Several Ladies, p.314, writing within living memory of Lady Anne.

  41 Even if these rights, up till the end of the seventeenth century, were only effective in practice in the City of London, the province of York and Wales (see Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, pp.195–6).

  42 Thornton Autobiography, p.247.

  43 See Stenton, English Woman, pp.100–105.

  44 See Clark, Working Life, pp.10, 150, 104.

  45 Clark, Working Life, pp.20–31, 233, 215; cit. Thompson, Women in Stuart England, p.217, note 86.

  46 Stenton, English Woman, p.219; Clark, Working Life, p.161.

  47 Brathwaite, English Gentlewoman, p.332.

  Chapter 6: Poor and Atrabilious

  1 HMC, Hastings MSS, IV, p.325; the third Earl of Warwick was the proposed bridegroom, cit. Fell Smith, Warwick, p.145.

  2 See Laslett, World we have lost (1983), pp.90–98; Thomas, Religion, pp.560–67.

  3 Pearl, ‘Social Policy’, p.129.

  4 cit. Smith, ‘Growing Old in Early Stuart England’, p.127.

  5 Ballard, Memoirs of Several Ladies, p.361; Collins’ Peerage, IV, p.106; Smith, ‘Growing Old in Early Stuart England’, p.127.

  6 John Milton, Comus, l. 453; John Ford, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Act II, scene V; Hic Mulier: Or, The Man-Woman.

  7 cit. Thomas, Religion, p.464.

  8 Perkins, Discourse of the Damned Art, p.168; Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, I, p.210; Quaife, Wanton Wenches, p.152.

  9 See Ewen, Witchcraft, Index (Marks); also Macfarlane, Witchcraft, p.19 for increasing stress placed on marks at trial; Thomas, Religion, pp.445–6.

  10 cit. George, ‘“Goodwife” to “Mistress”’, p.161; Eyre, Dyurnall, p.46; Proverbs, 25, VS. 24, cit. for example in Allestree, Ladies Calling, p.48.

  11 Roberts, Social History, p.156; see Capp, Astrology, pp.124–5.

  12 Bridenbaugh, Vexed Englishmen, pp.357–8.

  13 Thomas, Religion, pp.503–5; Dekker, Ford and Rowley, Witch of Edmonton, Act II, scene I.

  14 Woolley, Gentlewomans Companion, p.42; see Burstein, ‘Psychopathology of Old Age’.

  15 Thomas, Religion, p.557; Macfarlane, Witchcraft, p.161; Stearne, Discovery of Witchcraft, p.12.

  16 Thomas, Religion, p.565; Burstein, ‘Psychopathology of Old Age’, p.65.

  17 Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, Epistle to Readers, p.xxiii.

  18 See Complete History of Magick, Sorcery and Witchcraft (1715), I, pp.177–95 for a version of the Belvoir witches’ story written when witchcraft was still part of contemporary belief.

  19 Ewen, Witchcraft, p.231; Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, p.5.

  20 Macbeth, Act I, scene I; Dekker, Ford and Rowley, Witch of Edmonton, Act V, scene I; Nichols, Leicestershire, p.49, note 12; see Ewen, North Moreton, p.4.

  21 Complete History of Magick, I, p.179.

  22 Ewen, Witchcraft, p.233.

  23 Notestein, Witchcraft, p.134, note 19.

  24 See Complete History of Magick, I, pp.177–95; Ewen, Witchcraft, pp.232–3.

  25 Nichols, Leicestershire, p.49, note 12.

  26 Nichols, Leicestershire, p.49.

  27 Complete History of Magick, I, p.193.

  28 Ewen, Witchcraft, p.233; Complete History of Magick, p.195.

  29 HMC, Rutland MSS, 12th Report, IV, pp.514, 516.

  30 CSP Domestic, 1619–23, p.71; Lockyer, Buckingham, p.58.

  31 Lockyer, Buckingham, p.59; Stone, Family and Fortune, p.197.

  32 Wilson Life, p.476.

  33 See Larner, Enemies of God, p.20, for a summary of recent work on the subject.

  34 Macfarlane, Witchcraft, p.163; Stearne, Confirmation of Witchcraft, p.10; Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, p.42; Larner, Enemies of God, p.20; Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, I, p.210.

  35 e.g. Middlesex County Records, III, p.287; Ewen, Witch Hunting, p.33; cit. Burstein, ‘Psychopathology of Old Age’, p.64.

  36 cit. Notestein, Witchcraft, p.272, note 6.

  37 See Ewen, Witchcraft, pp.365–7, for the trial.

  38 cit. Ewen, Witchcraft, p.372.

  39 Notestein, Witchcraft, p.272, note 6.

  40 cit. Macfarlane, Witchcraft, p.114, and see pp.114–30 for ‘cunning folk’ in general; Verney Memoirs, IV, p.172.

  41 cit. Burstein, ‘Psychopathology of Old Age’, p.64; Gardiner, Oxinden Letters, pp.220–21.

  42 Hill, Intellectual Consequences of the Revolution, p.64.

  43 Athenian Oracle, III, p.336.

  44 Dekker, Ford and Rowley, Witch of Edmonton, Act II, scene I.

  Chapter 7: Unlearned Virgins

  1 Josceline, ‘Mothers Legacy’, BL Add MSS, 27, 467, Mordaunt Private Diarie, Appendix, p.228; Harcourt Papers, I, pp.153, 173.

  2 Quaife, Wanton Wenches, p.95.

  3 Verney Memoirs, II, p.76; IV, p.255.

  4 Newcastle, Worlds Olio, Preface; p.72.

  5 Newdegate, Muniment Room, p.150; Josceline, ‘Mothers Legacy’, BL Add MSS, 27, 467; Reynolds, Learned Lady, p.29.

  6 Osborne Letters, p.100.

  7 Letters in Honour of the Dutchess of Newcastle, pp.4–5, II.

  8 Bradstreet Works, p.361; Oman, Elizabeth of Bohemia, p.22.

  9 Fraser, Mary Queen of Scots, p.180.

  10 Reynolds, Learned Lady, pp.9, 23; cit. Notestein, English Woman, p.82.

  11 Clark, Lives of Eminent Persons, pp.201–2.

  12 Eyre, Dyurnall, p.34; Duncon, Vi-Countess Falkland, p.152; Fell Smith, Warwick, pp.170–71; Cholmley Memoirs, p.52.

  13 Leigh, Mothers Blessing, pp.4, 56.

  14 cit. Gardiner, Girlhood at School, p.194.

  15 Matthew, Lady Lucy Knatchbull, p.xiv.

  16 Memo of Mary Ward, cit. Chambers, Mary Ward, I, p.376, note iii.

  17 For the life of Mary Ward, see M.C.E. Chambers’ biography (1885), and post 1945 shorter studies, pamphlets and articles by James Brodrick SJ, Joseph Grisar SJ, Margaret Mary Littlehales IBVM, Pauline Parker IBVM, and Immolata Wetter IBVM.

  18 cit. Littlehales, Mary Ward, p.13.

  19 Chambers, Mary Ward, I, pp.410–13.

  20 cit. Littlehales, Mary Ward, p.14.

  21 Wetter, Apostolic Vocation, p.89.

  22 Littlehales, Mary Ward, p.27.

  23 cit. Wetter, Apostolic Vocation, p.91.

  24 Italian Life (probably written by Mary Poyntz), cit. Littlehales, Mary Ward, p.28.

  25 Heywood Autobiography, p.49; Walker, Holy Life, p.96; Ballard, Memoirs of Several Ladies, p.310.

  26 Thornton Autobiography, pp.233, 342; Verney Memoirs, II, p.228.

  27 Cressy, Literacy, pp.119, 128, 1
45.

  28 Scott Thomson, Noble Household, p.120.

  29 Scott Thomson, Noble Household, pp.75–6.

  30 Scott Thomson, Noble Household, p.305.

  31 Reynolds, Learned Lady, p.266; Hearne Remains, p.307.

  32 Oglander Notebook, p.74.

  33 Conway Letters, pp.15, 5.

  34 Masson, Milton, V, p.232; Collins’ Peerage, VII p.167.

  35 Fell Smith, Warwick, p.38.

  36 Warwick Autobiography, pp.14, 22.

  37 Masson, Milton, V, pp.233–4.

  38 Fell Smith, Warwick, p.37; Budgell, Lives of the Boyles, I, Appendix, p.5; I, p.147.

  39 Masson, Milton, V, p.457.

  40 Fell Smith, Warwick, p.315.

  41 Fell Smith, Warwick, p.357.

  42 Locke Correspondence, II, p.219; Fell Smith, Warwick, p.347.

  43 Walker, Holy Life, p.39; Clarke, Lives of Eminent Persons, p.201.

  44 Halkett and Fanshawe, pp.10, 110; Thornton Autobiography, p.8.

  45 All’s Well That Ends Well, Act I, scene III.

  46 See Lucy Hutchinson, Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, ed. James Sutherland, pp.28–35 and 288–9 for her account of her education.

  47 cit. Hutchinson, Memoirs, pp.278–89.

  48 Hutchinson, Memoirs, p.33.

  49 Hutchinson, Memoirs, p.48.

  50 Roberts, Social History, p.378; Thompson, Women in Stuart England, p.204; Gardiner, Girlhood at School, pp.276–94.

  51 Thompson, Women in Stuart England, pp.192–3.

  52 Mulcaster, Positions, cit. Cressy, Education, pp.109–11.

  53 Thompson, Women in Stuart England, pp. 189–90.

  54 Gardiner, Girlhood at School, p.181.

  55 Gardiner, Oxinden and Peyton, p.128; Thornton Autobiography, p.8; Gardiner, Girlhood at School, p.159.

  56 F. P. Verney, 1892, Verney Memoirs, I, p.xiii; Dorothy Gardiner 1933, Oxinden Letters, p.xxviii.

  57 cit. Goreau, Aphra, p.31.

  58 Lambley, French Language, pp.263–4, 299; Harley Letters, p.13.

  59 Artamenes, Dedication.

  60 Verney Memoirs, III, p.66.

  61 Verney Memoirs, III, pp.72–4.

  62 Verney Memoirs, III, p.74.

  63 Dr Denton had sat on the Council of the Girls’ Public Day Schools Company, Verney Memoirs, I, p.72.

  Chapter 8: Living under Obedience

  1 See Batchiler, Virgin’s Pattern; Gardiner, Girlhood at School, pp.211–13.