PETITIONERS TO PARLIAMENT.
The city dames during the Civil War--They petition Parliament
for peace--Reception of the petition--The military called
out--Petition from tradesmen’s wives for redress of
grievances--Pym’s reply--Women’s memorial to Cromwell
against imprisonment for debt--Sufferers during the Monmouth
Rebellion--Petition against Judge Jeffreys--Hannah Hewling
petitions the king.
While the war was proceeding between Charles I. and the Parliament,
there was a good deal of agitation among the City dames, who, though
not obliged to stand siege and battery, were deeply interested in the
issues of the struggle. As members of the commercial classes, the
disastrous effects of a civil war appealed to them with peculiar force.
They lamented the destruction of property as well as the loss of life,
the stoppage of trade, and the general dislocation of society. And as
women of great earnestness in religion, they conceived a horror of this
slaughter among men of the same nation--indeed, of the same kindred. At
length they could bear it no longer. They resolved to put forth some
protest. In the year 1643 came their opportunity.
The City of London had just been petitioning the Commons against the
propositions for peace which had been under consideration in the House
of Lords. Their lordships were very anxious to stop the desolation
caused by the war, and framed some propositions to the king, which they
ordered that the Speaker should introduce to the Commons. There was
a very hot debate on these propositions, and the aldermen and common
council, greatly incensed at the idea of any accommodation which they
feared would be destructive, as they expressed it, of their “religion,
laws, and liberties,” promised help for the continuance of hostilities
if the Parliament would stand firm and reject all overtures. The House
of Commons were so worked upon by this petition, that they returned
their hearty thanks to the City and stopped all further negotiations.
Thereupon the London citizenesses bestirred themselves, and, with white
silk ribbons in their hats, repaired in great numbers to the House of
Commons with a counter petition in favour of peace. The petition is
described as that of “many civilly disposed women inhabiting the cities
of London, Westminster, and the parts adjacent.” It ran thus--
“That your petitioners, though of the weaker sex, do too
sensibly perceive the ensuing desolation of this kingdom unless
by some timely means your honours provide for the speedy
recovery thereof. Your honours are the physicians that can by
God’s special and miraculous blessing (which we humbly implore)
restore this languishing nation, and our bleeding sister the
kingdom of Ireland, which hath now almost breathed her last
gasp. We need not dictate to your eagle eyed judgments the
way; our only desire is that God’s glory in the true Reformed
Protestant Religion may be preserved; the just prerogatives
and privileges of king and parliament maintained; the true
liberties and properties of the subject, according to the
known laws of the land, restored; and all honourable ways and
means for a speedy peace endeavoured. May it therefore please
your honours that some speedy course may be taken for the
settlement of the true Reformed Protestant Religion for the
glory of God and the renovation of trade for the benefit of the
subject, they being the soul and body of the kingdom. And your
petitioners with many millions of afflicted souls, groaning
under the burden of these times of distresses, shall (as bound)
pray, etc.”
Rushworth, in his “Historical Collections,” gives a graphic account of
the presentation of this petition. He says it was brought up by “two
or three thousand women, but generally of the meanest sort;” that the
House sent out a deputation of three or four members with the answer
that they were--
“no ways enemies to peace, and that they did not doubt in a
short time to answer the ends of their petition, and desired
them to return to their habitations. But the women, not
satisfied, remain’d thereabouts; and by noon were encreased
to 5000 at the least; and some men of the rabble in womens
cloaths mixt themselves amongst them, and instigated them to go
on to the Commons door and cry ‘Peace, Peace,’ which they did
accordingly, thrusting to the door of the House at the upper
stairs head; and as soon as they were pass’d, a part of the
Trained Band (that usually stood sentinel there) thrust the
soldiers down and would suffer none to come in or go out of
the House for near two hours. The Trained Band advised them to
come down, and first pulled them; and afterwards to fright them
shot powder. But they cry’d out, nothing but powder; and having
brickbats in the yard, threw them apace at the Trained Band,
who then shot bullets, and killed a ballad singer with one arm,
that was heartning on the women, and another poor man that came
accidentally. Yet the women not daunted, cry’d out the louder
at the door of the House of Commons, ‘Give us these traitors
that are against peace that we may tear them to pieces, give
us that dog Pym.’ At last ten of Waller’s troopers (some of
them cornets) having his colours in their hats, came to pass
by the women, who would needs have the soldiers colours out of
their hats, and took away the ribbons from two of them, and
call’d them Waller’s dogs. Whereupon they drew their swords,
and laid on some of them flatways, but seeing that would not
keep them off at last cut them over the hands and faces, and
one woman lost her nose; whereof ’twas reported, she afterwards
died. As soon as the rest of the women saw blood drawn they
ran away from the Parliament House, and scatter’d themselves
in the Church-yard, the palace yard, and places adjacent. And
about an hour after the House was up, a troop of horse came
and cudgell’d such as staid with their canes and dispersed
them. But unhappily, a maid-servant that had nothing to do in
the tumult, was shot as she pass’d over the church-yard. The
trooper that did it was sent to the Gate House, in order to his
trial for her death; but he alledged his pistol went off by
mischance. Serjeant Francis and one Mr. Pulsford were committed
for encouraging this Female Riot.”
When the “Saints” plundered the Royalists of their possessions, the
women of the despoiled families went in person to the Committee of
Sequestration sitting in Goldsmiths’ Hall, to try and recover some of
their property. Mothers leading their children, some of them widows,
thronged the hall daily.
“The gentry are sequestered all;
Our wives you find at Goldsmiths’ Hall,
For there they met with the devil and all.”[47]
In the first year of the Protectorate there was a petition presented to
the Commons by tradesmen’s wives, praying for a redress of grievances.
They assembled in great crowds before the doors of the House, and
the commander of the guard, Serjeant-Major Skippon, aghast at the
increasing numbers, asked the House what he was to do, for the women
had told him--
“that where there was one now there would be five hundred the
next day, and that it was as good for them to die here as at
home.”
The major was told to use fair words and persuade them to go away, but
down they came, as they had threatened, the next day, with a petition
described as that of the--
“Gentlewomen, Tradesmen’s wives, and many others of the female
sex, all inhabitants of the City of London and the Suburbs
thereof.”
The phraseology of the petition, as well as the substance, shows the
Puritan character of the petitioners.
The grievances which these tradesmen’s wives were so earnest to get
removed had nothing to do with duties levied on merchandize, or any
other of the hardships of which traders were wont to complain, such as
the importation of foreign goods and the presence of foreign artisans
and merchants. This petition was inspired by dread of the Papists,
lest they should commit in England the “insolencies, savage usage, and
unheard of rapes” which they had been committing upon women in Ireland.
“And have we not just cause to fear,” urged the petitioners,
“that they will prove the forerunners of our ruin, except
Almighty God, by the wisdom and care of this Parliament, be
pleased to succour us, our husbands and children, which are as
dear and tender to us as the lives and blood of our hearts;
to see them murdered and mangled and cut in pieces before our
eyes; to see our children dashed against the stones, and the
mothers’ milk mingled with the infants’ blood, running down the
streets; to see our houses on flaming fire over our heads....
Thousands of our friends have been compelled to fly from
episcopal persecutions into desert places among wild beasts.”
After further denunciations of the Papists, the petitioners proceed--
“The remembrance of all these fearful accidents do strongly
move us, from the example of the Women of Tekoah, to fall
submissively at the feet of his Majesty our dread Sovereign,
and cry, ‘Help, O King! Help ye the noble worthies now sitting
in Parliament.’”
It seems unnecessary to apologize for presenting such a memorial, but
the petitioners thought otherwise, and gave as one of their reasons
that “women are sharers in the calamities that accompany both Church
and Commonwealth.”
The petition was presented by Mrs. Anne Stagg, a brewer’s wife, in
company with others of similar rank.
Pym was chosen as spokesman by the Commons, and, going to the door of
the House, addressed the petitioners--
“Good women, your Petition with the reasons hath been read in
the House and is thankfully accepted of, and is come in a
seasonable time. You will, God willing, receive from us all the
satisfaction which we can possibly give to your just and lawful
desires. We intreat you, therefore, to repair to your houses
and turn your petition which you have delivered here into
prayers at home for us, for we have been and are and shall be,
to our utmost power, ready to relieve you, your husbands and
children, and to perform the trust committed unto us, towards
God, our king and country, as becometh faithful Christian and
loyal subjects.”
Although there was no longer a king upon the throne, Pym speaks as if
he still had a sovereign to whom he owed obedience.
A few years later, in October, 1651, the women are petitioning the
government again, but with a very different object. It is a memorial to
Cromwell against imprisonment for debt, a grievance not to be remedied
for many a year. The petition sets forth--
“That the Norman yoke of bondage and oppression is still
continued upon this nation by the impious, oppressive,
delatory, and most chargeable practice of the law, and
destructive imprisonment of men and women for debt in the
several prisons, goals, counters, holes, and dungeons of
cruelty in this land.”
The petitioners complain that the Act for the relief of poor debtors is
no benefit, and--
“that the present intricate, delatory, chargeable, oppressive,
endless practise of the Law, is become an abettor,
encouragement and prop to all oppressors and defrauders,
and an Egyptian reed and discouragement to most men, but in
especial to all the poor who thereby are utterly disabled
and disheartened from suing for their debts, rights, and
inheritances, violently held from them by the rich and mighty.
And if at any time (by the law) their debts and rights are
seemingly recovered, yet then their able debtors have freedom
(by the law and strength of their purses) to vacate judgements
to arrest and imprison poor creditors upon false and strained
actions (for many years) thereby enforcing some of them to
compound with them at their own rates; others of them to perish
miserably in goals, and so to lose both their debts and lives;
whereby their wives and children are exposed to unexpressible
misery; besides the many other unexpressible oppressions daylie
practised by the rich and mighty on poor and simple hearted men
and women in this land by sons of Belial.”
Cromwell is exhorted to act as “a faithful Joshua with the zeal of
Nehemiah,” and the petition proceeds--
“The premisses piously considered, and for that the other
weighty affairs of this land will not permit the speedy
accomplishment of these particulars (by your Excellency)
as your petitioners humbly conceive, in gaining a new
representative; from which lawyers, and all ill-affected
persons to be excluded. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray
that in the meantime there may be such a course established as
that the poor may by some easie and speedy way reap the fruit
of justice.”
It has been said that “women have not suffycent understanding for
to lerne the lawes;” but, as the old writer who commented on this
statement observed, “the contrary is made open by experyence.”
Certainly the Puritan dames of the seventeenth century had “suffycent
understanding” to realize the defects and hardships of the laws.
The fearful suffering caused to the inhabitants of the western counties
after Monmouth’s rebellion by that incarnation of cruelty, Judge
Jeffreys, brought forth a women’s petition of another kind. It is
styled “The Humble Petition of the Widows and Fatherless Children in
the West of England,” and begins--
“We to the number of a thousand and more, widows and fatherless
children, of the counties of Dorset, Somerset and Devon, our
dear husbands and tender fathers having been so tyrannously
butcher’d and some transported, our estates sold from us, and
our inheritance cut off by the severe and harsh sentence of
George Lord Jeffreys, now we understand in the Tower of London
a prisoner, who has lately, we hear, endeavoured to excuse
himself from those tyrannical and illegal sentences by laying
it on information by some gentlemen who are known to us to be
good Christians, true Protestants and Englishmen. We your poor
petitioners, many hundreds of us, on our knees have begg’d
mercy for our dear husbands and tender parents, from his cruel
hands, but his thirst for blood was so great and his barbarism
so cruel that instead of granting mercy to some which were
made to appear innocent and petitioned for by the flower of
the gentry of the said counties, he immediately caus’d them to
be executed.... These with many hundred more tyrannical acts
are ready to be made appear in the said counties by honest
and credible persons; and therefore your Petitioners desire
that the said Lord Jeffreys, late Lord Chancellor, the vilest
of men, may be brought down to the Counties aforesaid, where
we the good women in the West, shall be glad to see him; and
give him another manner of welcome than he had there years
since.”[48]
Hannah Hewling, who married Major Henry Cromwell, grandson of Oliver
Cromwell, played a notable part during the terrible period following
the Monmouth Rebellion. Both her brothers, Benjamin and William, were
implicated and condemned to death. Hannah, who was at that time a
young, unmarried girl, waylaid Judge Jeffreys in his coach, beseeching
him to stay the sentence.
“The merciless judge, to make her let go, caus’d the coachman
to cut her hands and fingers with the lash of his whip. Nor
would he allow the respite of the execution but for two days,
tho’ the sister, with tears in her eyes, offered a hundred
pounds for so small a favour.”
Hannah also vainly interceded with the king, James II. Lord Churchill,
by whom she was introduced, warned her of the king’s obstinacy.
“Madam,” said he, “hearty as my wishes are that you may obtain
what you want, I dare not flatter you with any such hope, for
that marble (laying his hand on the chimneypiece at which he
was standing) is as capable of feeling compassion as the King’s
heart.”
After her marriage Hannah exercised a great deal of influence in the
Cromwell family. She was of a strong Evangelical cast of mind and
a Dissenter. Through her the Dowager Lady Cromwell was induced to
substitute a Baptist minister for the Anglican clergyman she had been
accustomed to have about her as chaplain.
Divers have been the parts which women of the middle classes have
played in politics in days gone by. Even when it was a part involving
a good deal of publicity they did not shrink, and their practical
common sense was unclouded by any sentimental haze of doubt as to
their “proper sphere.” Everything that concerned their families or
the commonweal they felt to be within their sphere, and they did not
conceive the idea that politics were the concern of one sex alone. That
complex creation of to-day, the “New Woman,” to whom is ascribed, among
other things, an unfeminine taste for politics, is not so modern after
all. History is repeating itself, and the progenitors of the political
woman are to be found far back in the days of the Lancastrians.