THE WOMEN OF THE TUDOR PERIOD
As the year has its seasons, marked by alternations of active growth
and recuperation for new development, so likewise has history. If the
Middle Ages were a time of comparative dearth as viewed in the light
of the modern era, certainly there was ample vitality hidden in the
quiet forms and the mechanical fixity of the period. The season of
vernal glory for England, which opened with the reign of Henry VIII.
and found its climax in that of Elizabeth, was glorious because the
beauty and brilliancy which characterized it were due to the splendid
utilities which were passed on to it from the Middle Ages. Art,
literature, and the pleasant pastimes of leisure--the affluence of
prosperity--are the efflorescence of a people's history, though the
absence of these graces and privileges of life may not mean a dearth
in any profound sense, for it may be that their absence but indicates
a lack of favoring conditions for the root stock to put forth foliage
and flower. The simple form of social life which obtained during the
Middle Ages, as contrasted with the brilliancy of intellect and the
breadth of view of the modern era, does not denote any important
difference in the character of the great mass of the English people,
any more than it can be said of the fallow land not under cultivation
that it has less productivity than the fields which by the waving
grain give evidence of their fertile worth.
The easy acceptance in modern times of the benefits of inventions
which greatly broaden the scope of living and add immeasurably to its
comfort shows how readily people adjust themselves to advances in the
conditions of life. So that which we look upon as an era was not so
considered by the people who witnessed the stimulus which we regard
as the beginning of all modern intellectual and social life. For
this reason, we need not expect to discover in the women of the early
modern period any radical difference from their sisters of preceding
generations; but we shall find that, with the change of environment
and the coming of a better state of life in general, womankind was
gradually and insensibly affected in ways of permanent improvement.
The opening up of new avenues of human interest and the enlargement of
old ones increased the sphere of woman's life and influence; yet had
it not been for the status she had achieved already, she would no more
have entered prominently into the blessings and privileges of the new
era than did the women of Greece generally benefit by the Golden Age
of Pericles.
It is interesting to note that at the beginning of the modern era
population was increasing so slowly as to be practically stationary,
and, indeed, for generations past there had been no appreciable
increase. Even after the favorable conditions of the reign of Henry
VIII. became general, population made comparatively slow progress.
Families were not so numerous, or the number of their members so
great, as compared with to-day. It was an exception for a laborer to
maintain his family in a cottage to themselves. Farm work was commonly
done under the superintendence of country esquires, and the laborers
lived in the paternal cottage and remained single, marrying only when
by their providence they had managed to save enough to enable them
to enter upon some other career. The competition of other countries,
notably France, with the industries of England proved disastrous to
many forms of England's industrial activities; and to the introduction
into the kingdom of a number of wares and merchandise of foreign
make was attributed the great number of idle people throughout the
realm. To counteract this condition, Henry issued statutes for the
encouragement of manufacturing. One of these aimed to stimulate the
linen industry. In order that the men and women living in idleness,
which was styled "that most abominable sin," might have profitable
employment, it was ordained and enacted that every person should sow
one-quarter of an acre in flax or hemp for every sixty acres he might
have under cultivation. The immediate purpose of the act was to keep
the wives and children of the poor at work in their own houses, but it
also indicated that the condition of manufactures in England was not
such as to encourage an enlarging population.
The condition of the laboring classes during the reign of Henry VIII.
was not such as to excite general dissatisfaction; indeed, there are
evidences of a general state of contentment among the people. The laws
for the encouragement of trade and the sumptuary legislation for the
regulation of wages and prices were economic measures which may not
stand the test of examination according to modern ideas, but which
nevertheless tended, on the whole, to benefit those in whose behalf
they were made. Industry was the spirit of the times, and idleness was
the most abhorrent of vices. Men, women, and children, alike, were to
be trained in some craft or other, to prevent their becoming public
charges. The children of parents who could afford the fees which were
exacted for apprenticeship were set to learn trades, and the rest were
bound out to agriculture; and if the parents failed to see to it that
their children were started out in a career of labor, the mayors or
magistrates had authority to apprentice such children, so that when
they grew up they might not be driven to dishonest courses by want or
incapacity.
Throughout the sixteenth century, all classes of society appear to
have had a reasonable degree of prosperity, according to their several
needs and stations. The country gentlemen lived upon their landed
estates, surrounded by those evidences of solid comfort which give
attractiveness to such life. The income of the squire was sufficient
to afford a moderate abundance for himself and his family, and between
him and the commons there was not a wide difference in this respect.
Among all classes of the people there was a spirit of liberality,
open and free; the practicality of the age was not inaccordant with
generous hospitality. To every man who asked it, there were free
fare and free lodging, and he might be sure of a bountiful board of
wholesome food. Bread, beef, and beer for dinner, and a mat of rushes
in an unoccupied corner of the hall, with a billet of wood for
a headrest, did not constitute luxurious entertainment, but were
regarded as elements of real comfort. Nor was the generous hospitality
proffered to strangers often abused; the statutes of the times kept
suspicious characters under such close notice, and were so repressive
of predatory and vicious instincts, that there was little occasion
for alarm such as is felt by the modern housewife in country districts
along much-travelled roads. The hour of rising, both summer and
winter, was four o'clock; breakfast was served at five, after which
the laborers went to their work and the gentlemen to their business.
Life lacked much of modern refinement, although it made up for this
lack in wholesomeness and heartiness. The large number of beggars in
the reign of Henry VIII. was due in part to the suppression of the
monasteries and the drying up of those springs of charity, and the
open-handed hospitality which had encouraged begging while relieving
distress. Upon the assumption that there was no excuse for an
able-bodied vagrant, the penalties imposed upon "sturdy beggars"
were severe. Such, in brief, was the state of English society at the
beginning of the modern era.
The influence of the Church was on the wane before the rupture with
the papacy was brought about by Henry VIII., and the laity were
beginning to assume the positions, liberties, and privileges which had
appertained to the clergy as the one scholarly and dominant class
of the kingdom. Under the new conditions of liberty in which we find
woman, there was no room for the continuance of even the forms of
chivalry. Idealized woman no longer existed; she had become practical.
Having sought a position of public activity, she had been recognized
as possessing the private rights of an individual of the same nature
and of similar status as man. It was no longer needful to go to the
convent to find the religious or intellectual types of womankind, for
religion, benevolence, and literature were no longer identified only
with the cloister. However disastrous was the suppression of the
monasteries to the little bands of women who wore the habit of the
_religieuse_, women in general did not feel the upheaval nearly so
much as they did the other social changes, which were not so radical,
but were very much more influential in their relation to the destiny
of the sex as a whole.
Although manners were very free, and nowhere more so than among
persons of the higher orders of society, such coarseness is not the
true criterion by which to gauge the women of the day. Even if they
did not hesitate to use profanity, were adepts at coquetry of an
undisguised type, and were guilty of conduct which merited more
than the term "indiscreet," it must be borne in mind that they were
creatures of their times. While English society was noted for its
rudeness and coarseness, it was saved from much of the effeminacy
which poisoned the life of its neighbors on the continent. The
sixteenth century took a more generous, complimentary, and true view
of womankind. In the Middle Ages, she suffered from the exaggerated
praise of the knight and the troubadour on the one hand, and on the
other from the contempt and contumely of the ecclesiastic. From this
equivocal position of being at the same time an angel and a devil she
was rescued by the sanity and sincerity of the sixteenth century, and
was placed in her true position as a woman, possessed of essentially
the same characteristics as men, worthy of like honor, and making
appeal for no special consideration excepting that which her sex
evoked instinctively from men. The modern idea had begun to prevail,
and woman was no longer either worshipped or shunned, but was welcomed
as a sharer of the common burdens and joys of life. To continental
observers it was marvellous that the English woman should have
the large amount of liberty that she enjoyed; and Europeans not
understanding the English point of view were apt to construe such
liberty as boldness. Thus, one writer from abroad is found commenting
upon the sixteenth-century English woman as follows: "The women have
much more liberty than perhaps in any other place; they also know well
how to make use of it; for they go dressed out in exceedingly fine
clothes, and give all their attention to their ruffs and stuffs to
such a degree indeed that, as I am informed, many a one does not
hesitate to wear velvet in the streets, which is common with them,
whilst at home perhaps they have not a piece of dry bread."
Elizabeth Lamond's _Discourse of the Commonweal_ recites that there
was more employment for the men and women of the towns and cities
when the wants of people were more modest. The population of London,
despite the attempts made by Queen Elizabeth to prevent the influx
of foreigners and persons from the rural districts, increased rapidly
during her reign. On coming into the city, the rustics soon wasted
their small savings in the rioting and revels which characterized the
rough life of the metropolis. Drinking, gambling, and all forms of
license enticed the husband from his home and destroyed the domestic
felicity which had been the characteristic of country living. Country
and town life were still widely separated by bad roads and poor means
of conveyance. The wives even of the gentry knew, as a rule, nothing
of city life, excepting from the accounts which their husbands might
bring back to them from occasional jaunts to the metropolis; to all
such accounts they listened with wide-eyed wonder.
The amusements of the women of the better sort, who did not find
their entertainment in the vices of the times, took chiefly the form
of spectacles, to which they readily flocked. It mattered little
whether it was a mask, a miracle play, a church procession or a
royal progress, a cock fight or a bear baiting. The brutality of
their sports no more affected their feelings than do the revolting
circumstances of a bull fight shock the sensibilities of the women of
Spain's cultured circles. When any morning they might see the heads
of some unfortunates stuck on pikes and gracing with their gruesome
presence the city gate, it is not surprising that the people were not
repelled by brutal exhibitions of a lesser sort. Nor did the forms
of punishment in use for malefactors of one kind or another tend to
soften the feelings of the women of the time. It was no unusual thing
for a woman convicted of being a common scold to be seen going about
the streets with her face behind an iron muzzle clamped over her
mouth, a subject for the jeers and ribald mirth of coarse-minded women
no better than herself. Such characters were also taken to the ducking
stool and thoroughly doused in the water. The punishment of thieves
by branding and by mutilation, and the punishment meted out to women
whose characters, even in that gross age, affronted public morals,
were of a public nature and matters of daily observation. Nor was any
woman quite sure that the gibbet, from which she could at almost any
time see the swaying form of some unfortunate, might not next serve
for the execution of her own husband; for the number of capital
offences was large, and the inquiries of justice by no means lenient
on the side of the accused.
The destruction of the monasteries brought about, in a large measure,
the dissolution of the educational system of the realm. The sons of
the poor husbandman, who had been taught at the convent schools, and
then passed on through the universities, and thence had gradually
worked their way into the professions of religion or the law, had
the door of opportunity to a higher station closed to them. The
deprivation was more severe in the case of girls, although it did not
signify so much for them in relation to their future--unless, indeed,
it did so by debarring from the profession of religion some who might
have entered it. The clergy tried to meet the educational demands
which were so suddenly thrown upon them, but it was impossible for
them to afford educational facilities for the youth of either sex at
schools without endowment or adequate support. Elizabeth, with the
wide view and the sagacity which she showed with regard to all aspects
of her kingdom, evinced her recognition of the importance of education
by establishing one hundred free grammar schools, whose number rapidly
increased during her reign. In the course of time, these schools fell
under the control of the middle class and afforded education for their
sons and daughters. But in England there were certainly very few, if
any, women of the middle class who entered largely into the benefits
of the new learning which came in with the Renaissance. The study
of Latin and Greek and the discussion of philosophy and science were
confined to the women of the leisure classes. The English universities
in the sixteenth century were closed to women; but such lack was
made up by private tutors, women of rank and position thus having the
benefit of the brightest minds of the age.
The great awakening of intellectual life in England, in common
with the continental countries, showed itself in activity in all
departments of thought: poetry flourished, theology caught the
infection of the new spirit of liberty, and the classics were studied
with avidity as the springs of the world's literature and learning.
The invention of the printing press let loose the floods of knowledge,
and the women of the higher classes were caught in the flow of
books and pamphlets, and their intellects were quickened and their
characters formed by these new sources of inspiration and wisdom.
Woman was no longer designated as the daughter of the Church, which
was formerly the highest encomium that the condescension of the Church
could afford her. She now stood on her own independence of character,
possessed of an intellect and accorded the freedom of its use.
The example of the Virgin Queen was held up to the youth of England
for their imitation. Elizabeth's education had been most zealously
cared for. To her remarkable aptitude for learning she added a
studious disposition. At an early age she was an accomplished
linguist; the sciences were familiar to her, she "understood
the principles of geography, architecture, the mathematics, and
astronomy." Her studies, save one, however, she regarded rather in the
light of pastime; to the exception--history--she "devoted three hours
a day, and read works in all languages that afforded information on
the subject." Thus was her mind stored with the philosophy of history;
men and events in their ever changing relations were an open book to
her. Hence, when the responsibilities of sovereignty devolved upon
her she was resourceful and prompt. Whether dealing with her ambitious
subjects, or receiving the wily ambassador of a foreign power, her
poise could not be disturbed.
With the example and influence of the Tudor princesses before them,
the women least needed the exhortation to intellectual attainments.
It was said by a foreign scholar who visited England in the middle of
the sixteenth century that "the rich cause their sons and daughters
to learn Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, for, since this storm of heresy
has invaded the land, they hold it useful to read the Scriptures in
the original tongue." With all the profession of knowledge which
was assumed by the people of this age, there went a great deal of
pedantry. It became very tiresome to listen to the conversations of
select bodies of the devotees of the new wisdom, who had touched
but the skirts of the garments of the Muses. The great number of
literary coxcombs and dilettanti who were scribbling Latin verse and
propounding philosophical theses, or pronouncing upon new theological
views, serves to impress one with the superficiality of the learning
of the day, so far as is concerned the great body of its professed
disciples, while in contrast to these we are led to respect more
profoundly the genuine attainments of the brilliant group of men and
women who made the reign of Elizabeth illustrious for its varied and
almost matchless learning. In spite of all the pretence to learning on
the part of the great mass of women who had neither the taste nor the
capacity to drink deep at the Pyrenean spring, it must be said that
in no other period of English history has there been shown such marked
and general eagerness for knowledge as in the sixteenth century, nor
has any other period exhibited such a galaxy of great women. The
wide diffusion of a love of literature is in striking contrast to the
literary dearth of the preceding centuries.
It was not, however, a period of brilliant authorship among women.
The new learning had first to be imbibed and become a part of the
national thought before it could express itself in literary products.
Translations of the classics and the works of the Church Fathers, with
literary correspondence and discussions in choice Latin prose, as well
as the composition of distiches in the same tongue, with occasional
instances of adventure into Greek and Hebrew composition, summed up
the literary labors of the women of the times. As such matters possess
little interest to posterity, not many of these literary essays and
letters have been preserved; but such as have come down to us mirror
the intellect of the women of the age so creditably as to invite
comparison with the results of modern education for the sex.
Lady Jane Grey may be cited as one of the women of the day who became
notable for learning and scholarship. Of her, Fox writes: "If her
fortune had been as good as her bringing up, joined with fineness
of wit, undoubtedly she might have seemed comparable not only to the
house of the Vespasians, Sempronians, and the mother of the Gracchi,
yea, to any other women besides that deserve of high praise for their
singular learning, but also to the University men, who have taken
many degrees of the Schools." The facility of this noble lady in Greek
composition was strongly commended by Roger Ascham. Her remarkable
knowledge of the cognate tongues of the East and of modern languages
made her almost deserving of the encomium which was passed upon Anna
Maria van Schurman, a Dutch contemporary, of whom it was said: "If all
the languages of the earth should cease to exist, she herself would
give them birth anew." The conversance of the literary ladies of the
sixteenth century with the languages of the East, as well as with
philosophy and theology, and the really marvellous attainments of some
of them in these subjects, indicate a sound education, even though an
unserviceable one.
Erasmus warmly commended the Princess Mary for her proficiency in
Latin, and in later years she translated Erasmus's _Paraphrase of the
Gospel of Saint John_. Udall, Master of Eton, who wrote the preface to
this work, complimented her for her "over-painful study and labour of
writing," by which she had "cast her weak body in a grievous and long
sickness." The literary attainments and linguistic versatility of
Elizabeth herself, which made her a criterion for her times, are well
enough known to need no especial notice here. She had the benefit of
instruction from Roger Ascham, with whom she read the classics, and
from Grindal, under whom she studied theology, which was a favorite
subject with her. In Italian, Castiglione was her master, and Lady
Champernon was her first tutor in modern languages. She became
familiar with the works of the Greek and Latin authors by hearing them
read to her by Sir Henry Savil and Sir John Fortescue. In this way she
became intimately acquainted with Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon,
and herself translated one of the dialogues of the latter, besides
rendering two orations of Isocrates from Greek into Latin.
Among other studious and accomplished women of the times, Sir Thomas
More's daughters held a high place. All of them were clever and
applied themselves to abstruse subjects; but Margaret, wife of William
Roper, the daughter who clung passionately to her father's neck when
he was being led off to execution, was the most brilliant of this
family of accomplished women. Sir Anthony Coke, whose scholarship gave
him the position of preceptor to Edward VI., had the gratification of
seeing his daughters attract the attention of the most celebrated men
of the nation. One of them married Lord Burleigh, the treasurer of
the realm; another wedded Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord keeper of the Great
Seal, becoming in time the mother of the famous Francis Bacon, the
celebrated philosopher; and as her second husband, the third had Lord
Russell.
Nothing delighted the brilliant women of the Elizabethan era so much
as to have themselves surrounded by great writers, statesmen, and
other celebrities. Stately magnificence was maintained at many of the
great houses, and the presence of noted artists and celebrated authors
gave to such homes an intellectual atmosphere. One of the centres of
intellectual thought and literary life of her time was the home of
Mary Sidney, after she had become the wife of Henry, Earl of Pembroke,
and mistress of his establishment at Wilton. Around her hospitable
board gathered poets, statesmen, and artists, drawn there not by the
rank of the hostess or to satisfy her pride by their presence and
fame, but because her cultivated intellect made her a fit companion
for the greatest intellectual personages of the day. To have had the
honor of entertaining, as guests, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, besides
the lesser poets of the time, and to have been recognized by such
literati as worthy of their serious consideration because of her
undoubted gifts, not only reflected high compliment upon the lady,
but lasting credit upon her sex, and was one of the many significant
things of the Elizabethan era which indicated how wide open stood
the door of intellectual progress and equality of opportunity for the
women of modern times. Spenser celebrated the Countess of Pembroke as:
"The gentlest shepherdess that liv'd that day,
And most resembling in shape and spirit
Her brother dear."
Udall, the Master of Eton, speaks enthusiastically of the great number
of women in the noble ranks of society, "not only given to the study
of human sciences and strange tongues, but also so thoroughly expert
in the Holy Scriptures that they were able to compare with the
best writers as well in enditeing and penning of Godly and fruitful
treatises to the instruction and edifying of realmes in the knowledge
of God, as also in translating good books out of Latin or Greek into
English for the use and commodity of such as are rude and ignorant of
the said tongues. It was now no news in England to see young damsels
in noble houses and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and
other instruments of idle trifling, to have continually in their hands
either Psalms, homilies, and other devout meditations, or else Paul's
Epistles, or some book of Holy Scripture matters, and as familiarly
both to read and reason thereof in Greek, Latin, French, or Italian as
in English. It was now a common thing to see young virgins so trained
in the study of good letters that they willingly set all other vain
pastimes at nought for learning's sake. It was now no news at all
to see Queens and ladies of most high estate and progeny, instead
of courtly dalliance, to embrace virtuous exercises of reading and
writing, and with most earnest study both early and late to apply
themselves to the acquiring of knowledge, as well in all other liberal
artes and disciplines, as also most especially of God and His holy
word."
The doubts as to the utility of higher education for women in general
which trouble some minds at the present day were not altogether
unknown in the age of Elizabeth. Ecclesiastics especially, even
the more liberal, were most prone to entertain doubts as to the
advisability of permitting women to have a free range through the
avenues of knowledge. It is probable that the middle classes, to whom
the opportunities of education were not so general, felt the value of
schools too highly to speculate upon the utility of that which was not
readily within their grasp. Richard Mulcaster, who was the master of
a school founded by the Merchant Taylors Company in the parish of St.
Lawrence, Pultney, says: "We see young maidens be taught to read and
write, and can do both with praise; we have them sing and playe: and
both passing well, we know that they learne the best and finest of our
learned languages, to the admiration of all men. For the daiely spoken
tongues and of best reputation in our time who so shall deny that they
may not compare even with our kinde even in the best degree ... Nay,
do we not see in our country some of that sex so excellently well
trained and so rarely qualified either for the tongues themselves
or for the matter in the tongues: as they may be opposed by way of
comparison, if not preferred as beyond comparison, even to the best
Romaine or Greekish paragones, be they never so much praised to the
Germaine or French gentle-wymen by late writers so well liked: to
the Italian ladies who dare write themselves and deserve fame for
so doing?... I dare be bould, therefore, to admit young maidens to
learne, seeing my countrie gives me leave and her costume standes for
me.... Some Rimon will say, what should wymend with learning? Such a
churlish carper will never picke out the best, but be alway ready to
blame the worst. If all men used all pointes of learning well, we had
some reason to alledge against wymend, but seeing misuse is commonly
both the kinds, why blame we their infirmitie whence we free not
ourselves." He then contends that a young gentlewoman who can write
well and swiftly, sing clearly and sweetly, play well and finely, and
employ readily the learned languages with some "logicall helpe to chop
and some rhetoricke to brave," is well furnished, and that such a one
is not likely to bring up her children a whit the worse, even if she
becomes a Loelia, a Hortensia, or a Cornelia. In discussing whether or
not girls should be taught by their own sex, he inclines to the belief
that this practice were advisable, but that discreet men might teach
girls to advantage. To use his own words: "In teachers, their owne
sex were fittest in some respects, but ours frame them best, and,
with good regard to some circumstances, will bring them up excellently
well." In the higher circles, where cynicism frequently assumes the
forms of wisdom, it was not universally agreed that women should
have the widest opportunities of education. In one of his discourses,
Erasmus, possibly the most accomplished of the schoolmen of the time,
opens to our view the opinion of the Church as to female scholarship
when he represents an abbot as contending that if women were learned
they could not be kept under subjection, "therefore it is a wicked,
mischievous thing to revive the ancient custom of educating them." A
remark in one of Erasmus's letters lays him open to the suspicion of
sharing somewhat in this view, for, in his description of Sir Thomas
More, he speaks of him as wise with the wise, and jesting with
fools--"with women especially, and his own wife among them."
Besides the graver matters of study which claimed their attention, the
women of England were devoted to music, needlework, and dancing, which
were the favorite fashionable pastimes. Erasmus speaks of them as
the most accomplished in musical skill of any people. Early as the
reign of Henry VIII., to read music at sight was not an uncommon
accomplishment, while those who aspired to the technique of the
subject were students of counterpoint. Musical literature was scanty;
the principal instruments were the lute, the mandolin, the clavichord,
and the virginals.
Notwithstanding its literary flavor and its identity with the great
themes of modern knowledge, the age of Elizabeth can hardly be called
a serious one from the point of view of the spirit and manners of the
people. Amusement was sought for its own sake, without regard to
its character or quality. The spirit of enjoyment was hearty and
unrestrained, and lacked discrimination and refinement. The society
of the age, like its culture, was a reflex of the personality of the
powerful queen, who stamped her character and her tastes upon her
people. The queen, as well as her courtiers, could restrain herself
upon occasion; but neither she nor her subjects felt that there was
any moral or conventional need to place a check upon the expression
of their emotions, and in consequence their manners were often
unbecoming. It did not offend the sense of personal dignity of
Elizabeth to spit at a courtier, the cut or color of whose coat
displeased her, just as she might box his ears or rap out at him
a flood of profanity. When Leicester was kneeling to receive his
earldom, the dignity of the occasion was entirely destroyed by the
volatile queen bending over to tickle his neck. As it was a case of
like queen, like people, a man who could not or who would not swear
was accounted "a peasant, a clown, a patch, an effeminate person."
The _sine qua non_ for obtaining the queen's favor was to be amusing.
It mattered nothing at all at whose expense, or how personal
the witticism, or how sensitive the one who was made the butt of
amusement; if the queen enjoyed it, and the boisterous laughter of the
court sycophants was evoked, the sufferer had to appear gratified at
the honor of his selection for his sovereign's entertainment. Coarse
manners were but the expression of coarser morals; even men of the
cleanest characters and highest intelligence did not shrink from any
allusion, however gross, and felt no impulse to check their words
either in speech or in writing. Nor were women a whit more regardful
of the proprieties of expression. Ascham blamed the degradation of
English morals in part on the custom of sending abroad young men to
Italy to finish their education, and alleged that the corruption which
they underwent at the "court of Circe" was responsible for the spread
of vicious manners in English society. He writes: "I know divers that
went out of England, men of innocent life, men of excellent learning,
who returned out of Italy, not only with worse manners, but also with
less learning." He complains of the introduction of Italian books
translated into English, which were sold in every shop of London, by
which the morals of the youth were corrupted, and whose venom was
the more insidious because they appeared under honest titles and were
dedicated to virtuous and honorable personages. As there was no public
opinion to censure the reading of the women, or standards to control
their conversation, they did not feel the impropriety of acquainting
themselves with such works and of openly discussing them. Indeed, the
women of the nobility felt themselves freed from all the restraints
which the modest of the sex normally cherish for their protection.
An illustration of the freedom of the manners of the women is found
in the correspondence of Erasmus, who, on coming to England as a young
man, was impressed by the prevalence of the custom of kissing. In a
letter to a friend in Holland, he says, in effect, that the women kiss
you on meeting you, kiss you on taking their leave; when you enter
their homes, you are greeted with kisses, and are sped on your way by
the same osculatory exercises; and he adds, after you have once tasted
the freshness of the lips of the rosy English maidens, you will not
want to leave this delightful country. A further illustration of the
same thing is found in a manual of so-called English conversation,
published in 1589: a traveller on arriving at an inn is instructed
to discourse as follows with the chambermaid, and her conventional
replies are given: "My shee frinde, is my bed made--is it good?" "Yea,
sir, it is a good feder-bed; the scheetes be very cleane." "Pull off
my hosen and warme my bed; drawe the curtines, and pin them with a
pin. My shee frinde, kisse me once, and I shall sleape the better. I
thank you, fayre mayden." This suggestion of the manners obtaining in
the English inns is but an indication of a similar state of freedom
throughout the lower classes of society. For while the glory of the
Elizabethan age was found mostly at the top of society, its coarseness
pervaded all ranks.
The rough manners of the age extended to the countenancing of all
sorts of brawls. There was nothing that would collect a crowd sooner
than two boys whose pugnacity had led them from words to blows; the
passers-by considered such a scene fine sport, and gathered about the
young combatants to encourage them in their fighting. Even the mothers
themselves, far from punishing their children for such conduct,
encouraged it in them. Cock fighting, bear baiting, wrestling, and
sword play were favorite pastimes. The girls delighted to play in the
open air, with little regard to grace or decorum; a game called tennis
ball was popular. The milkwomen had their dances, into which they
entered with zest. Pets were in favor with the ladies almost as much
as in the former century, and exploration into new countries had
increased the variety of them. In the prints of the times, ladies are
often represented with monkeys in attendance on them.
With the great multiplicity of new fashions, in novelties in customs
and in costumes, in manners and even in morals, there came into vogue,
from the East, hot, or, as they were called, "sweating baths." They
became very common throughout England, and the places where they
were to be gotten were commonly called "hothouses," although their
Persian name of _hummums_ was also preserved. Ben Jonson represents
a character in the old play _The Puritan_ as saying in regard to a
laborious undertaking: "Marry, it will take me much sweat; I were
better to go to sixteen _hothouses_." They became the rendezvous of
women, who resorted to them for gossip and company. The rude manners
of the age were not conducive to the preservation of these places from
the illicit intrigues which made them notorious, and caused the name
"hothouse" to become a synonym for "brothel." It was their acquired
character that probably led eventually to their disuse. They were not
necessarily vicious, and they furnished a convenience for the sex, who
did not have the shops and clubs of to-day as places for meeting and
the interchange of small talk. It must be remembered that the taverns
supplied this need for the men, but, excepting in the case of the
lower orders of society, the women had no similar place for such
social intercourse as was secured to the men by their tavern clubs.
The hothouses were not simply bath houses of the modern Turkish type,
but were restaurants as well. While seated in the steaming bath,
refreshments and lunch were served on tables conveniently arranged for
the purpose, and, after ablutions, the women remained as long as they
cared to, in conversation. The picnics which had formerly taken place
at the tavern were transferred to the hot bath, each of the women
carrying to the feast contributions which were shared in common.
This practice, which began with the servant maids, passed to their
mistresses and on up the scale of society, and became fashionable
for the ladies of the higher circles. In the absence of the modern
newspaper, these places became the distributing centres for the
news of the day and the talk of the town. The tavern served the same
purpose for the men.
Dancing was indulged in by all classes of society, and the variety
and curious names of the new styles which were introduced during the
Elizabethan era are well set forth in the following quotation from a
festal scene in Haywood's _Woman Kilde with Kindnesse_:
"J. SLIME.--I come to dance, not to quarrel. Come, what shall
it be? _Rogero_?
JEM.--_Rogero_! no! we will dance the _Beginning of the
World_.
SISLY.--I love no dance so well as _John, Come Kiss Me Now_.
NICH.--I that have ere now defer'd a cushion, call for the
_Cushion-dance_.
R. BRICK.--For my part, I like nothing so well as _Tom Tyler_.
JEM.--No; we'll have the _Hunting of the Fox_.
J. SLIME.--_The Hay_; _The Hay_! there's nothing like _The
Hay_!
NICH.--I have said, do say, and will say again--
JEM.--Every man agree to have it as Nick says.
ALL.--Content.
NICH.--It hath been, it is now, and it shall be--
SISLY.--What, Master Nicholas? What?
NICH.--_Put on your Smock o' Monday._
JEM.--So the dance will come cleanly off. Come, for God's
sake agree on something; if you like not that, put it to the
musicians; or let me speak for all, and we'll have _Sellengers
Round_."
The nuptial usages of the age included some curious customs. Thus,
we are told by Howe in his _Additions to Stowe's Chronicle_ that,
in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, "It was the custome for maydes and
gentlewomen to give their favourites, as tokens of their love, little
Handkerchiefs, of about three or four inches square, wrought round
about, and with a button or a tassel at each corner, and a little one
in the middle, with silke and thread; the best edged with a small gold
lace, or twist, which being foulded up in foure crosse foldes, so as
the middle might be seene, gentlemen and other did usually weare them
in their hattes, as favours of their loves and mistresses. Some cost
six pence a piece, some twelve pence, and the richest sixteen pence."
Handkerchiefs were the customary messengers of Cupid; the present of
a handkerchief with love devices worked in the corners was a delicate
expression of the tender sentiment. Thus, in Haywood's _Fayre Mayde
of the Exchange_, Phyllis brings a handkerchief to the Cripple of
Fanchurch to be embroidered, and says:
"Only this hankercher; a young gentlewoman
Wish'd me to acquaint you with her mind herein:
In one corner of the same, place wanton Love,
Drawing his bow, shooting an amorous dart--
Opposit against him an arrow in an heart;
In a third corner picture forth Disdain,
A cruel fate unto a loving vein;
In the fourth, draw a springing laurel-tree,
Circled about with a ring of poesy."
Wedding contracts in the times of the Tudors were peculiar, not being
regarded as binding unless there had been an exchange of gold or the
drinking of wine. In the old play of _The Widow_, Ricardo artfully
entices the widow into a verbal contract, whereupon one of her suitors
draws hope for himself through the possibility of the engagement being
invalid because it lacked the observance of this custom. He says:
"Stay, stay--you broke no Gold between you?" To which she answers: "We
broke nothing, Sir;" and on his adding: "Nor drank to each other?" she
replies: "Not a drop, Sir." Whence he draws this conclusion: "That the
contract cannot stand good in Law." The custom of throwing rice after
a wedded couple is a continuance of the practice in the sixteenth
century of throwing wheat upon the head of the bride as she came from
the church. Marriage was not considered irrevocable, because, aside
from the regular forms of divorce, it was not unusual for a husband
to sell his wife for a satisfactory consideration. Even down to recent
times, the people in some of the rural districts of England could not
understand why a husband had not a right so to dispose of his wife,
provided he delivered her over with a halter around her neck. Henry
Machyn notes in his _Diary_, in 1553, the following: "Dyd ryd in a
cart Checken, parson of Sant Necolas Coldabbay, round abowt London,
_for he sold ys wyff_ to a bowcher." When the contracting parties
were too poor to pay for the ceremony and the wedding feast, and the
expenses of the occasion were met by the guests clubbing together, the
occasion was termed a "penny wedding."
One of the popular customs of the day was to observe Mayday in the
country districts by erecting a brightly decorated Maypole, about
which the young people danced the simple rustic dances. It is not
unusual to find people to-day sighing for a return of the good old
customs of yore, and a favorite lament is the lapse of the observance
of Mayday in the old English manner. There was, doubtless, some
innocent amusement associated with this popular holiday, and only the
most captious Puritan could object to it because of its derivation
from the old Roman festival of Flora; but, unfortunately, the manners
of the sixteenth century did not leave room for much of innocent
observance of sports and pastimes in the open air, so that, in fact,
the dances about the Maypole were too frequently gross and unseemly.
Charles Francis Adams, in his editing of Morton's _Narrative_, in
the Prince Society Publications, in commenting upon the Merrie Mount
incident in the early settlement of New England, calls attention
in a footnote to the judgment of a contemporary writer as to the
iniquities which were practised in connection with what in the
popular imagination of the day was a wholesome and happy pastime.
The statement in the passage quoted by him of the startling depravity
which signalized the day throughout rural England awakens the
pertinent question as to what was the moral state of the women of
the rural population of the country. The testimony of the manners and
customs of the day, and the effect upon England of the indescribable
profligacy of the peoples of France and Italy, force the unpleasant
conclusion, after making all extenuation for the standards which
then obtained, that the vice which in the higher circles was as "the
creeping thing that flieth" appeared in the lower circles of society
in all of its foulness.
Life in the country was very delightful; buildings of fanciful
architecture were erected, the majority of them still being of wood,
the better sort plastered inside and the walls hung with tapestry
or wainscoted with oak, against which stood out in bold relief the
glittering gold and silver plate, which not alone the nobles and
gentry, but the merchants and even the farmers and artisans, loved
to possess. But in spite of their love of plate, Venetian glassware,
because of its rarity, was preferred for drinking vessels. The
housewife of quality no longer had to strew rushes upon the floor,
for Turkish rugs were imported and used by the wealthy. Beds were hung
with the finest silk or tapestry, and the tables were covered with
linen. The homes of all classes showed the increase in the comfort
of living. Even the poorest women could boast of chimneys to their
houses, and were no longer suffocated by the smoke which for egress
depended upon a hole in the roof. In 1589 a wise law was passed that
no cottage should be built on a tract of less than four acres of land,
and that only one family was to live in each cottage. Feather pillows
and beds took the place of straw pallets with a log of wood for a
headrest. The poorer homes, which could not afford expensive rugs,
were still strewn with sweet herbs, which, however, were renewed and
kept fresh, and the bedchambers were made fragrant with flowers. The
economy of the kitchen was not the hard problem it had formerly been,
for in the time of Elizabeth, the period of which we are speaking,
the laboring classes could obtain meat in abundance. The "gentry ate
wheaten, and the poor barley bread; beer was mostly brewed at home;
wine was drunk in the richer houses. Trade brought many luxuries to
the English table; spices, sugar, currants, almonds, dates, etc.,
came from the East." Indeed, so many currants were imported into the
country that it is said that the people of the places from whence they
were shipped supposed that they were used for the extraction of dye
or else were fed to the hogs; but the real explanation was the great
fondness of the English people for currants and raisins in their
pastry. While they were not gluttonous, the English then, as now, were
fond of the table, and gave much attention to eating and drinking.
The old people of the age regretfully looked back over their lives
to former days, when, as they said, although the houses were but of
willow, Englishmen were oaken, but now the houses were oaken and the
Englishmen of straw. The appearance of chimneys was not greeted as
an improvement, for the poor had never fared so well as in the smoky
halls of other days; they could not bear the thought that their
windows, which were formerly of wickerwork, were now of glass, or that
now, instead of sweet rushes, foreign carpets were upon the floors
of many houses; or that so many houses were being built of brick and
stone, plastered inside. It was regarded as a sure indication of
a decline in virility that the sons of the sturdy yeomen of a past
generation should crave comfortable beds hung with tapestry, and use
pillows--luxuries which once were thought suited only for women in
childbed. In the midst of an influx of new comforts, there was a
barrenness of things considered to-day to be essential, and the
absence of which was made the more glaring by reason of the many
comforts and luxuries with which life was surrounded. "Good soap was
an almost impossible luxury, and the clothes had to be washed with
cow-dung, hemlock, nettles, and refuse soap, than which, in Harrison's
opinion, 'there is none more unkindly savor.'"
A Dutch traveller, who in 1560 visited England and recorded his
impressions of the English home, introduces us to a pleasant picture
of the home life of the times, in the following words: "The neat
cleanliness, the exquisite fineness, the pleasant and delightful
furniture in every point for household, wonderfully rejoiced me; their
chambers and parlors strawed over with sweet herbs, refreshed me;
their nosegays, finely intermingled with sundry sorts of fragrant
flowers in their bedchambers and privy rooms, with comfortable smell
cheered me up." The parlors were freshened with green boughs and fresh
herbs throughout the summer, and with evergreens during the winter.
During the reign of Elizabeth, the hours for meals were the same as in
the fifteenth century, although between the first meal and dinner it
was customary to have a small luncheon, mostly composed of beverages,
and called a _bever_. A character in one of Middleton's plays
says: "We drink, that's mouth-hour; at eleven, lay about us
for victuals--that's hand-hour; at twelve, go to dinner--that's
eating-hour." Dinner was the most substantial meal of the day, and its
hearty character was commented upon by foreign travellers in England.
It was preceded by the same ceremony of washing the hands as in
former times, and the ewers and basins used for the purpose were often
elaborate and showy. It must be remembered that at table persons of
all ranks used their fingers instead of forks, and the laving of the
hands during the meals was important for comfort and cleanliness.
After the introduction of forks, the washing of hands during the meal,
though no longer so necessary as before, was continued as a polite
form for a while, although the after-meal washing appears to have
been discontinued. The pageantry and splendor which attended feasting
reached their greatest height in the first half of the sixteenth
century. The tables were arranged around the side of the hall, some
for the guests, and others to hold the tankards, the ewers, and the
dishes of food; for it had not yet become the practice to put anything
on the table in setting it other than the plates, the drinking
vessels, the saltcellars, and the napkins. The dresser, or the
cupboard, was the greatest display article of furniture in the hall of
the houses of the higher orders of society, who invested large amounts
of money in vessels of the precious metals and of crystal, which
were sometimes set with precious stones and were always of the most
beautiful patterns and of odd and elaborate forms. To such lengths
went personal pride in the appearance of the dresser, that points of
etiquette were raised by careful housewives as to how many steps, or
gradations on which the rows of plate were placed above each other,
members of the different ranks of society might have on their
cupboards. Five for a princess of royal blood, four for noble ladies
of the highest rank, three for nobility under the rank of duke, two
for knights-bannerets, and one for persons who were merely of gentle
blood, was fixed as proper form. Dinner was still served in three
courses, without any great distinction in the character of the dishes
served at each course. One of the writers of the times says: "In
number of dishes and changes of meat the nobility of England do most
exceed." "No day passes but they have not only beef, mutton, veal,
lamb, kid, pork, coney, capon, pig, or so many of them as the season
yields, but also fish in variety, venison, wildfowl, and sweets." As
there were but two full meals in the day, and as the households of the
nobility, including the many servants and retainers, were large, and
as it was the practice for the chief servants to dine with the family
and the guests, it will be seen that a large and varied supply of food
was needed. The upper table having been served, the lower servants
were supplied, and what remained was bestowed upon the poor, who
gathered in great numbers at the gates of the nobility to receive
the leavings from their meals. It can be seen that the labors of the
women in supervising the affairs of the household were onerous. Among
gentlemen and merchants, four, five, or six dishes sufficed, and if
there were no guests, two or three. Fish was the article of greatest
consumption among the poor, and could be obtained at all seasons.
Fowls, pigeons, and all kinds of game were abundant and cheap. Butter,
milk, cheese, and curds were "reputed as food appurtenant to the
inferior sort." The very poor usually had enough ground in which to
raise cabbages, parsnips, carrots, pumpkins, and such like vegetables,
which constituted their principal food, and of which both the raising
and the preparation for the table were largely the work of the women.
Among the lower classes, the various feasts of the year and the bridal
occasions were celebrated with great festivity, and it was the custom
for each guest to contribute one or more dishes.
"Sham" is the keynote to an understanding of Elizabethan society; the
Virgin Queen herself, with all her undoubted worth and abilities, was
the embodiment of the vanity and pretence of her age. Young unmarried
women loved "to show coyness in gestures, mince in words and speeches,
gingerliness in tripping on toes like young goats, demure nicety and
babyishness," and when they went out, they had silk scarfs "cast about
their faces, fluttering in the wind, or riding in their velvet visors,
with two holes cut for the eyes." The visors here mentioned bring
to mind Hamlet's "God hath given you one face, and you make yourself
another; you jig, you amble, you lisp, you nickname God's creatures,
and make your wantonness your ignorance." The general use of masks in
public places toward the close of Elizabeth's reign did not improve
the moral status of the higher classes. The pretentiousness and the
superficiality of the times are laid bare by Harrington, the favorite
godson of the queen, whose arraignment is in unsparing terms: "We go
brave in apparel that we may be taken for better men than we be;
we use much bombastings and quiltings to seem better framed, better
shouldered, smaller waisted, and fuller thighed than we are; we barb
and shave oft to seem younger than we are; we use perfumes, both
inward and outward, to seem sweeter, wear corked shoes to seem taller,
use courteous salutations to seem kinder, lowly obeisance to seem
humbler, and grave and godly communication to seem wiser and devouter
than we be."
The dress of the women of the Elizabethan era shows the same
extravagance that is apparent in all the exaggerated social phases
of the time. Philip Stubbs, who wrote at the close of the sixteenth
century a book entitled _The Anatomy of Abuses_, appears to have
been a choleric and gloomy observer of current manners, but, with due
allowance for the spirit in which he writes, a very clear picture can
be gotten of the style and excesses of dress of the several classes of
society. He affirms that no people in the world were so hungry after
new-fangled styles as were those of his country. After having dilated
on the large amounts spent for dress, he digresses in order to
moralize, and adds that the fashionable attire of the day is unsuited
to the actual needs of the wearers' bodies and "maketh them weak,
tender, and infirm, not able to abide such blustering storms and sharp
showers as many other people abroad do daily bear." It is curious to
find him harking back to the old days of which he had heard his father
and other sages speak, when all the clothes for the household were
made by the busy housewife, and coats were of the same color as
the wool when it was on the sheep's back. In the abandonment of the
household woollen industry and the excessive use of imported fabrics,
he sees the reason for the many thousands in England who were reduced
to the necessity of begging bread. Starch, which is now such a homely
and universally helpful laundry assistant, and to the expert use of
which so much of the freshness and smartness of women's attire is due,
was then first introduced. "There is a certain liquid matter which
they call starch," says this censorious critic of current customs,
"wherein the devil hath learned them to wash and dive their ruffs;
which, being dry, will then stand stiff and inflexible about their
necks." The ladies of his day must have been more expert in the use
of starch than are their sisters to-day, as they introduced into it
coloring matter, so that it temporarily dyed the fabrics red, blue,
purple, and other colors, of which yellow seems to have been the most
esteemed.
The yellow starch which was so much in use originated in France, and
was introduced into England by a Mrs. Turner, a physician's widow,
a vain and infamous woman, who ended her career on the gallows in
expiation of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Bulwer says that it is
hard "to derive the pedigree of the cobweb-lawn-yellow-starched ruffs,
which so disfigured our nation, and rendered them so ridiculous and
fantastical." It appears that when the introducer of the custom was
led to the gallows she was conspicuous in a yellow ruff worn about
her neck, and after her execution the wearing of such ruffs rapidly
declined. Having said this much about the ruffs which were a
characteristic feature of the dress of the day of both men and women,
it may be well to add that starch was not wholly depended upon for the
support of these preposterous neck dresses. Wire frames covered with
silver or silk thread were employed for the purpose. These ruffs are
often referred to in the literature of the period. Allusion is made to
them in the play of _Nice Valour_, by Beaumont and Fletcher, where the
madman says:
"Or take a fellow pinn'd up like a mistress,
About his neck a ruff like a pinch'd lanthorn,
Which school-boys make in winter."
Stubbs also pays his respects to the gowns of the women, which he says
were no less "famous" than the rest of their attire. A quotation will
serve to give an idea of the materials which were in use for dress
goods and the embellishments of women's gowns; "Some are of silk, some
of velvet, some of grograin, some of taffeta, some of scarlet, and
some of fine cloth of ten, twenty, or forty shillings the yard; but,
if the whole garment be not of silk or velvet, then the same must be
laid with lace two or three fingers broad all over the gown, or else
the most part; or, if it be not so, as lace is not fine enough, now
and then it must be garded with gards of velvet, every gard four or
five fingers broad at the least, and edged with costly lace; and, as
these gownes be of divers colours, so are they of divers fashions,
changing with the moon; for, some be of the new fashion, some of
the old; some with sleeves, hanging down to their skirts, trailing
on the ground, and cast over their shoulders like cow-tails; some
have sleeves much shorter and cut up the arm, drawn out with sundry
colours, and pointed with silk ribbands, and very gallantly tied with
love-knots, for so they call them." To these striking costumes were
added capes which reached down to the middle of the back, and which,
our author informs us, were "plaited and crested with more knacks than
he could express."
It is impossible to do more than mention the absurdities in general
of women's attire and toilette during the eccentric Elizabethan era.
Ladies painted their faces and wore false hair, as they had done in
other ages, only with greater refinements of hideousness; they stuffed
their petticoats with tow, and drew in their waists to incredible
smallness as compared with the vast expansiveness of their form from
the waist down, which was secured by the use of farthingales. The way
they tilted up their feet with long cork soles made them amble much
after the fashion of the women of China with their bandaged feet. They
wore jewels and ornaments in great profusion, fine colored silk hose,
which had lately been introduced among the other foreign "gewgaws"
of the times, and exchanged with their friends as valued presents
embroidered and perfumed gloves. In the light of the varied styles
of the day, the criticism, "Like a crow, the Englishman borrows his
feathers from all nations," was a true one.
In the midst of the gayety and frivolity of the Elizabethan age, the
forces of reaction were hidden, but already active; and the mutterings
of discontent which were heard presaged the social outbreak which was
to lead a king to the block.