THE WOMEN OF THE RESTORATION PERIOD
"I stood in the Strand and beheld it and blessed God," wrote John
Evelyn in his _Diary_, referring to the magnificent pageantry with
which Charles II., on returning from his exile in France, was received
by the London populace. With this pious ejaculation, the courtly
Royalist welcomed the presence in England of that scion of the house
of Stuart whose reign of profligacy was to mark his period as one of
the most reprehensible in the history of the country. It is little
wonder that Charles was so affected by the great demonstration in his
honor that he marvelled that he should have remained away from the
country so long when the people were languishing for his return. The
manner with which London threw off its garb of Puritanical gray and
manners grave, and donned bright attire and assumed the airs of gayety
and frivolity, showed how insincere and superficial was the religious
seriousness which had been worn as suited to the temper and times of
the austere Protector.
The change was not so sudden but that it had begun to appear during
the weak rule of the second Cromwell--Richard. But the spontaneousness
with which the people welcomed Charles in all the towns through which
he passed on his way, and the abandonment and joyousness which spread
over the land, signalized one of the most important reactions which
have occurred in public sentiment and public morals of any age. Music,
dancing, revelry, and license suddenly wrenched the times from all
their wonted decorum, and in the flood tide of pleasure and frivolity
were borne away many who had long subsisted upon their reputations for
peculiar piety. Not only did the leopard who had changed his spots,
and the Ethiopian his skin, for political purposes when the Civil War
bore the Puritans into power, return to their real markings, but great
numbers of those who had sustained their Puritanical professions with
greater or lesser degrees of sincerity and earnestness caught the
maddening thrill of levity with which the very atmosphere seemed
surcharged, and rapidly passed down the gradations of character into
recklessness and vice.
The Royalists were well prepared for the change from piety to
profligacy, and hailed the advent of the light-hearted monarch as a
veritable release of souls in prison. During the Commonwealth, the
wretchedness of their condition had wrought the widespread depravity
which existed among them. The uncertainty of their fortunes and
the necessity of often meeting together made them _habitues_ of the
taverns, which were the centres for social intercourse; and it may
have been thus that the habit of excessive drinking, so prevalent
in this period, was contracted. Upon the principle that no one gives
serious heed to the doings of a drunkard, abandoned and dissolute
habits were looked upon by the Royalist plotters as a safeguard for
themselves and a security to their plans:
"Come, fill my cup, until it swim
With foam that overlooks the brim.
Who drinks the deepest? Here's to him.
Sobriety and study breeds
Suspicion in our acts and deeds;
The downright drunkard no man heeds."
The very vices, however, which the Royalists acknowledged having been
led to cultivate by their "pride, poverty, and passion" were imitated
by the baser element among the Puritans when the Cavaliers became
triumphant. Those who formerly had boasted that they "would as soon
cut a Cavalier's throat as swear an oath, and esteem it a less sin,"
now assumed the role of sinners as complacently as they had previously
played the part of saints.
A period of industrial depression subtracts, in the estimation of
the people, from the merits of a government, however noble may be its
policy; and for twenty years previous to the Restoration the condition
of the masses of the people had steadily been growing worse, so that
there was a widespread longing for more provisions and less piety.
Before the Civil War, the state of the people had reached high-water
mark; so vast had been the increase of England's commerce, owing to
the strife among the neighboring powers, that the revenue from customs
had almost doubled, and the blessings of prosperity were felt among
all classes. Sir Philip Warwick even asks us to believe that there
was scarcely any cobbler in London whose wife did not include a silver
beaker among the furnishings of her modest sideboard. During the
Commonwealth, pauperism increased to an alarming extent, so that at
the time of the coming of Charles ten thousand men and women were
languishing in the debtors' prisons, and thousands of others were
living in continual dread of the sheriff's executions.
The condition of English society at the coming of Charles II. explains
somewhat the tremendous outburst of popular enthusiasm with which that
event was greeted. The people on the village green received him with
morris dances to the music of pipe and tabor, and with other rustic
festivities which for so long a time had been banished as sinful
engagements. At some of the towns through which the triumphal
procession passed, young damsels to the number of hundreds lined
the way and strewed flowers in the path of the king. The women were
especially noticeable for their active participation in all the
popular demonstrations. It was as if they had felt so heavily the
repression of the rigorous theocracy of Cromwell that they were ready
to accept to the fullest the pledge of better times which the return
of Charles gave them, and to pass from fuller liberty into the
wildest license. The king himself, by his own example, lost no time in
establishing the new standards of conduct. Even the reckless spirit of
the Londoners was somewhat surprised when it was bruited abroad that
the king, who was received as a Divine dispensation to a waiting
people, had slunk out of the palace the first night after his return,
under cover of darkness, in the furtherance of one of the unsavory
intrigues which made his life and his court notorious in the annals
of English history. The sensibilities of the English people were not
seriously shocked, however,--we are speaking of the Royalist following
and not of the Puritans,--and in the rebound from the first amazement
at the revelation they received of the kingly character, they were
ready to follow his lead; and so English social life during the reign
of Charles was greatly corrupted. As the key to the times is to be
sought in the tone of the court, the unwelcome task must be fulfilled
in the interests of history, as it relates to woman, of setting forth
the actual conditions which were instituted and prevailed at the court
of Charles II.
The king came to England fresh from the court of Louis XIV., and
tainted by all the vices which made that court infamous. For the first
time, England became widely affected by the gross iniquities which had
for a long while been a familiar fact of the noble circles of French
society. So long as England imported from France only its dress
goods, jewelry, and novelties, the influence exerted upon it by its
continental neighbor touched society in only a superficial way; but
when England's "Merrie Monarch" brought over with him the low standard
of French morals, England paid tribute to France in a more serious way
and modelled its conduct after that of the more frivolous people. The
reign of Charles brings to view as the principal fact of the times the
personality of the monarch himself, not because he was a strong man,
but because he was so thoroughly weak in his character and abandoned
in his conduct. We have nothing to do with political or constitutional
measures, but, in passing judgment upon the state of society, we are
constrained to say that the reign of King Charles marked a distinct
retrogression, and, in its effect upon the status of woman, is notable
for the distinction it bestowed upon the courtesan class. The honoring
of such characters discounted greatly the gain for the higher ideals
of womanhood which had been secured by the Puritans.
The woman whom Charles had signalized by his favor immediately upon
his entrance into London was known simply as Barbara Palmer until,
by the ratio of her decline in morals, she was elevated in honors
and received the titles of Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of
Cleveland. It needs not the saying that beauty and graces of manner
and of form were her chief recommendations to the royal notice. This
woman, who became notorious throughout England,--and who, upon the
retirement of Clarendon, whose dismissal she had secured, stood upon
the balcony of the palace in her night attire to rain down upon
his head curses and vile epithets,--was the woman who, through her
influence over Charles, occupied a commanding position in England.
Her amours before coming under the royal notice absolve the king from
responsibility for her moral ruin, but the offence of thrusting her
before the English people and the contamination exerted upon society
by her presence and conduct at court are what make up the indictment
of womanhood against him. Although many glimpses are afforded in
the gossipy news of the corrupt court of this courtesan's imperious
domination of Charles, nowhere is the story told more simply than
by Pepys in his _Diary_. He says: "Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, tells me
that, though the king and my Lady Castlemaine are friends again, she
is not at White Hall, but at Sir D. Harvey's, whither the king goes to
her; but she says she made him ask her forgiveness upon his knees,
and promise to offend her no more so, and that indeed she hath nearly
hectored him out of his wits."
Such incidents were not confined to the knowledge of the court
circles, but percolated all classes of society, and not only furnished
the newsmongers with racy scandal, but set in a whirl the light heads
of many foolish women who without such incitement from court example
might have remained models of virtue.
Another of the king's favorites--and indeed one who was, unlike the
disagreeable countess, a favorite as well with the English people, and
whose name has not yet lost its popularity--was Nell Gwynn. Pretty,
witty, and open-hearted, her face an index of the simplicity and
purity of character which the unfortunate circumstances of her birth
and bringing-up denied her, a veritable gem of womankind lost amid the
flotsam and jetsam of a coarse age, she is to be regarded less as
a sinner than as one sinned against, although she herself, perhaps,
seldom paused to reflect upon the moral value of her actions.
"How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like the canker in a fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name."
It will not do to judge too harshly the character of one whose whole
conduct showed how essentially guileless and gentle, as well as
generous, were her instincts by the rigorous standards which, however
severe, are none too exacting to be held up for women as representing
the only possible assurance of security for the status which they have
attained; but it is in no spirit of apology for her wrong courses that
all who undertake to discuss the life of Nell Gwynn are irresistibly
drawn to a recital of her virtues rather than to a reprobation of her
faults.
The poor orange girl, who, according to some authorities, first saw
the light of day in a miserable coalyard garret in Drury Lane, and
whose tutelage was the vulgarity of the London streets, and her
training a barroom where she entertained the patrons by the sweetness
of her voice, courtesan though she became in the court of Charles II.,
yet numbered among her descendants Lord James Beauclerk, Bishop of
Hereford, who died in 1782. Nor was she associated with religion
merely in this remote way, for she herself, as patroness of Chelsea
Hospital, and promoter of many charities and the dispenser of private
benefactions, may reasonably claim consideration. In her own behalf
as a woman instinct with all the virtues saving one only,--the one she
had never had an opportunity to possess. The effect of Nell Gwynn's
presence at court upon the minds of the populace was in some respects
more insidious than that of the professional courtesan Castlemaine,
for, by the pleasing philosophy of her winsome nature, the vices of
the court became transmuted into pure gold in the estimation of the
young women who were affected by her as their ideal.
When the irascible temper of the Duchess of Cleveland became too
intolerable to be borne, the king's excitable fancy was adroitly
directed by the Duke of Buckingham, English envoy to the court of
France, to Mademoiselle de Queroualle, whom he planned to set up as
a rival to her in the king's affections, and thus to further his own
ambitious ends, which were antagonized by the duchess. Thus to place
in control of the king's volatile sentiments the seductive French
woman, who would represent the duke's interests, seemed a veritable
stroke of masterful politics of a character not unworthy of
Machiavel himself. It was not difficult to persuade Louis that such a
sentimental alliance would cement Charles to the French interests; and
as the project would save her from a French convent, mademoiselle was
not found intractable. A decorous invitation, so worded as to spare
the blush of the lady's modesty, was sent from the English court, and
she was forthwith despatched to the court of Charles to fulfil the
double roles of courtesan and diplomat, which were so often combined
in the person of astute females. Her appearance at court was hailed by
Dryden, the court poet, in some complimentary stanzas of indifferent
worth. Evelyn recorded in his _Diary_ that he had seen "that famous
beauty, the new French Maid of Honor"; but adds: "In my opinion, she
is of a childish, simple, and baby face." After the birth of a son
to the king, who was created Duke of Richmond and Earl of Marsh in
England, Mademoiselle de Queroualle was made Duchess of Portsmouth.
At the same time, she was drawing a considerable pension from Louis
in recognition of her services to France. The noble-minded English
gentleman Evelyn records the extravagant tastes of the duchess, whose
control over the king had become unbounded, in these words: "Following
his Majesty this morning through the gallery, I went with the few who
attended him into the Duchess of Portsmouth's dressing-room, within
her bed-chamber, where she was in her loose morning garment, her
maids combing her, newly out of her bed, his Majesty and the gallants
standing about her; but that which engaged my curiosity was the rich
and splendid furniture of this woman's apartment, now twice or thrice
pulled down and rebuilt to satisfy her prodigality and expensive
pleasures, while her Majesty's does not exceed some gentlemen's wives'
in furniture and accommodations. Here I saw the new fabric of French
tapestry, for design, tenderness of work, and incomparable imitation
of the best paintings, beyond anything I had ever beheld. Some pieces
had Versailles, St. Germaines, and other places of the French king,
with huntings, figures, and landscapes, exotic fowls, and all to the
life rarely done. Then the Japan cabinets, screens, pendule clocks,
great vases of wrought plate, tables, stands, chimney furniture,
sconces, branches, brasures, and all of massive silver, and out of
number; besides of his Majesty's best paintings. Surfeiting of this,
I dined at Sir Stephen Fox's, and went contented home to my poor but
quiet villa. What contentment can there be in the riches and splendour
of this world, purchased with vice and dishonour!"
"There was, in truth, little of contentment within those sumptuous
walls;" a weak queen helpless under the indignities imposed upon her,
a duchess burning with passionate resentment, and light-hearted Nell
Gwynn laughing with amusement; a group of courtiers and courtesans
with little sense of honor, tossed about by conflicting emotions of
fear and jealousy, perplexity and heartaches; involved in disgraceful
intrigues and malicious conspiracies; attended by all the demons which
wait upon the mind that has sold itself to sordidness and sin;
mocked at by a troupe of perfidious spirits of pride, avarice, and
ambition--such was the company within the palace walls that opened to
receive the woman who was to be, if possible, the most despicable of
them all, and certainly the most detested.
In pleasing contrast to the fashionable and often brilliant debauchees
of the court of Charles II. may be placed the Countess de Grammont, to
whom the description of the poet Fletcher applies:
"A woman of that rare behaviour,
So qualified, that admiration
Dwells round about her; of that perfect spirit,
That admirable carriage,
That sweetness in discourse--young as the morning,
Her blushes staining his."
She moved in the profligate sphere of the English court, and later
in that of France, without for a moment having the brilliancy of her
intellect, the acuteness of her wit, or the whiteness of her character
tarnished by vulgarity of action or of word. Importuned by lovers of
high degree for alliances that were not regarded as compromising in
that gay atmosphere, and, when it was found futile to seek to entice
her into an equivocal position, as ardently sought by the beaux for
the honorable relation of wife, she held them all at arm's length.
Strong and resolute, she, like a brilliant moth, circled about the
passionate flame of the English court without singeing her wings,
neither did she seek, by an adventitious flame of responsive passion,
to draw on to haplessness any of the courtiers who sought her with
ardent protestations of affection. Though light-hearted and vivacious,
she had none of the arts of a coquette; but when the persistence of
the Comte de Grammont convinced her, in spite of the scepticism which
her surroundings created, and of his known character of frivolity,
that in him she might find a faithful and devoted husband, she allowed
her heart to hold sway of her destiny and yielded herself in marriage
to him. It had been better for her, however, if she had remained a
maid of honor than to have become, by marriage to an unprincipled man,
a wife of dishonor. The exceptional worth of character, the brilliancy
of intellect, and the steadiness of purpose which La Belle Hamilton
exhibited, did not, in the eyes of the voluptuous count, constitute
a charm sufficient to wean him from his evil courses to a life of
consistency and of uprightness. Her husband lived to an advanced age,
yet she survived him a brief while. Her brother has left us a word
picture of her at about the time of her introduction to the court of
Charles II., which, in connection with her portrait by Sir Peter Lely,
leaves no doubt of her matchless charms. He says: "Her forehead was
open, white, and smooth; her hair was well set, and fell with ease
into that natural order which it is so difficult to imitate. Her
complexion was possessed of a certain freshness not to be equalled by
borrowed colours; her eyes were not large, but they were lovely, and
capable of expressing whatever she pleased; her mouth was full of
graces, and her contour uncommonly perfect; nor was her nose, which
was small, delicate, and turned-up, the least ornament of so lovely a
face. She had the finest shape, the loveliest neck, and most beautiful
arms in the world; she was majestic and graceful in all her movements;
and she was the original after which all the ladies copied in their
tastes and air of dress."
In reading the memoirs of the court of Charles II., one is apt to
overlook the fact that at the period there was a queen in England.
There was a time when the consort of the king was not so styled; her
position was a personal one, as related to her husband, but she did
not share the honors of the throne. How strangely reversed since the
later Anglo-Saxon period, as contrasted with the reign of Charles II.,
had become the relation of the wife of the monarch! for in these last
times the full recognition was tendered Catherine of Braganza to
which her position as consort of Charles gave her title--there was no
question as to there being a queen in England in the full meaning of
the term. But her personal relation to the king as her husband was
an equivocal one; perhaps once in a month he might honor her with
his presence at supper, and occasionally absent himself from the
enticements of his mistresses. It was so from the very first; for,
before Catherine had landed in England, the intrigue of Charles II.
with the notorious Castlemaine was a matter of common knowledge. The
graceless king had the effrontery to include Lady Castlemaine in the
list of appointees for the queen's following. The indignant bride
had not yet learned the futility of seeking to assert her rightful
position, and, haughtily declaring that she would return to her own
country rather than submit to such an indignity, drew her pen across
the name and swept Lady Castlemaine from proximity to her person. In
so doing she incurred the deeper enmity of the female fury who ruled
Charles with an iron will and was for long years to be the queen's
evil genius. The queen was not brilliant, but she was in every sense
a woman; and when on a particular occasion, similar to a present-day
drawing room, Lady Castlemaine was introduced by the king, the queen,
who did not know her and imperfectly caught the name, received her
with grace and benignity; but realizing in a moment who it was, she
became transformed, her urbanity disappeared, and, fully alive to the
insult which had been publicly offered her, she was swept with a wave
of passion: "She started from her chair, turned as pale as ashes,
then red with shame and anger, the blood gushed from her nose, and she
swooned in the arms of her women." Lord Clarendon, who was a witness
of the contest between the wife and mistress and sought to prevent the
king from becoming controlled by the latter, finally absented himself
from court; thereupon the king wrote him a letter in which, after
declaring his purpose of making Lady Castlemaine a lady of his
wife's bedchamber, he added: "And whosoever I find to be my Lady
Castlemaine's enemy, I do promise upon my word to be his enemy as
long as I live." The king's missive had its effect; and Lord Clarendon
undertook to persuade the queen to bear the indignity, although he
had replied to the king that it was "more than flesh and blood could
comply with," and reminded him of the difference between the French
and English courts: "That in the former, such connections were not
new and scandalous, whereas in England they were so unheard of, and
so odious, that the mistress of the king was infamous to all women of
honour."
The king himself succeeded better in reconciling the queen to the
shameful situation than did his minister, for, after several scenes
between them, he treated her with studied coldness and indifference,
and in her presence assumed an air of exceptional gayety toward all
other women. The unhappy queen finally acquiesced in a situation which
she could not improve, and suffered much greater indignities than
those which she had futilely resented. There is little more of
interest to add with regard to this woman, whose position placed
her first at court, but who really was regarded by the king and his
courtiers as the most insignificant of its personages. She never quite
gave up the hope that she might win at least a share of the affection
which her husband bestowed upon others, and to that end she eventually
laid aside her retiring ways, dressed decollete, and gave magnificent
balls, to which she invited the fairest women of the nobility, thus
seeking, by humoring the fancy of her husband, to gain his love.
The maids of honor at the court of Charles, who were for the most part
mistresses of the king and of the courtiers, and the male sycophants,
whose only pursuit in life was intrigue, made a choice group of
profligate spirits, who, without any restraint, but with every
encouragement from their royal master, assiduously furthered the chief
interest of their existence.
There are not wanting those who utterly disparage the morals of
the Commonwealth, and affirm that both Cromwell and his followers
generally were guilty of as base conduct as King Charles and his
courtiers, and that the only difference was that which exists between
covert and open practices of an evil nature. The fact remains,
however, that even down to the present day the English people, and the
American as well, are inheritors of the spirit of the Puritans, to the
great good of society. It was the Puritans who taught reverence for
the Sabbath and made the Bible a common textbook of life; and although
they were strict and narrow in their views, earnestness always is
straitened in its bounds until it bursts them and floods society with
the power of the principles it advocates.
The apologists for King Charles, who hold to the ancient formula of
the faith of the Fathers and of the Puritans,--that woman from the
days of Eden unto the present time has stood for the downfall of
man,--seek to enlist sympathy for him by saying that in his various
peccadilloes the women seemed to be the aggressors. This plea, which
was advanced by his friendly contemporaries, who sought to whitewash
the outside of the sepulchre of the king's character while leaving
undisturbed the inward corruption, is still gravely repeated by
partisan historians to-day. Sir John Reresby said: "I have since heard
the King say they would sometimes offer themselves to his embrace." It
is unfortunate that the integrity of the chivalrous king should have
suffered such assaults; but as no other English monarch seems to have
been so desperately set upon to his destruction by the women of his
times, it may not be too great a piece of temerity to put in a plea
for the women of the reign of the glorious Charles II. by suggesting
the bare possibility that all the moral probity was not possessed
alone by him who reigned King of England!
We can much better accept the description of society given by
Clarendon. It is not, however, to be taken as an index to the innate
perversity of woman in wicked ways, but as indicating the natural
effect of the lowering of the esteem in which the sex was held by the
evil living of men in the higher circles of society. Yet not all the
indictments which are brought forward by Clarendon would be considered
to-day as of a serious nature. He comments: "The young women conversed
without any circumspection of modesty, and frequently met at taverns
and common eating-houses; they who were stricter and more severe in
their comportment became the wives of the seditious preachers or of
officers of the army. The daughters of noble and illustrious families
bestowed themselves upon the divines of the time, or other low
and unequal matches. Parents had no manner of authority over their
children, nor children any obedience or submission to their parents,
but every one did that which was good in his own eyes."
That the change in the feminine character was not simply due to the
unsettled state of society from the Civil War, which undoubtedly did
affect the standard of the times, but was attributable more largely
to the imported French manners with which Charles made the nation
familiar, is beyond doubt. Peter Heylin, who had travelled in France
and published an account of his observations, and who was led to pass
severe strictures upon the conduct of the French women, modified his
gratulatory expressions with regard to English women as follows: "Our
English women, at that time, were of a more retired behaviour than
they have been since, which made the confident carriage of the French
damsels seem more strange to me; whereas of late the garb of our women
is so altered, and they have in them so much of the mode of France,
as easily might take off those misapprehensions with which I was
possessed at my first coming thither."
It was not until after the death of the king, which occurred on
February 6, 1685, that the nation recovered from the spell of
debauchery through which it had passed, and assumed its wonted
sobriety. Seven days prior, Evelyn wrote in his _Diary_: "I saw this
evening such a scene of profuse gaming, and the king in the midst of
his three concubines, as I had never before seen, luxurious dallying
and profaneness." After the death of Charles and the proclamation
of James II., he reverted again to that scene and said: "I can never
forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all
dissoluteness, and, as it were, total forgetfulness of God (it being
Sunday evening) which this day se'nnight I was witness to, the
king sitting and toying with his concubines--Portsmouth, Cleveland,
Mazarine, etc.--a French boy singing love songs in that glorious
gallery, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other
dissolute persons were at basset round a large table, a bank of at
least 2000 pounds in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who
were with me made reflexions with astonishment. Six days after was all
in the dust!"
Although the monarch who made England merry with all sorts of
frivolities had passed away, the influences of his life did not
quickly cease. One of the social changes which came about in his reign
was destined to become very widely extended and to have an important
bearing upon the structure of English society. This was the
introduction of women upon the stage. In discussing the amusements of
the English people in the several periods, we have as yet said nothing
with regard to the theatre, because it did not relate to woman in
an especial manner. The old mediaeval mystery and morality plays were
given under the auspices of the Church, and formed a part of the
religious instruction of a people who neither knew how nor had the
facilities to read. With the rise of the modern drama and of such
masterly interpreters of human passion as the dramatists of the
Elizabethan era, the stage was secularized and the range of subjects
and appeal was very much widened.
In 1660, for the first time, women were engaged to perform female
characters. Before that time, they had been prohibited from appearing
on the stage; largely because the female parts were usually--and
especially in the beginning of the popularity of the theatre--so
vulgar and obscene that it not only would have been highly disgraceful
for a woman to appear in such characters, but the vulgarity was too
great even for the countenance of females in the audience without
resorting to the expedient of wearing masks. This practice led to
shameful intrigues and discreditable escapades which added to
living the zest which was craved by the women of the court who, thus
disguised, were _habituees_ of the theatre. If it was thought that
by allowing women to take female parts in the plays the tone of such
characters might be improved, the ordinances which permitted the
practice certainly failed of effect. D'Israeli, taking the aesthetic
view of this innovation of the time of Charles II., says: "To us
there appears something so repulsive in the exhibition of boys or men
personating female characters, that one cannot conceive how they could
ever have been tolerated as a substitute for the spontaneous grace,
the melting voice, and the soothing looks of a female."
The absurdity which he suggests was aptly expressed by a poet of
the reign of Charles II., in a prologue which was written as an
introduction to the play in which appeared the first actress:
"Our women are defective, and so sized,
You'd think they were some of the guard disguised
For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;
With brows so large and nerve so uncompliant,
When you call Desdemona--enter giant."
Nell Gwynn is said first to have attracted the attention of King
Charles when she appeared in a humorous part at the theatre; she
was one of the earliest actresses to appear _in propria persona_. As
ungraceful as were the female parts when taken by men, the innovation
of women was not received kindly by many critics of the stage.
Thus Pepys, in his _Diary_, is found lamenting the new custom: "The
introduction of females on the stage was the beginning of a change
ever to be regretted. Pride of birth, but not insolence, is, to a
certain extent, highly commendable, and which had hitherto been the
chief characteristic of the old English aristocracy, who had kept
themselves till now almost universally free from stained alliances;
but from this time they became the patrons, and even the husbands, of
any lewd, babbling, painted, pawed-over thing that the purlieus of the
theatre could produce."
Evelyn comments upon the theatre to the same effect, and remarks that
he very seldom attended it, because of its godless liberty: "Foul and
indecent women now (and never till now) permitted to appear and act,
who, inflaming several young noblemen and gallants, become their
misses, and to some their wives." He then instances several of the
nobility whom he says fell into such snares, to the reproach of their
families and the ruin of themselves in both body and soul. He laments
the fact that the splendid products of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were
crowded off the stage to make room for the pasteboard and tinsel of
John Dryden and Thomas Shadwell. At the time that Evelyn and Pepys
were recording their comments upon the tone of the stage, thousands
were living who well remembered the vehement denunciation of plays by
the sturdy old Puritan William Prynne, who was rewarded for his ardent
crusades against the iniquities of the theatre by the snipping off
of his ears. The condemnation of the theatre was not confined to any
party or church, for Bishop Burnet is found vigorously denouncing
theatres, under the new conditions inaugurated by Charles II., as
"nests of prostitution."
The depravity of the taste of the patrons of the theatres had its
influence upon the writers of the plays. Men whose personal lives
were unexceptionable did not scruple, when writing pieces intended for
representation upon the stage, to introduce as much indecency as they
possibly could, knowing full well that unless their works were highly
seasoned they would never get a hearing. The manners and tastes of the
court of Charles II. established the standard of the theatres
during his reign; the depravity of public sentiment and the general
corruption of the times were greatly increased by these mirrors of the
manners and life of the court. So utterly foul became the repute of
the stage, that, to quote from Sydney's _Social Life in England_,
"Every person who had the slightest regard for sobriety and morality
avoided a playhouse as he would have avoided a house on the door of
which the red cross bore witness to the awful fact that the inmates
had been smitten by the pestilence which walketh in darkness and by
the sickness that destroyeth in noon-day. The indecorous character of
the stage inflicted much less injury than it would have done had
it been covered with a thin veil of sentiment. Those dramatic
representations, at which women desirous of maintaining some
reputation for modesty deemed it incumbent upon them to wear masks,
were, as may be supposed, studiously avoided by those who really were
virtuous." The influence of the metropolis did not extend over the
kingdom as it does to-day, so that outside of the tainted circles
there were to be found social spheres where the old gentility of the
Elizabethan age was maintained, although subjected to such sneers
as were directed against them by Dryden, who looked upon them as
unfortunate enough to have been bred in an unpolished age, and still
more unlucky to live in a refined one. "They have lasted beyond their
own, and are cast behind ours."
Artificiality without any pretence to sincerity was the spirit of the
times of Charles II.; the maundering sentiments and flagitious bearing
of the actors upon the stage were not different from the conduct of
the buffoons who masqueraded in titles and elegant attire at the
court of the king of revels. Foppery in speech and in dress and the
interlarding of conversation with French phrases found favor among
the court followers. It was regarded "as ill breeding to speak good
English, as to write good English, good sense, or a good hand."
Women as artists appeared earlier than women as players. For several
centuries they had been accustomed, as a polite accomplishment, to
illuminate manuscripts, and indeed this for a long time was the
only form of art worthy of the name in England. There had developed,
however, considerable taste and skill in wood carving, as well as
further advancement of the ancient art of the goldsmith, which, as we
have seen, was developed enough in Anglo-Saxon times to constitute an
English school. But art in its more particular meaning was not found
domestic to England until the reign of Charles I. It was the influence
of the great school of Dutch artists that awakened in England art
instinct and created artistic talent. England's art history may be
dated from the time of Van Dyke's residence in the country, at least
in so far as it embraces women. When Van Dyke was at the English
court, Anne Carlisle shared with him the royal patronage. The king's
fine taste in art matters had unerringly led him to fix his favor upon
this woman, and her works show the undoubted genius she possessed.
The Puritan embroilment, which was destructive to all forms of
intellectual advancement as long as it kept the nation in an unsettled
state, had a repressive effect upon art; but from the time of the
Restoration the stream flowed on with increasing depth and volume, and
the list of England's woman painters not only became creditable to the
country, but afforded another criterion by which to prove the
lofty possibilities of the sex. Mary Beale, a painter in oil and in
water-colors, who received high commendation from the famous portrait
painter Sir Peter Lely, was a painstaking and industrious artist. Anne
Killigrew, who was maid of honor to the Duchess of York, in the brief
span of her life acquired a permanent reputation, not only by her
portraits, which included those of the Duke and Duchess of York,
but by her verses as well. These and other women of talent were the
precursors of the women who did so much for the art history of the
eighteenth century.
In considering the place of woman in literature during the period of
which we are writing, it is well to keep in mind the words of Lady
Mary Wortley Montague: "We are permitted no books but such as tend to
the weakening and effeminating of our minds. We are taught to place
all our art in adorning our persons, while our minds are entirely
neglected." This opinion of woman has not yet become obsolete, so that
it is too much to expect to find, in the seventeenth century, women of
the highest literary attainments, and certainly one need not look for
women among the creators of literary style and founders of English
literature. A literary woman is to some masculine minds a matter of
everlasting scorn. Such minds will not be offended in the perusal of
the literature of the seventeenth century by finding women wielding
the pen for the instruction or the edification of elect circles
of superior intellects or to please the vulgar taste of the common
people. Excepting as writers of occasional verse or of memoirs, the
names of few female authors appear in the literary annals of the
period.
Amusement and not intellect was the contribution which women were
supposed to make to the times of Charles II., and, excepting in
matters reprehensible, there was often a degree of simplicity about
the amusements indulged in that makes one wonder if such ingenuous
entertainment does not bespeak less design and craftiness in the
natures of those women than is usual to associate with plotters and
intriguers. Lady Steuart, one of the most noted court beauties,
found her chief diversion in sitting upon the floor, with subservient
courtiers about her, building card houses. Lord Sunderland treated his
visitors to an exhibition of fire eating by the renowned Richardson,
who awakened the wonder of his beholders by his feats of devouring
brimstone on glowing coals, eating melted beer glasses, and roasting a
raw oyster upon a live coal held upon his tongue. Such mountebanks
and jugglers were the successors of similar characters who wandered
through the country from castle to castle during the Middle Ages, or
became attached to some great lord's following. Other forms of indoor
amusements, which would hardly comport with the gravity of the same
high circles of society in the nation in these latter times, may be
stated. Pepys speaks of one day going to the court, where he found the
Duke and Duchess of York, with all the great ladies, sitting upon a
carpet on the ground, playing: "I love my love with an A, because he
is so-and-so; and I hate him with an A, because of this and that;" and
he observed that some of the ladies were mighty witty, and all of
them very merry. Blindman's-buff was a favorite game among even older
people; and Burnett says that at one time the king, queen, and whole
court "went about masked, and came into houses unknown, and danced
there with a great deal of wild frolic. In all this they were so
disguised that, without being in the secret, none could distinguish
them. They were carried about in sedan chairs, and once the queen's
chairman, not knowing who she was, went from her; so she was alone and
much disturbed, and came to Whitehall in a hackney coach (some say it
was in a cart)."
Scarcely a week passed by but that Whitehall was brilliantly
illuminated for a ball, at which the king, queen, and courtiers danced
the "bransle," which was a sort of country dance, the "corant," swift
and lively as a jig, and in which only two persons took part, and
other French figures. Billiards and chess were played a great deal,
and gambling was a ruling passion of the day. All the great women at
court had their card tables, around which thronged the courtiers,
who won and lost enormous sums. The passions which were aroused by
gambling often led to violent quarrels, and frequently these were
settled by duels, although duelling had been prohibited by the king at
the time of the Restoration.
Many fantastic changes had taken place in women's attire during the
reign of Charles. During the Commonwealth, Puritan sentiment, and
proscription as well, had reduced the dress of all classes to a
remarkable uniformity. The costume most common to women consisted of a
gown with a lace stomacher and starched kerchief, a sad-colored cloak
with a French hood, and a high-crowned hat. The Geneva cloak was no
fit covering for the courtesan, and was instantly thrown aside that
the butterfly which had hidden in this demure chrysalis might emerge
fluttering in all its gay and brilliant colors. Loose and flowing
draperies of silk and satin took the place of woollen and cotton
gowns; the stiff ruff which in the reign of Elizabeth had been
facetiously styled "three steps to the gallows," because the
fashionables of her day would go to any length to possess it in the
most extravagant size and value, had, under the Commonwealth, become
much more circumspect as to its appearance and circumference, and was
esteemed entirely too respectable to comport well with the freedom of
the reign of Charles. Then, too, the artistic taste of the day, which
ran to portrait painting, had enhanced the estimate of ladies with
regard to the matter of their personal charms. So it was regarded not
only as artistic, but aesthetic, in a wider sense, to run to realism.
The word "run" is used advisedly, for there was a veritable scramble
to get rid of the formal and, it must be conceded, ridiculous ruff.
But when the latter disappeared from the neck and shoulders, there was
nothing adapted to fulfil its functions, so that, through a lamentable
omission on the part of the English women or their too hasty adoption
of French fashions, the shoulders and bosoms of the ladies were given
little consideration by the designers or the makers of their gowns.
But the head was not treated so indifferently as the shoulders, for,
when the plain top hat of the Puritan was abandoned, the milliner
already had something at hand to compensate the ladies for their loss.
Feathers of rare plumage and rich color were employed in the widest
profusion. The hoods, too, underwent the general metamorphosis, and
emerged from their penitential gray into "yellow bird's eye," and
other tints as indescribable. The new styles exposed their votaries to
wide criticism. Many pamphlets appeared whose straightforward titles
showed in what an undisguised manner the subject was to be found
treated within them. The general complaint was that immodest dress
was not confined to balls and chambers of entertainment, but that
women brazenly appeared in similar costume at church, braving all
criticism to satisfy their morbid desire for observation. The mode of
hair-dressing of the period ran largely to ringlets, which, as they
appear in the portraits of the great ladies of the day, seem at the
present time stiff and unartistic. The art of using cosmetics, which
had lapsed during the Puritan period, was actively revived, and it
was not only the stage beauties, but the court women as well, who used
paint in such profusion as almost to disguise their identity.
It can easily be seen that a woman of the period must have been a
gorgeous spectacle in full dress, with painted face adorned with
black patches cut in designs of hearts, Cupids, and occasionally even
coaches and four, and with her hair dressed in the prevailing mode,
which was to have "false locks set on wyres to make them stand at a
distance from the head, as fardingales made the clothes stand out in
Queen Elizabeth's reign." A woman thus attired, leaning upon the arm
of a gallant with head adorned by the periwig worn by the men of the
day, was ready for any fashionable function. As hospitality on a large
and generous scale was a circumstance of the times, it might be that
she would pass into the hall, with its massive, carved furniture,
magnificent tapestries, sumptuous furnishings, glittering crystal,
elegant plate, and beautiful wall paintings, to assume her position of
mistress of a household and do the honors at a table generous with
its viands and ample in all the varied range of English and French
cookery. In doing so, she would be governed by the etiquette in
whose precepts she had been schooled, and of which the following is a
sample: "_Instruction to British Ladies When at Table_--A gentlewoman,
being at table, abroad or at home, must observe to keep her body
straight, and lean not by any means on her elbows, nor by ravenous
gesture disclose a voracious appetite. Talke not when you have meate
in your mouthe, and do not smacke like a pig, nor eat spoone-meate so
hot that the tears stand in your eyes. It is very uncourtly to drink
so large a draughte that your breath is almost gone, and you are
forced to blow strongly to recover yourself; throwing down your
liquor as into a funnel, is an action fitter for a juggler than a
gentlewoman. In carving at your table, distribute the best pieces
first; it will appear very decent and comely to use a forke; so touch
no piece of meate without it."
The table furnished an opportunity for many pleasant passages of
repartee, which, however, were apt to be broader in their point and
more undisguised in their language than would be tolerated in any
society of to-day pretending to the least gentility. Here, too, was
engendered frequently the tender sentiment which gave rise to proper
attentions to ladies or to gallantry, according to the character
of the courtier and his lady-love. When gallantry palled upon
the satiated spirits of the courtiers, to preserve their unsavory
reputations they had nothing more difficult to do than to stuff their
pockets with billets-doux, which they paraded in view of their fellows
as evidence of their successful intrigues. When love took a more
creditable form, and the lover in formal and open fashion went to
pay his addresses to his lady-love, he sallied forth in the evening,
accompanied by a band of fiddlers, and serenaded her with some choice
verses. After the suitor was accepted and the marriage arranged for,
little of sentiment entered into it. There was no attempt to hide
the mercenary motives, which were frankly displayed. Indeed, women's
marriage portions were regarded by the seventeenth-century writers as
the cause of much wedded misery and sin. It was argued that if these
marriage portions were dispensed with, marriage would be more likely
to be contracted upon the enduring basis of compatibility and love;
but among the nobility, monetary considerations and questions of
rank were usually regarded as sufficient motives for marriage, unless
passion swept aside caution and led to a _mesalliance_. Gallants who
serenaded with dishonorable motives were generally treated roughly. A
life spent between a town residence and a country house, with frequent
attendance at court, comprised the ambitions of the young nobility.
Marriage was frequently regarded simply as an incident which did not
materially alter the attitude of either of the contracting parties to
the rest of the court personnel.
The manners of the times of Charles II. were not the manners of
England sober, but of England intoxicated with the new wine of French
frivolity; and with the passing away of the king who had led them to
worship false gods, the English people gradually returned to their
habitual steadiness. Yet, the dalliance with frivolity had effects to
be seen throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century, in the
superficiality of the era in regard to woman, and, finally, in a stiff
and artificial scheme of convention.