(_For the Mirror._)
Aubry de Falstaff, son of Sir John Falstaff, Knight, with Dame Maude,
his wife, were the first that demanded the bacon, he having bribed twain
of his father's companions to swear falsely in his behoof, whereby he
gained the flitch; but he and his said wife falling immediately into a
dispute how the bacon should be dressed, it was, by order of the judges,
taken from him, and hung up again in the Hall.
Alison, the wife of Stephen Freckle, brought her said husband along with
her, and set forth the good conditions and behaviour of her consort,
adding withal that she doubted not but he was ready to attest the like
of her, his wife; whereupon he, the said Stephen, shaking his head,
she turned short upon him, and gave him a box on the ear. Philip de
Waverland having laid his hand up the book, when the clause, "were
I sole and she sole" was rehearsed, found a secret compunction rising
in his mind, and stole it off again.
Richard de Loveless, who was a courtier, and a very well bred man, being
observed to hesitate at the words "after our marriage," was thereupon
desired to explain himself. He replied by talking very largely of his
exact complaisance while he was a lover, and alleged that he had not in
the least disobliged his wife for a year and a day before marriage,
which he hoped was the same thing. (Rejected.)
Joceline Jolly, Esq. making it appear, by unquestionable testimony,
that he and his wife had preserved full and entire affection for the
space of the first month, commonly called the Honey Moon, he had, in
consideration thereof, one rasher bestowed upon him.
After this (says the record) many years passed over before any demandant
appeared at Wichenovre Hall,--insomuch, that one would have thought that
the whole country had turned Jews, so little was their affection to the
flitch of bacon.
The next couple enrolled had like to have carried it, if one of the
witnesses had not deposed, that dining on a Sunday with the demandant,
whose wife had sat below the squire's lady at church, she, the said
wife, dropped some expressions, as if she thought her husband deserved
to be knighted, to which he returned a passionate "pish!" The judges
taking the premises into consideration, declared the aforesaid behaviour
to imply an unwarrantable ambition in the wife, and anger in the
husband.
It is recorded as a sufficient disqualification of a certain wife, that,
speaking of her husband, she said, "God forgive him."
It is likewise remarkable, that a couple were rejected upon the
deposition of one of their neighbours, that the lady had once told her
husband that it was her duty to obey; to which he replied, "Oh, my dear,
you are never in the wrong."
The violent passion of one lady for her lap-dog, the turning away of her
old housemaid by another; a tavern bill torn by the wife, and a tailor's
by the husband; a quarrel about the kissing crust, spoiling of dinners,
and coming home late of nights, are so many several articles which
occasioned the reprobation of some scores of demandants, whose names are
recorded in the aforesaid register.
Without enumerating other particular persons, I shall content myself
with observing that the sentence pronounced against one Gervase Poacher
is, that he might have had bacon to his eggs, if he had not heretofore
scolded his wife when they were over-boiled. And the deposition against
Dorothy Doolittle runs in these words--That if she had so far usurped
the dominion of the coal fire (the stirring whereof her husband claimed
to himself) that by her good will she never would suffer the poker out
of her hand.
I find but two couples in the first century that were successful. The
first was a sea captain and his wife, who, since the day of their
marriage, had not seen one another till the day of the claim; the second
was an honest pair in the neighbourhood--the husband was a man of plain
good sense and a peaceable temper, and the woman was dumb.