CHAPTER VI.

PETITIONERS TO PARLIAMENT.

The city dames during the Civil War--They petition Parliament for peace--Reception of the petition--The military called out--Petition from tradesmen’s wives for redress of grievances--Pym’s reply--Women’s memorial to Cromwell against imprisonment for debt--Sufferers during the Monmouth Rebellion--Petition against Judge Jeffreys--Hannah Hewling petitions the king.

While the war was proceeding between Charles I. and the Parliament, there was a good deal of agitation among the City dames, who, though not obliged to stand siege and battery, were deeply interested in the issues of the struggle. As members of the commercial classes, the disastrous effects of a civil war appealed to them with peculiar force. They lamented the destruction of property as well as the loss of life, the stoppage of trade, and the general dislocation of society. And as women of great earnestness in religion, they conceived a horror of this slaughter among men of the same nation--indeed, of the same kindred. At length they could bear it no longer. They resolved to put forth some protest. In the year 1643 came their opportunity.

The City of London had just been petitioning the Commons against the propositions for peace which had been under consideration in the House of Lords. Their lordships were very anxious to stop the desolation caused by the war, and framed some propositions to the king, which they ordered that the Speaker should introduce to the Commons. There was a very hot debate on these propositions, and the aldermen and common council, greatly incensed at the idea of any accommodation which they feared would be destructive, as they expressed it, of their “religion, laws, and liberties,” promised help for the continuance of hostilities if the Parliament would stand firm and reject all overtures. The House of Commons were so worked upon by this petition, that they returned their hearty thanks to the City and stopped all further negotiations. Thereupon the London citizenesses bestirred themselves, and, with white silk ribbons in their hats, repaired in great numbers to the House of Commons with a counter petition in favour of peace. The petition is described as that of “many civilly disposed women inhabiting the cities of London, Westminster, and the parts adjacent.” It ran thus--

“That your petitioners, though of the weaker sex, do too sensibly perceive the ensuing desolation of this kingdom unless by some timely means your honours provide for the speedy recovery thereof. Your honours are the physicians that can by God’s special and miraculous blessing (which we humbly implore) restore this languishing nation, and our bleeding sister the kingdom of Ireland, which hath now almost breathed her last gasp. We need not dictate to your eagle eyed judgments the way; our only desire is that God’s glory in the true Reformed Protestant Religion may be preserved; the just prerogatives and privileges of king and parliament maintained; the true liberties and properties of the subject, according to the known laws of the land, restored; and all honourable ways and means for a speedy peace endeavoured. May it therefore please your honours that some speedy course may be taken for the settlement of the true Reformed Protestant Religion for the glory of God and the renovation of trade for the benefit of the subject, they being the soul and body of the kingdom. And your petitioners with many millions of afflicted souls, groaning under the burden of these times of distresses, shall (as bound) pray, etc.”

Rushworth, in his “Historical Collections,” gives a graphic account of the presentation of this petition. He says it was brought up by “two or three thousand women, but generally of the meanest sort;” that the House sent out a deputation of three or four members with the answer that they were--

“no ways enemies to peace, and that they did not doubt in a short time to answer the ends of their petition, and desired them to return to their habitations. But the women, not satisfied, remain’d thereabouts; and by noon were encreased to 5000 at the least; and some men of the rabble in womens cloaths mixt themselves amongst them, and instigated them to go on to the Commons door and cry ‘Peace, Peace,’ which they did accordingly, thrusting to the door of the House at the upper stairs head; and as soon as they were pass’d, a part of the Trained Band (that usually stood sentinel there) thrust the soldiers down and would suffer none to come in or go out of the House for near two hours. The Trained Band advised them to come down, and first pulled them; and afterwards to fright them shot powder. But they cry’d out, nothing but powder; and having brickbats in the yard, threw them apace at the Trained Band, who then shot bullets, and killed a ballad singer with one arm, that was heartning on the women, and another poor man that came accidentally. Yet the women not daunted, cry’d out the louder at the door of the House of Commons, ‘Give us these traitors that are against peace that we may tear them to pieces, give us that dog Pym.’ At last ten of Waller’s troopers (some of them cornets) having his colours in their hats, came to pass by the women, who would needs have the soldiers colours out of their hats, and took away the ribbons from two of them, and call’d them Waller’s dogs. Whereupon they drew their swords, and laid on some of them flatways, but seeing that would not keep them off at last cut them over the hands and faces, and one woman lost her nose; whereof ’twas reported, she afterwards died. As soon as the rest of the women saw blood drawn they ran away from the Parliament House, and scatter’d themselves in the Church-yard, the palace yard, and places adjacent. And about an hour after the House was up, a troop of horse came and cudgell’d such as staid with their canes and dispersed them. But unhappily, a maid-servant that had nothing to do in the tumult, was shot as she pass’d over the church-yard. The trooper that did it was sent to the Gate House, in order to his trial for her death; but he alledged his pistol went off by mischance. Serjeant Francis and one Mr. Pulsford were committed for encouraging this Female Riot.”

When the “Saints” plundered the Royalists of their possessions, the women of the despoiled families went in person to the Committee of Sequestration sitting in Goldsmiths’ Hall, to try and recover some of their property. Mothers leading their children, some of them widows, thronged the hall daily.

“The gentry are sequestered all; Our wives you find at Goldsmiths’ Hall, For there they met with the devil and all.”[47]

In the first year of the Protectorate there was a petition presented to the Commons by tradesmen’s wives, praying for a redress of grievances. They assembled in great crowds before the doors of the House, and the commander of the guard, Serjeant-Major Skippon, aghast at the increasing numbers, asked the House what he was to do, for the women had told him--

“that where there was one now there would be five hundred the next day, and that it was as good for them to die here as at home.”

The major was told to use fair words and persuade them to go away, but down they came, as they had threatened, the next day, with a petition described as that of the--

“Gentlewomen, Tradesmen’s wives, and many others of the female sex, all inhabitants of the City of London and the Suburbs thereof.”

The phraseology of the petition, as well as the substance, shows the Puritan character of the petitioners.

The grievances which these tradesmen’s wives were so earnest to get removed had nothing to do with duties levied on merchandize, or any other of the hardships of which traders were wont to complain, such as the importation of foreign goods and the presence of foreign artisans and merchants. This petition was inspired by dread of the Papists, lest they should commit in England the “insolencies, savage usage, and unheard of rapes” which they had been committing upon women in Ireland.

“And have we not just cause to fear,” urged the petitioners, “that they will prove the forerunners of our ruin, except Almighty God, by the wisdom and care of this Parliament, be pleased to succour us, our husbands and children, which are as dear and tender to us as the lives and blood of our hearts; to see them murdered and mangled and cut in pieces before our eyes; to see our children dashed against the stones, and the mothers’ milk mingled with the infants’ blood, running down the streets; to see our houses on flaming fire over our heads.... Thousands of our friends have been compelled to fly from episcopal persecutions into desert places among wild beasts.”

After further denunciations of the Papists, the petitioners proceed--

“The remembrance of all these fearful accidents do strongly move us, from the example of the Women of Tekoah, to fall submissively at the feet of his Majesty our dread Sovereign, and cry, ‘Help, O King! Help ye the noble worthies now sitting in Parliament.’”

It seems unnecessary to apologize for presenting such a memorial, but the petitioners thought otherwise, and gave as one of their reasons that “women are sharers in the calamities that accompany both Church and Commonwealth.”

The petition was presented by Mrs. Anne Stagg, a brewer’s wife, in company with others of similar rank.

Pym was chosen as spokesman by the Commons, and, going to the door of the House, addressed the petitioners--

“Good women, your Petition with the reasons hath been read in the House and is thankfully accepted of, and is come in a seasonable time. You will, God willing, receive from us all the satisfaction which we can possibly give to your just and lawful desires. We intreat you, therefore, to repair to your houses and turn your petition which you have delivered here into prayers at home for us, for we have been and are and shall be, to our utmost power, ready to relieve you, your husbands and children, and to perform the trust committed unto us, towards God, our king and country, as becometh faithful Christian and loyal subjects.”

Although there was no longer a king upon the throne, Pym speaks as if he still had a sovereign to whom he owed obedience.

A few years later, in October, 1651, the women are petitioning the government again, but with a very different object. It is a memorial to Cromwell against imprisonment for debt, a grievance not to be remedied for many a year. The petition sets forth--

“That the Norman yoke of bondage and oppression is still continued upon this nation by the impious, oppressive, delatory, and most chargeable practice of the law, and destructive imprisonment of men and women for debt in the several prisons, goals, counters, holes, and dungeons of cruelty in this land.”

The petitioners complain that the Act for the relief of poor debtors is no benefit, and--

“that the present intricate, delatory, chargeable, oppressive, endless practise of the Law, is become an abettor, encouragement and prop to all oppressors and defrauders, and an Egyptian reed and discouragement to most men, but in especial to all the poor who thereby are utterly disabled and disheartened from suing for their debts, rights, and inheritances, violently held from them by the rich and mighty. And if at any time (by the law) their debts and rights are seemingly recovered, yet then their able debtors have freedom (by the law and strength of their purses) to vacate judgements to arrest and imprison poor creditors upon false and strained actions (for many years) thereby enforcing some of them to compound with them at their own rates; others of them to perish miserably in goals, and so to lose both their debts and lives; whereby their wives and children are exposed to unexpressible misery; besides the many other unexpressible oppressions daylie practised by the rich and mighty on poor and simple hearted men and women in this land by sons of Belial.”

Cromwell is exhorted to act as “a faithful Joshua with the zeal of Nehemiah,” and the petition proceeds--

“The premisses piously considered, and for that the other weighty affairs of this land will not permit the speedy accomplishment of these particulars (by your Excellency) as your petitioners humbly conceive, in gaining a new representative; from which lawyers, and all ill-affected persons to be excluded. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that in the meantime there may be such a course established as that the poor may by some easie and speedy way reap the fruit of justice.”

It has been said that “women have not suffycent understanding for to lerne the lawes;” but, as the old writer who commented on this statement observed, “the contrary is made open by experyence.” Certainly the Puritan dames of the seventeenth century had “suffycent understanding” to realize the defects and hardships of the laws.

The fearful suffering caused to the inhabitants of the western counties after Monmouth’s rebellion by that incarnation of cruelty, Judge Jeffreys, brought forth a women’s petition of another kind. It is styled “The Humble Petition of the Widows and Fatherless Children in the West of England,” and begins--

“We to the number of a thousand and more, widows and fatherless children, of the counties of Dorset, Somerset and Devon, our dear husbands and tender fathers having been so tyrannously butcher’d and some transported, our estates sold from us, and our inheritance cut off by the severe and harsh sentence of George Lord Jeffreys, now we understand in the Tower of London a prisoner, who has lately, we hear, endeavoured to excuse himself from those tyrannical and illegal sentences by laying it on information by some gentlemen who are known to us to be good Christians, true Protestants and Englishmen. We your poor petitioners, many hundreds of us, on our knees have begg’d mercy for our dear husbands and tender parents, from his cruel hands, but his thirst for blood was so great and his barbarism so cruel that instead of granting mercy to some which were made to appear innocent and petitioned for by the flower of the gentry of the said counties, he immediately caus’d them to be executed.... These with many hundred more tyrannical acts are ready to be made appear in the said counties by honest and credible persons; and therefore your Petitioners desire that the said Lord Jeffreys, late Lord Chancellor, the vilest of men, may be brought down to the Counties aforesaid, where we the good women in the West, shall be glad to see him; and give him another manner of welcome than he had there years since.”[48]

Hannah Hewling, who married Major Henry Cromwell, grandson of Oliver Cromwell, played a notable part during the terrible period following the Monmouth Rebellion. Both her brothers, Benjamin and William, were implicated and condemned to death. Hannah, who was at that time a young, unmarried girl, waylaid Judge Jeffreys in his coach, beseeching him to stay the sentence.

“The merciless judge, to make her let go, caus’d the coachman to cut her hands and fingers with the lash of his whip. Nor would he allow the respite of the execution but for two days, tho’ the sister, with tears in her eyes, offered a hundred pounds for so small a favour.”

Hannah also vainly interceded with the king, James II. Lord Churchill, by whom she was introduced, warned her of the king’s obstinacy.

“Madam,” said he, “hearty as my wishes are that you may obtain what you want, I dare not flatter you with any such hope, for that marble (laying his hand on the chimneypiece at which he was standing) is as capable of feeling compassion as the King’s heart.”

After her marriage Hannah exercised a great deal of influence in the Cromwell family. She was of a strong Evangelical cast of mind and a Dissenter. Through her the Dowager Lady Cromwell was induced to substitute a Baptist minister for the Anglican clergyman she had been accustomed to have about her as chaplain.

Divers have been the parts which women of the middle classes have played in politics in days gone by. Even when it was a part involving a good deal of publicity they did not shrink, and their practical common sense was unclouded by any sentimental haze of doubt as to their “proper sphere.” Everything that concerned their families or the commonweal they felt to be within their sphere, and they did not conceive the idea that politics were the concern of one sex alone. That complex creation of to-day, the “New Woman,” to whom is ascribed, among other things, an unfeminine taste for politics, is not so modern after all. History is repeating itself, and the progenitors of the political woman are to be found far back in the days of the Lancastrians.