Bartlett Burleigh James

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.

AUDIENCE TO AN AMBASSADOR
After the painting by Léon y Escosura
________
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 distrubed.
With the example and influence of the Tudor princesses before
them, the women least needed the exhortation to intellectual
attainments.

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:

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:

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.