A Short History of Social Life in England/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
Circa 1642—1660
ENGLAND A COMMONWEALTH
"For the apparel oft proclaims the man."—Shakspere.
IF a large number of Puritans had sailed away from England to make new homes in America, yet a vast and ever increasing number remained at home. And these, growing stronger and stronger, influenced to no small extent the manners and customs of their country. Dress became a matter, not of fashion, but of conscience, and we get at this period two distinct types existing side by side—the Puritan in his sombre and plainly cut garments, the Cavalier in the glory of his slashed silk doublet, his point-lace collar, and his broad-brimmed, plumed hat. To the Puritan, "beauty was a curse and luxury a crime." He turned in disgust from the extravagance of the Court, he held aloof from those amusements and pursuits which he felt were dragging his country to ruin. He cut his hair close round his head, thus earning the nickname of Roundhead as opposed to the long-haired Cavalier, for long hair was to him a luxury and a temptation to vanity. He disliked the soft brimmed hat of the Cavalier, with its graceful ease, wearing instead a stiff, high-crowned, broad-brimmed hat at once severe and forbidding. His doublet and hose were of dark coarse cloth, and his stockings of thick worsted. He wore no bright colours, no lace, no jewels, no ruff; round his neck was a broad folded band of linen. Here were no slashings, no "rustle of silks, no waving of plumes, no clink of golden spurs."
The Puritan lady dressed likewise in sombre hues. She wore a plain silk gown of grey with a folded white handkerchief, or cape with long close sleeves and a plain hood tied under the chin, or a broad-brimmed felt hat with a high crown. All was neat and plain and picturesque, a contrast to the Court beauty and to her gay courtier in his graceful clothes. His doublet was of silk or satin with loose, slashed sleeves, his wide collar of fine lace high up round the throat and turned over, his shirt of the finest linen, trimmed with lace and richly embroidered, his short trousers finished with fringe below the knee, his boots of Spanish leather with wide ruffs at the top. His hair was long, and usually arranged in thick curls, the forerunner of the periwig. No wonder that contemporaries bemoaned these "thousand fooleries unknowne to our manly forefathers," and that against such effeminacy the Puritans made their stand.
It was not dress alone that determined the ever-widening breach between Roundhead and Cavalier. The Puritans were strong enough in the Parliament of 1642 to interfere with popular sports and pastimes in England. Bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and horse-racing were forbidden, theatres were closed, and acting companies dispersed. "Whereas," ran the proclamation, "public sports do not well agree with public calamities, nor public stage plays with the seasons of humiliation … it is thought fit that while these sad causes … do continue, public plays shall cease." Sunday was very strictly observed, and all persons were forbidden to be present on Sundays at wrestling, shooting, bowling, ringing of bells for pleasure, games, dancing, masques, or other pastimes. Up to this time, Sunday had been the great day for games of all sorts: tennis and golf, cricket and the new game of pall mall and football were all played on Sunday, though the latter game in the time of the Commonwealth seems to have been very rough and to have incurred much displeasure. We hear of an apothecary, John Bishop, who with "force and arms did wilfully and in a violent and boisterous manner run to and fro and kick up and down in the common High Street of Maidstone a certain ball of leather commonly called a football unto the great annoyance and incumbrance of the said common highway and to the great disquiet and disturbance of the good people, and to the evil example of others."
But the clash of arms put an end to Puritan legislation, and the Civil War that burst out between Cavalier and Roundhead brought about an abnormal state of society. Both sides occupied themselves in raising volunteers, collecting subscriptions, and drilling raw recruits. Fire-arms were scarce, and the old long-bow and cross-bow were again brought into use. Old armour hanging in the ancestral halls was brought down and cleaned for use. The rustic labourer was changed into a soldier, the young farmer became a dragoon with carbine and pistol. There was no uniform as yet, for there was no standing army. Cavaliers fought in buff coats shining with gold and silver embroidery, in large Spanish hats with drooping feathers, their long hair floating over their shoulders; they were for the most part gentlemen's sons, men of honour, courage, and resolution, fighting for King and Church against the splendid middle class of the country, the Roundheads of Cromwell, "men of religion" as they called themselves, Puritans, who allowed no drinking, blasphemy, or impiety in their ranks. There were great men on either side ready to lay down their lives for "The King" or "The Cause."
Women, too, rose to meet their responsibilities with a capability and courage that stands out brightly in our social history. To pay the necessary expenses, the wealthy brought their bags of gold and silver, the poor their smallest offerings, "a thimble, bodkin, and spoon," until Cavaliers jeered at the "thimble and bodkin" army of the zealous sisterhood.
"Women that left no stone unturn'd
In which the Cause might be concern'd
Brought in their children's spoons and whistles
To purchase swords, carbines, and pistols."
"Repair to your homes, we entreat," was the earnest answer, "and turn your petitions into prayers at home for us."
No less earnest were the wives of the Cavaliers, Lady Bankes in the defence of Corfe Castle and the Countess of Derby at Lathom House are instances of women's splendid achievements in the strife that was rending their hearts and taking from them husband and son. How their sufferings were intensified when these fought on opposite sides is shown in the case of Lady Denbigh: "O my deere son, that you would turn to the King. … I cannot forget what a son I had once. … I do more travell with soro for the grefe I suffer … than ever I did to breeng you into the world." And again after the death of her husband: "O my deere Jesus, put it into my deere son's heart to leve that merciless company that was the deth of his father, for now I think of it with horror, before with sorrow. So, deere sone. … Our Lord bless you. Your loveing Mother."
Neither are the brave letters of Brilliana, Lady Harley, less conspicuous. In the absence of husband and son she managed the estates, harbouring her Puritan neighbours in the Castle. At the end of a six weeks' siege she died at her post. But during that six weeks we have glimpses of her making pies and cakes to send to her husband, knitting socks, and sending shirts and handkerchers to the deere son Ned she loved so well, and to whom she pens her last letter: "My deere Ned, I thank God, I am not afraid; it is the Lord's cause that we have stood for."
Not only as defenders of their homes, but as sick nurses, too, women shone in these three stern years of civil war. One "with excellent balsams and plasters" dressed many dangerous gun-shot wounds with such success "that they were all well cured in convenient time." Standing at her door one day, she saw three sorely-wounded prisoners carried past her bleeding: she ordered them to be brought to her, and, although they were her enemies, she bound up and dressed their wounds. These were not days famous for mercy, pity, and forgiveness, and she was remonstrated with. "I have done nothing but what I think is my duty," she affirmed, "in humanity to them as fellow-creatures, not as enemies."
So, too, Anne Murray worked, evidently with some knowledge of nursing and strong nerves. "I believe threescore was the least that was dressed by me and my women and a man who I employed to such as was unfit for me to dress; and besides the plasters or balsam I applied I gave every one of them as much as might dress them three or four times, for I had provided myself with things necessary for that employment, expecting they might be useful." Many of the wounds had been left too long, but when others shrank from dressing them, this brave woman struggled on. "None was able to stay in the room, but all left me," she says of one bad case. "Accidentally a gentleman came in, who seeing me cutting off the man's sleeve of his doublet, which was hardly fit to be touched, he was so charitable as to take a knife and cut it off and fling it in the fire."
Instances such as these might be multiplied, but a few words must be said about the first newspapers by which men and women got their news during the war.
As early as the year 1622 Nathaniel Butter hit on the idea of printing all the news of the day upon a single sheet and publishing it regularly week by week under a distinctive title. The news writers, special correspondents as we call them to-day, used to make their way from tavern to tavern, picking up odds and ends of news; they would squeeze into the Old Bailey to report some interesting trial, or obtain admission to the gallery of Whitehall to notice how the King was dressed. With the outbreak of the war the demand for news increased, and each side started its own newspaper. The Royalist paper, Mercurius Aulicus, appeared in 1643, and numerous others followed. There was the Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, the Weekly Post, the Mercurius Politicus, the Public Advertiser, &c. One hundred and seventy weekly papers are said to have started between 1642 and 1649. These little sheets had a powerful effect. They were distributed through the villages by carriers and foot posts; countrywomen carried them from the market town in their egg-baskets, and those who could read eagerly devoured the news, which was often more false than true.
By this means the people learnt that the war was at an end; that after a trial, famous in history, the King had been beheaded; that "the House of Peers in Parliament was useless and dangerous and ought to be abolished," and, finally, "that the office of King in this nation was unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the people, and ought to be abolished." Such revolutionary measures must have filled the people's minds with that idea of instability which must needs accompany rapid change. With the victory of Puritanism fresh measures of suppression took place. Cathedral worship was put down, buildings were defaced and injured, altars and tables of stone in churches were abolished, communion tables removed from the east end of the church, rails pulled down, candlesticks taken away, crucifixes, images, and crosses destroyed. How careless men had grown about public worship is shown by Evelyn: "They read and pray without method, without reverence or devotion. I have beheld a whole congregation sit with their hats on, at the reading of the Psalms … in divers places they read not the Scriptures at all, but up into the pulpit, where they make an insipid, tedious, and immethodical prayer … after which follows the sermon … which nor the people nor themselves well understand, but these they extend to an extraordinary length … and well they may, for their chairs are lined with prodigious velvet cushions, upon which they loll and talk till almost they sleep. Few take notice of the Lord's Prayer; it is esteemed a weakness to use it. Such of the churches as I have frequented were dammed up with pews, every three or four of the inhabitants sitting in narrow pounds or pulpits by themselves. The apprehension of Popery having carried them so far to the other extreme, they have lost all moderation and decorum." The idea of the Commonwealth was to make men religious and temperate by Act of Parliament. Hence profane cursing and swearing were fined; the first offence for a duke, marquis, earl, viscount, or baron was 30s.; a baronet or knight, 20s.; esquire, 10s.; gentleman, 6s. 8d.; and all others 3s. 4d. A woman indulging in oaths was fined according to the position of her husband or father. Those unable to pay were put in the stocks, or, if under the age of twelve, they were whipped. All buying and selling on Sunday was stopped, travelling was forbidden, drunkenness was fined, and all Sunday amusements were stopped, till the country wore an air of gloomy satisfaction, very unlike the merrie England of Queen Elizabeth.
A Republican simplicity ruled supreme—the reformed style of living resembled the old Saxon coarseness. The Protector's wife set an example of pious plainness. She ate marrow puddings for breakfast, and fed her husband on sausages of hog's liver. When she suspected general discontent in her household she was heard to remark: "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace." Nevertheless, when the huge experiment of the Commonwealth was ended and all is said and done, when two centuries and more have matured the harsh austerity of the Puritans and toughened the graceful ease and luxury of the Cavaliers, it must be owned that Puritanism left the mass of Englishmen what it made them, "serious, earnest, sober in life and conduct, firm in their love of … freedom." It introduced a note of sobriety and purity into English society; it imposed self-restraint, simplicity of living, stern justice, and elevation of thought, and it has been thoughtfully said that the "whole history of English progress since the Restoration … has been the history of Puritanism."