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R. E. S., VOL. 1, 1925 (No 1, JAN.)
there voluntarily confessed that she had long frequented all or most of the disorderly and licentious places in this cittie, as namely she hath usually in the habit of a man resorted to alehouses, taverns, tobacco shops, and also to play houses, there to see plaies and proses [? prizes], and namely, being at a play about three quarters of a yeare since at the Fortune in mans apparel and in her boots and with a sword at her syde, she told the company then present that she thought many of them were of opinion that she was a man, but if any of them would come to her lodging they should finde she is a woman; and some other immodest and lascivious speaches she also used at that time, and also sat upon the stage in the public viewe of all the people there present in mans apparel and played upon her lute and sange a song; and she further confessed that she hathe for this long time past usually blasphemed and dishonoured the name of God by swearing and cursing and by tearing God out of his Kingdome, yf it were possible, and hathe also usually associated herself with ruffianly, swaggering and lewd company, as namely with cutpurses, blasphemers, drunkards, and others of bad note and of most dissolute behaviour, with whome she hathe to the great shame of her sexe oftentymes, as she said, drunk hard and distempered her heade with drinke: and further confesseth that she was punished for the misdemeanours aforementioned in Bridewell: she was since upon Christmas day and night taken in Paules Church with her peticoate tucked up about her in the fashion of a man with a mans cloake on her, to the great scandall of diverse persons who understood the same and to the disgrace of all womanhood: and she sayeth and protesteth that she is heartily sorry for her foresayd licentious and dissolute life, and giveth her ernest promise to carry and behave herself and ever from henceforth honestly and soberly and womanly, and resteth ready to undergo any censure or punishment for her misdemeanours aforesaid in such manner and forme as shall be assigned her by the Lord Bishop of London her ordinary: and then she being pressed to declare whether she had not been dishonest of her body, and hath not also drawne other women to lewdness by her perswasions and by carrying herself like a bawd, she absolutely denyed that she was chargeable with either of these imputations; and hereupon his Lordship thought fit to remand her to Bridewell from Whence she now came, untill he might further examine the truth of the misdemeanours inforced against her without laying as yet any further censure upon her.
This confirms the interpretation (E.S. iii. 297) of a passage in the epilogue to the Fortune play of The Roaring Girl as referring to a forthcoming appearance of Mary Frith on the stage. But its date cancels Bullen’s argument that Mary had not arrived at notoriety early enough to make plausible Fleay’s conjecture of 1604–5 as a date for The Roaring Girl.
(To be continued.)
