Ht^aca, New go.ck I'M.. 2,Aci%M.-n(:^i, >.^:t-^.v-' Cornell University Library HQ 613.P88 English domestic relations 1487-1 653:a 3 1924 021 847 904 OLIN LIBRAI^ATmarriage J^ by j ^ the Council of Florence inl439 — a conception that had been slowly maturing for centuries — was the obvious device to explain and perpetuate the doctrine of eccle- siastical jurisdiction; but not untU the Council of Trent Jin 1563 did the church declare officially that marriage not contracted in the presence of a priest and witnesses should be void. This decree was, of course, too late to affect England, which had thrown off Papal supremacy in 1534; thus the English Reformation had to deal with the entire question of marriage and divorce in the vaguely defined status it enjoyed in the early sixteenth century. Previous tp^_jyhe_^eformati(g!i3j J^^^^ identical with that of other Roman Catholic countries, its affairs ecclesiastical being regulated entirely by canon law, which in regard to matrimonial causes had drawn its v^hole theory of consent from Roman civil law,,^ ' The church, however, was seldom permitted to decide questions of property, inheritance, etc., involved in cases of marriage or divorce; it acted only in regard to the validity of the contract and the right of dissolving it. INTBODUCTION d The period which we are investigating in this book Ues altogether within the days of church supremacy, and the conception of marriage with which we must start is that of the mediaeval Church of Rome. To understand the vari- ous elements here involved, it is necessary to look more closely into the regulations and ceremonies of marriage as it was then practiced. The fifteenth century is the time of our investigation for ,the moment, although very little change took place between the twelfth and the seventeenth,^ The first step in the contract • of marriage was called spousals, which, roughly speaking, correspond to the be- trothal of preceding times and to the engagement of today.* Spousals differed widely in kind but were similar in effect. There were two distinct types, de futuro and de praesenti. Spousals de futuro were merely promises made by or for two persons to marry some time in the future, deo volente, and might be broken for any just and reasonable cause by either party. Such spousals might be made by parents for young children, just as vows are made for them at bap- tism, but these promises might be repudiated for any reason whatever by either of the young people upon coming to marriageable age. Spousals de praesenti were a far more serious matter. They were vows made similarly to the de futuro but in the present tense, and were in effect, though not in name, marriage itself.* They could be broken only by death and by entrance into holy orders. In case of cohabitation after either form of spousals, and without any marriage ceremony, the offenders laid themselves open to ' For a full discussion of this subject from a legal point of view, see Swinburne, A Treatise of Spoiisals; for a treatment' from a more general viewpoint, see Jeaffreson, Brides and Bridals. ' Thus the Duchess in The Duchess of Malfi says: "I have heard lawyers say, a contract in a chamber Per verba ■praesenti is absolute marriage." a ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS punishment by the church, but their union was recognized as a valid marriage by both church and state. It was th us ; iig.Wbl'? to nMtf^»ri!':..?J!jr^£Sl^'^^-l'"J:P'^J ^*^"^'^'^ ^^ P i^^ marriag e without the san(rtign^.,oj,, jJja,JjQito3jeatiQn^^^ or, pccJesiasiicaLjauthoiity. Spousals of either type might be pure or conditional, sworn or unsworn, public or pri- vate, but these details were of no actual importance, al- though pubUcity was strongly urged in all cases. Private spousals could be accomplished by any of the lovers' formulas of today for becoming engaged, and in public spousals there was also a certain amount of latitude allowed. In the most orthodox form of the latter, a priest was present, and a regular ceremony consisting of vows similar to those of a present-day wedding was gone through with.^ From the great diversity of practice here possible and the secrecy with which private spousals might be made, it is evident that, as the church was the only authority in disputes concerning spousals and marriages and as this authority was usually administered by local courts or priests, a great latitude of interpretation and practice was possible, espe- cially as the ecclesiastics were extremely open to bribery ^ Readers of literature of this period (up to 1650) are likely to fall into two errors in regard to spousals, — first, that of not recognizing a private spousal and its importance when it occurs, and second, that of mistaking a public spousal for a marriage. Of public spousals we have good examples in Twelfth Night, V, 1, and in The Taming of the Shrew, III, 2 (see below, p. 19). After spousals, the engaged couple might call each other "husband" and "wife," although they were not really so. Thus Olivia calls Cesario (mistaking him for Sebastian) hus- band, and likewise Petruchio calls Katherine wife and Baptista father. In Shakespeare, the exchange of rings is a fairly good guide to a mod- ern audience that a spousal is taking place, e.g. Merchant of Venice, III, 2. An excellent example of a private spousal de fvturo occurs in Hey wood's English Traveller, II, 1. INTKODUCTION O of one kind or another. Despite this fact, so much impor- tance was attached to these contracts that a secret unsworn spousal could, invalidate jjater^reg^^^ maraage'aiui render the children of it illegitimate.^ The legal age for marriage, which might follow spousals immediately or after an interval of any length, was fourteen for males and twelve for females.^ But the church performed ' The point here was that persons who had made a contract were married by that act "in the eyes of God," and were controlled by the text, "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." The proper application of this text in various instances was obviously difficult. Milton, remarking upon it and its effects, says that it is "as obscure as any clause fetched out of Genesis, and hath increased a yet undecided controversy of clandestine marriages." Prose Works, II, 17. We find several instances of precontract in old plays. Beatrice in The Changeling, in order to escape from her contract with Alonzo, contrives to have him murdered. In The Roaring Girl, Mrs. Gallipot, in order to gull money out of her husband for her paramour, Laxton, tells him that she was once contracted to Laxton. He thereupon bribes Laxton not to bring suit, and furthermore says to his wife, "If thou shouldst wrestle with him at the law, Th'art sure to fall, no odd flight, no prevention." In The Miseries (ff Enforced Marriage, a private contract occurs between Scarborow and Clare, after which he says to her father, "Your daughter's made my wife, and I your son." When his uncle later tries to contract him to another, he objects on the ground that it would make him an adulterer, "my babes being bastards, and a whore my wife." When this marriage is finally forced upon him, Clare, hearing of it, says, "Whoe'er shall marry me I'm but his whore, Uve in adultery." ' It was presumed that twelve and fourteen were the ages of puberty for girls and boys respectively. The validity of a marriage rested on ? whether or not both were capable of sexual union rather than on their S actual ages. For examples of child marriages, divorces, etc., see Fur-^ nivall's reprint of the Chester records under the title of Child-Marriages, b ENGLISH DOMESTIC KELATIONS marriages upon infants in arms, their parents consenting, and recognized the age of seven as that when parental con- sent was no longer absolutely necessary. Such marriages, however, were voidable by either party upon coming of age (fourteen and twelve respectively) unless cohabitation had taken place. As indicated above, a valid but clan- destine._HQ||.rriage might _be made merelj^ by jexual inter- course preceded by promises t-QJjiarry; but all such unions were stigmatized by public and ecclesiastical opinion. In order to increase the publicity of marriage and thus diminish the number of those clandestinely made, the practice of publishing banns grew up and became pretty general by 1 the middle of the fourteenth century. Furthermore, only certain times of the year were proper for marriage,^ although in case this rule was not observed, the contract was none the less valid. The final recognized step in the consummation of matri- mony was the performance of the marriage right of carnalis copula or bodily union. Legislation concerning the effect Divorces, etc., and also the references in Howard, Hist. Mat. Inst., I, 357-8. Children have been married, divorced, and widowed before reaching puberty. Heroines of tender years are not uncommon in Elizabethan drama. Juliet, it will be remembered, was only thirteen. Manthea in English- men for my Money at the age of twelve cries, "Good God, how abject is this single hfe. I'll not abide it." 1 The prohibited times varied somewhat in different localities but always occurred at the three chief sacred seasons of the year. They embraced Advent and shortly after, a part of Lent, and from Rogation Sunday to Trinity. For further details, see Jeaffreson, I, 285 ff. Since the Reformation, no season has been prohibited, but the former ones continued to be observed for some time. In_the fifteenth century, a marriage had to take place before twelve o'clock, jiist ..as it-must he, before three in England t9day._However,_ all these obstructions could be set aside by the purchase of a special license. INTRODUCTION / of the performance or omission of this act was scant, but the opinions of the church fathers, which in the absence of canons on the subject had the force of law, were both num- erous and conflicting. From our discussion of spousals, it will be seen how great was the importance laid upon this act, as it might in itself convert either form of spousals into actual marriage or might legalize the marriage of children imder age. ItJs_Jpagossibk„hfirej;;a^o^., its total omission^ it vwll bejnoughforjouT^ that m such a case an applicant for divorce might find a i^il^wErcli" would thereby mai£ a^_Boin|jnTE^''fa^^ "and ag^nfie. rnig]3i,-nQfcl: At any rate, a marriage was regarded as much more firmly cemented if copulation had taken place. From the foregoing discussion, it will readily be seen that the question of divorce, or rather of annulment, which turned on the original validity and subsequent nature of a marriage, was one of the most vexing problems that the church ever brought upon itself. We are not h ere concerned with civ il l egislation, fo r although it mav haveji fferedin a few dera ils where rights of property and so tortb w ere involved, it left the actual grantmg of divorces entirely m the hands of the church.^ Such^ases we're'usual^^ecided'in'Tomecclesi^ ' Henry VIII, in seeking a divorce from his wife Catherine, tried to establish the fact that her previous marriage with Arthvir had been con- smnmated by bodily knowledge; but although the judges seem to have been convinced that such was the case, it is far from clear whether this decision had any real effect in the suit. * Milton, with his usual acumen, says on this point: "The Popes of Rome, perceiving the great revenue and high authority it would give them even over Princes, to have the judging and deciding of such a main consequence in the life of man as was divorce; wrought so upon the superstition of those ages as to divest them of that right." Prose Works, II, 53. Almost the same language had been previously used in the act by which Henry VIII tried to reform the abuses of the church in divorce matters. See p. 62, below. 8 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS astical courts, but might be carried to Rome on appeal. In the Roman Catholic Church, there never has been any such thing as divorce in the modem sense of the word. Here the term was used as a general one to include two types of separation, neither of which corresponds to the divorce of today. The^first of these was divor tium a mensa et thq ro, which was simply a" separation and did not allow either part^ to remarry.^ The causes for this were vanouSTIBut those usually plead were adultery, heresy or apostasy, and cruelty. The second ;txpe was divortium a vinjmlg^matri- monii, which took the forin. of a defilaiation that the mar- riage had been illegally contracted and was therefore null and void ab initio, that any children born during it were bastards, and that either party might marry again without further ado.^ The state of abuse into which matrimony had fallen is well illustrated by the fact that there were more grounds for the annulment of marriage than for separation a mensa et thoro. This brings us to another large and vaguely settled ques- tion, as to what conditions prohibited a marriage, or if it were already made, what causes, previously existing, were sufficient to nullify it. Here we must distinguish, for there ' Nevertheless, second marriages after such a separation were prac- ticed to a certain extent, either by legal manipulation or by pleading St. Paul's words, "It is better to marry than to burn," and obtaining an indulgence. For a discussion of this practice in England, see below, p. 87, n 1. The separation a mensa et thoro is, of course, the only tsrpe of divorce granted by the CathoUc Church today, except the complete annulment of marriage. ^ Up to 1337, children were not bastardized if their parents had married in ignorance of an existing impediment. After that date, both civil and church law held them to be illegitimate if a divorce was ob- tained; otherwise they were legitimate, although legal grounds for divorce actually existed. For further discussion of these points, see PoUock and Maitland, History of English Law, II, 373 ff. INTRODUCTION 9 were a number of impediments which obstructed marriage but which if unobserved were not weighty enough to have any further effect except that of subjecting the offender's to the discipline of the church. These were set forth in verse form as follows: "Ecclesiae vetitum, tempus, sponsalia, votum Impediunt fieri, permittunt facta teneri." * Th^mpedir^m^^which forbade marriage and annulled it completely^if "already contracted were, " poetically com- prised": "Error, conditio, votum, cognitio, crimen, CvUus disparitas, vis, ordo, ligam^n, honestas. Si sis affims, si forte eoire nequibis, — Haec socianda vetant connvMa, facta retractant." - ' This verse is taken from Renton and Phillimore, Comparative Law of Marriage and Divorce, p. 24. Its source is not given, and I have not seen it elsewhere. The impediments are: veto by the church, improper time, precontract (i.e. de futuro), and informal vows. ' This verse is given by Hemmingius, LibeUus de Coniugio, Bepudio, & Divortio, p. 137, by the author of A Curtaine Lecture, p. 141, who attributes it to Cardinal Cajetanus, and by Godolphin, Repertorium Canonicum, p. 493, who attributes it to Thomas Aquinas. Renton and Phillimore, Comparative Law of Marriage and Divorce, p. 19, cite a similar verse, except that the third line is increased to two, in which aetax (minority) and si clandestinas et impos (if clandestine and uncon- summated) are added. The source of the verse is not given. Coudert, Marriage and Divorce Laws in Europe, p. 7, gives still another and longer verse, not mentioning the source, which adds the fxttther impediments of amentia (insanity) and raptio (abduction). Erasmus, Matrimonii Christiani Institutio, f . e6 flf., discusses the im- pediments at great length, but does not distinguish between the abso- lute and the prohibitive. He mentions eighteen altogether: interdictum ecclesiae sive generate, tempus anni, conditio (i.e. honesta, turpis, indif- ferens, impossibilis, et hinc miUe casuum varietatis), error, votum castitatus, ordo, cognitio, adoptio et arrogatio (adoptantur filii familias, arrogant qui sui juris sunt), cognatio spiritvalis, affinitas, puhlica honestas, con- suetude sive constitutio, crimen, dispar ouUus {hoc est diversa religio). 10 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS As interpreted by the church, these impediments were re- spectively: miat?^]<;eTi identit y, certain c onditions of one party unknown to the other, solemn reUgious vow s, zelation- s hip withi n the forbiddea,jiegr§ps,^ cxjiaiaality,^ difference raTeCSSuilf aith, fear (caused by threats etc.), membership in holy orders, prior mamage or contract de praeserdi (with any one still livmgnac k of p ub lic clecency , affinity, ' and impotency.* It may be seen from the number and diver- sit^^"these causes that aTnarfiage might be annulTeti-for meius, praecedens ohligatio, inhabilitas corporum ad usum matrimonii, vbi dissidium est animorum et inamahilis caniio est. Commenting upon these impediments and their effects, he says, "Quorum alia sunt eius generis, ut non dirimant contractum, sed obsistant contrahendo, & con- temptorem impedimenti crimini fadant obnoxium, non depellant ah vxore: alia dirimunt ad iempus: alia & contrahendo obsistunt, & contractum distrahunt. Quaedam dirimunt matrimonium ratum, non dirimunt consummatum. . . . Rursus alia dirimunt coniunctum domesticum aut sodetatem thori, alia restituunt marem & foeminam, in integrum. . . . lam circa unumquodgue impedimentorum mille quaestionum examina pugnaegue innumerabiles opinionum humanarum." Op. cit., f. e7. Wm. Harrington, the &st to set forth the impediments in English, in 1528, agrees as well as can be expected with those given here. See below, p. 72, n. 2. ' Cognatio or relationship was of three kinds: (1) blood relation- ship within four degrees (before 1215 within seven degrees); (2) spirit- ual relationship (aboUshed in 1563), which existed between all persons taking part in the baptism or confirmation of a child; (3) relationship by adoption, forbidding marriage between adopter (or his wife) with the adopted and between the adopted and the children of the adopter. 2 By criminality was meant one of two things: (1) the murder of a person who obstructed a contemplated marriage, and (2) adultery with promise of marriage at the death of obstructing person. ' Affinity existed between each party and the relatives of the other both in the case of a married couple and in that of a couple who had had illicit relations. * For further explanation of the impediments, with qualifications, exceptions, etc., see Godolphin, p. 492 ff., Renton and PhiUimore, p. 19 ff., and Coudert, p. 7 ff. INTRODUCTION 11 almost any reason that^the church_ w^hedMfco^janction in any particularcasej^ a condition of affairs that was w taken advantage of. "No exercise of its power yielded more money, or caused more scandal. So tangled was the casuistry respecting marriage, at the beginning of the six- teenth century, that it might be said that, for a sufficient consideration, a canonical flaw might be found in almost any marriage." ^ The impediments which were surest of recognition and which were oftenest plead, were precontract, that is spousals de praesenti, and consanguinity or affinity between the con- tractiug parties. Voluminous and widespread was the writing on the latter case, especially after Henry VIII's /divorce, opinion differing chiefly as to how many degrees Vpf relationship should be. forbidden, and in Henry's suit as to whether the Pope had exceeded his authority in grant- I ing the original dispensation by which the King was enabled ito marry Catherine.^ The Reformation in Germany, in regard to matrimonial affairs, was like the voice of John the Baptist crying in the wilderness, but unfortunately its message was hampered to no small extent by the fact that the leaders of thought there still tried to reconcile the authority of the Scriptures with the reason of every-day demands.' Consequently the chief actual result was to set ideas to work which ultimately brought some kind of order out of chaos, but which for a century after Luther's time could accomplish very little in 1 Thwing, The Family, p. 83. * For an account of the English writing on the subject of the royal divorce, see below, Appendix A. ' Almost all the leaders of the German Reformation contributed something to the discussion of marriage and divorce, some of them writing books on this subject alone. For further account, see Milton Prose Works, II, 231 ff., Woolsey, Divorce and Divorce Legislation, p. 126 ff. lUJNttLilSH UOM15BTIC BKIjATIOJN 8 /themselves. The most important step taken was to deny (the sacramental character of marriage, which Luther did \^n his De Captivitate Babylonica in 1520.* He also wished to do away with the distinction between spousals de futuro and de praesenti and to make all such contracts either simple betrothals, like the present-day engagement, or else mar- riages per se; but this proposition was not accepted. With jthe greatest evil in marriage and divorce legislation, — the multiplicity of impediments and the consequent ease with which a divorce a vinculo matrimonii might be obtained — the Reformers did nothing at all, although they seem to have realized the need of some action in regard to these conditions. In the field of divorce itself, perhaps the great- / est immediate results were attained. Separation, or divorce a mensa et thoro, was abolished altogether, and in place of, ^ it was estabUshed a divorce resembling the modern type, \\ by which the children remained legitimate but the innocent party might remarry without further suit in either spiritual, or civil court.^ For such divorce the ordinances of Witten- 1 j berg in 1534 and 1553 give two recognized causes, adultery// and desertion.' Finally, all questions and suits in regards ' In this he was followed by Calvin in his Institutiones, 1536, and in the discipline of the Geneva church, which became the model for the church discipline of Holland and Scotland and influenced the Thirty- nine Articles of the Church of England. ' This was the origin of divorce as it is practiced today in Protes- tant countries. The only difference between a modern divorce and one under the German Reformation, is that nowadays either party may remarry. ' Divorce for adultery was based on the words of Christ (Matt. V, 32, and XIX, 9) ; that for desertion was based on those of St. Paul (I Cor. VII, 5). But the latter was taken in a more general sense than the literal meaning of the word, and included other causes, such as the refusal of the marriage right. The Wittenberg ordinances expressed the most conservative opinion. That of Zurich in 1525 stated that adultery, desertion, etc., were not only causes for divorce but represented INTHODUCTION 13 to marriage and divorce were placed partly in the hands of the parish clergy and partly in those of secular judges. Owing to the confusion of opinion arising from this arrange- ment, the result was hardly an improvement over the old system of jurisdiction except in principle; and this fact, together with the failure of the Reformers to attack the evils of impediments and nullification, in the end produced conditions which were actually much the same as those preceding, except for the possibility of remarriage after a - divorce for adultery or desertion. What has been said of the Roman Catholic Church in general prior to Luther's time, applies also to England before Henry VIII precipitated the whole Reformation question by his divorce from Catherine. Some one has made a re- mark to the effect that Henry first saw the light of the Reformation in the shining eyes of Anne Boleyn; and although this is no doubt true, the conditions he brought into the forum of public opinion were real faults in civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and however insincere may have been his own concern in the general question, his personal attitude and the pubHcity of his case instigated thought and argument, which by provoking a wide controversy, finally resulted in great benefit to the realm. II. Phactice and Customs of Marriage As a matter of actual practice, aside from ecclesjastresbs civiK concern, we may say that marriages were/of three) Idndsy^— those of c hildrgfl , those clandestinete.,jje3^mea persons either under or over the age of puberty, and also the standard of abuse which it was designed to remedy, "and to the judge it is left to decide what other causes shall be put by their side." Woolsey, p. 132. For further discussion, see Woolsey, Md., and Howard, II, 60 ff. 1* ENGLISH DOMESTIC KElATiOJNB those openly ari fl fnrmnllY made.w ith the blessing of the church and the celebration of friends. As we are interested in the practices and customs herein involved, as well as the legal aspects of the contract, we must examine briefly each of these three methods of marriage. Infants, that is "those Younglings and Babes which as yet caimot speak" could not effect any kind of contract, but their parents could "make marriages" for them regard- less of their age. These so-called marriages, however, had only the force of promises de futuro and were of no legal standing. The youngest couple reported in the Chester records is that of John Somerford, age three, and Jane \Brerton, age two./ The testimony, descriptive of the wed- ding, given later at John's suit for divorce (when fifteen years old), was as follows: "Johannes Somerforth . . . dieit, that he was present bie, when John Somerforth and Jane Brerton were marled together in the parish church at Brerton about xij yeres ago. ... He sales that he carried the said John in his armes, beinge at the tyme of the said Mariage about iij yeres of age, and spake somme of the wordes of Matrimonye, that the said John, bie reason of his yoimge age, cold not speake hym selfe, holdinge him in his armes all the while the wordes of Matrimonie were in speakinge/ And one James Holford caried the said Jane in his armes, beinge at the said tjrme about ij° yeres of age, and spake all, or the most parte of, the wordes of matrimony for her; and so held her stiU in his armes." ^ ■y^ The reasons for such child marriages were several. First, the parents were fulfilling the responsibility of settling their children in marriage, or at least taking steps thereto, which was one of the recognized duties of parenthood. Secondly, a peaceful treaty or alliance was often formed by families or countries hostile to one another by means of such a union. Thirdly, in case of the death of a father, ' Furnivall, Child-Marriages, etc., p. 25. INTRODUCTION 15 by the laws of feudalism, the crown or its grantee had the right of the persons and estates of the children and might sell them to its own advantage; this the parents obviated by marrying their children as soon as possible. Fourthly, if the child was seven years old, the parents might benefit by the marriage settlements. It cannot be determined how common these child marriages were, but references to them are sufficiently numerous to make it clear that the practice was by no means out of the ordinary, especially among noblemen. Becon, writing about 1562 of the causes of the low esteem in which marriage was held, says: "First as touching men of nobilitie, wee see dayly by experyence that they for the moste parte marrye theyr chyldren at theyr pleasure whan they are verye yonge, euen to suche as wyll geue them most mony for them, as men use to sel theyr horses, oxen, sheepe, or any other cattel. Who that wyl geue most mony, shalbe sonest sped." ^ Although it was a deplorable state of affairs that children should have been married for financial considerations only, the duty of parents to provide for their children in marriage is so clearly expressed in the domestic conduct books of the time that it is only fair to suppose that the impulse to settle them as soon as possible proceeded in most cases from worthy motives. > Becon, Worckes, Pt. I, f. eccccbdiii. It may be objected that the chfldren could break these contracts upon coming of age; but it must be remembered that "of age" in those days meant twelve and fourteen instead of eighteen and twenty-one, and it is hardly to be thought that such children would be able to act for their own best interests even if they realized what their rights or their interests were. If the marriage was made at the parents' instigation after the children were of age, whether the latter knew what they were doing or not, it was accom- plished once and for all. Milton calls this practice a "savage inhuman- ity," and says that "the law which gives not all freedom of divorce to any creature endued with reason so assassinated, is next to cruelty." Prose Works; I, 373. 16 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS Clandestine marriages were those performed by children over seven years of age, either publicly or secretly, without parental consent, or those performed secretly by youths of fourteen and girls of twelve. In either case, the church condemned the practice but recognized the marriage as valid; but, as stated above, in the case of children under the age of puberty, the marriage had to be ratified later by both. An interesting wedding is cited in the Chester records as having been clandestinely performed by a priest between a boy of eleven and a girl, "a bigge damsell & mariageablcj^' as follows: "Jacobus Hartley . . . Dicit, that he hard say that the said James and Anne articulate, were Marled in the parish Church of Colne, upon the xij*'' even in the Christmas shalbe v yeres, comme the Twelfth even next, about x of the Clocke in the night, — the said James at that tyme beinge about xj or vnder xij yeres of age, — without the consent of any of his frendes, bie one Sir Roger Blakey, then Curate of Colne ... he saies, that the same night, this depo- nent was in the house of Christopher Hartley of Wwller, vncle to the said James libellate, and sawe when the said James [Ballard] was brought into the said house about Midnight bie ij" fellowes, which (as this Deponent supposethe) had bene at the said Mariage. And in the morowe after, the same James [Ballard] declarid vnto his Vnckle, that the said Anne had intised hym with two Apples, to go with her to Colne, and to marry her. . . . And further he saieth, that the said Curate was ponished by the Archbushop of York his grace, for marieng at inconvenient tymes and vnlawfull persons." ^ Between persons of age, clandestine marriages were made simply by exchanging such words as "I take thee for my wife" and "I take thee for my husband." Such a con- tract was in name a mere spousal de praesenti, but in effect it was a marriage, and if it was followed by cohabitation, it became automatically recognized as such./ Swinburne, ' Furnivall, p. 45. INTBODUCTION 17 wiiting about 1600, says on this point, "Albeit there be no Witnesses of the Contract, yet the parties having verily (though secretly) Contracted Matrimony, they are very Man and Wife before God; neither can either of them with safe Conscience Marry elsewhere, so long as the other party liveth." ' The contracted parties were man and wife before the law as well as before God, dthou^^tibe lack of witnesses made thejjiOQL>of~4Jlfi.JEnarriage-,.4^£lilt- TEe" form of such spousals might be anything from a simple promise to the complete ceremonial for public spousals as far as could be managed under the circumstances. At least the bride and groom might exchange a handclasp and a kiss, both of which had from ancient times been associated with the marriage contract. Great significance was also attached to the gift of a ring, usually given by the man to the woman or by each to the other, and one was always provided, if it could possibly be afforded, even in the most secret marriages. As has already been said, both the child marriage and the union by means of spousals only were somewhat irreg- ular, though not unusual. The former had to be ratified at the children's coming of age, and the latter was always regarded with disfavor and was the cause of much legislative dispute. In the regular course of events leading to mar- riage, both spousals, either de futuro or de praesenti, and the solemnization by the church of the contract so made, were conducted openly and with a certain amount of set formality. A marriage might include both forms of spousals as well as the church celebration, but this would naturally occur seldom, as the latter embraced all the necessary vows and the ecclesiastical benediction in one service. On the other hand, no contract at all was required before the wed- ding ceremony, for the same reason. However, the contract «» ^ Swinburne, Treatise of Spousals, p. 87. ^ 18 ENGLISH DOMESTIC KELATIONS itself, whether made in secret, in a private gathering of friends, or in the church service, was the essential feature of matrimony, the ceremony of the church being quite secojid- ary in importance. On this point the pubUsher of Swin- burne's book says, "In all Marriages Solemnized after the most strict maimer, the Contract of Parties is the principal Ingredient and most essential Part, all other Matters being only as it were Foreign and Extrinsical to its Nature." ^ In regard to the forms of spousals de Juturo and de prae- senti, they were so nearly alike, in whatever sentences they were expressed, that we may say that if the words spoken gave the impression that the parties at that moment took one another in the contract of matrimony, the spousals were de praesenti; if the words imphed a promise against ~~^he future, a de futuro spousal was established.^ Indeed, the simple intention to marry, though accompanied by the wrong formula, was sufficient to effect the contract. Swin- burne says here, "Albeit the words of the Contract, neither of their own natural signification, neither yet by common use and acceptation conclude Matrimony; Yet whereas the Parties do thereby intend to Contract Matrimony, they are inseparable man and wife, not only before God, but also before Man; in case their meaning may lawfully appear." ' Furthermore, for the protection of innocent girls against evil men, "when the words of the Contract are indifferent or equally flexible to the signification of Spousals de futuro, or Matrimony; In this Case the Law ^ Swinburne, f. A3. ' Howard, I, 340 ff, brings considerable evidence to bear that the distinction between de futuro and de praesenti spousals was not under- stood or recognized by the hiunble people, but was in fact mere eccle- siastical hair-splitting. This was also Luther's view. Swinburne acknowledges the difficulty but upholds the distinction at length. Ibid., sees. Ill, X, XII. ' Swinburne, p. 87. INTBODUCnON 19 presumeth Matrimony to be contracted, except in certain cases." ' Spousals might be qualified to some extent by the stipulation of certain conditions. This subject is treated at length by Swinburne,' but is not of sufficient impor- tance to be considered here. The public spousal was performed either at the bride's house or at the church porch, but in either case the priest was recognized as the official witness. Here the vows were exchanged for either a future or a present union, but the couple was not pronounced to be man and wife, nor were they supposed to cohabit until the contract was solemnized by the church ceremony for marriage. Next to the vows, the exchange of gifts, principally from the man to the woman, was the most important feature of spousals. The ring of betrothal was worn on the right hand. A pubUc spousal in full form is described by the priest in Twelfth Night ^between Olivia and Sebastian;' "A contract of eternal bond of love, Confirm' d by mutual joinder of your hands. Attested by the holy close of lips, Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings; And all this ceremony and compact Sealed in my function, by my testimony." ' ' Swinburne, p. 88. Throughout his treatise, Swinburne uses the terms matrimony and spousals de praesenti as synonyms. 2 Ibid., sec. XII. ' Shakespeare, op. ait., V, 1. In All's Well, II, 3, a contract is per- formed by the King between Helena and Bertram. The ceremony is appointed to be held that night, and the "solemn feast" later. A spou- sal similar to the Twelfth Night one takes place in Reade's The Cloister and the Hearth, although it is not described in detail. It is interesting to note that although this union was not solemnized by the church, the birth of a child was no stigma to the bride, except for the fact that her "bethrothal paper" was missing. 20 ENGLISH DOMESTIC KELATIONS Here we find all the principal details, the handfasting, the kiss, the exchange of rings, and the benediction of the priest. But, so far as we know, there were no other witnesses. An espousal or a marriage was supposed to be witnessed by two persons, but it seems likely that the presence of a priest served just as well. The time between the performance of spousals and the celebration of marriage varied. Since the publishing of banns was usually done on the three successive Sundays after the spousals, a space of about three weeks was the proper minimum; on the other hand, it might extend to years, as is often the case with engagements of today. The banns publicly asked in church as well as posted in pubhc places of the town, were devised to make sure that no im- pediments existed which might later invahdate the mar- riage. In Case any of such nature were discovered, the contract was annulled ipso facto without any formality at all, and was of no force in obstructing a later marriage. In Cromwell's time, the betrothed couple were given the choice of being "asked" on three Sundays in church or "cried" by the town bellman on three successive market days, and it seems that the latter method was the more popular./ ^ The modem marriage ceremony originated in times too remote for us to investigate. The general form and phrase- ology of it go back to the twelfth century and became per- petuated in England for all succeeding time, with but slight changes, by the first English Prayer Book,^ published by ' Many things in our modern ceremony are significant of old prac- tices. One may notice that the vows made at the chancel steps are future in tense, corresponding to the ancient spousals de fwtwo. The bride's father accompanies her through these, as he did formerly, and then drops out altogether, since originally this was where he presented his daughter's dower to the groom and gave the bride herself into the hands of the priest. The vows now made at the altar rail are present in tense, corresponding to the spousals de praesenti. The earUest Prot- INTRODUCTION 21 order of Edward VI in 1549. The service of the Church of England today is practically the same as this.^ 'The orthodox ceremony of the period we are studjring used a form which was simply a repetition of spousals de futuro and spousals de praesenti, followed by the minister's pro- nouncing the couple to be "man and wife" and the prayers of the congregation for the success of the union. The pub- lisher of Swinburne's book explains this clearly in his preface. "In our Publick Office of Marriage," he says, "Spousals and Matrimony" are united, and performed in one con- tinued Act; When the Minister demands. Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded Wife, &c. And the Man answers, I will, and so the Woman vice versa, there's a Specimen of Spousals de futuro. When the Man repeats the words, J. N. take thee N. to my wedded Wife, &c., and so the Woman vice versa, there's the form of Spousals de praesenti, which in Substance are perfect Matrimony. . . . When the Min- ister adds his Benediction, and pronounces them to be Man and Wife, then 'tis a perfect Marriage to all constructions V and purposes in Law." ' estant marriage ceremony seems to have been drawn up by Bugenhagen in 1523. (See his De Conjunctio episcopum.) Since the Reformation, the minister has performed the legal marriage in pronouncing the couple "man and wife." The purely reUgious part of the ceremony, which followed, has been much curtailed in Protestant churches, but among Catholics the mass is still used to complete the marriage. In the American branch of. the Church of England, the introductory part of the service has been shortened by the omission of much of the explar nation of the uses and abuses of matrimony, which to our taste is offensive and ill-timed. ^ The practices of the other churches and the origin of their cere- monies are discussed in the next chapter. ' The writer follows Swiubume's usage of these terms, applying them to spousals de futuro and de praesenti respectively. ' Swinbiu-ne, f. A3b*. It must be remembered that this book was written after the Reformation and treats of the Church of England only. * The letter b indicates the back side or verso of the folio mentioned. 22 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS The marriage itself, through the part just described, was performed in the church porch; ^ the company then proceeded within the church, the bridal couple entering the chancel itself; and the blessing of God was spoken over them, as they kneeled beneath the "care-cloth," which was held by four ecclesiastics.^ Jeaffreson picturesquely describes a wedding ceremony in full form as follows: ' "To the church-porch . . . the espoused woman of pre-Refor- mation times, with loosened locks falling to the waist, came on her wedding day, preceded by minstrels and vase-bearer, conducted by bride-knights or pages, attended by maidens, smroimded by her kindred, and followed at a distance by her father. There she met her espoused groom and became his wife, in the presence of God, the priest and the people. If she had previously gone through no ceremony of public betrothal, the earlier part of the proceedings at the porch corrected the omission. In answer to the priest's inquiry, she declared her wish to obey, serve, love, honor, and keep, alike in sickness and in health, the man who had just before in the hearing of the congregation expressed his desire to be her loving, worshipful, and considerate husband. The marriage followed im- mediately on the utterance of her wish for it. "Shestoodat the groom's left hand. . . . Firmly pressing with his grasp the unreluctant hand . . . the groom said, 'I, * *, take the * *, to my wedded wyf, to have and to holde, fro this day forwarde, for bettere for wers, for richere for porere; in sykeness and in hele; tyU dethe us departe: if holy chyrche it wol ordeyne; 1 Thus the Wife of Bath, "Housbondes at chirche-dore she hadde fyve." Marriage was performed in the body of the chm'ch for the first time in the reign of Edward VI, but this practice did not become universal until about a century later. • If either bride or groom had been previously married, the care- cloth was not extended over them. ' Jeaffreson places his description before the Reformation probably because several variations of usage came in shortly after it. His ac- count, however, does very well for the orthodox practice in post- Reformation days. INTRODUCTION 23 and therto I plight the my trouthe.' The hands of the spouses having been momentarily separated, the fairer and gentler of the two caught the other's large hand with a nervous grasp, and said, 'I, * *, take thee, * *, to my wedded husbonde, to have and to holde, fro this day forwarde, for better for wors; for richer for porere; in syknesse and in hele; to be bonere and buxom, in bedde and at borde, tyll dethe us departhe, if holy chjrrche it woll ordeyne; and therto I phght the my trouth.' "Next came the use of the ring. . . . Together with the ring the groom put gold and silver on the officiating priest's book; and after the symbol had been duly consecrated before the assembly, ... he took it up with the thumb and two next fingers of his right hand, and placed it with pecuhar ceremoniousness on the particular finger of the bride which it was destined to adorn.^ 'With this rynge I the wed, and this gold and silver I the give, and with my body I the worship, and with aU my worldely chatels I the endow,' he uttered following the priest's voice. . . . The ceremony of placing the ring on the bride's ring-finger was followed by the priestly utterance of a benediction ' . . . which was followed by the recital of verses of the 68th Psahn, and the dehvery of other blessings, that terminated the proceedings at the church-door." ' The real ceremony of the wedding was now complete, but prayers, additional benediction, and mass or sermon were yet to follow within the church.* These, however, were not • The third finger of the left hand. In case the maiden already wore a bethrothal riag, it became the marriage ring also and was shifted from the right hand to the left. ' At this point, in post-Reformation times, the minister declared the couple to be "man and wife." ' Jeaffreson, I, 88 ff. Further details of the trappings of marriage — costumes, music, the ring, the feast, etc. — are set forth in this interesting book. These are particularly valuable in throwing light on the stage-business of contemporary drama, as in the case of the wed- ding of Petruchio and Katherine and the former's abuse of the con- ventional ceremonials. ' After the Reformation, the mass was given up as part of the marriage ceremony when the church dropped its use altogether. The 24 ENGLISH DOMESTIC KELATIONS essential to a marriage. Before leaving the church, the bridal party partook of wine, bread, and sweetmeats, blessed by the priest, who also gave the groom a benedic- tional kiss, which the latter conveyed to the bride. The ceremony over, the whole company adjourned to the house of the groom, where a feast was provided. Indeed, the groom's friends usually started feasting before they attended the church ceremony, a custom that unfortunately has not yet altogether died out^This practice and the evils resulting from it, are commented upon by BuUinger in his The Christen state of Matrimonye, as follows: "But the deuell hath crept in her also / & though he can not make the ordinaunce of gojdng to the church to be vtterly omitted & despised / yet is he thus mightie / & ca bring it to pas / that the ordinuance is nothing regarded but blemished with all maner of lightnesse: In so much that early in the morning the wedding people begynne to exceade in superflous eating & drinkyng / wherof they spytte vntiU the halfe sermon be done. And whan they come to the preaching / they are halfe dronke / some aUtogether / ther- f ore regard they nether the preaching ner prayer / but stonde ther onely because of the custome. Such folkes also do come vnto the church with all maner of pompe and pryde / & gorgiousnesse of rasnoaent and Jewels. They come with a greate noyse of basens and drommes / wher with they trouble the whole church / & hindre them in matters pertayninge to god." ^ ^ The propriety of celebrating marriages with feasting and sermon was not a part of the ceremony in England until it was intro- duced by the Reformers. After about 1650, it was postponed until the first Sunday after the wedding. ' Bullinger, op. cit., f . L. BuUinger was not an Englishman, but the fact that Coverdale, who translated his work, retained this passage, is evidence that the description represents English practices accurately enough. That Coverdale was not above taking Hberties with his text is shown by the variations in the different editions of the book in question. INTRODUCTION 25 merrymaking seems to have been under debate, but if conducted with moderation, both were approved by clergy and laity alike, as proper and fitting, even upon Scriptural authority. William Perkins, a Puritan of the less radical type, writes in 1590: "Heere question is moued, whether mariage is to be solemnized^' with mirth and feasting. Answ. I. It is lawful! and warrantable to vse feasting and mirth at manages, because these be things indiffer- ent, and wee haue examples thereof in the Scriptures. . . . Christ ■ himself e did approue the resort of people to the mariage at Cana ia GaUlee, both by his presence, and by that honorable gift of sixe water-pots of best wine, loh. 2. 2. 7. 8. II. It is not only lawfuU, but conuenient and fit to be done, if there be abihtie; according to the commendable custome of the place & countrie wherein men do dwell; so as ia the vse thereof, these cautions bee obserued. First, that in mirth and merry-making, there be care had that nothing be done which is dishonest, prophane, or of iU report. Philip. 4. 8. Whatsoeuer things are honest — pure — of good re- port, thinke on these things. Secondly, that ioy in them be mixed and moderated with feare of God, without which Laughter and reioycing is meere madnesse, Eccles. 2. 2. Thirdly, That it be per- formed in a moderate and sober vse of the creatures, without riot & excesse. Thus we reade at the great feast of Ahashuerosh, it was appointed by the King himself, that they should drink orderly, & none might compel another to drinke more then he thought con- uenient. Ester I. 8." ' William Gouge, a later Puritan, goes still further, declar- ing that such a feast partakes of the nature of a civil ceremony and is "very requisite." u- "Though vpon the forenamed consecrating of mariage it bee in regard to the substance thereof fully consummate, yet for the greater solemnity of so honourable a thing, it is very requisite that further there be added a ciuiU celebration of it: vnder which I comprise all * Perkins, Christian Oeconomie, p. 96. 26 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS those lawfull customes that are vsed for the setting forth of the out- ward solemnitie thereof, as meeting of friends, accompanying the Bridgroome and Bride both to and from the Church, putting on best apparell, feasting, with other tokens of reioycing: for which we haue expresse warrant out of Gods word." ^ Among the Independents, who opposed all ecclesiastical performance of marriage, the rejoicing and feasting of friends was regarded almost as an essential part of the wedding, in order to make it public and to take the place of the church ceremony. Under the caption "How must they be duelie ioined in mariage," Robert Brown, one of the leaders of the sect, lays down these principles: "Their bethrothing & espousing must be further made known vnto witnesses. Their friendes must be glad and reioyce together, in some ioyefull and seemehe manner." • The elaborateness of these festal celebrations depended, of course, upon the position and wealth of the bridal couple. In full form, they lasted two or three days, and included banqueting, dancing, song, games (particularly of a kissing nature), outdoor sports, sometimes masques or interludes, and finally a levee held by the bride and groom to their nearest friends in the bed chamber, the receiving couple being enthroned in the bed.' It may readily be imagined that at a time of such general abandon, abuses and excesses might easily take place. This was indeed the case, and the evil practices are often commented on by the writers on marriage. Bullinger's description, in his Cristen state, of such an afternoon and evening is too good to miss. ^ Gouge, Domestical Duties, p. 120. * Brown, Ldfe and manners of true Christians, cap. 172. ' In The Changeling, the inmates of a mad-house are hired to amuse a wedding company on the third day of the feast. In The Wonder of Women, a pageant takes place in the bridal chamber. INTRODUCTION 27 "After the bancket and feast / there begynneth a vayne / madd/ and vnmanerly fashio. For the bryde must be brought in to an open dauncyng place. Then there is such a renninge / leapinge/ and flynging amonge them / then there is such a Isrftinge vp and discoueringe of damesels clothes and of other wemens apparell/ that a man might thinke / all these dauncers had cast all shame behinde the / and were become starke madde and out of theyr wyttes / and that they were sworne to the deuels daunce. Then must the poore bryd kepe foote with all dauncers / & refuse none/ how scabbed / foule / dronke / rude and shamels so euer he be. Then must she oft tjrmes heare and se much wickednesse / & many an vncomely word. And that noyse and robUng endureth euen tyU supper. "As for supper / loke how much shamels & droken the euenyng is more then the murnyng / so much the more vyce / excesse/ and mysnourtoure is vsed at the supper. After supper must they begynne to pype and daunce agayne of the new. And though the yonge parsones / beynge weery of the bablyng noyse and incon- uenience / come ones towarde theyr rest / yet can they haue no quietnesse. For a man shall fynd unmanerly & restlesse people/ that will first go to theyr chabre dore / and there syng vycious and naughtie balates that the deuell maye haue his tryuphe now to the vttermost." * With the coming of Puritan and Independent ideas after the Reformation, both ceremony and custom underwent certain changes. Those described above, however, may be taken as representative of the so-called Church of England after it broke away from the Pope. For the severing of the Anghcan Church from the Church of Rome, so far as marriage and divorce were concerned, had no effect upon general conditions whatsoever. ' Bullinger, f . L 6. A similar description of wedding revelry occurs in the old morality play The Disobedient Child (Dodsley, Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, II, 300). Another, but with fewer details, is given by Chaucer, Merchant's Tale, 11. 465 ff. CHAPTER II CONTROVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE I. Historical Situation The first years of the Reformation in England were pic- turesquely and aptly described by Thomas Fuller in a sermon in 1643. "King Heiu-y the eight," he says, "brake the Popes necke, but bruised not the least finger of Popery; rejecting his Supremacy, but retaining his superstition in the six Articles. The Reformation under Edward the sixth, was like the Reformer, little better then a child. ... As Nurses to woe their Children to part from knives do suffer them to play with Rattles; so the State then permitted the People (infants in Piety) to please themselves with some frivilous points of Popery, on condition they would forsake the dangerous opinions thereof. As for Queene EUzabeth, her Character is given in that plaine, but true expression, that shee swept the Church of England and left all the dust behind the door." ^ The Puritan doctrines referred to here, which began to make themselves felt in Elizabeth's reign, were advanced in their early conception in both Eng- land and Germany long before this name was attached to the sect in 1564. Indeed, the beginning of this agitation may be traced back without break to Wiclif; but although the present movement was the result of principles similar to those of the Lollards, as a historical development it is so clearly the immediate outcome of the Reformation that the earlier influences may be quite disregarded here. > Fuller, A Sermon of Reformation, p. 7. The passage given is quoted by Fuller from some work which he does not name. He repudiates the characterization of Elizabeth's reign, but history rather supports it. 28 CONTBOVERSIES REGABDING MABBIA6E 29 As early as 1550, the effect of the German Reformation and the still more sweeping reform ideas, many of which were not as yet in actual operation anywhere, began to have some influence in England. Many of the future leaders of English thought, such as Hooper, Coverdale, Rogers, and Ridley, "the first race of Puritans," were at this time retum- iag from their exile on the continent, and by sermons and teaching began to spread the doctrine of the purification of the Enghsh Chiu-ch from Popish practices and Popish form of government. Although in the succeeding years under the oppression of EUzabeth, this purification was still aimed at certain ceremonial details, — the minister's robe, the ring of marriage, etc. — and some historians have represented the Puritan movement as originating from the desire to get rid of these, the fact is that prelatical episcopacy in its fundamental conception was attacked, by some at least, from the very first. Hooper, in his Declaration of the Ten Commandments, pubUshed in 1550, spends three chapters in expounding the nature of ecclesiastical law and the necessity of avoiding the decrees and interpretations of Popish bishops.^ And Bucer, in his Draft of a more primi- tive Church system,^ in 1557, goes so far as to advocate provincial synods as well as a council of bishops and presbyters. The Puritan form of church government in its complete conception was first drawn up in England by a committee of sixty divines, of which Cartwright and Travers were ' Hooper, Early Writings, p. 270 ff. ' Contained in his De Regno Christi. Such a form of church gov- ernment was instituted by Calvin in Geneva in 1541, having been submitted to the civil authorities in 1536, Church government by synods of clergy and laity had been established by Zwingli at Zurich as early as 1528. Bucer's ideas were, of course, taken from continental practice, which influenced Hooper and the other English Reformers also. 30 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS members, in 1576. Here we find provisions for three types of governing bodies, — classes, comitial assemblies, and provincial synods — following the form of Calvin's chm-ch government at Geneva. These, imder different names, continued to be advocated as the disciplinary powers of the Reformed church. These principles of ecclesiastical govern- ment had been previously set forth in 1574 in a Latin book by Travers, Ecclesiasticae Disdplinae, et Anglicanae Eccledae . . . expUcatio, which was translated by Cart- wright in the same year under the title of A full and plaine declaration of Eedesiasticall discipline, etc. A second Latin book by Travers, in 1584, since known as the Book of Discipline, was also translated in that year by Cart- wright, but its publication was suppressed.' Robert Brown, later the founder of the Brownist sect, issued a book in 1582, The life and manners of true Christians, which for the first time set forth in English the Puritan interpretation of Scrip- tural instruction for life and church government. But with the establishment of the Court of High Commissions in 1571 and the increasing power of Archbishop Whitgift, the advance of the Puritan cause was brought almost to an ^ This is the book which was found among Cartwright's papers after his death and pubUshed in 1664 under the title of A Directory of Church- government. Neal {History of Puritans, I, 358) confounds these two translations from Travers. Heylyn (History of Presbyterians, p. 291) speaks of a Form by Cartwright as being popular in 1682. This was the translation of the first book. The confusion of the two works, which existed from Neal's time until 1872, is set right by the editor of the reprint of the 1664 edition of Cartwright's Directory. Both books, however, contain the same principles. The Elizabethan names for the Directory were The Book of DisdpKne, The Form of Discipline, etc. The editor of the reprint says that this was "no doubt the same book as that referred to in the proceedings of PaiUament in 1584, under the title of A Book of the Form of Common Prayer, Administration of the Sacraments, etc." I think he is mistaken here, as a book of this name and date is extant which bears no resemblance to Cartwright's. CONTROVEBSIES BEGASDING MABBIAGE 31 end, although its adherents held their ground and spread their gospel by personal teaching and sufifering. It was at this time that the Puritans were martyrs as non-conform- ists to ritualistic details rather than as advocates of a reform of church government, as it was easier to convict a man of ceremonial omissions than of doctrinal opinions. For this reason, it is natural that most of the public expression of the time in sermons, petitions, tracts, etc., is concerned with superficialities rather than fundamentals, the famous Marprelate tracts being a case in point; but the treatises mentioned above show clearly that the real trouble was more than surface deep. In the reign of James I, there was no change in the condi- tion of affairs except for the slackening of persecution. In the Humble Petition to King James and at the Hampton Court Conference, only minor points were discussed, and the only things obtained by the Puritans were the King's scorn and eimaity. The limitation of the power of the eccle- siastical courts, which Neal says were an "insufferable grievance" on account of the "bottomless deeps of canon law," and the widening of the jurisdiction of the civil mag- istrate on much the same lines as were afterwards estabUshed in Charles' time, were advocated by William Bradshaw in his English Puritanisme, pubUshed in 1605. The same views were for the first time expressed in Parliament in 1607, in a speech which is important both in showing the coming attitude of the period and in throwing light upon previous history. The following is extracted from it: "And whereas by the laws of God and the land, ecclesiastical persons should use only the spiritual sword, by exhortation, admoni- tion, and excommunication, which are the keys of the church, to exclude impenitent sinners, and leave the temporal sword to the civil magistrate, which was always so used in England, till the second year of the reign of king Henry IV. at which time the Popish prelates 32 ENGLISH DOMESTIC HELATIONS got the temporal sword into their hands; which statute was since by several acts of Parliament made void; yet by virtue of that tem- poral authority once for a short space by them used, some eccle- siastical persons do use both swords, and with those two swords the oath ex officio, which began first in England by the statute of the second of king Henry IV. being contrary to the laws of England, and, as I verily think, contrary to the laws of God." ^ But nothing came either of Bradshaw's book or of this speech. Another attempt was made in the same direction by a petition in 1610, but the King was still obdurate. The Puritan movement was once more changed from an aggressive to a defensive cause under the high hand of Archbishop Laud in the reign of Charles I. So bitter and so sweeping was this prelate in his attack against the followers of the antipapal movement that the various sects of non- conformists which had split off from time to time from the estabKshed church almost lost their individuality in the defense of their common doctrines, especially as there was no occasion to quarrel over the details of Protestantism until Popery, now in the ascendent, was cast from the realm. In this period we find but few publications on the Puritan side, as Laud suppressed them as thoroughly as he could. A few, however, appeared anonymously, but their supposed authors were severely dealt with, Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick being imprisoned, tortured, pilloried, and fined. Under Elizabeth and Whitgift, the High Commission Court had been oppressive enough; but Laud, by obtaining from Charles a decree removing ecclesiastical courts from state control, became himself the absolute master of every church and every minister in the country. This, of course, could not have been the case had he not had the support of all the bishops, — with the exception of a few who had become non-conformists — for they, realizing that their positions 1 Neal, History of the Puritans, II, 68 ff. CONTKOVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 33 were to be maintained only by the continuance of the exist- ing form of church government, upheld the Archbishop and opposed the growing attitude of independence in the House of Commons. In 1640, Laud's power reached its zenith, as expressed in the canons of that year. Canon 6, "that all archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons take oath upholding the present doctrine and discipline of the church," was aimed directly at all those opposed to ortho- doxy, with the intention of driving every non-conformist from his church or subjecting him to such punishment as Laud's courts saw fit. But such autocracy could not be maintained indefinitely. Already ministers and congregations were fleeing the country to Holland, Geneva, and America in order to escape perse- cution and to worship as they pleased. In 1640, the House of Commons asserted itself, repudiated the canons just passed, and resolved "that the clergy of England . . . have no power to make any constitutions, canons, or acts, what- soever, in matters of doctrine, discipline or otherwise, to bind the laity of the land, without consent of ParUament." * Laud was sentenced to the Tower in 1641, and ParUament set about to strip the church and the bishops of the power obtained under his administration. By this time, the Puritans and their fellow non-conformists represented not only the general opinion but also the real power of the entire kingdom; hereafter their labors were to be directed merely towards forcing their desired reforms from the House of Lords and the King. The bishops in the House of Lords stubbornly blocked every effort of the Commons for reform; but the Commons, supported by the populace of London and the greater part of the laity of the upper house, were becoming too powerful to be resisted. In 1641, the Star Chamber and the Court 1 Neal, II, 319. 34 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS of High Commissions were abolished; and in 1642, a bill was railroaded through both houses taking all temporal jurisdiction from the bishops. Thus the first obstacle to complete church reform was overcome. The King, who by this time was pretty well intimidated by ParUament, was approached in the same year with a summary in nineteen propositions of the reforms desired, the most important of which for us was "that your Majesty will be pleased to consent, that such a Reformation be made of the Church- Government and Liturgy as both Houses of Parliament shall Advise; wherein they intend to have Consultations with Divines." ^ These propositions were not granted in any satisfactory way, and the deadlock between the King and the country, which embraced other matters than eccle- siastical, finally resulted iu civil war. It is not possible here to go sufficiently into the history of this period to show the various efforts and the failures thereof on the part of Parliament to obtain a real reform of ecclesiastical affairs. It will be enough for our purpose to set forth the propositions for church government sub- mitted to the King at Uxbridge in 1645. These, though not accepted by him, are important in that they express the general principles of all the non-conforming parties, of which the English Puritans and the Scotch Presbyterians were the leaders, and also because they became in the next year the basis of the church doctrine and government under the Commonwealth. The new doctrine was set forth in a Directory for Public Worship, which was to supersede the Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI. It was drawn up by the official assembly appointed in 1643.' It contained, beside an iatroduction explaining its origin, the proper ' Rush worth, Historical Collections, Pt. 3, I, 723. * The Directory was not made law iintil January 3, 1645. It may be found in Scobell, Acts and Ordinances oj Parliament, I, 76 ff. CONTBOVEBSIES BEGAKDING MAHEIAGE 35 forms and usages connecte(il with the functions of the church under the following headings: (1) Assembling the Congre- gation, (2) Public Reading of the Holy Scriptures, (3) Public Prayer before the Sermon, (4) Preaching the Word, (5) Prayer after the Sermon, (6) The Sacrament of Baptism, (7) The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, (8) The Sanctifi- cation of the Lord's Day, (9) The Solemnization of Matri- mony, (10) Visitation of the Sick, (11) Burial of the Dead, (12) Public Solemn Fasting, (13) Observance of Days of Pubhc Thanksgiving, (14) Singing of Psalms, and (15) an Appendix on the Days and Places of Public Worship. The govermnent of the church was to be in the hands of congre- gational, classical, and synodical assemblies, in practically the same manner as that of Calvin's church at Geneva, which had been advocated by Cartwright in England in the previous century.^ This form of church govermnent became established nationally, by way of trial, under the Commonwealth in 1646. The order of bishop was abolished, London was divided into twelve classical elderships, each containing twelve parishes, and persons were appointed by ParUament to settle the counties of England and Wales into provinces, as had already been done in Scotland by the Presbyterian Church. The eldership of each parish was obhged to meet every week, the classical assembUes once a month, provincial assembUes twice a year, and national assembUes as often as summoned by Parliament. The exact limita- tions of the jurisdiction of the church under this regime 1 See his Directory and Discipline. Some similar form of church govermnent was established as early as 1576 by Cartwright in the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, which had obtained royal permission to manage their own ecclesiastical affairs. But I have been unable to find any further information on the subject, except that this arrange- ment came to an end in the latter part of James I's reign. 36^ ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS cannot be determined. The sole disciplinary function seems to have been to deprive individuals of the Holy Com- munion in cases of sufficient offense. The ordinances "that cognizance and examination of any capital Offence, shall be by the Magistrate thereunto appointed," and that "the Presbytery . . . shall not have cognizance of anything wherein any matter of Payment, Contract, or Demand is concerned, or of any matter of Conveyance, Title, Inter- est, or Property," ^ which had been established in 1645, give us the general status of the case but leave us in the dark as to the particular interests of our investigation, namely marriage and divorce. The aboHshing of the tem- poral power of the bishops in 16^7'S53lEEe utter overthrow of their office in" 1646, "iogether with the final e^^Ush- ment of the new form of government in 1648^ when the power of the assemblies was limited to settling points of faith and to excommunication fqr^isorders,^ would seem to make i^T'cIeaF thaf~questions of marriage and divorce WSfe^ at Jeast officially, taken entirely out of the jurisdiction of the \ church. On the other hand, no law was passed touching I upon either subject, and no new method of judicature has / been discovered as operating at the time. -J This situation was brought to an end by Cromwell's I marriage act in 1653, in which it was provided that marriage I should be performed by the local justices of the peace, and I that all controversies or exceptions concerning contracts I and marriages should also be referred to them or to such I other persons as Parliament might appoint. 1 Rushworth, Pt. 4, I, 212. " Scobell, I, 165 ff. The whole form of church government, as then established, may be found here. CONTROVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 37 II. The Puritan Platform in bbgard to Marriage The above brief outline of the general Puritan move- ment will be suflBicient to enable us to place the various reforms in regard to marriage in their proper historical setting./In looking more closely into the legislation and ^ practice centering about this subject, it is necessary to consider not only the history of the Puritans, but also that of the other non-conformist bodies, in England, Scotland, the Continent, and America. Historians seem to have neglected this very important period in the development of the present-day conception of marriage, and have con- tented themselves with saying that civil marriage origi- nated in Holland and spread from there to England and America. The mistake here arises from a failure to distinguish between a legal marriage, which might be merely spousals de -praesenti, and the "solemnization of matrimony" by the church, which was no more than an ecclesiastical bless- ing upon an already estabUshed union. The chm-ch, from the beginning of the Christian era on, had attempted to put the emphasis upon the solemnization, although it always recognized a privately contracted marriage as valid. Luther's teachings, on the other hand, while retaining the church service as a beneficial custom,' threw the emphasis upon the previous contract, where^in the light .gf^actual law it belonged. It was doubtless the result., of ,Ijuth«:'s teachii^j^^assed^pn by Calvin, that two of the Netherland provinces, HQlland and West^Frieslaji^d, established - civil marriage. in 1580 upon gaining independence frorn^ Spain.* -^ ' Luther drafted a model ceremony for use where desired, which was followed with variations in the chief church ordinances. * "There the law was 'that those of any religion, after lawful and open publication, coming before the magistrates in the town-house, 38 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS But this ceremony did not replace that of the church, as has been usually thought; it was merely a legal recogni- tion and sanction of the marriage contract, which up to this time had been performed in private, with or without witnesses, as spousals de praesenti. That the ecclesiastical solemnization continued to be practised in Holland, as an additional ceremony, is shown by the presence of the usual church service in the old Dutch liturgies ' and is testified \to by the Brownists' Confessions of Faith? Furthermore, among the forms and ceremonies established by the National Synod of Dort in 1618-19 for all the reformed churches of the Netherlands, The Celebration of Marriage before the Church is printed for general use.' It is thus clear that in Holland the so-called civil marriage was no great innovation at all, but was merely the old private marriage, by means of spousals de praesenti, conducted according to legal form. That this explanation of the case, which is important both for itself and for its later bearing upon England and America, is the correct one, is further shown by the church service itself, in which the man and the woman are regarded and jsferr.ed to ^asTIready mamed~Bur^ desire hereogenly to have your marriage-bond confirmed in the namejof^GoS' or stadt-house, were to be by them orderly married, one to another.'" Bacon, Genesis of New England Churches, p. 340. See also Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, I, 217. ' See Bibles, hturgies, etc., pubhshed at Delft, 1582, and Leyden, 1589, mider title, Biblia, dat is De gantsche Heylighe Schrift, etc., and also the. comments on the English Reformed church in Holland, pp. 43-44 below. 2 This book is contained in An Apologie or Defense of . . . Brown- ists, 1604. Baillie, in his Dissvasive from the Errours of the time, p. 42, quotes this passage from it: "The Dutch Church at Amsterdam cele- brates mariage in the Church, as if it were a part of the Eeclesiastick Administration, while it is in the nature of it meerly civiU." ' See A Catechisme of the Christian Religion, etc., trans, from the Dutch, p. 81. CONTROVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 39 y before his church." ' An interesting comment, which again si^ports my view, is made upon this ceremony in the ac- count of the Synod of Dort, published by order of the Synod of Walloon Churches, held in 1667: "Comme il se trouve quejusques d present on use par tout de deverses manieres touchant les Mariages, & touiefois est convenable d'entretenir Uniformite en cest endroit, les Eglises continueront I' Usage qu'elles on eu jusques a maintenant, conforme a la Parole de Dieu & aux predecentes Ordonnances Ecclesiastiqv^s, jusques d ce que par le Magistrat Superieur (lequel on requerra promp- tement pour cest effect) eu soit establie, avec I'advis des Min- istres, une Ordonnance generale, a laquelle ce Reghment Ecclesiastique se rapporte quand d ce point." ^ In such form, civil and ecclesiastical, marriage continued to be celebrated in Holland throughout our period. ^In England, even ia the estabUshed church, conditions were similar to those in Holland, except that the presence of civil authority was not required, and ia public opinion, though not in either ecclesiastical or civil law, greater \emphasis was laid upon the church ceremony. William Harrington, whose views were orthodox even to the point of including marriage among the sacraments, makes these points clear. Writing in 1528, he says: "It is to be knowen that man and woman dothe entre this holy ordre and sacramente of matrymony by expresse and free consente ' Catechisme of the Christian Religion, p. 83. In putting the vows to the bridal couple, the minister is directed to say "to the married persons" : "N. doe you acknowledge here before God, and his Holy Church, that you ha^e taken, and doe take to your lawfuU wife N. here pres- ent," etc. Note the tenses. Furthermore, there is no pronouncing of the couple to be "man and wife," as this would have occurred, if at aU, at the civil ceremony. ' La Confession de Foy des Eglises Reformies du Pais-Bas, etc., p. 78. 40/ ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS of bothe partyes / that is to say: when bothe the man and the woman dothe consente bothe in one tyme to be husbonde and wyfe/ and that consente doo shewe eyther to other by expresse wordes of the tyme presente, as by these wordes or other lyke / 1 take the to my wyfe / or I frome this tyme forwarde wyll haue the to my wyfe. . . . But and they vse wordes of the tyme to come . . . then it is noo matrymony. . . . " Moreouer this consent which doth make matrymony ought to be expressed & shewed in open and in honest places afore & in the psence of honest and laufull wytnesses called specyally therfore, ii at ye leest / for & it be otherwyse jrt is to say / yf ye man & woman or theyr proctours do make matrymony secretly by them seKe without any recorde or but with one wytnesse yt is called matry- mony cladestLnat whiche for many causes is forboden by the lawe . . . notwithstondyng that matrymony is valeable and holdeth afore god. . . . "And when matrymony is thus laufuUy made / yet the man maye not possesse the woman as his wyie / nor the woman the man as her husbonde . . . afore suche tyme as that matrymony be approued and solempnysed by oure mother holy chyrche / and yf they do in dede they synne deedly." ^ TbusJnJEngland, as well as elsewhere, marriage h^J^aems of spousals ^e.^^agsewllf was recognized by both church and 8ta,te, but the church had managed to become accre3rEe3 as the proper authority for the solemnization of it!/ Never- theless, as this authority was self-assumed and as the sacramental character of marriage was repudiated in the Thirty-nine Articles of 1552, it had only the validity of tradition. ^That the civil authority should take charge of affairs matrimonial, does not seem to have been advocated in the first meeting of Puritan divines, in 1576. As yet the Re- formers were too much occupied with planning the mere 1 Harrington, Comendacions of matrymony, f, Aiil ff. For a fuller quotation from Harrington, see Appendix C, below. CONTROVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 41 form of church government to give attention to the divi- sion of power between church and state, although they went as far as to determine that the classical assemblies should decide "doubts and difficulties touching the contract of marriage." Cartwright's Directcnry also omitted any men- tion of civil jurisdiction. His ^directions as to marriage itself are interesting as the first Puritan expression in Eng- land on the subject. "Let espousing goe before marriage. Let the words of espous- ing be of the present time, and without condition, and before sufficient witnesses on both sides. It is to be wished that the Minister or an Elder be present at the espousals, who having called upon God may admonish both parties of their duties. . . . "The Espousals being done in due order, let them not be dis- solved, though both parties should consent. Let the marriage be solemnized within two moneths after. Before the marriage let the promise be published three severaU Sabbath dales; but first, let the parties espoused, with their parents or govenoins desire the publishing thereof of the Minister and two Elders at the least, that they may be demanded of those things that are needfull, and let them require to see the instrmnent of the covenant of Mar- riage, or at least sufficient testimony of the Espousals." ^ It is important to notice here the emphasis laid upon spousals and the insistence that they be de praesenti and before witnesses. In this we see the influence of Luther's teachings in England even before they became established by law in Holland. From the appointment of Whitgift as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1583 to the fall of Laud in 1641, the Puritans were persecuted to such an extent and the publication of so-called seditious pamphlets was so rigorously suppressed that it is difficult to find much expression of opinion on the subjects of church government and marriage. Neverthe- ' Cartwright, Directory, f. B3. 42 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS less, on the latter topic I have found enough writing to be able to present a definite account of its theory and practice. William Perkins, in his Christian Oeconomie, 1590, gives the fullest discourse, of which the following are the most important passages: " Mariage is that, whereby the coniunction formerly begunne ia the contract, is solemnely manifested, and brought to perfection. Mariage is consummate by three sorts of actions; one of the par- ents of the Bride and Bridegroome, the other of the Minister in publicke, the third of the persons coupled together. . . . "The second Action ... is the blessing and sanctification thereof, which is a solemne worke, whereby the Minister pronounc- ing the parties contracted to be man and wife before the whole congregation, commendeth them and their estate vnto God by solemn prayer. . . . "Now that this action is to be approued and vsed in the Church, appeares by these reasons. I. Mariage as it is a pubUcke action, so it is after a sort a spirituall and diuine ordinance, whereby it differeth from the contract: For the contract being meerely ciuiU, as it standeth by consent of man, so by the same consent, it may bee broken and dissolued, but with mariage it is otherwise. II. Mar- riage is the Seminarie of the Church and Common-wealth. III. It was the practise of ye Primitive Church." ' As in the case of Cartwright's Directory, it should be noted that the church ceremony is not regarded here as the actual marriage — that had already taken place in the spousals de praesenti — yet it is strongly recommended that the church should bless and solemnize the union. This attitude is more definitely expressed in a statement made 1 Perkins, op. cit., pp. 83, 94, 94, respectively. The Biblical author- ity cited by Perkins for making marriage an ecclesiastical affair is: (1) God said to Adam and Eve, "Increase and multiply" {Gen. II, 22); and (2) St. Paul said, "Let all things be done decently and in order " (I Cor. XIV, 40). CONTBOVEKSIES BEGABDING MABBIAGB 43 by John Paget ^ in a collection of letters entitled An Arrow against the Separation of the Brownists, published at Amster- dam in 1618. "For marriages," says this writer, "we do not hold it as a thing of necessity that they should be cele- brated by Ministers in the church; we judge them lawful marriages that are made by the Magistrates, without Min- isters; but yet we hold it lawful, more convenient and comfortable, that they be accomplished in the church by Ministers, both for showing the duties of the persons mar- ried, and for obtaining a special blessing by the prayers of the congregation." ^ The writers who attack more directly .he civil marriage of the Brownists take the same attitude. Thomas Edwards in his Antapologia: or, A Full Answer to the Apologeticall Narration,^ asks, "Whether also, one of these Apologists, was not so f arre gone in the principles of the new Church-way, as that he would not be married by Ministers, but deferred marriage till he came into Holland, where presently after his comming he was married, (not in the way of the Reformed churches there,) but by the Magistrates according to the way of the Brownists, as it is laid down in Robinsons Apologie."* Another Puritan writer, Ephriam Paget, in his Heresiography, a book on the various non- conformist sects, describes the Brownists as being "as malevolent to the Dutch and French churches as to us," and among the reasons given for this antipathy is the fact that they celebrate marriage in the church. "Is not this a foule fault?" asks Paget ironicall3^, "Is it not better to 1 This Paget is not included by Brook in his Lives of the Puritans, but there can be no doubt that he represents Puritan beliefs. ' Hanbury, Historical Memorials, I, 334. ' The Apologeticall Narration was written by several Brownists in defense of their doctrines. * Edwards, op. cit., p. 22. For account of Robinson's Apologie, see below, p. 53, n. 1. 44, ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS be married in the Congregation with prayers and Gods blessing pronounced upon them by the minister, then to be contracted privately, and entered into a book as men do horses in Smithfield?" ' Summing-up these^ginJOTSj^ w^^e^hayejkjJLandj^^^ evidence^Jhat the„Euritans, while, iipt,.j5,QfldS^fflSg^™^''" riage by .magistrates as .unlawful, considered-JtJiiawfuI, more convenient and comfor|;^ble" that it shoi4!i,Jtj£.solem- nized by the church. III. The Position and Practice of the Independents From the passages cited above, it will readily be seen that the Brownists or Independents went much further in their emancipation from ecclesiastical jurisdiction in marital affairs than did the other reformed churches.^ This iimo- vation was originated by Brown himself, who probably developed it from the teachings of Luther — perhaps through Cartwright's Directory — and from the practice of Holland.' It was first expressed by him in his book, The life and manners of true Christians, pubUshed at Middel- burg in 1582, the principles of which he and his assistant Richard Harding preached upon their return to England ' Paget, op. cit., p. 50. 2 Historians and legal writers have failed entirely to realize this fact, namely, that the Brownists differed radically from the other reformed churches in their ideas of marriage. The point is, however, of extreme importance: from a historical standpoint, it explains the origin of the civil marriage of New England, and from a literary one, it throws considerable light upon Milton's conception of marriage. These points are both demonstrated below. ' Brown had been a disciple of Cartwright and "built his schism upon Cartwright's principles" (Heylyn, p. 295). It is evident that Brown goes much further in his "schism" than did Cartwright. CONTROVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 45 in 1584. In speaking of marriage, Brown makes no men- tion of the church at all. The important things connected with marriage he declares to be espousals and cohabita- tion. The chief points to be observed are set forth as follows: "Manage is a lawfull ioyning and fellowship of the husbande and wife, as of two in one fleshe, by partakii^ the vse of eche others loue, bodie, and giftes, in one communion of dueties: and especiaUie in generation and bringing vp children. . , . "The eouenant of Mariage is an agreement or partaking of con- ditions, to hold the commumon thereof, so long as death or lawfull separation and divorcemet doth not breake it. "There is also a eouenant before mariage as by bethrothing, espousing and agreement of friends and kindred. "Bethrothing is a eouenant betweene the parties to be married, whereby they giue their troth that they will and shall marrie together, except some laweful vnmeetnes and disliking eche of the other do hinder it in the meane time. "Espousing is the eouenant betweene them, whereby they are pronounced before witnesses, to giue them selues, and to be giuen eche to other to become husband and wife." ' This account, however, does not express definitely that marriage is a civil affair only and that the church has nothing to do with it, although such were clearly Brown's views. But in 1587 we find these doctrines not only expressed but publicly proclaimed before the Court of High Comnaission by John Greenwood, a member of the Brownist sect. This was the first voice raised in England against marriage as ' Brown, 033. cit., sees. 169 and 171. This important book is occa- sionally mentioned by historians but seems to have escaped examina- tion, although Hanbuiy quotes a few definitions from it. {Hist. Mem., I, 19 ff.) In the passage above. Brown uses the term marriage to mean not the ceremony but the state, the term betrothing to mean spousals de futuro, and the term espousing to mean spousals de praesenti. 46 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS practised by the established church.^ The following ques- tions and answers took place at Greenwood's trial: "Q. What say you of marriage? Did you not marry one Bo- man and his wife in the Fleet? "G. No. Neither is marriage any part of the minister's office. "Q. Who used prayer? "G. I think, that I used prayer, at that time. "Q. Who joined their hands together? "G. I know no such thing. They publicly acknowledged their consent before the assembly. "Winch. They make such marriages under a hedge. It hath been an order long received to marry by a minister. "G. There were many faithful witnesses of their mutual con- sent. And if it were not lawful, we have many ancient fathers, who, by your judgement, did amiss." " The evidence of Brown and Greenwood, somewhat in- complete in itself, is fully substantiated by Robert Barrdw in his book A Brief Discovery of the False Churches, pub- lished in 1590,' three years before he was executed along with ' I do not take into account here the many objections which had been raised by the Puritans against ceremonial details in the orthodox marriage service. For notice of these, see Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity (ed. Rhys), II, 391 ff., and notes there. ' Brook, II, 35. It should be noted here that even the Bishop of Winchester acknowledges the vaUdity of privately contracted mar- riages, although accomplished in the way he describes in the slang of the day. (Cf. Jaques' speech to Touchstone, "And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married imder a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest, that can teU you what marriage is." As You Like It, III, 3.) ' This book also has been entirely neglected by students of marital affairs, although quotations from it occur in Hanbury (I, 39 ff.). I have been able to find only the reprint of 1707, the editor of which, says Hanbury, "destroyed all the raciness of the original." \ CONTKOVEBSIES BEGABDING MABBIAGE 47 Greenwood on the charge of writing seditious pamphlets. As this book gives the fullest expression I have found of the Independents' principles in regard to marriage, I am led to quote from it at some length. Referring to "this so ^famous Church of England," Barrow says: /' "Not to speak of their Orders or Injunctions which are Four times in the Year to be solemnly read, nor to repeat their Penance, with the bitter Curses and Comminations, their Lentfast; they have yet the Holy Ceremony of Marriage, solemnly kept in the Church (for the most part) upon the Lord's-day: And an especial Composed Communion for the same. This Action is to be performed by the Priest, &c. who instructing the Parties to be joined in Wedlock what to say, and when to pray, &c. teacheth the Man to wed his Wife with a Ring, in the Name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. . . . "But in the mean time, I would fain know of the most Learned among them all, either Foreigners or Natives, where they find in the Old or New Testament, That Marriage is an Ecclesiastical Ac- tion, belonging to the Worship of God in his Chiurch, to be done by the Minister as part of his Office and Function, and that in the Church, with such a Set of Collects, Exhortations, Psalms, An-_^ thems, and Blessings composed for that Purpose. ... I have always found it the Parents Office to provide Marriages for their Children, whilst they remain under their Charge and Government : And that the Parties themselves affianced and betrothed each other in the Fear of God and the presence of such Witnesses as were thought fit to be present, and that in their Parents or other pri- vate Houses, without being obliged to go to Church for an Ordi- nance and Action of the Second Table, and see not why they might not as well bting any other Civil Business as this into the Church, for few believe themselves to be rightly Married except it be done by a Priest, after the prescribed manner, and that also in the due Seasons. . . . though all these Ceremonies are not observed in all the Reformed Churches." ^ z' 1 Barrow, op. dt., p. 190 ff. 48 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS The religious platform of the Brownists was officially drawn up in a Confession of Faith by the exiles in Holland in 1596 and pubUshed in 1598,^ addressed "To the reuerend and learned me, Students of the holy Scripture, in the Christian Vniversities of Leyden in Holland, of Sanctan- drewes in Scotland, of Heidelberg, Geneva, and other Uke famous scholes of learning in the Low countries, Scotland, Germany, and France." This book gives their general beliefs and their platform of church government, but is not detailed enough to be of assistance in the present study. But'ln their Third Petition to King James, their principles in "^ regard to marriage are clearly expressed: "The Ministers aforesaid lawfully called by the Church where they are to administer ought to continue their functions according to Gods ordinance, and carefully to feed the flock of Christ com- mitted vnto them: Being not inioyned or suffred to beare civil offices withaU, neither burthened with the execution of civil aifaires, as the celebratio of Mariage, bur3dng the dead, &c. which thinges belong as weU to those without as within the Church." ^ That the Independents continued this practice in England is shown by a passage from Rogers' Matrimoniall Honovr in 1642. In discussing marriage by ministers, he says: "In the Scriptures, we see it was civilly carried, and dispatcht by the Elders at the gate: and now in some of the reformed 1 These dates are given in the prefaces contained in An Apologie or Defense of . . . Brownists, pp. 15 and 5 respectively. Baillie {Dis- svasive, i. *46) gives the date 1602 for the publication of the Confession of Faith. This Confession is also contained in the Apologie. 2 Third Petition (contained in the Apologie), p. 54. Further evidence showing the opinion and practice of both the Independents and the Puritans may be found in Certain Letters (from exiles in Holland), 1602 (Hanbury, I, 144) ; A Confession of Certain Christians in England, 1616 (Hanbury, I, 300); Francis Johnson, A Christian Plea, 1617 (Hanbury, I, 319). See also the quotations from J. Paget, Edwards, and E. Paget, pp. 43-44, above, and those from Baillie and Robinson, pp. 52-53, below. CONTROVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 49 Churches, we see its performed in like sort, officers being appointed to take their names, to booke them in a Record and so with a short ceremony to dismiss them." ^ Finally , in 1653, Cromwell estabUshed civil marriage byjaw. IV. Continental, Scottish, and American Churches We have already seen that in Holland the state declared marriage a civil affair and insisted that the contract be made before a civil magistrate; we have also seen that the church continued to celebrate it by a solemnization of the vows previously made before the state. Calvin does not seem to have expressed himself in print on the question of the contract of matrimony; but from the fact that the Holland and Scottish churches, which emphasized the civil celebra- tion, took their discipline directly from the church of Geneva, it is clear that the church there also followed Luther's principle of making the spousals the all-important element. This fact is borne out by the form of ceremony of the English church of Geneva, which was approved by Calvin himself. /Instead of combining the forms for spousals de futuro ancr de praesenti with prayers and ceremonies by the minister, as is the case in the marriage service of the English Prayer Book of Edward VI, the Geneva reform Uturgy, after pre- liminary exhortation and public iaquiry as to impediments, simply requires the man to declare himself according to the following oath put by the minister: "You, N. shall protest here before God, and his holy Congrega- tion, that you have taken, and are now content to have N. here ' Rogers, op. dt, p. 110. Any description of the civil ceremony approved by the Independents is lacking, but it would seem that it consisted merely of a few words spoken by the magistrate immediately after the public performance of spousals de praesenti. The ceremony, however, was clearly a civil procedure and not merely a form of pub- lic spousals. 50 ENGLISH DOMESTIC BELATIONS present to your lawful! wife, promising to keep her, to love and intreat her in all things according to the duty of a faithfuU husband, forsaking aU other during her life, and briefly, to live in a holy con- versation with her, keeping faith and truth in all points, according as the word of God and his holy Gospel doth command." ' The points to be noted here are: first, there is no marrying or proclaiming of "man and wife" by the minister; second, there is nothing to the effect that "God hath joined together " ; and third, the words on the part of the contracting couple are merely an acknowledgment that they have, before this time, taken one another as man and wife.^y 'These points ..contrast strongly with the orthodox ceremony of the Edward VI Prayer Book and later liturgies. Thus marriage at Geneva, like the one overseen by Greenwood in the Fleet prison, was merely a contract before witnesses, which the church might bless with its solemnization and prayers if the parties so desired. 'in Scotland to this day marriage may be made without any official intervention, by means of spousals de praesenti either with or without witnesses. This is both interesting and important, as it shows that although the Scotch Pres- byterian Church had a marriage ceremony in its liturgy, it nevertheless considered the actual marriage contract a •-^private affair. In other words, the Romish influence in Scotland has never at any time been strong enough to make ' The Forme of Prayers and administration of the Sacramenis, p. 25. The woman, of course, makes a similar vow. Preceding the Form of Marriage in these liturgies, there is this note of direction: "After the banes or contract have been published three severaU dayes in the con- gregation (to the intent that if any person have interest or title of either parties, they may have sufficient time to make their challenge) the parties assemble at the beginning of the Sermon, and the minister at time convenient saith as followeth." Then comes the exhortation- etc. as described above. Compare this ceremony with that of the early Dutch church, pp. 38-39 and note, above. CONTROVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 51 secularly performed marriages in any sense clandestine. But the church did provide a ceremony for those who wished it and doubtless urged its use upon the people. Its form was taken over bodily in 1564, along with the rest of the service book, from the EngUsh church at Geneva, which has already been discussed.^ The only other note that I find in regard to the Scottish ceremony is an item in the Second Book of Discipline,^ 1581, to the effect that among the duties of a minister "it belongs to him likewise, after lawful Proceeding in the matter by the Eldership, to solemnize Marriage betwixt them as are to be joined therein, and to pronounce the Blessing of the Lord upon them." ' In considering the Puritans of New England, we must bear in mind that they were of the Independent sect and shared the extreme views already discussed. ^ It is well known that marriage in New England was a civil affair from the first, but the origin of this practice has not here- tofore been definitely determined .^^ From my demonstration of the practice of the Independents, together with the fact that it was the congregation of John Robinson, Brown's leading disciple, which first emigrated to this country,^ it is fairly obvious that the early American civil marriage was a direct result of the principles and practice of the Inde- pendent Church, encouraged perhaps by the state laws of Holland./ But as the point is here made for the first time, ' This fact is stated on the title page of the Scottish book of hturgies, which may be found in The Confessions of Faith of the Church of Scot- land. John Knox (History of Reformation in Scotland, p. 333) states that the Church of Scotland sent an official reply in 1566 to the confes- sion of faith of the continental Reform churches to the effect that "they agreed in all points with those churches and differed in nothing from them" except in the keeping of certain festal days. ' Contained in The Confessions. ' Op. cit., p. 459. • Howard, II, 127 ff., devotes several pages to the different sup- posed causes of the New England civil marriage. 52 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS it will be well to quote some further evidence in support of it. This evidence we find in contemporary pamphlets, by which we are able to set forth the whole course of events. Robert Baillie, writing in 1595 of the Independents, says: "For the marriage blessing, they applaud the Brownists Doctrin, they send it from the Church to the Town-house, making its solemnization the duty of the Magistrate; this is the constant practise of all in New England: the prime of the Independent Ministers now at London, have beene married by the Magistrate, and all that can be obtained of any of them, is to be content that a Minister in the name of the Magistrate and his Commissioner may solemnize that holy band." ^ A passage from Ephriam Paget serves to continue the story. Speaking of the spread of the Brownist doctrines, he says: "The first man of note that held their opinions (as Mr. Edwards writeth) was one Mr. Robinson, who leaving Norwich male-content, became a rigid Brownist: but afterwards by some conference with learned men, he was brought to some moderation, and writ a book recanting some of his opinions. This man dying,^ many of his congre- gation went from Leyden unto New England, and planted at new Plymouth, whither they carried Mr. Robinsons opinions, which spread far there: and by letters also and other meanes were conveighed into old England: and to this purpose he citeth a letter by Master Cottens." ' Finally, we have the expression of Robinson himself in his defense of the Brownists in 1619. "We cannot assent," he says, ' Baillie, Dissvasive, p. 115. See also LecMord, Plaine-dealing: or, Newes from New England, p. 39, which Baillie cites as his authority. ^ The writer is mistaken here. The Mayflower sailed before Robin- son's death. ' Paget, Heresiography, p. 69. The reference to "Mr. Edwards" is to Thomas Edwards, Answer to the Apologeticall Narration. "Master Cottens" is doubtless John Cotton. CONTBOVEBSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 53 "to the receaved opinion and practice answerable in the Reformed Churches, by which Pastours thereof do cele- brate Marriage pubUquely and by vertue of their office."' '^The first marriage in New England was that of Edward Winslow and Susanna White in 1621, performed "accord- ing to the laudable custome of the Low-countries ... as being a civill thing." ^ There is no reason to think that the church was not allowed to invoke a blessing upon this union^, for even the Brownist Greenwood offered a prayer at the marriage in the Fleet /'nevertheless the ceremony itself was a civil one. "Thus, in the first New England weddiag, a precedent was given which has never yet been set aside, and which marked clearly the distinction between the jurisdiction of the civil power in 'causes matrimonial' and the legitimate jurisdiction of the church." ' The same kind of ceremony is recorded by Governor Winthrop at a wedding solemnized at Boston in 1647. The minister of the bride- groom's church had been asked to preach, but the magis- trates objected to this and gave as one of their reasons that they "were not willing to bring in the English custom of ministers performing the solemnity of marriage, which sermons at such times might induce, but if any ministers were present, and would bestow a word of exhortation, etc., it was permitted." * The practice recorded in these two 1 Robinson, Apologie, p. 40. This book was first published in Latin in 1619 under the title Apologia . . . guorundam Christianorum . . . didorum Brownistorum. It was translated in 1625 under the title A iust and necessarie Apologie of certain Christians . . . called Brovmists or Barromsts. . It must not be confused with the anonymous Apologie or Defense of . . . Brownists, 1604. * This was Winslow's second marriage. He was first married in Holland "before the magistrats in the Town or Stat house." Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, I, 216 and n. 4. ' Bacon, Genesis of New England Churches, p. 341. * Winthrop, History of New England, II, 382. 54 ENGLISH DOMESTIC EELATIONS instances was first given legal authority in Massachusetts, in 1646, when a statute was passed providing "that no person whatsoever in this Jurisdiction shall joyne any persons together in Marriage, but the Magistrate, or such other as the General Court, or Court of Assistants shal Authorize." ^ Commenting upon the New England marriage ceremony, Howard says: "The conception of wedlock which existed there from the beginning was identical with that which later found expression in the writings of Milton and the legislation of Cromwell." * V. The English Church of the Commonwealth It is impossible to believe that these conditions in the churches of the continent, Scotland, and New England, together with the practice of the Independents in England itself, should not affect both Enghsh public opinion in gen- eral and the doctrines of the more conservative Reformed churches of England in regard to marriage. The separa- tion between the latter and those outside the mother country was much less than may be thought. There was constant intercourse and exchange of views among all parties, both by actual meeting of representatives and by letters to and fro. Among the tracts of the Thomason collection, are letters from one church to another asking advice and dis- cussing practices, pamphlets of all kinds on ecclesiastical questions of the day, petitions, protests, apologies, defenses, etc. Ministers and others even returned from the New England colonies and advocated the practices in vogue there. Edward Winslow, above mentioned, on a visit to England in 1634, openly defended the practice of civil marriage and was imprisoned in the Fleet for seventeen 1 Whitmore, Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, p. 172. » Howard, II, 127. CONTROVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 55 weeks as a consequence. Despite the censorship of the press, a good deal of controversial writing by the adherents of the various sects got into print, but on account of the number and importance of other questions, there is little that throws any light upon the trend of public opinion on our subject. The tracts already cited, together with Winslow's imprisonment, incline us to believe that the more conserva- tive reformers clung tenaciously to the ecclesiastical cere- mony, but at the same time they give evidence that this was done more for the sake of expediency than because marriage was thought to be essentially a religious affair.^ ''John Donne probably expressed the general conservative point of view in saying, "As marriage is a civil contract, it must be done so in public, as that it may have the testimony of men; as marriage is a religious contract, it must be so done, as that it may have the benediction of the priest: in a marriage without testimony of men they cannot claim any benefit by the law; in a marriage without the bene- diction of the priest they cannot claim any benefit of the Church." 2 On the other hand, it is certain from such testimony as that of Rogers and BaiUie that among the Independents marriage was actually performed by the magistrate.' The result of all these influences upon the parliamentary assembly of divines was to effect a compromise by which it was "judged expedient that marriage be solemnized by a lawful minister," but evidently from the phraseology used, a marriage made either privately or by magistrate was still deemed valid. This decision, drawn up by the assembly in 1643, was made law by act of Parliament on Jan. 3, 1645, ' See especially the quotation from E. Paget, pp. 43-44, above. ' Donne, Works, IV, 33. See also the preface to the marriage ser- vice in the Directory, p. 56, below. " See above, pp. 48, 52. 56 ENGLISH DOMESTIC BELATIONS s^and published in the Directory of Public Worship. y^The ceremony itself was adapted from that of the Scotch Pres- byterian church, which, as said above, came verbatim from the English Church at Geneva. A prefatory paragraph gives the authorized position of the Reformed churches on the subject: "Although Marriage be no Sacrament, nor peculiar to the Church of God, but common to mankinde, and of publique interest in every Commonwealth, yet because such as marry are to marry in the Lord, and have especiall need of Instruction, Direction, and Exhortation, from the Word of God, at their entring into such a new condition; and of the blessing of God upon them therein, we judge it expedient, that marriage be solemnized by a lawfull Minister of the Word, that he may accordingly councel them and pray for a blessing upon them." ^ The ceremony itself consists of a short exhortation and instruction, the exchange of vows between the man and the woman, the pronunciation of them as "man and wife" by the minister, and a concluding prayer. Altogether the form is much shorter and much simpler than that of the Edward VI Prayer Book, towards which the Reformers were united in their objection.-^ The vows, similar for both man\ and woman, followed these words: "I, N, doe take thee N. to be my married Wife, and doe, in the presence of God, and before this congregation, promise and cove- nant to be a loving and faithful Husband unto thee, untiU God shall separate us by death." ^ This ceremony acknowledges the office of the church to a greater extent than did the original one of Geneva, as ap- proved by the Synod of Dort in 1618, the chief difference being the minister's pronouncing the couple "man and wife." But it must not be supposed that the ancient custom 1 ScobeU, I, 86. 2 Ibid., I, 87. CONTROVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 57 of marriage by spousals de praesenti was given up; on the contrary, the omission of the first part of the existing ortho- dox ceremony from the new form, is evidence that it con- tinued to be used as the form for spousals. Furthermore, in legal circles, both civil and ecclesiastical, spousals de praesenti were still regarded as marriage and impeded any other union. We may infer from this and from Cromwell's marriage act eight years later that the conflict of authority „in the two methods of effecting matrimony still produced .an un- satisfactory state of affairs; or, to put it differently, the particular conditions which previously had been a source of evils and entanglements in the ecclesiastical courts, re- mained unaltered. As a result, it was soon realized that marriage must be regarded as either entirely a civil or effEuily'an ecclesiasticar alffair, ajid that any combination (^of the two authorities was sure to be disastrous. The question before the English nation evidently was: Should the contract, or spousals de praesenti, already acknowledged as marriage itself, be considered as the authorized ceremony; or should the church be given com- plete authority to perform marriage, and some attempt be made to invalidate the force and permanency of the private contract? ^ For some reason, there seems to be little or no expression of opinion on this subject from the time the assembly deemed it expedient that marriage be an eccle- siastical office to the passage of the civil marriage act; but we may be sure, from the previously expressed sentiments * No one hitherto seems to have looked at the question in this way. The general impression among historians seems to be that Cromwell's act flew in the face of all existing conditions and instituted an entirely new marriage process. I think I have demonstrated that such was not the case, especially as the church ceremony continued to be used in addition to the civil after the latter was established in 1653. 58 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS of the Independents and from the readiness of Parliament to pass Cromwell's act, that the subject continued to be debated with increasing tendency towards the more radical attitude, ^t any rate, the decision was finally reached to follow the teachings of the German Reformers and the Eng- lish Independents and the practice of Holland and New England, and to put all marital affairs into the hands of the state. That is, the power of the church was abolishedy and spousals de praesenti performed before the civil magis- trate and in the presence of two witnesses, became the actual ~and authorized form of marriage. This was accomphshed by an act of Parliament in 1653, according to which the ceremony consisted simply of the vows as set forth in the Directory, slightly changed in wording, without prayer or exhortation. The act concludes: "And it is further Enacted, That the Man and Woman having made sufficient proof of the Consent of their Parents or Guardians as aforesaid, and expressed their consent unto Marriage, in the maner and by the words aforesaid, before such Justice of the Peace },in the presence of two or more credible Witnesses; The said Justice of the Peace may and shall declare the said Man and Woman to be from thenceforth Husband and Wife; and from and after such consent so expressed, and such declaration made, the same (as to the form of Marriage) shall be good and effectual in Law. And no other Marriage whatsoever within the Commonwealth of England after Sept. 29, 1653, shall be held or accompted a Marriage accord- ing to the Laws of England." ' My contention that this was not a revolutionary measure but merely a shifting of the emphasis from the ecclesiastical ^ Scobell, II, 236; also to be found in the newspapers of the time. Howard, I, 424 ff., makes a great deal of the stipulation in this act that marriages must be properly recorded in special parish registers. He seems to overlook the fact that this same clause was contained in the Directory eight years earlier. CONTROVERSIES REGARDING MARRIAGE 59 celebration to the private, is borne out by the lack of writing in opposition to the change ^ and by the continuation of the church ceremony as a blessing of God upon the contract civilly made, just as the Independents had consistently claimed it to be. Jeaffreson in his Brides and Bridals makes the statement that usually "the wedding was relig- iously solemnized in the church, after or before the per- formance of the purely civil affirmation in the magistrate's parlour ... in accordance with the instructions of the Directory for Public Worship." ^ There can be no doubt, however, that the civil marriage was condemned by the more orthodox clergy, especially those who still supported episcopacy, and by the political and religious enemies of Cromwell, who saw in the act only another unreasonable measure by a tyranical usurper. The act, nevertheless, had the support of the Independents at^ least, of whom Milton was the most prominent and the most powerful. ' Of course, the censorship of the press might account for this to some extent. In looking through the Thomason tracts of the period, I find only one, aside from newspapers (which contain nothing of im- portance), that mentions the subject at all. This is a Letter from a Gentleman in the Country, which is chiefly a defense of the form used by the church and an expression of the writer's failure to see any need for the new act. Howard, I, 432, n. 1, accepts Friedberg's sug- gestion (Eheschliessung, 328, n. 2) that the controversial literature on the subject may have been great, but observes that, if so, Uttle has been preserved. In the Sutro collection (San Francisco) of thousands of pamphlets of the time, he was able to find only one, omitting news- papers, on this topic. Friedberg, he says, had a similar experience in the BerUn hbrary. The British Museum, according to my experience, yields but one more, and that not controversial. It seems time, there- fore, to give up the idea that there was written controversy on the sub- ject, especially as Thomason is known to have obtained practically all tracts of any importance during this period for the Museum library. Of course, satirists took occasion to poke fun, but such writing may be disregarded here. For references to it, see Howard, I, 432-3. ' Jeaffreson, II, 69. See also Howard, I, 419, n. 2. 60 ENGLISH DOMESTIC GELATIONS "In his treatise The Likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the Church, published in 1659, he reasserts the position originally laid down by the Brownists, summarizes the history of ecclesiastical marriage, and upholds firmly Crom- well's act: "As for marriages, that ministers should meddle with them, as not sanctified or legitimate, without their celebration, I find no ground in scripture either of precept or example. Likeliest it is . . . that in imitation of heathen priests, who were wont at nup- tuals to use many rites and ceremonies, and especially, judging it would be profitable, and the increase of their authority, not to be spectators only in business of such concernment to the life of man, they insinuated that marriage was not holy without their benediction, and for the better colour, made a sacrament; being of itself a civil ordinance, a household contract, a thing indifferent and free to the whole race of mankind, not as religious, but as men: best, indeed, undertaken to religious ends, and as the apostle saith, I Cor. vii, \(.in the Lord.' Yet not therefore invahd or unholy without a minister and his pretended necessary hallowing, more than any other act, enterprise, or contract of civil life, which ought aU to be done in the Lord and to his glory: all which, no less than marriage, were by the cunning of priests heretofore, as material to their profit, transacted at the altar. Our divines deny it to be a sacrament; yet retain the celebration, till prudently a late parliament recov- ered the civil liberty of marriage from their encroachment, and transferred the ratifying and registering thereof from the canonical shop to the proper cognizance of civil magistrates." ' ' Milton, Prose Works, III, 370. Notice that it is the "ratifying and registering" on which Milton lays emphasis, following out the theory that marriage itself was a private affair, "a household contract." CHAPTER III THE ATTEMPTED REFORM OF DIVORCE I. Legal Situation WHEN^ngland under Henry VIII broke away from the \ ChurcE of Rome, the canon laws of Cathohcism in regard ' to divorce remamed in operation; indeed, the EngUsh Protestant, church never has drawn up a code of laws to supersede them. The first movement towards any actual reform of the Roman Catholic doctrines or church govern- ment was the appointment of a committee, in accordance with the act of 25 Henry VIII, ca. 19 (1534), to draw up a new platform for the ecclesiastical doctrine and discipline of England. In the meantime, however, it was provided that "suche canons constitucions ordynaunces andSynodals provynciall being allredy made, which be not contraryant nor repugnant to the lawes statutes and customes of this Realme nor to the damage or hurte of the Kynges preroga- tyve Royall, shall mowe styll be used and executed." ' The loose terms herein contained were never more fully defined^ and the evil practices in divorce cases, which con- | tinned unabated pending the action of the committee, led to the King's wholesale attempt in 1540 to stop divorces and separations altogether, except in cases of marriage within the forbidden degrees. Previous to this date, Strype tells us, divorces, or rather annulments of marriage, "might- ily prevailed. . . . For it was ordinary to annull marriage and divorce man and wife on some pretext of precontract." ' ' Staivies of the Realm, III, 461. ' Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, I, 114. 61 62 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS The preamble to the famous act of 1540, known as 32 Hen. VIII, ca. 38, is very instructive in regard to the conditions of the time, and expresses practically the same opinions concerning ecclesiastical jurisdiction over marital affairs as were later proclaimed in Parliament in 1607 and by Milton in his pamphlet of 1659; ^ but it is too long to quote in full. It may be abbreviated as follows: "Whereas heretofore the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome hathe alwayes entangled and troubled the mere jurisdiction and legal power of this Realme of England and also unquietid muche the subjectis of the same ... by making that unlaufuU whiche by Goddis wourde is laufull bothe in mariages and other thinges; . . . mariages have been brought into suche uncertainty thereby that no mariage coulde be so surely knytt and bounden but it shulde lye in either of the parties power and arbitre ... to prove a precon- tracte a kynnerede an alliance or a carnaU knowledge to defeats the same. ... Be it therefore enacted . . . [that] . . . suche mariages being contracte and solemnised in the face of the churche and constimate with bodily knowledge . . . shalbe . . . taken to be lauful good juste and indissoluble, . . . notwithstanding any precontracte . . . not consumate with bodily knowledge . . . [or] . . . any dispensation prescription lawe or other thinge . . . And that no reservation or prohibition, Goddis^ law except, shall trouble or impeche anny mariage without the Leviticall degrees." ^ The church, however, maintained its former power on the ground that the phrase "God's law excepted" applied to all marriages made in the face of the recognized eccle- siastical impediments, and that any such contract was void ab initio. Thus the entire act was made of no effect in actual application. Of conditions following this attempt to curtail the power of the church, T. E. says: "This Statute, though it seemed to be made vpon good and great considera- ' See Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, 1, 30, 67. 2 Statutes, III, 792. THE ATTEMPTED KEFOKM OF DIVORCE 63 tions, (because precontracts too too slenderly proued, and sometime but onely surmized, helped the Romish oppres- sion . . .) yet many did after the making of it, very disso- lutely come from their first vowes, . . . slipperily leaning their former Contracts." ' Meanwhile the committee of thirty-two, provided for in the act of 25 Hen. VIII, ca. 19, was at work. According to Milton, it was composed of "divines and lawyers, of whom Cranmer, the archbishop, Peter Martyr, and Walter Haddon (not without the assist- ance of sir John Cheeke . . . ) were the chief." ^ The Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, as the decisions of this conunittee were called, shows clearly the influence of Luther's teachings and of German practices. The former were followed implicitly in the abolition of separation a mensa et thoro and ia the establishment of actual divorce with permission for the innocent party to remarry for the causes of desertion, adultery, and other ill usages, in prac- tical accordance with the Zurich marriage ordinance of 1525.' Furthermore, husband and wife were put upon equal footing in divorce suits. In regard to the impediments and the annulment of marriage, the King's committee expressed itself much more definitely than did the German Reformers, who rather shirked the whole situation; but in their recom- mendations thereupon they harked back to the Romish canons, and except for one or two details, suggested no changes in the existing conditions. The Reformatio Legum is^mapQitajit only in showing the ajttitude of "the pubhc leaders of the day, for Henry died before he could force it through Parliament, and it was defeated under Edw-ard ' T. E., Lawes BesolvHons of Womens Rights, Bk. II, sec. xxix. ' Milton, Prose Works, II, 237. Milton is mistaken in saying (ibid.) that the committee was appointed by Edward VI. ' See above, p. 12, n. 3. 64 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS VI by the House of Commons.' Thus the old Catholic \ regime with all its abuses continued. Strype says that at "this time annulment and divorce were frequent. "Noble- men would very frequently put away their wives and marry others if they like another woman better or were like to ob- tain wealth by her. And they would sometimes pretend their wives to be false to their beds and so be divorced and ^ marry again such as they pleased." ^ From this time on to Cromwell's day, actual conditions remained unchanged. The decree of 32 Hen. VIII, ca. 38, was repealed and repassed alternately until the Star Chamber finally established it permanently in 1601, but it seems ' That the bill was defeated by the Commons without ever reach- ing the Lords, is illmninating in showing how little the Reformation had as yet actually touched EngUsh public opinion. ' Quoted by Kitchin, A History of Divorce, p. 177. Kitchin adds: "Thus the Earl of Pembroke divorced his first wife and married a daughter of Sir Phihp Sidney." He is badly mixed here. Sidney had but one daughter, and she married the Earl of Rutland. Pembroke's first marriage, however, was annulled, after which he did marry again; his second wife died, and he then married Mary Sidney, the famous sister of the poet. The case of Mary Queen of Scots and Bothwell is still more inter- esting. In the first place, Bothwell got Mary's husband out of the way by murdering him (thus making any later marriage with Mary illegal). Then he was divorced from his wife in a Protestant court on the ground that he was an adulterer. But since he was not the innocent party in the divorce, the Protestant minister, Mr. Craig, refused to marry h^m to the Queen; nor would a Catholic priest perform the marriage, since that church did not allow remarriage after such a divorce. To obviate this predicament, an annulment of his former marriage was obtained from a Catholic court, especially appointed by Mary, on the ground of alleged afiSnity, which could be maintained only by admitting or invent- ing a former illicit connection with one of his wife's relatives. After this, a bishop was found to perform the marriage with Mary. Later, BothweU's divorced wife married the Earl of Sutherland. See also the statement of Bunny, p. 83, below. The divorce and re- marriage of Lady Essex (Frances Howard) is another case in point here. THE ATTEMPTED BEFOKM OF DIVOBCE 65 to have had no effect whatever at any time^s^he church was~aBleT6"escapeHs pfovisions through the loophole _of "God's law excepted." ^ Edward VI showed his approval of the views of the German Reformers by bringing Fagius and Bucer over to Cambridge as professors of Hebrew and Divinity respectively; " but his beliefs, whatever they were, took no more active form, except for the repealing of the above law of Henry VHI. These two elements, the Romish practices and the principles of the German Reformation, continued as the grounds of contention in matrimonial affairs throughout our period, and indeed, they continue to the present day. The followers of the Catholic Church | as well as those Protestants who clung to prelatical epis- | copacy, upheld the Rbinan practices; whereas the Puritans j and the various sects which split off from them, not only j upheld the principles of the German Reformers, particularly j in their platform of divorce (with remarriage for the inno- | cent party) for adultery and desertion,, but also opposed | the whole Roman theory of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. jji/ marital affairs. The efforts of these dissenting sects, how-' ever, have never been of sufficient weight in England to overthrow the influence of Rome except momentarily, and to this day the old impediments, the narrowness of the grounds for divorce, and the discrimination against the woman, are upheld to a greater extent in England than in any other Protestant country. '■ This exception was perfectly well recognized ia legal circles. Coke says on the point: "There be also other divorces Qjeside those for con- sanguinity and affinity] which declare the marriage to be void, as divorce causa frigiiatis, where the party hath perpetuam impoteniiam gen- erationis, &c, and causa metus, sive duritiae, also causa impuhertatis: these marriages are said to be prohibited by God's law, otherwise the statute of 32H8 would extend to them." Institvies, Pt. II, p. 687. ' Milton is mistaken in saying {Prose Works, II, 72) that Fagius was professor of Divinity. 66 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS So far we have concerned ourselves only with legislation. Almost as important is the jurisdiction thereupon, especially as the principles of separation, divorce, and annulment, and the grounds for such suits, varied greatly among the different churches, as will be shown more fully later on. There can be no doubt that the proper and usual way to con3uct any divorce proceedings was by means of the church courts, of which there were five recognized grades: (1) Archdeacon's, held by an archdeacon or his representative; (2) Consistory, held by cathedral ofiicers, the bishop's chancellor or commissionary acting as judge; (3) Court of Arches, at London and York only, which handled appeals from Consistory courts; (4) Court of Delegates, or com- missioners appointed by the sovereign, which handled appeals from the Courts of Arches; (5) Court of High Commissions for "all manner of jurisdiction, privileges, and preeminences touching any spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the realms of England and Ireland." Besides these, there were other local courts, "some of them mere shops for the sale of ' dispensations, licenses, faculties, and other remnants of the papal extortions.'" ^ It was to these "mere shops" that people of meager circumstances went for divorce. Indeed, from the repeated references to "the minister," it seems as if questions were often de- cided and divorces granted by the parish priest alone.^ Certainly among the Puritans, if their cases were sub- mitted to legal jurisdiction of any kind, divorces for adultery or desertion, after 1603, must have been granted by a single minister or some sort of local magistrate or informal assembly, since the established church did not grant divorces on these grounds. Enough has been said elsewhere to show the corruption of the ecclesiastical courts in periods previous to the one under consideration here and the advantage 1 Bacon, p. 77. ' E. g., see quotation from Perkins, p. 80, n. 4, below. THE ATTEMPTED BBFORM OF DIVORCE 67 taken of these conditions by those who could afford it financially. That this state of affairs had not improved is abundantly shown by contemporary practices and com- ment. John Cotton, who spoke from experience, says, "The ecclesiastical courts are like the courts of the high-priests and Pharisees, which Solomon, by a spirit of prophesy, styleth, dens of lions, and mountains of leopards. Those who have had to do with them have found them to be markets of the sins of the people, the cages of unclean- ness, the forgers of extortion, the tabernacles of bribery, and contrary to the end of civil government." ' The jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts ia divorce affaifi7as hasTjeeiTsEownTwas of early origin, but'with the coming of the Reformation and the conception of marriage as a civil affair and not a sacrament, we find a new concep- tion of divorce arising also. This is that marriage is dis- solved ipso facto, without any jurisdiction whatever, by the mere existence of causes recognized as proper grounds "for _/ , its dissolution. / The case here, as investigated up to date, is stated by Howard as follows: "The researches of Stolzel have clearly established that in the beginning the reformers returned to the principle of self-divorce prevailing among the ancient Romans and Hebrews, and accepted by some of the early chiu-ch councils. . . . When an adequate cause exists, a marriage is thereby dissolved ia favor of the innocent person without any magisterial authority whatsoever. If in cer- tain cases, in order to establish the existence of the grounds of dis- solution, any action is needful, it is regarded as extra-judicial; and when gradually such informal proceedings have grown into an orderly process dealing directly with the question of divorce, this process concludes with a decree; not that the marriage is thereby dissolved, but that it has already been dissolved in consequence of the grounds now estabUshed. . . . Luther and other Protestant 1 Brook, III, 155. 68 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS leaders accepted the theory just explained that a marriage is 'broken' or dissolved when a proper cause intervenes; and if without exception they insisted that the married persons should not separate themselves, but appeal to pubhc authority, they had in mind, as Luther plainly shows, the estabUshment of the fact of wedlock already broken in order, where it was desired, to grant the permission of marrying again." ' Although this conception of the possibility and practice of private divorce, followed by civil sanction, after something the same manner as the Hebrew practice, seems to be generally admitted as having existed to some extent in Ger- many, no one has as yet traced its course in England. Whether the similar condition, which actually did exist in England, took its source from the German Reformation, or whether private divorce had continued unbrokenly in some measure from early times down, which seems unUkely, is hardly worth debating here. At any rate, we find ,g3^ctly the same attitude existing in^England as that just^ described of Germany. Hooper, after speaking of the causes of divorce, says, "The persons may by the authority of God's word and the ministry of the magistrates ^ be separated." ^ Whately ;in the beginning of the next century says, "Now if it shall I fall out, that either of the married persons shall frowardly • and peruersely withdraw themselves from this matrimoniall ; societie (which fault is termed desertion), the person thus 1 Howard, II, 69. There is a reference to this practice of self-divorce in BuUinger's Christen state of Matrimonye, i. Ixxvii, which by urging a regular proceeding upon the persons concerned, supports Howard's remarks. "Though they be persuaded to haue lawfull occasions of divoroemet/ yet they may not be iudges in their awne causes/ nor take ought here in had by their awne authoryte/ but let their matter come before their ordinate Judge." * The word magistrates always refers to civil rather than ecclesiasti- cal officers. ' Hooper, Early Writings, p. 379. THE ATTEMPTED REFORM OF DIVORCE 69 offending, hath so farre violated the couenant of marriage, / that . . . the bond of matrimony is dissolued, and the \ other party so truly and totally loosed from it, that (after I an orderly proceeding with the Church and Magistrate in \ that behalf) it shall be no sinne for him or her to make a j new contract with another person." ^ The decree granted by the civil or ecclesiastical court to perminhe second marriage, had the effect, unintentional or'hot, of granting the previous divorce; so that to this extent any such private divorce differed from the old He- brew practice. There is, nevertheless, evidence that the ancient practice of private divorce existed during our whole Vperiod, especially among the Independents.'/ Becon, in his Homily against Whoredom, has this passage: "Of this vice Cometh a great part of the divorces, which now-a-days be so commonly accustomed and used by men's private author- ity, to the . . . breach of the . . . bond of matrimony." ' In 1552, the use of such private divorce was deemed to be of sufficient prevalence to warrant its being mentioned and condemned in the Reformatio Legum. John Knox reports I a private divorce with remarriage in Scotland in 1560, I which though opposed by the magistrates was upheld by | ' Whately, Bride-binh, p. 25. See also the doctrine of the Puritans as drawn by their assembly, p. 88, below. ' This practice among the Independents has been hinted at before, but never has any real evidence been brought to bear on the subject by either historian or legal writer. Inderwick comes the nearest of any to making a definite statement, in saying, "The Jewish law, to which they much adhered, provided for and regulated divorces." (The Interregnum, p. 46.) It is well known that the Jews in England con- tinued their old practice of private divorce. Their laxity in this respect, says Inderwick, "was found in 1655 to be one of the strongest arguments against their proposed admission to the rights of citizenship." (Ibid.) ' Becon, op. cU. (pub. in Catechism, etc. by Parker So.), p. 647. This homily was included in the official book of homilies published by authority in 1547. — /-^' 70 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS 1 public opinion.^ ''At the other end of our period, John I Paget, writing to Ainsworth, a leader of some of the Inde- ipendent churches, objects to the practice of that sect "that |you also allow Divorces among yourselves, without author- ^ity of the magistrates." ^ At about the same time, Bur- roughes, in his lectures on Hosea, refers to the custom as then current: "It is true when a man putts away his wife for whoredom and giveth her a bill of divorce, he will never take her again." ' Milton not only recognizes the practice but even makes the defense of it one of the principal points in his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.* Finally, Baillie, in 1645, commentiag upon the Brownists, says, "As their mariage is private, so likewise must their Divorces, without cognizance either of Magistrate or Minister"; and of the Independents, he says, "Concerning Divorces, some of them goe farre beyond any of the Brownists: not to speak of Mr. Milton, ... for I doe not know certainely whether this man professeth Independency (albeit all the Heretics here, whereof ever I heard, avow themselves Independ- ents)." ' ^Scattered_ag_JMs._evidence may.^eem, it is quite sufficient to establish thefact that divorce by private author- ity, without recourse to either . magistrate - or ecclesiastic, I was practised throughout the whole of the period we are studying. II. The Puritan-Anglican Controversy on Divorce The controversy between the Puritans and the Church of England in regard to divorce, from the time of the Ref- ormation to Cromwell's civil marriage act, ran somewhat ' Knox, History of Reformation in Scotland, p. 241. « Hanbury, 1, 333. ' Burroughes, Exposition of Hosea, p. 228. * See below, pp. 96-97. * Baillie, Dissvasive, p. 116; also in Hanbury, III, 146. THE ATTEMPTED BEFOEM OF DIVORCE 71 the same course as did that over the celebration of marriage, with which it is more or less comiected. The controversy over the divorce of Henry VIII, which began in 1527, was the chief factor in precipitating the whole question; but as divorce matters had already been the subject of much dis- cussion and some legislation among the Reformers in Ger- many, the King's affair can not be regarded as the entire cause of the dispute in England. Nevertheless^ it brought^ to a head an illness of the church and state which otherwise might have increased and spread for some years to comej Ye't'lhe attention directed to the question at this 'time was, after all, but momentary, and after the immediate issue had been settled to the King's advantage, — if to no one else's — and he himself had made a desultory attempt to better conditions by means of the act of 1540, excitement died down and the first chapter of the controversy was over. How far this chapter was a cause of the second and in many ways more important one, it is difficult to say. After the King's death, writing on the subject became directed more to the general field of divorce matters and less to the specific case of Henry and Catherine. One finds occasional references in the later books to the royal affair, but they are too few to argue from.' The most we can say, perhaps, is that the King's case, by bringing the subject into public discussion, stimulated thought and controversy upon it, -.which in the wider issue uncovered, soon lost sight of the f particular instance. In this development we find no books \ on divorce alone until the question of remarriage arose, >along towards 1600.^ What expression there was, is to be found in books on domestic life, in tracts on the doctrine and government of the chiu-ch, and in the Parliamentary debates on the subject of the reform of the ecclesiastical courts. The domestic books cannot be said to be written in the spirit of controversy; they are rather merely the expression of * E. g., see below, p. 114, n. 1. 2 See below, p. 81 ff. 72 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS individual standards and opinions, without much consid- eration of what any one else thought on the subject. On the whole, all the writers of these books advocate much the same principles, with one important exception. This is the stand made by the Puritans for divorce after the manner of the German Reformers, with permission for the offended person to remarry, instead of the separation a mensa et thoro, which continued to be maintained by the Church of England. The views of the Church of England differed in no way in regard to divorce affairs from those of the Church of Rome; for, as Fuller said, the secession of the former from the jurisdiction of the latter "touched not the least finger of Popery." These views had already been set forth, for the first time in English, before Henry VIII's marital troubles existed outside of what he was pleased to call his conscience; and as they remained the accepted principles of the Church of England, it is perhaps worth while to state them briefly once again as put forth in this book, the Co- mendacions of matrymony, by William Harrington, in 1528.' For divorce, he says, there is but one cause: if before carnalis copula one of the married persons goes over to a heretical religion and will not return. Separation is admitted if one of the couple is adulterous. The impediments to mar- riage are given in full by Harrington, and here we find the same confusion that we noted above between those which impede marriage but do not annul it and those which render it absolutely null and void ab initio, some of the causes being included in both lists. ^ 1 It must be remembered that the interpretation of these principles was in the hands of the ecclesiastical coiirts, and on account of the cor- ruption therein, the application of them was by no means consistent. ' See above, p. 8 S. and notes. Harrington's book ia the only one in English, either original or translation, that gives a list of impediments in anything like complete form. Although the most important book of THE ATTEMPTED REFORM OF DIVORCE 73 In Protestant writings, we find less discussion of the annul- ment of marriage through impediments and more attention to the granting of divorce for adultery, desertion, and other causes. Bullinger, in his book The Christen state of Matri- all that I have seen, so far as definite information is concerned (giving more than all others put together), it seems to have been completely overlooked by all previous investigators, both legal and otherwise. The impediments, as here given, are worth quoting. They may be sum- marized: I. Impediments preventing marriage, but not annulling it if already made: 1. Forbidden seasons of the year. 2. Inhibition or prohibition by the church. 3. Precontract. 4. Vow of chastity, previously made by either party. 5. Incest (i.e. adultery with any of betrothed's relations within four degrees). 6. Murder (committed in order to marry a certain person impedes such marriage). 7. Ravishment of another's wife. 8. Christening one's own child (impedes any second marriage). 9. The murder of a priest. 10. A solemn penance previously undergone. 11. The woman's being a nun. II. Impediments preventing marriage and annulling it if made: 1. Wrong person (i.e. through mistaken identity, trickery, etc.) 2. An existing marriage on the part of either. 3. Solemn vow of chastity previously made. 4. Cognition: ». a. Carnal (i.e. consanguinity or affinity within four degrees). 6. Contract or carnal knowledge (preventing marriage with any one within four degrees of the other party involved). c. Spiritual (existing between persons joined by common par- ticipation in the baptism or confirmation of a child and also between the children of the same). 5. Adultery (preventing subsequent marriage with party involved). 6. Murder (as in above list). 74 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS monye, confines his remarks on the impediments to a treat- ment of the degrees of consanguinity and affinity, and discusses divorce in an entirely different part of the work. Here the Reformation ideas are advocated in liberal form, divorce being allowed for whoredom, adultery, murder, and poisonings. The author further remarks, "They therfore that in no case wyll helpe the oppressed persone / ner in anye wyse permytte diuorce to be made / do euen as the Pharisies / whych by reason of PoUowing^ the coramau(i- ment of the Sabboth after the lettre / suffred men to be destroyed and to peryshe." ' -j Bishop Hooper, the first real Puritan to express himself jbn the subject, in his Declaration of the Ten Command- ments, 1550, follows the German ideas in allowing divorce for adultery, and goes a step further than his English con- |;emporaries in putting the man and the woman on the same tooting in all matrimonial matters.^ In the l atter attit ude he was supported by the committee which^ drew up the Keformatio Legrwrn arid later t)y some of the more important Puritan writers, Perkins, Whately, and Milton for example. But at the time, there was no agreement on this topTc^'and Hooper's opinions had evidently met with strong opposition 7. Difference of religion (no marriage to be made with Jew, Turk, Saracen, or such other). 8. The man's being a priest. 9. Impotency ) But if either of these develop after the marriage, 10. Madness ) "there is no remedy." Interesting points to be noted about these lists are: (1) Impedi- ments 4, 5, and 6 of the first Ust occur again as 3, 46, and 6 of the sec- ond. (2) Precontract, which according to all other authorities annulled marriage (unless defviuro only), does not occur in the second list. Har- rington is certainly wrong here. (3) If 4, 5, and 6 of list two had been strictly observed during the following century, many of the plots of the drama of the time would have been knocked on the head at the outset. ' BuUinger, op. cit., f. Ixxvii 6. ' Hooper, Early Writings, cap. X. THE ATTEMPTED BEFOBM OF DIVORCE 75 from his associates, since he takes particular pains to refute their arguments and justify his own position. His treatise, b:pmg a part of his discussion of the seventh commandment, does not touch upon other causes for divorce, although it seems to suggest that such exist, and makes no mention of the impediments. Becon, writing in about 1562, says that Christians may put away their wives for no fault either of body or mind "adultery only excepted." ^ He does not j discuss the impediments at all, but attacks the English Church at length for not allowing remarriage after separa^ tion. After quoting many of the church fathers on this point, he reviews carefully the opinions of the writers shortly before him, consideriug in some detail those of Erasmus, Luther, Bucer, Melancthon, Bullinger, Peter Martyr ("that precious pearl and maruelous marguerite"), Musculus, Calvin, Sacarius, and Brentinus, all of whom agree in allow- ing the innocent party to remarry. Puritan expression after this allows divorce (with remarriage of the innocent party) consistently for adultery, usually for desertion, and sometimes for the other causes originated by Luther. Henry Smith, in 1591, is perhaps the least lenient of them all, declaring bluntly, "The disease of marriage is adultery, and the medi- cine heerof is Diuorcement." He continues: "If they might be seperated for discord, some would make a comodotie of strife; but no we they are not best to be contentius, for this Law will holde their noses together, til wearines make them leaue strugling, like two spaniels which are coupled in a chain, at last they learne to goe together, because they may not goe a sunder." ^ Meanwhile 'the established church was holding fast to its ' Beoon, Bohe of Matrimony, Worckes, Pt. I, f . DCxxviii. 2 Smith, A Preparative to Mariage, pp. 90-91. Smith is known to have inclined strongly towards orthodoxy, but he was opposed to at- tempting to force it upon others. 76 ENGLISH DOMESTIC BELATIONS old principles and practices under the favor of Elizabeth and the protection of the High Commission Court. Di- Yorcejv[ith permission to remarry was still rrfused, although in actual practice little attention^WM paid to^Wbisjrohibi- ii6h"6nce a separation was pbtainej^ji' JJie chur^jcourts, hominall;^ under the gower of the statute la,w but in reality subservient onlytothe-High Commission Courtj which was controlled by Whitgift, continued to annul marriage on the ground of impediments, real or fictitious, ,an3' to grg^t separations a mensa et thoro,- which were quickly put^into ^practice by the plaintiffs as actual divorces. In this CQin^j- / tion of affairs, it became apparent to the Puritans that as long as the church courts existed in their present status, there could be no reform in the administration not only of divorce matters but of tythes, wills, and marriage contracts as well, all of which were being discussed equally with divorce. Thus it was that from this time on, the opposi- ! tion of the Puritans was directed more towards the funda- ; mental evil of ecclesiastical jurisdiction than towards any ■y^ one of the interests that suffered therefrom. We have already seen that as early as the middle of the century prelatical episcopacy had been attacked by Hooper and Bucer, and that the Puritan ideas for church govern- ment were given final and definite form by the assembly of divines in 1576.^ Here we find the first platform for divorce proceedings, in the provision that the local classes should decide "doubts and difl&culties touching the contract of marriage." This seems to be the only definite statement — and it is far enough from being satisfactory — as to the intended jurisdiction in matrimonial affairs. In 1582, Robert Brown reopened the agitation in his book The life and manners of true Christians, by upholding the civil magistrates over the prelates; and by means of his writing and preaching started the Independents' move- * See below, pp. 83, 87, n. 1. 2 See above, p. 29 £f. THE ATTEMPTED REFOHM OF DIVOBCE 77 ment against all ecclesiastical jurisdiction in matrimonial as well as other affairs.' Of the church under the control of the bishops, he says: " 0, churche without eyes. For thy light is shutt vp at the Bish- ops Benepladtu. Art thou the church of Christe, when thy starres be not in his hande, but the fystes of thy Bishoppes doo pull them downe from thee? Yet is this church of Englande the pillar and ground of trueth. For the Bishops overryde it. They are the trueth and it is the ground. It is the Beast and they are the Ryders. It stoupeth as an Asse for them to get vp. The whippe of their spirituall Courtes, and the Spurres of their lawes, and the Bridle of their power, do make it carie them." • In the third section of the book, Brown describes the proper government by church and state. "Church gouenors are persons receyuing their authoritie & office of God, for the guiding of his people the church, receyued and called thereto, by due consent and agreement of the Church." Continu- ing, he says, "Ciuill Magistrates are persons authorised of God, and receyued by the consent or choyse of the people, whether officers or subiectes, or by birth & succession also, to make and execute lawes by publick agreement, to rule the cormnon wealth in all outwarde iustice, & to maintaine the right, welfare, & honour thereof, with outwarde power, bodily punishmens, and ciuill forcing of men." The bishops, ' In the preface of Brown's book, there is an extended and confused discussion of pastors, bishops, and magistrates, under the title Of ReformaUon without tarying for anie. In this, bishops and magistrates are classed together, as if both were opposed to reforms, but this is merely the result of Brown's impatience at the failure of Parliament, fettered by the multiplicity of ecclesiastical affairs, to move as rapidly as he desired. The treatise is an excellent example of the confusion in popular minds of the authority of the parish priests, the civil magis- trates, and the bishops' comts. ' Brown, An Order for Studying the Scriptures (contained in The life and manners), f. G3 6. 78 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS whom he calls heathen, he says, "shift and thrust them- selves into Church gouernment as Antichristes . . . [and]] . . . into ciuil gouernment as Tyrantes." ^ Whether Cartwright took his ideas on the judgment of matrimonial causes from Brown or held similar ones pre- viously, we cannot say; but in his Reply to the Answer, in c. 1573,^ he puts Brown's general principles concerning the power of the temporal magistrates as to marriage and divorce legislation into definite expression. He says: "Another thing is that in these courts (which they call spiritual) they take the knowledge of matters which are mere civil, thereby not only perverting the order which God hath appointed in severing the civil causes from the ecclesiastical, but justling also with the civil magistrate, and thrusting him from the jurisdiction which appertaineth unto him, as the causes of the contracts of marriage, of divorces, of wills and testaments, with divers other such like things. For, although it appertain to the church and govenors thereof to shew out of the word of God which is a lawful contract or just cause of divorce, and so forth, yet the judicial determination and definitive sentences of all these do appertain unto the civil magistrate." ' Whitgif t repHed to this that there was no distinction between the civil and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction since both were executed by the Queen and emanated from her supreme power. This statement exhibits the true state of affairs, in which the church hid the scandal of its courts behind Elizabeth's skirts and took refuge in the favor she showed Whitgif t and the prelates. • Brown, lAfe and manners, art. 117. ' In 1572, Cartwright wrote an Admonition to Parliament, in which he objected to some of the details of the marriage ceremony. Whitgift's Answer to the Admonition led Cartwright to go into the subject more fully, as above. » Cartwright, see Whitgift, Works, III, 267. THE ATTEMPTED BEFORM OP DIVOKCB 79 In the last decade of the century, there was any amount of pamphlet writing on the different religious questions of the day. Of all this, the Marprelate tracts have become the best known on account of their humorous and semi- literary character, which assured them a large number of readers; but there were also a great many less known books and tracts of the period by such men as Barrow, Perkins, Studley, Pye, Bradshaw, and others, who were opposed by an equal number on the bishops' side, the most important of whom was the great Hooker. By this time, the debate between Puritanism and the established church embraced the three large subjects of cermonials, doctrines, and church government; so that among so many disputed principles and practices, we find little reference to our particular sub- ject. Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity is the most exhaustive work in the whole period, but in continuing the Whitgift-Cartwright controversy on church government and jurisdiction, the writer uses such general arguments and illustrations that we get no further definite information on actual practices. Divorce is not mentioned at all, it being a detail too small to be considered, according to the scheme of the book. ^ There was, however, one important work which is val- uable in giving concrete expression to much that was in the air. This is the Christian Oeconomie of William Perkins, a writer mentioned by Milton in his first divorce tract. The book was originally written in Latin in 1590 and was trans- lated into English by Thomas Pickering in 1609. On the question of the nullification of marriage through some pre- viously existing impediment, Perkins gives us more informa- tion than does any other Puritan writer. K is ev i dent f rom what he says that the us ual impediments were still in opera- tion, and, "iJETiheony. .at least, were'hot opposed by the- Re- formed diurches. In regard to divorce, he disagrees with 80 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS the old Catholic principle that allowed it in the case of a man's entering holy orders/ but on the other hand, upholds in their broadest form the general Puritan grounds for grant- ing it. These may be divided into four classes: J^ deser- tion, "when one of the married folkes, vpon a wilfuU, and obstinate mind of their owne head, departeth from the other, without a iust, and necessary cause"; (2) malicious deal- ing, "when dwelling together, they require of each other intolerable conditions"; (3) long absence, opinions differ- ing as to the extent of tune; (i)' adultery.^ In all cases, according to Perkins, there should be no discrimination of sex. "Now in requiring of a diuorce," he says, "there is an equall right and power in both parties, so as the woman I may require it as well as the man. . . . The reason is, I because they are equally bound each to other, . . . prouided j alwaie, that the man is to maintaine his superioritie, and j the woman to obserue that modestie which beseemeth her towards the man."' In regard to the relations of church and state in causes matrimonial, it seems as if either authority could use disciplinary measures, that the church granted divorce, and that either church or magistrate might grant permission to remarry; but the discussion of these points is not full enough to show clearly either the practices of the yf day or the writer's views upon them.* For a treatment of the Puritan attitude of this time in 1 This was the logical outcome of the Puritan principle that a min- ister was in no way forbidden to marry, which was directly opposed to the orthodox doctrine. ' Perkins, op. dt., p. 101 ff. ' 7Wd., p. 120. * After discussing the case of desertion (iftui., p. 105), he says: "After publike and solemne declaration made, the Minister vpon such desertion, may pronounce the mariage to be dissolued." THE ATTEMPTED REFORM OF DIVORCE 81 regard to church and state rights, we may turn to William Bradshaw's English Puritanisme, published in 1605. What he says here needs no conunent. I quote only the most significant passages: "All Ecclesiastical! actions invented & deuised by man, are vtterUe to bee excluded out of the exercises of religion." "No Pastor ought to exercise or accept any Civill publique lurisdictio & authoritie, but ought to be whoUy imployed in spirit- ual! Offices & duties . . . And that those Civill Magistrats wealie their owne Supremacy that shall suffer any Ecclesiasticall Pastor to exercise any civill lurisdictio within their Reahnes, Dominios, or Seigniories." "The spiritual! keyes of the Church . . . are not to be put to this vse, to lock vp the Crownes, Swords or Scepters, of Princes & ciuiU States, or the ciuill Rightes prerogatiues and immvnities, of ciuill subiects in the things of this Life." "The Civill Magistrate . . . hath and ought to haue Supreae power over all the Churches within his Dominions, in all causes whatsoever." ^ On the smaller question of divorce itself, the opposmg '< parties came to blows, so to speak, in the last decade of the \ century. Since the Puritans a Neal, I, 478. 147 148 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS writer of the Answer to MUton's first divorce tract thinks to crush the argument that marriage was first constituted for "solace and comfort in gifts of the mind" by saying that if such had been the case, "then it would have been every wayes as much, yea more content and solace to Adam'; and so to every man, to have had another man made to him of his Rib in stead of Eve; this is apparent by experience, which shews, that man ordinarily exceeds woman in naturall gifts of the mind." ^ The writers who take a more charitable view towards womankind usually do so in a tone of conde- scension resulting from a consciousness of their own supe- riority. "Man," says one, "hauing that diuine Image of God, and smelling something of the celestiall Carrecter of whom he tooke his beginning, is not onely dreadful to the moste furious and proudest beastes vppon earthe, but further he hath a preheminence and authoritie ouer the woman (a creature moste noble nexte to him selfe of all others)." ^ It would take us too far afield to attempt to account for the origin of the conception of the inferiority of woman. In the history of evolution, it was doubtless the result of ''her physical weakness. In the sixteenth century, her mental inferiority was certainly a result, wherever it existed, of the fact that not only had the education of woman been wholly neglected in the past, but even in the so-called 'woman's sphere," she was always under the authority and rection of her husband. But a still greater inferiority, or rather a belief in it, was ascribed to the sex. This was /moral weakness. There can be no doubt that the belief ^ in woman'sphyiical and mental limitations is far older than Christianity, but that she was morally weak seems to be the particular contribution of the early church fathers to the unjust and undignified conception in which womankind ' Answer to Doctrine and Discipline, p. 12. ' Chelidonius, A most excellent Hystorie, p. 183. CONTEMPOHAKY ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 149 was held during the middle ages and later times. This atti- tude is more important than may at first appear, for the judg- ment of the church, disseminated through at least the male portion of Europe and England, prevented any chance of the betterment of woman through education. Thus, by being thought weak and fit only to obey, she was robbed of any chance of becoming either strong or intelligent. ' \ The causes of this belief in woman's lack of moral strength in sixteenth century England, connect very closely with the interests and movements we have been studying. Thes^ causes are two: the conception of marriage as merejy a means of propagating the race and of avoiding promiscuous sexual indulgence (particularly on the man's part), and the teachings of the church — drawn chiefly from the book of Genesis and the apostles' commentaries thereupon — that it was the woman who by her fall first brought sin into the world.'^t is, perhaps, hardly fair to blame the origin of these two doctrines upon the Christian church, as both existed to some extent before Christ's day; but the per- sistency with which the early church fathers clung to them and magnified their importance for the benefit, or detriment, of future generations, and the tenacity of the mediaeval ecclesiastics' grasp upon them, despite the fact that they are unsupported by the teachings of Christ, render their ultimate origin of little or no account. We have already seen what was the attitude of the Eoman Catholic Church towards marriage even as late as Eliza- beth's time." This attitude sprang from two related causes, the supposed sinfulness of marital intercourse and the evil nature of woman. St. Chrysostom speaks of woman as a "necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, ' The fact that Adam was made first and Eve second, she from Adam but he from divine materials, was also made much of in the case against woman. ^ See above, p. 120 ff. 150 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS a domestic peril, a deadly fascination and a painted ill." ' But if the nature of woman was one of the ills of the mar- riage state, conversely the low repute in which marriage was held served for centuries to tarnish the reputation of woman. The doctrine of woman's responsibility for the existence of sin in the world was well established by Augustine's time; indeed, the book of Genesis would suggest that it had existed from the time of its writing, but it seems not to have been made much of until the early fathers began their textual criticism of the Bible. As a result of Eve's part in the downfall of her noble spouse, many early commentators could not conceive the possibility of her possessing a par- ticle of the divine nature, of which Adam was the human personification; and a debate of one thousand years' dura- tion ensued over the question of whether or not woman possessed a soul. Feminists today may congratulate them- selves upon their early progenitors, for from the opening of this debate at the Council of Macon in 585, when fifty-nine bishops took part, the weight of argument seems to have continually favored the affirmative. "Christian women were therefore allowed to remain human beiags in the eyes of the clergy, even though considered very weak&and bad ones." ^ Although by the end of the sixteenth century, this exalted position was granted to women, they were nevertheless held firmly in leash by textual chains, as if they were a race of Amazons, who once having bested man — in the apple episode — were still likely by some Machia- vellian policy to accomplish a similar coup d'etat. The Bible was ransacked to provide such texts. The writings of St. Paul and St. Peter proved to be the most profitable mines, the best passage of all being in St. Paul's Epistle to Timothy. ' Hill, Women in English Ldfe, I, ix. ' Gage, Women, Church and State, p. 56. CONTEMPORARY ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 151 "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; "But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. "Let the woman learn in silence with aU subjection. "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp the authority over the man, but to be in silence. "For Adam was first formed, then Eve. "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." i As a sample of what we find over and over on each of these texts and many similar ones, we may take a passage from a sermon on the last, preached by John Brinsley and after- wards published (1645) under the title of A Looking-Glasse for Good Women. "Adam was not deceived, viz. not immediately by the Serpent: So was the Woman deceived, giving eare to Satan, speaking in and by the Serpent, she was deceived; but so was not Adam de- ceived: Deceived indeed he was; but it was by means of the Woman, handing those suggestions unto him, which she had received from the Serpent: withaU, sohciting, and inticing him; to whom he 3aelded, partly, Ex amicabili quadam benevolentia, out of a lov- ing and indulgent affection towards her, and so was overcome, even as Sampson was by his Delilah and Solomon by hi^ Wives. "These two last Resolutions (being in effect one and the same) we may safely pitch upon. Adam was not deceived, viz. so as the Woman was deceived: not firstly, not immediately, so was the Woman deceived; and being so deceived, she was the Instrument to deceive her Husband: So it followeth; But The Woman being deceived, she was in the Transgression." ^ ' St. Paul, op. dt., II, 9^14. The first verse still occurs in the marriage service of the Church of England. See also St. Paiil, I Cor. II, 7, and Ephes. V, 22-24; and St. Peter, First Epistle General, III, 1. 2 Brinsley, op. cit., p. 3. This kind of stuff continues for fifty pages. 1 152 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS II. Domestic and Coubtly /^ The writers of domestic books take practically the same ( attitude towards woman as that held by the church, and \ base their directions for her conduct upon ecclesiastical A, teachings. The most complete brief for the case of the Bible vs. Woman that I have seen occurs in a book of this type. "Two reasons [for woman's subjection to man] may be given: the one from the law of creatio; the other from the law of Penalty, following disobedience. For the first, The man (we know) was the first created, as a perfect Creature, and not the woman with him at the same instant, as we know both sexes of aU other Creatures were contemporary: not so here. But, after his constitution and frame ended, then was she thought of. Secondly, she was not made of the same matter with the man equally; but she was made and framed of the man. . . . And thirdly, she was made for the mas use and benefit, as a meet helper, when no other creature besides' her was not able to do it. . . . "The second warrant hereof is penall. . . . For, since she would take upon her as a woman without respect to the order, dependence, and use of her creation, to enterprise so sad a business, as to jangle and demurre with the divell about so waighty a point as her hus- bands freehold, and of her own braine to lay him and it under her foot, without the least par lee and consent of his . . .so that, till she had put all beyond question, and past amendment, and eaten, she brought not the fruit to him to eate, and so, became a divell to tempt him to eate; therefore the Lord strips her of this robe of honour, accursing her with this penalty." ' Some writers, not being restrained by Scriptural authority, use the subject of domestic life to vent their spleen against woman. Thus we sometimes find passages such as the following: ^ ' Rogers, MatrimoniaU Honour, p. 254 5. * See also quotations below, pp. 163-164. CONTEMPOKARY ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 153 "Deponares hauing tasted the martirdomes of marriage, said, that there were but two good dayes in all the Ufe of mariage, the one was the wedding day, and the other the daye that the woma dieth, for that on the day of mariage, there is made good cheare, the Bride is fresh and new, and aU new things are pleasaunt. . . . The other day that he saith is good, is the daye wherein the woman dieth, for that the beast being deade, deade is the poyson, and that by the death of the woman the husband is out of bondage. In confirmation whereof, there is recited a pretie historie of a noble Ro- maine, who the day after his mariage . . . was verye pensiue and sorowfull, and being demaunded . . . what was ye occasion of his sorrow, seeing that his wife was so faire, rich, and come of a noble progenie: shewing them his foote, he stretcheth out his leg, saying, My friendes, my shooe is newe, faire and well made, but you know not where about it doeth hurt and grieue me." ' But ''although the woman is reminded in the domestic book of her inferiority and subserviency to her lord and master, it is always recommended that he treat her with kindness and honor. Still, even in this view of the hus- band's attitude, the wife's mental and moral weakness is not lost sight of. Brinsley says: "A last respect due unto the Woman in regard of her weaknesse is . . . giving honour imto her. Honour, not as from the inferior to the superior; but honour as to the weaker vessel. Which consisteth chiefly in three particulars. 1. In hiding their weaknesse. 2. In defending them against injuries. 3. In providing what is meet for them. All these wayes nature teacheth us to put honour upon the less honorable parts of the bodie, as the Apostle tells us, I Cor. 12.23. And all these wayes both Nature and Grace should teach Husbands to give honour to their wives." ^ In return for this good measure ' Bouaistuau, Theatrum Mundi, p. 136. The former of these stories 7 occurs also in Nixon, The Dignitie of Man, p. Ill; the latter in Milton, Doctrine and Discipline, Prose Works, II, 57. 2 Brinsley, A Looking-Glasse for Good Women, p. 47. 154 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS of honor, pressed down and overflowing on three separate counts, women should look to their husbands "euermore to reuerence them, and to endeuour with true obedience and loue to serue them, to bee loath in any wise to offend them: yea, rather to bee careful! & diligent to please the, yt their soule may blesse them. And if . . . the wife shall anger or displease her husband . . . she ought neuer to rest, vntill shee hath pacified him, and gotten his favour againe. And if he shall chance to blame her without a cause . . . yet shee must beare it patiently, and giue him no vncomely or vnkinde woordes for it: but euermore looke vppon him, with a louing and chearefull countenance, and so rather let her take the fault vppon hei^, then seeme to bee displeased." ^ Although a great deal of attention was given in the do- mestic books to woman and her duties, practically no books were written for the instruction of women alone before the first part of the seventeenth century, except such as deal with specific subjects, like cookery, dairying, housekeeping, etc. Vives' book, already mentioned, is the chief exception here. Among a number of works written for the instruction of young people, particularly on the subject of marriage, I find only one addressed to girls. This is A goodlie advise . . . touching mariage by Andrew Kiugsmill, a very short treatise appended to his A Viewe of mans estate. It was written in 1560, but was not pubhshed until 1574, after the writer's death. Vives' Instruction, as translated by Hyrde in 1540, is a full treatment of woman from birth to death, but contains little that is not to be found in the more general books of family life. These, as well as the many so-called Catechisms, devote several chapters to the various phases in the life of a woman, among which are discussed particularly the maid, the married woman, and the widow. Practically 1 R. C, A Godly Form of Hovseholde Oouemement, p. 214. CONTEMPOHAKY ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 155 all treat of the first two, some include the third, and some add chapters on stepmothers and old women. Becon, in his Catechism, has given perhaps the fullest account of maidenhood, which is supplemented by a similar but shorter discussion on his Boke of Matrimonii The former gives nine duties to be observed by maids.* First, they must fear and serve God. Secondly, they must obey their parents. Thirdly, they should avoid idleness, "out of ye which springeth all mischefe, as pride, slouthfulnesse, banketting, dronkenshyp, whoredome, adoultry, vain com- munication, bewraying of secretes, cursed speakings &c. to auoid these pestilences, it shall become honest and vertuous maides to geue them selues to honest and vertuous exercises, to spinning, to carding, to weauing, to sowing, to washing, to wringing, to sweping, to scouring, to bruing, to bakinge, and to all kinde of labors withoute exception, that become maides." Fourthly, besides idleness, maids must eschew "the runninge about vnto vain spectacles, games, pastimes, playes, enterludes &c." Fifthly, "forasmuch as nothing doth so greatly hinder ye good name and fame of maids, as keeping copany with naughty packs, & persos of a dissolute & wanton life, . . . therefore shal it be requisite that al godly maids do refrain theselues from keping copany with light, vain & wanton persons: whose delite is in fleshly and filthy pastimes, as singing, dauncing, leaping, skipping, playinge, kissing, whoring &c." Sixthly, "that they be not full of tonge, and of much babling. . . . Except the grauity of some matter do require, that she should speak: or els an answer is to be made ... let her kepe silence. For there is nothinge that doth so much commend, auaunce, setforthe, adourne, decke, trim, and garnish a maid, as silence." Seventhly, /"forasmuch as maides no les then yonge menne after they" come ones to xiiii yeres of age, are so desirous to ' Becon, Worckes, Pt. I, f. cccccxxxi ff. 156 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS be marled, . . . notwithstanding suche vntimely mariages are not to be commended ... it shalbe conuenient for al honest maides, if they tender the health and coseruatlon of their bodies . . . that they labor to the vttermost of their power to suppresse that luste and desire in thein^ Eighthly, "seeinge that . . . maides desyre nothings so greatly as galante apparell, and sumptuous raiment . . . it shall not be vnfytting, that all honest and godly disposed maydes cotent them selues with comely and semely apparell . . . according to the doctrine of the gospell."/' Finally, when they come to marry, they should "presume not to take in hand so graue, waighty and earnest matter, nor entangle them selues with the loue of anye parson, before they haue made their parents, tutors, frendes, or suche as haue gouernaunce of them priuye of their entent, yea and also require their both councel and consent in the matter."' This set of rules is perhaps the fullest given anywhere, but most of them occur more briefly stated in other similar books. One thing which Becon omits but which is par- ticularly interesting, is the warning sometimes given to young girls against reading "naughtie ballets" and "vaine romances." Vives has the fullest list of the latter, which he calls ungracious and full of filthiness: "in Spaine, Ama- dise, Florisande, Tirante, Tristane, and Celestina; ... in France, Lancelot du Lake, Paris & Vienna, Ponthiis and Sidonia, and Melucine; in Flanders, Flori and White Flower, Leonel and Cenamour, Curias and Floret, Primus and Thisbe; in England, Parthenope, Genarides, Hippomadon, William and Melyour, Libius and Arthur, Guy, Beuis, and many others." ^ ' Vives, Instruction, f.D. Vives is a forerunner of Cervantes in the ridicule he heaps upon such romances. He says: "What delight can there bee in those thinges that be so plaine and foolish Ues? One killeth twenty himselfe alone, another killeth thirty, another wounded with a CONTEMPOKART ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 157 The duties of the married woman have already been set forth to some extent and require no more than a brief summary here. Besides obedience and submission to her husband, those most frequently mentioned are: chaste living, the avoidance of gaudy apparel, jewels, and cosmetics, the ordering of the household so far as its master allowed her control, the suckling of her babies, and some part in the teaching of her children. How far she had authority within the house is a point upon which there seems to have been no definite expression, and it was doubtless thought of and practised as a personal matter between the individual husband and wife.^ Becon comes as near as any to a definite^ statement, where, in a passage describing the things a yoimg girl should learn for her future service in life, he enumerates "spinning, cardinge, weuing, sowing, milking, chese, and butter making, gouerning of an house, dressing of meate and drink, and such like." Without these acquirements, Becon continues, "all beauty, favour, personage, nobilitye richesse, galant aparel, and whatsoeuer can be reckned more wherein wome do most of al glory, is nothinge else, then a hundred woundes, and left dead, riseth vp againe, and on the next day made whole and strong, ouercommeth two Gyants and then goeth away loaden with gold and siluer, and pretious stones, mo the a Gaily would carry away. What madnes is it in folkes, to haue pleasure in these books? Also there is no wit in them, but a few wordes of wanton lust: which be spoken to mooue her minde with whome they loue, if it chance she is stedfast. . . . Nor I neuer heard man say that he Uked these bookes: but those that neuer touched good books. And I my Belfe sometime haue read in them, but I neuer found in them one steppe either of goodnesse or wit." Ihid., D b. Bullinger, on the same subject, says: "^the books of] Robyn Hode/ Beues of Hampton/ Troilus/ & such lyke fables do but kyndle in lyers lyke lyes and wanton loue/ whyche ought not in yought wyth theyr fyrst spettle to be dronke in/ lest they euer remayne in them." Christen state, f. Ixxvb. Ascham's disapproval of the literature of romance is well known. * But see p. 237, n. 1, below. 158 ENGLISH DOMESTIC BELATIONS ringe in a swines snowte." ^ No wonder Vives says, "Great sadness of behauiour and arayment is required in a wife." The widow was given less attention in the domestic book than either the maid or the married woman, and her duties may be briefly stated. If she was old, she should "be occupyed aboute matters of God and about busynesses of the congregation"; if young, she should keep out of trouble. The belief that a young widow was more attractive and in greater danger from men than a maid, seems to go back to St. Paul's time; but whether this attitude in the sixteenth (as well as in the twentieth) century is entirely the result of the apostle's teachings or is founded upon fact, is a ques- tion that we cannot go into here. At any rate, according to Vives, a young widow should lead a cloistered life, and if she went abroad at all, she should be accompanied by "some good and sad woman" and should avoid the company of men, especially friars and priests. On the other hand, some writers, following the advice of St. Paul to young widows, would have them marry again as soon as possible and thus avoid the "daunger of everlasting damnation" — it being thought practically impossible for a young widow to live chaste — "for how lyghte, vayne, trifeling, unhonest, unhousewifelike, younge widowes haue ben in all ages, and are also at this present day, experience doth sufficiently declare." ^ It is interesting to note that of the seven chap- ters given by Vives to the subject of the widow, three are devoted to her behavior towards her deceased husband. The references above to woman in her various spheres, to her relation to man, and to the attitude of at least the re- ligiously-minded towards her, represent one side of the pic- ' Becon, Worckes, Pt. I, f . DCLxxvi 6. See also the list given in the Catechism, p. 155, above. ' Ibid, f. cccccxxix. Cf. the widow in Dunbar's Twa Maryit wemen and the wedo (see below, pp. 164^165). CONTEMPORARY ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 159 ture of woman of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I have gone into this in some detail as this point of view seems to have been neglected heretofore and to be at present quite overshadowed by the numerous discussions of the Renaissance idea of woman, which predominated among ^the courtly writers of Elizabeth's reign^ The influence of Platonism as revamped in the Italian Renaissance is well enough known to obviate the necessity of my discussing it further.! Indeed, it is quite too well known, for students of the period, being saturated with the conception of woman as found in Italian literature and Italian court life and among the imitators of both in England, seem not to have realized sufficiently that woman as here portrayed is as fictitious as the love expressed for her in the average Petrarchistic sonnet. We should fall into a similar errorV were we to maintain, on the other hand, that the books we have been examining represent the true state of man's regard for woman, and that the Platonistic poetry and Cortegiano type of prose writing represent mere conventional- ^ ized dreams of fair women. Each attitude, we may say ^now, was a pose, the one resulting from the authority of the Scriptures, and the other from that of Plato and the Italian Renaissance. How sincere the writers in these two fields were, it is difficult to say; but at least it is safe to believe that each school was to some extent true to an imagination ingrown upon dogmas that seemed to express actual life, although the authors themselves may not have been fortu- nate, or unfortunate, enough to have so experienced it, except perhaps momentarily. In many cases, however, the writer must have been conscious, at least at times, that he was a hypocrite and that Iiis productions were mere vapories of an over-religious or an over-sentimental state of ' For a treatment of this subject, see Einstein, The Italian Renais- sance in England. 160 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS mind. The spectacle of John Donne, for instance, on Sunday- preaching the subjection and inferiority of woman to a newly married couple, and on Monday apotheosizing his mistress in extragavant metaphors, will hardly tempt the fair-minded reader to accept him as a trustworthy witness for either the prosecution or the defense of womankind.* Similarly, John Knox, who denoimced women as "weak, frail, impatient, feeble, foolish, inconstant, variable, and lacking the spirit of council," was twice married, was all his life surrounded by women, was co-respondent in the alienation of Mrs. Bowes from her husband and twelve children, and was accustomed to write in letters to those absent such sentiments as, "Dear sister, if I should express the thirst and langour which I have had for your presence, I should appear to pass measure. . . . Yea, I weep and rejoice in remembrance of you." '^ And Milton represents not only the popular ideal of woman in Paradise Lost but also the Petrarchistic one in his sonnets to the ladies of his Italian journey; and despite the difficulty he describes in his divorce tract of choosing a "sweet conversing soul," seems to have been unable to live without at least some makeshift for such a mate. The point here is more important than may- at first appear, as it results in obliging us to accept only cum magno grano salis the testimony of all who have any axe to grind, be it sentimental, religious, or otherwise. III. Commendation and Satieb However insincere the attitudes of moralists and courtiers towards women may have been, it is clear that the reign of Elizabeth did a great deal in awakening serious men to 1 Donne himseU in early life made a clandestine marriage with Anne More and was dismissed from office as a result. ' Stevenson, John Knox and his Relations to Women, in Familiar Studies of Men and Books, p. 383. The whole essay is instructive. CONTEMPORABT ATTITUDES TOWAEDS WOMAN 161 the importance of woman and her sphere. We find examples of books illustrating this fact as early as the middle of the century, as in the case of David Clapham's translation of Agrippa's De Nobilitate & Praecellentia Foeminei Sexus, in 1542, Thomas Elyot's Defense of good women, in 1545, William Bercher's Nobylytie off Wymen, in 1559, and two poems, Gosynhyll's The Prayse of all women, called Mulierum paean, in 1541, and Edward More's Defense of women, in 1560. But not until the beginning of the next century does there seem to have been anjrthing like a development of a literature in praise of woman or in exposition of her affairs. A book quite similar to Elyot's, except that it is not in dialogue form, is A Womans Woorth, defended against all the men of the world, "proouing them to be more perfect, excellent, and absolute in all vertuous actions than any man of what quaUtie soeuer." The title page also informs us that the work is by "one that hath heard much, seen much, but knowes a great deal more"; and the dedication is signed by Anthony Gibson, who says that he has trans- lated the treatise from the French of a "friend and fellow servant to her Majesty." This book was published in 1599. Among the books of less pretentious titles but more utilitarian character and greater real worth, may be mentioned The Excellency of good women, in 1613, and My Ladies Looking Glasse, in 1616, both by Bamaby Rich, Thomas Heywood's Nine Bookes of Various History concerninge Women, 1624, and Nine the Most Worthy Women of the World, 1640, Brath- wait's The English Gentlewoman, 1631, T. E.'s The Lawes Resolvtions of Womens Rights, 1632, and Samuel Torshell's The Womans Glorie, 1645. A word will suffice for each of these. The first of Rich's two small books is sufficiently described by its subtitles — "The honour and estimation that belongeth vnto them, The infallible markes whereby to know them." The Look- 162 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS ing Glasse is merely one of the many books on the evils and immorality of the time, and deals as much with men as with women. Thomas Heywood shows his interest in woman both in his plays and in the books before us. The Various History is a folio volume of 466 pages, divided into nine books on various feminine types, the first eight of which contain histories and anecdotes of particular women of fame, almost all from ancient history, and several essays of a general nature on woman and her characteristics. The ninth book is made up entirely of such essays. The volume on the whole is a veritable storehouse of historical, tradi- tionary, and fictitious stories, and contains a considerable amount of verse both original and translated. It does not, however, throw much light upon the contemporary Enghsh woman. The Nine Most Worthy Women presents history only, in the form of the lives of three famous Jews — Deborah, Judith, and Esther; three Gentiles — Boadicea, Penthesilaea, and Artimesia; and three Christians — Elphreda (daughter of Alfred the Great), Margaret (wife of Henry VI), and Queen Elizabeth. The Lawes Resolvtions by the unknown T. E.^ is entirely a legal work, and although uninteresting for us, is particularly important in showing the increased recognition of woman's position in civil affairs. It is a thorough treatise of her rights before the law. The Womans Glorie is an ordinary conduct book for women, her "glorie" consisting in properly filling her part in the family. Brathwait's English Gentlewoman represents the culmination of the writing upon women. It is a book of some 240 pages devoted entirely to feminine interests. Its chapters treat separately apparel, behavior, complement, decency, education, fancy, gentility, and honor. From these headings it may be seen that the work is a general one of manners and conduct rather than, like Vives' In- struction, one concerned with the different stages and con- ' The British Museum Catalogue suggests Thomas Edwards. CONTEMPOKAKT ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 163 ditions of woman's life. Mention is made of Vives' book and also of Erasmus, from which fact, as well as from the recurrence of certain anecdotes, we may believe that Brath- wait knew to some extent the domestic books of the period. He mentions also the Italian type of courtier and lady, and shows himself familiar with the Italian point of view by ridiculing the contemporary love poetry. Although he is a little too much saturated with the ecclesiastical idea of female humility, advising the gentlewoman that "the way for you to ascend is first to descend," he presents on the whole a very sane picture of woman as she should be, and one not greatly different from the English ideal of today. Despite these books in commendation of the gentle sex, less complimentary writing continued, reminiscent of the time when woman figiu'ed in literature principally as the object of satire. In 1637, an anonymous writer says: "In turn- ing over the leaves of some both moderne and foreigne writers, I have met with so many satyricall invectives aimed directly against it [the feminine sex] and some of them so pathetically bitter, that I am halfe perswaded they had forgot them- selves to have been borne of mothers." ^ It may have been this author's misfortune to have run across A Discovrse of the Married and Single Life, or Hercules Tasso's part of Of Mariage and Wiuing. Both of these treatises, like Bansley's Pryde and abuse of women (1540-50), are such diatribes against womankind that one is inclined to class them with those Torquato Tasso speaks of as "too too ridic- ulous." The parting shot from the former is, "Yet let mee aduise thee, that with thine eyes shut, thy nose stopt, thy fist closed, & thy stomack armed, thou will take thy wife as a medicine of Rubarbe." ^ Hercules Tasso concludes: " (Friend) marry when thou please, yet thou shalt find Thy wife bad alwaies, and but vse her ill 1 A Curtaine Lecture, p. 5. = Op. cit., p. 115. 164 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS And she is worse, but vse her well and kind She is worser then, and so continue will: Yet is she good (if she but once would die) But better, if she packt before thy selfe, But best of all, if she went speedily, Leauing behind to thee her hoorded wealth." > But neither these two books nor others of similar nature can be called satire; they are invective pure and simple. Nevertheless, there was satire on the subject of woman, especially the married woman, just as there had been ever since Chaucer's day and before that. This is found every- where except in religious books and prosaic household direct- ories, such as many we have been studying. The origin of the genre, which was contemporary with Chaucer, seems to have been in France and took the form of warnings against marriage, as in such a piece as Les quinze joyes des Manage, which afterwards became the groundwork for Dekker's Bachelars Banquet. Chaucer himself, although inclined to poke fun at the sex, was certainly on the side of its defense in the so-called marriage group of the Canterbury Tales. His successor, Douglas, said of him that he "was ever. Got wait, wemenis friend," and it is reasonable to believe that his attitude in the tales told in reply to the Wife of Bath and in the Legend of Good Women was a sincere one. Never- theless, Chaucer's championing of woman partook some- what of the nature of a weather-cock on a gusty day. The Wife of Bath is representative of a succession of female Blue- beards, of whom she may have been the prototype. The boke of Mayd Emlyn, c. 1530, contains the most extended portrait of such a character, to whom may be likened the adventuress in the Twelve mery gestys of one called Edyth and the widow in Dunbar's The Tua Maryit wemen and the wedo. Married life came in for more direct satire in ballads ' Tasso, op. dt., f. G4. CONTEMPORAKT ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 165 such as A Complaynt of them that be to soone maryed, The Payne and sorowe of euyll Maryage, and many from the pro- lific pen of Martin Parker, as well as in a few less ephemeral works like Dunbar's Tua Maryit wemen. In the whole of this group, the satire on women is incidental to the accounts of married life and the warnings against it. Dunbar's poem, like The Schole-howse of women, written in reply to Gosynhyll's Prayse of all women, presents marriage and its hardships entirely from the woman's point of view. In the former, the widow advises the afficted wives, after listening to their tales of woe, to make the best of their bad bargains by consoling themselves, as she had done, with "othir bachilleris blyth bliunyng in youth " ; in the latter, a dialogue between an old gossip and a young wife, the elder, while appearing to council her friend in regard to her sufferings, plays Job's comforter by reciting the evils and weaknesses of womankind, with illustrations drawn from history and current jest-books. In the years 1560 to 1570, there was quite an outburst, which seems to have abated thereafter, of satirical poems against the married woman — The Provde Wyves Paternoster, An hundred poyntes of evell huswrifrye, A Commyssion unto all those whose wyves be thayr masters, A Shrewde and Curste Wyfe lapped in Morrelles skin, and others — but these contribute little that is new to the type.^ In all these would-be satires, in which the weapon em- ployed is the bludgeon rather than the rapier, we find that, just as the courtier pretended to regard woman as the queen of love and beauty, and the sanctimonious writer looked upon her as the handmaid of the devil, or at best as a weak and sinning specimen of human kind, so the satirist assumed a conventional point of view and portrayed her from that aspect. The two things which women had been especially ' For further account and bibliography of satire against women, see Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit., II, 437 ff., Ill, 98 £f. and 551 £f. 166 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS instructed to do, from the time of St. Paul onward, were to be subservient to their husbands and to avoid costly- raiment.^ Whether or not these warnings caused women to do exactly the opposite, so that the satire was directed against actual conditions, we cannot say, though one is in- clined to doubt very much if such were the case; at any rate, these two points furnish the casus belli for by far the greater part of the satire against woman. Of course, her other ^ occasional attributes were not neglected, such as jealousy, especially in the case of a woman married the second time, --'^her propensity for continuous talking, her extravagance, her love of pleasure, her temper. It is noteworthy, too, that as St. Paul's words were directed against married women, so the satire is chiefly at their expense. Chaucer's Wife of Bath is an excellent example of these points. She had been married five times, having mastered the life and death of each of her husbands, she flaunted her gaudy apparel and lewd personality in the faces of her fellow pilgrims, and she told a story illustrative of woman's desire for sovereignty. "Women desyren to have sovereyntee As wel over hir housbond as hir love And for to been in maistrie him above." ^ Descendants of the Wife of Bath may be found in Enghsh literature without break throughout Elizabethan times and beyond. In the middle of the century, "Walter Wedlocke" thus slyly defends woman's love of sovereignty: "Surely the prehiminence that wyues doth couette at theyr husbands handes by vertue of that humour is none other, but onele to haue lybertie in three kynde of thynges, which is, to saye what they wyU, to haue what they wyU, and to do what they wyl, wherin ' These two warnings, hardly changed from their original Biblical phraseology, to this day form part of the marriage ceremony of the Church of England. 2 Chaucer, Wife of Bath's Tale 1. 182. CONTEMPORARY ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 167 you know the husbande maye easely here with them, and surely doyng so, they are the most quyet and comfortablest creatures, that euer were ordeyned for man." ' Before the introduction of the Italian and Spanish fashions in clothes, the greater part of both serious and frivolous writing against woman was directed towards preserving her subserviency and condemning her attempts at sover- eignty. At this time, the only satire entirely against female attire that I have found was Lindsay's Syde Taillis; but with the coming of foreign and exaggerated styles of dress and the greater attention given to clothes by both men and women, satirical writing on such love of display received a fresh and powerful stimulus. Despite the works discussed above, the greater part of the satire against women, especially in the latter half of the century, was incidental to some other piece of work, as it had been earlier in the case of the writings of Chaucer and John Heywood. For this reason, it is impossible to trace its history more closely here. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, running parallel with other writing on the subject of women, we find the gem:e coming to life again, and here the foibles of dress are dealt with to a far greater extent than formerly. Gosson's Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Newfangled Gentlewomen, in 1595, is a case in point, the title page of which describes it as a satirical poem against the " fantastical foreign Toyes daylie used in Women's Apparell." Dekker's Tfie Bachelars Banquet, in 1603, is more inclusive, exhibiting the "humours" of women of different types and in different situations. This is the most thorough satirical treatment of women that I know of. The drama, in such plays as The Taming of the Shrew, The Silent Woman, and others, contributed its quota. The • Wedlocke, Irruige of Idlenesse, f . Ei b. 168 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS years 1615-1620 saw two controversies on the subject. One was started by Joseph Swetnam ^ with The Araigrir ment of Lewde, idle, froward, and vnconstant women, in 1615, which was answered in 1616 by the anonymous Asylum Veneris, or a Sanctuary for Ladies, etc., in 1617 by Constantia Munda ^ with The Worming of a mad Dogge: or, a Soppe far Cerherus the laylor of Hell, by Ester Sowemam ^ with Ester hath hang'd Haman, etc., by Rachel Speght with A Mouzellfor Melastomus, the Cynicall Bayter of, and foule mouthed Barker against Evahs sex, and in 1620 by an anonymous comedy entitled Swetnam the woman-hater, arraigned by women. The replies are, of course, in defense of the sex. There is much humor in Swetnam's little book, and its popularity was great. Of the jealousy of women married a second time, he tells this story: "Another Cman] hauing married a widdow, and within a while after they were married, she went out into the garden, and there finding her husbands shirt hang close on the hedge by her maides smock, she went presently and hanged herselfe for a iealous conceit that she tooke, and a merry feUow asked the cause why she hanged herselfe, and being tolde it was for iealousie: I would said he that aU trees did beare such fruit." ' The second little passage of arms on the subject consisted of one book against women and two replies. These are: Hie Mvlier: or, the Man-Woman; Being a Medicine to cure the Coltish Disease of the Staggers in the Masculine-Fem- inines of our Time; Haec-Vir; or. The Womanish Man: Being an Answere to a late Booke intitulit Hic-Mulier; and Muld Sacke: or The Apologie of Hic-Mulier: To the late Declamation against her. All three books are anonymous and give the impression of being by the same writer. MvM 1 Swetnam issued his book under the name of Thomas Teltruth, but his identity was known to the writers of the answers. ' Constantia Manda and Ester Sowernam are probably fictitious names. ' Swetman, op. dt., p. 63. This is an old tale. CONTEMPOBABY ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 169 Sacke is dated 1620, and the other two are probably of the same year or very shortly before. The first is against the mannish woman; the second, being a dialogue, cuts both ways; the third is principally against foppish men.^ There is not much wit in any of them — more invective than satire. There is good satire in the two jest-books above mentioned, A Curtaine Lecture, 1637, and Ar't asleepe Husband?, 1640; but space forbids further discussion of this subject. IV. Historical and General View /■ . . . . ^^, In attempting to formulate an opinion of woman's posi- tion in Elizabeth's time, we shall get a fairer and more fundamental view by examining historical and biographical facts than by studying the writings of moralists, lovers, and satirists. These writers are helpful in furnishing detail and color to the picture and in distinguishing individuals from the mass, but history will give us a clearer idea of the general character of the woman of the day, to which the minor features, in one case or another, are to be attached, y For whether the individual was a household drudge, a queen of love, or a Wife of Bath, she was first of all a woman, and as the philosopher characteristically observed, "but a woman." ^ There can be no doubt that previous to Elizabeth's reign woman was considered a very inferior creature. The neglect of her education, the conditions of marriage and divorce, the piggishness of the average home, and the scarcity of women of ability and prominence, all put this fact beyond * The womanish man became an object of satire, as in Decker's GvRs Hornbook as a result of Italian foppery of dress and manners, in the same way as did the woman. A good deal of such satire was carried on in the drama, as in the case of the comedies of Jonson, Middleton, Marston and Field. 170 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS question. But conditions for the betterment of the sex ._began long before this time. Henry III was a great patron of the home and was influential in improving housing condi- tions.' Henry IV showed his interest in womankind by extolling the writings of Christine de Pisan, the well known champion of woman, and inviting her to his court. The works of Juliana Berners, the first English literary woman of fame, were widely read. Thomas More was a believer in female education, taking his ideas from Italy, and his daughters were said by Vives to "perfectly fulfill all the points of a good woman." ^ Queen Catherine, the wife of Henry VIII, after the abominable treatment she received at the hands of her royal spouse, became a national heroine in the eyes of those not under the King's thumb.' Before Elizabeth's reign, and to a greater extent during it, Italian books were imported, translated, and imitated, Itahan architecture was introduced, Italian culture and court life were adopted as far as possible, and the Renaissance homage was paid, whether sincerely or not, to the women of nobility as well as to many others. These facts are well known. Two others are worthy of attention. The one is the new and higher attitude toward marriage, as taught by the Reformers of Germany and their followers in England, particularly the Puritans, which has 1 For early housing conditions and Henry Ill's patronage of archi- tecture, see Sparrow, The English House, chaps. II and VII, respectively. 2 Vives, Instntction, f. C5. 3 Speaking of her, Vives says: "If suche incredible vertue hadde fortuned then, when honor was the rewarde of vertue, thys woma had dusked the brightnesse of the Heroes, and as a diuine thynge and a godlye sente downe from heauen, had bene prayed vnto in temples, although she lacke no teples, for there can not be erected vnto her a more ample or a more magnifieente temple then that, the whiche euery man among al nations marueylinge at her vertues, haue in theyr owne heartes buylded and erected." Office and duetie, f. Eiiii. CONTEMPOBAHT ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 171 been sufficiently set forth in a previous chapter.^ 'It is very " doubtful whether the average man had ever undertaken matrimony for the two causes originally sanctioned by the church, — the begetting of children and the avoidance of sexual sin — but the ecclesiastical recognition among Prot- estant sects of the possibility of woman's occupying a higher position in matrimonial society than that of a mere instru- ment for carnal desires, is important in marking the begin- ning of the end of the degradation she had suffered at the hands of the church. The attempts to put woman on the same footing as man in matters of divorce, although im- successful, show also a tendency to regard her as an equal partaker with him in the state of wedlock. Nevertheless, despite these facts, the church as a whole consistently main- tained the inferiority of woman and sought to instil into her an entire submission and obedience to her husband in all family affairs.'' Moreover, wife beating continued to be practised under the sanction of the law.' The second important factor in raising woman's position , was Elizabeth herself. It will be remembered that the Reformers in England had been persecuted and driven into exile by Queen Mary. John Knox and his congregation had also been proscribed in Scotland by Regent Mary of Guise. The bitter opposition to the Reformers by Mary Tudor, Mary of Guise, and Catherine de' Medici in France, together with the fact that female rule in Europe was pretty generally considered an anomaly, led Knox to start a con- troversy against woman rulers in general. In accordance with the Biblical teaching already noted that women should 1 See above, p. 120 ff. 2 The marriage sermons of John Donne (Works, vol. IV) axe excellent examples of the changing yet conservative attitude of the time on this subject. ' For discussion of this subject and writing thereupon, see Jeaffre- son, Bridei'and Bridals, I, 317 ff 172 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS not hold positions of authority over men,^ he attacked all queens in a pamphlet entitled The first Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, which was not long in "wakening all the echoes of Europe." But unfor- tunately for him, Queen Mary, against whom it was prin- cipally written, died the year of its publication, Ehzabeth came to the throne as a patron of Protestancy, and the exiles on the continent trooped back to England to live under the protection of their female champion. This put Knox in an awkward situation. In addition, John Ayhner, after- wards Bishop of London, replied to the Scotchman's pam- phlet with An Harborwe for faithfull and trewe Subjectes against the late bloune Blaste, etc.^ The result of this con- troversy, which was more extended than the brief note here indicates,' was that Elizabeth secured more firmly than ever her place in the hearts of the people as a defender of the faith and a Portia come to judgment, and Knox was reduced to the ignominious position of haviag to eat his own words and swear allegiance. This he not only did, but showed in addition, by a series of textual quibbles, that his pamphlet did not attack Elizabeth's supremacy at all. ^IBesides appearing as a champion of Protestancy, although a bitter enemy to its more radical sects, Elizabeth occupied a position in literary England similar to that of Laura in the eyes of Petrarch or Beatrice in those of Dante. Even after her death poets and prose writers continued extravagant praise of her. Thomas Heywood writes in 1640: "As the most famous Painter of his Time, Apelles, to frame the picture of one Venus, had at once exposed to his view an hundred 1 St. Paul, I Tim. II, 12. * Aylmer is another example of the inconsistency of writers on women. See his opinion of the sex expressed above, p. 147. ' For full discussion of this controversy, see Stevenson, John Knox and his Relations to Women. CONTEMPOBAET ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 173 of the most choyce and exquisite Virgins, of Greece, to take from one the smoothest brow, from a second, the most sparkling eye, fete] ... so in the accurate expression of this rare Heroicke Elizabeth, should I peruse all the ancient, and Authenticke Histo- ries, and out of them select the lives of the most vertuous Ladyes, for their rare and admirable endowments . . . (whether Piety, or VirginaU purity; Beauty, and Bounty; Majesty, and mag- nanimity; Language, and learning; polUticke Governement, or practice of goodnesse; pitty of forraigne distressed nations, or indulgence over her owne Natives, &c.) Nay, what praecelling vertue soever, was connnendable in any one particular, or all in general, may, without flattery be justly conferred on her." ' Nor were other ladies of fashion and attainments lacking. The three daughters of Sir Anthony Coke were as accom- plished as Elizabeth herself, and surpassed her in marrying brilliantly, one becoming the mother of Francis Bacon. The classical learning of Lady Jane Grey is commented upon by Roger Ascham, who discovered her one day reading Plato in the original. Jane, Countess of Westmorland, the daughter of John Fox, was said to bear comparison with the greatest scholars of the age. Dorothy Leigh, one of the few woman writers of the time, published a volume, The Mother's Blessing, dedicated to Elizabeth, which ran to fourteen editions by 1629. Mary Sidney, afterwards the famous Countess of Pembroke, held a "court of love and learning" at Wilton Place, like those at Urbino and Ferrara, where many of the leading hterary men of the day were to be foimd. She was probably the most thorough and most Italianate lady of Elizabethan England. But these women represent only the aristocracy of the country, and it seems to have been a principle of the age that such ladies might enjoy some privileges forbidden their humbler sisters.^ ' Heywood, Most Worthy Women, p. 184. » "Thus," says Stevenson, "Margaret of Navarre wrote books with great acclamation, and no one, seemingly, saw fit to caU her con- 174 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS Moreover, one is inclined to distrust the roseate light with which these "great ladies" were surrounded by their admirers. The historian would hardly recognize Elizabeth from Heywood's picture of her or from Spenser's Gloriana or Lyly's Cynthia. The same may be said of the innumer- able goddess-like mistresses of the time. Carew's Coelia appears as real in. To a Strumpet,^ when the poet lost his temper and exhausted his vituperative power, as she does in A Rapture, when she consented to "be kind." And at the other end of the scale from the sonnet sequences and similar poetry ia praise of women, we have such malicious diatribes against the sex as have already been mentioned. Nevertheless, the position of women of learning and culture and the homage paid them, as well as the idealization of the less worthy members of society, cannot have failed to con- tribute in raising the general estimate of woman considerably above that of preceding periods. ^^ The letters of foreigners furnish excellent evidence of the position of the English woman of the time. Many speak of her beauty, her charm, and her lavishness of dress; and although the subserviency of the wife to the husband is remarked upon, it seems agreed that she was allowed greater \ freedom than in other countries. / Indeed, a popular saying on the continent was, "England is a paradise for women, a duct in question; but Mademoiselle de Gournay, Montaigne's adopted daughter, was in controversy with the world as to whether a woman might be an author without incongruity. Thus, too, we have Theodore Agrippa d'Aubign6 writing to his daughters about the learned women of his century, and cautioning them in conclusion, that the study of letters was unsuited to ladies of middling station and should be re- served for princesses. And once more, ... we shall find . . . the Abbot of Brant6me claiming ... a privilege, or rather a duty, of free love for great princesses, and carefully excluding other ladies from the same gallant dispensation." Familiar Studies, p. 332. ^ Printed only in my article on Caiew, Mod. Lang. Rev., July, 1916, and there only in part. CONTEMPOKABY ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 175 prison for servants, and a hell for horses." One writer says, "The women there are charming, and by nature so mighty pretty, as I have scarcely ever beheld, for they do not falsify, paint or bedaub themselves as in Italy and other places; but they are somewhat awkward in their style of dress; for they dress in splendid stuffs, and many a one wears three cloth gowns or petticoats, one over the other." ^ The writer here was evidently fortunate in his acquaintances, as there is abundant evidence that the English woman was quite accustomed to falsify, paint, and bedaub herself after the Italian fashion. .A Dutchman gives us a fuller account^ "Although the women there are entirely in the power of their husbands except for their lives, yet they are not kept so strictly as they are in Spain or elsewhere. Nor are they shut up but they have the free management of the house or housekeeping. . . . They go to market to buy what they like to eat. They are well dressed, fond of taking it easy, and commonly leave the care of household matters and drudgery to their servants. ... All the rest of their time they employ in walking or riding, in playing at cards and otherwise, in ^ visiting their friends and keeping company . . . and all , this with the permission and knowledge of their husbands. " Further on, the same writer says, "The girls who are not yet married are kept much more rigorously and strictly than in the Low Countries."^ In regard to the married woman's going abroad, Thomas Heywood upholds this foreigner's accoimt. He condemns the French proverb for the conduct of women, "La Femme in La Maison, et La Jambe romipue, that is, let the woman be in the house and her legge broke, " and approves rather the practice of "allowing both their features and fames a liberall freedome to undergoe any ^ Keichel (1585), trans, in Eye's England as seen by Foreigners, p. 89. * van Miteren, in Rye, ibid., p. 77 ff. 176 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS publicke censure." ^ Thus the cloistered life of woman of feudal days had disappeared along with most of the false sentiment of chivalry. These descriptions manifestly deal only with women of the better classes, but a similar or per- haps greater liberty of the sex is shown to have existed among the working classes by the fact that the trade guilds were, for the most part, open to women as well as men. "Poets in the Middle Ages had sung of woman as an angel, ecclesiastical asceticism had treated her as little better than - a demon, bui/the men of the sixteenth centur3^were of a different mould. TheyHiad something of the modern spirit, and looked upon woman as a being to share the common bur- dens and pleasures of life, not to be worshiped or shunned."* Sir Walter Raleigh gives an excellent expression of this attitude. In his Instructions to his Son, he writes in regard to the choice of a Avife: "Have therefore ever more care, that thou be beloved of thy Wife, rather than thy self besotted on her; and thou shalt judge of her love by these two observations: first If thou perceive she have a care of thy estate, and exercise her seK therein; the other, If she study to please thee, and be sweet unto the in conversation, without thy instruction, for Love needs no teaching. . . . Let her have equal part of thy Estate whitest thou Uvest, if thou find her sparing and honest." ' Nevertheless the Elizabethan ideal of woman, whether justly so or not, was considerably lower than that of today, espe- cially than that of America. The model wife was a woman of moderate attainments only, and St. Paul's dictum, "I suffer not the woman ... to usurp the authority over the man, " expressed in one way or another, was a knell that was con- \ stantly rung in her ears. /Perhaps Eve, in the latter part 1 Hejrwood, Most Worthy Women, i. **b. ' Hill, Women in English Life, I, 117. ' Raleigh, Remains of Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 85. CONTEMPORARY ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMAN 177 of Paradise Lost, where she appears as a real helpmate to her husband, presents the best contemporary picture of what it was thought, from the latter part of the sixteenth to the latter part of the seventeenth century, a wife should be.* A similar portrayal is foimd in Overbury's A Wife, which judging from its immense popularity,* seems to have had wide approval. " Give me next Good, an understanding Wife By natme wise, not learned by much Art. Some knowledge on her side will all my Life More scope of Conversation impart. A passive understanding to conceive, A judgment to discern, I wish to finde. Beyond that, all as hazardous I leave: Learning and pregnant wit in Woman-kinde, What it finds malleable maketh frail. And doth not add more ballast, but more sail." » Thomas Heywood upholds this point of view in his instruc- tions to prospective husbands: "Yet were it best a modest medium keepe, Chuae neither compleate Shrow, nor perfect Sheepe, I would have my wife neither tongue-tide quite Nor yet all tonnge; so much as could accite To affability and amorous prate So much I'd haue her vse, and more I hate. ' A good deal of nonsense has been written about Milton's supposed "low ideal of woman." It must be clear by this time that, although his ideal was lower than that of today, it waa considerably higher than the average of his time. * At least five editions of the poem occmred the year of its pubU- cation (1614) and ten more by 1632. ' Overbury, op. cit., 11. 175 ff. 178 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS She of the two extreames, if you demand With which I would be troubled, vnderstand, I'd take the gentle beast, the harmelesse Sheepe, Whose calmenes would not fright me from my sleepe." ' The author of A Discovrse of the Married and Single Life says on the point raised by Heywood, that some men "haue made it a great question, whether it were better for a man to marrie a shrew, or a sheepe, but hardly can it be resolued. " ' Again, Niecholes, writing on the choice of a wife, says that she should be "of sober and mild aspect, courteous behauiour, decent carriage, of a fixed eye, constant looke and vnaffected gate.'" Such expressions may be found in almost all the domestic books. L. Wright puts it, "A woman that is silent of tongue: shamfast of countinance: vertuous qualities correspondent: is like a goodly pleasant flower . . . which shall be giuen for a good portion to such a one as feareth God. " * John Donne says in one of his sermons that it would be a sin for one to love a wife as he does his mistress; and although he is evidently referring to the quality rather than the quantity of love, the statement is nevertheless evidence of the prevailing idea that a mistress was to be passionately idealized, whereas a wife was to be regarded as a natural and somewhat \minteresting, though none the less valuable, adjunct to every-day life. The poetry of the period raises the former to the gods; the prose instructs the latter how to walk upon earth. 1 Heywood, History conceminge Women, p. 236. ' Op. cit, f. A6. ' Niecholes, Marriage and Wiving, p. 9. * Wright, Display of dutie, p. 22. CHAPTER VI WIDER RANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATURE I. More General Conduct Books It is possible in a brief discussion only to indicate the many types of writing with which the books we have been studying heretofore are more or less intimately connected, and to suggest tentatively certain relations that seem to exist among them. As has been said already, the domestic book is not as a rule literary in character; nevertheless, certain tendencies toward conscious artistry often exist, and, as has been shown, examples of real literary merit are not altogether lacking. If we go further afield, to the con- duct books of kindred nature, we find many that are dis- tinctly literary; and in the recognized literature of the period, we may discover the influence of the increasing interest in domestic affairs and possibly that of the family book itself. The culmination of interest in domestic life took place in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, at which time we may group around the household book such allied types as the book of manners, the book of moral reflection and allegory, the book of direction and advice to young people, and books following the models set by Machiavelli's II Principe, Castiglione's II Cortegiano, and Nenna's II Nennio. Besides these, there were others on more specific subjects connected with domesticity and the conduct of life, such as cookery, household medicine, the education of children, the government of estates, gentlemen's callings (especially the practice of arms), recreations, the religious life of the family, 179 180 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS the various phases and occupations of society, the pleasures of city and country life, and so forth. The last part of Eliza- beth's reign has been described as a period when the English nation paused to take stock of itself. The literature of the time certainly exhibits a national awakening, and the more utilitarian writing shows equally the development of an individual self-consciousness. This attitude had been steadily growing in England with the increase of the practice of in- quiry and thought in place of the acceptance of dogma: the Reformation was an important stimulus in this direction; the Renaissance brought the movement to flower. We can- not here go into the origin and development of even the more important types of books before us, but must content our- selves with a glance at the results therefrom. Of the books which I have mentioned as culminating to some extent about the beginning of the seventeenth century, those on particular topics are too specialized, and those of the moral meditation and moral allegory types are too general and form too large a field, for our consideration. Of the others, the book of manners, the book of the courtier, and the book of princely conduct, are pretty well known. But there is another type of some importance, which, although akin to the three types just mentioned, seems to have escaped observation. This we may call, for convenience' sake, the book of honor or nobility. A typical volume of this class, while reflecting the ideas of the Cortegiano, is really nearer in nature to the book of moral philosophy, since it is concerned with the virtues which go to make up a gentleman, such as justice, temperance, friendship, education, etc., rather than with his qualifications as an ornament of the court. The usual conception of the gentleman of this time has been expressed thus: "The knight had been transformed into the courtier; and the 'virtuous and gentle discipline,' deemed requisite for him in his new sphere, was, for the most WIDER KANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATURE 181 part, to be found in such regulations for external behaviour as are laid down in Castiglione's II Cortegiano. " ^ Such a statement obviously presents but half the case, for beside the transformation of the knight into the courtier, we find in the book of honor a presentation of him as the English gentleman, clad with "the armour of a Christian man speci- fied by St. Paul, vi Ephes.," as Spenser expressed it.^ An example of such a book, written before the Cortegiano, is Barclay's Mirrour of Good Manners, translated from the Latin of Dominicus Mancinus in 1523, which consists chiefly of discussions in verse of prudence, virtue, magna- nimity, and temperance. The books nearest to this type in Italian literature are Nenna's II Nennio, Muzio's II Gentil- uomo, and Giraldi's Dialoghi della Vita Civile; but the first two of these are concerned only with the question of what should constitute a nobleman, — whether birth, riches, or virtues of the mind — and the third is simply a reworking of the ethical philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The Spanish writer Jeronomo Osorio, in his Discourse of Civill and Christian Nobilitie, as translated by William Blandy in 1576, comes nearer the type we are following, and treats briefly justice, courage, liberality, magnanimity, eloquence, and knowledge of men as virtues requisite for a nobleman, and justice, liberality, friendship, fortitude, and magnanimity as those of a Christian gentleman. The Academie Frangoise by la Primaudaye, which was put into English in 1586 by T. B., combines the nobility type with some of the others noted, and includes discussions of such topics as virtue, vice, duty, prudence, friendship, education, temperance, fortitude, » Camh. Hist. Eng. Lit., Ill, 266. * Spenser, Letter to Raleigh, prefatory to Faerie Qiteene. Graund Amour in Hawes' Passetyme of Pleasure, Youth in his Example of Virtue, and Spenser's own Red Cross Knight are all described as wearing the same Christian armor, and St. Paul's Epistle is expressly referred to in each case. 182 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS justice, etc. The continued popularity of this book in Eng- land is shown by the fact that the translation ran into six editions by 1618. In England itself, we find a clear sequence of nobility books from Middle English times down. The best early example is, of course, Hoccleve's Gouvernail of Princes, which is almost entirely given up to the discussion of moral virtues, but the roots of the type go further back to such works as Piers the Plowman or even to the still earlier exemplum and virtue stories. We cannot say that this series was unaffected by foreign literature and foreign ideas, any more than we can say the like of any other literary development, but we may claim perhaps that the main stream was native. In the last part of the sixteenth century, however, the Italian influence was so strong that the nobility book became combined with others, in a type which, gradually clearing itself of irrelevant matter, culminated in the book of "the complete gentleman."^ Previous to this time, Elyot had entered the field with his Gouvernour, in 1531, ui which some of the Italian ideas are combined with treatments of many of the moral virtues. A better example, however, of the com- bination of types is Humphrey's The Nobles, written first in Latin in 1560 and translated into English in 1563. Here, in addition to a great deal of general moral discourse, we have the usual Italian classification of nobility, on the groimds of ' The Italian books, especially those of the Principe and Cortegiano types, and the ideas contained therein, are fully discussed in Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England. The more prominent English imitations, Elyot's Gouvernour, Humphrey's The Nobles, the anonymous Institutions of a Gentleman, and some others, are also noted. But the later books combining various tjrpes are entirely overlooked, as are also The Court of duill Courtesie by S. Robson in 1591, Ars Avlica, trans- lated from the Itahan of Lorenzo Ducci by Ed. Blount in 1607, and The Honest Man, translated from the French of N. Faret by Ed. Grim- stone in 1632, which are all typical books of the Cortegiano class. WIDER BANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATtTRE 183 birth, wealth, and attainment, as in the Nennio; we have also a similarity to the Cortegiano, in the instructions given to the courtier; and finally, in the field of gentlemanhness, we have brief treatises of liberality, justice, temperance, conti- nence, magnificence, apparel, the house, sports, the educa- tion of children, etc., perhaps modeled on the Discourse of Osorio, who is mentioned by name. A similar treatise is John Larke's Flower of Vertue, translated from the Italian of Fiore in 1565. A work which has little or nothing of the courtier but which represents a combination of the morality and nobility books, is Thomas Rogers' Anatomie of the minde, in 1576, one of the many "anatomies" of the time, some of which are distinct forerunners of Burton's famous Anatomy of Melancholy. Rogers' book is divided into two parts, the first on "Perturbations in Generall, " which he defines according to Zeno's opinion as "conditions of the mind contrary to reason," for example, pleasure, ambition, lust, anger, love, fear, sorrow; and the second, "Of Morall Vertues," which is a typical nobility book, discussing first wherein felicity or nobility exists, — whether in mind, body, or estate — and secondly, the qualities or virtues of the mind, including those of Aristotle in addition to many others. The last named divi- sion of the work runs to some 250 pages and is the fullest treatment thereof that I have found. The Blazon of Gentrie by John Feme, in 1586, illustrates a type of book which only just touches upon that we are following. It is, in the main, a treatment of the bearing of arms, the laws of combat, and kindred topics, together with a second part showing the an- cestries of certain families and various interests connected with them. The first contains a discussion of nobility from a civil point of view, the professions of gentlemen, and some allied subjects. The whole treatment is presented in a dia- logue between a herald, a knight, a divine, a lawyer, an antiquary, and a plowman, but this device to disguise exposi- 184 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS tory writing was so common in English literature from earliest times down that we are unable to argue anything from the fact that it is here used. So far, we have noted no discussion of marriage in these books of combined interests. The earliest example I have found which does include this subject is The French Academie of la Primaudaye. This work contains seven successive chapters on marriage and domestic affairs, which by them- selves would make a typical family book. But in 1589, there appeared a book of native origin combining several of the types of the time and containing a treatment of marriage. This is L. Wright's A Display ofdutie, "diet with sage sayings, pythie sentences, and proper similies. " It consists of short, somewhat unrelated chapters, among which are discussions of idleness, fortitude, chastity, the duties of a subject to a prince, friendship, marriage, art, etc. The Display, however, is too slight to be of importance, except as the first native example of the type. In 1597, there appeared a book of similar nature by John Bodenham, the compiler of England's Helicon, entitled Politeuphuia; Wits Commonwealth, which was popular enough, for undiscoverable reasons, to run into ten editions by 1605 and ten more before the new century was out.^ This rather small volume combines the interests of the morality, nobility, and domestic books, and, as the title indicates, treats of almost everything under the sun, the first chapter being on God and the last on hell. Each topic is presented very briefly by means of a general state- ment in italics, as a proposition for demonstration, followed ' The similar book Wits theatre of the little World, is included here. The compiling of these two books seems to have been done by Ling and Allott respectively, over whom Bodenham held some kind of editorship. (See D. N. B.) Both books are practically the same in. content. WIDER KANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATtTBE 185 by quotations from the classics and references to the usual well-worn historical and mythical events. The book is absolutely without arrangement, and on the whole amounts to little more than a multitude of quotations and anecdotes gathered under different headings. A far superior, although less popular, work was William Vaughan's The Golden Grove, published in 1599, with a second edition in 1608. The author's prefatory description of this book gives a good summary of the three treatises which compose it: "If any man delight to haue himselfe shine with a glorious shew of vertue, I haue giuen him the toppes or moral behauior; if to haue his house and family wel beautified, I haue yeelded him diuers braunches for that purpose; if to haue his coimtry flourish, I haue sent him deep-grounded stem me of policy. " To speak more plainly, the three parts consist of a typical treatise of nobility, which discusses justice, truth, mag- nanimity, temperance, magnificence, courtesy, friendship, patience, etc., a typical domestic book, and a book of poli- tics, — perhaps a distant follower of Machiavelli's — treat- ing of such things as the duties of subjects, the functions of governmental bodies, the value of education, and other interests of a commonwealth. Each treatise is divided up into short chapters, 186 in all, so that in appearance the book is much like its predecessors, but in reality the topics are better chosen and better arranged. In the seventeenth century, we find the above types continuing. Segar's Honor Military and Ciuill, in 1602, and Peacham's Compleat Gentleman, in 1622, only border on our field, the former being concerned chiefly with arms, com- bats, tournaments, orders of chivalry, etc., and the latter, after a discussion of the education of youth, with the various diversions and pleasures of a man's life. Similarly, Francis Markham's Booke of Honour, in 1625, is also off the track, as it deals with the different orders of nobility and the honor to 186 ENGLISH DOMESTIC HELATIONS which they are entitled rather than with the character of a noble or a gentleman. Barckley's A Discourse of the Felidtie of Man, newly corrected and augmented in 1603, is a book more of moral philosophy than of conduct. It is an extensive treatise of some 600 pages, in which it is demonstrated that the true felicity of mankind lies not in pleasure, riches, glory, or virtue, but in the "grace of God," and that man's "summum bonum" is "to worship and glorify God in this life that wee may be ioyned with him in the life to come." The book is not so stuffily religious as this outline would indicate, and a great deal of attention is given to classical philosophy. Bryskett's A Discovrse of Civill Life, in 1606, which is a pretty slavish translation of Giraldi's Dialoghi della Vita Civile, is not greatly different in kind from Barck- ley's book, but the argument depends more on the Greek and Latin philosophers than on the teachings of the Scrip- tures. The subjects discussed also deal much more with actual life and less with abstractions, so that whereas the Felidtie of Man seems properly to be classed as a book of morality, the Civill Life is distinctly one of gentlemanly conduct. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy is too well known to require more than a word, despite its importance in literary history. The title suggests a very narrow field of interest, but the author finds place within the book for discussions of many phases of the life of man. But by far the best example of the culmination of the type is Richard Brathwait's The English Gentleman, published in 1630, with later editions in 1633, 1641, and 1652. This is a large book of 456 pages, divided into eight treatises entitled youth, disposition, education, vocation (including domestic life), recreation, acquaintances, moderation, and perfection. A glance at the index, in which over 200 separate items are mentioned, gives some idea of the completeness of the work. Each topic is thoroughly treated; the argument is WIDER KANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATUKB 187 based first on common sense and secondly on classical and scriptural authority; and the style of writing, though show- ing little conscious attempt at artistry, is clear, strong, and often spirited. The book concludes with a brief character- ization of the English gentleman, summarizing in a few words each of the eight main divisions, which is worthy to be put beside the better known one of Sir Philip Sidney. The companion piece to the English Gentleman, entitled The English Gentlewoman, published in 1631, does for woman what Gentleman work does for man.* In 1633, the two were published in the same volume, and in this form make one of the most interesting books, from an extra-literary stand- point, of the century, and one which certainly deserves more attention than it has received. Three other books may be dismissed with a word each. Rous' The Art of Happiness, 1619, republished in 1631, is a combination of the conduct and moral philosophy types. Stafford's Gvide to Honovr, 1634, is a small volimae of practical advice in regard to man's various activities. R. C.'s The Happy Mind, 1640, is similar to the Art of Happiness, but contains in addition a treatment of the four " complexions," which may have been suggested by the Anatomy of Melan- choly. All of these books, dealing with life and human nature in their different aspects, like the typical domestic book, are utilitarian rather than literary; but the development of which they are a part and the ideas they express, without doubt had a distinct influence upon the purely literary work of the time. That which comes nearest them in kind is the moral allegory, and their influence here is greater than has heretofore been demonstrated. Take the Faerie Qrieene for example, of which it is usually said that Spenser took the twelve virtues, on which the poem was to be built from the ' See above, pp. 162-163. 188 ENGLISH DOMESTIC KELATIONS neo-Platonists of Italy.* It is indisputable that Spenser's debt to the thought and literature of Italy was large. Beside the better known writings of that country, he may have known Piccolomini's Institutione Morale; he seems to have been a friend of Bryskett, the translator of Giraldi's Vita Civile,"^ and perhaps knew this work in the original; and he certainly was familiar with Nenna's II Nennio, since he wrote a commendatory soimet (though a very bad one) to Jones' translation of it. Considering his interest in this kind of writing, which his valuable letter to Raleigh fully testifies, it is only natural to suppose that he read the Eng- lish as well as the Italian works. It is certainly pushing the Italian influence too far to make it entirely responsible for the writing of the Faerie Queene, since discussion of the ideas embodied in the poem was widespread in England, both in and out of print. An interesting feature which connects Spenser's moral philosophy with English rather than Italian thought and with one of the new ideas which I have tried to emphasize in this study, is his treatment of the virtue of chastity. This he casts to be played by a woman, which is in exact keeping with the teaching of the domestic books, in which the word is used in connection with woman only and in which the virtue is regarded as especially a feminine one. 1 Jusserand, Mod. Phil., Ill, 373 ff., has shown that Spenser spoke carelessly in saying that he took his twelve virtues from Aristotle, and that they came rather from Renaissance interpretation of the classics. He pitches upon Piccolomini and Giraldi as the chief sources, but his evidence here is far from convincing, especially as the conversation reported by Bryskett in regard to Giraldi's book has been shown to be fictitious. 2 Erskine, P.M.L.A., XXX, 837 ff., has overthrown the belief that the famous conversation between Spenser and Bryskett actually took place; however, he believes that the two were friends, as seems more than likely, and that Spenser took his conception of friendship as a virtue from Giraldi's original Italian. WIDER RANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATURE 189 Furthermore, Spenser's conception of chastity as a character- istic of the wife and mother, rather than of the virgin only, is in keeping with the new thought of the German and English Reformation and contrary to that of Catholicism, which held sway in Italy.^ It is evident that the doctrines of the Faerie Queene came, for the most part, from the classics; but these doctrines were influenced and added to not only by Christian philosophy but by the new religious and moral ideas of the sixteenth century.'' These two elements in Spenser's allegor- ical treatment of the English gentleman have been neglected by students of his work, probably because they have been ignorant of the English books discussed above and of the extent of English thought on the subject. Of the less known moral allegories, space allows for men- tion of only three, which from their obvious connection with the books we have been studying, seem to stand out as par- ticularly important. An interesting book of purely moral conduct type was published in 1584 by W. Averell.' It contaias three treatises, entitled A dyall for dainty darlings, rockt in the cradle of securitie, A glasse for all disobedient sounes to look in, and A myrrour for vertuous maydes. The main feature of each treatise is an exemplum tale of some length, inculcating the desired lesson. The style is typically Euphuistic, although lacking Lyly's lightness of touch. The opening of the first tale is as follows: 1 Bacon, in his essay Married and Single lAfe, also speaks of chastity as a characteristic of the married woman. Contrast Spenser's and Bacon's conception of chastity with the earher English usage of the term by Chaucer in the Prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale, where it is consistently used as a synomym of virginity and an antonym to the marriage state. See also Donne's remark on the subject, p. 122, n. 1, above. ' Spenser himself refers to St. Paul's teachings. See above, p. 181. ' The book goes under the combined titles of the three treatises. 190 ENGLISH DOMESTIC BBLATIONS "There was within the famous Cittie of Constantinople, a Cap- taine ouer a certayne bande of Venetians, who, if he could as well, by wisdome haue gouerned his wiues infirmitie, as he could by polhcie conduct and rule his armie, his memorie had beene obscured with blotte of obliuion, and his wiues example drowned in the suddes of silence." '■ A still more interesting volume is Willobie his Avisa, in 1594, which ran into four more editions by 1610. According to the "Epistle to the Reader," it was put out by Hadrian Dobell, who says that he found it among Willoby's papers." It is this book which contains, in one of the commendatory verses, the first definite printed reference to Shakespeare, and also, in the poem itself, a character called W. S., whom some fond critics have taken for the bard of Avon himself, Avisa being the "dark lady. " ' The epistle has other references to contemporary literature in the sentence, "Although hee flye not alofte with the wings of Astrophell, nor dare to compare with the Arcadian shepherd, or any way match with the daintie Fayry Queene ..." The poem itself, which runs to 74 cantos and 128 pages, represents the "true picture of a modest maid and of a chast and constant wife" under the attempts of various suitors to make love to her. But she remains true to her name, the letters of which stand for "Amans vxor inuolata semper amanda." "So thus she stands vnconquered yet. As Lambe amidst the Lions pause. Whom gifts, nor wUs, nor force of wit, ' AvereU, op. cit., f. Bi6. * The whole account of this publication is probably fictitious. ' See Grosart, Introd. to his reprint of the Avisa; also Fleay, Life Shakes., p. 121 £f., and Biog. Chron., II, 221 ff. This theory seems to me, like that buUt up on Milton's divorce tracts, a case of first putting the plum in the pie. WIDER RANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATURE 191 Could vanquish once with all their shewes, To speake the truth, and say no more, I neuer knew her like before." ' Spenser's imitators are well known and may be omitted here. But I must mention one small book of this class which seems to have been overlooked heretofore. This is The Labyrinth of Mans Life by John Norden in 1614. It is an allegory of the Spenserian type, but differs from the latter in that it is made up chiefly of moralizing on the part of the author and the characters and contains little action. One stanza of the author's prefatory verses is worth quoting for its references to contemporary writers. "Chawcer, Gowre, the bishop of dunkeU, In ages farre remote were eloquent: Now Sidney, Spencer, others moe exceU, And are in latter times more excellent To antique Lauriats paralell." ' The book itself is in heroic couplets, an early example of their use. The verses given as the argument of the poem summarize both its story and its moral teaching. "The Man that in the Cell of Silence sits, Imports content, in his distastfull fits, The Labyrinth, the worlds inconstancie, The passionate Desert doth signifie. True vertue doth the Lady represent. The hag foule Enuy, alwaies malecontent: Who what the Ladie, frames and rectifies. She in despite, inchants, and viMes. Wherein the Authors purpose is to show, Enuies assault. And Vertues counterblow: How Enuie showes her most obsequious, When she would circimiuent the Vertuous." " 1 Willoby, op. cit., i. 62 6. ' Norden, op. cit., f. A3 6. ' Ibid., f. Bi6. 192 ENGLISH DOMESTIC BELATIONS II. Domestic Dhama * As has already been noted, the drama was early used for satire against women and the marriage state in general. In the Towneley Mysteries, for instance, the merry devil Tuti- villus is given the special office of denouncing women who talk in church; in the same cycle, the quarreling of Noah and his wife, due to the latter's shrewishness, forms an episode of some importance; and Joseph, previous to the flight of the holy family into Egypt, soliloquizes on the troubles of married life and warns the young people of the audience against entering into it. Among the moralities, the problem of the proper upbringing of children was occa- sionally touched on, as in Nice Wanton; and in a few cases, the state of matrimony itself was dealt with in plays pre- senting the evils of forced and ill-assorted unions and of marriages made by children against the will of their parents, as in Juventus Pater Uxor and The Disobedient Child. But the excursions of the morality into the field of home life for the purpose of instruction as to family relations, did not give rise to any series of moral domestic plays in later drama; for although there is evidence that some feeling existed even into James' reign that the stage should be used as a didactic medium and "so obtain the very end of poesy, " — as Sidney put it — it is not possible to find more than a handful of plays in all fields combined that have any well-defined moral issue as their basis. Despite this lack of moral intent, there can be no doubt that some of the plays put on were designed to present a ' By domestic drama I mean that dealing with family life. The occa- sional use of the term to refer to native plays or influences or to plays of middle-class Ufe, is here disregarded altogether. For fuller informa- tion on plays mentioned, see ScheUing, Elizabethan Drama, 15S8-164S. A hst of Elizabethan plays, telling where each is published, may be found ibid., II, 538. WIDER RANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATURE 193 domestic situation or problem for the consideration of the public; such plays as Arden of Faversham and A Warning for Fair Women were even taken from actual life and dramatized as horrible examples of evil households. But among the many plays dealing with domestic relations of one kind or another, we are forced to admit that comparatively few were actually aimed to present or dicuss marriage itself or the allied inter- ests found in the domestic conduct books. As a rule, the im- portance of the home in the drama of the time is chiefly that of a convenient setting for a plot which, although involving husband, wife, and perhaps children, is motivated more by outside agents than by actions or passions within the family circle. Moreover, in those plays where it is evident that the author had some serious intention to instruct, as in How a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, the lesson often fails of actual demonstration. Nevertheless, a number of plays remain which do present domestic conditions, and if indeed they are not motivated to any great extent by family relations, they at least offer marital problems for thought and discussion. The commonest subject presented in this connection was the situation produced in a family by an extraordinary wife, a creature who seems to have existed in but two types, the "complete shrew" and the "perfect sheep." In addition, we find the "horrible example" play of marriage at its worst, plays on the contention of parents and children in regard to marriage, and several triangle plays, like A Woman Killed with Kindness, wherein the author seems to have had a real feeling for the subtle possibilities of the domestic drama to portray the more intimate thoughts, feelings, and situations of human life. In as much as all these plays have a distinct connection, of subject matter at least, with general domestic literature and the ideas therein expressed, it will be worth while to glance briefly at some of the more noteworthy. 194 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS The first play in which the shrewish wife is more than episodic is the well-known comedy Johan Johan usually attributed to John Heywood, c. 1532. Here she is not only the central figure but the motive force as well, and the fun is chiefly at the expense of her too patient husband. Up to this time, the shrew is primarily a comic figure in the drama, with perhaps just a touch of the didactic; but about the middle of the century, we find, in Tom Tyler and his Wife, the same theme used in a semi-morality play. There is a certain amount of fun in this piece, but the final resolution is entirely serious, in which the wife is persuaded by Patience to try to live on more amicable terms with the world. The two plays Juventus Pater Uxor and The Disobedient Child make a still more serious use of the shrew in employing her as one of the chief elements in driving home a moral. Both plays are on the theme of the marriage of children against the wishes of their parents, in which the wife acts the part of nemesis, since the evils of both marriages are due largely to the fact that the brides turn out to be shrews. Thus what was originally a comic situation at the expense of the woman became a tragic and didactic one for the instruction of the man. The resultant plots might almost be said to be dramatizations of certain chapters of the domestic book, the husband's career illustrating the value of the warnings against forbidden marriages, and the unattractive character of the wife representing the evil results of the woman's flying in the face of St. Paul's dictum and usurping the authority over the man. But with the decline of the morality play, the shrew, when forming the central figure of a drama, became rehabilitated as a comic character. In The Taming of a Shrew, the didactic element has given away altogether to the comic. The for- bidden marriage motive is also absent, and the play resolves itseK into the mere carrying out of the action suggested in WIDER RANGES OP DOMESTIC LITERATURE 195 the title. The single serious element occurs in Kate's final subjection to her husband and her speech explaining the reasons for her docility. Shakespeare's adaptation of this play under the almost identical title needs no further com- ment.' An important contrast between these two plays and their predecessors lies in the fact that, whereas the earlier ones were written for the instruction of the man in regard to marriage, their successors have no well-defined interest in marriage itself but merely aim to present an entertaining combat of wits. Thus, although the wife is the butt of the comedy, it may not be pushing a point too far to find an influence of the growing attitude towards woman in the fact that she holds an equal part with the man and is regarded as a foe worthy of his steel. Later plays use the shrew motive almost entirely for the purpose of amusement. Fletcher, in his sequel to Shakespeare's Shrew, The Woman's Prize, reverses the course of the action and builds a good farce comedy thereupon. Here Maria, by blockading herself indoors against her husband, who is a sottish, carnally minded brute, successfully acts the shrew and brings him to a respectful attitude towards her and a realization of his own shortcomiugs.'' At bottom, this play is based on a serious idea, but since the action is developed by comic situation and characters, the basic theme can receive but little con- sideration as a serious issue. The remaining shrews of current ' An interesting contrast occurs between the two versions of Kate's last speech. In the earlier play, she harks back to Biblical authority for the subjection of woman; but Shakespeare's heroine finds her sup- port in romantic traditions, whereby, since the husband suffers dangers and hardships abroad, the wife should be wflling to follow and obey him at home. ^ Mary in Monsieur Thomas plays similar tricks on her lover. In- deed, Fletcher's heroines in comedy are usually a bit shrewish, and like Kate in The Shrew, may indicate an increasing respect for woman's position and rights. 196 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS drama — for instance the hostile wives in Porter's Two Angry Women of Abington, Eyre's wife in Dekker's Shoe- makers' Holiday, Candido's wife in Dekker and Middleton's The Honest Whore, Pt. 2, Lady Cressingham and Mrs. Chamlet in Middleton's Anything for a Quiet Life — play but small parts, present no new interests, and may be passed over with the remark that since the shrew motive by this time was used for comedy only, we cannot think that the situations based on it were aimed to give any more serious attention to such incompatibility of temper in the family than that of laughing the offender out of court. The patient wife, though a frequent figure in the drama, presents but few cases of real interest.' She was used as early as 1538 by RadcM in a non-extant play, but did not come into prominence as a type imtil the end of the century, when she appears as a victim in three situations: (l) as a deserted wife, remaining faithful to an absent husband (or lover) ; (2) as a " patient Grissel," loyal and loving in the face of her husband's cruelty; (3) in a triangle plot involving either her husband's pursuit of another woman or her own persecution by a would-be lover. In one way or another, most of the leading dramatists of the day used the patient wife motive, but it is difficult to say that it was employed in more than a few of these to present a definite moral idea. In Othello, for instance, Desdemona is entirely a lay figure, neither consciously furthering the action of the play nor awakening any particular interest on the part of the audience except as a pitiable victim of circumstance. The same may be said of most of the other women abused or deserted by husbands or lovers, such as Dorothea in Greene's James IV, Hero in Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing, Hermione in The Winter's Tale, Catherine in Henry VIII, Mrs. Arthur in How a Man May Choose, Bellafronte and Infaeliche in The Honest Whore, Luce in The London Prodigal, Isabella in ' This motive originated in the French moralities of the fourteenth century. WIDER RANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATDBE 197 Webster's White Devil, and others. In some cases, the wife, though passive towards her husband's or lover's character, is active in rescuing him from trouble or in bringing his desertion " to an end, as in Patient Grissel, by Dekker, Chettle, and Houghton, in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well, and in Heywood's Fair Maid of the West, Pt. 2. In the first of these, she solves the situation by the mere stubbornness of her patience; in All's Well, she wins her husband back by deliberate plotting; and in The Fair Maid, she takes ship and goes in search of him. In a very few patient wife plots, notably Patient Grissel, the husband is confessedly "testing" / his spouse — as God tested Job — and the play ends when he thinks she has had enough; in others, as Henry VIII and The White Devil, the wife drops out altogether, her case being hopeless; in two or three, Othello and The Wonder of Women for instance, the situation is allowed to run to its most logical conclusion and end in tragedy; and in others, most numerous of all, the author concludes a tiresome succes- ;/- sion of sordid scenes by bringing husband and wife to a reconciliation, and having placed them in mutual embrace, leaves them to live happily together ever afterwards as a reward for never having been able to live happily together before. It is evident to any one reading these plays that there must have existed in the minds of the dramatists some idea ^ . of setting forth patience as a wifely virtue, especially in such a play as Patient Grissel; but it is not safe to read more than this into the woman's end of the average plot. In the cases of Isabella and Catherine, one can hardly assert this much, as their careers cannot be taken as advertizing the desirable virtue except in so far as it fulfils specifications in being its own, and only, reward. In most of the plays, although the wife's patience surpasses the bounds of all reason, it really has little or no effect upon the plot except to provide a constant 198 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS Constance whenever the villainous husband is ready to reward her with an eleventh-hour reformation. In other words, the patient wife in such plays exists less as a model for woman- kind than as a convenient means to the dramatist for keeping one thread of his plot well in hand. Exception may be taken to the last two statements in the cases of Patient Grissel, All's Well, and Wilkins' Miseries of Enforced Marriage, since in these the wife puts herself in the wrong, to some degree at least, at the outset and may logically be expected to have to work out her own salvation. Grissel, hke Margaret in Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, consents to a marriage well above her own station of life and owes it to society to prove herself worthy of the aUiance. Helena plays a far from gracious part at the opening of All's Well by forc- ing herself, with the help of the King, upon Bertram; and having thus usurped the authority over the man, must suffer in consequence. From the first, she is the protagonist; and as the abuse she receives from her husband is desertion only, which she fully deserved, she appears more as a woman fight- ing for what she believes to be her rights than as a patient wife waiting for them to be showered into her lap. Katherine, in Miseries of Enforced Marriage, is similar in some degree to Helena, since she allows herself to be party to a marriage forced upon Scarborow after he has been made to break his former contract with Clare; but like her sisters in How a Man May Choose, The London Prodigal, and other plays, her subsequent career amounts merely to watchful waiting for her husband to return to her arms after going to the devil in his own way. It seems clear in these three plays, as well as in a few others on the same motive which are noted below, that the dramatist was actually attacking the problem of the abused wife; but except in the case of Grissel, whose abuse was more apparent than real, he reached no conclusion. Among the plays which we may classify as horrible exam- WIDBB RANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATURE 199 pies of unfortunate marriages, we may cite two illustrating the evil of adultery and resultant viciousness, two dealing ^^/-^ with forced marriage, and two whose titles suggest them to have been written with didactic intent. The first pair, the anonymous Arden of Faversharh and A Warning for Fair Women, which are practically identical in plot, present a com- monplace sequence of events leading from a triangle situation of husband, wife, and paramour. The greater part of both is taken up with the persistent attempts of the wife and her gallant to murder the husband, and both end with the villains in the hands of the law. As presenting the evil results of illicit love, these plays have a certain amount of crude force; but since the husband in each case offends only by existing, it would seem that the dramatist had aimed merely to exhibit the ugliness of sin and not to discuss the relations of husband and wife. Nevertheless, as attempts to deal with an existing domestic problem, these two plays are worthy of attention. The forced marriage situation occurs in The London Prodigal y and TAe Miseries of Enforced Marriage, both of which fail toi demonstrate convincingly the advertised lesson, since the imhappiness of each couple is due less to the forced marriage than to the simple fact that the husband is a rascal. This is apparent especially in The London Prodigal, where the man is anxious for the alliance but the girl is forced into it by her father. It should be said, however, that the forcing of the '-^ bride is not particularly emphasized, and perhaps the dram- atist had no intention of making it a motivating element. But the title of the second play gives us distinctly to imder- stand that the writer had in mind the presentation of a definite marriage problem, a forced marriage complicated by a broken contract.^ This situation forecasts a very interesting ' It is worthy of note that The Miseries of Enforced Marriage, like y Arden of Faversham, A Warning for Fair Women, and The Yorkshire Tragedy, deals with actual crimes recently committed. 200 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS play involving husband, former sweetheart, and wife; but none of the possibilities of the triangle are realized. The husband, angered at the marriage forced upon him, soon deserts his wife; but instead of returning to his sweetheart, he pursues the primrose path with evil companions until he is reduced to supporting himself by swindling and thievery. Just as he is preparing to add the murder of his wife and chil- dren to his other pleasant activities, he learns that his guardian, the original trouble-maker, is dead and that he is heir to a fortune. This solves every difficulty, brings order out of chaos, and unites husband and wife in marital bliss. Although, as may be seen, the miseries of the marriage are not convincingly shown to have resulted from its having been forced, the avowed attempt to present the problem is none the less important. The titles of the anonymous A Warning for Fair Women and of How a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, sometimes ascribed to Thomas Heywood, also tell of attempts at instruction on the subject of matrimony. The first, already noted, in a way fulfils its promise; the second does not get beyond the picturing of a patient wife — patient ad infinitum and ad nauseam — and of a villainous whore, her husband's mistress. Except in presenting models of a good wife and a bad woman, the secret of how the inex- perienced are to tell the one from the other is not revealed. This play too, then, is a worthy effort but hardly an achieve- ment of its apparent purpose. One criticism that must be passed on these unhappy-marriage plays, except the first two noted, is that at the end of each the author snatches the fat from the fire by reconciling all parties, and leaves the reader with the feeling that after all the marriage turns out success- fully; so that much of the moral force present in the two murder plays is lost to the others. The fact that where the wife is the offender the plays result in tragedy, but where the husband performs equal and worse crimes they result in WIDER RANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATURE 201 forgiveness and reconciliation, is no mere accident but in strict keeping with the domestic ideals of the day. Plays involving the contention of children against parents in regard to marriage are worthy of consideration for a moment here only because of the attention given to this subject in the domestic books. In the drama, we find an interesting development in the use of the situation from the typical morality showing the evils of marriages made against the will of parents to the romantic comedy where the parents are made the dupes of the young people. The moralities Juventus Pater Uxor and The Disobedient Child, discussed above, illustrate the first use, and further comment upon them is unnecessary. Shakespeare evidently wished to emphasize the child-parent contention in Romeo and Juliet, since he altered the original story to make Juliet under the legal age for marriage and in addition shifted the contract made for her by her parents from the middle to the beginning of the play.i The emphasizing of the theme of crabbed age and youth certainly adds vastly to the original plot, but it may be pushing a point too far to consider this its chief motivation. The two plays in which a marriage is forced upon the young people. The London Prodigal and Miseries of Enforced Marriage, have already been commented upon. Up to this time, we may say that the dramatist evidently had some idea of driving home a moral, either for parents or children, in his use of the child versus parent motive; but in later plays, the situation becomes a typical starting point for comedy, although more serious use of it may occasionally be ' In the Bandello version of the story, Juliet is ahnost eighteen; in Broke's version, she is sijcteen; in the play, she is just under fourteen, as is carefully brought to the audience's attention in act 1, sc. 3, and suggested as Lady Capulet's reason for wishing her contracted at once. The marriage with Paris is broached in the same scene, that is, before the meeting of Juliet with Romeo; thus in contracting herself to Romeo, Juliet consciously defies her parents' wishes. t/ 202 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS found. Shakespeare himself used the motive for comedy in the Lorenzo-Jessica incident of The Merchant of Venice. In Houghton's Englishmen for my Money, three sisters outwit their father, who wishes to contract them to three foreigners, and marry their native lovers. In The Shoemakers' Holiday, Lacy, by means of a disguise, succeeds in carrying off Rose, though both families were opposed to the match. In The Two Angry Women of Abington, the mothers only oppose the union, but again it is successfully brought off. The cruel father in Drayton's Merry Devil of Edmonton puts his daughter in a nunnery in order to foil the persistent lover, but he, in the disguise of a priest, effects her escape and their subsequent marriage. Middleton's Roaring Girl presents a father who, having arranged a match for his son, tries to back out of the marriage settlement; but the son, by pre- tending to be in love with a supposed prostitute, succeeds in making his father carry out the original contract. In the subplot of The Woman's Prize, Livia outwits her father, who wishes to marry her to old Morosa, and with the help of g, friend, weds the man of her choice. All of these plays are but superficially domestic; that is, the paternal and filial ele- ments are very slight, and their place might be taken just as well by any other force standing in the way of the marriage. The most that can be said of this situation is that the parents furnish the dramatist with a convenient obstacle for the young people to overcome. The fact that the parents are made ridiculous in their attempt to carry out what was really their right, shows how far the drama had strayed from the use it originally made of the situation. The triangle of husband, wife, and friend, which today is so often made the starting point of a domestic drama, was seldom developed in this way during the period imder con- sideration. Although many plays may be found dealing with adultery, incest, and other crunes against marital WIDER RANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATURE 203 society, such situations are used more as a means to intro- duce or complicate a plot of intrigue and adventure than to present the subtle and intimate relations of family life. Most of the triangle plays which do discuss or touch upon domestic problems have already been noted in other con- nections, for example, the two murder plays, several of the patient wife plays, and others. Of all the dramatists of the day, Thomas Heywood alone gives evidence of a realization of the great possibilities of the domestic drama, although others, Shakespeare especially, at moments rise to heights of unfulfilled promise in this field.^ Heywood drew his first picture of a noble husband and wife in Edward IV. Here Jane Shore is chosen for the "great promotion" of being the King's mistress. But amid the splendors of her new station, she remains true at heart to her husband; and he, realizing that she is powerless in the King's hands, is steadfast in his love and faith to her, and after she is cast out of court, he takes care of her at the peril of his life. Since opposition to the royal prerogative was im- possible, Jane and Master Shore are able to contribute to the development of the play only a noble picture of husband and wife true to each other and to their marriage vows as far as they are able in the face of extreme persecution. The length to which this tableau is drawn out shows that the dramatist wished to emphasize the situation, although he was unable to use it as a motive force in the main plot. In A Woman Killed with Kindness, Heywood for the first time ' in English drama dealt tenderly with the erring wife. Here 1 He3rv?ood's interest in domestic literature has already been noted in connection with his books on women. (See above, p. 162.) It may be mentioned that the story of Geraldine occurs both in the History of Woman, Bk. IV, and in A Woman Killed vnth Kindness. Unfortu- nately only one tenth of Heywood's plays are extant, so that a complete or satisfactory study of his domestic ideas as shown in his dramatic work is impossible. 204 ENGLISH DOMESTIC KELATIONS Mrs. Frankford, more out of sheer weakness than out of love for her tempter, falls a victim to his pursuit. At the discovery of her shame, Frankford conscientiously faces the problem thus brought before him and attempts to fit punish- ment to crime. Although his solution of the difficulty — that of shutting his wife up in solitary confinement — may leave a good deal to be desired, the fact that he acts without malice and forgives her in the end shows an entirely new attitude towards the fallen woman, who as a rule got but scant sympathy in either the drama or the life of the time. Mrs. Frankford, after her fall, plays a part almost equal to her husband's; for realizing her own guilt and his fineness of feeling towards her, she turns from her lover to her husband and at his forgiveness dies happy. In The English Traveller, Heywood again touched upon somewhat the same theme, this time basing it upon a January and May situation — a favorite problem of the day — and making the young wife intrigue with a false friend of her husband's. Most of the play is concerned with the pure love of another family friend (a theme in itself worthy of note), and the intrigue is not revealed until the last scene of the play. Again the erring wife casts off her lover and dies repentant and finally for- given. Since all three of these plays are resolved by the very convenient death of the wife, it is evident that Heywood found no real solution of the domestic problem he attacked; but iij his treatment of both husband and wife, he shows him- self far ahead of his time and comes near to the modern attitude of malice towards none but charity for all.^ With this point of view in mind, the student will readily find touches in not a few plays which approach Heywood's attitude towards man and woman in their relations to each other. Othello's struggle between the faith of love and the ^ Cf. also Master Generous and his attempt to redeem his wife in The Late Lancashire Witches. WIDEK BANGES OF DOMESTIC LITERATURE 205 evidence of circumstances is an obvious example, although this play is a study of the man only. One of the noblest couples in Elizabethan drama is Massinissa and Sophonisba in Marston's The Wonder of Women, where the husband pre- serves his faith in his wife despite slander, and the wife willingly gives her life in order to save her own honor and fulfil her husband's pledge. But it is imnecessary here to multiply examples. As to the influence of the domestic and other conduct books on the drama or the drama's influence on the conduct books, we are forced to conclude that very little existed. On the whole, the most we can say is that in both we often find expression of the same attitudes and ideas, which iu y each case seem to have been the reflection of current thought rather than an influence from one field to the other. The drama, as well as the other forms of literature previously dis- cussed, illustrates the attitudes of the time towards woman; and conversely, contemporary opinions regarding woman help to explain her position in the drama. It is noteworthy that in very few plays is she the protagonist. Her position of subservience iu the family was probably the largest element in preventing the domestic relations of husband and wife from being by themselves the motivating force of a realistic play, except one of very Hght nature such as The Shrew. Elsewhere family relations are of secondary impor- tance in. the plot, which is motivated more by some influence from without than from within the home circle. Othello's tragedy, for instance, is brought about much more by lago than by Desdemona or himself. The same situation occurs in the child versus parent play, the motive force being not the opposition of youth to age but the attraction of the child to the outside agent, here the lover. It is, of course, difiicult to construct a play on domestic relations alone and uninflu- enced strongly from without, but the modern and better way 206 ENGLISH DOMESTIC BELATIONS is to make the outside force contributary rather than funda- mental.^ To this ideal none of the Elizabethan playwrights reached; Heywood came the nearest, surpassing even Shakespeare, and in Edward IV and A Woman Killed con- structed plays in which the outside influence ceases after bringing things to a climax, and the falluig action, here more than usually important, is carried on by husband and wife alone. Despite the apparent lack of influence from the drama^ upon the conduct books, it is reasonable to believe that it had a distinct influence upon the thought of the day. Cer- tainly the presentation of so many plays dealing with love, marriage, carnal sin, and so forth, whether romantic, his- torical, or domestic, must have had an effect upon the popular conception of family relations; and in the imagina- tive literature of the theatre, the idealization of woman and the recognition of woman's importance gained a public hearing which could not pass uimoticed. • Cf., for instance, such a play as Ibsen's Doll's House or Brieux's Blanchette. APPENDIX A ENGLISH WRITING ON THE DIVORCE OF HENRY VIII AND CATHERINE The divorce of Henry VIII from his first wife, which occupied a large part of his attention from 1527 to 1534, was the subject of controversial writing in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, and was of extreme importance politically in every country of Europe, affecting even Turkey. Every man of any prominence in England was involved in the agitation, either as a pamphleteer or as a poUtical supporter of one side or the other. There were two main points in the controversy: (1) whether or not a man might marry his brother's widow; (2) whether the Pope had exceeded his authority in allowing Henry to marry Catherine, who had been the wife of his brother Arthur.^ A third point, of less consequence, was the question as to whether the marriage of Arthur and Catherine had been consummated by bodily knowl- edge, and if so, or if not, what effect this had upon the case.' These three points were the entire subject matter of the debate. ' The King's supporters held, of course, that in no case might a man marry his brother's widow and that the Pope had had no proper authority to allow the marriage with Catherine in the beginning. The Bang's hypocrisy in the matter may be seen from the fact that a marriage with the sister of a mistress was as much against ecclesiastical law as one with the widow of a brother, since both were within the for- bidden degrees of the Levitical law (see above, p. 10, nn. 1.3). Anne Bolejm's sister Mary had been Henry's mistress (see statement by Pole, p. 222 below); thus the law he was trying to establish in order to in- validate the existing union with his wife, equally forbade the intended one with his sweetheart. ' The law of Deuteronomy (XXV, 5) enjoining the marriage of a man with his brother's widow in case she was childless, if proved to supersede that of Leviticus (XVIII, 16, and XX, 21), which men- 207 208 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS In the Letters and State Papers of Henry VIII, there are listed some sixty or seventy documents, preserved at the London Record Office and elsewhere, dealing with this controversy, which range from manuscripts of a few pages to printed books of considerable length.' Almost all of them are in Latin, and only a few ever appeared in printed form. In addition to these, there are several better known works on the subject. No account of this contro- versy as a whole has ever been given, but a few of the books in- volved have been mentioned, usually with mistakes as to date, in works on the Reformation. Difficulties as to date, authorship, etc., arise at the very outset of our investigation and grow more complicated the further we go in it. The first mention of any controversial writing, accord- ing to the present chronological arrangement of state documents, is in two letters to the King, one by Richard Pace and the other by Robert Wakefield. Neither of the original manuscripts bears a date, but both are included in the State Papers under the year 1527.^ The reason for thus placing them is that they occur in printed form at the end of a book by Wakefield, Kotser Codicis R. Wakefeldi, where they are dated 1527. It is clear from internal evidence that Wakefield's letter was written a day or two after Pace's; thus we may consider them together. The information supplied by them is: (1) from Pace, that he had prepared a trea- tise "not without the CounceH of Maister Wakfeld" in behalf of the King; (2) from Wakefield, "I have and will . . . answer the bishop of Rochester's' book." These letters and their sup- posed date have been made the starting point of a good deal of tioned no exceptions to its forbidden degrees, would render Henry's cause without Biblical support. To obviate this, in any case, his sup- porters interpreted the word childless to mean virginal. Thus the point as to whether there had been carnalis copula between Arthur and Catherine, was of some importance. ' Most of these are Usted at the beginning of Vol. V, but others are mentioned both before and after this. 2 State Papers, IV, 3233 and 3234. They are here summarized only. They are given in fuU form in Knight, Erasmus, App. VIII and IX. ' John Fisher was Bishop of Rochester. APPENDIX A 209 history and biography. I am now able to demonstrate that they were antedated (probably by Berthelet, the printer, who is often in error as to dates) and were in fact not written imtil 1529, as follows: (1) The Kotser Codicis, in which they are first given a date, could not possibly have been printed before December, 1530, as is shown below.' (2) In 1527, the divorce was stUl a secret matter and was not discussed outside of a very narrow circle. (3) Wake- field says in his letter that he shifted from the Queen's side to the King's because of the claim, which he believed true, that she had been carnally known by Arthur. This point was first officially advanced on June 28, 1529. (4) AH evidence (except Wakefield's letter) points to the fact that Fisher's first writing on the subject was the "Uttle book" presented at the Queen's trial on June 28, 1529 (Wakefield could not have undertaken to answer Fisher's book before it was written). (5) Pace in his letter speaks of an "Alphabete in Hebrewe Tunge" and asks the King "to delyver the saide Alphabete to Maister Foxe your selfe." This reference is, of course, to Edward Foxe, who in 1527 had never been heard of by the court. His admission as prebendary of Osbaldwicke on Nov. 8, 1527, was his first step out of obscurity. But in 1528, he gained prominence through being sent by Gardiner to Rome, and after his return, was in attendance upon the King at Waltham during August, 1529. The letters then, are definitely settled to have been written during that month, and the history and biog- raphy based on the earher date must be revised. The writings mentioned by Pace and Wakefield being out of the way for the present, we find that the King himself was the first in the field of written controversy. Whether he entered upon his own initiative and wrote according to his own knowledge and skill, or whether, in the whole course, he acted upon the sugges- tion and with the assistance of his ecclesiastical advisers, we can- not say. In 1528, he writes to Anne Boleyn that he has a book in progress, to which he had devoted four hours' work that very day .2 Later, in 1532, Chapuys, in writing to Charles V of Foxe's 1 See below, p. 221. ' State Papers, IV, 4597. This letter is not dated, but it is recorded under the year 1528. 210 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS journey to France, says that he carried "many books touching the divorce most of them written by the King." ' Other references occur in letters of the time to "the King's book"; but it is impossible to teU whether these are to the work mentioned by the King and, if so, what it was, or whether the phrase means a book of the King's authorship or merely one in his cause. At any rate, no extant book is now attributed to him, except the Glasse of the Truthe, whose slight claim to royal authorship is discussed below.' John Fisher, then, is the first man to whom we can definitely assign a book on this subject which is now extant and correctly attributed to him. During the course of the divorce, he was the author of seven or eight books on the Queen's side of the dispute, most of which were never printed. Fisher's biographers have overlooked these almost entirely.' On June 28, 1529, Fisher was called upon to appear before the Pope's legates, and there he both defended the Queen's cause and presented a "little book" on the subject of the divorce. The title of this work is given in the State Papers as Lidtum fuisse matrimonium Henr. VIII cum Catherina relicta fratris sui Arthuri.* The book was never printed, but a manuscript copy still exists in the Cambridge University Library, No. 1315 (12). It is but forty-four leaves in all. Tanner mentions this book also, giving it the title Defensorum matrimonii 1 State Papers, V, 251. » See below, p. 219 ft. • Bridgett, Blessed John Fisher, p. 162 ff. and notes, is the only biographer to give any account of Fisher's writings on the divorce (even the Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit. is deficient here), and hia remarks are both inadequate and inaccurate. He says that some were printed in Spain, which is true, but goes on to mention three, which investigation proves to be aU the same one, the De Causa, inaccurately described in different ways. He says further: "MS. copies of these treatises are in the Record Office, the British Museum, and the Cambridge University Library. The library of St. John's College, Cambridge, possesses one of his printed books." This printed book, however, is not on the divorce; and I have been able to find no manuscript treatise of it in the British Museum. The other documents 1 mention below. * State Papers, IV, 5728. APPENDIX A 211 regis cum Catherina, lib. 1,^ but describes it as beginning with the same words as does the Cambridge manuscript. He says further, "Saepissime dtatur a Nic. Harpsfeld in Hist, divortii." He is wrong here; the book discussed by Harpsfield is not this one.* The King repUed to Fisher in a declaration to the judges, in which "the Latin vocabulary is ransacked for the choicest epithets of vituperation." ' On Feb. 6, 1530, Chapuys, writing to Charles V, says, "Since my last the bishop of Kochester has finished revising the book he lately wrote. . . . Since then he was written another." * The last previously recorded letter from Chapuys to Charles is dated Oct. 25, 1529. The new book by Fisher is probably the De Causa Matrimonii, described in the State Papers as "Fisher's Second Book on the Divorce." ' This book was pubhshed at Com- pluti, Spain, in August, 1530. It consists of forty-one folios of weighty scholasticism, discussing the disputed passages of Leviti- cus and Deuteronomy, especially the latter, and giving opinions and examples on the subject from the time of the early fathers down. Chapuys refers to the publication of Fisher's books in Spain in a letter to the Emperor dated Nov. 27, 1530, and further says that he has commissioned May to have two of them printed for distribution in Parliament.' On Dec. 4, he writes again, "The bishop of Rochester has finished a book in favour of the Queen." ' It would seem that this was a later book, but further identifica- tion is impossible. About this time, Thomas Abel, the Queen's chaplain, appears to have busied himself in her cause. Wood says that in 1529 or 1530 "he shewed himself a zealous advocate against the divorce of the said queen. ... At which time he wrote, TrouA. de non dis- solvendo Henrici & Catherinae matrimonio." ' Tanner mentions * Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannica-Hibernica, p. 281. = See below, p. 217 ff. ' State Papers, IV, p. ccoclxxix. * lUd., 6199. " Ihid., IV., 6596. Although quite accessible, this book is not even mentioned in the D.N.B. account of Fisher. « lUd., IV, 6738. ' lUd., IV, 67S7. ' Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, I, 119. 212 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS another book by Abel on the subject, Invicta Veritas: An Answer that by no manner of law it may he lawfvl for the King to he divorced from the Queen's Grace, etc.^ This seems to have been in English. It is mentioned by Wakefield in his Kotser Codicis, and, as Tanner says, "citat et repugnat." Both of Abel's books are apparently non-extant. The State Papers, under the year 1531, cite three treatises in reply to Abel,* one of which is entitled, A confutation of that answer which Master John Ahell, priest, lately made against the Book of Determinations of the Universities in the King's came." ' This seems to refer to Abel's second treatise. The determinations of the universities were not rendered until 1530; the date of the book containing them — another problem — is discussed below.* Chapuys, writing in 1532, speaks of a book by a chaplain of the Queen (doubtless Abel) as being in print but prohibited by the King.' Wakefield fulfilled his promise to reply to the Bishop of Roches- ter's book by writing the Kotser Codicis R. Wakefeldi quo praeter ecclesiae . . . decretum, prohatur conjugium cum fratria carnaliler cognita, illidtum . . . interdictumqv^ esse, etc.' Pocock has over- thrown the date originally set for this book (1528),' but has come to no definite conclusion himself as to the correct date of either its writing or its pubUcation. The matter is so involved with the date of Wakefield's other book on the subject that it seems best to postpone the problem for the moment.' SuSice it to say here that my conclusion is that it was written immediately after Fisher's first book — that is in the summer of 1529 — and that it was not ' Tanner, p. 1. ' State Papers, V, 1. ' There is still a question as to whether "John Abell, priest," may be taken to refer to the Queen's chaplain, whose first name was Thomas. The index to the volume cites the two names separately, but I can find no other reference to any John AbeU. * See below, p. 214 ff. s State Papers, V, 1256. ' Wood correctly describes this book as the one mentioned by Bala and Pitts under the title of De nan ducenda Fratria. ' Pocock, in notes to his edition of Harpsfield's Pretended Divorce, p. 309. « See below, p. 221. APPENDIX A 213 published until 1536. The Kotser Codids is aimed to be a thorough refutation of Fisher's argument; but despite the author's conceited remark that he intended to so humble his opponent that he would "be ashamed to wade or meddle any further in the matter," ^ the book seems to have passed entirely unnoticed by the leaders on both sides of the controversy. In the summer of 1529, Cranmer was presented to the King by Foxe, and shortly afterwards suggested an argument in favor of the divorce in which Henry declared that he "had the right sow by the ear." The book which resulted, at the King's order, from this conversation, has had a strange history at the hands of biogra- phers and bibUophiles. A reference to it in a letter from Gardiner to the King, dated February, 1530, fixes its date pretty accurately.' Harpsfield, who in his Pretended Divorce between Henry VIII and Catherine (written in Mary's reign) attempted to refute all important works on the King's side, does not even mention this book. Strype seems to be the only historian to have seen it, but it is impossible to tell from his account whether it was in print or in manuscript only.' Poeock, in his Records of the Reformation, prints chapter headings under the caption of " Cranmer 's book in favour of the divorce." * Jenkyns reports the book as lost and repudiates the articles printed by Poeock.' The latter is clearly wrong in printing these headings as coming from Cranmer's book, for, as Jenkyns points out, the Archbishop's name on the first leaf of the manuscript copy (now in the British Musemn) denotes his ownership only. Furthermore, the articles therein do not agree with Strype's description of the work in question. The book, so far as I can find, is non-extant; but Jenkyns goes wrong in attempting to describe it, for not having seen it himself, he has no right to attribute to it points not mentioned by Strype; nor has 1 Wakefield, letter to Hemry, State Papers, IV, 3234. 2 State Papers, IV, 6247. ' Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, I, 7. Todd, in his Life of Cranmer, I, 21, also gives an account of the book but fuitnishes no evidence of having seen it himself. * Poeock, op. cit., I, 334. An annotator in Burnet's Reformation, I, 146, makes a similar mistake. ' Jenkyns, Remains of Cranmer, 1, viii and notes. 214 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS he any authority for saying that its arguments were summarized in a book "published . . . by . . . Berthelet, with the judgments of the Universities prefixed," by which he evidently refers to the Censurae.^ Although the two are similar in some respects, they differ in others. Strype describes Cranmer's treatise as showing that "no man, jure divino, could or ought to marry his brother's widow" and that "the Bishop of Rome ought by no means to dis- pence to the contrary." ^ The King was much pleased with the book when it appeared, and its influence in winning the English universities over to his side is well attested. Cranmer was des- patched in the same year to spread its gospel throughout France, Germany, and Italy, and even went to Rome to defend its prin- ciples in public debate before the Pope, but an opportunity was not granted him.^ In 1530, seven continental universities returned their decisions on the divorce question in favor of the King. These resulted in a weighty book, dated in the colophon April, 1530, entitled Gravis- simae atque exactissimae illustrissimarum totius Italiae, et Galliae Academiarum Censurae . . . de veritate iUius propositionis, Vide- licet que dvxxre relictam fratris raortui sine liberis ita sit de iure divino et naturali prohibitum: vt nvllus Pontifex super huiusmodi matri- moniis contractis, siue contrahendis dispensare possit* Although this book may have been undertaken by April, this date is out of the question for its publication, as only one of the university decisions, which are printed in the first part of the volume, was rendered by that time.' Pocock says that these pages were " certainly printed ' An annotator in Burnet's Reformation, I, 148, goes wrong in de- scribing the Censurae in a note regarding Cranmer's book, as if he either confused the two or took them to be identical. * Strype, Cranmer, I, 13. ' From the circulation of the book, it would seem as if it must have been in print; but if so, it is difficult to account for its subsequent disappearance. * Herein referred to, for short, as the Censurae. ' The dates of these decisions are: Orleans, Apr. 5, 1529; Paris (facultas decretorum). May 23, 1530; Angers, May 7, 1530; Paris (facultas theologicurn), July 2, 1530; Bourges, June 10, 1530; Bologna, n. d.; Padua, July 1, 1530; Toulouse, Oct. 1, 1530. APPENDIX A 215 after the rest of the book." ' I fail to see any evidence for such a. statement, as the decisions of the universities are referred to occa- sionally throughout the work." It seems much more likely that the book was misdated by Berthelet and that April, 1531, is the correct date. Further evidence on this point is: (1) There are no references to it in 1530. (2) It seems not to have been translated until 1531. (3) Fisher's reply was not undertaken until the summer of 1531. (4) Vives' reply was not published untU 1532. (5) Strype says that the decisions of the universities were presented to the House of Commons in January, 1531, "and afterwards, being made into a book, were printed, entitled Gramssimae, etc." (giving the title in full).' (6) Three contemporary references, which seem to be to this book, all point toward 1531 as its date of publication. On Nov. 27, 1530, Chapuys writes to Charles V, "The Dean of the Chapel, in the King's behalf, has presented eight instruments to the Archbishop of Canterbury, respecting the divorce; two from Paris, the others from Toulouse, Orleans, Bruges, Bologna, Padua, and Pavia. They are likely to pubUsh these documents, as they have more influence than any book." * In a later letter to Charles, June 6, 1531, he speaks of a book in the King's behalf as "lately printed." ' Ortiz, writing to Charles, June 24, 1531, men- tions a "book in favour of the King." » The date of the Censurae, then, being settled, we may attack the problem of its authorship. Harpsfield says that the authors were "the two archbishops of the realm besides divers bishops and many notable lawyers and di- vines." ' Strype agrees with this in substance, sajdng that "an abundance of learned men had now employed their pens in this argument to the number of above an hundred, whereof Dr. Cran- ' See Harpsfield's Pretended Divorce, p. 309. 2 On fols. A3, A4, C4, 14, Q4. ' Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, I, 216. * State Papers, IV, 6738. In the same letter, Chapuys states that a book is "being printed" in favor of the King. I cannot identify this work. ' lUd., V, 278. 6 Ibid., V, 309. ' Harpsfield, p. 172. 216 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS mer was one." ' Burnet says that "some learned men were appointed," who compiled the book from all that had been previ- ously written.' Two writers in the Dictionary of National Biography have compUcated matters further by identifying this book (with- out giving any evidence for so doing) with the one mentioned by Stokesley in a letter to Cromwell dated 1535.' Speaking of his opinion of the divorce, Stokesley says that it was expressed "in the King's book that Mr. 'Ampner' [Foxe], Dr Nicolas, and I made before going over sea in embassy and was afterwards trans- lated into EngUsh, with additions and changes, by my lord of Canterbury." * Since this journey over sea was undertaken towards the end of 1529, it is not possible that the book mentioned in this letter is the Censurae, although it may readily have been one of those worked over by the authors of the later volume. My own conclusion is that it was composed, as the older biographers say, by many hands, and was probably of gradual growth; that it may possibly have been set up tentatively as early as April, 1530, the references to the universities being introduced later, but that it certainly did not appear in print until AprU, 1531. The title is very misleading, for except for the few references en passant already mentioned, the universities and their views are totally ignored. However, the argument thrashes over the three points of the con- troversy, especially the Levitical law, in every conceivable aspect, and gives at length the opinions of councils, popes, saints, school- masters, and others. The Censurae was translated in November, 1531,* under the title Determinations of the moste famous and moste excellent universities of all Fraunce and Italy, etc. The translation amplifies the original shghtly.' The sentence, "The King has 1 Strype, Ecc. Mem., I, 217. ' Burnet, Reformation, 1, 166. ' See article on Stokesley by A. F. Pollard and on Nicholas de Burgo by A. G. Little. * State Papers, VIII, 1054. 5 Ames, Typog. Antiq., I, 418, gives Nov. 7, 1530. The year given is conjecture only, as it does not appear in the title or colophon. One of the British Museum copies is identical with that described by Ames, but the other has the addition of the year 1531 in the colophon. ' The slight amplifications do not meet the expression "additions APPENDIX A 217 printed his book in English and scattered it all over the kingdom," in a letter of Nov. 25, 1531, from Chapuys to Charles,* refers doubt- less to this book. Again, in a letter of Jan. 22, 1532, Chapuys speaks of "the King's book" and mentions Sir Thomas Elyot as one of the translators.^ As soon as the Censurae appeared, Fisher seems to have set about to answer it. Agrippa writes to Chapuys on July 21, 1531, "Fisher's book is good." ' This refers probably to the first part of the reply. On Aug. 22, 1531, Ortiz writes to Charles, "May has ordered me to read the bishop of Rochester's apology which has just been sent me from England, in which he answers two chapters of the book composed in favour of the King." * On Oct. 24, he writes to Chapuys for "the rest of Fisher's apology." ' Chapuys writes to Charles on Oct. 1, 1531, "The bishop of Roches- ter has finished his answer to the book printed by the King." * Following this letter in the State Papers, is inserted a notice of manuscript in the Record Office, under the caption "Bishop Fisher, His book on the Divorce, replying to the arguments of those who sought to prove the invaUdity of the King's marriage." Although I must confess to not having read through the 198 folio pages of crabbedly written Latin which compose this manuscript, I am con- and changes" in Stokesley's letter, above referred to, thus giving fur- ther evidence that the writers in the D.N.B. have made a mistake. 1 State Papers, V, 546. ' Ibid., V, 737. Not a little confusion has arisen among bibliophiles through a failure to reaUae that there were several such sets of articles similar in content, but actually quite distinct. The one Pocock feU foul of is the Latin MS. Vesp. B5 (Brit. Mus.), entitled ArticuU duo- dedm, qwibus plane admodum demonstrahai, divortium . . . necessario esse faciendum, which consists of twelve propositions, each fully worked out. Another set, which got into print, is boimd with one of the British Museum copies of the Glasse of the Truthe, and bears the title, Articles devised by the consent of the King's council, etc. This is composed of eight short articles in English. ' Ibid., V, app. 13. * Ibid., V, 378. ' Ibid., V, 492. « Ibid., V, 460. 218 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS fident that it is not the book in question.' Harpsfield, in his Pretended Divorce, gives the substance of Fisher's reply to the Censurae (which I have nowhere found dignified with a title), compiled from the author's original Latin.' It is not possible to tell whether or not Harpsfield abbreviated Fisher's original in trans- lating it; as given, it occupies ahnost 100 quarto pages. Harps- field states that he has never seen a printed copy of this book and doubts if it was ever published. In the form given it in the trans- lation, it is a close and detailed refutation, point by point, of the Censurae, written in a straightforward and common-sense manner that is much more convincing than the ponderous scholasticism of its opponent. The cause for the Queen was further strengthened at this point by a book from Reginald Pole, which is said to have so affected the King that he almost gave up further effort for the divorce. Strype says that it "was penned about the year 1530." ' He is mistaken here. The book was the result of a conference which Pole had with the King in the late spring of 1531. Moreover, Cranmer's letter to the Earl of Wiltshire describing the book is dated June 13, 1531. Tanner gives its title as De non dissolvendo connvhio regis Hear. YIII et Catherinae.* Strype says, "the book, though the argu- ment of it chiefly depended on divinity, proceeded more on poUtical principles than divine." ' Cranmer, in the letter just mentioned, says that "it was writ with that eloquence that if it were set forth and knowne to the commen people, I suppose yt were not possible to persuade them to the contrary." ' The book was in manuscript 1 This MS. is in two handwritings. The first runs to thirty folios. The second writer wrote only in a narrow column down one side of the page, so that his part would not make more than thirty-five full folios. The MS. is imperfect, lacking both beginning and ending. I do not know why it is ascribed to Fisher. 2 Harpsfield, op. cit.. Part I. ' Strype, Cranmer, I, 9. " Tanner, p. 603. ' Strype, ibid. ' Strype, ibid., II, No. 1; also State Papers, V, app. 10. This letter gives a pretty full account of the contents of the book. APPENDIX A 219 only, probably in Latin, and was evidently shown only to a very few. Pole wrote the King's council in 1537 that he had not yet had it printed, on account of his love for his Majesty,' and doubt- less it never was, although the substance of it was more than likely incorporated in his Pro Ecclesiasticae Unitaiis Defensione.' Almost simultaneously with Pole's treatise, there was pubUshed in English a book entitled A Glasse of the Truthe, in the form of a dialogue, the only work of a popular nature in the whole contro- versy. Most of the bibliophiles who have noticed this book are inclined to date it 1532 — Pocock says "as early as September, 1532"' — because it is mentioned in a letter of Sept. 17, 1532, and because, according to Pocock, it was answered by a Latin work published at Luneburg in 1533. All are wrong here. The correct date is 1531, as the book is mentioned as "lately printed" in a letter from Chapuys to Charles, dated June 24, 1531. "The English," he says, "have lately printed a Uttle dialogue ... a thing so feeble and cold that it is a disgrace to them." * Pocock is also wrong on two points in regard to Vives' book, to which his vague reference evidently applies. It was in fact an answer to the Censurae and was published at Luneburg in 1532. The author- ship of the Glasse is still a matter of doubt, but in aU probability it was written by the King's advisers, perhaps with his help. Latin and French translations were made at his command in 1532, and a German one was projected but seems to have failed. Nicholas Hawkins was appointed to push the distribution of the book on the continent, and Sir Richard Croke performed a similar mission at home. A pretense was maintained that the King was the author, but I doubt very much if he had more than a hand in it, at the most. Croke, writing from Oxford on Sept. 23, 1532, says that he has not had much success in persuading the people of the royal authorship but that the book itself had done more than all previ- ous ones in winning them over to the King's side.' Hawkins, in 1 State Papers, XII, 444. 2 See below, p. 222-223. ' Pooock, Records, I, xxi. * State Papers, V, 308. 6 lUd., V, 1338. 220 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS a letter to Henry, calls the book "your Highness dialogue," but in speaking of certain quotations which had been omitted from the translation, he refers the King to "Master Cranmer or Master Gudric [Goodrich] to write them in, word for word, as they be in the originals." '■ This work is entirely different from any other in the controversy, since it not only is written for the man in the street rather than for the scholar or the court, but also makes a show of some literary pretentions. The preface describes it as a "clere glasse whereia the whiche ye shall see . . . the playne truthe of our mooste noble and lovinge princes cause, which by unmete and unkynde handlynge hath hytherto had so overlonge a staye"; but the intelligent reader will be more Ukely to agree with Chapuys that it is a sorry affair. The argimient, if it may be so called, is entirely on the side of the King; and for this reason, the dialogue can hardly be said to be spirited, since each of the disputants speaks only to have his ideas confirmed by the Ustener, who plays the part of Greek chorus with fervor and despatch. Harpsfield judges the book pretty fairly in saying, "You shall find them [the arguments] none other in sub- stance but such as he took out of the book that the Bishop of Rochester hath already confuted.^ . . . And all this is conveyed in a dialogue between a sorry doting divine and a sorry lewd lawyer, framing out of their own heads new divinity and new laws eccle- siastical." ' StiU, one can readily understand how the ignorant pubHc might have been influenced by the book, as Croke says they were. Vives' reply to the Censurae, entitled Non esse . . . prohibitum, quin Summus Pontifex dispensare possit, ut frater siue liheris fror- tris uxorem ligitimo matrimonio sibi possit adiungere, etc., and pub- lished at Luneburg in September, 1532, presents no difficulties. Some vague references in letters of 1531 * inform us that Vives had expressed himself before that year on the subject, but these treatises were evidently not printed and were probably very brief. 1 State Papers, V, 1660. * That is, those of the Censurae. » Harpsfield, p. 170. * State Papers, V, 46 and app. 13 and 14. APPENDIX A 221 There is slight evidence that Vivas committed some of his ideas to paper as early as 1527.' The Non esse prohibitum consists of 162 pages of the usual scholastic a priori argument. The date is given on the title page. This book seems to be the last that appeared in print before the actual divorce took place. Wakefield, however, presented another book on the subject, the dating of which is the most diffi- cult problem we have yet encountered. It is necessary to consider first the date of his earlier Kotser Codicis. I have already said that Pocock has overthrown the date first set for it, but he offers none of his own except in showing that its publication must have been later than Dec. 8, 1529.'' In a letter printed with the Kotser from Wakefield to Fisher, Stokesley is spoken of as "Londoni- nensis iam episcopus." As Stokesley was not made Bishop of London until Nov. 27, 1530, we are able to shove the date of pubUcation along one year more. The reference on the first page of the treatise itself to "a book thought to' be by Vives or Agrippa" must apply to Vives' book above mentioned, which did not bear any name on its title page. As this book was not published until September, 1532, the Kotser cannot be dated earUer than this.* Wakefield's second book. Syntagma de Hebraeorum codicum incor- ruptione, etc., comphcates matters stiU more. This book was printed by Wynkyn de Worde and therefore before 1535, since Worde's wiU was proved on January 19 of that year. The sen- tence on the verso of the first leaf, Primum tamen quaestionem per Johannem Fissherium . . . propositam atque responsionem quam illi codici meo adhibui annos antehac fere septem in medium his asseram, gives us the information that the Kotser was written seven years previously. I have already demonstrated that the Kotser could not possibly have been published before 1530, and probably not before 1532 (unless, of course, the extant copies are not first editions, ' See article on Vives in D.N.B. ' See above, p. 212. ' The British Museum catalogue gives "1532?". Ames, Typog. Antiq., I, 417, gives 1530, but this is evidently conjecture only. The references in the Kotser to Abel's book (see above, p. 212) might be useful it we could get more definite information about Abel. 222 ENGLISH DOMESTIC BELATIONS which is very unhkely).i Furthermore, in the undated letter from Wakefield to Fisher, Wakefield says that Foxe came to con- sult him "nomine Regis" some seven years earlier about the mar- riage of a man with his brother's widow. Seven years previous to either 1530 or 1532 would be before Henry had thought of a divorce and before Foxe was connected with the court. The only way out of this difficulty is to suppose that the Kotser was written in the summer of 1529 (being the book referred to by Wakefield in his letter of that date *), but was not published until seven years later, when the references to Vives and Abel and the letters men- tioned were added, and that the reference in the Syntagma is to it in its manuscript and not its printed form. The Syntagma itself, written "annos fere septem" later than the Kotser, would thus seem to have been pubfished in 1536 also. But Worde, the printer, was dead by that time. The only possible solution of this second difficulty is to suppose that Wakefield spoke inaccurately in say- ing "annos fere septem," for it is out of the question to think the Kotser written before 1529, as I have already shown. The Syn- tagma is a small Latin pamphlet of only fifty-six pages. It was projected in 1524 as a part of the author's earUer work, Oratio de laudibus et vtilitate tuum linguarum Arabicae, Chaldicae et Hebrae- icae, etc., but the controversy over the royal divorce altered alto- gether the nature of its intended content.' Harpsfield gives an outhne of it in his Pretended Divorce, where he attempts to refute its arguments. When Henry repudiated the Pope as head of the church, he appealed to Pole, then in Italy, for his opinion on the whole situa- tion. In the book with which Pole replied, RegincMi Poli . . . ad Henricu octavum . . . pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione libri quatuor, he re-expressed his opinion upon the King's divorce, among other things pointing out that by marrying Anne he was 1 There is no record of there having been a second edition, nor is there any reason for supposing that a book of so little importance would have appeared more than once. 2 See above, p. 208. ' See Maitland, Early Printed Books in the Lambeth Library, Nos. 509 and 510, and Note GG. APPENDIX A 223 violating the very law which he had established in order to divorce Catherine. 1 Tanner dates the book 1536; the catalogue of the British Museum dates its copy "[1538]," which may be a second edition.' Wood describes the book as one "wherein he answers many things that Samson had wrote to please the king; presseth the king earnestly to return to the obedience of Rome; exciteth the emperor to revenge the injury done unto his aunt, (the divorced queen) and many other things." ' On the question of the divorce, the writer certainly does not spare his sovereign. * Besides the books discussed above. Wood mentions John Holy- man's Defensio Matrimonii Reginae Catherinae Cum Rege Henrico Octavo and Bishop TunstaU's Treatise in Defense of the Marriage of Queen Katherine with Henry 8; but on these books I am unable to find any information whatever. A very few books were put out on the subject of the divorce after the immediate excitement had died down. The only one of these worth mentioning here is Harpsfield's Pretended Divorce between Henry VIII and Queen Catherine, which has been referred to many times already. It was written in Mary's reign, but more accurate dating seems impossible.' It existed in manuscripts only, four of which are still extant, until Pocock printed it in 1878. This is the longest and most comprehensive work of all on the subject. Harpsfield explains that his purpose in writing it was to justify Sir Thomas More for refusing to take the oath ratifjdng the whole * See above, p. 207, n. 1. This part of Pole's treatise is translated by Bridgett, Blessed John Fisher, p. 148, n. ' It seems more likely, however, that Tanner is mistaken and that the two books are identical, 1538 being the correct date. The work was finished by May, 1536 (according to D.N.B.), but in 1537 Pole wrote the King's council that his love for Henry had caused him to withhold his first book on the divorce from pubUcation. This does not seem compatible with the sentiments ejcpressed in the Pro Ecchsiastieae nor with the fact that immediately upon the appearance of the latter, the King divested Pole of all his dignities in England. ' Wood, I, 285. * The divorce is discussed in Lib. Ill, especially f . Lxxv ff. ' Pocock makes no apparent attempt to date accurately the writing of the book. 224 ENGLISH DOMESTIC BELATIONS course of the King's actions; and this he does by showing that Henry had been in the wrong throughout. The treatise is divided into three parts, as follows: (1) reasons to justify the marriage of Henry and Catherine, in the form of a reproduction of Fisher's reply to the Censurae; (2) refutation of four other important books on the subject (that of Egidius Bellamera, long before this time; that of Marcus Mantua, a contemporary lawyer of Padua; the Syntagma of Wakefield; and the Glasse of the Truthe), together with a history of the divorce; (3) a discussion of the parliamentary acts after the divorce and an account of Henry's later poUtical and matrimonial difiiculties. This book is of extreme value for the Ught it throws on the history of the divorce, on the books which it reviews, and on conditions of matrimony and divorce at the time of writing. APPENDIX B THE DATE AND OCCASION OF MILTON'S FIRST DIVORCE TRACT Edward Philips, Milton's nephew, is responsible for the state- ment that The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce was conceived about Michelmas (Sept. 29), 1643. This approximate date was accepted until Masson pointed out that Thomason, the collector of manuscripts at the British Museum, had added Av/g. 1 to the year 1643 on the title page of the Museiun copy. Thomason was in the habit of aflBxing dates to the pamphlets he acquired; and as these seem clearly to refer to his acquisition of the pamphlets rather than to their publication, we may take them as the latest possible times for the appearance of tracts otherwise undated. A comparison of Thomason's dates for the year of 1643 and there- abouts with those in the Stationers' Register, shows that the former vary from one day to several months later than those of registration. This being the case, if we accept Thomason's date at all, we may say that Milton's tract appeared certainly as early as some time in July. Against the acceptance of this date, stands the statement of Philips that Milton turned his thoughts to the subject of divorce because the delay of his wife in returning from her visit to her parents "so incensed our author that he thought it would be dis- honourable ever to receive her again after such a repulse, so he forthwith prepared to fortify himseU with arguments for such a resolution, and accordingly wrote two treatises, by which he under- took to maintain that it was against reason and the enjoinment of it not provable by Scripture for any married couple disagreeable in humour and temper or having an aversion to each [other] to be forced to be yoked together all their lives." Philips continues, "The first was his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, of which there was printed a second edition with some additions. The 225 226 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS other in prosecution of the first was called Tetrachordon. Then better to confirm his own opinion by the attestation of others, he set out a piece called T?ie Judgment of Martin Bucer. . . . Lastly he wrote an answer to a pragmatical clerk ... his Colasteron." ' Before Masson pointed out that PhiUps was probably wrong in stating that the first tract was not started until Sept. 29, biog- raphers, in attempting to explain its cause, imagined that Milton must have become disgusted with his young wife and have written the tract as a result of domestic unhappiness. Since Masson's discovery, they have been unable to repudiate Thomason's date and yet unwilling to give up their ingeniously built theories on the subject. The residt in biographies of Milton, including Mas- son's own, has been that the writer has presented both conflicting accounts, either saying naively, as Masson does, that he doesn't know what on earth to do about it, or else, like Pattison, suppos- ing some offense on Mary's part of suflBcient magnitude to start her husband writing tracts during his honeymoon." In attempting to overthrow the whole structure of this specimen of scholarly architecture, I shall start with the top story first, that is, the contribution of the late biographers. This obviously rests ^ Philips, Life of Milton, in Godwin's Lives of E. and J. PhiUps, p. 365 ff. Godwin has not helped matters by putting the wrong years in the margin of his reprint. These are not present in the original. ' Masson suggests timidly as a possible way out that Philips' date of Milton's marriage may be considerably too late, but hastily shies off from the results of such a supposition. Pattison, in casting about for some offense to saddle upon Mary, suggests that perhaps she refused Milton the marriage right. Both seem to overlook the fact that Philips' statement is that the tract was first conceived as a result of Mary's protracted visit at Michelmastide, so that neither explanation clears up the case at all. To consider Philips wrong in the matter of the tract's date in order to consider him right in the matter of its cause, or vice versa, is no solution of the problem, especially as the critics cannot agree on which to throw overboard. Pattison's sugges- tion simply shows his ignorance of existing divorce practices, for the condition of affairs he suggests would have rendered a divorce even more readily obtainable by Milton than it already was. APPENDIX, a Til on two things, the evidence of the tract itself, as a foundation, and Philips' statement as an intervening story. It must be admitted that Mary's apparent desertion of her husband suggests that there was some trouble between them, although her delay in returning from her visit might have orig- inally been caused by the entreaties of her friends and relatives alone; but if there was any such dissatisfaction or contrariety of mind, the facts involved show that it was felt by her rather than by him, since he made repeated efforts to hasten her return. More- over, the muck-rakers who in later controversies with him at- tempted to assail his character, and even dug up his college career to support their assertions, were unable to find a single fact of his domestic fife that might be interpreted to his disadvantage. It should be carefully noted also that not a word appears in the early biographies — those of PhiUps, Toland, Aubrey, and Wood — to the effect that he had any criticism to make upon his wife's character or fitness of disposition. This is aU later invention. Furthermore, it must be pretty clear from my discussion of the agitation and writing on the subject of divorce that there is no need of looking into a man's private life in order to explain why he should have turned his thoughts to this problem, especially when he expresses other reasons for his action, as Milton does. Thus the Doctrine and Discipline needs no personal justification from the author's own life. Furthermore, Milton's ideas on the subject remained the same after he was happily reunited with his wife. The above facts remove both the supposed evidence of the first tract in favor of the traditional cause of its writing and also the argument drawn from it for the acceptance of Philips' date. Let us now consider the statement of Philips himself, the second story of our scholarly structure. As to the cause of the tract, Phihps' theory — for it certainly was theory — that it was written iu order to estabhsh grounds whereby Milton might obtain a divorce, in the fight of my discussion of divorce legislation and practice at the time, is ridiculous on the face of it. Milton had ample cause for divorce, according to the teaching and practice of his own church, on the ground of desertion, in case his wife failed to return. We have incontrovertible evidence, also, that he 228 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS was well aware of the fact, as I have already shown.' A further proof of this, if we can beheve PhiUps at all, Ues in the fact that a marriage between Milton and a daughter of Dr. Davis was "more than probably thought to be in agitation" at the time of Mary's delayed return.' To summarize, my position stands thus: (1) there was ample cause for Milton to write a tract on divorce whatever his own married hfe may have been; (2) by the existing practices of the Puritan churches, Milton had recognized grounds for divorce, and knew it, if his wife failed to return to him; (3) the only reasons for Philips' behef that the tract was planned about Michelmas and for our acceptance of his statement to that effect, are thus removed; (4) the evidence, then, naturally favors Thomason's testimony, given in 1643, as against PhiUps', given in 1694. The points in the argument against me represent at best a case of "together we stand, divided we fall." I think I have shaken all of them pretty severely; and if I can overthrow one completely the others must go by the board in consequence. The most im- portant one, without which the others become absolutely imsup- ported, is the date given by Philips for the conception of the tract. On this point, I submit the following evidence in addition to that given by Thomason: (1) Philips is absolutely untrustworthy. He seldom makes a definite statement, but in several places where he does, he is con- siderably out of the way, for example, in the dates of Milton's birth, death, his entrance in Cambridge, the pubhcation of Paror dise Lost, and some minor events.' That he was very uncertain ' Sea above, p. 86. ^ The fact, if it be a fact, that Milton contemplated a second mar- riage at this time, has appeared to some to argue that his first was unhappy. This reasoning is ingenious but hardly convincing. A man deserted by his wife would be much more likely to seek another if his first venture at the altar had been happy; nor, if it had been unhappy, would he rush quite so precipitously into marriage again as Phihps asserts Milton was ready to do. ' These he gives as occurring in 1606, in 1673, at the age of fifteen, and in 1666, respectively. The correct facts are: Milton was bom Dec. APPENDIX B 229 of the facts connected with the divorce tracts, is shown by his saying that the Doctrine and Discipline and the Tetrachordon were planned together as the result of his wife's behavior and were followed by the Judgement of Martin Bucer, whereas we know that the Tetrachordon resulted from the criticisms on the first tract/ that it did not appear until 1645, and that it was preceded by the Martin Biicer tract. (2) The second edition of the Doctrine and Discipline is dated by Thomason, Feb. 2, 1643-4. As shown above, this date is prob- ably some time later than the tract's actual appearance, but let us accept it nevertheless as the day of publication. The second edition was an entire reworking of the first, increasing it more than one-third of its original length, and introducing new authori- ties, whose works required considerable study. It hardly seems possible that the tract could have been originally conceived, planned, written, and published, the subject reinvestigated, and the first edition reworked and published in its new form, aU in the space of four months (Sept. 29 - Feb. 2). (3) Milton, in his Colasteron says, "Whenas the Doctrine and Discipline had now a whole year been published a second time . . . this idle pamphlet comes reeUng forth against the first edi- tion only." ' The Answer, to which Milton refers here, is recorded in the Stationers' Register, on Oct. 31, 1644, and was dated by Thomason Nov. 19, 1644. If Milton is speaking accurately in saying "a whole year," it is evident that Thomason's date for the second edition is considerably later than that of its pubhcation, as many of his dates are. The effect of this evidence is either to shorten down the time between the original conception of the tract and its second pubhcation (already too short, if we accept Philips' date) or else to show that it was started before PhiUps says. 9, 1608; died Nov. 8, 1674; entered college at the age of sixteen; and published Paradise Lost in 1667. In the light of such glaring errors, it seems hardly worth while to consider Philips' statements as to minor dates worth anything at all. ' So Milton says himself, Prose Works, II, 115-116. 2 Milton, II, 243. 230 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS (4) Milton, in his Second Defense, says clearly: "When the bishops could no longer resist the multitude of their assailants, I had leisure to turn my thoughts to other subjects; to the pro- motion of real and substantial liberty. . . . When, therefore, I perceived that there were three species of Uberty which are essential to the happiness of social life; reUgious, domestic, and civil; and as I had already written concerning the first, and the magistrates were strenuously active concerning the third, I deter- mined to turn my attention to the second, or domestic species." ■ The overthrow of the bishops, both in their controversy with the Smectymuuns and in their opposition in the House of Lords to the new church government, took place in 1642,^ before Milton was married. The obvious conclusions from the whole of the above discus- sion are: (1) Philips, who was but fifteen years old at the time of the publication of the tract, and who was not at all in sympathy with his uncle's principles, was simply conjecturing as to the date and occasion of it when he wrote his biography of Milton fifty-one years later, and that he was mistaken, as in other places, on both points. (2) The Doctrine and Discipline was planned in 1642, as Milton clearly states, was pubUshed on or before Aug. 1, 1643, and had no connection whatever with his own domestic life. (3) The theories as to Milton's disgust with his young wife and his dis- gruntled attitude towards the marriage state (he who was thrice married), the scenes depicted as resulting therefrom (including, alas, such triumphs of the imagination as Masson's picture of the parting of husband and wife and his account of the excitement caused in the lobby of the House of Coromons by the scandal), and finally the calumnies cast upon this unromantic and rather humdrum couple, might well be omitted from future biographies.* » Milton, VI, 405. ' See above, p. 85. ' To save some one else unnecessary labor, it may be worth while to state that I have carefully run down the following clues without gain- ing any further information: (1) Palmer's sermon. The Glasse of God's Providence, Aug. 13, 1644, referred to by Milton, Prose Works, II, 113; (2) Grotius' Annotationes in Libras Evangeliorvm, 1641, men- tioned by Milton, ibid., I, 345; (3) Prynne's Queries, referred to by APPENDIX B 231 Milton, ibid., II, 240; (4) Featley's Dippers dipt, 1644-5, mentioned by Milton, itdd., II, 116 (John Featley is mistaken in implying, in his Dr. D. Featley revived, pp. 64 and 70, that this tract preceded The Gentle Lash, pub. Jan. 2, 1643-4); (5) Howell's letter, mentioned by Masson, lASe of Milton, III, 62; (6) the possible reference to Milton's divorce ideas in the Annotations of the Books of the Old and New Testament (see above, pp. 93-94 and n. 1). APPENDIX C DIRECTIONS FOR MATRIMONY FROM HARRINGTON'S BOOK' HOWE MATKTMONT IS MADE WITH THE CYBCUMSTAUCE AND SOLEMPNTTE AS APPBHTAYNETH THEETO As touchynge the seconde partye / it is to be knowen that man and woman dothe entre this holy ordre and sacramente of matrymony by expresse and free consente of bothe partyes/ that is to say: when both the man and the woman dothe consente bothe in one tyme to be husbonde and wjrfe/ and that consente doo shewe eyther to other by expresse wordes of the t3rme presente/ as by these wordes or other lyke/ I take the to my wyfe/ or I frome this tyme forwarde wyll haue the to my wyfe. And yf the woman also incontynentely expresse the same or other lyke wordes. then there is contracte matrymony betwyxte them. . . . But and they vse wordes of the tyme to come As yf the man saye thus/ I shall take the to my wyfe. And the woman saye/ I shall take the to my husbonde or other lyke wordes of tyme to come/ then it is noo matrjrmony. But promyse to make matrymony. . . . This con- sent whiche maketh matrymony ought to be in bothe theyr soules by true loue so yt ether shuld consent to loue other aboue all ye creaturs of the worlde. It shulde also be in theyr bodyes by true observauce and kepynge . . . theyr bodyes to other clene and pure from all other creatures. It shulde also be in theyr temporall gooddes by a due comunyon so that eyther of them shuld consent that suche goodes as they haue or shall haue shall be comune betwyxte them. Moreouer this consent whiche doth make matrymony ought to be grouded of a good cause and intent/ yt is to saye those yt wyll entre in to this holy ordre . . . must doo it pryncypally for one of thre causes/ that is to saye/ other to the entente for to brynge forth chyldren to be norysshed in the lawes & seruyce of god and 1 Harrington, Comendacions of Matrymony, I. Aii6 ff. 232 APPENDIX C 233 that is ye moost pryncypall cause ... or els secondarly for remedy ayenst synne/ as suche as ben inclyned naturally to the synne of ye flesshe and wyU not endeuer them selfe to lyue chaste may make matrymony for that cause to avoyde the synne of fornycacyon. ... Or elles thyrdely for solace and helpe whiche eyther may have of other without the acte of flesshely medlynge. . . . Secondarely there be other causes whiche mouen rather to take one pson than another/ as ryehes/ beaute/ refourmjmge of peace or suche other. . . . But suche as dothe not marry pryn- cypally for one of the thre causes afore sayde but rather pryncy- paUy for ryehes beaute or frends or such other do not marry godly nor gracyously/ but they synne deedly/ and the deuyU hath grete power of them. . . . Moreouer this consent which doth make" matrymony ought to be expressed & shewed in open and in honest places afore & in the psence of honest & laufuU wytnesses called specyally therefore, ii. at ye leest/ for & it be otherwyse . . . yt is called matrjrmony cladestinat whiche for many causes is for- boden by the lawe. . . . And when matrymony is thus laufully made/ yet the man maye not possesse the woman as his wyfe/ nor the woman the man as her husbonde . . . afore suche tyme as that matrymony be approued and solempnysed by oure mother holy chyrche/ and yf they do in dede they synne deedly. And to that solempnyte are many thynges requjred by the lawe. Fyrste is that the banes must be asked iii sondayes or other festyuaU dayes. . . . And euery man and woman whiche dothe knowe ony impedymente or haue ony lykely coniecture of ony impedymente are bounde for to come and at the leest denounce and shewe the same to the curate. . . . The curate also him selfe is boimden for to make dylygente serche and inquisycyon for to knowe yi ony impedymente be or ony lykelyhode of impedymente to let the matrymony. . . . More ouer it is to understonde that he sayde solenysation of matrimony which is required to be made in the face of the chirche may not be made euery t3Tne of the yere. . . . And this solempynsacyon oughte to be made in the face of the chjTche in the clere daye after the sonne be rysen and with hon- oure and reuerence. APPENDIX D CONTENTS OF TYPICAL DOMESTIC BOOKS I. Chaptek Headings from Perkins' Christian Oeconomie Chaps. Pages 1. Of Christian Oeconomie, and of the Familie 1 2. Of the Household sendee of God 7 3. Of Maried folkes 8 4. Of the Contract D.e. spousals de praesenti^ 6 5. Of the choice of persons fit for Marriage 44 6. Of consent in the Contract 8 7. Of Reiection or Refusall of the Contract 7 8. Of Mariage [i.e. the solemnization] 14 9. Of the duties of married persons 12 10. Of the Communion of married folkes, and of due beneuo- lence 12 11. Of the Husband 6 12. Of the Wife 4 13. Of the Parent 12 14. Of the Sonne 6 15. Of the Master 4 16. Of the Seruant 7 17. Of the Master of the familie or goodman of the house 9 18. Of the Mistresse of the familie or goodwife of the house ... 3 II. OuTLDSTE OF Gouge's Domestical Duties ^ q fj I Treatise. \ An exposition of those parts of the Scriptures upon which the book is based: 133 topics, referred to Scriptural texts; 103 pages in all. ^ This summary is made from the table of contents of the book. Many minor topics cannot be classified; such are omitted. 234 APPENDIX D 235 II Treatise. Part I. Concerning the Marriage Contract, 28 topics, 20 pages. 1. Wliat persons are fit to marry, 8 topics. 2. Suitable matches, 5 topics. 3. The contract [i.e. spousals de praesenti], 10 topics. 4. The reU^ous ceremony, 1 topic. 5. The purpose of marriage, etc. lb topics. Part II. Mutual Duties of Husband and Wife, 45 topics, 32 pages. 1. Unity and chastity, 8 topics. 2. Love, peace, etc., 6 topics. 3. Of absence from one another, 3 topics. 4. Of prayers, 4 topics. 5. Mutual care and help, 9 topics. 6. Of keeping up family respect and credit, 9 topics. 7. Joint government of the family, 2 topics. 8. Hospitahty, 2 topics. 9. Charity, 2 topics. III Treatise. The Wife's Duties, 74 topics, 44 pages. 1. Wife's inferiority and subjection to husband, mild- ness, obeisance, modesty in apparel, meekness of speech, etc., 17 topics. 2. The necessity of the husband's consent in family matters, in the management of the house, and in the disposition of property, 5 topics. 3. Various kinds of subjection on the part of the wife to the husband, 11 topics. 4. The wife's obedience, meekness, forebearance, humil- ity, cheerfulness, etc. (also the opposite qualities) in various matters, 26 topics. 5. Husband and wife in general, the former resembling Christ, and the latter the church, 5 topics. IV Treatise. The Husband's Duties, 76 topics, 40 pages. A detailed but poorly organized account of the husband's authority and superiority over the wife and of how 236 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS these should be used to the best advantage, under such captions as: Of husbands wise maintaining his authority. Of husbands courteous accepting their wives reuerend carriage. Of an husbands manner in teaching his wife. Of undue reproofe. Of husbands beating their wives. Of an husband prouiding for his wife. Of husbands constancy in loue. V Treatise. Children's Duties, 64 topics, 36 pages. 1. Love, fear, and obedience to parents, 11 topics. 2. Of children's entrance into business or profession, 3 topics. 3. Of Parents' consent in the marriage of children, 7 topics. 4. Obedience and submission of children to parents imder various conditions, 20 topics. 5. Care of parents in sickness, age, and death, 8 topics. 6. Obedience to others over them, 3 topics. VI Treatise. Duties of Parents to Children, 79 topics, 48 pages. 1. General care and love of children, 8 topics. 2. Birth and nourishment of a child, 8 topics. 3. Baptism, 6 topics. 4. Nurture, 6 topics. 5. Instruction in manners and profession, 6 topics. 6. Instruction in piety, 3 topics. 7. General points in the nurture, instruction, and correc- tion of children, 13 topics. 8. Providing them with calling or profession, 4 topics. 9. Providing for them in marriage, 4 topics. 10. Duties of parent upon death of child, 8 topics. 11. Duties of foster parents, guardians, and others, 9 topics. Vfl Treatise. Servants' Duties, 43 topics, 30 pages. 1. Fear and reverence of masters, 6 topics. 2. Obedience, etc., to masters, 10 topics. APPENDIX D 237 3. Different manners of serving (with diligence, quick- ness, etc.), 5 topics. 4. Of servants' faithfulness in various offices, 11 topics. 5. Motives for good service, 4 topics. VIII Treatise. Masters' Duties to servants,^ 49 topics, 26 pages. 1. Choice of servants, 2 topics. 2. The master's authority and charge over servants, 16 topics. 3. Management of servants' affairs and duties, 26 topics. III. Griffith's Bethel Reprint of Table of Contents A Plat-forme of the whole Building Question 1 Pag. 2. How may I serve God as a member of a famiUe? Answer When you are some part of Gods building Secondly p. 7. What is Gods building? A weU-order'd familie ^t ■ J7 Thirdly p. 8. What is a well-order'd familie? That which hath orderly ■( ,, i [ Members. Fourthly p. 9. What is the rule whereby both head, and members must be squar'd and order'd? The written word of God, contain'd in the CanonicaU bookes of the old and new Testament. ' The relations of the servants to the household, according to Gouge, are entirely the concern of the master. In his treatise of the wife's duties, he gives her charge of the household only in case her husband is " very blockish and stupid," or unfit to manage his affairs on account of "some distemper, wound, or sickness." Most writers allow the wife more authority in household affairs. 238 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS Fifthly p. 12. May not then an house bee govern'd by policy? It may; so the worke of the braine hinder not the worke of the conscience. Sixthly p. 18. How may I bee sure that my House is built by God? Timber. Framing. When it is God's -j Setting up. Finishing. Furnishing. What is Gods Timber? '^^^^'^''^^^ _ P- 1^- Single persons: (who if they cannot abstaine, they must marrie) f Old 1 , , ,„ J ^, < ,. > Men, or Women, and they are [ Young J Eighthly p. 30. How must Old men be framed? f Sober. Honest. Discreet, f Faith. Sound in I Love. [ Patience. Ninethly p. 114. How must Old Women be framed? ' Be of such behaviour as becommeth holinesse. Not be false-accusers. Not given to much Wine. . Be teachers of honest things to younger Women. 10. p. 141. How must young < „ > be framed? Remember their Creatour in the dayes of their youth. Be sober-minded, and flye the lusts of youth. Honour the person of the Aged. Feare the Lord. They must be They must They must APPENDIX D 239 11. p. 223. Seeing that a familie built by God, stands upon a foundation, and that foundation is mariage in the Lord: tell me what mariage is? It is a convenant of God, whereby all sorts of people may, of two, bee made one flesh; for Multiplying of an holy seed. The ■ Avoiding of fornication. , Mutuall comforting of each other. 12. p. 244. The our mariage may bee in the Lord, what should wee chiefely doe before we marrie? We may do well to f A right choyce. see that wee make \ An holy contract. 13. p. 245. What should we looke into in our choyce? Choose not within the degrees forbidden. That we ■ Take more care for inward goodnesse, . than outward goods H. p. 255. How may we so choose that (probabUe) we may have vertuous Wives? Report. Lookes. Talke, and sUence. AppareU. Company. Education. By 15. p. 269. What is an holy contract? A marriage-desiring promise between two persons: ■with consent ^ f Parents. 1 Parties. 240 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS 16. p. 273. That our marriage may bee in the Lord, what things especially should accompanie it? [ Gift of the Parent. The \ Blessing of the Priest. [ Mutuall rejoycing of Friends. 17. p. 280. What must follow a godlie marriage? f Cohabitation. \ Communion. 18. p. 287. The foundation of a godlie familie being thus laid; and the upper building standing in relations betweene Man, and Wife; Parents, and children; Maisters, and servants, say first, what are the common duties of the Husband, and his Wife? ^"{peTaithfuiltol^^'''^^*^^'- 19. p. 316. What is the particular dutie of the Husband? [ Dwell with his Wife like a man of Knowledge. He must \ Give her honour [ Leave Father, and Mother and cleave unto her. p. 332. What is the particular dutie of the Wife? She must be subject to her Husband. 21. p. 334. What are the duties of parents to their Children? Naturally. Bring them up ■ Civilly. They must ■ I ReUgiously. T-,- c Lx. J. \ Some calling. Dispose of them to < „ , . \ Marriage. APPENDIX D 241 p. 366. What are the duties of Children? Reverence. Obedience. ■ to their parents. Thankefuhiesse. . Love to each other. They are What are the duties of Maisters? Choose their servants by the feare of God. Enjoyne them la- ( Measure, bour but not above \ Strength. Recompense their diligence by given Meate. p. 379. They must them sufficient Drinke. Cloathing. What are the duties of Servants? Be subject. Please their Maisters in aU things. Not answer againe. , Be faithfull. They must How must Gods building be finished? By an orderly govern- f Father ^ , , , , ... ment under the \ Mother J What are the duties of the Father of the familie? W i Be carefull that his f Every day. house-hold serve God \ On the Sabbath. Provide for it. Exercise discipline in it. p. 383. p. 391. p. 393. p. 412. What are the duties of the Mother, or Mistris of the famiUe? 242 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS Shee must Keepe at home. Governe the house in her place. , Give the portion of food in her house-hold. Gods building being thus framed, and finish'd; how may we procure Gods furniture for our houses? Getting our goods by honest labour. Buying. p. 418. By Doing, as wee would , bee done unto, in . . Selling. Letting. Borrowing. Lending. Gods building being finish'd, and furnish'd; what must every member of the same doe as the summe of their dutie? God. p. 429. They must ■ \ the King. Not meddle with them that be seditious. SO. p. 453. You have hitherto taught us how to serve God in life; now say (in one word) how may we serve him even in death? You must die in the Lord: and this you then only doe, 1. f J XT. 1- f GodUe Life, when you prepare for death, by a ( ^^^^^^ ^^^_ BIBLIOGRAPHIES I. Eablt Books of Domestic Relations, etc. II. Books on Henry VIII's Divorce III. Lateb Books of Reference These bibliographies contain by no means all the books that have been examiaed for this work, among which are many whose titles are Bueggstive but whose contents are worthless for our purpose. Well- known books to which no page reference has been made are also omitted. In the first two Usts, the dates given for publication are those of first editions except where noted. In all cases, the edition first named is that here used. Books marked with a star have not been available. I. Eaelt Books of Domestic Relations etc. A., 0., The Uncasing of Heresie, [Louvain?] 623 [1623]. Agrippa, H. C, Commendation of Matrimony (tr. David Clapham), London, 1545. C40pp. 8°] , * De Nobilitate & PraeceUentia Foeminei Sexus, etc. (tr. David Clapham), 1542. Aldat, John, see Bouaistuau, P. Anonymous, Anonymous books are listed under their titles. Answer to a Book, Intituled, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, An, London, 1644. Apologie or Defense of svch trve Christians as are commonly (pvi vniustly) called Brovmists, An, [Amsterdam?], 1604. (By Barrow and others. 1st ed. Dort., 1590.) Asylum Veneris, or a Sanctuary for Ladies, etc. London, 1616. AvERELL, William, A dyall for dainty darlings, rockt in the cradle of securitie. A glasse for all disobedient sounes to look in. A myrrour for vertuous maydes, London, 1584. Atlmer, John, An Harborwe for faithfull and trewe Subjectes against the late bloune Blaste, etc., Strassburg, 1559. Ayrault, Pierre, A Discovrse for Parents Honour and Authoritie (tr. John Budden), London, 1614. B., J., see Viret, P. 243 244 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS B., R., see Brathwait, R. B., T., see Primaudaye, P. de la. Baillib, Robert, A Dissvasive from the Errours of the time, London, 1645. Bansley, Charles, Pryde and abuse of women, [1540-1550]. Barcklet, Richard, A Discovrse of the Felicitie of Man. Or his Summum bonum, London, 1603. Barclay, A., see Manciniis, D. Barrow, Henry, A Brief Discovery of the False Churches, etc., London, 1707 (1st ed. Dort, 1590). Batty, Bartholomaeus, The Christian man's Closet, etc. (tr. Wm. Lowth), London, 1581. + Becon, Thomas, Homily against Whoredom, in Early Works of Becon (Parker So.), Cambridge, 1843. ». , Worckes (containing The Boke of Matrimony [115pp. foL], and the Catechism,), London, 1564r-60-63. Bercher, William, Nobylytie off Wymen, 1559. (Roxb. Club, London, 190^5.) BtizE, Theodore de, Traxtatio de repudiis et divortiis, etc., Geneva, 1569. Biblia, dat is De gantsche Heylighe Schrift, etc.. Delft, 1582, and Leyden, 1589. Bishops' Book, see Institutions of a Christian Man. Blandy, W., see Osorio, J. Blount, Ed., see Ducci, L. Bodenham, John, Politeuphuia ; Wits Commonwealth, London, 1597. Boke of Mayd Emlyn, The, John Scot, [n.d.]. BouAisTUAU, Pierre, Theatrum Mundi (tr. J. Alday), London, [1566?]. , See also Chelidonius, T. Bradshaw, William, English Puritanisme, [Amsterdam?], 1605. Brathwait, Richard [Philogenes Panedonius, pseudonym}, Ar't asleepe Husband? A boulster lecture, London, 1640. , The English Gentleman, London, 1630. , The English Gentlewoman, London, 1631. , The Good Wife, [R. B.], London, 1619. BIBLIOGRAPHIES 245 Brinsley, John, A Looking-Glasse for Cfood Women, etc., London, 1645. Beown, Robert, A Boohe which sheweth the life and manners of aU true Christians, etc., Middelburg, 1582. Bhyskett, Ludowick, a Discowse of Civill Life, London, 1606. BucBR, Martin, De Regno Christi, Basel, 1557. BuDDEN, J., see Ayrault, P. BuGENHAGBN, JoHANN, Be Conjunctio episcopum, Wittenberg, 1525. •« BuLLiNGER, Henet, The Christen state of Mairimonye (tr. Cover- ,/ dale), London, 1541. [156pp. 8°] Bunny, Edstund, Of Divorce for AdvUerie and Marrying againe, ■* etc., Oxford, 1610. BuRROUGHES, Jehemiah, An Exposition of the Prophesie of Hosea, [London], 1643. C, R. [Robert Cleaver?], A Godly Form of Hovseholde Gouemement, etc., London, 1598. [392pp. 8°]. C, R., Gent., The Happy Mind, [London], 1640. Carter, Thomas, Carters Christian Commonwealth, London, 1627. [275pp. 8°] Cartwhight, Thomas, A Directory of Church-government. Anr- cierUly contended for, and as farre as the Times wovld suffer, pra/:ticed by the first Non-conformists in the daies of Queen Elizabeth (tr. from Travers' Latin), London, 1644. (First printed in 1584 but suppressed.) , A full and plaine declaration of EcclesiasticaU discipline owt of the word of God, etc. (tr. from Travers' Latin), Middelburg, 1574. Catechisme of the Christian Religion with the Confession of the Faith, A. As revised by the Synod of Dordrecht (tr. M. C. Coorne), Middelburg, 1721. Caxton, see Le Grand. Chelidonius, Tigurinus, a most excellent Hystorie of . . . Chris- tian Princes (tr. from Latin into French by Bouaistuau and from French into English by James Chillester), London, 1571. Chillestee, J., see Chelidonius, T. Clapham, D., see Agrippa, H. C. 246 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS Coke, Edwakd, The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, London, 1669. Commyssion unto all those whose wyves he thayr masters, A, Lacy, [1564-5]. Complaynt of them that be to soone maryed. A, Wynkyn de Worde, 1535. Confession of faith of certayne English people, living in exile in the low countreys. The, contained in the Apologie or Defense of . . . Brownists. Confessions of Faith, Catechisms, Directories, Form of Church- Government, Discipline, &c. . . . of the Church of Scotland, The, Edinburgh, 1725. (Reprints of earlier documents.) Confession de Foy des Eglises Reformies du Pais Bos, etc.. La, Rot- terdam, 1726. (1st ed., Leyden, 1669.) 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Richard Taverner under the title A ryght frutefull Epystle . . . in laude and prayse of Matry- mony, London, [1536?]). BIBLIOGBAPHIES 247 Faret, N., The Honest Man: or, The Art to please in Court (tr. Ed. Grimstone), London, 1632. Featlbt, Daniel, KarajSairTtoTat KarairTvaTOi. The Dippers dipt, or The Anabaptists Dvck't and Plmg'd Over Head and Eares, London, 1645. Fenner, Dudlet, The Artes of Logike and Rethorike (containing The Order of HousehoU), [Middelburg], 1584. Ferne, John, The Blazon of Gentrie, London, 1586. FiORE, The boke of wisdome otherwise called the Flower of Vertue (tr. J. Larke), London, [1565]. Fit John, John, A Diamonde Most precious, London, 1577. [75pp. 4»] Forme of Prayers and administration of the Sacraments, &c. Ysed by the English Congregation at Geneva: and approved by . . . John Calvin, The, London, 1643. (Reprinted from first edition of 1558.) Fox, John, Acts and Monuments, London, 1843-49. (Written in , 1554.) , See also Reformatio Legum. Fuller, Thomas, A Sermon on Reformation, London, 1643. Gibbon, Charles, A Work worth the Reading, London, 1591. , * Compendium Form of Domestical Duties, 1589. Gibson, Anthont, A Womans Woorth, London, 1599. GoDOLPHiN, John, Repertorium Canonicum, London, 1678. GossoN, Stephen, Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Newfangled Gen- tlewomen, London, 1595. Gostnhyll, Edward, Prayse of all women, 1541. ,/ Gouge, Willlam, Domestical Duties, London, 1626. (2nd ed.) [386pp. fol.] Gribtith, Matthew, Bethel: or. Forme for Families, London, 1633. [528pp. 4°] Grimstonb, E., see Faret, N. H., T., see Curtaine Lecture, A. Haeo-Vir: or. The Womanish-Man: Being an Answers to a late Booke intitulit Hic-Mulier, London, [1620?]. Hall, Joseph, Salomons Divine Arts, London, 1609. [32pp. 8°] Hannat, Pathic, a Happy Husband, London, 1618. Harrington, William, In this boke are conteyned the comendacions 248 ENGLISH D0ME3STIC BELATIONS of matrymony/ the maner & fourme of contractyng solempnsy- ynge and lyuyng in the same, etc., London, 1528. [42pp. 4°]] Hemmingius, Nicolas, Ldbellus de Coniugio, Bepvdio, & Divortio, Leipsig, 1572. Herman V, A brief e and plaine declaration of the duety of maried f dikes, etc. (tr. Hans Dekin), London, [1588?]. [33pp. 8°] HiiRVBT, G., see Xenophon. Hbtwood, John, A Dialogtie . . . in a matter concerninge two mxmer of maria^es, London, 1561. Heytvood Thomas, The Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts of Nine the Most Worthy Women of the World, London, 1640. , TvvaiKeujv: or, Nine Boohes of Various History concerninge Women, London, 1624. , See also Curtaine Lecture, A. Hic-Mvlier: or. The Man^Woman; Being a Medicine to cure the Coltish Disease of the Staggers in the Masculine-Feminines of our Times, [London, 1620?]. HooPEH, John, Early Writings (Parker So.), Cambridge, 1843. HowsoN, John, Uxore dismissa propter Fornicationem aliam non licet superinducere, Oxford, 1606. (1st ed. 1602.) Hundreth poyntes of evell huswrifrye, An, Aide, 1565-6. Htbdb, R., see Vives, J. L. Institutions of a Christian Man, London, 1537. K., T., see Tasso, T. King's Book, see Necessary Doctrine, etc. KiNGSMiLL, Andrew, A Viewe of mans estate . . . where unto is annexed a goodlie advise . . . touching mariage, London, 1574. (Written in 1560.) Knox, John, The first Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, [Geneva], 1558. , The History of the Reformation in Scotland, Glascow, 1761. (Written in 1567; apparently first printed ia 1586.) Ktd, T., see Tasso, T. Late Assembly of Divines Confession of Faith, The, London, 1651. Larkb, J., see Fiore. Lechfield, Thomas, Plaine-dealing: or, Newes from New England, London, 1642. BIBLIOGRAPHIES 249 Le Grand, Boke of Good Manners (tr. Caxton), London, 1487. [llSpp. fol.] LiMe Nonsvxh, London, 1646. LowTH, W., see Batty, B. Mancinus, Dominicus, a Myrrour of Good Manners (tr. Alex. Barclay), London, 1523. Mabkham, Francis, The Booke of Honour, London, 1625. Mii/roN, John, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, etc., London, 1643. , Prose Works (ed. C. Symmons), London, 1806. Mvld Sacke: or The Apologie of Hic-Mvlier: To the late Declama- tion against her, etc., London, 1620. MuNDA, CoNSTANTiA, [pseudonym] The Worming of a mad Dogge: or, a Soppe for Cerherus the laylor of Hell, London, 1617. N., A. [Anthony Nixon], The Dignitie of Man, London, 1612. Necessary Doctrine for any Christian Man, The, London, 1543. NiccHOLES, Alexander, A Discourse of Marriage and Wiving, etc., London, 1620. NrxoN, Anthony, see N., A. NoKDBN, John, The Labyrinth of Mans Life, London, 1614. * Order of Household Instruction, London, 1596. OsoBio DA FoNSBCA, Jekonimo, The five Bookes of ... H. Osorius . . . of Civill and Christian Nobilitie (tr. Wm. Blandy), Lon- don, 1576. OvEBBTJBY, Thomas, A Wife, London, 1614. V Page, Thomas, * A Demonstration of Family Duties, London, 1643. Paget, Ephbiam, Heresiography: or, A description of the Here- tickes, etc., London, 1645. Paget, John, An Arrow against the Separation of the Brownists, Amsterdam, 1618. Palmer, Herbert, The Glasse of Gods Providence, [London], 1644. Panedonius, p., see Brathwait, R. Payne and sorowe of ewytl Maryage, The, Wynkyn de Worde, [n.d.]. Paynell, T., see Vives, J. L. Peacham, Henry, The Compleat Gentleman, London, 1622. Perkins, William, Christian Oeconomie (tr. Thos. Pickering), London, 1609. (Written in 1590.) [175pp. 8°] 250 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS Perkins, William, The Golden Chain, London, 1591. Philotus, Ane verie excellent and deleclabiU Treatise intitulit Philotm, Edinburgh, 1603. Pickering, T., see Perkins, W. Primatjdate, Pierre db la, The French Academie (tr. T. B.), London, 1586. Proude Wyves Paternoster, The, Kynge, 1560. Pte, Thomas, * Epistola ad Jo. Howsonum contra novum ejus Dogma de Divortiis Judaeorum, London, 1603. R., T. [Thomas Rogers], The Anatomic of the minde, London, 1576. Rainolds, John, A Defence of the Ivdgment of the Reformed Churches, etc., [London], 1609. Raleigh, Walter, Remains of Sir Walter Raleigh, London, 1675. Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum (ed. John Fox), London, 1571. Rich, Barnabt, The Excellency of good women, London, 1613. , My Ladies Looking Glasse, London, 1616. Ridley, Thomas, A Viewe of Civile and Ecclesiasticall Law, Oxford, 1676. (1st ed., 1607.) Robinson, John, A iust and necessarie Apologie of certain Christians no lesse contumeliously than commonly called Brownists or Barrowists, [Leyden?], 1625. (1st. ed., Latin, 1619). RoBSON, S., The Covrt of ciuill Courtesie, London, 1591. Rogers, Daniel, Matrimoniall Honovr, London, 1642. [387pp. 4°] Rogers, T., see R., T. Rous, Francis, The Art of Happiness, London, 1619. S., S., * Brief Instructions for Families, 1583. Schole-howse of women, The, Wyer, [n.d.]. Segar, William, Honor Military and Ciuill, London, 1602. Selden, John, De Jure naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam Hebraeorum libri septem, London, 1640. Shrewde and Curste Wyfe lapped in Morrelles skin. A, Jackson, [n.d.]. Smith, Henry, A Preparative to Mariage, London, 1591. [96pp. 8°] Snawsbl, Robert, A Looking Glasse for maried Folkes, London, 1610. Sowbrnam, Ester, [pseudonym] Ester hath hang'd Haman, etc., [London, 1617]. BIBLIOGRAPHIES 251 Speght, Rachel, A Mouzell for MdasUmvus, the CynicaU Bayter of, and foule movthed Barker against Evahs sex, London, 1617. Statfobd, Anthony, The Omde to Honovr, London, 1634. Stockwood, John, A Bartholmew Fairing for Par&ntes, London, 1589. SwE^TNAM, Joseph, see Teltruth, T. Swetnam the Woman-hater, arraigned by women, London, 1620. Swinburne, Henry, A Treatise ofSpousals, London, 1686. (Writ- ten c. 1600.) T., R., see Tasso, H. and T. Tasso, Hercules and Torquato, Of Mariage and Wiuing (tr. R. T.), London, 1599. Tasso, Torquato, The Housholders Philosophie (tr. T. K. [Thomas Kyd]), London, 1588. Taverner, R., see Erasmus, D. Tei/truth, Thomas (i.e. Joseph Swetnam), The Araignment of Lewde, idle, froward, and vnconstard wom,en, London, 1615. Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ, A, London, 1647. TiLNEY, Edmund, The Flower of Friendship, etc., London, 1568. .TiNDALB, John, * Matrimonium. (But see p. 114, n. 1, above.) TopSELL, Edward, The Hovse-holder; or. Perfect Man, [London], 1610. Torshell, Samuel, The Womans Glorie, London, 1645. TouTEViLLE, Daniel, * Saint Paul's Threefold Cord, London, 1635. Tractattts modestas et Christianus, contra reprehensiones T. Pyi (Published with Howson's Uxore dismissa), Oxford, 1606. Travers, Walter, Ecclesiasticae Disciplinae, et Anglicanae Ecde- siae ah ilia aberrationis, plane h verbo Dei, & diliudda explicatio, La Rochelle, 1574. , See also Cartwright, T. Twelve mery gestys of one called Edyth, Rastell, 1525. Vaughan, William, The Golden Grove, moralized in three Bookes, London, 1608 (1st ed., 1599). [59pp. 8°] Viret, Pierre, The Schools of Beastes, intitided, the good Hous- holder, etc. (tr. J. B.), London, 1585. ViVES, J. L., Instruction of a Christian Woman (tr. Rich. Hyrde), i/ London, [1540?]. [310pp. 4°]. (Original, De Institidione Foe- minae Christianae, 1523.) 252 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS VrvES, J. L., The Office and duetie of an Husband (tr. Thos. Paynell), London, [1553]. [410pp. 8°] W., R., * Order of Matrimony, London, 1580. Wedlocke, Walter, A lyttle treatyse called the Image of Idlenesse, conteynynge certeyne matters moued betwene Walter Wedlocke and Bawdin Bacheler, London, [15507]. Whatblt, William, A Bride-bush, London, 1619. [220pp. 4°] Whiteord, Richard, A werke for housholders/ or for them yt haue the gydynge or gouernaunce of any company, London, 1533. [43pp. 8°3 (Isr ed., 1531.) Whitgift, John, Works (Parker So.), Cambridge, 1851-53. WiCLiF, John, Of Weddid Men and Wifis and of Here Children also, in Select English Works of John Wyclif (ed. Arnold), Oxford, 1871. WiLLOBY, Henry, WiUobie his Avisa: or, the true picture of a modest Maide, and of a chaste and constant wife, London, 1594. Weight, Leonard, A Display ofdutie, diet with sage sayings, pythie sentences, and proper similies, London, 1589. Xenophon, Treatise of an Houshold (tr. G. Hervet), London, 1532. Cl05pp. 8°] IL Books on Henky VIII's Divorce Disputed points as to date, authorship, etc., are discussed in Appendix A, above. Abel, Thomas, * Invicta Veritas : An Answer that by no manner of law it may be lawful for the King to be divorced from the Queen's Grace, etc., MS. c. 1530. (London Record Office.) , * Tract, de nan dissolvendo Henrici & Catherinae matrimonio, MS. c. 1530. (Record Office.) Articles devised by the consent of the King's council, etc., pub. with A Glasse of the Truthe, London, [1531]. Articuli dvjodecim, quibus plane admodum demonstrahat, divortium . . . necessario esse faciendum. MS. c. 1530. (British Museum.) Printed in Pocock's Records of the Reformation, I, 334. Censurae, see Gravissimae, etc. BIBLIOGRAPHIES 253 • Confutation of that answer which Master John Abell, priest, lately made against the Book of Determinations of the Universities in the King's cause, A, MS. c. 1530. (Record Office.) Cbanmer, Thomas, * His book in favor of the King (apparently non-extant). MS.? 1530. Determinations of the moste famous and moste excellent universities of Italy and Fraunce, that it is so unlefull for a man to marie his brothers wyfe, that the pope hath no power to despence therwith, The, [London, 1531]. [308pp. 8°] FiSHEB, John, De Causa matrimonii Regis Angliae liber, [M. de Eguia, Compluti, Spain], 1530. (Also published by Alcala de Henares, 1530.) , * Defensorum matrimonii regis cum Catherina, etc. Begin: "Licitum fuisse rrtatrimonium Henr. VIII." MS. 1529. (Cam- bridge Univ. Lib.) , His reply to the Censurae, trans, in Harpsfield, Pretended Divorce, Pt. I. , MS. in Record Office. (See above, p. 217.) Glasse of the Trvihe, A, London, [15313. Gravissimae atque exactissimae iUustrissimarum totius Italiae, et GaUiae Aeademiarum Censurae . . . de veritate illius proposi- tionis. Videlicet gwe ducere relictam fratris mortui sine liberis ita sit de iure divino et naturali prohibitum: vi nullus Pontifex super huivsmodi matrimoniis contractis, siue contrahendis dis- pensare possit, London, 1530, \i.e. 1531]. [142pp. 4°] Harpsfield, Nicholas, Treatise on the Pretended Divorce between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, London, 1878. (Written in Queen Mary's reign.) HoLYMAN, John, * Defensio Matrimonii Reginae Catherinae Cum Rege Henrico Octavo. Pole, Reginald, * De non dissolvendo connvbio regis Henr. VIII et Catherinae, MS.? 1531. , Reginaldi Poli . . . ad Henricu octavum . . . pro ecdesias- ticae unitatis defensione libri qvatuor, [1538]. TuNSTALL, CuTHBERT, * Treatise in Defense of the Marriage of Queen Katherine with Henry 8. VrvES, Non esse, neque diuino neque naturae iure prohibitum, quin 254 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS Swmm/us Pontifex dispensare possit, ut frater siue liberis fratris uxorem ligitimo matrimonio sibi possit adiungere, adversus aliqitot Academiarum censuras tumuUuria ac perbreuis Apolo- gia siue conftdatio, Luneburg, 1532. WakbfibijD, Robert, Kotser Codicis B. Wakefeldi quo praeter ecdesiae . . . decretum, prdbatur conjugium cum fratria carnal- iter cognita, illicitum . . . interdictumque esse, etc., London, [1536?]. (Written in 1529.) , Syntagma de Hebraeorum codicum incorruptione, [London, 1535?]. IIL Later Books op Reference Ames, Joseph, Typographical Antiquities (ed. Herbert), London, 1785. Bacon, Leonard, The Genesis of the New England Churches, New York, 1874. Biographia Britannica (ed. Kippis), London, 1778. Bishop, J. P., New Commentaries on Marriage, Divorce, and Separa- tion, Chicago, 1891. Blunt, J. H., The Doctrine of the Church of England, London, 1868. Bradford, William, History of Plymouth Plantation, 16S0-1647, Boston, 1912. Brewer, J. S., and Gairdnbr, James, Letters and State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, London, 1862, etc. Bridgett, Thomas E., Ldfe of Blessed John Fisher, London, 1888. Brook, Benjamin, The Lives of the Puritans, London, 1813. Brydges, Samuel E., Censura Literaria, London, 1805-9. Burn, Richard, Ecclesiastical Law, London, 1842. Burnet, Gilbert, The History of the Reformation (ed. Pocock), Oxford, 1865. Cambridge History of English Literature, The (ed. A. R. Waller and A. W. Ward), New York, 1908, etc. Child Marriages, etc., see FurnivaU. "CouDERT, F. R., Marriage and Divorce Laws in Europe, New York, 1893. BIBLIOGRAPHIES 255 Einstein, Lewis, The Italian Renaissance in England, New York, 1902. EsMEiN, A., Le Manage en droit canonique, Paris, 1891. Featlet, John, Featlaei IlaXo' ytvtaia: m Dr. D. Featley revived, etc., London, 1660. Friedberg, Emil, Das Becht der EhescMiessung, Leipsig, 1865. FuENivALL, F. J., Child Marriages, Divorces, and Ratifications, . . . A.D. 1681-6, London, 1897. Gage, Matilda J., Women, Church and State, Chicago, 1893. Hanbury, Benjamin, Historical Memorials relating to the Inde- pendents, London, 1839. Hetlyn, Petek, Aerius redivivus: or The History of the Presby- terians, Oxford, 1670. Hill, Geoegiana, Women in English Life, London, 1896. ^^owARD, George E., A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Chi- cago, 1904. Inderwick, F. W., The Interregnum, London, 1891. Jeaffeeson, J. C, Brides and Bridals, London, 1872. Jenktns, Henry, The Remains of Cranmer, Oxford, 1833. ^KiTCHiN, S. B., A History of Divorce, London, 1912. Knight, Samuel, The Life of Erasmus, Cambridge, 1726. Lingard,, John, The History of England, London, 1849. Maitland, F. W., Roman Canon Law in the Church of England, London, 1898. Maitland, G. R., Early Printed Books in the Lambeth Library, London, 1843. Masson, David, Life of John Milton, Cambridge, 1859-1894. Nbal, Daniel, The History of the Puritans, London, 1822. Philips, Edward, The Life of MiUon (written in 1694, published with Wm. Godwin's Lives of Edward and John Philips), Lon- don, 1815. Phtllimobe, G. G., Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England, London, 1895. PococK, Nicholas, Records of the Reformation, Oxford, 1870. Pollock, F., and Maitland, F. W., The History of English Law, Cambridge, 1895. 256 ENGLISH DOMESTIC RELATIONS ^Renton, a. W., and Phillimore, G. G., The Comparative Law of Marriage and Divorce, London, 1910. RusHWORTH, John, Historical Collections, 1618-1648, London, 1659-1701. Rye, William, England as seen by Foreigners in the days of Elizor heth and James the First, London, 1865. ScoBELL, Henry, A Collection of Acts and Ordinances of Parlior- ment, 1640-1656, London, 1658. Smith, Munroe, Marriage in Universal Cyclopedia. Sparrow, J. Shaw, The English House, London, 1908. State Papers, see Brewer and Gairdner. Statutes of the Realm, The, London, 1817. Stevenson, R. L., Familiar Studies of Men and Books, London, 1882. Stktpe, John, Ecclesiastical Memorials, Oxford, 1822. , Memorials of Thomas Cranmer, Oxford, 1812. Tanner, Thomas, Bibliotheca Britannica-Hibemica, London, 1748. Thwing, C. F. and C. F. B., The Family, Boston, 1887. Todd, H. J., The Life of Archbishop Cranmer, London, 1831. Watt, Robert, Bibliotheca Britannica, Edinburgh, 1824. Whitmoke, W. H., Colonial Laws of McLssachusetts, Boston, 1887. WiLKiNS, D., Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hibemiae, London, 1737. "*~ WiLKiNS, H. J., The History of Divorce and Remarriage, London, 1910. WiNTHEOP, John, The History of New England from 1630-1649 (ed. Savage), Boston, 1853. Wood, Anthony A, Athenae Oxonienses (ed. Bliss), London, 1813- 1820. TfV^ooLSET, Theodore D., Divorce and Divorce Legislation, New York, 1882. INDEX Titles of books are here given in abbreviated form; for exact titles see bibliographies. A., O., 123 Abel, J., 212 Abel, T., 211, 212, 221, 222 Academie Frangoise, 181, 184 Acts and Monuments, 114 Acts and Ordinances, 34, 36, 56, 58,99 Acts of Parliament, 25H8cal9, 61 32H8ca38, 61-62, 64, 65, 85 abolition of bishoprics, 92 Cromwell's marriage and di- vorce act, 58, 99 overthrow of bishops, 85 Star Chamber, 85 Admonition to Parliament, 78 Aerius redivims, 30, 44 Affinity, see Levitical degrees Agrippa, 116, 161, 221 Ainsworth, 70 Alday, 244 Allott, 184 All's Well, 19, 197, 198 Ambrose, St., 113 Ames, 107, 113, 118, 216, 221 Ampner, 216 Anabaptists Duck'd, 98, 231 Anatomieoftheminde, 183 Anatomy 0/ Abuses, 126 Anatomy of Melancholy, 183, 186, 187 Annotationes in Nov. Test. (Eras- mus), 111 Annotationes in Lib. Evangeliorum (Grotius), 230 Annotations in Old and New Test. (Reform divines), 93, 94, 231 Annulment of marriage, see di- vorce Answer to ApologelicaU Narra- tion, 43, 52 Answer to Doctrine and Discipline, 86, 96, 98, 99, 148, 229 Answere to Hia-Mulier, 168-169 Antapologia, 43, 52 Anything for a Quiet Life, 196 Apologie of Brownists (Robinson), 43,53 Apologie or Defense of Brownists (anon.), 38, 48, 53 Apologie of Hio-Mvlier, 168-169 ApologelicaU Narration, 43 Aquinas, 9 Araignmeni of women, 168 Arden of Faversham, 193, 199 Ariosto, 146 Aristotle, 113, 181, 188 Arrow against Brownists, 43 Ars Avlica, 182 Ar'tasleepeHusbandf, 145-146, 169 Art of Happiness, 187 Art to Please in Court, 182 257 258 INDEX Aries of Logike and Rethoric, 130 Arthur (prince), 7, 207, 208, 209 Articles of 1552, 12, 40, 118 Articles of King's council, 217 Articuli duodecim, 217 As You Like It, 46 Ascham, 157, 173 Assembly of Divines (1643), 92 Assembly of Divines Confession of Faith, 88 Athenae Oxonienses, 116, 211, 223 d'Aubign^, 174 Aubrey, 227 Augustine, St., 113, 122, 150 AvereU, 189-190 Avisa, 190 Aylmer, 147, 172 Ayrault, 135 B., J., 130 B., R., 145 B., T., 181 Bachelars Banquet, 164, 167 Bacon, F., 144, 189 Bacon, L., 38, 53, 66 Baillie, 38, 48, 52, 55, 70 Bale, 212 Bandello, 201 Banns, 6, 20, 41, 50 Bansley, 163 Barckley, 186 Barclay, 143, 146, 181 Barrow, 46-47, 79 Bartholmew Fairing for Parentes, 131 Bastwick, 32 Batty, 131 Becon, 15, 69, 75, 111, 114, 121, 125, 126, 127-129, 155-156, 157-158 Bellamera, 224 Bellarmino, 82, 84 Bercher, 161 Berners, 170 Berthelet, 209, 214 Bethrothal, see spousals de prae- senti Bethel, 133, 134, 136, 137-138, 237-242 Beza, 82 Biblia (Delft and Leyden) 38 Bibliotheca BritannicchHibemica, 211, 212, 218 Bibliotheca Erasmina, 111 Bishops' Book, 117 Biographical Chronicle, 190 Blanchette, 206 Blandy, 181 Blazon of Gentrie, 183 Blount, 182 Blunt, 117, 118, 119 Boccaccio, 146 Bodenham, 184 Boleyn, Anne, 13, 207, 209 Boleyn, Mary, 207 Bake of Good Manners, 102-106 Boke of Mayd Emlyn, 164 Boke of Matrimony, 75, 121, 125, 127-129, 155-156 Book of Discipline, 30 Book of Form of Common Prayer, 30 Booke of Honour, 185 Bothwell, 64 Bouaistuau, 129, 153 Bowes, 160 Bradford, 38, 53 Bradshaw, 31-32, 79, 81 Brathwait, 145-146, 161, 162- 163, 186 Brentinus, 75 INDEX 259 Bride-lmsh, 69, 86, 136 Brides and Bridals, 3, 6, 22-23, 59, 171 Bridgett, 210, 223 Brief e declaration of duety ofmaried folkes, 130 Brief Discoveries of False Churches, 46-47 Brief Instructions for Families, 130 Brieux, 206 Brinsley, 151, 153 Broke, 201 Brook, 43, 46, 67, 132 Brown, 26, 30, 44, 45, 46, 51, 76-78 Brownists, 30, 38, 43, 44-49, 52, 60,70 Brydges, 116 Bryskett, 186, 188 Bucer, 29, 65, 75, 76, 82, 98, 226, 229 Budden, 135 Bugenhagen, 21 BuUinger, 24, 26, 27, 68, 74, 75, 102, 112, 114-116, 119, 120, 126, 157 Bunny, 81, 83 de Burgo, 216 Burnet, 213, 214, 216 Burroughes, 70 Burton, H., 32 Burton, R., 183, 186 C, R., 129, 132, 133, 154 C, R. (gent.), 187 Calvin, 12, 29, 30, 35, 37, 49, 75 Cajetanus, 9 Cambridge Hist. Eng. IM., 144, 145, 165, 181, 210 Canterbury Tales, 142, 164 Carew, 174 Carter, 123, 136 Carter's Christian Commonwealth, 123, 136 Cartwright, 29, 30, 35, 41, 42, 44, 78,79 Castiglione, 144, 179, 181 Catechisme (Becon), 69, 127, 158 Catechisme of Christian Religion, 38,39 Catherine (queen), 7, 13, 71, 112, 117, 170, 207-224 Catherine de' Medici, 171 Caxton, 102, 107, 122 Censura lAberaria, 116 Censurae Academiarum, 214-217, 218, 219, 220 Ceremony of marriage, 17-19, 20- 24, 27, 38-42, 49, 55, 57, 58, 115, 233, 234, 235, 240 America, 21 (see also mar- riage, civil) Brownist, see marriage Church of England, 20-24, 27, 47, 55 civil, 38, 48, 52, 58 Geneva, 49, 50, 56 Holland, 37-39, 43, 49, 53 Netherlands, 38, 53 Protestant, 20, 21, 27 Puritan, 42-44 Reformed churches, (Eng- land), 53, 56, 59 Roman Catholic, 20-24 Scotland, 49, 50, 51-54, 56 Certain Letters, 48 Cervantes, 156 Changeling, 5, 26 Chapuys, 209, 211, 212, 215, 217, 219, 220 260 INDEX Charles I (king), 31, 32 Charles V (emperor), 209, 211, 215 217, 219 Chaucer, 27, 142, 164, 166, 167, 189, 191 Cheke, 63 Chelidonius, 130, 148 Chettle, 197 Child Marriages, 5, 14, 16 Children, see domestic relations Chillester, 129 Christ, 12, 25, 108, 109, 118 Christen state o/ Matrimonye, 24, 27, 68, 74, 112, 114-116, 119, 123, 125, 126, 157 Christian Oeconomie, 25, 42, 79-80, 115, 131-132, 133, 234 Christian man's Closet, 131 Christian Plea, 48 Christiae de Pisan, 170 Chrysostom, St., 149 Church government Brownist, 48 controversies on, 76-79, 80- 81, 84r-85, 91-92 courts, 66-67, 76-78 English Church of Common- wealth, 34r-36 Geneva, 12, 29, 30, 35 Guernsey, 35 Holland, 12 Jersey, 35 Presbyterian, 34, 35 Puritan, 29-30, 41, 76 Roman Catholic, 29 Scotland, 12, 34, 35, 51 Zurich, 29 Cicero, 140 Ciprian, St., 113 Civill and Christian Nohilitie, 181, 183 Clapham, 116, 161 Cleaver, 132 Cloister and Hearth, 19 Coke, A., 173 Coke, E., 65, 86, 99 Colasteron, 99, 226, 229 Comendacions of matrymony (Har- rington), 40, 72-74, 106-108, 232-233 Commendation o/ Matrimony (Agrippa), 116 Committee of Thirty-two, 63, 74 Comparative Law of Marriage and Divorce, 9, 10 Commyssion unto those whose wyves be thayr masters, 165 Compendiits Form of Domestical Duties, 130 Complaynt of all them that he to soone maryed, 165 Compleat Gentleman, 185 Concilia Britanniae et Hibemiae, 114 Confession of faith (Brownists), 38,48 Confessions of Faith (Scots), 51 Confession de Foy des Eglises Be- formees, 39 Confutation of John Abell, 212 Consanguinity, see Levitical de- grees Connthians, 12, 42, 60, 151, 153 Cortegiano, 129, 144, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183 Cotton, 52, 67 Coudert, 1, 9, 10 Court of Civill Courtesy, 182 INDEX 261 Court of High Cominissions, 30, 32, 34, 45, 76 Courtiers Arte, 182 Coverdale, 24, 29, 112, 114, 119, 121, 123 Cranmer, 63, 213, 218, 220 Cranmer, lAfe of, 213 Memorials of, 61, 62, 213, 214, 218 Remains of, 213 Croke, 219 Cromwell, 36, 49, 54, 57, 58, 59, 64, 70, 99, 216 Cynthia, 174 Curtaine Lecture, 9, 133, 136, 145- 146, 163, 169 Dante, 172 Davis, 228 De Captivitaie Babilonica, 12 De Causa matrimonii, 210, 211, 212 De Conjunctio episcopum, 21 De Institutione Foeminae Chris- tianae. 111, 116 De Jure naturali, 89-90 De NobUitate Foeminei Sexus, 161 De nan dissolvendo connuhio, 218 De rum ducenda Frairia, 212 De Regno Christi, 29, 82, 98 Declaration of EcclesiasticaU Dis- cipline, 30, 35 Declaration of Ten Command- ments, 29, 74 D^ense of Reformed Churches, 82, 84 Defense o/ good women, 161 Defense of the Marriage of Qv£en Katherine, 223 Defense of women, 161 Defensio Matrimonii Reginae, 223 Defensorwm matrimonii regis, 210 Dekin, 130 Dekker, 164, 167, 169 Demonstration of Family Duties, 136 Description of Heretickes, 4S-4^, 52 Determinaiions of the Universi- ties, 216-217 Deuteronomy, 207, 211 Dialoghi della Vita Civile, 181, 186, 188 Dialogue of maryages, 143 Diamonde Most prredous, 130 Dignitie of Man, 153 Dippers dipt, 98, 231 Directory of Public Worship, 34, 55, 56, 58, 59 Directory of Ckurch-govemment, 30, 35, 41, 42, 44 Discourse for Parents Honour and Authoritie, 135 Discourse on Matrimqny, 136 Discovrse of CiviU Life, 186, 188 Discovrse of Fdicitie of Man, 186 Discovrse of Marriage and Wiving, 136, 140, 178 Discovrse of Married and Single Ufe, 125, 136, 163, 178 Disobedient child, 27, 192, 194, 201 Display of dutie, 178, 184 Display of Duty, 130 Dissuasive from the Errours of the Time, 38, 48, 52, 55, 70 Divorce. a mensa et thoro, 8, 12, 63, 72, 76, 81, 87, 95, 107, 118 a vinculo matrimonii, 8, 12, 65, 67-69, 72, 79, 87 Brownist, 70 262 INDEX Divorce continued by consent, 87 by minister, 66, 80 canon law of, 1, 7, 13, 61, 63, 84, 95 causes of, 8-11, 13, 20, 62-63, 65, 72-74, 75, 79-80, 85, 86, 87, 93-95 (see also mar- riage impediments) Christ on, 12, 118 Church of England, 72-73, 75-76, 84 civil, 67-69, 88, 99 courts for, 66, 67 Cromwell's act, 99 early Christian, 2 German reform of, 11-13, 63, 65, 68, 71, 72, 74, 75, 85, 98 Hebrew, 67, 68, 69 Henry VIH's, 7, 11, 13, 71, 72, 114, 117, 207-224 Independents, 69, 70, 96-97, 99 jurisdiction in England on, 66-70, 99 legislation in England on, 61-65, 71, 85, 99 Maton on, 5, 7, 15, 86, 91-100 parhamentary, 100 private, 68-70, 96, 97, 99 Protestant, 12, 61, 66, 67, 74,75 Puritan, 65, 66, 74r-76, 79-88, 95-96 reforms of 1857, 100 Reformed churches, 86 Roman, 67 Roman Catholic, 7, 8, 62, 64, 65, 72, 85, 86 St. Paul on, 12 Divorce and Divorce Legislation, 11,13 Divorce for Advlterie, 81, 83 Divorce, History of, 64 Divorce, History of D. and Remar- riage, 117, 119 Divorcement, 81 Doctoris Pyi impium dogma, 83 Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, 70, 90, 91-98, 99, 153, 225-231 Doctrine of Church of England, 117, 118, 119 DobeU, 190 Doll's House, 206 Domestical Duties, 26, 86, 123, 136, 137-138, 234-237 Domestic relations books of, 101-146, 234r-242 drama, 192-206 children conduct of, 103, 106 duties, 127, 128, 131, 234, 236, 241 instruction, 101, 115, 118, 131 marriage, 6, 14, 15, 17, 88, 115, 124, 125, 131, 133, 156, 236 upbringing, 102, 103, 107, 109, 110, 113, 115, 116, 131 husband's duties, 101, 102, 104, 112, 113, 115, 116, 127, 128, 132, 133, 153, 234, 235, 236, 237, 240, 241 parents' duties, 102, 103, 106, 115, 127, 128, 234, 236, 240, servants management of, 102, 103, 115, 234, 237 INDEX 263 Domestic relations continued servants, duties of, 106, 127, 129, 236, 237, 241 wife's duties, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 112, 113, 116, 116, 127, 128, 132, 135, 138, 154, 157, 158, 234, 235, 240, 242 Donne, 55, 88, 122, 133, 160, 171, 178, 189 Dort, Synod of, 38, 39, 56 Douglas, 164 Dove, 81, 83 Draft of primitive Church system, 29 Drayton, 202 Ducci, 182 Duchess of Malfi, 3 Dunbar, 158, 164, 165 Duety of marled f dikes, 130 Duties of Husband and Wife, 133 DyaU for dainty darlings, 189-190 Dyke, 136 E., T., 62, 161, 162 Early Books in Lambeth Library, 222 Ecclesiastes, 25 Ecclesiasticae Disciplinae, 30 Ecclesiastical Law of England, 1 Ecclesiastical Memorials, 215, 216 Ecclesiastical Polity, 46, 79 Edward IV, 203, 206 Edward VI, 21, 22, 28, 34, 49, 50, 56, 63, 120, 122 Edwards, 43, 48, 52, 162 Einstein, 182 Eheschliessung, 59 Elizabeth, 28, 29, 32, 76, 78, 120, 143, 147, 162, 171-174 Elizabethan Dramu, 192 Elyot, 161, 182, 217 England as seen by Foreigners, 173 England's Helicon, 184 English GenMeman, 186, 187 English Genllewoman, 161, 162-163 187 English House, 170 English Law, History of, 8 Englishman for my Money, 6, 202 English Puritanisme, 31-32, 81 English Traveller, 4, 204 Ephesians, 151, 181 Epistola ad Howsonun, 82 Epystte in prayse of Matrymony, 111 Erasmus, 9, 75, 93, 111, 112, 130, 144, 163 Erasmus, Life of, 208 Erskine, 188 Esmein, 1 Essex (Lady), 64 Ester hath hang'd Haman, 168 Esther, 25 Example of Virtue, 181 Excellency of good women, 161 Exemplary Lives of Women, 161, 162, 173, 176 Exposition of Hosea, 70 Faerie Queene, 181, 187-189, 190 Fagius, 65 Fair Maid of West, 197 Familiar Studies, 160, 172, 174 Family, 11 Faret, 182 Faults, Faults, 126 Featley, D., 98, 231 Featley, revived, 231 Featley, J., 231 Fenner, 130, 139 264 INDEX Feme, 183 Field, 169 Fiore, 183 First Blast of the Trumpet, 172 First Epistle General, 151 Fisher, 208, 210-211, 212-213, 215, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 224 Fisher, Life of, 210, 223 Fit John, 130 Fleay, 190 Fletcher, 195 Florence, Council of, 2 Flower of Friendship, 143 Flower of Vertue, 183 Form of Discipline (Cartwright), 30 Forme of Prayers, 50 Forms for Families, 133, 134, 136, 137-138, 237-242 Fox, J., 114, 173 Foxe, E., 209, 213, 216, 222 French Academie, 181, 184 Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 198 Friedberg, 59 Friendship, 144 Fuller, 28, 72 Furnivall, 5, 14, 16 Gage, 150 Gardiner, 213 Genesis, 5, 42, 149, 150 Genesis of New England Churches, 38, 53, 66 GentiUs, 82 Gentiluomo, 181 Gentle Lash, 231 Getaker, 88 Gibbon, 130, 133 Gibson, 161 Giraldi, 181, 186, 188 Glasse for disobedient sounes, 189- 190 Glasse of God's Providence, 230 Glasse of Truthe, 210, 217, 219, 220, 224 Gloriana, 174 Godly Form of Household Goueme- mmt, 132, 133, 154 Godolphin, 9, 10, 84, 87 Godwin, 226 Golden Book of Matrimony, 114 Golden Chain, 131 Golden Grmie, 134, 185 Good Wife, 145 Goodly advise touching mariage, 154 Goodrich, 220 Gosson, 167 Gosynhyll, 161, 165 Gouge, 25, 26, 86, 123, 136, 137, 138, 234 de Goumay, 174 Gouvemail of Princes, 182 Gouvemour, 182 Gower, 191 Greene, 196, 198 Greenwood, 45, 46, 47, 50, 53 Grey, 173 Griffith, 133, 136, 137, 138, 237 Grimstone, 182 Grosart, 190 Grotius, 230 Guide to Honovr, 187 Guls Hornbook, 169 H., T., 145 Haddon, 63 Haec-Vir, 168-169 Hall, 88, 134 Hampton Court Conference, 31 INDEX 265 Hanbury, 43, 45, 46, 48, 70 Hannay, 145 Happy Husband, 145 Happy Mind, 187 Harborwefor trewe Siit^ectes, 172 Harding, 44 Harpsfield, 122, 211, 212, 213, 215 218, 220, 222, 223-224 Harrington, 10, 39, 40, 72, 106, 114 115, 120, 232 Hawes, 181 Hawkins, 219 Helvetius, 123 HemmingiuB, 9 Henry III, 170 Henry IV, 170 Henry VIII, 7, 11, 13, 28, 61, 63, 65, 71, 72, 114, 117, 170, 207- 224 Henry VIII, 196, 197 Heresiography, 43, 44, 52 Herman V, 130 Henret, 112 Heylyn, 30, 44 Heywood, J., 143, 145, 167, 194 Heywood, T., 4, 126, 140, 145, 161, 162, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 197, 200, 203, 204, 206 Hic-MvUer, 168-169 Hill, 150, 176 Historical Collections, 34, 36 Historical Memorials, 43, 45, 46, 48,70 History conceminge Women, 126, 140, 161-162, 177-178, 203 History of Divorce, 64 History of Divorce and Remarriage, 117, 119 History of English Law, 8 History of Mairimonial Institu- tions, 1, 6, 13, 18, 51, 54, 58, 59, 68,122 History of New England, 53 History of Plymouth Plantation, 38, 53 History of Presbyterians, 30, 44 History of Puritans, 30, 32, 33, 81, 92, 118, 147 History of R^ormation, 213, 214, 216 History of Reformation in Scot- land, 51, 70 Hoccleve, 182 Holyman, 223 Homily against Whoredom, 69 Honest Man, 182 Honest Whore, 196 Honor, booli of, 180-191 Honor Military and Ciuill, 185 Hooker, 46, 79 Hooper, 29, 68, 74, 76 Houghton, 197, 202 House-holder, 135 Housekeeping, 102, 108, 113, 115, 116, 127, 234, 235, 237, 238 Houshold, Treatise of, 112, 113-114 HoushoMers Philosophic, 130, 144 How a Man May Choose, 125, 193, 196, 198, 200 Howard, F., 64 Howard, G. E., 1, 6, 13, 18, 51, 54, 58, 59, 68, 122 Howell, 231 Howson, 82 Humble Petition, 31 Humphrey, 182 Hundreth poynles of evell husuirif- rye, 165 Husband, see domestic relations Hyrde, 112, 154 266 INDEX Hystorie of Christian Princes, 130, 148 Ibsen, 206 Image of Idlenesse, 167 Impediments, see marriage Independents, 26, 27, 44-49, 51- 54, 55, 58, 59, 76-77 Independents, Memorials of, 43, 45, 46, 48, 70 Inderwiok, 69 Institutes of Laws of England, 65 Institviion of a Christian Man, 117, 118-119 InstitiUione Morale, 188 InstUviiones (Calvin), 12 Institutions of a Gentleman, 182 Instruction of a Christian Woman, 112, 154, 156-157, 162, 163, 170 Interregnum, 69 Invicta Veritas, 212 Italian Renaissance in England, 182 James I, 31, 123 James IV, 196 Jane (Westmorland), 173 Jeaffreson, 3, 6, 22, 23, 59, 171 Jenkyns, 213 Jerome, St., 113, 122, 123, 133 Johan Johan, 194 John, St., 25 Johnson, F., 48 Jones, 188 Jonson, 169 Jovinian, 122 Judgment of Bucer, 98, 229 Jusserand, 188 Juventus Pater Uxor, 192, 194, 201 K., T., 144 Keichel, 175 King's Book, 117 Kingsmill, 154 Kitchin, 64 Knight, 208 Knox, 51, 69, 70, 160, 171, 172 Kotser Codids, 208, 209, 212-213, 221-222 Kyd, 130, 144 Labyrinth of Mans Life, 191 Ladies Looking Glasse, 161-162 Larke, 183 Late Assembly of Divines Confes- sion of Faith, 88 Late Lancashire Witches, 204 Laud, 32, 33, 41, 84 Lawes Besolvtions of Womens Bights, 63, 161, 162 Lechford, 52 Legend of Good Women, 164 LeGrand, 102, 114, 122 Leigh, D., 173 Leigh, N., 130 Letter from a Gentleman, 59 Letters and State Papers, 208-220 Levitical degrees, see marriage Lemtious, 207, 211 Ley, 84 Libellus de Coniunciio, 9 Life and maners of true Christians, 26, 30, 44, 45, 76-78 Life of Cranmer, 213 Life of Erasmus, 208 Life of Milton (Masson), 231 Ufe of Milton (Philips), 226 Life of Shakespeare, 190 Lindsay, 167 Ling, 184 INDEX 267 Little, 216 lAttle Nonsuch, 98 Lives of E. and J. Philips, 226 Lives of Puritans, 43, 46, 67 Lollards, 28 Looking-Glasse for Good Women, 151, 153 Looking Glasse for marled Fdkes, 135, 141 London Prodigal, 196, 198, 199, 201 Lowth, 131 Luther, 11, 12, 18, 37, 41, 44, 49, 63, 67, 68, 75 Lyly, 174 Macon, Council of, 150 Machiavelli, 179 Maid, see women Maitland, F. W., 1, 8 Maitland, G. R., 222 Man-Woman, 168-169 Mancintis, 181 Mantua, 224 Margaret of Navarre, 173 Mariage and Wiuing, 133, 163-164 Mariage en droit cananique, 1 Markham, 185 Marprelate Tracts, 31, 79 Marriage anniilment of, see divorce banns, 6, 20, 41, 50 Brownist, 38, 43, 44-49, 52, 60 canon law of, 1 ceremony, see ceremony of marriage chUd, 6, 14^15, 17, 88, 115, 124, 131, 133, 135, 138, 156, 236 Church of England, 2, 20-24, 27, 47, 55 civil, 37-38, 40-41, 43, 44, 45, 49-54, 55, 57-60 clandestine, 3-4, 6, 16-17, 40, 110 clergy, 80, 88, 120, 122 consent in, 39, 40, 58, 232, 234, 239 contract of, 1, 3, 4, 17, 19, 37, 38, 42, 76, 78, 99, 101, 107, 115, 118, 137, 138, 232, 235, 239 Cromwell's act, 36, 49, 54, 57, 58-59, 70, 99 definition of, 45, 104, 115, 126-127, 239 dignity of, 104, 108, 118 early Christian, 2, 37 English ecclesiastical law of, 1 feast, 24r-27, 115 Geneva, 49, 50, 56 Holland, 37-39, 43, 44, 49, 51, 53,58 impediments to, 8-11, 13, 20, 62-63, 72-74, 79, 95, 102, 107, 112, 123, 233 Independents, 44r-49, 51-54, 55, 58, 59 laws of, 1-13 legal age for, 5 Levitical degrees, 10, 11, 62, 73, 74, 85, 86, 87, 88, 115, 118, 137, 138, 207, 211, 239 magistrates for, 52-54, 55, 58-60, 78, 81 mass at, 21, 23 Massachusetts, 54 Milton on, 5, 60, 86, 89, 91-99, 121-122, 127 268 INDEX Marriage continued Netheriands, 38, 53 New England, 44, 51-54, 58 ordinances, 12-13, 63 Presbyterian, 50-51 practice and customs of, 13- 27 private, 4, 6, 16, 37-40, 50, 51, 55, 57, 59, 110 Puritan, 37-44, 88, 94-96, 121-123, 170 purposes of, 45, 94, 104, 122, 128, 232, 235, 239 Reformed churches (England) 53, 54r^0, 86 registry of, 49, 68, 60 regular, 17, 19-24 ring, 17, 20, 23, 29, 47 Roman, 1, 2 Roman CathoUc, 2-13, 120- 123, 149 sacrament of, 2, 12, 39, 60, 67, 120, 232 Scotland, 49, 50-51, 54 sermon, 23, 24, 53 solemnization, see ceremony of marriage state of, 101, 102, 103, 107, 113, 115, 116, 124, 125, 128, 183-185 times for, 6, 233 West Friesland, 37 witnesses of, 2, 17, 20, 26, 38, 40, 41, 45, 47, 50, 58, 233 Marriage and Divorce Laws in Europe, 1, 9, 10 Married and Single Life (anon.), 125, 136, 163, 178 Married and Single Life (Bacon), 144, 189 Marston, 169, 205 Martyr, 63, 75 Mary (England), 120, 171, 172 Mary (Scotland), 64 Mary of Guise, 171 Masson, 226, 230, 231 Mairimcmial Institutions, History of, 1, 6, 13, 18, 51, 54, 58, 59, 68, 122 Matrimoniall Honow, 48-49, 90- 91, 136, 138-139, 152 Matrimonii Christiani InstitiUio, 9-10,111,112 Matrimonii Encomium, 111 Mairimonium, 114 Matthew, 12, 118 May, 217 Melancthon, 75 Memorials of Cranmer, 61, 62, 213, 214, 218 Merchani of Venice, 4, 202 Merchant's Tale, 27 Merry Devil of Edmonton, 202 Middleton, 169, 196, 202 Mflton, 5, 7, 11, 15, 54, 60, 62, 63, 65, 70, 74, 79, 86, 89, 90, 91-100, 111, 121-122 127, 129, 148, 153, 160, 225-231 quoted, 5, 7, 15, 60, 63, 86, 89, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 121-122, 127, 230 Colasteron, 99, 226, 229 Doctrine and Discipline of- Divorce, 70, 90, 91-98, 66, 153, 225-231 Judgment of Bucer, 98, 226, 229 Paradise Lost, 160, 177, 228, 229 Second Defense, 230 INDEX 269 Milton contimied Telrachordm, 98, 226, 229 Treatise to Remove Hirelings, 60 Milton, Life of (Masson) 231 Miiion, Life of (Philips), 226 Milton, Mary, 226, 227, 230 Mirrour of Good Manners, 181 Miseries of Enforced Marriage, 5, 198, 199, 201 van Miteren, 175 Modem Language Review, 174 Modem Philology, 188 Modest Means to Marry, 130 Monsieur Thomas, 195 More, A., 160 More, E., 161 More, T., 112, 170, 223 Most Worthy Women of World, 161, 162, 173, 176 Mother's Blessing, 173 Mouzell for Mdastomus, 168 Much Ado obovi Nothing, 196 Muld Sacke, 168-169 Munda, 168 Musculus, 75 Muzio, 181 Myrrour for vertuous maydes, 189, 190 N., A., 153 Necessary Doctrine for any Chris- tian Man, 117, 118 Neal, 30, 31, 32, 33, 81, 92, 118, 147 Nenna, 179, 181, 188 Nennio, 179, 181, 183, 188 Neo-Platonists, 188 New England, History of, 53 Newes from New England, 52 Niccholes, 136, 140, 178 Nice Wanton, 192 Nicolas, 216 Nine Bookes of Women, 126, 140, 161-162, 177-178, 203 Nixon, 153 NobiUty, books of, 180-191 Nobles, 182 Nobylytie off Wymen, 161 Non esse, etc. (Vives' book on Henry's divorce), 215, 219, 220- 221 Norden, 191 Oeconomia Christiana, 114 0/ Reformation, 77 Of Weddid Mm and Wifis, 101, 102 Office and duetie of an Husband, 116, 170 Oratio de laudibus tuum linguarum, 222 Order for Studying the Scriptures, 77 Order of Household, 130, 139 Order of Household Instruction, 133 Order of Matrimony, 130 Ordinance of matrimony, 12-13, 63 Ortiz, 215, 217 Osorio da Fonseca, 181, 183 Othello, 196, 197, 204 Ovid, 140 Pace, 208, 209 Page, 136 Paget, E., 43-44, 48, 52, 55 Paget, J., 43, 48, 70 Palmer, 230 270 INDEX Panedonius, 145 Paradise Lost, 160, 177, 228, 229 Parents, see domestic relations Parents and Children, 144 Parker, 165 Passetyme of Pleasure, 181 PatierU Grissel, 197, 198 Pattison, 226 Paul, St., 8, 12, 42, 102, 104, 122, 150, 158, 166, 172, 181, 189, 194 Paynell, 116 Peacham, 185 Pembroke, 64 Perkins, 25, 42, 74, 75, 79, 80, 93, 94, 115, 131, 133, 137, 138, 234 Peter, St., 150, 151 Petrarch, 172 Philip, 25 PhUips, 92, 225-230 Philips, Lives of E. and J., 226 Phillimore, 1, 9, 10 PhUotus, 145 Piccolomini, 188 Pickering, 79, 131 Piers Plowman, 142, 182 Pitts, 212 Plaine-dealing, 52 Plato, 113, 140, 159, 173, 181, 188 Pleasant Quippes for Gentlewomen, 167 Pocock, 212, 213, 214, 217, 219, 223 Pole, G., 113 Pole, R., 207, 218-219, 222-223 Politeuphuia, 184 Pollock, 8 Pollard, 216 Porter, 196 Prayer Book, 20, 34, 49, 50, 56 Prayse of all women, 161, 165 Preparative to Mariage, 75, 132, 133 Presbyterians, 34, 50, 51 Presbyterians, History of, 30, 44 Pretended Divorce (Henry VIII), 122, 212, 213, 215, 218, 220, 222, 223-224 Principe, 129, 130, 179, 182 Primaudaye, 181, 184 Principles of the Christian Religion, 127 Provde Wyves Paternoster, 165 Pro Ecclesiasticae Unitaiis, 219, 222, 223 Proverbs, 110, 134 Pryde and abase of women, 163 Prynne, 32, 84, 230 Publications of Mod. Lang. Asso., 188 Puritans, 25, 27, 28, 29-44, 65, 66, 76, 79, 88, 94r-96, 121, 122, 123, 170, 232, 235, 239 Puritans, History of, 30, 32, 33, 81, 92, 118, 147 Pye, 79, 82, 83 Queries, 230 Quinzejoyes des Mariage, 164 Radcliff, 196 Rainolds, 82, 83 Raleigh, 176, 181, 188 Rapture, 174 Rastell, 107 Reade, 19 Redman, 107 INDEX 271 Reformatio Legum, 63, 69, 74 Reformation, 1, 2, 6, 11-13, 27, 28-36 Reformation, Of, 77 Reformation, History of, 212, 214, 216 Reformation, Records of, 213, 219 Reformation in Scotland, History of, 51,70 Reginaldi Poli ad Henricu octamim, 222-223 Remains of Cranmer, 213 Remains of Raleigh, 176 Renaissance, 140, 159, 170 Renton, 9, 10 Repertorium Canonicum, 9, 10, 87 Reply to the Answer, 78 Rich, 126, 161-162 Ridley, N., 29 Ridley, T., 1, 87, 94 Roaring Girl, 5, 202 Robinson, 43, 51, 52, 53 Robson, 182 Rogers, D., 48, 49, 55, 89-91, 136, 138-139, 152 Rogers, J., 29 Rogers, T., 183 Roman Canon Law in England, 1 Romances, 156-157 Romeo and Juliet, 201 Roome for a Gentleman, 126 Rous, 187 Rushworth, 34, 36 Rutland, 64 Rye, 175 S., S., 130 S., W., 190 Sacarius, 75 Saint Paul's Threefold Cord, 136 Salomons Divine Arts, 134 Saltmarsh, 84 Schelling, 192 Schole-howse of women, 165 Schoole of Beastes, 130, 140 Scobell, 34, 36, 56, 58, 99 Second Book of Discipline, 51 Second De/ense, 230 Segar, 185 Selden, 89 Seneca, 140 Sermon on Reformation, 28 Servants, see domestic relations Shakespeare, 4, 19, 190, 195, 196, 197, 201, 206 Shakespeare, Life of, 190 Ship of Fools, 143 Shoemakers' Holiday, 196, 202 Shrewde and Curste Wyfe, 165 Sidney, P., 64, 187, 191 Sidney, M., 64, 173 Silent Woman, 167 Skot, 107 Smectymuun controversy, 84 Smith, H., 75, 132, 133 Smith, M., 1 Snawsel, 135, 141 Socrates, 113 Solemnization, see ceremony of marriage Soppefcfr Cerberus, 168 Sowemam, 168 Sparrow, 170 Speght, 168 Speirs, Synod of, 118 Spenser, 174, 181, 187-189, 191 Spousals, 3-5, 7, 41, 44, 49, 73, 74, 234 de futuro, 3, 4, 12, 17, 18, 20, 21, 45, 49 272 INDEX Spousals continued de praesenti, 3-4, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 45, 50, 57, 58 forms of, 17, 18-20, 21 instrument of, 19, 41 Spotisals, Treatise of, 3, 17, 18, 19, 21, 134 Stafford, 187 Star Chamber, 33, 64, 85 Stationers' Register, 136, 225, 229 Statutes of the Realm, 61, 62 Stevenson, 160, 172, 173 Stockwood, 131 Stolzel, 67 Stokesley, 216, 221 Strype, 61, 62, 64, 213, 214, 215, 216, 218 Stubbes, 126 Studley, 79 Sutro Tracts, 69 Swetnam, 168 Swetnam arraigned by women, 168 Swinburne, 3, 17, 18, 19, 21, 134 Syde Taillis, 167 Sylvester, 108, 110 Syntagma de Hebraeorum codicum 221-222, 224 T., R., 134, 144 Taming of a Shrew, 194 Taming of the Shrew, 4, 167, 195, 205 Tanner, 210, 211, 212, 218, 223 Tasso, H., 133, 144, 163-164 Tasso, T., 130, 133, 144, 146, 163 Tavemer, 111 Teltruth, 168 Tertullian, 122 Testimony to the Trvih of Jesus Christ, 98 Tetrachordon, 98, 226, 229 Theatrum Mundi, 153 Third Petition to King James, 48 Thirtynine Articles, 12, 40, 118 Thomason, 92, 225, 226, 228, 229 Thomason Tracts, 54, 59 Thwing, 11 Tilney, 143 Timothy, 150, 151, 172 Tindale, 114, 121 To a Strumpet, 174 Todd, 213 Toland, 227 Trnn Tyler, 194 Topsell, 135 TorsheU, 161 TouteviUe, 136 Towndey Mysteries, 192 Tractatus contra reprehensiones T. Pyi, 82 Tractio de repudiis et divortiis, 82 Travers, 29, 30 Treatise in d^ense of Henry 8, 223 Treatise of an Houshold, 112, 113- 114 Treatise of Spousals, 3, 17, 18, 19, 21, 134 Treatise to Remove Hirelings, 60 Trent, Council of, 2, 122 Tua Maryit wemen, 158, 164, 165 Tunstall, 223 Twelfth Night, 4, 19 Twelve mery gestes of one called Edyth, 164 Two Angry Women of Abington, 196, 202 Uncasing of Heresie, 123 INDEX 273 Universal Cyclopedia, 1 Utopia, 112 Uxbridge, Proposals of, 34 Uxore dismissa propter Forniea- tionem, 82 Vaughan, 134, 185 Viewe of Civile and EcclesiasticaU Law, 1, 87 Viret, 130, 140 Vives, 111, 112-113, 11&-117, 144, 154, 156, 158, 162, 163, 170, 215, 219, 220-221, 222 W., R., 130 Wakefield, 208-209, 212-213, 221- 222, 224 Walloon churches. Synod of, 39 Warning jor Fair Women, 193, 199, 200 Watt, 82, 130, 133, 136 Webster, 197 Wedlocke, 166, 167 WerkefoT houshoMers, 108-111 Whately, 68, 69, 74, 86, 88, 136, 137 White, 53 White DevU, 197 Whitford, 108, 109, 110, 111 Whitgift, 30, 32, 41, 76, 78, 79 Wichcraft, 109 Wiclif, 28, 101, 102, 122 Widow, see woman Wife, 177 Wife, see woman Wife of Bath, 22, 164, 166, 169 Wife of Bath's Tale, 143, 189 Wilkins, D., 114 Wilkins, G., 198 Wilkins, H. J., 117, 119 WiUobie his Avisa, 190 Willoby, 190, 191 Wiltshire, 218 Winslow, 53, 54, 55 Winter's Tale, 196 Winthrop, 53 Wits Commonwealth, 184 Wits Theater, 184 Wohing of we Laverde, 142 Woman, abuse of, 152-153, 16^-164 apparel, 106, 151, 167 bride, 22 Church's attitude toward, 121-122, 149-150 commendation of, 160-163 court, 159, 173 domestic books on, 152-158 drama, 193-198 instruction of, 112, 113, 154, 237 maidens, 103, 113, 116, 127, 155-156 rights, 74, 80, 96, 162 rise of, 170-173 widows, 103, 127, 158 wife's duties, see domestic re- lations Woman Killed with Kindness, 193, 203-204, 206 Womanish-Man, 168-169 Womans Glorie, 161, 162 Womans Woorth, 161 Woman's Prize, 195, 202 Wmnen, Church and State, 150 Women in English lAfe, 150, 176 Women, History conceminge, 126, 140, 161-162, 177-178, 203 Wonder of Wcrnmi, 26, 197, 205 Wood, 116, 211, 212, 223, 227 274 INDEX Woolsey, 11, 13 Wright, 178, 184 Worde, 221, 222 Work worth Reading, 133 Yorkshire Tragedy, 199 Worming of a mod Dogge, 168 Worthy Women of the World, 161- Zurich, 29 162, 173, 176 ZwingU, 29 VITA Chilton Latham Powell was bom in York, Pa., on Oct. 29, 1885. He received his primary education at the school of Miss Etta P. Carrington, Baltimore, Md., to which city his parents had moved in 1888. His secondary education was carried on at The University School for Boys, Baltimore. In 1903 he entered Amherst College, from which he received the degrees of B.A. in 1907 and M.A. in 1908. From 1907 to 1909 he taught English and history in The Asheville School, Asheville, N. C; and during the following year he taught the same subjects in The University School, Bal- timore. He entered upon his graduate study of English at Columbia University in 1910, holding a scholarship there for the two years following. During 1910-1911 he acted as Assistant in English at the Horace Mann School, New York; and during the next year he held a similar position at Columbia College. He received the degree of M.A. from Columbia in 1911, and at that time was appointed Instructor in EngUsh in Columbia College. This position he held for two years, when he was awarded one of the William Bayard Cutting Travelling Fellowships. In 1914 he went to Eng- land and continued his studies for the degree of Ph.D., which he received from Columbia in 1916. He was then appointed Instructor in English at The Johns Hopkins University. His pubHshed work, aside from the present book, consists of several articles in the English scholarly journals.