Strange Nevves from Newgate

…and the Old-Baily: or The proofs, examinations, declarations, indictments, conviction, and confessions of I. Collins, and T. Reeve, two of the Ranters taken in More-lane, at the Generall Sessions of gaol-delivery; holden in the Old-Baily the twentieth day, of this instant Ianuary, the penalties that are inflicted upon them. The proceedings against one Parson Williams for having four wives, and Iohn Iackson a Scots minister, condemned to be drawn, hanged, and quartered, for proclaiming Charles Stuart, King of England, with the strange and wonderfull judgement of God shewed upon one T. Kendall, a Ranter in Drury-lane who fell down dead as he was affirming that there is no God, or hell to punish. Published according to order

A scurrilous 17th century tabloid, published in London in 1652, although someone has handwritten 1650 on the cover. The text details criminal trials in London the previous week and include John Jackson a Scots minister sentenced to death for supporting King Charles, ‘one Williams’, convicted of multiple bigamy, and two ranters arrested for ‘blasphemy’ in Moor Lane. The scene is pictured on page three along with a rather racy description.

The text says ‘Collins, Reeves and others were sat at table eating a piece of beef. One of then took it in hand and tearing it assunder said to the others “This is the flesh of Christ, take and eat” The other took a cup of ale in his hand and threw it into a Chimney Corner saying ‘This is the blood of Christ“. And having some discourse of God it was proved that one of these said “That he could go into the House of Office and make a God every Morning“. By easing of his body and blowing through two pieces of Tobacco Pipes he said “That was the Breath of God“. There was also proved many other Blasphemous Words and uncivil behaviour, as the kissing of one another’s Breeches, more lively represented by this figure: (naughty picture alarm, but notice the length of his shirt tails)

 

 

The bad people (crime never prospers children) were punished to six months in prison. The chap above has separated the breeches and doublet by unhooking the two and is holding up the long tails of his shirt. The naughty lady has a nice coif, a waistcoat and petticoat plus I suspect an apron and kerchief.

Further on in the text is the story of another Ranter, Mr Kendall who was caught and tried for lewd behaviour in Drury Lane, discoursing with a woman whom he called his Fellow Creature (I think we all know someone like Mr Kendall) and was persuading her to have his pleasure with her and said there was no God or Divell, affirming that all things come through Nature. Here he is in pictures.

Neither did Mr Kendall prosper, even in his smart suit and cloak, for no sooner had he made the appointment than he was struck dead on the spot. As the text goes on to say, “A Sinner doeth wickedly an hundred times and his Dayes be prolonged yet remember for all this he must come to Judgement“.

Quite

 

A Word to Fanatics, Puritanism and Sectaries

 or, New preachers new! Green the felt-maker, Spencer the horse-rubber, Quartermine the brewer’s clarke, with some few others … With an authentic portrait and memoir of Mr. Praise-God Barebone ..by John Taylor the Water Poet, London 1642

Here the splendidly named Praisegod Barebone (though not as splendid as his brother who went by the almost unbelievable name of ‘If Christ Had Not Died, Thou Hads’t Been Damned’, known to his friends for short as ‘Damned Barebone’)  is expounding the word from his tub to an assembled group of London citizens. He’s wearing doublet and breeches with a neat little hat. The ‘congregation’ are mostly smartly dressed in doublet and cloak whilst a goodwife at the top has petticoat and waistcoat with a kerchief over the top.

Praisegod, as well as being a leather seller as we can see was active in politics after the war, being returned in 1653 to the nominated assembly that replaced the Rump Parliament. Barebones was also heavily involved in the turmoil surrounding the return of the monarchy. He was against it!

Popular Errours

Or the errours of the people in physick, first written in Latine by the learned physitian James Primrose Doctor in Physick. The Latin version was published in 1638, but the English translation came out in 1651 and featured this image. It was a defence of the arts of the learned physician against quack and untrained doctors written in an entertaining style, presumably so that he could reach the largest audience possible.

The picture shows a poor fellow in his sick bed, being ministered to by a doctor, but also a well meaning goodwife who is trying to help but is being restrained by an angel of mercy. She is wearing a petticoat, waistcoat, long apron, ruff collar and a wide brimmed hat over a linen coif. The doctor in a gown, cap and ruff and the ill fellow in his shirt and night cap.

Here is a closer image of the woman. I’m still not completely sure what she is wearing on her upper half. Perhaps her apron reaches to her chin and she has tucked it under her stiffened bodies? There is a lovely poem on the facing page which represents the busy body trying to take over:

Loe here a woman comes in charitie
To see the sicke, and brings her remedie.
You’ve got some grievous cold, alas! (quoth she)
It lies sore in your bones, no part is free.
His pulse is weake, his vrine’s colour’d high,
His nose is sharpe, his nostrills wide, he’le die.
They talke of Rubarb, Sene, and Agaricke,
Of Cassia, Tamarinds, and many a tricke,
Tush, give the Doctors leave to talk, I’ve brought
A pepper posset, nothing can be bought
Like this i’th ‘Pothecaries shoppe; alone
It cures the Fever, Strangury, and Stone;
If not there’s danger, yet before all faile,
Ile have a Cawdle for you, or Mace-ale:
And Ile prepare my Antimoniall Cuppe
To cure your Maladie, one little suppe
Will doe more good, and is of more desert
Then all Hippocrates, or Galens Art.
But loe an Angell gently puts her backe,
Lest such erroneous course the sicke doe wracke,
Leads the Physitian, and guides his hand,
Approves his Art, and what he doth must stand.
Tis Art that God allowes, by him ’tis blest
To cure diseases, leave then all the rest. 

The manner and form of the Arch-bishops Tryal in the House of Peers

An engraving appended to the end of A breviate of the life, of VVilliam Laud Arch-Bishop of Canterbury: extracted (for the most part) verbatim, out of his owne diary, and other writings, under his owne hand. / Collected and published at the speciall instance of sundry honourable persons, as a necessary prologue to the history of his tryall, for which the criminal part of his life, is specially reserved by William Prynne of Lincolnes Inne, Esquier, published in 1644. The engraving is by Wenceslaus Hollar.

As ever though, the best part of these crowd engravings is the little details that come out when you zoom in.

 

 

At the back of the hall, in the foreground an splendid selection of coats and cloaks, showing the reverse side that you don’t often get in portraits. One or two caps being worn too and a dog seems to have sneaked in on the left hand side.

 

 

An annotated group here. A marks the Archbishop in his gown and a black day cap. Unusual not to see him in his bishop’s robes, the rocket with white sleeves would have stood out had he been wearing it. B is black rod, C the Lieutenant of the Tower, D the council for Laud and E the clark who reads the evidence, looking very pleased with himself in a short cloak and laced band. F is a table.

 

 

 

A small group of women here against the tapestried wall on the right hand side. G is the area reserved for members of the Commons, H is Henry Burton who had had his ears removed for criticising Laud in a pamphlet. Henry looks like he might be wearing a ruff. I marks various witnesses, one of whom was  Susannah Bastwick, smartly attired in linen kerchief and a coif. Susannah was the wife of John Bastwick who had also lost his ears in the pillory.

 

 

 

Elizabeth, Lady Coventry

Painted by Cornelius Janssens van Ceulen in the 1630s, Elizabeth was wife to Sir Thomas, first Baron Coventry who was a career lawyer and involved in several high profile legal cases through the years before the wars, though treading a politic central line between the King and parliament, he managed to keep his position for many years.

Elizabeth is wearing a black dress, presumably bodice and petticoat skirt, though it is tricky to see any details, a black coif on her head, with a triple-layered kerchief around her neck and matching lace on her cuffs.

The painting is in the collection of the Sheffield Museums

 

Family Portrait

This picture came up for sale at Christies in London in 2011, and is described as “Family portrait, small three-quarter-length, in black, red and white dress”. It has scant provenance, and in fact is inscribed on the frame with a story of how it turned up: ‘This oil painting washed ashore at Rottingdean with other wreckage from the Australian ship “Simla”,: Run down by the ship City of Lucknow, Feb 25th 1884’. It’s a lovely picture of a typical family from the seventeenth century and has the look of those Dutch master paintings of ordinary folk that hardly ever turn up in portraits by English artists

The people in the picture are dressed in clothes that place the time of the picture in the 1640s or thereabouts, and seem to be as described, a family group. They mostly look at us from the picture, though the three figures on the right look across the picture at the eldest member of the family.  He is presumably the grandfather of the family and is dressed in a gown and ruff collar with a lace edged day cap. The husband and wife (I imagine) are in their best blacks. The wife with a neat plain layered kerchief and a black hood over hers (perhaps this refers to a lost child), whilst the man of the house is in a plain black doublet and a neat falling band. If you look closely though, he has left the lower buttons unfastened so you can see his shirt. The three children are all dressed in petticoats and aprons and there is no way to tell if they are boys or girls from what they are wearing. The seventh figure  is partly hidden by an open door and seems to be wearing a red waistcoat over petticoat skirts and an apron and kerchief.

England’s Grievance Discovered Part Four

Another image from Ralph Gardiner’s book from 1655. I’ll let the original text explain what is happening here:

“Iohn Wheeler of London, upon his Oath said, that in or about the years 1649 & 1650 being at Newcastle, heard that the Magistrates had sent two of their Sergeants, namely Thomas Sevel, and Cuthbert Nicholson into Scotland to agree with a Scotch-man, who pretended knowledge to finde out Witches by pricking them with pins, to come to Newcastle where he should try such who should be brought to him, and to have twenty shillings a peece for all he could condemn as Witches, and free passage thither and back again.

 (B) When the Sergeants had brought the said Witch-finder on horse-back to Town; the Magistrates sent their Bell-man through the Town, ringing his Bell, and crying, All people that would bring in any complaint against any woman for a Witch, they should be sent for and tryed by the person appointed.

(C) Thirty women were brought into the Town-hall, and stript, and then openly had pins thrust into their bodies, and most of them was found guilty , near twenty seven of them by him and set aside.”

 

There is far too much to describe in detail here. but nearly all the figures are common people of the 1650s. Several things to note here: the simple wrapped coifs on the heads of the hanged women and the back view of their kerchiefs, the hangman stripped to his shirt, the day cap on the bellman and the higher class dress of the witch finder with his cloak and fitted doublet.

 

England’s Grievance Discovered Part Three

From 1655. Refer to part one for a description of the book. Suffice to say these images are securely dated to this publication.

This picture relates to a despute over tobacco duty. Arthur Hessilrige was involved in one case, interceding over a consignment that had supposedly been labelled as foreign and liable for duty when it wasn’t. Here Isabel Orde has her roll of tobacco confiscated whilst she was selling it on the local market.

Isabel is wearing a hat over a coif with a petticoat and apron and a smart kerchief. The ruffian trying to make off with the tobacco has a short-tabbed doublet, breeches and a broad brimmed hat. The chaps around the pack horse are similarly dressed though the guy holding the reins is dressed for the saddle with long boots and nice button decoration on the seams of his breeches.

England’s Grievance Discovered

…in relation to the coal-trade with the map of the river of Tine, and situation of the town and corporation of Newcastle : the tyrannical oppression of those magistrates, their charters and grants, the several tryals, depositions, and judgements obtained against them : with a breviate of several statutes proving repugnant to their actings : with proposals for reducing the excessive rates of coals for the future, and the rise of their grants, appearing in this book by Ralph Gardiner.

This book was published in 1655. Basically the book came about as a result of an argument over monopolies granted by the King in respect of business along the river Tyne. Gardiner had prepared a case whilst he was imprisoned for supplying beer against the monopoly but due to the dissolution of the Rump Parliament he could not present it to Parliament so instead published this long-winded and rather worthy book.

However, to our good fortune there are several rather nice images peppered throughout the pages. This first one illustrates an affray that resulted from a ship’s master obtaining local labour to repair his ship which had run aground near Tynemouth, It seems to have been a rather complicated affair, but it seems that by using cheap carpenters rather than the agreed monopoly holders he was in contravention of the agreement. and hence the mayor sent the proper contractors and the two sergeants to sort it out.

Anyway, the women caught up in the violence are wearing petticoats, bodices aprons and coifs as befits the middling classes and the ruffians with the cudgels are dressed in coats, breeches, hats and shoes.

 

 

Catherine Lucas, Lady Pye

Painted by Henry Giles in 1639, Catherine was the sister of Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle and spent at least some part of the Civil War in Oxford.  She certainly looks pretty well to do in this painting which is in the National Trust’s care in Bradenham Manor.

She is dressed in her finest black petticoat and bodice over what looks like a brocaded underskirt. Her linen kerchief is layered and like her cuffs is made from very fine see through linen, through which you can see the details of her smock. She is also wearing an outrageously wide brimmed hat over a lace edged coif. Only subtle adornments, a black ribbon holding her kerchief down and an understated coral bracelet on each wrist.