LADIES FORMERLY IN PARLIAMENT.
(For the Mirror.)
Gurdon, in his Antiquities of Parliaments, says, “The ladies of birth and quality sat in council with the Saxon Wita’s.” “The Abbess Hilda (says Bede,) presided in an ecclesiastical synod.”
“In Wighfred’s great council at Beconceld, A.D. 694, the abbesses sat and deliberated, and five of them signed the decrees of that council along with the king, bishops, and nobles.”
“King Edgar’s charter to the Abbey of Crowland, A.D. 961, was with the consent of the nobles and abbesses, who subscribed the charter.”
“In Henry the Third’s and Edward the First’s time, four abbesses were summoned to parliament, viz. of Shaftesbury, Berking, St. Mary of Winchester, and of Wilton.”
“In the 35th of Edward III. were summoned by writ to parliament, to appear there by their proxies, viz. Mary Countess of Norfolk, Alienor Countess of Ormond, Anna Despenser, Phillippa Countess of March, Johanna Fitz Water, Agneta Countess of Pembroke, Mary de St. Paul Countess of Pembroke, Margaret de Roos, Matilda Countess of Oxford, Catherine Countess of Athol. These ladies were called Ad Colloquium et Tractatum, by their proxies, a privilege peculiar to the peerage to appear and act by proxy.”
P.T.W.
N.B. They no doubt manfully asserted their colloquial rights.