The occurrence of widows’ names among the cases which came before the Courts for infringements of the Company’s rules is further evidence that they were actively engaged in business. “Two bundles of unmade girdles were taken from widows Maybury and Bliss, young widows they were ordered to pay 5s. each by way of fine for making and selling unlawful wares.”[[403]] Richard Hewatt, of Northover in Glastonbury, fuller, when summoned to appear before the Somerset Quarter Sessions as a witness, refers to his dame Ursula Lance who had “lost 2 larrows worth five shillings and that Robert Marsh, one of the constables of Somerton Hundred, found in the house of William Wilmat the Larrows cloven in pieces and put in the oven, and the Rack-hookes that were in the larrows were found in the fire in the said house.”[[404]]
Widows were very dependent upon the assistance of journeymen, and often chose a relation for this responsible position. At Reading “All the freeman Blacksmiths in this Towne complayne that one Edward Nitingale, a smith, beinge a forreynour, useth the trade of a blacksmith in this Corporacion to the great dammage of the freemen: it was answered that he is a journeyman to the Widowe Parker, late wife to Humfrey Parker, a blacksmith, deceassed, and worketh as her servant at 5s. a weeke, she being his aunt, and was advised to worke in noe other manner but as a journeyman.”[[405]] The connection often ended in marriage; it was brought to the notice of one of the Quaker’s Meetings in London that one of their Members, “Will Townsend ... card maker proposes to take to wife Elizabeth Doshell of ye same place to be his wife, and ye same Elizabeth doth propose to take ye said Will to be her husband, the yonge man liveing with her as a journey-man had thought and a beliefe that she would come to owne ye truth and did propose to her his Intentions towards her as to marige before she did come to owne the truth which thinge being minded to him by ffriends ... he has acknowledged it soe and sayes it had been beter that he had waited till he had had his hope in some measure answered.”[[406]]
Such marriages, though obviously offering many advantages, were not always satisfactory. A lamentable picture of an unfortunate one is given in the petition of Sarah Westwood, wife of Robert Westwood, Feltmaker, presented to Laud in 1639, showing that “your petitioner was (formerly) the wife of one John Davys, alsoe a Feltmaker, who dying left her a howse furnished with goodes sufficient for her use therein and charged with one childe, as yet but an infant, and two apprentices, who, for the residue of their termes ... could well have atchieved sufficient for the maynetenance of themselves and alsoe of your petitioner and her child. That being thus left in good estate for livelyhood, her nowe husband became a suitor unto her in the way of marriage, being then a journeyman feltmaker....”
Soon after their marriage, “Westwood following lewde courses, often beate and abused your petitioner, sold and consumed what her former husband left her, threatened to kill her and her child, turned them out of dores, refusing to afford them any means of subsistance, but on the contrary seekes the utter ruin of them both and most scandelously has traduced your petitioner giving out in speeches that she would have poysoned him thereby to bring a generall disgrace upon her, ... and forbiddes all people where she resortes to afford her entertaignment, and will not suffer her to worke for the livelyhood of her and her child, but will have accompt of the same.... Albeit he can get by his labour 20/- a weeke, yet he consumes the same in idle company ... having lewdlie spent all he had with your petitioner.”[[407]]
Though their entrance to the Gilds and Companies was most often obtained by women through marriage, it has already been shown that their admission by apprenticeship was not unknown, and they also occasionally acquired freedom by patrimony; thus “Katherine Wetwood, daughter of Humphrey Wetwood, of London, Pewterer, was sworn and made free by the Testimony of the Master and Wardens of the Merchant Taylors’ Co., and of two Silk Weavers, that she was a virgin and twenty-one years of age. She paid the usual patrimony fine of 9s. 2d.”[[408]] More than one hundred years later Mary Temple was made free of the Girdlers’ Company by patrimony.[[409]] No jealousy is expressed of the women who were members of the Companies, but all others were rigorously excluded from employment. Complaints were brought before the Girdlers’ that certain Girdlers in London “set on worke such as had not served 7 years at the art, and also for setting forreigners and maids on worke.”[[410]] Rules were made in Bristol in 1606, forbidding women to work at the trades of the whitawers (white leather-dressers), Point-makers and Glovers.[[411]]
In the unprotected trades where the Gild organisation had broken down, and the profits of the small tradesmen had been reduced to a minimum by unlimited competition, the family depended upon the labour of mother and children as well as the father for its support. Petitions presented to the King concerning grievances under which they suffer, generally include wives and children in the number of those engaged in the trade in question. On a proposal to tax tobacco pipes, the makers show “that all the poorer sort of the Trade must be compelled to lay it down, for want of Stock or Credit to carry it on; and so their Wives and Children, who help to get their Bread, must of necessity perish, or become a Charge to their respective Parishes. That when a Gross of Pipes are made, they sell them for 1s. 6d. and 1s. 10d., out of which 2d. or 3d. is their greatest Profit. And they not already having Stock, or can make Pipes fast enough to maintain their Families, how much less can they be capable, when half the Stock they have, must be paid down to pay the King his Duty?”[[412]]
The Glovers prepared a memorandum showing the great grievances there would be if a Duty be laid on Sheep and Lamb Skins, Drest in Oyl etc. “The Glovers,” they say, “are many Thousands in Number, in the Counties of England, City of London and Liberties thereof, and generally so Poor (the said Trade being so bad and Gloves so plenty) that mear Necessity doth compel them to Sell their Goods daily to the Glove-sellers, and to take what Prises they will give them, to keep them and their Children and Families at Work to maintain them, or else they must perrish for want of Bred.”[[413]]
The Pin-makers say that their company “consists for the most part of poor and indigent People, who have neither Credit nor Money to purchase Wyre of the Merchant at the best hand, but are forced for want thereof, to buy only small Parcels of the second or third Buyer, as they have occasion to use it, and to sell off the Pins they make of the same from Week to Week, as soon as they are made, for ready money, to feed themselves, their Wives, and Children, whom they are constrained to imploy to go up and down every Saturday Night from Shop to Shop to offer their Pins for Sale, otherwise cannot have mony to buy bread.”[[414]]
A similar picture is given in the “Mournfull Cryes of many thousand Poore tradesmen, who are ready to famish through decay of Trade.” “Oh that the cravings of our Stomacks could bee heard by the Parliament and City! Oh that the Teares of our poore famishing Babes were botled! Oh that their tender Mothers Cryes for bread to feed them were ingraven in brasse.... O you Members of Parliament and rich men in the City, that are at ease, and drink Wine in Bowles ... you that grind our faces and Flay off our skins ... is there none to Pity.... Its your Taxes Customes and Excize, that compels the Country to raise the price of Food and to buy nothing from us but meere absolute necessaries; and then you of the City that buy our Worke, must have your Tables furnished ... and therefore will give us little or nothing for our Worke, even what you please, because you know wee must sell for Monyes to set our Families on worke, or else wee famish ... and since the late Lord Mayor Adams, you have put into execution an illegall, wicked Decree of the Common Counsell; whereby you have taken our goods from us, if we have gone to the Innes to sell them to the Countrimen; and you have murdered some of our poor wives, that have gone to Innes to find countrimen to buie them.”[[415]]
In each case it will be noticed that the wife’s activity is specially mentioned in connection with the sale of the goods. Women were so closely connected with industrial life in London that when the Queen proposed to leave London in 1641 it was the women who petitioned Parliament, declaring, “that your Petitioners, their Husbands, their Children and their Families, amounting to many thousand soules; have lived in plentifull and good fashion, by the exercise of severall Trades and venting of divers workes.... All depending wholly for the sale of their commodities, (which is the maintenance and very existence and beeing of themselves, their husbands, and families) upon the splendour and glory of the English Court, and principally upon that of the Queenes Majesty.”[[416]]