“His wife’s a proper woman—that she is! She has been as proper a woman as any in the Chepe. She paints now, and yet she keeps her husband’s old customers to him still. In troth, a fine-fac’d wife in a wainscot-carved seat, is a worthy ornament to any tradesman’s shop. And an attractive one I’le warrant.”
This handsome, buxom, bouncing widow fell in love with Pastor Johnson, and he with her, while he was “a prisoner in the Clink,” he having been thrown therein by the Archbishop of Canterbury for his persistent preaching of Puritanism. Many of his friends “thought this not a good match” for him at any time; and all deemed it ill advised for a man in prison to pledge himself in matrimony to any one. And soon zealous and meddlesome Brother George Johnson took a hand in advice and counsel, with as high a hand as if Francis had been a child instead of a man of thirty-two, and a man of experience as well, and likewise older than George.
George at first opened warily, saying in his letters that “he was very loth to contrary his brother;” still Brother Francis must be sensible that this widow was noted for her pride and vanity, her light and garish dress, and that it would give great offence to all Puritans if he married her, and “it (the vanity and extravagance, etc.) should not be refrained.” There was then some apparent concession and yielding on the widow’s part, for George for a time “sett down satysfyed”; when suddenly, to his “great grief” and discomfiture, he found that his brother had been “inveigled and overcarried,” and the sly twain had been married secretly in prison.
It must be remembered that this was in the last years of Elizabeth’s reign, in 1596, when the laws were rigid in attempts at limitation of dress, as I shall note later in this chapter. But there were certain privileges of large estate, even if the owner were of mean birth; and Madam Johnson certainly had money enough to warrant her costly apparel, and in ready cash also, from Husband Boyes. But in the first good temper and general good will of the honeymoon she “obeyed”; she promised to dress as became her husband’s condition, which would naturally mean much simpler attire. He was soon in very bad case for having married without permission of the archbishop, and was still more closely confined within-walls; but even while he lingered in prison, Brother George saw with anguish that the bride’s short obedience had ended. She appeared in “more garish and proud apparell” than he had ever before seen upon the widow,—naturally enough for a bride,—even the bride of a bridegroom in prison; but he “dealt with her that she would refrain”—poor, simple man! She dallied on, tantalizing him and daring him, and she was very “bold in inviting proof,” but never quitting her bridal finery for one moment; so George read to her with emphasis, as a final and unconquerable weapon, that favorite wail of all men who would check or reprove an extravagant woman, namely, Isaiah iii, 16 et seq., the chapter called by Mercy Warren
“... An antiquated page
That taught us the threatenings of an Hebrew sage
Gainst wimples, mantles, curls and crisping pins.”
I wonder how many Puritan parsons have preached fatuously upon those verses! how many defiant women have had them read to them—and how many meek ones! I knew a deacon’s wife in Worcester, some years ago, who asked for a new pair of India-rubber overshoes, and in pious response her frugal partner slapped open the great Bible at this favorite third chapter of the lamenting and threatening prophet, and roared out to his poor little wife, sitting meekly before him in calico gown and checked apron, the lesson of the haughty daughters of Zion walking with stretched-forth necks and tinkling feet; of their chains and bracelets and mufflers; their bonnets and rings and rich jewels; their mantles and wimples and crisping-pins; their fair hoods and veils—oh, how she must have longed for an Oriental husband!
Petulant with his new sister-in-law’s successful evasions of his readings, his letters, and his advice, his instructions, his pleadings, his commands, and “full of sauce and zeal” like Elnathan, George Johnson, in emulation of the prophet Isaiah, made a list of the offences of this London “daughter of Zion,” wrote them out, and presented them to the congregation. She wore “3, 4, or even 5 gold rings at one time” Then likewise “her Busks and ye Whalebones at her Brest were soe manifest that many of ye Saints were greeved thereby.” She was asked to “pull off her Excessive Deal of Lace.” And she was fairly implored to “exchange ye Schowish Hatt for a sober Taffety or Felt.” She was ordered severely “to discontinue Whalebones,” and to “quit ye great starcht Ruffs, ye Muske, and ye Rings.” And not to wear her bodice tied to her petticoat “as men do their doublets to their hose contrary to I Thessalonians, V, 22.” And a certain stomacher or neckerchief he plainly called “abominable and loathsome.” A “schowish Velvet Hood,” such as only “the richest, finest and proudest sort should use,” was likewise beyond endurance, almost beyond forgiveness, and other “gawrish gear gave him grave greevance.”
Mrs. William Clark.