Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James

When you call Desdemona—enter giant."

Nell Gwynn is said first to have attracted the attention of King Charles when she appeared in a humorous part at the theatre; she was one of the earliest actresses to appear in propria persona. As ungraceful as were the female parts when taken by men, the innovation of women was not received kindly by many critics of the stage. Thus Pepys, in his Diary, is found lamenting the new custom: "The introduction of females on the stage was the beginning of a change ever to be regretted. Pride of birth, but not insolence, is, to a certain extent, highly commendable, and which had hitherto been the chief characteristic of the old English aristocracy, who had kept themselves till now almost universally free from stained alliances; but from this time they became the patrons, and even the husbands, of any lewd, babbling, painted, pawed-over thing that the purlieus of the theatre could produce."

Evelyn comments upon the theatre to the same effect, and remarks that he very seldom attended it, because of its godless liberty: "Foul and indecent women now (and never till now) permitted to appear and act, who, inflaming several young noblemen and gallants, become their misses, and to some their wives." He then instances several of the nobility whom he says fell into such snares, to the reproach of their families and the ruin of themselves in both body and soul. He laments the fact that the splendid products of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were crowded off the stage to make room for the pasteboard and tinsel of John Dryden and Thomas Shadwell. At the time that Evelyn and Pepys were recording their comments upon the tone of the stage, thousands were living who well remembered the vehement denunciation of plays by the sturdy old Puritan William Prynne, who was rewarded for his ardent crusades against the iniquities of the theatre by the snipping off of his ears. The condemnation of the theatre was not confined to any party or church, for Bishop Burnet is found vigorously denouncing theatres, under the new conditions inaugurated by Charles II., as "nests of prostitution."

The depravity of the taste of the patrons of the theatres had its influence upon the writers of the plays. Men whose personal lives were unexceptionable did not scruple, when writing pieces intended for representation upon the stage, to introduce as much indecency as they possibly could, knowing full well that unless their works were highly seasoned they would never get a hearing. The manners and tastes of the court of Charles II. established the standard of the theatres during his reign; the depravity of public sentiment and the general corruption of the times were greatly increased by these mirrors of the manners and life of the court. So utterly foul became the repute of the stage, that, to quote from Sydney's Social Life in England, "Every person who had the slightest regard for sobriety and morality avoided a playhouse as he would have avoided a house on the door of which the red cross bore witness to the awful fact that the inmates had been smitten by the pestilence which walketh in darkness and by the sickness that destroyeth in noon-day. The indecorous character of the stage inflicted much less injury than it would have done had it been covered with a thin veil of sentiment. Those dramatic representations, at which women desirous of maintaining some reputation for modesty deemed it incumbent upon them to wear masks, were, as may be supposed, studiously avoided by those who really were virtuous." The influence of the metropolis did not extend over the kingdom as it does to-day, so that outside of the tainted circles there were to be found social spheres where the old gentility of the Elizabethan age was maintained, although subjected to such sneers as were directed against them by Dryden, who looked upon them as unfortunate enough to have been bred in an unpolished age, and still more unlucky to live in a refined one. "They have lasted beyond their own, and are cast behind ours."

Artificiality without any pretence to sincerity was the spirit of the times of Charles II.; the maundering sentiments and flagitious bearing of the actors upon the stage were not different from the conduct of the buffoons who masqueraded in titles and elegant attire at the court of the king of revels. Foppery in speech and in dress and the interlarding of conversation with French phrases found favor among the court followers. It was regarded "as ill breeding to speak good English, as to write good English, good sense, or a good hand."

Women as artists appeared earlier than women as players. For several centuries they had been accustomed, as a polite accomplishment, to illuminate manuscripts, and indeed this for a long time was the only form of art worthy of the name in England. There had developed, however, considerable taste and skill in wood carving, as well as further advancement of the ancient art of the goldsmith, which, as we have seen, was developed enough in Anglo-Saxon times to constitute an English school. But art in its more particular meaning was not found domestic to England until the reign of Charles I. It was the influence of the great school of Dutch artists that awakened in England art instinct and created artistic talent. England's art history may be dated from the time of Van Dyke's residence in the country, at least in so far as it embraces women. When Van Dyke was at the English court, Anne Carlisle shared with him the royal patronage. The king's fine taste in art matters had unerringly led him to fix his favor upon this woman, and her works show the undoubted genius she possessed.

The Puritan embroilment, which was destructive to all forms of intellectual advancement as long as it kept the nation in an unsettled state, had a repressive effect upon art; but from the time of the Restoration the stream flowed on with increasing depth and volume, and the list of England's woman painters not only became creditable to the country, but afforded another criterion by which to prove the lofty possibilities of the sex. Mary Beale, a painter in oil and in water-colors, who received high commendation from the famous portrait painter Sir Peter Lely, was a painstaking and industrious artist. Anne Killigrew, who was maid of honor to the Duchess of York, in the brief span of her life acquired a permanent reputation, not only by her portraits, which included those of the Duke and Duchess of York, but by her verses as well. These and other women of talent were the precursors of the women who did so much for the art history of the eighteenth century.

In considering the place of woman in literature during the period of which we are writing, it is well to keep in mind the words of Lady Mary Wortley Montague: "We are permitted no books but such as tend to the weakening and effeminating of our minds. We are taught to place all our art in adorning our persons, while our minds are entirely neglected." This opinion of woman has not yet become obsolete, so that it is too much to expect to find, in the seventeenth century, women of the highest literary attainments, and certainly one need not look for women among the creators of literary style and founders of English literature. A literary woman is to some masculine minds a matter of everlasting scorn. Such minds will not be offended in the perusal of the literature of the seventeenth century by finding women wielding the pen for the instruction or the edification of elect circles of superior intellects or to please the vulgar taste of the common people. Excepting as writers of occasional verse or of memoirs, the names of few female authors appear in the literary annals of the period.

Amusement and not intellect was the contribution which women were supposed to make to the times of Charles II., and, excepting in matters reprehensible, there was often a degree of simplicity about the amusements indulged in that makes one wonder if such ingenuous entertainment does not bespeak less design and craftiness in the natures of those women than is usual to associate with plotters and intriguers. Lady Steuart, one of the most noted court beauties, found her chief diversion in sitting upon the floor, with subservient courtiers about her, building card houses. Lord Sunderland treated his visitors to an exhibition of fire eating by the renowned Richardson, who awakened the wonder of his beholders by his feats of devouring brimstone on glowing coals, eating melted beer glasses, and roasting a raw oyster upon a live coal held upon his tongue. Such mountebanks and jugglers were the successors of similar characters who wandered through the country from castle to castle during the Middle Ages, or became attached to some great lord's following. Other forms of indoor amusements, which would hardly comport with the gravity of the same high circles of society in the nation in these latter times, may be stated. Pepys speaks of one day going to the court, where he found the Duke and Duchess of York, with all the great ladies, sitting upon a carpet on the ground, playing: "I love my love with an A, because he is so-and-so; and I hate him with an A, because of this and that;" and he observed that some of the ladies were mighty witty, and all of them very merry. Blindman's-buff was a favorite game among even older people; and Burnett says that at one time the king, queen, and whole court "went about masked, and came into houses unknown, and danced there with a great deal of wild frolic. In all this they were so disguised that, without being in the secret, none could distinguish them. They were carried about in sedan chairs, and once the queen's chairman, not knowing who she was, went from her; so she was alone and much disturbed, and came to Whitehall in a hackney coach (some say it was in a cart)."

Scarcely a week passed by but that Whitehall was brilliantly illuminated for a ball, at which the king, queen, and courtiers danced the "bransle," which was a sort of country dance, the "corant," swift and lively as a jig, and in which only two persons took part, and other French figures. Billiards and chess were played a great deal, and gambling was a ruling passion of the day. All the great women at court had their card tables, around which thronged the courtiers, who won and lost enormous sums. The passions which were aroused by gambling often led to violent quarrels, and frequently these were settled by duels, although duelling had been prohibited by the king at the time of the Restoration.